Maja Miller-Graduate of Institute of Integrative Nutrition Helps Others Gain Vitality and Energy

[00:00:00] Bettina M Brown: Hello, hello and welcome to In The Rising Podcast. My name is Bettina Brown, and this is the platform I've chosen to talk about living a life that's in alignment with your hopes, your dreams, and your goals, and your vision of life. But it's really hard to live that vision of life when you're not as healthy as you could be.

And that is really the focus of today's podcast with my guest Maya Miller, as she explains stress and burnout and fatigue in the middle of the American dream. And yet that dream is still very possible while holding on to our health. So Maya Miller, I'm really, I'm excited to have you on in The Rising Podcast.

You're a phenomenal woman. You are definitely in alignment with your true goals and you're doing amazing things. So welcome to the show.

[00:01:01] Maja Miller: Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here. 

[00:01:04] Bettina M Brown: Get to read about you and you have. Done some things right, but before you have done great things. You always did great things, I'm sure, but you have really transformed your seven figure business owner.

But it wasn't always that way. There was some dragging and slowness and I would love for you to share a little bit more on, on how you got. 

[00:01:29] Maja Miller: Yeah, I mean I think it's really important to, to kind of point out that we teach what we need to learn. I think that's often, often the case and you know, I am a typical type A overachiever, perfectionist, and you can only.

Run with that kind of an operating system for, for so long before you get sick. And like many people, I got sick And that kind of impacted, what I'm doing now, which is helping, burned out, stressed out, professionals, really transform their bodies from the inside out using, Custom clinical labs to kind of see what's going on, explain their symptoms, and then I use those labs to create, tailored protocols to reverse those, those symptoms.

And so I was my first client, I was, I was the person who was seeing doctor after doctor being told that, oh, you're just stressed out. This is part of being a woman. You're getting older or, you know, here's a pill for this and another pill for this, and another pill for that. And that would've been great if the pills had worked.

But they didn't. So, I was my first client and that's kind of, that's kind of where I got my start. 

[00:02:46] Bettina M Brown: And when you say, burned out and stressed out, you know, burned out is kind of like, I think a cultural feel right now. Just like exhausted. And, and kind of going through, going, going, going. Do you feel burned out or stressed out is kind of like the end game that we're gonna achieve. That goal if we're not cautious early enough. 

[00:03:05] Maja Miller: Like Aware a hundred. Hundred, a hundred percent. It's basic science. And I know that the S word is just thrown out there so much these days. Like, well, it's science and it's used to, I don't know, prove people right or wrong or get into fights with people.

But the reality is, is that we have an autonomic nervous system. That nervous system is turned on based off of certain experiences. And there are some very well documented. Things that happen in your body, when that autonomic nervous system is turned on. And, if we compare our lives today, to the lives of our caveman ancestors, you know, we used to maybe occasionally see a tiger.

You know, chasing us. So we'd have to run away from a bear. But today, our modern lifestyle is filled with, emails and text messages and social media and calendars, and I eye watches and, things that beep and, you know, kind of ping us all day long. And our body cannot differentiate between those things.

And a tiger, you know, trying to, trying to kill you and eat you for dinner. And so, It is absolutely inevitable when you're burning the candle at both ends when you are not fueling your body with nutrient dense food, when you aren't sleeping, when you aren't, you know, reducing stress when you aren't doing those like basic things when we aren't living in accordance to kind of our natural cycles.

Then the, you know, we, we are burned out and that manifests itself. A whole slew of symptoms, anxiety, depression, weight gain, lack of libido, skin issues, muscular issues, structural issues. You know, so it's, pretty wild. If you take a look at, you know, the US population, we're not a, we're not a healthy group.

[00:04:55] Bettina M Brown: Yeah. And, and what you say is we're not a healthy group, even though the majority of us still even. In the scheme of it all compared to the world, like a lot of us are doing really well in the scheme of the world, but not well physically, emotionally, and healthy. Like we're still kind of, unhealthy on that and perceived stress is still stress and the body's like, okay, there's an issue here with, with all of that going on.

And you were your own first. And he went to multiple doctors, and I have done some reading that can take sometimes nine to 12 doctors before you get to the one that will give you an answer and that you start to feel that no one's listening or is it in your head. And it's isolating. What, what prompted you to continue the search to figure out what is going.

[00:05:47] Maja Miller: I mean, honestly, doctors were not able to help me. And if I take a look at my typical client, they've seen on average 12 medical doctors who are telling them either it's in their head, it's because you're a stressed out mom, or you're just getting older, and this is what happens to women when you get older or they run.

You know, bare minimum labs and then use clinical reference ranges to tell you that you're fine, even though you aren't sleeping, you don't wanna have sex with your partner. You have off the charts anxiety and depression. You've got irritable bowel syndrome. You know, they're trying to, I mean, it's like the ultimate gas lighting, right?

Where it's like, oh, you're totally fine. There's nothing going on here. And so I was, I was like that. I mean, I. Was in my gosh, I would say I'm, I would say in my late twenties, early thirties, and, was having off the charts anxiety, oh, Xanax for that, and let's try some antidepressants for that. I literally was having irritable, irritable bowel.

I mean, couldn't leave the house sometimes because I had, I didn't know what was gonna happen with my bathroom situation. Another pill for that. Know, I mean, it was just like a pill after another pill. And, You know, I finally realized that like there's something major happening here when, this is when I was living in California and I was driving down the Pacific Coast Highway, and I recall having a thought like you could just drive your car off into the middle of the ocean and nobody like, it would be fine.

And that like scared the heck out of me and I was like, wow, like the, this is not okay. Like I really need to figure out like what exactly is going on. And I was like a very, what I thought to be a. Resourced person. I had, you know, six figure job, fortune five company, you know, the car, the, the, the place by the beach.

I mean, I, from the outside looking in my life should have been perfect, but I was really, really struggling. So, you know, I, again, I, can empathize with so, so many of the feelings that my clients have. When they come to me and their doctors are like, everything's fine, labs are normal, and there's no such thing as a normal symptom, right?

Our bodies are meant to, work with ease. Our bodies are these amazing machines that self-heal and self-clean and self purify, you know? And when we are living in accordance to, you know, our appropriate environments. 

[00:08:10] Bettina M Brown: Yeah. And a lot of that is, Creating a perfect and appropriate environment and perfect is perfect for different people, right?

I would never do well in Alaska with all the snow, but I, I love, and what brings me to life is living in the Southwest, I love our, nature. I love having the ability to look at the mountains and be in them, have our rivers. But really taking a time to evaluate everything, and that includes sleeping, it includes your emotional health, and a lot of us have some sort of stomach issue where stomach really is kind of the, the seed of our, the gut is really what's going on.

Right. And so share a little bit more about how, how all that links together, what you. 

[00:08:55] Maja Miller: Well, it's interesting because I think a lot of times people tend to separate and kind of bifurcate their symptoms into physical symptoms and emotional or psychological symptoms, and what we now understand is that our autonomic nervous system, the enteric nervous system, which is essentially your digestion, which is a part of your autonomic nervous system, is highly connected to your, gut.

There is a vagus nerve that. From your brainstem all the way down through it touches almost every single org organ in your body and really kind of creates this like biofeedback loop between your gut and your brain. If you take a look at the structural elements of your, the epithelial cells in your gut lining, they are the exact.

Epithelial cells that you'll find, that surround the brain. So we know that structurally these cells are almost identical. We know that you have more neurons in your gut and your intestines than, than you do in your entire spinal, in your entire spinal cord, your spinal column. And so, Not surprisingly, they call your gut your second brain.

And if you have dysfunction, if you have inflammation, if you have dis disease in your gut, that is going to almost always, eventually manifest in symptoms that are neurological. I'm talking about things like anxiety, I'm talking about like depression. I'm talking neurological diseases like Parkinson's and all of these things, and we now understand that low-grade anxiety and depression are now, early signs of Parkinson's.

Of Alzheimer's. There's some really amazing new research that's going on. That really shows that, that, you know, folks that are experiencing anxiety and depression are at a higher likelihood of getting, you know, these, some of these neurological diseases. And so, oftentimes there is a physical malfunction that is happening that is leading to an emotional or psychological, psychological symptoms like anxiety and depression.

I think we really as a nation need to stop, kind of bifurcating that set of symptoms and oftentimes we can look to the gut and look at the structural issues in the gut, and leaky gut, which is, which is, which is subclinical. Like, we now understand that gut permeability, leaky gut is probably, a term that many people, maybe some of your listeners have heard, that this is low grade sepsis, in your body.

And so these physical things and these neurological symptoms are, are very, very well connected. And there's, even though, you know, when it comes to like microbiome research, we're still in the, the nassy. We still have like some really good in information and indicators pointing to that. Very, very strong.

 Gut brain connection, that access. 

[00:11:47] Bettina M Brown: And, and thank you for sharing that and, and talking about it because I think, you know, for example, the term, the phrase leaky gut is like, oh yeah. But as a physical therapist, I worked, with a lot of people. I still work in the hospital and it seems like I keep reading the same things.

Hypo blood pressure, gerd, hypothyroidism, hypo blood pressure, GERD, hypothy, I'm like, is no one's thyroid working anymore? And, and so you have to start wondering what is going on? What is environmental, what is happening through us as. So you were your own first patient. You're starting to look at things and you're obviously starting to feel better.

How did you, you know, once you're on, as you're transitioning to that other side, what were, what were the thoughts going on? How did you feel emotionally?

[00:12:30] Maja Miller: So I'm still transitioning, by the way. I mean, I would say that I'm probably 20 years into my wellness journey and I'm still tweaking and I'm still changing things and I'm still learning, right?

I'm still Guinea ping myself, you know? But you know, when we, you know, turn back the, the, the, the, the clock to 20 years ago when I started learning about how almost impossible it is to be healthy in the. States. I think the first feeling that I had was I was incredibly angry. You know, I was listening to, you know, the gurus, you know, and, and I thought I was like eating healthfully.

I thought I was living a healthy life, which at the time included, you know, drinking alcohol. I would drink alcohol almost every single day. I think there's a lot of people that have a glass of wine every single day. Where we now understand that alcohol is more problematic than cocaine and methamphetamines.

You know, I was eating fish all the time. I was eating sushi four or five times a week, and I found out that I was in the 99th percentile for mercury poisoning. Anxiety and depression and brain fog are like three of the largest, you know, symptoms there. And when I started reading about how the US government in bi, so big government, big.

Big pharma, really have created this toxic brew that we swim in, otherwise known as the typical American lifestyle. I got really upset because, you know, I shouldn't have to worry that my tap water is contaminated, which, Our tap water in the United States is absolutely contaminated. It has pharmaceuticals in it.

It has, forever chemicals in it. It has endocrine disruptors in it. Our food is, is toxic. If you take a look at, you know, Monsanto and, you know, big Ag. So as I started learning about how like all of these companies kind of like work, in conjunction with one another, I remember being really pissed off and really angry.

And then, you know, and then I was like really angry at my doctors. There were times where, for example, in business school, I was having off the charts panic attacks, like to the point where I thought I was gonna have to pull out of school and my doctor. Was telling me my thyroid labs were fine. Well, once I went back to school and I looked at my own thyroid labs from those years cuz I had them, my thyroid was, was off the charts.

Like not, not optimally medicated. And you know, that like impacted me a lot. So I remember being pissed. And then I remember being like, well, okay, you can get upset and angry and you can try to blame the finger, you know, point the finger at somebody else. The reality is, is I was responsible for my life and I'm responsible for, you know, My external world is just a reflection of my internal world.

And I started doing work on my inside and I, I said, okay, well this is the environment that I live in. I'm not gonna like, you know, pick up and move to some other country or, or state or whatever, right? This is my reality. And then I had to start making changes. So it was really important that I educated myself.

I took responsibility for how I felt, and then most importantly, I didn't identify as the things that I had been given a diagnosis of, right? So whether it's an autoimmune disease or like whatever it happens to be, I didn't identify as somebody who's sick because if you identify subconsciously as somebody that's sick, your subconscious will work to no end to make sure that that's an actual reality in your life, you know, and, and so, So I started making a lot of different changes in my life and in making a lot of, you know, different decisions, that were now powered by this new knowledge that I had.

So I think, you know, I went from feeling really angry and pissed off to feeling empowered. 

[00:16:17] Bettina M Brown: Well, thank you for sharing that. And I remember listening to a conversation. I think it was Dave Ramsey and he said, you know, until you're really pissed off, you're not gonna make changes in your life. And you have to really be, you have to have some emotion with that.

And like when you said the different toxins. They are finding over 200 different chemicals in the umbilical cord of brand new. Babies. So it is already there. And like you, I also live in the us. I've chosen to make this at my home, and we do have options to make informed decisions here. You went on and founded a a, a program and I'd like you to share like what you did next.

[00:16:58] Maja Miller: Yeah. You know, I, it's interesting because it wasn't like there's this like linear progression and like, ta-da I'm at the end and everything's great, right? Yeah. It's a lot of like two steps forward, three steps back, a loop to loop a cul-de-sac, diagonal, you know, north, and then the diagonal like south.

I mean there, it, it's, it's far from linear. About, gosh, 10 years ago, 11 years ago, 12 years ago, something like that. You know, I decided that I was gonna quit my corporate job. That was causing me a lot of stress. It was very difficult for me to live in a healthy manner. And I thought I was, I was gonna move to, I moved to Tech Austin, Texas.

I launched a, boutique wellness brand here. It was, a physical, group of, Pilates studios. And I thought that starting my own business was gonna be like, The stress-free life, you know, fast forward, I ended up shutting it down after 10 very successful years because during that time, I was seeing a lot of like women, I work primarily with women, so it was like all of these women who I knew were working out and you know, they were having a lot of the same symptoms that I was having. So I created, transformation program. I didn't have a name for it. I didn't have a brand for it.

I sold it before I had even written the program. It was kind of like in my head and um, I mean, I, my first week I sold close to $20,000 worth of worth of the program. It was wild. It was wild how many people were like, I just want to feel better. And they had a very similar story. Their doctors telling them everything's fine.

Yet they have this whole host of symptoms that like they know in their. Like this is not okay. , and during that program I would say, Hey, I'm not a doctor. I don't diagnose or treat diseases, but you should have your doctor run these labs. A couple things typically happened. One, the doctor either said no, flat out.

Or they would maybe run the lab, but then the labs would say, they would say everything's fine and normal. And so it was during that time where I was like, wow, I really need to be able to go back to school. I need to be able to run these labs for my own clients. And that's kind of the, the evolution where it's like, You know, 2022, rolling up onto 2023.

Now, the way that I work with my clients is very different. I shut down all of the studios. I now have clients all over the world. I work with fewer clients, but I go very, very deep with them. We run clinical labs that just means I an analyze blood, sta samples, stool samples, hair samples, saliva samples, urine samples.

And I run different labs that tell me what's going on with your entire body, what's going on with detoxification, what's going on with digestion, what's going on with mineral balance? What's going on with, with hormones, what's going on with some, you know, neurological, markers.

And those labs essentially paint a picture and for the first time, oftentimes, Prove these, these, these, my clients aren't insane, right? Because their doctors are essentially telling that they're nuts. And now I have this, you know, wonderful group of data that tells me, okay, well this is, this is why you're having all of these symptoms.

And then I use those same labs to create individual. Protocols that reverse your symptoms and sometimes as little as three to six months. And I don't need to be a doctor. I don't need to diagnose or treat diseases specifically. These clients just wanna feel better. They don't care how they get there.

Right? And so that's currently how I work with my clients today. It's been quite the evolution, you know, I would say. It took me 10 years in Austin to kind of, you know, start realize there was a hole in the market, go back to school, you know, you know, dump the old business and start the new business.

So it's been quite the journey. 

[00:20:58] Bettina M Brown: And with that too, you know, feeling better makes you have an improved quality of life. It gives you a different experience on this planet. There's a different joy, different things that you, take part in, things that you wanna be involved in. You're a different person involved in your family, in your community, and it hundred percent expands.

It really expands. So now you're doing this and. It sounds like the, the journey never ends, right? We always have more to learn, but it, it's fun and exciting to continue to add to that, what do you see still kind of ahead of you? Like what are you excited to, to explore more or grow with your, with your business or clients?

[00:21:40] Maja Miller: You know, I'm 28 weeks pregnant and so we are expecting, yeah, we're expecting baby boy Miller, in early 2023. And so I am really focused like what you said about like you're, you're able to have a more like expansive, robust life when you feel good. I mean, your body is the vessel on which we sail through life, and you cannot get to your final destination with any sort of grace, or speed or effectiveness, efficiency when you're like, you know, putzing around on like a, a ship with, with rust holes in a broken sale, right?

Yeah. So, I believe my responsibility is to make sure that I'm creating an environment. You know, you did mention there's over 200 chemicals, forever chemicals that are now being found in umbilical cord blood. Same thing as being found in, mother's breast milk, right? Mm-hmm. It's, it's the first thing that your baby, you know, may have an opportunity to consume if you, if you choose to breastfeed.

 And we now understand that like, and we also know that that pregnancy is a detoxification event for the woman. So about 50% of your toxins automatically get downloaded to that baby. And so these kids are, are, are, are not starting with a full deck. And if we take a look at the, incidence of pediatric.

Cancers the incidence of pediatric, autoimmune disease. When we're looking at a D D A D H D, when we're looking at like metabolic disease, it's like, I remember like there used to be one kid with a peanut allergy in the entire school. Now it's like 10 kids in the class have in every single class have a peanut allergy.

And so what's next for me is to continue to find easy and effective ways to be healthy and inflow in my own life so that I can set up my family, my husband, my children, up for success. They're saying in like, in the next 50 years, one out of two children are gonna, are gonna be on spectrum. Mm-hmm.

There is no way that that genetic in incidences do. Do not move this quickly. These are all environmental things. So, you know, for me, I'm also. You know, I'm, I'm looking ahead to how do I, as I go into this new phase of life, right? I'm now a working mother. How do I find systems for me? Again, I'm always Guinea pig number one, right?

How do I create systems that allow me to be healthy and inflow because, If being healthy is filled with like friction and pain, we're not gonna do it because humans are hardwired to do two things. One is to seek pleasure and the other is to avoid pain. So one of the things that I specialize in with a lot of my clients and myself is how do I create systems that are plug and play and very easy so that you're, you're not finding all of this like friction and flow in your life because then long term you're not gonna do it.

And so for me, you know, it's, Hey, let's have this baby. And then it's continuing to work with a small group of people that are, you know, tired of feeling like crap. And they are ready to make the identity shift that they need in order to be able to take new actions. Because what got you here isn't gonna get you there.

And if you want new results, you gotta be able to take new actions, right. So, you know, for me, I'm, I feel like the, there's been so much change in how I work with my, with my clients over the last 10 years. I feel like I've found this sweet spot that just like lights me up from the inside out and I'm so, fulfilled by the work that I do that it's like, let's have this baby let's, you know, take a little bit of time you know, make sure that he's doing okay.

That I'm doing okay. And how do I pass this information along to others? Cuz that's kind of what I feel like I was put on this earth to do is, is just share this knowledge. 

[00:25:41] Bettina M Brown: Yeah. And you have a lot of knowledge to share and personal experience and the experiences and the connection of the people you've impacted.

So that is really huge and it makes such a difference. Like I can feel the light, that it lights you up through all. It does.

It's super exciting to see that. I also really appreciate that you honored, your own experiences and you did not let that go even when you were not in feeling well. I know we're all in the process of continuing, but you did not let that go.

What would be one thing that you would share with a woman just kind of starting, she's like, I know I'm not okay, and I know I'm not crazy. What would you share? In a couple sentences, like as a, as a word of inspiration or phrase of motivation, 

[00:26:30] Maja Miller: I mean, the reality is, I know that you feel like you're alone, but you're not.

And there are people out there, there are professionals that can help you. And so I, I tend to work with women that. You know, they've, they've beat their head up against the wall. They've done, you know, the wrong thing in the wrong order, the right thing in the wrong order. And they just haven't, like, nothing has kind of like worked.

And I would say that they're now done doing it on their own. I've done a lot of my own work on my own and it's been very ineffective, inefficient, you know, and so you, you can work with somebody, that their sole job is to like create some space and some grace for you to be able to make these new, new changes in your life because, If you knew what to do, you'd already be doing it because most people are amazing, intelligent human beings, right?

And so there's this big set you have to come to terms with the fact that you don't know what you don't know, and you could, you know, Turn to somebody who, who kind of understands what some of those blind spots are. Yeah. and so I would say don't do, don't do it on your own. It's, very difficult.

I'm not gonna say it's impossible because, and, and even I have not done it all on my own. I've worked with amazing practitioners that I've learned from. I would say, You know, if you know when you've gotten to the place where you're like, I can't live another damn day like this.

You know, where I don't wanna go to my kid's soccer game on Sunday. I don't wanna, you know, sleep with my partner. I don't wanna, I don't have the energy, you know, I've got anxiety. When you're like absolutely done with that, then, you know, reach out to somebody that you trust that, that is, is has the ability to, to show you, you know, a different way.

Yeah. How can people learn a little bit more about you, Maya? Oh my gosh. I'm so easy to get ahold of, short of me telling you what my cell phone number is. You can, you can email me maya m aja maya miller.com. And if you wanna talk to me, which I'm a really big proponent of, just like, let's have a face-to-face conversation.

, if you go to i o P. Next level. So IOP next level.com. It'll tell you a little bit about like how I work with my clients. you can fill out just like a short, like, I think it's like five or six questions, just so that I kind of understand what's going on with you. And then we'll hop on a Zoom call and see, you know, what's going on with you.

Do I think I'm even the right person to, to help because I. I only work with probably, four or five out of every 10 clients that I, that I actually talk to. I'm just not the right fit for everybody. Or you, you may not be ready for, you know, for, for the work. Right. And so you can fill out just a quick application and we'll just hop on a Zoom call.

 You can also find me on Facebook. You can message me on Facebook. 

[00:29:30] Bettina M Brown: I enjoy this conversation with Maya because it's. A great story and the great stories are everyday stories. Can we connect with the idea of feeling burned out? Can we connect with the idea of achieving what we wanted to achieve? And yet, We've left our body behind.

We've kind of thrown our energy and vitality behind us because we've just had to achieve a goal, and we only think about one way of achieving that. But really it is a simultaneous connection of feeling full of energy and focused and have a vitality to your life that make achieving your goals and your dreams.

Worth it. And so I was really excited to speak with Maya as she shares her own story of integrative and functional medicine and nutrition and how she combined that. And I'm excited to share with you. I have also completed my functional and integrative medicine professional training program with Dr.

Aviva. And man, it makes such a difference when you know how to. Use your body and enjoy your body along the way. So if you found this podcast of interest to you, or you know, someone that really could benefit from hearing the words of may end, just our conversation today, I encourage you and invite you to share it.

I also invite you to leave a heartfelt review of this podcast because it does so much to put this in the hands and ears of those it can make a difference for, and I thank you so much for your time because that is that one resource. We do not get back. And until next time, let's keep building one another up.