Embracing Wholeness: Nichole Kuechle's Journey of Holistic Healing and Self-Discovery

Welcome to "Restore the Real," an enlightening podcast hosted by Dr. Randy Michaux, where the intricacies of holistic health are explored with passion and depth. In this compelling episode, Dr. Randy is joined by Nichole Kuechle, a holistic health practitioner and expert in nutrition response testing. Nichole shares her personal journey of transformation and healing, weaving a narrative that connects her early health challenges, her mother's battle with cancer, and her eventual foray into holistic wellness. Her story is not just an inspiring account of overcoming obstacles but a powerful testament to the interconnectedness of physical health and emotional well-being. This episode promises to be a beacon of hope and guidance for listeners seeking to understand and harness the transformative power of holistic healing.

Listeners are invited to delve into a world where personal struggles illuminate the path to wellness and intuition becomes a guiding light in health decisions. Nichole's insights offer valuable strategies for self-discovery and embracing a holistic approach to health, providing listeners with practical tools to navigate their own health journeys. "Restore the Real" is more than a podcast; it's a journey towards understanding and empowerment in the realm of health and wellness. Tune into this episode on your preferred podcast platform, subscribe for more insightful conversations, and share your thoughts with us through reviews and comments. Join us in this exploration of health, mind, body, and spirit, and take a step towards restoring your real.

Connect with Nichole Kuechle:

Instagram - @NicholeHirschKuechle

Www.myhealthybeginning.com

Hi! Dr. Randy, here. Thank you for being here! I'd like to invite you, my podcast listeners, to our thriving private health community, Empower Act Heal, on Facebook. It centers around YOU claiming your personal power and gaining momentum on your path to vibrant health! We're a supportive, judgement-free community where you can show up as you are and find greater success. I do weekly LIVES and bring in experts, just like on my podcast, but in a more personalized setting. Just follow this link into our Community, we can't wait to see on the inside!

https://www.facebook.com/groups/empower.act.heal

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

It's time for real discussions about health. Hi, I'm Dr Randy Michaud of Total Body Wellness Clinic, and each week on Restore the Real, I'll sit down with the guests to discuss how developing or overcoming health challenges has shaped the way that they live their lives, what they've learned, what they've changed and how they're moving forward. Restore the Real is a podcast that is unafraid and unapologetic when it comes to getting honest about the nuances of health and wellness mind, body and spirit. Hello, hello, this is Dr Randy with Restore the Real. Welcome to our podcast today. So we're going to welcome Nicole Keekley. She is a wife, a mama, a wonderful human being, a master of nutrition response testing, muscle tester, holistic health practitioner, and more so welcome to the show.

Speaker 2: 1:04

Thank you. It's so fun, so fun to be here. I was telling my husband about you yesterday and I'm like, no, you don't understand. He's that crazy man who runs through the mountains for 36 hours at a time. That's who's interviewing me.

Speaker 1: 1:17

That may be a little bit of an over exaggeration, but it's all good right.

Speaker 2: 1:23

Like what is he doing?

Speaker 1: 1:26

I love that. That just fills me so much. But tell us a little bit For those. I think there's some people that know you and obviously some people that know us, some people that don't. But can you give us a little bit of history on your past? What have you done and how did you get into this space? Because I always find it fascinating. Nobody goes into holistic health, functional health, without a challenge. So would you share again your history, your past? And then, why are you here? Why are you doing what you do now?

Speaker 2: 2:03

All of that has changed. All of the why has continued to evolve over the years, and I think most practitioners the long and winding road that brought me here not only seeing, like we know that healing is not linear. For me, that started very early. I was 16 when my mom was diagnosed with cancer. She was 36. I'm the oldest of four kids. It was so super. We always talk about what are the impactful things. Right, it was a super, super impactful time in my life. I got to see firsthand. So let's back up for a second.

Speaker 2: 2:44

When I was 10, I knew it was my first intuitive ping. I remembered it was just like bing and it was suddenly there. You're going to have your babies at home someday and I remember looking around. Where did that come from? And now I call those things intuitive pings, like those divinely planted seeds. And I remember thinking I haven't seen a TV show Like they didn't talk about stuff like this. We were more modern medicine, if you will. If something was wrong, we went to the doctor and got an antibiotic. By the time I was 16, I knew how to call and make an appointment, bring my siblings into the pediatrician, go to the pharmacy, pick up their medication go home administer. That was already. That was indoctrinated right.

Speaker 1: 3:33

You're already like an at-home nurse.

Speaker 2: 3:35

But I know for real. And then get this I was like a home health aide. No joke, I was a trained home health aide at 16. And so, driving around to environments, I probably shouldn't even have been in at 16. But it was what I saw and you have to get that. I wasn't in any way. There was nobody around me that was holistic, if you will. Nobody was talking natural health methodology around me at all. It was a reading book. I had no idea that there was another way that you could truly take on your health, the self-mastery of health and well-being. And watching my mom get her diagnosis, driving her to radiation treatments, I mean I thought my mom was going to die for two years. That was the honest-to-goodness truth. And even my mom said I don't know a couple of years ago she was like I was in remission within four to six months.

Speaker 2: 4:34

That is not my fearful 16 to 18-year-old memory. Do you know? I was 16 to 18 at that time and within a handful of months of my mom getting sick, I developed an ulcer and then was consequently pulled off the gymnastics team. I had been a gymnast for nine years. I loved it, but it was doubled over. I mean, there were mornings that I couldn't even stand up straight because of the stomach pain I was having. And every time I tell this story, Randy, I'm like I would have known that when I know now, right, Always, but it was.

Speaker 2: 5:11

I could see even at the time this slippery slope Back in my days of almost two full decades as a births, postpartum doula, cranial stochial therapist, teaching childbirth education. That background didn't really even prepare me for some of the things that I am seeing now. So it's interesting At the age of 10, so the whole you're going to have babies at home. The other thing was you're going to be a doctor. So I had all this in the background Watching my mom get sick, go through what's happening with my body, watching what occurred like a slippery slope of intervention. That's what we used to call it in the birth world. You do one thing and then it's really slippery and fast the ongoing need for more intervention to be managed by others. Right, and I watched that and I remember it was yesterday, being in one of my mom's appointments I think this was down at the Mayo Clinic. We're in Minnesota, that's close, relatively close by for us, and I remember this oncologist saying to my mom she had to go to so many, like every three months, every six months, like that inside of being in remission, and I remember him saying you're fully in remission. This was an amazing thing to hear and these are some of the things that you'll need to be watching out for.

Speaker 2: 6:32

So I was 16 and change at that point in time and he riddled off this list of diseases as if he were giving her a list of symptoms to watch out for right, Heart attacks, breast cancer and I remember just like my antenna, like knee, something isn't right here. This doesn't make sense to me. And some of that was in the sense of like some of your heart to shoes radiated by way of like what we couldn't cover and what we couldn't get at. You know, inside of getting at this big like baseball sized mask behind her chest and I'm listening to all of these things going just like are, are we? Is there another conversation, Right? I didn't know I could speak, I didn't know to ask questions, but I'll never forget some of those key. They weren't even conversations, right, Like they were. We were just being told something by a white coat and that's what was to be expected, and so, like my mom said, it was only a handful of months. For me, it was this long, arduous, two year fear factory.

Speaker 1: 7:37

That's heavy. That's so heavy for a, for a 16 year old, to hear all that and, and you know, not feel like maybe you had a voice to ask a question or to hey, wait, wait. Can you explain a little bit more of what do you mean by this?

Speaker 2: 7:52

Right.

Speaker 1: 7:53

And and then how that informs what actions are and what we're internalizing and how maybe we react with our parents and siblings, and that's heavy.

Speaker 2: 8:06

Heavy. I remember taking my so I was the oldest, my baby brother, the youngest of the four of us, was four. Like I have looked at each of my three kids at four and just like the impact, right, Like getting very present to the impact, I remember taking him into the hospital library and checking out books that would explain what cancer was to somebody, his age, Like cancer were, like the bad, unhappy, sad bubbles in the body. Like I just remember this. And then, you know, non-cancer cells like your, your, your cells that are helpful in your body, are happy and full of joy and, yeah, impactful to you know, to say the least. And when I think about what happened with my health, we all have these triggers, right, the things that sort of light up the unhappy cells in our body. Let's just call them that.

Speaker 2: 9:00

And for me that was, you know, an ulcer, like I said, within within about six months. And then, on top of that, you know, once they put me on Zantac, of course, and after that was supposed to handle everything, I remember a decrease in stomach aches, but then the stomach ache shifted, it just, it just moved, it moved location and it got worse. And so, finally, after pressing and pressing and pressing and after all of our, you know, going to the gynecologist and then going to the urologist and then go, like many of these appointments, by myself at that time, you know, 17, 18 years old for them to tell me you have endometriosis and just like, in my heart of hearts, I didn't really think that was the case. Now, if they would have said something like schistosomiasis, I don't know if I could have, you know, bought it at the time, but I'm like on our precise clear going on now and and some of the procedures and the things that they were doing to rule things out and to get further questions were horrifying and terrifying. Being alone and just told to like lie down, sit, still, don't talk. You know we can't give you like pain support for this. You know where they're driving some kind of camera wire up through my ureters to look at my kidneys, Like that freaking hurt, you know, and it was scary and and for them to be like you have this, you have this, you have this, and for me to be saying like I actually think it's my appendix and for nobody to listen, so pushing that button.

Speaker 2: 10:27

For you know, they called it some acute, chronic appendicitis, right, and I will say the day we got them to remove it was also like the day that we agreed to that they could check me out while they were in there for endometriosis and that was going to be like their avenue. In. To this day, that makes a zero of sense to me. Like now hindsight, I'm like I don't even, like you're not, even I don't. Yeah, I've been looking at the state, Like what are you doing? But that was the, that was like the, the hitch right to getting one of these things looked at. So I will say I woke up from that appendectomy with no more pain, that that pain point was was absolutely gone but and shifted right.

Speaker 2: 11:12

So then I had what I've described for, you know, 20 some years, as a brick in my belly, Sitting, you know, right between my pubic bone and my umbilicus, right, just right. There happens to be, you know, like a bladder, you know, there a little bit of colon, Like you know it's yeah. So you know all of that started me on a path to just looking like why don't I feel like I'm being heard and why don't I feel like I'm being supported, and you know really kind of what else is out there for me, and you know, at that age it's like we always say, like our formative years are the first seven years, but my gosh, when we're in high school, you know, when you're best friends of vegan, you become a vegan, right when you're right, like so much influence like I was on the gymnastics team.

Speaker 2: 11:55

Can I, can we talk about eating disorders for a second? Like I was surrounded by it and thank God that was never. You know like a path of that drew me in. But I had a friend who was, you know like a near well, she was a vegetarian, of course, I went that route right. I don't know that that helped. But you start on this path of self discovery and and that like self individualizing, like taking yourself away from family, right, you're all crazy, you know, and starting to do things differently.

Speaker 2: 12:25

So, I started to see my own chiropractor. Thankfully that was like a gift my parents had had given us. I'd seen a chiropractor since I was 12. So I'm so grateful for that experience. But I started seeing my own chiropractors and then at 20, I realized you know, I think that I'm not cut out for this whole university education. So I've been in for a couple of years like pre-med biology. I'm out.

Speaker 2: 12:47

This is not what I thought it was going to look like. Nutrition 101 was not. I think I was looking for a little more W or like Weston a price at the time and I didn't know it existed, right, and. But I just remember sitting in this huge lecture hall for Nutrition 101. Going like I don't think I actually care about calories, but like this is not what I'm here for. So I I just started to at the.

Speaker 2: 13:13

What I needed was a life break. That's what I needed, right, and I need to give myself permission to do that. So I got out of school. I drove across the country, lived with one of my best friends in Mammoth Lakes, california, for a little while, begged for a job sweeping the floor of a convenience store at a resort for $6 an hour, lived off my credit card. You know, I couldn't afford to be there, I couldn't afford to be in school, I couldn't afford anything at the time. So, but I but I needed to ground out that's, that's what I'm seeing, right, and of course we get called to nature to do that. It was always very much called to that.

Speaker 1: 13:47

You know, sorry, something you said and I think that people can overlook that Sorry, something you said and I think that people can overlook. This is through that, that time, 161718. And, as you said, not feeling seen, not heard, yeah, and then let alone all the procedures that were done, yeah, the trauma that that triggers. And that is trauma, right. People talk about PTSD coming from you know whatever experiences, but but that accumulation, even one, and not being heard, not being seen, I think especially.

Speaker 1: 14:30

I think women have that, not because you're a woman, but because society is like, oh, they're just overreacting, which is such a disservice Because, as you said, in my heart I kind of thought it was my appendix, but who's listening to me? And and there's so much intuition and strength and power there. And then when you are told just kind of essentially, you know, shut up, this is what we're doing, the pain that that can cause and then the repercussion that potentially has for for life and for some people resentment, bitter, bitterness. I just won't ask questions, I just I won't speak up. Other people can take it just the opposite way and be like, no, I am, I am, I have to be the master of my own health because no one else is. And it's so just fascinating how our younger years play such a role in how we participate in society and in relationships because of things that happened then.

Speaker 1: 15:38

And sometimes you know 30s, 40s, you're like, oh man, I understand, I get it, but 20s, 30s, it's like I don't. Why am I responding this way? What's happening, I don't know? So challenging. We go back to those beginning years, even teens, and recognize, wow, that had a huge impact on me and how I am.

Speaker 2: 16:02

Well, I think too, there's something magical right that happens once you hit your 40s. It's like you've got the space and the wisdom to start unraveling and unpacking the first half of your life, right.

Speaker 2: 16:16

Yeah, for real Of course, like yeah, it's powerful. And what I started to see is that, in that you know 16 to say age 20, it was, you know, those little surgeries and those little procedures. They weren't like big big things, but what, yeah, but what they were, it was insult to injury, it was triggering of what was already there for my early, early childhood in all of those female areas, right Like in the place that I did not feel like I had any sovereignty, you know, I did not feel like I owned my own body, like I could have a say in my own body, and so I didn't, of course, know that at the time, I just knew that I jumped farther and farther out to spend my own skin, right, like get me out of here and that was a familiar place to be, so I could do that like that, like getting me back in my body, that that that took decades, right.

Speaker 2: 17:14

You know it's just a conscious effort to stay, stay grounded in that space. And so one of the things I've, I well so my mom, you know she's still living, but she had a lot of health issues, just least, you know, compounded health issues, and so calling 911 was normal in my household for you know, oh, we think she's had a stroke or we think these things have happened and and it was, it was just ingrained by no one other than the imagery, right, like that, this is, that is not going to be my path, that is scary, that is lonely, that is isolating, that is, you know, full of a lack of understanding. Right, I could, I could so clearly see all that and I was like I'm not signing up for that. So by the time I was 18, you know, like I said, I just sort of just in my own chiropractor when I was 20, I jumped into the.

Speaker 2: 18:11

At the time it was the most comprehensive bodywork program the Twin Cities had here. It was like an 18 month program and I was like 18 months, yep, I can do that. You know, like I couldn't see finishing my four year degree at the time like two years, those two 18 months, it was like I can, I can do that.

Speaker 2: 18:25

And so that's what I started to do. Randy was like that program's nine months Great, I'll do that. That program's six months Okay, I'll do that. And I just started stacking them on and that is what gave me power. I was like I get to follow my interest right, I get to immediately serve those that are like right in front of me and and like showing up in what felt like droves at the time for support and and I got to feel like I was in control of something which was really phenomenal.

Speaker 2: 18:52

But it wasn't until my forties that I started to see, with you know, a couple of health crashes I've had in the last two years that like, oh, I didn't, I wasn't present to the timeline that I had.

Speaker 2: 19:06

Gosh, you know, you think about the timelines you have to draw out in middle school World War I, world War, like right. And then just these, these big you dropping pyramid over here, right, you like you draw the White House over here. And when I start looking back at what those timelines are, I realized that I had a story called if I can make it, till I'm 36, which was when my mom was diagnosed with cancer. And then I had another story called if I can make it, which, like, just make it, it's just survival Hamster wheel, just jump on and spend the rest of your life just swirling, right, if I can make it to 45, which was when my mom had a heart attack Right, and I didn't catch this until I was probably like 36, 37, that I was like holy buckets. I am expending a lot of energy here working on what I don't want right.

Speaker 2: 20:01

Versus, like we see this all the time with our patients and client-based like that versus working on like what we do want and and say, like what we do have control over and around. So you know I'm 47, as of this past fall and you know, like once I made it to 45, there was no like. I made it like I'm here. This is amazing. It was more like what was I so afraid of? Why? Why did I live out the majority of the last two and a half decades from a place of fear, like in scarcity?

Speaker 1: 20:37

Right.

Speaker 2: 20:38

Holy crap, like that sets a tone, you know. And then that that ripple effect, right, like in every area of my life, like it's, it's crazy to be 47 and to be like I believe I've stood in a place of self-responsibility for many, many years, like I feel, like that was I was 12 when I started to have those conversations with myself. But I'm also like I can have those they're intuitive pings, right, because they land with like oh I can actually, that isn't mine. Okay, well, now that I've realized that I can let that be and I can move forward, right, so I've spent so much of my 40s like kind of cutting those cords, those invisible, but like dirty and rotting, you know, filthy cords that had me attached to things I couldn't control, to energies that weren't mine. To see, on the other side of that is that place of sovereignty and is that place of freedom and like speaking the truth right, like sharing what that reality was like.

Speaker 2: 21:49

For me, that's and not. You know, I heard something recently that I so loved, and it was someone you know telling the story about some of the traumas and things that she's experienced, and this was so important. She said I need you to understand that I'm telling this story from a place of thriving excuse me, not from a place of victim and still being there and still being in like the survival show, and I so loved that she created that discernment right there on the spot, because then her story is being told from a place of empowerment, and a place like here I am and here is what I've learned, and when we learn so deeply about ourselves like we can give so much more we can, like we can.

Speaker 2: 22:33

it's like relentless right, the giving, yeah, that we can do. It's a minute place where I can say I'm grateful for the experiences I've had. It's they're not how do you say that they're not like, they're not of me, like they didn't consume me. Now like they're of me, and then I can see how I can give from what I've learned.

Speaker 1: 22:53

Right, it's like it's our experiences give us. They have the ability not always they have the ability to give us this like superpower, right, that we can take it. And I love this aspect of it that we can choose what we want to focus on and what we don't, and the power and the strength that that gives us. I know I spent years, kind of you, talked about if I could just get to this age not necessarily that, but this expectation of if I can just have this event happen, then things will be better. And if I can just have this happen, and it's like you're actually doing all the things that you don't want, it's like you're just trying to avoid everything you don't want.

Speaker 1: 23:43

But, by doing that, you're getting the things you don't want.

Speaker 2: 23:47

Because of the force of fear.

Speaker 1: 23:49

Right, yeah, you're literally mentally, physically, spiritually, and it's like wait a minute, what am I doing? And it can be by a person, an event, something, and it just is a trigger. That's like wait, there's a different way to live. And I remember the first time I heard this from my coach. He said you know, you are not your thoughts and you're also not your brain. He's like you have a brain and you have thoughts.

Speaker 2: 24:17

That's a good little side note.

Speaker 1: 24:20

But you're not those things. And I'm like, okay, well then, who am I? He's like that's the problem, you don't even know who you are. And I'm like, well, of course I do. And he's like, okay, you can think that and you can go on thinking that, but if you actually look within, what have you been doing for the past several years of your life? Are you running from something or are you living and embracing what God's blessed you with? And it was like no, I'm not doing that. I'm definitely doing the former, which is out of fear, and it took me time to process that. Right, as you said, you spent years like not having that strength, that power. Hey, this is me, I am in control of my body, not somebody else. I don't have to give that power away. I thought so the same way, and I was trying to be something that I thought I had to be, and it was like no, just be you but man that internal work.

Speaker 1: 25:28

It can take decades. It doesn't have to Right, but it can, depending on how hard do we make it. Yeah yeah, and how open we can be to just allowing things to move through us and not like I gotta hold on to every single thing that comes because I own it. It's like no I don't own this things. I just wanna let this go.

Speaker 2: 25:51

I would catch myself saying things like oh, I'm an empath, I can pick up and feel what everybody else is feeling in the room. But the more I declared that as a superpower, the more I was housing myself right, because then I was just this open vortex. So I fought that for a lot of years, like why is it that I seem to attract crazies, like what's that about? And so I had to get really right with myself about what are my energetic boundaries? What am I allowed to? Just observe? And I can observe, notice it and let it be over there and not encompass it as my own. And something you were saying about, you know, not being your, you're not your thoughts and you're not your brain. So, as a form of self-expression, at a very young age I mean it was, you know, 10, 12, like I had diaries, I had journals. That's where I could speak freely and that's where I wrote down about the recurrent nightmares that I was having as a kid and that's where I was right, like in this scene, this is what happens. In this scene, that's what happens. And when I started to actually wake up to what had happened, you know, like what that particular trauma or set of traumas was I. You know I went to therapy probably 12, 13 years old and then, even then, though I loved that, I really did appreciate her, like she just was very grandmotherly and lovely and I felt safe in that, but I honestly spent till I was probably 22, 23, telling the same story and drawing the same picture almost every week, and that was part of like the unpacking that started or not even unpacking, but just the reality bite that I started to see. You know, between 18 and 20 was like what am I? I don't feel like this moves the needle and I feel like the needle should move. I don't know how or where, but not from here, right, and so so I stopped doing that and that's when I sought out, like the energy work, the light workers, right, like I started getting on the table of, you know, reiki masters, and then I was in this bodywork program, right, I was just like, oh, it felt so good to be touched, to be held, to be supported and then to be able to give that away also to other people.

Speaker 2: 28:14

And so, as I slowly started to you know, land back in my body, I was 20, like six, when I had our first daughter, and two years later, when we got married and I remember, you know, sort of like writing up our guest list, you know, doing all those like exciting things and having this aha moment that there's a part of my story here that hasn't been told. And starting to tell that story, I had a very unseen blog, like seven family members maybe you were following said blog at the time, you know, I didn't think you'd even find it anymore and I started to share some of that story and the flak, the flak I got, the ostracizing I got for what I was doing to our family by sharing what had actually happened to me, like was talk about diminishing, right, talk about disempowering, and at that point it did actually fuel the beat like bring it, I'm here to tell my story, like, and I'm just getting started, you know, and it's been so, it's been now 20, little over 20 years that I've been, you know, maybe at times more eloquently than others, able to share all you know and some instances in some crowds, some of that story and those triggers that then come on later in life, right, that are just this open wound from a past that was just unresolved, like, it's that simple. When I look back at it now, right, I remember like. So when things come up like I E say, I don't even really say triggers so much anymore, but I'll just say like a new memory or like a new thought about it, I can consciously say to myself like oh, I've now evolved to a place where that new me has to resolve it at a new level, right, there are new kind of inquiries to have like, there are new questions to pose of myself. Sometimes I have to call my mom and go like, okay, so this question, you know like, do you know the answer to this question?

Speaker 2: 30:32

And I appreciate those conversations because they give me clarity, right, and then they allow me to just ground deeper, clear that up for myself and move forward. But I think, like societally we hear don't do that, that doesn't serve anyone, you don't need to talk about this. Why are we talking about this again? Right, like those are the things that we hear out there from people. So that is just like that sovereignty and that being at peace with oneself. I mean more power to you to sort it out, right, and to who knew that that would be part of a guiding light for what I would do and who knew that it would also attract families and children and women who had been in similar scenarios Like that never occurred to me right as a what would show up in, you know, in my career and what causes autoimmune disease, what causes chronic illness, what causes this degenerative process in the body? Well, you and I both know, when you start tending to those emotional and energetic conversations, our symptom load starts to decrease.

Speaker 1: 31:40

Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 31:40

Right, the pain starts to lessen.

Speaker 1: 31:43

I think it's really interesting and I liked how you said this. Like that a new, a memory would happen, and now it's like this new me that is ready to maybe address this or to let it be, and it is like a renewal, like we have experiences. They renew us. We become a different person. Our friends and family looks at us as, oh, you're just, you know, like little Randy, you know kid and whatever. But we're not.

Speaker 1: 32:15

And I find that sometimes, like as you said when you started to write your blog and how family reacted, it's not so much it should be I use the word should this place of compassion oh, my gosh, I had no idea that this was your experience. As opposed to well, this means does this lesson who I am? Does this lesson on the other person that's reading? It's like, does this make me a bad person? And then we like attack. It's like wait, can we just have compassion and grace and just accept this was there, this was your story, this was your interpretation of that and it's okay. But how can we support and I think it's challenging in the midst of everything where, especially now, where things are so polarized, it's so much easier to react than to go within and not blame or guilt, but be like, wow, I had no idea that was going on, and have some compassion, so that then there's healing.

Speaker 1: 33:16

But also so interesting in that same where the new me, as you said, and then you're able to work through that and then you start to attract these people that may have never had a voice and that have never been listened to and, because of the experiences you had, it's like wait, yeah, no wonder they're coming, because I am going to listen and I've felt the pain and I've been unheard and unseen and now I'm a place where these women and kids can feel safe and they can share, and I think that's such a beautiful, a beautiful thing. So how, then, did that evolve? And I'm curious to know, like, as you started to see people, was it as you said? They just started showing up? But was there? Did there become like an intention of, hey, I am serving these people, I need to to help or reach out or grow myself so that I can help more people?

Speaker 2: 34:25

That's a good question If you consider that I was 20 years old when I completed my birth doula certification and was attending. I was a tense so so the midwife who trained me as a doula connected me with my first three doula clients, right like my certifying experiences, right where we get the evals and whatnot, am I? The first labor I attended was five days long. I'm 20 years old. I was like a part time nanny because that's the thing that actually paid my bills right?

Speaker 2: 35:08

Well, I was just trying to explore and grow this other side of myself and and I remember, you know, calling her as my mentor, in tears, like I'm on day three, like I need a nap, I need to go, like, but I can't leave her. You know what, how does this, how does this go into? Like she would come in and relieve me and and I started to see so much of myself in this, you know, young, laboring woman in the, in the waves of, as you know, like how many kids you have three, I have five, five, okay. And so you've been through labor, not you, but like you've supported the process right and these. And labor has different phases, right, and different phases of like, emotionally, how we see ourselves, and emotionally, you know, and then physically, how we express inside of moving this baby through that's rotating, you know, through our bodies and through the birth canal, and I would see her go to these places of surrender. It was like so beautiful and warm and just like gushy and like, oh, it's just so like life giving right. And then I would see fear take over and her body would shut down physically, right, and we would go to the places that we, like we her, her husband and I, like, would struggle to get her back to that safety place, that surrender. And I just remember going like I see myself, I see myself, I see myself, I see myself like in every phase of that. And and I remember when my mentor came to relieve me, you know, one of those long, long days I was like this is so hard and maybe I shouldn't be doing this right. And she, she said I, I picked her for you, Like she has a similar background of experience as you and this is going to heal part of who you are, to prep you for motherhood. And I just remember it was like someone had just dropped a concrete block, like, had tied my feet to the ground with cinder blocks. I was like, you know, like back in my body and I I'll never forget that, I'll never forget those shaping, you know, character shaping. Who am I grounding like personality grounding right Opportunities to watch myself grow as someone's evolving right in front of me, minute by minute, by minute.

Speaker 2: 37:24

So I continued, you know, I worked pro bono with some teen moms. I you know that that was a thing. They weren't being heard, they weren't being supported, they were ostracized by their families. You know, I didn't have the experience of a teen pregnancy myself, but like I could put myself in their shoes really easily and I didn't, I didn't advertise my background, but I magnetized is that's what I'll say right there was like a magnetism to who ended up in front of me and even when it wasn't in their intake form, it was like I got you, like I, I can see this, right, you do enough research.

Speaker 2: 38:01

At that point too, right, you're like, yeah, like a PhD and just in self knowledge, and then being able to like, line people up and be like Mm, hmm, right, but it helps to understand how to support you know these, these women and their families. You know inside of what they're going through. Because I'll tell you why, like most of, in my experience, most of these women and children that I work with there, these women didn't start waking up until their 40s, and I'm grateful, for I think I was waking up by 12. You know, I didn't know that and and I woke up alone, if that makes sense I didn't find that, you know, tribe, until maybe my early 20s, and then that was still. I still didn't have anybody doing things the way, the way I was doing it, right, like my mother-in-law.

Speaker 2: 39:03

I remember you know we, we presented the like okay, we're pregnant, you know we're having a home birth, this is what we're doing, this is very normal to me. Thankfully, my husband just really 100% supports. You might not understand, but he'll 100% support and back me in all of those decisions. And I remember my mother-in-law just going like I 100% trust you, but, girl, you've got balls. I remember thinking I mean I don't actually, but thank you, you know, because it wasn't about like courage or bravery or like like I don't know righteousness or something, and I don't know, maybe that's not what she was saying. It was about safety. I was like, well, this is obviously the safest stopper. This is like why would I do it any other way? Right, like home, like safety being grounded in my own space, eliminating millions of risks that lie out there. You know, potentially like.

Speaker 1: 39:54

But it was kind of your choice. Yeah, you are. You're the one that's in control. You're kind of calling the shots, so to speak, as opposed to being acted upon and not having any control, which is, you know what happened in your your teams and it's like no, I'm not going back to that. I'm not doing that Sure, that's awesome.

Speaker 2: 40:18

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 40:18

How did that then like so? How did how did this, these experiences, how did this lead you from being a doula working with, with expectant mothers? How did you then transition? What was the transition to? To health, to holistic health.

Speaker 2: 40:37

Yeah, okay, so what made that?

Speaker 2: 40:39

Yeah, well, one thing to know is I was taught how to muscle test when I was 20. So in in this bodywork program I was in, we were taught your basic. You know, lock, unlock and I remember just like, okay, well, that's cool. I don't really think I have anything to apply it to you outside of the sort of structural stuff I'm doing and use it very little. I also there was no like permission to do anything else with it, right, there was no thinking outside the box and so I Became my own little health nut. Right, I mean, I was. I did my pregnancies Western I price style.

Speaker 2: 41:11

Nobody else around me was doing that, you know I just I was shopping at the co-op. We were living off of literal Sticks and twigs from a money standpoint, robbing Peter to pay Paul. But darn it if I wasn't gonna shop at the co-op and buy our, you know, milk and eggs and cream and whatever from a farmer. Right, like this test how I did it? We run like raw milk driving rotations, we could get it where I lived and so, um I this is the beautiful thing about what happened. So these women have babies and the funny thing is they grow older, they grow into toddlers, they start going to school, and then I would get these text messages back.

Speaker 2: 41:50

When you know I had a blackberry, remember those right, yeah and you know, your cell phone was this big and and it would be like my husband was just diagnosed with gout like what do I do? Or my baby, da da, da, da, da, what do I do? And sometimes I just had an answer, but like it wasn't in my scope of practice. But I was there, trusted, I became family, I was there, I was there, go to and often like their first window into a more holistic realm, and so I had a literal Rolodex. You know the things that sat on the desk with the little business card.

Speaker 2: 42:25

I have could spin and that thing was fat because I I recognized early on there's value in. If I don't know the answer, I'm gonna tell them I don't know the answer. But I'm also gonna tell them that I know somebody who does, because I always did and even if I didn't, I was like I know.

Speaker 2: 42:41

One of these three people find somebody I'm gonna find someone right minute and that's just like that added value for myself, because I could learn along the way and then I could make these warm connections which I realized I was really good at doing and really, really loved. Like I really just love Like making sure people are connected into the right crowd and that they, you know, find their tribe, and and so as I was Fielding all of these calls, I remember thinking like if I could be paid for every quick question that led to a one-hour phone conversation, or let's have coffee, which was really let's pick your brain, and that was 90 minutes and my kids were in daycare I thought I couldn't afford.

Speaker 2: 43:20

And you know, like just that, right right like man, you know like I could have made some money doing that. And so it really just became that conversation of how can I like what is it that I need to know, or what like certificate do I need on the wall to Provide me with that reciprocity of Money in the bank for my time, wisdom and knowledge, right like I was actually starting to think like I've got these Multiple avenues of revenue but they're not really adding up, they're not making a difference and these people aren't getting better. And I I was also like it was a Doing first-line therapy for, like through metagenics that was working in a functional medicine clinic, but you know, like nothing was actually paying the bills. And then I was frustrated because there was this block to how far I could take and support people, and a block a block, a block mentally or a block like.

Speaker 2: 44:20

It was probably more of a mental block than anything, because it was the whole world that I had made up about, what I don't have access to, which had access to all of. I just didn't like know where to tap in. But all this time, randy, my babies are being muscle tested by carapactors and I was being muscle tested by a chiropractor in Chicago. Like I was getting distance testing, like in my early 20s, like in my first pregnancy, and the guy nailed it every time and like a week later three or four supplements would show up. I would take them and like, bam, you know, it would handle you. And so I started thinking like wait a second, if this whole, like telling everybody to try going gluten-free and dairy-free Works for the majority of people only for a certain percentage of the time, you know, yes, it's better for everyone. But like there's something more. If I knew just something a little more specific about you, I could really guide your Hulse coaching plan in a, you know, much more individualized way. Yeah, and so then I started thinking about muscle testing and that just because of my experience here in the state of Minnesota, I was like, oh, I have to have a license, have to be a nurse after you know. So. So that's what caused me to go down that road I think it was like 2009 to seeking more specific training in muscle testing and then, you know, obviously, since I've had just a ton of of different training opportunities with muscle testing, but it was truly those families that just kept on growing and kept having babies and kept having reflex and postpartum depression and whatever it scars that won't heal, you know, inflammatory responses, migraine headaches, whatever it was. And I'm over here like I'm getting kind of tired of telling everybody to try going gluten-free and dairy-free, like there's got to be another way. Yeah, so it. For me, most of what happens in my life, or I wanted to say, like what I may happen or what I you know, it's probably just a manifestation comes from like noticing the gap and then and Then kind of looking, answering that question like what's the bridge? Like what if I'm here and that's there, what? What's the bridge? And like so how do I, how do I set that next board so that I can safely get across? And and though I don't think that's, you know, been conscious for a long time, it was definitely I'm clear that I had to turn my own course.

Speaker 2: 46:46

I consciously at 27, when I went back to finish my four-year degree with a four-month-old baby on my hip, was, like I Need this thing to fall back on. I need this four-year degree, right, like what if I had to go into the corporate? Like already, you're like all of the like scarcity inside of that, right, yeah. And so when I was told that I could, I could go kind of as to going to this private women's college, like if I could go to the weekend college program Then I could be with my baby during the week you know, see my clients while they're sleeping, like do that. But that meant I had to drop my science degree and that was like wait a second, I don't think you understand. I was ten when I knew that I was gonna be a doctor, right, like it was.

Speaker 2: 47:35

Talk about faith walk, talk about trusting that fall of Declaring business and communications as my major like I Will, nice, I can put myself right back in my advisor's office on that like dirty brown couch, like so fast. Um, because I remember the like, the sacrifice that it felt like it was, the giving up that it felt like it was, and it Took me a couple of years to like go back to like wait a second, I started school and then I started this little business slash a hobby, right, but like okay, and then I took this course, and then I took that course. I Was just like, just keep doing that. That's what showed up for me. I could just keep doing that. So it became clear to me you know, by I was 30 like I'm turning my own course here, like I've got to figure out how to get to where I want to go and serve people in the way that I'm, you know, here to serve. But I don't think the path is linear and I actually don't think that there's like a school for that.

Speaker 1: 48:36

Yeah, what was it? I love, I love what, how you said, like it was just one, that these things happened Organically, not necessarily intentionally, yeah, but that there was this inside of you, this Wait, no, but this is what I'm supposed to be doing, and this keeps showing up in my life, and then the ability to continue to, to just Take steps towards that. I think it's so easy to Get distracted or discouraged, and be like. This just isn't working. It's not yeah.

Speaker 1: 49:14

It's not paying the bills or it's not you know doing this or people say this about it, but just that innate Strength, drive to just know, just keep keep walking this path, keep going forward. I think that's so, so beautiful and so important for people to hear that when you have that inside of you, there's gonna be fear, there's gonna be doubt, like we're human, but just if there's something from your heart, keep going that direction right, because, again, we're not our brain, we're not our thoughts.

Speaker 2: 49:46

It's a dangerous place to be up here.

Speaker 1: 49:47

We are. We are, we're spiritual beings and and there's this love and light that pulls us to when our spirit wants to go. And if we can Listen to that, instead of this man, it's amazing what we're able to do and then who we're able to, to learn from, to be blessed by, to bless, and and you know, and now, I mean now, you're teaching muscle testing to practitioners all across the US and you know you're meant to. That's so just awesome of where that's taken to you by listening to. No, this is the direction I need to go.

Speaker 2: 50:28

This is this path. Just keep going and it'll somehow right.

Speaker 1: 50:32

It's gonna, it's gonna, it's gonna work.

Speaker 2: 50:34

Yeah, I, you know, kind of one of the because there are sometimes you run into people and they're like, how did you do that? And like they kind of want a bullet pointed list of you know, just my favorite. I was like, well, I mean, I took these courses, but I don't, I can't. I can tell you what I got out of it, but the getting it isn't from taking the course, it was from, you're right, like we each have to, you know, get there on our own, but there's this visual. So I, you know, I'm in an initial visit or in a report of findings, and it's my first opportunity to say to people, you know, even when I'm teaching, it's like here are the things to know about me.

Speaker 2: 51:13

I'm very intuitive, I'm very visual, I speak kindergarten, I talk in pictures and and I have seen over the years that I think it's what helps me relate to people and or for them to, you know, relate to me.

Speaker 2: 51:28

And so when it comes to opportunities or even just possibilities, you know, you just get all kinds of things right, like, like you know, when I got your message about being on this podcast, it's, it's when I, you know, I don't just say yes to everything, Like I take this opportunity and I just I sit. It's like not, you know, it could be a few seconds, but here's what happens for me is I see a tunnel and there's white light and some people like, oh my gosh, that's, that's a near death experience thing. It's like no, for me, that it like that's the way that's, that is the light, like that keeps me safe and protected and in the light, and I know that I'm good to go when that's when that's there, that that light starts to flicker, you know, or that light has gone out, then I know that like something's going to shake down or like you know that opportunity isn't, isn't for me, and so it took me a long time to realize, like the gift, that that is the stopping and the listening and the looking right.

Speaker 1: 52:32

Huge gift.

Speaker 2: 52:33

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 52:34

And and we can be when we recognize what those gifts are and the potential they have for us, then to do good it's. Let me ask this I'm not going to finish that I thought how have you learned to trust that? Because there's a lot of things that would. That would say okay, yeah, whatever sure white light? Great, but what about what if? How have you learned to, to trust that?

Speaker 2: 53:08

So I would describe that as I'll like describe it in the world of like peopleing. You know, people come into your life Like I used to spend a lot of time making myself wrong on like well, why, let's say we have like the same, we had a different set of midwives for every one of our kids births and I would have just easily gone to the indeed, you know like who was our last midwife and not available. Okay, moving on like that. So it was just like what was available. We had the same birth doula for our first two birds, but between number two and number three, you know, like life happened and there was no longer that like immediate connection I'm clear, still there, like one of those pick up the phone, pick up where we left off, kind of thing. But life had happened and other opportunities and I was then training a doula who had become a dear friend and had been apprenticing for nearly six years at that point and that was the obvious choice for for that like doula support at that time.

Speaker 2: 54:08

And so I've grown to understand that people come and go. It's just phases. It doesn't mean anything, you know it doesn't. Doesn't mean anything if you consider a friendship has dissolved. Did it dissolve or did just did like show up, right, and it's not like there are other people who are more opportunistic. It's like we've got kids, we've got businesses and we've got spouses and you're just kind of bouncing around it. Everybody's doing the same thing too, and you can be intentional and you can pick things back up Like but and those kinds of things have become the.

Speaker 2: 54:43

How I've learned to trust is when I know that I can pick up the phone and call any one of those people and know it's going to be just like it was the last time we talked. Right, like, to me that's like analogous to seeing that white light and getting like the thumbs up, like this is good, like you're good to go here, but that's not going to last forever. That's what I mean. Right, so like with the light flicker so that like goes out, it's like hi, you know, like some things, you know fading here. It doesn't mean it's bad, it just means like next, you know, next scene, like next phase.

Speaker 1: 55:14

Yep, you know I often share with people when, when testing things out and we're doing products, they'll say something like well, you know, I took that before and it didn't work. Like okay, does that mean it's not going to work now? Or if hey, I took this 10 years ago, it was amazing. I think it'll do the same thing, will it?

Speaker 2: 55:36

Maybe yeah.

Speaker 1: 55:38

Maybe it will, maybe it won't, and I think that that's that's. I liken that to what you're saying, that it's okay that we, that we move on or we circle back or this. This was in our life, this was essential and and now it's not. It's just this growth that happens and I think it's we want to hold on to. Maybe sometimes it is the past we want to hold on because there was certainty there for safety and that thing and that can.

Speaker 1: 56:09

I think that can be limiting as well, because it's well, no, it has to be the same way. Why? What is the limitation there? And I think it's really cool that you've used those experiences to know and to refine that gift and to be able to say it's going to be okay, this is, this is going to work and and if it flickers, you know, okay, maybe need to look somewhere else. But to trust that and that trust right, that that love for self, trust for self is is so critical, and yet that can be one of those things that is so elusive. And why don't want to trust myself? I need some external validation. It's like, no, maybe sometimes there's there's need for that, but to trust yourself and watch it manifest and watch how the gifts, the blessings, the things come and then remember oh yeah, that was because I trusted.

Speaker 1: 57:07

That's because I listened and I followed that guidance.

Speaker 2: 57:12

Well, it's also like the resonance effect right, like if we're clear, like there's a resonance, right, like if we're on, if it's a go, like there's a, there's a resonance. And so you could sort of say, like that light is, like its resonance, it's just a frequency, it's a vibration of what I'm feeling and where I'm at and in that safety and being grounded and right like we're all just frequency.

Speaker 1: 57:36

Yeah, yeah, and that's so key. So you were saying just it's, it's this energy and it resonates, does it, does it flow, does it work with us? And I think again, it's just it's essential that we recognize how that works for us and what that feels like and what is that manifesting for us, and then learn to refine and trust. And there's just there's, there's a beauty in that and there's a gift to that. And I think that if people have, as they've listened to you today, I think that maybe they can take that and say Well, what is my gift? How do I, what do I resonate with and what are the gifts that I have that help guide me? And and then, just how do I trust that? I think, from what you've shared, it's like you just have to trust and let things play out, because if you don't trust, you'll never see how they play out and you'll never see, like, grow into that gift. Right, it's, and there's trial, there's error, there's.

Speaker 1: 58:38

Oh yeah, challenge, but that's that's where the gift is right, because we learn and grow. And then we see, oh my gosh, now you're again. Now you're, you're testing practitioners and you are helping teach practitioners, and and who would have thought at age 10, when you're like I'm gonna be a doctor? Who would have thought then that you're like I'm gonna be teaching people around the country how to do this and then having this reach, that is, that is, that is massive, beyond just an individual, which is beautiful and and there's. But to be able to touch so many people through what you do is amazing, and I think it's just beautiful how that's evolved and organically happen. Yeah, because you've trusted. Yeah, thank you so much. Any, any, any final thoughts, any, any final things you want to share? You shared a lot.

Speaker 2: 59:36

Yeah, I did. It's like you never know where these conversations are going to go, right and and also following that flow, like you know where are we in residence and what, what, what's that next? Like not planning for what's coming next, right, and like in conversation, you know, if I'm just reflecting back on all the things that we've talked about, I think you know if I could leave a message with with people it's like don't wait till your 40s to start to start that unpacking and that reflecting and and allowing that that I've been saying a lot lately. These people, like I've never felt so self centered and and that's going to land how it lands for some people, right and right gonna land out lands for others, and in that it's I'm clear, it's been in there, I'm aware of that feeling, but it's scared me. So I've been running away from that for a couple of decades instead of leaning into that and utilizing that as my strength.

Speaker 2: 1:00:41

And I just think like man, if I had, if I, you know, like if I really could have trusted that and leaned on that in my 20s you know, raising babies and in my early 30s and, and you know, starting businesses and like gosh, so fascinating, right, like where that would have taken me. And my path is my path, you know I, like I'm where I am because it was the right time. And so that, trusting oneself, trusting that voice, the intuitive pangs, the voice of God, like, whatever it is you want to call it like, listen to that, listen to it, listen deep, listen, hard, right and follow, like your heart, will exactly be in resonant with where, like those decisions and and what life is bringing at you, and like, and you'll know the answers right there.

Speaker 1: 1:01:27

So cool. Thank you so much. So appreciate who you are. You are. You're a beautiful human being and you have so much to share and I so appreciate that. And just getting to know you has been awesome. Where, where can people find you?

Speaker 2: 1:01:39

Well, instagram seems to be like a great spot. I, my personal handles Nicole Hirsch, keekley, kuechle, and then our practice is my healthy beginning, of course. My healthy beginning dot com, if you're looking for our website.

Speaker 1: 1:01:55

Awesome.

Speaker 2: 1:01:56

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:01:57

Well, again, thank you. This is going to be part one. Part two is going to be equally amazing and awesome. And just appreciate you. And please, for those of you listening, please like and share. There's so many people I'm going to say women, men too Right, we need to hear this message of, of trusting, unpacking, going inward, going deep and really finding our gifts, our talents, our strengths and the living that, because you never know who you're going to bless, I trust that that voice. So, thank you so much. Blessings to you, thank you, see you. Thanks for joining me on this episode of restore the real podcast. This show is supported and informed by not only my own deep personal work, but also the deep healing work that we offer our patients here at Total Body Wellness Clinic and the show. Next below you'll find all the links that you'll need to hop on a discovery call with our team for some one to one support, follow along on social media or even learn about some of our favorite recommendations and products. Until next time, keep it real.