Do a short visualization with me. You're halfway through your curriculum at the Institute of Integrative Nutrition (IIN). You're an expert at balancing your coursework with raising your young child. Add to that, you've got some very creative ways to stretch your tight budget. But someday very soon you know that well is going to run dry.
Up until a couple short years ago, you battled severe gut issues from emotional trauma that took its toll. It takes every bit of your desire and conviction to heal using a holistic approach to get your life back, but you do it. And, now you're faced with a new dilemma.
You're overcommitted, both with time and responsibility. That checkbook ledger? You're in a “don't look don't tell” relationship with it. It's teetering so close to zero you wonder why you're even considering what's on your mind. But you're gut intuition is pulling you towards a learning experience you can't seem to shake.
Will you do whatever it takes to get what you know you need? Even without knowing how or why you know?
You turn your thoughts to how you can fit in this new coursework…
A course that promises you ultimate knowledge of how to help yourself and others heal their microbiome using the ancient tradition of ferments.
A virtual classroom full of others as deeply engaged in the nutritional science and application of using real foods, made by your own hands, to alleviate very real symptoms.
Learning in a group setting – the history, the science, and then the kitchen, to create each of the ferments. The experience undoubtedly will boost your confidence, keep you highly engaged, and help you retain your knowledge.
Real-time coaching from a trained herbalist who unlocked the secrets to healing her own litany of symptoms, including Candida, irritable bowel syndrome, anxiety, fatigue, chemical and food sensitivities, and addiction.
Support from other students and graduates in a Facebook group dedicated to sharing the entire fermentation experience (good or bad) of each healing ferment you are trained to make. Inside the group, you'll realize that “failing” to make a ferment properly is an opportunity to learn and to drop the false pretense that perfection is a requirement to succeed in class.
Understanding the difference between the dead looking sauerkraut you can get in the store and the active beneficial cultures your fresh-made batch contains and the impact it makes on your health. Because, fresh and unpasteurized ferments contain probiotics, enzymes, organic acids – all of which are helpful to healing the microbiome.
Realizing how easy it is to make healing ferments like yogurt and kefir when you follow the proper methods. And, knowing your ferments are far superior to store-bought, pasteurized varieties in both taste and probiotic impact.
Finally uncovering the truth about putting an end to the symptoms plaguing you or others you love, including indigestion, IBS, bloat, diarrhea, constipation, food and chemical sensitivities, anxiety, depression, fatigue, eczema, issues with weight, and many more.
A genuine way to make an impact on anyone you share your ferment methods with because you embody the lesson that food is medicine.
With all these benefits, you realize you have to remove every barrier to saying no to this course. To grab the opportunity to enroll in Fermentationist® Certification Program right now, you have to do some quick thinking.
Will you have time?
You are in absolute control of your schedule. You make time every single day for what you deem an important priority.
How about the money? Where's that going to come from?
Ever notice how when you really want something that you're completely aligned with, you find a way to manifest the money you need to get it?
You look out into your driveway and see, “Lucy.” She's your old reliable car who has been with you through every over the road adventure for years. With 270,000 miles on her, she's no showstopper on a dealer's showroom floor, but she's absolutely enough.
It's time to stop blocking your intuition and do what needs to be done.
You pick up the phone and call your bank. After spending 15 minutes or so on the phone, you have a new loan against Lucy. You enroll in what you know is going to be the best 3-month nutrition program you'll ever find. And, it fits so perfectly with your IIN training.
Now you know you've armed yourself to make a lasting impact on the people you choose to take on as your clients when the time comes.
How do you feel? Being in charge of unblocking yourself is empowering, right? Doing whatever it takes within your power to get what you need, that's the definition of freedom.
Takeaways From The Fermentationist Certification Program
That visualization was a recount of one of my Certified Fermentationists®, Shawndi Borup. Even though she had every possible excuse not to take on yet another commitment, she empowered herself to choose freedom.
Shawndi credits the Fermentationist® program with at least a thousand takeaways that she shares with her clients today. She feels that experiencing the entire process of fermentation from start to finish helps her fully appreciate what ferments can actually do for your body. She believes the coursework makes her more relatable as a coach, and she uses the internalized food healing lessons to pay it forward to her own clients.
Using Healing Ferments With Clients
To share her Fermentationist® takeaways with others, Shawndi launched her business, Show Me Healthy Living. It's what she calls the “tooth brushing” of healthy living. What does that mean exactly? It's taking one person or family at a time and moving them from overwhelm to a path for health personalized to their needs. One size does not fit all.
Shawndi believes six foods belong in everyone's diet that can tolerate them (and yes, four are ferments). Sauerkraut, kefir, yogurt, Einkorn sourdough, bone broth, soaking and sprouting are microbiome musts.
Recently, Shawndi gathered a group of nutrition experts together to share their most actionable “food as medicine” advice in 20-minute interviews. (Yes, I'm excited I was included in the line-up!) Each day, a new interview in the free series called Food Comes First goes out by email to anyone who registers, so be sure to sign up here and get notified.
Change Gut Healing With Fermented Foods
What an inspiration. Shawn is what I lovingly call a rising supernova. She's taken all the principles of true gut-health and made them her own. Now she's making her own impact on healing the tattered microbiome of the planet.
You can make the choice to do the same. To join the gut-health revolution and affect massive change, you have two choices.
One, you can continue to regurgitate outdated lessons about how sauerkraut is the way to a healthy microbiome.
Two, you can dive so much deeper and unlock the knowledge of every functional ferment with the Fermentationist® Certification Program. It's your opportunity to live what you learn and pay it forward, one client at a time.