Finding the Confidence to Take Charge of Your Family’s Health

00:01 Tara Hunkin:
This is My Child Will Thrive and I'm your host, Tara Hunkin, Nutritional Therapy Practitioner, Certified GAPs Practitioner, Restorative Wellness Practitioner, and mother. I'm thrilled to share with you the latest information, tips, resources, and tools to help you on the path to recovery for your child. With ADHD, autism, sensory processing disorder, or learning disabilities.

My own experiences with my daughter combined with as much training as I can get my hands on research I can dig into and conferences I can attend have helped me to develop systems and tools for parents like you who feel overwhelmed, trying to help their children. So sit back as I share another great topic to help you on your journey. A quick disclaimer before we get started.

My Child Will Thrive is not a substitute for working with a qualified healthcare practitioner. The information provided on this podcast is not intended to diagnose or treat your child. Please consult your healthcare practitioner before implementing any information or treatments that you have learned about on this podcast. There are many gifted, passionate, and knowledgeable practitioners with hundreds. If not thousands of hours of study and clinical experience available to help guide you.

Part of our goal is to give you the knowledge and tools you need to effectively advocate for your child so that you don't blindly implement each new treatment that comes along. No one knows your child better than you. No one knows your child's history like you do or can better judge what is normal or abnormal for your child. The greatest success in recovery comes from the parent being informed and asking the right questions and making the best decisions for their child in coordination with a team of qualified practitioners in different areas of specialty.

Today's podcast is sponsored by the Autism, ADHD and Sensory Processing Disorder Summit. In order to learn more about summit and to sign up for free, please go to mychildwillthrive.com/summit.

2:04 Tara Hunkin:
Hi, welcome back to the My Child Will Thrive podcast. I'm Tara Hunkin and I'm excited to have with me today, Carla Atherton. Carla is with us today because she has written a wonderful book and resource for families, looking at your family health as a Family Health Revolution.

I just got off doing the interview with her just now and I really encourage you to take a look at her book and add it to your reference library. She's going to walk us through why she wrote the book, her story with her daughter and her long journey to coming up with her perspective. And also all the research that she's done on how we can address our family's health through looking at the root cause approach, which obviously we're a fan of here at My Child Will Thrive if you've listened to the podcast before and you've enjoyed it, I would really appreciate it if you would take the time to subscribe to the podcast on whatever podcast platform that you listen on. And also, if you can take the time to give us a review, that would be great. That is how the algorithms out there tell other people about our podcast so that families like you can also find the resources and the information that they need to help their child thrive. So without further ado, here is my interview with Carla Atherton.

3:38 Tara Hunkin:
Hello, everyone. I am happy to have with me today Carla Atherton. Carla is going to talk to us today about finding the confidence to take charge of your family's health, which is all what we all need and what your family's health revolution can look like. Carla is the Director of the Healthy Family Formula, the HFF Practitioner Training Academy, host and producer of The Children's Health Summit, author, which we're going to talk a bit about today of the Family Health Revolution, host of the Family Health Revolution Podcast, empowerment, coach, holistic family health consultant, and a children's health advocate.

Spurred by her love for her three glorious children and husband, Carla's mission is to support families to achieve their best health through information, guidance, and empowerment. Carla, welcome to the podcast today. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us.

4:37 Carla Atherton:
Yes, my pleasure, Tara, I'm so excited to be here with you.

4:41 Tara Hunkin:
So why don't we dive right in because you use the term in your book, which we're going to talk about in a bit. I will just hold the book up so you can see it, it is quite a meaty book. I love a good thick book to dig into. Exactly. So let's talk about your journey with your family. What has your family's health revolution looked like?

5:06 Carla Atherton:
Oh, well, okay. Well first it started, I guess, I wouldn't have put it into those terms at first necessarily revolution. At first, it would have been more like an awakening. I suppose we have an awakening before we revolt against anything that we're awakened to. So our awakening was, I mean, really I had several, I guess like we all do throughout my life, but the biggest one in the catalyst to move us into like the whole family changing things. Like we always had our particular health practices, but once my daughter was diagnosed with type one diabetes when she was 11, that was the real shakeup where the stuff that we were doing all along kind of wasn't enough.

So some of the information we were being taught, how we medicalized our bodies, thinking that this one pill is going to fix this one ill, those sorts of things really became like, to me, I became very aware that that wasn't going to serve us, especially now. So when that happened, I dug into functional medicine and I was already sort of into holistic practices and stuff like that.

But what were those things that were going to actually pertain to us and this whole healing of my daughter who was now facing a life-threatening condition and a potentially lifelong condition, right? Like where this was forever and nothing would ever go back to what it was before, that ease of everybody waking up relatively happy most of the time was like, wow, she could actually go into a diabetic coma. She could actually have brain issues because of high sugars, that toxic level of high sugars. She could have ketoacidosis or encounter any kind of pathogen that anybody could get any time of day, but that can highly affect her because of the impact on the blood sugar levels. And even to that, like every parent's nightmare, she could die, right?

Like she could die. Her life could be shorter. She could have amiscarriage when she got older, she could have Hashimoto's or other autoimmune conditions, or she could die. Like one night we could wake up, go in there to check on her and she would be no longer with us. So those are real like, I mean, if any parents are listening, if there's a catalyst for anything that a parent does, it's that. It's your kids. It's your child's health and wellbeing.

And so instead of being all doom and gloom and like, wow, this is forever, which is kind of like, my husband and my daughter both got it. Like they were both like this is forever. This is going to change things forever. I didn't think about that as much. Like I knew it, but I went, Oop, I process things and I go, what are we gonna do from here? Where are we gonna go from here? So that's what I did. And so that was really the biggest catalyst into the work that I do now, which is more helping families to navigate all of that when it starts off.

Some people, and like I said, I wasn't really one of those people, which is good because I tend to be a little more like, I'm action oriented and I do reflect, I do, but I didn't let it get me. But I think a lot of parents, they're like deer in headlights and they're like, well, that's not really what I think is the right thing to do here, but that's all that I'm being taught or that's all the people around me know. And so in my work, I want people to know that one, they're not alone, two, that there are answers and solutions and three nothing's forever. Nothing's forever. And so I think that's really empowering.

8:45 Tara Hunkin:
Yeah, no, it is. It is. I mean, I think that most of the parents that are listening are going through some kind of challenge with their child and can completely relate to that story. And it's true. We all react differently in terms of how you process that information and depending on what that information is, and then what you're being told by the people that are diagnosing your child with a particular challenge at that time, whatever that might be. When you talk about the medical model, can you just explain to people because you do talk about that in the book? Medicalizing? Can you just explain what you mean by that for people that aren't as familiar?

9:27 Carla Atherton:
Sure thing. First and foremost, I want to say that I'm not going to be here criticizing the medical profession. That's not at all what I'm going to do. If my daughter hadn't gone to the hospital, she could have died. Like, I mean, insulin saves her life every day. So I get that. The one thing that we don't do is understand what the role is. So medicine is reactionary and it's designed to be because it's like, well, you've got something wrong. It's designed to actually suppress a symptom or get you through, but it's not really designed to prevent illness in the first place. And it's not designed to help you through all the steps you need to go past and beyond a diagnosis.

What I mean by medicalizing our bodies is when we see everything as a pill for an ill, right? So you get something wrong or imbalanced and that, see, see, look at my language. I'm still trying to undo that language because it's not that there's anything wrong.

If there's an imbalance in the body, that's a more holistic approach, right. It could be mental, it could be emotional, could be physical. And it's actually all the time, it's always all three. So that holistic approach of the whole person, the whole body, the whole child, the whole family is quite often missed.

So we do have tools that will get us through a surgery or sew something back on. That's what medicines are for, but it isn't really filling the needs of people who need something, more support and undoing some of those things that already happened. And often like we weren't told that, yeah, there are things we can do to stop maybe the auto-immune attack, right. Or that continuing to eat a certain food might perpetuate that. And so all of that information that we didn't get really was a detriment to, and is for lots of parents, what you can do for the future and how you can really improve and rebalance.

And in many cases, reverse conditions that in our medicalized model we see as permanent, right. It's not permanent. So we introduced ideas like epigenetics, what we put into our bodies and what we are exposed to can actually change our gene expression. Like who knows that? I mean, that's really like a well kept secret in the mainstream media and mainstream I guess medicine, right? So, we medicalized things like childbirth. I mean, how many movies have you seen? Everybody's rushed to the hospital. It's an emergency? Well, I mean, it's exciting, but it's not necessarily an emergency, right? It's a big event, but that's what I mean by medicalization.

Everything has to happen in a hospital and a sterile environment where we need medications and surgeries and such. And more often than not, there are lots of solutions and more natural ways of actually living and being in the world that's not a state of emergency, or that requires a doctor.

But it really requires, I guess, wisdom, a reawakening of our human wisdom of that passing on from generation to generation and from parent to child and re-learning that we have a lot of the answers already. Parents know their kids, parents. If we tap into the natural progression of life and how it is to be healthy, like most of the stuff that you and I might say to pick people like, Hey, don't eat out of bags, boxes, and cans, get some sleep, get some exercise. All those things that we don't necessarily do day to day that we actually know, that's the stuff that's actually going to improve our health and to reverse a lot of these conditions.

13:18 Tara Hunkin:
Yeah, it is. And I liked that you started out by saying that you're not there to criticize physicians because I mean, I am the same way. I believe that most everybody that goes into the medical profession is there to help. They are taking what they've learned to do and been trained to do, and the model of care that they have been learning and they believe in that model of care.

And that's how they deliver that care. What you and I have learned through the process of our families and education and research and everything else is that there are other options, as you say, to look at it, to flip the perspective and look at it from a different way and then support natural healing and rebalancing.

14:07 Carla Atherton:
And Tara, can I just mention something? And so I took off my light, if I'm darker, I apologize to everybody else. But like, that was giving me a migraine, okay. So, no, we don't want that, But no, I just want to say too, there are other ways, and really there are thousands of other modalities, if you want to call them treatments, ways of being, all kinds of ways, thousands and thousands. So medicine is a very important one for some aspects, but there are so many more that it's really empowering to know that literally the sky's the limit in what you can explore and access. Thanks for letting me add to that.

14:49 Tara Hunkin:
No, I'm glad you did. So what does, from your perspective, cause you call it a family health revolution, what does it look like?

14:58 Carla Atherton:
Yeah. Well, okay. So first is what we experienced, which was basically an awakening, right? Like, so it's more like knowing what it is that it means to be healthy. Cause how many of us really think about that on a daily basis? I know I didn't. I even wrote in my book, in a section in the book where I said, we didn't think about health, we just were. We just ran around and did our thing and if something happened, we went to the doctor or whatever, or a lot of other people had different modalities even then when I was growing up. In the eighties, we thought everything was so great that it was in a bag or a box or a can. And we grew up on like Kraft dinner and Kool-Aid, that's what it was like. We didn't think anything of it, nothing.

What was your question? Okay. So the health revolution. An awakening, an awareness about what this actually means to be healthy. Also what it is in our environments that are making us unhealthy. And really it has a lot to do with the environment because it's not really like you're born and you have this predisposed set of conditions and you're gonna eventually get XYZ because you have this gene, that gene and that gene.

Well, that's not necessarily the case. We have a combination of propensity or potential, but it's really what we put in and on our bodies and what we are exposed to in our environments that actually have that take place. So we have a lot of power in that.

And I think that's what I'm talking about when I say, well, I know that's what I talk about when I say revolution, because we have an awakening to our own power, to what it really means to be healthy, how to maintain and regain our health or prevent ill health. And then being able to take control, our own control of our own health, not blaming anybody. And that's why I started off saying, I'm not going to blame any health professional because my kid isn't healthy, they didn't tell me earlier. Well maybe they didn't know. So it's really up to us to, I guess, reawaken that within ourselves. To reclaim our own family's health. So that's what I mean by a revolution. It's not really against anybody. It's just outside of what we previously believe. It's like moving past the ceiling that we thought existed before.

17:27 Tara Hunkin:
Based on that, how do you start? What are the steps to start reclaiming your family's health?

17:34 Carla Atherton:
Okay. First, well, really simple. Find out what it is in your environment. Well, first be aware of your body, right, and your children's bodies and what could be going on there. Like, oh, you know what, actually, maybe chronic acne isn't a normal thing when you're XYZ age. Or maybe my child's outbursts might be something else besides bad behavior. Like, okay, well, where is that coming from? So what we're always chasing in what I do and I guess in the functional medicine realm and even in holistic care, is finding the root cause.

So as soon as we start being aware that everything has a reason, that's going on in the body and it's not just bad luck, we start really realizing that yeah, there could be something going on. So we're looking at, okay, what is it that I'm living outside of that natural human need, all those natural human needs. So looking at sleep, looking at your diet, what are you eating? Looking at rest and stress is huge.

Okay. Like we say, okay, stress and every talk with stress is like taboo, it's almost like, yeah, yeah, you hear the word. Nobody even knows what it means anymore because you hear it so much, but really literally anything that's in your environment, whether it be a physical thing, it could be a mental, emotional thing. It could be a relationship thing, a community thing. It could be like a chemical for crying out loud. Like those things are stressors on your body and they will create a stress response downstream causing inflammation, downstream causing illness, everything. So whatever those stressors are, we start to see them.

And it's not so that the world around us is scary. I'm going to say the straight and narrow now, Tara. A lot of people who start becoming aware are like, oh, this whole, what do you mean EMFs are not good? My routers are right beside my child's bed. What do you mean that chemicals? I sprayed my lawn, it's not my fault that my child has this issue. Or what do you mean that this food is out or we could have reactivity or it seems to be where everything around you is scary then. This is not to get people feeling like that.

You might go through a little of that as you start to be aware of what's going on, but it's not to feel like everything's a danger, but it's an opportunity to clean that up a little bit, right. To be like, oh, I can see maybe a potential problem or a reason for why we have this other downstream problem.

And we can actually do something about it. So going through your house and really recognizing the things I mentioned, a lot of them in the book, like you were saying, you wanted to talk about it a little bit. But going through your home and seeing what's in your environment and chasing root cause I think that's the initial, the catalyst for becoming more aware of where you need to make changes.

20:34 Tara Hunkin:
Yeah, it is. That is something that once you start flipping the switch in terms of thinking about why something is happening, not just how to fix what's happening, but why it's happening. We can find it. I mean, as you know, there's lots of things we can do that are more band-aid type approaches in order to manage some of the challenges in the short term.

But if you want long-term results, you have to look for that why, that root cause. So let's talk about this. So this is a very in-depth look at how to look at health. So tell me a bit about why you chose to write this book and this type of book that is so comprehensive?

21:24 Carla Atherton:
Yeah. Okay. Well first it didn't start off as an idea to write a book. It was really like, so my work was sort of, you're smiling like who does that? But so I didn't sit down and write a table of contents and then write this piece and that'll be that. Like write an essay or something.

Actually my background is in English literature. So I have a master's in English literature. So I've always been a writer from a very young age, but that wasn't my intent. My intent was to actually put together a lot of the information that I had uncovered over all of these years. So my daughter is actually 21 now.

So from the get-go when I started doing all these health coaching designations and really digging into all the science and all the reading and all the stuff I did, that's been 10 years since then, since that part of it. But other stuff came before. So I had a lot of material. I had a lot of stuff that I'd written.

I felt compelled to write about it. So when I developed my website and then my practice and all the stuff I wanted to convey to clients and to people around me and my family, I got to the point where I'm like, I don't even know where to start. Like someone would say, my child wakes up in the middle of the night, what do I do? And knowing all I know about that, it is not one answer. It is like, okay, we need a health history. We need to know what may be around in the environment and what's going on in that child's emotional life. It's all of it.

And so instead of feeling overwhelmed and really at the point where it's not an easy answer and not being able to help at all, I really wanted something that I could put together that I could say, read page whatever, or go to this section or people could read like section to section and say I'm really interested in addiction.

So I really want to know more about that. I want to know more about EMF exposure. So I wanted something to be really comprehensive in that, but also be able to read it from cover to cover if you want to sit down and just be with me for a bit, because my story is in there, I have lots of examples.

I have just illustrations of what I'm actually talking about. So there's like a bit of science and there's like an explanation of some of these terms and concepts and all that stuff about health. But also I go back and forth and like, okay, how does this apply to this kid? How can you see this working out in this child from two years of age to a 15 year old diagnosis of depression. How does that happen? So I illustrate that in the book too, so that it's not just like a bunch of information, but again, it's almost like a bit of coaching.

It's support, it's story, it's engagement and it's connection and that's what I wanted to do in this book. And also a lot of encouragement like inspiration. So I wanted people to not only have what's going on, but what do I do about it? And I found so many books that just tell you all the stuff that's going on.

And you're like, wow, now I'm alerted to all this. And then you're at the end of the book. And you're like, more, more, more. Somebody bought it. And I'm like, well now what, how do I do this? How do I find someone to help me? So that was my intent for the book.

24:46 Tara Hunkin:
That's amazing. So why don't we talk a little bit about it? Because like I said, it is really comprehensive and you had a method to your, I won't say madness, but a method to why you laid it out the way you did. What do you hope people will do? I know you did say that you can point them to this or that, or walk all the way through, but how do you recommend when you pick up a comprehensive book like this, that people tackle it so that they can get the most out of it for their families right now?

25:23 Carla Atherton:
Well, I think, for sure, reading the intro part, because that really sets the stage. I mean, really, if you only read that part, you will get a lot out of this book because it will orient you, it'll explain better what I mean by medicalization, it'll illustrate how we do that. And then what we do in addition to that, sort of changing that whole idea of what health is, and then being able to open your mind to new stuff, because that's the only time we actually move forward. Right? Like that's the only time that we actually have this health revolution that I'm talking about. And so I think that reading that beginning section is really important.

From there, you can go in and out of different sections. And then according to what you're interested in, I have a really extensive index at the back and so if you look up something like a condition or something that you're interested in or concept or whatever, and you're like, what does this mean? What is mitochondria? I have no idea. It'll tell you what it is and it'll show you what pages.

That actually was like an addition that my editor said, do you need this? I'm like, yeah. And it actually held up production of the book because there were mistakes in it before we went to the press. And then I had to actually go back and get it changed. And I'm like, no, it's so important that I'm to do this and spend the extra bunch of money it took me to pay somebody to fix the index and all this stuff. So it's really useful to have that in there.

And then also, even if you were to just say, Hmm, I'm interested in every one of those sections because it's sectioned off into parts and let's say, I want to know what Carla has about the nature of human health or something. I think that's part two or three. You can read the beginning of it because there's an intro to each section just to get oriented in the concept. Then if you want to go into the little nitty gritty details, keep going. So there's lots of ways to enter this book.

And then I honestly think, keep it on your shelf. It'll keep popping back up, refer back to it. You're gonna always come across something new that you're reading about or exploring or something and you're like, Hmm. I wonder if there's a little bit more expansion about that in Carla's book and then go ahead and have a look and chances are, you're going to find something.

So use it as a reference book and that's, it's such a big chunk of chunk. That's a big book because I intended it to be a reference book and I also want it to look nice so that it wasn't like just a wall of text that nobody wants to read. So yeah. So have fun with it.

And don't feel like it's like, well, I started and I and now I gotta finish it with my bookmark in this one spot. No, read around and take what you want and the stuff that you need is going to come to the forefront. It will. I'm a firm believer.

28:12 Tara Hunkin:
Yeah. I have to tell you one of the things I like that you've done in here too, is you've chosen some very choice quotes too. So at the beginning of part three foundations for preventing disease and building health, you chose two quotes that I actually, I love both of them. The first is from Wayne Dyer. Thoughts are things, choose the good ones. And I think as parents, as we go through this journey with our kids, you really need to do that in order to persist. And Dr. Martha Herbert, and she is a renowned researcher in the area of autism in particular. But she says, when you tell a person that there's no hope that their child will always be this way, that there's nothing they can do about it, that's not science. That's a misuse of statistics. So I love that you do that throughout the book because I think that those types of inspirations are really important as we go through and inundate us in the information that we need to make decisions and help us move forward and everything else. Like you said, it can be overwhelming at times because it isn't just one thing. But I think it's a real gift that you've added those things throughout the book so that families and parents can focus on the hope and the optimism that comes with taking control this way. Go ahead.

29:41 Carla Atherton: Don't you forget that question. Okay, because I'm an interrupter. I'm sorry, but I am, I got one of those brains, but no, I'm so excited that you mentioned those quotes.

So I've actually never been asked about that, or nobody's really mentioned that to me yet. You're the first. And so when you're talking about those quotes, that one that you just read about that Dr. Herbert said that one gives me chills every time I hear her say that, like every time I read it and it's actually in a video, it's like in a video. So I grabbed that from a video that she spoke in. And every time I listen to it, I'm just like, you go girl, because, and I know Martha, right?

So a lot of the people in the book, like the quotes, they're either from something that has pulled me through personally like I felt like I got to remember this, this oriented me into this mission of mine or something, like you said, inspiration and hope. But also that I've studied like Wayne Dyer, I've read all his books. That was someone that actually helped me to sort of see the tao in things like really paired down to the simple, not fighting so much, but allowing an exploration. And that was really important for me because like, you'll read in the book, I've always been a fighter, but I really had to learn when to let go too, because we start off with this like, I'm going to heal everybody and you've gotta listen to this and then you get really afraid.

Some people get afraid because they're like, if you don't do this, if we don't do this, now it's going to be forever and we're never going to get ahead and my child's always going to be like or have this condition or whatever, but there's gotta be something in the middle. There's a balance and there's a grace to it that we can achieve.

So I love that you mentioned those quotes because I'm a poet as well. That is my heart and those little quotes are little pieces of poetry. And what poetry can do is pivot you in a way that 10 pages can't. Literally in those few choice words, and you can't even put it into. You don't even need to put into more words or explain how it hits you in the heart, or may have just given you a completely new shift in your awareness, a completely new way of looking at things with like two simple words or one line. So thanks for mentioning that.

31:58 Tara Hunkin:
Yeah. Well, I'm really glad you did it. And I have to say, I'm going to have to reference your book to reference Martha's quote there, because it's such a great one that I think parents need to hear on a regular basis.

What I was going to ask you is if there was one thing that you could tell parents in terms of like, to give them the inspiration to move forward and to start. You're a fighter, not everybody is built to do the research and dig in. A lot of people that are listening here today are, but some people are just on the beginning of their journeys and they're a bit overwhelmed. What do you think is the most important thing for them to take away from understanding that you can take control of your family's health, but it's going to be a bit of a journey.

32:54 Carla Atherton:
Yep. Well, I mean, it is. And the thing is though, is to take things in steps. I actually do a lot of empowerment coaching too, so it's not just holistic family health consulting. I really moved a lot into working with parents and particularly moms, not that I don't work with dads, I totally do, but particularly moms. And because there's this point sometimes where people just feel overwhelmed. Even the ones that are initially the fighters or the ones that start off with a lot of chutzpah, like they get tired and there's fatigue and there's overwhelm. And that can come in waves too, even when you've made a lot of inroads and you're really doing really well in life. Like that happens, it can really happen. And that's just something that we don't want to forget.

So I think that taking things in steps is really important. Not thinking you have to do everything because there are literally hundreds of, I call them entry points to every single problem. So every single imbalance, let's say, there are many ways that that's going to work for you to rebalance, right. So it doesn't mean you have to do, like, let's say there's brain inflammation. Okay. You don't have to do every single therapy and thing and feel like you're missing something all the time. That's going to actually address that. You could do one or two, or you could do something that actually addresses all of it, like, which I call heavy hitters. You find some of those in the book.

So don't feel like you have to do everything, just do the best you can and whatever you do for that day, let it go. Let it go. And too much more. It's always a new day. And if you end the day feeling like, wow, I don't even know what to do with myself, stop. Go read a book. Seriously. Like, I love my daughter's fantasy fiction. I love it.

I was like, wow, I learned a lot about romance in that one and I thought I knew, and I'm 46. And she's like 18 years old. I'm like, who knew? So I have lots of fun with that.

Like humor and we can't be zealots. We can't be dogmatic about everything. It's like, okay, I understand EMFs are not a beneficial thing, but I'm also not going to say, we're not going to ever watch a movie again. Like I love movies, but I'm not going to lose myself in it and binge watch Netflix 24 hours a day.

But there's a place for balance and there's a room for all of that. It doesn't mean it's bad or good. It's not black and white. So just take off the pressure of yourself. I think that that's really important. And then there was something else I was going to write down that I didn't want to forget, but I actually didn't get it written down before I started talking. But yeah, self care, like, I mean, and don't go down the road of martyrdom or of like, I'm like a victim because yes, this is hard and I completely relate and I am so compassionate and loving with all of the parents, all parents. I know what it's like, it's hard, it's not easy sometimes. But then, okay, we recognize that and then we go, okay, well, what's going to be tomorrow. What am I going to do about that? How am I going to be more resilient? But at the same time, take some time to myself for some calm and some peace and loving myself.

And then being patient with your family too, because everybody's going to have different goals. Your teenagers goals are going to be like, almost like day and night to yours, right? Like, they're like, I just want to be with my friends. I just want to be and all that stuff. And you're like, but what about your future? I really want to grow up and have this condition. It's like, that does not speak to them. That does not speak to them. So knowing how to communicate again, talk about that in the book. So yeah. So I think that it's about step by step, just get rid of the perfectionism, enjoy everything along the way, because there's always going to be stuff. Nothing's ever perfect, but you want to recognize when you're passing a threshold. Cause I know that saying this, I'm still not saying now you could still have these goals.

You could still have huge goals, like reversing like supposed chronic conditions and it happens every day. Listen to Martha Herbert, she knows that. She's done it. A lot of us have, so that happens, but it doesn't have to be in a linear fashion and we still have to remember to live along the way.

So go for your walks at the beach, go have fun with your family, put the supplements in the cupboards so you don't have to look at them every day. Like stuff like that. So having fun and, and maintaining that joy, I think is really important too.

37:48 Tara Hunkin:
Yeah, no, I second everything you said there. When people go out to get the book, where do they find it? Where's the best place?

37:56 Carla Atherton:
My website's the best spot. Yeah. We haven't released it on Amazon or anything at this point because we're not doing that just yet, we're just getting rolling with the launch. So the best place to get is my website, healthyfamilyformula.com. And then on the top there you'll see the book and then it'll take you to the book page. So you can read more about it, see some of the things that are in there, some fun illustrations and stuff like, oh, wait, wait, wait, wait. Like these sorts of things in the back, that's gonna explain a bit of things like brain health and stress reduction, like the stress response and our holistic health too. That's my little health tree that I created that has everything to do with what causes good health and what causes ill health. So, all that stuff. So it'll explain a little more on the webpage.

38:49 Carla Atherton:
Yeah, you've got some great resources there. So I encourage everybody to go to the healthyfamilyformula.com and we'll have the link in the show notes as well, to check out that and all the other things that you do.

Carla, just quickly, why don't you tell us about the other programs and services that you provide at the Healthy Family Formula?

39:10 Carla Atherton:
Okay. So I do health coaching. So I do, like I said, I do holistic family health consulting. And so I act as a health coach for entire families or individuals or parents that are coming to me with their kids who have any number of chronic conditions.

So we deal with things that were considered just kind of light and mild to everything. Like your work Tara with children, with autism or sensory issues and ADHD, you know, brain based things, but also all the way to like auto-immunity, mental and emotional health and things like that, addictions and all kinds of stuff.

And the reason why we can do that is that we have a model that is really based on root causes and there are really a handful of root causes that create all of these conditions. So we work through all that. I help people to make healing plans and support them through whatever they've decided to do with their family.

So a lot of it is based on choice, but given the good information and the right support. So I do that. And then the empowerment coaching is more along the lines of those people, those parents that are overstressed, they're fatigued, they're starting to fall apart themselves, and they want to regain their own empowerment because if they don't, they know that if they're not really able to help their families. And a lot of times that's why we don't move the needle in our health because we feel disempowered. That might be because we don't have the right information or not the right support.

And then parents are kind of realizing that it's not just like the situation they're in, but it's actually their own personal health that's keeping them from being able to kind of lead their families and to help lead the charge. So I do that and we work through a lot of stress reduction stuff. So I've got a group going right now, if anybody wants to ask me about that.

We just started it, but we're going to do another one. We're creating an app for that and an app for the Healthy Family Formula as well, which is going to be so awesome. But things like meditations, body work, EFT sessions like all kinds of things like that, that actually, don't just tell you what you could do, but help you to do it and walk you through it. So I do those kinds of sessions as well.And I have a podcast, it's called Family Health Revolution Podcast. You can find it anywhere you can find a podcast and I do clubhouse chats. We're starting to do that every week and that's more along the empowerment lines.

But it's @empoweredfamily. So if anybody's done clubhouse, go ahead and check that out. And then if you go to my website, you can sign up for my newsletter and I've got more books on the way and other programs, like Healthy mMom, Healthy Baby, all that. But if you get on my newsletter list, you will find out what I'm up to. And you're up to a lot so that's probably the best way to do that for sure. I'm not sure I can keep up.

42:15 Tara Hunkin:
That's amazing. Carla, thank you so much again for taking the time to walk us through all this today and for your work there and for putting this book out in the world. Because as I said to you, I love supporting authors because there's so much work that goes into putting a book like this together, but it is a very inexpensive way for parents to get access to a lot of really good in-depth information that they can quickly, like you said, have it on their shelf and reference whenever they need it. So thanks again for all the work that you do and for joining us here today.

42:51 Carla Atherton:
My pleasure, Tara, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.

42:52 Tara Hunkin:
So that's a wrap. Thanks for joining me this week on My Child Will Thrive. I'm so passionate about giving you the tools and information you need to help your child recover. And as they say, it takes a village. So join us in the My Child Will Thrive village Facebook group, where you can meet like-minded parents and stay up to date on everything we have going on at My Child Will Thrive. This is Tara Hunkin and I'll catch you on the next podcast or over at mychildwillthrive.com