E3 S2 | Functional Medical Health Coach Dawn Karwoski Shares How Connecting to Her Roots, Reigniting her Faith, Finding Community and Regulating Her Nervous System Paved the Path to Remission Artwork

Sick and Seeking

Sick and Seeking is hosted by Leslie Field who, after a diagnosis in her late teens of Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD), has been on a 22-year journey of healing and self-discovery.

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Listen to the stories of courageous people who, in the face of an uncertain medical future, are on a quest to go deeper into their bodies, beyond symptom and diagnosis—or in some cases no diagnosis—to reach a place of intuitive knowing, healing and transformation.

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E3 S2 | Functional Medical Health Coach Dawn Karwoski Shares How Connecting to Her Roots, Reigniting her Faith, Finding Community and Regulating Her Nervous System Paved the Path to Remission

November 17, 2023 • Leslie Field • Season 2 • Episode 3

CLICK HERE TO CONNECT! I'D LOVE TO KNOW -- What keeps you listening? Ideas for future episodes? Something that landed on your heart or mind you needed to hear? Looking forward to connecting with you! --Leslie

In this episode of the Sick and Seeking Podcast, I chat with Functional Medical Health Coach Dawn Karwoski from Well Rooted Life about her remarkable healing journey after a significant health crisis in 2017.

After years of battling various health issues and mystery illnesses, Dawn consulted numerous doctors in search of solutions. Ultimately, she found true healing by reconnecting with her roots, reigniting her faith, and building community support. Today, she shares how she achieved remission from all her chronic conditions.

Conversation Highlights:

Empath Awareness: Dawn discusses her realization of being a sensitive empath, which shaped her health journey.
Health Crash Revelation: Dawn shares her experience with hashitoxicosis, a rare condition that triggered a major health crisis.
Food and Healing: Discover her journey with food, including elimination diets and rebuilding a positive relationship with nourishment.
Self-Advocacy: Dawn emphasizes the importance of trusting your intuition and advocating for yourself in medical settings.
Faith and Regulation: She discusses her return to faith and techniques for effectively regulating her nervous system.

Quotes:
“I started doing nervous system regulation… paired with my functional medicine practice, I bounced back from that health crash and eventually went off all my medication.” - Dawn

“Specialty tests through alternative practitioners often aren’t covered by insurance, leading to unexpected expenses.” - Dawn

“Just because a doctor suggests something doesn’t mean I have to follow it blindly. It’s essential to view this as a choice.” - Dawn

“If our body isn't ready to heal, throwing strategies at it might fail.” - Dawn

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Leslie (00:00.898)

Hello, Dawn, welcome to the Sick and Seeking podcast.

Dawn Karwoski (00:05.215)

Leslie, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

Leslie (00:08.198)

It's such a pleasure. Dawn and I have connected through social media. So I have with me Dawn, oh, I wrote it down, Dawn Karwaski, I got it. I have with me Dawn of The Well-Rooted Life. And she is just doing so many great things, I know through her business or social media and all of the things that she has going on. And I'm just super pumped to talk to you today to share with our listeners about your life.

Dawn Karwoski (00:17.156)

You got it.

Leslie (00:34.282)

what you've been through and what you're doing now. So I don't even know where to start. Take it away. Where do you wanna start?

Dawn Karwoski (00:40.499)

Thanks Leslie, I appreciate that. Yeah, I'll start kind of at the beginning because I feel like it's important to, you know, kind of fold in our past and like basically talk about how that affects us in the present. So I'll start way back with like me in childhood because I always think this is an interesting topic and it really plays into like where I am today. So I was a super anxious kid. I was very like quiet and shy and reserved. I didn't really know I had anxiety. I just was like very uncomfortable in social environments and like big groups of people

preferred to spend time by myself. I had like, struggled with a lot of stomach aches and, you know, just kind of like feeling uncomfortable when crowds of people are not really understanding why. Well, it turns out I'm a highly sensitive person and an empath, so it kind of makes sense, right? Like why I was uncomfortable around certain people and just like, was really sensitive and really emotional and didn't know how to like, deal with those things. So it's sort of interesting because that really has played out in my adulthood. And kind of like fast forward to my 20s and 30s.

having a lot of recurring health issues. So I would get like six sinus infections in a year, or I would keep getting strep throat, and I kept just getting these random diagnoses of like, IBS and I got an anxiety diagnosis then, and just all these things started piling on top of each other. And that came to a point where I couldn't really ignore it. I was kind of doing what I call the fitness magazine version of health, which was very much like working out a lot, trying to work off what I was eating, and generally eating pretty healthy,

but like, you know, binging on the weekends, for example. I was not sleeping very much. I was working at a high profile corporate job that was super stressful. I was on the road a lot. So it was just everything kind of compounded. And then my mid thirties hit and I had like even more accelerated health issues. So I couldn't really ignore things anymore. So I started to kind of like float outside of the traditional medicine system. Saw some like functional medicine practitioners, alternative practitioners to really try to get to the bottom

going on with me. Because everyone just kind of the doctors I was seeing were like, oh, what's in your head or, you know, sort of doing the gaslight treatment or kind of minimizing it or basically saying like, you see this specialist and this specialist. So I was seeing like this massive collection of doctors and it was not really working. Yeah. So it really was like, let's find someone that can look at like Dawn as an entire person. So I kind of found functional medicine then, and was really just enamored with it. I'm just so taken aback by like, wow, this

Leslie (02:55.286)

Mm-hmm.

Dawn Karwoski (03:10.153)

like they spend time with you and they ask questions and they look at every bodily symptom and look at a lot of lifestyle factors that traditional medicine ignored. So I kind of started down that path and had a lot of success with it for a while. I did a lot of supplemental protocols and healing protocols and elimination diets and so many things and did sort of hit a standstill with that as well. And I had a major health crash in 2017. So at this time,

been diagnosed with hypothyroidism and a number of other things, but I had this very rare condition that no one knows what it is. It's called hashi toxicosis. It's something like five percent of our population is hit with it. And it ended up in the hospital and I kind of like that was my pivotal turning point where I knew that like things really had to change. So even though I had, you know, a great doctor support system at that time, I realized that I had not, you know, at all attended to my

started digging into like past traumas and you know kind of reigniting my faith practice and things like that and really integrated that like mind body spirit approach. I started doing nervous system regulation like all these other kind of you know more alternative things so that coupled with my functional medicine practice like really got me to a healthy place so I was able to kind of bounce back from that major health crash and within a couple of years went off all my medication

and diagnosis as endorhomicin and was so just pleased with the progress and really felt like I found my purpose in all that pain. So I became a functional medicine health coach shortly after that.

Leslie (04:54.254)

that you were able to say that entire story in four minutes. I mean, you're very concise. I'm just a wordy person. So that in itself to like be able to say that and we're gonna dig into all these pieces because it's like it's so incredible that you were able to capture all of that in four minutes because there is so much in there and so that's where we're gonna go next. I'm going to the beginning. We're gonna go back to

being an empath and being more sensitive. I personally wanna talk about this a little bit more because I've struggled with this myself. I know I am a bit of a bit more sensitive person. I take things in a lot easier. I'm definitely more emotional. And it's been tough for me pretty much my whole life because I'm like very quick to cry. Things land very heavy. It feels really heavy in my body. And...

Oftentimes, I feel like, I don't know if it's my family culture, the greater culture, whatever. Oftentimes, I sit there and I go, what is wrong with me? And then I go, like, is this all in my head? Like, am I just like a crazy person? So like, I want to start there. That like, I love that you would like really know that about yourself and you embrace that. Tell me more about that.

Dawn Karwoski (05:59.411)

Thank you.

Dawn Karwoski (06:12.831)

Yeah, yeah, great points. It is really heavy and it's something that's really hard to deal with, especially as a child, right? Because you just you don't know what to do. You don't know how to deal with emotions really anyway as a kid, right? And then to have that extra sensitivity, that extra heaviness is a lot. No doubt. Yeah, I agree with you. I resonate with what you shared. It's like, you know, why, why is this happening to me? It felt like a burden for a long time. It's like, I don't want to feel this way. Right? Like, I don't want to like take on other people's emotions or like walk into a crowd and be able to tell like what

you know, what mood everyone's in or like what their energy's like. It yeah, took me a really long time to be honest to kind of like embrace that and really learn what it meant. Not really until adulthood honestly did I like understand like okay being highly sensitive is a skill and it is you know a gift in a lot of ways but it's really hard to unpack so I just want to yeah definitely give that the voice that it deserves because it's not an easy path by any means but it really can be a gift because it allows you to like connect with people on

I mean, I can have, and you know, you can connect with people, really get to know them, and really feel and share their energy, and have not just surface-level empathy and compassion, but share in their pain, and share in their joy, and share in their hope. So I think that that's a really beautiful way to look at it, but it can be a lot. Energetic boundaries are very real, and they are very important for those of us that share these qualities. So it can be a lot, but I do feel like it definitely can be a good thing.

Leslie (07:42.934)

I'm glad that you remind me of that. It was, she's a friend, she's a mentor, she has so many things to me. She often was the first person to really remind me and not even too long ago, she's like, this is a really big gift that you have. And so it's been a little bit of a bumpy road to accept that it is a gift. But here I am podcasting and really sharing, yeah, and these emotional experiences, these deep conversations, which I was telling Dawn actually really set me alight. So I'm like, well, there's something to that.

Dawn Karwoski (08:02.911)

Thanks for watching!

Leslie (08:11.594)

What is it about connecting with people that really enlivens me? And we should say not every, all of us are impacted by one another. I think that's also the interesting point. Maybe our dial, Don and my dial is a little bit turned up a little bit more, right? A little bit more fine tuned in there, but I think what everyone forgets is everyone is sensitive to all these things around us. And we'll get into more of that later in the nervous system.

I think it's just also important to say everyone's impacted by everyone's energy. I like how someone else I follow and she's a friend of mine, she talks about people taking the vibe down. She's like, if you walk into a room and you're in the room, there's certain vibe, and then a certain person walks in, you can feel the shift. I mean, it doesn't take people like us to know it. So it's a real thing, and the inner gender boundaries, still learning those. So.

Dawn Karwoski (08:52.967)

Yes, ma'am.

Dawn Karwoski (09:07.611)

Yes, that's a lifelong journey. Very much an up and down process. And yeah, I mean, it takes a lot of experience and a lot of just like living life and interacting with different people to understand how that works and what it looks like.

Leslie (09:22.55)

I mean, absolutely. And then you talk about, you know, being aware of emotions. Like it's so interesting because I don't think half the people are really aware of their emotions anyway, you know, as adults, like I'm still learning fluency. It was again, friend, mentor, Erin, who I've interviewed on my podcast, who's really helped me like embrace and see, and also my therapist, her as well, that the emotions are there. So I mean, this is a big piece of it. So I'm just glad that we touched upon this for a moment.

Dawn Karwoski (09:34.431)

Right?

Dawn Karwoski (09:51.559)

Yeah, agreed. Absolutely. That's a great point.

Leslie (09:53.91)

I think the next part to talk about is, oh gosh, I mean, you know what I love about your story too is that you talk about being such a foodie. Because I got to be honest, okay everyone, I'm doing this diet thing right now. We'll get more into it right now. I'm doing this whole anti-inflammation detox diet, which this will be a great point to talk about. Done. But it's like I trusted you more when you said.

Dawn Karwoski (10:17.695)

Thanks.

Leslie (10:19.322)

me and my husband, like my love language is food. I was like, okay, okay. I trust Dawn more because she was never like a person who was just like, food was okay. You were like, I love food. So I'm so interested. Like, tell me more about this love of food. And then like, how did that work when you started to like have to work with a functional medical doctors? Like, tell me more about like your love of food and then how, yeah, tell me that.

Dawn Karwoski (10:28.607)

Thank you.

Dawn Karwoski (10:44.503)

Yeah, yeah, that progression, absolutely. Yes, well, I'll say that I've loved food forever, ever since I was a kid. My Easy Bake Oven was like my favorite toy on the planet. And I would make everyone who would eat it or who came across my path a little treat of some sort. No, I used to entertain my mom and her friends by making snack trays. I just loved to entertain. It was just, I kind of expressed my love and my joy through food. So that was always present for sure. And then when I met my husband, we met in our early 20s.

And he was like from this really cool cultural family, like both his parents worked for the airlines, they traveled the world, he was well traveled. And he like completely opened my eyes to this other side of food, like food travel and cooking and like entertaining and big parties and like all this fun, exciting stuff. So that was really what brought Garrett and I, my husband together, is like our shared love of food. So we would cook together and we would entertain and we would plan trips around food. So it really was our lifeblood. Like that was, you know, kind of our initial tie together.

Yeah, when I started getting all these diagnoses, and specifically when I was diagnosed with celiac disease and Hashimoto's, it turned into Graves' disease. That's a whole other story. Yeah, it was like I had to change my diet completely. So all of a sudden it was like, you know, what brought us together kind of became a point of contention because I was like, well, I can't eat gluten anymore. No, I can't eat X, Y, Z. I've got to like be mindful of what I'm eating. And it really did become like a little bit of a stress for a while because it wasn't just me that had to change my diet. It affected him too, right?

So it's like we couldn't go to the same restaurants and like our staple foods were different and it really was like a big adjustment for quite a while. But he's a wonderful person. He's very flexible. So he rolled with the punches. God bless him. You know, we kind of just learned to adapt. And honestly, our journey on that adaptation was we started our own food blog because all of a sudden we had to like remake all of our favorite recipes. And we started making them gluten free and dairy free and refined sugar free. And people were like, what are you guys doing?

you know, pull this stuff off. So we're like, you know what? We'll start a food blog and just like throw everything on the internet. And that was a really fun project for us for a while. Yeah, and it's just sort of like evolved over time. And we just sort of like, you know, find ways to recreate our favorite things and be more mindful about where we're eating and what we're eating and how we're eating. And it's been really cool to watch that progression, but food is still a very big part of our lives. It's just has evolved over time.

Leslie (13:09.614)

Mm, I see. Okay, I, yes, I'm glad that you shared that with everyone because again, I'm always skeptical of people who don't love food. I really love food. I really, really do. And you're catching me, like I had mentioned, in the middle of my 28 day first initial sort of step forward with my functional medical doctor where we're doing the anti-inflammation elimination.

Dawn Karwoski (13:20.996)

Thank you.

Leslie (13:36.802)

detox diet, it's kind of like the Whole30. I didn't know this was a thing. I'm like learning about the Whole30, but then there's like more things that we took out. And it's like I read the list of people and people are like, oh, I could do that. I could do that. And then when I hit coffee, everyone's like, what, I can't have any coffee? No coffee? Not even decaf? I'm like, none. That's when people are like, I'm out. But I am surviving. I've actually been thriving. And so I would love to hear more about like, you know,

Dawn Karwoski (13:45.84)

Yes.

Leslie (14:06.29)

I know you did like an autoimmune protocol and you worked with functional medical people, integrative medicine doctors for quite a while. And I'm curious about that because I'm just starting my journey and I'm both really excited and pleased that I found this person. But I also probably am also struggling with some hesitations and realizing this might not be the end of the whole story and journey. So tell me about that and tell me about...

Dawn Karwoski (14:12.621)

Mm-hmm.

Leslie (14:33.858)

How much you spent? Because you shared that with me, you think. How much you spent?

Dawn Karwoski (14:36.72)

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. Yes, that's such a good point. So there are about a million different elimination diets out there and healing protocols and they all have their place, right? You know, it all just depends on your individual needs and a lot of them are very supportive. I will say I've probably tried 10 to 15 different elimination diets over the years, which is a lot. I sort of went on a little bit of a spree where I did like a ton of them like back to back over about a year and a half.

Leslie (14:43.31)

I'm sorry.

Leslie (14:58.114)

Wow.

Dawn Karwoski (15:08.781)

and that's probably one of the more restrictive ones that I tried. So it's basically like paleo, but then you're also taking out nightshades, coffee, chocolate, and a number of other potential inflammatory foods. And it can feel like a lot. And for someone like us that loves food, that can be seriously daunting, right? It's not a small task by any means. Yeah, so it's really hard to maintain your love of food and still not feel like you're being too restrictive.

Leslie (15:27.291)

No, yes.

Dawn Karwoski (15:37.741)

I went on that spree of elimination diets where I was so sick at that time, like at my worst, I could only eat 10 safe foods. So I literally had 10 foods that I could choose from anything else I was reactive to. It was the saddest time for someone that loves food, you know, it was definitely a dark place for me. I even got this like fear of food where like I was so afraid to eat even my safe foods where I would just like, you know, kind of had this feeling that food was like harmful to me and it was no longer like sustaining or nourishing or not a source of

Again, as a food person, that was really devastating. So really, like, I had to spend a lot of time doing inner work to kind of, like, work through that.

as well. And just on the other side of that though, the good news is like I reignited my love for food, I reconnected to it, and I really just had to find a way to like, you know, understand that food is nourishment, but that doesn't just mean eating it. It means like, what about food brings me joy? Like, what about food specifically do I love? For me, it's like the creation process, the like understanding where food comes from, like how it's made, you know, how it supports me, how I can share it with other people. So that really

me kind of find my way back. But yeah, it can be a lot. And the elimination diets though, like they're great for temporary, you know, to like reduce inflammation or work on a specific, you know, protocol that your doctor or practitioner might recommend. But I definitely, at least my experience is long term, they can be more, you know, be more harmful than good. So just to kind of be careful with that in the long run.

Leslie (17:10.282)

I'm really glad you said that because like I said, I'm right in the beginning and I'm already looking ahead like, well, what does this mean for long-term? I'm slimming down a little bit, probably because my body is getting rid of inflammation and it can clear out things and I'm less deep puffy and it can clear fat. It's like, oh, thank you. We wanted to do all these things, but we've been so inflamed. There is a part of me that's been watching me go, oh, this is kind of nice. Oh, oh.

Dawn Karwoski (17:32.447)

Yeah.

Dawn Karwoski (17:38.559)

Thank you.

Leslie (17:39.078)

at me, like arms looking slimmer today. Look at that, like nice byproduct, but also on a funny note, I've also felt like I've been working so hard for this. I'm like, you know what? I should lose weight at this point. I am working so hard right now. Like I should have lost 50 pounds. That's how hard I've been working. Not really, but I've been a little dramatic about it all. But I think it's just so important because...

I'm so grateful to be hearing your story. And just, again, all of our journeys are so unique. And I know this is just Dawn's story, but it gives me hope. It gives me some clarity that it's kind of like, you know, this is not probably gonna be your way of life. You can't sit in an elimination diet for the rest of your life. It brings me back to like thoughts on food restriction when I was growing up and bad food and you can't eat that. Like, I don't wanna go there again. I don't wanna touch upon that cause that's been very.

Dawn Karwoski (18:27.377)

Okay? Yeah.

Leslie (18:31.294)

that's bad stuff from the past, and I don't wanna treat my body and my mind and my soul like that, labeling food as bad foods. But what you helped me see when I hear about your story is that you go through a time, you do these elimination diets, you try it out, you see the impact. What I hadn't put together was that you're helping your body potentially go into a healing state. So it's like you had to quiet everything down for a while. It's like, just let's quiet it all down so it kinda re-regulate.

Dawn Karwoski (18:55.183)

Thanks for watching.

Leslie (19:00.202)

bring itself back into that vitality and where it wants to be. And that's what I hadn't even thought about. I thought this would be like, sorry, like a sentence for the rest of my life. Like, okay, never eating, drinking coffee again, bye. And maybe for some people, like you have celiac disease, I know you have to be mindful, I get that. But I just, I'm so grateful to be talking to you in this moment to show me that there is a way forward. It's probably not gonna look exactly like this. And it's, we're giving my body time to just heal and have a moment to like breathe and.

come back to itself. So thank you for sharing.

Dawn Karwoski (19:31.879)

Yeah, what a beautiful reflection. I love that. And yes, it's so good to keep that in mind because when you're in the trenches, like you are, like you said, you can just like very tunnel vision, like all you can see is the restriction and how difficult it is and like what is this going to look like and how is this going to change my eating long term. See, I'm glad that can give you some hope and definitely you'll come out on the other side stronger. It will be armed with a lot of information. So that's really powerful to, you know, kind of getting feedback from your body and learning what works and what doesn't and knowing that that'll change too.

Right? Like everything is just an evolving journey.

Leslie (20:02.411)

Mm-hmm.

Leslie (20:05.866)

Oh, yes, it is, right? Right, and we're thinking like, oh, maybe I stay away from this. It's like, well, maybe you should look at this now. Like our body's forever, forever changing. And you mentioned being in the trenches. So talk to me about being in the trenches with all these different, you know, people you bounced around, these different doctors and what that was like for you.

Dawn Karwoski (20:15.967)

Absolutely.

Dawn Karwoski (20:26.103)

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so like I mentioned earlier, I did try traditional medicine for quite a long time, like well over a decade, and it just did not end well for me. You know, I had some certain helpful doctors and, you know, got some information, but ultimately it's like I just started collecting diagnoses. I kind of stopped counting after I reached 10. So I was like, you know what, like, this is hard to identify with all these things, keep track of everything, and it was just like completely overwhelming me.

Dawn Karwoski (20:55.997)

like, you know, what is this functional medicine thing? There's natural tasks, there's integrative doctors. So really did a lot of research to see like what makes sense and what fit for me personally. It just so happened that I did bounce around and I saw probably five different functional medicine doctors over like the years of my treatment. Each one helped me in a unique way because each one is different, right? They each have kind of their specialty, like one was really good with labs, really good with labs. So we ran a ton of labs and did a lot of tests. Another one was really good

compassion and she helped introduce me to my counselor that I still see. And so it's really interesting to get perspectives from each doctor for sure. But I will say that could be a lot too, right? Like all these tests, all these specialty tests through these alternative practitioners are usually not covered by insurance. So a lot of it is out of pocket. A lot of people don't understand that. So it can be like a complete shock. When you get these bills and all of a sudden you can even fall into white coat syndrome with alternative.

practitioners too like, oh no, they're telling me to do all these things and you know, you're just kind of blindly following them, but

Yeah, it's really like I had to come home to myself a lot and be like, okay, like kind of learned to like, what are my needs? Like, what is body telling me? Like, even though I have this great support system, like does what they're recommending make sense for me? So I had to really gain like confidence and my abilities and me being the expert in my own body. And just because a doctor tells me to do something doesn't mean I have to, you know, really trying to like reframe that like that's a recommendation. Like, I don't have to follow blindly, whatever they're telling me.

It was a big learning curve for sure. So that's certainly a big part of like how I help my clients is like advocate for themselves and learn to like speak and use their voice and you know, know that like it's okay to fire a doctor. It's okay to get second opinions or third opinions or fourth opinions. Upwards of $25.

Leslie (22:48.085)

Mm-hmm.

Leslie (23:10.734)

Hmm. I love everything you said, but right in the middle of it, I just got this done. Dawn's ran out of storage recording has stopped. I know I've never had this happen before. It just happened in the past minute. So it the last I was like, wait, she was like so good. And then I don't know what's going on here. So do you see an uploading rate on your top right corner?

Leslie (23:47.39)

Okay, I'm going to stop this one for now. We'll know that's part one.

Leslie (00:00.898)

Hello, John, welcome to the Sick and Seeking podcast.

Dawn Karwoski (00:05.215)

Leslie, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

Leslie (00:08.198)

Dawn Karwoski (00:17.156)

You got it.

Leslie (00:34.282)

what you've been through and what you're doing now. So I don't even know where to start. Take it away. Where do you wanna start?

Dawn Karwoski (00:40.499)

Leslie (02:55.286)

Mm-hmm.

Dawn Karwoski (03:10.153)

Leslie (04:54.254)

Dawn Karwoski (05:59.411)

Thank you.

Dawn Karwoski (06:12.831)

Leslie (07:42.934)

Dawn Karwoski (08:02.911)

Thanks for watching!

Leslie (08:11.594)

Dawn Karwoski (08:52.967)

Yes, ma'am.

Dawn Karwoski (09:07.611)

Leslie (09:22.55)

Dawn Karwoski (09:34.431)

Right?

Dawn Karwoski (09:51.559)

Yeah, agreed. Absolutely. That's a great point.

Leslie (09:53.91)

Dawn Karwoski (10:17.695)

Thanks.

Leslie (10:19.322)

Dawn Karwoski (10:28.607)

Thank you.

Dawn Karwoski (10:44.503)

Leslie (13:09.614)

Dawn Karwoski (13:20.996)

Thank you.

Leslie (13:36.802)

Dawn Karwoski (13:45.84)

Yes.

Leslie (14:06.29)

Dawn Karwoski (14:12.621)

Mm-hmm.

Leslie (14:33.858)

How much you spent? Because you shared that with me, you think. How much you spent?

Dawn Karwoski (14:36.72)

Yeah.

Leslie (14:43.31)

I'm sorry.

Leslie (14:58.114)

Wow.

Dawn Karwoski (15:08.781)

Leslie (15:27.291)

No, yes.

Dawn Karwoski (15:37.741)

Again, as a food person, that was really devastating. So really, like, I had to spend a lot of time doing inner work to kind of, like, work through that.

Leslie (17:10.282)

Dawn Karwoski (17:32.447)

Yeah.

Dawn Karwoski (17:38.559)

Thank you.

Leslie (17:39.078)

Dawn Karwoski (18:27.377)

Okay? Yeah.

Leslie (18:31.294)

Dawn Karwoski (18:55.183)

Thanks for watching.

Leslie (19:00.202)

come back to itself. So thank you for sharing.

Dawn Karwoski (19:31.879)

Right? Like everything is just an evolving journey.

Leslie (20:02.411)

Mm-hmm.

Leslie (20:05.866)

Dawn Karwoski (20:15.967)

Absolutely.

Dawn Karwoski (20:26.103)

Dawn Karwoski (20:55.997)

practitioners too like, oh no, they're telling me to do all these things and you know, you're just kind of blindly following them, but

Leslie (22:48.085)

Mm-hmm.

Leslie (23:10.734)

Leslie (23:47.39)

Okay, I'm going to stop this one for now. We'll know that's part one.

Leslie (00:00.254)

you just get to the whole thing. So here we go. So I, if I heard you right, Don, you just said you spent upwards of 25k, which is, I mean, people need to hear that. Like this is a real thing being unwell. Um, people who are unwell and have things going on in their body know this very well, that it is a very expensive and costly thing, even if you have insurance. Let's not forget that.

There are tons of bills that still come through from the doctor, from the hospital, from the labs that is not covered by insurance. That's one thing. And so that's already a lot of money. So for you to spend upwards of 25K is not surprising to me given how much I know I'm spending right now to work with my functional medical doctor. This is just one. So thank you for sharing that and being so honest. I really appreciate it. And it just shows you then these sort of other.

call them alternative, complimentary, non-traditional, and covered by insurance sort of things, they're just not accessible to everybody. And if I think too much about that, it hurts my heart and it makes me very upset. And so I don't wanna go down that path, but I think it's pretty evident that it's only people who can really pay for these things that can have access to these things. So I just wanna presence that for a minute. But I also wanna say that I really appreciate you pointing out to...

Two things, number one, firing doctors. It is a thing, it is okay. Actually, there's three things. Number two, that you saw everything or a lot of things you learned to see it as recommendations. I really appreciate that as well. Thank you, thank you for refaming that for me and for everyone who's listening. And number three, I also so appreciate that you were able to find sort of what I call the silver linings, the little benefits about...

working with different doctors, even if you really do not like them in the end and you have to fire them, there is probably something you got from that doctor that at least you're a little grateful for and then you said goodbye. So I also really appreciate you sharing that. That's why also you have to go to different people. You have to seek out different people. There's different knowledge, there's different specialties, there's different ways of looking at it. However, and you know this, it's exhausting.

Leslie (02:16.906)

It's so much work not to talk about the time it takes or the money it takes, it's just really exhausting. So thank you for sharing all.

Dawn Karwoski (02:25.314)

Yeah, my pleasure, absolutely. It's something like you said, it's very commonplace, but I don't think a lot of people understand that going into it. So it's important to kind of prepare yourself and know what you're getting into and have available options out there and a support system too. Because like you said, it is not easy, it is exhausting, it is time consuming, it is expensive. And I just don't feel like it has to be for a lot of us. So anything we can do to support everyone out there going through this and they're in the trenches and in the thick of it,

your way. You could definitely find your way out of this.

Leslie (02:56.014)

Hmm. Oh, I want to hear all about the easier way. But also, I also appreciate you talking about how after you had 10 different diagnoses, you were just like, and I'm done collecting them. And it's so fascinating to me because as I meet with more people in the chronic illness, autoimmune community, spooning community, and I'm now running my chronic conditions support group, like that's what you hear. Like, thanks, Dawn was clapping for me.

I'm like, gosh, it's so hard. I only did it once. And it just like the heaviness of hearing everyone's story like landed so hard on me. I'm like, I don't know if I can do this. I don't know, but I'm going to do it anyway. Like I'm going to keep going. But yeah, I mean, I had 12 people there. And of the 12 people, I couldn't even imagine the list of things that people would have said they've had, they've encountered, they'd have to like been told they had. Like it was overwhelming. I think that was what was so overwhelming about it is that.

you think it's just one thing, but we know that when people have one autoimmune disease, chronic illness, they come together. The percentage is really high. So once you know, I have chronic kidney disease, but now I have an autoimmune disorder, which is Hashimoto's, that's when they were like, okay, we really do need to test you for all these other autoimmune diseases because they come together. And I was like, what? That's a bummer.

Dawn Karwoski (04:18.97)

So true. Yeah, another good point we don't realize is, you know, they do come in pairs or triplets or even more than that. And yeah, it's sort of interesting that like once the system is that I don't want to say far gone, but like once the system is that out of balance, let's say, right, it's just it's very easy for other like co infections and autoimmune conditions and all these other chronic conditions to surface because our body's kind of in a state where it's just like more available or more accessible to those things. It's kind of an unfortunate side effect.

Leslie (04:19.598)

I'm sorry.

Leslie (04:33.166)

Mm-hmm.

Leslie (04:48.693)

I know, I'm glad that you put in that out. And I do want to take a moment to talk about this Hashi toxicosis, like, holy moly. Tell us about that.

Dawn Karwoski (04:59.218)

Yeah, that was a really wild experience, no doubt. Yeah, it was, you know, kind of leading up to it, I now see that it was what I call a perfect storm. So it was a very like stressful time in my life. And I feel like autoimmune diseases are like that, or like major health events are like that. It's sort of like, it's never one thing, right? Like people ask me like, what's the one thing that contributed to your health crash? It's never usually one thing. It's usually a culmination of things. So for me, it was like we were moving, my job was stressful, my uncle was passing away.

Dawn Karwoski (05:29.032)

just like, you're done. Like it just came to a point where like, that's it, I'm sorry it's come to this dawn, but we need to do something seriously extreme for you to take notice. Unfortunately, like you just need to get like knocked upside the head sometimes for us to like wake up. And that was sort of my experience. Yeah, but yes, this condition is super rare. So I had had, they diagnosed me with Hashimoto's leading up to it. So I knew that I already had an autoimmune disease. I did not have my celiac diagnosis yet, but clearly there was, you know, things going on.

And I went into the, I started all of a sudden switching from hypothyroid, so that's that underactive thyroid, to getting hyperthyroid symptoms. So that looks like I was like shedding weight out of nowhere, like losing like 10 pounds in a week. I could not eat enough food. I was ravenously hungry. I would wake up in pools of sweat or just be extremely hot out of nowhere. My anxiety was through the roof. I just felt like I was literally falling apart. So obviously called the doctor and was like, something crazy is happening. And I could also tell that like my thyroid was literally physically

swollen, like there was like a lump coming out of my throat. So, you know, they started running all these tests and, oh yeah, your thyroid's inflamed. And, you know, after doing like ultrasounds and scans and all these things, it was eventually found that there was this very rare condition where your thyroid swells two or three times its normal size. And it flooded my body with toxic levels of hormones to the point where I had liver damage. This was this crazy, crazy thing. And, you know, some doctors don't even believe that

believe that it's like too rare to even diagnose. But fortunately the hospital I went to was like semi-familiar with it. They had one other patient that had this before. Yeah, and it was it was a wild thing and my endocrinologist at the time was very adamant that like I had to either do they gave me like two treatment options. It was to get my thyroid removed, so get a complete thyroidectomy, which was what they were recommending, or to do radioactive iodine treatment, which is literally they inject you with radioactive material. You can't be around other

humans for 48 hours, you have to isolate yourself, and talk about like two awful recommendations, right? And it was, yeah, I sort of went to, I remember like leaving my doctor's office, I went there by myself and just sitting in my car and thinking like, this cannot be my life, right? Like this cannot be the only way. And I just remember thinking that, like, I got a little voice in my head that was like, there's, there's another option, like you've got to find another option. So I really like dug in and started like looking at alternatives

Leslie (07:53.611)

Wow.

Dawn Karwoski (07:58.972)

I was like, I'm not doing the surgery. Like, I know you, that's what you want, and that's the recommendation. But really had to like listen to that little inner voice and advocate for myself. That was kind of like my first big advocacy event where I was like, no, like this does not feel right for me. I'm not doing it. And we did, we found another option and I went on a medication that did not have great side effects, but not as bad as radioactive therapy.

Leslie (08:12.727)

Wow.

Leslie (08:23.522)

Mm-hmm.

Dawn Karwoski (08:24.226)

Yeah, and kind of went on that path for a year. And that's when I really dug in. That year is when I really started like my mental emotional journey, started nervous system regulation, really dug into my faith and like by a miracle and by, you know, surprised everybody was able to completely turn it around.

Leslie (08:41.985)

Whaaaaa-

Oh my gosh, I got tingles during part of that story. And before we get to the part and the faith and the nervous system regulation and re-regulation, which I'm so curious and passionate about this topic myself, this is a theme that keeps coming up again and again when I talk to people. And it was something I was talking about, Dawn, well, two things. Number one is that when you're sort of...

Dawn Karwoski (08:48.304)

Thank you.

Leslie (09:09.634)

have things going on in your body that you're unwell and things are a little off kilter and you're like, what is this? And you're like, yeah, it's this. That's what's happening to you. We get to really know our bodies really well. Like we really kind of are so much aware, not necessarily because we want to be, but it's because we have to be. We have to know like that little, like the tiniest little cough, like it's funny, you're not like a hypochondriac, you're like, oh my God, I'm gonna die. But you're kind of like, oh, I had a cough that was weird.

back of my mind, put it on the backburner. I remember that, right? And you really do learn those little, little like indicators of your body. And I think also people think we're crazy and they probably do think we're like overly like hyperchondriac, like I'm always dying, but no, I really know my body. I gotta know when if it's this is acting up or maybe it's this or whatever. So there's that piece. And the second piece of that was I keep hearing this over and over again and I wanna keep presencing it in my podcast that people...

Dawn Karwoski (09:41.85)

Thank you.

Leslie (10:07.698)

in their stories over and over again, and Dawn, I'm sure you can talk to this too. They talk about that moment when their intuition, that voice inside of them, you can call it God, you can call it whatever you want, raises his hand and says, hi, I have another thought here. I have another thought about this treatment option or maybe what's going on with you.

And it's amazing because in those, and I get it, we have all those intuitive hits all day long. So sometimes it's harder to kind of know like, and listen to them all. But there's seems to be these like really pivotal moments in people's health stories where they kind of stop because they have to, because they're in the depths of like terror, despair, and what am I gonna do? But there's a voice inside that comes through and it's like so beautiful that you honored that voice and it's so beautiful that.

People keep sharing over and over again that they honor their voice to realize that there's another way. It doesn't just have to be these two recommendations. There could be another option. So thank you for sharing that powerful moment.

Dawn Karwoski (11:07.952)

Thank you.

Yeah, such a good reflection. So true. And you're right, it does often take, at least I found in my own life, and like you, I keep hearing similar stories, and it takes like a really extreme circumstance, like us at our rock bottom, or whatever you want to call it, like hitting a low for us to be able to like slow down enough and get quiet enough and still enough to like listen to that voice. Because you're right, it talks all the time. We just are too busy, too loud, you know, pushing it aside, not paying attention. But yeah, I really do.

feel like for me, like that was like God's example for me was just like, I'm gonna like break you down to the point where like you have to listen because otherwise I wouldn't have changed. I would have just kept doing the same thing I was doing. I wouldn't have listened to that voice. I wouldn't have even known it was there. So yeah, that's such a beautiful point. I definitely want to write that home too, because it's so powerful. And it's, you know, it's unfortunate to take some extreme circumstance like that. But what a beautiful way to come out of it and just and like see the silver lining and like really

out of your pain.

Leslie (12:12.306)

Yeah, and I think we do, like you said, we get those intuitive hits. They don't always have to be at the moment of despair, but it's really honoring them and listening to them at all moments of the day and just taking a pause with them. But like you said, you gotta be a little bit more quiet, a little bit more present, a little bit more reflective. And so I think it's a good point that I like to highlight one more time when I speak to people. So you...

Before we get all the way to, I like how you just threw it in there. You're like, yeah, one year I got off all my medications and I'm in remission. You said that, yeah, I'm going to go to the dry cleaners and then pick up a coffee and come home. I love that. That was just thrown in there. I'm like, I must know all about that. But before we get there, you talked about how things could be easy. It doesn't have to be this.

crazy and our stories don't have to, and our journeys don't have to be this crazy and chaotic. And you also talked about finding your faith and coming back to your nervous system. I'd love to start jumping into that chapter of your life.

Dawn Karwoski (13:16.406)

Yes, definitely love that. Yeah, you know, it's really interesting. I've been a very, you know, I referenced this earlier, like, I'm very comfortable being alone, like, I'm very comfortable doing things myself. And, you know, I'm a recovering control freak. So I very much like to like do things myself and take charge and know that like, you know, I'm doing the right thing, etc. So it's funny that like that showed up in my healing journey the way that it did, because I was doing everything alone. I didn't bring people to my doctor's appointments. I didn't ask for help. I

asked for resources, it was all on me. Talk about a lot of pressure. I mean, yeah. So it sort of took me following apart for me to realize, can't do this by myself. Yeah, so it's interesting now that as I embarked on that journey after that health crash, I slowly started sharing my story with people. And funny enough, my doctors, after I recovered, were like, what on earth are you doing? They were like, you're a case study. You need to tell us what you're doing. So the more I heard these things

Leslie (13:51.191)

Wow.

Dawn Karwoski (14:16.24)

I got encouragement from the people that I opened up to. I was like, okay, there might be something to this. Maybe vulnerability is a superpower. Maybe I need to be more forthright with my story and share and ask for help and be okay accepting it too. That's a whole other thing. Yeah, so it really, it's a big journey for me to grow outside of my comfort zone and really get to know myself and really meet myself where I was and then ask for what I needed and accept it too. So that was definitely a big part of that whole process,

of like unfolding of myself and coming home to myself definitely.

Leslie (14:50.434)

Oh yeah, I'm glad you shared that. Well, I just wanted to take a moment like, yes, oh, I hear a lot of this control freak story going on and a lot of people I talk to as well. I would know nothing about that. I'm a very relaxed, not, you know, hyper controlling perfectionist person at all. So I would have no idea what you're talking about. So I appreciate you sharing that. And wow, I cannot believe you were going through all that alone. Oh my

goodness, for you to even just hold that all yourself, what you're going through, like that's why, and I'm sure you know this now and probably talk about it that with the coaching, like you need another person there because sometimes when you're hearing an intel or information from your doctor, it hits you and you can't, you can't see upwards or downwards anymore. Your system's like whoa, this is too much, so it's like you need almost another person there to be like, can you take in the info? Because I'm shutting down here, so wow, I can't believe you did that all yourself. Wow.

Dawn Karwoski (15:47.314)

I cannot either. I don't know what I was thinking. It was just very much like, you know, kind of just responding and like doing, you know, status quo, like doing what I've always done and not knowing any different. But yeah, like being on the other side now and like having a support system. You know, one of the first things I did do besides sharing with friends and family is I sought out like what I call like my magic trio. So I got a counselor continued with my functional medicine doctor and then also saw a health coach. So it's kind of like that little like

so to speak, was like really accelerated my healing journey because, you know, they each help in their own unique ways and you need that support from different people and in different functions and that was really paramount for me too to like really like, yeah, unload some of that responsibility and yeah, like receive that support and help in all those different areas.

Leslie (16:37.974)

Yeah, okay, so how can we make it easier on ourselves? What is it about the nervous system? What is it about faith? Tell me more about that.

Dawn Karwoski (16:50.438)

So for me, it was really going back to the basics. So like really, like letting go of all the noise, letting go of all the recommendations and just like really going back to like what are my basic needs, you know, so just like food, water, sleep, and, you know, like community. That was another big one for me was community and that kind of plays into what I just mentioned too, but, you know, really looking at like those foundational pieces and kind of letting go of everything else.

Dawn Karwoski (17:20.412)

chronic illness clients as well is that a lot of us has a completely dysregulated nervous system. So what I mean by that is that we're either stuck in fight or flight or fawn or freeze, you know, any of those kind of trauma responses. And when we're in that state, our body is so activated and so dysregulated that it really has very little capacity to heal. So, you know, that kind of goes back to what I was saying too, I tried all these different protocols and elimination diets for years. They would help for a little while, but nothing stuck. And that was very like

because my body was completely out of whack. So it's like, you know, if you're kind of thinking like you can throw all these strategies at it, but if our body is not in a position to heal and to accept those things, that they're sort of just going to fall flat on their face. It's like throwing spaghetti at a wall, right? It's just, it's not going to stick. So that was a really interesting journey for me. So like that was a big part of my

coming home to my self journey was just understanding what are my triggers, how am I responding to stress, what are my big stressors, and then really basic tools and resources to just calm my body down. So for me, those are things like spending time in nature, that for me satisfies my body soul. I just feel very peaceful in nature, I feel most connected to God there, it's very calming to me.

Dawn Karwoski (18:40.832)

free that anyone can do, you know, some like forward folds and like yoga poses, like legs up the wall. I did a lot of two and this goes back to using your voice, but a lot of like activating the vagus nerve through your throat. So like singing and humming and chanting and you know those are good for you know joy activities as well, but they just so happen to be really powerful for the vagus nerve. And that vagus nerve for those that aren't familiar is that major nerve that runs from our brain stem all the way down to the end of our spinal cord.

And that, you know, activating that is like instantly puts you into a home state. Because I really just started integrating these like super basic exercises and doing them every day. And then once I became kind of calm and regulated, then I could go out and try like some of these healing protocols. That's kind of like a huge takeaway for me and something I find very commonly with a lot of my chronic illness clients is like work on those basics first, and then kind of come back to, you know, more of those like healing protocols and see, see how that plays out for you.

Thank you.

Leslie (19:41.302)

Hmm, I see. It's isn't interesting that sometimes it's I call it the simple way But I know nothing is exactly totally simple But we have to bring it back to the basics that we have to go back to sort of it is this simple simpler Basics in my opinion and it's so interesting because I didn't I don't know Don well I've just followed her on social media, but this is one of my biggest tenants to of what I do and I

I've shared it online. I might've talked about it in other episodes that this is what I do when I just kind of just hit a wall with everything. I'm like, this is getting out of control. I don't know what's going on with my body. I don't know what's going on with my medications. I don't know what's going on with the doctors. But what are the few things that I can like bring back into my control? I know the control freak side coming out, but in a nice way. And a nice little things that I can do, but in a nice way that I, the factors that I do have a little bit of.

push and pull around. Yeah, and it's exactly those things. So I'm just so like, oh, thank you. I'm not the only person who thought that sometimes it's just food, water, sleep, stress. And for you to just frame it like that, that yeah, your body isn't gonna maybe take all these different things in as well. These different modalities you're trying, medications, treatments you're doing, you know, it just, it can't quite take it in if it's not in a place to do that. And so I just so appreciate you.

You highlighting that, it seems so obvious, and sometimes it's just like the obvious thing. It's like, that's why it's so obvious, because it works, right?

Dawn Karwoski (21:18.726)

Yeah, yeah, you know, you're right, it is obvious and it's something that a lot of us struggle with, but I think that a lot of us to get so stuck and familiar and those like fight or flight states for example like that's probably the most common response state is like we don't know any different. Like we just think that being on high alert all the time and being like easily frightened and, you know, rushing and being addicted to busy as we think that that's normal and we've accepted that as our normal so it's like almost like it's hard for us to see, you know, outside of that.

I think that's really interesting too, that kind of perspective of like, you know, identifying really like where we are in time and space and like how is our body reacting, like what kind of state is it in, and then like retraining our mind and our body to kind of come back to that calm, healing state.

Leslie (22:05.206)

Yes, such a deep passion I have through the movement and the wild women's circles I run is to help people get back to their bodies and bring it back into that sort of calmer, relaxed state. Now, whenever I invite people to meet these classes and to move, especially in the chronic illness community, I get it, that's a very scary thing to do. The different people I'm learning from, they remind me that being in the body, embodiment, like there's a reason that people disembodied. They don't wanna be there because they're in pain, it's too much.

They just don't have time to deal with it, et cetera, et cetera. It was a good point that it's not always more beneficial to be in your body. However, there's a need to be there though, because we are embodied. We are incarnate in these bodies. In the chronic illness community, we know this, oftentimes we're just like we're frustrated with our body. Our body is the enemy. We don't like it. You feel separated from it.

And so yes, we just associate. Like that's what we do. Like that's how we kind of just keep moving on and surviving, but it's coming back to it. It's first a very scary thing. So I invite women to come and move with me and do these women's circles and these different practices. I'm sure for a lot of people, there's gonna be a lot of resistance, but it's still knowing that there's so much more there for you if you can just go back inside. There's so much beyond in my experience again.

And I know this in my bones, there's so much more beyond, you know, the sadness, the grief, the fatigue, the frustration, the anger, they're all there. They're all present. And you can feel them in your body when you're having to move through all these health issues. But what I find is there's so much more underneath it to explore and to tap into and to see there's so much more in your body that I get it's a scary place to be, but there's just like a...

unending well of intel and sensation and information for you in there. You go in.

Dawn Karwoski (24:05.294)

That's so beautiful. You're absolutely right. I love that so much. Yeah, you're right. It really is just like creating that safety within yourself again, you know, like reconnecting to it, like you said, like it's buried under all that heaviness, that grief, that pain, that discomfort, but it is there. Yeah, you're right. It's just a matter of like reconnecting to it, finding that safety within and, you know, holding yourself through it and asking for that support and yeah, really learning to work through it instead of avoid it like most of us have learned to.

Leslie (24:34.786)

I mean, absolutely. Like most people are walking around, our body is our tool. I need to take the kids to school and then I got to go exercise and then I got to go to work and then I got to do these things and then I got to cook dinner. Like, it's like a tool we use to function and then we forget. Like, there's a lot more things going on there, you know? We have to come into a better relationship with it. We can't just be this overseer who says like, you must do this because the body's going to be like, no, that's not how this works. So like.

No, no, we have to come into like an agreement here how we're gonna work together. But what else did you, oh, I didn't share this with you. Sharing this with Dawn in real time. Yesterday, I went back to my labs, given our conversation, and she had told me, the functional medical doctor, she had told me that she wanted to do sort of like looking at my adrenals and adrenal fatigue.

And I've heard this a while and so interesting because the adrenals sit right on top of the kidneys. So I always just think, well, the kidneys are happy. The adrenals are right there. Probably, there's some sort of like unhappiness. I don't know another word to say right there. But it was so interesting when I was reading the clinical, what it means if you have adrenal fatigue and all these things. And it said I had a high likelihood of this happening. It was like.

you have adrenal fatigue and this most often is because your body is in a fight or flight response. And I was like, what? I know, right? It all came full circle. And then I lost an hour of my life yesterday, just like, what? So then I have this whole new thought now, which I think is really interesting. I personally don't feel like I'm overly stressed or anything. I don't feel like that, but there are...

obviously is something in my system that's telling me, in at least the labs, that's saying, I don't know, looks like you might be doing some fight or fight here. So anyway, it's just like this like moment I'm having, I'm like, what? I'm trying to do all this work on my nervous system. Maybe there's more to do. Basically, that's the takeaway of what I found from yesterday, but I meant to share that with you. Can you believe that?

Dawn Karwoski (26:43.97)

Oh wow, that's amazing, totally full circle. Thank you for sharing that. So funny.

Leslie (26:48.102)

Yeah, so, right? So maybe I consciously don't think I'm in fight or flight, but I've been reminded by a lot of my movement practitioners, the body knows it first. The mind doesn't always know it. The body figures it out before you. It's just us accepting it in our brains, right? That is the thing.

Dawn Karwoski (27:02.286)

Oh, that's...

Dawn Karwoski (27:07.118)

You're right. Yeah, yeah, you're absolutely right. Yeah, we can cognitively very easily separate what's happening in the body and what we wanna convince ourselves is happening in our mind. And you're right, and it's, you know, I kinda think back to that book. I don't know if you've ever read The Body Keeps the Score. Almost.

Leslie (27:21.91)

Almost, I'm reading it next. Yeah.

Dawn Karwoski (27:24.426)

Okay, yeah, it's a little bit of it's a great book, it can be a little difficult to digest, I find I have to read it in small pieces because it is kind of like heavy material but that even just the title of it resonates with me and, you know, just like you were sharing it's like the body does know and the body will keep the score like even if we cognitively aren't aware of, you know, traumas or heaviness or pain being held like the body will hold it.

Dawn Karwoski (27:54.34)

through it and knowing that it can be released. That's the beautiful part, right? Like you can work through it and you can support body in that way. It's just a matter of identifying it and loving yourself through it.

Leslie (28:05.358)

Mm-hmm. Totally. Identifying and also giving it its importance, because what I have struggled with personally is that when you talk about doing these exercises, and I know they exist, and I want to get more into somatics, and I want to start facilitating more somatic workshops, but there is an internal eye roll that goes on with me. It just shows me, isn't that so interesting that something I'm so passionate about, I know it's so helpful, but there's still so much resistance to it.

oh, come on, you want me to do this little tapping or you want me to do this thing or you want me to put my legs up on the wall. So I think it's so fascinating that like, I know the benefits of these things. And so I just wanna be really honest and say, I still have a part of me that's like resistant and I rolls and goes, is this necessary? Is this really gonna work? Like, oh, you want me to slow down and do these things? Like I have, I just wanted to share it because it's a really internal struggle I have.

yet I know how healing these things are. And so I want to be real with that. It's not like I'm like, this is the panacea. This is going to solve it all. And it probably could really help, but look at the resistance like I have. And I'm sure many people do have as well. And you know, when I asked Dawn, like how much of it was the food and this or the nervous system? Yesterday, you told me this number. And I know it sounds like you've never said this before, but how much did you say of sort of like,

on this journey and getting to the place you are now was your nervous system. When's the number you told me?

Dawn Karwoski (29:35.602)

Yeah, 75% of it I feel like is my nervous system. Yeah, and that did shock me to say that out loud. And you're right, like that is my initial response. And I do feel confident with that. And that's my journey. Maybe not everybody's the same, but I do feel like a lot of us in the chronic illness space share that. I myself, I realize I've been dysregulated since I was very young. This was just a lifetime of dysregulation. I mean, it's no wonder I collected all these diagnoses and conditions over the years, because that's

of pain and heaviness for the body to deal with and a lot of like being stuck in those fight or flight stages and so forth. It's pretty wild. Yeah, and I do see that commonality quite a bit with a lot of my chronic illness clients.

Leslie (30:20.162)

I'm so glad that we've met and you shared this because again, like this is where I'm going. This is, it's like I needed you to be that one little, I call them breadcrumbs on like your path and your journey of life. And I'm so glad that you were one of my breadcrumbs. I was like, yeah, Leslie, you're on the right path. Keep going. Like keep going into the nervous system work. Keep going in somatic. So I'm very grateful. Like there's no coincidences in my book. So you know.

Dawn Karwoski (30:43.104)

Thank you.

Leslie (30:44.09)

As we round out, I just, let's go back to that one thing that you casually just dropped in right now and your final thoughts on it. Can you just share with everyone again about where you are with medications and remission? Like, say it one more time for us.

Dawn Karwoski (30:58.846)

Yeah, yeah. So doing the practices we talked about, the nervous system regulation, the mind, body, spirit approach, and having that functional medicine support team. After a year of implementing those processes, I went off my medication, and then within two years I was officially in remission. I know that's not, you know, a statistic that's common for everybody necessarily, but I do know that it's possible for everyone at the same time. You know, maybe not the exact same timeline, the

Dawn Karwoski (31:28.68)

to send everyone home with is a lot of us have chronicled us lose hope, right? Like we feel like there's no way out of this. We feel like that everything is complicated or expensive or healing's not available to us. And I noticed that theme quite a bit. I was in that space too. I had lost all hope for a long time. So I just really wanna encourage everyone that there's always another way. You know, Leslie and I are great case studies that we're sitting here and we're doing the work and we found our way through it, but not saying like we're completely healed.

you know, flare ups. I still have to work my way through flare ups and, you know, have gone back on medication here and there or just to kind of like work through, you know, a flare up plan or anything that may come up, but just really want to encourage people that hope is possible and healing is possible for anyone, you know, they're not too far gone.

Leslie (32:17.102)

Hmm, thank you, thank you, that's so important. I'm so glad you said that. And I like, again, you keep dropping in these little tidbits and we don't have time to jump into it all the day, but like the flares happen. And also that like, even just your perspective that you say, you know, I go on medication and then I go off medication. That is just never something that occurred to me. And so even you saying that.

I recently made the decision, again, we're not saying people should just willy nilly go off their medication. You need to take fierce responsibility for yourself and your bodies and check with your doctor and all that good stuff, whatever. Fine. However, I made the decision recently to go off one of my medications and I will talk to my doctors about it and continue to be observant of how it impacts me and my labs and body and all that good stuff. But that was a big deal for me to even make that.

decision and so I just appreciate you even just like saying that's a thing for you. You know, you go on, you go off and that medications don't have to be life-sentenced. They, some, some situations they're just the better way to go and I get it, but sometimes maybe, maybe not. So I really appreciate you sharing that too and giving and just being a beacon of hope and sharing your story that you've gone through so much. I have taken so much away from meeting you this conversation.

And I hope to just keep connected because again, you've given me, like I said, a lot of hope. So thank you.

Dawn Karwoski (33:45.246)

I so appreciate that. Thank you so much. It's such a joy to chat with you and to connect with you and your audience. I hope we can continue the conversation too. I'm so excited to see where our somatic work leads us and how many more people we can help regulate their nervous system and just see how powerful those little simple shifts and going back to the basics can be for people.

Leslie (33:56.682)

Yay!

Leslie (34:04.918)

Absolutely. So, Dawn, if people want to find you, how can they find you? And then we'll link it all to the show notes too.

Dawn Karwoski (34:12.302)

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you.

Yes, they can find me on my website at thewellrootedlife.com. I'm also on Instagram at the.wellrooted.life. And I also have a couple coaching programs available. If anyone is looking for an opportunity to work with me, I have a chronic illness group women's program. I also have a food-based program that is not telling you what to eat, but more looks at your relationship with food and how you eat and how to prepare yourself to eat a healthy living lifestyle. And then I also do limited one-on-one coaching as well.

Leslie (34:44.022)

Wow, so many people need this kind of support. So it's what a blessing and a gift that you bring to this world. So thank you, Dawn, for being you and thank you for coming today on the podcast.

Dawn Karwoski (34:56.058)

Thank you, Leslie. It's been such a joy and a pleasure. I really appreciate it.

Leslie (35:04.842)

Yay! I think we got it. I hope so. There was a moment the, um, the audio changed again. I was like, Oh,

Dawn Karwoski (35:09.151)

Good! Okay, great.

Dawn Karwoski (35:16.689)

No.

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Leslie Field

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