Body Belief- 3 Steps to Heal and Thrive [Podcast]
“It all starts with living in your body again, with you shifting from a place of hostility to one of compassion.
Your body and all the cells in it hears everything your brain is saying.” -Aimee Raupp
Aimee Raupp and I agree- fertility isn’t an on/off switch. It’s a spectrum. You might have lower fertility at certain times in your life, but it’s improvable. It’s changeable. It’s not broken. You can heal. While there are many factors at play, we know that your thoughts not only impact your behavior, neuroscience demonstrates that our thoughts actually affect our neurochemistry. So, what we think can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. In her latest book, Body Belief, Aimee outlines 3 things you must do to heal and much, much more. Listen to today’s podcast (or read the transcript) as we discuss:
- Becoming wellness-focused vs. illness-focused
- Mindsets that keep us from thriving and healing our bodies
- Genetics vs. epigenetics
- Her trick to being in the moment and grounded
All PCOS Diva podcasts are available on 
Resources mentioned in the podcast:
- Previous podcast with Aimee Raupp- The PCOS Pregnancy Secret-Being Fertility Focused
- Body Belief Preorder Bonus
Author, acupuncturist, and herbalist Aimee Raupp is a women’s health and fertility expert. Her mission is to educate and inspire women, improve their health, celebrate their beauty, prevent disease as well as increase their fertility. Aimee helps her clients reconnect to the presence of their optimal health. Aimee is the author of Chill Out And Get Healthy (Penguin, 2009) and Yes, You Can Get Pregnant: The Diet That Will Improve Your Fertility Now & Into Your 40’s (Self Published, 2012). Aimee’s third book, Yes, You Can Get Pregnant: How to Improve Your Fertility Now & Into Your 40s (Demos Health, June 2014), which was endorsed by Deepak Chopra, combines her clinical expertise and personal experience helping scores of women—many of whom have been told they had poor fertility outlooks—to get pregnant, stay pregnant, and have healthy babies. In alignment with the belief that everything women ingest should be fertility friendly and of the highest quality, organic, natural ingredients, Aimee developed her own skincare line, Aimee Raupp Beauty ( AimeeRauppBeauty.com). Aimee is in private practice in Manhattan, the Hamptons and Nyack, NY. She is licensed by the State of New York to practice acupuncture and traditional Chinese herbology, and is certified by the National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine. Aimee offers an online fertility coaching program– both private and group sessions are available.
For additional information about Aimee, please visit YesICanGetPregnant.com, AimeeRauppBeauty.com and AimeeRaupp.com.
Full Transcript:
Amy Medling: So, today I am so happy to welcome back Aimee Raupp. She is a renowned women’s health and wellness expert and author, and she’s a licensed acupuncturist and herbalist in private practice in New York, and she holds an M.S. in Traditional Oriental Medicine. And welcome back to the PCOS Diva Podcast, Amy.
Aimee Raupp: Aw, I’m so happy to be here, Amy.
Amy Medling: Well, I had you on a while back, when we were talking about your book, “Yes, You Can Get Pregnant.”
Aimee Raupp: And I had a newborn, sleeping in the crib during our entire-
Amy Medling: Yes!
Aimee Raupp: Recording of the podcast. I sat out in the hallway outside his bedroom. I remember. Yes, and we were talking about “Yes, You Can Get Pregnant.” That’s-
Amy Medling: Now how old is he?
Aimee Raupp: Now he’s two and a half. So yeah.
Amy Medling: Two? Yeah, so now you gotta-
Aimee Raupp: So probably two years ago. Yeah, exactly.
Amy Medling: But something that you said, and about mindset in that book has really stuck with me, and I bring it up often in podcasts.
Aimee Raupp: Thank you.
Amy Medling: And when I’m on people’s podcasts talking about fertility, I refer to this statement about how you have to shift your fertility mindset from being infertile, which I think a lot of women with PCOS, they’re told by their doctor, I know I was one of them, they would never have kids. So you’re in this, this place of “I’m infertile.” And tell us how you like to just kind of move people out of that belief, because we’re going to be talking about beliefs today.
Aimee Raupp: Yes. Well, a big thing to me is that, we say fertility isn’t an on/off switch. You’re on a spectrum. So you might lower fertility at certain times in your life, right? But it’s improvable. It’s changeable. It’s not broken. You know? It’s not on or off. And so, to begin to see that your fertility is an extension of your health, that they are not separate. So if you can heal from, say, diabetes and get off your diabetes medication or lower your cholesterol or heart disease, why can’t you improve and shift your fertility? It’s the same thing. So, it’s just about changing your health, improving your health, and then from there beginning to see improvements like in your menstrual cycle, right. With PCOS, we see a more efficient ovulation and the cycle gets a little shorter, or that type of thing.
And so to start to celebrate those small victories and see that your fertility is in there and it’s, it’s trying to come back to life, if you will. And that you have the power to shift that. But the other piece of it is, is that if you’re mentally walking around all day long saying to yourself, “I’m infertile, I’m infertile, I’m infertile,” that hurts your heart, A. That’s like so abusive and I just, it makes my heart hurt to think that someone’s walking around having those thoughts. But also, there’s a lot of neuroscience now that shows us that our thoughts actually affect our neurochemistry, which can affect our physiology and affect our cells on every level. So what we think can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
And also your thoughts impact your behavior, which impacts your health. So if you’re walking around saying “I’m infertile, I’m infertile, I’m infertile,” then you, you’re not going to listen to the recommendations that you or I make. You know, it’s just kind of like, oh it’s hopeless, it’s pointless-
Amy Medling: Yes.
Aimee Raupp: Oh well. And so to begin to just … And I think, you can do that within a community. You can see other women that were in your shoes once, and that, like you’re a perfect example. Like me getting pregnant at forty’s a perfect example of like, “Oh well Amy and Aimee did it, so I could do it, too.” And just, you know, just like they shifted their fertility, you can too. So that there’s still this hope, and again that it’s not off forever. You’re not going to stay, on this less fertile side of the spectrum forever. There’s a lot you can do to shift into more flourishing fertility, if you will.
Amy Medling: Yeah. I mean, I love thinking about it as on the spectrum. You know, you might be sort of less on some of the lower-
Aimee Raupp: Yeah, yeah!
Amy Medling: You can move.
Aimee Raupp: Absolutely.
Amy Medling: There’s mobility. And you move up and down the scale.
Aimee Raupp: A hundred percent.
Amy Medling: It does give you so much hope and today I wanted to have you back on to talk about your fantastic new book-
Aimee Raupp: Aw, thank you.
Amy Medling: “Body Belief.” I actually read it last night while I was waiting for my son at basketball practice, like in the parking lot.
Aimee Raupp: Aw.
Amy Medling: On my laptop. But it’s really a beautiful book.
Aimee Raupp: Aw, thank you.
Amy Medling: So aligned with what I try to teach women with PCOS. You know, I frame it as thinking like a Diva.
Aimee Raupp: Yes.
Amy Medling: You’re framing it as body belief. In your book, you’re affirmative statement that you mentioned in the book is, “I have the power to change my beliefs and radically change my health.” And you talk about in order to heal and thrive, you have to do three things.
Aimee Raupp: Yeah.
Amy Medling: And I would love for you to kind of talk about reconnect, renew, and reawaken.
Aimee Raupp: Yeah, well first thank you. I’m really proud of this piece. And it comes from so many years … You know, it’s almost 15 years now that I’ve been in clinical practice with women, and obviously the fertility. Writing “Yes, You Can Get Pregnant” really exposed me to writing this book. It definitely led me in that direction, but what I see when I’m working with clients, and I’m sure you see the same thing is … If I just throw at them all of this … I need you to take this supplement and do this with your diet, and I want you to meditate twice a day and exercise and non-toxic bath and beauty products, like if we throw all that at them, a lot of people will do it and will follow it, but I don’t think they understand at the core, the why behind it.
I mean, they might understand intellectually, but the why are they doing it. I always say, I want you to do the things I tell you to do because you feel better, not because I have to do this because Aimee says it’ll help me get pregnant, right? And so, I created this three-part, this three-step process, if you will, that I think has to go in order.
So, one thing that I notice with a lot of the women I work with and the clients in my clinic is, when they first come to me, they’re just not even connected to their bodies, right? To their emotional state, their physical state, and how that’s all interacting and affecting their health. And so, to me, if we really want to radically change our health, whether it’s regulating hormones or healing an autoimmune disease, the first major step is we have to learn to reconnect to ourselves.
And so by that I mean it’s about rekindling that relationship you have with yourself. Hopefully it’s rekindling. Some people never really had a relationship with themselves to begin with. But to become more of your friend again, right? Like have a compassionate, kind, loving relationship with yourself and start to understand how you interact in the world, how you interact in the privacy of your own mind, and how when you’re not connected … I use an example in the book of being disconnected is at lunchtime having a headache, and not realizing that the headache is because you had a cup of coffee on an empty stomach and you haven’t eaten since you woke up this morning, you know?
And once … Or, jaw tension and not realizing it’s because you went to bed with a lot of stress on your mind and you clenched your jaw all night, or you’re not expressing your emotions about some type of situation. Or that when you eat a certain food you get diarrhea or constipation. You know, there’s like a disconnect that’s happening, and so when someone’s reconnected, they’re in their bodies, they feel, they listen to the cues from their bodies and can connect the dots and say, “Oh right, I have a headache because maybe I didn’t drink enough water today.” Or “I didn’t, you know, I missed protein at breakfast.” Or whatever that is, but until we’re truly reconnected, I don’t think that all of the lifestyle and all of the diet recommendations that we make can we take on and really feel how they’re nourishing and shifting us in the right way so that you adopt these changes from a space of “I feel better” versus “I have to do this to heal.”
Amy Medling: Yeah.
Aimee Raupp: Two really different approaches, right? So the first step of the body belief process is to reconnect to yourself. And I talk a lot about it in the book and give some tips and strategies and tools on how to do that. I think the easiest thing to do is just to begin to listen and hear the cues from your body, right? Taking enough time to slow down and just listen. And that doesn’t even mean you have to meditate.
I give an example in the book, or when I’m in the clinic and maybe I’m running behind schedule and I start to think about the time and I’m going to be late for my next patient, versus I’m right here in the room with my patient, feeling their pulse as being present. I have this thing I say to myself. I say “Aimee, where are you?” And it’s just my instant reconnect. It just brings me right back in of like, right. I’m here with Amy, having this conversation, versus fifteen minutes down the road that I have to hustle and get this patient out to get the next one in. It’s simple as that, just like where are you, or just sitting and taking a couple deep breaths and tuning into your body. How am I feeling right now? That’s just, this level of connection it’s so important.
Amy Medling: Yeah. And I was just going to say that that was like an “aha” for me. I tend to be very much like in my head, and I’m an Ayurvedic. I’m a Vata type so I’m very much, you know, out here and need grounding. And I thought that that was such a fabulous grounding statement-
Aimee Raupp: Yeah.
Amy Medling: To say to yourself-
Aimee Raupp: Grounds me.
Amy Medling: Yes, yes. I am going to put that in my toolbox.
Aimee Raupp: I love it. It’s great. I mean, I’ve been doing it for years too, where it’s not like, I’m not aggressively saying. I’m not like “Amy, where are you?” It’s like, “Amy, hello? Hello? Come back.” You know? And it is. It’s getting me out of my head and back into my heart, right? And then that brings us to the next step, which is when you begin to reconnect and you form that kinder, more compassionate relationship with yourself, or you just even begin to live in your body more versus just in your head, you start to hear the conversation you’re having in the privacy of your own mind. And so, step number two in the Body Belief process is Renew. And by renew I mean renewing your beliefs about your body.
And so just like we were saying about the fertility being on a spectrum, I always say are you wellness-focused or illness-focused? And so if we’re walking around all day, disconnected from ourselves, having a nasty conversation with ourselves in the privacy of our own mind … We could use the infertile thing as an example. “I’m infertile, you know, I suck. I’m never going to get pregnant. Everything sucks. I’m broken.” That doesn’t really set the stage for radical healing. It just doesn’t. And it doesn’t set the stage for you to have the desire to nurture and nourish yourself because you don’t like yourself. You’re not being very kind to yourself. So, you don’t think you deserve it, right?
So you have to reconnect so then to begin to renew the beliefs. And again, the renewal comes from you being connected enough to begin to hear the conversation that you’re having in the privacy of your own mind. In the book, I have a tool I call “The ART of Shifting Your Beliefs.” It’s a three-step process. You acknowledge the belief. So I’m not saying the belief is bad or it’s wrong or it has to go away and you have to replace it with all these positive affirmations, because I also think unless you really believe you’re worthy of these positive affirmations, they’re not going to stick, right? They’re just kind of superficial. So acknowledge, witness that belief and then ask yourself the “R” in the “ART of Shifting Your Beliefs” is Reforming that belief. So it’s almost like this question of how could I say it better? So, instead of saying “I’m infertile, I’m infertile, I’m infertile,” it’s like, “Alright I’m in a low fertility state right now, but there are a lot of women that were where I am right now, and their fertility improved, so I guess mine could improve.”
Even just if you don’t fully believe it, but I think it’s important to shift the belief from one that’s really, I don’t think, very nice. It’s like a bullyish type of belief you’re beating yourself up with, to one that just feels a little softer, a little kinder, a little more believable, you know?
Amy Medling: I think something that helps me make that shift is saying “What if?”
Aimee Raupp: Yeah.
Amy Medling: If it’s not an affirmative, but it opens up possibilities.
Aimee Raupp: That’s it, right. So it’s like “Oh, I guess, yeah, what if? That could work, you know? So, okay.” And I encourage you to write them down, and then you begin to, you know, the “T” in the ART of Shifting Your Beliefs is transform. So you go from acknowledging it to reforming it in a way that’s like “How can I say it better?” Be open to the possibility of change. And then you allow for that transformation.
So until we A) reconnect, and B) begin to renew our beliefs about our body, can we really step into the reawakening process of our health? Which, then is a diet and lifestyle shifts. And so, one of my favorite spiritual teachers, Abraham Hicks … She always says, “If you eat something and feel bad about it, it’s a lot worse for you than if you eat something and feel good about it.” It’s almost … I think about that when say, I say, you can’t have gluten or dairy. I’d rather a woman say “Oh, I feel so much better off of gluten and dairy” versus “I can’t have gluten and dairy because Aimee said that I can’t have it.” And then you feel deprived, and then you feel angry you can’t have it, and then rebel and have it. And then you beat yourself up for having it. So it’s this vicious cycle versus once in a while, sure I’ll have a slice of pizza and I just love and cherish every bite. Our beliefs play a real significant role.
Another thing Abraham says that I mention in the book too was, “A belief is just a thought you keep thinking.” You believe it into your truth and your reality. It is not a truth. It’s just your truth. And then you believe it so much that you look for ways to support it in your outer world. You surround yourself with people that also believe that belief. And so it becomes a truth, yeah.
Amy Medling: So I’ve been listening to “The Untethered Soul.”
Aimee Raupp: Oh yeah.
Amy Medling: And there, I had … I know, it’s such a good book. I had a big “aha” that you are not your thoughts. You are the observer of your thoughts. And it’s kind of the same thing, all that chatter that’s going off in your brain that you are not enough. That isn’t true. I mean, you just are observing that and you know, you have the power to reframe it.
Aimee Raupp: Well that’s it. And it takes time. And it’s training. And I don’t think it’s ever going to be something we perfect. We’re always going to have our moments. It’s just like if you could be in a state of being kind to yourself more than a state than you’re not, you will see some radical changes in your life and in your health. And your reality is your perception, right? So the thoughts you think shift, or affect that perception. And so as you begin to shift those, you probably will begin to see the possibilities that like, other women improved their fertility, so I could too. Other women have healed their PCOS, I could too, right? Verus “Oh my god, everybody has it. It’s like the most common fertility disorder. PCOS, you know my ovaries are never going to work.” You know, it’s like, no?! But you have to A) hear the conversation, so you have to connect to your body and live in your body and then, B) begin to just say to yourself, really in a loving way, could I say it better?
I said it in my first book, “Chill Out and Get Healthy,” I said if you wouldn’t talk to your best friend that way, you shouldn’t talk to yourself that way. A lot of the things we say to ourselves, we would never say out loud to somebody. We’re really tough on ourselves. So we reconnect, then we renew our beliefs, then we step into that true, reawakening process, which is where we embrace the lifestyle shifts. But I do think that the reconnect and the renew have to come first for us to truly embrace that process, and then allow for the healing to take place. And then one thing I mentioned earlier, and I’ll say it again, because it’s that important is that our beliefs not only impact our behavior, which impacts our health, but they shift our neurochemistry and shift our physiology, which affect our cells. It really is important to begin to say, or to say some nicer things to yourself. Shift that conversation and begin to believe in your body again. And, I don’t know, appreciate it. Live in it. Love it. Honor it. Cherish it. Nourish it.
Until we do that, and then I think the lifestyle just falls into place, because then all of a sudden, we’re living in a connected state and we do feel better. And we see it and it becomes easier.
Amy Medling: You know, I think what you’re talking about was my journey and my path. I remember being so disconnected from my body and the way food made me feel that I needed the glucometer-
Aimee Raupp: Yeah.
Amy Medling: To tell me what food was doing.
Aimee Raupp: Right, right.
Amy Medling: And I also had to allow in my life, I call them mindful indulgences, because that vicious cycle. I was a Weight Watcher.
Aimee Raupp: Yeah.
Amy Medling: So I would blow the points and then binge, because I would start all over again on Monday. And I would deny, deny, deny myself all of these pleasurable things.
Aimee Raupp: I know.
Amy Medling: So, I love that reconnect, renew, reawaken and the way that you frame that. It’s, and how you blow that out in the book, it’s really impactful.
Aimee Raupp: Thank you.
Amy Medling: So I want you to talk to us about, sort of the mindsets that keep us from thriving and having, and healing our bodies. Let’s … Could you sort of go …. You have four of them?
Aimee Raupp: Yeah, so again, I collected this from years of working with people and I think the number one mindset which we’ve already touched upon, in a sense is I am my illness. I encourage my readers in the book to think about how they introduce themselves into the world, or how they talk about their health. Is it the first thing you say? Like, “Hi, I’m Aimee. I have PCOS.” Or you weave it in there somewhere. Or has your infertility become a part of your identity? And I say that with a real loving heart, because it’s hard not to, and I understand that. But again, it’s this question of are you illness-focused or wellness-focused? So to shift it from “Hi, I have X wrong with me” to “I’m dealing with some health challenges but I’m working through them and I’m open to the possibility of things getting better. I know there were other people in my shoes and they’ve shifted their health, and I can too.”
And also that your whole life isn’t revolving around this one thing. That you’re finding, you’re allowing your joy to come up and out again, right? And enjoying life and not denying yourself pleasures. When we walk around with this mindset “I am my illness” it again, shifts your whole perception, your whole world, and your belief. You know, the more you believe that, the more you have that thought, that you’re reminding your cells every day to maintain that state of illness, versus their state of wellness.
Another big one is “it’s my genetics.”
Amy Medling: Which is key for PCOS, right? I mean, 40% of women who have it have a mother that has it.
Aimee Raupp: But again, they say only 5% of diseases are heritable, right? So, it’s your epigenetics, right?
Amy Medling: Right.
Aimee Raupp: And I talk about that a lot in the book, and I’m sure you talk about this all the time as well. You might have a predisposition. Your mom might have had it so, you have a predisposition but how you live your life directly impacts whether those genes turn on or turn off. And so, you have a lot more power over your genetics than you think.
Amy Medling: Yeah, then that’s so key.
Aimee Raupp: And that’s it. So it’s like, Mom had PCOS, and maybe Mom learned how to manage it, and you’re now going to learn those tools from her, right? Or Mom didn’t manage it very well, and she’s also diabetic and all of these things. You could do it differently. So it’s how you live your life, which directly impacts those genes. I basically say like, no, that can’t be your excuse anymore. No, it’s not your genetics. It’s called epigenetics and you have a lot of power over that, and science supports that.
Amy Medling: I think it’s moving away from a victim mentality.
Aimee Raupp: It is, it is.
Amy Medling: That’s what I talk about.
Aimee Raupp: And that it’s just like, it’s a victim and I call it the “eff it” attitude, like as in F-U-C-K. Because why? Why would I do anything different? It’s in my genes, I’m screwed anyway, I’m going to get it. So, I’ll just not listen to how my blood sugar is all over the place and my body feels all out of whack, or my body’s speaking to me. So it is. It’s taking back the power and giving up that victim mentality.
Amy Medling: And then you say nobody feels that good.
Aimee Raupp: Yeah.
Amy Medling: It gets really interesting.
Aimee Raupp: I think this is like a pretty common one that we don’t realize. You can hear it in conversations all the time where you’re like “Oh” … Even I had this bad cold last week, and you can still hear it in my voice a little bit but people would be like “Everybody’s getting sick,” like everyone’s sick right now. And it’s just kind of this mentality of like “Yeah, nobody’s feeling good right now,” and this sense that we take that as being okay. Where it’s like, oh this is good enough. You know, like 70 or 80% of my optimal health is good enough. And I don’t think it’s okay to accept that. Sure, we all have moments, like I got a cold, right? And I’m still recovering, but I know what my optimal health feels like, and I know how to treat my body so, to get back there and to not just accept this as the norm, or that it’s okay. And I say it in the book, too. I think most of us walk around at 70 to 80% our capacity when we really could be at like 95 or 100. It actually does exist.
Amy Medling: So, I think a lot of that ties into feeling like you deserve it, that you’re worth it and you deserve it. And I think that also ties into your last sort of mindset that you talk about in the book.
Aimee Raupp: Yeah.
Amy Medling: Go ahead.
Aimee Raupp: Kind of the same, just like I feel bad feeling good, right? So, I do. I think they overlap a lot, but I think the root of it is worthiness issues. I see myself in that statement sometimes. When I’m in the clinic and it’s like that conversation of “Everybody’s getting sick, everybody’s getting sick,” and I’m just sitting there like “Oh well yeah, I really never get colds.” But I feel bad about that because I don’t want to rub it in. I don’t want to say, “Oh well I’m so healthy and you’re not.” Right? That doesn’t feel good in our society. Or it’s kind of frowned upon, to be obnoxious about “I feel so good all the time.” People find it annoying. So we curb it a little bit. But I agree, it’s a worthiness shift. Just like well I have it, and you can have it, too. I’m deserving of it and so are you. So that we can begin to change that conversation of “This is good enough,” or “I feel bad feeling good because nobody else feels this good.” And no, you deserve it. You deserve it. You’re worthy of it.
Amy Medling: So I want to … I want you to tell us more about what is in the book-
Aimee Raupp: Okay.
Amy Medling: Because it’s more than just this mindset piece, but before you do that, I just, can I read a couple quotes from your book…
Aimee Raupp: Sure.
Amy Medling: That really jumped out at me and I think they’re great.
You say, “It all starts with living in your body again, with you shifting from a place of hostility to one of compassion. Your body and all the cells in it hears everything your brain is saying.”
Aimee Raupp: Yes. That’s like my favorite statement from the book. Your body hears everything your brain says. Period. And I, to me that’s the takeaway. There is so much in the book, and there’s a lot of tangible, actionable items in the book, but that to me is the takeaway, and if I could just get, and you too, right? I think it’s the core of our mission. If we could just get people to love and adore themselves again, the way they are worthy of, you know? And you know that little bully will exist. It exists for all of us. It’s there, and I think sometimes it’s a good driving force, but I want the nice guy in there too who’s sticking up for you more often than not.
Amy Medling: And this quote follows right along with it. And your book is really about healing autoimmunity, but I believe that there is an autoimmune component to PCOS.
Aimee Raupp: Oh, for certain. I believe it, too. So that’s also … “Body Belief” comes from writing “Yes, You Can Get Pregnant” and really the discovery that I think all of this unexplained infertility, and then the other two most common things are PCOS and endometriosis-
Amy Medling: And Hashimoto’s.
Aimee Raupp: And Hashimoto’s. We’re dealing with, which, right, I’m sure you find in your patients, before … You’re the one who tells your patients to get their antibodies checked more than their doctors are. All of this, these fertility challenges are undiagnosed or undertreated, mistreated autoimmune conditions. So, I agree. And when I began to see that and the plan laid out in “Yes, You Can Get Pregnant,” I think is a really good first step in beginning to heal the body and optimize fertility because it’s helping heal autoimmunity, and regulate that cellular hostility, if you will. But in “Body Belief” I get a little deeper on the diet, especially. I think I go a little deeper for certain. But this thing, too, in Chinese Medicine we say … Autoimmunity is the body attacking itself, right? On a cellular level. And when it comes to PCOS, some things to think about is do we have antibodies to our ovaries? Potentially, which could be one thing that’s going on. Or even, from an insulin perspective, is there some antibodies to cells in the pancreas, throwing that whole game off.
So there’s that level, but then the other level is, if the body’s attacking itself on a cellular level, where are you attacking yourself on an emotional level? And so that’s why I really dive deep into the reconnection and the renewing of our beliefs in the book because I think to truly heal, we have to not just regulate the immune system, right? And kind of quell autoimmunity, but we have to regulate the emotional system too and quell those harsh toxic attacks that we’re putting ourselves through every day.
Amy Medling: Yeah, so I really want listeners who are struggling with their PCOS, may have thyroid issues, inflammation due to endometriosis, Celiac-
Aimee Raupp: Well that’s it. They say that only 5% of people that actually have Celiac are diagnosed. 5%.
Amy Medling: Yeah.
Aimee Raupp: The incidence of autoimmune disease has tripled in the last forty years, affecting women 75% more than men. And that’s because of our hormonal profiles, I’m positive, and all the endocrine-disrupting chemicals in our environment, right? Which are impacting our hormones, and then throws everything off. But yet, it’s serious. Autoimmune diseases are everywhere and it’s anything you can think of, from … Most thyroid diseases are actually misdiagnosed and they’re Hashimoto’s-
Amy Medling: Yeah, right.
Aimee Raupp: People with hypo actually have Hashi’s. But Celiac, endo, PCOS, and then any colitis, Crohn’s-
Amy Medling: Right, right.
Aimee Raupp: And I think some would argue IBS is kind of setting the stage, because, and I don’t know how much we can get into this with timing, but it all starts in the gut, right? And so 80% of our immune system is in our gut. But not everybody that has a leaky gut, or if we get into that has GI symptoms. They might just have other random autoimmune-like symptoms. Skin issues, right? Anxiety, depression, brain fog, hormonal disorders, habitual miscarriages, right? All of these things can lead us to start to believe that there’s some autoimmunity going on in the body. And so we really have to go in and heal from the inside out, and that’s on the cellular level, and I think on an emotional level, too.
Amy Medling: Yeah. And you know, your book really lays out a great plan for doing it all. And especially the diet and lifestyle piece as well.
Aimee Raupp: Yeah.
Amy Medling: But I really want, before we go, I want to share this last quote from your book and I want people to really listen to it and assimilate what you’re saying here. You say, “Autoimmunity is a cellular attack against the self. It’s the body’s attempt to destroy and eradicate other parts of your body. It’s hostile and angry. Love and kindness is the antidote. Belief in your body is key. Cheering yourself and your cells on is imperative. Finding peace with where you are and feeling worthy of all you desire is where transformation can take place.”
Aimee Raupp: Yeah. I think so.
Amy Medling: Yeah. So I’m just so thrilled that you came on, Aimee-
Aimee Raupp: Aw, thank you so much. Me too.
Amy Medling: Shared your wisdom. You know, for those listening that your message is really resonating with them, which I’m sure there’s a lot of ladies shaking their head right now. Can you tell us more about where you can get your book? I know you have some book bonuses too, for-
Aimee Raupp: Yeah, so the book is coming out in mid-March, and you can get it anywhere books are sold, as far as I know. You know, Amazon, Barnes & Noble for certain. And we are doing a Body Belief Jumpstart to all those who pre-order the book. If you’re listening to this before the book comes out. But we’re also going to keep those bonuses live and active for some time after the book comes out, probably through the end of March. And it’s a Body Belief Jumpstart, so it’s a one-day digital workshop. It’s about five hours of content from me. Everything from cooking demonstrations to some discussions on beliefs, how to shift our beliefs. We have like a health intention and desire workshop. There’s meditation, there’s yoga, there’s Qi gong. So there’s a real lot of stuff and like I said, it’s about five hours of content and we’re giving it away absolutely for free. I mean, we would sell this course, probably, for hundred-some odd dollars. And so it’s free for anybody who pre-orders the book before it comes out, or even through that first month of it being out, we’re going to have it up.
And it’s … You can go to AimeeRaupp.com/bookgift.
Amy Medling: Okay, and we’ll definitely put that link in the show notes.
Aimee Raupp: Perfect.
Amy Medling: So, well, I’ll have to have you on before your son turns five, okay?
Aimee Raupp: Yes, okay. I like that, I like that Amy. I like that.
Amy Medling: And we’ll talk more about gut health because-
Aimee Raupp: Yes.
Amy Medling: We weren’t able to touch upon that this time. But all of that info’s in your book, so-
Aimee Raupp: Yeah.
Amy Medling: So, thank you for coming on.
Aimee Raupp: Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.
Amy Medling: And thank you everyone for listening.
