Episode 31: 7 Things that Having and Healing Alopecia Taught Me!

Today’s episode of the podcast is about 7 Things that Having and Healing Alopecia Taught Me!

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• Lessons I've learned on having Alopecia

• Balancing information between facts and truths

• Scrutinizing healthcare professionals on dealing with Alopecia

• What are your options for healing naturally

HIGHLIGHTS YOU CAN'T SIMPLY MISS

• In terms of alopecia, it forced me to focus on my health 00:5

• The first thing that it taught me to do was to scrutinize my health professionals 1:3

• So I scrutinize now more than ever the healthcare professional 2:39

• Focus on people that have been there and done that 3:54

• The doctors where I'm at, weren't helping. 4:25

• I found more than 10 things to do and not to do 4:58

• I wanted to help people around the world with a situation that I went through 5:37

• Conventional medicine doesn't give you that success 6:14

• Being a doctor for 20, 30 years, doesn't necessarily give you the full breath of experience in alopecia. 7:32

• Scrutinize my healthcare professionals 9:15

• If you're not finding the help you need, go with somebody who's been there 9:39

• I make my health a priority now more than ever. 10:13

• Making my health is a priority 11:09

• Re-evaluate and re-assess this and I do it 11:31

• Taking action leads to results 11:38

• Don't put things underneath the rug 12:28

• My next goal is to get to a hundred years old 13:25

• It's about taking the steps now to ensure your health in the future 13:45

• Healthcare is a business and not all pharmaceuticals are beneficial 14:08

• Everything needs a prescription 15:42

• Conventional medicine is good for certain situations, but alternative medicine is also good for many other situations 18:18

• Success in health is getting to a hundred degrees or it's not a hundred degrees getting to a hundred years of age with full health 18:57

• Health is such a priority for me 19:27

• Having somebody go through that experience and being able to help you navigate is priceless 20:19

• Uncovered the best version of me 22:27

• Living in integrity has expanded, not just in what I say I'll do, but also in how I live 23:33

• Health is a hundred percent my responsibility and in my control a hundred percent. 24:36

• Let go of many things and become detached in a healthy way 25:16

• Anyone can heal, the desire just needs to be there 27:55

• Alopecia has taught me that I can do anything. 28:28

• I choose me. I choose my health. I choose my hair. I choose my happiness 31:14

• The only person who can take control of their health hair and their happiness is you 32:53

• When we focus on supporting ourselves and helping ourselves more naturally, that all the options are there for us. 36:42

• Lastly, it's also taught me not to settle in anything in any area of life 37:03

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Transcription

Awaken to hair growth. Awaken to hair growth because there is, possibility to get your hair back. Awaken to hair growth because we're not told that we're able to conquer and overcome alopecia. Awaken to hair growth because I want to be a positive light and beacon for you because I've healed my alopecia and now I help others do the same with different types of alopecia, men, women, children, of all ages, of all races and ethnicities.

Welcome everybody to the alopecia angel podcast, awaken to hair growth. I am your host, Johanna Dahlman and today we are going to talk about seven things that alopecia taught me. And with any situation in life, good, bad or ugly. I like to evaluate, I like to analyze, I like to see what the situation is teaching me, what I can learn from it, how to improve and how to get better.

Because I truly believe that every bad situation is teaching me something or forcing me to do something, right? 

In terms of alopecia, it forced me to focus on my health. It forced me to focus on me. It forced me to focus on mind, body, spirit, physical, emotional health, mental health. It forced me to see many things and to really uncover my blind spots, and so beyond that. It taught me so many other things and so I wanted to share this list with you. So perhaps it's teaching you the same thing right now, or perhaps you're actually learning these things at the same time. For those of you listening who've done my hair and heal program. Potentially You've already learned all these lessons and you're speeding up the process which is ideally what I want to happen, right? This is why I created it. 

So first things first. The first thing that it taught me to do was to scrutinize my health professionals because just like a car can be very different in terms of models, betweens of packages and tires and electronics and everything else. Doctors are also different, not just from what they focus on and what they are primarily have studied or have experience in. But then also they're very different on how they listen to you. They're very different on how they care. I've noticed that they're also very different on their ability to truly help you. Like outside of their toolbox, what are they able to do? what are they able to not do? because guess what? Just like secretaries have certain things that they can do and can't do, and CEO’s have things that they can and can't do. Doctors are the same thing. They have certain things they can and cannot do, right? Your GP can't do open heart surgery, right? Your GP can't do many things. They can't prescribe you certain medications potentially and potentially all the prescriptions that they do have don't even work as we see with alopecia.

So I scrutinize now more than ever the healthcare professional, not just their degrees like where they studied, how long, what they like, their hobbies, No. Now I want to see if they're listening to me. I wanna see if I find any smidgen of belittlement, any smidgen of an ego trip. Cuz many doctors do have an ego trip or they're very condescending and personally I don't appreciate that If I've hired a doctor, it's because I want them to be part of my team. I see them as part of my team so you are there to support me, cuz I'm a paying customer. I treat doctors the way I would treat a lawyer, the way I would treat an accountant, the way I would treat somebody who does my taxes, anybody. The person at the post office, the same way. If I'm a pain customer, this is the way I wanna be treated and if you can't help me, then help me understand where I can go, If not I'm gonna have to find somebody else and unfortunately with my time in alopecia, I've seen more than 10 doctors, I've gone to different countries to see these doctors gone to different States and cities. I've spent money out of pocket. I went outside the box of conventional medicine because I had to, because conventional medicine didn't have everything for me.

So now, what I like to do too is I like to focus on people that have been there and done that, people who have walked through my shoes and understand me on a very intricate level. So for example, if I have gone through I don't know. Let's say any health topic you can think of, I want the professional or the healthcare practitioner, or the doctor, or whoever it is to have experience not just by treating people, but also by potentially going through that same situation. I'm gonna be a little vulnerable here.

I had a miscarriage and having gone through that miscarriage. I saw that the doctors where I'm at weren't helping. I saw the doctors in the US also weren't helping. The ones in Europe were awful but the ones in the US were also not helpful. So I ended up finding someone in Australia who had her first child naturally at the age of 46. And she helps people with miscarriages and fertility, and this is what she dedicates her life to because she's gone through more than 10 miscarriages, more than 10. And when I spoke to her, even with just a consultation of I believe it was an hour, an hour and a half. I found more than 10 things to do and not to do, to prevent a second miscarriage, to prevent a third miscarriage, to prevent what she has already gone through. Cuz she already did the legwork, cuz she has already lived it and so now the way I see certain topics of health is now I want to go with somebody who's lived it, whoever overcame it, and who's thrived. And now She's 46, She's had her first baby naturally a hundred percent no IVF, no nothing and she's thriving, and she's helping women all around the world with what she does.

And I find that very inspiring and before coming to her I had already started alopecia angel because I was on the same page as her. I wanted to help people around the world with a situation that I went through that was so painstakingly difficult, and just a money pit of sorts, with no help from doctors, with no help from any quote unquote health professionals and so now I've been there, I've done that and I've overcome it  and I'm thriving.

And so this is what I look for in people who I request help from. Have you been there? Have you done that? It's not just like, yeah I've been a doctor for 20 years. I've been a doctor for 30 years. Well, in those 30 years you could have just seen one person with alopecia. In those 30 years, you could have just seen two people with alopecia and probably not even with success because again, conventional medicine doesn't give you that success. And on the same flip side of that, potentially, you've been a doctor for 30, 40 years, and haven't updated your education because I guarantee you, what they're teaching from 30 years ago is probably not the same education that you're receiving today but even more so, if it hasn't changed there's a problem with that too. Right?

If there is no change in curriculum or in education, we have a problem. So for example back in elementary school, I remember, or even in, in college. I remember that each year, even if it was the same algebra class and algebra doesn't change at all, there was a new textbook and there was always a new textbook and these textbooks were expensive. As many of you know, who've gone to college, you know, each book is around 80 to $150, or more and you have to pay for those out of pocket. Right? That's an additional expense. And each book of these, it would change each year. So even if I wanted to buy it used from. Let's say a student or a friend who had taken the class, I couldn't because the textbook was changing even though the subject matter was the same history, history hasn't changed. It's still the same history. Algebra doesn't change. Calculus doesn't change. Physics doesn't change but yet the question here is how much of the medical curriculum has changed and has been updated.

And so just being a doctor for 20, 30 years, doesn't necessarily give you the full breath of experience in alopecia only, right? or the full experience in healing alopecia completely. So now, I like to ask the hard questions and I drill down and sometimes I make these doctors feel uncomfortable, and I start asking if it was back to alopecia. This is the way I would approach it right with doctors. I'd be like, okay how many clients have you seen with alopecia? and How many have healed successfully? What is your success rate? What are your options for healing naturally? Because your medications clearly have side effects, run me down, what these side effects and risks are. And as a parent now, as a parent, myself, I'm so much more of a mama bear than at any point in life. Like I've always been somewhat of a grizzly bear, you know, in terms of myself and what I think is right, and what I think is  Good customer service. And I don't know about you, but I've seen really bad customer service, not just in healthcare but in all industries really and I've seen fantastic customer service too.

And in my experience, living abroad, living in like five, six different countries and traveling all over the world, I think the US has really great customer service when you can find it. And in many countries they just don't care as much and for example here in the Netherlands, they don't care as much they don't go the extra mile for you. They don't do preventative. And so there's a lot of things that hinder you. So if you're boxed in from one type of healthcare system, I'd say, look at other options, look outside the box because your healthcare system is forcing you to settle, which leads me to my number two.

So just to recap and I'll recap at the end as well. Seven things that alopecia taught me. Number one was to scrutinize my healthcare professionals. Today, I prefer somebody who can walk the walk, and talk the talk. Not just somebody who can just talk out of a textbook, because to me I can do that. I can go get textbooks and read about chicken pox.

But having gone through chickenpox, having gone through alopecia is very different than potentially what the textbook says, very different and for alopecia that's the case. So I highly recommend if you're not finding the help you need, go with somebody who's been there done that, go with somebody who's walked in your shoes, go with somebody who's walked in your child's shoes, if you're a parent. For me as a parent that's very, very important and in scrutinizing my healthcare professionals, I want them to be part of my team. So if I find any sense or any smidgen of Belittlement or condescending demeanor. I look for somebody else, like that's it I'm the paying client and you're there to help me. If you're not there to help me, then get out of my way. 

That's really how I see it, because my health issues is such a huge priority. And that leads me to my number Two. I make my health a priority now more than ever and this is again what alopecia taught me because what I did in the past before alopecia, I just kept putting things underneath the rug and thinking that I was a machine. Thinking that I could play hard, work hard, think that I could just be healthy on the outside and full of big hair, muscular tone, going to the gym every day, running every day, doing Pilates and yoga and not see declined health and I did. At the time of getting alopecia. Many of you probably already know, cause I've talked about this is that I had a personal trainer and it wasn't like I was new to the personal training arena. I had already had a personal trainer for many months. I was already doing pilates and yoga for over 20 years.  I was fit and trim and if I do say so myself, I was the fittest and trims in my life at that moment. And I mean, I was glowing. I was tan. I was living in Miami. Everything was great until it wasn't, right? and so this is why making my health is a priority.

And it's almost like a mental checklist at this point where I check off everything that I need to do, and each morning I kind of reassess and reevaluate. Okay, What do you need? Johanna, what do you need to feel better? As you can tell, I'm a little more nasally still, but what do I need to feel better? What do I need to feel good about myself? What do I need to be happy? What do I need to just promote more help? So I reevaluate and reassess this and I do it. It's not just, I just think about it, but I take action and I do it. Taking action leads to results and Incremental actions each day, that lead to huge result, because for example in my pregnancy, I gain like 50 pounds, if not more and I thought right, this is where life trips you up. I thought, okay, in six months I'll be able to lose a 50 pounds. Oh, that took me about like nine months, a little bit more than nine months, but guess what? I'm back at my healthy weight.

And so this is great. I had a beautiful 9.7 pound baby, healthy baby and I gained weight. I didn't care because I had a healthy baby. I had a wonderful pregnancy. I lost the weight and results speak for itself. I had alopecia, refocus my life on healing and I got my hair back and it's been more than seven years.

So losing weight, healing alopecia, all these things, reprioritize my health, all these things refocus me on my health and making it a priority is huge, I don't put things underneath the rug. I don't sweep 'em, I don't. I'm very mindful. How's that? I'm very mindful with my health, my baby's health, with my husband's health, with health in general, and I always wanna go the extra mile.

So going back to the healthcare professionals, I want them to go the extra mile for me as well. If I go the extra mile for me, if I go the extra mile for my clients, I want people to go the extra mile for me too. And if it's not there, then I go somewhere else and In terms of going the extra mile for me, I go the extra mile in terms of educating myself to see what's next.

And I'll tell you probably in a future podcast about all these things that I'm learning and I'm compiling because people have been asking me about, okay, what's next? You're in your forties, You healed alopecia, now what? I'll tell you, what's next. In another podcast episode, but it's very exciting to see how we can age gracefully, how we can age and not fear aging and not fear mental pause and not fear all these milestones and chapters in our life, because my next goal is to get to a hundred years old and be feeling, acting, thinking, moving like the 40 year old that I am now. I'm a little older than 40, but still, you know what I mean? I wanna be all there mentally, physically, emotionally, mentally, everything spiritually and I know I can be at a hundred years old, I know I can be  and it's about taking the steps now to ensure your health in the future, and this is how you're able to do the same thing with alopecia. Take the steps every day and you'll always see. Bam. How easy is that? So if you missed the last hair and heal free training. I'm sorry, it'll come again soon, but you missed it, but sign up just in case so you can be notified.

So the next thing that I have learned from alopecia is that healthcare is a business and not all pharmaceuticals are beneficial or even work in my best interest. So for example, right now, my baby has chickenpox and for those of you who have not had the vaccine for chickenpox, and have children who are going through it, or you have gone through it yourself. There are many, you know, stipulations, like if you were to take aspirin while taking chicken pox, while having chicken pox. I should say, you could develop Reye’s syndrome and if you took ibuprofen while having chicken pox, You can worsen the lesions of chickenpox and so the only thing that they recommend is Tylenol, which is acetaminophen and so the situation is very different for every health concern, right? Chickenpox different from alopecia, but in the same vein, not all fever reducing medications work the same way, and some have multiple complications.

And so now I look medicine as a double edged sword. I don't look at it as the end all be all before, you know, maybe this is my American mindset, but I used to be like, I have a headache, let's grab over the counter. Oh, I have cramps, let's grab the over the counter medicine and that's kind of like that scenario, that hamster wheel of grabbing medicine. So freely that I've always done since I can remember whether it was cough syrup, whether it was Decongestants, whether it was all these pharmaceuticals that are readily available in high doses, mind you in the US. I was just very accustomed of grabbing and going and grabbing and going just like I was picking fruit and I see a difference, right? I've been living in Europe for the last five years and I see a difference here. Everything needs a prescription, everything it's ridiculous and even vitamins come at low doses and it's just very, very regulated, very highly regulated, and to get a prescription. It's like pulling teeth. I mean, even to get antibiotics, which I needed for my strep throat, it was like pulling teeth and even then the antibiotics were very weak and for only three days. I don't know about you, but I've never heard about antibiotics for three days. It's always been at least seven to 10.

And so this is a huge difference that I've seen in the way healthcare is done in Europe and healthcare in the US. In the US it's a big business, in everywhere else it's a business as well. But I also reevaluate and reassess the medications that I am offered prescribed, or even the vaccines that I'm offered, right? So for example, here in Europe, they don't offer the chickenpox vaccine. This is why my baby has chickenpox because they don't offer it. They just don't. They stopped offering it. They never offered it apparently. So this is the situation in the US you get it at a certain time,  I think before you're a year old, here you don't, everyone gets it. So they're still in the middle ages, right? In the 15 hundreds where everyone is getting all the diseases and going through them. But at the same time I'm just kidding though and that's just a slider mark.

You can't have fun. Can you, but in any case, I look at every medication with a double edged sword, because even for something as simple as chickenpox, like I said. Advil will work one way. Tylenol works another way. Aspirin works a different way and so as a parent, especially I look at things three, four times I reevaluate, I reassess. And I look at the whole picture, the risks, the side effects, the possibilities, everything. I look at everything because that allows me to make the best decisions and many times I don't know about you, but me before, whatever the doctor gave me, I would take, I remember going on a study abroad trip to Brazil when I was in college and the doctor at the time said, oh, you need the yellow fever vaccine. You need malaria, you need this, you need that and in one day literally in like less than 15 minutes, I had like five different vaccines put into me.

I didn't think anything of it. I was 20, 21 at the time. I didn't question it. I didn't say anything. I was like, okay. Cause all I wanted to do was to go on my study abroad trip. Now I question, now I question everything. I question the medicine. I question the protocols. I question if it's necessary. I question what would the risks be? If not, what would the benefits be and do those benefits outweigh the risk. I look at everything in a more holistic way and I also look at alternatives. I look at alternatives because alternatives do help and not to say, and not to poo poo on conventional medicine. Conventional medicine is good for certain situations, but alternative medicine is also good for many other situations, and so for example I'll use depression and anxiety. I see a lot of my clients come to me and they have depression and anxiety. They also have other ailments as well, and many of them are on Prescription drugs for depression and anxiety. But within one month of doing my program, they realize that they don't need those prescriptions anymore.They realize that they can get off those prescriptions because the program has helped them alleviate or annihilate completely the anxiety and the depression. So how great is that to do a program that is all natural, supports the body versus just covering up with a pill.

To me, success in health is getting to a hundred degrees or it's not a hundred degrees getting to a hundred years of age with full health, all my faculties in place and no prescriptions, no medications and supporting my body naturally a hundred percent. That's my goal, right? It's not just to get to a hundred years of age. Anyone can do that in what capacity. Is it full health? Is it not full health? Are you able to drive? Are you able to go to the bathroom by yourself? Are you able to shower? Are you able to feed yourself? Like these are the questions that I'm looking forward to focusing on because health is such a priority for me, but then again, scrutinizing every aspect of my health, every intake, everything that I incorporate into my health, including the offered vaccines, including the offered medications, including the options. That my doctor gives me. 

Okay, what's the option? and what does this alternative medicine say? and what does the naturopath say? and what does this say? and what are my other options? I wanna see. I'm not the buffet type person. I wanna see all my options and once I have all my options and I'm able to make the best decision and going back to what this taught me, you know, this goes back to number one. I want somebody who's walk the walk, talk the talk. So if I want, let's say for example, if my next Journey is to climb Mount Everest. I'm gonna go to somebody who has experienced climbing Mount Everest, and who's done it, not just once, but maybe multiple times, but once would help, but multiple times would be awesome too, right? That experience is priceless and so having somebody go through that experience and being able to help you navigate is priceless. It really is. 

So next, the need to always ask more questions and do more research. This I touched upon a little bit more, but it's definitely there. I always need to ask more questions and to do more research. I'm just not gonna blindly take what people tell me, including doctors or including lawyers or including anyone else. Like I wanna. First, second, third, fourth opinion. My mom kind of taught me that from early on when I was a young child, we would always get a second or a third opinion and actually working in corporate, the company that I worked for, which is a fortune 100 company for any service provider that we would get services from, we would have to have a three bid.

So we would have to have three options, three bidding options to see what was the best option, not just on pricing, but also to see. You know, terms of service, customer service, who we felt better with, et cetera and so I took that to heart and I am happy to do 1, 2, 3, 4 bids, and to see what the best option is for me. Cause at the end of the day, no one cares for you as much as you care for you, right? No one cares for me as much as I care for me and the same thing goes for my family and the same thing goes for your family. 

So this is why asking more questions, getting another proposal is always good and getting that second, third opinion, you know, it doesn't hurt to get a second, third opinion, right? Your GP doesn't have all the answers, so sorry. They don't, they don't have all the answers and a lot of it is because it's not their expertise, right? They're just a general doctor. The general doctor has general information. They're not the specialists but even the specialists sometimes are out of their network. So to speak they're out of their control group. They're out of their toolbox. They're out of their Comfort zone when it comes to healing and I can't describe the many clients who I've spoken to and who've told me that their doctors have belittled them. How the doctors don't mention died in lifestyle. Their doctors don't mention alternatives and only give them this one route and that's unfair. That's unfair to people. That's unfair to families. That's unfair to people in general corralling them into one way, cuz there's more than one way to do so many things there really is. 

So another thing that alopecia has taught me it's uncovered the best version of me. It really has. I'm much more imbalanced. I'm much more level headed. I'm much more compassionate. I'm much more thoughtful. Much more considerate. I focus again on health, on every aspect. I put my myself as a priority. I see and say no a lot more. If something is not aligned with me, then I say no. If I think it's not, if it doesn't feel good, if it doesn't feel right, if it's out of integrity with me, I say, no, no and no thank you. I say, so I say no more often than not. I say no to the fake friends. I say no to the outings, appointments or things that I don't wanna do. I say no to the bad foods that don't love me back. I say no to things that hinder my health, that I know will have a direct effect. I say no to so many things in life that at the end of the day will hurt me and you might think, oh, it's just once. Oh, it's just once. But that one time, if you break the rules one time and again and again, and It'll be, you know, a spiral down effect and you'll continue to do it and you'll continue to not have integrity.

So living in integrity is huge for me. It always has been, but now living in integrity has expanded, not just in what I say I'll do, but also in how I live, also in if I teach it it's because I live it and I also preach it. Right? I also find that to be very necessary. So for example, if you're a service provider and you don't live what you preach, then you're out of integrity. So living in integrity for me is extremely of the utmost importance and it's not just following through with my word, but also my actions also how I do things and it's just how I live. So it's uncovered the best version of me, which has allowed me to expand and focus on the people who love me and on the good energy, out there and on helping more people, it's allowed me to really protect myself as well from people who, who are just take, take, take, and don't give back. So in many levels, alopecia has taught me so many different things, and this is also one of 'em uncovering the best version of me because it's allowed me to grow in enormous ways, mind, body, and spirit. And then it just helps me to continue to grow. 

Another thing that alopecia has taught me is that health is a hundred percent my responsibility and in my control, a hundred percent and I think once we start taking responsibility about our health, then we have no one to blame. Then the pity party goes away. Then the woe is me goes away. Then the questions of why is this happening to me, goes away. All of that goes away when you start taking responsibility for your life and that goes in every aspect of your life, not just in health, but this can also bleed into your relationships, this can bleed into your job and your career and your satisfaction, your happiness, et cetera. I will say that alopecia has taught me to let go of many things and become detached in a healthy way, too many people places and things. 

And to understand that there's a life cycle, just like there's a life cycle of hair, growth, hair, loss, hair rest. There's a cycle to hair. There's a cycle to the moon. There's a cycle to the day, right? Sunrise, midday, sunset, nighttime. There's a cycle in life and there's a cycle of who comes into your life, who leaves, where you live, where you don't live, how things change, how they don't change and I think that at the end of the day, once we take responsibility and we do everything in our power to learn more, to do more and to be our best version, then just like that butterfly who comes out of the cocoon, we're able to flourish. We're able to emerge with our beautiful wings. We're able to fly higher and that's a beautiful, a beautiful, beautiful takeaway that I was able to achieve. I mean, I can only tell you that I was down in the dumps. I was crying. I was breaking down all the time. Like the struggle is real when it comes to alopecia hair loss.

And I see many people online who are very vulnerable, some demonstrate that they're happy with being bald, some demonstrate and give that appearance. That they're okay. Being bald, others I've seen online that they thought they were okay. But now they're just kind of like up in the air about being okay and they're just reassessing their situation, their feelings, and their emotional in all state about that, this new drug that came out that from Eli Lilly about alopecia medicine is a new medicine, right? Coming out, supposedly to heal alopecia, it has so many side effects and so many risk and it's kind of shaken the alopecia community.

Somebody like many are wanting to get a hold of it as soon as possible. Others are like, no, thank you natural route only, others are like, oh my gosh, this is a real possibility for me. Should I get the drug? Even though I have to take it for the rest of my life, do I take this pill for the rest of my life? Just to get my hair? and to feel like I wanna feel like deep down, and this goes back to allowing yourself to heal. Sometimes I think we don't know what we don't know. Imagine so many people with alopecia and they don't know that they have an opportunity to heal. They don't know that they have the possibility to be better. They have the possibility to fully heal, to fully have their full hair growth back and regardless of whatever internet searches told me, doctors told me, that quote, unquote, there's no cure that quote. This is not possible. That quote, da, da, da. I knew deep down it was possible. I knew deep down it was possible for me.

And once I heal and once I helped heal a bunch of other people in the beginning. I was just like, Johanna, anyone can heal. Anyone can heal the desire just needs to be there. 

If you want, you can do anything. If you want, you can go to the moon. You can travel to a hundred countries. You can lose the weight. You can be happy. You can grow your hair. You can get a second and a third degree. You can college degree or, you know, educational degree. You can get the promotion. You can start a business, you can buy a house. You can do so many of what you want to do in line and that's another thing. 

The last thing that I'll mention that alopecia has taught me that I can do anything, anything and I gotta tell you before alopecia, and especially in my twenties, I was this rambunctious 20 year old, who was like, I'm on top of the world. I can do anything and I went out and I did it. If one day I wanted to go scuba diving. And I was like, yeah, I wanna go scuba diving. So what did I do? I got my license and I started checking off the boxes where to go scuba diving. Yes, I've been here. Yes, Done that. Yes, I've seen manta rays. Yes, I've done this and did that. And then guess what? It's like, I always wanna take it to the next level. This is, I see these patterns. I've always wanted to take it to the next level. So with scuba diving for example, it wasn't enough just to get the license. Now I wanted to travel around the world and see all the animals up front and close and I wanted to go to all the places where they had amazing animals and sea life. Cuz I love that. I love sea life. I love aquariums. I love animals  and so  I've been to barrier reef. I've been to Fiji and seen like these big monstrous clams that have huge lips. They'll close on top of your hand completely. Your hand is like dwarfed by the immensity of these clams.

I've swam with tiger sharks. I swam with hammerheads with no cage. Like I always take it to the next level and I always thought I could do anything I always did and I never doubted myself. If I wanted to go skydiving, I did it. If I wanted to go to some roller coaster, I did it. If I wanted to go travel somewhere, I did it. I always knew and innately knew that I could do anything, but when it came to alopecia, I was challenged. It shook my whole core and it was definitely a wake up call and it's daunting when doctors are like, Hm, sorry, you're gonna need a year of steroid shots. Sorry, you're gonna need to do this for the rest of your life. You're gonna need to take this pill. You're gonna need to take this medication and at the time I never asked the hard questions I never asked about the risks, the side effects. I never asked about the success rate. I never asked about the vicious cycles that I see in my clients. I never asked about the in depth knowledge or how this would harm me in the future and as you know, all this harms your fertility, all this harms your health and at that time in my life, that was the most Important, and it still is of course the most important thing to me, fertility and health all around.

 But at the time when you're losing hair in clumps, your hair is just the only thing you can obsess about and it was a challenge and after I overcame that challenge over three years, I knew I can do anything and now without a sheer doubt, I know I can do it. Anything, whether it's build a house by myself, you know, each wood plank or each brick, putting it together, I can do it. I can do anything, not do I want to do. Is another question. Do I want to build a house brick by brick with my own hands? No. Do I want my hair back and rebuild my health and my hair? Yes, yes, yes, yes and I choose me every day. I choose me. I choose my health. I choose my hair. I choose my happiness, those three things, health, hair, and happiness, Priceless. 

My mental health, my happiness, mental state, my happiness and mental emotions, my happiness and physical activities and the energy and being able to do the things I wanna do physically huge blessing. All of it is a huge blessing and we can't take it for granted we can't.

In the last note that I wanna give you, is that you shouldn't settle. If there's anything that alopecia taught me, COVID also taught me, is that we shouldn't settle. So think about it. How do you want the next 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 years of your life to look like, do you wanna keep losing your hair? Do you want to keep struggling in the same areas that you're struggling in or do you want to make the changes needed so that you can see success.

Because you have one line and I don't know about you, but for me, I'm not settling anymore. I'm not settling for mediocre medical people. I'm not settling for mediocre responses or customer service. I'm not settling for not being happy. Yes, I am the one who creates my own happiness and happiness comes from me and I have control of that. But at the same time, there's so much other things and factors that come into happiness. It's your environment. It's the people. It's, you know, the emotional ties. It’s the boundaries there's so many things that go into it. So I'm not settling. I'm not settling for the internet searches that say no, that there's no cure. I'm not settling for the doctors that say, oh, these are your only options. I'm not settling for any of that. My health, my hair and my happiness are the utmost importance to me and it should be for you too. 

And I hope it is because the only person who can take control of their health hair and their happiness is you, you cannot give your power away to a doctor. You cannot give your power away to some new medication that came out, empower yourself, take back control of your hair. Take back control of your happiness and your health. If you want. We'll do that again. If you want to be balls, that's great. Embrace it, Live your best life. I support you. If you want your hair growth, I support you. It just all depends what you want. Some people want to heal. Others do not want to heal. And then there's another portion of people who don't even know that they can heal because they don't believe this is a problem because when you're not giving the opportunity to even believe that it is Possible then that stagnates you and that holds you back from your best self that holds you back from what's possible.

So for example, how did we even understand or even think, or even like dream about going to the moon? How did Buzz Aldrich think about going to the moon and being the first man to walk the moon in 1969? How did this even happen? Cause he dreamt about it. He trained, he planned and there was a country and a program and NASA that supported him and other astronauts as well and they thought it was possible. They conceived the idea they didn't let limit themselves and they made it happen. And now it seems like everyone's going to the moon, even tourists. Right. Whereas before it was just like going to the moon, imagine if we can go to the moon, you can heal your alopecia. That's all I gotta say. 

If you, if we can go to the moon and you can pay, I don't know how much it is and you can pay to go be a tourist on the moon. You can heal your alopecia naturally, a hundred percent. You don't need a doctor or an internet search to tell you otherwise you really don't. That'll probably be like, like  the last nugget of wisdom that alopecia taught me is to empower myself to not settle to question authorities, to question medical professionals, to question their, their agenda, because doctors have an agenda as well. They're given kickbacks, they're given extra bonuses for prescribing certain drugs for getting so many people to comply with this or that, or to try this new drug or to get the vaccine.

So I question a lot. I empower myself, I get the research and ultimately I believe. I believe everything is possible for me and I believe everything is possible for you, and I believe that if I can heal, if my clients can heal, you can heal, done. You can heal. 

The last question is, do you want to heal? And only you can answer that and I'll leave you there.

I'll leave you there with that thought because alopecia has taught me so much. Let me just go ahead and recap. It's taught me how to scrutinize health professionals. It's taught me that whatever the challenge I can do it and overcome it a hundred percent. It's also taught me that health is a hundred percent my responsibility and in my control the same goes for my happiness. It's also taught me that healthcare is a business and that not all pharmaceuticals are beneficial or even work for me or are even in my best interest. It's taught me to always ask more questions and to do more research. It's helped me uncover the best version of me, allowing me to grab my wings and fly and thrive to be that butterfly that was in a cocoon and to emerge into a better version of myself.

It's taught me to make my health a priority, almost like a retirement savings account, but even more important because what's the point of getting to an old age with money when you don't have your health, think about that. A lot of people put so much emphasis on retirement, but if you don't have your health, you don't have anything. Like there's no point in, in being retired in some nursing home, wallowing away. That's not what I want for me. I want my health, a hundred percent. I wanna be running and swimming and jumping and doing Pilates by the time I'm 90 and a hundred years old. I really do. I wanna be doing handstands at that age.

Lastly, it's taught me to empower myself. It's taught me that I can heal. It's taught me that you can heal. It's shown me that my clients can heal regardless of the type of alopecia they have. It's taught me that when we focus on supporting ourselves and helping ourselves more naturally, that all the options are there for us we just need to choose. We can choose Happiness. We can choose hair growth. We can choose health. We can choose all these things. It's just desire and taking action. That's all it is, desire and taking action. It's also taught me that walking the walk, talking the talk has a lot more value than just textbooks.

And lastly, it's also taught me not to settle in anything in any area of life. Not to settle. I refuse to settle. Whether it's a bad meal that I've been serve and I don't like it. I bought something the other day and I asked if it had cinnamon in it and the guy at the store is like, yeah. Yeah, because clearly he just wanted to sell it. I took a buy out of it. I had no cinnamon. I threw it away. Like, I'm not gonna settle. I want, I want what I want. I know what I want and I go for it. 

And I hope you do the same team too. I hope you choose health. I hope you choose hair and you choose not to settle. We have one life. Make it the best ever. If you want your hair, you can have it. I'm here to help.

Take care and I'll see you next time on the alopecia angel podcast. Bye. 

Thank you for listening to the alopecia angel podcast, a positive light in healing alopecia. You can do this and we can help. Spread the word that reversing alopecia is possible by telling your friends and family.