Balancing Life and Promoting Wholeness at Made Well Center with Buffy Andrews

Ever wondered what 'holistic health' truly means? Let's discover that together as we step into the world of Buffy Andrews, the passionate owner of Made Well Center for Holistic Health. 

Our conversation took a deeper dive into Buffy's unique private practice, her commitment to personal accountability, and her dedication to her staff which forms the backbone of her business. One highlight was her healing intensives offering - a potent therapy session that conveys weeks of therapy within a day, accompanied by a carefully curated guidebook. We also discussed the delicate balance between coaching and counseling, and Buffy generously shared her journey towards holistic health, illuminating the challenges her clients commonly face.

We concluded our chat with a reflective discussion on understanding anxiety and employing healing techniques. Whether you're seeking insights into holistic health or simply curious about life's balance, this episode has something for you. Dive in to unravel the true essence of holistic health with us.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:33

Welcome back to the Whiskey Wilson podcast. This is your co-host, tyler Yall, and today I am with Chris.

Speaker 3: 0:39

Kellam.

Speaker 1: 0:40

And our special guest today is.

Speaker 3: 0:41

Buffy Andrews.

Speaker 1: 0:43

And you are the owner of.

Speaker 3: 0:45

Madewell Center for Holiness.

Speaker 2: 0:47

Ooh, I've heard so much about you.

Speaker 3: 0:50

Have you now. What have you heard? I? Was like oh no, it's always interesting people say that you know and you're like hmm, please tell me.

Speaker 2: 0:58

Oh yeah, no, I've heard, I just. I've heard multiple good things about. Madewell, that's great and, being the non-educated person I was, or typically I am, people are like oh, Madewell, and I'm like the clothing company.

Speaker 3: 1:11

Yeah, most people think that. In fact, you know, this is one of my pet peeves is that people will spell Madewell Center and they'll combine Madewell like the jeans you know and I'm like no, it's Madewell Center. Space it out Like. These are separate words.

Speaker 2: 1:28

Right, yeah, so you have to say it that way.

Speaker 3: 1:32

You have to say it that way. Yeah, yeah, madewell Center.

Speaker 2: 1:35

Madewell Center.

Speaker 3: 1:37

Madewell, like you're Madewell, okay, yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:40

Okay, but still like that pause, that brief pause. I'm like oh, there's a distinction between Madewell Center. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:49

So that's actually one of the reasons why I wanted to bring you on too is because I'm sure there's many therapists and mental health therapists in Wilmington. However, you and your practice is one of the only ones that, like I see often in front of myself since you started, like a few years ago, and so clearly you're doing something right and putting yourself out there and making yourself different. So that was one of the reasons. But before we get too far into you and all of that, chris, what are we sipping on today?

Speaker 2: 2:17

So today we're sipping on a bottle that one of my friends brought me a couple months ago. It's Wolcott Special Reserve. It is actually distilled by Barton 1792. And it's the series 0074. Interestingly enough, it's only a 90-proof, so it shouldn't be too crazy From all my 30 seconds of research. I can't find a website for it. So other people say the palette should be Vanilla, Oak, Brown Sugar, Mericino cherries, oh, my husband's so jealous. And then the finish should have a little Vanilla Oak and some light pepper.

Speaker 3: 2:54

Oh, the pepper interesting yeah on the back end of it. Yeah on the back end.

Speaker 2: 2:59

So we're gonna sit here and check it out. Cheers, cheers.

Speaker 1: 3:07

I definitely get some of the pepper, especially on the back end. It's one of the most peppery whiskeys I've had. Yeah but it's not harsh.

Speaker 3: 3:13

That one was interesting because it didn't go in my nose like it normally does. But it was kind of all around the mouth.

Speaker 2: 3:19

You know that was interesting. Do you typically use one of these glasses? What do you typically drink from?

Speaker 3: 3:25

We have like little like crystal. I say crystal they were like vermilion.

Speaker 2: 3:29

You know what I mean? Yeah, the fancy Glen Carons.

Speaker 3: 3:32

That's a what.

Speaker 2: 3:33

Glen Caron.

Speaker 3: 3:34

No, I don't know. Is that that sounds like someone's name?

Speaker 2: 3:37

It is named after somebody. Oh, it is.

Speaker 3: 3:39

Okay, there you go. Well, no, we don't have those.

Speaker 2: 3:42

No we just use basic.

Speaker 3: 3:44

Yeah, ours are like this, but they're like little crisp, like the geometric crystal. You know what I mean. Yeah, I know exactly.

Speaker 1: 3:50

It's a good Christmas present for your husband then. If he likes whiskeys, so those Glen. Carons, yeah, so you can actually start smelling it and getting the full aroma of the whiskey out of it without getting the harsh alcohol scent.

Speaker 3: 4:01

Why does it do that in the glass?

Speaker 1: 4:02

So the way that it's made is very similar to like a wine glass. So it's almost like a canter where it helps to aerate a little bit more and after you spend it around.

Speaker 3: 4:13

Yeah, I like wine.

Speaker 2: 4:14

So, like if you're doing red wine, typically it's like a wider bulb and it allows for, like when you're drinking it, the alcohol to get trapped in the bulb area, so like that evaporated alcohol gets trapped there and it goes away from your nose, or the same with this, like when you go to sniff it. The alcohol typically gets trapped here and you can sniff it without just smelling the burn.

Speaker 3: 4:35

Well, look at that. Education for me today.

Speaker 1: 4:38

A little bit of the whiskey and wisdom for you yeah, the wisdom about the whiskey. So tell us a little bit more about yourself.

Speaker 3: 4:45

Thank, you, oh gosh, myself I'm a new mom which is exciting, yeah, a little four month old on Tuesday. Oh wow, the whiskey tasting night. Yeah, so he's awesome little wilder. I'm married and my husband loves disc golf. So if you see him around town like and you're like who's that really good disc golf player, it's probably my husband. I own Madewell Center, obviously, and I love, like all things, health and wellness. I love holistic health, I love educating people. It's just really fun to me to be able to kind of, you know, be in that space and I just love learning honestly also.

Speaker 1: 5:22

So, it's just fun for me to learn all the time, so it seems like that too, just following the social medias and everything right Is just kind of diving into something new that you're using to kind of put together and kind of which is funny because the wholeness part of like Madewell Center, of wholeness right, it's just kind of the whole mind, body, soul, type of thing.

Speaker 3: 5:40

It's what I get from it, yeah for sure. Yeah, I mean, the reason, you know, I named it Madewell Center is because I believe that we were kind of like born into our original paradise, if you will. And like the world is what gets in the way. Right and like. I believe we all have this inherent ability to heal and that we are to be made whole. Right and there's actually like a scripture that it's like the woman who had been bleeding for 12 years, right, and she's like if I could just touch the hem of his garment, I know I'll be healed. And she does that. And then she's like who touched me? And she's like I didn't and he's like it's okay. Like your faith has made you well, Go in peace. Your suffering is over and so the whole. Like your faith has made you well, it's like the idea of radical hope, right. And just kind of like being able to embody that and so, yeah, that's like I want people to believe that they can be made well right and it's, it is wholeness right. It's like you can't just go to a therapist and heal your mind. You can't just go to the doctor and get your heart medications, like it's everything all in one. So yeah.

Speaker 1: 6:46

Interesting. What got you interested in this career path from the beginning?

Speaker 3: 6:52

You know, honestly, growing up I always loved helping people right, and so that was like something that my mom was always saying you know, like you should be, you know, a teacher or a doctor or whatever and I didn't realize I was like, no, I don't want to be a teacher, Like that's ridiculous, it's not.

Speaker 4: 7:10

Teaching is a great profession for all you teachers out there, just not for you, just not for me, yeah just not for me, and so I always thought that I would just work for like a nonprofit.

Speaker 3: 7:20

Maybe In fact, in college I did work for a nonprofit and in fact I almost dropped out of college because I was like I'm doing what I love. Like why do I need to keep going? To school right, and so basically, when I moved here, funny enough, I actually studied film and media production in undergrad. And so I moved to Wilmington wanting to get internships at different places, Like I worked with Half United Ocean Cure, like a couple different like Port City Church on their media production team, just making videos for them. And then I quickly learned about myself that I just hate the editing process so much. So painful so painful Drain me so much Like I get away from my computer and I like my color has drained from my face, right. So, anyways, I was like you know, there's gotta be more to life than this Like I was working at a barbecue joint at the time. I was babysitting nanny, like all all the things. This isn't in one, and basically every you know career big girl job that I thought I would be really good at or that I wanted to do, all said that I needed a degree in social work, that I didn't have, yeah. So I was like, oh my gosh, you kidding me. I had to go back to school. So I signed up to go back to grad school and that's just kind of how I like landed in the social work realm. And then, through my internship in grad school, I was able to shadow at Coastal Horizon Center and I loved the therapy piece. I loved sitting and talking with people one on one and I was like I'm, this is great, like I can do this, and I think that's what I loved about film, too, was I loved interviewing people and filming it and, like you know, just getting to know their stories right. So the therapy piece was kind of like oh, I get to learn their stories without editing any of that. This is great. And so, basically through working at a larger agency, I was working with a lot of high crisis, high risk kids and basically just seeing that there was a lot of kind of basic education missing that they could learn in order to feel so much better on the mental health realm.

Speaker 1: 9:27

Right.

Speaker 3: 9:27

And so that's to me. Where I was kind of like wanting to create Madewell Center too was just the fact that I didn't want to have to keep dealing with the red tape of people telling me what I can and can't do with someone. I want to be able to discern and have enough wisdom going into this conversation with someone that we can figure out together what is going to work and just do it without it being so dictated. I guess you know what I mean. So yeah, so I guess it was kind of just like I kind of fell into it a little bit but I've always valued health. You know I mean growing up. I was someone born on like biscuits and gravy you know, and. I'm now gluten free and that's not necessarily by choice. It is a little sad, but it's also like so freeing because I realized I feel so much better. Like actually, during one of my jobs working at the agency I was working at, I started questioning am I depressed, like what's going on, you know? And it wasn't until I got a food sensitivity test. That was like you're actually really allergic to gluten and I was like, oh, I stopped eating gluten. My energy rose back up, like I felt so much better for myself. And so just little things like that of like how you grow up versus what you learn as you get older, you know, and I just want people to know, because there's just so much that I didn't know growing up that my life could have been so different had I known these things.

Speaker 2: 10:51

Right, I just go based off. I was like mm-hmm, that was delicious and now my tummy hurts, so I probably shouldn't eat what's in there. And I'm like it'd be a lot easier if I went and had a like gut check, test or something, so is that something you guys offer.

Speaker 3: 11:10

We do, we have a. Well, we don't. She doesn't necessarily do like specific food allergies, but she can see where you might be reacting to things like gluten, and that's kind of the biggest one I think that most people you know are curious about. But she can run Carrie Sink. She's our gut health girls, what I call her I'm sure she loves that title, the gut health girls like a superhero or something. She kind of is oh so say People.

Speaker 1: 11:32

You know, I'm sure some people absolutely agree. Yes, 100%.

Speaker 3: 11:37

So yeah. So she runs a GI map on people and basically that GI map can tell you any kind of parasites, toxins, bacteria, things that are living in your gut that you didn't know were living in your gut, and then she basically works with you on creating a protocol that can kind of help you, you know, cleanse that out or build up good bacteria, like maybe you just don't have any good gut flora going on. So I've had myself and multiple family members do the tests and it was very eye opening. You know even someone who's gluten free. She's like you're still reacting to gluten and I'm like what I don't eat? gluten but you know gluten gets in things like sauces and whatever. And so if you're like, I'm always someone who's kind of like, oh, like, that's a sauce, whatever, like give me the sauce. But clearly I shouldn't do that.

Speaker 2: 12:22

I'm still reacting to it. So you know it's interesting, yeah, it is. So you came up with the concept of made well center. How did you like go about figuring out who you wanted to bring into the fold and like grow your team.

Speaker 3: 12:42

Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, honestly, when I started it was just me and so it was just me doing the mental health counseling piece and as I was growing and getting so many referrals, that's when I was kind of like man, I need to bring on another practitioner. I can't because I also you know I didn't necessarily at the time trust a ton of therapists in town. I feel like the private practice space was just kind of starting to take off and I was like I trust that these people are referred to me because there's something I'm offering that they're wanting and needing. And then I was like I don't trust, like just sending them out to go to someone else necessarily. So that's when I was like I got to bring on someone else, and so that's when I brought on Brittany Patterson first, like she was my first girl. I just interviewed her and kind of like, got to know what she was about and we have a lot of same values, and so to me it's always just kind of been like the idea of are you my people?

Speaker 1: 13:39

Right Like.

Speaker 3: 13:40

I mean, yes, skills, qualifications, all that kind of stuff, but anybody can have that. It's more like do I kind of trust your heart and do I trust your ability to discern other people? You know, and so, yeah, that's how I kind of just like. One at a time I started adding people in and then, like we were over off shipyard, then we grew and got to place off park avenue, and then we grew more and we moved buildings in the same complex but, it's just a bigger space and so, yeah, we just grow like a little bit at a time.

Speaker 2: 14:10

Love it. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 14:13

So I know you have the love for also, like just a holistic health too. Was that something that you had originally, before you started with your practice, or is that something that just kind of came along later? Or notice that it all came out, yeah.

Speaker 3: 14:26

I mean honestly like, yes, I've always valued health, but I'm very much like a when you know better, do better kind of person, and so I think for me I was just learning a little bit at a time, kind of. Thing and then my mind is like like what, why doesn't everybody know this, you know? Like, why are we not taught these things, or whatever. And so I think, through my own learning, that's kind of where I like just want to add in more and more and more right and it's just again. I think, when you get to that core value of it's not ever just one piece like it's all connected, we're all intrinsically connected. Yeah. I think that is what I value the most is like just helping everyone understand that it's all connected you know, and so then, just the more I learn, the more I want to add in new you know, services or what have you. So yeah, it's. It's been kind of a journey for me too.

Speaker 1: 15:23

Right now with your journey. What's the thing that you're most focused on right now, that you're super excited about and fired up?

Speaker 3: 15:28

Oh yeah, so for me personally it's interesting because I'm obviously the owner of Madewell Center. As the owner, there's a lot of things that you have to do to run the business you know, so I'm like way limited on how many one-on-one sessions I can offer people. I mean, I'm also limited because I just had a kid and like babysitters and things like that right like yeah how do you fit it in? But on so with that, I've kind of created this new like personal way of doing therapy. I guess that I want to start offering people that I'm calling healing intensives, okay. And so these healing intensives are essentially for people, and how many like really put it out on my website or anything? I mean, it's on my wellness bufforg website, but it's yeah, I haven't really promoted it super heavy, but essentially it's like think about compressing, you know, five to six therapy sessions into a day. Oh, wow. And so allowing people to have like true time and space across the course of one day where they can like really dive in. The reason I'm doing it is because I had this experience with a business coach, a little while ago and it was so. I just was like I walked away feeling so free, right, because I was finally able to get through all the issues and all the things and all the you know goals I want to work towards and we came away with a game plan, right. So that's kind of what I want to do with the healing intensives is let people you know, we still do the history taking, we might do some additional kind of testing for people because I have my natural health certificate and. I'm actually doing a functional mental health training as well. I'm hoping to be able to run like lab work for people, maybe do things like muscle response testing, that kind of stuff, but then also just really give people the time and space to like lay it all out there, right, because I'm sure, like you've been to a counseling session and you get to the hour mark and you're like dang it, like we're just getting into the need of what we're trying to talk about, and then you have to wait a couple weeks to come back or whatever, and then inevitably in that time when you're waiting you something else happens, you like might have to talk about that later, or you just like forget what you talked about, you don't practice it. So the goal with the healing intensives is that people can kind of like experientially practice it you know in session, and yeah, it's just like a compression of five therapy sessions and then I would personally go back and create like a kind of like a guidebook for you. You know, it's like here's what we talked about, here's the goals you wanted to work on. Here's the supplements that I think you should start taking. Here's the resources that I'm going to give you. Here's some worksheets of like, you know, maybe it's mood journals or what have you. You know, whatever it is specifically for that person, I'm going to like create that and then give that to them. So, like, essentially, they're paying for like eight hours of my time you know, that's incredible yeah, yeah, so I'm hoping it'll take off. I feel like it'll be really beneficial for people who do it yeah but it's it is. It's an investment in yourself, right? Because, again, if you think about compressing five sessions, like you know how much they cost individually, like we're doing it all in one day.

Speaker 2: 18:36

So it feels like a lot up front, but it's worth it, I think you know but it's like we were talking before we started the podcast, like it's one of those things. It's better to invest in the front end, yes, and kind of see the growth that it comes to you right, versus being like, oh well, I can spread it out a little bit, but potentially it's right, it won't stick or might not come as quickly as you might need it right and I always say, like you know, kind of like wisdom, right, wisdom is invaluable.

Speaker 3: 19:05

You know, in so many ways, like somebody told me this story one time. That was a guy who I I'm sure y'all probably have heard it in some capacity, this story, but he was basically a guy who was, you know, some sort of repair technician, right, and there's this company that I don't forget what they made, just, let's say, there was some sort of factory right and they produce shoes. I don't know whatever it could be, it could be anything, but their machine was broken and this was like a massive machine that was pivotal for their work that they're doing right. And the guy comes in they're like, how much would you quote us to fix this machine? And he's like all this will be $10,000, you know. And then they're like, okay, we don't care. Like you know, fix our machine. And he all he has to do is like he uses a penny to like turn one screw or something in the machine and then it starts working and they're like wait a second, all you did was this. Can you itemize it out for me? And he's like, well, the penny is this one cent the knowledge of how to turn the screw $9,999 right. and so it's like that kind of idea of like investing in yourself and sometimes like you need that one screw turned to be able to progress the way you need to, and that's invaluable, you know, like at the end of the day, that's really smart.

Speaker 1: 20:19

My I have a performance coach who does something similar to where, like, you can just do like the one-hour session type of thing, but he also does more like a boot camp and you just sit there and you go through all of it and it's very, very similar to what you were talking about too, and he was. He just launched it as well, almost telling us like the value of it. He was like these one, like this one session with you is great and we can get some stuff done, but to actually like dig past what's actually like, just laying there on the top level and finding out what's actually wrong in the business, what's wrong with you or what's going on? So you'll get past some of the self-limiting beliefs that you have as well, is invaluable yeah so it's really neat that you're doing that in your capacity as well yeah, I mean it's.

Speaker 3: 20:59

I feel like it's the best way for me to continue to do what I'm doing and then, like you know, I can hire a babysitter for one day while I'm like. Yeah, but to like make it consistent every day is like really hard, you know. So, yeah, I'm really excited about it nice.

Speaker 2: 21:13

I'm so intrigued by the way our website is super easy, super casual thank you Chris, with his ADD whatever crazy brain. I'm sitting here looking and every time people come on, I like look at their website and see, like, what are their services, what are the things they offer, and I was just like it's just very calming, oh thank you. I appreciate that it's not very aggressive, which I kind of like, so on, here it says mental and wellness coaching and counseling. What are the differences?

Speaker 3: 21:46

for like a yeah, well essentially like the coaching piece would be more for people who don't have insurance or things like that. It allows you to not have to diagnose and then also we're not technically like oh we're not technically treating something right if it's coaching, but we are walking alongside someone. But we also have health coaching for people who maybe do have other you know health issues going on. Maybe they've worked with Carrie on the gut health piece and now you just really need to work on, like, your foundations of health, like we have health coaches who can kind of help walk alongside you in those things as well. So coaching just really allows it to not have to be dictated by anyone else, you know, and allows it to again not have to have a diagnosis, allows you to really get creative, you know, truly in like the types of interventions and things that you would use for someone.

Speaker 2: 22:41

So yeah, yeah, yeah that's because you were talking about that and I'm like so what is the? Like in my head. I'm like what's the difference in coaching and a counseling session?

Speaker 3: 22:50

Yeah, and a lot of times I mean a lot of times people will tell you that counselors and therapists tend to look more at the past, right, and like how did you get to where you're at, kind of thing. Like, what are the things that happened along the way that bring you to where you are? How do we heal those things? Whereas I do think coaching tends to look more future oriented, where it's like okay, here's where you're at, but here's where you want to go, what do we got to do to get there? You know, that's why I kind of like being a therapist and a coach in a lot of ways is because I get to do both legally and well, right, like because of my license, I have the skills and the training to know how to look back and, you know, dig into some of that stuff with people. But I also am very, you know, like let's move forward, you know, so I can like really help people do that too.

Speaker 2: 23:38

I like that. I feel like there's so many things in the world and people are they're looking for that one stop solution and like my brain, like picking out what you're just saying, is like, yes, pretty much everybody needs some sort of counseling. Like you need to look at your past and kind of figure out what was behind you. But like, what are your goals? Like what are we going to do to push you forward, get you to the next spot?

Speaker 3: 24:04

Right yeah.

Speaker 2: 24:05

So who's your coach?

Speaker 3: 24:08

Who's my coach? Well, it's funny because right now I am more like business oriented in things that I'm doing, so like for the business side. Ali Cyrus is my one of my coaches. She runs Rueya Media and she's just a genius in so many ways and she's so fun and I feel like we're like kindred spirits in a long ways. And then I'm in my functional mental health and practitioner training and so Brendan Vermeer I think I'm saying that right so hard to say he is kind of like my coach for that stuff, like learning that.

Speaker 2: 24:42

So Interesting, I was just curious. I'm like people are always talking. Like I said, I'm assuming every counselor or therapist needs their own Right.

Speaker 3: 24:54

And I've definitely had different ones across. Yeah, Like historically, but like right now, if I'm in a season where I don't necessarily need like a therapist or counselor, I'm more focused on these other things. So you know, those are those are my coaches for those things. Yeah, just curious.

Speaker 1: 25:09

Yeah, I'm glad to bring that up too, and that was something else I was going to touch on as well, just because I'm a financial advisor. So everyone always asks, like what am I doing with my money, type of things Right. And I've always said, every good financial advisor has their own financial advisor. Just because looking in on yourself is always different than looking at others, cause it's either easy to look at someone else to be like, okay, these things are going on. You can look at it super objectively and be like, well, you invest for this, for that, and since you have this goal, you do this. But, when you're looking at yourself you're taking all of those extra like crap in your head and it was like maybe I don't want to make that move yet, so having someone else hold you accountable, yeah, so yeah, I'm glad Chris took that question from me too, cause I was one of that I had for you as well.

Speaker 3: 25:52

Yes, yeah, I mean, it is so important and I'm too, I'm an advocate of like know yourself and know the resources that you have right In your life. Because you know, I would say like again, at different seasons in my life, there've been times where, maybe at church, like I had a you know pastor or small group leader or something like that, who they were like super invested in me, so it gave me still that space to like process and dive into some of those things right. Other seasons it's like oh, I had my best friend, like I had a season for a while where we would get tacos every Thursday night and we would talk about stuff you know that's going on.

Speaker 1: 26:27

Yeah, we did them on.

Speaker 3: 26:28

Tuesday. No, we did them on Thursday Cause we had worship practice.

Speaker 1: 26:30

And then we yeah we did them.

Speaker 2: 26:31

That makes sense.

Speaker 3: 26:32

Oh, so we'd go right after. But you know, that was like a good time for me too, Cause I was able to share and like get things off my chest. And you know, and a lot of times I don't need someone to like decipher, you know everything, I just need somewhere to put it right. And so if you have those things, that's wonderful. But if you don't have those things, like you need to find them somewhere. And so, whether that's a counselor or a coach or a business coach or a mentor or a really good friend that you don't have, you know, whatever that looks like, like, you got to find it. Yeah, I like it yeah.

Speaker 1: 27:03

With what you're doing right now, the average client that's coming to you. Is there something that you're seeing more often than not?

Speaker 3: 27:10

Oof. I'm sure my clinicians would probably have more insight into that honestly. Cause my caseload is like kind of people that I've seen for a while.

Speaker 1: 27:18

Right.

Speaker 3: 27:19

But I would say that there's definitely a lot of trauma and a lot of the ADHD stuff coming about and anxiety. Just anxiety out the freaking wall. Really. And I'm like people, we gotta work on this anxiety. I think a lot of people are afraid of the things that they struggle with, right, and so it makes them again feel like they need to go fix it or, you know, have some label around it when really kind of like your friend that left, he was like my ADHD is my superpower, right, it like those things can be a superpower if we learn how to listen to them right. So even things like anxiety or your trauma, if those things are rearing you know their ugly head, if you will, those things can be informative for you. But you have to learn how to listen to them and not be like ashamed that you're experiencing them right, like learning how to say, ooh, okay, my anxiety is really high this week, so what's going on? Like, let me listen to that and then kind of, you know, rearrange your life accordingly if you need to, right. But a lot of people don't do that. We just wanna go like get a pill, get a bandaid get a fix so that it can just go away. And it's like no, like we are wired to experience these things in our body for a reason, like it's not there just to have to like cover it over with like a slap of paint right. Like we are wired to experience these things and we have to learn how to listen to them or we're never gonna fix them. You know People just wanna like quickly. You know, move on from them.

Speaker 1: 28:58

Yeah, like kind of this is a weird connection, but it made me think of it. A couple of weeks ago we had on Dr Grant Bishop. He was a he's a PT, okay and he was talking about when people got to play golf. They'll stretch before they play golf, but they're just trying to find some way. They're hoping we'll give them a short-term game game in their game and really that stretching is just dampening pain receptors. So it really kind of made me think about that too. It's like people are just trying to dampen their pain receptor as opposed to actually fixing what will actually help their game, help their life.

Speaker 3: 29:31

Right, yes, 100%, yeah, no. That's a great analogy, because that's exactly what it is.

Speaker 2: 29:37

Interesting yeah, so because I'm random, if you've ever listened to any of the podcasts. So your tattoo with a B is that actually a chemical compound or is that just supposed to be?

Speaker 3: 29:48

There's dopamine and serotonin in there. Okay. Yeah, so they're just like kind of hidden in the honeycomb, if you will. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 29:57

Yeah, I loved science growing up, so I looked and I'm like that's a chemical.

Speaker 3: 30:01

I love that. You saw that I feel like most people don't pick up on that piece of it, yeah.

Speaker 2: 30:05

Oh yeah, that's.

Speaker 3: 30:06

Because I just see like the honeycomb, like you know, kind of going around.

Speaker 1: 30:10

Yeah, I love science and tattoos, so both of them together, yeah.

Speaker 2: 30:13

so I was like that I mean, it makes sense, there's something else going on here. Yeah, sorry, it's just like right here on our phone. Yeah, yeah. We were sitting somewhere talking about tattoos and someone asked a question. Oh, we were talking about flying somewhere and I pulled my arm out because I have a tattoo of the world and I'm like so instead of flying from here to here, they flew this way and they were like I can't believe you just did that. That's amazing.

Speaker 3: 30:42

It's like one of those like forearm calculator things Right.

Speaker 2: 30:46

I've seen them, people who like, got a tattoo of a like a ruler on the side of their legs, so that way when they go fishing they can, like, hold the fish up Like, yep, it's the right size, so smart. Wow.

Speaker 3: 30:59

But also you've got to really hope that that tattoo artist used the right ruler to tattoo as you know. Cause I saw it post on was it Facebook or something the other day. That was like a Stanley ruler. They had two of the same brand of ruler next to each other and they were not accurate, I said, oh well, this makes me mistrust everything.

Speaker 2: 31:16

I know? Well, yes, they're not accurate. But two, did you know? Like with tape measures you're supposed to like it wiggles on purpose, so like you're supposed to grip it and stretch it out. So if you just do where it's flat, it actually that's why it's off.

Speaker 3: 31:33

Yeah, cause it's built in like a couple Interesting Okay.

Speaker 1: 31:38

Yeah so.

Speaker 3: 31:39

All the things I don't know.

Speaker 1: 31:41

I'm going to take Chris's off topic. Go back on topic. So for the things that we were just talking about, like the anxiety and stuff like, that what's a couple of things that someone can do, like today, like a lesson that's going through anxiety today. What's a few things that they could do to kind of help like alleviate that or the next steps that they should take.

Speaker 3: 31:57

Yeah, for sure. I would say. For alleviation sake, you gotta learn where it's coming from and what's triggering it right. So if you don't take the time to sit with it for a second, take inventory kind of of your life right Like okay, what, what? also, you have to know yourself enough to know what's your capacity, right? I think that's a big part of understanding and healing your anxiety is like you can't just notice all the triggers. You also have to know yourself enough to say, well, gosh, like my capacity is really only you know X high, and because I'm way over exceeding that, that's why my anxiety is rearing its head right. So you gotta take inventory of your life. I would say also move your body, especially with anxiety. Like that's a big one, like anxiety is a nervous energy within your body and so you have to move it out somehow, right, that's why usually people get kind of irritable when they're anxious, or that's why people just get really tense, because it's like wants to move out of your body, but you're kind of like holding it in right. And so moving your body whether that's stretching, running, jumping, doing a dance in your kitchen, like whatever that looks like move your body. I would also say, kind of get like a comprehensive metabolic blood panel done. Figure out maybe where some of your vitamin levels might be you know talking about things like ADHD and whatnot. You know like a B complex. That's like a really simple supplement that a lot of people are deficient in, and if you could take a B complex like you're gonna greatly change your game. Magnesium is another big one. Magnesium is huge for anxiety, so there's some basic supplements that you could take also that would really help your body, like, function the way it's supposed to and help you move that stuff out. You know, but if everything is just stagnant, it can't go anywhere and then that's what makes you irritable, anxious, upset, frustrated, you know. So definitely try those things and then, if you're having a hard time figuring that stuff out, right, like, go to a therapist, go to a counselor, go to somebody who is experienced in helping you figure that out right. And if you feel like you're not getting what you need from a therapist in a one hour session, maybe you need a healing intensive right, like that might be something for you. Where you're like I want to experience what it's like to calm down my nervous system, like let's do that.

Speaker 1: 34:21

You know that's neat. Yeah, the blood panel, the comprehensive blood panel, is something I've done annually for years now. My mom works with a functional doctor who actually had on the podcast, dr Hilary Relidge. Oh nice. And that's one of the things that helped me out a lot too. So like even before I started like doing the 75 hearts and stuff like that, before all of that just finding out like oh hey, your vitamin D levels are like on the floor, like we need to get this back up, and like just how that I never in a million years would have thought that would have played into, like what my mental was. And then I started really like doing more research and learning more and listening to more podcasts about it and I was like, oh wow, this all really is like interconnected.

Speaker 3: 34:59

Super connected. Yeah, it was mind blowing to me, yeah, and there's things, like you know, in your gut, like if your gut isn't how it needs to be, right, like then you're cultivating, it's all like inflammation driven right. So there's all these things like going on in your body all the time and, again, the way we're designed our body is supposed to be able to inflame at some level, just like getting a fever right, like we get a fever because we are trying to get out something like it's inflaming in order to function and move out this bacteria virus, whatever we got going on. But what happens is we tend to over inflame our bodies and then we're kind of in a state of chronic inflammation. Well, when that happens and we're cultivating things like leaky gut, leaky brain, like and leaky gut can actually lead to leaky brain, because then you're sending signals via your vagus nerve up to your brain, right, and then if your brain's like interpreting all these like inflammation processes that are going on, you're gonna create a leaky brain situation. And that's where, like the depression, the anxiety, the you know, overreactions to triggers or whatever that may be right, like that's your it's overly inflamed. So we have to reduce that inflammation on all fronts.

Speaker 1: 36:09

I know I've heard of leaky gut before, but can you go a little bit more? What leaky brain is?

Speaker 3: 36:14

It's essentially I'm kind of like the same with leaky gut. It's like you've got this permeable or supposed to be impermeable barrier right Like around your gut where, like it keeps in the right bacteria and talk or not toxins, but like keeps that bacteria regulated where it needs to be right so same kind of thing with your brain. It's like we've got a blood brain barrier and if that blood brain barrier becomes more permeable, it becomes more opened up. Then we've got things that can go in and out of this blood brain barrier. So things that are supposed to stay in are coming out and things that are supposed to stay out are coming in, and so, yeah, so it's the same kind of concept. So we want to be able to keep that blood brain barrier intact. But again, if you're having these like over-inflammatory processes all throughout your body, really hard to do that.

Speaker 2: 36:56

Yeah right, your body doesn't know what to fix or how to fix it.

Speaker 3: 37:01

Yeah, and it's like trying to fix it. But it's kind of like I would maybe equate it to almost like doctors and how they might give you like one prescription medicine for one thing, but then it's got like these 20 side effects. So then they give you like five other medications to help the side effects of that one medication. Your body kind of does that in a natural way, right Of like, okay, we're gonna inflame this one thing to help get out this one toxin or bacteria. But then it's like, oh, but because we inflamed that one thing, now we've got these other levels that are off. And so now we've got to like ramp this thing up, and so that's why, like learning how to get to the root cause of what you got going on is so important. You can't just like keep only throwing a supplement or a pill or something at this one symptom right, because you could be actually creating a whole cascade of other things in your body that you're not really you're not healing it right, you know, right.

Speaker 1: 37:57

yeah, that kind of goes with the when we had Sarah Aldon with the upper health talking about just like the sick care system that we have and not actually going down to the root cause and everything.

Speaker 3: 38:09

You guys are actually affiliated with the upper health right. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, we're providers with them. Yeah, Cool.

Speaker 2: 38:15

We're all connected on this podcast. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 38:18

Wilmington's a very small place, it is. It is.

Speaker 3: 38:22

I've always said it is the largest small town, right yeah.

Speaker 2: 38:25

I look around, I'm like I don't know any of these people. And then I'll turn around the corner and Emily's like babe, you just knew 17 people in that one building, I'm like, but I haven't seen anybody for like six months. So it balances, that's true. So question for you yeah. With your business and in life. What would be success for you?

Speaker 3: 38:46

Ooh, that's a great question, I think, for my business. I think success right now for me looks a lot different than what you see. I think right now success would be having my clinicians and my therapists feeling like they're in a work environment that is, you know, helping them, walking alongside them, encouraging them, making sure that they're not feeling burnt out, you know those kinds of things. And then because to me that means that they are doing a good job then with their clients. Right. So it's like a trickle down effect for me, and so I think I guess success in that way is that we have clients who believe in what we do at Madewell and who are seeing results at Madewell Center and clients who you know tell other friends you know to come to our practice because they have gotten a lot of good out of it. You know, and I guess personally, success for me would look like finishing some of these trainings that I have under my belt. And just feeling like, because I've never been one, I don't want to have to micromanage really anything that I do in life. And so I always want people to be able to do what they do and do it well, so that I don't have to keep like hounding after someone. So I think success in personal life kind of looks like making sure that the people that I'm working with, or my family, my son, you know that he can learn. You know like teach a man to fish, type of deal. So I think that would be success for me, like leaving a legacy in that way.

Speaker 1: 40:15

Yeah, we're actually doing something for the studio. It's going to be called Building Community Summit. That's going to be coming out maybe like October, November. But the reason why I thought about that is I wanted to ask you how did you build your community of clinicians that are inside your group?

Speaker 3: 40:30

Are you talking like kind of bringing them on, or just like within the practice? How do we like maintain our community together? Yeah, more that than that yeah so our clinicians I mean in the practice, we do simple things. Like you know, we eat lunch together. You know, like, seriously, we just sit outside at the picnic table, eat lunch together. It's a nice day. We try to do things to celebrate each other, like host a baby shower if someone's pregnant or, you know, for birthdays and you know that kind of thing. We make sure we get flowers and cards to like show that we care. And we have like our group chat text and you know, on Google chat we have our all team chat together, and so it just becomes like a good way for people to send a quick little message, you know, and just like say hey, what's going on? Cause therapy world is kind of weird in the sense that we all have our like on the hour you know clients and stuff. And so you know we're all kind of in and out and we'll be like, hey, what's up? Hey you know, but ultimately we kind of end up like missing each other a lot. So we have to plan like hang out times or like we try to volunteer together sometimes too and things like that.

Speaker 1: 41:36

So yeah yeah. And since you are starting to come up on our time a little bit, one of my last questions for you is if you could tell your younger self one thing, what would it be?

Speaker 3: 41:46

Ooh, younger self. One thing, it's funny. I think I would just tell my younger self that, like life, you can't have super rigid expectations in life, it will unfold how it's supposed to. And just like trust that process Cause I think when I was younger I definitely stressed out about you know like, where am I going to go to college? You're like am I going to get married and what's my family going to look like, and am I going to have enough money for X, y or Z? You know all these things that don't I mean they matter, but in the grand scheme, it's like when you learn how to align yourself with things that are true to you, true to like your capacity, true to your values. Things just kind of fall into like how they need to, Not to say that there won't be stressors or that there won't be, you know, difficulties or things like that, but it'll be okay. You know, ultimately, I guess, is just like telling my younger self to like learn how to align with your values sooner. Learn how to align with your with truth sooner, right, because when you do that like it changes the game for how things fall into place quicker right, because I think ultimately we can kind of like try and white knuckle stuff so hard, but really if we just align ourselves sooner, we can trust the process a lot better, you know.

Speaker 1: 43:10

Yeah, I love that. That's a great answer. Yeah, so okay, I like that. That wasn't the last question I thought of this one too Nice. But only because you're a new mom now and our main demographic here is going to be like the millennial, so a lot of people having babies and stuff like that and inside of their careers. What's been a few things that you've been able to do to kind of balance the new mom life with the career and everything that you're doing?

Speaker 3: 43:31

Yeah, well, I think part of balancing it now is that I really planned to balance it. I mean, you have nine months that you're pregnant, right? And so use them. Use them nine months people. That's what. I gotta say Like plan as hard as you can ahead of time because that makes it so much better. I mean, granted, right now my balance looks it's hard because I can only again be in office for so many hours a week with my babysitter and stuff. But I planned for that because I knew that my capacity would be that at this point in time right, and so I knew that and so that's what I'm okay with and so because of that, I'm not freaking out about it and I'm not super stressed, and when I come home from work I get to be with my little man and it's fun and he's so cute right now and he's just such a good kid. And I think also me and my husband have done a really good job of trying to say, like you know, for me, because I can't be in office so much, I do still need like extra hours to get work done, and so we've like agreed that one night a week, like I can have like four to five hours, like sit and crank out paperwork, you know, and he's kind of like in charge of watching and keeping an eye on him, even though, like he's asleep, more than likely. but it just it's freeing to me to have communicated that and, even though we're both free at the same time, really like I know that I'm not the one in charge in that moment to have to go take care of him if he needs something. I know that my husband is on it, right. So, I think communication is like a big one and then just planning for it ahead of time and planning within the capacity, Like you have to come to the acceptance and realization that you are no longer gonna be able to do the exact same thing that you did before, and like, if you can't accept that, like you're gonna be in a pickle and you're gonna be anxious about it the whole time and you have to again know your limits and know your own kind of capacity and so Chris's question did you ask this?

Speaker 2: 45:28

Where can people find you guys?

Speaker 3: 45:29

Madewellcenter wwwmadewellcenterorg. If you're interested in the healing intensives or women's retreats or things like that, you can go to wellness buff and then, if you're interested and you just wanna reach out directly, just email us info at madewellcenterorg. It's probably the best way to get scheduled quickly.

Speaker 1: 45:46

Nice, sweet, yeah, sounds good. Well, thank you so much for coming on. I appreciate it. I greatly appreciate it, yeah.

Speaker 2: 45:52

It was a blast. So yeah, thank you for hopping on here. It was interesting. I learned a bit, yeah.

Speaker 1: 45:59

Just a bit. We got through a lot really fast.

Speaker 2: 46:02

It's either like similar to a session, it's either like. I feel like you got a lot out of it or you're like well, I didn't get too much. I felt like we got a lot. Okay, good. In a little bit of time, good.

Speaker 1: 46:13

It's one of those times when you look down and you're like, oh my gosh, we're 50 minutes into it already.

Speaker 3: 46:17

Yeah, it's wild, it goes fast.

Speaker 2: 46:19

Yes, but yeah, thanks for hopping on. Thank you guys for listening to the podcast, eventually watching it, because at one point we'll have a YouTube version of this One point.

Speaker 1: 46:28

I'm talking about capacity.

Speaker 3: 46:30

Yes, that's right, know where you're at when that capacity gets there. Slow growth, it's fine.

Speaker 2: 46:34

But please like, comment, share, subscribe. I mean, we post stuff regularly. So, yeah, thank you for your support. Cheers, cheers. Thanks.