#46: The Courage To Do What’s Right For You with Andrea Beaman

Andrea:
Like we think that it starts from the external, but it doesn't actually start from the external it's. According to ancient medicine, everything starts from the internal meaning what we experience internally in our mind, body and spirit emanates externally to the outside world.

Michelle:
It's time to stop being the victim of your over-scheduled life and become the most powerful version of yourself. Welcome to she's got power.

Michelle:
Today's episode is about thyroid disease, but you know what it's about so much more than that. It's about having the courage to use your voice, the courage, to make your own decisions, and to really check in with yourself before you take anyone's advice. Even a doctor's my guest, Andrea Beaman is an internationally renowned holistic health coach. She's a natural food chef speaker, herbalist, bestselling author. I mean, she does it all since 1999. She's been teaching people how to harness the body's own preventative and healing powers using food, herbal remedies and alternative medicine. And more than all of that, she's a dear friend and somebody that I look up to for her ability to really speak her mind. Now, by the way, if you're struggling with your own thyroid issues, you can download my solution kit right now for free at she's got power.com/thyroid.

Michelle:
Now I want to introduce you to Andrea, Andrea Beaman. Welcome to the show. Oh, thanks for having

Andrea:
Me. It's good to see your beautiful face or to hear your beautiful voice.

Michelle:
We can see each other cause we're here on zoom together. Of course, everyone listening. Can't see that you are in a completely empty room that you just moved into your new place. And I'm in my messy bedroom. Nevermind. All of that. I'm so glad that you could join this season of the podcast. I'm doing a lot of episodes around thyroid health. And of course you came to mind as one of my favorite people to talk thyroid with

Andrea:
Thyroid. I'm glad you contacted me then. Yeah. Yeah. So

Michelle:
I mean your personal story is super interesting and you tell it so well, I thought we could start there. How did you even like begin to start thinking about thyroid health and get into all

Andrea:
Of this? Well, you know, I started thinking about it the way that most people start thinking about it, which is you don't really think about it until you have a problem with it, right? So a problem comes and you're like, oh, well I'd have to do something about this. So when I was 28 years old, I was struggling. I was working at MTV at the time and I was struggling with heart palpitations. I'd sit at my desk and have hard heart palpitations. I started having a, a large growing glider, which looked like a little naughty little. It was pretty large, large lump in the middle of my neck. And my hair was falling out and my nails were peeling and it was just, I was messy. I was really messy. And when I went for my annual checkup, my doctor told me that I had hyper thyroid and I needed to take radioactive iodine to destroy my thyroid, to stop it from functioning and then to be on thyroid medication for the rest of my life.

Andrea:
And as you know, I was like, what you radioactive? What? You know, like it was, it was like, I was in a surreal moment. Like I'm not taking radioactive anything. Cause I had watched years prior, my mom go through the treatments of cancer with radiation and chemotherapy and it didn't work out so well. So, uh, for me there was like red flags. Okay. You're not taking radioactive anything. So I said to my doctor, I said, listen. I said, I know that my diet, my lifestyle is crap. I mean, I work at MTV networks. I'm eating sugar all day long. I drink coffee all day long. I stay up all night, I'm partying with rock stars. I said, I need to change my diet and my lifestyle. And my doctor said your diet and your lifestyle have nothing to do with your thyroid. And I said, okay, well, I understand that you understand that.

Andrea:
Uh, but I'm going to try it anyway. Before I do something radical, like destroy a piece of my body with radiation and then take a medication for the rest of my life. So I left the doctor's office and I completely changed my diet and my lifestyle. I mean, I'm talking like one day I'm having like donuts and coffee for breakfast to the next day I'm having like a like, oh, it's there like a rice Partridge with like just weird stuff. I would never even consider and food. Like I, I went from like pizza and salads at lunchtime to like food, like, like real food, even though I know pizza and salad is food, but it wasn't food for me at the time from my goiter, my growing Gwadar as well as all the fast food and the junk food and the sugar I was eating and the caffeine like crazy. And I started to eat like real food that like you would get at a farm, right. Envision a farm. What comes out of a farm? That's what I was eating.

Michelle:
Well, I think the pizza grows out of like the pizza tree.

Andrea:
That's right. That's right. Well, we could make the box out of the tree for sure. That's something. Yeah, it's something. And so I, I changed my diet radically and my health started changing within like a few weeks. It was pretty noticeable. And I had learned about this from macrobiotics years prior when my mom was at the end of her life with the cancer, we had found macrobiotics. So it was like grains and beans and vegetables and fish and all the seaweed and stuff. And that's the stuff that I was eating. And within a couple of weeks, my, I could feel my goiter start to get soft. My weight started to come down and I was eating more food than ever before my hair stopped falling out. And within three months, my I'd lost 20 something pounds. My skin cleared up. I no longer had the little cystic acne that I used to get every month around my period.

Andrea:
I stopped getting herpes, cold sores all over my face. I used to get them like every two weeks drinking and partying every night I'd get a cold sore on my lip. So things started to change. So I went back to my doctor was like maybe 120 days later, right. 90 to 120 days later, I go back to my doctor and he take another blood test. And my doctor says, when the blood test comes back, she said, she said, okay. She goes, your thyroid levels have, have definitely changed. Uh, but it's still not. Normally you have to take this medication. And I said, I said, doc, I said, I'm feeling better than ever. I'm going to the bathroom every day, which is a miracle for me as a chronic diet. Or I used to go once every three days, right. Or struggle every other day. And, uh, I didn't go going to the bathroom every day.

Andrea:
I'm sleeping at night. I'm feeling good. My goiter is shrink rate shrinking. I said, I'm just going to continue doing what I'm doing. So, um, my doctor wasn't for that. So I changed doctors and I went to like another six months passed. I go to another doctor and that doctor said, okay, now you have hypo thyroid. So I went from hyperthyroid to hypo thyroid, and we need to take this medication. And then I went to another doctor after that. And that doctor said, oh, now you have Hashimoto's right. So in the end, like it took two years for me to heal my condition. But in the end it was Hashimoto's thyroiditis that was making my thyroid swing from hyper and hypo to hyper and hypo to hyper to hype it up. It had nothing to do with my thyroid. My thyroid was just the end result of a digestive system and a hormonal system, uh, and an endocrine system that was out of balance. Right? So once it started, it found its balance. The thyroid became normal. So, uh, I've been shouting it from the rooftops ever since

Michelle:
You have. And I've heard you talk about this before and I wanted to get back to that idea of a thyroid that swings one day, a typo one day it's hyper one day you have Hashimoto's the next day, are they seeing antibodies for graves' disease? I mean, it can feel all over the map. So can you just expand on what you just said about how it's not really a thyroid problem? Yeah.

Andrea:
So when, when you have an auto-immune condition, your body is attacking a specific gland, right? So there's many theories about this, right? So Hilda Clark, who was called a quack in the 1970s in the 1980s, she said it was rogue bacteria in the body contributing to auto-immune conditions. And then you have the medical medium, couple of years ago, he said, it's viruses right. Contributing to the auto-immune conditions. So I live in the camp that there's some invader inside the body because the body is very smart. It's very smart. It will attack something that is a foreign invader inside your body. So whether that foreign invader has landed in an organ system or on a gland, uh, or in a, in a, like, let's say your respiratory system or on your nervous system, um, it will attack, right? So this is the auto-immune, the body is attacking it.

Andrea:
So you have to get to, well, what is happening in the system to cause this either bacteria or virus or whatever it is, um, to be in your system in the first place. So at first we look at the digestive system because that's an easy one. Um, and I say easy. I don't mean it's easy to fix. I mean, like that's an easy one because when you have leaky gut, you're going to have pathogens in an antigens that are leaking into your body from the digestive system where they're supposed to be contained. So of course your body's going to attack your body's going to say, get this thing. It's not supposed to be in here. Right? So the first place to look for any autoimmune condition is in the gut, heal the gut, support the gut, get that under control, get it balanced. And there are so many things that can knock your gut out of balance, high stress, poor quality food, eating on the run, which is the American way, uh, crap, you know, overdosing on antibiotics.

Andrea:
I remember growing up and I was given an antibiotic every two weeks for the next thing and the new illness and this one. So, you know, that will throw the gut out of balance. So the first thing to do for an auto-immune condition is to heal the gut, really get in there and say, okay, what can we do to heal this gut? And then you can get your body under control, meaning you've sealed up the leaks in the gut, and now your body can go and do its fighting business. And it may take time can take a year. It could take two years, depending on what's hiding in your system. And so that's, that's, that's my thoughts. And I know that it's way crunchy granola and on, you know, like, um, all these people that are called quacks, but I happen to like the quacks. I think the quacks are thinking outside the box where an hour medical establishment, which I love our medical establishment is really great at trauma, but they're not so good at prevention and they're not so good at healing.

Michelle:
Yup. Girl. So I heard you say, you know, maybe it's a rogue bacteria, right. Or maybe it's a virus or, you know, maybe it's pathogens coming through the leaky gut.

Andrea:
What if it's something

Michelle:
That you can't see? What if it's something emotional, mental, energetic? Can we go there? Oh yeah. Andrea loves to go there.

Andrea:
I love to go there. Okay. So our body is made up of trillions of cells, right? And each cell communicates with all of the other cells. It's one working unit. So in Western, every part of your body has been taken apart and categorize and compartmentalize heart liver, right? They're all separate, separate, separate parts and pieces. You gotta a respiratory person, you got an immunologist, right? It's all separate parts and pieces. But in ancient medicine, the body is one contained area that is housing, the physical, emotional, energetic, and spiritual aspects of the human being. So when we look at it from that perspective, let's just take auto-immune conditions. For example, it's an attack on the body. So the thyroid specifically in ancient medicine is connected to the fifth chakra. And your fifth chakra is your ability to communicate effectively or express yourself effectively, both externally to other people and internally to yourself.

Andrea:
So if I'm saying to myself, I suck, I can't believe I did that. I'm the worst person. I'll never get this right. Who am I? Right? Whoa, who am I to say this? Or to say that right? If I, if I start to attack myself on a spiritual and the emotional level, guess what? Because my whole entire body is connected, physically, emotionally, energetically, and spiritually. My cells here, me and my cells will have a reaction. So if I'm attacking myself, the incidents for auto-immune conditions will be greater, right. And attack on the self now attacking other people, right? This is another attack, right? External attack. You suck. You're the worst. You did this to me, the blame shame game.

Michelle:
You sound like a new Yorker. Now,

Andrea:
All the shamers in the world, shame on you for all this. Right? So that's another attack. So, you know, like we have to start to look at the spiritual component of the healing of the thyroid. So how are we expressing ourselves? And we have to look at that. I believe from the internal perspective. And then that goes to the externals perspective, meaning whatever we think or feel about ourselves is going to emanate externally toward other people. So if I'm angry at myself or beating myself up for something or not happy with myself, trust me, I won't be happy with anyone around me. This, you know, like, uh, everything starts. Like we think that it starts from the external, but it doesn't actually start from the external it's. According to ancient medicine, everything starts from the internal meaning what we experience internally in our mind, body and spirit emanates externally to the outside world. So, um, who was it? Gandhi be the change that you want to see in the world, right? It starts with you as that human being and it emanates outward to the other human beings, right? So that's, that's a much deeper thought, a much deeper healing.

Michelle:
That's not something you're going to hear from your doctor after they tell you that you need to take radioactive medication or that here's your prescription for Synthroid. They never get to that part.

Andrea:
No, cause they they're stuck on the physical plane. And I think that there was a separation between body and spirit. I believe it was in the 14 hundreds when the church was in full power and I'm not an anti religious person, maybe organized religion on the antibiotic. I think God is good. Right? Let's just go there. So the church was coming to power and the medical establishment was coming to power. And the, the church said, cause they had all the power. They said to the medical establishment, you take the body, we take the spirit and we're not going to cross these lines. Right. So we got the spirit, you got the body, right? So there was this separation. And I know that now in 2021, and even over the past five years, I've been watching that there's this coming together of body and spirit again, right. We've been separated for a long time, but now there's definitely a coming together, which is really nice. Even amongst all the crazy chaos that's going on.

Michelle:
It makes so much sense when you describe it like that, like you want answers for anything, follow the money, follow the business behind it. So it makes perfect sense that we would have separated medicine into just the body because of a power struggle.

Andrea:
Yeah, it's crazy. That's correct. I know it's crazy. But it happened and we are what's happening in the world and the, the power that these industries have, cause they're all industries, right? Everything is a business. These days, the power that they have is real because you can see how, how it's impacted the human being. Who's trying to live this beautiful life here on this Eden, right? The earth is just our, it's a, it's a playground for human beings and all the other creatures, this place is amazing. Right. But then you throw business in and the money and the power and the greed is destroying the Eden. And it's destroying the population of the species called human beings in the process. Um, and all the other species as well. So, um, that's interesting concept, you know, I mean, eventually we're going to have to find another planet, which they're already looking for. Yeah.

Michelle:
We better move a little faster on that. I think, oh gosh. I mean, it's, it's fascinating. We can go from a TSH, number two, you know, what's wrong with the entire planet, but you know, that's how connected all of these things are. It's not just like, oh, somebody turned down your thyroid and half a degree and we're going to move it back up or you get this really connected to all these different issues. And one thing I like to talk with my clients about, and, and you started to mention is this idea of the attack on the self and how, I mean, that really is what auto-immunity is. You know, the immune system attacking oneself, which is what our thoughts are doing. Can you say something about the connection between that idea and the rates of auto-immunity in women versus men?

Andrea:
Oh, that's a good one. Michelle. That's why they pay you the big bucks sister. Yes. The autoimmunity, especially with thyroid is higher in women than in men. And one of the things is like, if you look at our society as a whole women have been oppressed for a long time, a long, long time, I mean, we're going back to the witches trials, we're going back, right. The oppression and the destruction of the feminine has been for a long time where the patriarch has been in power. So women have been, um, demoralized, uh, oppressed, you know, like squash, like even today in 2021. Uh, you look at the, even in, in the big, big industries, you look at the CEOs of major companies and the vast majority are male in those high power positions. And even when there is a female in one of those high power positions, she's not even paid the same amount of money as the male that was in the same position. Right. So there has been this squashing of the feminine, uh, which is very interesting because we, nobody would be here on the planet without the feminine. Right. A little bit of importance there, but you're

Michelle:
Right. I mean, 4,000 years, for more many, many thousands of years, there's been negativity pushed on women and then internalized yes, yes,

Andrea:
Yes, absolutely. And what we can do, especially now, like I have a theory that all of this thyroid diseases popping up, especially now for a reason. And remember I said that we need to creatively and healthfully express ourselves or learn how to express ourselves here in the world. I think our thyroids are telling us to speak up. It's time to speak up to say what you mean, but don't say it mean, uh, you know, say, say, speak your truth, so to speak. And um, I think that that's very important because for a long time, women haven't been able to speak their truth, right? And then when they do speak their truth, they're considered hysterical. Uh, oh, she's hysterical. She's being emotional. I, I can't even tell you how many times I hear that. So I have a client, she doesn't have disease. She's got everything else, which is a thyroid disease.

Andrea:
She said that when she goes to her doctor, her doctor tells her to stop crying, stop crying. Don't be emotional. It's, you know, this is not emotional. And I'm like, please continue to cry when you need to cry because our emotions need to be expressed in a healthy way. And if you don't express them, I'm a firm believer that repressed emotions lead to bigger diseases, whether it's cancer, uh, auto-immune conditions. Um, but repressing our emotions and how we're really feeling is dangerous. It's dangerous. Now. I'm not saying like the house on fire. That's, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the ability to express in a healthy way. Uh, so I dunno if I answered your question. I did it well.

Michelle:
Yeah. I mean, I think this is exactly what women are, you know, girls in general are taught to not do. And it's more, of course the men, mostly men. And should, we should also say mostly white men are the CEOs. And when we're talking about oppressed communities and women, I imagine the rates also it's very, it will be, I don't know, off the top of my head. Do you know how rates of Hashimoto's vary between different ethnicities?

Andrea:
Oh no. I don't know. We have some homework to do. Yes. But if this theory is true,

Michelle:
That if you've been living in an oppressed society or you've been oppressed within a society and you there's this sort of self-loathing, that becomes internalized. That turns into auto-immunity. I would love to see those numbers. I'm going to make that homework for myself.

Michelle:
Let's wrap up by just circling back to that little gland that sits in our neck. If there's a woman today who is struggling with some of those classic symptoms, like you mentioned earlier, the hair has fallen out. The nails are brittle. They're gaining weight. Doctors are telling them things like don't cry. Okay. What is your first piece of advice

Andrea:
For her? Well, the first piece of advice I would say is to just before you answer to anyone, or before you take anyone's advice, just take a moment to get quiet and then ask yourself your inner self internally is this right for me? And then see what pops up. You don't have to give anybody an answer to anything. I'm going to take this. I'm going to do that. You don't have to do any of that until you check in with yourself. Is this the right path for me? Is this the right food for me? Is this the right medication for me? Is this the right thing for me to be doing at this time in my life? And just get quiet and see what your inner self says? You know, that's, that's probably the, the main advice that I would give someone, always check in with yourself.

Andrea:
Because so many times we don't, we're looking for the answers externally, but every human being on this planet, just like every creature on this planet knows innately exactly what they need for their own survival. So this is, this is a survival game, right, where we're in and out of this lifetime in a heartbeat. So while you're here, you want to survive and you want to thrive. You know, you don't just don't want to survive by the skin of your teeth. You want to thrive. So you got to check with your inner self. Is this right for me?

Michelle:
Thank you for that. And I know you have a free download on thyroid myths on your website. Is that right? Yes, that's correct. Awesome. So we will put a link to that in the show notes, give us a sneak peek. What's like one of the thyroid myths that you talk about in that download.

Andrea:
Well, there's a lot of them, you know, like one of the myths that was, uh, over the past five years, one of the myths was that Epstein BARR is the sole contributor to Hashimoto's. Right. But many people have Epstein-Barr 94, 95% of the population has, Epstein-Barr not all of them have thyroiditis or Hashimoto's or graves. Right? So it's, that's one myth. Uh, I mean, there's, there's a lot of myths, but that's one that was a big one over the past five years. I think it's still kind of out there. So if you have Epstein-Barr and you have Hashimoto's thyroiditis, or, you know, like, uh, graves or any of the thyroid conditions, it may not actually be the full cause it may just be a partial or a piece of it, right? The thing that's triggering the body, right. It, but with what's happening with the gut and what's happening with the diet and what's happening with the emotional body and what's happening with the lifestyle member, we are this human being encased in this body that is physical, emotional, energetic, and spiritual. So we can't just look at the one thing.

Michelle:
Th that's a really interesting one because it would be so easy to go, oh, well you have Hashimoto's because you had Epstein-Barr too bad. The end you're doomed. Right? Like if that was the end, all be all answer to Hashimoto's. But meanwhile, there's so many things that you have control over. So many

Michelle:
Things that you can investigate, like you just said, Andrea, thank you so much for joining us today. It is always a pleasure. Thanks for having a

Michelle:
Conversation. Patients with Andrea are never, ever boring. As promised. I did look up information about rates of Hashimoto's disease in different populations. And I found that compared to white populations, black and Asian women are at a much higher risk of graves' disease, but they're actually at a much lower risk of Hashimoto's now graves' and Hashimoto's are both autoimmune thyroid conditions. In my experience, women can often be diagnosed with one and then the other, and sometimes both at the same time, like Andrea, who said that first, her thyroid was hypo or under functioning. And then it was hyper, which is overfunctioning. So it was a little bit confusing, but I also found that yes, rates of auto-immunity in general are higher among African Americans, Indian Americans, and Latinos. So that holds up against this theory that oppressed communities are more likely to develop this pattern of the body attacking itself or to internalize the oppression. I hope you enjoyed Andrew's energy in this interview. As much as I always appreciate the energy and everything that she brings to the table. And please take her advice

Michelle:
Too. Before you take any medications before you believe anything, anybody tells you about, just about anything, check in with yourself and have the courage to ask. Does this feel right for me?