Today we’d like to introduce you to Kacy Shea.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Kacy. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
Throughout my whole life, I thought I was healthy. I was an athlete my entire life and my mom taught me to always finish my veggies. I played three sports competitively growing up and even my friends’ parents would comment on my healthy habits. It wasn’t until I after I’d been working in a stressful corporate job, post-college graduation that I noticed my health wasn’t where I thought it was. I began to experience skin rashes, upsetting hormonal imbalances (ugh, PMS), and most distressingly about of severe iron-deficiency anemia that turned my life completely upside down.
Frantic for some sort of solution, I turned to several specialist medical doctors. Unfortunately, I left every single appointment annoyed, confused, even more hopeless than before… and of course with yet another prescription. After a few months, I had a pile of prescription medications, no answer and had seen zero improvements in my symptoms. Frustrated with the traditional medical system of “diagnose and adios,” I decided to take matters into my own hands. I scoured textbooks, attended lectures and became rather intimate with academic study publisher, PubMed.
Through my personal research, I realized that my doctors had completely overlooked some major causative factors- my nutrition, my personal stress levels and past trauma.
This realization spurred me to begin working with an integrative medical doctor who introduced me to the fascinating world of functional medicine. As my healing journey continued, I became obsessed with functional medicine nutritional therapy and nutritional psychiatry. I made major lifestyle shifts (quitting my stressful corporate job for one!) and devoted my life to learning every possible thing I can about the role of nutrients in the body and how stress affects health and promotes disease.
My work, school and personal life are one beautiful blurred mess of serving my clients, meditating, studying for specialty certifications, exercising, and pursuing my master’s degree in clinical nutrition. Still, I crave more. I’m utterly obsessed with the incredible impact food has on our mind and body. And conversely, the impact that the mind has on our body and how our thoughts affect how food is utilized in the body.
Thankfully my obsession has led me to create my functional nutritional therapy business, Kacy Shea Nutrition. My business is a place where I can continually immerse myself in nutritional science research, functional medicine principles and traditional Eastern medicine for the betterment of my clientele.
My work is centered around the mind-body connection. I help women holistically address their lives to help them improve their brain health and ditch symptoms of anxiety, depression and neurodegenerative decline.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
My journey has not been a smooth road, though I am blessed to have had an incredible support system during it. Heck, my journey has just begun and it’s still not smooth. It’s more level now, but as I continue to grow both personally and business-wise, the more potholes I run into.
I consider each one a blessing though. Every pothole, or setback, I encounter has always led me to where I needed to be.
Even starting from my own health journey, I was confused and depressed. I thought there was no hope until I shifted my mindset and created hope for myself. Out of that process, I discovered a whole new world of alternative medicine that gave me all the answers I was so desperately seeking. But that was only the beginning.
Starting a business, and starting a business in COVID no less, tested me. It pushed me to my absolute breaking points. This is when I began to really work on the emotional side of things and tap into my own trauma work. The process of me acknowledging my own trauma shifted my entire work practice. I shifted my work from holistic nutrition to functional nutritional therapy for those who are suffering from emotional pain, mental illness, anxiety, depression and neurodegenerative conditions.
All of these things that are so commonly treated just by looking to what’s going on in the brain or mind. My personal journey, full of potholes, led me to connecting the mind and the body. This allows me to better serve my clients and helps them overcoming their mental and physical setbacks to achieve a level of health and wellness that they never thought possible.
I get to spend my days giving hope back to the hopeless. I get to help restore confidence and vitality. I wake up grateful every single day that I struggle with my own physical and mental health because of this. All my own breakdowns and struggles were 100% worthwhile so that I am able to do what I do.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
My business focuses on connecting the mind and body to help my client achieve the most out of their health and wellness efforts. I am a nutritionist, but I do not only focus on nutrition.
My client surpasses their goals extremely quickly because I have them focus on every area of their life, not just the food they put into their mouths. We work on their mindset around food and self-worth. We work on their morning and evening routines to optimize their sleep and establish steady energy all day long. We work on their movement and the way they breathe. Most importantly, their trauma.
Everyone has trauma. Whether you acknowledge it or not, you do and it affects every single one of your decisions. It has shaped how you think, how you respond, how you act and how you envision your future.
This is why working with me is different than working with another dietician or nutritionist. I look at how trauma (aka cellular memory) is affecting the health of your mitochondrial and your gene expression. I look at how the nutrients you put in your body affect both of those things.
I’m holistic, meaning I work on every facet of your life with you. I’m functional, meaning I am using treatment modalities that are proved by both time and tradition and the lastest nutritional sciences. I’m realistic, meaning I know how to pace your work so you don’t get overwhelmed and want to give up. I’m trained in neurotransmitter therapy, meaning I know how to stimulate your motivation molecule (dopamine) to ensure you’re setting yourself up for long term success. I’m also limited, meaning I know I cannot help you by myself. I work with my clients’ therapists, physicians, chiropractors; whoever your health team consists of, I collaborate with them to serve you in the best, most effective way.
I am most proud of the fact that I am able to give back hope. I am able to educate my clients and show them how they’re not destined to the diseases of their parents. I am able to break down complex science and help them understand how they can shift their gene expression to be more favorable to them.
I specialize in working with women who are dealing with anxiety, depression and neurodegenerative disease, who are not having success from traditional therapies and need a more specialized approach.
Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
Education. I want to make sure all my clients understand exactly what we’re doing, why we’re doing it and how it’s going to benefit them. That way, they have the skills and knowledge to adjust their own dietary and lifestyle habits throughout their whole life to maintain a high level of health, even once they’re done working with me.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.kacyshea.com
- Email: kacy@kacyshea.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneuronutritionist/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1685611404911512
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