The events of 2020 have shed a bright light on the challenges of the healthcare system, as well as the opportunities.
We’ve seen the rise of digital transformation in healthcare, as practitioners try and adapt to the new reality of virtual care. Digital health solutions are in many cases replacing therapies, or accompanying medications as chronic disease management and diagnostic tools.
To facilitate this shift, we need educators who are helping both patients and their doctors with the adoption of this digital transition that seems to be here to stay.
Digital is not the only shift this year. We’ve also been reminded of the importance of holistic and nutritional health and wellbeing during this pandemic. We’ve been learning that those who are most vulnerable to this virus are often co-morbid, with existing illnesses, nutritional deficiencies, and gut dysbiosis.
While there are several societal inequities that have contributed to these vulnerabilities, what’s important to highlight here is that the strongest guts and immune systems seem to have a higher chance at survival and defeat of Covid-related symptoms.
What does this mean for healthcare? It means the integrative and preventative approach to healthcare is finally becoming more widely appreciated and practiced by conventional medicine. That in itself is worth celebrating, as it means nutritional and preventive approaches might finally get the clinical validation they deserve.
2020: The Turning Point of Conventional Healthcare
Healthcare has entered a new paradigm—at last. With this new paradigm, comes a new type of practitioner.
This key healthcare player is both an educator and motivator. This role requires compassion, communication, and confidence.
This new practitioner in the next generation of healthcare is referred to as an integrative health coach.
The Role of the Integrative Health Coach
What does this term mean, exactly? The term health coach has been very over-used, and in some ways, has tainted the space.
These days, everyone is a health coach. That should be a good thing, right?
The problem here is that the role of the health coach of the new world should be 2 fold:
- to truly hold space for patients, humanity, and self, and educate and share guidance from that place
- to act as a bridge for the two main buckets of healthcare: lifestyle medicine/preventative, and pharmaceutical-based care
What’s unfortunate about the majority of health coaches who I’ve come across, is that there is an inherent rejection of the conventional practices, which doesn’t seem to be founded in facts or evidence. It seems to be more so related to anecdotal claims and a lack of true understanding of the roots of medicine.
The health coaches of the future will carry an appreciation for whole-body medicine, which is all-encompassing while offering patients and the community at large education on nature-based living, care, and healing.
Here’s a list of types of questions these health coaches will ask themselves as they work on their own behavior change, and that of their clients:
- How can we use food as medicine?
- How can shift our daily routines to support a healthier and more joyful version of us?
- How can we plant seeds of hope, love, and acceptance into our minds?
- How can we develop a personal protocol based on all of our data points—both qualitative and quantitative, and have that work for us, our families, and our future generations?
- How do we identify and remove the triggers in our lifestyles and lifetimes that are hurting us today, yesterday or tomorrow?
- How do we hold space for the removal of these triggers, knowing that they may closely connect to our cultures, traditions, and stories?
- How do we truly teach to learn, and learn to teach?
- How do we ensure our personal stories and opinions are not being injected into our clients’ stories and lives?
My Cleanse to Clarity Integrative Health Coaching Program and Practice
The coaching practice I’ve developed through my years of scientific training, wholistic learning, and personal development is grounded in these questions and curiosities.
I lead with openness, but with foundations of safety and transparency.
Data is power and fuel for my practice. So is holding a container for my clients’ stories and traumas—both known and unknown. This is key.
I teach and share from that place.
My mission is to help people reconnect with their body wisdom, which holds the truth and personal health prescription.
My approach is to start with a detailed vision which takes into account desires, dreams, goals, intentions, and stories. The painting is vivid and clear. And from that place, a roadmap is born.
My commitment is to meet my clients where they are at, and take baby steps with them from that place.
My program is designed to be impactful and empowering, so that lifestyle re-design and health optimization feels exciting and achievable.
Gratitude to my teachers, mentors, and guides
There are so many beings and teachers who have guided me on this powerful journey of self and community care and healing.
They are school teachers, authors, thought leaders, healthcare practitioners, employers, dear friends, family, animals, plants, bacteria, and fungi(!!!), musicians, Vedic mantras, and the deep and wise silence.
I want to give a special shoutout to the virtual school I attended that helped me formalize my coaching practice.
That is the Institute for Integrative Nutrition.
Through IIN, I developed the confidence to start a coaching practice. Through IIN, I had access to a giant resource of nutritional and holistic health wisdom. I also gained access to a community of health advocates and leaders.
If you’re curious to learn more about this program and school, please comment below or reach out to [email protected] and I can share a discount code with you.