We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Brooke Seiz. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Brooke below.
Brooke, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Was there a defining moment in your professional career? A moment that changed the trajectory of your career?
I had a client with ulcerative colitis who started coming to me for functional nutrition services. In the initial assessment it had come up that there were a couple traumatic experiences in their history; one in particular that had changed their life significantly. I had recently become a counselor, and was starting to do Somatic Experiencing which I was newly trained in. This client was always in pain, and at the end of a somatic therapy session, she realized her pain was 80% gone at least for the time being. She looked up and asked me if she’d just “thought herself out of pain”? It was in this moment that I know I’d be a somatic therapy practitioner for the rest of my career. I love functional medicine, and holistic nutrition, and other counseling approaches. However, the addition of Somatic Experiencing for my clients was the puzzle piece I’d been looking for. I love pulling from these different modalities as we identify the root causes at play with clients, and supporting them in their healing with these powerful approaches.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
Sure, I’m a licensed professional counselor, and IFM Certified Functional Medicine Nutrition Practitioner. My life with food started off with a rough start. The first bite of food my mother gave me was plain yogurt around 7 or 8 months of age, and it sent me to the hospital. The doctor told my parents that I’d likely have a lot of allergies and to avoid milk completely for the time being. We know a lot more about allergies and food sensitivities now than we did back then, but that doctor was certainly right that I did grow up with a lot of food allergies. This developed into anxiety, gut issues, and disordered eating in my teen years. When I realized I needed to do something about all of this, I discovered functional nutrition. Within a couple months of treating my gut and changing my food plan, I was 50% better. After digging deeper through functional medicine and working with a somatic therapist to regulate my nervous system, I was in recovery. This took time, but it was powerful.
This is what led me to what I do now. I started by going through holistic nutrition school in Denver, then going through three years of functional medicine training. I eventually went back to school to get my Master’s in Counseling Psychology and went through Somatic Experiencing training at the same time.
My own healing required an integrative approach, and I spent a long time trying to piece all of this together through various people. My mission is to help people make the connections they need and provide those tools or at least identify the resources they might need to put the pieces of their puzzle together and provide appropriate referrals with ease. I do this in my private counseling and functional nutrition practice in Prairie Village, KS. I also see people via telehealth. I help people with anxiety, PTSD, and trauma, along with gut problems like IBS and IBD. I also see people for hormone issues including PMS and PMDD. We work to support the gut-brain connection to help them befriend their nervous system and understand how to support their bodies with functional nutrition. I do the clinical functional nutrition assessment through gut testing, hormone testing, and looking at their blood sugar, nutrient, cardiovascular, and other markers. Folks come too me only for functional nutrition, only for counseling, or for both. I’m happy to support them where they need it.
The other area of my counseling practice is with couples using Gottman Couples therapy, and sex therapy for both individuals and couples. Much of my approach with couples involves helping them befriend their partner’s nervous systems and understand their stress responses to improve communication and connection within the relationship.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
Right after nutrition school, when I started seeing clients, one service I would provide was food sensitivity testing. This was really helpful for some clients, and I still use this when indicated. But about 6 months after graduation, I took a job as a nutrition coach for a company. I didn’t do any lab ordering or assessment at that job, but would see many clients who’d had this work done with a practitioner, and they were coming to me for help in implementing the plans they were given. Often they had strict food plans, and they were utterly overwhelmed by how to get started. Sometimes, they had plans that limited a broad range of foods, and would do them for far too long, perhaps not realizing they needed to go for a follow-up with their provider to make adjustments. Often they might be reacting to a laundry list of foods, and not digging deeper to understand WHY? Typically there’s root causes like SIBO or other gut overgrowths or infections that may be causing all the reactivity. There may be other root causes like thyroid issues or toxic burden problems…. hormone dysregulation, etc. And by trying to implement really difficult diets, it was both causing stress; which could fuel more food reactivity due to how this affects the gut and overall health. AND, they weren’t continuing to get to the deeper root causes for the food reactivity issues.
SO, this led me through 3 years of functional medicine training with two amazing doctors in Denver. and also through the Institute for Functional Medicine’s practitioner certification program. I’m so grateful for the time I spent in coaching to gain a broad understanding of client’s experiences in integrative medicine, and how I could adjust my nutrition practices to best support them. I love sorting through it all with clients and figuring out what they best need to make changes. Every client is different, and I’m grateful I had years to just listen, observe, and learn before I really launched my practice.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
Yes! Actually, I knew I wanted to be a musical theatre performer by the 5th grade. So, my aspirations and career started off very differently from where they are now. I remember in high school taking a career assessment that showed ‘healthcare’ as the ideal field for me. I laughed that off, already on track at the time to go to college for theatre. I did get my BFA in musical theatre and performed professionally until age 31 when I got pregnant with my first child. During my theatre years though I did go through yoga teacher training becoming a 500 Hour Registered Yoga teacher. I was working in wellness between my theatre contracts. And so had decided to go to nutrition school once I left theatre. It was a harder transition than I thought it would be. Theatre was more than my job. It was my community, my therapy, and a lot more. Leaving that and becoming a new mom at the same time while switching careers and being back in school was A LOT. But, I learned a lot more about myself and grew so much throughout that transition. And theatre, yoga, and movement show up in various ways in my business and in my work with clients. So, I’m grateful to have had those different experiences.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.evolvewellnesskc.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brookeseiz/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/evolvewellnessandcounseling/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brooke-seiz/
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@brookeseiz7809?si=6iJdau96TFwgxizs
- Other: Public Wellness Facebook Group: Evolve Wellness Community **Request to join for articles, tips, and wellness information
Image Credits
Yes, these are photos I hired a photographer for, and the others were free downloads on Unsplash.com