E191: Why Your Hormone Symptoms Won’t Go Away Without Addressing Stress and Gut Health with Juanique Grover

Are you focusing on the wrong things for hormone balance? If you're feeling tired, moody, or struggling with weight, it’s tempting to blame your hormones. But fixing them is about more than diet or supplements; there could be deeper issues at play.

In this episode, I talk with gut health expert Juanique Grover about how stress, mindset, and gut health impact hormone balance. If you feel stuck despite trying everything, this conversation may offer a fresh perspective.

You’ll learn:

• How stress affects hormones and tips to manage it
• A six-step process for better hormone balance
• Simple ways to support your nervous system and reduce stress

Listen to Juanique’s inspiring story and find out how to get unblocked on your healing journey!

CONNECT WITH JUANIQUE:
Website
@gutsy_mom
Root Causes Quiz

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Don’t forget to subscribe, share this episode, and leave a review. Your support helps us reach more women looking for answers.

Disclaimer: Nothing in this podcast is to be taken as medical advice, please take informed accountability and speak to your provider before making changes to your health routine.

This podcast is for women and moms to learn how to balance hormones naturally in motherhood, to have pain-free periods, increased fertility, to decrease PMS mood swings, and to increase energy without restrictive diet plans. You'll learn how to balance blood sugar, increase progesterone naturally, understand the root cause of estrogen dominance, irregular periods, PCOS, insulin resistance, hormonal acne, post birth-control syndrome, and conceive naturally. We use a pro-metabolic, whole food, root cause approach to functional women's health and focus on truly holistic health and mind-body connection.

If you listen to any of the following shows, we're sure you'll like ours too!
Pursuit of Wellness with Mari Llewellyn, Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark, Found My Fitness with Rhonda Patrick, Just Ingredients Podcast, Wellness Mama, The Dr Josh Axe Show, Are You Menstrual Podcast, The Model Health Show, Grounded Wellness By Primally Pure, Be Well By Kelly Leveque, The Freely Rooted Podcast with Kori Meloy, Simple Farmhouse Life with Lisa Bass

Transcript

Leisha: Hey friend, welcome back to the happily hormonal podcast. I have a guest for you today and her name is Jeanique Grover, and she is a gut healing expert, but we're going to actually talk today about why not only gut healing is a part of hormone healing, but we're going to talk about why hormone healing is.
Kind of the tip of the iceberg. And when we think that we can just heal our hormones with hormone supplements, we're really not doing ourself any favors. We'd love for you to just introduce yourself, talk a little bit about you and your work, and then we'll dive into all the good stuff.
Juanique: Thank you for having me, Leisha. I'm excited to talk about hormones today. A little bit about me. When I was 26 and I had my first child, I was diagnosed with Gray's disease and my doctor was like, go on all these medications. You'll have this for the rest of your life. And I was like, give me six months.
Let me research this. Cause I want to reverse it. I had one doctor laugh in my face was like, you'll never do that. And I was like, no, I will. And six months later I reversed my Graves disease. I worked really hard at it and it obviously I'm better. But a year and a half after that, my late husband was diagnosed with colon cancer stage four.
He was 33 years old. We did the conventional route and Because we were terrified, even though I knew about holistic health, I was terrified to do anything other than what the doctors told us to do. And we did, a year later 40 rounds of radiation, 6 rounds of chemo, 4 surgeries, and the doctors were like, He has very little time left let's do chemo until he dies.
And that was the thing that snapped me out, and I was like, These doctors they're just guessing. That's when we took control of his life and his healing and basically his treatment plan. And we dove deep into the research and actually created a clinic. I built a clinic. It's called the Prova Health Clinic.
And it's one of the bigger clinics here in Utah where we truly became self healing experts. And we brought in medical grade hyperbaric chambers and IVs and ozone and blood work and supplements and you name it. And it just grew and grew. Unfortunately my husband did pass away, but he had almost five years of quality life, whereas they gave him two.
 It was a really beautiful time, but I'm a huge advocate of people becoming self empowered healing advocates because doctors don't have all the answers. They're not God. They don't know everything they have on average, 12 minutes with you. We will go there because we've been taught and almost groomed to think that they are the end all, and they know everything they know better than you.
 I'm passionate about. Popping that bubble for people and putting them in the driver's seat and having them become self empowered healing advocates to take charge of their own healing because no one's going to do it as well as the individual. That's me in a nutshell. That's what I do now.
I own a wellness clinic and I teach people online how to be self healing advocates.
Leisha: That's an amazing story. And to put it all in a nutshell, I know it really does it disservice. But I love always, I love hearing, I think most of us in the holistic health space are here because we have our own journey. And I love hearing just a little piece of that for you. I would love for us to start with just talking about.
Hormone balance. Like we do here on this podcast all the time, but talking about it in the context of how hormone balance is just one piece of our healing journey and one piece of health. Now I think that it's getting, it gets so much more airtime now than it used to. I think it's something that we're gaining a lot of awareness around, which is so good.
And I think that when we oversimplify it, we say Oh, I just noticed that, it's my energy. It's my cortisol. It's my, I have this extra weight, my periods are bad. So it's my hormones. All I need to do is fix my hormones. I would love to hear your perspective on why that's an oversimplification and what the bigger picture is.
Juanique: 100%. I created something called the order of healing because so many people were so overwhelmed with information and where to start. They would take this supplement and they would start this and it was just, everyone tries to hodgepodge their own healing together without realizing that the body actually heals in an order.
Like you said, hormones are just the tip of the iceberg. I like to think of hormones as like The icing and the sprinkles on the cake, they're actually not the cake. If you think about it, you can actually live a fairly long time with little to no hormones at all. You're not comfortable, right?
look horrible, you feel horrible, you'll be in bed all day, but you can actually survive without them for a short amount of time. What the body does is When you are in a health crisis or nutrition depletion, or you're overstressed and your body is lacking resources to build hormones, the body is actually going to sacrifice hormone production first because it's just trying to keep you alive.
So think of it like this way. Your body will not prioritize procreation over survival, because let's talk about sex hormones. There's thyroid hormones and adrenal hormones, but let's talk about sex hormones. They're. Primary purpose is procreation to make other humans. We love sex hormones because they give us energy and motivation and libido and good hair, skin, and nails.
And, they keep us nice and thin and they keep our brain sharp. We're just better humans when our sex hormones are really on fire, and doing good. But if you're not eating properly, and if you're not stressing properly your body is going to start decreasing the production of sex hormones because it's trying to feed your heart and your brain and your lungs and your liver and the more important organs that are truly needed for survival.
 People are like, Oh I have a hormone crisis. But I want to only take supplements for hormones and that's it. But it's not because you have to work upstream. There are other organs and organ systems that have to be optimized and prioritized first in order for optimal hormone production.
 You can take the supplement if you want, but you're most likely like the hormone supplement, but you're most likely just burning money at this point. I want to quickly take you guys through the order of healing And then go a little bit into depth as to why this is number one for hormones, number two for hormones, et cetera, et cetera.  
 We start with mindset and then the number two is mitochondria. Number three is gut. Number four is liver. Number five is adrenals. And then number six is hormones. The reason why mindset is number one is as you've probably spoken about this, like through the roof is when you are in a fight or flight state, when you're in sympathetic dominance, meaning you're always rush rush, rush go, go, go.
And your nervous system is in fight or flight all the time. What happens is your cortisol will go up throughout your bloodstream. Your blood sugar goes up, your adrenaline goes up, Your body is primed and ready to run from a bear to run from dangerous situations and your body isn't signaling proper sex hormone production.
 If you're in that fight or flight state, if you're constantly stressed, if you're not sleeping well, If you're an A type personality, that's on the go all the time. If you're in a stressful relationship or an abusive relationship or whatever it a stressful relationship at work and your cortisol is high, your adrenaline is high.
 You can take all the supplements you want, but your body isn't going to utilize them properly because you have your own hormones working against you. Think of it this way. If you were a building, right? And the building is on fire. The supplements would be like pouring water on the fire, but your cortisol and your adrenaline and your high blood sugar is throwing gasoline on the fire.
 Is the fire ever going to go out? No, , the building will continue to burn. That little bit of water, it's no match for your own fuel That is causing the inflammation to rage in your body, which diminishes sex hormone production. Mindset is so important and everybody wants to bypass this.
Everybody wants to buy the Lumi box or the PEMF mat, or, the sauna or, people want to outsource the real work of actually regulating their nervous system, because I think if people realize what it took to regulate your nervous system, they would actually be very uncomfortable because that would take listening to your body, creating boundaries of people in your life, slowing down, putting your phone down more optimizing sleep.
 If you're in a hormone crisis, , I guarantee you are actually in a stress crisis. You're in a high cortisol crisis. You are in a nervous system dysregulation crisis. You can take the supplements. But until you fix that you're going to have a two steps forward, two steps back, two steps forward, two steps back.
How many listeners do you have that are just like, I tried it and it worked for a little bit, but now I'm back at square one. And they're just. Frustrated. They're like, nothing works. Of course, it's not working. Your cortisol is high. Your blood sugar is high. Your adrenaline is high. When those regulate, all the other systems are going to come back on board, but you have to fix that first.  
Is there anything you want to add to mindset before we go into number two?
Leisha: No, I think that, Is so key and that's the term that I use for this all the time is your body has to be getting these signals of safety and your brain has to be getting signals of safety. And there are so many of those that we're not getting when it comes to just our daily lives.
And then we're wondering, why are our periods bad? Why is our energy bad in those type of things? And it's your body is protecting you. And it's trying to regulate, but there's just too many factors on the outside that are working against that. And we're not focusing on the things that matter most.
And sometimes it is because those things don't seem as cool or as fancy, right? But the cool and the fancy are cherries on top and they have to be added once the foundations are in place. 
Juanique: And the thing about mindset is that it's free. This is all free work. You don't have to buy a 700 Lumi box. just have to be still with yourself, and have radical boundaries and rules and systems to protect your energy and to protect your stress. It requires a lot of inward looking I posted this on Instagram.
I reposted There was a psychologist who was being interviewed on a podcast and she was asking the question. If you before bed watch true crime shows or anything like that, you need to ask yourself, why is violence relaxing for you before bed? People don't actually realize how dysregulated they are.
They think this is normal. It's normal to watch the news that is highly inflammatory. It's normal to watch these shows about true murderers and dah. Like how many people love true murder podcasts? I've actually never listened to one because they're terrifying for me. They're so contrary to my nervous system, but how many people are so used to it?
 It's actually comforting and they crave it, if you crave violence to help you go to sleep, what does that say about your nervous system and your need to you feel comfortable with such high intense information. I think again, it requires discipline. It really does. It requires you to not pick up your phone in the morning.
It requires you to again, put up boundaries with people that are toxic. It requires you to go for that walk at six o'clock in the morning as the sun is rising to just help regulate your nervous system and your pineal gland. Are you ready to be disciplined? Are you ready to do the simple yet hard things?
And this is why it's hard. And this is why I love mindset because everything I'm talking about is actually very easy. Like not picking up your phone in the morning. takes two brain cells, right? Not putting on true crime podcasts and movies and shows. That's not hard. It's not expensive, but why do people not do the work?  
This is why. I want you to really think about this because all of this is linked to hormones. Your nervous system craves that which it is familiar, not which is safe, but which is familiar. If you grew up in a highly intense or fighting family, or, you were surrounded by shows that were violent or people that like just high intensity, the energy that you are now in, it's because your nervous system is used to it.
And the nervous system doesn't like things which are different from it. Any change feels scary and unsafe, when you start implementing discipline to put these things away from you, that actually signals your nervous system that it's unfamiliar and it's uncomfortable and therefore dangerous.
 That's why it's so hard to do the easy thing because your nervous system is so used to the dysregulating thing. It's used to it. It's like family. It feels familiar. It's similar to, if you grew up with an abusive, Mom or dad and then you marry the exact same person. It's because that energy felt familiar to you in order to fix our hormones in order to bring our cortisol down We actually have to do the thing that doesn't feel familiar and safe you don't have to do all of the changes in one day because that will freak your nervous system the hell out.
And then you'll rebound within three days and go eat a cake or something. You just need to make micro changes that are slightly uncomfortable, but not too uncomfortable where your nervous system is freaking out. And then when you do that micro change, then you do another micro change and then another one. 
Slow and steady truly wins the race in this situation. If you want to fix your hormones, you actually have to have a lifestyle like all over because your nervous system is a product of your life right now. Do you want different hormones? You have to train a new nervous system to have your brain signal different cortisol levels different adrenaline, different blood sugar.
Juanique: So that you can start losing the weight. Because how many people, again, they're like, I'm doing the diet perfectly and I'm still gaining weight. It's not the diet. It's your brain. It's your nervous system. It's your hormones. It's the cortisol. It's the adrenaline. I promise you, if you switch your mindset, if you retrain your nervous system, which means retraining your lifestyle.
Things will then shift for you versus against you and then healing your hormones will actually feel in super easy. It won't feel like pushing a boulder uphill. So I'm super passionate about people understanding this and trying to make the mindset shifts in the lifestyle shifts before they go for all the supplements.
And again, it's free. 
Leisha: Right. And I think that we're so conditioned. Even like you shared in your story to go to the doctors when we're scared or to just check those boxes that it can be hard to believe that this will actually work because we're also pretty well conditioned to believe that stress is normal.
, but everybody's stressed, right? And it's everybody's stressed, but also everybody's sick. Also just realizing that it's a lifetime journey and something to work on versus you're not going to arrive at a place of Oh, now I'm never stressed and everything's perfect, but we do need to have those tools in our toolkit where we know these are the things that were really helping me and creating that safety in the body.
And these are the things that I need to go back to that I maybe, Forgot or stopped doing or things like that, because Yeah, I feel like , we are just , so conditioned to be like we have to , do something that's more traditional, like a pill, even if it is a more, natural option, or we have to buy something expensive to be able to gain health.
But are you doing the things that are just going to get that basic safety in your body? I don't know what percentage you would say, but it's a very high percentage of us who are not, or at least not consistently. Maybe for a little bit
Juanique: It became really clear to me that mindset was the determining common denominator of people healed or not in my clinic because people would come and spend thousands of dollars doing all the treatments every day. And we would barely see the needle moving. And I'm like, why is your cortisol so high?
, and then you would sit down with them and hear about their life. And it's holy cow, you are stressed through the wazoo. No wonder you're not feeling better. It's a really hard conversation to have with ourselves to be like, Oh I created this, I brought in this illness or I brought In this hormonal imbalance, because my lifestyle is so high pace, high stress, and I don't take care of myself.
, the saying , if you don't make time for your wellness, you'll be forced to make time for your illness, such a real thing, because if your hormones get bad enough where you're in bed all day and now you are riddled with bacterial infections or viral infections, and you're chronically sick all the time, you won't be able to live your life.
Do the hard thing now, which is actually the easy thing and start prioritizing your nervous system. And I promise you, your body will take care of the rest. So when you actually start taking supplements, they will start working. Now it's not two steps forward, two steps back. It's two steps forward, two steps forward, two steps forward, two steps forward.
And then you're a different person. So you can't work. You can't supplement. There is no pill on the planet that will block your own cortisol from all of your cells. There's no pill on the planet that will bring down your adrenaline and not have terrible side effects. Let's be clear about that.
You have to just do the hard thing, which is free, and it's actually the easy thing, but the hard thing for your nervous system.
Leisha: , so for these. Listeners and sometimes I'm also guilty of this. I think we all are for like, okay, nervous system mindset. Now I need to go find a mindset and nervous system program, or I need to start doing, cold plunges, or I need acupressure, I need acupuncture, I think that all those things are helpful, but I would love for you to just re go over the free and basic things that you're really talking about that really moved the needle, like getting that sunlight in your eyes early in the morning to making space where you actually can breathe in your day.
Go back to those basics, because I think we need to hear them again.  
Juanique: one thing you can start doing right now is waking up in the morning. Don't take your phone with you. Don't listen to a podcast. I want it to just be you and the cold. Quiet air outside, listen for birds, listen for any animal, listen for sprinklers, just listen and allow your nervous system to take in your environment.
It's going to be so uncomfortable because we're all used to walking fast and listening to the podcast and getting more information. And how many people here are like, Yeah. More information totally healed me. It's not true. More information overwhelmed you. So you have to do less. This is where less is actually more.
 You walk slow and deliberately and you listen for the noises outside doing it around the time when the sun rises is when you get that red light. This is free red light therapy. You don't need a Lumi box. I have one, by the way, so no judgment cause I actually love them, but , this is what nature intended for us.
So go out and walk slowly and just breathe deeply, not from your chest, but from your diaphragm. And get into a nice slow rhythm and just get into your body. A lot of people don't even know what that means. Get into my body. I am in my body. No, you're actually in your mind.
So many people don't know what's happening down here. They don't realize, Oh, my thyroid is actually feeling weird or my stomach feels tight. But I want you to just get into your body and just see what's happening down there. Okay. That's number one. Number two is don't pick up your cell phone or have really strict Boundaries with your cell phone.
So no doom scrolling, if you have accounts on there that trigger your nervous system, delete them immediately. You don't need that energy. You think you do, but you actually don't trust me. Like the happy, people to follow, like life is better on that side. I promise. Follow people that are inspirational, people that tug at your heartstrings, people that feel like a warm hug, 
follow those people and delete all the other accounts immediately if you want to heal. That's another thing. Shows. Be careful of shows and music and news and all of that. , people now are going to be like, but do I live in a bubble? A hundred percent, your health and your healing depends on this.
And again, your nervous system and your programming is but I have to be an expert in the politics and the news. No, you don't look what it, look where it's gotten you. You actually don't need that, what this world needs more right now is loving regulated people. They don't need a keyboard warriors on everyone's Facebook walls and stuff.
 We've got enough of those. What you need is to just. feel good and regulated and safe in your body because our brains are really interesting. That which we surround ourselves actually starts to feel true. There's this saying that, , when you think it, you actually create violence without your mind knowing that it's not real.
So stop creating violence in your mind, block, All of that. And just go for the things that are so beautiful and inspirational. And your body will start to feel safe and you'll start to realize, wow, the world is actually a really beautiful place. There are really good people here. You will find that which you are looking for.
And if you're like this world is dangerous and it's full of terrible people, you're right. But if you reprogram your entire existence to focus on that, which is good, you'll start just seeing good and your body will feel safe and it will feel relaxed and you'll be inspired by life, how many people are always just so terrified about their children's wellbeing and their wellbeing and, Oh, someone's going to murder me because blah, blah, blah,
how often does that actually really happen? It's like 0. 0001 percent of us actually experience those things. Are you going to spend your entire life worrying about the 0. 001 percent of tragedies? That's not time well spent. Again, it just comes down to boundaries and discipline. I would say those are two really big things and then allowing slow time throughout the day, put your schedule for three times throughout the day, two minutes where you're doing nothing but breathing.
So you're sitting and you have a timer on and you're breathing through your diaphragm. And this is why I say diaphragmatic breathing is so important. It's so important. The diaphragm is the only thing that signals the nervous system to switch, you can try and think , slow down, slow down, slow down.
But as soon as you stretch the diaphragm, you will actually, if you try to hear your heartbeat, you'll actually hear your heartbeat start to slow down. It's the only thing that signals the nervous system. When you just take three minutes a day and you do diet slow, like box breathing, 4, and then hold 4 and then out 2, 3, 4, hold 4, that will really help switch your sympathetic nervous system into parasympathetic.
And then once you've become an expert at the 2 minutes, Then do it up to three minutes and then four minutes and then five minutes, just slowly, whatever it so it doesn't feel threatening to your nervous system. Just go up nice and slow until it becomes a real habit. And then you'll find your whole nervous system has completely revamped itself just by doing those things. 
Leisha: I just wanted to clarify that because I know my people and how easy it is to be like, okay, nervous system reset. Let me find a whole thing on this and let me, do all the
Juanique: Let me hire someone to tell me what to do. Yeah. Don't spend a dime. Just do the things.
Leisha: And it is, I think it is sometimes when we're so in stress mode and we're so in go, go, go mode. 
It's hard to believe that slowing down can really be so healing. And it is, I've experienced that. And I think what you said about being in a bubble, I loved that because I think. It's so true. We're so connected all the time. And I don't think it's doing us good in the ways that we think it is because we're too busy for a walk with our neighbors.
Leisha: We're too busy to spend time with our mom, but we're not too busy to be following strangers on Instagram. We're not really connected. It's just such a common thing to be like, Oh, what are you binge watching? What are you spending your time in the evenings? And so many of those shows, I'm also very sensitive to anything that's scary or suspenseful, like Halloween, forget it. Like anything that's
No, 
way, not a chance. I've always been that way, but I think it is because as a child I was pretty sheltered and the movies we were able to watch were pretty much nothing.
 We didn't watch that much. And then I tried it out for a year or two and I was like, where's the hype? It's not for me. With that being said though, whatever you are consuming. I just, I love that point that you made that it is changing the way you think. Even with politics, when we've just gone through this election cycle and everyone's so on either side of things, it's The people that you meet at the grocery store are not so far on either side of things as the people on social media, they're just living their life and getting their groceries, just like you are, and they want to be kind and they want to be respected and they want to help each other out.
But that's not what we see. Then we have this belief that everyone's out to get us. . I would just really suggest stopping and questioning, , where are these stressors coming in that I don't even realize that I think are so normal. I think they're entertaining and really what they're doing is just numbing and just continuing this stress cycle.
Juanique: People are generally good, and we've been taught to believe that they're not. But who taught us that? Social media, , I love that point that you brought up just be the good you wish to see in the world, but not just for the world, but for you,
because you are your own little world. I want to bring up neuroplasticity, we're extremely neuroplastic. And people use the word neuroplasticity very liberally, but this is what it actually means. It means that your brain is able to change according to the environment around you. When you change your neuroplasticity, that changes your nervous system, which changes your hormones.
So are you going to continue to be more neuroplastic towards violent, highly intensive? Things that create a distressful hormone response, or are you going to invite neuroplasticity that switches your hormones to benefit the rest of your body and your sex hormones? Think of it this way.
You watch a sad movie, you're just perceiving something sad happen and tears come out of your eyeballs. It's miraculous how quickly our chemistry changes according to our environment, right? Our brain is such a powerful control center, if we can just watch a sad movie and cry, imagine what putting ourselves , in front of, Firing things, even though there's no tears that are coming out of you, the hormone symphony that is happening in your body to heal your body is instant.
It really is. So negative thoughts promote an inflammatory response and positive thoughts promote an anti inflammatory response. If you're having an inflamed response because your hormones are whack. You need to change your nervous system. This the supplements won't fix that. Allow yourself to be neuroplastic and allow your brain to change to work for you instead of against you.
Sick brain, sick body. That's really what it comes down to. You have to fix your brain to fix your body. 
Leisha: thing with nervous system is what can we do for our kiddos who maybe they're not in the same. They are right there. They're regulating off of us. How can we invite them into this while we're working on it ourselves for littler kiddos, especially because I know a lot of my listeners do have little kids and they have their own, big emotions and big feelings that a lot of times are based out of stress for them.
Juanique: , our littles mirror everything, they are going to respond exactly how we respond. So number one is mirror, calm, nervous system energy, and they will reciprocate that. But two There's a mother's response, and then there's actually what's happening in the child.
 I think we need to understand that our tiny humans actually have undeveloped brains, it's very normal for them to freak out because that's all they're developmentally capable of doing. And our job is to actually allow them to borrow our nervous system. And that is so freaking hard because when they are losing their minds, right?
How many moms are just like, just stop. It's like knives in my gut. But it's so important to let them borrow your nervous system. You really just have to work on yourself and remember that they're children. My late husband was So brilliant at teaching me this because I just thought, Oh, I need to train my child to be the best in school and be the best in this.
And my late husband was like that. It's funny story, my husband was on the spectrum. And because I see that in my son and as I'm researching my son and his dysregulation I realized my husband was on the spectrum. And so he had all this beautiful insight when raising our children, when he was alive cause he was always the most brilliant and he was the smartest in class and the most capable at playing the piano.
He would be like, Jeanique, that all means nothing. I hated being the best at everything. Just let them be children. And I was like, but Tennyson's so brilliant. He can, and my husband was like, no, don't do the key cards. Just let him play. I think we try to turn our children into mini uses and to be, successful in school and get the straight A's.
Now I just when my kids are like, mom, I got a straight A. I'm like, great. Did you have fun? Were you a child, I'm not trying to train you to be an adult, just have fun. I don't care about their grades. They're actually straight A's and they're above their grade, but I never forced them to do their homework or get mad at them for doing their homework.
 The most important thing for them right now is to play because they're still trying to develop that prefrontal cortex. It's very normal for them to freak out. So one. Let them freak out and borrow your nervous system, don't freak out with them. Don't have a freak out party. To work on your nervous system and three less is more.
If they're freaking out more and more, maybe it's because they are stressed in some way, shape or form. So become curious. Because my son's on the spectrum, he has very interesting quirks, like, when he is very destructive, I'm like, there's something that's threatening his nervous system.
Can I become curious and see if I can get to the bottom of it? And it really comes down to he's stressed about going to school, if I was like, Be quiet and go to your room, then I would miss the opportunity to be like, Oh, his nervous system's freaking out right now. Here, let's create some safety for you.
When you do that, when you teach them how to create safety and regulate their nervous systems, they will become the adults. That are level headed and are not fighting people in the chats. They will be able to regulate themselves. You're giving them tools to develop that prefrontal cortex and help them regulate.
And so mirror regulation. Allow them their feelings, get curious about their feelings, and then just give them tools, give them less to do, give them breathing exercises. There's so many great books out there that teach children how to breathe, or teach them coping mechanisms.
Maybe your child just needs to go out and play, if they're freaking out, it's because there's something happening that you don't know yet, ? It's not because they're wrong. It's just because they're reacting to something that's threatening their nervous system. So get curious. And if they're stressed about sports or they're stressed about a school project, or if they're stressed about a friend, great, their nervous system's telling you that what a beautiful invitation to get to know your child a little bit more and not shame them for their emotions.
It's so hard to do, 
But it's so important,  
Leisha: I love that. I love what you said about sharing your nervous system with them. And I think that all of, hopefully most of us can relate to that and how powerful that really is when it's just yeah, I can be calm in the midst of you not being calm. It's obviously it's so easy to see on both sides, right when you do it well, and you're like, Okay, yes.
And then when you don't do it well, and you're like, Oh, wow, that really went well that 
did not go well at all. 
Juanique: That went sideways.
Leisha: it's, really encouraging to hear that. And just think about that yeah, we can model that for them. So I love that. One thing, it's cute. My stepson, sometimes I'll be dysregulated and he'll be like, Juanique, deep breaths. And I'm like, you're absolutely right. So they can actually remind you when you are in your fight or flight response, you're in your amygdala, , they'll be like, Hey, let's turn back that prefrontal cortex on.
Juanique: And it's Oh yeah, thank you. 
So they do listen. They do listen.
Leisha: I love that so much. We'll go ahead and go through the other steps because I know we've used all of our time today. Yeah. But I feel like the mindset piece, I just so agree that it's so important. And I think that as high achieving women, we often just let it slide.
Juanique: Totally. Number two is mitochondria and what's the mitochondria are the powerhouses to the cells. If you want your body to have any power and any capacity, and remember to heal, it requires a lot of energy. You have to have optimal mitochondrial function in order to have energy to produce. Do you use hormones?
You have to have optimal mitochondrial function. So the mitochondria are very sensitive to stress. Again, if you are not working on the mindset, you're going to damage your mitochondria and you're going to produce less ATP to help your body heal and repair itself. So that's why mitochondria is number two.
Number three is gut. The gut is important because it's think of it as the root system to your tree. , your body is the tree and your gut is the root system. And. If the root system to a tree is rotting or dying, the whole tree dies. So if your gut is inflamed and dysfunctional, you're not going to absorb your nutrients necessary to repair your body and build hormones or even tissue in general.
 You have to optimize your gut health and you have to optimize your microbiome to optimize hormones. There's certain microbial species that help you digest and assimilate certain sex hormones and there are certain bacteria in your gut that help you to detoxify and break down inflammatory estrogens.
You have to make sure that your gut is on point. If you don't do that, you just, you will not heal. Your gut is just so pivotal in. Every aspect of your healing, you need your gut to absorb the nutrients so it can restore hormones and unbalance or balance out the inflammation and then you need healthy microbial species in there to help with optimal estrogen and hormone production and metabolism.
So that's gut. And then fourth is liver. The liver is the most unsung organ, I think on the planet, because it's so important. I think it has over 2000 jobs that it has to do. One of them is biosynthesizing hormone. What that means is that it changes hormones. So it by Makes them and packages them differently and then sends them throughout your body.
 If your liver is struggling, you're not going to biosynthesize hormone properly. If your liver is overburdened, you're not going to synthesize hormones properly. How we know you have a liver issue is if you are. Constantly tired. If you are sensitive to chemicals and smells and or gives you a headache.
If you have skin issues, ? If you are really tired you probably have a liver issue. And here's the thing is most people need support with their livers just because we live in a day and age where. We're so bombarded with chemicals. You buy new clothes and they're full of chemicals that are endocrine disruptors that are being stored in your body, ?
And your liver doesn't know what to do with that, ? You just go grocery shopping and you touch a receipt, ? And it has all of those chemicals on there that are hormone disruptors. Everything is a chemical that our body doesn't recognize and that the liver has to try and get rid of.
 It's very strenuous on the liver to do that. When the liver is overburdened. You're not going to produce sex hormones or biosynthesize them properly. So that's liver. Then the next is adrenals and the adrenals are these glands above your kidneys they produce aldosterone and cortisol and DHEA.
And their purpose is to help mitigate your stress response. The issue with the adrenals is if you are super high, so you have really high cortisol, think of this like a teeter totter. So cortisol goes up and sex hormones go down, and so to balance sex hormones back up, we have to get the cortisol down so that your body will getting sex hormones up.  
If you work on mindset first, then the adrenals are not going to be signaled to produce such high cortisol. What happens when we produce high cortisol is something called a cortisol steal. It will actually rob the precursor to sex hormones that turns into sex hormones. It will rob that and turn it into cortisol.
So now we're dipping our hands in the hormone pie to produce cortisol. And you don't want that. So make sure your adrenals are on board. That's a whole episode for another time, adrenal health is so important and there's three, we won't go into the different stages of adrenal fatigue because like I said, it's a whole different podcast for another time.
And it's so intricately connected to sex hormones, but just know that we have to optimize stress. And we have to optimize adrenal function because when we're too stressed for too long, which is probably everyone listening to your podcast because they have dysfunctional sex hormones, you actually burn out the adrenals.
So you want to feed the adrenals and give them, this is where supplementation is actually very helpful for adrenals because they've been burnt out for so long. You want to feed them and provide herbs that help the adrenals optimize their function. And then. Finally, we get to sex hormones. We've set up the whole playing field for optimal sex hormone production.
And if you cover all the previous bases, there's actually not much you have to do to turn your sex hormones on because you've done all the work you've turned on all the organ systems. that produce hormone efficiently and effectively for you. And yes, you can take herbs at this point, but chances are you probably won't need them because your gut is working for you.
Your liver is working for you. Your brain is working for you and is signaling to all the organ systems and the glands to produce the right amount and the right ratios of hormones. Most people that, when they have hormonal imbalances, they're like what's the protocol? I'm like, it's your gut.
Yeah. It's your liver. It's it's everything upstream. And when they fix those and we look at their labs, they're like, Oh, I actually didn't need a hormone protocol. I'm like, no, because your body did the rest. So there you go. 
That's hormones.   
Leisha: I think one of the coolest things that I see is. Again, we're looking at everything as a whole. , when we start to cascade in the wrong direction, everything starts to go in the wrong direction. But when we start to cascade in the right direction, It is okay, I've worked on my nervous system and now my adrenals are already doing better before I even get to that.
Or even my gut is doing better before I get there because there's less stress on the gut, which leads to less inflammation. So , I just love how you laid that out so beautifully and in a pretty simple way, even though it is such a complex thing, It's just both sides of the argument essentially, or both sides of the conversation when it comes to your body, it's it is so complex and there's so many things that , we don't understand with all of the science we have, all of the research we have.
And yet it goes back to being so simple where it's we just need these basic things and this basic safety to really thrive and heal. 
Juanique: It's so easy. 
Leisha: I love that we have both because sometimes you do need the fancy things, but a lot of times. The fancy things won't do anything for you until the basics are in place.
And that mindset piece is so good. So I love that you gave us some tangibles and some things to really think about and work on. And I really hope that if you're listening, you're going to actually take a minute to stop right now and think about what you've heard. Not just gather more information, but think about what are those triggers for you?
What are the triggers that are really causing you to be in that fight or flight? And. Giving yourself the space to question whether or not you're actually stuck with them, because I think so much of the time we're just like this is just life. It's just kids. It's just stress. It's just work. It's whatever. 
I feel like you made the decision to be there in so many of the cases, most of the decisions were made by you. And what do you want to be different? And it's hard to think that way when you're in stress mode, but I would love to encourage you to take some time to do that and not like, oh yeah, okay, I'll do it.
Leisha: But like when are you going to do it? Like today, when are you going to do it today? And what could you skip? Maybe that Netflix, you could skip that. 
Juanique: Exactly.   
Leisha: Okay. 
Tell us where we can find you and then we'll wrap up for today.
Juanique: You can find me on Instagram gutsy underscore mom or the Provo health clinic. So it's just at Provo health. I have the gutsy health podcast. We're starting episodes again January, 2025. That's been going for Five years. You can get me there or my website. It's my gutsy health.
com where I have my digestion restoration course. I have a bunch of free things there too. I have a bunch of quizzes that you can take like gut quizzes or your root cause quiz that can actually show you like, yes, I have hormones, but what's actually my root cause that's causing my hormones to be imbalanced.
And that quiz takes literally five minutes. So take the root cause quiz and see, Oh my gosh, it's my, my, my mitochondria. That's actually the root cause to my hormone imbalances or Holy cow. It's my gut. A lot of people that take the root cause quiz, they're like, I had no idea mindset was actually my root cause.
I'm like, yes it is. So take the quizzes, download my free classes. I do have the gutsy Academy, which opens enrollment once a year in 2025, enrollment opens, I think in June or July. And then our cohort will start in September. So in the fall, and that is like my master course where I teach people how to become self healing, empowered advocates.
 We just had our integration call for our last cohort, and it was truly miraculous to see all of these people before they started the course, we had an integration and, people were feeling lost and overwhelmed and after 7 months, so many people are like, I'm empowered. I have healed this, this, and this.
I didn't realize I could do this. Or when I go and talk to my doctor, I actually press them with questions because I know what questions to ask. And they're like, wow, that's actually some really good insight. So people actually become very empowered. You mentioned before we started recording that people just feel so lost with all the information and what the Academy does is it puts it all together.
All together, and it teaches you how to integrate the information because information without integration is completely lost. , it's like you didn't even need to learn it at all if you didn't know how to integrate it and use it. That's what the academy does. It gives you courses, but then we have weekly coaching calls in group where we teach you how to integrate it. 
That's like soul work for me because people are completely transformed at the end of 7 months. And they're empowered and they're brand new people. They're more in their bodies and in their hearts and in their purpose than ever before. I know it sounds crazy, but their lives completely change.
Juanique: And it's so beautiful to like witness, right? I feel truly honored. If that is something that calls to you where you're like, I am tired. Of outsourcing my power and paying these experts to know what's best for me. I'm going to learn what's best for me. Join the next cohort. I have a wait list.
So we'll email you guys out and prepare you and give you discount links for early enrollment. So that's Awesome. Thank you so much for taking your time to be here. I know it's going to be really helpful to a lot of people listening and so I appreciate it.
Thank you. Thanks for having me.