Dr. Erica: Natural healthcare integrates with your traditional healthcare team by offering support for you to stay well. Prevention is one of those ways. Prevention, such as maintaining yours. Fruits, your vegetables, your diet. Also, helping with your mental and emotional state can help prevent diseases.
Natural healthcare helps support and improve organ function, such as the liver. When we keep the nutrients in the liver, it metabolizes them well and detoxifies anything that’s not supposed to be in the body. Natural healthcare is designed to detoxify all the environmental stressors our bodies are exposed to.
From the air, food, and water, integrating natural and traditional healthcare can allow you to holistically maintain and optimize your health.
[bigletter]Speaker 1: Thanks for tuning in to a Drive on Podcast where we are focused on giving hope and strength to the entire military community. Whether you’re a veteran, active duty guard, reserve, or a family member, this podcast will share inspirational stories and resources that are useful to you. I’m your host, Scott DeLucia, and Holistic Medicine Treatment now let’s get on with the show.[/bigletter]
Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Drive On Podcast. Today my guest is Dr. Erica. Dr. Steele is the founder of Holistic Medicine Treatment Family Practice where she specializes in natural health, healing, disease prevention, and holistic healthcare, and she’s here today to discuss options for healthcare beyond the va. I know a lot of our listeners.
Who listen to this podcast, use the VA for their Holistic Medicine Treatment, myself included. And while the VA is a great option for many veterans, there are some drawbacks and it may not be the best option for everyone in every situation. So we’re gonna be discussing alternatives to Holistic Medicine Treatment that the VA may not be able to handle, just may not be equipped to handle. So welcome to the show, Dr. Steele. I’m really glad to have you on. Yes,
Speaker 2: awesome. Thanks for having.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. So why don’t you just tell us a little bit about yourself and your background for the listeners who may not be familiar with you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so my name again, Dr. Erica Steele. I’m a holistic doctor in family practice.
I hold six degrees in. My field, they’re all in the natural healthcare space, ranging from psychology to laboratory diagnostics. I have hundreds of certifications, functional Holistic Medicine Treatment, integrative medicine, so a lot of biochemistry, a lot of science, but then also a lot of, the wisdom of natural medicine and all of the natural things that you wouldn’t necessarily find in new, the traditional VA physic. Holistic Medicine Treatment Exactly.
Speaker 1: And that’s the thing that is really interesting to me because I know just through talking to other people who have been through the va, myself included, it seems like the VA very often is very quick to just prescribe something to. Control, whatever the symptoms are of whatever it is that you might be dealing with.
If you’re having back pain or if you’re having, if you’re suffering from depression or anxiety or whatever the issue is that you’re dealing with. It seems like a quick. Prescription. Here you go, take this and you’ll start to feel better, which in many cases is true. You will start to see less of those symptoms.
But a lot of times these Holistic Medicine Treatment have side effects and they’re not always the most pleasant side effects. And the, these types of things could be handled in a different way. And I’m not saying that every single case can be handled one way or another. Every case is going to be a little bit different.
But in your practice, you treat veterans who. Dealing with a lot of this type of stuff. Sometimes they are toxic from things that they’re exposed to in their service. So what are some of the things that you do in your practice to, to help people who are looking for these alternative ways of healing themselves?
Speaker 2: Yeah. And so I think you’ve said a lot there, so I’ll break it down. So the first thing is oftentimes people. They find me out of desperation. I’m not their first choice. Because they, a lot of times they don’t even know doctors like me exist So that’s one perspective. I did mention I’m also the child of two Marines.
My dad was a drill instructor. My parents met in the Marine Corps. I live in Virginia Beach. Norfolk is right next door. My mother works for the VA now. So you know, they were in Camp LA June, the whole thing. And so I have a lot of direct experience. I treat veterans from all different, service branches, not just the Navy, but also the Marine Corps and Air Force and Coast Guard, and I’ve treated the gamut.
Also treated many veterans that have been exposed to all kinds of things, right? And. In an allopathic model, right? Meaning a standard Holistic Medicine Treatment model, which the VA is gonna be privy to, right? Number one, let’s look at the military mindset, right? It’s let’s go ahead and get this patched up so you can get back out in the field, right?
Let’s get this patched up so you can get back to work. So it’s very reactionary, right? So you’re already thinking from that perspective already, and so it’s all very reactionary to Okay, we gotta patch this up and get you back out. So now let’s say you’ve retired out. It’s the same mindset.
It’s let’s get you patched out, but not necessarily to get you back out, but just get you outta my office. So a lot of times you have a lot of symptoms, not to mention the wait times, right? So people are getting sicker and sicker, right? As they’re waiting and waiting to be able to be seen.
So there’s a lot of stress on the system and unfortunately in, in Virginia you would think we have the greatest one and our lag times are probably even worse, unfortunately than let’s say some that I’ve heard, from Florida or some of the other VAs around. I think some of the systems and modeling is a part of it, but I digress.
When we’re looking to treat in an allopathic model, they look to diagnose and manage a disease, right? So it’s I’m gonna look at your gamut of symptoms. I’m gonna find the closest label. I’m gonna label it as that, and then I’m gonna look and I’m oversimplifying it, but I’m gonna look it up and go, okay, this Holistic Medicine Treatment or this procedure, or this surgical intervention is designed for xyz.
However, A lot of veterans, as you mentioned, right? Let’s just look at nutrients fueling the body, right? A lot of veterans, the food, that are given in bootcamp, basic training. I’m shocked that people are living off of this. It’s like very it’s not nutrition, it’s not necessarily the.
Nutrient dense, and that’s what’s feeding the body. So that’s the first thing we look at is nutrients and nutrition and really breaking a lot of those bad habits because that’s gonna give the body energy. Not to mention if your body’s not being energized properly, it’s not able to naturally detoxify.
Okay?Holistic Medicine Treatment Because that’s just a part of the process. We fuel our bodies, it runs through the engine of our car, known as the metabolism, and then it leaves the [00:06:00] exhaust pipe, the waste. But then let’s. So we’re not fueling properly. It’s slowing down in the engine. It’s not eliminating out through the exhaust pipe.
But now we put that human in an even toxic environment with molds and radiation exposure and nuclear reaction exposure. I’ve treated, veterans that. Or part of Fukushima and how to deal with all of that. And then, being over in Afghanistan or Iraq and all the burning and Holistic Medicine Treatment the, I’ve got, I had 20 something year old kids coming back who couldn’t even walk up steps, their lungs were just so toxic.
And the mindset around the va, nothing against the va. Again, it’s great emergent. But it’s Okay, let’s patch this up and get you back out. Instead of let’s figure out what you’ve been exposed to. Or perhaps what we’ve injected into you. Because that’s the other thing. I have a Marine that I, she’s no longer a Marine.
She’s retired out. And we did lots of tests and the amount of vaccines that she’s tested for, toxicity from those inoculations, which were necessary for service, that has now triggered an autoimmune reaction and now she’s dealing with RA like symptoms. The VA’s way of handling it is here.
Go ahead. Pain Holistic Medicine Treatment, steroid. Which compounds the problem. And so it takes us time to be able to identify what it is, provide the nutrition that needs, that the body needs, just to be able to release it on its own. And then we’ve gotta really structure a detoxification protocol so that the body can actually heal itself by taking the pressure off of it. So that’s a, I do a lot of detective work.
Speaker 1: It sounds like it. And it also sounds like a lot. Individual cases are going to be different, that you’re not gonna get two people who served in the same location, who’s gonna have exposure to radiation and burn pits and we all ate like crap in the military,Holistic Medicine Treatment let’s just face it, especially on deployment. I know. We had a delivery on our FOB when I was in Afghanistan [00:08:00] and I was helping unload it and it was pallets of food and stuff. And I just saw some of the stuff that was sitting on there and before it even came off the pallet, it already had an expired expiration date on the label.
And I was like great. What have we been eating for the last however many months that we’ve been here? And we’re about to have this too, and it just, Floored me that’s what we are being sent, yeah. Not to mention the fact that we had a burn pit on the base and just down the street a couple miles, and a place where we frequently would patrol and work in was this enormous x-ray scanning machine that emitted so much radiation that some of the people who were working there, some of the local Afghans who were working there, they were concern.
Some of their friends, they kept getting cancer and they’re like, What’s gonna happen to me because I’m working here too? And come to find out, it was so much radiation. Like we, we drew like a, an imaginary line around this building. Don’t go any closer than this. Cause you’re gonna be a bad situation if you do. I’m actually surprised I’m still. Still kicking, with all
Speaker 2: by, by the grace of
Speaker 1: God. For sure. I know, right? For sure. Yeah. I’m clearly not done with whatever it is that I’m doing, so that, Yeah. Yeah. There’s so many people who have so many different things, and you’re absolutely right.
You have to be a detective. And if the people who are. Treating these veterans are not doing the detective work. They’re just, checking a couple boxes and saying, Okay, yeah, if this sits under this criteria, let’s treat it this way. It’s not digging down to the root cause of the problem. It’s really just com treating the symptoms as opposed to the.
Root of the issue. And our bodies are really incredible in terms Holistic Medicine Treatment of how well we can heal and recover from things if we allow them to, if we provide them with the right fuel and the right, the right energy and everything like that, that we need. And so that’s where someone like yourself comes in.
And that’s why I’m excited to have you on and talk about this stuff because there areHolistic Medicine Treatment. So many treatments and other things that go on that may not even be necessary if we go down and figure out what the root cause of some of these things are. And this isn’t, I’m not knocking the VA at all throughout this episode.
I think the VA’s great. I’ve dealt with a lot of great people from the va. But it seems to me though the, through some of these conversations that I’ve had with other veterans That they just like to prescribeHolistic Medicine Treatment to treat these problems. And these medications can be pretty problematic, right?
Speaker 2: Yes. Oh, a hundred percent. Not to mention the, addiction component of it, right? Especially if you’re in pain. And the BA definitely has a reputation of being very heavy handed with, prescriptions. And again, it’s that very. Let’s get you, the mindset is let’s patch you up and get you out, right?
Yep. And when you’re hurting and you’re not feeling well, and you don’t have the energy to advocate for yourself, you just take whatever is given to you because you don’t really know of another option. You don’t really know. There’s another opportunity, available to you. And it’s, and sadly, I tend to get people at their worst when they’ve been to every doctor under the sun, they’ve been to all the specialists and they’ve exhausted so many options.
And they’re in a very Holistic Medicine Treatment desperate state. And then they come in and, I have to take all this data on them. So I. Three 50 to 500 data points on each individual patient. And that’s So to answer your kind of figurative question about like you’re treating patients individually. Absolutely. And the way we do that is we take all the data on them and then we create a controlled experiment and then prioritize.
What needs to happen first because we can address everything all at once and that doesn’t even, We’re just really talking from a physical perspective. We’re not even looking at the mental, emotional, psychosocial, spiritual, the environmental. I also treat a lot of Navy Seals and their families and the, in special ops and the impact of trauma and how that has impacted them.
The more kind of training you write, mental training that they’ve had, and more of the suppression and lock it in the box kind of thing. The more I have to be very delicate when I’m approaching because I have to ensure that they feel safe and that, their training’s not activated where they’re, because they know how to hold onto stuff, but at a certain point.
It’s really affecting them on a physical level because it’s literally eating them from the inside out. So again, like this is way more than can be done in. A five, 15 minute appointment and or an appointment that you have to wait 6, 9, 8, 10 months. see patients every three weeks. Patients have access to me.
If they have a question, they can shoot an email, and just having that high touch really helps reassure. The person to go, Okay, he’s there for me. Somebody’s got my back. Me, myself, I laughingly say I was recruited at birth having Marines as parents, I was recruited at birth and I went AWOL at 16 when I left my house, and so having post-traumatic stress myself just.
Being a product of two Marines when the Marine Corps did not care that you had children, they weren’t issued to Just deal with it. And yeah, it was, people don’t talk about the impact of that, but ire, like just the whole consciousness. And then of course, the adapt and overcome, once a marine always, I’ve totally indoctrinated with all of those concepts.
And so having to heal myself and personally understanding the impacts of trauma and how you’re working with people with trauma, it’s not just a physical thing, right? Yes, there’s nutrition issues. We know that yes, there are toxicity issues. We know that. But then there’s also just the humanity issues and the things that have been seen, and how does the mind and the body and the spirit process, all of that, and how do they come home to themselves and get peace with themselves, let alone their families.
And so that’s why, of course, suicide rates are through the roof. That’s why of course, divorce rates are so high because, really, And I’m not saying that those resources aren’t available. But it’s a matter of trust and wait times and the ability to have access, I think is the most important.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. I know. I, you talked touched on something with the suicides and how high those rates are. Ultimately, the reason why this podcast even exists is because personally, I’ve known several people that I served with and I deployed with who came back home and took their lives, and I was like, This is just not okay.
And I’ve realized just how prevalent of a problem it was throughout the military and the veteran community. I didn’t wanna just sit around waiting for another phone call saying another friend is gone now, I, and I’m sure no one else wants to do that either. And so I felt like I needed to do something right.
Maybe this isn’t the best thing that I could possibly be doing, but it’s the thing that I’ve found that can reach a lot of people and providing resources, like what you’re providing through your practice is, In my opinion, it’s a big benefit to the military community because like we said in the beginning, a lot of times all the veterans think of are, as far as the options that they have available are through the va, and that’s not necessarily true.
There’s so many providers out there that offer all sorts of different things that are outside the VA box, if you will. Alternative forms of, mental health and physical health and other, just so many different things that are out there. So I try to highlight as many of those as I can on this podcast.
Stuff like what you do, and I know you said that you’re in the Virginia area. Do you work with people outside of that area or you mostly in.
Speaker 2: No, I work, So a few things about me. So I work internationally. I can work with anybody all over the world. We do it through telehealth and remote. The other thing that’s very different is, so I only accept insurance for labs, right?
I don’t accept it for my service fees, which means I am a private provider, which means that unless my records are subpoenaed or unless the person releases signs for them to release, They are completely, it’s completely private. And so that also for security purposes and for, all sorts of reasons for the military, right?
Making sure that their autonomy is protected and their privacy is protected, and that they’re able to express and communicate in a safe space, knowing that this isn’t gonna end up. Somewhere on a chart and that sort of thing. I’ve also helped a lot of people through their disability and, helping to prove those kinds of cases as well.
Because unfortunately in that, or even just giving them advice into how to approach those things because of the nature of what’s happened to, their systems, mental, emotional or physical. And so I really, coming. A military family, a huge military family. Even my uncles, like every single one of them are in the military, and so my grandfather too, coming from a huge military family, it’s really important to be able to just like you, It’s like I saw so much. As a, even though I was very proud of being, I am very proud of being from a military family, I have also been impacted by so many of the nuances to it.
So it’s you know what? I wanna be out of the box. I wanna think outside of the box, because that’s really how we’re gonna help people, not from this linear. Medication, surgery, this conveyor belt of healthcare that people seem to get on. And that’s even outside of the military too.
But it’s definitely very prevalent in the military again, because it’s more of you’re, a product, your number, you’re an asset number, right? . And so there’s really not much care going on in the healthcare system, especially in the va un unfortu. I think they mean but delivery. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And there are so many people who work for the VA that are doing the absolute best that they can with the resources that they have available. It’s just, it’s a huge system and it people fall through the cracks, unfortunately. And things are, they sometimes they might feel like they have their hands tied and they can’t treat everybody exactly the way they might want to because maybe this is not an approved.
Course of action or whatever, So that’s the thing that, that bugs me with the va. I wish it was one of those things where, Everybody just had the option to go wherever they wanted and get whatever the treatment it is that they needed through people like yourself and everything that was just covered.
But I think that peace of mind, first off, you were saying earlier, you like to build that trust with the patients that you’re seeing, but knowing that whatever is said, whatever is discovered, whatever comes up through your sessions and. Everything else, it’s private, it’s gonna stay between you and the patient.
And that’s as far as it goes. And that to me would be a huge relief if I was still in the military thinking, I, how is this gonna affect my security clearance? Or how is this gonna affect my job? Will I be able to continue working my job? Or, whatever. I, that would be a huge relief knowing that I can get the care that I need without jeopardizing any of those other things professionally.
And that would give me that sense of security, knowing that I, Okay, I can trust this person, I can provide the information that. Is truthful and will actually help get me on the right track so that way I’m not just prolonging this unnecessarily just because I’m afraid to admit to certain. Things that may have been a hundred percent
Speaker 2: or whatever, right? It, yeah. And not to mention the fact that I take it very slow, right? , I’m not gonna be, And also too I don’t have a motivation, right? My motivation, and again, being private, I work for the patient, so I’m not necessarily working for conglomerate with another, conflict of interest.
I’m working for the individual, right? And. I can take it as slow as I need to with the person, depending on what they’ve been through. Or I can take it as efficient. And I’m always trying to help that personsee the hope, see the potential, see the possibility that they have to be able to transform and heal.
And I use my own experiences, as a product of, Wonderful, loving Marines. As examples, because I’ve seen it and I’ve been through quite a bit, right? And that also builds reassurance and builds trust because it’s oh, it’s not just me. Cuz a lot of times people that have been through trauma been their experiences feel siloed.
It’s Oh, this is only happening to me. This has only happened to me. Everybody else seems fine. Why am I the one that’s so messed up? There’s all these crazy thoughts that are happen. When you have somebody that goes, No, I totally get you. I understand you. I’m validating and recreating that.
It’s that’s again, such a huge relief. And I will say this to the VA’s credit, they are actually beginning to look at other things outside of the box. They are beginning to look at acupuncture. They are beginning to look at obviously hyperbaric chambers popular. They are beginning to look at, chiropractic mind, body practices and things like that.
They are beginning, so there’s a window there. It’s still within that structure in that system. So it’s a thousand people bum rushing two appointments. So there’s still that, but I think even the VA opening up, it is amazing. And even. Now they’re doing a lot more plant medicine, different practices.
Of course not within the United States, but they are sponsoring them in other countries as well, where plant medicines are legal. There are some in different states. I think Utah has some plant medicines that are legal. Colorado, I know, and obviously California and Oregon. So those are also other ways where, we do the pre-integration, they do the treatment, then they do post-integration.
But again, you have to be prepped for that. You have to be ready for that. There’s a whole, whole, line that goes into that, right? A whole runway, if you will. And so there are more resources available. I think it just really depends on the person’s open-mindedness, willingness.
And it’s look where you’re at right now could be your rock bottom. You could go down from there or you could choose to take that breath and take that leap and get to the other side. And sometimes when you have something to hope for, like either a relationship or your children or just something outside of yourself.
Even though we want intrinsic motivation, but sometimes we need to use things that are accessible to go, Okay, I need to pull myself together and get myself out of this hole that I’m in.
Speaker 1: That’s a great point and a good example of finding something bigger than yourself to push you to keep going at or to get better than where you’re at.
When you’re at that rock bottom moment, it’s hard to see that. There’s other things out there, but when you start thinking about your spouse or your kids or the people who rely on for something, maybe you’re, in, in your community or, maybe a EMT or a firefighter, someone like that.
It’s like there are people who rely on these people to go and save them. And so if [00:23:00] you. Gonna give up on yourself. You’re also giving up on those other people. And when you start to realize that, then it’s okay, now I have a purpose again. I have a mission. I have something to fight for, and I’m not going to fail this mission.
I’m going to keep going. I’m gonna keep fighting. Just like when people are in the military, they have this mission, whatever the mission is, but usually there’s somebody else that they’re willing to sacrifice for. Maybe it’s the guy on their left or their right as they’re going into a combat or. They’re willing to sacrifice themselves for that, but if they’re not at their peak performance, they may not have that opportunity to be able to help that other person.
And so that’s why you see these military guys and gals who are in the gym, they’re getting jacked, they’re taking care of themselves because they know that they may need to help somebody else out in the future, and they don’t wanna let that person. And that’s I think just as important after getting out of the military.
There are people who are counting on you. Could be your family, it could be neighbors or coworkers or whoever. They’re relying on you. And so do all that you can to make yourself peak in all areas of your life. You’re physical, you’re mental, you’re spiritual, you’re all areas of. Health and your life.
Just focus on that and get to be as good as you can so you can be there to help
Speaker 2: those people. And it’s definitely totally, It’s definitely a mind shift too, because it’s like I’m doing this for the person, the left person, the right. I’m doing this for my country. I’m doing this for this mission.
And then now it’s Oh, but I’m supposed to be doing this for myself. Yeah. So it is this little Oh doing it for myself is selfish and all this kind of stuff, which I think doesn’t serve people in a lot of ways. Yeah. However, use what you got. If it’s the neighbor, if it’s the friend, if it’s the spouse, if it’s the kids, if it’s the whoever, the job, it doesn’t matter.
Until you have that momentum to go, I’m doing this for me now. And so then you can utilize that. And then what’s amazing about going through this process, If I hadn’t had a crazy life and believe you me, it’s still in a lot of ways I’m like, really? So if I wouldn’t have had the experiences that I had, I wouldn’t be the person I am, I wouldn’t be able to relate to so many people.
I wouldn’t be able to help so many people. So even though it may seem totally grim, there is a reason for everything. And I know it’s like I roll, like whenever people say that, like God would give you something hard, whatever. We all know the cliche. But really at the end of the day, it is true.
And also to bringing this into a spiritual conversation, creator God, whatever you wanna believe, right? They, he does know your heart and he does know what you’re capable of. You may not know what you’re capable of, right? And half the time I’m like, really, Like I don’t have any more left in me, but obviously someone.
Otherwise we wouldn’t keep going through these cycles. But I also know that if we continue to keep moving and we continue to put one foot in front of the other and we continue to just be open to the process, we will find and get the resources that we need in order to feel better in order to transform.
It’s just a matter of having the willingness and the desire and being open to receiving it. And I think once, once people begin to of get that momentum, then they’re unstoppable for Holistic Medicine Treatment.
Speaker 1: How would someone know that the type of treatments that you offer in the stuff that you do in your practice, how would someone know whether or not that’s right for them?
Is there some sort of kinda guidelines or things that you focus up better on than other things? How could someone of decide for themselves whether or not,
Speaker 2: So I would say that I get people that again, have been to every doctor or to the son, and no answers. They feel like they’re getting sicker and sicker with no result.
The treatment that they’re getting doesn’t make sense, and they don’t have to have a medical degree to recognize that. It doesn’t make sense, right? They’re frustrated with their healthcare providers. They don’t feel like their healthcare providers are listening to them. They hate doctors. I hear that all the time.
I hate doctors. I don’t like doctors. But you’re okay. So I think, it’s those kinds, I think intuitive. People know when what they’re doing is not working. Yep. And so they’re, they need to find, what definition of insanity doing the same thing and expecting different result. Some of us like the insanity, and other people, they’re observant of the insanity and they wanna get out of it. And then some people are observant on insanity. They wanna get out of it. And now it’s Oh, perfect. I listen to this podcast and now you know, this is the next step. I really am very much a believer.
Inspired action. And when you’re supposed to hear the message, you hear the message and when if resonates. And you don’t have to question that even if you’re like I don’t know. Like even if there’s some something there, it may not be today, it may not be tomorrow. I have patients that have followed my work for years and then they finally build up the courage to come into my office and they’re like, Okay, now that I’ve torched down everything else in my life, I’m ready.
I wasn’t ready two years ago. You pissed me off the first time I met you. I’ve had so many people get upset, cuz I, I trigger people, cuz I tell people the truth and. Sometimes people aren’t ready to hear that and that’s fine. I don’t dig it personally, but I think if there’s any inkling there, then it’s like, okay, I’m curious.
I’m curious. Maybe I’ll watch some of her videos. Maybe I’ll watch her on tv. Maybe I’ll do the sniff test. I get that a lot with special apps. They’re always doing the sniff test with me, cuz it’s cuz they’re trained. And. I try to take it really easy.
I am authentic in who I am. What is what you get. There’s no other ulterior motive other than, trying to facilitate and help heal millions of people on this planet while I’m here. So that’s my mission. Yeah,
Speaker 1: absolutely. You mentioned that you work with people all over the place, so it doesn’t necessarily have to be local to your community, although I’m sure that there’s plenty of that going on too, but where can people go to get in touch with you, find out more about your work and the types of stuff that you do?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I’m all over every social you could imagine, ig, Facebook, all the things. You can Google my name, Dr. Erica Steele. I’m on television often, so you can. I talk a lot about trauma. I talk a lot about that sort of thing. My website, holistic family practice, va.com. I’ve done free webinars on various different topics, from detoxification to nutrition, to mental health.
You name it, I’m a holistic doctor through and through The reason I have six degrees is because I wanted to understand the complex human experience because Holistic Medicine Treatment when you come from complex humans like I did, and you wanna under your, you’re like, I know this isn’t normal. I don’t know what normal and healthy is.
clearly this is not it . And so I went on a PIL mid to understand, and I love my parents and they’re great and they’ve grown up so much since, their days. They were like 20 years old in the Marine Corps. Oh my mind blown. I look back at them and I go, Oh my God.
They gave you two guns. What, , but at the end of the day, there’s just so many opportunities to reach out to me through all the different channels. I’m very accessible and I do that for a reason, because sometimes all it takes is just that one going, You know what? I’m just gonna reach out and see what happens.
And so I try to be as open as I can.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that’s great. And I will have links to all of this in the show notes for anyone who is listening who wants to reach out and find out more about this practice and how it can maybe benefit you and. The situation that you’re finding yourselves in, you can go ahead, check out the show notes, click through the links, and you’ll be able to find all the socials and the websites and everything that you can use to find Dr.
Steele and everything that she has going on. So with that, Dr. Steele, it’s really been a pleasure chatting with you and hearing about Holistic Medicine Treatment the type of practice that you do and the work that you’ve done with veterans and other people who have, all sorts of, different issues. Ultimately, it looks like, just drilling down to the basics and finding out what’s the root cause of these problems and how do we treat these in, maybe a more natural, holistic kind of way that will use the body strengths to work towards achieving this goal.
And I, to me, it just is a breath of fresh air when we hear about all these overdoses and addictions and all this other stuff that’s going on in, in the news and around the world, is it just a another way of looking at things Holistic Medicine Treatment and I think it’s a good way of looking at it. So I appreciate all of the work that you do, and thank you for taking the time to come on the show.
Speaker 2: Awesome. Thank Awesome. Thank you so much for having
Speaker 1: me. Thanks for listening to the Drive on Podcast. If you wanna check out more episodes or learn more about the show, you can visit our website, drive on podcast.com. We’re also on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube at Drive on Podcast.
Stacey Chillemi: Hi, this is the advisor with Stacy Chile, founder of the Complete Herbal Guy. Today I’m really excited because we have a special guest. We have Dr. Erica Steele. And from the early age, Dr. Steele was fascinated by the body ability to heal itself, a product of two marines. She was raised in a vegetarian and a practice in Native American.
As a result, she was an electric upbringing that leads her to her wisdom as a Holistic Foundation for Wellness , she combines her knowledge gained from six degrees in natural healthcare and practical tips and wisdom from her life, expanding her consciousness, and he self healing. So today I’d like to introduce you to Dr. Steele. Dr. Steele, why don’t you tell everybody a little about yourself and what you.
Dr. Erica Steele: Yeah, so a little bit about my background yeah,Holistic Foundation for Wellness so I’m a holistic doctor in family practice. I have six degrees in my field and they’re all in the natural healthcare space. So one of the stands that I took early on from a little girl, I knew I was gonna be a doctor.
And I researched the types of doctors and their origin stories and all of that, and I really decided I actually feel like it decided for me, but Right. But I, calling, right? Yeah. I really took a stand to become a drugless doctor, and that was something that was really important to me way before it was even trend or popular.
It was really a matter of teaching people what they needed to know in order to heal themselves, because I have a really good. Ability to take very complex topics and concepts and break them down into practical steps for people to follow. And so I do that every day in my practice. I’m in family general, family practice, so I treat a wide array of people.
I treat young families looking to raise their children Holistic Foundation for Wellness . I teach older families who suffer from chronic disease, unfortunately and teach them how to heal themselves and work with a myriad of chronic diseases and those suffering with mental health disorders from a natural perspective, of course performance and optimal functioning.
So those high level professionals that, want that competitive edge as well as metabolic cases and people that wanna lose weight. So that’s my standard patient demographic. And I, work with lots and lots of people all over the world, so I’m really grateful for that.
Stacey Chillemi: That’s awesome. I feel like today a lot of doctors tend to, just give a patient a pill too easily. And I see, first a person comes in with ailments and a doctor would immediately, prescribe a prescription to try to make them feel better. And then a lot of times what happens is that prescription gives them side effects or gives them other symptoms and they think more things are wrong with them or they’re not just feeling better.
So either the doctor either gives them another medication to treat those symptoms or puts them on a different medication. But the root cause, the problem itself never gets solved. And I feel so many times that a lot of things we need to find the root cause of, there’s always a root cause of why someone’s not feeling the way they should, and how do you feel about that? Do you feel like there is always like a root cause for a lot of different issues?
Dr. Erica Steele: There is for sure. Unfortunately, I think our healthcare system in general is highly reactive. I think. Patients aren’t unaware of their health and how their health is. And so then they wait until they have, really big symptoms, big feeling symptoms. And then they go into the doctor. And the doctor’s very reactive as well. Not teaching the patient personal responsibility, but rather going, Oh, here I’m gonna give you a bandaid to fix the symptom. And then just as you mentioned, then than one symptom leads to another, which leads to another and you’re never really getting to the root cause.
And the root cause, in my opinion, is really patient accountability. It you can expect any doctor to fix your. Unhealthy habits such as your unhealthy heat eating, your lack of drinking water, your stress management, your lack of emotional intelligence, and so it creates this really unrealistic expectation for both the patient and the provider.
It’s like the patient doesn’t wanna be responsible, they go to the doctor, they give their power away to the doctor. Yeah. The doctor doesn’t have time to really go deep into the case because they’re undermanaged care, which is under insurance. . So they only have seven minutes and it’s Here, take this and I’ll see you in two weeks.
Hopefully that works. And so it’s the whole system in general. Really is very flawed for people that are really looking to transform their health, which is why I see many doctors across the country making that change. And I’m grateful to see it. Yes, because we, it’s so needed for sure. I’m
Stacey Chillemi: definitely seeing it now, but I, we do, I, I see that so many times I would see people and I would speak with them and they would get so angry because they would go to the doctor give them medication, Holistic Foundation for Wellness and they’re not, They think that medication is a magical pill, whatever ailments they have.
And they get mad because Okay, my problems still here. You’re not healing me. But a lot of people don’t realize that our bodies give us signals. Just like you mentioned, when we have an ailment or a symptom, our body’s trying to tell us something is wrong, that there is a part of us that’s not functioning right and there is a reason for it.
And a lot of times, like you mentioned, people. Holistic Foundation for Wellness The minor symptoms until it becomes chronic, and then sometimes it can be too late. Don’t you agree?
Dr. Erica Steele: Oh, a hundred percent. I’ve had so many cases where, really minor things and they ignore this, and they ignore that year after year. And then they wake up one day and now they have a chronic disease, a debilitating disease that either needs surgery or procedures or even, some of chemotherapy and things like radiation, things like that.
And it’s unfortunate, however, again, back to the system, Holistic Foundation for Wellness so in the beginning right, of like when you’re young , a lot of times people associate doctors with shots, right? Yes. And so they don’t develop a healthy relationship with their providers because it’s just, Oh, I’m either gonna go for pain or I’m gonna go for bad news, so I’m gonna stay away because I don’t want either.
And Then they stay away from the doctor and then Holistic Foundation for Wellness now in this age, they Google everything thinking that they can get their information through Google or Facebook or TikTok or wherever. Yeah. Not having the appropriate education or information to disseminate. Not to mention we can’t treat ourselves like it’s just not even as a doctor.
I have other providers that I go, Hey, can you look at this for me? Yes. Because I can’t be objective. And so the whole system, again, it’s flawed in the sense of building that relationship. Holistic Foundation for Wellness Yes. I really wanted to bring back that old school family doctor. That was my. My vision be I wanted to build a relationship with my patients where they enjoyed going to the doctor.
It wasn’t always bad news. It was a great experience. Like in our practice with our kids, we have this huge train set that like they absolutely love, and it starts to build that healthy, positive relationship. So they make those associations early on so that they’re not being neglectful. And then I’m teaching them at, from an early age, but also too, my adults.
I think my kids are easier to teach honestly. But, I teach them gradually what it means to be healthy. Drinking water. Eating protein, moving your body. We go through these different things and they’re very basic, information, but I think people ignore it and miss it.
And there’s also this phenomenon too, which I’ll throw out there, where we’ve all been programmed and trained to give to everyone else. . And then it’s selfish to give to ourselves. Yes. And if we give to ourselves first, then we’re a bad person. So we’re gonna de, we’re gonna have no boundaries,Holistic Foundation for Wellness we’re gonna deplete ourselves.
And then whatever scraps are left over, then we’re gonna give to ourselves. Holistic Foundation for Wellness And unfortunately, there’s just not enough energy to go around. So it, again, it plays into that lack of responsibility. I’m gonna get myself worth from helping all these people, but I’m gonna neglect.
Stacey Chillemi: You’ve made a whole bunch of really good points. Holistic Foundation for Wellness One, I see that all the time, especially with moms. They feel that they have to put a hundred percent of their energy into their children and family, Holistic Foundation for Wellness but what happens is they get burnt out and then they can’t take care of themselves. And then I would say to them, I have to remind them, you cannot take care of your family and your children.
If you are not a hundred percent yourself, Holistic Foundation for Wellness and that’s what happens to so many people. And I like the fact that, you try to train children the, and teach them the right way to eat and a healthy way of living at such a young age. Because I, in a sense it’s like bringing home a puppy.
You train them from the beginning and if you train them the right way, they keep it, it’s embedded in their head. It’s just a way of life. It’s, and that is the best time to to, teach it is when they’re a child. Cause you’re not stuck in your ways. You are open to anything you’re learning, And sometimes when you get older, you’re stuck in your ways.
And another good point you made was that, People rely too much on the internet. People don’t realize that 60% of a lot of the information on the internet is fake news or they’re written by people that don’t have the educational background to sustain the proper information to help people with, whatever they’re looking for.
I always, when I read things, I make sure they’re scientifically and medically correct. And a lot of people don’t do that. And I would hear people say I saw this article on the internet, and they go to do it right away. And, that could really hurt somebody, and a lot of times it’s because people are trying to sell a product so they, they put this information together and they make it sound wonderful, and then people think, Oh, this is it.
I’ll use this and I’ll feel better. And meanwhile they end up either not feeling good at all, staying the same, or becoming worse. And, I think people have to realize also, like you mentioned, It’s okay to get a go to another doctor. If you go to a regular primary or person who specialized in a specific area, they can only help you within that area that they’re educated in.
So a good doctor is going to, send you out to a specialist that’s, that is, that will help you in that area. And a lot of times people are just, Oh, my primary said this, so it has to be this. If you’re not getting. Maybe you should go to another doctor or go to a holistic doctor and figure out what you’re doing wrong.
Because I, when I started, when I went into holistic living, my body just changed. Within three months, I started seeing a humongous change in the way I was feeling from my energy level to the way I was, my, my fogginess, everything. Everything was changed. I felt like I was 20 years younger.
People don’t realize that, a lot has to do with the way we eat as well. I went on vacation just recently. I was stunned because I would say at least 85% of the people were overweight, from the United States. And it bothered me because in the United States, especially now, they glorify and saying it’s beautiful to be overweight.
Yeah. But people don’t realize the side effects of what overweight, and obesity could do to you. And I’m a big believer in food for medicine and I believe that, what we put in our body plays a big reaction on how we feel. And it could also cause chronic illness as well. How do you feel Holistic Foundation for Wellness about that?
Dr. Erica Steele: Yeah. I think that there’s, so you said a lot. Of course. I think we have really robust conversations, which I’m enjoying it. Yeah. So I also like to teach the parents as well, how to actually do what I do. So that’s really important as well, because it’s not just about me it’s about us all integrating, like we’ve lost a lot of our, indigenous background.
We’ve lost a lot of that. We’ve lost a lot of where our roots were and how we heal, how our grandmothers and grandfathers keep people. So there’s a lot of that missing from our society. And then it is, yeah, I do think there’s a lot of mental and emotional trauma, which carries weight, which people hold onto weight.
Yeah. And I think that people are trying to reconcile that right now in our culture. . I don’t think necessarily weight in and of itself creates disease. It’s the metabolism and how the metabolism is, because there are some people who. They’re just heavier people. Now, I’m not saying that they can’t get themselves down to a mean, but I see people who are super thin, that have really bad labs and people that are, Yes.
What we overweight, that their labs look great. Yeah. And when we look at nature, there are different animals of different shapes and size. So we look to nature to be able to help us to understand things. But I do think that when you’re carrying weight, asking yourself, Do you feel comfortable in your body?
Does this feel good to me? Like for me, I don’t, I feel very good as an athletic body. Like I feel, I like to feel strong in my body. I like to feel limb. I like to push myself physically. That feels good to me. And so if I start to feel loose, because I’m not working out or whatever, that’s not gonna feel good to me.
And so I think we want to connect more with how we feel and not be resigned to saying my mom was big, so I must be big or. Or, I can’t seem to figure out how to lose weight. So I guess I’m just gonna accept myself for how I look and feel. Because there may be some other underlying issues, which goes back to your point about the internet.
They’re. The internet as well as books and seminars and YouTube videos and all the things Yeah. Are spoken from general perspectives. Exactly. They’re spoken from general educational purposes. It’s not specific in my practice, we take over 350 data points on each individual patient. Yeah.
And the reason that we do that is so we can provide individualized care so that we begin to understand on an individual level what’s happening with that patient. Because every patient is so different. They have different genetics. Yes. They have different biochemistry, different eating habits, lifestyle patterns, mental health.
Emotional health, ancestral patterns. We have so much richness and diversity and so it’s really important for us to look at the person as a whole person, as an individual. Not just treating them. Oh, you have the markers that say you’re diabetic, so I’m gonna give you XYZ diabetes. Now, I’m not saying it’s not important to manage glucose numbers, but I’m saying that the medical diagnosis and managed model that is done in apathy, I think is wildly flawed.
I think it’s good for an acute. Perspective, like again, like if your glucose number is super high, like I had to tell a patient yesterday, I’m like you’re, you may need insulin at this point. Yeah. Just cause of where your glucose numbers are. And so there is a purpose for that.
It’s just not the full picture. And I, that’s also why I became a holistic doctor because I wasn’t satisfied with the simplistic nature of medicine. wasn’t satisfied with, Oh, you listen to the patient and give a medication That, that just. Seems too simple to me. Yes. And then also too, even in my field I we’re trained to run a lab and treat the lab.
We’re not really trained to treat the patient, We’re trained to, instead of a lot of people practice alternative medicine, which is where you’re pretty much just giving, Instead of giving a pharmaceutical, you’re giving a supplement or an herb. Yeah. And that’s flawed too, because it’s not really.
Teaching the patient. Like it makes the patient dependent upon a supplement. Exactly. Or makes the patient dependent upon the doctor’s knowledge. And that’s that whole paradigm that I want us to get out of. Is that disempowered context that you don’t know, like you, who else would know, You know your body better than anyone on this planet.
Exactly. Me as a doctor, I’m just trying to pull that information out of you and help you to be more aware. So it’s really about patients being fully aware of their health and what things are in balance and not in balance and why those things are, which is why I ask my patients a lot of questions.
Yeah. And trying to teach ’em, a scientific way of thinking. And that way you’re trying to be curious about how their bodies.
I think that’s great because I think a lot of times we tend to avoid, like we were talking earlier, the signs and the symptoms and I, I, a lot of times I think, with leaky gut syndrome I feel like a lot of times a lot of people have more bad bacteria than good back bacteria.
And that if they change their way of living, that they changed the way they were eating and, incorporated more water and different ways, different, even just minor exercise, minor movement. You don’t have to be an athlete to exercise. Some people may have conditions and they, can’t really exercise, but if you could put 15 minutes into stretching or anything, you will see a difference.
You will feel better just to get the circulation and the blood moving. You’ll see a difference and just minor changes in your life. And sometimes I see, I think you. A lot of it is because we have so much in the United States, our food is so processed. Everybody’s go. And people are buying these quick fixed meals and it says, protein healthy, this and that.
And they’re not looking at the ingredients. And meanwhile they’re poisoning their bodies. We’re causing more bacteria. We’re causing, we’re causing a lot of problems. And I think, leaky gut syndrome is one of the problems. How do you feel about leaky gut syndrome and bad bacteria, so forth.
Yeah. I, I don’t have a feeling about it, but I have a thought about it. Okay. And the thought is that it does exist. Because our bodies are being bombarded with so many things, majority of the immune system, neurological system, as well as the hormonal system is housed in our digestive tract.
And then we’re exposed to food or food-like substances, as I like to say. Yeah. That are GMOs, that are herbicides, that are pesticide rate ridden, and that our bodies were not used to being able to process. They can’t identify it, number one. Yeah. So the food is seen as a pathogen, number one.
Yeah. Then we’re exposed to different bacterias, from importing foods, from different countries with different growing patternings. Yeah. Then we’re exposed to different viruses. We. A few running around. I don’t know if you’ve heard about that, but , so we also have parasite and parasitic infections, and mold, like even in Virginia because it’s so moist and so humid and the buildings are so old, we have so much mold in this area.
Oh, dangerous. Yeah. That people are unaware of. And then that also leads into chemicals and heavy metals, which people are unaware that, it’s in everything. It’s in our food, it’s in our water it’s in our air. We’re getting it from all, our products, our all the things or our clothes.
Yeah. So people don’t even realize how much toxicity Yeah. Is’ your environment. It is. And so then our immune system and our digestive system is having to battle all of that. And then with the nutrient depletions in the food, what’s happening is our digestive systems are becoming imbalanced.
And Our livers become overloaded, so then yeast starts to brew. So then that dysbiosis and imbalance and bacteria were very, be complex, depleted. A lot of us. Yeah. Some of us have under methylation issues with the genetics and so we’re not able to process properly. Not to mention a lot of us are antioxidant deficient.
Yeah. We’re getting bombarded with all these heavy metals and chemicals. It’s eating up all the antioxidants. We don’t even know, cuz we’re not monitoring those things. So eventually that gut lining beg that integrity of that lining begins to separate and toxicity begins to leak through, which normally would’ve been encapsulated and moved out of the system, either through the kidneys or through the digestive system.
But now it’s swimming around the bloodstream. So now people have skin conditions or they’ll have sinus, chronic sinusitis. Yes. Or they’ll have reproductive issues because a lot of the toxins are endotoxins, meaning that they attack the endocrine organs. So like chlorine, which is found in a lot of people’s water.
Yes. As an example that, that’s one of the endotoxins and there’s so many more I could go on. Oh wow. Yeah. There we’re just being bombarded with it. And so then our bodies develop toxicity. So there’s two things. We don’t have enough nutrition, right? Either from our food or the digestive process is included.
So we’re going nutrient depleted. We don’t have enough energy to be able to detoxify our systems optimally. So then our body is holding onto toxicity. Then organ function begins to go down because now there’s too much of the bad things and not enough of the good things, and now that’s when disease process occurs.
Yeah. But that doesn’t, that’s not an instantaneous thing that takes a lot of time. Not to mention the fact that many women don’t prepare to get pregnant. It’s more of an oops kind of situation. The immune system develops between the first 2000 days of life. That’s inception to two years old, so also two rapid C-sections where they’re not getting all of that bacteria going through the birthing canal.
Babies, they’re formula fed. And not that, that inhibits too, cuz a lot of the formulas, a lot of toxicity and they’re not getting breast milk. Not to mention mom’s diet can be all over the place. . And she’s the baby’s feeding off of moms. Yes. And so then, and then of course there’s other medical treatments that are offered.
There’s colic and then the ear infections, and then there’s lots of antibiotics that are given again and again. So a lot of people’s immune systems don’t even get a good start to begin with a hundred. And then they’re being bombarded with all of these environmental things. It’s like an absolute modern day miracle that we are all still walking around.
I agree with you. It’s being dramatic, but I’m not, No. I’m like, the body is so resilient. Yes. To be able to take all of these abuses. Yes. And. Continue to thrive and continue to bounce back. And, it is my belief, but it’s by truly the grace of God that we are all still here. Yeah.
And so I think this is such a great evolution where people are really waking up. I think the information age has been a catalyst for that. Yeah. Because you can see it, you can see what’s happening in real time, which is
Stacey Chillemi: really. I agree. I agree 100%. Like people don’t realize how to, it is from the moment you wake up and the air we breathe, and depending on the environment you live in, as soon as you walk out that door, there are so many different toxins and there are so many toxins in your house that you don’t even realize.
And the products we use, when I went to Europe, half the products that we use in America were banned. In Europe. They were, they would not sell them in Europe. And you. People don’t realize one. Okay, so you talked about water. So if people like, sometimes, they do it in all the towns, they’ll send a letter.
If your water is bad in your town, please don’t drink the water. Drink bottled water. One bottled water, the plastic isn’t good if the sun hits it, the toxins go into the water. And then two, you’re using that water when you take a shower. So your pores open up and they’re still going into your body.
So one, you may not be drinking it, you may not be boiling your pasta with it, but it’s still going in you because you’re taking a shower. You’re getting that toxins, and then what type of soap are you using? Perfume, soap. Are you using soaps with chemicals in them? People don’t think about these things, All these creams that are selling anti aging and this and that, but what’s in these creams are how pure and how organic are they?
Are they natural? Do they have perfumes and ingredients? I always say, look at the ingredients. If you can’t say the word, it must not be good for you. And it’s and like we said, the food you eat, there’s so many contra, little things to con, that contribute to our health.
And people have to really examine the life they’re living and the products they’re using, the food they’re eating, and we do, we live in a toxic world, when, sadly what, when Covid came, our environment got better because everybody was in the house. Nobody was using, nobody. They, the shipping wasn’t going on.
They said the ozone layer closed, And it was like all these things, because, we weren’t producing all these toxic, products and, we weren’t doing all these different things. So it, it shows you that we are our worst enemies, aren’t we?
Dr. Erica Steele: Yeah, we really are. And then I think the other piece too, that we don’t think about is, our mental and our emotional state, right?
Yes. In all of this. Because when you start to open up your awareness and you go, Oh my gosh, like all these things, it does elicit, it can elicit fear, right? Oh, definitely. And then it’s, and then disempowerment and powerlessness and all of those things. And again, that’s where the faith comes in.
It’s you know what do the, you do your best and forget the rest.
Stacey Chillemi: Exactly. I like that. And that rhymes, .
Dr. Erica Steele: I know, I always tell people, I always say to people, I go, start with one area. Don’t like, throw everything out. As you use up products, just build more awareness and go, Oh, what’s a healthier alternative?
Wg.org environmental working group, they’ve done a lot of research. They’re a third party independent. Yeah. And they grade products, which is amazing. And they, they’ve been doing this for years, which has been really cool. And You know now, because not even like you point out before, it’s not even the natural products are the most amazing anymore.
Yeah. And so you really have to be very conscious and aware, and which means that you wanna have that mental and that emotional piece together. Because if you’re reacting, if your emotions are over here and then you’re freaking out yourself and your mind’s over here Yeah. You’re not gonna be able to create action.
Yes. So it’s really about getting still with yourself. That was the one cool thing about Covid is that. People stopped in their tracks and they had to sit still with themselves. Yeah. For the first time. And a lot of people were like, Oh my gosh, I don’t have any emotional skills. I don’t even know what to do.
I don’t even like this person. I live with . I don’t, like people were forced to stop and reflect and really take personal inventory. We’re about to go into the new year. Of course. That’s an amazing time to do a personal inventory of Oh, 100%. Yeah. All areas of your life, from your mindset to your physical health, to your emotional health, to your products in your house, to, your spiritual health and wellbeing, all of it.
It’s your relationships. It’s okay, what things are working in this area of my life? What things are not working right, and what am I gonna do and how am I gonna implement this for the future? Exactly. So I, there’s a lot of practical things and I think. People we’re still in that, that like quick fix culture, like you talked about before.
Yeah. Where it’s okay, so I learned all these things. I listened to this podcast, I learned these things. Now I need to go and do everything tomorrow. And you’re gonna learn yourself out, you’re gonna stress yourself out. You’re gonna be so overwhelmed. And it’s really, it’s not good for your mental and emotional health.
No, I, Which is also why I’m a holistic doctor because I like to look at everything. Yeah. Not just one little piece of the puzzle.
Stacey Chillemi: But that’s what I love about holistic doctors is that when you go to a holistic doctor, they check for. Everything. They check for things that don’t even exist but could exist.
They just, and and they warn you ahead of time if they see something that’s a little off, but it’s not there. But it could be if you don’t take care of yourself and do X, Y, and Z. And that’s what I love the best about it. And you talked about stress. People don’t realize, but over 70% of illness is caused by stress.
Yeah. So think about that. Think how powerful that is. Think how powerful stress is if you don’t learn how to handle stress.
Dr. Erica Steele: Exactly. Yes. And the East really talks about stress quite a bit with the Meridian system. They talk about their emotions, they talk about how. If you don’t process your emotions properly, it creates disease.
Yes. The West is just beginning opening up to that. Yes. Because we’ve really been in survival mode of shut it down and keep working, keep moving, keep going forward. And again, it’s if you don’t mind your mental health and your emotional health, it is gonna catch up because your thoughts create your emotions and then your emotions create your actions.
Yes. So you, if you are either in an inactivity with your health or you feel stuck or resistant or you know you don’t know what to do, it’s probably because there’s an emotional piece that hasn’t been Yes. Uhhuh and a mental piece that hasn’t been. And so we wanna start to connect with our emotions and just begin to become more self-aware, to understand, Okay, how do I feel and accept it even the not so great emotions.
Yeah. Even like anger and sadness and grief and all the different emotions. It’s important for us to own them. They are part of our creation. It’s what we’re creating within ourselves, and there’s root causes behind that. . And there’s different ways to become aware of them and transform them. And reframe them.
Yeah. Into healthier ones. But we also wanna be mindful of, especially in the spiritual communities, there’s a lot of toxic positivity going around where it’s like, Oh, you’re just supposed to be happy all the time. No, not really. No. Like true healing true shadow integration is looking at the positive, but also looking at the negative too.
Yeah. And then integrating all of that in so that you have more inspired action. So that really at the end of the day, You can fulfill upon whatever mission that you have on this planet because we haven’t noticed this planet needs just a little bit of work. , we got a couple things happening that we may wanna be a little bit aware of, and so if we all learn to self actualize, which means looking at our mental and our emotional, spiritual as well as our physical health and wellbeing to be able to perform right, Then we’re able to turn this little.
Crazy ship around that we’re all floating around on. So yeah, it’s important.
Stacey Chillemi: I think everything is like interconnected, mind, body, and soul is definitely connected. I always suggest, I’m a big fan of meditation because if you could take just 15 minutes in the morning and maybe 15 minutes at night and you could just meditate and close your eyes and work on your breathing and cleanse your mind and really, take in, and really analyze your inner self, it could do a lot of beneficial things to your mind and the way you think, and you can actually, conclude things about yourself that you never even realize before.
Dr. Erica Steele: A hundred percent. Yeah. It, yeah, it, and a lot of times people think meditation is clearing the mind. they get into that trap and they’re like, I’m not doing it. So meditation is simply just building presence, right? Yes. So some days I feel like Guruji levitating off the map.
Other days I’m like, I can’t get my grocery list outta my head. Yeah. Neither day is valid or not valid. It just is. It’s really about you connecting with yourself. It’s checking in with yourself. How do I feel for that day? What are my emotions? What does my mind look like? What does my physical body feel like?
Do I have any aches and pains? How am I’m gonna stop for just a few minutes a day and I’m gonna connect with myself and go, Okay, how is this operating system called Erica doing? How am I, do I need some updates? Do I need, to throw some things away? Do I need to, what do I need to do in order to.
Care for myself and nurture myself and love myself. And then as we start to ask us those questions, then it’s amazing the people, places, situations and circumstances and events that we need to come into alignment. They just fall into our laps when we really start to tune into ourself. And in our higher self,
And I, I think people start to, if you could tune into your higher self and start to understand you as a person you can come to, you can learn so much about yourself and really strengthen your inner self and the way you know, your self-esteem, the way you feel about yourself, everything. Courage was wisdom, strength, and hope.
All that stuff ties And now I wanna go back just a few steps for parents. What would you suggest to them is a good way for them to start with their children? Putting them on a healthy, living and a healthy eating habit, What would you suggest to those new parents that try, cause sometimes I see children between the, the young, they’re probably, in grade school and they’re already overweight and I cleaning inside of me.
I’m like, Oh my goodness. Even though it’s easy to lose weight, they shouldn’t be at that weight at that age, and I feel for them because I worry, even though they’re not my child, I’m like, Oh my God, 10 years from now, five years from now, what’s gonna happen to that child? What would you suggest to parents about, feeding their child and getting their child on a healthy living?
Dr. Erica Steele: The first thing I say, it’s about modeling behavior, right? Children are going to not necessarily always listen to what you say, but they’re going to pay attention to what you do, right? And so if you’re living unhealthy, if you’re not eating well, if you’re not drinking water, if you’re kicking the dog and yelling at your spouse, then you know your kids are also gonna model that same behavior, right?
And so it’s really self examining. Yeah. And it’s a huge responsibility to be a parent. I think people take it so lightly. They do. When I decided to have my daughter who’s an adult now I took that so seriously. I did say, yeah. It was like a job. Like I was like, okay, so what are all the things that I wanna teach this little life, right?
Yeah. And. and how am I gonna, shift from the old patterns that, that I was raised in. Were unhealthy. How can I shift into a healthier yes learning. And and then I of pendulum swing too far in the direction. Then you go back, cuz I have very strict parents as Marines and so I went more kind of that hippie free spirit and I was like, Oh no, we need structure.
We need structure . So I kinda, so yeah, there’s that. And that’s the thing is kids really need structure. So I would say number one, you gotta model behavior. Number two, you’ve gotta create structures for yourself. There have to be boundaries in place. Yeah. You can’t, it’s not free. We’re not raging free range kids.
Like they, they need to know where their bounds are. And the reason for that is so that they feel safe and they feel secure and their nervous system [00:34:00] can develop in a healthy way. Yeah. Cause otherwise, if they don’t know what to ex. Expect they’re gonna be hypervigilant all the time, meaning they’re gonna go, Oh, anything can change at any given time.
I can’t expect anything. And so they’re gonna be constantly driving cortisol, epinephrine, no epinephrine. They’re gonna be in greater flight mode all the time, so they’re not gonna digest well. So creating that structure for kids is so important, involving them in that process. Okay, so this is what time we’re gonna wake up in the morning and this is our morning routine and this is what time we’re gonna eat breakfast, and this is what time we’re gonna get off to school, and this is what time, and building that consistency. Yeah, unfortunately. Most of our brains they are looking for the dopamine response. Yeah. And so they want the drama, most of our brain. And so if there’s not enough drama, then we’ll create it. And it may not be lifetime television movie drama, but it may be something like, Oh, we’re gonna do our schedule for a couple days and then we’re not gonna do it anymore because we just, That’s too boring.
Yeah. And it does take a person some time before they, they really can get their mind and their body and their actions to be in alignment. Yeah. So that they’ll want to do a schedule. Cause a truth be told, I structure everything and it is very boring. It’s very monotonous at times. However, that’s how you build something, right?
Yeah. And so you are building a human. And so you wanna teach these humans, these little humans. Strong habits that are going to last them a lifetime. Yeah. And that’s really important. So structure’s super important, really checking your own mental health, taking time for just downtime where you’re not busy.
I think that’s important too. You’ve got this practice and that practice and you’re doing this and you’re doing that. It’s okay not to overcommit yourself. You don’t have to be super mom, I know many of us try to be all things to all people and we don’t wanna let our kids down, but.
That’s not healthy either. That kind of gets into that overextending and then leveraging your community, right? Really befriending some of the other moms and going, Hey, I can take to soccer on Tuesday. Hey, can you take to ballet on Wednesday? Starting to build those communities, which I think unfortunately have been lost a lot too, where most of us don’t even talk to our neighbors.
We don’t even know they exist. I know. And so we really wanna build that community because it does take a village. You can’t do it all by yourself. There’s just way too many demands that are in play. So I think that’s another way too, to keep the stress and the pressure down. And then lastly, I would say pre-preparation and planning is the key to success.
Use your crock pot. It is so easy. You can, I love the
Stacey Chillemi: crock pot . I know you can do
Dr. Erica Steele: proteins in there. You can do a whole week of protein. Yeah. You already ready to go. So all you’d have to do is sa taste some veggies and you’re good to go. And you have to plan your meals. If you don’t know what you guys are gonna be eating breakfast, lunch, dinner, and your snacks for the day, forget it.
And trying to, especially when you’re trying to eat whole foods, you’re not gonna be able, it’s not gonna be always quick and convenient. You have to plan. And whether that’s little hacks like overnight oats, where, you’re using your sleep time as your kind of prep time, Or like I said, the crockpots or just simple sautes and including the kids and making sure that, they’re helping, obviously, if they’re too young to use a knife, they can’t, but they can do things like wash vegetables and Right.
Helping them to be a part of that process. Yes. They may be taking them to the farm. We did strawberry picking when my daughter. Little, and, all these little activities so that they tend to get connected to where their food comes from. I those are some really important things that I like to teach in my families when they come in.
Stacey Chillemi: It’s amazing. But I bought a cookbook and it was for the Crock Pot. I used to make meatloaf in the crock pot. You could do anything in the crock pot. Like this one woman, she had, I don’t remember her name, but I have the cookbook downstairs in the kitchen, and she made everything and her recipes were outstanding.
I’m telling you, I got on a crock pot. Crock pot kick, and I made everything you could think of in that crock pot. It’s amazing if you have, if you go out and find the recipe books, you can make anything. And it’s great. Cause it’s easy, especially if you’re a mom and you’re working, you can make it in the morning on slow.
You can come home and it’s in 15 minutes on high and it’s done, and you’ve got yourself a meal. Exactly. And it’s healthy.
Dr. Erica Steele: Exactly. And you’re not going to the drive through, eating. God only knows what which is in there. Exactly. There are ways if you prioritize it. Exactly. And that’s the thing, I think people get in their head and they get overwhelmed and oh my God, this has to be so complicated.
And it really isn’t. It’s just more of prioritizing it and putting it in perspective. And as you do that, it just starts to fit into your life. And that’s why I love to teach people how to have a holistic lifestyle. Yeah. Cause it, it doesn’t take effort for me to live the way I live. It just takes intention.
It takes intention. Exactly. Yeah. And I have to focus on it and but what else would I focus on if I’m not focusing on what I’m doing during the day? Yeah. Erica’s world may be fun but I don’t nec I try not to disassociate. I try to, yeah. Stay in my body, most of the time and not wander off.
And so that’s also another great reason why people should meditate because it helps you to build that awareness. It’s like a muscle. You go to the gym, to build your strength. Same thing with meditation. You’re building, your strength with your body, your mind, and your spirit, and your consci.
Stacey Chillemi: A hundred percent. 100%. And I think we also need to remind people too, in the grocery stores, there’s a lot of marketing, false marketing in the grocery store, and people don’t realize it. And I get, I get upset with the, I read this book, it was, I think it vegan versus vegetarian one. It was a while back ago.
And they, to, they showed you what they did to the animals, and they showed how when they got sick, they put antibiotics in all the cows, for the milk and this and [00:40:00] that. And our bodies weren’t meant for these things. Our, it’s not good to take antibiotics too much, and to begin with.
And they’re putting it in the milk that we’re drinking, and was our body really meant for us to drink cows milk? And it really wasn’t, if you go back into history, our body was not meant to drink cows milk, yeah. Cow’s milk was for the baby, calfs. That’s what the cows milk was for.
It was not meant for human beings. And, and, You know the antibiotics little girls they’re starting to go through puberty at a really young age. And, it says no added bio antibiotics. So that means there is antibiotics in it, but there’s no extra ones in it.
But when you read no added bio antibiotics, Real quickly, you think, Holistic Foundation for Wellness Oh, there’s none in there. Yeah. Same thing with the eggs. You have to be so careful people are buying chicken eggs. Yes. And again, what our body really meant for eggs, if you go back into the, hundreds and thousands of years ago, it was more plant based, and that’s people were living long lives, using, [00:41:00] plant-based foods and we have to think about, what our body really needs and and what we’re putting in it, and when we’re buying these foods to really look at the market and look at what’s really in these foods.
Dr. Erica Steele: Yes, exactly. I think, again, going back to that awareness And like you said before, if you can’t pronounce the ingredients, it’s probably not good for you. And I like to teach people because, there’s so much conversation around food and people get so overwhelmed. Yeah. And I. I’m gonna make it super easy.
if it’s God made, Edith, if it’s manmade, stay away from it. I like that. Holistic Foundation for Wellness Does not have a good track record of trying to overdo, it really, he’s, if you look back at history, innovative in however, the original, the way that it was grown or used, that is really, the way in which we should eat.
Yeah. And I also teach people sustainability and getting off the food supply and starting to learn how to grow their own food. Which is a lot easier than [00:42:00] you may think because now they have so many hydroponic units, that you can have right. In your garage or even in a corner. I have one in my dining room of all places.
And my little puppies will go and nibble on it. , that’s a whole nother thing, But it’s cuz I don’t, living at the beach, we don’t have yards. But the hydroponic is such a good option too, because then I can grow it and, it’s available and readily available and then at least I know where my sources are.
Also checking some of the local farms and farmers markets. , speaking with the farmers and building those relat. Yes, I think are really important as well, because they’re gonna give you that local agriculture and also they’re very upfront with their growing practices. Yeah. We ask them, even if they’re not U S D A certified organic, they may have either low spray or no spray practices.
So that would be considered more organic. And so Holistic Foundation for Wellness I think just building that consciousness to where is my food coming from? What am I feeding myself with? And that’s not just food. It’s also, what am I exposing my mind to? What am I listening to? Am I watching the news every day?
Am I stressed out about whatever new drama, trauma that they’re putting on the television about right now? And I’m not saying, don’t be informed. That’s not what I’m saying. I love news. I read it all the time. , but I also don’t indoctrinate myself with it to the point where I’m stressing myself out.
Yeah. Because at the end of the day, there’s only so much that I personally have control over. Exactly. There’s, I personally can do, then I will do it. At the same instance. If there’s nothing I can do about it, that’s when I need to release it over Exactly. To a higher power because, I’m not gonna stress myself out.
Something you can’t do. Yeah. That I’m powerless over. Like we, I think as human beings are so addicted to powerlessness and so addicted to helplessness and self pity, like we love to feel less than who we really are. Yes. Rather than acknowledging, No, I do have power over this. Yeah. If I don’t like the food supply, I can grow my own food.
I can. Exactly. I can do all kinds of things and that’s why I love that inventory. Doing that inventory at the beginning of the year is so important. And then creating a realistic plan. I In our business we. Holistic Foundation for Wellness We do quarterly plans, so we create plans that, cuz in my mind, everything’s gonna happen tomorrow, Of course.
But in reality, it takes time to implement things. And again, helping that dopamine, helping, yeah, all the epinephrine and neuro epinephrine. Not overextending yourself, but breaking it down into little chunks that are doable and manageable. You would be shocked at how much you can get done if you structure your life like that.
Stacey Chillemi: Oh, definitely. Amazing. When I structure myself, I can accomplish so much more. And that, I have to say, there are days I just don’t feel it. And in those days that I don’t structure myself, I get barely anything done. You really have to have organization in your life, and at least, and you don’t have to accomplish every little thing that you plan for that day if you could accomplish.
I always say to people, especially when they’re starting out, trying to structure their life, if they could just do one thing, one thing in that day, give yourself a pat on the back, that’s a good start, and as time goes on, they get better and better. And before you know it their life becomes so structured and it’s just baby steps.
Baby
Dr. Erica Steele: steps. Yeah. And they built that momentum and you’re able to fit in everything that you’re fitting in. Like for me, I own my business, so I run my business. I’m also a doctor in my business, Holistic Foundation for Wellness so I treat patients right. I’m in the media a lot, so I’m on television, I’m on radio, I do podcasts like this.
, there’s pitching involved with that. Yeah. I’m in my PhD program. Holistic Foundation for Wellness I have my little puppies. , my daughter’s gone. And then I have all of my own self care things. Yeah. And I manage all my home and all of that. And so I get all of that done and still have time to relax on my couch on Friday night.
Yes. And I still have time to get, all the things done that I wanna get done, because I have that structure again, just like little kids, if we put that structure in place, then it helps us to feel safe. Yes. And we’re the same way. We’re just bigger kids, it’s putting those structures in place as.
Especially if we never had those structures. Oh, a hundred percent of us. I think most of us were latchkey, it’s like we had the basics, food, shelter, house, all that kind of stuff. But like how to do this thing called life, it was like, We knew what not to do, but we weren’t necessarily taught how to do what we do.
Exactly. So really it’s also about reparenting yourself too. And learning really from the beginning. Holistic Foundation for Wellness And I think when you have a breakdown in something, instead of judging yourself, criticizing yourself, speaking to yourself so poorly. Yeah. Like I asked people to go. If you had a friend that talked to you, like you talked to you, would you keep them as a friend?
Exactly. People probably not. And I tell people, it’s not your fault. Yeah. It is your responsibility. Yes. You may not have been able to control where you came from. Yes. And what you’ve experienced and what you’ve learned. But you have a responsibility to learn something better.
Exactly. Exactly. And most people are walking around with a computer in their pocket with their phone. Yes. You can Google, YouTube. There’s some amazing creators out there that at least point you in the right direction. And then from there and there’s amazing professionals out there too. We’re not alone.
Even if we feel alone. Yes. We do have a great connection. And building that connection, I think is so important.
Stacey Chillemi: Yeah. Now, before we go, I wanna just talk about one quick thing before we go Holistic Foundation for Wellness now, the vitamin world. Okay. The vitamin supplement world is so big and there’s so many people putting labels on it, and you really have to know what you’re purchasing and you really have to know, don’t be, fall for a lot of these marketing schemes because there’s there, there are hundreds of brands for every type of vitamin or supplement.
And one thingHolistic Foundation for Wellness I always, stress people too, is I like them to go to a holistic doctor to get blood work, because then you could see what you’re really deficient in and you could see what you really need and how much you need of it. Because a lot of times people think, Oh, T work is good for inflammation.
I’ll take tumeric.Holistic Foundation for Wellness Oh, you know what? You need vitamin D I have, I’ll get vitamin D, I’ll get zinc, But okay, how much should you be taking of it? Some people might need more vitamin D than other people, some people might need a little bit more zinc at nighttime or during the day than another person.
I think people really need to realize how important Holistic Foundation for Wellness it is to go to a Holistic Foundation for Wellness , get blood work done, get, the, find out exactly what your body really needs, because sometimes supplements and vitamins can interact with each other, and then you have to really know.
What brands are the good brands? What do you think? A
Dr. Erica Steele: hundred percent. Oh my gosh. All the things. Yeah. So a supplement is just that. It’s to supplement. A good diet. It’s not to replace a diet, people are like, Oh, I just wanna take a pill. No. And people can take way too many supplements. Yeah.
You always wanna make sure your supplements are doing things in order to know what they’re doing. You’re looking at what’s called mechanism of action. And so most people they don’t know like inflammation, for instance, like you mentioned turmeric. So people often take turmeric for inflammation.
Inflammation is being driven by something. There’s something. Causing that. Exactly. So you taking turmeric anecdotally may be helpful, but it’s not getting to the root cause. It’s just managing symptoms. And that’s what a lot of people do is they just, they hear a little bit of this and they hear a little bit of that and they just start taking a whole bunch of supplements.
Yeah. And unfortunately the supplement world is like the wild west cause there’s no regulations. Yeah. What’s in the bottle may not be on the bottle. You don’t know the manufacturing practices. So I always tell people to look for GMP certified supplements that stands for good manufacturing practices.
I don’t recommend people to buy their supplements on Amazon. There’s again, no regulations with that. Yes. , um, if they are gonna. Supplements I recommend they not get it from a big box retailer, but rather a supplement store. That’s what they specialize in, if they’re gonna go retail. There’s also a great resource called Consumer Labs.
I think it’s consumer lab.org. Again, their third party independent research lab. And you can send supplements in and they’ll test them to make sure that they are what’s in the bottle is on the bus. Yeah, and I really, I’m very much into, obviously looking at your labs and then determining dosage and things like that.
I think most people, it’s pretty safe to be on a multivitamin. , I think a strong multivitamin, not, like I said, one of these in the big box retailers. Yeah. I think a strong multivitamin’s really important. I think a strong B complex is important. , Then it gets a little crazy in terms of how people’s bodies are set up.
But I think it’s really important for people to look at different sourcing and pay attention when they’re doing that. Of course I’m gonna advocate you to go to professional. Yeah. Sometimes it’s not always in people’s budget or their prioritizations to do that. Yeah. So just really be mindful.
You don’t have to take every supplement that you need. And when you start connecting more with your body, Yeah. Your body will tell you, it’ll be like, you know what? I need a little bit of more this, and I need a little bit more of that. And so you’re not always taking it just, far and wide.
Yeah. I think also I’ll leave it with this, is be very careful of a lot of claims. Yes. People make a lot of claims, especially in the MLM marketing worlds, they sell, they have direct sellers and they’re selling a lot of supplements and they’re like, Oh, it’s gonna do this and it’s gonna do that.
And they get very sophisticated with the sales process and yes. Oh, we have these doctors and these doctors, which in essence are typically doctors on the payroll. You’re really looking for. Third party independently research on that product? Yes. Not looking at Oh, this has turmeric in it and here’s a hundred meta-analysis studies on turmeric and all the benefits of turmeric.
No, I wanna see this product, this bottle. Yeah. And what this bottle has been tested for. And what things this bottle has been tested to help treat. If they don’t have that information, then it’s just anecdotal. Yeah. Which there is. Some efficacy to anecdotal information. That’s why placebos work.
Yeah. However, it’s important that we don’t put false hope. The pills and the supplements are not greater than the human body. Exactly. It’s just there to support. I’m not a supplement salesperson. Yeah. I’m not into that. That’s why I did, People tried to recruit me for MLM marketing companies. I was like at a certain point I just said, okay, enough.
Like I’m not a good candidate for
Stacey Chillemi: this, Cause yeah. I don’t
Dr. Erica Steele: believe in keeping people on things for the rest of their lives. I do supplement cycling, which, so I’ll put, depending on what I’m doing. So if we’re working on, let’s say working on digestion, the patient will be on a whole bunch of digestive things for a few months and then I’ll switch it up and then we’re working on minerals and then we’re working on detoxification.
So I’m always changing engineer my protocols and supplement cycle cuz I don’t want the body to get used to things. Especially it’s, the body’s really smart. So just like working out, that’s why X and those yeah’s Yeah. That’s why I the X and those kinds of things did so well for people. Because you’re always changing up the protocol, you’re. You’re not letting the body get used to anything. And the same thing with supplements. You’ve gotta always be changing. If you’ve been taking the same thing for years and years, stop taking it like you need, you need to, or
Stacey Chillemi: your body gets resistant to it or it gets the potency.
You know how effective it is on the body decreases cuz your body just,
Dr. Erica Steele: it’s, Yeah. It’s like you’re gonna give this to me so I don’t need to do anything, yeah. Yeah, it’s, it, we really there’s a whole science to, supplements and taking supplements and utilizing them. And it’s really important to, to learn that that process instead of just taking a whole bunch of
Stacey Chillemi: whatever.
And what would make me angry too is a lot of companies put a lot of fillers in it. So they say, Okay, Holistic Foundation for Wellness like you said, it has turmeric, but then there’s all these little fillers and it doesn’t really have that much turmeric. It has a bunch of other little cheap stuff incorporated with it. And some of these prices are outrageous.
If you price these supplemental, there was a apple cider vinegar and a beat root company, and the two of them, they were charging those two supplements together as a powder. They were charging almost $50 . So it’s like crazy stuff like that. And then you look in the back and it’s not that much, I was just curious.
It wasn’t that much Holistic Foundation for Wellness beat root and there wasn’t that, much apple cider vinegar, there’s just, those are the two major claims that they had in there. Apple cider vinegar is supposed to be great for weight loss. Beat root is supposed to be great for energy and the metabolism, so they use that as a market employee, and it gets you, it gets you a little angry.
Now, isn’t, is there anything people could do, like if they, you know how we talked about toxins and how the body, incorporates so many toxins and our Holistic Foundation for Wellness organs become sluggish and we st we tend to our health slowly declines. Is there anything people can do in their homes? Yeah.
Help their detoxification so they can start cleansing their body and start getting their body to really start moving the way it really should.
Dr. Erica Steele: A hundred percent. Yeah. So first things first. In order to get toxins out, you need to stop putting toxins in. So that’s number one. So start working on detoxifying your home.
I love what you said before about the shower, right? So 50% of. I think it’s over 50% of your water comes from the shower. So making sure you have a good solid shower filter. Those are some you can get on Amazon. So yeah. Nice strong shower filter. Really important to filter. And if you’re gonna take baths, you have a bath filter too, cuz that’s a good point.
Yeah. Yeah, those are two different, two, two different faucets. In terms of just simple, easy home use that’s even safe for kids, you can do one scoop Epson salt, one cup Epson salt, and one cup baking soda. And that will ize, but also it’ll help just a gentle chelation, gentle detoxification.
I learned that from one of my mentors. Holistic Foundation for Wellness And making sure the quality of the app and sold obviously is good. You don’t wanna just get the store bought. Whatever. Yeah. Yeah. So that’s just a real gentle way you could do that, 20, 30 minutes three times a week. And, just drink a lot of water before and after, so that’s really good.
Also parsley and cilantro are good. Holistic Foundation for Wellness Heavy metal CERs. Oh, okay. To put those in your food. Or like a smoothie or something like That’s really helpful. And then if you really wanna get brave I really recommend doing ENS as well. , you can get one from, get an en bag or whatever from the health food store.
And there’s all kinds of different types of ens. There’s flushing ens and there’s retention ens. So a flushing enma is just something like, you’ll put maybe like aloe vera in it, which is really obviously a good quality of it. You water and, clean water, healthy water, and then maybe, four tablespoons of ae vera, which you know is very, it’ll lower the inflammation.
Yeah. You can also put a little bit. Cider vinegar in there, 2, 4, 4 tablespoons. And that’s really good for yeast. So if person has a lot of yeast to overgrowth okay. Things like that, that can help too. So those are some of the flushing ones. Some of the retention ones, Holistic Foundation for Wellness like popular one is the coffee enema.
So again, organic coffee and you boil it and make sure that there’s no grains in it. Yeah. And then put it in there. And that’s a retention. I You can hold it for up to 15 minutes, don’t hold it longer than that. Holistic Foundation for Wellness you probably would start off with five. So meaning you put it in, you put the bag up and then you hold it in and that’s gonna help the gallbladder and the liver produce the bile and be able to push,Holistic Foundation for Wellness move that out, that’s really helpful as well, keeping the digestive system clean. And I’m sure people can YouTube, any of the questions around that. I think we have some things on our website too, so Yeah, I think those are just some simple at home things that people can do. Dry brushing is also really good to get the li moving.
Just those little. Wooden dry brushes. Yeah, I think those are some really good, easy tips that people, can do. Air purifiers are so amazing. Yes. They are air so important. So yeah. And making sure you do all your maintenance and making sure you clean your vents and remove the filters and all that kind of stuff.
Just all the things that you put off and you don’t pay attention to. Holistic Foundation for Wellness Those things all add up. They’re little things. And putting those things in place I think are really important. And not overwhelming yourself. It’s Okay, I’m gonna focus on the water in my house. Yeah, let’s. Let’s figure out what the solutions are for that.
I’m gonna get this filter or that filter, I’m gonna weigh out, Do I want a whole house unit or do I just want a tabletop? There’s all different nuances to it. Making sure I got my shower filters on, my bath filters on, and now, okay, this quarter we’re just dealing with our water, right? And then maybe next quarter you deal with all your cleaning products and the next order you deal with, your beauty products or whatever.
So just putting that in place and creating that structure is really,
Stacey Chillemi: I. Now, where could people find you? If people wanna find your website or, do you have like specific areas that people can go to learn more about you?
Dr. Erica Steele: Yeah we’re pretty, I’m pretty out there. My website’s, Holistic family practice va.com.
I have two socials holistic family practice for IG as well as Facebook. Holistic Foundation for Wellness And we also have a YouTube channel as well where I educate people. And then my media brand, Dr. Erica Steele. So I have an IG for that. I have Facebook for that, all that kind of stuff. So yeah, we definitely I’m pretty much out there.
I’m on television a lot, so you’ll see me on different shows talking and educating people about holistic health and holistic lifestyle Holistic Foundation for Wellness and what people can do practically to be.
Stacey Chillemi: Yeah. That’s excellent. And do you have a blog maybe with articles and stuff like
Dr. Erica Steele: that? Yeah. On my website there’s a blog on your website.
Awesome. Yeah, exactly. And we convert also a lot of our videos and our interviews and stuff into blogs as well. So if people don’t wanna, read Yeah, there’s the reading and there’s also the video too yeah.
Stacey Chillemi: That’s awesome. So before we go one more time, tell everybody your website so they don’t forget.
Yes, it’s
Dr. Erica Steele: Holistic Family Practice. VA is in Virginia va.com, so Holistic family practice va.com, and you can literally Google Dr. Erica Steele and it’ll come up pages of stuff. Yeah.
Stacey Chillemi: Dr. Steele, this has been such a pleasure. You gave us so much information. People are gonna get so much out of this interview and I got, I have to just say thank you so much for coming on and giving us all this information and thank you for what you do because, I am a huge fan in Holistic Live and because it changed my life, it changed my health completely.
So I love hearing doctors talk about holistic living and teaching it to other people, so you are a valuable source to this community and thank you for everything that you do.
Dr. Erica Steele: Aw, thanks for having me. This has been great.
Stacey Chillemi: Oh, you’re very welcome. You have a great day.
Erica Steele: Thank you so much for coming by and stopping by for such an important topic of medical freedom. So tell me about what you’re doing and what’s going on with medical freedom in the state of Virginia.
Senator Amanda Chase: Absolutely, and I first of wanna thank you, Dr. Steel, for all you are doing. Regarding medical freedom and giving people options and alternatives. because so many people are coming to dead ends and they need solutions, holistic solutions and natural solutions. So one of the things that I’ve been advocating for, really prior to my being in the legislature, is medical freedom. For children and vaccines is one of the things that we naturally look at as parents.
Yeah. Whenever we’re looking at getting childhood, Vaccinations. And I think that’s when every parent starts doing their research on their homework. And I learned everything about the Mylene she and how certain preservatives can actually destroy the mylene sheep. . And so as a parent now my kids are all grown.
This is over 20 years ago. Yeah. When my kids were little. I did a lot of research on even the childhood vaccines. And our family made some decisions early. Regarding childhood vaccines. Yeah. Now we hit the covid years and what happens across the country, across the world actually and other countries, they have quick access to iin, drugs of chloroquine.
But what happens in the United States, it gets shut down. And so I have not only advocated for medical freedom to known homeopathics, in. We have legalized marijuana. Yes. And the last year, and we have mandated a unsafe, unproven vaccine. That’s been around for less than two years. Yes.
Senator Amanda Chase: And yet we are denying patients together with their doctors. Yes. Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. So I’ve introduced legislation. This’ll be my third year in a row, actually. Yeah. I know you’ve been out there doing it from the very beginning when it was not popular to talk about. Yes. About alternatives to this vaccine? Yes, I’ve been out there on the front lines from the beginning. I think a lot of that. Was from all the research I’ve done when my kids were younger. Yes. And I think it’s
Dr. Erica Steele: really important that patients have a choice, right? We spend a long time in school learning all things about science, and then being able to practically apply those. And so when we’re in the exam room with patients, we’re able to address their concerns. Were able to look at their health and physical, were able to inform them. Our basis of care is based off of informed consent. So it’s our obligation morally and ethically as providers to educate the patients about what the risks and potential benefits are from any treatment, and then be objective and allow the families to make decisions. And that’s really what this is about. Whether you. Are for or against whether you choose or not choose, it’s a matter of being able to have that choice. And I think that’s incredibly important for everybody in Virginia to have that choice. To be able to say, you know what? This works for me, or This doesn’t work for me.
Because I have patients that choose to vaccinate. I have patients that don’t, it’s not my job as a provider to make that choice. It’s my job to educate them about
Senator Amanda Chase: the risk and benefits. One of. Obstacles that we’ve had in the state of Virginia is the former commissioner, Norma Oliver, sent out a letter which was very aggressive, aggressive is a great word for it in nature to the healthcare community saying, do not prescribe ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine.
If you do, you could potentially lose your license. It was, Showing effect on medical freedom. And so I’ve worked over the past year talking to Commissioner Collin Green, unfortunately, with very little headway. . And that’s very frustrating because under a new administration, I know Governor Yin has said publicly that he supports medical freedom, but medical freedom should expend extend to beyond just our children.
Yes. It should extend to adults. We should never have a private. Yes. To mandate a hundred percent that to keep your job, that you should get a job. Yeah. That’s untested, unproven, and still under. Emergency order and a lot of scrutiny.
Dr. Erica Steele: There’s a, we don’t see it necessarily here in America, but we, I’ve seen in the parliament lots of video testimonials about Pfizer and nothing against, again, if people want to choose this option because they feel like, you know what, I’ve weighed out the benefits versus risk.
I’m gonna take this risk. I’m going to choose this because I. XYZ condition, right? Then that’s up to them. But to again, bring, your human resources into the exam room, to bring your legislator
Senator Amanda Chase: into the exam room, to bring all these entities
Dr. Erica Steele: in the exam room between that very sacred relationship of doctor patient, right?
That’s the real issue. What’s the point of us going to school? What’sthe point of us having all of the information to advise patients if ultimately we’ve got all of these bedfellows that aren’t trained medically, that don’t understand risk versus benefit? And sadly, a lot of times don’t care about the individual that they.
Serve. So I’m so grateful that you care. Absolutely. And I know, I mean I’ve sat in general assemblies where I’m cringing. I’m like, oh no. I mean ruining but cringing at the same time. And so I really thank you for putting your neck out there, for being that voice of reason for educating and really standing up for our families.
Cuz I know here at Holistic Family Practice we are just passionate about. That all families have medical freedom and I know a lot of patients come to our practice because of that. So having a legislator up there, fighting for them I think is gonna be so important. So tell us about what you have coming up with the next session.
Senator Amanda Chase: So we have general assembly session that begins. January the 11th. Wow. And we have until the end of February to introduce, present and pass any legislation that would get passed. So two months, 30 days. Yeah. Not a lot. It’s gonna be very short session. Yes. Because we run for reelection the following year.
And I would say this in the Senate, most of this good legislation fails because of the makeup of the senate. 21 Democrats. We have 19 Republicans. . And so most of this legislation that we introduce, we do it anyway because we want to educate people. One time we’re presenting a bill. You’re educating the legislators, you’re educating the listener. , and you make progress that way. So even if I know the number, the makeup of the Senate doesn’t look good for me. If it’s a bit important, but like I feel medical freedom is. Yeah. Then I still present the bill. Which brings me to my second point.
when I run for reelection, I have two primary opponents. , the establishment. Everybody understands in holistic medicine. Yes. You’ve always got the establishment. Yes. That comes against you, like a vengeance. Oh yeah. . They’re doing that with me and I’ve got a former state senator. Wow. Who has entered the race after redistricting.
I’m the incumbent , but I have two other opponents who have entered the race as well. And the establishment, the lobbyists, the packs they’re getting behind him. . So I will, I have to rely on the people. I don’t take money from lobbyist impacts. , I represent the people.
And so I have to rely on the people. To fund my campaign to send me back. And we have a campaign right now that 5,000 people would donate a hundred dollars a piece. , I have all the money I need, and here’s a clincher. And 60 days to raise that money. Wow. Yeah. January 11th when I go into session.
Yeah. Can’t raise money until I come out Wow. In late February. A little bit of a crunch, a little bit of a deadline. Exactly. We are trying to get the word out to people that Yes, we can’t sit on the sidelines anymore. No, you can’t. Maybe you can’t be on the front lines like I am right now, but you can fund and support me.
Definitely. And you know that I’m gonna fight that. I’m not gonna back down because I. Been in the Senate for almost eight years now. Yes, I’ve always been for medical freedom. Always. Yes. From the beginning even. My early days as a mom of four young children. And we have to do everything we can to protect medical freedom.
And I’m the only one in the Senate that I know of.
Dr. Erica Steele: Yes, you are. That is introducing this type of legislation. A hundred percent. I remember at the advance, I’m going around and talking to people and, legislators, it’s glaze. Look what, huh. And so you have been a huge champion for medical freedom.
Again, as long as I’ve. Dealing in politics, although it’s not my . Me either. I know exactly. But we really do wanna get behind you and support you. I know. I will personally make a donation because medical freedom is so important to me personally and also to my practice. And so Absolutely. That’s also why I agree to sit down with you and talk because we really wanna support you in your efforts of medical freedom.
It’s so important. Do you have anything else that you’d like to share?
Senator Amanda Chase: My website people can visit is www.chaseforsenate.com and they can make a donation online. Again, it’s www.chaseforsenate.com Very original.
Dr. Erica Steele: Yes. I love it. I love it. And it makes total sense, right? We’re really, we’re not just chasing you, obviously.
We’re chasing freedom, medical freedom, and especially over the last couple years we have seen this cat and mouse game back and forth. I remember sitting in my boat in. This was early, like 2020 I think. 2020 actually. And I was like, oh my gosh, I can’t even believe how they’re going after the employers. It was very disheartening.
Senator Amanda Chase: People who did not want the vaccine were forced to get a vaccine. Yes. And that is a medical interior, correct. It is wrong to be perceived,
Dr. Erica Steele: of course. Cause then people are looking at their pensions. They’re looking at, okay, it’s my pension, or it’s between, Keeping my job and all of the different dynamics feeding my family and it was so under the gun.
It was very difficult. So again, thank you so much for stopping by. I really appreciate your help, your support. I’ll also put a link out as well if you wanna support Medical Freedom.And Senator Amanda Chase, we thank you so much. Thank you. It’s, I said thank you for.
