Marie-Noelle Marquis (00:06):
Welcome to the AIP Summit Podcast, your go-to resource for taking control of your autoimmune health, presented by AIP Certified Coaches. Hi, I'm Marie-Noelle Marquis.
Jaime Hartman (00:17):
And I'm Jaime Hartman. And we're here to equip you with the tools, knowledge and support you need to effectively use the autoimmune protocol.
Marie-Noelle Marquis (00:24):
And today we're talking with one of our colleagues about honoring your unique nature for transformation and much more.
Jaime Hartman (00:39):
We are honored to be joined today by one of our colleagues, Andrea Rossi. In addition to being an AIP Certified Coach, Andrea is a certified nutritional therapy practitioner and an oncology nutrition consultant. She holds a master of science in sustainable food systems with a concentration in food justice and is a community clinical herbalist. Andrea is known for her avid research and for offering caring and sustainable approaches to chronic illness and gut related disorders such as SIBO, leaky gut celiac disease, and IBS. Andrea is based out of Durango, Colorado, and works with clients throughout the United States through her practice Dirt and Bones. So Andrea, let's start there. What makes dirt and bones and what you offer clients unique?
Andrea Rossi (01:28):
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. And that's a great question. So I like to think of, there's a few different things, dirt and bones in general. I use nutrition, but I also work with herbalism and plants with folks as well. I think that that's a bit more unique in my approach because I really do fuse those worlds together where we're really working with the natural world, and that doesn't just include taking things like taking herbal supplements or tinctures. I'll also work with people around actually, how do we use the natural world as part of our healing process, whether that's getting outside, whether that's gardening, whether that is nature walks or forest bathing. Those are things that are really important to my practice. But I think the other thing that's really, well, I don't know how this looks for other people, but for my practice through all the years of working with people, I have a very specific approach that I use where I've kind of blended different tenents from different schools of thought.
(02:35):
So I have my basis in nutrition, and I have a really solid functional nutrition background as well. But then I blend that with other paradigms like harm reduction, which is a paradigm that's really about trying to work with people where they're at and making these tiny changes that decrease the impact on the body, but maybe not fully remove something or make drastic changes. So I work with a harm reduction paradigm. I also work with anti-oppression paradigms, so how do we look at health within that nexus of how we're impacted by other things going on in our world that are not just the illness? And then I do have a trauma-informed approach as well. So yeah, I think that my practice is very eclectic in that it uses a lot of different tool sets, but I think for me, my goal is how can I just meet someone where they are so that they feel like they're heard, they're seen, and we move from a place that's really, really specific to their orientation in the world and what works for them, what's doable for them, that kind of thing.
Jaime Hartman (03:42):
I really resonate with a lot of what you're saying there. That idea of meeting people where they are is something that's, I think so often overlooked in the healthcare system and in our coaching approach for a lot of people that we have this idea that, well, everybody wants to achieve this ideal of health, but if we aren't looking at where they started from where they are now, we're missing the boat entirely.
Andrea Rossi (04:09):
Yes. Well, and when I first started full ownership, when I started, I was very much that kind of rigid mindset type of person where I was like, oh, I feel like you have to do it this way to get these results. And what I've really found is that's not true. That's not accurate. That's one way of looking at things, but actually there's so many different pathways and doorways towards healing. And I really found that when we position it from that place, to your point, we actually can get so much further. Because when I think of the Venn diagram of who we are as people, if that's one bubble, our personality, what delights us, and then if another bubble is doability, what are the circumstances of our life? What are the actual constraints? What are the things that we are super emboldened or empowered around? And then if I think about another bubble being like, what is the north star?
(05:05):
Where are we trying to get? What's going to move the needle? The way that things work for people is when that middle point where it intersects with who we are and what delights us with what's doable and feasible with the things that actually move the needle. And so it's like when you can find that sweet spot, that's where I find people are able to actually to make the change. And I'm very much one of those people. I am not naturally an organized person. I'm not naturally a driven person, all of those things. So I think my approach definitely had to model what I began to see was true of my own experience and then waterfall down to everyone else.
Jaime Hartman (05:48):
I really appreciate you saying that. I think that that's the misconception that a lot of people have about us in our space and what we do is that it must come easy to us, and it's so wonderful that you're being vulnerable and showing that it didn't come easy. You had to learn this, and now you're helping other people.
Andrea Rossi (06:07):
Oh, oh my goodness. Yeah. I always tell people, because sometimes folks will be reticent to share what their lived experience looks like because it's like, oh, if you see this, maybe you'll think this. And I'll be like, no, no, no, no. You have to understand how I got into this work is because I struggled with cooking. I struggled with, I was a monocrop eater in college. I get a box of croissants and just eat that for an entire day because I was like, what? This is so simple. That's $2, why wouldn't they do this? And then I always felt like it was a little bit of my body was like, Hey, we need more from you. We need, but all that to say, I think there's just this way that especially when you come from that background, we're all of these things don't come naturally. They're not part of how you show up in the world, even around identity. I've had to find how my identity intersects with these things that allow me to care for myself in the ways that I need. Then it does make it a lot easier to support other people, like, oh no, I've struggled with, yes, I've struggled with all of these things and continue to have to work as a person to integrate things in a way that works with who I am as a person.
Marie-Noelle Marquis (07:21):
I love that you bring that your own experience, and it goes to show many people can be NTPs and AIP Certified Coaches, but we all bring our own journey and how we've finessed and hone our experiences and our approach. So for our listeners, when you're looking to work with AIP coaches, take that time to read, connecting, reading the practitioner story and finding like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Find someone that you're connecting with and it's going to be so helpful for your journey. Not everybody's the same, and I love what you bring, Andrea. It's meeting our clients where they're at as practitioners, but also as a reminder for the clients. I'll have clients that come in and they're like, well, I want to do it exactly the way you did it, and that's the way, and it's like, well, the way I did it when I first started is different than how I would do it today if I was to start today, and I'm the same person in a way. So that message for clients, for people that it's okay to, that goes back to your own advocacy. Take the moment to realize where you're at.
Andrea Rossi (08:29):
Oh my gosh, I love that. That's beautiful though. I think one of my big transitions was moving away. I started to tell people, I want us to care more about progress than protocol. So it's like, are you experience and progress doesn't have to mean just people immediately can think about the tangibles of symptomatic expression or lab values, things like that, but it's like, well, what are other things too? Are you connecting with yourself in new ways that we weren't expecting? Are there versions of yourself that you've unlocked that maybe you haven't seen in a long time? Like permission to inhabit new parts of yourself? Oftentimes we have that when we're like, oh, this thing I cared about as a kid, it's coming back in now. Or are you able to connect with different parts of your culture or your family heritage in a new way that before there wasn't spaciousness created for.
(09:25):
So all that to say, I think that that was a big learning moment for myself, and something I constantly tell myself is, what is progress? Overvaluing a specific protocol that we feel like, oh this. And I think for me and many other people, sometimes the reason we can get stuck to protocol is because of fear and we're looking for something we're looking for the way. And so it can be a little scary when it's like, well, if I don't adhere to this, I want it to be one plus one equals two. But I do feel like when we can loosen that and still trust that there's many pathways to get where we want to go, then we get to have permission to heal on our own terms. And then that is deeply, deeply, deeply, I think kind of relieving. But I do understand why there can be the cleaving that stronghold I've been there where you just want to be like, tell me exactly what to do. I'll do it exactly the way you say, and then I want you to guarantee that I'm not going to keep having these horrible panic attacks in the middle of my day. That's what we want. But I do think it's been nice to see, oh, wow, we can loosen that and we don't have to follow protocol so precisely and still see change.
Marie-Noelle Marquis (10:44):
Yeah, we always say in the end of the podcast, AIPs is a protocol with multiple branches, and there's multiple ways to get to your healing through it. So I think that's a really great point, and trusting that there's multiple ways to approach it. And also trusting yourself. I think exactly to what you're saying that Nina, I want this protocol. It's like a safety thing, right? Because maybe I don't trust my own gut of what is best for me and helping clients reconnect. I wanted to mention also, Andrea, you offer a membership program called The Dirt Clubhouse. That is an incredible name. What exactly is this and how does it fit in with your over practice?
Andrea Rossi (11:27):
Thank you for asking. So the Dirt Clubhouse is, so I have a Substack and as a newsletter it's called The Dirt. And so I free issues that go out on that newsletter, but there's a segment of it that's behind a paywall, and that piece is called The Dirt Clubhouse. I really created that. I wanted there to be a really low entry point for individuals who wanted to really explore connection to their bodies, food, the natural world. That entire clubhouse is really centered around herbalism. It also explores things like creativity, but it also looks into things around these paradigms and about to do a big series about some ways that we can think about and orient ourself when we're thinking about change. But within it, I offer a lot of different things. So there's different workshops on different topics. There's different recipes that are herbal related. There's even a book club, and the book club is all nonfiction books that are for any sort of nature nerds out there. It's very much for those people. The one this month is called The Forgotten Pollinators. Last month was about mushrooms. And so some of them are memoirs, some of them are a little bit more sy, but it's just a really fun way for people to just connect in a very loose structured way.
Marie-Noelle Marquis (12:58):
And is it, where could our listeners find that information if they want to join the Dirt clubhouse?
Andrea Rossi (13:03):
Yes. If you go to my website, there should be a link that takes you to my newsletter, but also on Substack, if you search the dirt, then you'll also find my newsletter that way, and then you can find it there.
Jaime Hartman (13:19):
Right. Andrea, our listeners are understandably always interested in the stories that we have to tell about our own healing and our origin as AIP Certified Coaches. And you've kind of touched on that a little bit already, but as I understand it, your origin here started with your own search to find some relief from autoimmune symptoms. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?
Andrea Rossi (13:42):
Yes. My journey began in my early twenties, probably similar to many people's, in that I was just living life, not really thinking about much. Started to notice my body have more and more issues, mainly gastrointestinally. And then all of a sudden one day, it was the day after Thanksgiving, I woke up and my entire body was covered in these giant welts, like massive welts over, it looked like I'd had a million leeches on my body, and it was a strange sensation. I also was dealing with some things that were potentially anaphylactic, and so my friend took me to the hospital, and at the time the doctors were like, yeah, your body's doing something. We don't really know what it is. Good luck. And I think when you have a healing crisis where your body all of a sudden is doing a bunch of things that you're like, well, what is happening?
(14:40):
It's really scary. So in that instant, I started having a lot of other symptoms arise, some related to my nervous system, anxiety, panic attacks, many related my gastrointestinal system to keep it nice for the listeners. Things were not staying down or not staying in, and were often frequently all moving in all directions many times over. And so I began to be like, oh, man. Food in general was really scary for me. I didn't know why it was happening, what was happening. I was having really intense migraines randomly throughout the day. Obviously the skin thing was happening. I was having random swellings. If anyone has seen that movie hitch, I felt like the main character where I'd randomly have half of my face swell and then a finger swell and a leg swell and an arm. So my body was just going through a symphony. I felt like I was an orchestra of symptoms where it was just like, oh, there's the trumpet coming in.
(15:42):
Oh, there's the drums coming in. And so at the time, it was really scary and it was really hard, and I was seeing lots of practitioners, and my story's not original in this way at all, but no one really knew what was going on. And eventually I was able to connect with some folks in the holistic health space and started exploring nutrition. And it actually took me a long time before I stumbled on AIP. But when I did, I did begin experimenting with it even in my early twenties, and really began to see how nutrition could be so impactful to your experience of those things. And so that's when I started to see a change.
Jaime Hartman (16:28):
So when you were getting started with nutrition, what was your biggest struggle at that time?
Andrea Rossi (16:34):
Oh my goodness. So when I was getting started with nutrition, I need everyone to understand I really had a separation between my head and the rest of my body. I really couldn't feel my body that was very much a survival instinct that I'd adopted through my life. I hadn't processed a lot of the things that I'd experienced when I was young, which is definitely common among children who've experienced really traumatic upbringings. So I didn't feel a lot of things. So what that meant is that when it came to food, I truly felt like not like a hunter gatherer, I felt like a scavenger. So I didn't have a lot of money. So oftentimes I would eat, I would join clubs to get free food, like pizza, I learned to forage so I could get free food. I dumpster dough for food. So I really had a eclectic experience, but I also really struggled when I was resourced, I struggled to cook for myself because again, that meant being in my body to a certain extent, and I didn't put any of that together at the time.
(17:47):
It wasn't until later, so when I had to start stepping into nutrition, it was a big deal for me. It meant that I had to go towards all these other things too, because if I went on a hike, even sometimes I liked being in the outdoors and with nature, and that would be the time where I'd all of a sudden be like, oh, wow, I feel really nauseous. So I just kept this disconnect from feeling some of the things that were probably going on the whole time that I just didn't let myself feel. And so it was a real challenge when I started cooking deeply emotional. I have this memory, and it's been so long that it's either a carrot or celery, I can't remember which one, but I was chopping this long vegetable on a cutting board, and I remembered that in the midst of cutting it, I just stopped and started slamming it on the cutting board because I was just feeling all these emotions of how am I here?
(18:48):
I'm being forced to reckon with these things I'm not ready to reckon with. In the end, though, I am truly grateful for it because it not only allowed me to take care of my body better, it actually allowed me to inhabit my life in a way that I didn't realize I wasn't at the time. And it allowed me to go towards the other types of healing that I needed in order to really just be able to have compassion for myself, tend to myself, all of those things. But yeah, my nutrition journey was rough. It was very challenging.
Jaime Hartman (19:22):
Was there a turning point somewhere or something significant that you can point to now in retrospect that helped you reconnect those parts of you?
Andrea Rossi (19:33):
That's a great question. So I think that there were multiple things along the way, but I'll pinpoint a couple that made a really big difference. So one that I always think of was anytime community became part of the picture for me and nutrition, because in my very early years, I'm in my very early twenties, my friends are drinking wine, they're going out, they're doing all these things, and I felt that deep sense of isolation, and I was on this really separate journey than all my peers. And so I think once I started to feel community, it made a big difference. And there was this time I was either in my late twenties or my early thirties, but one of my friends suggested this idea that the two of us start swapping meals weekly. So we would cook and then we'd swap AIP meals for one another, and that group grew eventually.
(20:29):
We are a group of three, and then we are a group of four, and then we are a group of five, and then we are a group of six and seven and eight and nine and 10. And what we would do is we would batch prepare one meal in a number of these big mason jars, and then we'd meet once a week and we had this whole system for how we would swap each week. And I think that was when I began to feel like a joy in food because I think that that was a real moment where I was like, oh, now I get to be someone who's giving to all these other people that are dealing with their own chronic illnesses and their own autoimmune diseases, and we are all helping each other financially as well. We are all able to decrease what our overhead was in a given week and in general, it was just one of the most nourishing things I think I've ever been a part of.
Jaime Hartman (21:21):
Yeah, such a great example of how it's not just the food, it was that connection to other people through the food, but that made the difference.
Andrea Rossi (21:34):
I think it's so important, and I've often found that if individuals have people in their lives that are willing to even just come over for a dinner or prepare, sometimes something that I'll create for clients is something that they can give to their families and friends, like a book of recipes that they love that then they can send a booklet and say like, Hey, we're going to do a potluck style meal. Please just pick something from this recipe book and then bring that dish, or things like that. Because I've found that when we can really get that support and that support is really just the joy of sharing something with other people. I find that it made it so simple, all of us on AIP, all of a sudden I realized the diet wasn't actually hard. What was hard was feeling alone in it. It wasn't hard to, I'm cooking this meal, but it was hard when I was cooking all my meals every week totally alone, and now I'm experiencing new flavors I wouldn't have thought of.
(22:40):
I'm experiencing all of these things. And it was really cool because you do explore community in a new way when you rely on each other in that way. And we actually had to learn how to be reciprocal because society has kind of made us a bit isolated, I'd say, a little siloed. And so we had to learn things. For example, how did we set up boundaries around food safety for one another so that we're all being safe with how we're preparing food to keep it safe for one another? How do we honor feedback cycles in case someone made a dish and other people didn't really like the flow, flavor profile? How do we in a loving way learn how to be honest with one another so that we can grow from that? So I think there's this way where sometimes, at least for me, I've avoided connection because connection can come with other things like conflict, but then I think you also lose the beauty of what that deepening can happen when we go towards that with other people. So it was really cool. It ended up, it went for many years actually, it ended because of the pandemic.
(23:49):
So that was when that ended, and eventually I moved. And so I've done other types of food exchanges with people since, but that was something that went on for a very long time and was the main way that a lot of us did food before the pandemic.
Marie-Noelle Marquis (24:06):
Great. Andrea, you mentioned two things. What was the second one?
Andrea Rossi (24:09):
So that community group was one thing that made a big difference. And then I think the other, for me at least, was really trying to dissolve the shoulds for myself. I think shoulds for me causes emotional constipation. It's almost like I don't, or emotional inactivity at the very least. I don't want to move forward when I should myself. So my response when I'm telling myself, this isn't good enough. Oh, this could be better. When that happens, when that language is happening inside of me, I really notice that I shut down and don't want to do anything. And so I think for me, one of the things I continue to work on to this day is when I notice that when I notice that I'm avoiding cooking or I notice that I'm avoiding just the physical realm in some way, it's often because there's some kind of thing going on inside of me where I'm being really hard on myself.
(25:13):
And so that's where I'm really trying to bring always more compassion of like, oh, you did so great. You did the best you could today. That was so wonderful. Oh, you made time for this small breakfast. Fantastic. Really that self-talk. Because I do think those kinds of things, even though they're small, they're the things that get me. They're the things more than the meal prep or the grocery list. It's all the stories that I can tell myself about, oh, well, you didn't have enough of that. Whatever, the shoulds, the hard on yourself self conversation. So I think that's been and continues to be something that I have to work on personally.
Jaime Hartman (25:55):
Thank you for sharing that. And the stories, like you said, art that we tell ourselves are so powerful. I mean, we think it's a little thing when we say it out loud in a context like this, but actually those stories that self-talk, I mean, that is huge, and thank you for sharing that.
Marie-Noelle Marquis (26:15):
Yeah, I agree. You can do something. Just imagine telling yourself like, oh, you know what? You made breakfast for yourself today. Congratulations. You instantly feel that joy. You feel that little burst of pride and you're like, yeah, I deserve a treat. I'm going to do something fun for myself today. It just feeds on itself. A friend of mine recently was saying it takes just as much energy to have the fear language going as it does to have a positive language. So I've been working to trying to catch that, but beautiful way to be compassionate with yourself. Really, really well said, Andrea, thanks for sharing that. You've said that one of your signature pieces of coaching advice is that transformation works best when it honors your unique nature. So tell me more. Tell us more. What does that mean to you?
Andrea Rossi (27:06):
Yeah, I think I touched on this a little at the beginning, but to get more nuanced or granular with it, I think it's really about finding that way that we can see what someone's personal rhythms are, what their personal strengths are, what motivates them are, and then moving from that place and really trying to start the process from where we are in time and space because we can develop where we want to go, which I consider that North star, but it's really important to start, in my opinion, from the person. And there's this piece that I wrote recently on my substack that I call the principles of personal alchemy. And in the very beginning of it, what I talk about is how oftentimes we get focused on when we think of change, we think about outcome, and we think that change is the outcome, but actually change is process.
(28:07):
When we think about a butterfly, the transformation isn't the butterfly from the caterpillar to the butterfly, the transformation is the chrysalis. It's the thing that's happening in between. And so we can often become hard on ourselves. We say, I'm not here. I haven't changed. That's not true. The process is actually where all that work happens. So when we position ourselves in such a way that we're like, okay, this is where I am. I'm in it, I'm in. I'm in the little moments of feeling the challenge of it, the joy of it, the pain of it, the newness of it, the excitement, the curiosity. All of those things are that piece of actually changing. And so why that becomes important when we think about our unique nature is that we have to start to begin to look at how we are in relationship to that process.
(29:05):
What are the ways that we can identify when change is occurring? One of the things I like to think about is something called essentially looking at sleuthing, being the detective of our own lives. What are ways that we can become curious about what's arising and use that as information that's letting us know where we are on this path? So I think there's just a number of ways that when I'm chatting with people, I try to orient it in terms of, you're doing it. I'll have people who will sometimes say, oh, I haven't done it. I'm like, well, no, then you're done. But you're doing it. We're doing it. I also teach standup comedy, super random. I do standup comedy as a side thing, but I recently had a student who was talking to me and they were saying they were about to go on stage for the first time, and they were like, well, I don't feel like I'm like all these other people.
(29:59):
I don't feel ready. Everything's a mess. Everything's on my page. It's written down and it scribbles. And I was like, yeah, that's standup comedy. That's the process. You're doing it. We're literally doing the art form right now. And so I think there's a way that when it comes to artistry, when it comes to healing, there's actually a lot that we can learn from artistry in the healing process because we love to fixate on what's done. But artistry, as any artist knows, is the entire process of bringing something into the world. It's also similar to individuals that have babies. We think of baby being done, but that whole process is someone carrying it, building this body within them. So I just think that when I work with people, I really like to help position both the change process for people as well as the fact that if we want to be successful, someone might read something trendy online, they might see something that someone else is doing, and it's like, that's great if that works for you.
(31:01):
If it doesn't work for you, then it's not for you. And that's okay. That doesn't make you wrong or bad or ineffectual because you can't do this thing that someone else could do. And I'm sure you two have heard this a lot, but I'll get people on calls being like, it's so confusing, all these different things, and they say, you could do it this way, you could do it this way. And I'm like, yeah, that's because there's a gazillion ways that people find what works for them, which can be overwhelming when you're looking at it outside. But at the same time, it can be really liberating to be like, there's a lot of possibilities. There's a lot of people who did things that are completely opposite and still had the same end result. So let's find out what yours is. How do you work? How do you tick? What works for you? Yeah,
Marie-Noelle Marquis (31:49):
Beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing that. I love that.
Jaime Hartman (31:53):
Andrea. We end every episode of the AIP Summit podcast by telling the listeners that we're committed to helping them elevate their wellness journey to new heights. So with our time left, can you give them a couple practical action steps that maybe they could implement like this week that would help them do that?
Andrea Rossi (32:10):
Okay. So one of them, especially with it being springtime right now, is that if you're able to, and this sounds safe, enjoyable for you, try and get outside and be with living plants. This could be in your yard, this could be at a park, this could be on a window sill, container garden kind of situation. But the reason I say that, because the natural world, our systems, for whatever reason, we not only co-regulate with other humans. So when we sit down to coffee with a good friend and you can feel the joy bubble in you because you're regulating with the way that they're showing up. We don't do that just with people. We also do that with plants, which is why there's so much research that shows that you can see a change in people's cortisol levels just from inhaling the scent of a tree. So in this season, or at least in the Northern Hemisphere where things are moving into a place where we're looking at it being warmer and brighter and sunnier, if you're looking for ways to help really simply balance your nervous system, bring yourself back to yourself, even just take a moment of ease, I would say getting outside, get outside in whatever way feels good to you and is accessible to you.
Jaime Hartman (33:41):
Thank you, Andrea, for joining us today. Remind everybody again where they can find you.
Andrea Rossi (33:47):
Yes, you can find me at my website, dirt and bones.com or on Instagram, it's Dirt and Bones as well. There's two little underscores before and after the word, but I think it's pretty easy to find. Or you can find me via my email. You can reach me at [email protected].
Jaime Hartman (34:08):
I'll make sure to put all of that in the show notes as well, so it's easy for people to find you.
Marie-Noelle Marquis (34:12):
Andrea, thank you so much for joining us today. Fantastic. Having you on the show. Listeners, once again, we want to remind you, as we mentioned a little bit ago, that AIP is not just a diet, but a protocol with multiple branches. And they are multiple ways to approach it. And through this podcast, AIP Certified Coaches bring you resources. So while you can do AIP on your own, you don't have to do it alone.
Jaime Hartman (34:34):
We'll be back with another episode in two weeks. So make sure you subscribe to the AIP Summit Podcast in your favorite podcast player if you haven't already.
Marie-Noelle Marquis (34:42):
And if you'd like to leave us a rating and review, it will help others find this podcast where we are committed to helping you use the Power of the Autoimmune Protocol to elevate your wellness journey to new heights.
Jaime Hartman (34:58):
The AIP Summit Podcast is a Gutsy By Nature production. Content presented is for informational purposes only, and is not intended to be a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.
