Why Your Blood Work Looks “Normal” While You Still Feel Sick | Traditional European Naturopathic Medicine
Millions of people struggle with exhaustion, inflammation, digestive issues, hormone imbalance, brain fog, anxiety, and chronic symptoms… only to be told their labs are “normal.”
In this powerful conversation, Jill Hart sits down with traditional European naturopath Sierra Smith to explore the forgotten healing principles of Traditional European Naturopathic Medicine and why modern approaches often miss the deeper patterns behind chronic illness.
Inside this episode, we discuss:
✨ The concept of “dyscrasia” and hidden imbalance
✨ Why symptoms matter even when tests look normal
✨ Hormones, menopause, liver health, and blood sugar
✨ The connection between trauma, stress, and chronic illness
✨ Whole foods, seasonal eating, and nervous system regulation
✨ Herbal medicine, comfrey, milk thistle, and gentle healing
✨ Why tracking symptoms can reveal what your body is trying to tell you
✨ The importance of consciousness, self-awareness, and reconnecting with nature
This episode is a reminder that healing is not about masking symptoms… it’s about learning how to listen to your body again.
🎧 Connect with Sierra Smith and learn more about her work in Traditional European Naturopathic Medicine.
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Transcript
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Millions of people are living with exhaustioHn, inflammation, anxiety, digestive issues, and chronic symptoms, while being told their blood work is completely normal. But long before modern medicine relied on lab markers alone, there was an entire European
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: medical system focused on identifying patterns of imbalance before illness is fully developed. Today's conversation explores the forgotten world of traditional European naturopathic medicine, why modern approaches often miss the deeper issue and the hidden health patterns most people have never even been taught to recognize. Hi, and welcome to the You World Order Showcase podcast, where we feature life, health, transformational coaches, and spiritual entrepreneurs stepping up
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: be the change they seek in the world. I'm your host, Jill Hart, The Coaches Alchemist, on a mission to empower coaches and entrepreneurs to amplify their voice, monetize their mission, and get visible. If you're ready to start attracting premium clients without chasing algorithms or hunting people down like a banshee on a mission, head over to Coachesalchemist.com and schedule your free client acquisition audit. It's the first step to building a business where your clients seek you out
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Rather than you having to hunt them down. Today, we are chatting with Sierra Smith. Sierra is a traditional European naturopath focused on helping people understand chronic symptoms.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Vague Health Complaints through the lens of traditional European naturopathic medicine. Her work combines historical European healing practices, modern science, nutrition, and individualized lifestyle approaches to help people recognize deeper patterns by
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: of imbalance often missed by conventional care. Welcome to the show, Sierra. Nice to have you with us.
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::Sierra: Hello! Thank you, I'm really excited to be here.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: So let me ask you the big question, which is, what's the most significant thing, in your opinion, is individuals we can do to make an impact on how the world is going?
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::Sierra: Oh, that's a good question.
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::Sierra: I'm gonna have to be very unnaturopathic with my…
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::Sierra: With my answer, but at the same time, I still feel like it's the correct answer also from a naturopathic perspective, and it has to do with becoming more conscious
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::Sierra: of yourself, of what your body's telling you, which is what I teach people to do, but also of your society, of your family, of your environment. I always tell people that I love naturopathic medicine, and naturopathic medicine is one piece of the puzzle. We are here on this planet together.
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::Sierra: And we need to be aware of our…
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::Sierra: Of the impact of our behavior on ourselves, and on others, and on this planet.
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::Sierra: So, I think consciousness is the word.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And we are all part of that consciousness.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah. And…
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::Sierra: We're all connected.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: We are all connected, because we are all part of this consciousness that is life. And I include plants and animals and everything that is…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: living.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: is part of the consciousness, and I'm not even sure the stuff that isn't living isn't part of the consciousness.
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::Sierra: Yeah, I definitely believe, like, yeah, I obviously don't have all the answers, I'm not some guru.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Oh, yeah.
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::Sierra: But I definitely believe, like, when I'm even working with herbal medicine or something, like, I see distinct personalities and energies that are part of this within the plants, and…
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::Sierra: That's probably one of my favorite parts, actually.
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::Sierra: I don't… I do a lot more than only herbal medicine, but I really enjoy herbal medicine.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Herbal medicine is so powerful. I have personal experience with it right now. I grow comfrey in my backyard, and I've been struggling with a shoulder problem.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: that I did take to the doctors, and they don't know what's wrong with it, and they want me to do all these things, and usually tests. My experience with tests with doctors is they never…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: figure anything out with the test. They ask for the wrong test for the thing that it ends up being, and the results of the test are…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: measured against a population of sick people. Like, the.
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::Sierra: Yep.
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::Sierra: men.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Sick men, yes, not even women. It's mostly men, and men and women's biology is different, and a lot of these numbers that they're using are just arbitrary numbers. Blood pressure is a great example of them. We are self-regulating beings.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: you're… if you have high blood pressure, there's something that's causing your blood pressure to be high. You need to change that, not just take some medicine so you can mask it and set something else off. It just, like…
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::Sierra: We have a word for that, actually, in traditional European naturopathic medicine. That is called dyscrasia. So dyscrasia is that imbalance. It's the force behind high blood pressure, or whatever else you have.
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::Sierra: But it's… it literally just means imbalance, and it's the same thing, like, when you… when you see in other traditional healing cultures, like in Ayurveda, they had ama.
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::Sierra: And Alma… was also meaning imbalance. It was out of… it was talking about this…
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::Sierra: it's not a physical substance in your body, it's not like blood that you can measure, but it's referring to something being out of order. And they saw… you saw this in…
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::Sierra: Every traditional healing culture had some sort of a term for this.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And who's… you know, it's not a number that dictates for you what is right for your body, just because somebody says it. And I'll go so far as to say, I think some of the blood pressure medicine, or blood pressure cuffs.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: are defective. They cause you to have higher blood pressure.
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::Sierra: I have actually issues with really low blood pressure, and I've noticed with certain cuffs, that my blood pressure will appear normal, even when I know, like, by feeling what's in my body.
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::Sierra: off. I actually, though, just this week, I'm really excited about this. I'm a naturopath, but I believe in working with Western medicine where they're able to help. And I have some symptoms myself still. I suspect that I have POTS syndrome.
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::Sierra: I've gone to the doctor multiple times, I've had tests done multiple times, everything's been fine multiple times, because they ran the wrong tests.
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::Sierra: I finally got a referral this week to actually get tested, and I'm very excited about that, but I was also wondering about that, because that will also be with the blood pressure cuff, and I'm like, well, I sure hope we have a good one, because my blood pressure is chronically low, but they see low, and they think, oh yeah, but low is fine. I will, like, faint when I'm walking, but low is fine.
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::Sierra: They don't listen to what you're actually feeling and experiencing in your body.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah!
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And it causes problems. I've, I've…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Had numbers of issues over my lifetime, and…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: it's always the same. You go in, and they tell you, go have tests done, and then you come back, and they say, oh, it's perfectly normal. And you ask for the tests. Most people don't ask for the results of their tests, don't realize that they're entitled to look at those results, and that they should do some investigation themselves into what is
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Normal, and what is actually optimal?
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Two different terms, Yep.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I had a CAT scan…
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::Sierra: Functionally… oh, go ahead, sorry.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: No, go ahead. What's functionally?
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::Sierra: Well, and what is functionally available for your body to use, and what is just present in your blood, because, for example, I have the MTHFR and MTRR gene mutations.
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::Sierra: And I don't just have one, I have, like, compound versions, so I have multiple variants of each type. This means that my body cannot break down synthetic
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::Sierra: vitamin B. So, if I were to take a B vitamin from the supermarket.
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::Sierra: Or eat, for example, it's not… they fortify our food with this, so you're eating…
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::Sierra: cornflakes for breakfast, if I were to do that, my body would not be able to break down that vitamin… those artificial B vitamins effectively, so if you tested my blood, it would look like the levels were good, but functionally, my body would be starving because it couldn't actually use it.
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::Sierra: That was… when I found out about that, that was, like, mind-boggling to me, because it explained almost every symptom I've had. And honestly, there is a very good chance that the POTS symptoms will resolve now that I know that… I actually found this out about 2 weeks ago.
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::Sierra: That I had this genetic mutation. I paid to have my entire genome sequenced, all of it, in Spain, because I was tired of not knowing what was going on.
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::Sierra: And that's what came out.
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::Sierra: So, mind blown, but when you look at what's functionally available versus what is…
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::Sierra: present in the blood, there's all… there can also be a mismatch there, that it might be, like, in your blood, but it doesn't mean you can use it.
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::Sierra: So, so often missed.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And… and different things that they test, like cholesterol.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: You need cholesterol.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And some people live a really long time, even with
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: High cholesterol, because that's what your hormones work on, and your brain.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: But…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: We drink so much soda pop and sugar in our society, which bends the endothelial cells, that it becomes a problem in your blood vessels, and it collects.
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::Sierra: And it's a sugar problem.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And it's a sugar problem, it's not a cholesterol problem. But, you know, the sugar industry is very wealthy, and they have their own little cartel out there.
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::Sierra: I was just talking to my husband today. So, I had a really busy day at work. I also work… outside of my work as a naturopath, I work 12 hours a week as an in-home ambulance guidance counselor, and I work with a lot of people with complex, like, ADHD, autism, or they're in a burnout, they're not working, financial problems.
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::Sierra: I work sometimes with people with dementia, sometimes with elderly people who need help with day-to-day tasks. It's not like a caregiving role, but more of a guidance role to make sure that you're able to continue independently living.
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::Sierra: And it's a really, diverse dual group that Target audience.
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::Sierra: Sorry, I work in Dutch. Sometimes it comes out wrong, I usually catch it, but…
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::Sierra: But I had a very long day today with multiple clients. I am in the middle of a…
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::Sierra: Very intense period with my final, final, final exams.
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::Sierra: For my second degree in seven years in a second language, I am, like, toast tired.
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::Sierra: And I didn't have time for lunch today, which is something I'm really strict about, by the way. I am very on top of making sure my blood sugar stays stable, because I know my symptoms get worse if I don't. Well, I didn't do that today. I was very busy. Like, I always tell people, like, you can know all the stuff, and you're still gonna have a bad day sometimes. Sometimes you're just busy, and that's how life goes.
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::Sierra: So I was at the supermarket, and I bought a Coke.
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::Sierra: I'm not a big soda drinker anymore, and I got, like, just a regular… I still have it standing here, a regular bottle of Coke.
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::Sierra: And I remember telling my husband, like, this is so much, I don't know how I used to drink so much soda. But if I look back 10 years ago, even…
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::Sierra: I think…
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::Sierra: 5 years ago, even, but especially 10 years ago, when I was in, like, probably the worst physical shape of my life.
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::Sierra: I was drinking… easily.
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::Sierra: A liter, liter and a half of soda a day.
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::Sierra: My family did it, my friends did it, I lived in a really rural place in the rural United States, you would, like, go to the gas station and get a pup, because that's what you did, because…
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::Sierra: that there wasn't really much to do. And I would fill it with ice, and it was those fountain sodas, and I remember sometimes I could down it so fast that I hadn't gone 32 ounces before I left the store.
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::Sierra: And… now I get, like, a regular bottle.
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::Sierra: Which is hilarious, because Americans complain that these European bottles are tiny. And I did, too, when I moved here. I would buy, like, bigger bottles!
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::Sierra: And it feels too much, and it shows you how deadened I was to being able to feel and hear what my body was telling me. Because it was never good for me, but I didn't feel it, and I had half of this one, and I felt like, oh, I don't need it, because my blood sugar was low, because I was exhausted, because I had too much to do.
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::Sierra: Just get my sugar up, I thought. It's not…
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::Sierra: just don't do it. Like, I know it sounds good when your blood sugar is.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Buy a piece of fruit. Eat some peanut butter. Have a piece of.
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::Sierra: Such cheese.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: All of those things will help you far more than a…
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::Sierra: This was not my naturopathic advice here, this was my exhausted student busy business working mom brain.
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::Sierra: Sometimes she still gets noisy.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And it sounds like a good idea in the moment. In the moment.
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::Sierra: Absolutely, it is not.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: and it's… it's not a good idea, like, even 5 minutes later. I… I haven't had soda in…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Probably a decade.
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::Sierra: Oh, good for you. I just…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I don't drink soda pop. It's, like, I don't drink carbonated drinks. In fact, mostly I drink water and tea and coffee.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And sometimes dairy, like milk products.
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::Sierra: I drink a lot of… I drink a lot of electrolytes and coffee. Coffee… I love coffee.
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::Sierra: I also… sometimes the holistic people don't like that, but I…
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::Sierra: I'm a bit too hedonistic. I do love my coffee.
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::Sierra: I don't take it really sugary. I get an organic, good quality.
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::Sierra: But I really do still enjoy sometimes just, like, sparkling water. I will drink that.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: What the fuck?
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::Sierra: and water.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I like sparkling water with a little bit of, cherry juice in it.
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::Sierra: Oh, yeah.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: That's a really good point.
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::Sierra: As well, which is really good.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah.
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::Sierra: But apple's, of course, a little sweeter, but yeah, it makes, like, a natural, like, if I really feel like I want to sweat. Anyway, we're kind of going on about soap.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I know, we're going off.
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::Sierra: Talking about cholesterol.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Well, it's a big problem in the world, because people have bent endothelial cells, and those are the cells that line your veins and arteries, and they get clogged up, and the reason that they get so clogged up is because
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: We're… As a world.
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::Sierra: sugar addicted.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: addicted to sugar. And, you know, I eat cookies stupidly.
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::Sierra: Yeah, and I think the other side of that that's really important to cover is it's not a moral failing if you eat a lot of sugar, like, it is not… it's an addictive substance that they literally put in all our food.
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::Sierra: So I will never share.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It's a preservative.
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::Sierra: Like, it… ugh.
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::Sierra: Not for everyone.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Salt, sugar.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: it's how they can… can make food shelf-stable for longer periods of time. And when they discovered that, it's… your choices are fat.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: A certain kind of fat, sugar, or…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: or salt. And that's why a lot of processed food is so salty, and it's not, like.
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::Sierra: the.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: good salt. Your body needs salt, too. I mean, it…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I have these arguments with my husband, he's like, I'm gonna cut all salt out of my diet. Well, no, your body needs salt. It just needs good quality salt, not a whole lot of it, and it doesn't need that…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Industrial stuff that they're using to preserve food, that will destroy your body.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It's just, like… Things… things that you put in your mouth.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: break down chemically. It's chemistry. We're bioelectrical beings, and when you eat something, it breaks down into its components, and it connects with other components in your body to either
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: become a toxin, and it's dangerous to your body, or it…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: helps your body because it gives it the… the chemicals that it needs to, thrive. Rebuild different…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: to thrive, to rebuild different parts of your cellular structure. So, I…
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::Sierra: And this is… this is exactly what you've just touched on right here is exactly what dyscrasia is. Dyscrasia is when the toxic load goes too high, and you're not getting enough in for your organ and tissue structure to be maintained on its own. This is where you see dyscrasia come into the picture.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And for women, You know, a lot of women are hitting menopause, and they're like.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I don't understand how anything's working! And yet, they're drinking a lot of soda or alcohol, you know, COVID was big for, you know, drinking lots of wine. I'm here to tell you that wine messes with your sleep, and it messes with your hormones.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah. It… it…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: causes you to have more hot flashes than you might normally have as your body is adjusting. When your body is…
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::Sierra: explain that?
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::Sierra: So the hot flashes get worse because your body is struggling, like, your hormones are on a roller coaster with menopause. Who's responsible for breaking down those hormones?
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::Sierra: Your liver.
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::Sierra: who is being intoxicated. Literally, we're not saying… I'm not saying, like, drunk, I'm saying intoxicated. Toxin. Alcohol is a toxin for your liver. Who… so if you're drinking regularly and you're having really bad hot flashes, one of the very best things you can do is stop drinking.
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::Sierra: And then you can consider doing something, for example, with herbal medicine. I absolutely love milk thistle for the liver. It's…
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::Sierra: Been used first.
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::Sierra: Ever.
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::Sierra: for liver problems, I also use it for my own liver. It is a fantastic Fantastic. Pretty Filich.
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::Sierra: I switched it again. A pretty safe herb.
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::Sierra: It's a pretty safe herb,
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::Sierra: for most people, you do… there are always, like, that's not advice, there's medication, and you need to look at the bigger picture, but it is a really great option for things like menopause, and it is not one people typically grab, because typically they're going to want, like, something with phytoestrogens or something in it, and that is absolutely not where I begin, because
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::Sierra: Your body wants to be in balance?
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::Sierra: And if you support the organs, it will go there better on its own, and then you can clean up any leftover symptoms when you're done, but you don't want to treat the symptom, you want to treat the disbalance.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yes.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Exactly, and… You can get milk thistle tea. It's relatively inexpensive.
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::Sierra: Well, okay, to be completely, like, the tiny asterisk next to that, milk thistle is more effective as a tincture or a preparation, because the seeds don't dissolve well in tea. But, for some people, the tea is really great, because it's not very strong, and you don't want the strongest. That's the other mistake.
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::Sierra: that I often see people make is they think, like, oh, I need the strongest, because my liver's struggling. I'm like, no, you need the kindest.
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::Sierra: You need the gentlest, you need the sweetest for yourself, like…
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::Sierra: I always tell my clients, like, I say this probably 10 times a week, it feels like, like, think about if you were your child.
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::Sierra: How would you… what kind of love and care would you show your child? You need to do the same thing for yourself.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And more isn't always better, it's just consistency.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: over time, things will change. You can't just, like, throw a whole bunch of stuff at things, and hope that…
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::Sierra: it to be fixed.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: it's gonna just get fixed really fast, because it's going to upset something else in the system. Your body is self-regulating, and when you add stuff into it.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: whether it's a toxin or something to help, both sides, again, back to your word, you need balance in there. You don't want to swing from one side to the other, because that just throws your whole body out of whack, and that's how you end up sick.
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::Sierra: And if you do it too strongly, you can make yourself sicker. I actually did that in the beginning of my healing journey, because I went all gung-ho, like, I am gonna fix this now. And I was too rough with myself, and I made things worse for a while.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And being patient with it, even though it's like, oh, this is not working. I'm dealing with an arm issue, and I have comfrey in my backyard, and comfrey is really great for muscles and bones, as well as arnica. So I made a tincture where I,
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Chopped up a bunch of my comfrey leaves into coconut oil, and soaked… steeped it.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: for a while in there, and then I strained that out, and then I mixed in some arnica oil and some…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: castor oil and a few essential oils later. And the whole thing hardened up nicely. I was very happy with that. Put a little bit of emulsion wax in there, though.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: AI tried to tell me that wouldn't work, but it did solidify.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Aperture?
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::Sierra: Yep.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: our house is cold, so… I've just been putting it on a few times a day, and it…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It smells good, and it… it actually does help.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Oh, yeah.
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::Sierra: Exactly right. So you're using that exactly right, because comfrey is great for short-term use. It's a pretty strong herb, so it can be used by, like, acute situations. It's not something I would ever use long-term.
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::Sierra: and you're using it on the skin, comfrey does contain specific types of alkaloids that can be toxic to the liver.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah, you know, everyone would drink it.
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::Sierra: No, there's debate in the herbalism community about this, because it also contains tannins, and the argument is that the tannins can deactivate or bind to the alkaloids so it's safe.
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::Sierra: I would make the argument I wouldn't want to risk intoxicating my liver if there was, for example, more of the alkaloids than there were tannins. You don't know how much is in there, so, like, put it on your shoulder, not in your mouth.
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::Sierra: But that's…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah, and I…
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::Sierra: looking for you? What's your experience been with it?
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: My experience has been… it's not like… you know how if you put, like, Bengay or something like that on your skin? You feel this burning and all these… Immediately.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: yeah, really big sensations. It's not like that, it's just… it's gentle, it smells good, so you've got that aromatherapy happening for you, and
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: you've got…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: it… it does feel like it's helping a lot, and I can tell when I don't use it for, longer periods of time. My husband will usually put it on my shoulder at night, but if he forgets, or I don't have him do it, then the next morning, my arm hurts. It's really achy.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I feel it more, and…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: you know, I think that so long as I keep it on there, and I walk, because I swing my arm when I walk.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I think all those things help.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: To… to heal it in a more natural way, and…
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::Sierra: Yeah.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I used castor oil to fix a ganglion cyst, even though they're, like… In, like, a week.
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::Sierra: I've been contemplating… I don't know if I should share this, because that means I'm gonna have to actually do it, but we're just gonna go for it. I have the apron tummy. After both of my kids, I had two pregnancies, you know, the really well-known mom tummy.
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::Sierra: And they say that the only treatment is surgical, like you'd have to get a tummy tuck or something. I have been contemplating… I also grow,
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::Sierra: comfrey and calendula, and both of those are considered in traditional European naturopathic medicine. Comfrey and calendula are considered to be skin regenerates.
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::Sierra: So I've been contemplating making myself a balm, and like…
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::Sierra: taking a picture every day for 3 months, and see if I can see a difference just by using that balm.
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::Sierra: But yeah, that means I have to share my apron tummy on the internet, so I'm working up the courage. But I actually went far enough, like, I'm serious about it, because I bought a mirror that I could use for this, so… I'm working on it.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I, I wonder if, I, I know…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: there was a company a while ago, it might still be around, it's called It Works, and they had,
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: An application that you put on your stomach, and then you wrapped it with, saran wrap?
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: At night, or you could do it during the day, but you do it for, like, 12 hours.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I wonder if that wouldn't… if you, like, soaked a cloth in
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: In the thing, and then you wrapped the area with saran wrap, so it…
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::Sierra: See?
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Kept it in.
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::Sierra: the comfrey… with the comfrey, I think that would be too strong, actually. The comfrey is… like, that goes back to not using, like.
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::Sierra: Yeah, in Dutch, they call it a prickle, and I actually really like that word in English as well, even though a prickle isn't, like… they use it to mean some sort of stimuli that you're, like, poking. I like the way that they use it, because it sounds like you're poking, but you really want to use the smallest prickle, so you're gonna, like, tap.
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::Sierra: And especially because I also have connective tissue differences, I suspect hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, more things you'll never get a doctor to diagnose you with. The average is actually 10 to 20 years to get a diagnosis for that, which is, like, can we have a moment of silence?
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::Sierra: All those people.
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::Sierra: But yeah, that… I'm really curious to see…
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::Sierra: Yeah, because that's what you can test out. If you're taking pictures and tracking it, you can be like… I even… I'm not gonna do this, I did consider it, but I was like, I could just put it on half my stomach and see if I can change half, but I didn't want to be lopsided.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah, and stuff like that does actually move. Like, you could put essential oils on your feet, and it'll go to where it needs to go.
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::Sierra: Yep.
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::Sierra: Yeah, and I also have hypermobility in my joints, so I wondered, like, if I treat… the thing is, when you look at dyscrasia from the point of traditional European naturopathic medicine, dyscrasia is an imbalance, but that can hit points
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::Sierra: In more advanced stages, where it literally means that there is cell damage, and that there is a, like, stack up of things that basically do not serve you, of toxic things that are not good for your body. And…
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::Sierra: I don't exactly know where an apron belly falls into that, because I can see there is tissue damage, there is extra weight there. At the same time, it's completely explainable through pregnancy, through physiological processes.
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::Sierra: and through my genetic connective tissue differences. So, where I completely sit in that grading scale they give you, I don't know.
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::Sierra: But I am very curious what would happen also to my other symptoms. I want to track it all at once. Like, if I treat the belly, because they talk about the belly, and it's where your will sits. Like, think about a little toddler that, like, puffs out their belly. I'm sorry, the sun is really…
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::Sierra: getting on me right now, but… Think about a little toddler that puffs out their belly, and they walk, and they're strutting around like a little rooster. Like, the will is in your belly.
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::Sierra: And that's really… I've wondered then, like, what does that mean for me? I have an extremely complex health history. I was abused and neglected the first 20 years of my life.
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::Sierra: I have CPTSD, and that was including trauma before the age of 6 years old. So… and I've gotten a lot of treatment, I'm doing really well now, but it makes me wonder, like, if the will is in the belly, and I went through all of that, what would treating the belly do?
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::Sierra: Like, there's so many connections you can draw, and this is what I teach people to do, by the way. This is exactly what I teach them to do, is ask the questions, ex… like, I… it sounds a little weird, but I kind of teach you to experiment on yourself. Like, find.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah, you should!
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::Sierra: for you, observe it, see what changes, see what doesn't work, and actually give yourself the ability to honestly reflect and evaluate. Because I've had things where I thought, this is the answer! And it wasn't. And then I kept using it and made myself sicker, because I was so convinced I was correct.
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::Sierra: And then I've had other things where I completely thought, like, that is completely useless, it's not gonna do anything, and it ended up making a bigger difference than anything else.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Tracking stuff is really important. It's like, today, this is how I feel, and this is what I did, and then tomorrow, so that when you look back over, you can see how things have changed.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Because speaking of…
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::Sierra: I have? I have tools for this in the Holistic Health Academy on school. I actually have a symptom and nutrition tracker. And I emphasize with everybody who uses this, like, when we're talking tracking nutrition.
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::Sierra: I am not talking… like, there is a lot, especially in my community, that honestly verges on eating disorders because they're trying so hard to be healthy.
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::Sierra: I have a history of a disordered eating myself, so what we track is what you ate, if you had any symptoms, and what emotions you experienced with it. So that's in my nutrition tracker, and then I have the symptoms tracker, which tells you the severity, what you experienced, when it was, and if you knew the trigger.
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::Sierra: And when you use these next to each other, sometimes you can later put them over each other, and you'll see, hey, every single time I eat tomatoes and spinach, this symptom comes up. And then you discover that you actually have a histamine intolerance, and those foods were triggering it.
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::Sierra: And then you know that you can work on your gut health, because histamine intolerance does not mean you have to follow a low histamine diet for life, it means you need to improve your gut and liver clearance, which is where the dyscrasia is. It's like a whole… it's honestly a lot of fun, it's like putting puzzles together, but, like, fun logic puzzles.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And they should teach us these things.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: in school, but they don't, because, you know… The information is available.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And yet, it's just like, well, just have a pop, or have a candy bar, or, you know.
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::Sierra: When I was pregnant, the answer was always have a Coke for the nausea. Now I know, so I had extreme nausea while I was pregnant, and nothing worked. I did drink a lot of Coke, I regret it looking back. You know why? I figured it out.
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::Sierra: I was taking a prenatal vitamin. It was a good quality one. It was not a cheap prenatal vitamin. I did do my homework, but it still contained regular folic acid. It was not folate.
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::Sierra: with my genetic mutations, I was actively poisoning my liver throughout my pregnancy, which was also trying to break down the pregnancy hormones. It was absolutely no wonder I was sick.
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::Sierra: it actually breaks my heart looking back, because I… even as an informed person who… like, my second pregnancy was in my third year of school as a naturopath.
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::Sierra: Like, even then, you're still… I was with a midwife, I was…
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::Sierra: using everything natural I could to protect myself, to care for myself.
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::Sierra: And I… I was so sick my whole pregnancy. I remember at the end.
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::Sierra: Wishing I would end up hospitalized so that I could rest.
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::Sierra: That was how bad it was.
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::Sierra: And I was taking those vitamins every day, thinking, I was depleted after my first pregnancy, I wasn't gonna end up that way again.
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::Sierra: You can do everything right, and it still goes wrong.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And a lot of it has to do with taking supplements, doing things that are processed, not, like.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: having a conversation with my husband. We're walking today, and he's talking about, calcium.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And your body needs calcium, not necessarily from milk products, but from, like, spinach and citrus together. That's a really good source of calcium.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: You need things that work… food things… food sources work together, and back to the chemistry thing again.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: the chemicals interrelate to each other, so if you eat stuff… certain stuff together, you're gonna have a result that you want, that your body needs, in order to use the nutrients that you're putting into your body. It's just like… Yeah.
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::Sierra: And that's what…
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::Sierra: If you are consuming a varied diet of enough fiber sources, fresh foods, whole foods, and the key really is variation, you don't want to eat the same, 20 products every day, every week. This is not diverse enough.
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::Sierra: But if you are doing a lot of variation from whole food sources, and really looking at ancestral eating patterns, what did people used to eat before industrialization?
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::Sierra: Some people really don't do well on grains, other people do. Some people really don't do well on potatoes, other people do, like, that's fine, you can test all that out, but make sure you're getting enough variation.
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::Sierra: Because we have a tendency to, number one, zero in on specific foods without even realizing we're doing it. It's just accessible foods, and you like them, so you eat them more often. And number two, make sure that…
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::Sierra: Okay, I have ADHD, and I've just completely forgotten number 2. This is my life.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: You need protein in your diet. You need all the macros, you need protein, you need carbohydrates.
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::Sierra: There it is!
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: facts.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: You need… The whole thing.
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::Sierra: So, what I teach is I call it the non-nutrition… or non-nutritionable, so that would be something else. Non-negotiable nutritional needs, the four ends, and that is fat, fiber, carbohydrates, and protein.
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::Sierra: And we have been sold so many lies about… carbs?
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::Sierra: We have been told so many lies about fat.
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::Sierra: And honestly, in the Netherlands, there's, within naturopathic medicine communities, a lot of focus on alkaline diets, which demonizes proteins. They have all been demonized at one point or another, and the fact is, you need all of them.
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::Sierra: your body… they are the basic building blocks for your tissue, for your hormones, for your blood sugar, because everybody thinks, like, I don't want to eat carbs, it'll spike my blood sugar. I'm like, blood sugar is how you think.
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::Sierra: They come to me having eaten no carbs for years, and they have extreme brain fog, and skin problems, and signs of degeneration in the gut, and I'm like, you're not eating enough fiber, and you have no carbs. Your body…
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::Sierra: They say in keto that you can work on ketones.
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::Sierra: Which is true, but you would not make a weakened body work twice as hard for the same amount of energy, and that's what keto does. It makes your body work twice as hard, it's putting extra tax on your internal organs when you're already in a weakened state and claiming it can heal you.
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::Sierra: I can go on about keto for a long time. There are specific health indications where it can help, but for the general population.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Short term.
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::Sierra: not something.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Short term. You know, different people, it works for… It's like any sort of… Regime that you're doing?
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: there's… there's the basic level, which should be very diet. We live in a time where you can get just about anything, any time of the year. It's better if you eat seasonally, like, more meat in the winter.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: More fruits in the fall, when they're appearing on the trees in your area.
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::Sierra: And more summer vet… more summer vegetables, more spring herbs. When those herbs come up, they're really good for you every spring. I fully believe in cyclic eating.
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::Sierra: But variation is the most important.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yes, you need all of these things. You eat… eat in sync with the environment that you're in, and, you know, different places you live.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It's gonna be different.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: The… the weather impacts how you should eat.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It's just like… Everything… we're just, like.
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::Sierra: But also, when you.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Move so much.
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::Sierra: microcosm, the weather can even impact the amount of nutrients in your food, so your food adjusts with the environment, and that's…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: If you throw your own food, what food is.
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::Sierra: I've often wondered what kind of impact it has if I'm eating… like, I live in the Netherlands, and every week, I go to the store, I buy… well, actually, these days, I get my groceries delivered, because it's 2026, and I'm busy. But I get food from the grocery store.
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::Sierra: And it'll say, like, on my grapes that they came from Spain, on my apples… well, those are usually Dutch. But, like, you know, my produce comes a lot of the times from Spain, or even South Africa.
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::Sierra: And then I think, like, number one, this came from the other side of the world, and it cost me 2 euros. Something feels off about that.
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::Sierra: Number two, This is so far removed from my environment.
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::Sierra: So you can actually assume that that food is energetically no longer completely aligned with what you need. Now, this is where people can actually go really too far, and they say, like, oh, I'm not gonna eat anything, and I'm like, okay, but then you're going right back, like, again. You first want to be making sure you're getting enough, you're getting variation, fat, fiber, carbs, proteins, macros, micros, like, make sure you're getting enough variation.
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::Sierra: But it… it is a very interesting question to ask, without shame, without judgment, but genuine questions, like.
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::Sierra: what is the difference here? I have the dream to start a traditional European smallholding.
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::Sierra: That is why I started my school and wanted to work digitally, because I want to be able to move to a rural place and continue to work digitally, but I grew up with goats and chickens, and I really want to have a biodynamic regenerative smallholding.
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::Sierra: And that's what I'm working, like, I get chills in my back when I talk about that.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Hasn't done that?
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I had a dairy. Goat dinner.
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::Sierra: I don't want to dairy. No, we have a very specific plan, but I really miss goats. I've had goats before. I loved goats. I have lived in the city for 7 years now. I've been trying to tell myself, you just gotta get used to it, but completely honest, after 7 years, I don't think it's a matter of getting used to it.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: No. Goats are so cool.
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::Sierra: they're… people underestimate how hilarious goats are. I had a goat who used to drink, like.
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::Sierra: he… it was a billy goat, and he loved milkshakes, of all things, and he would, like, lick it off a spoon. I was, like, 14 at the time, and shouldn't have been feeding a goat a milkshake, that's really bad for goats, by the way, but… Yeah. It was… the goats are funny, funny, funny creatures.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: They all have their own personalities, and they just, like.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: they worm their way into your heart, I…
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::Sierra: Yeah!
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It's like… People talk about eating goats, and I'm just like, meh.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I did not goats.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: But…
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::Sierra: It's the energy, it's the interconnectedness, it's…
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::Sierra: Really, it goes back to what we said at the beginning of this episode, with the consciousness that you're… for me, for my person, it's really important to be in contact with nature, with my own plants, with my own animals, with my own space.
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::Sierra: And that's, like, my biggest dream is…
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::Sierra: to make it so well on school that I can give that life, not just to myself, but also to my kids.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: So, you do have a school community, and you do invite people to come and join you there.
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::Sierra: Absolutely, yes. If you've listened this long, you know you should join, just do it.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I love your approach.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It's very similar to mine.
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::Sierra: Yeah. I was looking at your content, I'm like, I like this lady, she's a…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Sure.
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::Sierra: Gets it.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah, I, you know, if this resonates with you, hop on over and visit the Holistic Health Academy over on school. It's free to join, and then there's a freemium version.
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::Sierra: Yes, so I have 3 tiers. Right now, I really only have the free one running big. Like, I have been completely overwhelmed in the best possible way with how my school has grown, really, in the last 6 weeks, I've gone up from, like, less than 10 members to almost 400.
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::Sierra: So, it has been incredible reception. People are… like, I'm seeing results from people, and I was like…
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::Sierra: this is what I want to do with my life, so cool. But what I have going right now is for the free model, which anybody can join.
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::Sierra: you get access to some educational modules, and those habit trackers I talked about before, where you can track your symptoms, where you can track your nutrition.
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::Sierra: And when you move up to a premium model, this is what I, like, number one, I'm still trying to figure out what the right balance is for me, for my family, what people want, how I can consistently create it. But the idea is that there will be support groups, and you'll get access to additional modules.
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::Sierra: And in the additional modules, you actually start to break down, like, you know, in the free modules, you can figure out, like, if this
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::Sierra: matches with you, first and foremost. If it
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::Sierra: resonates, if you feel like it could be beneficial, if it clicks, basically. You can really dig in, and in this point, you're actually going to be able to start to identify which of your organs are struggling, which of your organs are doing well, what needs more support.
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::Sierra: In the paid tiers, because I want to make sure that people are being safe, responsibility is important to me. I'm a naturopath. It took me 5 years of school to learn all this stuff.
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::Sierra: So, I want to make sure that people are safe, So, I do have…
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::Sierra: like, treatment guidelines. These are not protocols and strict diets and stuff. I always make sure to emphasize that. But I will teach you, like, what types of foods support this organ, what types of food, might be heavier for this organ, and why. What types of herbs could support this organ. I teach rebuilding and releasing organs.
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::Sierra: And how you determine which one your body needs?
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::Sierra: And that's what that quiz can help with as well, by the way. I have a quiz on my website where you can actually, within a couple minutes, figure out what your primary organ status is. I'm so proud of this, because I'm not techie, but it's the coolest thing. I made a quiz. And I've heard that it's pretty cool. I think it's pretty cool.
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::Sierra: But you can actually identify which organs need rebuilding, which need releasing, and then we're going to address that with lifestyle, with nutrition, with herbal medicine.
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::Sierra: If you're on medication, it's no problem. You can book a one-on-one if you're worried about contraindications with herbal medicine, or you can just decide, hey, I'm gonna do lifestyle and nutrition, and you're already gonna see, like, amazing results, because food is what you put in your body every day.
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::Sierra: That's awesome. There's all different levels that you can work with at that, but my goal is to educate and empower first and foremost, which is why I, make sure that the diagnostic part, like, you can access that, whether, like, whether or not you pay me, I want you to have that, because I truly believe this is important for people to understand their bodies better.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I… yes. I couldn't agree with you more. And you can find the quiz by going to SierraSmitz.com, and the school community… I'm going to read it to you, but I'll put it in the show notes below. It's school.com forward slash regenerate dash your, Y-O-U-R dash health.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Dash 2168 forward slash about.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I know it's a mouthful.
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::Sierra: That… that is actually also, if you just go to SierraSmiths.com and scroll down a little bit, there's a link.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Perfect. So that might be easier.
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::Sierra: Yeah, that's a little easier.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Thank you so much.
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::Sierra: is not… my website is not fancy, but it exists.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: does its job.
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::Sierra: Exactly.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Thanks so much for joining me today, Sierra. This has been amazing.
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::Sierra: Say… Thanks for having me, this was a fun conversation.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: You can learn more about Sierra and join her community by visiting SierraSmiths.com, and you'll also find the quiz there. And we'll be sure to put both of these links in the show notes below. Thank you for joining us today. If you're ready to amplify your voice, monetize your mission, and start attracting premium clients, your next step is simple. Head to coachesalchemist.com and schedule your free client acquisition audit.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Join us for our next episode as we share what others are doing to raise the global frequency, and remember, change begins with you. You have all the power to change the world. Start today and get better.
