We were lucky to catch up with Christine Smith recently and have shared our conversation below.

Christine, appreciate you joining us today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

I’d say the biggest risk I’ve taken is Self-ownership in my health and my wealth. I once had a mentor tell me to not seek masters, but instead seek what they sought, and it has colored my path ever since.

Self-ownership in health has looked like choosing to educate myself to make informed decisions when the system made me feel like a victim to my body. I realized that mindset was fruitless, and ultimately abusive and neglectful to my body.

Instead, I have focused on learning to speak the language of the body, and teaching my clients the same, in order to create a sustainable, healthy, balanced lifestyle based on my body’s needs. Truly, we are the only ones who can tell what our body needs – most people have just forgotten how to listen and track. I take people through one on one care and group courses to learn how to do this in a customized way.

There are two main examples of this applied in my health. I feel they are relevant to share to bring awareness to what can get missed in our current healthcare paradigm. I went through an experience I think many teenage girls go through today.

When your female cycle initially comes online, your hormones are usually a little off as your body tries to figure out a whole new rhythm of being chemically. With these fluctuations, other tissues begin to change as well including the gut and the brain. This can lead to acne, anxiety, moodiness, weight gain etc.

Many girls are immediately put on hormonal birth control in their teens to “balance their hormones.” Very few doctors are investigating why the hormones are off (usually a teenage diet of processed foods, especially in the public school system).

This leads to underlying gut issues being missed and progressing slowly, while also dosing the body with hormones, which increases leakiness in the gut (the beginning of all inflammatory conditions), as well as dysbiosis, which prevents the body from detoxing hormones as well – a vicious cycle of compounding effects.

This ultimately begins to affect mood shortly after. Today, it is theorized anxiety and depression are related to inflammation in the brain, which is highly correlated to inflammation in the gut. When the moodiness comes in, the next recommendation is antidepressants, which don’t really solve the root cause of the imbalance, they just help it a little and help symptoms not be so severe.

These significantly change the gut microbiome, and without customized neurotransmitter testing to determine dominant neurotransmitters, the wrong medication can be given and push neurochemistry further out of balance. For me, this resulted in panic attacks about 4 years after being put on hormones and antidepressants back to back, and when complaining of not having results, was recommended to increase the dosage.

Oh yes, and don’t forget the antibiotic I was put on for acne that has since been removed from the market. My doctor told me not have a bowel movement for days was ok. That is not ok, just so you know. That needs to be a daily occurrence for proper detoxification.

Overall, it was a triple whammy (hormones, antidepressant and antibiotic) for my internal chemical balance as a changing teenager who’s body is just trying to figure things out in the first place. Unfortunately, this is quite common and can be the initial stages of inflammation that turn into immune or metabolic issues 5-10 years later.

In the birds eye view, the conventional system was well intentioned, but set my body chemistry up for further imbalances by covering up what my body was trying to tell me:

“I’m having a hard time balancing and detoxing. I need support in this, please help me. Please change your diet. Please sleep more. Please drink more water. Please meditate. Please find me community so I can feel safe. Please help me process my emotions.”

Trying to figure out how to feel “normal” is what set me on my initial path of studying biology, psychology, chemistry, cognitive neuroscience, neurology, yoga, holistic health, nutrition, energy work and body work. I just wanted to understand how it all worked because I was being told so many contradictory things.

The second experience was after getting poisoned by black mold three times in one year at 30. I was struggling terribly with brain fog, memory issues, weight loss, hormone depletion, immune hypersensitivity, food allergies, skin hives and pretty severe depression, to the point I had to take a break from work. I couldn’t interpret my reports. I was in no condition to see patients.

Mycotoxin poisoning is no joke and is more common than people think. It’s a poisonous fungi who’s toxins make your DNA not work correctly to the point you can’t produce replacement proteins for your cells and you begin to degrade on a cellular level.

I knew the conventional medical system does not study mycotoxin poisoning as closely to catch it, nor do they have many solutions if it’s found, so I decided to go the functional medicine route. However, it had gotten so bad I was now allergic to most foods and supplements, even B-vitamins.

With no other options, I turned to meditation and went deep into practice to calm my immune system through altering the signals my mind was sending to my cells. “It’s ok, you are safe. The Universe is not betraying you. Your body is capable of amazing healing. Oh right, this is what joy feels like I had forgotten… Let me practice that. Let me practice what peace feels like in my body.” This allowed me to calm my body enough to tolerate nutrition again to detox the rest of the toxins, but man, it was a journey of the soul – those toxins mess with your brain.

It was terrifying to not do what I was “supposed to do” in our conventional system, but I think my symptoms would have been covered yet again, likely with a steroids and antidepressants (inhibiting my body’s ability to combat the toxins) and we never would have known I was living in a poisonous environment that needed remediation because we would have missed it on conventional testing and it would have worsened, likely into full blown autoimmune. I know my body was having signs of with with certain high lab markers like ANA (anti-nuclear antibody – antibodies to your own DNA from cell damage). It has since returned to normal through my functional medicine work!

Self-Ownership feels scary, but once you start doing it, you realize you can never go back because you have more control than you’ve ever had and you’re smarter than you’ve ever been, even if it’s daunting. It forces you to believe in yourself, your body and your future.

This has translated into my approach to finances in society. Even though it’s a lot being an entrepreneur and running a business, I don’t think I can ever go back, especially after watching so many people in my life go through the terror and powerlessness of being laid off. My goal will always be, instead of saying “I can never have that”, saying “what project or business venture can I create that will allow me to obtain that?”. I always want to feel stable no matter the state of the world, and with the right planning and application, I can in our country and that’s a beautiful gift. I’ve lived in other countries where it is not so easy.

Just like researching what is possible for your health, and learning to listen to your body, you can research what is possible for the health of your wealth, and learn to listen to the economy and be in flow with it. Entrepreneurship is “how can I best serve the needs of others in a way that best serves me? What is my zone of genius that I have to contribute?”

These risks lead to the greatest rewards if we pursue them mindfully. Freedom. Autonomy. Peace. Health. Wealth. Abundance. Sustainability. Balance.

Christine, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I help clients find and resolve hidden injuries that are holding them back from their best life through teaching holistic lifestyle medicine. I retrain people on what they perceive as an injury as we can incur physical, mental and chemical injuries that through our body out of rhythm. If we catch it early, we can prevent disease and return to balance. If I can teach people how to do this regularly for themselves, THIS is how we have healthcare, instead of sick care.

When I say a hidden injury, I’m referring to things like the hidden leaky gut that comes with a physical injury or an infection, and then festers in the background leading to those “undefinable” symptoms like fatigue, repetitive injury, brain fog, mood issues, weight gain, poor recovery etc.

I teach people about allostatic load, the overall load your body can hold of stress, made up of physical stress, chemical/environmental stress and mental stress. There are all sorts of things that can impact your personal capacity, but it’s learning how to identify when we are at capacity, and learn what we can do to rebalance the body before continuing to stress it beyond a point of no return (maladaptation – adapting to a bad state for survival). This back and forth, this balance, is sustainable living.

I wanted to study Holistic Wellness, but there is not really a degree in that, so I chose a degree (Doctor of Chiropractic) that studied vitalism, the study of life and what causes man to live. This is the foundation for all of my work. How do we bring out everything that is right in you? How do we accentuate your authentic life force?

I work Holistically, addressing the Physical-Mental-Chemical bodies. Each contributes to our overall load and must be in balance with one another for us to have balance.

Chiropractic allows me to do hands on body work with clients as well as complex lab testing. My physical work ranges from Applied Kinesiology and Reflexology, to traditional chiropractic adjustments and craniosacral, to physical trauma release work (Associative Awareness Technique) and Dry Needling and other therapeutic modalities, which I love using for athletes and retraining muscles and scar tissue.

I do Functional Medicine in the office using both Applied Kinesiology and Functional Lab Testing. I will often use Applied Kinesiology in both my physical work and in my functional medicine work. In my physical work, I use it to track down root cause issues in imbalanced physical patterns. My teacher used to say “the doctor that chases pain is lost”. Applied kinesiology and neurology allows me to be highly specific in finding the source of imbalances, which is sometimes an old injury that got missed causing successive injuries from compensations.

In functional medicine, I use Applied Kinesiology as frequency medicine essentially, testing how your biofield responds to the biofield of other organisms and nutrients. A Neuromuscular response is used to ask the body questions about different enzymes, vitamins, supplements, toxins etc. in office. I love using this to direct me to which lab tests are most relevant to corroborate results and make a customized plan as well as testing which supplements people will respond best to on a customized level.

To address the mental body, and from the curiosity of my Cognitive Neuroscience background and research, I have trained in various Subconscious Breakthrough skills such as Neuro-Emotional Technique (NET), Psych-K, Rapid Rewire Method, and Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP).

These involve learning how to induce certain brainwave states and then imprint styles of thinking the client has selected they would like to implement. I use this in Wellness Consulting/Coaching sessions with my clients to help them connect to their goals and the lifestyle they want to create in a way that is right for them.

I have learned you cannot out supplement bad thinking patterns. Neurology always wins. You must correct neurology and the mind as well as the biochemistry and physical stress on the body for full optimization and thriving longevity.

I have a variety of packages I work with people in, as everyone’s needs are different. Overall, I find healing occurs when we address eight main cycles I work with in the body: The mind, the nervous system, the gut, the immune system, the detox system, the energy system and the signaling system of the body. How we do that varies from client to client.

People can do blended packages of body work, subconscious work and functional medicine (best results), or they can work in whatever category feels right for them at that time.

I’ve really enjoyed doing in depth concierge packages – it’s my favorite type of care, I get to go all in. This is my zone of genius – deep diving into a case and creating a whole customized plan based on your timeline from birth to now. I have done this for corporate wellness, entrepreneurs, professional speakers and pro-athletes, involving custom care at home or on the road as well as customized optimal performance and nutrition plans depending on where they are in their season.

I have worked with a variety of high performing athletes such as baseball players, soccer players, football players, basketball players, Crossfiters, gymnasts, circus/areal performers, dancers, skiers/snowboarders and more and I love helping them uncover hidden injuries, correct them, and get new personal records. We have a good time retraining the mind for their lofty goals too – I find these minds can add to the world in profound ways with the right support.

I collaborate with a variety of practitioners and have even started creating customized boot camps for people depending on their goals with the amazing network of practitioners I have cultivated in Colorado. I’m highly selective of who I work with, but we have a network of practitioners ranging from high performance, to chronic illness resolution and even psychedelic integrations. Some clients have flown in and stayed for a month in CO to do a deep dive series with a custom built team. I wanted people to have this option because the old model of health knows we heal best in community and I’ve worked hard to cultivate a high quality community of like minded practitioners with huge hearts.

My main love I am moving more into is teaching. I am working towards doing more group programs for both the community and education aspect for the public. There are just some things I can’t teach in an office appointment, like how to cook or grocery shop. Group programs allow me education flexibility and I love that members become friends.

I also write and speak for a variety of organizations, such as a New York based company called Lindenhaus, which is creating a nationwide community of this caliber featuring vetted practitioners and resources. I will be speaking at their Resiliency Summit in Miami this November where we will also be debuting a Resiliency Guide featuring articles on things like HRV, longevity, biohacking and more for high performers. We have had some fun collaborations such as the NBA, NHL, Google, Stanford, Miami Dolphins, the NY Knicks and the Phoenix Suns.

Overall, I just love teaching people how to feel empowered and sustainable in their body, their life and their goals.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I think entrepreneurship is one of the most spiritual journeys you can take. It is humbling. It is hard. It is exhausting. It is empowering. It is freedom and not freedom at the same time, depending on how you take it on. It will retrain your mind and your values like nothing you’ve ever faced. You have to figure out what you actually care about, and then you have to figure out how to make other people care about it. Making other people care about their health as much as I do is a task, let me tell you.

I started my business out of the back of my car after 2020 left me homeless and jobless. I had moved out of my house and was supposed to leave the country for a job right as quarantine set in – all flights and jobs I had lined up evaporated instantaneously. At this time I was also injured (wrist and knee), and unknowingly, the place I landed in for housing was my first mold exposure. Add in the collective stress of that year and I think anyone’s health would have taken a dive. I also went through a hard breakup and getting let go at the same time I got the second mold exposure – this is where my body and brain shut down from the injuries plus toxins, plus stress. When it rains it pours!

It was a journey of self discovery, self responsibility, self actualization and determination. I wasn’t perfectly graceful by any means, and my motto became “done is better than perfect” – a major feat for a recovering perfectionist. However, you soon learn perfectionism in entrepreneurship is a death sentence for your business. The best wisdom I have for you is pivot and adapt. Stay curious. Every problem is just a puzzle. Believe in yourself. Surround yourself with people who discuss ideas rather than people and ask you questions. Put yourself in rooms where you feel dumb and listen more than you speak – everyone has something to teach you.

As this point, I have tried hiring some practitioners, but find many veer off onto their own path, which I have to respect. I hope one day to expand my care through finding the right team members who are curious to take a holistic approach or want to learn what I do, but I will wait for the right fit to appear who really wants to work together. My dream has always been to create jobs that people love that enable the world to heal better. We are at a time when the world needs that kind of support more than ever.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

If I’m totally honest, the lesson I’ve had to unlearn is “that a degree is all you need to be successful”. It’s just not true in today’s world. You need critical thinking and to explore your own values. The internet has changed the world so much. You can learn nearly anything on your own, though I do still value direct mentorship. Now you even have Ai that can act as a free digital mentor for whatever you’re trying to do. Some of the best entrepreneurs and business minds I know don’t have a degree. Some of the greatest health minds I know don’t have a degree. They just have real life experience, which is often more valuable than a degree. They’ve felt that wisdom in their body and their results, not just a book.

I find in our youth we are asked “What do you want to do? What are you passionate about?” I think the question should be “What kind of life do you want?”. If someone had asked me that question I would not have answered “to have my worth be on a piece of paper, to be expected to be in an office every day for the majority of my life and to have my livelihood depend on people’s healing at the expense of my own life balance a good portion of the time.” I would have answered, “to have freedom of my time, to have my livelihood come from learning and taking self-responsibility for understanding economic flow and systems, to be in nature, to prioritize exploration, quality time and life balance.” This is what I’m learning how to do now.

One of the best things I did for myself was work and live abroad alone for over a year in South America, Africa and Asia. It was hard and beautiful. I met myself more deeply than any other time in my life, learned new languages and expanded my perception of humankind and consciousness. I encourage everyone to live their lives when you can. Life is short. Many people have passed recently. The world is going through changes. Make sure to see what you want to see in this lifetime. Do what you want to do. That is the purpose is to feel, experience and see the magic the world has to offer. Appreciate small moments, spend time with people you love. No one says on their deathbed “I wish I would have worked more” – they say “I wish I would have worried less.”

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.depthwellness.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/@drchristinesmith
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/@drchristinesmith
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/@drchristinesmith
• Twitter: https://x.com/DrChristineS_DW
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@depthwellness
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/depth-wellness-arvada
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@drchristinesmith

Image Credits

Image credits to Anna Bain – https://www.annababinphotos.com/