Speaker 1: 1:26

Okay, welcome to the show everybody. This is the Next Level Human Podcast. I'm your host, dr JA Tita. I have with me a new friend, someone I just met online on Instagram, as you all know. Typically, we're all doing our thing. It is the social media world now and Melissa and I got together we're chatting a little bit about her story and we agreed that she should come on and tell her story and tell about some of the tools that she's discovered, and this is Melissa Bologna.

Speaker 2: 1:54

Yeah, yes, Melissa Bologna.

Speaker 1: 1:56

Yeah, so, and are you Italian?

Speaker 2: 1:59

I'm actually South American, okay.

Speaker 1: 2:01

Interesting Because I'm like is that an Italian name?

Speaker 2: 2:04

Yeah, Whenever I'm in a rush to spell my last name, I'm like Bologna, no G, and it's that no G that makes it not Italian.

Speaker 1: 2:12

Okay, it's that. No G, that makes it not Italian. Yeah, so I am Italian, so I was looking for a fellow Italian, but South America is perfect.

Speaker 2: 2:20

Does it make you feel better that my favorite food is chicken parmesan?

Speaker 1: 2:24

Much better, although you want to know, melissa, you want to know it's interesting that food. You probably know this, but you know a lot of people don't know this that chicken Parmesan you cannot find in Italy. It's actually an American food.

Speaker 2: 2:36

I did know that.

Speaker 1: 2:37

Yeah, that's funny. So it's like it's funny. I go to you. Try to order those of you who haven't been to Italy. You try to order chicken Parm you're not going to get it. You might get eggplant Par, but you're not going to get chicken farm. Same with fettuccine Alfredo they don't have that either. Listen, I feel like people are already learning a lot. Yeah, they're already learning a lot. All right, so here's the thing I wanted to have Melissa on everyone, because she's been through her own healing journey and here's the thing that me and her were talking about just before. We popped on One of the things that I think is very important as we all sort of go on our health and healing journeys and, by the way, this is the first time Melissa and I have met in person, so you're kind of getting us, you know, sort of meeting each other.

Speaker 1: 3:17

We've never had a conversation before. We're just going to dialogue about this story, but so I'm educating her a little bit on sort of my philosophy. She's going to be educating all of us on her philosophy. But one of the things about me, melissa, that is, I think, core to the next level human philosophy is that one of my pet peeves in this world of functional medicine and health is that we do tend to get in this sort of protocol, cookbook, recipe type of medicine.

Speaker 1: 3:43

And what I love is hearing people's individual journeys. Now, obviously, when you go through your individual journey, you find certain tools and certain things that work for you, because you went through some tough stuff which we're going to get into and those tools certainly can also work for many other people who are going through similar things. And so I want to really hear I'm most interested about you know, sort of Melissa's healer's journey or hero's journey. How did you get to where you got? To Tell us about what you went through. This idea of your pain is your path to purpose kind of thing, and I'm just, you know, interested in your story and what you're all about.

Speaker 2: 4:27

Damn. Well, you're interviewing me at a day where I know the most I've ever known, which I guess makes sense because today I'm the oldest I've ever been. But, um, if you interviewed me a year ago I would have you know. I just feel like every year I just have so much more to say because I'm discovering so much more, because healing is not linear and there's discoveries and we're all forever healing. So let's take it back to little Melissa, growing up in Rumson, new Jersey.

Speaker 2: 4:59

I wouldn't say I had the easiest childhood, but I was always a happy kid. So there you go. So when I was little I would have these chronic digestive issues and no one knew what was wrong with me. And actually chronic digestive issues as a kid is actually linked to, you know, a little bit turbulent childhood, like my dad wasn't always around and there was drama with him and my mom, the whole shebang. And I, you know I've only recognized this as an adult, which was probably a huge component to my digestive issues.

Speaker 2: 5:34

From New Jersey we moved to Lima, peru, from 9 to 11 years old, moved back to New Jersey. When I moved back is when my health journey really began and was maximized, because I was chronically ill. I was in and out of the hospital. They couldn't figure out what was wrong with me. I had pains in my heart. I had this awful, awful pains in my stomach. My mom took me to a cardiologist. She's fine, it's just stress. My mom was like a little bit in denial like stress. My daughter's, 11 years old and finally, after multiple doctors, multiple days of school miss. I actually almost got held back from school because I missed so many days. A doctor took an x-ray of my stomach and found good old-fashioned stool backed up like the 405. 405 is a freeway in LA.

Speaker 1: 6:26

I lived in Santa Monica for six years, so I'm very familiar with the 405.

Speaker 2: 6:30

So you know just how much trouble my stomach was in, and so that's kind of where my health journey began. And then I remember that I was so young, right, and I was always a happy kid. I got crow's feet quite early from being very smiley. You know, at the end of the day that's all you got in life. You just got to smile and laugh. So I remember the doctor put me on medication I was just a kid, I just did it as I was told and I just remember. And he put me also on natural laxatives. I just remember losing so much weight Like I was like real thin. And then I remember one day like I found out what medicine I was on and it was like some sort of antidepressant and at the time I was quite pissed off because I'm like I'm not a depressed kid, what the hell. I feel like hoodwinked. But I didn't know until I became adult, an adult, that there's a reason why these doctors will prescribe that for this and you know it's something with it, you know de-stressing your gut and yada, yada, yada. But nonetheless I was pissed. Cut it out, cold turkey I. It's funny that I did that, because it's really become who I am today, um, cut to, moved on with my life, realized I had digestive issues, realized I was a constipated kid, all that stuff.

Speaker 2: 7:49

Then, through trials and tribulations, I went to school in New York, international marketing business. While I was in school I said I want to be an actress and just thought it was a pipe dream. Studied abroad, in Paris. When I was there, a lot of my peers were taking a year or two off to travel because it was just very European way, and I was like, huh, I should take a year or two off but go to LA and try to act, why not? So that's exactly what I did and I said you know, if it doesn't work out, I'll use my international marketing and business degree, not realizing that I actually was using my degree in that industry. I was just the product.

Speaker 2: 8:30

And so while I was acting, you know you would work these crazy hours, you would go to work at 6pm and you would wrap at 6am, like it would throw off your body's clock completely and I just, you know, became I was always, quote, unquote thin. So at that time, early 20s, I'm like, oh great, I'm thin, so that means I'm healthy. I didn't have a profound understanding of what true health was. And then, you know, as I became in my mid 20s, I just started to feel like this massive brain fog and bloated and just didn't understand what was wrong with me.

Speaker 2: 9:03

And my sister, who I talked to you about offline, is always ahead of the curve, that girl to this day. And she was like you got to try bone broth, you've got to try bone. Offline, it's always ahead of the curve, that girl to this day. And she was like you got to try bone broth, you've got to try bone broth. And I'm like no, that's weird and disgusting. It sounds like witchcraft. I will not be trying bone broth. So then I just like was really desperate. She hit me again with it. I was like, fine, give me this bone broth.

Speaker 2: 9:25

So I was in New York City with her at the time. We did a workout. I was kind of like even like new, to like working out. Then like I once again just thought, great, I'm skinny, I'm healthy, um. So we did this workout and we went there was about 17 pop-up shops at the time of bone broth. We went and got bone broth. I tried it and I was like, wow, this stuff's actually pretty good and I liked it. It didn't taste how I thought I would, how I thought it did, wow. So then you know, from then it became habitual.

Speaker 2: 10:03

I was in New York for a few weeks and I could not believe the results I was getting from it. It was what my sister said, plus, like those lines I talked about from being a smiley kid were disappearing. I had a damaged knee from sports that was all of a sudden much better. It was making my hair thick and I quite literally didn't understand. I'm like maybe I was right, this is witchcraft, because I had no understanding what it was about bone growth. I had no understanding about the gut microbiome and what it means to have a healed gut, so cut to, I just became this passionate bone broth gal and I went back to LA and I'm like, okay, I'm going to continue this routine here, I'm going to work out, I'm going to go get bone broth.

Speaker 2: 10:40

And then I went to go get bone broth and I was like, huh, what the hell? There's no place to go grab bone broth. This is crazy. How does New York have 17 places and Los Angeles, the city of health and wellness, has none? So that's what I'm like, that's what I was thinking. Oh, I should have a bone broth shop in LA. And then my entrepreneur journey. I probably, once or twice a year, wake up in a cold sweat with some, in my opinion, brilliant idea, and I don't.

Speaker 1: 11:12

The life of an entrepreneur. That's how it works.

Speaker 2: 11:14

Yeah, and most of the time I don't execute on it because I just know it's not my wheelhouse. It's a great idea for someone and I share my ideas and hope someone does it. And it's funny because a lot of those ideas came to fruition in life. Six, seven, eight years later Someone else has done it, not because they heard me say it, but because they came up with the idea later on. Anyways, this idea I felt like I could wrangle and I was like so then my entrepreneur journey started and during the entrepreneur journey it's just been so interesting. So my health journey has really like weaved in with it. So what started off as digestive issues, then building a company, was extremely interesting. I learned so much about the food systems. I become beyond passionate about the food systems Through my health journey. I become very passionate about big pharma Not I wouldn't say about big pharma, but whatever that con about disagreeing not about big pharma, the anti big pharma.

Speaker 2: 12:15

And you know, I started to see a huge correlation between the two from starting this company, from my own health journey. So, while I was starting and launching beauty in the broth, about I don't know, a year into it, I started gaining weight and I'm like, okay, time to diet and work out a bunch, like my body's always really receptive at losing weight quickly. But no matter what I did, it wasn't coming off. And I just remember being like so much shame. I'm like, oh my gosh, like I run this bone broth company. I'm a frog. People are gonna think like this is the person. So the bone broth company, she's gaining weight, like, like. And I just felt so much shame and imposter syndrome. And my good girlfriend, um, she's like I'm also. I'm telling you, you have what I have, which is, um, hypothyroidism, which is an autoimmunity, so, so I was desperate.

Speaker 2: 13:11

I went to her endocrinologist so you'll like this part was not a functional endocrinologist. He took a bunch of tests. He saw that I indeed had hypothyroidism. He told me I was pre-diabetic. So what did this man do? He put me on Synthroid, he put me on Metformin, he put me on Dexamethalazone which people use for chemo, by the way and he put me on Ozempic and, by the way, this is before Ozempic was Ozempic this time. I'm 34 now, so I was on four meds and the doctor, who should respectfully probably not have a license, would scare the crap out of me. He'd be like Melissa, if you don't, because I got all these symptoms from the medicine. Speaking of constipation, the metformin beyond constipated me. It was very painful getting adjusted to it. The Ozempic made me sick as hell. And then it was really scary the thought of being on a steroid dexamethasone because I'm just, wow, 30 years old. So you know I would just keep kind of like push-pull with him, like what if I get off the dexamethasone? No, melissa, you can't your levels of testosterone and you'll get cancer if you go off them. Melissa. No, no, you're pre-diabetic. You have to stay on this. You inherited this from your parents. There's nothing you could do Blaming my parents. So I just drank the Kool-Aid because at that time my sole focus was getting what I thought looked good back, which was being trim and not having these issues, and I just wanted to solve it and put these band-aids on it, cause I had a lot of shame with having this health and wellness company Cut to.

Speaker 2: 14:59

I'm big New Year's resolution girl the next year. I'm like this is crazy. I'm on these four heavy meds. I look way too skinny again from the Ozempic and it's just like my friends would be at, like a party. I would just have to go outside and throw up from the ozempic. It was violently ill. I don't know why anyone does it. Just look into health and nutrition that look, I understand if you're 300 pounds too or very overweight. I understand there's a purpose, but let's keep it for the purpose of that, not people who are not, who are hardly overweight. That's very manageable, but that's another stick to the topic.

Speaker 2: 15:38

So then my new year's resolution was to get off all the meds, and I'm a pretty intense individual. I go from zero to 100 on these things. So I started to go, for the first time in my life, the functional medicine route, and that too was an interesting journey. So it was a little bit like like the, you know, you had to kiss a few frogs, see what worked for you, and on my third frog that turned into a prince. I worked with a functional medicine doctor. That it was kind of funny.

Speaker 2: 16:09

I don't even know why I was filling this out with pen and paper, pencil and paper. By sheer irony. Normally I just fill stuff out online, but he asked me if I had any exposure to mold and I quite literally put yes and then I erased it and put no. So then I submit. The forms are like why did you do that? And I was like well, like you know, last year I had an apartment in New York city. I was living by coastal Uh, it was a duplex. Emergency leak in the basement Got the email, um, I sent.

Speaker 2: 16:40

I didn't go there for a few months and my maid had me to clean. She's like Melissa, I don't know what you want me to do. The place is completely covered in mold. I never even stayed a night there. I was advised not to. My boyfriend at the time told me you know, the place is going to be overrun with mold, it's going to be in the walls everywhere and they let me break the lease. It was a six month remediation. It was so bad that the woman, the property manager, couldn't even be in there. Her throat was closing up and I had to get all my clothing and everything dry clean. I had furniture, I had shoes. I did what I could. I shipped some furniture with me to LA. I shipped all my clothes and shoes to LA.

Speaker 2: 17:19

Nine months later, like clockwork, is when these symptoms of gaining weight and everything started happening. Like freaking clockwork. So when he tested me for mold mold, not only were my levels off the charts with three different strains of mold, including citrinin, which is linked to cancer and wrath, which actually scared me straight and and it also came up in my blood tests and it showed up on another test um, I believe I forget if the test you'd probably know better than I saliva or stool. I should probably know because I test once a year now but anyways, it showed up on three different tests. Overwhelming levels, overwhelming.

Speaker 2: 18:01

I went on a protocol which was gluten-free, dairy-free, nightshade-free, sugar-free, alcohol-free for four months. Probably should have done six, but within four or this was also crazy because I tell you it weaves into my entrepreneur journey. The largest part of my third-party protocol was bone broth. I had to start with a two to five-day bone broth fast and then move to bone broth-based soups and then incorporate protein in the soups and regular eating of you know that diet I mentioned so this is interesting.

Speaker 1: 18:35

So your doctor, who didn't know that you were into bone broth and running an entrepreneur yeah, entrepreneur, who started a bone broth company actually prescribed you bone broth yeah, and I happen to know a girl where I had free access yeah, you happen to know someone who knew a lot about bone broth.

Speaker 2: 18:51

Yeah. So I couldn't believe it and you know, you can imagine, during this time I was sick and through the entrepreneurial journey, it's like this where I'm like extremely gassed and motivated to burnout, motivated burnout. So this was.

Speaker 1: 19:04

I know the feeling.

Speaker 2: 19:05

Yeah. So this was incredibly inspiring inspiring it was kind of like an aha moment that made me laugh a little bit where it's like bone broth came the first part of my health journey. Here it is again, and it was definitely an aha moment where I couldn't believe that this is the largest part of my protocol within four months. Within four months, of this diet and I obviously wasn't just bone broth, it was all those things I named basically a clean, holistic diet that also involved a bunch of supplements and sweating in a sauna and binders. I put my autoimmunity into complete remission.

Speaker 2: 19:41

Complete remission and and, by the way, once I started the protocol, I just dropped all my meds except Synthroid, cold turkey. So I was just all in and I just had this inner knowing that it would work out. I had this inner knowing that I was on the right path and that something, everything in my gut, told me this does not make sense. A 30-year-old to be on all these four heavy meds told I'd be on it the rest of my life. So that's where my health journey led.

Speaker 1: 20:12

And actually, melissa, let me stop you there and, if I can, like sort of fill in some gaps and I want to just give the listener sort of some of my take on this and you jump in and correct me wherever you think I'm wrong or jump in and, you know, ask me some questions. I got my clinical hat on now and I want to go back to yeah, I want to go back to you as a child, right? So this child who's chronically constipated and in pain as a result of that One of the things just for you listeners here and Melissa may have you know add to this as well One of the things that we talk about a lot, especially in the work that I'm doing now. You know, obviously my, my background is in mainly female endocrinology, as most of you listeners know, but also I'm working on my PhD in transpersonal psychology. So I do a lot in the realm of adverse childhood events, ptsd, misguided, unconscious decisions, and so when I hear this right, so when I hear for you decisions.

Speaker 1: 21:08

And so when I hear this, right so, when I hear Melissa's sort of story, what I go is I go okay. So I hear, when I hear constipation or any gut related things, I first go dysregulated nervous system. And then I go in my head I go okay, and eventually, if this isn't addressed, immune issues. Right, because nervous system, gut, immune function. And then one of the things that I ask about in this regard, just for the listener to sort of understand, is I want to understand what are what I would call the misguided unconscious decisions or psychological mud is the acronym misguided unconscious decisions that live in the unconscious, that drive some of the biological processes, right, so what was going on stress-wise in little Melissa, right? So that's part of the story, right? And then I hear, okay, melissa sort of gets into this thing where she goes out to Los Angeles chasing her dreams, runs in with her sister, gets introduced to this. Really potent for you, right?

Speaker 1: 22:13

For your system, this bone broth situation that starts making you feel really good For the listener. I want them to understand. So, all of a sudden, if we were listening to Melissa's story, did you hear the part about where, all of a sudden, her skin started looking better, her hair started looking better, obviously, her energy. She is sort of stumbling across this thing of like oh my God, what's this doing now? So here's the thing that Melissa may like or not like about me, but I want to just basically yeah, so I'll hit you with this. So the bone broth is amazing.

Speaker 1: 22:44

One of the things that I think about, though, is that when we start to do something, when we're eating regular foods right. One of my most memorable cases was a woman with Crohn's disease that we had to basically put on an all liquid diet, and that was the thing that, out of all the things she tried, that was the thing that helped her, and bone broth was a big piece of that. But what happens when you are in a chronic stress? Physiology is your gut is not able to process a lot of these foods. So two things. One, bone broth is amazing in its nutrient profile. Two, it is incredibly easy to digest for someone who's got a nervous system, who is gut, who's caused the gut not to function?

Speaker 2: 23:27

well.

Speaker 1: 23:27

And all of a sudden I start hearing oh so she starts to assimilate and digest and absorb nutrition perhaps better than ever before in a very long time, and starts to see very real world effects in some of the organ systems that turn over very fast. This would be skin, hair nails and this would be gut, gut stuff, right, me and Melissa already talked about the fact that her dogs were going to get crazy at some point, but you know.

Speaker 1: 23:58

so now I'm hearing this whole idea of stress mitigation, right, and then digestive function mitigation with this tool. But then I want to talk to you about this idea of the entrepreneurship, which is incredibly stressful. So now, all of a sudden, you start this company. Plus you have this mold issue and to me I go, the old problem is going to perhaps be coming back. Plus, you've got this new problem on top of it that is compromising the immune system, yeah, and then all of a sudden you start seeing.

Speaker 1: 24:29

By the way, I have my listeners know as well, but I suffer from Hashimoto's, thyroiditis as well autoimmune condition of the thyroid gland, hypothyroid which I can manage largely without medications, Although nowadays I pretty much stay on the medications because, given the stress of my entrepreneur journey, I just know I do better with it. But what's really interesting is this idea of going through these three major parts here Early life perhaps we all have it this misguided, unconscious mud that drives us, strives us. And little Melissa pushing and pushing and pushing Entrepreneurship journey, Finding this, this primary tool that helps her get better, which then she makes part of her purpose Pain is a path to purpose. And then this idea of repairing yourself through this stressful entrepreneur journey and this sort of mold journey. So I just wanted to point out to the listener that there's a whole lot of other things in here too.

Speaker 1: 25:28

By the way, One other thing I'll say before I want you to jump back in, Melissa is that if you listen to Melissa, she was doing a couple other things that I think are key for most people. Now we're all different. Everyone's healing journey is going to be different. But also this idea of sauna therapies and sweat-based therapies are absolutely huge in autoimmune conditions, especially when you're dealing with mold issues and heavy metal toxicities and other things like that to get this stuff out of the system. And now you know you're back to a place. So I mean, who knows how full circle this has been.

Speaker 1: 28:40

But now I want you to get us and help us understand what now are you doing? Where are you? Are you still dealing with some of these things? Are you completely healed? Where are you on this journey? And, of course, we know that there's always the next thing that you deal with. It's always sort of a journey in process. But your story is really illustrative for a lot of us in terms of many different factors that set us up for autoimmune and immune dysfunction, and you found some of the primary tools that any good functional medicine practitioner would use in a liquid-based diet, a very high nutrient diet, the bone broth does that stress management and some of these protocols. So get us caught up now. Based on just hearing my take on the story, what are your thoughts on that and what else do you want to add?

Speaker 2: 29:34

Yeah, you're a hundred percent right. What I've learned about bone broth. When people are like what are the benefits, I love to say that it's two things. One, it's a bone broth itself filled with natural current collagen, amino acids, like you said, gives your gut a break. But then it's also what occurs when you physically have a healed gut microbiome, and that's where the real magic happens, because your gut is so responsible for crazy things like your personality, anxiety, depression. They call it your second brain and that's for a reason. Sometimes I go back and forth and wonder what's more important, because your brain is actually receiving all the messages from your gut. So I just wanted to chime in on that because it's very true. It's what I like to call a gateway drug, because it's what got me into health and wellness and to me it creates a state of mind, it curbs cravings, all those things.

Speaker 2: 30:28

And where I'm currently at, like I said, health is a journey. So when I went on that protocol, I was able to get rid of 70% of the mold. I'm very happy to report two of the strains, including the citrine and strain, are completely gone. I now still have the aspergillus strain. And to touch upon what you said about the saunas. Yes, saunas. Whether you have mycotoxins or not, it just creates extreme longevity for your life. And something that really worked for me, especially with mold, was binders that attach on to the mold and rip it out of you when you sweat in the sauna, so just wanted to touch upon that.

Speaker 1: 31:11

And what binders were you using, like what were the ones you were mostly using?

Speaker 2: 31:15

I was mostly using a charcoal one, but it depends on the strains of mold which ones you should use. But for what I was doing? Three different strains. I think it was like Quicksilver Scientifics, which I like them. They're not paying me, I just like them.

Speaker 1: 31:34

Yeah, fantastic company, by the way.

Speaker 2: 31:36

Yeah, yeah, nod to them. And then, as far as my current health journey, it's so funny I talk about this with people. I still do not have perfect gut health and in a way I sickly love it because I know that's part of the reason why I was put here. I know it's part of my journey, I know it's part of my pain, I know it's part of my purpose. And it's funny how you bring up the nervous system, because I for a long time didn't understand that my childhood would have an effect on my gut microbiome. So it's funny because I told you I'm big on these New Year's resolutions. So my resolution this year was to really wrangle in and get a full hold on my gut health. So how do I do that? I started to explore parts of myself that I did not realize. I started to realize about a year and a half ago, two years ago, that part of my health journey is somatic practices, that it is these traumas stored in your body, my body, anyone's body, we all have it. So where I'm at latest and greatest five Melissa, 5.0, I realized that you could have the best diet in the world, you could drink all the bone broth money could buy, but if you're not releasing these traumas and sorting through who you are as a person and where these things come up from, and getting rid of those stressors, you're not going to heal. And it was interesting because when I was on this protocol, I just remember, you know, we would have like a weekly support group, like the mold people on with the naturopathic doctor and he would put some people on this primal trust organization and what did they do With somatic practices that healed the nervous system? And I remember asking him and I was like you know, I'm just curious, like why do they do with somatic practices that heal the nervous system? And I remember asking him and I was like you know, I'm just curious, like why do you do that? And he's like well, melissa, like people can't kick mold if their nervous system isn't healed and calm. Like your body's in fight or flight, it's just trying to keep you safe and alive. It's not trying to help you detox these foreign invaders in your body.

Speaker 2: 36:50

So this year, year I you know, and once again, partial help thanks to my sister, because she's just always 12 steps ahead in these practices. So I told you she's been doing a lot of, you know, helping people release traumas and stuck emotion in their body. So, you know, I look at what she does and I'm and I listened to a lot of podcasts and I read a lot of studies and I say, okay, that's the next step, that's what I have to do. So this year I did my first and second psilocybin journey. So it was very interesting and maybe you could speak more to this.

Speaker 2: 37:30

This because the first time I did it, you know, you create an intention. My intention was to help clear anything that was blocking me physically, emotionally, mentally, yada, yada, yada. Hence the resolution. So I did it and I quite literally felt nothing Like. I felt like I was in a waiting room and I was so freaking disappointed that after, during the integration session, the guy I did it with was like, okay, melissa, like what'd you see? And I was just like trying to hold it together and I was like I didn't see anything Like. I just felt like I was in a waiting room. And then I just burst out crying and I was like I'm so disappointed. And then he hits me with I'm going to laugh. He hits me with.

Speaker 2: 38:12

What else in your life has disappointed you, melissa? Bam, bam. You've never. This was crazy. I felt my gut, quite literally what I asked for. It gave me untangling like a garden hose, and all these emotions without faces just spewing out of my body, and I felt anger, I felt despair, I felt happiness, like all these crazy big emotions, like I felt like a cuckoo person. And after that, for like a month or two, after people kept telling me Melissa, you look taller, melissa, your eyes look whiter like, and I I have, like this body worker that does lymph massage it's also great for molds, by the way, um, because, just to touch back on that, I'm someone who doesn't really methylate well, if at all. So my body needs extra support with the lymphs to, you know, process toxins in my body. Um, but we, we could come back to that, uh. So so this body worker I've been working with, he's like Melissa, I feel like like I'm touching a different person, like you physically feel like 10 years younger.

Speaker 2: 39:20

So, that was crazy. And then the second time I did it, I, I did it, I think, about a month ago, a month and a half ago. At this point it was really crazy. My body was just releasing these sounds and these noises and really grieving. So I just think that this is the phase where I'm taking into consideration the effects of childhood and not getting out Emotions and all these things that keep us stuck and stagnant in the healing process and from having the most optimal health that we want.

Speaker 1: 39:57

Yeah, and those of you who follow Next Level Human, you know that this is the work that I primarily am doing now and primarily not even. Obviously, I've had all my journeys. These things can be incredibly powerful, but some of the work that Next Level Human is doing now is right in this.

Speaker 2: 40:12

I mean, this podcast is destiny.

Speaker 1: 40:18

Yeah, so this stuff to me also. After doing this work, I basically started in this industry, now what I graduated from medical school back in 2004. So I've been doing this a long time and from my perspective, it's not to say the other stuff doesn't work. It's necessary.

Speaker 1: 40:33

So, as you all hear Melissa's sort of story. It's not. It's not to say that you know you don't need to worry about diet. It is important. The idea, though, is we're now starting to understand that the biofield is really the energetic scaffolding by which the biochemistry lives, on top of which, you know, sort of, is a scaffolding for the physiology and anatomy and everything else, and that we are not aware, and have not been fully aware, of how these energetic, misguided, unconscious decisions, these stories, get stored in our unconscious and essentially drive us.

Speaker 1: 41:10

Carl Jung has a quote that says you cannot make the unconscious conscious. It will follow you around and you will call it faith. And this is what a lot of us are dealing with. And, of course, if you want optimal health, this is another piece. So your journey, melissa, is really interesting, how you stumbled across all these pieces and you will see, there is a group of people you and I both know them because we're kind of in this world where, you know, call them biohackers or whatever. But there's this, there's this idea of you know people are at least starting to move forward into, which is one of the reasons that I'm, you know, doing the transpersonal psychology work, because the idea is that full healing is not just at the physiological level. It really comes down to this mental, emotional body that we are dealing with. That is largely unconscious and therefore you have to deal with the unconscious.

Speaker 1: 42:01

For example, just briefly and then I'll get off this topic, but just briefly for the listener to understand, and, melissa, you probably know this, but when we are children, primarily in adolescence, we're not operating in beta brainwave states, our current folks, we're more in theta and alpha states. This is where a lot of our initial ideas. Traumas and dramas, trials, tribulations sort of come in. They're misguided, unconscious decisions because we didn't have the knowledge, the know-how, the wisdom, the experience, the skills to deal with these things, and so they essentially get stored in our body. Now, to address them in the nervous system, you can't approach them through simple talk therapy. You need to get the body into these more unconscious states.

Speaker 1: 42:41

Now there's several different ways to do this. You can do this without psychedelics. Breath work will do it, certain forms of journaling can do it, certain forms of hypnosis can do it. But the idea is, this is another angle for those of you who are dealing with and there's many of you I know, who are dealing with unremitting signs and symptoms and conditions that, no matter what you have done supplement-wise, drug-wise, diet, exercise-wise, lifestyle-wise you're not able to touch it. This is where this work becomes an add-on. And again, I'm not saying it's the end all be all because we don't know enough. The fact of the matter is we don't know nearly enough. We know this much tiny fraction of what we need to know about metabolism and all the other stuff, but this is an area that I'm really glad you brought up, melissa.

Speaker 2: 43:31

Yes, and you said that so beautifully and I swear I'm going to save that snippet and keep replaying it, because that was really so spot on. And to your point, yes, before I did all this somatic work, think about it I put in autoimmunity into remission. So, yes, diet is a massive part of it, but I just think, like you said, if there's people that are being blocked from their optimal goals, they do all the things. And, yes, there's ways to do it without psilocybin. And, to your point, breathwork.

Speaker 2: 44:00

I did a couple of breathwork classes this year and last year and I'll tell you what. What I, like the instructor says it's like it shakes out cobwebs in you, and it's true. During those breathwork classes I've had huge emotional releases and I have friends that just swear by journaling and I'm just like, how does one journal? And you know, just pen to paper, pen to paper and you just see what comes out. So I think those practices are really powerful. I don't think there's a cheat code in life to anything. However, I will say that I felt like psilocybin was a little bit of a cheat code it gets pretty close.

Speaker 2: 44:38

It gets pretty close yeah it's a little bit of it saves you a lot of time. You know, I'm someone who you know I did therapy at 16. I did in my early 20s and I'm just like holy crap, if I just did this twice a year, I'm good. It's a little bit of a cheat code, but everyone's unique and different and everyone has things that work for them, and that just happens to be something that really worked for me.

Speaker 1: 45:09

Yeah, and let me just give the listeners just briefly so you can understand where these things fall in. From my perspective, when you're dealing with some of the mental, emotional stuck stories, there's really three phases that you need to work. One is rewriting those stories, the other one is rewiring the emotional sort of highways in the body and the next one is retraining the nervous system, slash brain and so one of the things that, like you know, some of these I think there's pieces of it in many different places, but very few places have tied all three together If a good therapy is going to be the rewrite, rewire and retrain. Now what things like psilocybin, ayahuasca, psychedelics do is they're really good at touching a little bit of the rewire and some of the rewrite. When you add in some of the journaling techniques, the rewriting is much more.

Speaker 1: 45:57

And then of course, you need the integration phase, which I would argue most people doing this work are inadequate just because they're not well-trained. If you could take a really well-trained therapist who's also really well-trained in some of these psychedelics works, who's also really well trained in some of the breath work, some of the ACE, ptsd type work, you kind of are getting close. But that's what Next Level Human, by the way, is really trying to do is trying to put these things together along with the advanced understanding of metabolism, mainly because I have seen that metabolism work only gets you so far. So I'm really, really, uh, it wasn't expecting, uh, you to touch on these aspects, but it's good.

Speaker 1: 46:44

Yeah, and it's. It's just good that we, that we uh were able to touch on that a little bit. So why don't you wrap us up with any any other things that you want to tell us before we go and also tell us a little bit about your company, for those who do want to use some of the tools that you've used?

Speaker 2: 47:02

Yeah. So just to touch upon what you just said, I am someone who, if you told me some of these things five years ago, I'd look at you and be like you're a cuckoo crazy, me some of these things five years ago. I'd look at you and be like you're a cuckoo crazy. And I'm someone who only will receive data if I feel it's scientifically proven. So this concept of psilocybin and mindset work it all, like what you said, it comes down to the brain. You will have the ability to break old neural pathways and create new ones. And then that's where meditation, that's where mindset, that's where quote unquote manifestation, manifestation sounds like a fluffy word. It's not. It's quite literally science. So I'm glad you touched upon that. And you know I really do credit bone broth for my gateway into health and wellness, because it was the first thing that, and wellness because it was the first thing that healed me. It was the first thing that helped my mind, like curb cravings, just want to make better decisions for myself. So when I switched careers I said, okay, if I'm going to do this, I'm going to make the best bone broth money could buy. So what does that constitute of? It constitutes of the best sourcing possible because speaking of woo-woo this, that the other you are what you eat. There is no way around it. So if you are getting, you should only get benefit from the best animals, because if you get benefit from a sickly animal you're going to get sickly benefit. So we are grass-fed, finished antibiotic, hormone free. We source our chicken from Mary's Organic Chicken, which is actually restaurant grade and animal GAP welfare rated three, which is a very high standard. It means they're completely free range till the day they die. They just eat off the land, all the things On top of it. We're shelf stable, with no preservatives, and we are concentrated format. So when someone's cooking a soup on the stove and they keep reducing it down for it to be stronger, more potent, that's exactly what we are.

Speaker 2: 49:02

So bone broth is measured in bricks B-R-I-X, which is the measure of solid components and nutrients. A regular bone broth that you go buy at a store in a jar is three to five bricks. In my little cute adorable pouches it's 25 bricks. So the customer adds hot water. So even after they add hot water it's still five times stronger than a regular broth. And if you read all the ingredients on the packaging you recognize every single one of them. There's not a single ingredient that you don't recognize, which I think is so. Especially if you go into the supermarket today, you just it blows my mind You'll see sugar as an ingredient in bone broth. So we have very clean ingredients, very clean sourcing, very potent product.

Speaker 2: 49:47

That I think the key word with bone broth is routine and the fact that we're three ounces shelf stable. You could quite literally bring it anywhere in your routine, including plane, trains, automobiles. So it's something that I was really glad I was able to make convenient for people, customizable and really easy to integrate in their routine. Because I know when I was on, my dog found a toy so cute. I know that when I was on my protocol, like I had enough to worry about, I had a whole supplement schedule. My cooking was like I had to double check the ingredients. That it was actually really nice having a brand I could trust was my brand, and if I can't trust it, we've got some issues. So yeah, I am very proud of the product I have made.

Speaker 1: 50:34

Yeah, and let me tell you something. Let me tell you and tell the listeners, a reason why I think this conversation is most important From my perspective. We are here and the listener knows this because they hear me say this every time they listen to the intro to this podcast. They hear this, but to me, we're here on this planet to learn, to teach and to love, and that last part, that love part is really people think that's about romance or parental stuff.

Speaker 1: 50:58

It's really about creation. It's about the idea that I go through some hard stuff, I learn some lessons. I then want to give back, I want to teach and then create, and so what you have done to me, this is a next level human company, because through your suffering, through your pain, you have actually found something to help people who are going through similar issues, and so, from my perspective, that's why this is so powerful. So thank you so much, melissa, for your work, thank you for it, thank you for your time. Tell everyone so this is, tell them where they can find your company, your website, and where they can find you online.

Speaker 2: 51:36

Okay. So at Melissa Bologna, Bologna, no G, it's come full circle. At the beauty and the broth, and the beauty and the broth, Okay perfect, melissa.

Speaker 1: 51:46

Thank you so much. Do me a favor, hang on the line. I just want to make sure all this uploads. But for all of you, I hope you enjoyed this conversation with Melissa. I certainly did, and we will see you at the next podcast. Thank you so much.