The Brain Possible

Amy Ziff is a healthy living educator with a genetic predisposition to toxicity. She's also a mom to three young kids who share the same trait. Determined to make the world less toxic, Amy has reached millions of parents and caregivers with her buy better advocacy campaigns. She blogs about the chemical world we live in on her site, Amy Ziff's, NoTox Life. She is also the founder of MADE SAFE, and prior to founding MADE SAFE, she taught classes on a nontoxic life. Amy also co-founded the Variety Shop, a site, comprising safe non-toxic products. 

Amy is changing the world for the healthier, one product at a time, one person at a time, and one home at a time. She notes, “We evaluate the materials and processes that go into making the stuff that we use each and every day. And that's the stuff that we can control. So if we do this kind of evaluation and we give companies this information, suddenly, even if they don't make it to MADE SAFE, they now have a roadmap to making a better product.” In this episode, The Brain Possible Founder and CEO, Emily Abbott, and Amy discuss the major areas in our homes that harbor neurotoxins that are known to affect the health of our children and ourselves. 

Listen in to find out why Amy created the MADE SAFE seal and how their team is changing the way consumers in the US can join her in this nontoxic movement to living a healthier life.

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Ashley Wood is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in Northern California and has been in private practice since 2002. As she approaches her 20th year of practice, she feels rooted in her orientation as an experiential therapist. AEDP-Accelerated, Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy provides a roadmap for how she works with people. Topics such as mindfulness, neuroscience, and attachment theory are areas she regularly studies from a number of different experts around the world. 

Ashley is also the mother of a child with Dravet Syndrome, a form of epilepsy. Ashley offers this piece of advice to other parents, “...Consider really surrounding yourself with support and being open to receiving support. Whether it's therapy, or friends, or mentors, or the spiritual community, whatever works for you, but find a way to help you process the feelings coming up, the grief, and the pain.” In this episode, The Brain Possible Founder and CEO, Emily Abbott, and Ashley discuss Ashley’s journey with her daughter’s epilepsy, emotional wellness, and how the Lab Method technology, in particular, has supported her whole family. 

Listen in to find out more and to learn about the deck of Life Support cards for families living with epilepsy that Ashley co-authored with Polly Ely, founder of Lab Method.

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Heather Burlison is a Whole Body Wellness Expert. She specializes in empowering, inspiring, and strengthening busy moms and encourages them to connect mind, body, and spirit to everything they do. Heather is a Health and Wellness Coach who provides simple and effective solutions for women’s busy lives. She’s also is the Creator and Founder of Sweat Sessions, a sold-out, boutique fitness experience that delivers killer 25-minute workouts. Heather recently added the RESTORE series to her program; which is a sequence of dynamic movement meditation as a way to calm, balance, and restore the central nervous system and mind. 

Heather notes, “Our soul carries both dark and light. Most of us want to only live in the light, but we need to access the dark, so we learn and we grow, and we change, and we release.” In this episode, The Brain Possible Founder and CEO, Emily Abbott, and Heather Burlison discuss the healing and vitality that comes from practicing Yoga, Meditation, and self-care; giving way to the release of stagnant energies, trauma, and even grief. Listen in to find out why it’s so important for our overall health and wellbeing to give ourselves permission to feel.

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Brittyn Coleman, MS, RDN/LD, CLT is a Registered Dietitian based in San Francisco, CA specializing in Biomedical Nutrition and Functional Medicine for children with ASD, ADHD/ADD, and other neurodevelopmental disorders. She helps parents take the guesswork out of special diets, supplement recommendations, and lifestyle changes to help their children live their best lives and be their best selves. 

Her approach is focused on addressing the root cause, not just treating the symptoms, as she integrates biomedical labs to make recommendations based on results, not suspicions. She is a sibling of an individual on the Autism spectrum and is dedicated to helping parents lay the groundwork for proper nutrition for their children all across the Spectrum. Brittyn notes, “I take symptoms as a red flag for us to figure out that something's wrong. Essentially, we're treating the root cause, from the ground up, and a lot of the symptoms are going to dissipate whenever we focus on the root cause.”

In this episode, The Brain Possible Founder and CEO, Emily Abbott, and Brittyn Coleman discuss why someone might want to consider working with a dietitian to support their child on the path to health. Listen in to find out why a parent whose child has been diagnosed with ASD, Sensory Processing Disorder, or other neurological conditions might benefit from a tailored nutrition plan.

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Carol J. Newell, Co-Director of the Family Hope Center, has traveled and lectured internationally on all phases of brain development. She has been teaching, guiding, and counseling parents of both neurotypical and special needs children for over 35 years. Her knowledge and training is extensive, highlighting full sensory integration – including visual stimulation/development and auditory processing, SoListen/Tomatis, FastForWord, language development, sign language, reading, emotional and social development, ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis) and RDI (Relationship Development Intervention). 

She has also completed a 2-year fellowship course in Infant-Parent Mental Health at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. Carol leads and mentors her specialized clinical team to educate parents to improve the overall development for their child. Carol notes, “When you have a child with special needs and they have difficulties, they can't learn as quickly as neurotypical children. So we have to break skills down for them, and therefore parents also have to learn how to break down those skills and how to intervene and support them in a way that they can learn. 

In this episode, The Brain Possible Founder and CEO, Emily Abbott, and Carol Newell discuss how The Family Hope Center gives parents and children just that -- hope. Listen in to find out more about Carol’s work with children with CVI, Autism, ADHD, mental health conditions, and Dyslexia.

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Lindy Woodard, MD, is a partner at Pediatric Alternatives, which is an Integrative Pediatric Medical Practice in Mill Valley, California. Dr. Woodard is a board-certified pediatrician and doctor of homeopathy who found her way to Integrative Medicine through her stomach. 

There was also another point of entry into Integrative Medicine that was also poignant for her. Dr. Woodard notes, “I consider myself a biologist. And in a sense we all are. We observe systems, and then we learn from how the system is working. And Mother Nature, of course, is our most perfect system. Her purpose is to keep the system going, keep us alive and healthy. And so she's the one that we can observe the most.” In this episode, 

The Brain Possible Founder and CEO, Emily Abbott, and Dr. Woodard focus on antibiotics and ear infections and discuss what causes them and why children with atypical neurological conditions might be more prone to them. Listen in to find out how Dr. Woodard recommends treating ear infections and making children more comfortable when they occur.

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Matthew Newell, Director of The Family Hope Center, has dedicated his life to helping children and adults with special needs and brain injuries since 1981. For more than 35 years, Matthew has created neurodevelopment programs internationally, working with parents and specialists from more than 34 countries. He has helped and educated well over 15,000 families. 

After spending twenty years creating and managing development programs for an international clinic for brain-injured children, Matthew believed that integrating new advances in brain development were the keys to a child’s successful neurological growth and development. Matthew notes, “There’s a secret ingredient that is built into a family, that when surrounded by the love they share, plus an approach that is brain directed, it creates some pretty significant changes in children.” 

In this episode, The Brain Possible Founder and CEO, Emily Abbott, and Matthew Newell discuss The Family Hope Center and how it serves as a holistic and knowledgeable international resource center for healing children with atypical neurological conditions. Listen in to find out more about the center’s unique and highly effective approach.

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Michelle Perro, MD, DHOM is a veteran pediatrician with over thirty-eight years of experience in acute and integrative medicine. More than 15 years ago, Dr. Perro transformed her clinical practice to include pesticide and health advocacy. She has both directed and worked as an attending physician from New York’s Metropolitan Hospital to UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland.

Dr. Perro has managed her own business, Down to Earth Pediatrics, creating a new field of integrative urgent care medicine. She also co-authored the highly acclaimed book, “What’s Making our Children Sick,” and is Executive Director of a non-profit scientific-based website, https://www.gmoscience.org. 

Dr. Perro notes, “We have a massive dummying down of American children via our food supply and what we are doing to them in the early part of their lives. Our kids have not been healthy for over 20 years, by no fault of our own.” In this episode, The Brain Possible Founder and CEO, Emily Abbott, and Dr. Michelle Perro discuss her mission to reestablish vibrant health in our children and ourselves through education about GMOs and our modern environment as well as the effects on our children's health and prevention. Listen in to find out what is making our children sick and what steps parents can take to change the course of their health going forward.

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Author, educator and former healthcare consultant, Beth Lambert has monitored and documented the escalating rates of childhood chronic conditions for nearly a decade. Her first book, A Compromised Generation, provides a thorough analysis of the origins of this modern health crisis and documents how modifications to environmental and lifestyle factors can profoundly influence health outcomes, including full disease reversal. Beth is also the founder and Executive Director of Epidemic Answers, a non-profit organization dedicated to reestablishing vibrant health in our children. Beth notes, “The human body is like a vessel, and it can only take so much stress. 

When you’re a child and you’re going through this complex growth and development process, you need all your energy and resources focused on that. When your body is dealing with toxic exposures and things it is not biologically adapted to deal with, it’s going to start impacting that child’s development and growth.” In this episode, The Brain Possible Founder and CEO, Emily Abbott, and Beth Lambert discuss how Epidemic Answers came to be, and talk about the mission of the organization to reestablish vibrant health in our children and ourselves through education, empowerment, and prevention. Listen in to find out how our modern way of living is having a direct impact on the health and wellbeing of our children.

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Dr. Lindy Woodard is a partner at Pediatric Alternatives, which is an Integrative Pediatric Medical Practice in Mill Valley, California. Dr. Woodard is a board-certified pediatrician and doctor of homeopathy who found her way to Integrative Medicine through her stomach. Her love of food, her brother’s battle with celiac disease, and her own digestive problems sent her to her laboratory – her kitchen. Dr. Woodard notes, “I always go back to the food is medicine concept. Eat real foods, get outside in the sunshine to soak up a lot of Vitamin D, and also be a “person of the earth.” Literally get into the dirt, be barefoot in the grass. We are part of the energetic balance of the planet and absorb the planet’s electricity.” In this episode, The Brain Possible Founder and CEO, Emily Abbott, and Dr. Woodard discuss taking an Integrative Medicine approach to our overall health and wellbeing, and also talk about what people can do to boost their immunity during the season of Novel Coronavirus. Listen in to find out easy steps you can take to keep you and your family safe and healthy.

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