Follow Your Gut Podcast

From Survival to ōNLē: A Journey of Healing, Purpose and Passion

May 28, 2024 Season 2 Episode 100
From Survival to ōNLē: A Journey of Healing, Purpose and Passion
Follow Your Gut Podcast
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Follow Your Gut Podcast
From Survival to ōNLē: A Journey of Healing, Purpose and Passion
May 28, 2024 Season 2 Episode 100

Episode 100! It's really surreal and incredible to reach this milestone. Since day one of The Follow Your Gut Podcast, my mission has been clear: to deliver easily understandable episodes that empower you. Throughout my family's gut health journey, I've searched for educational content like this—something relatable, validating, and instructive to guide us. Your support and engagement have fueled this podcast, and I'm beyond grateful for the opportunity to continue providing valuable episodes and knowledge as we navigate this path together.

While pondering what to share for this 100th episode there was one obvious person I knew I had to ask. My husband Ty. He has been my biggest support in pursuing the creation of ōNLē and this podcast. He is my everyday rock. I’ve cried on his shoulder when mamas share their children’s health battles that are so painful it rattles my heart. I’ve cried in his arms when the business side has felt too much to handle. I’ve cried happy tears on his lap celebrating the thousands of women and children who have healed following the method I teach. When I asked him what I should share for the 100th episode his response surprised me. He said “Well I should interview you!” So that is just what we have in store for you. 

I never intended to be a business owner, a podcast host or an author. Mothering and homeschooling my four children has always been and will always be my number one purpose. But sometimes in life we go through experiences so profound we have no other option than to share.


Thanks for listening! I would love to connect with you ♡

Click HERE to shop the microbiome magic.

Sending love and wellness from my mama heart to yours,
XO - Juniper Bennett
Founder of ōNLē ORGANICS

Show Notes Transcript

Episode 100! It's really surreal and incredible to reach this milestone. Since day one of The Follow Your Gut Podcast, my mission has been clear: to deliver easily understandable episodes that empower you. Throughout my family's gut health journey, I've searched for educational content like this—something relatable, validating, and instructive to guide us. Your support and engagement have fueled this podcast, and I'm beyond grateful for the opportunity to continue providing valuable episodes and knowledge as we navigate this path together.

While pondering what to share for this 100th episode there was one obvious person I knew I had to ask. My husband Ty. He has been my biggest support in pursuing the creation of ōNLē and this podcast. He is my everyday rock. I’ve cried on his shoulder when mamas share their children’s health battles that are so painful it rattles my heart. I’ve cried in his arms when the business side has felt too much to handle. I’ve cried happy tears on his lap celebrating the thousands of women and children who have healed following the method I teach. When I asked him what I should share for the 100th episode his response surprised me. He said “Well I should interview you!” So that is just what we have in store for you. 

I never intended to be a business owner, a podcast host or an author. Mothering and homeschooling my four children has always been and will always be my number one purpose. But sometimes in life we go through experiences so profound we have no other option than to share.


Thanks for listening! I would love to connect with you ♡

Click HERE to shop the microbiome magic.

Sending love and wellness from my mama heart to yours,
XO - Juniper Bennett
Founder of ōNLē ORGANICS

Episode 100! It's really surreal and incredible to reach this milestone. Since day one of The Follow Your Gut Podcast, my mission has been clear: to deliver easily understandable episodes that empower you. Throughout my family's gut health journey, I've searched for educational content like this—something relatable, validating, and instructive to guide us. Your support and engagement have fueled this podcast, and I'm beyond grateful for the opportunity to continue providing valuable episodes and knowledge as we navigate this path together.

While pondering what to share for this 100th episode there was one obvious person I knew I had to ask. My husband Ty. He has been my biggest support in pursuing the creation of ōNLē and this podcast. He is my everyday rock. I’ve cried on his shoulder when mamas share their children’s health battles that are so painful it rattles my heart. I’ve cried in his arms when the business side has felt too much to handle. I’ve cried happy tears on his lap celebrating the thousands of women and children who have healed following the method I teach. When I asked him what I should share for the 100th episode his response surprised me. He said “Well I should interview you!” So that is just what we have in store for you. 

The tables are turned in todays episode. Ty is interviewing me and asking questions that even he doesn’t know the answers to. 

I never intended to be a business owner, a podcast host or an author. Mothering and homeschooling my four children has always been and will always be my number one purpose. But sometimes in life we go through experiences so profound we have no other option than to share. 

Learning how to create and run a business that has tripled in size every single year while maintaining my commitment to my family has been challenging but my deadset determination has gotten me here. To a place where I have clear and solid boundaries, where rhythm makes homeschooling, adventuring and running ōNLē all fit together so beautifully. My goal is to sustainably impact as many families as I can, without compromising the time, energy or focus I desire putting into my motherhood. And I could not be here without Ty. 

So let’s jump into this reversed conversation where I am the guest on the show but really quick . . . You will want to listen all the way through. In celebration of this milestone I am sharing a really special gift with you and you won’t want to miss it!

(00:01)
I'm so excited to be here Juniper. This is a huge deal for a lot of reasons. One is it's your 100th episode and I'm really excited to be here. And two, I get to ask you a ton of questions that I want answers for in a good way. And I think probably people who are your customers and who have listened to the podcast over and over,

have the same questions too. So.

I wanted to start originally with, where did the business, how did you start only and why? But really, what I want to start with instead is, I wanna start about you. That's where I wanna start. So I wanna start with, tell me, explain to me how you were able to start a business, homeschool your kids, have a spouse.

and get your business to where it is today. And then we'll get to where your business is today compared to where it was.

Oh, it's a big question. It's a big question because I think the truth is I didn't start only thinking I was starting a business. I don't know if you remember this going back to the very beginning, I didn't have the goal to be a business owner or an entrepreneur or to to wear all these hats. I wanted to share the healing that we experienced in our family.

And I mean, for the first six months, you and I had this conversation every single night. You'd be like, babe, you cannot just give all this product away. You can't keep giving it, giving it, giving it, because you're actually like, you're paying to give these supplements to other people. Well, I think in our relationship, I am absolutely the practical one. Absolutely. And at the time I was the primary breadwinner, which I am not anymore and proud that you are.

And so I think at the time and I'm conservative financially I'm terrible with money, but conservative financially and so I just saw it as a dream to share these products But that one it would never make any money To you would get bored with it and move on and then we would have a lifetime supply

of products sitting in our house and that you would occasionally give them away. Did you get that vibe from me?

in my own world that I also was I also wasn't

Bye.

love of you creates an ability to say yes at times when and we'll get into intuition in a minute my poor intuition told me that this was a terrible idea really i'm not i i'd love hearing this because i didn't know i was oblivious to all of this well that's good yeah because i think really um

When I saw you starting this business, I really thought it would be, and no offense to you, it would be something you'd be super passionate about for a little while, get burned out of and move on. So why didn't that happen? Well, I think we'll really uncover this further on in the episode. But a big part is that I had implemented...

I was using the supplements every day. I had adopted this microbiome friendly lifestyle and it changed me as a woman. And so historically that had been me. I had been this woman with a really big heart and really big ideas and big passions that lived and died really quickly without me ever really doing anything with them because one, I was...

really, really dedicated to my motherhood. And I'm not any less dedicated now, but the difference is I have ADHD and I have lived most of my life learning how to get by. And I just, I mean, like I, you remind me all the time that I have ADHD. To me, everybody's brain, this is just my natural state. And so I just assume that everybody's brain moves so quickly and

So up until right before I started only, I had been getting by with this really loud, busy brain. And I mean, I remember crying to you all the time saying, I don't get it. Like I'm with our children all day every day, but I miss them. And it's because my head wasn't there. My head was too busy. It was a hundred miles ahead of where we were. And when I implemented this microbiome lifestyle,

it changed the way that my brain works. And for the first time, I'm able to really be in the moment. So whether that's with our family and motherhood with you or in my business, I'm in. And so it's kind of, it hasn't healed my ADHD, but it's changed my ADHD. It's changed it from being this loud, nonstop.

chaos in my brain to hyper focus. over the, over the last year, I'd say we've really, really learned how to embrace my ADHD and how to implement that in my work and in motherhood and.

I guess kind of have blocks of time where I'm really, I can really focus because that's when my ADHD is my superpower. And so let's talk about how you changed your microbiome health. So we had a sick child. Yeah,

Likely most listeners know this story, but for anybody new here, only started with our second child. He was born with so many symptoms, eczema, colic, reflux, restless sleep. He didn't sleep for two and a half years. He breastfed around the clock. As he got older, he had digestive issues. His poop was always really, really sour smelling. It sometimes had mucus or blood in it.

As he got older and was eating foods, he would poop whole sunflower seeds, whole blueberries. His body was not digesting or absorbing the food that he was eating. And as he got older, we saw huge behavioral outbursts all the time. He was a very unwell, unhappy, angry, hurting child.

and we took him to 17 different healthcare professionals from pediatricians to lactation consultants. We went to see my midwife, our uvatic doctors, functional medicine practitioners, anybody, chiropractors, allergists, anybody who would see him. We went because we were desperate to find an answer. And everywhere we went,

Everybody had a treatment for us. Here, this staring cream will treat this. Here, give him this antibiotic. Here, here's these medications that will treat this one symptom. And here's a different medication for this other symptom. Or he tested positive to nine different allergies at the allergist. Okay, so we avoided, we eliminated all of those foods, but he didn't heal. And so everywhere we went,

nobody was connecting it all together and inside I knew it was all connected. Finally, when he was two and a half, we went to a naturopath who confirmed that yeah, all of his symptoms were connected to one root problem, which was a severe imbalance in his gut bacteria. He taught us how to rebalance his gut and he healed. And I wanna pause right there because.

I've taken a couple minutes to share the story when he was unwell and then he healed. And I can say that in three words, but it wasn't fast and it wasn't easy and it took time and it was beautiful though. It felt like we got to meet our son for the first time. His skin cleared, he started sleeping. He decided to - He turned into a real hoot too. He was just funny. He was fun and happy.

Whereas like we had never seen this side of our child. We always could see like it in him somewhere, but he came alive. This was also an important part in our marriage and relationship, I think too, because you were obsessed, absolutely obsessed and not willing to accept kind of getting better. You're obsessed with making him.

truly healing him. Yes. And so I didn't accept steroid creams. I didn't accept antibiotics. And this caused a lot of tension in our relationship. Well, and just bandwidth. You only had so much bandwidth and it was all put towards healing him. Yeah. And it was really stressful. Neither of us were sleeping. We weren't our best selves by any stretch of the imagination. And it was so when he did heal, it felt like a giant weight had come off of.

our relationship. And I really want to say like we we fell back in love like we we hadn't.

had the capacity to love each other for years. And so healing him healed our family. Now, fast forward, we had our third baby and then our fourth. And throughout this time, we had been living and traveling in an Airstream. And I was very vocal about his experience and what he was going through. And...

When he was sick, everywhere we went, I was asking everybody, have you seen this? Have you ever seen skin like this? Do you know what to do? And so we had a community of people around us who were emotionally invested in him. And when he healed, everybody was really blown away. You know, all nine of his allergies, for example, went away. They completely healed. And even the allergist said he had never seen something like that before.

The way the naturopath described it is when your gut is imbalanced, it causes inflammation, which causes your gut brain connection to become really blurry. And the body negatively responds to different foods at different times. And so had we tested him for allergies even a week later, his results probably would have been very different. And so I share this a lot that allergy testing,

that always seems to be like one of the first things that people think to do or that doctors tell you to do when you get eczema or digestive issues or whatever symptom, it's allergies, you must have an allergy. And what I learned in our experience and now in supporting thousands of women and their children is that it's actually not an effective first step because your results...

are not going to be accurate if the gut is inflamed. So balancing your gut first. Balancing your gut first is going to save you so much heartache because we very strictly eliminated those nine foods for a long time. Which were kind of staple foods too. They were staple foods for us. And so we... Like big ones, like peanut butter. Almonds. One of them wasn't a food, it was actually grass. Oh, that's right.

So we like would not sit on the grass if time of the lawn, like he had to go take a shower. And it turns out he actually wasn't allergic, even though he had like positive, legit severe allergies at the allergist. This is why they all went away. And so if allergies don't genetically run in your family and your child is negatively reacting to.

all different kinds of food or environmental things, it's really likely that they have a gut imbalance, which is causing that inflammation and the body's misfiring. So, okay, so we went through all of that. A lot of people were really invested in our son and him healing. And once he healed, a lot of people were, can you send us those supplements? So,

I was at our naturopath sending supplements to people all over the country. And as time went on, it kind of faded. We had our third baby, then we had our fourth baby. And when he was four months old, he suddenly developed many of the same symptoms. Really, you know, much worse eczema than our second child had had. It was the worst eczema I've ever seen. It was head to toe.

It was thick, oozing, crusty. It was I've never I'd never seen something like this before. It looked like he had been put in an oven. Yeah. And his poop suddenly turned sour. He. He developed all of the same symptoms. And so I reached out to the naturopath. We were traveling up in Canada at the time. I asked him to send us the supplements.

and he healed. And it was at that time where the significance of this really hit me. I think up to that point with our second son, I just thought like, gosh, I must have done something really wrong. This was probably my fault. I did something during pregnancy. I didn't have an awareness of the gut up to this point. And I'll say for me.

I'm a pessimist, so I would have...

One child heals miraculously. I wasn't necessarily gonna say that it was the stuff from the naturopath. Sure, and I have to say too.

Our journey with him was so long and we were... We had to wait for a year or something, nine months to get his... Even just to get into this natural path, yeah. And so the magic sauce that I thought was magic, I didn't know that, I still didn't trust it, right? I still wasn't sold. And then when our fourth son did the same protocol and healed, that was when I was like, okay.

I, there is absolutely no way I can disagree with this at this point. There's no way. I totally see what you're saying because the first time like when you see something happen once like, gosh, maybe this was coincidence. Maybe he outgrew it. Maybe it was, who knows what it was. Right. But once we got to see it again and once we went through it again, that's when I realized, oh my gosh, what our second child went through, maybe it's really not.

that rare. Maybe there's, you know, we had talked to people, but we had never met somebody who had gone through this exactly. And it can't just be our family. And so I started an Instagram page sharing about it. That's now my only organics Instagram page. And I was completely blown away with how many people resonated with our story. And before

I dreamt the idea of starting only though. I thought to myself, these supplements, there are zero negative side effects to these. They healed our second son. We just got to see this work for a second time with our fourth son. Why wouldn't we all take a small amount of these every day? Why wouldn't we implement the food part of their healing?

and take the supplements and adopt this as a lifestyle, if it created that much healing, what could it do for us just in our daily existence? And so we did that as a family, we all rebalanced and we all started taking the supplements and we all, our family changed. I wouldn't, I would say our family was great before, but the way that,

it transformed when we adopted this lifestyle, I realized it wasn't great. We were fine. And we started thriving. And that is when I dreamt up this idea because something magic happens. And I don't know if this is true for men. I know this is many, many, many women have shared this with me. When they rebalance their gut, they suddenly have...

new inspirations and new passions and like this unwavering clarity of their purpose and what they are supposed to do. And this is what I experienced and only was mine. Have you thought about why only two of our kids got sick like that? Okay,

So I had.

questions when our two boys were unwell. And the naturopath told me it's really, really common for women, it's microbiome to become imbalanced while pregnant, especially with multiple children. The more children you have, the more compromised your gut kits. And when a baby is born, that is their first, when they get their first dose of bacteria is when they pass through the birth canal.

So when we healed Aki, I was pregnant with our third and...

healing Aki, I healed myself at the same time and we didn't pass an imbalance onto Remy. And then, but I didn't know that our gut bacteria fluctuates. And so I didn't know that I just, I didn't have the knowledge or the awareness that I should rebalance my gut again when I got pregnant again, so that I was certain to pass balance onto Bird and.

And so I unknowingly passed imbalance on to both of them. And I think my old self would have carried a lot of guilt with that. And I just wanna acknowledge that right here because I share this with moms all the time. If your child is experiencing symptoms under four months of age, you can be certain that you passed an imbalance onto them during birth. And...

This is powerful information. This is not to lay guilt on anybody. It is an invitation to heal yourself and your child simultaneously. And so. And I know that I know some of the answers to these questions, but I'm going to ask it anyway. OK. So if you were to get pregnant today, which is a physical impossibility, darn it. But.

Would you be rebalancing or do maintenance throughout your whole pregnancy? How would you do it? So I know with certainty right now for me that my gut is balanced right now. Gotcha. Because I have been proactively rebalancing and then maintaining my balance for years. And so I would maintain my balance.

up to my third trimester and then I would do a rebalance and I would rebalance throughout the rest of pregnancy and into my postpartum is what I would personally do. If someone were coming here who is never rebalanced or never, you know, they're brand new to only, I would rebalance at the beginning of pregnancy or preconception. I would maintain that balance through pregnancy and then I would.

do another full women's got rebalance kit in the third trimester into postpartum. So they say that when a family lives together, parts of your biome start to interconnect with one another. Do you think it would be important if your partner to be rebalanced too? I've never thought about that. Well, I love that you say that because I'm so focused on women and children. Yeah.

but dads are an equal part of the equation. Well, we're garbage piles. Babe, no! We do, this is why men live not as long as women, is because we treat our body terribly. We don't take good care of it. We don't take the vitamins and supplements that we need. And we eat mostly, for the most part, terribly. Well,

Okay, so I can appreciate that. And I think that you remind me why I have really focused my business on women and children. Because, no, no, just hear me out. Because it is women who find only. It is women, it is me. I am serving myself. I'm serving women who are exactly where I was. You were not endlessly seeking answers.

You were fine to say the doctor is the professional. Why'd you even take them to the doctor if you're not going to listen and just give them the steroid cream and treat it? And many, there's many, many women that I talk to are in the exact same situation. And so for a vulnerable mom who is so desperately trying to heal her child,

to have to take on the weight of trying to heal her partner who there there's probably a lot of tension there is that's heavy. And so I'm thinking of myself and thinking of the women who come into my world, heal yourself, heal your child. Your partner is going to see what's happening and they are going to want to jump on board. Let them come around on their own time.

Because they will. You did. Well, and and we also have short memories. So. You know, I was able to see Aki and Bird heal and then rebalance myself because finally. I was willing to accept that actually this does work. And then, but then I still forget, I still forget and. I mean, I it was what, two weeks ago?

my stomach hurt so bad, but then I was like, okay, I need to take some, I need to take some nourish and I need to take some cleanse. And immediately I was like, oh, finally my stomach doesn't hurt anymore. And so, so we forget, we're more likely to forget. And so it's good to have a partner who is consistent and stays the course and is

is the leader so that if I do fall off the bandwagon in that way I can jump back on. Well and so this is just the approach that works best in our relationship and maybe maybe every relationship is different but I just find that when something is working when you take the lead everybody's going to jump on board in their own way and and that works really well for us. Yeah. And there there isn't like

It doesn't create more tension, I guess. But to answer your question, if you and your partner are trying to conceive or your partner is like, you guys are very much aligned with your healing, you know, natural healing, absolutely. Both of you rebalance together and it would enhance your entire.

family or entire homes healing journey so much. But if your partner isn't there yet, you just go. Yeah.

Okay, I'm going to take a turn a little bit here. So you're clearly into the. What? Well, we never finished how only came to be, did we? No. Please. OK, so I don't think there's a short way to tell this story. I don't think there is either. For transparency, we've tried this before, but we wanted to make it a little bit more succinct. But it's just.

The story is long and it's an important story. And so we can accept that. And I feel that there's just details that that bring that make the story the story that we can't leave out. And so we were still traveling. I had this vision and it was so clear. I mean, I do remember I woke up from this dream and I was like, I dreamed that I started sharing these supplements. I created my own brand.

I saw the label in my dream and I couldn't stop. Like I just took off running. And before you knew it, we were making these, it felt like massive

started touring manufacturing facilities I just had I just knew I knew exactly the supplements that I was going to carry.

in the, in the shop. And I, at night I worked, I mean, I built the business at night when our kids were sleeping. So from like seven to 11, and I was learning how to design labels and I built a website and you know, I, I always had two kids in tow. You know, I remember I took two of my kids to Colorado to tour CBD manufacturing facilities. because from the very beginning I knew.

my the the number one thing that I'm doing is I'm going to create the absolute best quality everything and the name only organics it means every supplement only includes the ingredients that are absolutely necessary and there's nothing more there's no flavors fillers there's nothing added it's only what you need

Episode 100 with Ty (28:20)
So that is where it only started. I didn't go into only thinking I want to build a business, I want to be a business owner. I jumped in feeling like we had something really amazing that I couldn't wait to share with other families. I couldn't wait for other families to experience this healing. And so when you ask how have I done this, how have I...

homeschooled our kids and built a business and showed up in our marriage and we've done a lot of other wild things and they're renovated a house, built a bus, traveled for years at a time. Um,

I guess I don't, I, I, from the beginning I didn't see it that I was going to do that. So.

not knowing that it was going to be where it is today.

Are you happy with where it is today? I am completely blown away with where it is today. It feels honestly really surreal. I could have never ever foreseen only being where it is today. I agree with that. I think it's a 10 X of what even the biggest dreams I think.

either one of us really had for it. I mean, only has reached thousands and thousands and thousands of people around the world and healed, you know, children and women who have basically been told that they are not healable. Right. They've tried everything. Their their stories are just like ours or, you know, it's even impacted people who maybe they don't have such a

significant symptom or story, but it has rebalancing has helped people show up for their best lives too, just like it's done for us.

So I think one of the things that's intriguing about you that I've never fully understood is intuition. I am a recovering addict. I've been sober for 18 years. And so one of the things I learned in sobriety was that my worst enemy is me. Like my decision -making, I cannot trust myself.

And so I think that's a lot of what intuition runs against. So I think you have an amazing ability to trust yourself 100%. And so tell me what intuition means to you and how you've used it to help grow your business. Wow, I did not know that. Yeah, I mean, one of the sayings in AA is that,

an addict's worst sounding board is themselves. Like they always make the best worst choice.

And so part of healing that is learning how to make better choices and second guessing their initial thoughts. But I think you're. Have an amazing ability to really trust your intuition and move towards it. So I think this has been part of who I have always been. I think that my mom really nurtured me to to trust myself and listen to myself and.

as a child, whatever I thought or believed, like she had my back. And I think that really empowered me. And when I became a mom, my, I would say, you know, throughout motherhood, your intuition grows and strengthens and the same has been true with my business. And,

the more I embrace myself fully, the more I trust myself. And the, use my intuition as my guide for everything from, the way we brush our teeth to the way we sleep to the way I run my business and mother and homeschool and the, you know, the way that I'm a wife to you, it is, it's my guide for literally everything, the food we eat.

And I wouldn't know how to live any other way. And so we clash sometimes because when my intuition tells me something, it's either a hell yes or a hell no. There isn't this like maybe kind of, it is strong. It's like a, it's a sacral, it's a sacral hell yes or a hell no. And so sometimes that's really hard for you. And me.

Because sometimes we have different opinions on things or we want to do things differently. And I don't know how to do anything different than what my intuition tells me. Yeah. Do you think that your intuition has grown because of rebalancing? Oh, absolutely. Just like how my ADHD has changed completely, my intuition has expanded.

so much and that's when I stepped into being the hell yes or hell no me was when my gut became healthy and balanced and my gut brain connection became really really clear and I something I hear from women a lot too and I think that that really goes into you know the clarity that I was talking about a little bit ago and like this newfound passion and inspiration it's it's

a woman's and I don't know if it's man, woman, I don't know. But it's such a hard thing to explain. But I do know that.

Rebalancing and building only those those two things happened They happened together, yeah and since starting only and healing myself I I would say I've expanded into a very different version of myself. Do you think your intuition led you through? Not accepting the

doctor's advice at times to not just put a cream on or to treat the symptom, but to try and figure out what actually was wrong with our kids. Yeah. So I think that's what, what kept me going and what like would my intuition would not let me fill that prescription. I remember standing at the pharmacy with our baby in his car seat.

scratching himself, crying. I'm on the phone with you. The pharmacist is telling me all that I need to know about this prescription for the steroid cream. And I am in tears because I'm scared for him. I'm scared to come home and tell you I didn't get it because it didn't feel right. but bigger than those fears, I feared masking his symptoms.

I didn't know a lot about skin health or gut health or even holistic health at the time, but I knew that his body wasn't sick because he needed steroids. Something was wrong and I wanted to heal him. I didn't want to treat him. And so I think that that really guided me. But I think there's intuition. You know, there's we all make choices.

And I believe we make choices out of fear or we make choices out of empowerment. And the further I've gotten in my journey, the more and more my choices are made from an empowered place. And that has strengthened my trust in my intuition a lot.

I think it's come so far from just starting a supplement business to now you've got this business to help heal people, but it's also creating this community that's helped empowering.

women and helping them become their own advocates and you advocating for women to become empowered, that it's really, it's kind of incredible that from something so simple, it's grown so far.

I think one of the most exciting things that's coming for, for your community and only is the new cookbook. I think you've worked unbelievably hard on it when you didn't plan on really, cause you've already written a cookbook, but then you spent two months revising it, changing it, taking all new pictures, deciding to have it published. And, so.

Tell me a little bit more about the cookbook and why it was so important to you. I want part of me and my personalities, I'm not going to half ass something. And so that goes with everything. And so if I am making an impact, I'm going to make a big impact. And I want to reach people and share.

the awareness of how significant your gut health is. No matter if you are consumed with symptoms or not, your gut health matters and healing your gut and nurturing that gut balance will change your life. And I want to meet people in the medium that they learn best. So whether it's a podcast, whether it's a website, Instagram.

or a cookbook, as mothers beyond our breastfeeding years, we never that human preservation, that intuitive mothering that is born in all of us, it never goes away. And we are all always called to nurture our families and something that

our culture misses is when we eat food, we are feeding our microbiome or we are harming our microbiome. And so part of what I teach about eating is I don't promote any diet, but to eat to feed your microbiome and that will feed your life. And

When your gut is balanced, you are absorbing the nutrients in your foods and you don't need multivitamins. You don't need all these other supplements that are synthetic and your body actually doesn't even know what to do with anyway. And a big part of healing though is learning how to feed your microbiome. And we've already had to do this. So at the beginning of Only I Wrote a Cookbook,

so that I could hand it to families who bought my course and say, here, make it really easy. I've already created all these recipes for you. I've made them in a van in Iceland. I've made them in the Airstream. I've made them in our house. You can make them anywhere. They're so simple. They're so delicious. You can do this. And it's the only things that we like to be perfectly frank, like the cookbook makes up our life. Yes, absolutely. Not because we wrote a cookbook and decided to eat all of those things.

Like these are the things that we first and the cookbook came from that. Yeah. And so I mean, I've been sharing the cookbook for since the beginning of only basically. Right. And it was really, really expensive to have it printed, though, and not many people bought it. So I stopped printing it and I was just sharing the digital version. Somehow, I don't know how the universe turned it.

on my website and said there were 100 hard copies and we didn't know this. I'm the only one that has access to the back end of my website. I certainly didn't change that. And people started buying the hardback covers of the cookbook, like multiple every day. Every night I would turn it off. I'd say, there's zero, there's none.

and then we'd wake up in the morning and more cookbooks had sold. I kept on saying, pull it off your website, please. People are buying it. I don't know how they're buying it. So then I took it off. I turned it instead of an active product on my website. It was a draft. Still wake up in the morning. It's back. And so that was, that was just this profound moment of, okay, there is a need, a desire for this now. Let me take a look at it. And what I realized when I went back into my cookbook is,

I wrote it at the beginning of Only when I hadn't really figured out exactly what I was doing. I had many - I don't think you've had a voice yet. I didn't have a voice, you're right. Yeah. And I had so many passions and I was trying to pack it all into one. And so there's bits about homeschool and there's bits about the moon and your menstrual cycle and syncing it with the moon and all beautiful. And I still am equally passionate about all of those things, but I have -

refined my focus with only so much so that I can serve better and clearer. And that, I mean, the impact that I've been able to make in doing that has, I don't even know, 10 times itself. And so when I took a look back at my cookbook, it was the old version of me. I needed to rewrite it to make it really clear and really

simple for anybody reading it to implement. And so the cookbook is not just a cookbook. It is everything that we learned in our journey. How and why to heal the microbiome is the first section of the book. And then the second half is all of the microbiome friendly recipes. So there's going to be a hardcover version of it that you can get on your website.

You can buy it on my website. You can also buy it on Amazon. I've never shared anything on Amazon. My cookbook is the only thing that will be available there, but you can also get it on Kindle. You can get the PDF version or the hardback and throughout the cookbook. There's also resources so you can download the shopping list that has everything in the cookbook. So your kitchen is fully stocked. There's menu planners. There's all it's full of resources.

to my mission is to really simplify your journey. I know that anybody can do this. Anybody can implement this lifestyle and heal to a point of absolute thriving. A level of thriving that I know you didn't know existed. I didn't know existed. I agree. I agree. It's all of this has changed our lives and it's changed in such a profound way. It's almost hard to look back.

And think that I was content. I was I don't know that I was So I think One other thing I want to share that's coming is I Have a free community called the gutsy woman community Where I think we have over a thousand members now?

all like -minded moms, that's the best place to come and ask questions. If you have symptoms, you can share photos of your baby's skin or poop or parasites or whatever it is. It is this incredible community of women who have come together to support one another. And so while you're rebalancing, if you have questions, come there. I can answer and other people who have gone through it. It's a free community. But so this has been here for a while, but the new part is,

there's going to be an app coming out soon so that it is easier because I will be, I am making this app for me because I am not being a good active leader on in the community. I have to log into it on my desktop. There's like, you know, the two step authentication. It is such a process and I don't have my computer with me all the time. I rarely have my computer.

I can do it from my phone, but it's really, really hard. And I know if it's hard for me, it's hard for the community members. And if I am not active, I can't expect anybody else to be active. And so I'm creating the app so that I can be there more actively and supportively. And I know that that will make it a much better experience for everybody.

incredible and I think it's a really great way for you to connect more with the community in a meaningful way. And I think it will help grow the community. I think that's awesome. Yeah, I'm really, really excited to for real be there. Okay. Um, we've got kids. It's time to get back to it. Yes. And so thank you for letting me be part of this. I'm really proud of you. I think that you're an incredible person.

and the growth that I've been able to witness and be a part of has been absolutely unimaginable. You've turned into a woman of power and it's really incredible. So thank you. Well, babe, you have been unbelievably supportive and I love what you shared at the beginning.

where you thought only would go, because that helps give me perspective of your appreciation for where it is today. Because I never stopped to think like what you thought of it. I mean, I ask you for your opinion all the time. Correct. Yeah. But I'm incredibly humbled and so proud to be here.

Thank you. All right. Love you.

Awe Ty. So very grateful for him. And so very grateful for you. As promised at the beginning of the episode I have a really exciting announcement to share with you. I have finally reached a point in my business where I can offer free shipping! So from this episode moving forward you will automatically received shipping on all subscription orders in the United States. For all of you international listeners - I am so sorry that I can’t over free international shipping yet but so very grateful for you and if you are listening please send me a DM. I will share a discount code for reduced shipping on your next order. 

Here is to healing, expanding and showing up as our best selves. I will catch you next week.