The Human Being Podcast

What if your brain has been rehearsing illness without you even realizing it? I just got back from a week on the California coast—driving Highway 1, spending time under the redwoods, forest bathing, getting out of my normal routine and giving my mind some room to wander. Then a conversation with one of my best friends about health anxiety got me thinking about something I haven't been able to...

This week, I got my first real online hater. She wasn't upset about my science. She wasn't challenging the research. She was convinced my social media bio was hiding who I really was. As frustrating as it was, she unknowingly handed me one of the biggest lessons I've learned about growth, identity, and protecting your nervous system. In this episode, we talk about why criticism hits so...

How many times have you said, "I don't have time"? I caught myself saying it over and over—to my daughter, to myself, to anyone who would listen. So I decided to find out if it was actually true. In this episode, I share the surprisingly simple exercise that completely changed how I think about time, why our brains make emotional estimates instead of mathematical ones, the concept of...

The Ultimate Gut Episode (Part 2): Leaky Gut, the Microbiome & the Gut-Brain Connection Last week, we followed digestion from north to south—starting in the mouth and working our way through stomach acid, pancreatic enzymes, and bile. This week, we pick up where we left off. What is "leaky gut"...and is it even the right term? What is intestinal permeability, and why has it become on...

Everyone wants to heal their gut. The probiotic. The parasite cleanse. The greens powder. The newest gut protocol. But what if we’ve been starting in the wrong place? Welcome to  The Ultimate Gut Episode — Part 1. In this episode, we’re taking a north-to-south journey through your digestive system, because your body isn’t a collection of disconnected parts — it’s a conversation. And digestion does...

America turns 250 this week, and instead of talking about fireworks, I want to talk about something much bigger. I've always been fascinated by our Founding Fathers—not because they were perfect (they absolutely weren't), but because they were willing to sacrifice everything for something they believed was bigger than themselves. In this episode, we explore the extraordinary story behind t...

What if the reason you're stuck isn't because you don't know what to do? What if you're simply unwilling to feel what it would feel like to do it? In this episode, I'm talking about something that showed up for me during spin class this week—a simple thought that completely reframed healing, business, relationships, and personal growth. We dive into why your brain is wired to a...

Healing doesn't look like going back to the way things were before. In this episode, we explore the wisdom of Ram Dass, who after a life-changing stroke famously said, "I was stroked" — seeing his greatest challenge as another teacher. What if healing isn't about getting your old life back? What if it's about becoming someone new? We dive into autoimmunity, the grief of letti...

Bloodletting. Mercury. Lobotomies. Cigarettes endorsed by physicians. History is filled with moments when the smartest people in the room were absolutely convinced they were right. In this episode, we explore what happens when consensus collides with curiosity, why new ideas are often resisted, and the courage it takes to ask, "Are we sure?" From Semmelweis and Galileo to modern medicine...

Medicine once used bloodletting. Today, we’ve turned iodine into the internet’s favorite thyroid miracle. In this episode of The Human Being Podcast, Vanessa breaks down the strange and inflammatory relationship between iodine and Hashimoto’s disease, why some people temporarily feel amazing on iodine, why others spiral into anxiety and insomnia, and how thyroid destruction can masquerade as heali...

Hashimoto’s is not just a thyroid problem — it’s an autoimmune disease affecting the entire body. In this episode, we’re talking about why so many people still feel exhausted, anxious, inflamed, foggy, and dismissed even after getting diagnosed. We get into blood sugar crashes, gluten, dairy, nervous system dysregulation, thyroid hormones, iodine confusion, and why modern medicine often misses the...

What if your brain has been unconsciously rehearsing limitation your entire life? In this emergency episode, Vanessa connects the Jamie Vardy underdog story, Pat Riley’s legendary “pack one uniform” mindset, and the neuroscience of the Default Mode Network to explore identity, belief, nervous system conditioning, and how we build the internal coaches that shape our future.

A funny thing happened when I started posting online: the comments revealed something much bigger than health advice. Thousands of people are suffering, being dismissed, and trying to navigate chronic illness feeling completely alone. In this episode, we talk about autoimmunity, the nervous system, modern medicine, and why the body may be far more interconnected than we realize.

This podcast is for the people who are exhausted from surface-level conversations about health, healing, and being human. We’ll talk about functional medicine, autoimmunity, nervous system regulation, neuroscience, stress, identity, thought patterns, healing, and what it means to create a life that actually feels aligned. Some episodes will be educational. Some will be philosophical. Some will pro...