Complementary and Integrative Medicine Minded Coaching

Having been raised in a family that hunted, preserved wild game, and grew a fabulous vegetable and berry garden. I’ve always been aware of what a healthy diet was and grew up eating real, nutrient-dense food. I was one who also sought the services of those in complementary and integrative medicine providers, like chiropractors, massage therapists, acupuncturists, reiki practitioners, aromatherapists, and I was a racewalker who competed in the summer games, and I valued optimizing my physical health and capacity. 

Even though my mental realness has made me more flippant and inclined to certain self-sabotage, my overarching goals in life have centered on wellness and health maintenance, disease management, and symptom reduction efforts. I subconsciously knew I better shore myself up to handle my inner family system of sinners and saints and better manage the archetypal expressions that had me questing recklessly on the fringes of polite society.

In 2011, I enrolled online at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition (IIN). I studied to become a holistic health coach. I was granted the privilege of training because a dear friend and benefactor invested in me.

I am so grateful to you, Mr. Christensen. What a fun learning experience we embarked upon. I love and appreciate how you helped me grow, see my shadow in a certain light, and that you so much for investing in me, having a path of learning that would in time, allow me to contribute adaptively to the world at large.  I am grateful that you connected me to Dr. Stan Gardner through Parker. 

Dr. Gardner was looking for a health coach to aid in his program delivery at Parker Hannifin. I reached out regarding the work opportunity.  After 6 months of education at IIN, I was eligible to begin working with clients. He had a warm, friendly voice, and I was able to arrange a sit-down interview with Dr. Gardner. I was nervous. He was prestigious, a Physician! 

Dr. Gardner was one of the kindest, approachable, and brilliant Doctors. He had a commitment to help arrest preventable diseases through his patented corporate wellness program, the Health Transformation Training Program. 

Dr. Gardner was committed to sharing what he knew and empowering others with information and actionable health information. 

I was tickled to get the position and to be trained in supplemental applications for certain health concerns. I will never forget how jazzed he got when he talked about the phospholipid bilayer of the cell. Cellular health took on a whole new meaning for me after his instruction on how important the layer of the cell was for bodily functions.  

Dr. Gardner would be a light of hope and a bright spot in my life. I was in a dismal, sabotage-y mood about having returned to Utah from Colorado in 2008-2009. Colorado was treating me well, and I was beginning to thrive there in my young 20’s in a way I had not here in Utah. The culture there was all about health, wellness, connection, and supportive collaboration. Utah was a culture that often felt smothering to me.

Back at the HTTP, Tiffany and I got to work armed with employee wellness/stress assessments and quick reference binders chock-full of information that he had tirelessly curated for his coaches to teach us what each supplement could do in the body.  

The two of us were charged with a mission to bring the statin prescription costs down for this employer. Parker Hannifin was an early adopter of Employee Wellness Programs, and it was said that they developed this because the CEO’s wife had beaten cancer through Complementary and Alternative Medicine strategies. Corporations tend to pay a fair bit out for employee “sick care,” so this forward-thinking CEO thought he’d invest in disease prevention and well-being creation. 

The health transformation training program had a slogan, ‘alternatives to drugs and surgery’.

It was so enjoyable to talk with the workers there who had never had the time to contemplate how food impacted blood sugar, mood, energy, arthritis, etc. We talked them through behavior change. We shared simple lifestyle strategies, and we offered the clients micro interventions for their chief complaints. 

Simple things that had no barrier to care and could be done on their break from the production line. We taught them stretches, we shared the “happy hands” technique from the jin-shin-jitsu techniques for mood/emotion awareness and alchemization. You can read more about Jin Shin Jitsu here.

https://ukhealthcare.uky.edu/wellness-community/blog/jin-shin-jyutsur-ancient-art-promotes-healing#:~:text=UK%20HealthCare%20%7C%20January%2029%2C%202018,of%20water%20in%20a%20stream.

On those coaching calls, we discussed empty calories vs. nutrient-dense foods. Many clients bought what was quick, convenient, and accessible to them in the break room vending machines. They had selected foodstuffs from the gas station that they could scarf down in 20 minutes. 

For many workers, it was a second job, and making homemade food was a big stretch. So we talked to them about using targeted supplementation to reduce negative symptoms like back pain or knee pain that were standing in the way of them executing healthier habits. We gave them SMART goals to get back in the driver's seat of their health incrementally. 

Over time and through active listening, we helped the clients connect with their reason and need for change (i.e., to beat a health condition, or to have less pain or lose weight)

Through collaboration and shared decision making, they were inspired to crowd out empty-calorie foods that were fueling inflammation by swapping a handful of chips for celery and hummus. Though they were operating at an energy deficit and were relying heavily on caffeine, we would guide them to see about trading one Monster energy drink per day for an unsweetened iced tea. They were encouraged to write in a notebook throughout their 6-month program and were asked to document their progress and change. We asked about their stool quality, how their physical symptoms were, what they were taking, if they were getting exercise, body work, and so on. We took a stress survey and periodically checked in on that. Unexpectedly, they would have fewer headaches, less sinus congestion, decreased post-nasal drip, and more mental clarity sustained through the day. 

I learned so much working with the working class on health education, and I am grateful we were successful with the local program launch. Enough such that the company found insurance claim payouts were dropping for those employees who were engaged in the health transformation training program. We then offered coaching to all the U.S. sites of Parker. 

Dr. Gardner worked to build more technological infrastructure for his program delivery and soon hosted an employee portal, a supplement dispensary, and had an entire learning library for the employees to educate themselves on their own time about relevant topics.

It was in this environment that I cut my teeth. I loved being that person who could act as an accountability partner and a sounding board as people navigated lifestyle change and cultivated wellbeing.

If you are stuck repeating patterns or are having health concerns. Book a free discovery call with me. I’d love to meet you and see if my programs are right for you.