Episode 63 – Sharon Hespe | The Good Gut Girl

In this episode I chat with Sharon Hespe, a naturopath who is also known as The Good Gut Girl and who wholeheartedly believes that it is possible to change your life through good gut health.

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Transcript

Murray Guest  00:01

Welcome, Sharon to the podcast. Great to see you. Great to catch up with you, how you been? 

Sharon Hespe  00:08

Fantastic Mary, how are you?

Murray Guest  00:10

I’m good. I’m feeling good today, I am feeling a bit heavy hearted about all that’s going on in the world, that’s for sure, particularly in America, and it is spreading obviously, the protests and the awareness around just what’s going on, and the changes that need to be made. And whilst you and I both understand strengths, and I do joke around and say my empathy is low, and yours is high, I’m definitely feeling it at the moment that heaviness as well.

Sharon Hespe  00:36

Yeah, that’s understandable. There are major changes going on now all at the moment. And, and sometimes it’s a little bit hard to cope with everything, because there is just so much going on.

Murray Guest  00:48

Yeah, and I know that certainly you help with your clients that you see around how to handle that and do that. And similar to myself, I guess, the client I see quite often is coming back to what’s in your control, what can you do about it? And, having the conversation I think is really important as well.

Sharon Hespe  01:05

That is very true. And often I will say to my patients, there is nothing that I can do to control what’s going on around you. But there are lots of herbal medicines and supplements I can give you that will help you to relax into what’s going on and not be so stressed about what’s happening. So it gets you the herbs and supplements will help you to adapt to situations rather than reacting.

Murray Guest  01:31

And that building of resilience within the body with the work that you do so that we can handle what’s going on in our world. I’m sure that’s that’s what I’m hearing there. Now you are known as the good gut girl. Which I love. I love it such a great saying and a great perspective that you bring that people I know need to learn about on ask, Why? Why this focus on the gut? How did that come about for you in your area of naturopathy?

Sharon Hespe  02:05

Gosh, I remember many years ago, or around 12 years ago, when I was studying in a clinic, we had a supervisor and she was really big on food intolerances. And it was such a complex world. And I remember thinking, I’m not sure that I’m really gonna get into food intolerances when I get out and become a naturopath because it’s so complex, it’s so hard. Sure, there must be an easier way to make money. So I remember when I first became a naturopath and my very first patient had a food intolerance was like, Okay, I really know what to do here, because I’m really experienced because of my clinic supervisor, and then the next person and then the next person. So I did probably half my work in the beginning around food intolerances. And then a letter landed in my letterbox from the council, and they were saying that they wanted to help health professionals to build their business within the St. George, the St. George community. So I thought, Okay, that sounds great. So they, they created and ran a business course for us. And it was absolutely brilliant. And in one of those lessons, I can remember one of the facilitators saying, you really need to pick something that is that is happening now that there is a future to and you really need to nation, it was like, Huh, okay, I think I know what I need to do. So I said, Look, I really think I need to focus on food intolerances because I have a lot of experience in it. And more and more people are coming down with gut problems. So I did and that’s what I really focused on. And since then, that’s almost, in fact, that is the only patients I do see I’ve got problems. If I have someone with fertility or song with cancer or someone with some other problem, I will refer them on automatically because in my mind, I’ve got problems day in, day out. So when I sit and listen to somebody, immediately it comes straight to mind. I never have to go to a textbook, I never have to go and look something up because it’s just what I do day in day out.

Murray Guest  04:18

And your your depth of knowledge from seeing all those people and understanding their needs is this I can imagine this library that you have just ready access to in your head and from all those experiences.

Sharon Hespe  04:30

That’s correct. And there’s a lot of anecdotal symptoms with gut problems, lots of anecdotal symptoms that you see. So if, for instance, if somebody would would present with a fructose malabsorption problem, they would have pain high up in the gut, that pain at times will be really severe. There will be worse after garlic and onions there will be worse after fruit on an empty stomach. There could be anxiety there will be liver function problems just straight away before I even test, I will think, okay, it’s likely that there’s an intestinal absorption problem here, because those symptoms are very, very common in that gut problem.

Murray Guest  05:13

So for those people listening that may not have an understanding of the difference between a food allergy and a food intolerance. Okay, can you help us understand those differences?

Sharon Hespe  05:24

Yes, yes, they’re both mediated by the immune system. But an allergy is an IGE mediated problem. And an intolerance or sensitivity is mediated by the IDG part of your immune system. So with the IGE part, it’s like we almost saw that has a peanut allergy or a seafood allergy. So the reactions that you get will happen between around sometimes 30 seconds, up to five to 10 minutes, after you ingest that food, we’re any tolerance will happen, you will get a symptom between possibly half an hour and up to five days later. So it makes it quite difficult to, to work out what’s going on. So I do test a lot for intolerances, because it’s just the easiest way to do it. But yeah, there’s a big difference between an allergy and intolerance. And obviously, allergies are life threatening emergencies. And you, you will always have an epi pen, and there’s a huge difference. And once you either have an allergy or you have an intolerance, then you understand what’s going on.

Murray Guest  06:26

Yeah, I think that’s a distinction that I was aware of that an allergy is life threatening, whereas an intolerance is and tell me if this is incorrect it in causes health, I guess, concerns and problems and discomfort, but doesn’t have that same consequences that are that when you have the allergy it has?

Sharon Hespe  06:49

That’s correct. That is right. But it does create some really uncomfortable and really awful symptoms to people that they have to live with day in, day out. And sometimes people just tend to get used to it and their illness becomes the new, normal way of feeling that this is how these sounds always been sad people feel. Whereas an allergy it’s a totally different thing.

Murray Guest  07:13

I’ve heard some things in the media. Over the years of that there’s more people having food intolerances than the past. And they’re on the increase on wondering Is that what’s happening? Or are we just getting better at identifying them? Or is it a bit of both?

Sharon Hespe  07:30

Look, I do think it’s a bit of both. But there are a few things that really will contribute to a food intolerance or a gut problem, and that is stress. And you look at the world, especially since January this year, and look at the stress people have been on it. It’s been huge. But as well as stress, it’s poor dietary choices. So too much weat, too much dairy, too many processed foods. So people say oh, in my day, you know, my grandparents didn’t have that. They had a very different life than we have now. They had a community to help them they had family to help them. And they had food from the gardens, you know, or they had they had a lot of fresh food, they didn’t have nearly as much processed food as we have, or nearly as much stress. So both of those things are huge contributors to food intolerances.

Murray Guest  08:17

So if I’m walking around, and I think I’ve got a food intolerance, what should I do?

Sharon Hespe  08:25

Okay, first thing is you need to find a naturopath that is great with gut health, because they will be able to help you. I say to people, 

Murray Guest  08:35

Can I just go back a second? How would I even know if I’ve got a problem?

Sharon Hespe  08:38

Interesting. That’s true. That’s true. So you would have symptoms and all go really probably from the head down. You may be getting headaches, you may feel a bit foggy, you may have a terrible memory, you may be getting mouth ulcers, you may be getting indigestion or reflux, you may be getting gut pain, that gut pain may be high up on your ribs or it might be lower down. You may be getting bloating, you may be tired a lot. Your muscles may ache you may have. Your poo might smell all of those sort of things are symptoms that you may or may not have.

Murray Guest  09:20

I think that’s a quite a big list and actually I think brings attention that when we are out of alignment those problems you know got a can impact so many parts of our body can’t it. 

Sharon Hespe  09:32

Off course it does. Yes. 

Murray Guest  09:35

Okay, so then as you’re saying if we’ve got some of those complaints, or we’ve got some of those health concerns, and my normal is like that and I’m don’t want that normal anymore. You started to say then see a naturopath that has a knowledge and skill around gut health.

Sharon Hespe  09:53

Yeah, that is so true. And the key that our that the way that I like to operate. I’ve the way I do things is you need to find the cause of what’s going on. So and we’ve we’ve got problems, it can be really things, it can be a food intolerance, it can be SIBO, which is small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, it might be a fruit, just malabsorption problem, or it could be just too much bad bacteria in that gut. And you know, we all see that television ads where you’ve got the good bacteria dancing, and the bad bacteria dancing, and the bad bacteria tend to take over. And that just means there’s too much bad bacteria in your gut, it can be a Candida overgrowth, it might be a parasite, it could be a salicylate problem, it could be a histamine problem. So there are quite a few things that can be. But the key is, as with all health conditions, you need to find the cause, before you can treat it properly, there is only so much that you can do symptomatically

Murray Guest  10:49

it really is about finding the cause. And something you’re saying before about the timeframe that the symptoms can show up, Is there like a load that you can slowly build up over a period of time with those food intolerances or those problems, it’s not like a switch, and it just happened. So it could be a number of things going on to get to a point where you’ve got the pains and the aches and the symptoms. Yeah, that is very true, it’s a little bit similar to the perfect storm. And often what you’ll see when people have a food intolerance, they’ll have a stressful event. So then I’ll get married, then we’ll get divorce, that they bought a house or had a child or someone’s died. So they’ll have this really stressful event that happens to them. And they gut lining becomes in really bad shape. And if the food proteins are not being broken down or digested properly, those food proteins drop into that leaky gut through that leaky gut into the bloodstream. And you’ll have a reaction. So I’ll use myself as an example as to how this happened. And about nearly 10 years ago, now, my mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. And she had passed away within the week. And she was already she was 63 years old. So that’s a relatively young age. And then all of a sudden, she was alive, relatively healthy. And within a week she passed away. So it was a really stressful time for me. And I can still remember the stress of that time and about. So I went back to work and do the whole funeral all of the things that you’re supposed to do when somebody dies. And then about three months later was like, why am I so tired, I was so tired, I would set my phone alarm for 20 minutes and sleep on the couch between patients, because I was so exhausted. And it took me quite a while to work out what it was and then hang on a minute. Maybe I’ve got a food intolerance. But I’d never had any other symptoms, no bloating, no pain, no constipation, none of the other symptoms that are talked about at all. And I thought well just test yourself and see. So I did I did the finger prick blood testing clinic process at all, and was like, Oh my god, I there was about five or six foods that showed strong intolerance as well. Okay, I still wasn’t convinced. I thought okay, well just remove the foods and see how you feel. I felt terrible for the first four or five days as I removed those foods from my diet. But But that day forward, I six was like, I could run to the top of Mount Everest, I felt so good. And that’s when I knew Okay, it was a 50 chance but but those are sort of things you see with a food intolerance, you see a stressful event, and you will always I always had a little bit of hay fever. That’s it. That’s the only sign off into my head. And obviously, I had gotten to like other people. This is my new normal. This is how I’m supposed to feelwhen it wasn’t. So it’s quite interesting.  There are things that I’m thinking about too is when we’re under stress quite often we go to drinking and eating things which aren’t the best for us. 

Sharon Hespe  13:49

Always. 

Murray Guest  13:50

Which then compound the problem, I guess.

Sharon Hespe  13:52

Yeah, that’s true. And too What happens is people think, well, I feeling really bad anyway. So why would I do what I want to wait? Because how much worse can I really feel?

Murray Guest  14:03

I’m feeling crap. So you know what, I’m just going to drink some more so I can not feel it. And then I might eat a whole bunch of, I don’t know junk food or comfort food? Because that’s what I’m feeling like, and then that’s not helping as well.

Sharon Hespe  14:15

That’s correct. That’s exactly what happens. Yeah, it’s a huge, vicious cycle that sometimes you need someone just to step in and intervene and say, let’s look at things in a different way.

Murray Guest  14:27

So you mentioned good and bad bacteria. What are some things which help us build that good bacteria in our gut?

Sharon Hespe  14:36

Okay, with the good bacteria you need to, for really good gut health you need around 40 different plant foods per week, which is a lot of plant foods per week. Ideally, if your gut is in great shape, you will cope with those sorts of plant foods. And that will keep your gut in fantastic shape. So it’s about variety. It’s about brightly colored foods and things such as that

Murray Guest  15:00

Okay, and I’ve heard that drinking doesn’t help those good bacteria. When I say drinking I mean drinking alcohol.

Sharon Hespe  15:09

Yeah, alcohol, alcohol and caffeine can be really detrimental to the gut lining, it’s really quite inflammatory and you’ve got it that lining you can imagine, it’s like having. If you can imagine your fingers, your hand and you open up your hand, and you can spread your fingers out beautifully. And that hand works really, really well. So then imagine, if three of those fingers were stuck together and only one was open, your hand won’t function very well, like that. You’ve got the same if it’s not in great shape, it can’t function well. And, and then you’re in flaming that one little part that is still open, then it just compounds and becomes worse and worse and worse.

Murray Guest  15:51

Yeah. Okay. So this is a bit of a reset for me. Thanks, Sharon. I mean, I’m now drinking less drinking less coffee. You’re just ticking off these things, maybe what else am I gonna cut out next your going to tell me, no chocolate!

Sharon Hespe  16:07

Ah, I see. The problem with chocolate is the dairy. So I think he is people always forget that chocolate has dairy, but it’s dairy milk chocolate. So look, dairy. A1 dairy in particular is the probably the food that is most problematic for most people. But you can have dark chocolate, because that doesn’t have any dairy milk in it. You just need to be careful when you read the label that doesn’t say it contains milk solids.

Murray Guest  16:38

So I do have I do like my dark chocolate. And I am mindful also of enjoy life in moderation. So having those small bits of dark chocolate. But I you know, I think we all slip up and that’s something maybe which I wonder about too, and about being kind to ourselves when we do slip up a little bit because we got to be kind to ourselves, maybe to get back moving forward again, don’t we? 

Sharon Hespe  17:02

Yeah, of course. And I often say to people, you know, when they come in for their second or their third appointment, They say, look, I need to be honest. I haven’t, you know, haven’t done what you’ve asked me and I feel terrible. And I say, Look, you’re human, it’s okay. You know, just get back on the horse. And let’s start again, it doesn’t mean that you’ve ruined all the work that we’ve done. It just means that you’re humans. And and, you know, just don’t be so hard on yourself. Let’s give you find ways to help you to do it better. 

Murray Guest  17:34

Yeah, great, great. I need to ask about the emergence, if that’s the right word about kombucha in the last must be last couple of years, I guess. And I admit, I don’t mind, if I’m at the shops or if I’m getting some petrol from the service station, I might grab a bottle of kombucha. And I’m, I’m telling myself, that’s a better alternative, and I haven’t drank coke and things like that for years, that I’m telling myself that’s a better alternative and it’s doing me some good. How much good is it doing me? Really,

Sharon Hespe  18:09

Kombucha is a little bit like sauerkraut and it’s a little bit like all of the so called functional foods. Now that probably 60 is probably a good word for them. Now, with your gut health, they say that things like kombucha and sauerkraut, give your gut good bacteria. In fact, they don’t give your gut good bacteria. They are like all other foods and they are transient. But one good thing about them is that another food so that’s another source of variety for your gut, which is also good. So I said, Look, you know, maybe one kombucha week is fine, but a kombucha everyday is too much. And often I will see patients that say okay, I’ve been on this huge health kick. I’m having kombucha I’m having sauerkraut I’m juicing everyday. And they’re just getting worse. And I’m thinking yeah, no, you’re just getting worse. So it doesn’t mean that those things in large quantities are better for you have those sort of things in small quantities. And I always think that water is probably the best thing. Just get a sparkling mineral water one time. Get a kombucha the next we want to have a treat. A kombucha is fine, but treat it as a treat food. Not a normal food.

Murray Guest  19:19

Yeah, not an everyday food. Yeah, I think that’s a really good point. I’m also thinking about what I’ve learned over the years about listening to my body, and how powerful that’s been around my decision making or what it’s telling me or if I need to slow down. I’d love to know your perspective around how much we do and how much you see the power and listening to our body.

Sharon Hespe  19:44

Listening to your body tells you a lot. And I find when a patient first comes in and I ask them a series of questions. They have no idea what is going on in their body. But once we remove problematic foods, whether they be intolerances or SIBO foods or fructose foods or foods that are bad for the bacteria in your gut, people then start to listen to their body. And then they’ll have a food that they’re not supposed to have. And they can feel exactly what’s going on. So sometimes it needs for somebody to say to you, let’s look at things in a different way before they actually do stop and listen. And once they do, stop and listen, they go, Ah, now I can hear. Yeah, it’s like that whole, you can’t see the forest for the trees until someone points out that particular tree and what that will do for you, and then you Okay, now I can see.

Murray Guest  20:34

Yeah, that awareness now and then taking more notice of it as you consume different foods and what the reaction is that your body might be had this yeah, gotcha. Okay. Shaz I’d love to know, I mean, you’ve shared a couple of stories about yourself. But is there a story or some insights around someone you’ve helped, of course, mindful of, we don’t want to know their personal details. But I’d love to know the impact that you’ve had in some of the people you’ve worked with.

Sharon Hespe  21:00

Yeah, I think the biggest the biggest stories that I do see, come from young children, and from people that have terrible diarrhea. And often I have people that come to see me, and honestly, it’s sometimes it’s heartbreaking, and I almost feel myself in tears. Because for these people to get to work, they need to take medication, such as gastro stop, because if they don’t, they actually won’t make it to work to get to the toilet in time. So as often, it’s as simple as it might be an egg intolerance. It might be a fructose malabsorption, it just might be too much bad bacteria. And just a small change in diet makes a huge difference. You know, so with adults, I see that a lot. And I love that. But it’s with children. It’s so you will see a small child that will come to see with one of their parents, or their carers, and they tell me pain is terrible. You know, and actually, there is one great, great story that I will tell you about a child that once came to see me, there was a lady, she came to see me she had four children, and her youngest boy, was the one that was unwell. And I don’t like to test children. I like to if I do need to send the probiotics I will, I do prefer to set up let’s remove a couple of foods first. So we removed these two foods from this child’s diet. And the mother came back in I think was probably a month later. And she said Sharon, she said, Thank you so much. She said, I thought I just had a quiet child. She said the three of my boys were like, bouncing off the walls and the chairs and the counters like energetic children. And she said, My fourth child, she said, I just thought he was quite he used to like lay on the couch. He says sit around, he never had any energy. He didn’t used to do much. And she said now I realized he was just unwell. And because he was only two, he couldn’t tell his mother he was unwell. And as soon as you remove the food, she said, he just became what the other three children and he was. So things like that make such a huge change in people’s lives and and then his poor mother felt so guilty. She said, Oh my god, I thought I had this quiet child, but she said he’s been on welfare the whole two years of his life. So so that was that was a nice heartwarming story,

Murray Guest  23:20

That is beautiful. And your many, examples of the child but also the adults where you’re changing and working with them to change the quality of their life. So that they can live a better quality of life and a better day to day life. And as you said not have to fear going to work or wondering where the next toilet is, or worrying about even that I can imagine some people in that situation to have like a day to day management of what are they going to do and organizing their life around that.

Sharon Hespe  23:52

Yeah, often people’s day to day management is okay, I’m going from here to and I live in hurstville Grove in just south and city. So a person Saturday management, if they will go into North Sydney, they would know where every public toilet was on the way. That’s their way of managing it. Which I can understand if that’s the way that that’s the only way they can do it. But that is how people do manage their lives when they have something that’s happening like that, which it’s sad because it’s just not necessary.

Murray Guest  24:23

Yeah. And I can imagine then, if we’re taking that out of the day to day management, that then opens up attention in the consciousness to focus on other things and enjoy life much much better. Yeah, of course.

Sharon Hespe  24:36

Yeah, that’s right. It’s life changing. Yeah, getting your guts in great shape. is life changing for many people? Hmm.

Murray Guest  24:44

Is there a saying a question just popped into my head and that is, is there different needs? Like, generally that guts need through different life stages. So as we get older, do we need to think about things differently for our gut, or is it more on an individual level,

Sharon Hespe  25:01

It’s more of an individual level. But as we get older, we get we have less stomach acid in our gut. That is probably one of the things that happens when we get older. And often you see in elderly people, they just, they’ve been cooking for 70 years, and they just don’t want to cook anymore couldn’t be bothered. So they will tend to have tea and toast and things like that, which are not great for anybody. But it is more of an individual thing, rather than what you see for the over the lifespan.

Murray Guest  25:35

And there trends within families, you know, is that genetically, that that sort of influences some of those intolerances as well.

Sharon Hespe  25:45

Often, often you will see a parent and a child have the same, exactly the same intolerances. And often people will ring me and say, Look, I want to bring myself and my children and I say, pick the person that is the most unwell in your family. Let’s get them right. First, let’s remove the foods that showed to be a problem for that person. And keep everything else the same in the family. And you will find that that comes that that they will all come together as well. So yeah, it’s often something you see that does run in families. And often if a pregnant mother has poor gut health, that child will as well have poor gut health. Not always, but it’s a common common thing.

Murray Guest  26:25

Okay, gotcha, gotcha. Okay. Yeah. This has been fantastic Shaz, I love your passion for what you have for the work that you do and the people you are seeing. How’s it been? I just want to ask for the past couple of months with COVID. And a change of working. How’s that been working out for you as well?

Sharon Hespe  26:47

Look, it’s it’s been I’ve had to pivot and move online, like many people did any fact as naturopaths, we were told our association said, Look, you actually don’t have to go online, you can still see people if you want to. But my thoughts were and especially in the beginning, it was such a panic with that with the COVID. My thoughts were, I didn’t want to catch the Coronavirus and give it to a patient then to give it to their patient to to give it to the whole family, if that makes sense. So I said okay, I’ll just move online, like everybody else did. And it was great. But my biggest skill is empathy. So it’s quite difficult to speak to somebody on a screen and look at a camera and, and get a great understanding of what’s going on in their life. So it can be done, but it’s not as ideal as it is in person. But I do notice what I have started to see now is people that now have to go back to work. And they say, Oh, no, I have to get back on that train. Now. I better fix my gal has seen a host of people in this last couple of weeks, realizing that they actually do need to go back to an office environment. And the I’d better get my updates before I go back. So they don’t have to get off at work right. Get off at all these stations on the way to find the nearest toilet.

Murray Guest  28:05

Yeah, gotcha. You just reminded me of something I did want to talk about. And that is with their own immunity and gut health. What’s the relationship there?

Sharon Hespe  28:14

Look, with immunity and and gut health. It’s, there’s this huge, huge relationship because about 70% of your immunity is within your gut. So if you don’t get your gut in great shape, then it makes sense that your immune system also will not be in fantastic shape. So and like I discussed before, the gut barrier is suppose contains a whole bucketload of immune complexes and it’s a really complex situation. So I suppose the basics are if you want your immune system to stay in great shape, you need to keep your gut lining in great shape. It’s as simple as that.

Murray Guest  28:53

So whilst we thinking about in coming into winter in the southern hemisphere and the flu and obviously COVID-19 looking after our guard to increase our immunity is really important.

Sharon Hespe  29:07

It’s it’s super important and not only will it help your immune system, but you will feel fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. Yeah. And there are a few things like I said to people, like you know, try and limit your wheat and dairy intake to once a week. Try limit your alcohol content to two servings a week. Make sure you really really increase those immune system features such as zinc, so your seafood, your red meat, your nuts and seeds, your vitamin D foods like fatty fish and eggs. Your vitamin C foods, capsicum, strawberries, citrus are fantastic. So your vitamin C, vitamin D, vitamin A food so all yellow, orange fruits and vegetables that pumpkin, carrot, oranges all have great amounts of vitamin A in there. You can get this great variety in your diet. It will really really help to keep your gut healthy.

Murray Guest  29:58

I think that’s such a beautiful list of the rainbow of colors that you mentioned earlier. And that variety. And if you’re seeing that, that rainbow, you’re seeing that variation on your plate. Not the beiges, you know, the browns, the whites. That’s going to obviously make a difference. Yeah. Yes, it does. That I think that’s such a great list of foods you just talk through, for people to think about and think about their color. But if someone’s listening, before we wrap up, shares, I want to know if there’s a little strategy that you know, would help everybody what would that be?

Sharon Hespe  30:45

Find out what’s going on your gut? Get tested, find out you need to Yeah, yeah. And you can guess. And you can put in this way you could put in that food and you can try this, you can try that. But don’t guess get a test?

Murray Guest  31:00

Oh, I like that. Okay, now, I want to ask you, you mentioned empathy a couple of times empathy, number one, in your top five strengths. And in the past, through a program, you found out your top five strengths. And with Tammy and I are working on that. I just want to check in because I love the impact strengths is made in people’s lives. What was the impact for you knowing those strengths for you.

Sharon Hespe  31:35

It makes you understand how you think about things and how you view the world. And and I know sometimes when you can over dial your strengths, that’s also not great, either, it’s important to understand, okay, this is what my strength is, this is what I’m good at. But also to remember that there are other people that have other strengths, and you need to work together. And it’s important to understand where your strengths lie. So you can use them responsibly and ethically. And understand what your weaknesses are. So you can work on improving those.

Murray Guest  32:13

Fantastic, I love how you’ve referenced your empathy a couple of times, and I can imagine that something you need to need to be conscious of in the way that you are empathetic, but also not getting fully involved in the emotions of your patients as well.

Sharon Hespe  32:29

 I must admit I’m quite good at that and what I say to patients, and this is one reason why I don’t do fertility work. And this might sound a bit strange, like, if I was to do fertility work, I would feel that it’s more responsibility to give you a baby, we’ve got work, it’s more responsibility to find out what’s going on to say to you, I need to do this, this and this and this. But when you decide to go home, and you decide that you’re not going to do that, that’s not my problem. I’ve given you all of the information. I’ve given you everything I can can. But you need to now take responsibility. And I will cut myself off there and say this is now your responsibility. I’m here to support you. But I need you to do something. I can’t do everything.

Murray Guest  33:12

Yeah, people need to do the work themselves, don’t they? 

Sharon Hespe  33:15

That’s correct yes. And that’s what I said, when I do that work. They feel fantastic. You know, people say to me, oh, thank you so much. Thank you. Let’s look, I’m just doing my job. You’ve done the work. And this is why you feel so good.

Murray Guest  33:29

I cut out dairy. And that was a challenge for me, particularly cheese. I love my cheese that I’d shifted my type of milk in my coffee some time ago. And also I cut out meat for some time, but I am eating some more meat there was what he was eating salmon and some other fishes might through that. But the way I felt was a lightness, I felt lighter. And my being. And I think there’s that, that heaviness with some foods and it doesn’t, it’s not just the heaviness in the gut. There was a heaviness over all my energy. So that lightness was something which I found, to be honest, the lightness I found addictive. I wanted to have more of that and feel like that and not feel the heaviness. 

Sharon Hespe  34:17

Yeah, that often that happens. Yes, yeah. 

Murray Guest  34:19

Yeah. Now, Sharon, Tell me please, what’s your definition of inspired energy?

Sharon Hespe  34:28

I think it’s inspiration to do things that are going to give you energy. 

Murray Guest  34:36

Love it. That’s such a beautiful, I think summary of what is all about for these conversations. And I think that anyone listening to this great chat with you, the good gut girl is going to get some inspiration to find out more about their gut and to feel that lightness and their energy and I love how you I talked about a new norm, not the norm that we have now that we get used to have that heaviness and changing that.

Sharon Hespe  35:06

That is so true, you know that the way that people can feel and do feel once they discover what’s going on, they got and they make those changes. And sometimes it’s as small as removing one or two foods and doing things like eating three meals a day stop snacking, just sometimes it just takes a small shift in things that no set of people there. So all that people sometimes do, I feel so silly should not know that. I say no, you know, you know what you know best. I know what I know best. And it’s up to me to share with you my knowledge so that you can learn how to get better yourself.

Murray Guest  35:43

Fantastic. Now, I love that nice a great way for us to wrap up. If someone wants to find out more about you and the work that you do and how you work with your patients where’s the best place to find you online. The best place is my website which is www dot the good girl.com.au I have quite a large Facebook group as well a quite a large following. And I post daily on Facebook and I’m in the middle at the moment of 50 tips in 50 days so I’ll be popping a gut tip a day up on Facebook so people can have a look on Instagram the good girl the underscore good underscore, underscore girl and just by email naturopathic Sharon his.com delay you so they some great links and make sure all those are in the show notes. And particularly I think that Facebook one where you’re sharing at the moment those 50 tips in 50 days for a good guy i think that’s that’s fantastic. So lots of information there for people. Make sure all those links are in the show notes and thank you again for your time and your knowledge. shares. This has been awesome. So thank you. I also want to encourage anyone that’s listening to this conversation with Sharon if you got something out of it and you want to share it online, I’d love you to do that. Please tag the good get go. And myself Murray Guest hashtag inspired energy because every time you share that everyone else gets to get your insight as well. So we we share the knowledge and inspiration. So shares Thanks again so much for your time and energy all the best for the rest of 2020 and for your health and keeping warm because it’s getting cold down here. But again, awesome chatting with you. 

Sharon Hespe  37:27

Thank you Murray was great to chat with you again too.