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Thriving Autoimmune

Michele Spring

Hosted by Hashimoto's and Celiac survivor Michele Spring, the Thriving Autoimmune Podcast goes deep on root cause healing, nervous system regulation, and what recovery from autoimmune disease actually looks like in real life. New episodes every Monday.

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  • 6 episodes
  • Avg 19 min
  • English

Episodes 6

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  • S1 · E6
    Monday · 18 min

    The Identity Shift That Changes Everything About Healing Hashimoto's | Ep 6

    How do you talk about your health - not to your doctor, but to yourself at 2am when you can't sleep? Do you say "I have Hashimoto's and I'm doing things to heal it" or "I have Hashimoto's and this is just my life now"? That difference - subtle as it sounds - is one of the most reliable indicators of whether someone is going to heal or stay stuck. Not because of positive thinking. Because of the daily decisions that flow from each identity, the beliefs you have, the actions you make feel natural or effortful, and what you close yourself off from without even realizing it. In this episode I'm sharing the concept that has made the single biggest difference in my own healing — and I didn't learn it from a doctor or a health coach. I learned it from my business coach, a decade ago, when I realized I was doing the same thing with my business that I was doing with my health: living from the identity of someone who was struggling rather than someone who was already where I wanted to be. We cover: ✔️ What living from a sick person identity actually looks like — including the subtle version where you're doing all the right things but secretly resenting every single one of them ✔️The language clues that reveal which identity you're living from right now ✔️Why your illness becomes your excuse when it doesn't have to be ✔️What a healthy healing identity actually looks like in practice — and why it makes good decisions feel effortless instead of like climbing a mountain ✔️The four steps to start making the shift ✔️Why the people around you can either undermine or reinforce the identity you're trying to build ✔️How five minutes of visualization a day can make this shift happen faster This is not toxic positivity. This is not "push through and pretend you're fine." This is about opening up to possibility instead of staying closed inside what hasn't worked — and why that shift changes everything about how healing feels. 🎥 Watch on Youtube: https://youtu.be/bNEsmziTkGg 👉 👉The Autoimmune Collective is the all-in-one membership that gives you the recipes, the meal plans, the lifestyle tools, and the support to actually heal from Hashimoto's and other autoimmune diseases - without piecing it together alone. Join for $37/month at https://autoimmunecollective.com/ Chapters: 00:00 How you talk about your health tells me everything 00:30 The sick person identity vs. the healing identity 01:00 Where I learned this — my business coach, not a doctor 01:30 How years of symptoms and dismissal creates a sick identity 02:30 What living from a sick person identity looks like 04:00 Doing all the right things but secretly resenting them 05:30 What a healthy healing identity looks like 07:00 Why healthy people put their health first — not out of fear, out of self-respect 08:30 The natural feedback loop — how the identity builds on itself 10:30 The four steps to make the shift 11:00 Step 1 — Audit your language 11:30 Step 2 — Ask the identity question 12:30 Step 3 — Act from the answer before you feel it 13:30 Step 4 — Change the story you tell 14:30 This is not toxic positivity 15:00 How the people around you affect your identity 16:00 How this changed everything for me personally 17:00 Why decisions feel effortless from a healing identity 18:00 Visualization and intention setting

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  • S1 · E5
    September 14 · 15 min

    The Hidden Struggle Of Hashimoto's Guilt And How To Overcome It | Ep 5

    Everyone talks about the physical symptoms of Hashimoto's - the exhaustion, the hair loss, the weight gain, the brain fog. Almost nobody talks about the emotional side. The guilt of telling your kids no. Again. The guilt of canceling on your friends. The guilt of sitting on the couch while your husband cooks dinner. The guilt of spending money on your health when it feels like it should be going somewhere else. And then the resentment that builds when you keep putting yourself last - and the guilt you feel about the resentment. In this episode I'm talking about all of it. Not to fix it with a five-step plan - but to name it, validate it, and give you a genuine reframe that might actually make it easier to carry. I share the Candyland moment. The time my kids asked me to play tag outside and I couldn't get out of my chair. The years of quietly not scheduling things for my kids because I knew I couldn't manage the energy. And what it looked like on the other side - hiking with them, chasing them around, playing golf together as a family - after I finally gave myself permission to prioritize my own healing. We cover: ✔️Why guilt assumes it's your fault - and why it's not ✔️The difference between physically being there and actually being present ✔️How resentment builds when you keep putting yourself last — and what that costs your body ✔️Why "good moms sacrifice everything" is a damaging mantra for women wit a chronic illness ✔️The permission slips you probably need but haven't given yourself yet — rest, saying no, going to bed at 9:30, eating differently than everyone else, spending money on your health ✔️How to feel the guilt without acting on it Plus - I'm sharing a free guided meditation I recorded specifically to help you release the guilt and shame that tends to live in your body long after the moment has passed. Link below. 🧘 Free Mom guilt release meditation: https://thrivingautoimmune.com/moms Watch on Youtube: https://youtu.be/JGFkwVNLMzQ 💻 Get on the waitlist for the Autoimmune Collective: https://autoimmunecollective.com/ Chapters: 00:00 The emotional side of Hashimoto's nobody talks about 00:30 The Candyland moment — and the tag game I couldn't play 01:30 Hiding things from my kids to manage my energy 02:00 The guilt of being physically there but not really present 03:00 The guilt of prioritizing yourself 04:00 When resentment builds — and what it costs your body 04:30 Resentment manifesting as chronic back pain 05:00 None of this makes you a bad mother 05:30 Your body is failing you — you are not failing 06:00 Why the oxygen mask analogy is overused but true 07:00 Putting yourself last keeps you sicker 08:00 What I can do now that I couldn't do then 09:00 The permission slips — rest, saying no, going to bed early, eating differently 12:00 How to feel the guilt without acting on it 12:30 Free guided meditation for guilt and shame release

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  • S1 · E2
    September 7 · 13 min

    Why Your Thyroid Medication Isn't Working | Hashimoto's Hypothyroid Truth | Ep 2

    If you're on thyroid medication and still losing hair, still exhausted, still gaining weight, still cold all the time, this episode is for you. Because here's what most doctors aren't telling you: thyroid medication only replaces the hormone your thyroid isn't producing. It doesn't stop the immune attack. It doesn't help that hormone actually get to your cells. And it does nothing about the three root causes that are driving your symptoms in the first place. In this episode I'm breaking down exactly why so many women with Hashimoto's and hypothyroidism stay symptomatic despite being on medication - and what's actually going on underneath. We cover: ✔️Why 90% of hypothyroidism in the Western world is actually Hashimoto's (an autoimmune disease) and why that distinction changes everything ✔️Why your TSH being "in range" doesn't mean you're fine ✔️The two main mechanisms keeping thyroid hormone from actually reaching your cells ✔️The root causes of the autoimmune attack ✔️Why supplements and medication alone are whack-a-mole, and what to do instead This isn't about doing more. It's about working the right system. And next episode I'll be sharing the Root Cause Progression Map - the framework I've built over 12 years of working with women with Hashimoto's - so you know exactly where to start. 👉 👉The Autoimmune Collective is the all-in-one membership that gives you the recipes, the meal plans, the lifestyle tools, and the support to actually heal from Hashimoto's and other autoimmune diseases - without piecing it together alone. Join for $37/month at https://autoimmunecollective.com/ 🎥 Watch recipe videos and more on my YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/MicheleSpring

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  • S1 · E3
    September 7 · 30 min

    What's Missing From Your Hashimoto's Healing (Most Women Are Only Doing One or Two Pieces) | Ep 3

    If you've done something like AIP and felt amazing - and then found yourself right back where you started six months later... Or if you've tried to remove seed oils, switch to glass over plastic, or spend hundreds of dollars on 14 different kinds of supplements like selenium, iodine, or even LDN and STILL felt terrible... ... this episode is going to explain exactly why. After 12 years of coaching women with Hashimoto's, I've found that almost every woman who is still struggling is only working one or two pieces of a much bigger picture. The diet. The supplements. The medication. The toxins. And wondering why it's not enough. In this episode I'm sharing my Root Cause Progression Map — the framework I developed from my own healing journey and over a decade of working with clients — that shows you everything that actually needs to be addressed to fully heal. Not all at once. Not in an overwhelming way. But in the right pieces, in a way your body, your nervous system, and your life can actually handle. I also share something I've never fully talked about before — how discovering my ADHD in 2023 helped me understand why I'd spent decades in a chronic state of fight or flight without even knowing it, and how unraveling those deep nervous system patterns changed everything about how I feel. We cover: -Why doing something like AIP over and over is a sign something else is missing — not a sign it didn't work or stopped working -The analogy that explains why your body keeps struggling despite your efforts -The three phases of healing and what's inside each one -What keeps getting skipped — and why it's often the thing keeping everything else from fully working -What it actually looks like to feel like you don't have a disease anymore Plus, I built a free interactive checklist so you can see exactly which pieces of the map you're working and what might be missing from your picture. 🗺️ See what you're missing with this free Root Cause Progression Map diagnostic: https://thrivingautoimmune.com/root-cause-progression-map/ 👉 👉The Autoimmune Collective is the all-in-one membership that gives you the recipes, the meal plans, the lifestyle tools, and the support to actually heal from Hashimoto's and other autoimmune diseases - without piecing it together alone. Join for $37/month at https://autoimmunecollective.com/ 🎥 Watch recipe videos and more on my YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/MicheleSpring

    • Transcript
  • S1 · E4
    September 7 · 14 min

    The BEST Diets for Hashimoto's: My Top Recommendations | Ep 4

    AIP. Paleo. Gluten-free. Modified AIP. If you've spent any time in the Hashimoto's space you've probably heard of all of them - and wondered which one actually applies to you. In this episode, I'm breaking down the four healing diets I recommend to my clients, how they relate to each other, who each one is right for, and how to figure out your starting point without getting overwhelmed or going more restrictive than you actually need to be. I also share why I personally feel my best on paleo, why I'll never touch gluten, why I only have corn and dairy occasionally when I'm out, and why I'm not a fan of carnivore or keto for autoimmune healing specifically. We cover: ✔️Gluten-free and dairy-free — why this is the baseline for almost everyone with Hashimoto's and how long to try it before evaluating ✔️Paleo — why it gets a bad rap, why I still use it, and when it makes more sense than going straight to AIP ✔️Modified AIP — the newer, less restrictive version that's now what most practitioners recommend for Hashimoto's specifically ✔️Core AIP — who it's actually for, how long to do it, and why nobody should be on it long term ✔️Why carnivore and keto aren't healing diets for most autoimmune patients — and what can happen to your gut microbiome if you go carnivore long term ✔️The reintroduction phase — why every one of these protocols ends with it and why it's the whole point And a reminder: diet is the fastest path to feeling better — but it's one piece of the picture. If you missed last week's episode on the Root Cause Progression Map, go back and listen first. 🍳 Join the free Autoimmune Meal Prep Challenge (Sept 14–18): https://thrivingautoimmune.com/Sept2026 👉 👉The Autoimmune Collective is the all-in-one membership that gives you the recipes, the meal plans, the lifestyle tools, and the support to actually heal from Hashimoto's and other autoimmune diseases - without piecing it together alone. Join for $37/month at https://autoimmunecollective.com/ 🎥 Watch recipe videos and more on my YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/MicheleSpring

    • Transcript
  • S1 · E1
    September 7 · 22 min

    8 Years of Being Told My Labs Were Fine - My Hashimoto's Story | Ep 1

    For eight years I went back to my doctor every single month for my hypothyroidism. Every single month I told him I was exhausted to the bone, that my brain fog was crippling, that I was falling apart. And every single month he told me the same thing: your labs are normal, your TSH is in range, there's nothing else we can do. I believed him. I thought that was just my life now. It wasn't. In this first episode of the Thriving Autoimmune Podcast I'm sharing my full story - from my second Ironman triathlon in 2006 when I first couldn't recover, through eight years of hypothyroidism mismanagement, to finally being diagnosed with Hashimoto's AND Celiac disease in 2014, starting AIP the following week, and feeling better within three weeks than I had in over fifteen years. I also share what nobody told me - that food was only part of it. That the perfectionism, the overachieving, the people-pleasing, the chronic stress - all of it was keeping my immune system dysregulated even when my diet was perfect. And how a business coach accidentally gave me one of the most powerful health tools I've ever used. This podcast exists because the conversations women with Hashimoto's actually need aren't happening in their doctor's offices. Medical dismissal, root cause healing, the emotional weight of invisible illness, the identity work, the nervous system piece — we're going to cover all of it. No fluff, no toxic positivity, no "just think positive and you'll heal." Real conversations. Real healing. Starting now. 👉 👉The Autoimmune Collective is the all-in-one membership that gives you the recipes, the meal plans, the lifestyle tools, and the support to actually heal from Hashimoto's and other autoimmune diseases - without piecing it together alone. Join for $37/month at https://autoimmunecollective.com/ 🎥 Watch recipe videos and more on my YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/MicheleSpring

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