850 Dr. Gala Gorman:

Melinda Wittstock:

Gala, welcome to Wings.

Dr. Gala Gorman:

Hey, Melinda. Nice chatting with you today.

Melinda Wittstock:

You talk a lot about kryptonite and everybody has their kryptonite. How do you kind of know what your kryptonite is?

Dr. Gala Gorman:

Well, it’s individual for everybody. So that’s the trick really, is to figure out what your kryptonite is. So there are obviously some things that are kryptonite pretty much for everyone, but if you think of the superheroes and this green crystal that’s kryptonite for them, a lot of times they can’t even see the kryptonite. They just feel their energy draining, and because they know what kryptonite does to them, they know it’s kryptonite and they have to figure out where it is.

And so, I counsel patients and people that I work with, to really develop awareness and notice when you’re feeling like you’re being drained energetically. And then you just have to start kind of reverse engineering it and figuring out what’s going on in your environment, what you’re eating, what you’re doing, even if it’s just maybe you are having an emotional disturbance with a coworker, or some other relationship that just really zaps your energy. So kryptonite is tricky, it’s not just one size fits all.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right, so it could be a bunch of different things. Your environment, like you said, what you’re eating, but it could also be stress or how, for instance, for entrepreneurs, how that entrepreneurial process is making you feel like in any given day as an entrepreneur, you’re continually dealing with change, you’ve got all kinds of things, potentially crises or just learnings, but constant change. So how do you start to isolate those things? Because it could be many things.

Dr. Gala Gorman:

Sure. So one of the things I like to remind all of us who are burning the candle at both ends, is that most of the time we’ve set our lives up that way intentionally, because we love to have a full and fulfilling life. So just the fact that we have a stressful life isn’t necessarily a problem. We wouldn’t have it any other way, we don’t want a no stress life, it’s not realistic. So the most important thing is to just recognize when stress is becoming toxic.

So imagine anybody who’s been a runner, I haven’t been a runner in many, many years, but imagine if you ever ran at all, you know how really over the top great you feel after a two or three mile run, right? Just really super energized and tired, but tired in a good way. That’s good stress, right? And then imagine what you feel like if you ran a marathon, right? 13 miles, you went way past good stress into bad stress.

You may choose to do it anyway, because running a marathon may be something you want to tick off on your bucket list, but now you’ve got a lot of repair work to do, because you pushed your body past the good stress point into the toxic stress. So you could apply that kind of analogy to business, as well. If we have a rush, let’s just say we’re in the middle of a launch, or I’m a CPA in my former life, so tax season was incredibly stressful, but we knew essentially there was a beginning and an end every year, right?

And so, you just prepared for it, you dealt with it, and then you did the repair work afterwards. And so I just really encourage women to recognize when it’s gotten to be too much. So for me, even during tax season, there would be a certain point in time where I would say, “Timeout.” Even though the amount of work I have to do is literally insurmountable, I need to hit the pause button and take a little time for myself, because otherwise I’m liable to have a meltdown.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, well, self-care is a really big issue for female founders. I mean, women are acculturated to really put themselves last in many cases and to people please. And yet, there’s no way you can create a successful business if you’re not healthy and vibrant, and really at your best. So let’s get into what you do with acupuncture, and as a naturopath and such, to help people deal with that stress. I mean, not only manage it, but actually hopefully eliminate it. Talk to me about how these tools can not only be used to identify the stressors, but also alleviate them.

Dr. Gala Gorman:

Yeah. So it’s really important to understand the source of the stress. And so, I have a program called the Molt Method Program, and it identifies or evaluates essentially a four prong approach to dealing with the different types of stress we typically encounter. So M is mindset, O is order, L is lifestyle, T is toxins. And so, if we’re dealing with emotional upset, or just sort of not coming at things with a good attitude, then mindset adjustments could be all that’s needed to relieve the stress, right? Order, that’s if you just have so many open loops, if you’re not familiar with the concept of open loops, basically anything unfinished, especially those things that have not landed on a to-do list, that I think we all get a bit frustrated with the to-do list, because it seems like it gets longer every day. But when we kind of throw in the towel and don’t even bother adding things to the list, then our brain gets stuck in I got to remember that mode, because otherwise there’s nowhere that I’ve captured it.

So creating a really good process for capturing all those to-dos, and keeping them somewhere where your brain can say, “Okay, I don’t have to worry about that. When we’ve got a minute, we’ll come back and deal with that.” Then there’s how you’re going to organize that and prioritize what you are going to deal with, that’s a whole other rabbit hole to go down. And then lifestyle is just diet, exercise, just generally sleep. The activities of daily living essentially, that we practice that help to manage stress. And then the T is for toxins. And I evaluate 12 different categories of toxicity. And a lot of times by the time a woman gets to me, they’ve tried all the normal stuff, right? They’re practicing meditation, they’re exercising and eating healthy, they’ve tried all the things and they’re still not able to make any significant progress, and there’s some sort of toxic buildup that your body’s just not able to manage and purge, essentially, itself without a little help. And so even with-

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, so what are those 12 categories?

Dr. Gala Gorman:

Let me just give you a few. So it’ll be things like parasites, mycoplasma, mycotoxins, bacteria, emotional toxicity, food related toxicity. So there’s 12 different categories. And then within those categories, are a lot of different potential sources essentially. So what I do is, I evaluate the 12 different types of toxicity, we determine which areas kind of have built up to the point where your body’s not able to manage it easily. And so, then we target our program for the areas where the toxicity has kind of gotten out of hand, and in the process, the body brings that toxicity down and a lot of the other toxicity kind of exits along with it. So the idea is to just again, keep the toxicity under control, because we live in an extremely toxic world.

There’s just no way to avoid it. It comes in our air, and our water, and our food. Geopathic stressors, we all sit in front of the computer getting inundated with wifi and electromagnetic frequencies all day long. Those kinds of things are really personally, in my opinion, impossible to eliminate. And so we’ve got to manage them, and for some people they’re not a problem, it just depends on what your level of sensitivity is. And as toxicity builds up, women tend to find that they become more and more sensitive. So if you’re finding that you have more food sensitivities than you had before, you’re starting to notice allergies bothering you more, you’ve got skin things popping out, you’re most likely struggling with some sort of toxic buildup, that your body’s just kind of hit the point where it can’t manage it anymore.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right. And obviously, if you are very stressed, it’s going to suppress your immune system.

Dr. Gala Gorman:

Correct.

Melinda Wittstock:

And so, sometimes it’s hard to know, do you know what comes first and whatnot. I know so many women entrepreneurs that I’ve interviewed on this show and that I know, I mean so many of them have had health crises, that they were going a mile a minute trying to be everything to everyone, do all the things. And not only in their businesses, but in all aspects of their lives, and have some sort of adverse health event eventually. Because more often than not, they’ve sort of ignored or suppressed the signs ahead of that time. So what are some of the kind of early warning type stuff? So it doesn’t get to the point where you really have some major toxicity buildup, or you have some sort of immunodeficiency, for instance, that leads to literally dis-ease disease.

Dr. Gala Gorman:

Right. So the biggest thing I counsel women about is discontinuing the practice of suppressing symptoms, and that is the last thing they want to hear, and the thing that is most important. And what that looks like is, it shows up in a lot of different ways. So it could just show up as you wake up in the morning, you’re tired as heck, and you can’t even get moving without a couple of cups of coffee. It could be as simple as that, which is just totally socially acceptable. Doesn’t everybody wake up and need a couple of cups of coffee? The answer is no.

The next sort of level typically is headaches, and having regular headaches or some sort of chronic pain that you’re managing with pain relievers of some sort. Then typically there will be digestive issues and you’re taking antacids, or bowel movers, or something like that to help your digestion move along. And then as it escalates, it escalates to taking prescription medication, or even taking natural supplements chronically. So I counsel people that even a natural supplement is a medication. So if you are supplementing long-term chronically, you are suppressing symptoms still.

Melinda Wittstock:

Interesting.

Dr. Gala Gorman:

Departure from what you normally hear, right? So if you are suppressing symptoms, then when you’re trying to figure out what really is creating the problem, trying to recognize the source of the toxicity, but you are suppressing symptoms, then it’s really hard to unravel all that, because the way I describe it is, this toxicity is building up and the human body is absolutely amazing, right? So it’s handling all this toxicity and doing a great job, until it gets to be too much. So by the time you start seeing symptoms, the toxicity is already really high. And now if you start suppressing symptoms, then all you’ve done basically is push that toxicity further into the body and said, “I’m not going to deal with this, so just keep storing it wherever you can find a place to store it.” So then don’t be surprised when a year or two down the road dis-ease has escalated to disease, because basically you’ve just backed up toxicity for however long you’ve been suppressing symptoms.

Melinda Wittstock:

So when women come to you, you mentioned before that it’s often in the context of they’ve tried everything else. So when you are working with folks, tell me about the actual thing that you’re doing for them, from the diagnostics to the treatment, and what’s usually the before and after.

Dr. Gala Gorman:

So the way I started, I have a, it’s called a metabolic energy system assessment, MESA for short, M-E-S-A. And essentially, there’s several different pieces of it and it’s in part self-assessment, which gives me an idea of what’s going on in these certain areas that I’ve kind of discussed with you here. And then I pull all that information together to kind of evaluate where you are as a starting point. And then I use biofield scanning, which is not any standard medical test. Again, most of the women that end up coming to me have already had every medical test in the book, and one of two things, either nobody can find anything wrong, that’s the best case scenario, is if nobody can find anything wrong, but you know something’s not right. Or the alternative is, they’ve already found something, they diagnosed you with something, and you’re trying to decide if you’re going to go on meds essentially for the rest of your life. I call it basically a life sentence with no hope for parole.

So at that point, I love to deal with the person who’s had every medical test, they all came back clean, you know something’s not right, but you have no diagnosis. That’s the best thing that could happen, because now we can ease our minds that there’s not any crazy medical thing that we should be picking up on and dealing with. And so I run a biofield scan, which uses the energy system of the body. I’m an acupuncturist, so that’s what I specialize in. I evaluate the energy system of the body to identify the blockages, and that’s how we evaluate where toxicity is building up. And then from there, I create a customized protocol that includes homeopathics, herbs, other supplements, and you take those supplements typically for three to four weeks, and then we take a week or two off, we reevaluate, and we do another protocol that’s adjusted, because you never take the same thing long term.

And the only reason we’re taking this stuff is to try to clear out the toxicity that’s keeping your body from being able to do what it does naturally, and somehow is not able to do now. So we’re just trying to clear out the noise, clear out the toxicity, reboot, and see, okay, can your body do it by itself now? And so typically by the time women get to me, one protocol isn’t going to be enough. So I string together three or four protocols in kind of a short period of time, typically four to six months. And at that point in time, they have cleared out enough of the accumulated toxicity, but I’ve also educated them on what to watch for, so that when they start seeing signs that toxicity is building up again, now you really can just do one one-month protocol and clear out the excess, and kind of get back to good standing essentially.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right. So it really is a whole system. So Gala, what made you want to do this yourself? Tell me a little bit about your story and how you arrived at using these tools of acupuncture, and becoming a naturopath.

Dr. Gala Gorman:

So I got really interested in technology all the way back when I had my accounting firm. And so, anything technologically advanced always piques my interest. It has probably for the last, I don’t know, 35 years. And so when I ran the accounting firm, I had primarily clients that were physicians, either medical physicians, specialty medical physicians in particular, and I had a handful of alternative medicine practitioners, chiropractors, that sort of thing. So I did practice management consulting, where I actually got to see what went on in the practice on the other side of the reception desk, right? And so, I got to see the side of medicine that just made me kind of question, there’s got to be a better way.

And I was already into, and interested in, alternative philosophy and eastern kind of philosophy, more like ancient wisdom, that sort of thing. So when I sold my accounting firm, which has now been, golly, 27 years ago now, so it’s been a long time, that was the direction that I headed essentially. And as I was studying all these different approaches using alternative and complimentary medicine, I kept seeing that everybody was measuring the energy system of the body and they were really using the meridians that are the basis of Chinese medicine, oriental medicine. And so it was just a natural progression that I ended up going back to school and becoming an acupuncturist, and then one thing led to another, and every technological advancement.

So oriental medicine is an ancient practice, but it’s fascinating because when you really study it, even back hundreds of years ago, or at least 50 years ago, they were already starting to play with some of the technology that now has advanced to the degree we use it now. And every acupuncturist does not use those sorts of advanced technological modalities. But because I love technology and I love the insight that it can provide, and helps to cut through the trial and error, I’m all about efficiency and practicality and your peeps, Melinda. Like, we don’t have time to chase our tails and try a zillion different things, you know? Just let’s figure out what’s actually going to work. I apply the 80/20 rule. Basically, I want to change 20% of the things that are going to give me 80% results.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right.

Dr. Gala Gorman:

So, I’m looking to identify the 20% that’s going to get me big positive changes.

Melinda Wittstock:

That makes sense. And so tell me a little bit about the transformation and how quickly it happens for women, because it’s a lifestyle change, and do you find there’s kind of a resistance to changing, or by the time people get to you, are they so like, “Oh my God, I’ll try anything?”

Dr. Gala Gorman:

Well, there’s definitely a spectrum, right? There’s the patients that come to me and they’re like, “Just tell me what to do and literally I’ll try anything.” And my approach, like just what I explained to you a few moments ago about not suppressing symptoms, can you imagine what a mind bender that is? I think it was kind of a mind bender for you, right? It will be for your audience as well, because our whole system is structured around whack-a-moleing the symptoms.

And so, my approach is very different. And even just… I still have patients that say, “Just put me on a supplement protocol that I can just take all the time and it’ll keep things under control.” And I say, no, that’s not the way we do it. We don’t want to make your internal systems lazy, we want your body to do what it’s designed to do, and we want you to notice when something’s going awry. That won’t happen if we’re just putting you on some sort of supplement long term. We’re doing all sorts of damage, even if the supplement is the highest quality, best thing you could find.

There are some exceptions. I make some exceptions for what I call meal enhancement. So we all know that our food supply, the nutrients in our food supply are really depleted. So sometimes we use some things that are really just super nutrient dense things that we add to our meals to make our meals more nutrient dense, and able to help us get the job done. That’s a whole nother rabbit hole to go down, my raw building blocks discussion. But what typically happens is, if I have a patient that comes to me and says, “Just tell me what I need to do and I’ll do it.” I ask them to go off everything they’re already doing, to stop suppressing symptoms, except if they are on prescription medication that’s outside of my scope of practice.

And so they need to go back to their physician if they want to get off the medication, which usually they do, they need to go back to their physician and talk to their physician about coming up with a game plan for how to monitor the medication as they’re making some lifestyle adjustments, and removing some toxicity, because most likely the medication dose will need to be reduced, but it’ll need to be monitored as they progress.

So if they’re really compliant and they do a really good job, then I mean, I’ve had most of my patients feel significantly better in just a few weeks, but the ones that don’t continue and do the next protocol, next protocol, next protocol? The benefits will not hold, because they just reduced enough to feel a lot better and didn’t really get the job done. So then all it takes is a little bit of toxicity for them to get to the point where they’re not feeling so great again. And that’s why I’ve put together this program that strings these protocols together, so we actually get you to the point where you’re really feeling better, and you should be able to sustain it long term.

Melinda Wittstock:

Gala, because it’s so important for female founders to really put their own self-care first, I want to make sure that people know the best way to find you and work with you, and your ideal clients.

Dr. Gala Gorman:

So in my book, What’s Your Kryptonite? I encourage readers to become their own primary care person, PCP. So in the medical world, PCP is your primary care practitioner. You certainly aren’t qualified to be that, but you are the best person to be your own primary care person. And you can find me on my website, drgala.com, just D-R-G-A-L-A.com. And on the homepage, if you scroll down, you’ll see a link where you can buy my book. Towards the bottom of the page, there’s a form where you can subscribe to my newsletter. I send a newsletter most Sundays, and then at the bottom in the footer, are all the badges for all the different social channels. And so, whichever is your social channel of choice, I’m sure I’m posting there, and you can find me there as well.

Melinda Wittstock:

Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for putting on your wings and flying with us today.