What It’s Like to Work With Me: A Long-Game Approach to Minerals, Microbes, and Healing

Most people come to my work, Minerals & Microbes, when they're at an impasse.

They’ve exhausted many other approaches: diet changes, practitioners, lab tests, protocols. Maybe years of it. And while some things helped, the approach has been wildly incoherent. They’ve been reacting to symptoms as they arise and chasing causes, but nothing has actually rebuilt the body in a way that feels stable or sustainable.

If you’re here, you’ve probably already tried a lot.

I know this because I’ve watched people arrive having been run through the same few loops the functional health world keeps people cycling through.

Some show up with 15+ bottles of supplements, taken with religious precision, hoping that if they just get the stack right, their body will finally organize.

Others arrive with a supplement graveyard in their cabinets and a nervous system that flinches at the thought of adding one more thing. They’ve been burned by the industry, overwhelmed by conflicting advice, and exhausted by how much effort it’s taken just to feel a little better.

Most people have been caught somewhere in between.

They’ve run parasite protocols. Gut cleanses. Metal detoxes. Gallbladder flushes. Mold binders. Antimicrobials. Nervous system rewiring programs. They’ve tried to kill things, flush things, fix things, seal things, detox things — often without anyone stepping back to ask whether the terrain could actually support that level of intervention.

They’ve also been on the functional testing roller coaster:
blood work, hormone panels, organic acids, stool tests, food sensitivity panels — or the constant anxiety of wondering which test they should run next to finally prove what’s wrong. There’s always another marker to chase, another imbalance to interpret, another data point that feels urgent but doesn’t actually change how the body functions day to day.

And food?

That’s often where the most damage has quietly accumulated.

Many people have cycled through elimination diets for years — gluten-free forever, dairy-free forever, grain-free, low FODMAP, carnivore, vegan, autoimmune, “clean,” “anti-inflammatory.”

Real foods became suspects instead of asking why the body was rejecting them. Meals became negotiations, and eating turned into a performance of control rather than nourishment. Suddenly, people were afraid of real food because each expert convinced them that some category of food was the problem.

So restriction was framed as discipline and almost became a virtue signal.
Fear of foods, laced with scientific language, was framed as awareness — without questioning the obvious fact that elimination and restriction don’t restore a healthy terrain.

They narrow it.

A narrowed ecosystem doesn’t become resilient. It becomes fragile.

I keep all real foods on the table because no single diet matches every terrain, and removing foods entirely — especially ones that may eventually be supportive — simply because they’re difficult right now often delays healing instead of creating it.

Then there’s the label chase.

People are told — or decide — that they have something specific:
SIBO. MCAS. Hypermobility. PANS/PANDAS. “Adrenal fatigue.” Histamine intolerance. Estrogen dominance. Nervous system dysregulation.

They pursue that label with intensity. They find protocols, specialists, supplements designed to treat that thing. But the label is addressed in isolation, outside the context of their whole ecosystem.

So it doesn’t hold.

Your gut, nervous system, immune system, fascia, hormones, and mineral terrain don’t operate as separate departments. They adapt together. And when you treat one piece without reorganizing the terrain underneath it, the body compensates — until it can’t.

This is why so many people feel like they’ve “done everything” and are still stuck.

All of these approaches are attempts to force coherence without first restoring capacity.

That’s where my work is different.

Healing Requires a Parasympathetic Lifestyle

This work is not fast. It's not aggressive. And it's not something you can force your way through.

Healing from chronic health issues requires a parasympathetic pace — spaciousness, rhythm, and enough safety in the system for real repair to occur.

Your gut lining doesn't regenerate in fight-or-flight. The enterocytes that form your intestinal barrier, the cells that decide what gets absorbed and what stays out—they have a lifespan of 3-5 days. They're constantly turning over. But if your nervous system is in chronic sympathetic activation, those cells don't differentiate properly. The tight junctions stay loose. The mucus layer stays thin. The barrier stays permeable.

This is why people can take all the gut-healing supplements in the world and still have leaky gut. The terrain won't allow repair.

That doesn't mean you stop living your life. It means we stop asking your body to do everything at once.

We work with what your system can handle now, and we let capacity build.

The First Phase: Understanding Your Landscape

When someone signs up for Minerals & Microbes, the first thing we do is assess the landscape.

Not just symptoms — but:

• What phase of stress physiology you're in

• How much inflammation your system is carrying

• How your nervous system is responding to life

• How your body is holding minerals, water, and charge

• How safe (or guarded) your internal environment feels

This is where Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis (HTMA) is invaluable. It helps us understand:

• Long-term stress patterns (not what happened yesterday, but what your body has been doing for months)

• Metabolic strategies your body has been using to survive

• Mineral holding and loss patterns

• Nervous system bias (sympathetic vs parasympathetic)

For example: If your calcium is very high relative to magnesium on HTMA, your system is in a rigid, protective holding pattern. You might feel like you can't let go—literally can't relax your muscles, can't soften into sleep, can't release tension even when you want to. That's not "just stress." That's your cellular terrain telling you it's not safe enough to let down.

From there, we focus first on bringing down acute inflammation and increasing capacity through hydration, charge, voltage, and stability.

Depending on the person, this phase can take weeks to months. And that's normal.

Gut Remodeling Happens in Context

Once the landscape is steadier, we look at the gut ecology through BiomeFX.

This isn't about hunting pathogens or killing bacteria. It's about understanding:

• Diversity (do you have a monoculture or a forest?)

• Keystone species (the ones that hold the whole ecosystem together)

• Fermentation patterns (what are your microbes producing?)

• Motility (is everything moving, or is it stagnant?)

• Mucosal barrier integrity (is your gut lining actually intact?)

• Vagal signaling (is your gut talking to your brain in a way that supports regulation?)

The gut does not remodel well under pressure. It remodels when the system feels safe enough to change.

I've had clients whose BiomeFX shows missing Akkermansia (the keystone species that maintains your mucus layer) and missing Faecalibacterium (the major butyrate producer that feeds your gut lining).

You can't just "add" these back with a probiotic. The terrain has to shift first. The pH has to change. The mineral availability has to improve. The nervous system has to calm down enough that the gut lining can even accept colonization.

So we:

• Support bowel motility gently (not laxatives—bitters, magnesium, the right fiber, movement)

• Strengthen the mucosal barrier  (reducing irritants & adding the right nutrients)

• Calm the vagus nerve (this is THE highway between gut and brain)

• Reduce inflammatory signaling (address what's triggering the immune system)

• Widen nourishment without shocking the system (more diversity, not restriction rather appropriately including and minimizing foods that align with the current gut terrain)

Everything we do is paced. If something disrupts sleep, digestion, or regulation — we pivot, titrate or slow down. Nothing is forced.

Minerals First, Always

Minerals are the foundation.

Without adequate mineral availability:

• The nervous system can't recalibrate

• Fascia stays guarded

• Hormones struggle to find rhythm

• The gut can't repair or reorganize

We don't chase numbers. We work with patterns.

Magnesium and calcium work collaboratively but in polarity—magnesium relaxes, calcium contracts. If your ratio is off, your body is literally stuck in contraction. Your muscles. Your blood vessels. Your thoughts.

Copper and zinc balance each other—copper builds structure (collagen, connective tissue, neurotransmitters), zinc regulates inflammation and immune function. If copper gets too high relative to zinc, you get anxiety, racing thoughts, emotional volatility. If zinc gets too high relative to copper, you get immune dysfunction and can't build tissue properly.

Sodium and potassium regulate cellular charge. They determine whether your cells can hold voltage, produce energy, and respond to signals. When these are depleted or imbalanced, you feel foggy, depleted, like you're running on fumes.

Over time, we shift mineral holding strategies so your body doesn't have to stay in survival mode.

This Is a Mentorship, Not a Hand-Off

I don't "fix" you.

I teach you how to read your body, pace yourself, and understand what signals mean so you're not guessing or outsourcing your authority.

That's why weekly check-ins are required between sessions. They allow us to:

• Track how your body is responding

• Adjust pacing

• Decide whether to hold steady or move forward

• Build trust between you and your system

You don't change your diet overnight. You don't overhaul your life. You learn how to implement changes without destabilizing your sleep, digestion, or nervous system.

We go as fast as the slowest part of you can go — because that's how change holds.

The Timeline People Rarely Talk About

Here's the honest truth:

• Acute inflammation can often calm within months

• Nervous system recalibration can take 1–2 years

• Gut ecology remodeling can take longer, depending on terrain

• Structural and fascial patterns unwind gradually

That's not failure. That's biology.

I've never seen two guts that look the same on BiomeFX. Everyone has multiple layers: they need more diversity, they have inflammatory metabolites to some degree, missing keystone species, possible overgrowths, lack of functional capacity. No protocol outside of understanding their exact terrain could correctly repair this. That's why personalization matters. That's why we work with YOUR data, YOUR patterns, YOUR nervous system response.

Anyone who has built a garden understands this:

Year one is foundation laying.
You assess the soil, address what’s dominant, and create conditions that allow anything new to take root.

Year two is momentum building.
The system starts working with you. Inputs compound. Less effort produces more stability.

Year three becomes stewardship.
You’re no longer rebuilding—you’re maintaining, refining, and responding to seasonal shifts.

Most people start to feel noticeably different within the first 4–6 months. Not because everything is “fixed,” but because their system is finally organizing instead of compensating. That’s usually when they realize the work is actually holding—and they choose to continue.

How the Program Is Structured

Minerals & Microbes is a four-session, four-month container designed as a grounded entry point into this work.

• Session 1: Comprehensive health history + HTMA review
  We assess stress physiology, mineral holding patterns, hydration, charge, and nervous system bias. This gives us a clear picture of the terrain your body has been surviving in.

• Session 2: BiomeFX review + gut–nervous system strategy
  We look at microbial diversity, keystone species, fermentation patterns, inflammatory signaling, motility, and mucosal integrity—always in the context of your mineral status and nervous system state.

• Sessions 3 & 4: Integration, refinement, and momentum
  This is where we observe how your system is responding, adjust pacing, support motility and barrier repair, and begin widening nourishment without destabilization.

Many people choose to re-enroll, and this is where the work deepens.

• The second round typically continues terrain and gut support based on the first BiomeFX, while re-running HTMA. Mineral patterns tend to shift more quickly than gut ecology, so this gives us valuable feedback on how your system is reallocating resources and whether it can hold more change.

• The third round may revisit both HTMA and BiomeFX, allowing us to see how much reorganization the gut has actually completed, how inflammation has shifted, and what capacity has been restored. This is often where deeper rebuilding and stabilization become possible.

Over the course of a year—or sometimes a year to a year and a half—this creates continuity that’s paced, contextual, and responsive, rather than overwhelming or protocol-driven. The work evolves as your body does.

Who This Work Is For

This work tends to resonate with people who:

• Are thoughtful and body-aware

• Are burned out on protocols

• Sense that their symptoms are systemic, not random

• Want to rebuild rather than manage

• Are ready to participate, not surrender

It's not about perfection. It's about organization, patience, and stewardship.

My Approach: Mentorship Without Surrender

Healing isn't about handing your body, your decisions, or your life over to someone else.

It's about reclaiming your authority, learning to collaborate with your body, and practicing real agency — with guidance.

I create space and provide structure. I model the steps and walk beside you. You do the climbing.

This mirrors how skill and wisdom were cultivated for most of human history: guidance without control, support without coercion.

Here, you learn how to steward your body, mind, and microbiome in a way that lasts.

If this brings relief instead of urgency — you're probably in the right place.

And if it feels slower than what you're used to?

That's because it works.

Who This Work Is Not For

This work is not for everyone. And that's intentional.

Not because it's elite or inaccessible, it requires a specific relationship to time, agency, and the body. If those pieces aren't in place (or aren't something you're willing to cultivate), this won't feel supportive. It will feel frustrating.

So let's be clear.

This Work Is Not for People Looking for a Quick Fix

If you're hoping for:

• A 30-day reset

• A supplement stack that "fixes everything"

• A protocol you can follow without paying attention to your body

• A dramatic before-and-after story in a few weeks

This isn't that.

If you've already spent years cycling supplements every three months and wondering why nothing holds, you'll understand why.

Chronic issues don't resolve on a deadline. They unwind as safety, capacity, and coherence return. That takes time and it doesn't move faster just because we want it to.

This Work Is Not for People Who Want to Be Told What to Do

If you want:

• A rigid plan

• Exact rules

• Someone else to be responsible for your outcomes

• Compliance instead of collaboration

This will feel uncomfortable.

I've had clients who get anxious when I say "let's see how your body responds to this and adjust from there." They want me to tell them exactly what to eat, exactly when to take supplements, exactly how long it will take. But your body doesn't work on a script.

I don't micromanage bodies. I don't override intuition. And I don't replace your agency with mine.

This is mentorship, not management.

This Work Is Not for People Who Need Certainty at Every Step

If you feel anxious unless:

• Everything is mapped out in advance

• You know exactly how long healing will take

• There's a guarantee of specific outcomes

• Nothing ambiguous or nonlinear happens

This work may be too destabilizing.

Your gut microbiome reorganizes based on what you eat, your stress levels, your sleep, your environment, your mineral status. It's a living ecosystem. We can predict patterns, but we can't script outcomes.

Biology is adaptive, responsive, and alive. We work with feedback, not promises.

This Work Is Not for People Who Are Still at War With Their Bodies

If your mindset is:

• "My body is broken"

• "My body is betraying me"

• "I need to force this to change"

• "I just need to push through"

We're not aligned yet.

I've worked with people who talk about their gut like it's an enemy. They want to "kill the bad bacteria," "seal the leaky gut," "detox everything." But your gut lining is permeable for a reason—it's been under chronic stress, inflammatory load, nutrient depletion. Your microbiome adapted to survive the terrain you've been living in.

This work assumes your body has been doing its best to survive in difficult terrain. We don't punish it for that. We listen to it, slow it down, and rebuild trust.

This Work Is Not for People Who Want to Skip the Foundations

If you're uninterested in:

• Minerals

• Hydration

• Nervous system state

• Motility

• Sleep

• Pacing

…and only want to jump straight to advanced gut protocols, detox strategies, or aggressive microbial manipulation — this won't be satisfying.

I can't tell you how many people show up wanting to add 12 new things and do a parasite cleanse when their HTMA shows they're depleted in magnesium, sodium, and potassium—which means their cells can't even hold a charge. Their gut lining can't repair without substrate.

We don't build on unstable ground.

This Work Is Not for People Who Can't Slow Down (Yet)

If your life currently requires:

• Constant urgency

• Chronic overextension

• No room for rest or reflection

• Pushing through exhaustion as a norm

It may not be the right moment.

Your gut lining regenerates every 3-5 days, but only if your nervous system is in parasympathetic long enough for those cells to differentiate properly. If you're in chronic fight-or-flight, repair doesn't happen.

That doesn't mean never. It means not yet.

Healing requires some degree of spaciousness — internal or external — for the nervous system to shift out of survival mode.

This Work Is Not for People Who Expect Linear Progress

If setbacks, pauses, plateaus, or recalibration phases feel intolerable — this will feel discouraging.

Someone's BiomeFX might show their butyrate producers normalized and their methane dropped—but they're still having sleep issues because their nervous system is recalibrating. That's not failure. That's the body working in layers.

Healing isn't a straight line. It's spiral-shaped, layered, and seasonal.

We track progress over months, not days.

This Work Is for People Who Are Ready to Learn Their Body

This work tends to resonate with people who:

• Are thoughtful and curious

• Have tried many things and want coherence

• Sense their symptoms are systemic, not isolated

• Want to build resilience, not dependence

• Are willing to pace themselves

• Value stewardship over control

You don't need to be perfect. You don't need to be calm all the time. You don't need to have it all figured out.

You just need to be willing to participate, listen, and stay.

A Final Note

Choosing the right kind of support matters.

If this work isn't for you right now, that's not a failure, it's information. There are many paths, and timing matters.

But if reading this brings a sense of relief rather than resistance, if it feels like permission to stop pushing and start organizing then you're probably in the right place.

And that's where real healing begins.

How to Know You're Ready

Most people don't arrive at this work in a rush.

They arrive tired.

Not desperate. Not dramatic. Just done chasing.

If you're waiting for a lightning bolt of certainty, this probably isn't it. Readiness for this work is quieter than that.

Here are a few signs you might be closer than you think.

You're Less Interested in Fixing — More Interested in Understanding

You don't need another list of things to try.

You want to understand:

• Why your body responds the way it does

• What your patterns actually mean

• How stress, digestion, sleep, mood, and structure are connected

You've stopped Googling "best probiotic for bloating" and started asking "why is my gut barrier permeable in the first place?"

You're no longer satisfied with symptom labels or isolated explanations. You want coherence.

You've Realized That Pushing Hasn't Worked

You've tried effort. Discipline. Willpower. Protocols.

And while some things helped temporarily, nothing held.

You've white-knuckled your way through elimination diets, forced yourself to take supplements that made you feel worse, pushed through workouts when your body was screaming for rest—and it didn't build resilience. It built more depletion.

You're beginning to see that your body doesn't need to be forced — it needs conditions that allow it to reorganize.

That realization alone is a form of readiness.

You Can Tolerate Going Slower Than You Want To

Not because you love going slow — rather, you now understand why it matters.

You're willing to:

• Pace changes

• Watch how your body responds

• Adjust instead of doubling down

• Stay with something long enough to see what it does

You're starting to notice that when you add too many things at once, your sleep gets worse. Or your digestion shuts down. Or you get more anxious, not less. And instead of ignoring those signals, you're actually listening.

You're not looking for perfection. You're looking for stability.

You're Curious About Your Inner Terrain

Instead of asking:

• "What supplement should I take?"

• "What diet should I follow?"

• "What diagnosis explains this?"

You're starting to ask:

• "What environment is my body trying to survive in?"

• "What resources does my system actually have?"

• "What would support capacity rather than demand more of it?"

You're thinking in terms of terrain, not just symptoms. You're wondering if your missing Lactobacillus species is because you're low in manganese. You're questioning whether your tight, guarded fascia is related to your calcium-magnesium ratio. You're connecting the dots between your gut lining and your inability to hold boundaries.

That shift changes everything.

You're Willing to Participate

You don't expect someone else to do this for you.

You're open to:

• Learning how to read your body

• Noticing patterns over time

• Communicating what you're experiencing

• Collaborating rather than complying

You're done with practitioners who don't ask you questions, who hand you a protocol and disappear for three months. You want someone who will actually track what's happening in your system and adjust with you.

You don't need to have it all figured out — just a willingness to stay engaged.

You're Ready to See What Your Data Actually Shows

You're not afraid of lab results anymore.

You've moved past the fear that testing will "prove something is wrong with you" and into curiosity about what the data reveals. You want to see your HTMA mineral patterns. You want to know which keystone species are missing from your microbiome. You want to understand your nervous system's holding patterns.

You're ready to look at your terrain without shame, without catastrophizing, without needing it to be perfect.

You just want to know what's actually there.

You Feel Relief Reading This, Not Urgency

This is the most important one.

If reading about this work makes you feel:

• Less rushed

• Less blamed

• Less broken

• More oriented

• More grounded

That's your nervous system recognizing a pace it can work with.

Readiness often feels like relief, not excitement.

A Final Thought

You don't need to be at rock bottom to begin.

You don't need to have the "worst" symptoms. You don't need to be perfectly regulated. You don't need to know exactly where this will lead.

You don't need to have your stress "handled" or your life "together" before you start. Most people begin this work still in the middle of their life—still working, still parenting, still navigating relationships and challenges. The work doesn't require you to have everything sorted. It just requires you to be willing to stop fighting your body and start learning how to work with it.

If that feels true, you're probably ready enough.

And that's all this work asks for.

A Gentle Invitation

If this work resonates, here’s what to know.

I work with a limited number of clients at a time so I can properly onboard new people while staying deeply engaged with those I’m already supporting. Each month, I reassess my capacity. Typically, 3–5 new spots open at a time.

When those spaces fill, I move to a waitlist. The waitlist isn’t a funnel or a commitment—it’s simply a way to be notified first when new openings become available.

If you feel drawn to this work and want to learn more about Minerals & Microbes, you can explore the program details [ HERE ]  and/or add your name to the waitlist.

There’s no rush. This work asks for readiness, not urgency.

When the timing is right, you’ll know.