Rebel Health Tribe Spotlight – Episode 11: Christine Schaffner

Michael Roesslein:

We are live with another episode of the Rebel Health Spotlight. I’m here with my friend, who a lot of you probably know, Dr. Christine Schaffner. Dr. Schaffner, thank you for being here.

Christine Schaffner:

Oh, thank you so much, Michael. I feel like we already did an interview before we got on.

Michael Roesslein:

Yeah. Yeah, [inaudible 00:00:18].

Christine Schaffner:

It’s always fun connecting with you.

Michael Roesslein:

These are the highlight of my day. So, I like to do these interviews because it’s with all my friends. And yes, I should start filming the pre-filming conversations as like a behind the scenes, or outtakes, or something.

Christine Schaffner:

That would be really good.

Michael Roesslein:

Dr. Schaffner has been on a few of our masterclasses. I think I was on her podcast. She’s been doing incredible work for quite a long time in this field. Recently had her own brush with a really serious health scare last year, and has really opened up in sharing about that too. And our audience does consist of a lot of people with complex chronic illness, which, I guess, is exactly how I would peg your avatar patient who comes to see you. So, I’m not going to give away too much. If you could just share a little bit about yourself, and your work, and what you’re currently doing, and I’ll ask you some follow-ups to that.

Christine Schaffner:

Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, thank you for having me on. And you’re exactly right. I’ve been doing this work for a little over 13 years now, and I’ve been doing this work for a little over 13 years now. And I’ve been doing this work for a little over 13 years now. And I’ve been doing this work for a little, the people that I serve, my patients are those who are struggling with complex chronic illness. So, people who just, the conventional paradigm doesn’t have a language, how to treat these multi-systemic, multi-variable root cause pictures. And so, I see myself often as a detective. My patients teach me every day. I’ve been on a journey through just my own curiosity with how to really help people get diagnosed more quickly. Also, to create part of the problem with chronic illness. There are many problems, of course. But with the system is, it takes a long time for people to figure out what’s wrong with them. That is getting better with all the education out there, but it’s still too long. And then it’s too long once they get on their healing path to recover them.

And there’s a lot of just maintaining, and the expense, and all of it is a lot. And so, I’ve always made it my mission statement that I’m in search of the most elegant path for healing. Meaning what is the shortest distance between two lines? And can we bring in this emerging my passion and my curiosity? And is quantum physics, and biofield science, and looking at the field interactions of the body and the power of light, sound, frequency, meditation, and how do we not make that an afterthought? Like, okay, this person has tried everything in the functional medicine world and now like, okay, we got to get the meditating and maybe that will help. It’s like, no, let’s start with this language of how we’re wired to heal.

And so, that keeps me busy. And I have a practice in Seattle. COVID really launched me into doing a lot more telemedicine. So, I have licenses in many states that naturopaths are licensed. But I mean, I’m happy to always do the work on Zoom, but there’s nothing like being in person with somebody. And we use a lot of bioenergetic tools, a lot of functional medicine, bioregulatory medicine, muscle testing. We do scar treatments, and ozone, and laser intravenous therapy, and lymphatic work, and sound healing. And we just put it all together to create a shift and a transformation for people that they can maintain, and learn from, and have a continued experience in their home environment as well.

Michael Roesslein:

Well, thank you for sharing that. I know a lot of practitioners aren’t used to being put on the spot to give their own bio and work description. So, I’ve had a few people squirm when I ask them that question because they’re used to just sitting there and zoning out while somebody introduces them. So, no, I love the way that you work in that you incorporate so many of those things that you mentioned. And I’m currently recording interviews for an event that you’re going to be part of that we’re recording soon, that I’m co-hosting for for health means called Beyond Functional Medicine. And we’re talking about all kinds of outside the box, different types of therapies or practices. It’s really two tracks. One is more the mental, emotional, spiritual, energetic trauma that tends to get ignored in the functional medicine world. And not intentionally, they’re just not trained in those things. And I don’t think it’s gone over the Rubicon yet where it’s common knowledge of how much that influences the illness or the wellness.

And then the other side is cutting edge therapies, or treatments, or things that most practitioners probably haven’t heard about or seen. And your practice is really unique, at least among practitioners I know personally, in that you’re really well versed in what I would consider conventional functional medicine. Which is lab tests, supplements, protocols, like hormone panels, and all that stuff. But also, even if you don’t do the work, I know you used to have somebody in your practice who was working with patients who was doing some sort of trauma work. Like the trauma, the energy, the somatic based stuff, the mental, emotional, spiritual trauma nervous system side. If you don’t do it yourself, you have practices or you have people that you refer to or work with.

And then also, you’ve told me probably more about different kinds of treatment things and therapies that I’ve never even heard of. You mentioned scar treatment. And you said when you move to Italy, you need to go to Switzerland because there’s somebody in Switzerland. Because I have a scar on the back of my head that was a normal scar for most of my life, just like a spot where there’s no hair. And then about eight years ago it became this… I don’t know, it becomes a dry patch of skin, and you can pick it, and it’s annoying. And you taught me a new term and you said, “Go see this person in Switzerland. They’ll do some sort of injection and it’ll do something.” And so, you know all these therapies and treatments. So, I’m curious, you started as a naturopath. You went to normal naturopath school just like everyone else. Which school did you go to?

Christine Schaffner:

I went to Bastyr. So, that’s why I was still in Seattle. So, I went to Bastyr.

Michael Roesslein:

Yeah. Yeah, Bastyr is really comprehensive. I was registered at Bastyr in San Diego at one point. I decided not to go through with it, but I’ve been to the campus. It’s a very thorough program. But while naturopathic medicine is a little more holistic than what most people would think of when they hear functional medicine, it doesn’t involve tons of those categories of things. So, I’m curious, how’d you get from A to B of practicing as a naturopath to being so outside the box?

Christine Schaffner:

Thank you. Thank you. So, I really, I’m a naturopath and I’ve been in naturopathic medicine for a long time. It’s like there was part of my life when I was in naturopathic school that there was one track. I was like, “Well, maybe I’ll do women’s health.” And then Louisa Williams came to talk at a brown bag lunch, Dr. Louisa Williams. And she wrote a book at the time that was just coming out called Radical Medicine. And I remember just hearing her talk and she just had this, it was like this bible for what is now really well known or more well known as bioregulatory medicine of this biological medicine it was called at one time that came from Europe. So, it’s like the Swiss, the Germans, the Austrians. But it’s really an evolution of ancient principles and bringing in these concepts of energy medicine, and bioenergetics, and bioresonance, as well as a really big topic on what we call interference fields.

And I remember she asked us all, “What is the first thing you do with a patient?” And we’re like, “Take them off gluten. Blah, blah, blah.” And she’s like, “No, you look in their mouth.” And we’re like, “What?” Most of their problems are in their mouth. I just remember having that knowing whatever this woman knows, I want to know. I want to get to the root cause beyond the root cause of why people are sick. I would just carry that book around me. I never read a cover to cover, but I’ve read huge chunks of it, of course. But before the Kindle, so I would just carry this book around me [inaudible 00:08:50] osmosis. And so, that was influential.

And then I was able to work from the day one of becoming a naturopath with really complex chronic illnesses. And so, when you work with that patient population… This was 13 years ago. In the last 13 years, there’s been an incredible amount of allowing education to be online. I remember it was just still fringy. You couldn’t really put Lyme disease on your website. You couldn’t even put anything related to energy medicine on your website. It was [inaudible 00:09:22]

Michael Roesslein:

No, that’s changed radically just in the last five years.

Christine Schaffner:

Yeah, totally. Totally. So, it was just very, very different underground network of just these clinicians who were seeing these patients. So, if you have an open mind and enough of a background, you can help these people. And so, my patients taught me, and they taught me a lot. And they taught me that trauma was huge. They taught me that interference fields absolutely do matter, and you have to clean up the mouth and clean up the scars. They taught me the importance of the lymphatic system, and that, again, another thing that’s been wildly overlooked, but a lot more education now about it. But the lymphatic system is a huge system, especially in the chronic illness community. It’s that intersection between toxicants, and trauma, and pathogens that’s stored in that space.

And they also were highly sensitive. The people who are chronically ill, if you can really look at your body is not broken. It’s just sounding the alarm at a really toxic time. And they’re highly sensitive. They’re the canaries in the coal mine. So, they’re the ones who I started hearing about hypersensitivity before we knew about other person who needed all the cell phones turned off in the clinic before and we’re like, “What’s that?” And then the mass cell patients before they were mass cells. So, we’d take one drop of something and have an explosive reaction, we’re like, “How is that possible?” But you [inaudible 00:10:53] trust to the patient. And I always believed my patients, and I always trusted that they were telling me what was happening.

Michael Roesslein:

That’s such a huge thing. I just want to pause there for a second, because in the world of complex chronic illness or things like mass cell, or electro sensitivity, or those kinds of things, a bunch of people have probably tried to make that person feel like they’re crazy. Or implied, you’re creating this, that you’re making this up, or you’re creating it, or it’s not real because they didn’t know what to do about it.

Christine Schaffner:

Yeah, absolutely.

Michael Roesslein:

And I love your honesty of, “Well, we didn’t know what to do about it.” But then you say, “I don’t know what to do about this.” And then you find someone who does or you find a way to work with it. Or you mentioned they’re super sensitive, so then you discovered more subtle ways to work with people than putting herb extracts that are 1,000x in their mouth. Right?

Christine Schaffner:

Yeah. I learned about dropping homeopathics in the belly button for some people, but that sometimes was like you get creative and you just trust your patients. But those subtle fields and those subtle energies became more and more of an interest to me. And then my patients taught me, some of them would get a Rife machine or some of them, again, we couldn’t even say that word. And then it just opened me up to, again, there’s this whole body of knowledge. There was electro medicine before the Flexner report. There is this, of course, ancient passing down of this knowledge of the subtle energies in the body. And that our body is truly, the biochemistry is so fun and satisfying. It’s always great to get a genetic report and think you’re going to change the snip with money.

Michael Roesslein:

For the Western mind. Yeah.

Christine Schaffner:

Yeah, B6. And that’s it. But then you’re like, well, no family constellations really going to change that epigenetic expression. And that B6 actually doesn’t really matter.

Michael Roesslein:

Then it renders that genetic variant really irrelevant if it’s not expressing.

Christine Schaffner:

Yeah. So, then you start just seeing. And so, I worked with a team at that time that was very, it was an environment that we all just trusted the patient, and always just kept on exploring and creating a dialogue amongst colleagues, and just how do we get the person at the right thing at the right time? And in these 13 years, there’s just been way more of an opening in society to have this dialogue. There’s more knowledge, more people coming together. We still have a really long way to go, I would say, because I think still patients are gaslit, still, they’re put on Prozac when they need Lyme test. There’s still a long way to go. But there’s an opening. And where I sit today is okay, I had that training. I’ve seen, I don’t even know how many patients at this point, but I work a lot.

I’m one of those people who don’t just see patients once a month and do some podcasts. I see patients and then fit podcasts and the stretches of my day. I was at 8:00 AM doing the talk before my day. I’m still very much in it, is what I’m trying to say. And where I sit today, unfortunately, the world is still becoming more increasingly toxic. We’ve got spike protein now. We’ve got all forms of electrosmog. And people are becoming more sensitive. And I’m completely enamored and passionate about looking at the electromagnetic biophotinic, biophononic nature of how we’re wired to heal and how we also are meant to be in groups and communities.

It’s really modern day prayer in a different way with a different lens of how we can do group healing for people. And that works. And I’ve experienced that in my own life, and I’ve seen it in our patients. We have a Monday free call for our community and patients for intention circles for people. Then you get a group of people together to intend for another and things happen. Meditation is huge. All the work that you do for the trauma, and not only present day trauma, but also lineage trauma and past life trauma, that’s part of the equation. We’re born with this etheric feel that has memory. And just because we don’t interact with it doesn’t mean it’s not impacting you. So, it’s how-

Michael Roesslein:

Sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt.

Christine Schaffner:

No, I’m just sharing.

Michael Roesslein:

I’m trained a lot in that stuff now, and we’re really… And by we, I mean modern Western culture are pretty much the first people to not acknowledge that. Like Those things, to not acknowledge that healing comes in a group in the community. That grief, and trauma, and pain, and suffering, and disease are held by the group. That there is this passing down and lineage of wounding, some call it karma, some call it trauma, some call it whatever. But we’re like new. We’re like, this is a new thing that we ignore all of these things. So, instead of it being discovered, it’s being remembered. And I just want to remind everyone that everything she just talked about, this is someone who’s also extremely trained in science. So, we are not just out here on some fringe woo conversation. And science needs to develop maybe someday if they want to. If the science people, and the Western brain people, and the left brain people want to jump into that world. The reason that I think they’re still separated is we just don’t have the technology or the instruments to explain these things.

Christine Schaffner:

Yeah. Yeah. And we’re getting there. We’re getting there. Pop had the photo multiplier that discovered these ultra weak photon emissions coming from the cells that are not being able to see from the naked eye. The James Jim Zawacki is measuring sounds that are emitted by cells. He’s a UCLA biophysicist. People are looking at the electromagnetic [inaudible 00:17:30]…

Michael Roesslein:

It’s getting there.

Christine Schaffner:

… of the heart. We need more. I would love to see the new medicine, like functional medicine upgraded to allow this container for everything we’re talking about that have more just heart rate variability or just like [inaudible 00:17:44]-

Michael Roesslein:

Just interviewed Roland last week or two weeks ago.

Christine Schaffner:

Yeah, isn’t he great? Yeah.

Michael Roesslein:

I’m getting one of their global… What is it called? I’m putting one in my house.

Christine Schaffner:

Yeah, they’re in-

Michael Roesslein:

No, no, no, no. The global…

Christine Schaffner:

Oh, you are? Yeah.

Michael Roesslein:

Global Consciousness Project.

Christine Schaffner:

Yeah. You’re going to get a [inaudible 00:18:01]

Michael Roesslein:

I think, is that what it’s called? Global Consciousness Projects?

Christine Schaffner:

Yeah.

Michael Roesslein:

I’ll do a thing on it. Don’t worry.

Christine Schaffner:

Yeah. Yeah.

Michael Roesslein:

When I interviewed him, he said-

Christine Schaffner:

Random [inaudible 00:18:07].

Michael Roesslein:

… “Hey, would you be open to putting one of these because we don’t have one in your area of Italy?” And I was like, “Sure.” So, one is on its way here. There’s going to be one in my living room. We’ll talk about that another time.

Christine Schaffner:

Yeah. That’s so fun. We just did a summit together, so I [inaudible 00:18:19].

Michael Roesslein:

I know. Yeah, we talked about you. So, if your ear was itching or whatever the thing is.

Christine Schaffner:

Yeah, we got to know him. I got to know him better. And it was really fun.

Michael Roesslein:

He’s super sweet.

Christine Schaffner:

We were doing a summit on coherence. And so, he’s like, “Christine, let’s get in coherence together before we interview each other.” Because We were going back to interview each other for this. And I was like, “okay, this is pretty cool.” And I mean, we, Roland might not want me to tell you this, but I could feel his heart field from… He was in Santa Cruz, I was in Seattle, and we were just in the Zoom. He embodies and practices what he’s teaching. It was incredible. I was like, “wow.”

Michael Roesslein:

we’ve never consciously done that, but that’s really cool. it’s very easy to stay attuned to him during a conversation, to know exactly where he is and what he’s talking about. And you can feel that you are also being attuned to.

Christine Schaffner:

He’s the [inaudible 00:19:23].

Michael Roesslein:

He’s very, it’s like right here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And not in some creepy hypnotic way, but in an open-hearted connection. If anybody doesn’t know, we’re talking about Roland McCready, who’s PhD. Dr. Roland McCready, he’s the director of research at Heart Math Institute. So, you can look up Heart Math and look up him, where you just name drop people and start talking about them on an interview. So, we’re about up with time. These are really fast. So, I want to thank you for sharing all of that. And you probably gave people a lot of different new terms to learn and things to look up and stuff to check out, because that’s what always happens in our conversations. And so, watch this one again, slow it down, take notes, write down some of the terms and look them up for different kinds of work, and treatments, and approaches. You’ve got so much work and content and things out there now, so where’s the best place for them to go?

Christine Schaffner:

Thank you. I have a clinic in Seattle. It’s called Eminence Health. Eminence was a word that came to me. It means the divine within. So, just connecting people to their inner divine intelligence. And I have a website, Dr.christineschaffner.com. I have a podcast that’s like how I weekly produce content. But I have classes, and summits, and all that good stuff as well.

Michael Roesslein:

You put out so much free education and content. It’s really admirable. I think a lot of people on what I would consider your level of practitioner, which I put near the top of overall scope of what you understand. And not that you practice a thousand things, but of a thousand things. And you’re very humble in maybe this isn’t what you need. Maybe that’s what you need. And being able to help people find their way. I really think that’s the most important skill of someone that’s trying to help people, is being able to do that.

So, a lot of people that are at the level that I would put you with, knowledge, and experience, and capability, they tend to be in little gated white cloud type of… They don’t talk to the public a lot. They don’t do a lot of interviews. They don’t produce a lot of content, partially because it’s a lot of work to do that. And so, I want to acknowledge that. But I really admire how much content you do put out and how valuable it is. I’ve watched probably 50 interviews that you’ve either done, or been on, or something over the years. And I don’t watch a lot of interviews anymore.

Christine Schaffner:

Thank you.

Michael Roesslein:

So, it’s really special. And so, I also like to leave people with a couple little tips or suggestions. And so, needle movers for anyone out there who wants to maybe shift their health, or their wellness, or their energy, or their mood, or any of it in a positive way, whatever you want to share.

Christine Schaffner:

Yeah. No, and thank you for the compliments. I feel it’s like a duty, almost a professional duty because not everybody can come to my clinic. Not everybody can afford the work. And I just want to try to get as many people on the right healing path as they can. And so, I would say just when we think about tending to our physical bodies, let’s think about the fascia lymphatics. The fascia is like an umbrella term for this beautiful fabric that in cases, our lymph and our blood. There’s so many things I could tell you about that. But movement. Movement generates a piece of electric effect in our fascia. We generate electricity, we generate energy. And health is about the movement of fluids in our body and the movement of energy. And where there is stagnation and stuck energy, that’s where disease starts.

So, I would say move every day and just bring that awareness. And quantum physics, when you observe actually what’s happening, you potentiate, and participate, and amplify that effect. So, just knowing that is part of the treatment. The other thing I would say is structured water. I’m a big fan of structured water. So, structured water is this fourth phase of water. It’s this plasma form of water. And it holds negative charge, it generates electricity, it generates flow. This is the work of Dr. Gerald Pollack. The real easy way. So, there’s water, this is getting generated within us. You can amplify that by being in the sun, UV, and infrared light amplify and create structured water within us. You can ingest structured water. There’s all sorts of cool tools from the analemma wand, to the spring aqua, to just putting your glass of water out in the sun. Maybe even holding the water up to your heart and putting some good vibes in it. That all actually matters.

So, drink structured water, that is going to only increase lymphatic flow, movement of fluids, more energy in your water. And then I would highly encourage you to meditate. Find what works for you. Everybody has their own way of doing this, and you have to find what resonates. But I would begin your day… I mean, this is just my suggestion, but before you open your email, before you open your phone, just have this place in your home that’s your sacred place, light a candle, spray, something, I don’t know, just make it like a special place for you. And just sit down, whether it’s 10 minutes, whether you have the luxury of 30 minutes, and find either guided meditation or something that’s going to be that foundation of Dr. McCready’s work, and open your heart and get you in that coherent state, and really feel what that feels like to be in stillness and to be in connection with the greater forces out there. So, I hope that that made sense.

Michael Roesslein:

Those are great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Christine Schaffner:

I can say so many more things, but [inaudible 00:25:20].

Michael Roesslein:

Yeah. No, no, no, those are great. And those are great. And just, one point is you mentioned when you observe something that’s happening, it amplifies that thing that’s happening. And the work I’m now doing is focused a lot on movement-based trauma release, somatic-based trauma release. And there’s such a difference in what happens for someone if their awareness is focused on the sensations and in the body during the movement, or during the release, or during the touch, or during the body work, or whatever it is. Then if they’re doing the same movement or the same thing, and their mind is somewhere else, and it’s focused somewhere else, and their attention is somewhere else, and they’re not looking at what’s happening.

And so, I’ve witnessed that to a point where it is radically different what happens for that person if their awareness is where the thing is happening or thinking about what they’re going to make for breakfast next Tuesday. And so, I love the focus on moving the body, but being present with the moving, what does it feel like while you’re moving? What is that sensation? And so, I love that. Just the way you phrased that was… You’re very into quantum physics. That was a very quantum physics way to say it.

Christine Schaffner:

I like to read quantum physics papers.

Michael Roesslein:

In your spare time. So, there’s her hobby. But it shows. And so, thank you for this quick chat. I always want to talk to you for hours, so I appreciate the time. We’re going to connect again soon. You’ll see Dr. Schaffner on the Beyond Functional Medicine event that I’m co-hosting. And we’ll talk a little bit more in depth about some of these outside the box therapies. And thank you so much for everything you do and for stopping by to chat with us. And I always appreciate it.

Christine Schaffner:

Thank you, Michael. Thank you so much for having me. And thank you for the work that you do. And hi to the rest of your community. So, thank you so much.

Michael Roesslein:

Right.