Thriving Autoimmune

This episode is for you if you’re in the middle of a flare, running on empty, chasing toddlers, working a full-time job, or just cannot picture fitting one more thing into your day.

A few weeks ago I shared my daily routine — and even I admitted it was probably an unrealistic bar for a lot of women who are still deep in their symptoms. So today I’m sharing the things I actually did during my worst Hashimoto’s flares, when I couldn’t even walk around the block.

None of these require a dedicated block of time. None of them require you to feel better first. And they add up to more than you’d expect.

New episodes every Monday.

👉 👉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/

🎥 Check out my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/MicheleSpring

📲 Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thrivingautoimmune/

📱Follow me on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thrivingautoimmune

Something happened at my son Nathan's endocrinologist appointment that I found absolutely fascinating, and it's one of the most direct illustrations I've ever seen of how your thoughts can cause real, measurable physical symptoms.

I'm sharing that story in this episode because it completely changed how I explain the mind-body connection to the women I work with.

If you've ever been told your symptoms are "all in your head" - this episode is not that. It's the opposite. It explains why your thoughts create real physiological events in your body, what that means for your Hashimoto's specifically, and where to start when you want to do something about it.

New episodes every Monday.

#Hashimotos #HashimotosHealing #MindBodyConnection #AutoimmuneDisease #ThyroidHealth #ThrivingAutoimmune #HashimotosPodcast #NervousSystemHealing #ChronicIllness #AutoimmuneHealing

👉 👉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/

🎥 Check out my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/MicheleSpring

📲 Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thrivingautoimmune/

📱Follow me on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thrivingautoimmune

Every year around October, my inbox fills up with the same messages. "I felt fine all summer. Now the fatigue is back, the brain fog is back, I feel terrible — and I don't know what I did wrong."

You didn't do anything wrong. What you're experiencing has a name: the October Slide. It's a real, predictable phenomenon for women with Hashimoto's and other autoimmune conditions — and once you understand the five things driving it, you can actually do something about it before it takes you out for the entire winter.

In this episode I'm breaking down exactly why fall hits harder when you have Hashimoto's — and what to do about it now, before the holiday stress compounds everything.


💬 Do you notice the October Slide? Tell me in the comments — I find it fascinating how consistently it happens.


🎥 Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoZrAFghirw&feature=youtu.be
💻 Join the Autoimmune Collective: https://autoimmunecollective.com/

Chapters:
00:00 The October Slide — what it is and why it happens
01:00 It's not in your head — these are real physical symptoms
01:30 Reason 1
04:30 Reason 2
05:30 Reason 3
07:00 Reason 4
08:30 Reason 5
11:00 What to do to prevent and reverse this

#Hashimotos #OctoberSlide #AutoimmuneDisease #HashimotosHealing #ThyroidHealth #ThrivingAutoimmune #HashimotosPodcast #CircadianRhythm #VitaminD #AutoimmuneFlare #SeasonalHealth

👉 👉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/

🎥 Check out my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/MicheleSpring

📲 Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thrivingautoimmune/

📱Follow me on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thrivingautoimmune

I filmed this episode in a hoodie, no makeup, hair undone, running on three hours of sleep - because my son Nathan had blood sugar alarms going off all night and I was up managing his Type 1 diabetes until I had to get him out the door for a golf tournament at 6am.

There was no morning routine. There was no meditation. There was no journaling. There were dogs to let out, breakfast to make and a second son to get to the bus stop by 6:45. (oh and did I mention my husband was out of town so it was just me?)

This is what life actually looks like sometimes. And I think it's important to say that out loud.

In this episode, I'm sharing my real, realistic daily routine for managing Hashimoto's - not the aspirational influencer version, not the hour-long morning ritual, not the aesthetic smoothie bowl. What I actually do on a normal day, what I do on a hard day, and how I adjust when life doesn't cooperate.

We cover:

✔️ My actual morning
✔️ Why I don't do long workouts anymore and what my sweet spot actually is
✔️ The "emotional support beverage" mid-morning ritual
✔️ The countertop pushup movement I accidentally started in an office bathroom
✔️ My hour-long walk and why I protect it regardless of season
✔️ The meditation and EFT tapping practice that isn't always meditation — and what I do instead when I'm too stressed to sit still
✔️ What evenings look like
✔️ How I adjusted today specifically
✔️ Why you don't need a beautiful elaborate routine to heal — and why comparing yourself to influencers whose entire job is making that routine is an unfair standard

Plus, I address something I noticed after filming: this episode might sound out of touch if you're working full-time or have little kids. A future episode is coming specifically for that situation.

🎙️ Listen on Apple Podcasts & Spotify: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2648492

👉 👉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 The beautiful influencer routine vs. real life
01:00 This morning — three hours of sleep, Nathan's blood sugar, no morning routine
02:30 Setting a realistic expectation
03:30 What an ideal realistic day actually looks like for me
03:45 Morning movement — 10 to 20 minutes, why not more
04:30 Why longer workouts set me back — still sore from Saturday
05:00 Breakfast and coffee
05:30 The hour-long walk and when it happens
06:00 The emotional support beverage and micro workouts
07:00 The bathroom countertop pushup movement I accidentally started
08:00 Fitting micro workouts throughout the day
09:00 Lunch and blood sugar walk
09:30 Meditation, EFT tapping, and what I do when I'm too stressed to meditate
11:30 Afternoon work and the second emotional support beverage
12:00 Teenagers coming home
12:30 Dinner, evenings, fiction books, crafting
13:00 9:30 bedtime — and going even earlier today
13:30 How I adjusted today — only part of the golf tournament
14:00 What's missing from my routine that influencers make you feel bad about
15:00 Why influencer routines aren't a fair standard
15:30 If you're doing anything, even five minutes, you're doing enough
15:50 Coming soon — what to do when you have little kids or a full-time job

#Hashimotos #HashimotosRoutine #AutoimmuneDisease #DayInTheLife #ThyroidHealth #ThrivingAutoimmune #HashimotosPodcast #AutoimmuneHealing #RealisticWellness #ChronicIllnessLife
________________
Thanks so much for watching! Make sure to subscribe to get more videos:  https://goo.gl/1vNg3V

👉 👉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/

🎥 Check out my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/MicheleSpring

📲 Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thrivingautoimmune/

📱Follow me on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thrivingautoimmune

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

👉 👉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/

🎥 Check out my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/MicheleSpring

📲 Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thrivingautoimmune/

📱Follow me on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thrivingautoimmune

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

👉 👉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/

🎥 Check out my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/MicheleSpring

📲 Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thrivingautoimmune/

📱Follow me on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thrivingautoimmune

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

👉 👉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/

🎥 Check out my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/MicheleSpring

📲 Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thrivingautoimmune/

📱Follow me on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thrivingautoimmune

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

👉 👉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/

🎥 Check out my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/MicheleSpring

📲 Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thrivingautoimmune/

📱Follow me on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thrivingautoimmune

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

👉 👉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/

🎥 Check out my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/MicheleSpring

📲 Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thrivingautoimmune/

📱Follow me on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thrivingautoimmune

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

👉 👉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/

🎥 Check out my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/MicheleSpring

📲 Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thrivingautoimmune/

📱Follow me on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thrivingautoimmune