Why We Combine Healing with Coaching

There was a time when Chris & I worked apart - Chris with his coaching, myself with my healing. There were certain clients, however, that just weren't getting results.

For example, as great as Chris's mindset coaching skills are, some clients had some serious physiological imbalances that were majorly affecting their motivation, mood and fatigue, that made making changes near impossible. There were also some clients who had physiological imbalances that led to addictive thoughts and behaviour - as much as Chris tried to shift a person's mindset to enable change, those addictions were just too strong.

On the other hand, although I have pretty kick-butt testing analysis skills and clinical nutritional knowledge to reverse physiological imbalances (if I do say so myself, haha), some clients needed more coaching and support to overcome mind-blocks and stay on track with treatment plans. Healing is never as simple as doing some tests and popping some pills - often healing requires an overhaul of the mind and the lifestyle, and the perseverance to see healing through to the end (which for some, can take years - yes, YEARS! - especially if more digging to the root cause is needed). Additionally, some clients had experienced trauma in the past, which had actually caused physiological damage. When trauma is present, nutraceutical supplements are often not enough to overcome this damage to achieve optimal health - it often takes psychological healing as well, which is where mindset coaching can come in.

We knew there was a better way, to not only find our clients answers, but also to offer them EFFECTIVE and long-lasting solutions.

We'd been thinking of combining our skills to create a unique and holistic Functional Medicine practice for a long time. It took the world shutting down during COVID-19 for it to become a reality! (Thank you nasty virus...you weren't all bad!). Over the course of some very intensive months, we created our Signature Chris & Filly Functional Medicine System (the first of its kind...in the WORLD!) which aims to give you back Clarity, Calm, Control & Confidence using testing, mindset & lifestyle coaching, and nutraceutical supplements.

Testing

Testing is fundamental to all that we do when it comes to assessing the root cause of your health issues and creating treatment plans. My motto since practicing functional medicine has always been "test don't guess!" Too often people are Dr Googling their symptoms and self-diagnosing themselves, popping pill after pill or trying diet after diet to try and address their health issues. Many natural therapists also prescribe based on guess-work. This is how I used to practice when I was doing Clinical Nutrition alone. Although I had many years of training and experience and could make some intelligent assumptions, sometimes my guesswork was off the mark. Now our main form of diagnosis is done using scientifically-approved pathology functional lab testing, to detect the physiological imbalances that are causing your symptoms.

Many of the tests we run differ from that of medical tests. These tests don't diagnose disease (as does medical testing), rather they identify functional imbalances that cause symptoms and diseases. The tests are very sensitive at looking for functional imbalances, which is why our tests will discover issues, when all your usual medical testing comes back 'fine.' We test for issues in the neuroendocrine system (hormones, brain, mitochondria), the gastrointestinal system (pathogens, microbiome, digestive organ dysfunction, food allergies/intolerances), and the detoxification system (how well the liver is breaking down toxins and excreting waste from the body). Most testing is down via saliva, stool or urine. Sometimes we do blood testing. 

We also do other types of testing, such as manual therapy testing to identify dysfunctions in the body, as well as using questionnaires, workbooks and psychological analysis to identify 'imbalances' in your mindset or lifestyle.

Mindset

After testing, comes mindset. Mindset is so crucial to achieving true healing. Without a solid mindset, you will likely give up when the going gets tough, or feel so overwhelmed in the first place, that you don't even really start your healing journey. I saw this time and time again in the past, before we changed the structure of our practice to include mindset coaching. In the past, some people came in to see me, happy to listen to what I thought wrong with them and how I could help them, happy even to dish out their hand-earned cash for testing and supplements. Yet they gave up too early. And most likely hopped from healing modality to healing modality, trying to find a quick-fix for their health issues. Because of a lack of mindset, they really struggled stick it out to the end. Our style of mindset coaching helps you to understand not only where you want to be, but also WHY you are embarking on this healing journey in the first place. Having this solid, soul-depth WHY will help you to keep working on your health, even when the going gets tough (and trust me, life will at some stage get tough!).

We also use mindset coaching to help you bring structure to your struggles. Many people come to us feeling like their brain is an absolute mess - and their health, their lifestyle and their relationships often reflect this. We help you sort through, and overcome your mess. Often this mess is what is actually causing your health issues in the first place. If this is the case, without healing the mind, you will never be able to heal the body. Maybe in the short term you might feel better, but over time things will start unravel again.  

Lifestyle

We love the quote by Hippocrates: "It is more important to know what sort of person has a disease than to know what sort of disease a person has." While we use testing as the foundational block to assess dis-ease and prescribe treatment, it is definitely not enough simply to know that you have SIBO, or adrenal fatigue, or leaky gut, or candida overgrowth, or detoxification issues. We need to look at WHY this happened in the first place. We need to look at YOU and YOUR LIFESTYLE to identify if there is anything in your life that is causing these physiological imbalances. Through our Rise Up Protocol, we do this in a very methodical way, scrutinising important parts of your lifestyle (eating, stress, sleep and movement) and coach you through how to improve these aspects of your life.

As you move into our Immersion Protocol, we dive deeper into other elements of lifestyle which can cause dis-ease, and which can be used to fully and holistically heal your body, mind & spirit, including looking into your spiritual, emotional environmental, intellectual, social, vocational/financial health, as needed. In doing this we help you to heal all elements of wellness, which will set the stage for long-lasting health. 

Nutraceuticals

Finally, the fourth element of our Signature Functional Medicine System is to use practitioner-grade nutraceutical supplements to heal your body systems. We only prescribe what you need based on lab testing or other types of clinical testing. This can give you the confidence that the medicine that you are taking is what your body actually needs. The therapeutic power of these supplements help to accelerate your healing, and often they are an absolutely necessary part of healing, especially when there are severe nutritional deficiencies, nasty pathogens, or genetic defects which are affecting the way your body metabolises nutrients.

The aim is to use therapeutic support for a short period of time to restore the imbalances, and then your new healthy mindset and lifestyle will continue to maintain the improvements you have made so that you can live the life you have always wanted!

Author: Filipa Bellette, Functional Medicine Practitioner & Clinical Nutritionist

Chris & Filly Functional Medicine

If you would like more information about our functional medicine practice and to see if this is something that could help you, click this link to Apply For Free Discovery Call.