How to Support Your Clients with Depression and Anxiety with Dr. Christina Bjorndal

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:00:03  Hi and welcome to the Integrative Women’s Health Podcast. I’m your host, Doctor Jessica Drummond, and I am so thrilled to have you here as we dive into today’s episode. As always, innovating and integrating in the world of women’s health. And just as a reminder, the content in this podcast episode is no substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment from your medical or licensed health care team. While myself and many of my guests are licensed healthcare professionals, we are not your licensed healthcare professionals, so you want to get advice on your unique circumstances. Diagnostic recommendations treatment recommendations from your home medical team. Enjoy the episode. Let’s innovate and integrate together. Hi, and welcome back to the Integrative Women’s Health Podcast. I’m your host, doctor Jessica Drummond. Today we have a really inspiring guest. She was a global financial executive and now she’s a natural physician. She made the shift gosh, I think more than 20 years ago now. But her story is so, so rough. And yet there’s so much meaning in there for us to apply to our practices.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:01:34  I can’t wait to introduce you to Doctor Christina Bjorndal, and I want to put a little warning on this episode. We talk a lot about really sensitive topics, including suicide. So if any of that is feel stressful to you, this might not be a good episode for you to tune into. And I’ll see you next week. But if you want to experience this conversation with Doctor Bjorndal about how mind, body and spirit medicine really interact, particularly for people and women with mental health diagnoses. Depression. Anxiety. Bipolar. Psychosis. Doctor Bjorndal not only works with these patients, but has been a patient at all levels. Severe levels of these conditions. So settle yourself, settle your nervous system, get comfortable and just listen. I think you’ll find a couple of nuggets and we’ll chat about that on the other side of the conversation. Welcome. I am thrilled to introduce you to Doctor Christina Bjorndal. She is a nature physician, and we’re going to get into mind body medicine for mental and emotional health.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:03:06  Welcome, Christina or Doctor Bjorndal.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:03:10  Well, thank you for having me.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:03:12  So how did your professional journey get started? Were you always interested in mental health? Were you always interested in more integrative and holistic medicine? Did you have an experience that sparked that interest?

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:03:29  Boy, did I ever. Yes. So I haven’t always been a natural doctor, and it’s been my journey with my own health struggles that led me to become one. So just to sort of high level, I have had three suicide attempts, six psychotic events. I’ve spent a year of my life in a psychiatric hospital and mostly seeking care from that Western world, which up front I will say, listen, I’m not against some pharmaceuticals, and my philosophy for both pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals and botanicals is minimum dose for maximum benefit for the shortest duration of time. So because I struggled for so long with my mental health, and I was sick and tired of being tired and sick, and I was working in the corporate world, and I reported to a CEO and I seemingly had it all together.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:04:22  All right.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:04:23  Yeah, that sounds like the dream, right? The dream job?

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:04:26  You bet.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:04:27  Then it was after my first suicide attempt, which left me in a coma. Kidney failure. I’m on dialysis. I’m told I’m going to need a kidney transplant. And I’m, like, so upset that I am still here on the planet with everybody that I realize I have to figure out another way to navigate my health. And a friend had given me a book to read because I was in the hospital for three months. It was called A Return to Love. And there was a quote in the book about surrender. And for myself, I realized that this word love was like a foreign concept to me, and I was the typical classic Type-A over Cheever. Perfectionist. Tell me how fast to do it and I’ll beat the world record, you know. Well, that served me super well on the ego level. It was crushing my soul, crushing my soul. And I would wear this mask. So anyway, you know that I have it all together, but you’re never going to see me sweat.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:05:16  And I was really struggling on the inside, right? So anyway, that’s the summary that led me eventually to see an author, molecularly trained psychiatrist and a naturopathic doctor. And then, lo and behold, I had my first year where I was depression free, and I was still taking five psychotropic meds at that time. But I was doing that before, and I was depressed. So I knew that there was something to this nutrition. And, you know, actually, on that note, I wasn’t eating very well. Still, I was also hiding an eating disorder. So anyhow, here we are. And I made this career change at 33. We went back to high school. So if you know anyone’s listening, you know, you can always make a change, right? You can always make a change.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:05:58  Yeah. And I think that’s so hopeful. You can feel very stuck. It’s one thing if you’ve had all of these traumas and, you know, your inpatient experience and you’ve been so sick, but you’ve sort of like quote unquote hit rock bottom, but it sounds like you were like also in parallel, extremely successful.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:06:21  And in some ways that’s hard, harder or a different kind of hard to get out of and to make such a big life change. That’s hard to do in general, even if you don’t have mental health challenges. So did you have particular support when you made those changes?

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:06:41  That was really tough because I knew that. And so you speak to something that’s really important is that if I opened up about the truth of how I was feeling, two things. One, I knew that people would send me into psychiatric care, which I’ve been there, done that. I didn’t want to go there. And number two, I would often get the response. Well, what do you have to be depressed about?

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:07:04  Right. Right.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:07:05  Because you seem to check all the boxes on the ego level. And so I didn’t actually announce that I was making this change because I didn’t think I would get any support because I had the dream job, I had the dream job, but it wasn’t fulfilling my spirit, my soul.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:07:24  So I embarked on this journey. And, you know, now, in hindsight, of course, 20 years, 30 years down the road, I’m very grateful that I was able to have the courage to do so. And the financial means as a single woman, and we don’t speak to this as much. I don’t think it is challenging to march through society without financial backing and support from a partner. It’s just harder, you know, to pay the mortgage, put the food on the table. Cook the food. Do it all. We’re not meant to do it. Life alone.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:07:57  Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that’s an important thing to talk about in general, because I think, let’s say someone is struggling with depression or they’re working in a practice where they’re really working with a lot of people, whether they’re directly supporting their mental health or they’re just working with a lot of people with anxiety or depression. A lot of the tools and skills, it’s hard to. When you’re depressed or anxious, ask for the help that you need.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:08:26  And yet, the reality is that fewer and fewer people have almost any resources of support financial means. You know, in the United States right now, the majority, I think it’s 60% of Americans literally can’t afford to feed themselves every day. So we know from the data that just having 1 or 2 close friends that you feel like you can tell everything to is all you really need. And yet, fewer and fewer people have even 1 or 2 close friends. So those resources, financial and relational, are really foundational to being able to recover. So you had enough. Here’s the benefit of being, you know, having that strong Type-A ego. You had enough energy from somewhere to make that change. Then maybe it wasn’t the perfect way to do it. Maybe it would have been better with more support, but you were able to muscle through it initially. So now when you are in your practice sitting with someone struggling with significant depression or anxiety, where do you begin?

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:09:37  So what I mean is there’s four aspects to us as people.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:09:42  Physical. Mental. Emotional. Spiritual. And think of that like a pie. You know, a circle. And those are four quarters to that pie. So the physical level is where most people start. And with that, we want to understand that there’s three macro systems driving that physical body or train within you. So your neurotransmitters your hormones and your organs and detoxification. Now I started on that physical level. And those building blocks include nutrition, sleep movement and stress management. So most people sort of start to tune out when they hear, oh nutrition sleep, you know. But you and I know that those are the foundational building blocks of your health house. Then I’ll just complete sort of the health house analogy. The next level that I then work on is relating to that stress management piece, because financial stress is huge, as you’ve just mentioned. Loneliness is an epidemic, as I just mentioned. So the way we navigate the world from a nervous system perspective is very, very important. And so the next level of your health house is then we look at your thoughts and your emotions and how you behave and react in the world and your ability or inability, in my case, to set boundaries.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:10:58  Okay.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:10:59  Yes yes yes yes yes.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:11:02  Right.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:11:02  It’s like no, no.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:11:04  Right. Start with. No. Not start.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:11:06  With yet.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:11:08  Starting with. Yes. So that’s the second level. And then the next level is to then discuss the environment from three perspectives. Chemicals plays a huge role disrupting our physical bodies. And then the concept of neuroplasticity and then genetics. So understand that epigenetics is what’s driving the show here. You are not your genetic blueprint. I mean you are, but you’re not. Right.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:11:32  You are. But it can be modified in many ways. Yeah.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:11:36  And this is an important question too. Whenever you’re working with a patient or yourself and you’ve got anything under that DSM, you know any label under there key question a lot of people ask themselves is us why. Why me? Why why why why? I asked that question a lot. And I’d always get the answer. Oh, well. Hey, Chris. It’s genetic. Here’s the thing. I’m adopted. So I couldn’t verify the truth of that statement.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:11:57  And I didn’t accept that actually as the truth. And I’m like, really? You sure about that? Anyway, then the next level is bringing in compassion. And then the top of your house in the very top attic part is spirituality. And then we’re in. The last step is the 10th piece, which you’re going to plant your house on a property that’s firmly rooted and grounded in love. We always want to lead with love in any of those categories that I just talked about, because love is the driver here. And anyone who is willing to entertain the concept of ending their life, I can tell you you are the furthest from love. I mean, that is the most unloving thing you’re going to do to yourself, right?

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:12:39  Yeah.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:12:40  Can we bring ourselves back to compassion for self and love for the other and, you know strengthening so that so I don’t start obviously with all those ten things. But that is the framework that I use. And I do start meeting the patient where they’re at and generally doing one.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:12:57  I mean, I’m an overachiever. So I always say to my patients, look, drop yourself.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:13:01  In. That’s right. We’re gonna do it all over time.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:13:04  Let’s going. It’s really comes down to the patient. And how much are you able to do.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:13:09  And maybe more even pacing. So they might be able to do all of it or a lot of it, but not immediately. Maybe over the next five years, the next rest of their life, you know, so you said earlier that you were in a place when you had your first suicide attempt, where you really didn’t even know or understand or feel what the concept of love was. And now in your practice, really the roots of your client’s health house is around being rooted in love. So how did you get from there to here? What are the tools and strategies you use to help people even define love and start to recognize love where it exists in their lives?

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:14:00  Yeah. Great question. So for myself, I start with one of the key principles of naturopathic medicine, which is physician, heal thyself.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:14:08  So you can only take a patient as far as you’ve actually gone. So for myself I have not only additional training in, but personal work done on the personal level in five types of therapy. So when I said that it’s physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and that that was a circle. And each one of those represents a quarter of the pie. The mental emotional spiritual is 75% of the puzzle here.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:14:33  Yes. Yeah. I think that’s something we really need to emphasize because actually in our coaching call. So we train students at the Integrative Women’s Health Institute. And every Wednesday we do coaching calls around complex clients, places where people are stuck with their clients. And just today we were talking about, you know, what do you do with those clients who are doing everything right? And they are they’re highly committed to the process, but most of the time they’ve only completed that one first quarter. So that’s so valuable. So in the 75%, what are your tools and strategies.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:15:16  So where it started with me was understanding that your thoughts affect your physiology.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:15:24  So your thoughts will lead to an emotion which will lead to another thought to another emotion, to another thought. And we have this circle and this circle. We can just spin in stuckness or we can spiral down into depression. We can spiral over into anxiety. We can spiral up into psychosis. So the intervention, if you will, has to come in in one of those two places. Either we need to start looking at the thoughts and or it’s both the emotions. And there’s no right or wrong here. You just got to enter the circle somewhere. And so for me, it started with, you know, this general term of mindfulness. So I call it the four hours of working with problematic thoughts. This is a combination of cognitive behavioral therapy and mindfulness based therapy and psycho neuro immunology. The key questions for therapists or for practitioners to ask their patients. Number one is how much do you love yourself on a scale of 1 to 10, ten being the best? Listen, it is very, very, very rare for me to get an answer over five.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:16:26  So that tells you as a clinician, okay, there’s some self sabotage potentially going to happen in this individual. And or there’s a major inner critic that is in the shadow recesses or forefront conscious awareness wherever they are. And that is what was a driver in my life was this inner critic. Yeah, right.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:16:46  Yeah. But that’s why you hit all those goals, right? Yeah.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:16:50  And compassion. Compassion equally so. It was a foreign concept to me. Like I did compassionate inquiry training with Gabor Monte. And honestly, for the entire year I was stuck on what does this word even mean? And it’s such a buzzword nowadays. Right? And Kristen Neff has been another amazing teacher for me in terms of understanding self-compassion. And a key word to help clinicians is this question or statement you can use with your patients, because the inner critic is going to say, sort of, why are you not doing it good enough or hard enough, fast enough, etc. but the compassionate side of you is going to say what’s good for you, actually, truly in this moment.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:17:31  Yeah. What do you need? What would help you to feel well, what feels good right now.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:17:37  And the struggle with a lot of us, Perfectionist. Overachieving. Type A. Types is that we are stuck in striving. And we are human doers. And we need to learn to be a human being. And it is through the beingness and the stillness that you find your center. We need to teach people to not live here, but to get in touch with the heart. Right? Because this and the gut, those are your first. I’m going to argue the first two brains.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:18:07  Yeah, yeah. Not just in your frontal cortex, if you will, but in your heart, in your gut. You know, intuitively, you know, we always say when we’re teaching about leading with health care from a coaching model is step one to sort of trust the client’s intuition. You know, they don’t often know everything, but they often kind of know the best. Next little step.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:18:36  Yeah.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:18:37  So I have a great little exercise. If you’re up for it, we can do it. This is something that your listeners can implement with their patients or, you know, whoever is listening, do it along. You know, with us. Are you up for it?

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:18:49  Yeah, yeah. Let’s go.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:18:51  Okay, so it’s a conversation with your heart. And so what we do is we just place your hands on your heart, and we just take a breath here. And if it feels safe for you to close your eyes. Helps to get the ego out of the way. So we just take a breath here. And then I’m going to make a statement. You just repeat it, keeping your eyes closed if it’s okay. And the answer. So the first one and you just repeat after me heart. Show me where you are.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:19:19  Heart. Show me where you are.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:19:23  And then just share if there’s anything that comes up. Color. Word. Phrase. Nothing.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:19:30  Nothing for me so far.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:19:33  Heart. Will you lie to me? Yes or no?

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:19:38  Hart, will you lie to me? Yes or no? I did get to know their perfect hearts.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:19:48  Have I always followed you? Yes or no.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:19:52  Heart? Have I always followed you? Yes or no? No. Immediate. No.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:20:03  Hearts. How do you feel when you hear? I haven’t always followed you.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:20:10  Heart. How do you feel when you hear that? I haven’t always followed you. I would say there was like a gripping of sadness in my gut.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:20:21  Okay, so just breathe into that gripping of sadness in the gut. And we’ll ask heart, why do you feel sad?

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:20:35  Heart. Why do you feel sad? I’m just getting kind of like. Uncertainty. Confusion. Like a little bit of swirling black. Okay.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:20:52  Perfect. Hart, is it possible that you are my intuition dwelling inside? Yes or no.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:21:00  Heart? Is it possible that you’re my intuition dwelling inside? Yes or no? Yes.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:21:08  Perfect.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:21:09  Thank you. That’s it. Very simple. The quote to guide you is. The heart must usher the mind into the zone of revelation by Joseph Campbell. Because what happens is. So how you use this in clinical practice is very quickly. It just took you through those questions and very quickly your heart had the answer. No. Yes. No. Right. So it’s there. It’s ready and waiting. It’s ready. It’s just it’s ready for you. But the problem is, most of us are so busy up here that we cannot hear the voice. This one. The egoic mind is going to be speak loudest. And first the heart is going to whisper to you, right? So how I work with this is I just say to patients, brown rice or quinoa, chicken or beef, carrots or broccoli. Like, just learn to tune in.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:21:59  Yeah. Like, what do you actually want? I think that little bit of practice, we do a lot of that too. I think that people start to bring awareness to the fact that they like, first of all, sometimes they just don’t know.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:22:15  They’re like, what? And then they’re afraid to trust it. And then when they do, there’s a real sense of ease.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:22:26  And it really is that sense of trust that is important to build. And this is why we start with little things that are inconsequential.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:22:33  Right, Right. Right. So what? You eat the wrong thing. It doesn’t matter. Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:22:38  Because then when you do get the hit, like, don’t take that drink or call your mother or big hit like me. Quit your job.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:22:47  Right? Right.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:22:49  You know, you’ll eventually learn to heed the call, if you will.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:22:54  Yeah. And one thing I always say, kind of. Especially for my clients that are in the midlife perimenopause transition, it’s almost like you have an opportunity, and it could be at any time. But we almost never stop and ask people other than like your high school guidance counselor, what do you want? Like what kind of work do you want to do? What kind of life do you want? And so I think there are these moments of opportunity, particularly in women’s lives, because we have like, say, the postpartum period or perimenopause or post menopause, where there are moments where we can kind of circle back and be our own guidance counselor by using that strategy.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:23:35  Let the heart do it instead of the brain.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:23:40  Yeah, it takes a lot of practice. You know, a lot of practice and understand to you bring, you know, an important point to the forefront. And this isn’t a differentiation between men and women because essentially we both have hormones. I mentioned on that physical level that hormones is a major macro system. And so we have so many hormones that are driving the show throughout our entire life, from menarche through to menopause. And so it’s really learning to be in the flow with your hormones and support that. But root cause medicine is important to investigate, you know. Key question is when did things begin? One of my pet peeves is for women and men are key onset or menopause or perimenopause or fertility or postpartum all the way through. Oh you’re depressed. Okay, here’s some SSRIs, and no one is looking at this hormonal piece. And it’s such a huge piece, you know. And when I started my recovery, as I mentioned, I carried along the nutraceutical approach with the pharmaceutical.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:24:46  And initially I was better for two weeks of the month, and then I was not good for two weeks of the month. And I didn’t know what that meant, because I’m here I am. I’m not in health, I don’t know, I don’t have a clue. Of course, my naturopathic doctor. Okay, well, let’s check out your hormones. And I’m like, what’s a hormone, you know? So I think the really important message that I feel is helpful. You can take someone super far just on that physical level alone. But I know for myself I was being propped up with supplementation. That is, I guess, an approach. But for myself, I stumbled when I went, I stopped the supplements. And so then I thought, well, have I really fixed anything Then. And that’s where the fixing the improving. The real piece for me was this mental, emotional spiritual starting with inquiring about, well, what is the nature of the thoughts I’m thinking. And because this drives your nervous system, either sympathetic, parasympathetic, which everyone will, you know, will understand, stressed or relaxed.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:25:48  And when you’re in a fight flight fear fawn sympathetic state. It’s very difficult to really achieve true healing.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:25:59  Yeah, absolutely. And your clients, let’s say they get to the point where physically they’re pretty stable. And even emotionally they’re pretty, you know, their symptoms are stable, but then they start to do this work. Do you ever see that people become a little unstable for a while?

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:26:20  Yes. This can happen. We can stumble. And so I do like people to understand that sometimes the healing journey is four steps forward and two steps back and ten steps forward and five steps back. You know it’s not from A to Z yesterday. That’s what everyone wants today, right? So the stumble, if you will, is then we need to take a look at what’s happening on all these ten steps that I speak to. And usually it’s related to a significant new stress. And we haven’t fully perhaps got to what I referred to as the shadow, you know, the unconscious subconscious mind. And that takes a lot of time.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:27:06  As you mentioned at the very beginning, it’s pacing of this process and continuing to check in with yourself and where you’re at because, listen, I have been at this since I was, you know, I’m going to say 15 years old and now I’m almost 60 and I continue to do the work.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:27:31  Yeah. And I think that’s a very important point to that. Generally speaking, when we’re talking about healing on all four of these levels of physical, emotional, mental and spiritual, you’re never done. And so there’s I think two issues with that. One is that we have to be very careful of being too hypervigilant. Like never healed enough. It’s never enough. Like we can almost get perfectionistic about this. So that’s a danger. The other I think awareness factor is just it’s okay if this is a sort of forever journey. Like, you can always learn something about yourself. You’re always confronted with new challenges. And so it’s more about developing like the tools and the skills and the resilience than like hitting some particular health marker or whatever.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:28:27  That’s right. Because my profession, sometimes I feel like, oh goodness me. You know, it’s so much, you know, no be no dairy, no sugar, no alcohol, no this. No, that. Like what? No fun. Like, you know, that’s stressful. Can be for your personality depending on your personality. So for myself, as someone who is very much like, wants to hit the markers and, you know, I recognize that part of me that striving, achieving parts. And then I recognize the other part, the one that just wants to sit back in the sun with a good book and do nothing. She doesn’t get much opportunity to show up.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:29:03  Right, right. As a recovering workaholic.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:29:06  You know, so that aholic ness, whatever your addiction is, and we all have one or more.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:29:13  More. Yeah.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:29:15  And this is important as well in women’s health. So I had a eating disorder, which was another mental health condition, bulimia that comes with a lot of shame, you know, so does bipolar disorder.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:29:25  that comes with a lot of shame. So shame is a really important emotion to tap into and to investigate, you know? A key question is what are you most unwilling to ever share? Now, I’m not asking for the person to share that with me, but if there’s something there, if there’s something there, so is there something you would be unwilling to disclose? Then you know there’s shame, and that is one of the last emotions to tend to within ourselves. So we can tend to the anger and the rage and, you know, the disappointment and the hopelessness and the guilt. But underneath all of those at the very bottom is shame and doesn’t get spoken to as much in the healing context because it takes time. I went on that tangent from the workaholic tangent, but whatever your addiction is. And so with an eating disorder, for me it was being covered up by perfectionism when I quit it. I replaced it with exercise. Very common. But at the end of it, it comes down to what I talked about at the very beginning.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:30:33  It comes down to how much do you love and accept yourself?

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:30:38  Yeah. Back to that very first question. 0 to 10. And I think there’s so much power in that because once you have that awareness, like if you’re like, oh, you know, if there’s a deeper not feeling good enough, we’re the love that makes it harder to just be more at peace in your body, even on the days when your weight fluctuates, or you might be struggling with thyroid issues in your hair’s falling out. Or of course, we can optimize those physiologic systems. We can improve your metabolism, we can improve your thyroid health. But I think it is valuable to feel comfortable wherever you are in the process and really be settled and safe in that. And it actually accelerates the physical healing. That’s in a way. As you mentioned, the physical healing is the easier part.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:31:37  It can be. It’s very rewarding on the physical level because you can make like once, you know, seemingly simple change like, wow, let’s just drink more water.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:31:48  Yeah, right. Like, you know, hopefully filtered and blah blah blah. But we don’t have to go. Right, right right right. We can make anything complicated, but let’s just keep it simple, right? Or. Hey, you know, now I’ve really dialed in my sleep. Gosh, I notice I’m not as reactive with my children. So you get like that immediate or, you know, relatively quick feedback from the change. So then we might just stay there for a long time. But what really happens for me in terms of dialing in the mental, emotional, spiritual piece was the parenting piece because I was showing up in ways that I didn’t want to show up with my child. I didn’t want to show up raging. I don’t do anger. Thank you very much. And yeah, you’re I was right. Yeah. Doing anger. And I struggled with that. And then I guess, you know, like most. Well, I don’t know, I guess most moms I do hear this from my, my patients.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:32:36  And then we feel guilty. Yeah. And then we feel shame. And then we think we’re a terrible mother, and then we’re back and not good enough itis.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:32:43  Yeah. And then that triggers the rage again. Yeah. That was wrong with me. You know.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:32:48  So. Yeah. So you for me. Anyways, in my healing journey, I was always being presented with opportunities to heal those pieces. The mental thoughts that inner critic, the emotional self. Now, the emotional stuff I want to speak to in the sense that there’s nothing to heal there. It’s all about just feeling it.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:33:09  And just being aware of it. Like knowing what’s going on, physically feeling it, allowing those feelings to express, moving it through.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:33:18  And being careful with the thoughts, being careful with the your thoughts because it’s your thoughts that will feel the emotion, right?

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:33:24  And bring meaning to that emotion. Yeah. Now, one of the challenges, I think, for getting that deeper level of emotional healing for me, I really think I see people heal more easily when they have some semblance of feeling safe.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:33:44  And increasingly that’s very difficult. So the people I see that struggle the most either never really had that solid foundation because of childhood traumas or things like that. There was just never a time where they felt safe, so they don’t really have that place to tap back to. Or as you were talking about. Like, it’s hard for single women or UN partnered people or people that have had to separate from their families for traumatic reasons. When people feel very untethered, lonely and untethered and unsafe Safe because the financial and safety piece is all on their shoulders. I mean, this is technically actually becoming a real problem because wealth concentration is being so accelerated. You literally have people who can’t afford to feed themselves, you know, house themselves, and there’s a lot of pressure to keep up with that. So what do you find is helpful when people just cannot get a foothold on safety?

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:34:52  So there’s so much to unpack in that question. Right. So this is where the spiritual component comes in for me. And these existential questions like what are we here for.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:35:03  Like what are we doing. Like what are we actually doing here? So for me, as someone who has attempted her own life three times, the answer for me and it will be different for everyone who chooses to answer that question is ultimately for me. I am here to learn how to love and accept not only myself, but the other. It was hard for me to do either. If you’re not able to love yourself, you cannot love another. So coming back to that word love. So. Okay, well, what does that mean? How did. Okay, well, how does that pay my bills, Chris? Like that. That’s great. That all sounds lovely, but that’s not paying my bills, right? And so the financial piece, we have to understand that we are social beings. Social capital matters. And this is coming back to the loneliness piece. It’s not one man for himself. It’s one man for everyone. So let’s help out each other more. And we don’t do that right in North America.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:36:08  It is very much this egoic culture of more for me. And how much more for me. And that’s why we’re in the pickle that we’re in.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:36:15  Absolutely. Yeah.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:36:17  So that’s sort of the financial piece. I would love to solve it. I used to work for HSBC Investment Management on the global level. So I get wealth. And that’s one of the reasons I quit was because I got to the top. I saw all the money and I didn’t like what I saw, and I didn’t like how the people were at the top.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:36:33  Well, and I think what you’re talking about is actually even more important than money. Now, people need a basic amount of money to survive, for sure, but to get that, you actually have to be a social being. To be able to access more capital, you have to have the capacity to access more relationships. And I think that’s a very valuable way to help people look at this, that by healing their ability to feel more comfortable with others, to love others, to help others, to care for others, does actually circle back to them and bring them more financial safety.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:37:18  It’s not always immediate, but it pretty much always does happen.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:37:23  Well, there’s a good little documentary. I believe it’s still on Netflix right now. It’s called Join or Die. The title gives it all away. So but it’s important. It’s, you know, discussing this concept, what we’re talking about. But the other thing that’s really important to understand, if you are someone, for example, who is depressed right now and you know, it is challenging. So, you know, we need to we need to help people with. And so your question was really also about the safety component, right.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:37:51  Because of course it’s very hard to connect physically when you are stuck in either fight or flight or freeze. You’re not in that ventral vagus activation. So how do they feel safe even just joining something? Yeah.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:38:06  It’s simple for me to say, well, this is where working with a skilled practitioner can help you. However, again, that comes back to the financial piece. Well, what if you don’t have the means to work with a skilled practitioner.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:38:15  But then I would argue that there are skilled practitioners who do volunteer. Who do donate, who do give. And there are lots of resources. There really are. We just have to look. But here comes back the challenge. When you’re depressed or anxious, asking that person to reach out for help is like asking a blind person to see, you know, this is what depression does to you. It turns off or down your ability to be social. And I know for myself that this is a huge cycle I would get stuck in. So when you can understand that, okay, this is what depression is doing to me. The cloud has descended. I’m now in the cloud. All I see is darkness and gray. But you’re just in a cloud and it will lift. And you know what you can do for free. You can sit in the sun. You can get vitamin D for free. I don’t mean to sound glib. I get how hard it is. And I’ll just speak to the movement piece for myself again, telling someone to, well, just exercise.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:39:17  You know, when you’re depressed, you’re not leaving your home. There were weeks, days, months, years even, where the only thing I would accomplish in a day was moving from my bed, getting dressed to the door, getting out, coming back. Sometimes that took me eight, ten, 12 hours just to do that. But I will tell you this never once, not once, did I come back feeling worse than when I went out.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:39:43  Yeah.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:39:44  And again, you know, it sounds glib. Oh. Just exercise. And it comes back to what we were talking about again. Social capital. Loneliness. Exercise is best done with someone doing something you like. Doesn’t have to be exercise per se, but just walking. Move the body with someone. Ideally in nature.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:40:04  Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:40:06  So far from that, you know, in our cities, right?

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:40:08  Well, and I think there are very micro things people can start with their, like you said. I mean, literally just walking and sitting and outside.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:40:17  Just go outside and sit.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:40:20  And marvel at the beauty of that sky. Yeah, I know you’re in a dark cloud yourself. You know, just marvel at the outside because it’s great analogy.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:40:27  Look slightly above the clouds. Yeah. And I think things that people can join where they don’t have to do anything, like they don’t have to be social, like show up at a yoga class or show up at a community meditation, or there are free resources in a lot of communities for just group exercise that if you go to a class like yoga or meditation or Pilates or whatever, you literally just a kind of a tip for anyone who’s listening. You don’t have to do anything you can like go there and lay on a mat. I was very, very sick with long Covid for about two years. I was really pretty. bedbound and homebound. And once a day my husband and I would walk as far up the street as I could, kind of rain or shine. It took years. I lived near a university and they have a big contemplative sciences center, and they just kind of opened it.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:41:25  So they had a sound bath outside, and there was a ton of people just like sitting in the lawn, like literally on a bunch of grass, laying on mats or carpets or blankets. None of these people knew each other. You know, two people might know each other in there, but generally it was just a bunch of strangers, like laying there for an hour. And that I think it builds confidence, like it builds the ability to do the next little thing. So step one is just kind of glance above the clouds. Step two is three houses down. Step three is sit among other people outside. And you know this happens. You know, my issue was not social. It was just more physiologic fatigue. But that can lead to depression, especially for people who are used to being very highly athletic. But there’s so much you gain from those baby step pieces that help physically and emotionally.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:42:25  That’s right. I just did a sound bath on Monday night.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:42:28  They’re so nice. It was awesome.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:42:31  Yeah.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:42:31  No, you highlighted a really important point because fatigue is a major symptom of depression, right? And so again, you know, we’re not asking you to put those shoes on and run a marathon. We’re asking you to put those shoes out on and stand outside. That’s it. That’s it. Right. And then, you know, build from there. I’ll just share that after my last suicide attempt, what actually moved the needle for me was interestingly, actually, this is an interesting, you know, fun fact, not fun. But the rates of suicide are actually highest in June. It’s interesting because I would have thought If you’d ask me, I would have said January. But interestingly enough, all my suicide events have been in June, which is like I didn’t make the connection when I was asking. I was asked to do this research on the subject, even with my own self. So anyway, what ended up moving the needle for me was a friend asking me to play tennis.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:43:28  So I went begrudgingly, unwillingly in my dark state. And you know, by the end of that summer, the depression had lifted. There were a few other things and changes that I made, but look at what that one thing got me. That one thing. First of all, the willingness is really important. The willingness. I didn’t have the willingness, but I went anyway. Sometimes you got to show up in spite of yourself or despite yourself, right? Then outside, I’m hitting a ball. I’m pounding out my rage on that ball. Whoever that ball was, somebody’s head, usually, right? I’m with my friend, right? I’m moving my body. Audie. Barely that. Ben got me to drink a bit of water and eat a little more in my depressions. I don’t eat because. Why? What’s the point? So, you know, I had a pastor asked me one time if I had anorexia. I said, no, I got depression shows up because I lose a lot of weight anyway.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:44:26  So my point being that connection, community, nature, outside movement, we all know the stats. You know, movement itself is 75% for mild to moderate depression as good as SSRIs.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:44:39  Well, and I think so people who are listening to this who are practitioners, this is our opportunity to create small things within our community because we’re always rattling this stuff off, right. Like eat vegetables, drink water, go outside, move the very, very basics. But the problem is, I think where we are now in society, I saw a really interesting statistic earlier today that the number one reason people are using AI right now. As as their therapist. As a friend? Yes. Yeah. Wow. Friend or therapist? Friend. That is not good. I mean, it’s not bad in the sense that at least there’s step one. But honestly, what people need from there is that little bit of activation energy your friend that dragged you to the tennis court. I was talking to one of our students the other day, and she does once a I think once a month in the summer, once a week just goes to the park for an hour and teaches community yoga.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:45:46  Little simple. One of our master coaches does a walking perimenopause group coaching program. They just do it outside. And I do think that whether you just make it a micro part of your practice that’s just in service or it’s the foundation of how you set up your practice. That’s the foundation of the house.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:46:11  Yeah. So important to understand that at the end of the day, we’re energetic beings. And this energy principle of give and receive. It’s important to look at yourself. If you are the person who’s stuck in depression. What are you not doing? What are you not? I’m not saying this from a place of blame, but I know for myself I get very inward and very shut down. And the medicine you might actually need is human connection. And so it’s interesting that you say that about AI, because I was just saying to someone, you know, one of the things that I don’t think AI is ever going to take over is the human connection.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:46:51  I hope it doesn’t, but my goodness, no.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:46:54  But the therapist part, you know, for me, I think, okay, that’s good. My first response when you said that, I was like, oh, that’s bad. But really the real response for me is actually, oh that’s sad.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:47:02  Yeah, I think number one, it’s sad because it demonstrates the shame part of it. I also think it demonstrates the financial pickle that this whole world is in.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:47:13  Demonstrates this pickle that.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:47:14  Yeah, demonstrates the the connection, the comfort, the comfort and connection with devices more than humans. But I think the problem with AI is eventually you’re going to lose the messiness of being human. The ability for people to grow and struggle and learn, it’s like they get the exact right answer immediately. Maybe, you know, kind of depends on what your description of right is. I mean, and of course, AI makes a lot of mistakes, but there’s this benefit, I think, to having access to kind of like give me a strategy, you know, get me started.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:47:50  So this I think is benefit. Someone can basically search like, hey, how do I get myself out of the house? And it might give you some good recommendations or strategies, but from there I am very concerned. I think we really have to start leaning in. As health and wellness professionals to creating spaces of human connection, because that is part of the medicine.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:48:16  It is, and you are the medicine for that person. And it’s not so much about the prescription and the fancy suggestions. It’s about being with you. That energetic vibration from one heart to the next. You’re the medicine. And I don’t mean this from an ego perspective. I mean this from a holding the space and not feeling the space, you know, not filling the space with, okay, here’s what you’re going to do. Allowing the person to feel.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:48:45  Yeah. Excellent. If someone wants to work with you, learn from you. Follow your journey. How does our community find you?

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:48:54  Yeah. So I have a website, durban.com or Instagram doctor Chris Bergdahl.

Dr. Christina Bjorndal 00:49:02  Dahl. I have a program for clinicians that takes them through this mental, emotional, spiritual. The ten steps in terms of really mind body medicine. I also have a program for patients as well, and I have my books beyond the label. The essential diet. The essential diet is again, just starting on that one step, you know, because again, a lot of people, hey, I just want to work on that physical level. Right. So and like I said, that’s where I sat for a long time until I was bumping up against these beliefs and emotions. So then I did the rest of the work. And so that’s where you can find me. And I thank you so much for having me.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:49:46  Thanks so much for being here today. I really appreciate it. I so enjoyed that conversation with Doctor Christina Bjorndal. Please follow her in all the places and go to her website and learn more about her work. But importantly, I think from these conversations what I really got out of it and and I bet I just encourage you, there was so much meat there.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:50:12  Just whatever little tidbit you got from this, whatever you wrote down, whatever. A little inspiration for your own unique practice. Because, look, people in the world are suffering right now from a severe mental health crisis and especially loneliness. But depression, anxiety, psychosis, it’s all a part of what our clients are also dealing with in addition to their physical symptoms. So what is just one way this week that you can help your clients get a little bit more outside and moving? Just those two things outside and deep breathing outside and being in a place of. Or is this something you could build into how you do your work. Is this something you could just offer as a service to your community? Think about that, because those two things are so foundational to human, physical and emotional health. Let’s just get curious. How can we do more of that in our own lives and for our patients and clients? Thanks so much for being here. I’ll see you next week. Thank you so much for joining me today for this episode of the Integrative Women’s Health Podcast.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:51:34  Please share this episode with a colleague and if you loved it, hit that subscribe or follow button on your favorite podcast streaming service so that we can do even more to make this podcast better for you and your clients. Let’s innovate and integrate in the world of women’s health.