We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kelley Suggs a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Kelley thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What do you think Corporate America gets wrong in your industry? Any stories or anecdotes that illustrate why this matters?

My first job in the health and wellness field was with the Air Force, at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great falls, Montana. I was the Health and Wellness Program manager and we had a great program. After Brayden, or first baby was born, I needed to change from working full time to part time. A position became available in a hospital in my home state of Minnesota, so we moved back for it. It turns out, actual prevention programs in hospitals are not very valuable or well thought of. I struggled to be able to find a place to out my skills to work. After consulting for the USAF Surgeon General, it was a challenge to be so limited.
During that time, Brayden was getting sick. He couldn’t breath out of his nose. H is mouth was always agape, his nose always draining. His cheeks were always red and he always had a low grade fever. Daycare was miserable. His diapers were awful. His ears started to bleed as his ear drums ruptured again and again. His doctor gave him 12 doses of antibiotics before his second birthday and prescriptions for reflux. The pharmacist would greet us by name as we walked by for toilet paper and toothpaste.
He was tested for C-Diff. At that time, C-Diff was only something that occurred in geriatric populations, but our baby was struggling so hard, a new doctor thought that his entire gut culture was wiped out and destroyed. He went from being a happy little cherub to a toddler who couldn’t sit still, couldn’t listen to books or play with puzzles. He was scheduled for emergency eustachian tube surgery, and even after that, nothing changed. He didn’t get better.
By that time, his baby brother was born and was struggling just as hard. Jack’s reflux was so severe that he couldn’t pat my face or hold my hand. He stayed stiff as a board with his arms out all of the time. He was such a sweet baby, and rarely cried, but he was absolutely tortured by the reflux. We had to make a change. we couldn’t watch them suffer any more. We started seeing a chiro and she helped us to look at things differently. And then, we saw a naturopath, who changed our lives dramatically. He told us that it was what we were eating. He told us how to change our diets and gave us remedies to help. Brayden started to sleep through the night, without gagging and chocking on mucus all night long. Jack’s reflux went away and for the first time in his life, he was comfortable.
As we made those diet changes, my husband and I started to break free from crippeling migraines, horrible skin conditions, unfortunate bowel movements and cramps that would have me on the floor in tears.
When we changed our diet, that all changed. And we got to feel what it felt like to be healthy, not just survive.
I could not continue teaching people the wrong thing during my hospital work. So when cutbacks at the hospital left me jobless, I started my own business to teach people the ways that would give them the same freedom that vibrant, robust health gave us. I began by muscle testing folks and helping them break free from brain fog and cramps, ear aches and weeping ears, oozing excema and flaky psoriasis. I taught, and still teach, Weston A. PRice nutrition and help people get to the root of their discomfort and dis-ease. I use the Electordermal Screening Machine now, and helping people to become vibrantly, robustly healthy feels revolutionary.

I originally started working with mamas and babies; they are still my favorite population to work with. Once the dads could see the kids and moms changing, even watching all of the hard work that went into it, they want to achieve that level of health and freedom, too. Now, their grandparents come in and aunts and uncles bring their children in, too! Over the years, clients have pushed my to help with bigger and deeper issues, and I have become a naturopath. Now, I still get to help with food as medicine, but I am helping those same mamas have healthy transitions through menopause. The oldest client that I have seen is 82. The youngest is just a few weeks. And it is a lot of fun to help them feel their best.
What I ask people to do can be very difficult at first. So I do my best to have a lot of offerings to make it easy, and that includes our farm, Restoration Acres. Our focus is Regenerative Agriculture and we plant for pollinators, have medicine gardens and a demonstration garden. We raise sheep for both meat and wool. Lamb is one of the most nutrient dense, easiest to digest meats available, especially when it is raised well. And the wool from our sheep is made into the moves comfortable mattress toppers and duvets. Sleeping in wool improves the very foundation of your health, your sleep!

Training and knowledge matter of course, but beyond that what do you think matters most in terms of succeeding in your field?

The most helpful tool for success in my field, is that I believe my clients. I believe them when they say that they have this as a concern or they noticed that. Everything that they tell me, helps me get to the root of the problem. So many folks come in and say “well, you probably think this is crazy, but…” I never think that they are crazy. They are the person living in that body and only they can tell me what they are experiencing. When someone says “It feels like I am leaching metals out of the pins and plates in my bones”, I believe them. When someone says “I feel like I have bugs crawling around in me,” or “I am so bloated that I feel pregnant all of the time,” or “My kid does this” or “Since that event, I have felt…” Whatever it is, I believe them.

And I help empower them to believe themselves and understand what those things mean. I help them to understand what the white spots are on their fingernails, or why the have ridges or rollercoasters in their thumbnails. I help them understand what a healthy bowel movement is like and how to achieve that, why they are bloated and why their kiddo has such a horrible pain in their side that they don’t want to put their seat belt on or button their pants. I believe them that it is happening, and then I help them understand and solve it.

If you could go back, would you choose the same profession, specialty, etc.?

If I could go back, I would choose the same profession, the same life, every single time. It wasn’t necessarily what I thought our life would be like, but it is so much more that I could have asked for or imagined. We are a homeschool family, which means that I am a homeschool mama, and I love that. I work part time at Lithe Wellness Solutions as a naturopath, and getting to milk sheep and help lambs be born is icing on the cake. I don’t love cleaning stalls for the horses or the winter sheep pens, but all of that manure goes back into our fields and gardens, so it is pretty hard to complain about. Our oldest son is in that stage of life where he “has to decide what he wants to do for the rest of his life”. And that is so silly. So many people don’t do what they went to school for. I thought I would be a physical therapist. I am so glad that I am not hooked to a 9-5 job, with zero flexibility. Working for myself has allowed homeschool and it has made space for farming, and the best part, what my family needs me to be. I get to see our horses when I walk home on my thirty second commute, from the shop to the house. The dogs walk me home and the chickens follow me from the office. We have been able to create a challenging, beautiful life that is all our own. I wouldn’t change a thing.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.LitheWellnessSolutions.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/restoration.acres.2024, https://www.facebook.com/LitheWellnessSolutions
• Other: Book an appointment: https://square.site/book/5M6PQ8PH5A5J2/lithe-wellness-solutions-clearwater-mn?hl=en-US&gei=31jMZ-atOPSJptQP7_DrcA

Image Credits

Image credit for the first image of Aroura, the sheep, Kelley and Jeremiah belongs to Michelle’s Free Reign Photography. All other images are by Kelley Suggs