Carla Atherton, MA, FDN-P, is the Director of the Healthy Family Formula and the HFF Practitioner Training Academy, Host and Producer of the Children's Health Summit, Author of Family Health Revolution, Host of the Your Health Revolution Podcast, Health Empowerment Coach, Holistic Family Health Consultant, Yoga Instructor and Mind/Body Facilitator, and Children's Health Advocate. Spurred on by the love for her three glorious and grown children and her husband, Carla's mission is to support people to achieve their best health through information, guidance, and empowerment.
Carla lives on an acreage in rural Saskatchewan, Canada, where she works from a home office. In addition to empowerment and health coaching, teaching others this skill through her academy, and leading “Hero’s Journey” creative writing workshops, Carla also works with families from all over the world on the reversal of conditions such as Autoimmunity: Type 1 Diabetes, PANDAS/PANS/Autoimmune Encephalitis, Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis, and Celiac Disease and Non-Celiac Gluten Sensitivity; Asthma, Allergies, Eczema, and Reactivity; ADHD, Autism, Sensory Processing Disorder, Learning Disabilities; Depression, Anxiety, Mental Health Disorders, Eating Disorders, ODD; Other Neurological Conditions; Obesity, Type 2 Diabetes, and Metabolic Disorders; Untangling Mystery Symptoms, Complex Cases, and Co-Morbidities (having more than one condition); Mold Illness; Multiple Chemical Sensitivity; Lyme; Other Infection; and Addictions. Carla is on a revolutionary mission to empower families to transcend our new normal of ill health and chronic dis-ease.
Carla Atherton, Health Empowerment Practitioner
What got you started in the health and wellness field?
Oooh, that’s a long story starting way back when I was a teenager doing Jane Fonda workouts and biking on the outskirts of our small city thinking that I would go to university to become a psychologist to help people feel mentally well as that was my job with my friends already. I didn’t eat well, sleep well, or even consider what it might mean to manage stress, and it was a rare weekend that didn’t involve at least one party, but something in me knew there was something more than what I was experiencing in my life, something better than the weekend warrior lifestyle, skipping school, and rebelling against who knows what…I started to work out more, joined a couple of rugby teams in university, graduated with a master’s degree in English literature with a strong background in women’s studies and psychology, and became a mother who took her kids absolutely everywhere–hiking, pond dipping, swimming, the library, traveling, Latin class, exploring–I left the world of alcohol and hangovers behind, started eating well with my first pregnancy, and opened up to an abundant and adventurous life with my three ducklings at my heals. But I suppose it was when we were building our house on a piece of land we had acquired that the results of me doing more than I was resting started to catch up with me. I gained 35 pounds in my mid-thirties, and my joints were screaming at me, and although I was learning so much about building and contracting and our kids were free as butterflies in our new-founded heaven, there was still a lot I was missing, a lot I needed to learn about deep health and wellness. So I started to research and read. A LOT. After doing cold adaptation, starting to practice yoga, and eliminating gluten and dairy from my diet, I quickly lost weight, but the challenge hadn’t even yet begun. My official catapult into the holistic health field and health empowerment work occurred when our daughter was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes, and I knew at that moment that no one could help us to navigate the years that were ahead of us but me.
What has changed for you over the years that you have spent coaching?
So so much! It is such a significant evolution that I even teach this very transformation to my trainees in my practitioner training course. I call it an “unpacking.” First, I had to unpack conventional medicine as it was no longer serving my family, in fact, I could see how it fails quite brilliantly in what we have come to expect from it; deep and sustainable health. The pill for an ill and reactionary model was not going to lead my family to robust health because we didn’t need emergency care but whole person, whole family healing and sustainable wellness. This revelation was difficult. The more I asked questions, the less support we received. In fact, we experienced push back just by suggesting things like gluten may cause inflammation or herbs such as Gymnema may help regulate blood sugar. These questions led me to Functional Medicine, which taught me that everything has a cause, that symptoms are signs of deeper issues, and that our mental and emotional wellness are part of the whole package, not just the physical body. This led me to Naturopathic Medicine, which gave me more natural tools, but it was when I started to deeply and thoroughly explore the mind, spirit, consciousness, nervous system, to test and question previously held dogmatic beliefs, and to open my eyes to the world of possibilities rather than expected outcomes (which were dismal in the medical model at best), my work became more focused on body brilliance rather than brokenness. This brought me running toward a new paradigm of health and wellness, a true sense of holism, that I am excited every single day to share through my work with clients, trainees, friends, family, anyone who will listen! What happened that created those changes?
My children, friends, loved ones, and my own experience taught me how to coach myself and others through sometimes difficult, always significant experience. I came to realize that some of what I was doing in the past in my own life, in my work with others, in my parenting was not working and was sometimes even counter-productive, disempowering, and perpetuating old models of health that did not serve me or others. I’m a chronic life learner, a curious, critical thinker, and highly experimental, so I saw this experience for what it was: an evolution of my work, an expansion of how I was going to show up in the world, for my family and for my clients. So I learned from the past, continue to level up who I am and what I offer in the present, and see the possibilities of the future. My work is my passion, and I want people to feel the same about their own lives and what they do with them. Are people healthy today?
Generally speaking, no. Most people are feeling stuck in chronic states of dis-ease in all categories: mental, emotional, physical…But they can be. That is my whole message. If we shift out of old patterns of thinking, then out of old patterns of doing, it will change everything about our state of not only health but of our very being, our very experience of our lives. Again, as I say in one of the articles I have written for Brainz, we can move out of being the fly trapped in a web of an existence we unwittingly create into the spider creating our own experience, and that can be one kick-ass life! Why are so many people suffering with what you call dis-ease?
False beliefs and false promises by the usurping of truth by corporations, media, and advertising.
The replacement of deep culture and the family unit or intimate community with pop culture.
Lack of purpose. Lack of motivation.
Lack of empowerment.
And a general feeling of lack and disconnect from self and others.
Yet this lack and disconnect are but perceptions that can, again, be shifted into experiencing the opposite:
Deep purpose.
Deep Motivation.
Deep empowerment.
Can you define health empowerment?
You bet! Health empowerment first involves remembering that the power of your health is in your hands, that in fact, you are the only person who holds that power, and that it is in cultivating, unearthing the capability, knowledge, strength, and resolve that makes those shifts in your health and life happen. Health empowerment involves shifting how you think, how you do, and how you be, and is helped along by the support and connection to others who care about you. What do you think people need to do to be healthy?
Make these significant shifts in thinking:
Expectations into Possibilities
Prison into Playground
Fear into Curiosity
Goals into Intention
Judgment into Discernment
Force into Allowance
What Isn’t into What Is
Frustration into Reflection
Victim into Creator
Without into Within
Singularity into Wholeness
Why? into Why Not?
I Can't into I Can
We already know what lifestyle choices bring us health (sleep, rest, exercise, good food, self-care, stress reduction), and we will easily want to do those things once those inspired shifts are made.
Again, in shifting how we think, and imagining a new tomorrow, we then shift what we do and how we be. What do you think makes a good health empowerment coach?
Understanding that health is an evolution and not a destination.
Patience with each and every person’s process and respect for their decisions and individual journeys, supports, and paths even if they are not your own.
Understanding that shifting perspectives and beliefs is the first step toward health empowerment.
Resisting the urge to throw the baby out with the bath water; there is some truth and insight in everything, and health fads may bring new insight but are never the whole answer.
Avoiding dogma, rigidity, and judgment of other modalities, methods, belief systems, and opinions about wellness.
Walking the talk and teaching these tenets to all of their clients. What is your purpose in your work?
My purpose in both my work and life (which are inextricable) is to show people (clients, loved-ones, and community) that they are not broken or ill or without the power to make change in their health, and to empower them with the vision, guidance, and inspiration needed to overcome dis-ease of any kind–physical, mental, and emotional. I aim to lead with love and without judgment, with passion, without fear, without telling people what they SHOULD do and showing them what they CAN do. Check out Coach Carla Atherton’s FREE masterclass 10 Things Health Coaches Are Doing That Disempower Their Clients and How You Can Be Different here. Check out 2 FREE lessons from Coach Carla Atherton’s Holistic Health Empowerment Coach Training Program here.
Learn more about being coached by Carla, groups, master classes, one-on-one and more on her websites here:
