Shownotes
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In this episode, Dr. Jane Levesque sits down with Heather Gray, a Functional Diagnostic Nutritionist and Bioenergetic Practitioner, to discuss her incredible journey through chronic illness, including Lyme disease, mold toxicity, and autoimmune disorders. Heather shares her personal story of overcoming significant trauma and health challenges, emphasizing the importance of addressing both physical and mental health. She talks about her holistic approach to healing, which includes diet, rest, exercise, stress reduction, and supplementation. Heather also highlights the transformative power of psychedelics and the importance of emotional well-being. This episode is a testament to resilience and the power of self-care.
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Every month, Dr. Jane takes on 2 couples where she works with them 1:1 to identify and overcome the root cause of their infertility.
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Key Takeaways
00:01:47: Childhood Trauma and Early Symptoms
00:03:18: The Impact of Childhood Trauma on Adult Health
00:05:51: Lyme Disease Diagnosis and Initial Reactions
00:07:21: The Complexity of Lyme Disease and Co-Infections
00:09:32: The Importance of Foundations in Healing
00:12:49: The Impact of Environmental Toxins on Health
00:15:19: Transitioning to a Holistic Healing Approach
00:18:56: The Role of Psychedelics in Healing
00:24:00: Balancing Physical and Emotional Healing
00:27:30: Learning to Slow Down
00:30:35: The Importance of Changing Your Personal Reality
00:40:39: A Comprehensive Approach to Health
Memorable Quotes
“Emotions are something that we need to feel. God didn't give them to us for no reason; they're not like junk DNA. And here we spend so much time trying to tamp those out and become robots.”
"I have to lead a very healthy, damn near perfect lifestyle that is just my path. And it sucks sometimes, but for the most part, I don't know anybody else who has had all the things that I've had wrong with them now functioning at a level that I do. So, yeah, I take a handful of pills every day, and my self-care feels like a part-time job, but it's better than being full-time sick."
"I just have this really crazy ass spirit that just doesn't give up and this insatiable need for answers and the truth and to dig deeper. People, if you're going to go into the woo-woo, like numerology, I'm a number seven. There's a lot of different things that I've looked into that all have said you came here with a very difficult life path to overcome these things and then to educate and inspire."
Connect with Heather Gray
Website - https://www.thelymeboss.com/
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/heather-gray-renegadehealthboss/
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@RenegadeHealthBoss
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/TheLymeBoss
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/renegade_health_boss
Connect With Dr. Jane Levesque
Website - https://www.drjanelevesque.com/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/drjanelevesque/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/DrJaneLevesque/
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@dr.janelevesque7319
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Transcripts
Heather Gray
0:00 - 0:34
And it was so bizarre to hear myself make those noises. This is the pain, the pain, the pain, the pain. And then there was the psilocybin journey after that. I swear to God, if you would have actually picked up all the kleenexes that were around me and weighed them, they would have weighed two pounds worth of snot and tears, because that's all I did, was cry for 4 hours. And so that seems to be a common theme when I do psychedelics, plant stuff is tears, because I don't, in the past have taken the time to allow myself to feel, and I was very detached from my feelings, being a woman, you know, and in a man's world.
Dr. Jane Levesque
0:34 - 1:05
Today, I have the pleasure of connecting with heather gray. She's a functional diagnostic nutritionist and a bioenergetic practitioner. I met her at eco exponential clinical outcomes, an event that hosted by Celcor, and she specializes in supporting clients with chronic and complex illnesses such as Lyme disease, mold toxicity, and autoimmune disease. She is a ball of energy, and her story is incredible. I hope you guys enjoyed. Hi, Heather. Thanks so much for being here. It was such a pleasure to meet you at Eco, and I'm glad that we got to connect and now be on the podcast together.
Heather Gray
1:05 - 1:09
Absolutely. I just can't thank you enough. I'm just so excited to be here.
Dr. Jane Levesque
1:09 - 1:23
Of course. Thanks. Tell us a little bit about your story and how you end up specializing in something like chronic illness, autoimmunity, molds, toxicity, Lyme. What brought you here?
Heather Gray
1:24 - 1:47
I like to start at the beginning in telling people that I was basically born full of shit. Right. Like, how many of your clients and patients can relate to being really constipated as a kid. Right. And that was the start of my let's throw band aids at symptoms. You know, let's throw oils and laxatives and stool softeners down in this four year old's throat instead of trying to figure out why she's constipated, right?
Dr. Jane Levesque
1:47 - 1:47
Yep.
Heather Gray
1:47 - 1:58
Hindsight's:
Dr. Jane Levesque
1:58 - 2:02
Oh, my God. Yeah. Just to unpack all that, it's like, holy crap.
Heather Gray
2:02 - 3:18
Like, the only thing I got from my mom was a high a score. You know, if people don't know adverse childhood events and they're now showing a correlation between the higher the number and your correlation of being getting autoimmune and being more susceptible to these chronic illnesses as an adult. So it's like the one thing if I can get anybody to pay attention to, so many folks are like, disease, you know, cause disease, treat, and it usually doesn't work that way. There's usually some process in motion for years that are decades or, yes, that are making you more susceptible to these things. So this is why I start where I start, and then, so I think that kicked on my celiac gene right around that time. I was eating a standard american diet, you know, the sad diet, you know, so through all that, by the time I became a teenager, I was the perfect host for Lyme disease. So when I got bit by a tick when I was 13, didn't show up symptoms till two years later when I ended up in the psych ward, the first time for my first suicide attempt. First out of many. Unfortunately, most people don't realize that. A lot of folks with Lyme don't die from Lyme. They usually die from suicide because their brain's so inflamed and nobody believes them. And they've been gaslit their whole life, so there's not a whole lot of hope there. So fast forward quite a few more years. I mean, I went 27 years undiagnosed.
Dr. Jane Levesque
3:19 - 3:42
,:
Heather Gray
3:42 - 3:54
Wow. I want to start a movement. I want to stop calling people crazy because the can't wash that off and it sticks with them. Instead, I want to say your brain inflammation is showing.
Dr. Jane Levesque
3:54 - 3:54
Right.
Heather Gray
3:54 - 3:56
Because that's really. What's your brain.
Dr. Jane Levesque
3:56 - 4:10
Yeah, I've been thinking about that all the time. Because, I mean, I have small kids, so now I look at them, their friends, and I'm just like, their friends don't have adhd or they don't have behavioral issues or whatever. It's like their brain is inflamed. You can almost see it in their eyes, right? So.
Heather Gray
4:10 - 4:51
Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. So your brain inflammation is showing. So, like, pass it on, let's start a movement, because it's really, really hard to overcome that stigma in which you've been labeled crazy. So, yeah, I mean, all these things. So, you know, 27 years undiagnosed, multiple suicide attempts. Like, all the symptoms and signs of Lyme. My gut was trashed. My gut was, you know, my brain was trashed. Leaky gut, leaky brain, whole nine yards. I think I was probably on the edge again, and one of my friends was trying to talk me down, and she sent me to a new doctor. She was actually a physician's assistant in Denver. And I don't remember where she was from, but she had the coolest accent. But I get there and she gets a twinkle in her eye, and within five minutes she goes, I know what's wrong with you? And I'm thinking, bullshit, crazy lady.
Dr. Jane Levesque
4:51 - 4:54
And she goes, it's been 27 years, okay?
Heather Gray
4:54 - 5:51
Five minutes I've been here. Yeah. And she goes, have you ever been bit by a tick? I was like, yeah, when I was 13. Why? And she goes, I'm pretty sure you have Lyme disease. And I was like, huh, okay. You know, so I'm driving home, tears streaming down my face, and I scream, I told you I'm not crazy, right? That's the title of my book. When I finally write it, is, I told you I'm not crazy. The realities of Lyme disease. And so I thought, you know, here I've got my golden ticket. Only to find out later that, you know, the next chapter was almost going to be even harder because the CDC just recognized last year that the disease that I've had for 27 years is legit. So the way insurance and doctors and everybody treats it, it's really controversial. You can't get a lot of the help that you need. And so it's another battle, right? So it's another battle. And Lyme usually doesn't come by itself. It usually comes with co infections and viruses. And then by the time it was all said and done, I had three autoimmune diseases and I was, like, 150 pounds overweight. And, you know, so many things that I have.
Dr. Jane Levesque
5:51 - 6:07
An interesting thing you said. The interesting thing you said is that something set you up for Lyme as well, right? So it's like, it wasn't the lime, was the thick. Can you elaborate on that? Because it's like it was the constipation and the microbiome and the terrain, and then when you got big bite tick, it was almost like that was the last draw.
Heather Gray
6:07 - 6:08
Yeah, absolutely.
Dr. Jane Levesque
6:08 - 6:09
Did I understand that correctly?
Heather Gray
6:10 - 6:50
Yeah, because so many folks think, oh, I was bit by a tick and I got sick, and I'm trying to tell them, I'm like, if that's the way that it worked. Everybody would have Lyme disease, because it's not just a tick that spread, spreads it. It's mosquitoes, it's bed bugs, it's fleas, it's sexually transmitted. It's transmitted congenitally, you know, so if that was the case, everybody who got bit by a tick would have it, and that's not the case. It's your genetics, it's your detox genes, it's your environment, it's epigenetics. It's all these things setting you up. Like I said, to be a perfect host. And with my early childhood trauma, my trashed gut, I was living in mold at the time, right? My nervous system was shot. I was eating horribly. So, yeah, I was the perfect host.
Dr. Jane Levesque
6:50 - 6:51
Yeah.
Heather Gray
6:51 - 6:52
Type a personality.
Dr. Jane Levesque
6:52 - 7:05
I just think, like, it's really important to outline that, because sometimes we just fixate on this one thing that happened at whatever age, where in reality, there was even the events that happened before that set you up for that. I didn't mean to interrupt, but it was just.
Heather Gray
7:05 - 7:21
No, absolutely, no. They said that at the beginning, if this is the one point that I can get across, that it's not as black and white as cause and effect, that there's usually something downstream that's been happening for years, decades, you know, before we start showing symptoms.
Dr. Jane Levesque
7:21 - 7:26
Yeah. So tell us that, you know, the journey, insurance, healing, figuring out.
Heather Gray
7:27 - 8:17
So, yeah, that was a nightmare. And I did the western med model for about five months, and I thought I was going to die, because never once did they ask me if I was pooping and I wasn't, right? Still wasn't. For 34 years. I wasn't sleeping well. No one asked me about my diet, no one asked me about my stress level and said they went to war, right, with a body that had been sick for decades. And I thought I was gonna die. And intuitively, something in me told me that this isn't gonna work. I had a nine year old. You know, I was a hairstylist. I didn't have a medical background, but I just knew I had to look a different way. And then I heard the founder of FDN, Reed Davis, speaking on a podcast, right, Sean Croxton underground wellness. And he was like, you gotta make sure that your gut is healed and your hormones are balanced and that your detox pathways are open. And, like, intuitively, I was like, holy shit, this makes sense, right?
Dr. Jane Levesque
8:17 - 8:18
Totally.
Heather Gray
8:18 - 9:32
. You know, this was back in:
Dr. Jane Levesque
9:32 - 9:54
Yeah. Well, and you were just talking, you came back from a Dave Asprey conference where we are getting into some pretty cool biohacks. And, yeah, they're not available to everyone in terms like, the costs of them could be anywhere between $10,000 to hundreds of thousands of dollars. But it's, you know, we're getting there eventually. Hopefully, there'll be a little bit more available for us.
Heather Gray
-:Absolutely. And the tools are great for people who have put down the foundations and who are starting totally tweak it a little bit faster, a little bit more, or longevity stuff. But that's what a lot of people want, to just jump straight to those toys. And I, you know, I'm like, no, no, don't pass go. Don't collect $200. Like, you've got to lay those foundations down first.
Dr. Jane Levesque
-:Yeah. Otherwise you're not really going to feel it. No. And you said you have a nine year old. How was your fertility pregnancy? Is there anything remarkable to share or anything memorable to share? Because my audience, this is the first.
Heather Gray
-:Time, about seven months before I got pregnant with him, I miscarried and hindsight's 2020 again. So I had cavitations from wisdom teeth removal when I was 15, and when they opened that up and sent everything back to pathology, there was some pretty nasty viruses, parasites, bacteria in there. One of them that actually leads to higher rates of miscarriages, right on top of the Lyme and the mold and the heavy metals, as well, also lead to higher infertility and miscarriages. So the fact that I had him was kind of a miracle. It's another hindsight 2020. Doctor Todd Watts was talking at Echo about atrazine and how it's changing the fertility of these amphibians. And guess what? My son is transgendered. And I can't help but wonder if I would have had this information ten years ago, and I would have detoxed him first for at least a year before allowing him to transition. How different our lives may be right now, because when I was pregnant with him, I was undiagnosed. Lyme disease, mold toxicity, cavitations, heavy metals, parasites, leaky gut, malnourished. How do you create a healthy baby from nothing, from that deficit? You don't. Yeah. You know, he was diagnosed with celiac at the age of two. His little belly had been so distended for so long, the muscles actually separated like a pregnant person's. He had lost, like, ten pounds in two weeks. You could count his ribs, but he had this great, big, distended belly. It was horrible, you know, so the more and more that we're starting to find out, because, you know, there's a saying in FDN, you know, no matter how common a symptom may be, it's never normal. And we're seeing upticks in these, you know, occurrences of transgendered folks, and there's nothing wrong with them. I'm not saying that's an issue, but I'm saying it's not necessarily normal, especially with the amount that we're getting these days. You know, so we need to look a little deeper. Is there something that could be causing this? Right, yeah, you know, and the heavy metals and the toxins, especially if they're clogging up the hormone receptors and insulin receptors and all these other things, like, it kind of makes sense that it's screwing with a person's chemistry, you know, if they're not getting the right signals like that. Just kind of common sense.
Dr. Jane Levesque
-:Well, I actually just listened to a podcast with Jay Campbell on this, and he talks about the estrogen and testosterone, how it's supposed to basically, like, the gender comes in when they're in the womb, and there has to be a really strong signal from either of these hormones. And so when the signal of the hormone is not very strong, so whether it's estrogen or testosterone, then there's that kind of confusion that comes in, and then, you know, obviously, you have the chemical toxic load. And even just like our society, with some of the toxic language that we have, in the confusion around, we want to accept everyone. And like I said, it's not about, it's, there's nothing wrong. But I also look at, hey, I think your brain is inflamed. I think there's, like, detoxification pathways, and if you still want to it, you can be your own person. But can we get the brain inflammation down? Can we make sure that you're actually happy in your body? Because I don't know anybody who is happy when they're confused and trying to figure out who they are supposed to be in this world, you know? Thank you for sharing that. That's a lot.
Heather Gray
-:Yeah, absolutely.
Dr. Jane Levesque
-:Yeah, yeah.
Heather Gray
-:All that. And I've actually, I just recently became a stand up comedian and had my.
Dr. Jane Levesque
-:Get out of here.
Heather Gray
-:Had my first paid gig two weeks ago, and I totally killed it. And I brought up brain inflammation, and I brought up Lyme disease. And my next one I'm bringing up, I'm talking about my transgendered son, because, know, I'm trying to find a way, you know, other than podcasts. Podcasts are great, but another way, another platform, right. To bring awareness and education to this. Because, man, if the human some humor.
Dr. Jane Levesque
-:With some humor in it, right? Like some lightness. Yeah, it is super heavy. Yeah.
Heather Gray
-:You know what?
Dr. Jane Levesque
-:I've actually really enjoyed that. And I don't know if it's Joe Rogan that has popular, is popularized comedy so much or it's just been on the uptake in general. But I have, like, I love watching stand up. It's probably the only thing that I watch when I do have time, because I just want to, like, I just want to be entertained, you know, like, I don't want to watch drama. I don't want to at the end of the day. And I have really enjoyed watching the stand up comics have their little, like, personality and their beliefs and their values come through in their stand up in such a lighthearted way. It's like they're having little monologues while they're making people laugh. I have so much respect for that.
Heather Gray
-:Yeah, awesome. Yeah, it's, it takes a lot to be so vulnerable and put that out there, like, some of the stuff I talk about, I'm like, oh, God, but.
Dr. Jane Levesque
-:I'd love to see it. If you can send me, I'd love to see.
Heather Gray
-:I'll send you my bit.
Dr. Jane Levesque
-:I would love it. So, okay, tell us the healing journey, then. How the medical system was a mess. How did you get to be, you know, and then you had the revelation or the. Okay, I need to focus on the foundation. How did you get to be where you are today?
Heather Gray
-:So, within a few months of doing, you know, FDN, the model, you know, making sure my detox pathway is open, you know, getting diet dialed in, sleeping, getting my stress level down, my whole life changed within three months. Like, it was. It was fast. And then I hit a plateau, and that's when I started learning about mold. And I was living in mold at the time and had mark ons and that whole nine yards, that was a whole nother layer to peel back.
Dr. Jane Levesque
-:What's Mark ons?
Heather Gray
-:It's a. Oh, geez. It's like a super virus, I think, in the nose from mold. I had to use a silver spray to get rid of it type of thing. Kind of like MRSA. Yeah, yeah. God, it's been so long since I talked about that. I was like, oh, what is it? You know, so then went through that whole thing, and then the cavitations hit another plateau, and then had to have the cavitations fixed and then hit another plateau, and that's when I had to really start looking at trauma in my nervous system, because I kept relapsing. And I'm finding this language common in the Lyme and autoimmune world. They'll talk about their flares like it's a normal, everyday occurrence, and that it's normal and it doesn't have to be. There's, you know, a flare is just your body still telling you, hey, there's something going on in here. You need to dig deeper. And for me, it was the mental, emotional, the nervous system resetting. And there's so much talk about this now, thank God, bringing it. It's not just a freaking neurotransmitter deficit. There's, you know, I hate that doctor. Amen was at the biohacking conference, and he talks about how this is like, psychologists are the only ones that don't actually get to look at the organ that they're working with, you know, and they don't run labs on the organ that they're working with. And it's just. It's fascinating, you know? And it really is a lot of brain inflammation. It's mold, it's heavy metals, it's other viruses and bacteria crossing the blood brain barrier, causing a lot of inflammation or the trauma getting stuck in your nervous system, right? So I told you, you know, how I was brought up, so I was always on alert, right? There was always a tiger in the room, and you can't digest your food when you're like that. You don't have a sex drive when your nervous system is like that, and you can't heal or sustainably keep it when your nervous system is like that. So I remember reading the book the body keeps score. That was my first intro in, holy shit, that book killed me. Like, I'm ugly crying on the couch, you know, my husband's like, what are you reading? I'm like, this little girl and her dad, like, no, no, I don't want to hear anymore. But it was the first time, though, somebody was, you know, speaking that language. And so from there, I went and did, like, two weeks later, jumped in both feet with an ayahuasca journey. And then I've done psilocybin twice. I've done bufo twice. I've done a couple weeks of low dose ketamine. I've done somatic experiencing work. I've done breath work. I've done meditation, bioenergetic stuff. You know, everything to get my nervous system calm, because nothing, nothing productive awesome can happen except for running away from a tiger. When you're amped up all the time, even your God gift manifestations, you know, the energetic part of this world can't happen. Miracles can't happen when you're constantly in that fight or flight. And so I spend a lot of days, I'm shocked at how much time I spend in meditation these days. Like, before, I used to, like, it was just another thing to get off my to do list because I'm a typical type a recovering.
Dr. Jane Levesque
-:Totally.
Heather Gray
-:Yeah, yeah. You know, and now I, like, schedule it in, you know, ten minute slots three times throughout my day just to unplug, unwind, get back into my heart, remind myself why I'm here and why I'm doing what I'm doing, right. And, man, how much. How different. My life has changed. Even in this, the last three months of really dialing in that practice, it's just been.
Dr. Jane Levesque
-:Yeah. Question what? I mean, psychedelics, that's something that I've dabbled in with myself and even, like, genuinely been, like, make recommendations for patients. Is that the first thing that you jumped into, or was there other things that you is that just like, your personality? And you're like, I want to dive in and figure this out?
Heather Gray
-:Well, I mean, once I started realizing what was going on and then. So my memories were gone from childhood. Like, I didn't remember anything before the age of, like, 17. And that's a red flag right there. I was like, trauma, you know, and I had been gaslit by my parents, too, that there was no trauma. And so I. Blah, blah, blah. It's just normal not to remember anything before the age of 17. Once I started asking the questions, I started getting little glimpses of shit. I was like. And that's when I remembered, like, oh, my God, my uncle committed suicide. I was really, really close with him as a four year old.
Dr. Jane Levesque
-:It was a big trauma for you.
Heather Gray
-:With addicts, you know, there's no way that they had the emotional iq to help me deal with my grief. You know what I mean? So, yeah, so I started putting two and two together, and I just. I felt like a big hammer is what was called for in this case. A lot of people start off slower and more gentle and absolutely, that's a way you can do it. I ended up processing, like, 40 years of mothership in one night and thought I was going to die and heard myself cry.
Dr. Jane Levesque
-:It's a theme in your healing journey.
Heather Gray
-:I know, right? Thought I was gonna die again.
Dr. Jane Levesque
-:I thought I was gonna die again.
Heather Gray
-:Heard myself cry in a way I've never. Like, noises were coming from the depths of my soul that. That were just waiting to be let out. And it was so bizarre to hear myself make those noises. This is the pain, the pain, the pain, the pain. And then there was the psilocybin journey after that. I swear to God, if you would have actually picked up all the kleenexes that were around me and weighed them, they would have weighed two pounds worth of snot and tears because that's all I did was cry for 4 hours. And so that seems to be a common theme when I do psychedelics, plant stuff is tears because I don't in the past have taken the time to allow myself to feel. And I was very detached from my feelings and being a woman and in a man's world, an entrepreneur and trying to be taken seriously. You can't act like a woman. You can't have emotions. And so I had drowned out these parts of my life, and those are God given gifts. Like, emotions are something that we need to feel. God didn't give them to us for, you know, they're not like junk DNA.
Dr. Jane Levesque
-:So you know, you're human, right?
Heather Gray
-:And here we spend so much time trying to frickin tamp those out and become robots. And so, yeah, so that was, like, a big lesson for me, is taking the time out to actually feel and slow down enough to. Huh. How do I feel about that? Right? Because anger was, like, the only thing that was ever allowed in my household. Anger was the only acceptable thing. So, you know, everything always came out sideways. Anger, sadness. You know, usually anger is a blanket on top of sadness. So once you.
Dr. Jane Levesque
-:Totally.
Heather Gray
-:Yeah, right. And then I feel the sadness because sadness was not allowed in my house. You get torn apart like a pack of wolves if you show that kind of weakness. Right. So, yeah, so it's fascinating, the journey that I'm on now, but, yeah, no, it is my personality to just kind of dive in both feet. You know, that comes in the territory with Lyme folks, too. Some of the controversial stuff I've tried in the past ten years to get over Lyme, because there is no standard of care, there is no cure, there is no fill in the blank. I had to become an advocate. So you would tell me, oh, you want me to do mms, which is chlorine dioxide. Oh, you want me to put silver in my veins? Like, oh, you want to put ozone up my ass? You know, I've done some really crazy stuff in the name of getting better, so why would my mental health journey be any different?
Dr. Jane Levesque
-:Yep, that's it. Well, and could you really. This is kind of the. I don't know if there is a scale, because I always draw this out for my patient. There's, like, the physical, mental, and emotional. And with fertility, there is a. It's almost like there's certain characteristics, right, of people. Just like, with Lyme or chronic disease, you're gonna have certain trauma. And I see that all the time in fertility as well. Like, I can't tell you how many of my clients struggling with infertility also have trauma and alcohol abuse in the family, whether it's mom, dad, or both, or lost a parent when they were really young or had a really traumatic relationship. It's just like, a lot of that stuff is connected. How much of it do you think through going through your own journey, was it like doing the physical stuff, doing the ozone, and doing the, you know, all the iv therapies and blah, blah, blah versus the mental and emotional? Is there, like, a percentage that you could put on it, or was it just, like, the right time at the, you know, the right thing at the right time?
Heather Gray
-:You know, that's a great question. And I, being the, you know, the functional practitioner that I am, I stopped putting so much emphasis on that and I'm putting more emphasis on the other.
Dr. Jane Levesque
-:I.
Heather Gray
-:So I think I put the cart before the horse and it's why it took me a little bit longer. Right. Because again, if you're so you stopped.
Dr. Jane Levesque
-:Putting more emphasis on the physical stuff and you started putting more emphasis on the mental and emotional.
Heather Gray
-:Absolutely. 110%. Because the best supplements in the world, the best everything in the world, aren't going to work as well if your body, if your nervous system is so trashed, you know, so really taking that emphasis, which really sucks because so many people are still so brainwashed. Like, I had a client that worked with me for over a year and got him so far and he was just still at the end of the year, I'm having really bad anxiety. Is there a supplement you can give me for my add and my anxiety? And I was like, well, have you got out and grounded today? Did you get movement in today? Have you done your breath work today? Have you meditated or done your gratitude journal? Well, no, we'll know, we'll know, we'll know. And then I'm like, no, I'm not giving you another supplement. Like, that's no different than the western med model. I mean, you're taking a pill, you know, changing it out for a supplement, but it's no different. You're still not getting to the root cause. And until you learn how to slow down, my friend, right, your anxiety is going to kill you. Because what is it you're not trying to feel? Right? There's your body's telling you something.
Dr. Jane Levesque
-:Yeah, sometimes I'll use this. Supplements, like, to knock people out so they can start to feel.
Heather Gray
-:Absolutely.
Dr. Jane Levesque
-:You know, but, like, I'll do that as a trick. They're like, I'm really tired, Doctor Jade. I'm like, good. Now what do you feel? Because it's just like, you know, sometimes it feels like this uphill battle. Like we have so much stuff bombarding us all the time, from, like, the EMFs to the workload to even, you know, if you already have kids and just family stuff. Like, just. It's really demanding all the time. If we can find that shut off button. And I think that's kind of what psychedelics do, too. Right? But it's a bit. It's a huge reset.
Heather Gray
-:How huge? You know, you have to. In this world, no one's going to give you that time. You have to take it for yourself, you know, no is a complete sentence, and you don't have to explain yourself, right? You know, say no and shut up. Like, you don't have to explain, like, what a gift. So I talk about the gifts of Lyme disease on a regular basis, and a lot of people want to, like, shoot arrows at me because they're still kind of stuck in that victim mentality. But it taught me how to slow down and take care of myself. There's no way in hell I would have learned these lessons any other way, because I was just a typical go, go, go, push, push, push, grind, american culture attitude, you know, eat on the go, fast food. I smoked cigarettes, I drank, you know, all the things that you see on tv that everybody else does, you know, there's no way I would have learned it. I remember ten years ago thinking, damn hippies, you know, saying that everything will give you cancer, and now the opposite. I'm like, oh, my God, everything will give you cancer, right? It's the truth.
Dr. Jane Levesque
-:So, like, they were right all along.
Heather Gray
-:You would kick the new me's ass, but, yeah, but it's the truth. And so, you know, getting that message out there and having people giving them permission to slow down to say no, put themselves first, because that's another reason I see women, especially, they have a higher occurrence for autoimmune and Lyme disease. And part of it, I think, is because as women, we put everybody else before our needs. And when we get the scraps left over for so long, then our body finally is like, well, she doesn't care about us, then why should we? You know? Like, they. We got to start putting ourselves first and taking the time to slow down.
Dr. Jane Levesque
-:I had an appointment with Doctor Gabe Roberts. He was at the Eco event. I just happened to meet him. He wrote a book from pain to purpose, and he's a subconscious healer, but he asks questions, and he's like, I need you to answer fast. Like, you don't have time to think about it. And, like, yes or no? Do you say yes when you should say no? And it's always like, yep, all the time, you know? And when I ask my patients, it's like, yep. So then it's like, okay, why do we do that? And then, you know, you can trickle down to help you, and because it's usually just behaviors that's passed on to. From your mom, and then she got it from your grandma, and she got it from, you know, her mom and so on and so forth. So it takes a lot of energy to break that cycle you know?
Heather Gray
-:Absolutely. And it's not easy. Like, I just did it twice this last week, and both of them, like, lost their shit on me. Like, it was kind of ugly, but it was kind of beautiful. It's like, oh, well, thank you for showing me your true colors. Like, I can't even have a healthy boundary for myself without you completely losing it. Like, and one ghosted me, and one, like, got nasty with me, and I was just kind of like, God bless you, self editing universe. Like, bye bye.
Dr. Jane Levesque
-:But honestly, Heather, what I'm finding really inspiring, and I think that I always try to help my patients with this as well, and be aware it's not attaching yourself to a certain disease or certain personality or certain. And being okay with the change, because people are not going to be okay with the change. Like, literally what you explained. But it's a lot of the times, we actually are afraid of not having Lyme disease anymore. And it sounds crazy, but if I'm not sick all the time, then nobody's paying attention to me. And for me, it was, like, in different aspects of my life. Like, I was so involved in crossfit. At one point, it was like, it has to be crossfit. All this, even though my body was starting to break down, it's like, no, no, this is the way. And when I was able to step away from that and be like, maybe it's not like I'll get into certain parts of it, but I don't have to compete anymore. Oh, okay. You know, and I see people just get stuck in those Personas, if you will, and they cannot, you know, they cannot separate.
Heather Gray
-:That's why I love all my clients. Prerequisite is reading, breaking the habit of being yourself by Doctor Joe Dispenza. Because right there, it says that you cannot change your personal reality without changing your personality. You know, like, that's my favorite quote of his, and it's the truth, because how many times I start working with people, when can I go back to eating? When can I go back to doing, and my head explodes. It's like, oh, God bless you. No, you can't go back to that, because then you go back to the mechanism that helped get you sick. Like, you need to see the correlation. If you want something different, you got to do something different. What is that, the definition of insanity, right? Doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. So really hitting that message home. And for some reason, I didn't feel like they could hear it from me, so that's why I was awesome. When I found that book, because now it's coming from a male voice and it's coming from somebody else. And sometimes they need to hear things a few times from a. Do you have a perspectives right to hear it? So, yeah, it's now, I never used to have, like, prerequisite reading, and then now it's like, nope. Before we even start working together, you got to read this. So, yeah.
Dr. Jane Levesque
-:So when did you actually get your certification? Because we talked about your healing journey. But when did you decide that you were going to help people like this?
Heather Gray
-:2013.
Dr. Jane Levesque
-:Okay. And that was just through your own journey?
Heather Gray
-:Yep.
Dr. Jane Levesque
-:Yeah.
Heather Gray
-:I was a hairstylist at the time. My body was falling apart. I kind of. I was never really passionate about it. I was good, but I wasn't passionate about it. Always was fascinated by alternative and natural medicine. Used to play around with herbs. You know, back in the day, you know, after my first psych ward, you know, I was starting to look up, like, natural remedies for anxiety and depression. And I was taking these awesome herbs, but then I was also eating McDonald's and drinking and smoking cigarettes and not sleeping at night, you know, so it was, you know, I had just a little piece of the puzzle. So, yeah, so, you know, I started back in 2013, took about. I was in practice for about six months, and then went through a divorce and kind of blew up my life and went through another little journey for about seven years, and then I came back full time in 2020.
Dr. Jane Levesque
-:That's incredible. You, like, I'm just so inspired by equal life. You've blown it up by so many times. And tell me, is that just like, is there a drive? Like, there's something internally that would tell you and you're like, I'm just going to do this and I'm going to go just to, like, how does somebody come from so much trauma and so much disease and so much illness to now being where you are?
Heather Gray
-:Got me all choked up. That's a really good question. I don't know. I just have this really crazy ass spirit that just doesn't fucking give up and this insatiable need for answers and the truth and to dig deeper. You know, people, if you're going to go into the woo woo, you know, like numerology, I'm a number seven. There's a lot of different things that I've looked into that all have said you came here for. With a very difficult life path and for you to overcome these things and then to educate and inspire. So that's. It's you know, the hero's journey or the dark night of the soul just seems to be kind of written in my DNA. And as soon as I figured that out and that was, like, just within this last year and learning to accept it of this. This is my path. And then that's when I got into comedy, right? And I'm like, fine, well, this is my path, and I'm gonna make fun of it, and I'm gonna inspire it and educate and bring some to it. I stopped fighting it and stopped feeling sorry for myself because sometimes if you don't know why things are happening and you're just like, oh, why me? You know, type of thing, it could be kind of easy human thing to do. But then when I just realized that for some reason that is just what I'm here to do this time around, then I just accepted it. And, you know, it is what it is, and I'm learning from it what I'm supposed to learn from it and inspire and educate the way that I can, you know, be a beacon for others.
Dr. Jane Levesque
-:Yeah, I just. I think it's so inspiring. Like, I'm in awe. Listening to your, like, just your story and your journey. It's not what I expected at all. I said a lot. Yeah, but it's, you know, I think I deal with a lot of darkness with my patients as well, and there's a lot of comparison, and there's a lot of, well, this person got pregnant and they didn't have to do anything, and why do I have to? And, I mean, essentially, that's the victim speaking. And even though. And then sometimes I feel like we get trapped, and even though I don't speak like the victim, my actions are. I'm doing the actions, but I don't actually believe that it's gonna work, you know? And I think that belief is rooted in the mental, emotional, like your early psychology, essentially, when you were brought up.
Heather Gray
-:Oh, absolutely. You know, and I was told I was an idiot and I would never amount to anything. And, you know, the amount of abuse, you know, they say up until seven, you know, kids are just a sponge. And that was, like, probably the sickest time in my family's history. I didn't get. I didn't get the tools for compassion. I didn't get the tools for unconditional love. And it's been quite fascinating to, as an adult, trying to put in things that other people got naturally from their parents, you know, my God, my second husband, he's just incredible. And he's just been such a. What's the word I'm looking for, an example of how to live unconditional love and how all this stuff works because I, you know, even at my worst, he never treats me bad. Because you're not. Even a couple years ago, I was still having some issues and, you know, talking about taking myself out and, you know, issues of rage. And he never made me wrong for any of it. He always just held me in love and I've, you know, never experienced that before. So it's awesome to have somebody in your life who can, you know, show that example or are turning to higher ascended masters, like Jesus, you know, Buddha, all these other people who showed and taught love. Right?
Dr. Jane Levesque
-:Yeah. Yeah. And you probably, like, the thing is, it's like you're also not ready for it. You weren't ready for it. I don't know how long you've been married with your current husband now, but, like, you probably weren't ready for it 15 years ago.
Heather Gray
-:Oh, God, no. No, absolutely not. I wouldn't have been ready back when I had my first business. I wouldn't have been ready for success back then. Like, absolutely not. Like, we all. Divine timing, right? Like, I had to go through everything I had to go through. And I think patience was the last thing that I lacked the least of. It's like, why isn't it happening yet, you know, when it comes to anything? So I get it. But no, it's divine timing and things happen when they're supposed to. As cliche as that sounds, it's the truth.
Dr. Jane Levesque
-:Yeah. When I struggled to find my partner, I remember it was like using my counselor, my naturopath, who said, it's not about attracting the right person, it's about becoming the right person. It was like, oh, I'm attracting the wrong person. It's like, me is the person, like, I am attracting the right person. And when actually that clicked, I started to look at relationships very, very different, because then it's when someone comes into my life, whether it's my husband at that time, but even, like, friends or acquaintances, business partnerships, whatever, you're like, why is this person in my life and not in like a why? But a curious, like, would it, is this a forever person or is this a for now person, you know, for a reason, for a season? What is it?
Heather Gray
-:So, yeah, absolutely 110%. I remember crying after my divorce, after being on a couple dates to my mom, and was just like, why do I keep attracting these emotionally unavailable men? And then it was just like, oh, I'm emotionally unavailable. It's like light bulb, you know, and then that's what started me off on that. I did the passion and intimacy coaching for a couple of years, trying to dive deeper into the feminine and masculine and emotions and all that stuff. Every part of my life is broken, from relationships to health to money to everything. And so I just have that natural curiosity that when something isn't working, you know, I dig deep and try to fix it.
Dr. Jane Levesque
-:Yeah, let's piece it together. So, I mean, tell us about how, you know, your clients and kind of the program you're offering. A program. How do you work with people? What does that look like? How much of physical, mental, emotional. Is there a pathway that, like, you incorporate? Everyone has to do this before they do this. I'd be just curious to know.
Heather Gray
-:Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So the course that I put together, it's called the foundations of health, and it is everything I did, you know, from a structurally foundational, mental, emotional detoxing aspect to getting better. And I even have, like, a six, seven video cooking series. Right. Real cooking for real life. Because if you're still, again, if you're having all these awesome supplements and you're doing the somatic work, but you're trashing your gut with McDonald's. Right. So they all have to work together. You got to dial in your sleep. You got to dial in the right kind of exercise. And so I cover all that stuff in this course, and right now I've got it on sale. I think your folks with the code doctor Jane gets dollar 307 off the course, so make sure to check that out. And then I also have a freebie on the website. So the limeboss.com, that's l y m e, you know, like Lyme disease. We're not making margaritas. How many times? People still put in lime? Lime? And I'm like, oh, that's cute. No, we're not making margaritas. But there's a free cooking cookbook that I have for a giveaway so they can get started with, you know, because that seems to be a lot of people's hang up, too. We've just gotten out of the culture of cooking, and people are like, you want me to do what in the kitchen? So it's like, here, let me show you.
Dr. Jane Levesque
-:Yeah, it's a big piece. So it's, like, missing the nurturing. And do you find that because it can be pretty overwhelming to. Okay, it's diet, it's exercise, it's sleep, it's hydration. Mental, emotional health. Do you have a priority list, or do you find that it's like just really dependent on each individual and what's going on for them.
Heather Gray
-:So the FDM way is the dress for success model, which is diet, rest, exercise, stress reduction and supplementation. And that's kind of the order that I start to work with people and I weave in the nervous system stuff within each of those modules. And you notice that supplementation is at the end, right.
Dr. Jane Levesque
-:Because you can't supplement, supplement your diet.
Heather Gray
-:You can't supplement your way out of, you know, not exercising. You can't supplement your way out of bad sleep. You know, so many folks especially, it's sad. There's still a lot of functional practitioners that kind of practice that model of like a doctor where it's just here's this handful of supplements, but they're not asking you about if you're pooping or what your stress level is like or, you know, what your diet is like. So if that. If you run into those type of practitioners, run. Because you're just going to make a lot of expensive pee.
Dr. Jane Levesque
-:Yep. Yeah. And I think, you know, I mean, I used to practice like that as well because I didn't know any better. But what made me change is because I wasn't getting any results with people or myself. Like, I was getting frustrated. And so you definitely want to look for those practitioners who are living proof of they've had an experience. This is what they're doing and they're changing. They're being transparent. But I've had a patient recently where she shares, like, I ran all these lab work results and I can't remember. I think it's a GI diagnostics lab and it's literally like your glutathione is off, so you need to take Nac or like this glutathione. Your vitamin C is low, so you need to take vitamin C. Your B vitamins are low. And she's like, and here's the prescription. And I'm like, if that was medicine, then we would all be out of a job. Like, if it was just, here's what you need to do. And, you know, so there's an interpretation piece to talking to a human and having health assessment and really asking the deeper questions of like, well, why are the B vitamins low? Why is your glutathione out of range and, you know, providing appropriate steps?
Heather Gray
-:Absolutely. 110%.
Dr. Jane Levesque
-:Yeah. Anything else that you would like to. So we have a course and we have a cookbook that people will link that down below and they can check that out. And really that's for anyone who's struggling with Lyme autoimmune disease toxicity. Did I get that right?
Heather Gray
-:Yep. Absolutely. Yeah.
Dr. Jane Levesque
-:Anything else that you would. That we haven't talked about that's important to know for any of these conditions.
Heather Gray
-:You know, just not to give up. You know, so many people, they've already seen 20 practitioners, and what are you going to do differently for me? Great. You found out 20 different things that don't work, right. So it's just process elimination. Awesome. Keep going. Because you never know if that next 21 person is going to be like, that doctor for me with the twinkle in her eye and within five minutes can give you answers. So don't give up. Keep looking.
Dr. Jane Levesque
-:Yeah. I think that's such a good reminder for everything there's. My clients ask me that all the time. Like, when do I give up on this journey? And I'm just like, never. What are you talking about? You can take breaks, though. Like, if you feel overwhelmed and you feel tired, you can take a break. But giving up is like, what are you giving up on?
Heather Gray
-:Right?
Dr. Jane Levesque
-:Yeah.
Heather Gray
-:What's your other choices? Just roll over and let yourself die. Like, no, these. You got one life. Let's live it.
Dr. Jane Levesque
-:Yeah. Yeah. You're such an inspiration. Thanks so much for being here. I just. I'm in awe of what you've gone through and, like, how you've attacked your healing journey. And, like, I think attacked is the right word because you haven't given up. Haven't given up. But you've also just head on, like, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna figure this out. And it's really inspiring. Heather, awesome.
Heather Gray
-:Thank you so much.
Dr. Jane Levesque
-:Thank you so much for listening to read the full show notes of this episode, including summary, timestamps, guest quotes, and any resources that were mentioned on the episode. Visit drjanelevesque.com podcast. And if you're getting value from these episodes, I'd love it if you took two minutes to share it with a friend. Rate and leave me a review@ratethispodcast.com. doctorJanevere the reviews will help with the discoverability of the show, and who knows, I might share your review on my next episode. Thank you so much for tuning in, and let's make your fertility journey your healing journey.
