How do we make wise, faith-aligned health decisions in a confusing and often overwhelming world?

In this episode of Everyday Vitality, host Kristin Fitch talks with Susan Gladstein, a Board-Certified Holistic Health Practitioner and Functional Nutrition Specialist and host of Faith Over Pharma Podcast, who shares her inspiring journey of resilience after a vaccine injury sustained during military service. Susan opens up about how she turned to holistic health, biblical wisdom, and self-advocacy to find healing and renewal.

We also explore the importance of making educated health choices, especially in uncertain times like the Covid pandemic, and why aligning decisions with your values and faith is so empowering. This episode will encourage you to become your own health advocate, explore natural wellness solutions, and trust God’s design for healing.

• Self-advocacy is vital: ask questions, research, and take ownership of your health decisions.
• Holistic practices and biblical wisdom can play a powerful role in recovery and overall wellness.
• Alternative and natural health options provide pathways to healing when conventional solutions fall short.
• Gratitude and faith fuel resilience, improving both mental and physical well-being.
• True wellness integrates mind, body, and spirit, aligning with God’s design for wholeness.

Connect with Susan at SusanGladstein.com

Join the Everyday Vitality Newsletter and Get the Be Your Own Health Advocate- Questions to Ask Your Doctor emailed to you- click here.

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Hi and welcome back to Everyday Vitality.

This is your host, Kristin.

Today I have a great guest interview for you.

We are going to talk about walking through a vaccine injury and how learning more about holistic health options and using biblical wisdom helped her navigate that crisis and then healed from it.

And then we're also going to talk about what it was like walking through Covid and trying to decide for ourselves what was right for us or our families.

And and we're going to talk about how do we move forward in the future to make sure that we are educating ourselves and that we are making choices that make the most sense for us and not just because someone tells us to make that choice.

Welcome to Everyday Vitality, the podcast that empowers you to live your healthiest, most vibrant life naturally.

I'm Kristen Fitch, your guide to natural wellness.

Over the years I've learned the importance of embracing holistic health from clean living to ancestral practices to help me feel my best and keep me improving my wellness.

In each episode we'll explore how alternative health nourishing habits and natural therapies can enhance your energy, vitality and health.

Let's dive in and make every day a step towards living well naturally.

Before we jump in, I did want to let you know, if you haven't already joined our community and my weekly newsletter, head on over to my website KristinFitch.com and I have some amazing workbooks that you can go and get for free.

One is called Rewire your mind but it's five steps on how we can take our thoughts captive and shift those thoughts to serve us better and what God has for us.

So you can get that@kristenfitch.com mindset or you can grab my joyful 15 day joyful devotional on my website under my freebie section.

So head on over there now, join our community and get one of those workbooks or devotionals that you can start using today.

Hi.

Today on the podcast I would like to welcome our guest Susan Gladstein.

She's a board certified health coach, functional nutrition specialist and she's a retired Air Force veteran.

She's also the host of Faith over Pharma podcast and today we're going to talk about a lot of things but one of the things she's going to share is that she had a vaccine injury during her military service years and she had to navigate the broken medical system.

She experienced profound healing through holistic health, biblical wisdom and God led discernment.

She and her husband went on to welcome two miracle babies after 40 following a vasectomy reversal, an experience that deepened her passion for helping others believe that nothing is impossible with God.

What I love about our conversation is that while Susan has served our country, while she has been a health coach and nutritionist for some time, just all of her experiences coming together, it's just rich knowledge.

It's from a biblical lens.

And these are topics that I love talking about as well.

I hope that this top or this conversation will just encourage you and inspire you on your own health journey and in your faith journey as well.

And I hope there'll be some tidbits or nuggets that you can take away from this.

So, Susan, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much for having me.

Absolutely.

So why don't you start off with just telling us a little bit more about life?

Like what would you expand besides the summary that I just shared about some of the things you guys have walked through and why you're so passionate about faith and health from a non, I guess, prescription lens when we can.

Sure.

So as you mentioned, I had a vaccine injury several years ago.

I got the anthrax vaccine, two doses before I deployed to the Middle east for six months.

And the first one I felt pretty awful, but the second one, it was kind of like a jolt to the system.

And I went from working out every day and being just at the top of my game to not even being able to get through a warmup of a workout.

I felt like a 90 year old woman running a marathon with obstacles.

And as a health coach at the time, I was just like my life was flashing before my eyes.

Like I had put so much emphasis and passion on just taking care of my body and now my body couldn't keep up.

And of course, you know that I was afraid that if I spoke up about that, the military was just going to kick me out.

And I was at 18 years at the time.

And that was very scary to say, like, hey, I've got something wrong with me that could potentially affect my retirement, my career, my deployment, all of the things.

So it was obviously pre Covid, but as I was going through this process, you know, they said, oh, we'll just take you over and run some labs and make sure.

And fortunately the guy in my unit was in medical.

He was like, yeah, it's no big deal.

You just like get a thing in your record and you'll have to get them again.

But I still was unsure of all the certainty because it was Like a requirement, and if you're not doing what they told you.

And of course, like, I had just always, you know, being in the military for that long, it's like whatever the shot of the day is, you just got it and moved on.

And then when my health was really suffering, it kind of made me step back and start questioning because really I just wanted to know that I could feel good again.

But this wasn't the end of my.

I mean, so my heart really, like, pours out to people who are living in that state of just pain and fatigue.

I had a headache that lasted for months, a lot of joint pain.

And as I started researching it anecdotally, there was tons of people who had all the same symptoms that I had most post Gulf War.

So in that sense, I felt like, well, I'm not alone in this.

There is an answer to why I'm feeling this way.

But then I wanted to know, well, how do I fix it?

And a friend of ours had recommended doing a metals detox using bentonite clay.

And I had never even heard of it, but basically it pulls the metals from your cells and the.

So I ordered it, I drank it like dirt water.

It wasn't bad, but, like, I couldn't even believe the night and day difference immediately.

And it just continued to improve from there.

But then it started making me question all of these other things and coming to the realization that I don't feel like God made a mistake when he created our bodies and the earth.

And so there's something out there for everything as long as we're doing what we're supposed to.

So there was a lot of healing that took place after that, just from a holistic lens.

I was a, you know, Dr. Pepper Addict for years, and my diet looked similar to that of a toddler for a long time.

And so it really just took me down this path of figuring out, you know, what foods were inflammatory for my body, doing kind of a trial and error thing, healing years and years and years of my bad gut, you know, habits that I was eating that wasn't agreeing with me because I had been working out in all of this, but I was just, like, inflamed and puffy and exhausted, had brain fog.

And so for me, it was really just peeling back the layers of like, all right, let's get down to basics.

But also trusting that the Lord was going to heal me and restore me.

And he has a hundred percent.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, I think people can definitely relate.

Now, someone may not have had a vaccine injury but so many people I talked to or you know, even family members, they have had something, right?

Some medical intervention.

It could be a vaccine, it could be something else where they had reaction right?

Now, some of them might have only been temporary, like a day or two, but pretty make like scary at the moment.

And some might have gone on, right?

Or as you know, there's data that obviously shows in some cases some vaccine injuries are tied to some really serious things or, or beyond.

But the point is, is how many people do you and I know or anyone know that nowadays is saying, I just, I feel exhausted, I feel fatigued, right?

Like there's just all these things that people seem to be feeling and what it isn't is vitality, right?

So I think a lot of people, even people that consider themselves health, health minded are struggling with some sort of symptoms, right?

And so one of the things I think you and I both in our health journeys, you know, I definitely have room for improvement, but I'm definitely very interested in it and I do a.

Lot of the things, but I think.

It'S that we both realize what you just said, which is there are natural alternatives, there are things we can do, right, that God has put here on the earth for us, whether it's a plant based, you know, supplement or actually just a plant or whether it's getting outside, whether it's movement, whether it's prayer.

So there's all these tools we have at our disposal.

But most of us grew up not being educated in ways that let us understand that our health is so tied to what God's already designed, he's already put here.

And so the good news is it's a really exciting place when you start learning that, like, wait, what I'll tell my husband.

Oh, well, there's white willow up in the cabinet.

That's the thing.

That's the derivative from aspirin.

Right?

But it's like that, like there is something that came from any medical prescription, usually started the concept before it was made man made with a plant based or a combination of plant based things.

Right?

Now, of course, I know they add other stuff to them, of course, but the point is, so we're starting with something that was already kind of perfect, yet it's not something that a pharmaceutical committee is going to make.

So the good news is if this is new to you, like what are they talking about?

There's just so many options available to us, but it's really just a learning it's starting to learn or starting to work with somebody that can start Offering to you more natural alternatives when that might be a good fit for you.

So let me ask you this.

So you went through this vaccine injury and you're so right.

If you are in a certain careers, like you're in the military, at least most of the time, you did not get a say in what you had to do because it's required for you to stay in.

Right.

You have to follow suit.

And a lot of us can get that.

But at the same time, things have changed.

So what would you, Would you share with any.

Anything with us about.

You also walked through Covid, I think, in the military.

Correct.

And what that was like.

And from your vaccine injury from anthrax, how did you navigate that?

Because I think that was such a hard and scary time and a hard time to know what to do because of what we were being told.

Absolutely.

And I will say that I am forever thankful that I had that experience of the anthrax injury because it led me down a path of just research.

I'm a researcher by nature.

But because of that, in searching for answers, I learned and unlearned a lot of things that I had been taught or it just opened my mind to start questioning things a little bit more.

And so by the time I got back from my deployment, I was already in the process of trying to put in a religious accommodation for all vaccines because I again felt like the Lord didn't make a mistake when he created our bodies and then learning the ingredients that are used in them.

And I mean, even ibuprofen, that I just didn't know.

Yeah, I wasn't told about.

And so when I just really was equipped with the knowledge, it opened up this whole new world.

And at that time, nobody knew really what to do with me because it hadn't been.

Nobody else in our unit had gone through the process.

So I basically was told more or less, that I was the, quote, unquote, wrong religion to request for religious accommodation.

And which led me down to researching the legal ramifications and what the rights are for religious protections in the military and otherwise.

So I knew, I knew all of my rights going into it, and I knew I wasn't, quote, unquote, the wrong religion, but it really set me up for Covid and all of the things that went on during that.

So going into Covid and then obviously later on with the vaccine, so a lot of the things that people were experiencing Covid, it was very scary.

I didn't necessarily Buy into the fear tactics.

There was so many things that were just odd about the whole thing.

The fact that later on when the vaccine came out that, you know, they were incentivizing with donuts and, you know, pizzas or whatever, it was just like insane to me.

Yeah.

But I had already gone down this sort of like rabbit hole of ingredients and I was looking at it and I just kept telling people, like, why would you get this?

Like, it doesn't prevent you from.

Right.

My husband had Covid really bad.

Coincidentally, he got it like five days after they did a nose swab on him, which is a whole other rabbit hole that I think was like what caused his, you know, he disturbed his pineal gland there.

I mean, because he really shoved it up nose at the time.

And I just, I didn't get tested.

I didn't give into the fear.

I never got it.

I took care of him.

People were like so fearful.

And I just was like, as a Christian in general, if you truly believe that God moved mountains, raised people from the dead, all of these things, how can you give in to the fear?

I mean, besides the fact that we all have a 100 chance of dying, That's a given.

Yeah.

But to live in the fear, I think is far worse to your health than, you know, anything.

And so I just refuse to live in the fear of it all.

And so I stood strong and I, you know that I feel like a lot of.

We had really great leaders in our unit who were very protective of our religious beliefs, which I'm very fortunate because not everybody had that experience and really advocated for us as much as they could because there was a so much pressure.

But we, my husband and I basically decided that, like, if it meant that we had to go and dig ditches, you know, if that was going to be our career calling, then that's what we were going to do.

We weren't going to just give in to the fear.

Or basically what we felt like was our value in protecting health.

That we decided not that it was the hill we were going to die on, but like it was the hill we were going to go to war on for sure.

I absolutely get that because I was more like you.

I wasn't concerned about COVID And when I say I wasn't concerned, I don't mean that listening to the news rhetoric and what they were saying wasn't concerning, but I wasn't overly concerned that this virus was going to like, take everybody out, right.

It wasn't because I've never felt that way about viruses.

You know what I mean?

Like, I'm the person that my brother said, oh, my daughters don't feel good.

But we were having a family get together.

I'd be like, bring her over and we'll just put her in the room.

It's fine.

Fine.

Like, so I was never the person that was overly worried about sickness.

And so when Covid came, the only thing I was more worried about was, of course, if I thought I was sick, I just separated myself.

I wasn't going to go see my dad, who would have been late 70s at the time.

Like, I was going to be cautious, but I wasn't worried.

I wasn't scared.

But the amount of pressure that happened in me, watching so many of my friends and my loved ones have to grapple with, like, what do we do?

And they're telling us we have to do this.

And I was in the same camp as you, which is, I'm not getting it.

You can send me wherever you want to send me.

Like, it's not happening.

Like, you're gonna have to hold me down.

And I'm.

And just to be clear, two of the five of my five family members did get the vaccine, which I.

Once again, I.

Everyone should do what they want to do.

You should do your own research.

So I would never tell somebody you should or shouldn't do something unless they asked my opinion.

But I strongly discouraged.

My husband was one of the people that got the vaccine, but because of the pressure and because of his job and because of his volunteering, he felt that he had to.

And I tried to encourage him not to, but anyways, the point, though is I knew where I stood on it because of the amount of research I did, because of the amount of information that I stayed in touch with, not the news.

But it was really heartbreaking to watch people make the choices.

And I have so many friends now that are like, I didn't want to do it, but I felt like, pressured, and my insurance was going up and they told me I couldn't go places.

And, you know, so a lot of people did it out of fear or obligation, right?

Because they tried to guilt everybody into doing it.

And as we know, is it 80 or 85% of the population got the vaccine.

Right.

So it's a lot of people.

Was a lot of people.

But, you know, I guess for me, the reason that it's relevant to bring up, and I haven't really talked about it much yet on the podcast because it is a tricky and it's a very emotionally charged topic.

But we are going to, at some point, see a future where we may be pressured to do something for our health again.

And so to me, the reason these conversations are important isn't because of what we decided to do during that time, because this was a new thing for all of us.

Right.

Like, we didn't.

We've never been to the point where we were pressured to that level to do something that was experimental.

But I guess from a health perspective, from what you walk through perspective, from being in the military, what would you just share with, like, the next time something comes upon us, it could look similar to what they did during COVID like what they were saying to us and isolate.

It could be different.

But what would you encourage people to.

Do so that they can really be their own health advocate and so that they can stand up and feel confident about their choice no matter what that is?

Yeah, thank you.

That's all really good points.

And even I think back to that, that time, it was such a.

Such a crazy time.

And my heart genuinely, even though I was very firm in my stance and I got a whole lot of like, heat and just negative feelings from people over it, I genuinely was very empathetic and very understanding.

For the people who decided to make a different choice than me, my whole thing has always been about just having like an education on what they are saying yes to instead of just blindly following what someone has said.

Because realistically, no one knows your body, your health history like you do.

And most doctors don't spend any more than 10, 15 minutes with you going over whatever your scenario is.

And so I really just encourage people to get educated.

And there was lots of information out there at the time, although very scrutinized and, you know, labeled as conspiracy theory or whatever, which most of those things that they really went after hard attacking ended up coming later on as being factual.

So I guess just really going to the Lord for discernment on what to trust and what not to trust.

Because all of the things that later came out were of no surprise to me.

But I really, truly believe, because I had trusted the Lord with my decisions and really leaned into that as far as my health goes post vaccine injury, that I was given that information and that wisdom, that as a Christian, you just really need to learn to, like, practice what you preach.

I guess I think that so often we can get caught up in the fact that, you know, the world is Telling us one thing, but what is your maker saying?

And so really just leaning into that and getting, you know, educated.

There's lots of information out there and just being strong in that because I kind of felt like it didn't, it didn't matter how it was going to shake out.

Like I knew the Lord was going to take care of us, and he has repeatedly.

So just having the faith in that and not living in fear.

Yeah, Yeah.

I mean, the thing that I would add is much like you, well before, not that we're only going to talk about COVID but well before COVID happened, I was already following a lot of natural wellness, holistic, alternative health, people, scientists or, you know, medical practitioners that were maybe not practicing mainstream medicine.

And so because of that, I immediately before beginning of COVID was reading things that weren't, you weren't going to see in any mainstream media.

I don't care what, how you politically, you know, whatever, wherever you stand there.

But I think because some people never even have looked at that information, like I would try to share some articles, just about even what you should do to try not to get Covid or to minimize it.

And then I would get pushed or I'd send it to my husband to send to his family or whomever and we'd get pushback, like, oh, that person's now on the dirty dozen list.

But they've been doing this for 15 years with a lot of respect until right this minute.

And so it was things like that where we have to go, I think, below the surface, because I was following people that for 50 years, 20 years, these were respected people in their industries.

But then in an instant they were getting bad mouth.

And so to me, I'm like, if I'm hearing from 10 or 15 different people that were all respected people, these aren't people that are trying to sell you something that came out of nowhere.

Right.

It's like, in other words, start to your point, doing your own discernment and then going and finding other voices.

Because if we never look at the dissenters on whatever the topic is, we are likely to get caught in having the same opinion, which doesn't make it right.

Right.

I mean, I heard this a lot.

Science is not about following what one person or one group tells you.

Science is about continuing to learn and grow and say, this is what we thought, but now we've learned this.

And so I think all of us have to have that kind of a mindset if we want to take charge of our own health, you know what I mean?

So yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

I think that that's, you know, we have so much information at our fingertips all the time that in some ways it can be overwhelming and you don't know who you should listen to.

And yes, there was a lot of, you know, dissenting ideas and things and I think that that's just where you have to go back to the Lord and get discernment on what you're going to follow.

And I will say that that whole process, I, I would say that I've always been kind of a, you know, pre thinker and can really come like across the aisle that somebody who has different beliefs, whatever they are, and understand where they're coming from and there's always something you can take, take.

You know, I'm always like, if you just filter it through, like you can decide what works for you and what doesn't work for you, but just being open minded instead of closed off to any other possibility.

And I truly believe that if you ask the Lord, he will give you wisdom.

Yeah.

So good.

Okay.

So one thing I'd love to talk about is you having walked through vaccine injury and then also just other health things you've walked through, including deciding to have kids, additional kids after 40 and having to the reversal and all of the things that some of the medical professionals wanted to say to you.

And so what would you just share with us about one, standing strong in where you are with your, I mean, your health versus what they might have tried to get you to do.

And then two, what about when people get a diagnosis?

Right.

What can we do with that?

And what did you learn in that path of the vaccine injury to healing?

Yeah, thank you.

Yeah, it's been a wild ride, you know, starting over in my 40s and obviously being pregnant in Covid at 40 brought in a whole lot of different opinions.

I've, I got a lot of like, oh, geriatric pregnancy things and additional testing and of course I had gestational diabetes with three of my four kids, all diet controlled.

And that was another thing that, you know, they want to rush you into putting you on medication.

And in fact being pregnant this year with my baby at almost 45, I obviously had gestational diabetes.

And fortunately the clinic that I went to was not very typical in their thoughts process.

I went in dreading it because I was like, I know probably way more about health and blood sugar management than the dietitian.

I have to go see and write down my logs, you know, what I'm eating.

But I was so upset at the fact that the pamphlet that I got from the clinic was telling me, like, what I should order at Taco Bell and McDonald's, and.

And I get that that's probably the reality for a lot of people, but why are we condoning that?

Like, I haven't eaten those places and whatever.

That's fine if that's what you do.

I just know that you're not going to feel your best and take care of the body that God has given you.

But, you know, here I am getting, you know, lectured and even given, like, all of these diagnoses because of my age, you know, with blood pressure, and they wanted to have me on baby aspirin and all these things that I just was, like, refused because the people that I'm seeing at the clinic that are telling me I have all these problems are not, you know, the picture of health, in my opinion.

And so I guess for me, it was just having sort of the discernment on what, you know, what I wanted to do, because they really did want to put me on blood pressure medication a few times in my pregnancy.

And I just was like, I don't have high blood pressure.

I ran in here because I was running late.

And without even thinking through the process of, like, how your body is adjusting and even postpartum, like, no, I'm not going to take these meds for something I don't have.

And I basically just, you know, left there and didn't go back.

And I'm okay with that.

Like, I'm probably healthier for it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, for sure.

I've had similar things happen.

And actually, I didn't share this yet, but I'll put it in the show notes.

I joined Susan on her podcast, which that episode will be coming out.

Actually, it might come out before this one, but I've had the same thing happen to me where my blood pressure.

Everyone.

I'm sorry, everyone's blood pressure is variable all the time, right?

Every.

Every input is changing our blood pressure.

That's what our body is designed to do.

So if you take it.

But then 10 minutes later, it's.

I mean, mine might be 20.

You.

Know, not, I guess, not points, but, you know, 20, 20.

Indifference.

And it's like, that's huge.

But that's because mine isn't actually that high.

It's because.

Same.

Like, they're asking me a question.

I'm talking.

They're taking my blood pressure and, you know, I was stressed out or so, you know, that's why it's a monitor thing.

It's not always like, oh, that number's high.

And so the same thing they've had, they've done that with me, too.

I know that when I eat well, my blood pressure is fine.

When I maybe go off that a little bit.

Right.

Like I make not so good choices on a weekend, then I know that it tends to go a little skews a little higher.

But I also know that as we age, our blood pressure actually does increase slightly.

And if you look at the data from the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, they keep lowering the target.

Once again, this is an education information.

Same with my husband.

They didn't try to get him to take blood pressure medication, but it was cholesterol and all this other medication when his numbers are not bad, but they wanted them lower.

Which once again, when you look at the data, actually when you have too low of cholesterol, you actually have a higher chance of having.

Is it a heart attack?

I'm not saying if you have low cholesterol, you're going to get a heart attack.

What I'm saying is people with higher cholesterol or moderately higher actually tend to have better health outcomes, in other words.

Right.

So once again, but this is data that your doctor.

That's not what you're going to find.

You have to go dig into it.

If someone's saying or if you think there's a issue.

Right.

We have to go and become.

Like you said, I love researching, too.

I think it's, we need to do that for our own health.

So if you're struggling with something, it's something that you need to get educated on.

And so I think that's, that's the first thing.

And then what about, though?

So when you were pregnant, like you said, you just stood strong on your values and understanding your own health metrics and knowing that, look, I don't have an issue with this, but I know that one indicator might have noted that.

But I know in general it's not an issue for me.

So one, it's not.

We don't just have to take what we're told by one medical professional.

We can go and do the research.

We can say, can you answer some more questions for me?

You can say, let me go and do more research on this, you know, and start digging, really digging into it with additional people's information or studies.

But you've also, you also on our, on your podcast, we talk about how sometimes we can get stuck in the identity of our diagnosis.

And so I'd love for you to share about that and how You've seen how we can actually flip that script so we don't stay stuck in disease or victimhood.

Yeah, it's been something that I've, you know, I keep seeing it come up a lot more recently, and I just feel like the Lord's opening my mind and asking me to speak out on that, you know, even as far as having discernment.

But, you know, I think that mainstream medicine, because it's such a huge money maker, to have people, you know, on medications repeatedly to have these diagnoses that result in different treatments and whatnot, that we can, you can almost get caught up in that as our identity, you know, like, I, you know, I am a diabetic.

Well, okay, you have diabetes.

You know, I, you know, maybe it's a PCOS thing or whatever it is.

Right.

Deal a lot in the fertility space.

So it's kind of one of those things where even stress of trying to conceive can just, like, consume you.

And if you're in those states, it's not like your body is not going to bring on another life form because it's trying to just survive.

But I think that it's so important that whatever our diagnosis is, is not our identity, because when it is our identity, it can be so hard to let go of and be truly healed from.

And so I think it's important to just really, like, let go of that.

And, and oftentimes it is, you know, fear.

Yeah.

I know people that have gotten diagnosis of, you know, maybe they have a cancerous cyst or something, and they're just like all the what ifs.

And I'm telling you, all of the what ifs that are entering your mind, all the fear, all the doubt that is of the devil that is not from the Lord.

And so I just encourage people that if you are struggling with a diagnosis, a disease or whatever, know that that's not who.

Who you are.

Right.

That you are a child of God and he wants you well.

And so when the fear, the doubt, the, you know, the devil would want nothing more for you to question.

If God is listening to you, if he's there, if he's capable of healing you, that's all the devil.

And you just have to rebuke that and say, like, I don't have time for you and read scriptures of healing and know that the Lord is going to restore you because that.

And it may not be this side of heaven.

Right.

May not be.

And even the same, like I've talked about this before, but, like, you can pray for Someone to heal all day long.

Maybe it's a loved one and you can pray for them, but if they don't believe it for themselves, I mean, they have to.

They have to believe it for themselves.

And so you may feel like your prayers are not being answered, but you don't know what that person has been praying for and believing.

Yeah, well, yeah, I think that's one thing that we really have a disconnect in medicine in our country, because the mind, body, spirit connection, you know, in mainstream medicine, traditionally, that is not, you know, our spirituality is not tied into it.

But the problem is our thoughts actually determine what happens in our bodies.

And so if we don't heal our thoughts, if we don't heal our trauma, if we don't let go of anger and resentment, if we're holding on to stuff that's just hurting us, that things we believe about ourselves, it's actually harming our health.

I mean, the data is in.

I mean, this is scientifically, they've proven this.

It's not just spiritual.

And so you are absolutely right.

Like, we have to know that we are, you know, we can heal our bodies by fixing our thoughts and by fixing our bodies, meaning change the environment, change the thoughts.

We don't have to always do what mainstream medicine says.

I mean, there's even someone that wrote a book.

But I also follow.

I can't think of his name right now.

Dean someone.

He had leukemia and lymphoma, I think in his 40s or 50s.

And they gave him four to six months to live.

And he watched his wife suffer with cancer and sadly pass.

But he had a grown daughter, and he didn't want to leave her, give up.

But he said, I also don't want to be on, you know, in.

In chemotherapy and sick, really sick.

So he tried a different path.

You know, there's a lot of different paths.

There's other people that you can.

Look what they did.

You know, there's crispy cancer.

There's all these people that did things.

But that gentleman ended up really going into nature and doing the forest bathing, but for, like, nights every week.

And.

But my point is, is he.

He reconnected with himself, with God.

He.

Right.

He got out of the environment that made him sick.

And so by doing so, over time, he started healing his body.

But there's so many examples of this.

But you're so right.

One, you have to believe it to be true, that God can heal you and that God literally is the miracle maker.

And two, then you actually have to do the work to heal yourself.

Like mind, body, and spirit.

It's not just body.

Right?

It literally is all three in one data point.

I think we talked a little bit about it on your podcast, but one of the books that I'm reading is called when the Body says no by a Dr. Gabor mate.

But he basically says there are two, three types of personalities.

There's a type A, a type B, and a type C. A type A personality tends to be somebody that's more tense in control and anger.

They tend to get more heart disease.

People that are B are more.

People that are kind of more balanced.

They can.

They can express their emotions and feeling in a more calm way, but they also will be angry or upset.

Like, they don't suppress them.

But the C type are the people that tend to get cancer more often because they are repressing and suppressing their emotions, especially their ones that need to come out in that they are.

They're passive and they're acting like they're accepting it, but they're just bottling it up.

So, I mean, there's whole data, like, they've measured this scientifically.

It's a great book if you're somebody that wants to learn more about that.

But.

And he says 80% of chronic illness diagnosis are in women.

And it's because women are typically the caregivers, and we're the ones that put everyone else first.

And that's not a bad thing.

But the bad thing is, is if.

We don't ever get our feelings and emotions in a healthy way out, and if we don't share what we desire.

And what we want in life, if we.

We always sacrifice for other people, we bottle it up.

That can harm us physically, right?

Our actual health.

And so that's why these conversations are so important, because it's so connected.

But so many of us want to ignore what's going on in our minds or ignore spiritually what's going on within us.

And then we think, why is our body not doing well?

But it's because it's so connected.

And I'm glad that you brought that up.

It's funny, because for years, I've always, like, if I'm not feeling well, I will, like, do things almost to, like, trick my mind into.

So, you know, shower and get freshened up and put makeup on just because I would feel better.

It put me in a different mental state than just, you know, being lazy or whatever.

So that was one thing.

But I've talked to plenty of people who, you know, they're even thinking about, like, Covid and all the fear and just how people made decisions based off of, you know, genuinely wanting to, like, care and provide for their families.

But, like, if your job is killing you is causing a ton of stress, I get that.

The fear of leaving that is in the, like, comfort of, you know, finances and all of that stuff is a whole other thing.

But, like, if killing you and eating you up, the stress, is it worth it?

I mean, guarantee you nobody gets to their deathbed and wishes they had worked more.

That's right.

Absolutely.

And the same, they're literally like, go get the book.

Right?

What is it?

The seven Regrets of the Dying or the Regrets of the Dying.

Like, there's books that talk about all these topics.

You just need to go and read stories, educate yourself on the data.

Like, you know, and then, like, really get in touch with yourself.

Right?

And deepen your faith.

Like you said, find discernment in God's word.

Find discernment in spending time with God.

Because if you slow down enough to do those things, your body's probably giving you signals like something isn't right.

I feel unsettled in my job or in the fact that I'm never getting what I need.

Whatever it is, you probably know, but you've been living that way for so long, and I get it.

I have had jobs before where I'm.

Like, it's not a bad job, but I knew that it wasn't right.

But how long did I stay there?

I talk to people all the time.

They're staying in their job as a teacher.

Don't be wrong.

I commend the teachers.

Just, like, military, you know, nurses, doctors.

But it's like, if it's not right for you, they're just holding on, barely.

With the lifeline until they get their pension.

And I'm like, it's not worth it.

They've told me they want to start a business.

They have this dream.

And I'm like, I get it.

I get the responsible feeling about that.

But is it worth your sacrificing your.

Health or your livelihood?

You know, and I just.

In most cases, it's not.

You know, they're not the only breadwinner.

They're not, you know, all those things.

But so.

Absolutely, you're so right.

So let me ask you this.

Both of us talk about just, like, those daily things that we can do that really start helping us shift our health.

But really small things, a lot of them can be things that don't cost money or much money.

And so what would you just share with us about how those are really foundational to feeling our best.

Yeah, I think for me, I read a book called the Compound Effect by Darren Hardy years ago, and I'd always had kind of a perfectionist attitude about things, especially when it came to my health.

There was so many things that I wanted to fix.

So I went from 0 to 180 and I would burn out every single time.

It just was not sustainable.

And so reading that book and really understanding it's not the big thing, things that move the needle, it's the small things.

But for me personally, in the hardest year of my life, when I was sorting through my health issues, my growing, my spiritual walk, like unraveling a lot of mental issues from my childhood, the one thing that really changed my life, because I had read that if you practice gratitude, there was a study done, I think at Harvard.

These kids who were such high achievers would get there to Harvard and then just be completely depressed.

And it's because they were no longer like, quote unquote special.

They were just kind of run of the mill when they had been used to excelling.

So they did this study and they had to.

They took a group of them and they had to think of three new things every single day that they were grateful for and can repeat it and do that for like three weeks.

And it literally changed their brain chemistry to be more positive.

And so I read this in the darkest time of my life and I decided to start practicing it.

And so I went around every day thinking of something new to be grateful for.

And it wasn't anything, you know, big.

It could been like.

I use this example a lot.

I was thankful when I was deployed in the Middle east and it was like 120 degrees with 90% humidity.

I was thankful for air conditioning because it was the literal worst place I've ever been.

But just even the small things, because I think a lot of times, especially if we're not well, we.

We can think of all the things that aren't going well and dwell on those.

It's kind of like you go to buy a new car and all of a sudden you see that car everywhere.

It's the same with our thoughts.

So whatever you're focusing on is what you will see.

And if you're seeing disease and negativity and all the things that are wrong in the world, first of all, get off, you know, stop doom scrolling and stop watching the news and listen to like uplifting podcasts like this one.

But like really focusing on what's going well, what Are you grateful for?

Pretty soon all you will see are the good.

And in my little world, my husband's a lot more pessimistic than I am.

He calls himself a realist.

But I will say, like, in my world, life is good.

Yeah.

And the things that I can control, life is pretty awesome.

And I'm not going to be worrying about all the rest of this stuff.

So I think for me, practicing gratitude and sharing that, you know, with my kids has a huge difference in our household.

I love it.

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, I definitely talk about gratitude a lot, as many people do, because it is so powerful.

I mean, it literally says in the Bible, give like thanks and praise.

But like literally were to do that because it does change us.

And I like, I say I have a micro gratitude practice most every day.

If I find myself actually getting into like a weird little slump for a day, which isn't my norm, it's.

I actually find that I've somehow shifted out of that.

But it's all day long.

I'm just like, I was sitting out having my coffee this morning.

I just read a devotional and I was just like saying quietly to myself, but like to the Lord, like, thank you for the breeze, for this beautiful blue sky morning.

Like I just, I just start having this dialogue or it might be like, oh, thank you for the basil, whatever I made.

Like, it's so delicious.

How did you come up?

You know, so I'm just.

Because when we stay in that state, you're so right.

It shifts everything else and it keeps us from being more angry or bitter or whatever the feeling we might feel if we're not careful.

So I love that.

All right, so what else would you just want to share with us about, you know, just health or, you know, our health and faith journey in that intersection?

Well, I thank you for that question.

It's such a big question.

And there, there was a time in my life when I was far from the Lord.

I had been sort of wronged by other so called Christians in the church because of their beliefs.

And I thought I could do things all on my own.

And it's funny because I was just telling the story the other day about how the Lord performed all these absolute miracles that led to our two vasectomy reversal babies.

Like absolutely insane things that are, there's no other way to explain them other than they're God.

They were God driven.

And my husband will often say, like, I don't know how people who don't have the Lord can get through whatever it is that's going on.

And sometimes it's so great his love for us.

And we can get caught up in maybe we don't feel worthy of that love.

Or we may think like, well, I'm not doing the right things or whatever, because I've battled that.

But I just want people to know that they are so, so loved.

So love.

And that if you maybe are angry with the Lord because maybe you have a diagnosis and you're mad about it, or maybe you've made decisions that you regret and you're mad about it, let the Lord know.

He can handle it.

Speak it, say it.

I've told the Lord more than one time that I was mad at him.

And you know what?

He met me with the greatest compassion and love.

And I'll tell you, in those times, I've never felt more close the Lord.

And so if you're really on that struggle bus where it's hard to find things you're thankful for, or it's hard, hard to be happy or to get out of the identity of your disease or diagnosis, talk to the Lord about it.

Yeah, absolutely.

Oh, my gosh.

So true.

And, yeah, I mean, that is the thing, you know, I mean, so many times I think we think feelings.

I'm sorry.

Sometimes we forget feelings like guilt, shame, frustration, whether it's about ourselves or something else that's not from the Lord because he actually doesn't do those things.

That is from the devil.

What's from the Lord is that he might want to change our heart, but he's always going to do it in a.

In a way that's loving.

And he's going to give us clarity.

Right.

Like if we're starting to walk on a path.

But he's.

He's not going to confuse us and do those things.

But I think it's hard for us to remember that because those are human feelings that so many of us have felt or been conditioned to feel more of.

If, like you said, we make a mistake or we're like, why is this happening to me?

You know?

And so I think we just have to be careful and make sure what lens are we looking at that from?

And sometimes it's easy to look at it from the lens of the world, you know, or from.

From what isn't from God.

So, yeah, I love that.

So can you share with us how can people learn more about your podcast and your health coaching and all of that?

Awesome.

Thank you.

Yes.

So my podcast is Faith Over Pharma.

You can find it where?

Anywhere you can get on podcasts My website is susanglodstein.com and I am on Instagram at coach Susan Gladstein.

Love it.

So, last question.

What would you say is fueling you up right now?

Just as we stepped into September, you have these two younger family members now.

Is there anything that's just you're loving as we step into September right now?

Well, it's like we go into the holiday season which is like often met with a lot of different emotions.

There's a lot of like keeping up with the Joneses and over scheduling and whatever.

But I have found I started practice this a few years ago.

If something doesn't just outright bring me joy, I'm not doing it.

So some years that means I don't decorate for Christmas.

In our family, we stopped practicing the exchange of gifts and instead do experiences.

And that has taken a lot of stress out and created amazing memories.

And so for me, I am looking forward to the holidays because I really like to slow down and just get really present and celebrate that connection with the people that I love most and cut out the noise of coming in the holidays.

I love it.

I so agree with you.

And we've definitely, you know, on one side of my family, we are very similar to that as well at this point.

And it does, it's.

It lets us just enjoy each other and not worry so much about all the things.

So I love it.

That's a beautiful tip to share.

So, Susan, thanks again for coming on and sharing your story, sharing your heart, heart and just sharing with you some of the things we can do to deepen our faith and really try to build our health as best we can.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

As we wrap up today's episode, I hope that you'll be able to take something away from the conversation that truly will encourage you in your faith journey, but that will also help you become your families and your own health advocate.

That there is not one right answer for everyone, but that if we, when we look to how God designed us, how he designed nature, how he designed the plant world, there are so many things that if we just reconnect with how God designed the world, how he designed our bodies to heal, that can help us.

So I would just encourage you.

Keep learning, keep educating yourself and remember it.

It doesn't come down to just our physical bodies.

It matters what's in our minds.

It matters what's, you know, connected between mind, body and spirit.

That we release things like bitterness and anger from our bodies to forgive people.

Now, yes, they're talking more actually about our mindset, about not being that bitter or down or negative.

But once again, it's so tied together.

So I just hope that this inspires you, encourage you if you're walking through your own medical struggle or diagnosis.

I hope also that Susan's story will encourage you that just keep going, learn new things, go and look at new resources and find out if there's other things that can help you on your so I just want to remind everyone that this episode or any of my podcast episodes are for educational purposes only.

They are informative, and they are only the opinion of either my guest or myself, and they do not convey any medical advice to you or in your individual situation.

As always, please consult with your own health practitioner or whomever you see for health care to get individualized advice and guidance.

Thanks again for listening to Everyday Vitality.

This is your host, Kristin.

If you enjoyed the show, we'd love it if you would leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts so more people can discover the show.

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