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 (00:16):
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 (00:23):
And today we're talking with Andrea Rossi, an AIP Certified Coach about the unique challenges faced by creative people with chronic illness. Andrea, thank you so much for being here.
Andrea Rossi (00:41):
Thank you so much for having me.
Marie-Noelle Marquis (00:44):
So I'm selfishly very, very excited to have you on the podcast today, which I'll explain a little bit. But one of the most fascinating thing I think about you is that you are an after hours standup comedian with chronic illness. So to start our conversation today, can you tell us a little bit more about how your own health journey and your creative life started to intersect and how that eventually led to your coaching work?
Andrea Rossi (01:13):
Yes, absolutely. I would say that the health piece came sooner. That was the piece that for many of us, we stumbled upon it in ways that we didn't expect. And so even though I considered myself creative when I was young, I wasn't yet doing standup comedy. So in my early 20s, that's when I was working with finding out that I had an autoimmune illness. And then once I was managing that later in my 30s, I moved into a home with black mold and that re-ignited a bunch of challenges for me in the many years that it took to figure out that that was happening. So once that was managed again, I found my way to standup comedy. So I started doing standup comedy and they were initially two very separate pieces or so I thought. What I didn't realize is that because of my background, I was constantly thinking of those things that I'd learned through the years because with standup comedy, it's at night, it's not on the normal circadian rhythm clock.
(02:16):
And you're also dealing with a lot of adrenaline, a lot of stress at random hours of the day. So I was really taking a lot of those practices that I'd learned from my health journey into that comedic realm. And that was mainly just so that I was staying well and I was taking care of myself. And then in doing that, that's how it began to intersect with my work because I'd be talking to other comics and I'd be talking to other people where I started to see this connection between individuals that were doing these creative crafts and also navigating chronic complex illness, whether that was from autoimmunity or whether that was other conditions that they were confronted with. And so that was how those worlds kind of collided. And initially it was just like me wanting to pursue a passion and then quickly realizing like, oh, anything I do, I'm still tending to myself.
(03:13):
And that's where it began.
Marie-Noelle Marquis (03:17):
That's funny. Tell me more about when you first noticed that the creative community had this disproportionate share of chronic health struggles.
Andrea Rossi (03:28):
Yes. There were kind of two moments in both realms. So one of the moments was I was in a green room and a lot of places, a lot of performers know this. You're often performing in musty old dank, not well ventilated spaces. So because of my history with mold and mycotoxins, there's certain precautions that I take when I'm going to spaces just to keep my body taken care of in those environments. And so I'm sitting in this setting and I'm talking with someone about my experiences with mold and then that individual, that comic was like, "I think I have had that going on for years because I noticed that I'm sneezing and feeling sick every time I'm entering certain spaces and I never made that connection." So that was one realm where I'd been having micro conversations like that for a long time. And it was all of a sudden it hit me where I'm like, wait, this is like the 50th conversation I've had like this while waiting to go on stage.
(04:22):
And then the second place where I saw it was actually in my work, I didn't even realize it, but I don't know if it's who I am or how people came to know about me, but when I started noticing people's occupation and the things that I was kind of crafting someone's personalized plan around, oftentimes some kind of creative component was layered in to their identity, their purpose, why they're here and what brings them joy. And so a lot of our work was not only figuring out how to support their body, but how to support their body in different types of environments because their creative craft, whatever that might be, whether that's a musician on the road or a visual artist who's hunched over much of the day or whatever that might be, or even a hair artist, someone who really takes pride in the artistry of doing, working in a hair salon, these were all things that I started to see again and again.
(05:14):
And that is when I realized that I was like, "Oh, there's this intersection that's kind of colliding between these two
Jaime Hartman (05:21):
Worlds." So what's actually happening in creative people physiologically? Why do so many creative people seem to live in a kind of low grade chronic stress state?
Andrea Rossi (05:31):
That is a very good question. And one of the things, there can be many different ones, but one that I see commonly among many individuals is that the nervous system is being activated more readily and more constantly than individuals that don't have a regular creative practice. So there was actually a body of research done, and it's really interesting. These scientists found that there's a certain type of anxiety that is unique to creative individuals, and they named this anxiety creative anxiety, so it's very on the nose. But what they found is that the act of engaging in creativity, that actual act of doing it, can bring about a lot more of anxiety because of what it calls on upon us. So if you think about it, creativity comes with things like uncertainty, ambiguity, novelty. Those are all things that are baked into this divergent way of thinking, and that is exactly what makes someone good at their craft, their ability to be in the unknown, to experiment, to create something new.
(06:37):
And those same qualities are things that at a base level, even when pleasurable, can add some of that anxious stimuli. And so it was interesting because there was a research study where they looked at a bunch of different domains. So for example, science, math, arts, and they found that anxiety was highest in situations that required creativity compared to those that didn't. So not just in the arts, but anywhere where someone was executing with that creative faculty. And we see that a lot in professions like graphic design, things like that. So another study found that the more creative the individual, the higher their baseline anxiety. And they attributed that to partly this thing called higher basal arousal, which basically just means that your brain is wired to be more alert. And all of this makes sense. If you're a creative person, you already know what it's like to have your mind going a million miles per hour with different ideas or perceptually you're bringing in more input, right?
(07:36):
Like an artist is not just seeing the color gray, they're seeing a hundred shades of gray. And so because of that, someone is allowing more stimulation in. And so because of that, we can see that people that are creatively oriented or just people that decide to have creativity be a big part of their day-to-day lives, we might see that higher nervous system arousal, which even with things that are positively associated, can have physiological impact. And the one thing I'll leave with this though is that so that people aren't like, "Oh my gosh, wait, you're telling me that I'm just going to be more anxious and stressed." They also found in one research study that that same creative anxiety, that same thing that makes someone more able to make these connections and more able to be divergent in their thinking, that also gives someone access to more tools for managing it, but in order to manage it, you have to know that it's there.
Jaime Hartman (08:35):
So
Andrea Rossi (08:36):
That same capacity allows someone to be more experimental in terms of what allows them to feel nourished, but we have to know that that's happening in order to then pull on those tool sets, basically.
Jaime Hartman (08:49):
I love the clarification about the word anxiety. We all hear that and we're like, "Ooh, definitely want to get rid of that. " But it's actually driving the creativity, which is very positive. Is this something that is different in different types of creative people? I'm thinking like a visual artist working alone in a studio or a performer on stage looking for an audience response. Is that showing up differently for different types?
Andrea Rossi (09:16):
Yes, I would say that it is because ... Well, there's two parts. There's individual response. So there's individuals that might have had specific predisposing factors, for example, how they grew up or early childhood events, and that could make them more susceptible regardless of what they do towards that anxious or creative anxiety or the anxious arousal. And so someone could be a visual artist and still be experiencing that because of other factors. But when we look at different forms, yes. There is a reason that many people, I think it might be rated the highest fear is public speaking. So oftentimes when we have individuals that are stepping into modalities like the performance arts where you're being seen and perceived, whether that's acting or whether that's standup or whether that's anything that might involve some sort of exchange between you and an audience and that actual act of being perceived, yes, that can lead to much higher states.
(10:23):
With that said, I would say that what we see commonly among many different elements is that many creative professions, they are expected to deliver creative performance in a timely manner, usually connected to their financial security. So you could have a visual artist who is someone who maybe is not getting in front of an audience and having those spikes, but they still have to have a certain amount of output. And so I think another piece of it for a lot of creatives is what is the level of output that is needed to sustain their craft, whether that's financially or whatever parameters they have in place, and then what is that doing potentially to their nervous system? Because the creative process is expansive, it's unbounded. So when we're both trying to expand and bound and direct at the same time, that creates a sort of pressure cooker situation for many, which can start to feel pretty stressful.
(11:22):
But yes, you can have different domains that might look differently depending on the demand. Or for example, the physical demand, like I think of a documentary filmmaker who's on a shoot and has to work really long hours. And so that might be a different type of demand where the hours are exacting a lot from them, where maybe a standup has a really quick hit of adrenaline right before a performance, but we're looking at like maybe an hour and a half arc versus maybe someone who's dealing with a little bit more of an endurance issue from like a 12 to 16 hour day. So different things can put strain depending on what it is and it's kind of just identifying what those patterns are and then how do we work with it, given the necessities of that creative profession or hobby.
Marie-Noelle Marquis (12:10):
So as someone who grew up as a performer in theaters and then worked as a writer, director and editor and documentary filmmaker, as you just mentioned, I had no idea that there could be a specific and scientific actually connection between my creative brain and my autoimmunity. And it's completely like blowing up my mind and I'm convinced ... I'm sure it's touching a lot of audi listeners. I just feel like I just want to sponge it all in for myself. So this is great. And it's such a ... What a brilliant niche that you found. I just want to applaud you. No creative pun intended for that. I think it's just so exciting to have someone that can offer that knowledge and that perspective as a coach in our community. That's fantastic. Okay. So standard AIP advice about lifestyle basically assumes that people can maintain a certain kind of daily structure, certain routine, right?
(13:12):
So my question for you is for someone working in a creative occupation, like you mentioned, that can look very different with like either long hours or different hours of the day. So how would you really describe what that reality is for artists?
Andrea Rossi (13:27):
That's a fantastic question. So I think there's a couple different components that can impact creatives. So one, I think of if I was to cluster into buckets, the first bucket would be hours or schedules. So with individuals that are in creative pursuits, this is often looking like a very irregular schedule, either because the creative endeavor requires that or because they're trying to fit in their creative endeavor on top of a nine to five, which is the reality for many people. So I'll give you some examples. Like I said with a documentary filmmaker, that might be an individual that when they're on shoot, they're on from the first light of the day until the shoot is done. Those hours can span really long timeframes. Then we might have late night performers. If you think of anyone who is in any sort of performing art on Broadway or even not, just anyone who's an actor or in drama, oftentimes those shows are happening in the evenings.
(14:28):
So the beginning of someone's workload is happening in the nighttime. And then we also have individuals who are working with the creative flow of their inspiration, where some of them might not feel that until late hours of the night. So one area that can be really challenging is the hours. And so within that, oftentimes we're trying to find basically what are the levers, what are the anchors that we can put into something that might not be fully supporting where they are in their health at this moment, and how do we find a way to ground that to the best of our ability? And there's a number of approaches we can look at to do that, but those are some of the main things that we see is definitely this challenge around people's schedules as it relates to the work. And within that, there can be challenges to regular nourishment because individuals might be working through a lunch or skipping breakfast or using caffeine as their fuel to get through a long night.
(15:33):
These are common patterns that we see in general. I'd say, I'm sure you all experience that in your practices as well, but it's something that I see when I'm seeing individuals in the creative arts, if they've just done a nine to five and now they're about to go hit open mics for the rest of the night, we might see people who are using a lot of stimulants, a lot of things to help keep them going, whether that's soda or whether that's energy drinks, et cetera. So those two components get really impacted for creatives, nourishment cycles and work hours and the irregularity of all of those pieces. And so we often have to manage for that basically.
Marie-Noelle Marquis (16:15):
Do you see something specific like those disruptions? Do you see like a specific pattern of how that begins to impact their health in one area of their health more than the other?
Andrea Rossi (16:27):
That's a great question. Yes. So I would say there's a few areas where we're going to see it typically. We're going to see it for, especially the ones that people are most likely to say, "Hey, I need support for this. " So this is where someone's starting to self-identify. One is going to be energy and we've all heard this where someone is no longer able to use the normal supports for rest. You sleep, you wake up, you feel rested. Individuals who are now feeling like no matter how much they sleep, they're not able to recover. They're not able to feel like they're able to be their most fortified self. So that's one trend we see. Another one that we see frequently is around the immune system. It can show up for individuals as autoimmunity. That's often a big one that causes someone to say, "Hey, this is something that needs tending." But it can also show up as like the frequently getting sick, where you just feel like you're always getting sick in all these different environments and a lot of creatives are exposed to a lot of people.
(17:26):
So just feeling like every little thing that goes around you're getting sick with. And then the other way that people frequently experience it is hormonally, especially among individuals with menstrual cycles or that are going through different phases related to those hormones, we can see people start to experience more impact with that as well. And so I'd say those are kind of the more classic domains. Less so someone's going to be like, "Oh, I have a nutritional deficiency." Even if it might be connected to that from a long bout of not getting nourished the way they need, it's usually going to show up as fatigue, immune system, hormonal issues, sometimes risky mood. And then the other big one is the digestive system, which is very common because we hear about butterfly belly. And I mean, as someone who's been part of this space of, I'm sure you understand as well, being part of the actual space of working and creativity, it's very common for there to be jokes about needing to use the theater bathroom or the green room bathroom before a show because of that adrenaline hitting.
(18:27):
So initially a lot of people can just write off digestive issues as like, "Oh, that's kind of the hazard of the trade. I'm nervous. So my gut goes out. " But what we start to see is that people have more prominent issues with their digestive system even when they're not doing that kind of thing. And then we start to see this issue of like, "I used to not have an issue with this food and now I do and now everything seems to make me react." And so we see that as kind of the beginnings for someone where they start to say like, "Oh, this is maybe not supporting me the way that I need it to.
Marie-Noelle Marquis (19:00):
" That's great. You touched a little bit of environmental and nutritional dysfunction. Are there more specific either environmental and/or nutritional exposure, I would say, that you see are often like they would impact a creative person's symptoms?
Andrea Rossi (19:19):
Yes, there are. So environmentally, people have different spaces that they do creative work in. The performing arts are going to be in theaters or in basements or in tiny venues when you think of musicians often playing in garages. And then you also have visual artists who are sometimes in, again, smaller studio spaces, basement studio spaces, maybe not well ventilated spaces, textile artists and potentially using a lot of product, whether that's with woodworking or metal work. If you have individuals that are audio or working in sound, we might have a lot of screen time, we might have a lot of issues with the ergonomics of our sitting situation. So yes, there can be these unknown ways, or I guess maybe not unknown, but sometimes under acknowledged ways that we can be in an environment that is slowly over time having an impact on our health. And so it can be helpful to help someone identify the terrain of that environment.
(20:20):
And within that, there can be some nourishment obstacles because for example, we talked about the documentary filmmaking set or anyone who's on a set, there can be craft services where you're like, "Oh, I don't need food." And then you go to craft services and it's like a handful of pretzels and like a bunch of, or Skittles in the green room, and not to put down pretzels or Skittles, but not considered like a full meal. But many creatives will be like, "Oh, okay, this will get me through to the next moment. I'm just going to eat something small to hold me over." It's not uncommon for a lot of creatives to be paid in pizza or pizza and beer. So over time, if that's what someone's really kind of relying on for their sustenance, it can create this deficit in the nutrients they need to thrive.
(21:12):
And then we can also run into the individuals that are just so creatively inspired that we're just kind of skipping meals. We're just kind of missing those mealtimes because we're caught by the meals. So we see that happen in both the space and also in regards to the actual physical act of nourishment.
Marie-Noelle Marquis (21:30):
How would you explain to our listener, from understanding your work, it's like, how do we define harm reduction? How do we reduce those exposure, those risks in the context of AIP?
Andrea Rossi (21:45):
Yeah. Harm reduction is something I use frequently in my work and the concept of harm reduction is that we might be in a situation where exposures might exist. A great example of this is when I mentioned that I have a history of living in a home that had mycotoxins and mold and I still want to go perform on certain stages. So that has looked like me creating a combination of supplements and a few key medications alongside my prescribing provider that allows me to have the supports that I need to both handle exposures and also be able to repair and tend to myself after. And then I have nourishment practices as well that I'm trying to do on a regular study basis to be able to support me in those moments. So harm reduction in the context of a creative life, I often think of coming up with like a couple different scales.
(22:40):
So we have our, and this is how people usually do it, right? They'll come up with like their ideal version of what things look like. And so usually I go, "Okay, this is great. I love that we have this. I love that we've come up with this version that we know really works for you or feels good for you. " Now, what does it look like when we put this with late nights? What does this look like in these different contexts where you're essentially creating different anchors, and I call them anchors versus routines because routines can be very challenging to map onto something that is constantly changing. Whereas if you have anchors, anchors are something you can return to regardless of what's going on. So an example of an anchor that you both are probably very familiar with and probably many of the listeners too, but would be like a simple one where I'll say, "Hey, if you're going to have this green room food, please make sure to have some kind of protein and fat before." If you're going to have this sweeter thing, let's anchor your blood sugar a little bit.
(23:39):
Let's just do it even if it's small, even if it's tiny. So you find different ways to anchor them, or there can also be the method where you identify some of the things that are really different buckets like this thing is really non-negotiable in any context, it's going to give you a really bad flare and it's not worth it. And then these things, okay, we know there's a little reaction, what are supports we can build around you having this exposure either environmentally or to this food, and then there's the foods where it's like, "Okay, we have a lot of leniency here." So oftentimes that bucket where it's a little bit more stringent is very small. Most people don't have tons and tons of things. There's usually a few key things. For me, that would be gluten that's like, doesn't matter where I am or what I'm doing, I'm not going to have that one because that specifically flares me in a way that doesn't feel good for my body.
(24:33):
But a big part of all of harm reduction is the choice points. So helping someone understand how things are impacting them and then essentially saying like, "You get to make the decision at the end of the day based on what the result of this is for you and I just want you to have the information so that you can make an informed decision for how you want to navigate this in these different environments." So harm reduction can look a lot like creating anchors, creating different buckets or tiers to what priorities are, and also just creating different types of planning and support systems, different kind of like, I call it a user manual basically, where we're tracking like what makes me feel good all the time, what are things that make me always 100% of the time not feel good? What are those things and mapping them out so that you have all these choice points to move with you through those environments.
Jaime Hartman (25:29):
We've talked about people in creative occupations and you've touched on the kind of creative personality type as well, but let's specifically think about just that creative person, whether they're in a creative occupation or not. So I'm thinking about the people who kind of resist rigidity or their identity is really wrapped up in spontaneity and freedom. How could somebody like that engage with what we all talk about, which is of course the AIP or the autoimmune protocol. You've touched on this a little bit, but let's really kind of dial that back. I'm thinking also too about people who have heard about AIP, tried it, and I'm going to put this in quotes, failed because I really don't believe there really is a failure, but they might say that they failed at AIP. How do you coach somebody like that who has an autoimmune disease and who's drawn to AIP, but also has sort of a creative personality that might make that hard?
Andrea Rossi (26:25):
Yes, I love this question. That is also me. I am that person. I am she. I'm a creative client who resists rigidity and whose identity is wrapped up in spontaneity and freedom. So I think that is why I end up working with people like that because I resonate and I understand the very real challenge. I don't think there's a habit that I do the same every single day. So in answer to that question about what that looks like within a framework like AIP, I think it starts with the acknowledgement of that. I think one of the things that I find that I have to encourage people to reframe is that there's nothing wrong with you. This is how you operate. And the sooner that we acknowledge how you operate, the sooner we agree that this is how you operate, then we can actually build something that works within this container.
(27:18):
And so I think that that is probably the number one biggest step because I think what I see again and again when I'm talking to people is that there's something inside of them that tells them they need this to look like what they see with, I don't know, the cool social, whatever, the health fluencer who has this very dialed schedule and everything has a place and everything feels like super, super perfected, I suppose. And of course that's artificial and that's what we perceive, but there is this idea that we put on ourselves that health needs to look precise. So I think that one of the things that we start from is just changing that mentality and starting with that belief that who I am and how I am has the ability to heal using tools. And that's where we lean into that creative ingenuity that I mentioned earlier.
(28:13):
So some big pieces to underscore this is definitely being self-compassionate and experimental in our approach. We want to make sure that we are truly trying things. And I actually will use that language in some of the programs that we do where I'll say, "Hey, we're going to try this. " Let's say it's a dietary approach. I'll say, "We're going to do a X week experiment." And the point of this experiment is for us to see how it was for you to try, what it was like to try on, what we ran into, and then we can begin to change this and morph this into something that works well for you. And usually I keep that really short. Even though we know something like AIP, there can be real benefit to it being a longer period of time. Oftentimes for these experiments, I keep it to two weeks just so that I have enough insight to make sure that we're not going to those places of failure and seeing how we're doing and seeing what needs to adapt and change and what feels realistic and then working from that point.
(29:15):
So that feels like a really big essential piece of that world is having that adaptability, that experimentalism, and also I think just a really big reframe around what we expect of ourselves and truly believing that we can make those changes with who we are. I have this phrase that I say is that progress is more important than protocol. I
Jaime Hartman (29:39):
Always
Andrea Rossi (29:40):
Tell people, I do not care what your protocol ... I don't care what you read. If we are seeing progress and progress is defined by you by the metrics that we outline. We have specific things that are important to you that we're measuring and we're keeping track of either via symptom journal, lab work, whatever it might be. We have specific things that we're using to track How this is responding for you. And if you're seeing progress, that's all that we need to have happen. We don't need it to look a certain way. We just need it to work for you. And that's it.
Jaime Hartman (30:10):
You have said that community is really important. In fact, I think you've said it's a non-negotiable, but what does community look like for a creative person who might not think that they have a conventional support network or has a social life that revolves around things that might not be supporting their health, like the late nights or drinking or eating foods that might not really support them. How can community do for somebody like that?
Andrea Rossi (30:36):
I think that the isolation that a creative can feel can feel compounded because it's so very different than the lifestyle that a day-to-day individual might encounter. So for example, when I started on my health journey, I did feel very isolated at the time. I couldn't do dinners the same way as my friends. I was struggling with things they weren't struggling with. However, my purpose activity, the thing that brought me joy at that time was a lot of reading and things that really predisposed them towards what I was trying to do. If at that time I had been part of the standup community, there would've been some real challenges because oftentimes you're performing in bars and many people are drinking and they're eating and they're engaging in ways that you can't engage in to be part of that community. So I think when that is the case, it becomes really essential to try and find other communities to be part of who can support you in your process because it's just something that's really unique, I think, to creatives where there's that compounded piece of, not only is my day-to-day impacted this by this, but also this thing I love is also impacted in terms of my ability to connect and feel connected to.
(31:57):
So I think community becomes kind of essential for many people.
Marie-Noelle Marquis (32:02):
We ask all other AIP Certified Coaches to highlight in these interviews is, what is your signature coaching advice? So of everything you've named, stress, leap, self-compassion, reframing that, if someone is just starting and feeling completely overwhelmed, where do you actually start them?
Andrea Rossi (32:21):
It's interesting because I think that it has to do with more the philosophical paradigm because I think that depending on how you orient your mind towards anything that can change how we engage with it and then how we come out of it. So for most people, if I was to pick a universal thing for most people, if they're feeling that overwhelm, there's two things. One is spaciousness and one is sequence. So spaciousness being that, and creatives know this better than anyone, but before the Mona Lisa was painted, we had a blank page. Before the great American novel was written, we had a blank page. Before anything can exist, before anything new can exist, a new practice, a new habit, a new way of being, we need to create space. And so sometimes the act of bringing on a coach or meeting with someone is part of that process where someone's carving out time.
(33:16):
But I often tell people that one of the things that we can do is start to create space for whatever the new version is. So if that's a sleep practice before making the change, what's the spaciousness that needs to exist in life to make that change? So even before maybe trying to dial in this amazing night routine, maybe we're just making sure that we don't have a schedule, we don't have our creative work abutting the moment that we're trying to go to bed. Maybe all we're doing is just creating 30 minutes that can be anything, but we're just opening it up. And then that opened potential then gives us access to make decisions. And that leads to my next thing, which is sequence, which is that sequencing is this idea of someone can have all the right tools like baking, right? Someone can have all the different ingredients, but if we do it in the wrong order, it might be nonsensical and ineffective.
(34:11):
So if I bake the tin before I add the wet ingredients, now I just have a wet hot tin. I have wet ingredients and a hot tin. And so basically the other thing is that if we take ... And oftentimes people who are dealing with chronic complex illness, they've tried a lot of things, but it's because we haven't moved in a specific sequence that we're seeing the result where you can use less effort, you can do less and you could see more results because we're putting it in an order that makes sense to how we move and how we build. We often know this as coaches, like how important hydration is just as a base process before someone brings in something more complex or the fancy TikTok supplement or whatnot, we know that we need to have those foundations in place and that there's an actual, there's an easefulness.
(35:01):
And so when I think of overwhelm, I'm like, how do we decrease that overwhelm? We create space and then we dial things into a sequence that allows us to have ease in our action. So all those tools could eventually be used, but maybe we're putting them in at different moments so that the impact of that thing actually resonates with where we're at. So to your point, when you're going on shoots, we're not going to necessarily do the most intense version when you're going on a shoot. We're going to scale in and scale out and we're going to move with a sequence that makes sense for the moment someone's in. Yeah. So that is probably the thing I find myself saying to people most frequently are those two things.
Marie-Noelle Marquis (35:45):
Okay. So Andrea, you said you mentioned progress over protocol. So I'm thinking like, how does that look like in your practice of like as so many progresses and its way to like get to, or I don't know, is it a progression to the full protocol or how do you integrate it and ...
Andrea Rossi (36:02):
It's something that I say that's really quippy, but it does deserve a beat to make sense of it. So I think what it is, is there's different protocols or at least the way that it's spoken colloquially about like between coaches and between people in the health field is that protocols are often kind of standardized in some way. There's specific things that we know through a lot of trial and error and a lot of research often things that can make a difference for specific presenting things that are occurring like in someone's systems if there's ... So AIP, for example, is one example of a really beautiful map and that map can orient us to things that can make a really big difference for someone in their life. Now within that, what I mean by progress over protocol is that sometimes people can get so hooked in to the specificity of a specific map that they lose sight of the fact that maybe we're only doing 25% so far and we're seeing things change, their sleep change, their energy change, their fogginess change, we're noticing their appetite shifting in a direction that feels good for them, their stress shifting in a way that feels good for them.
(37:23):
So often what I like to key people into is that rather than hanging themself up on this idealized version of what they think they need to do in order to feel the best, we have to really focus on what's actually happening in the body so that we can see how are you responding? Because if you're responding and we're here, we don't necessarily need to stress ourselves into this realm, especially if it's outside of your capacity and it's going to put you into place where you make those changes and then you slingshot back. I would rather you have sustainable progress long term than I would have you do this thing this way and then all of a sudden, three months later, it's completely gone and we're doing something different. I've had this thing often, an example of this is oftentimes if we're looking at three meals a day, breakfast, lunch, dinner, I might just hone in on breakfast with a client.
(38:15):
If they have no routine around cooking and they have no routine around any of ... So we're taking every principle and we're just applying it to breakfast. I'm like, okay, let's talk about how we're structuring it. Let's looking at the specific things you need. Let's just focus on one meal, which doesn't sound like that much, but when you look at a given year, that's 33%. So when you look at a whole year, that's four months of the year that you're doing the thing that's most nourishing to your body. So it's like we start to see the compounded effect of those efforts. So that's usually what I'm trying to point people to is like, I would rather you have more bandwidth where we're starting to see more of these practices seep into more of your life than you do this well for two weeks because now that's only two weeks of your year versus us getting into four, five, six months of your year compounded where we're really nourishing you as deeply as your body desires.
(39:09):
And then maybe we're still working on it for the other areas. So I think those are the types of things I like to encourage people for because I'd so much rather someone figure out how to get the majority, but not all into practice because we're going to see stabilization because at the end of the day, our bodies just want to know that we got their back. "Hey, that's an improv thing. "I got your back. But that's all our body wants to know. It wants to know that we've got its back, that we're communicating safety and love and nourishment at as many occasions and that over time is going to be more impactful than doing something exactly written to the letter for two, three weeks, four weeks max. Yeah.
Jaime Hartman (39:53):
Yeah. I've done that with clients too. And in my practice where they are coming to me just feeling overwhelmed with all of the things they believe they should be doing and zeroing in on just one part of their day, whether it's one meal or one habit or one routine, or as you say, an anchor, I love that, I'm going to remember that term, that they can actually start to implement and just let go of the pressure they were putting on themselves for all of those other things that brings down the stress level, ramps up the level of activation of the thing that they are doing, whatever that might be, and can get them really into the flow of feeling better. And it's amazing how it can help.
Andrea Rossi (40:38):
It is. And there's research, someone just recently told me about research. I think there was a study that just showed that the only difference, oh, I was a trainer, would mention that individuals that end their day with gratitude when they were compared to individuals doing the same things, those individuals were having quicker health changes. And it just goes to show that those tiny moments where we can just experience how excited our bodies are just to be met are really powerful because then it's not us doing the work. We have all these little cells and all these organs and all these parts of us. And depending on how people feel about their emotional body and their spiritual body, we have all these parts of us that are on board wanting to advocate on behalf of us. So we are like, " Here, let me give you half of an avocado.
(41:30):
"And now it's going, " Oh my gosh, thank you so much. I wanted that. Thank you. I will watch me turn this into 10X what you thought was possible. "And so I really like that for people because it can be so easy to go broad and then immediately shut down because it feels too big when really we just need to have these little steady steps over time. That's cool that you do that too. That's awesome.
Marie-Noelle Marquis (41:58):
Finding the tools within like using the creative ideas to use the tool instead of like the go- to of like, okay, so I should get better at being rigid and making it like ...
Andrea Rossi (42:11):
I do think that the creative tools piece is really interesting. It's been really fun in the investigation with different people of what that looks like. So basically when it comes to creative tools, we start to expand how we think about accessing, accessing nourishment. Okay? So what I mean by that is instead of maybe you read something and you're like, " I should X, Y, Z. "Should X, Y, Z is not usually a very motivating phrase for creative people that want to feel unbounded. So that's where we can start using other tools to get to those places. So sometimes that might be, I run this group that meets called meditation and meal mapping. And the whole purpose is that we do a process where I'm guiding someone through and we're just connecting with what images draw us, what colors and sensations draw us. So we can use essentially different imagery to draw us towards our own nourishment and then from there make decisions.
(43:16):
So that's one way that we can do it in this more like contemplative space, but I've also had individuals experiment with how they're using sound or how they're using setting or how they're using container to change how they connect with their nourishment. So an example, let's say you have a potter or a ceramicist, oftentimes I want them to think about the container of their food as much as their food. What is the container? What is the vessel? What is the size of the vessel? What is the color of the vessel? What is the thing? Is it something you've created? Has it been gifted to you? Is it part of your relationship networks? In what ways can we move nourishment beyond just the food into the experience? Musicians, individuals that connect with music. Are there specific ambiances that you want with this as well? So there's ways that we can play with it in that respect if I'm assisting people with the creative element, but then the other part of it can also be individuals just going into their own creative practices where oftentimes I'll give them something to think about.
(44:25):
So for example, I want you to move through what you usually do, move through the process as you would. And then within that given process, I just want you to identify moments where you could see an insertion of some kind of nourishment. And nourishment can be food, but nourishment can be rest, nourishment can be self-connection, nourishment can be listening to something that moves you. It can be connecting to your emotional body or to the concept of beauty. So there's different ways we can go towards it, but I guess my point is a lot of the creative act as it relates to someone's nourishment has to do with how they want to meet that process of discovery. So we're really experimenting, we're getting curious, we're discovering, and we're usually playing with a combination of presence, curiosity, and non-judgmentalism so that we can go through that process of seeing how we want to go towards that essentially.
(45:27):
And it can look really, really, really, really different depending on the person and how they're oriented and how they like to move through the world. But yeah, there's a lot of different practices. Sometimes there's guided flower practices where someone takes a flower essence and I'm having them journal can look really different depending on how someone's oriented, but the keynotes to it are we go towards presence, curiosity, and just a sense of loving kindness, not judging our experience.
Jaime Hartman (45:59):
And Andrea, I know you have a quiz specifically designed to help creatives figure out where they could start with their health. What does that assessment help someone understand about themselves?
Andrea Rossi (46:09):
Yes. The quiz is called, Is Your Body Stealing Your Creative Energy? And when I created the quiz, the intention was actually in the asking of the questions, it's also helping someone orient towards how they're actually experiencing their own lives because what I've found from talking to a lot of people is many times people are like, "Wait, I didn't even think that was an issue. I've just learned to live with it for so long." So really what the quiz is helping someone orient towards is to what degree are you actually managing for this in all of these different elements of your lives? Maybe it's just the early stages, like maybe you're just starting to notice the inklings or maybe you're really hypermanaging and you've just become really used to it and that's worth attending to because it's something that's taking kind of this pressing amount of energy to navigate these worlds.
(47:05):
So it's meant as a tool to really help someone have that moment with themselves where they can, even in the answering of the questions, really kind of gauge where they are. Because I think in doing that, my hope is that it allows someone to then decide like, "Oh, okay, I created space for this moment of self-reflection. Now I can decide on next steps based on what might serve me if this is something I want to go towards." So yeah.
Jaime Hartman (47:33):
And you have a free workshop that's called Why Creatives Get Sick and What To Do About It. For someone who is just hearing this episode and is really resonating with what you're saying and want to check out your workshop, what can they expect?
Andrea Rossi (47:46):
Yes. So the workshop goes through in a little bit more depth some of the things we talked about today, including how creatives are wired and some of the specific things that impact the creative lifestyle. And then I also spend some time at the end really going into the principles. I mentioned spaciousness and sequence, but I go into many other principles that anyone can take and use. So it's not a protocol. It's not like, "Here's your list of X, Y, Z 10 things to do. " Also, because they're creatives, I'm not about to tell you what your day-to-day needs to look like, but it's more principles that you can take into your environment and use as frameworks that allow you to make decision points from in a more useful way. So yeah, that's what that is.
Jaime Hartman (48:32):
And where can our listeners find the quiz and learn more about your workshop?
Andrea Rossi (48:37):
If they go to my website, dirtandbones.com on the homepage, there's both a link to the quiz, and then there's a link that says to events and things like that. And if you click on that, it will take you to where any upcoming free workshops are.
Jaime Hartman (48:53):
And I can imagine that there are people who will have listened to this episode and saw somebody they love in what you're describing and will have sent this episode to them and they're just now hearing about AIP, what is this and this person named Andrea who might be able to help me. So for that person who's receiving this gift from someone who saw them in it and is listening right now, this person who's maybe been just managing their symptoms, carrying on with their life, what do you most want that person to hear right now?
Andrea Rossi (49:30):
The number one thing I'd want someone to know is that you can experience change that works exactly with how you are wired and that gets to involve your purpose-driven life, your creative self, your irregular schedule. There is a way that you can go towards these things. There will be change. Things will shift. It won't look the same that it does this moment, but you don't actually have to become a different person in order to see those things shift. You don't have to become the person who can, "I will never be the person who brushes my teeth at the same time every morning." It will be different by an hour to an hour and a half every single day.That's just how it is. And so you can make shifts that work with you for a lifetime and that in doing that, you actually really learned how you're organized and then how to make the changes you need for yourself.
Marie-Noelle Marquis (50:26):
Thank you, Andrea, so much. I'm so glad that we've got to have this conversation. Again, selfishly, personally, you really opened up my mind to reframing how I look at my creative self and my immune journey, honestly. And I'm sure that so many of our listeners as well are going to be impacted by this episode. So I'm very excited. And listeners, thank you so much for spending this time with us and listening to this episode today. Once again, we want to remind you that AIP is much more than a diet. It is a protocol. It's a progress journey with multiple branches and multiple ways to approach it. And through this podcast, AIP Certified Coaches aim to bring you the resources so that you can feel confident about doing AIP on your own, but with the knowledge that you're not doing it alone.
Jaime Hartman (51:14):
We'll be back with another episode in two weeks. You can find the AIP Summit Podcast in all of your favorite podcast players. So be sure to follow or subscribe to make sure you don't miss anything.
Marie-Noelle Marquis (51:26):
And if you'd like to leave us a rating and review, it will help others find this podcast where we're committed to helping you use the power of the autoimmune protocol to elevate your wellness journey to new heights.
Jaime Hartman (51:41):
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.
