Manon Bolliger (Deregistered with 30 years of experience in health)
iTunes | Google Play | Spotify | Libsyn | iHeartRadio | Gaana | The Healers Cafe | Radio.com | and many more
Dr. Gala Gorman
Using Chinese Medicine to Restore Energy Flow with Dr. Gala Gorman on The Healers Café with Manon Bolliger
In this episode of The Healers Café, Manon Bolliger, FCAH, RBHT (facilitator and retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice) speaks with Dr. Gala Gorman about the buildup of toxins in our bodies and how our own energy can remove them.
Highlights from today’s episode include:
Dr. Gala Gorman 10:32
So anytime we disrupt a system with medication or even a supplement, we are attempting to essentially interrupt or interfere with an internal signaling that we perceive has kind of gone haywire, right. And so, we simply don’t understand the human body well enough to do that long term.
Dr. Gala Gorman
Like, let’s ask all the questions, let’s go a little bit deeper, and see how we can help the source, not fix the interim problems that are sort of like the symptom, you know.
– – – – –
Dr. Gala Gorman
I’m going to figure out where the energetic imbalances are, we’re going to work to rebalance that imbalance, and we’re going to eliminate the toxicity that’s built up. And when that happens, your body frees up energy and resources to heal whatever has been going on.
ABOUT DR DR. GALA GORMAN:
Dr. Gala Gorman is a licensed Acupuncturist, Naturopath, and Author who offers practical advice and programs to reverse health issues resulting from chronic stress. She helps women relieve their symptoms, restore their energy, and reclaim their “Super Woman” status. Dr. Gala advocates for getting to the root cause of the health issue and treating it naturally. She encourages patients to be their own health advocate … or PCP (primary care person)
Core purpose / passion: I encourage patients to become their own “PCP” or primary care person. It’s important to develop self-awareness to recognize when stress is escalating.
Website | Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn | Twitter | TikTok
ABOUT MANON BOLLIGER, FCAH, RBHT
As a recently De-Registered board-certified naturopathic physician & in practice since 1992, I’ve seen an average of 150 patients per week and have helped people ranging from rural farmers in Nova Scotia to stressed out CEOs in Toronto to tri-athletes here in Vancouver.
My resolve to educate, empower and engage people to take charge of their own health is evident in my best-selling books: ‘What Patients Don’t Say if Doctors Don’t Ask: The Mindful Patient-Doctor Relationship’ and ‘A Healer in Every Household: Simple Solutions for Stress’. I also teach BowenFirst™ Therapy through Bowen College and hold transformational workshops to achieve these goals.
So, when I share with you that LISTENING to Your body is a game changer in the healing process, I am speaking from expertise and direct experience”.
Mission: A Healer in Every Household!
For more great information to go to her weekly blog: http://bowencollege.com/blog.
For tips on health & healing go to: https://www.drmanonbolliger.com/tips
SOCIAL MEDIA:
– Linktr.ee | Rumble | Gettr | Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn | YouTube | Twitter |
About The Healers Café:
Manon’s show is the #1 show for medical practitioners and holistic healers to have heart to heart conversations about their day to day lives.
Subscribe and review on your favourite platform:
iTunes | Google Play | Spotify | Libsyn | iHeartRadio | Gaana | The Healers Cafe | Radio.com | Medioq | Audacy |
Follow The Healers Café on FB: https://www.facebook.com/thehealerscafe
Remember to subscribe if you like our videos. Click the bell if you want to be one of the first people notified of a new release.
* De-Registered, revoked & retired naturopathic physician after 30 years of practice in healthcare. Now resourceful & resolved to share with you all the tools to take care of your health & vitality!
TRANSCRIPT
Introduction 00:00
Welcome to the Healers Café. The number one show for medical practitioners and holistic healers, to have heart to heart conversations about their day to day lives, while sharing their expertise for improving your health and wellness.
Manon Bolliger 00:22
So, welcome to the Healers Café and today I’m with Dr. Gala Gorman and she’s a licensed acupuncturist, practices naturopathy. She’s the author of where is the name of your book, I had it on front of me and it’s gone right now you might have to interject?
Dr. Gala Gorman 00:42
What’s Your Kryptonite? And the title is Manage the Toxic Stressors Threatening Your Superwoman Status. Thanks for having me.
Manon Bolliger 00:50
Okay, thanks for jumping in so quickly. I thought it was all in one line, and I realize I’m not seeing it. Anyway. So welcome. And then we’ll let’s why don’t we start with what actually got you interested in because you’ve got a PhD also in naturopathic science, or medicine or all of that, but explain a little bit what got you so interested to also do a master’s in acupuncture and then be an acupuncturist? Like, this is a lot of commitment to health. So, what happened to bring you there? Let’s start with that.
Dr. Gala Gorman 01:35
Yeah, what happened to you. So, way back, when, you know, let’s take a little trip in the Wayback Machine. When I was in my late 20s, I started to kind of poke around at alternative complementary medicine. And, in part because I was representing physicians, MDS primarily, and doing practice management consulting. I’m actually a CPA and my former life, I technically am still a CPA, but I haven’t practiced in many years. But um, I got to see what medicine is like, from the other side of the curtain. And, like, what the priorities were and what the focus was, and it just seemed so backwards to me. And so just more and more, I did whatever I could to move away from that approach. And so I…just fast forward to my late 30s. And I was so burnt out and toxic, I probably wouldn’t have used that word back then. But that’s what it was, I was incredibly toxic, I was puffy, I’ve gained a bit of weight, not a huge amount of weight, but I just was uncomfortable, wasn’t sleeping well. And so I made the decision to make some pretty monumental changes in my life. And one of those was I went to see an alternative medicine practitioner that happened to be an MD, which was kind of interesting. He was an internal medicine MD, that specialized in dealing with allergies and, he used a form of muscle testing kinesiology. I use a form of that myself now in my when I deal with people, and to help me kind of figure out what’s going on with someone, but he used a form of that to identify what I needed to essentially eliminate what was my kryptonite. And he used homeopathy he used a bit of needling and kind of a soup, a stew of woowoo medicine. And I went home with instructions to eliminate a handful of things, to start juicing every day, and use these homeopathic remedies to help me manage the transition. And so, the other thing I was not to step on the scale because it wasn’t about weight loss. It was about basically doing a reset and getting rid of …
Read more...
some toxicity. And so I had to make some pretty massive adjustments, including you know, first stop on the way home was to store that I could pick up a juice man juicer and um, and so it took, I went about six weeks applying everything I was supposed to do, and went back to see him and I felt, you know, just 180 degrees better. And had lost 13 pounds and really hadn’t tried and hadn’t felt hungry, it just, you know, really made a massive difference. And that just shows how quickly your body can heal itself when you remove the toxicity that it is struggling with daily and that just continues to compound. So that was the real turning point. And then it took me a lot of years to formalize my entry into that world as a professional, but I ended up pursuing naturopathy and wanted to be able to be licensed as a health care practitioner. And just because of some of the rules, the best way to do that was to become an acupuncturist. And so I got a master’s degree in oriental medicine and the kind of cool thing with that whole philosophy is that what I found in all of my studies over the years, and I mean, like decades of studies, is that it all came back to this energy system that was discovered by the Chinese medicine doctors 1000s of years ago. And it’s referred to in different ways, depending on who is speaking about it, but that’s what it is. And so, I wanted to learn more, really do a deep dive on that energy system and, and then figure out how to really bring it into the 21st century and use it to our advantage to promote healing and optimize well-being. And that’s what I do.
Manon Bolliger 07:18
So, when you’re saying energy system, just to be clear to some of the listeners, obviously, you’re also meaning the meridian system, right, which is the Chinese system, the movement.
Dr. Gala Gorman 07:31
Yeah, but there’s actually there’s the meridians but then there’s all this interconnected network, in the body. The meridian system is really just think of it as train tracks, right? The little tracks that the points in the body follow along. But then there’s all these branches that branch out that run every system every component of the body.
Manon Bolliger 08:05
Are you talking about like through the fascia?
Dr. Gala Gorman 08:09
The fascia primarily would be sort of the energy conductor, when we put friction on the fascia with any sort of movement. Think of it the way I like to describe it as it’s like, when we apply the brakes in a hybrid vehicle, and it recharges the battery. That’s what friction does in the human body. The human body is like a rechargeable battery. And these little points along the meridians are essentially little boosters that help to boost the signal through the body.
Manon Bolliger 08:49
So, in your understanding, what is the difference between Chi, what is known as chi and what we call energy, you know, how much energy do you have? Is there fundamentally a difference to the understanding in your mind?
Dr. Gala Gorman 09:15
Not in my mind, really there isn’t. In Chinese medicine, there are kind of different forms of energy and energy is created by different components, different functions, if you will, but it sort of all adds up to chi, which is essentially your body’s energy.
Manon Bolliger 09:42
So, like kidney chi, you know, can be nurturing and nourishing or needs nourishing nourishment. Like I find this kind of way of looking at energy quite fascinating because you know, when we say, well, what’s your energy at a 10? It’s the biggest question I have. What do you mean, my physical energy or my mental energy. And it’s like, I always found that, you know, in Chinese medicine, it’s like the fact that, that different energies can supply energy to other organs or are needed to it’s like, okay, we’re really a complex energy system. And that I find sort of exciting to share with people.
Dr. Gala Gorman 10:32
And that’s the thing that is something that I talked to people about as well, that, you know, everything is interrelated. So anytime we disrupt a system with medication or even a supplement, we are attempting to essentially interrupt or interfere with an internal signaling that we perceive has kind of gone haywire, right. And so, we simply don’t understand the human body well enough to do that long term. I do use supplementation, but I do it on a short-term basis, because we sometimes need to sort of boost a certain system, short term, remind the body of what it already knows how to do. And then we back off, and trust that the body is going to be able to take the ball and run with it again. We don’t want to create lazy internal systems that are dependent on outside things other than, you know, the raw building blocks that we need to give it like food and water and air and that sort of thing.
Manon Bolliger 11:50
Yeah, I very much agree with that as a philosophy too. And I think, you know, when you look at the more recent graduates of naturopathic schools are much more allopathic in their model of practicing. And, you know, so it’s easy, though, you take enzymes, because your body needs to break it down, well, why isn’t your body breaking it down in the first place? Like, let’s ask all the questions, let’s go a little bit deeper, and see how we can help the source, not fix the interim problems that are sort of like the symptom, you know. Because I find that I’ve, I’ve been in practice for 30 years, and it’s a big change, when I see, you know, who’s coming out now, and the belief systems are actually quite different than what I think, was available then and is much more connected to Chinese medicine and to, you know, ancient systems of looking at the body holistically.
Dr. Gala Gorman 12:58
Yeah, I think some of the bigger schools are really trying to work their way into the medical system to be recognized for insurance and that sort of thing. In order to be able to do that, you have to toe the line, so to speak. Right. And, I have no appetite for that. So, I realize that there’s a place for that, you know, there are certain people are…some people are very comfortable with that approach in that world. And that needs to be available for them. And then there are, it’s important for people to know there are alternatives.
Manon Bolliger 13:48
Yes, yes.
Dr. Gala Gorman 13:49
And so that’s, that’s something that is starting to be regulated now, in some places in the United States that doctors have to alternative complementary medicine, doctors have to tell patients, that this is essentially an alternative, and you could go the more traditional standard route, and then the other doctors have to let the patients know that there are alternatives and there is, you know, complementary medicine that you may want to try in lieu of what I offer.
Manon Bolliger 14:28
So really, a two-way system.
Dr. Gala Gorman 14:31
Right and it should be.
Manon Bolliger 14:32
Of course it should be.
Dr. Gala Gorman 14:33
You know, it should be informed, and they should make a decision about their own health care and, and the long term implications of whatever approach they choose to take.
Manon Bolliger 14:49
Yeah, that I absolutely agree with that. It tended to be a one-way system, I think, but um, no, I’m glad to hear that’s changing in the States. I can’t say it’s really changing here. But, you know, the slowly but surely, we’ll get there. So, your focus is mainly on woman, why is that? I mean, what is it that you find that women uniquely set aside or put behind.
Dr. Gala Gorman 15:20
So over 90% of disease can be traced back to stress. And I personally think that number is low, because I don’t think they’re really factoring in all the ways stress actually shows up. But if we just assume it’s 90%, 9 in 10, people who have some sort of disease, it started with stress, and probably continues to not improve because of stress. And I believe we find that women in particular, have a more difficult time dealing with managing stress. I think, just in my own personal experience, and the studies kind of echoed this, that men just from a way their brains and hormones are wired, tend to compartmentalize better. And women try to keep all the balls in the air, which creates an enormous amount of stress. So if you have a lot of just sort of normal stress, and then you layer on top of that with any other stress, or let’s just say a genetic predisposition to something, or an abundance of some sort of toxicity in your environment, an emotional upset, that is extreme, you have some sort of toxic stew that gets created that leads to disease more often for women than it does for men. And, so the other thing I will say is that women tend to not be studied as often as men.
Commercial Break 17:37
What would your life be like if you were pain free? If you were one of the millions who suffer from chronic pain, the thought of just one day without it may seem impossible. This is often because conventional medicine tends to fall short in the treatment of pay, opting to prescribe pills or recommend surgery rather than getting to the root cause of the problem. But if you are suffering with emotional or physical pain, there is hope. Join the founder and CEO of Bowen College, Manon, Bolliger, live online for Your Body Mind Reboot. Learn how to listen to your symptoms and get to the root cause of your pain. Plus be trained in basic Bowen therapy moves, so that you can reboot your body for optimal health. You don’t have to live in pain, you can heal, stop the pain pill cycle by visiting www.yourbodymindreboot.com To learn more, and to register.
Dr. Gala Gorman 18:46
Because women are hard to study, we’re not a homogenous group, like men are. Women’s hormones fluctuate and even when…if a woman’s at a certain age, and, you know, all those things are equal, we’re at a different point in our cycle at any given point in the month. So, to try to find a homogenous group of women that you can study to contrast and compare things that you introduce is nearly impossible. So, women tend to be stuck with a little more trial and error. And I will I think just need a little more help.
Manon Bolliger 19:33
But also, maybe more individual help. Individualized to help right I think because it a few that if you do as you say not sure empathy or you know, acupuncture or Chinese medicine, it’s not really a big deal. You can just you address the whole person anyway. So, it’s taken into consideration whereas in traditional medicine, more based on these studies that don’t take all elements, it’s much harder to count on them for a woman. Right? So, I think it’s a yes, eye opening that well, we actually need more individualized care. So that’s a good thing. Yeah. So, what has been your favorite part of your practice? Like what is it that you love the most? Because I’m assuming you’ve been doing it for a little while now.
Dr. Gala Gorman 20:36
Yeah, so it’s especially gratifying to me, when women come to me, and their doctor says there’s nothing wrong with them. And there’s…they’re obviously not well, right. And they’re so frustrated and can’t figure out what is going on and are getting no help. I would much rather have them come to me with no crazy disease diagnosis, and the MD saying, you know, you’re just fine. You know, it’s all on your head, or whatever story they’ve been told. Because at that point, then I don’t have to walk on eggshells to help them unravel the mystery, right. And so, I use my diagnostic tools, I use biofield scanning and other tools, including, you know, things I learned that are in alignment with Oriental medicine, and figure out where the energetic imbalance is. And then we have to work to restore the energetic balance, remove the toxicity that’s causing the problem. And I evaluate 12 categories of toxicity. So, every person has a unique combination of toxins that their body over the years has stored. And those toxins need to be mobilized and then moved out. So, as we do that, all kinds of symptoms naturally fall away. And that’s fun to see that, you know, the same process, as you mentioned, a few minutes ago, we treat the whole person, right. I really, honestly don’t care what symptom you present with, I’m going to use the same process, right? I’m going to figure out where the energetic imbalances are, we’re going to work to rebalance that imbalance, and we’re going to eliminate the toxicity that’s built up. And when that happens, your body frees up energy and resources to heal whatever has been going on. And really, symptoms are just a sign that your body can no longer handle, whatever it is, that has been challenging it. So, we’ve been conditioned from a very early age to look at a symptom that maybe is new and think that symptom is, you know, the first sign of something. But that’s not the case, by the time a symptom shows up that’s been going on for a while. And so even think about something like somebody who has an allergy to strawberries. And so, we think well, I accidentally ate strawberry that was mixed into something that I didn’t realize there was strawberry in it, and I have this really crazy allergic reaction, right anaphylactic shock, potentially. What you don’t realize is that there was already this low-lying level of immune system on overdrive. That is just constantly sitting there. And this something about the enzyme in the strawberry is literally like the, the fuse on the dynamite that makes the dynamite blow, right. The dynamite is already there. And it’s already like sitting there sort of looming, but it needs that like final spark to really go over the edge. But what we want to do is we want to deal with that underlying issue, so that you can get to the point where, you know, maybe you don’t really want to test eating a strawberry. But a lot of things like food sensitivities just become way less extreme, potentially, even to the point of not bothering you anymore. Once we get your body sort of soothed and calmed down, and you’re not just on edge ready for something to push you over.
Manon Bolliger 25:25
And what have you found the most common ways that doesn’t mean for everybody, but that work as detox protocols.
Dr. Gala Gorman 25:38
I don’t recommend any specific thing across the board, other than fasting. So digestive rest is really important. And there’s the, what I call like the Big Four, that if you’re really having a lot of issues, what I find is that if people will eliminate dairy, and gluten, and sugar, and alcohol, that those four things and yeast as well, a lot of times if you eliminate those four the yeast comes down dramatically as well. But sometimes, even if you’ve eliminated gluten, sometimes gluten free pastries will have a lot more yeast in them, they used to sort of offset the effects of the gluten not being there. And then people tend to have yeast issues as a result. So really, I guess you would say those five things, dairy, gluten, yeast, sugar and alcohol. And so, if you’re just trying to DIY it, eliminate those things, and use time restricted eating. Meaning you want to, depending on your age, and what the other factors you’ve got going on in your world, two meals a day. I like 10am and 4pm in a six-hour eating window, but that is flexible, depending on what works for you. And then you want to make sure that you’re getting 20 to 30 grams of protein in each one of those meals. And so, if you are getting enough protein, and you’re giving your body time for digestive rest, and you’re eliminating a lot of these common things that are factors that many people have issues within their digestive system, that goes a long way that’ll get you probably halfway there. And that may be enough, that may be enough for a lot of people to really whatever issues they’ve got going on. And then for a lot of people, they’re going to need more targeted support. And we’ve got to figure out what’s going on that essentially, the toxicity that your body has stored. And that’s where you were getting to with this question, but I want…a detox protocol, if we’re going to try to really mobilize long term stored toxicity, and move that out, I want to make sure we’re using the right thing for the right problem.
Manon Bolliger 28:45
Right and that the organs work, can detox right. Because that’s another thing to do. If you don’t have your liver working with both phases, you can’t use the same thing as same as the gas you you’ve got to really look at it very individually. Now what is your, I can’t believe our times almost up, I feel like we’re just beginning. But with the new toxicity that a lot of people have been exposed to in the last few years here. Have you found I mean, a lot of things can be similar, you know, you look at your immune system, you clean up your diet, but have you found other things that are quite helpful to help people detox.
Dr. Gala Gorman 29:38
It’s the same process.
Manon Bolliger 29:40
Same process.
Dr. Gala Gorman 29:41
People…there is an abundance of people now with issues that were kind of managing before and everything they’ve been through in the last several years has pushed them over the edge and they’re having chronic long-term issues that they didn’t have before. But the process is the same.
Manon Bolliger 30:06
Yeah. So, you see hope in being able to help alleviate all this human suffering that was seemingly a bit unnecessary. But they were all part of or witnessing?
Dr. Gala Gorman 30:23
Yeah, you know…you have to I think, choose your battles, you know. Like, people often don’t change their opinion about something until they are confronted with it under their own roof. And so, um, so you just have to wait, plant seeds, and wait until people are ready. But yes, the solutions are there, but they are not what traditional medicine would offer. Traditional medicine is not going to fix this problem.
Manon Bolliger 31:24
No, no, well, that’s what it seems that way because even the doctors who are sharing openly, some of the detox solutions are really not using…they’re using natural things, you know, things that really help the body. And so it’s interesting, I think it’s a big comeback for the potential for people to, you know, wake up and trust their own bodies too. You know, I think you had it in your book, but you know, to be your primary care person, you have to start with looking at what you can do, you know, first and I think it’s very encouraging to know that there are there are solutions, and they’re natural. All right. Well, that’s our time together. I’m gonna leave the last word to you it any last message you want to share?
Dr. Gala Gorman 32:24
Well, you just mentioned that I encourage readers of my book to become their own PCP, that’s primary care person. And I remind everybody that when your mom kind of washed her hands of it, and said, like, I’ve done my hard year, it’s on you now to make sure you get dressed and do your laundry and feed yourself and figure out how to make the world go around your own world go around. You’ve got to make yourself number one priority. And, that doesn’t happen for a lot of women, a lot of women, you know, taking care of themselves is way down the priority list. And I want you to really, take a hard look at that and move yourself up at least a few rungs on the ladder.
Manon Bolliger 33:16
Okay, I agree. Thank you so much for spending this time with me and hopefully people will get this message. I think it’s an important one.
Dr. Gala Gorman 33:27
Thanks again for having me.
Ending
Thank you for joining us at the Healers Cafe. If you haven’t already done so, please like, comment and subscribe with notifications on as I post a new podcast every Wednesday with tons of useful information and tips for natural healing that you won’t want to miss, go to DrManonBolliger.com/tips for more tips
* De-Registered, revoked & retired naturopathic physician, after 30 years of practice in healthcare. Now resourceful & resolved to share with you all the tools to take care of your health & vitality!
Dr Charlie Cropley, ND & Dr Node Smith, ND
How to Heal the Whole Person with Dr Charlie Cropley, ND & Dr Node Smith, ND on The Healers Café with Dr M (Manon Bolliger), NDIn this episode of The Healers Café, Dr. Manon Bolliger ND, talks WITH Dr Charlie Cropley, ND & Dr Node Smith, ND about the art of...
Joseph Holmes
How to Heal with the Power of Angels with Joseph Holmes, on The Healers Café with Dr M (Manon Bolliger), NDIn this episode of The Healers Café, Dr. Manon Bolliger ND, talks to Joseph Holmes (aka jmmlove) who is Amazon best-selling author with over 45 titles published...
Prof Dr George Grant PhD
How to Strengthen Your Immunity with Prof Dr. George Grant PhD, on The Healers Café with Dr M (Manon Bolliger), NDIn this episode of The Healers Café, Dr. Manon Bolliger ND, talks Professor Dr. George Grant, Ph.D. U of T. 1995 who is known as The Caring Doctor, is...
Toby Pasman
How to Stimulate Brain Waves for Healing with Toby Pasman, on The Healers Café with Dr M (Manon Bolliger), NDIn this episode of The Healers Café, Dr. Manon Bolliger ND, talks to Toby Pasman Pasman is a neurophysiology researcher who graduated from the University of...
A Better Way To Connect With People
Manon is a newly retired Naturopathic Doctor, the Founder of Bowen College, an International Speaker, she did a TEDxTenayaPaseo (2021) talk “Your Body is Smarter Than You Think. Why Aren’t You Listening?” in Jan 2021, and is the author of 2 Amazon best-selling books “What Patient’s Don’t Say if Doctors Don’t Ask” & “A Healer in Every Household”.
FollOW MANON ON SOCIAL MEDIA
Manon Bolliger, FCAH, RBHT
Facilitator, Retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice, Business & Life Coach, International & TEDxTenayaPaseo (2021) Speaker, Educator, 2x Best Selling Author, Podcaster, Law Graduate and the CEO & Founder of The Bowen College Inc.
* Deregistered, revoked & retired naturopathic physician after 30 years of practice. Now resourceful & resolved to share with you all the tools to take care of your health & vitality!