Have you been joining in our recent Facebook LIVE chats?  They are F to the U.N.  Midweek, I jumped on and chatted away to over one thousand people, all asking questions and hanging out together.  You know why so many people have since watched the LIVE video? The topic – Why Everything You Google Ends Up Telling You You’ll Get Cancer… We didn’t get so much to the bottom of that (which is why I’m back here today) but we did get about answering so many women’s health questions.  I know you want factual information, which is why I love to dedicate 30 minutes each week to you on Facebook, to really start to make waves around your own health.  It’s super important after all.

Chances are, if you’ve googled something health related looking for answers, you’ve had good reason to – it wasn’t you simply being bored on a Saturday night or you’re googling for kicks.  You may not know that when you Google a specific topic, you are presented with the most ‘relevant’ results to help YOU – not anybody else. That means we could both be sitting with our devices in the exact same room and type the exact same search words, yet the information that comes up is completely different based on our previous individual digital behaviour, location, time etc. Even if you’re not logged in, Google looks at 57 things that will help to present you with the most appropriate information for YOU. Big Brother is watching.  Eric Schmidt, former Google CEO, states “It will be very hard for people to watch or consume something that was not in some sense tailored for them.” Perhaps I should feel special.  He went onto say “The Internet of things will augment your brain.”

Eeek!

Mr Google, I’m not so happy about this.  Google sure is handy when I’m looking for answers, like the best Thermomix chocolate cake recipe or online shopping – that you can’t go too far wrong, but this also means that various words trigger various searches and there is a lot of misinformation out there, especially when it comes to health.  How do you actually know?  What’s more, if my search words and previous internet history have scrambled themselves in a certain way, I could be served up a whole heap of scarily serious information, not necessarily based on an array of options, but based on a focused and intentional search pathway. For example, if I’ve previously searched cancer, hormone imbalance and oestrogen does that mean I’m going to continue to see information in the same vein, even if my following search also queries other topics?  This ‘stuff’ is so rapidly being updated and changed, I’m not even sure who I can ask to find out solid and relevant answers.  For me, googling symptoms seems like a massive stab in the dark that will indeed lead to cancer or something equally as unwelcome.

What does that mean?

It means there is a lot of junk circulating that might be taken as for real, but just because it’s on the internet and the searching gods are busy profiling exactly what you need to see based on what you ate for dinner, where you are, how often you log in and when the last time was you pooped (ok that last part is a stretch…) doesn’t actually give you a definite answer.  To add to this the anxiety, stress and emotions that are involved in a self-diagnosis are enough to call for the defibrillator.  Not everything that you see on the internet is gospel.  Even more importantly there is never only one way to get to the bottom of your health issues.  What doesn’t change however is that you are unique and your health approach should be too – tailor made for your needs.

It doesn’t help that (I’m requesting for permission to be frank and honest here) there are people out there who have been busted specifically in the health and wellness industry for not being authentic or tricking us into believing that their ill health has lead them on a path to recovery.  Without naming anybody, this kind of behaviour only drags us all through the mud, intended or not. Your health is your number one asset – and as far as I’m concerned, this is not an area where faking it until you make is appropriate.

I’m on a mission to provide a safe place for women who want real answers, with qualified advice, no scare tactics or pretending, but simply factual information based on years of research, qualifications and practice and consistent searching myself – I sift through the good, bad, ugly, weird and just plain untrue for you.  I study daily to keep my finger on the pulse, because these body’s of ours – we don’t even know the half of it.  This site is a really gentle way of providing this for you, with blogs, podcasts and resources. But for those who want (and need) more,  The Wellness Collective Membership is where it’s at – all of this and a whole lot more.  It IS a health hub for women who want real answers, who need help to dig deep and get to the core of their issues with the ability to tap into all this with my support.  We all want sustainable health solution with achievable ‘remedies’ to move us toward better health, not solutions being served up by a fakes or pretenders.

Google may be a place to start – to allow you to get curious and ignite some further investigation but allowing it to be your final point of call, as a practitioner I don’t believe is ideal.

The Wellness Collective Membership provides all of this by creating a community you can tap into, alongside special topics we cover each month.  If you don’t understand what it is, please know it’s your one stop shop to connect, dig, ask questions, listen to me talk (A LOT) and chat it out – because that’s how we solve problems.

Plus Google doesn’t get a look in, in there… (hehe).  Come and join us.  This month so far we’ve covered off epigenetics, thyroid, stress, pregnancy, and infertility… it just keeps on coming!  Click here to learn more.  I’m so excited by what I’ve created, it’s that special place where we can chat, explore and continue to learn about our body’s together.