Dr. Traci Potterf · 53 min
A functional medicine expert who spent her career teaching others to heal found herself slowly poisoned by lead paint and toxic mould in her own home, and had to fight her way back from the brink of suicide to prove that recovery is always possible.
Hear this story
Dr. Traci Potterf is a functional medicine expert who spent her career teaching others how to heal. Nine years of living in a house with peeling lead paint left her slowly poisoned, developing tremors, vision loss, muscle pain, heart palpitations, skin lesions, and a cascade of neurological symptoms that no doctor could explain. When she finally discovered the lead contamination, her landlords gave her three weeks to leave during a pandemic housing shortage. She spent eight months homeless while her body deteriorated and the chemical poisoning pushed her toward suicidal thoughts.
What pulled her back was a deal she made with her mother: she would stay alive as long as her mom was alive. From there, healing came not from medical interventions her doctors couldn't offer, but from listening to what her body actually needed. She stopped fighting her need for rest, spent time on the earth and in cold water, used temperature therapy and basic tools she had dismissed as too simple. A year and a half later, she hiked for twelve hours at the ruins of Tikal without the debilitating soreness that once followed even gentle movement. She learned that recovery is not linear, that setbacks are part of the process rather than failure, and that the body's own intelligence often knows what mainstream medicine cannot provide.
Her story is for anyone in an unexplained health crisis, anyone told their condition is incurable, anyone who has felt abandoned by the system meant to help them. It is also for anyone who has stood where she stood and believes there is no way out. There is.
⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses suicide & self-harm prevention, which some listeners may find distressing.
If you need support, you're not alone. Help is available: • Lifeline (24/7 crisis support): 13 11 14 · lifeline.org.au
“Something was poisoning my nervous system and it was affecting my internal organs.”
“You have to be unwilling to settle for less than the best possible outcome.”
“I developed a huge compassion for people who feel suicidal and who shame it and I was scared to even tell people — I thought I'd lose credibility.”
The hero, today
When you lose weight by changing how you live rather than through willpower alone, it teaches you the problem was never you, it was the culture and conditions you were living in. Healing from environmental poisoning means doing your own research when doctors say they have no tools, finding practitioners who work outside mainstream training, and trusting your gut when something feels wrong even if you can't see it yet. During the darkest moments of chemical poisoning that made hope feel impossible, staying alive for one person who believed in her gave her enough to hold onto until her body could heal. The body knows what it needs; when she asked hers what it wanted, it said sleep, rest on the earth, cold water, hot sun, and she got well by giving it those things instead of fighting herself into compliance. Healing is not linear, and people who get better then worse and consider giving up often do, but if you know that setbacks are part of the process and not failure, you can keep going when others stop.
Yes. Dr. Traci Potterf is a real person who shared their own story in their own words. Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit that shares first-person stories of overcoming adversity, told with the person's consent.
Kintsugi Heroes, a registered Australian not-for-profit. Every story is shared with the hero's own consent and reviewed under Kintsugi Heroes' trauma-informed content standard before it goes public.
When you lose weight by changing how you live rather than through willpower alone, it teaches you the problem was never you, it was the culture and conditions you were living in.
Healing from environmental poisoning means doing your own research when doctors say they have no tools, finding practitioners who work outside mainstream training, and trusting your gut when something feels wrong even if you can't see it yet.
During the darkest moments of chemical poisoning that made hope feel impossible, staying alive for one person who believed in her gave her enough to hold onto until her body could heal.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 00:07
Welcome to the Kintsugi Heroes podcast, where we share inspirational stories of everyday people going through different challenges and how they overcome them. Please be aware that the story you're about to hear may have moments of deeply felt emotions and personal experiences. If anything you hear has a triggering effect please reach out to someone who can help keep you safe. If you love this conversation, we'd love you to like and share it with your friends so we can continue to share more inspiration and hope to as many people as possible. Now listen up for our next hero story. And in today's episode, I met with Dr. Tracy Pottipf. From the USA. Tracey has such a different and interesting story, and it's one that talks about health, really. But there's a trauma involved in illness. You know, when we have an illness that's unexplained, when people won't listen to us, when they don't want to understand, they don't validate us, and we're feeling like the world's against us or that we've just got nowhere to go, nowhere to turn. Tracey went through all of that I know that there are a lot of people that suffer from bad health and unexplained illness, and I know that they're going to feel very comforted by Tracy's story. She is a beautiful human. She's, she's very educated, and she speaks quite quickly, yet there's a lot in there. So we, we managed to fit a lot into 45 minutes. It's a wonderful conversation. It really brings back the power of oneself and how you've got to believe in yourself, and there always is an answer. Tracy proved that in her journey. So sit back, enjoy this conversation with Dr. Tracy Potter. Well, here we are, it's another episode. I'm here with Dr. Tracy Potter. Have I pronounced that correct, Tracy?
REPLAY · 02:15
Dr. Traci Potterf (Guest): Yes, you did. Good job. Some people spit when they say my name.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 02:18
They're like, "Putter." Well, thank you for joining me and agreeing to be on the Kintsugi Heroes podcast. And it's more than a podcast. Yeah, I say that, but it's— yes, it's a conversation. It's also a different kind of a podcast, really, because this is where you and others get to come in and be vulnerable and share this story. That's what I'm always in awe of, the people that join me here. And so I just want to thank you for coming and sharing your story with me today.
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The body knows what it needs; when she asked hers what it wanted, it said sleep, rest on the earth, cold water, hot sun, and she got well by giving it those things instead of fighting herself into compliance.
This conversation includes the spain intervention, medical anthropology and the politics of science, her mother's crohn's disease and the books in the health food store, the work in functional medicine and inner genius health, the tremor, the blurred vision, the list that kept growing and the meditation that named it.
REPLAY · 02:53
Dr. Traci Potterf (Guest): It's an honor.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 02:54
Good, thank you. Well, let's get started, shall we? I'm going to hand over to you. I'd love you to take us back to the beginning. Where does your story start?
REPLAY · 03:04
Dr. Traci Potterf (Guest): Well, actually, to give the context of this whole thing, I have to go pretty far back in time. So this involves a health journey for me, something that happened in a place I called the Murder House to kind of make myself giggle about it and not take it so seriously. Um, but to understand like how it unfolded the way it did, I have to go back to when I was 20 and I did a study abroad program in Spain, in Sevilla, Spain. And I was overweight at the time, about 50 pounds overweight. And, um, weight problems ran in my family. So I thought, I thought it was genetic. I didn't really think there's anything I could do about it. And my family had been on so many diets and they'd always failed. I had tried the low-fat diet and that was like the heaviest I ever was. And so I moved to Spain and I just had a good time. I ate good food. I was not on a diet. I walked around a lot. I like, I don't know, I had the time of my life. And then I didn't even realize it, but my friends did an intervention, my Spanish girlfriends, and they were like, you're wearing baggy pants, you need a haircut, you need new clothes. And what had happened is I had accidentally lost 50 pounds and didn't even realize it because I wasn't weighing myself. And I lived in Spain 2 years and just gradually lost all this weight. And that's when it dawned on me, like, you know, this whole weight issue we have, this isn't— this is a cultural problem. This isn't like an individual willpower problem. This is a cultural problem. And at the time, I was studying cultural anthropology. Eventually, the next stage in my unfolding was I went to grad school and I studied medical anthropology. And I was in a joint program with UCSF Medical School and UC Berkeley Department of Anthropology. And it was a program called Critical Medical Anthropology. And we were taking a critical look at the politics of like, how do we come to believe what we believe is true? Where does science come from? Like, you know, how does certain funding— like if a certain corporation funds a study, how does that— you know, how are sometimes those studies manipulated to get the outcomes that are most beneficial to the benefactor, right? I call that science for hire. I started learning that all these different kinds of science. There's science for hire, bought and paid for science, which, you know, can be corrupt. It's tempting, right? Um, then there's like science that's just kind of like mediocre science where you just kind of— you don't really think outside the box or question things very much. You just kind of replicate what everyone already thinks is true, and you just kind of go do your job and go home, you know? And then there's what I think a lot of people call true science, which— where you're willing to question anything, and whatever your research reveals, you're willing to accept it even if it completely overturns your pre-existing beliefs about the world, I had learned a lot about the politics of medicine. I had learned a lot about like, um, the pharmaceutical industry, insurance companies. We studied anywhere from like shamanism and traditional indigenous medicine to biotech insurance companies. Like we study, and my whole world was like opened up. My dad was a doctor. I grew up in the medical field, like surrounded by the medical field. I grew up that anything natural holistic was a bunch of woo woo and it wasn't scientific. And, and so like, I, this was just really. Eye-opening. And one of the things that was fascinating to me was that I was fascinated with indigenous populations, people who had a more ancestral lifestyle. And I was seeing how, as they became industrialized, as they started eating processed food or drinking soda or taking pharmaceuticals or taking antibiotics, or, you know, being more stressed out, whatever the thing is, they started developing all the same diseases that we had. Like they didn't have those diseases and then they started developing them. I looked at, you know, Weston Price as someone who's known, he was a dentist who was kind of more like an anthropologist, traveled all over the world, look at twins and siblings where one member of the family would move to a city, start eating, you know, all this processed food. And then the people who stayed in their traditional diet, he looked at how their teeth changed, their health changed, and it was staggering. And he wasn't the only one. And I just started seeing, I started getting this feeling in my guts that like, oh my God, we are so mentally and physically ill because we're not living in alignment with our evolutionary biology. We did not evolve to eat junk. We did not evolve to never go outside or touch the earth with our feet. We didn't evolve to be under this amount of stress or stimulation. We didn't evolve evolved to go so long without touch or hugs or being held or ritual or, you know, like, just all these things that are our most basic human needs that, like, we didn't mean to deprive ourselves of any of this. We're trying to, like, create food security. We're trying to have, like, electricity and warmth, and we're trying— we've, we've created so many wonderful things like this technology where I can be in the United States and you can be Australia and we can, like, be having this conversation. It's amazing. But we've made a lot of these changes and we've forgotten who we are. We've forgotten what we are and that we are nature. Like, nature isn't a place we visit. We're manifestations of nature. We are nature. And so I started realizing this, like, oh my gosh, this is why we're so physically and mentally ill. Maybe if we can start changing how we live, sometimes we don't have to go live in a forest and run around in a loincloth, although that could sound fun if you don't get parasites. But, you know, I was just, you know, I thought maybe we could Like start healing things. So I got really interested in researching people who had healed themselves and started seeing these parallels that this was ringing true. Well, about that time, my mom got Crohn's disease. She almost died once. She almost died from bleeding to death from the disease itself, the damage to her colon. And they said her colon had to come out or she would never have a normal life. And I remember thinking, what's normal about not having a colon? Yeah. So she was told she had to have her colon taken out and she was put on immunosuppressants. She did almost die from bleeding. Then she almost died twice from the medications. Once was an immunosuppressant. The, they suppressed her immune system to the point just that a cut in her finger almost led to like sepsis where she almost died from a cut in her finger. And her doctor, when she said, my finger really hurts, there's something wrong. He said, I don't do fingers. I do colons. Because we carve up humans like a Christmas turkey. Like there's this specialist and this specialist, and there's some value in that, but we need more people that can see the connections, right?. And a lot of indigenous medicine does that. Chinese medicine does that. Ayurveda does that. A lot of different practices. Internists are better at it. I was just like, wow, I don't do fingers. Okay. She almost died that night. So anyway, what ended up happening is that like, long story short, cuz this isn't even the story. This is the precursor to the story I wanted to really share today, which was the, this was like in 2003, 2004. I just had such a strong feeling. I, I found these books. In a health food store, not on the internet, cuz that was before all that. And I found these books by people like Jordan Rubin and this other woman, I wish I could remember her name to give her credit, but there are people who healed themselves of Crohn's disease and I thought, well, if they can do it, my mom can do it. So I read these books and I just kind of winged a lot of things and I, I just, it was terrifying to go. We went against everything the doctors told us. We got her off the medication. That was a gradual part. Don't, don't just get off your medication, but like we gradually, we changed her diet and she gradually healed. Um, we did a few supplements and long story short, like she got better and better and better until she was in remission. It wasn't a very, you know, it took some time, but not that long. She got to keep her colon. She has scar tissue in her colon, but she's never had a relapse since 2004. So since 2004, she's been quiescent, meaning like in remission, never had a relapse, not been on any immunosuppressant drugs, steroids. Pharmaceuticals for Crohn's or anything like that. And so I was told, you know, back then that this is, you know, it's incurable. Like we don't know what causes it, blah, blah, blah. And that's with a lot of conditions. We don't know what causes it. There is no cure for it. We just blah, blah, blah. We just manage it. Right. And I was like, why are we settling? So I'm not a medical doctor, especially back then. I knew so much less than I know now. And I was like, okay, if we're not, we just read a couple books from a health food store and just like changed her, you know, we made these changes that anyone could do and now she no longer has this disease. She got to keep her car. Colon intact. Like, why isn't the medical system trying harder? Like, you know, like, why? And I knew why, because as a medical anthropologist, that's why I told you that part, I had learned, you know, it's follow the dollar or the euro or the whatever, whatever the currency is, it's follow the money. And, you know, and not to say that our medical system doesn't have life-saving brilliant people in it, not to say, like, I don't want to discount any of the good part at all. Because my mom would be dead if it weren't for some of that, for many reasons. A lot of us, a lot of people would. But this whole system is dependent on synthetic molecules, on pharmaceuticals that are made of molecules that we haven't evolved with, that our bodies don't know, that are foreign. And it's kind of like Russian roulette in your biology to just put these things in your system and hope it works, you know? And that's why there's more side effects with these things. And not to say our snake is natural, you know, snake venom is natural, you know, not to say there aren't natural poisons, but like I've really, really what I've seen through research and through experience and now professional experience is that things that hug into nature more and that work with the wisdom intelligence of nature tend to yield much better outcomes with way no side effects, just beneficial effects. If you, if you know what you're doing and you do it right. So that was the background. So like that changed the whole course of my career as I just alluded to. And I basically, it was a whole other meandering, But what ended up happening is I ended up going from an intention to be a research scientist and university professor to working in functional medicine, becoming a functional medicine expert. Now, functional medicine, for those of you who don't know, it's a movement of doctors and scientists who are trying to capture the best of Western medicine, integrative medicine. It's science-based, it's all evidence-based. Like, how can we address the root causes of illness, the underlying cause? So like, if you're standing on a tack, do you take painkillers or do you pull the tack outta your foot, right? So that's like the classic functional medicine example. You guys may have heard before if you've heard of functional medicine. So that became my path, that became what I did. I ended up having amazing mentors, doing amazing trainings. I've learned so much about the human body, its capacity to heal. I started a company called Inner Genius Health, and the genius is the genius of nature, but it's— we are nature. So it's the genius that resides in all of us, in our cells, our microbes, our DNA. We, we have this innate intelligence that wants to heal, that wants to come back home to itself. When we allow for it, when we, you know, but sometimes our habits, our thoughts, our beliefs, our conceptions really get in the way. And what I find the biggest barrier to so many people's healing isn't what you would think, isn't access to information or money, which can be a big issue. It's thought. It's like, it's too hard or too expensive, or I'm not worth it, or I don't want to change. I want a magic pill. I don't want to, I don't want to, it's too much effort. I'm not going to enjoy life if I have to give this thing up. These are all false. Like, none of this is real. Because like when you heal, what it takes to heal yourself is like the most pleasurable thing. It feels so good. It's fun. Like you have more joy, more fun, more pleasure. So I developed this thing I call healthy hedonism, which is like healing yourself using pleasure, using things that feel good because nature designed us to feel good when we're in alignment with what works with us and to feel bad when, you know, when we're hurting ourselves. Now, some things feel good in the moment, but then they make you feel terrible later, you know? So we got to watch out for those things. Those are the tricky ones. So finding, upgrading your pleasures to things that feel good now, but also make you feel good later. Not things that feel good now and they make you feel like crap later. So that's another sidebar. So here I am, I'm like, I've got it all figured out. I was meditating, like back then I was meditating like 2 hours a day, eating really clean, getting lots of sleep, like, you know, like working on myself, healing my trauma, like going to yoga, going to fitness classes, dancing, hiking. I lived in Hawaii. I live in Hawaii. Like. I was spending all this time outdoors. I was doing all the things, but I'm starting to— I'm like getting sicker and sicker. I'm starting to notice I'm reacting to foods. I'm starting to like just— for a while it was like a few years of all these weird food sensitivities and like, I don't know, just feeling weird and having anxiety, but not for really a reason. Although your mind can always think of a reason to justify anxiety, but like I just— something was wrong. And I started noticing my, my clients are like they're getting these amazing results. My clients, I was like, my clients are healthier than I am. And I started having imposter syndrome. I started to feel embarrassed and ashamed, like, like, what is going on? At some point I kind of became aware of toxic mold through some clients who literally almost died from it. I live in Hawaii. There's a lot of toxic mold. Um, anywhere near the ocean that's humid, like that's something to watch out for in your house. So I kind of, you know, did pay some attention to that, but something else was wrong. And I had this gut feeling there's something in my house and I don't know what it is. And I feel kind of embarrassed because it was so obvious. I couldn't see it. There was peeling paint all over the house. And I kept asking the landlords, please, could you repaint the house?
Aveline Clark (Host) · 15:42
Could you?
REPLAY · 15:43
Dr. Traci Potterf (Guest): And they wouldn't do it. They wouldn't do it. They wouldn't do it. I lived in that house 9 years. It was started peeling. Well, when I got there, it was peeling and they actually gave me a discount on the rent if I would like we would repaint it, like my housemates and I, we repainted, redid some flooring. They didn't tell me to wear, like, I didn't, I had even signed a lead paint release, didn't read it. I had signed many of those. I didn't read it. So I sanded this stuff and I repainted it and everything. 2 years later, it's peeling again. And then it peeled for 7 more years. Finally, one day, like, I just was, I was getting sicker and sicker. I kind of want to tell you what was happening. Like, I developed a tremor. So I was just like shaking all the time, like just shaking. And I felt like inside, you know when you're cold and you're just shivering? Like I just felt like that a lot of the time. My eyesight, I went from having like perfect vision, my eyesight just started getting blurry and I started having trouble like reading things like on supplement bottles and things like that. Um, I had all these gastrointestinal weird things happening, like it, you know, kind of like IBS, IBD type stuff. Uh, I was getting these horrible debilitating headaches where I couldn't function for the whole day. I'd have to cancel appointments. I could barely like get through the day. I started developing these muscle pains like all over my body where I just hurt everywhere. I think they, what you would call it fibromyalgia, which I call the F word diagnosis. It's the crazy lady, like we don't know what's wrong with you thing that wasn't taken seriously for so long and still often isn't. They just put people on antidepressants and pain meds and whatever. Um, so I didn't want that title thrown on me or that identity thrown on me. There were so many other things like, um, oh, kidney problems. I started— my kidney markers on my blood work started looking a little off, but because it wasn't kidney failure, my doctor wasn't really that concerned. I was, um, I was having low back pain. I had bladder pain, like interstitial cystitis. Like I had pelvic floor pain. I had like vaginal pain. I had like, I just started hurting everywhere. Like every body system. I started having, um, orthostatic hypotension, which is where when you bend over, you stand up and you get like you know, really dizzy and lightheaded, but this is where I would have chest pains where I couldn't even breathe. And it was like, I felt like I was having a heart attack. And if I hadn't known what it was, I would've gone to the ER thinking I was having a heart attack. Oh, I had open sores like all over, like all over my skin, my back. Like I was itching. I was clawing myself at night. I couldn't sleep cuz of the itching. I had insomnia. I had tinnitus, this loud ringing in my ears. Um, not to mention the anxiety. Did I mention the anxiety? I'd wake up in the morning like, uh, like with this total panic. And I know this is a long list. My, my lungs burned. I had like respiratory things. Like I just go on and on and on and on. This stuff is neurological. Something was poisoning my nervous system and it was affecting my internal organs. Not to mention accelerating my aging process, menstrual irregularities. Like my skin was drying. I was losing collagen. Like, like I was, I felt like I was aging at turbo speed. And then when I would go to doctors and ask for help, they would say, oh, it's just your age. Because you're over 45. So it's just your age, you know, that's just you getting old. And I'm like, what? And that was something I'm already like, I have this whole thing about aging. Like I call it the myths of aging. I like to give a talk on the myths of aging, this myth that aging is supposed to be this painful, debilitating, horrible process. It's more or less inflammation, inflammaging. I was like, there's, I have inflammation. There's something that's poisoning me. And I don't know why I couldn't see it. It's kind of embarrassing given my profession, but like one day I was meditating and I just like, after my meditation, it just dawned on me, go look up the symptoms of adult lead poisoning. So I did, and it like matched. I ran, I got a lead test kit, came home, everywhere it was lead. My ceilings were peeling. I realized it's been, this paint has been crumbling into dust and the dust in my house, I'm breathing lead dust. I, it was peeling in my cabinets in my kitchen. They hadn't ever updated the cabinets. And so I was drinking and eating off dishes. We all were. And it's interesting cuz I look back, I had a housemate who developed Parkinson's. He lived there many years. Um, other people who lived there a couple years developed other mental health crises and like just all kinds of stuff. There was just some weird stuff. And I remember thinking like, is this house haunted? Like, like what's going on? Like, you know, what's happening?
Aveline Clark (Host) · 19:57
You know?
REPLAY · 19:57
Dr. Traci Potterf (Guest): That's why I jokingly call it the murder house because no one actually has died yet. But like, it was like someone said, it's like your house is trying to kill you, you know? So, but it was really the toxic chemicals. And then I went ahead and tested for mold and there was, were high mold levels, which there kind of are in almost every house in Hawaii, unless you have like dehumidifiers and AC and stuff. And what I learned is like mold makes you sensitive to lead. Lead makes you sensitive. So they hypersensitize you. They both are nerve. They, they're both poison your nervous system and damage your immune system. They sensitize you to each other. But it's interesting cuz I had experienced mold before and I knew what that felt like by itself. But the mold with the lead, that was this whole other level of terrifying. And what happened, not only was my body falling apart, like what does it feel like emotionally when suddenly you can't, it hurts to walk, it hurts to get outta bed. You have no energy. By the way, the fatigue, like just keeping my eyes open. I had severe, like if, if I wanted Western diagnosis, I'd have IBS, IBD, chronic fatigue, anxiety disorder, depressive disorder. Like they would just carve me up and put all these labels on me. That this is what's wrong with you. And give me all these like medications. Here's some antidepressants and here's some like, you know, Xanax and here's some Asacol for the inflammation in your gut, which is like Tylenol for your gut. And then here's like, you know, they would've just thrown a lot of stuff at me. And the thing is in Hawaii, there's not a, there's a state toxicologist, but she's not a clinician. There's not a single doctor trained in environmental illness in Hawaii, even though there's mold everywhere and there's lead paint everywhere. And now we just had this issue with Red Hill where the military base like contaminated I mean, like people's water with jet fuel. These people are so sick and the military is just saying, that's not a big deal. We don't anticipate you'll have any serious health problems. Oh, it's not like they're not getting help. These people are just, they're so sick and they're not getting help. And so it made me really aware of this issue. Like I can tell you like all the symptoms and whatever, it was terrifying. I felt like I was dying and I kept going to people asking for help and no one, they either, I got the blank stares. Like I think people wanted to help. They didn't have any tools to help. It wasn't even their fault. Medical training. I have friends and colleagues, I work in the, like, with doctors and all the time. And they just were like, we don't have any training on this. Like in medical, you get a barely a mention of lead poisoning in your medical training. Like they don't get trained on, you know, on mold toxicity. They don't get trained on nutrition. They don't get trained on any of this stuff. It's not their fault. They pay all this money. They kill themselves to get this degree that doesn't give them a toolbox to help people with so many chronic illnesses and immune disorders or whatever. They, they're, it's not fair. They're not given good tools, you know.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 22:34
Sorry for the interruption.
REPLAY · 22:36
Dr. Traci Potterf (Guest): This is Ian Westmoreland, the founder of Katsuki Heroes, and thank you for listening to this story from one of our amazing heroes. Our mission is for these stories to provide hope and inspiration to people experiencing life challenges and to also educate the broader community on how best to provide support. If you would like to help us to continue to produce more hero stories and and cover more adversity themes, we would welcome all donations. These can be made via our website, kintsugiheroes.com.au.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 23:07
The donate function is at the bottom of the homepage.
REPLAY · 23:10
Dr. Traci Potterf (Guest): We'd also welcome any feedback. You can email me direct using ian@kintsugiheroes.com.au. Now let's get back to the story. So when I finally realized what was wrong, on one hand I was like relieved because I was like, okay, now I have an explanation of, of like what was wrong. So now I'm gonna fix this. Like, and because I work in functional medicine, I have tools. But you know what, when it's your sickness, trying to be your own case manager, that's hard. It's like being inside a jar trying to read the label. And I went from person to person just begging for help. And so many people, and what's interesting is when you're in that kind of level of nervous system poisoning or whatever, you see You seem like, oh my God, like you're fearful. You're scared. You're crying a lot. You're like, you're shaking and it freaks people out. And so what do they want to do? They want to push you away. They want to treat you like you're crazy, send you to psych, you know, and how that feels. That was awful. That was horrible. Like to feel so desperate for help. I felt like I was drowning and just saying, someone please help. And no one helped me, you know? Finally, you know, I was able to, you know, find a naturopath who is compassionate and helpful and smart and really abreast of cutting-edge information and like really ahead of the curve and like innovative and helpful and compassionate and who would listen. And she really, you know, helped me like just kind of process like order of operations and things like that. But a lot of my answers also came from within and I'm a deeply spiritual person. Like, I love meditation. Just my own personal belief is that, you know, there's a consciousness that unites all of existence that we can tap into through meditation. There's like this intelligence that makes the flowers bloom and the, the bees buzz and, you know, like that makes the miracle of nature of all the planets spin in their orbit, you know, and that we are part of that and we can tap into that. And I've gotten so many answers that way, and that's how I found— you would think it wouldn't have taken me that long. To figure out that all this peeling paint could make me sick. 'Cause people would say, oh, well just don't pick at it and just don't put it in your mouth. And this is really a problem for babies and toddlers. And I found out, like, I contacted in Hawaii the Department of Health, you know, to ask for help to make sure that they followed up with my— 'cause my landlords ghosted me. They basically gave me just 3 weeks to move out once I reported the lead. They were angry at me. They gaslit me. They made it sound like I did something wrong by like discovering the lead. They told me I had to move out in 3 weeks notice during a housing shortage during the pandemic, like tens of thousands, like so many people moved from California and other states to Hawaii during the pandemic. There's a housing shortage. So even if you had money and perfect credit, it was still hard to get a place to live. And so I had nowhere to live for 8 months. So I was sick, terrified, and, and, and like didn't even have a place to live. I was like living on people's, like, like people would just let me, like, thank God for my friends. Like in 8 months, I never didn't have a place to sleep. Because I have such amazing, beautiful friends and I'd be 2 weeks here. One friend let me live with her. She had like 2 18-year-old sons, her and her husband in a 3-bedroom house. And they let me live there for 6 weeks. I was constantly looking for a place to live and I went from place to place to place and like, I just, you know, and it was exhausting to have to pick up and move and pick up and move and pick up and move. I did get to do some pet sitting though. That was fun. All the little furry critters, they were very healing. So it was, it was a hard, hard, hard time. And I'm going to tell you, like, I got to a point. Where I felt like I was just shoveling, you know what, against the tide. I was just like, it was exhausting. I felt so bad and I was having to do my own research. And when you have brain poisoning, trying to do your own advanced research, and I would read all this stuff about lead poisoning, about how it affects your brain, how it gets stored, your body stores it in your bones. And then they were like, when you go through menopause and have bone loss, then that lead will reenter your body and it can ruin your kidneys, cause Alzheimer's, cause dementia, da da da. It was terrible. Like all this research I'm reading and then I'm trying to tell people and no one wanted to take it seriously. They were like, if you don't have high blood lead levels in your blood, then we're not going to take you seriously. But your body's smarter than that. Your body's not going to let lead paint— 9 years of lead paint accumulation, it's in my bones and it's slowly leaching out. It's not— your body's not going to let it be in high levels in your blood, but it doesn't mean it's not causing damage. There's so much research showing that even the tiniest amounts of lead cause damage, like amounts that were showing up in my blood. But because it wasn't this like reference or this really high level, my doctor said it was fine, but it wasn't fine. I was so sick.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 27:37
When you were couch surfing for those 8 months, was that during this period of you also trying to find someone to help you? That sounds like the worst time ever.
REPLAY · 27:51
Dr. Traci Potterf (Guest): It felt like a nightmare. And there was a time, and I'm not being dramatic, but I want to destigmatize and I want people to understand because I've heard people say, like when they've heard of someone committing suicide, like, why were they so weak? Or why were, you know? The chemicals in your body make everything happen. So when they talk about mental health, they talk about a chemical imbalance, but we're made of chemicals. So diabetes is a chemical imbalance. Cardiovascular disease is a chemical— we're made of chemicals. So any disease is a chemical imbalance. But what that term is trying— it's trying to talk about these, they call brain chemicals, but they're really neurotransmitters, which are everywhere you have nerves, not just in your brain, like dopamine, serotonin, GABA. Uh, you know, they go on and on and on. There's so many of them. I think we've heard a lot about dopamine and serotonin because dopamine, I call it hopamine. It like, it gives its motivation, the sense of reward, something positive in the future, something to look forward to, like the sense that life is worth living, pleasure seeking, whatever. And serotonin is more a sense of wellbeing with what is now, like, you know, a perfect sunset or hug from someone, like a sense of wellbeing in the moment. Dopamine is like that pursuit. I feel like I didn't have either one of those. Like, I mean, I just felt I couldn't have a positive thought. If I think about my nephew I love so much, I would think about what if something happened to him. If I tried to think about like anything, my brain was so poisoned that if I tried to have any thought about the future or anything positive, all I could access was like doom and gloom. Like, it felt horrible. Now I have an intellectual understanding of biochemistry and of the brain. And one of my niches, like I, I work in is helping people with like chronic anxiety and mental health issues and how it's tied to chronic illness or whatever, since Actually, that's kind of a spoiler, but that's kind of where this went. I know that we see the world, our perception of reality is through this like lens of a belief of biochemistry, right? So I knew I was looking through a lens of, of a suicidal person. I, I wanted to, I just felt like I was dying. It felt hopeless. I kept turning closed door, closed door. I found this guy who specialized in lead poisoning and he had this bone scan he could do. And I thought maybe, oh, by the way, this ruined me financially. It cost me so much money, like all that out-of-pocket medical stuff, cuz I had to do everything functional. Everything was out of pocket. I also had to get rid of stuff, buy new stuff. But when I eventually got a house, like I, a place to live, you know, got, you know, I, it, it, it was so expensive. It was because of having to get rid of my possessions and, you know, buy new things. And like, anyway, it was, it was very complicated having to travel for care cuz I couldn't get care there and all this stuff. So, you know, it was, it was a horrendous financial impact. It also impacted my ability to make money. Like I couldn't work when I was that sick. I could barely see clients. I had a very light client load because I couldn't work. So I lost tons of income. I just felt like everywhere I turned I hit a door. Like, oh, I found this guy in New York and, you know, and he, you know, at a research university and he was really sweet and he actually acknowledged that what was going on. But then he has this bone scan technology where they can look for the amount of— they can measure the lead in your, your, your bones. And so, but because it was COVID, they'd shut down the lab and he didn't know when it would reopen. So again, everywhere I turned, I hit a closed door. I hit a closed door. I hit a closed door. And when you're You have nowhere to live. You keep hitting closed doors. People look at like you're crazy. No one wants to deal with it except for your close, amazing friends and your mom. It's like, it just felt like it'd be easier to die. Like, and also I'm losing my ability to see. I'm losing my ability to like exer— oh, I couldn't exercise. I had exercise intolerance. If I would do just a gentle yoga class, I would have so much pain the next day that I couldn't get out. I couldn't move. Like I could barely walk. So over the tiniest amount of effort, I could go on a gentle stroll and just know I'd be very sore the next day. It felt like I'd done some like CrossFit workout, you know? So. I just like, yeah, I reached rock bottom. I just felt like just in terms of my neurotransmitters, the chemicals in my brain, like I couldn't see hope. I couldn't see a way out. Like it just felt like the world was closing in on me and it just, and I remember, I'm not actually going to say this because I don't want to spread the idea, but there was a certain like gentle way I thought I could do it to like just leave my body and like whatever. And, um, but then I thought of my mom and I was like, it would kill her. Like, and so I made a deal with myself that as long as my mom's alive, I'm not allowed to even think about that.. And so, but I, but it gave me comfort to feel like I could do something to get out of the situation. Right. So I developed a huge compassion for people who feel suicidal and who shame it. And I was scared to even tell people, I thought I'd lose credibility. Like, you know, so I, I really, I started, I told my mom first, that was really a hard conversation, but she was so cool about it. And then I started telling my closest friends and they were so beautiful. Like they were, I have such good friends. It's like so beautiful. And, you know, and told my therapist, I think everyone needs a therapist. So I didn't do anything, but like, I just, that's how bad it was. Then I guess slowly, you know, healing isn't a linear process. It's not like I did this and then I got better and it was perfect. It's like up, down, up, over, over here. Da da da. It's an up, down, upward trend with a lot of zigzagging. And over time you get better, but it's not linear. And a lot of people start to get better and then they get worse and wanna give up. But I knew this from my experience working with people like over the last 20 years, I knew that it was going to be nonlinear, you know, and I'd have better days and then worse days and have setbacks. I got re-exposed to mold at one point along the way where, you know, it got me sicker again. So I did work. I did use a lot of functional medicine tools. I love functional medicine. It's just a lifesaver for so many millions of people who are open to it. But I also really, really rooted into my meditation practice and asking my body, what do you need? As much as I thought I was listening to my body, I realized how much I wasn't. My body was like, I just want to sleep. I want to rest. And so I instituted something I self-named Operation Radical Rest, which was I got to stay in bed for 10 hours every night. Forget my laundry, forget my to-do list, my business money, survival fear. This flew in the face of everything. You know, I was raised by a father who was like, grew up poor, you know, came up out drudgery into becoming a physician. Like, he came from nothing and was a self-made man and all this stuff. And he still always had this, "This isn't a hotel, there's work to be done." And I got that burned into— I've been trying to overcome that my whole life. I've gotten better and better at it, but I realized like something in me, this whole culture of productivity, we have this false notion of what productive even means. Like, we're gonna kill ourselves to be productive and for what? You know? And so I was like, okay, this flies in the face of our culture, of my upbringing, of everything, to let myself let productivity, work, money, all that go fall by the wayside and just sleep a lot. Because when I asked my body, what do you want to do? What do you need? It said, I want you to go lay on the ground at the beach under a tree and put your feet on the earth and just lay on a blanket and breathe. So I did. And it made me feel better, like literally to just go lie on the ground. And there's an electron exchange between the soles of our feet and our bodies that reduces inflammation. Like just being near trees, like we evolved from like simians, like, like being near trees is soothing. It creates Safety, like there's so much in our neurology that wants to be nurtured. Hearing the sound of the ocean, the negative ions, all that stuff. So I did it. I gave myself that. Started becoming more and more aware of where I was withholding nurture from myself. And, you know, cuz I was still eating well and all that other stuff, but like I just slept a lot. I used functional medicine tools. I visited some friends. I didn't have a place to live, so I figured might as well go visit some friends. So I visited a former business partner I love dearly, brilliant man, and he and his boyfriend had moved to California. And so we went. And we got in this ice cold river. And when I was climbing to the river, I was shaking and, you know, I had all the symptoms and I felt awkward. I was afraid I was gonna fall. I felt weak. We get in this ice cold water of this river and it was just so delightful. Like, even though I've historically hated cold, like, do not make me be cold. Like, I do not wanna be cold. I'll be hot all day. I'll sweat. Just do not make me be cold. But something was there. Like, I get in this ice cold water, I got outta the water and suddenly no tremor. I felt strong. I felt agile climbing back up the rocks. Like, I was just like, oh my God, that was my first sample of not feeling broken. Just getting in ice cold water and what it did to my neurology. And so then I went to hot springs and I did hot, cold, hot, cold contrast hydrotherapy that moves lymph, that detoxes. It does all these amazing things. So I started using just temperature. I started going back to really basic things like the earth, water, sleep, temperature. In addition to eating really well, which I already did, and I did take natural supplements. The real change happened when I started using these tools. I got a, I got a sleeping bag sauna. Don't have room for a sauna in my house in Hawaii. I started doing sweat sauna. I did red light therapy. I bought my own lamp. It was expensive, but I did it anyway. I just decided I'm gonna do whatever it takes. It's like heal or die.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 36:19
That's it.
REPLAY · 36:20
Dr. Traci Potterf (Guest): Like, so, and it just was slow and arduous and it took a long time. And I would say like I was able to get to like, you know, there's still a little couple little things I, you know, can see getting better and I, I really feel like they will. It hasn't been that long. Long. This just happened, like, I had to move out of my house summer before last, so it's been like a year and a half since like the epicenter of this whole thing. Yeah, and so like as of August, um, we're at the end of November now, and as of August I went to Guatemala, which I— the thought that I could even go to another country, like, especially the way I like to eat and whatever, like, it was very intimidating. But I— something told me like, you need to go have another experience, you need to break out of this whole patient role or whatever. And go on an adventure and have fun. So go to Guatemala. I ate really good food. It was actually surprisingly easy to eat really good food. And, um, it was just so beautiful and it was such a healing experience. I kept finding these moments. I just want to cry tears of joy, like, oh my God, I've come so far. And I just, just wanted to go back to past Tracy who wanted to die, who didn't think she would ever get well and say, see, look where you are. Look what you did. And there's this moment I was in the ruins of Tikal and I was like up on a pyramid and I had like, I signed up for 3 tours in one day cuz I thought they were like 2 hours each, but they were 4 hours each. I hiked for 12 hours in one day going from not being able to get outta bed to hiking 12 hours and not being ruined the next day. I was actually fine the next day and the next day. I didn't even forget. I was waiting for the soreness. It never even came. And this moment of like being on these pyramids and looking around me and being like, oh my God, I did it. Look where I am. You know? And so I just want people to understand that like healing is not a linear process. You sometimes, you people, like whether they want to help, the people probably do want to help you. They may not have the tools to help you. It's messy and you have to get out of your comfort zone. And I have like 3, I don't know if there's anything else you want to ask, but like I have like 3 takeaways that I would like to share with people. One is you have to be unwilling. To settle for less than the best possible outcome. So someone says, oh, you are now a diabetic. This is your identity. No, you're not a diabetic. You're a human being and your body needs nurture. Don't settle for less than the optimal outcome. And I tell you, the best possible outcome is always better than what the mainstream tells you is possible. Cuz they're going off the average person who's thinking the mainstream thoughts. They're not going off of the infinite possibilities of the genius of nature, of like the intelligence of all of existence. So hold a vision of the life you want and not what you're afraid will happen. It's okay to visit what I'm afraid will happen, but keep holding on to the reality you wanna create. I did that in my meditations a lot. I just did mental rehearsals of the reality I wanted to live. Secondly, be willing to do your part. So don't think doctors can't heal you. You heal you.. Like doctors can help keep you alive. They can give you diagnostics. They can help support you whether they're holistic or mainstream or whatever. And you can now, I help people navigate that, but it's your job. Like your body, your cells want to heal, but that means you have to think outside the box. That means you need to get support from people who know what they're doing and have like walked that path before. People who have training in this, and it may not be your wonderful, intelligent, well-meaning family doctor that you've known forever. That may not be the person with the best toolbox. There are people who work, like I work internationally, I work long distance, like there are people all over the world that have been through things like this, who've garnered these tool sets where they can help you. Get help from someone who can get you exceptional outcomes, not just like lackluster, run-of-the-mill, settling for less outcomes. Take total personal responsibility. Don't be a victim. Like, I felt like such a victim. I'm, I still have anger. I'm going to be honest. I'm still angry at the people who neglected me in that house and then kicked me out and then ghosted me and took no responsibility, didn't offer to help, didn't check on me, didn't experience They were so worried about litigation that they didn't— they, after 9 years of being their tenant, I was just dead to them. That wasn't fair. That wasn't right. What they did wasn't right, but I still had to heal myself. I had to pull myself out of that financial and biological mess and emotional mess. So, you know, when we take radical personal responsibility for a situation, that means we have to reprogram our limiting beliefs. We have to reprogram our habits. We have to make changes. And a lot of people are scared to make changes because it's overwhelming. That's why you, It's good to have guides and support. That's why that's so important. I feel even more committed than ever to what I do for a living because going through that, like, not that I didn't have empathy for my clients before, not that I hadn't had health struggles before, because I had, but my gosh, my level of empathy and ability to relate to my clients and help them and emotionally support them has like exploded. The level of complexity of cases I can handle has exploded. I've learned so much because I did learn a lot of science. I did learn how to like really complex ways to detoxify. I learned about how to to modulate the immune system and the immune system response, and like things that are going to help people with autoimmunity, things are going to help people with mental illness, things are going to help people with environmental poisoning. Like, I learned so much, like just more levels of how to heal the gut. Like, so when we take personal responsibility and instead of just wanting a magic pill, we're willing to make changes and think outside the box, then it's actually a fun process. Not to say what I went through was always fun, but like, like eating really nurturing food is delicious and it feels good. Like, like doing things like laying Laying at the beach and like putting your feet on the earth, that actually feels good. Like learning to breathe ways that bring pleasure and feel good. Like there's so many things you can heal yourself that actually bring pleasure. And they're often the pleasures hiding around hidden corners, like not places we would think to look. So it can feel good and be a quite exhilarating process. Also, there's an exhilaration to overcoming and to being empowered and to learning that you're so— you're not limited the way we're taught we are. We're not limited. It's all in here. And most importantly, we have to live in a way that works with, not against, the intelligence of nature, because that is what we are. It's where we come from and it's, it's what rules all of existence. So like you have a genius, you have an intelligence in you, and maybe you're only opening a few of the doors in this house inside of you. Like, and sometimes illness is an excuse to blow open all the doors and the walls and really expand and really discover what's inside of you that you didn't even know was in you, that you didn't know you were capable of.. And, and so in that way, I see these horrible illnesses. They, it's horrible. It's horrible. And it's not fair. And it's, it's painful. And I'm so sorry for all of you who've been through stuff like this yourselves. I'm so sorry for your pain, but man, there's such potential for beauty and growth and magic. And I haven't even told you all the internal magic, like all the shifts that have happened inside of me. Like the things I've been experiencing in my life that make me feel like I love that album title, Magical Mystery Tour. Like, I feel like life has become like there are challenges and I have bad days and I'm not perfect and I do things that I'm like, oh, that wasn't a great idea. Like, I'm not trying to be like, I'm so perfect and I know everything, because no, I'm a real human like all of us, right? Just what, like, what the deepening of my meditation, my connection to all of existence, my ability to see how much power I have over my own life and to help and support others, it's exhilarating and it's beautiful. So if you're going through some kind of like health challenge or life challenge or growth challenge, whatever it is, like, just know there's more possibility and reach out, ask for help, and like, just know you're capable of more than you think.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 43:54
That's beautiful, Tracy. Um, you answered the question that I was going to ask at the end so perfectly, actually. So it's so completely, and I, there's only one thing, but there's a couple of little things I just want to ask you if that's okay. Do you see that you're still on the healing journey, or do you feel like you've reached the— you've climbed that mountain to get over that lead poisoning?
REPLAY · 44:19
Dr. Traci Potterf (Guest): So that's such a good question. Okay, so I felt like I had overcome the mountain, literally from the top of a pyramid, and then I went to visit my mother, and she had gotten mold in her HVAC system in her house. So I got reexposed to mold very recently. And so some of the symptoms have come back, but what's different this time is I probably won't get out of it exactly the same way I did last time, cuz it's kind of moving target, but I know I will. Like, I'm, I mean, I don't have a tremor anymore. My vision's way better. I don't have like, I almost never get like a headache unless my neck gets out or something like a neck headache or whatever. Like there's, I was, as I was going through the symptoms, I was like, that's gone. That's gone. I almost, I rarely get any tinnitus. I don't get the pins and needles in my legs, you know, whatever. So, you know, my brain is clear. I have energy, you know, I still have some GI issues and, um, and like muscle pain that came back like after the mold exposure. And that was very frustrating. I don't like it, but I'm going to get over it. It's, I'm going to solve this, so it'll be fine.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 45:24
I have no doubt. Absolutely.
REPLAY · 45:26
Dr. Traci Potterf (Guest): Thank you.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 45:28
The other question I have is around your mom, because you mentioned her right from the beginning. You know, such an interesting story, and the way that you were able to give her her life back through healing her Crohn's disease. What does she say to you now? What does she think about the journey that you've been on?
REPLAY · 45:42
Dr. Traci Potterf (Guest): I love my mom so much. Um, I'm actually— right now we just moved her to a senior community that's a really loving, beautiful, supportive place. It's like living at a resort, basically. And And so I've been spending a lot of time with her. Like, they let me use a room in the building for this interview. She keeps saying I saved her life. She says she wouldn't be here if it weren't for me. She says she believes in me. She supports anything I do. Like, she's so— anytime I feel afraid or limited or like I— because I feel such— I feel like I'm a woman on a mission to change how we look at mental health and physical health and the connection and how our minds and bodies aren't separate. And I get scared and intimidated sometimes because I'm just one little person or whatever in this whole world. And she's just like, get out there and do it. I'll do anything I have to do to support you. Like, I believe in you. And like, so she's, she's so supportive and she, I know my whole family loves me, but she's the one who gets what I do. And so she is just unwaveringly supportive of me and what I do and roots for my clients. She doesn't know them or whatever. I don't share their personal information with her, but like, she's just rooting for everybody and she has her own struggles too. I mean, she's 82 now. You know, so she's been through some other challenges, but she's, you know, she's, she's a trooper, man. Like she's, she's amazing. I love this woman so much. I don't even know if I answered your question. I just get emotional about my mom. I just love her. She's like, we're so close.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 47:10
Okay. I'm so happy to hear that. It's so happy that you've got her and not just anyone, but you know, it's your mom in your, in your, in your camp. And, um, yeah. Yeah, just the way you speak about her, just really, it comes across as how important she is.
REPLAY · 47:25
Dr. Traci Potterf (Guest): And yeah, and my dad, he was a doctor, but he died young because he thought it was crazy. He thought this whole eating organic food and exercising and whatever, dealing with your emotions or whatever, like, he thought it was nuts. And he died at the age of 72, you know, almost a decade ago. And he was a doctor and he knew everything. He had an MD and a PhD, but he had a lot of trauma. He had horrible trauma. And he just never, he ran from it and it killed him and he self-soothed with the most destructive, not like, you know, with sugar and processed food basically. And you know what? And my mom, like, she's struggling to exercise. Like, that's something she's never wanted to do. And I want to tell you guys, especially as we age, if you move it or lose it, like, you know what I mean? You will literally lose your mind. Like dementia, Alzheimer's, all that stuff. Like there are people who have reversed dementia and like even Alzheimer's and cognitive decline, but you have to move and you have to rest. You have to nourish and nurture yourself. Sorry, you didn't ask any of that, but I thought I'd put that plug in.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 48:23
Good on you. Thank you.
REPLAY · 48:24
Dr. Traci Potterf (Guest): What an amazing story.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 48:26
What a journey. I, I'm, yeah, that was really fascinating, heart-wrenching. And, uh, I love the way that you expressed yourself as well. Like, I really felt that we were there with you, um, as you were going through that.
REPLAY · 48:38
Dr. Traci Potterf (Guest): Well, I hope you all feel better now. If you went through the bad part, I hope you feel good about the good part.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 48:44
You know, challenges happen to us. And one of the themes, I think, in some of these conversations that I have been hearing is the injustice. And some of the comments are like, life's not fair. It's just part of life. Life is not sunshine and daisies and roses every day.
REPLAY · 49:04
Dr. Traci Potterf (Guest): I remember someone telling me no one gets away with anything because it's like, I feel like when you do things that are completely negligent and hurtful to other people because you're trying to save your own skin, I feel like it's going to catch up with you. Like it does, like you can't like just do those things and like live with yourself in the same way. Like it feels so good when you're integrity and you really care. You know, we all are imperfect. We're all perfectly imperfect. But when you like are integrity and you care and you look out for the wellbeing of not just yourself, but the whole planet, because we're all connected. We really are. It's not a cliché. We're all. Connected biologically, energetically, psychologically, emotionally. Like, so when you don't look out for the whole— like, not that you're responsible for the whole, but like, when, when I make a decision that I'm voting on the world I want to create, and like, I want to make a better life, I, I buy a product that paid the employees well and, and was sustainable and regenerative and didn't hurt the planet, but it's also going to help me. What I've, what I've really— one of my overarching takeaways from everything I've learned and watching people heal over the last 20 years, I mean, I watch people We're supposed to— like, there's a woman, she's supposed to have a heart transplant, didn't need it anymore. Like, had a person who was, you know, had a bowel resection after cancer, and she was told she'd have diarrhea the rest of her life and never be able to work again. And within a week, she was pooping solid after 5 or 6 years of diarrhea and wearing a diaper. You know, like, I mean, it's just over. And people in remission from autoimmune diseases, people who've had severe debilitating mental illness like anxiety, panic attacks that are fine, they don't have them anymore, and they're not on medications. Like, this kind of thing, that's normal to me. That's my reality. That's what's possible. And like what we need to do to heal ourselves is what's going to heal the earth and our culture and what we do to heal the earth and our culture will heal us individually.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 50:42
Love. I love all of that, Tracy. And I know we could keep talking, but we're going to wrap up because we've got to wrap it up. I just want to thank you so much for being so transparent and open and giving sharing your story because it's going to help so many people. I know there are so many people suffering from different ailments, health issues, unexplained things. But I think what I've got from your story is this sense of empowerment. And that's what you're giving as a gift, letting people know that they can heal no matter what, no matter how bad it is. And I love that.
REPLAY · 51:15
Dr. Traci Potterf (Guest): And you will feel powerless. You will feel powerless at points. And it's okay. It's not permanent. It'll change again.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 51:21
Yeah, yeah.
REPLAY · 51:22
Dr. Traci Potterf (Guest): And thank you. I'm happy to support anyone who needs help.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 51:25
So yes, yes. And your details will be here, will be below in the, in the show notes as well when this is live. Thank you, Tracy. It's been an absolute pleasure.
REPLAY · 51:36
Dr. Traci Potterf (Guest): All right, thank you.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 51:41
We hope you've enjoyed this episode of Kintsugi Heroes. Please like and share the to your friends so we can get this out to even more people. If you have a story you'd like to share with us, please reach out using the contact details below. And join us next week for our next hero's story. Until then, keep being you, and remember that we are all heroes in our own unique way. Only when it's broken Only when it's broken. When it hits you in the middle of the night and the truth burns so bright. Only when it's broken. Only when it's broken. Take pride in those cries. It's only for tonight, and then you rise. Only when you're broken. Only when you're broken.
REPLAY · 52:51
Dr. Traci Potterf (Guest): Only when you're broken.
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