Nicole glassman, h.n.
Nicole is a holistic health practitioner and founder of Mindful Health, a holistic health practice in New York City.
She has hosted numerous workshops and retreats where she offers her signature curriculum that is fully customized for each participant to support them on their holistic health journey. She is currently working on a podcast where she shares insights on various topics through the lens of the mind-body connection.
Nicole completed her Masters in Food Studies at New York University, Holistic Health Counseling Certificate at the Institute of Integrative Nutrition, an Advanced EAV Clinical Training from the Energetics College of Bio-Energetic Medicine, and was one of the first to complete Dr. D’Adamo’s Blood Type Certification course.
Her previous health struggles led her to holistic health where she now applies unique healing tools to help others feel whole again.
Let’s start at the beginning…
I was too young to be such a basket case. But now I am thankful for those horrific years.
At the age of 23, my stomach had curled itself into a permanent knot of anxiety and fear. I had graduated from American University with a direction – I was going to be a journalist.
The only problem was that I had spent the year before graduation studying in Italy and I could not get that experience out of my head. I finally realized that I was unable to follow my previous career goals. I wanted to work with people of different cultures and to travel. But there was a problem. I knew what characteristics this dream job should have but I had no idea where to find it.
Suddenly my world was crashing down on me. I found myself with a degree and no direction.
I was intelligent and driven, yet I felt lost and unguided. These feelings coupled with an intense two years of soul searching wreaked havoc on my health. The knot in my stomach had turned into an undiagnosed digestive condition which months later, catapulted into leaky gut syndrome, candida, a hormone imbalance, and a thyroid deficiency.
My stomach used to burn so badly that Zantac had become my second vitamin. My life began to revolve around my diminishing health. If I knew I was going out at night, I would eat very little so that my stomach would not have the chance to cramp. I even resorted to taking baths in the 90-degree Miami heat to soothe the tension in my abdomen. I was living with my condition, but I was not really living.
Eventually, this digestive distress became too consuming. I had gained weight and my energy had completely bottomed out. I was exercising more than usual and I had cut out dairy, wheat, sugar and most carbohydrates in an attempt to heal my stomach and lose weight. Yet, nothing had changed.
Eventually, I decided to seek out the advice of a gastroenterologist that my family had seen for years. I went to his office looking for someone who would listen to my frustrations and come up with a solution. I was feeling very helpless and eager to find some answers. But I was disappointed.
After waiting over an hour, he finally called me in. But to my dismay, my appointment was completed in a whopping fifteen minutes. He barely asked me a single question. Although, he specialized in digestive disorders, he never asked what I ate! He spent half of the time talking to my father about wine and recent trips he had taken. Then he handed me some Prilosec samples, suggested I see a therapist and told me to watch my calorie consumption.
The second half of our fifteen minutes was about how his daughter looked so great because she had lost all this weight. It was so insensitive of him to talk about a subject that he knew was so frustrating to me. I tried not to cry, but as soon as I left his office I became hysterical. Yet I still listened to his advice and I took the Prilosec samples. The next two nights were spent violently ill. I woke up two nights in a row at 4 am to vomit. This was obviously not the answer I had been looking for.
This experience, along with a few others in the Western medical field, led me to alternative healing methods. I spend the next year “experimenting” with different natural health practitioners.
I was desperate to heal, but in the process I was forced to make a major move for a job opportunity in Chicago. But this did not deter me. I was so committed to my health that I flew out to Los Angeles every two months to see a well-respected naturopath. It seemed that every time I solved one piece of my health puzzle, a new one arose. While one herb was designed to help my digestion, it simultaneously worsened my skin and vice versa. I was going crazy.
I felt like no one was paying attention to my ailments as an individual. Instead, they were using the standard protocols that they used for all of their patients. I even called the naturopath in LA to complain about a reaction I was having to the goat cheese he insisted that I eat. But instead of listening to my symptoms, he dismissed them and told me that “maybe I need to buy a goat in Chicago and make my own cheese.”
My life changed when I met Wendy and Robin, two practitioners in Florida who made me feel truly safe. I had been drowning in a sea of health theories and misguided information and they were the life preservers I had been searching for. They allowed me to ask questions, and sparked my interest in the health field. I learned more than I had ever imagined and I even ended up working for them for a period of time. They gave me the hope I had been seeking and the power I needed to heal.
I am a strong believer that everything happens for a reason. I could not let my experience, be just that, mine. I needed to help others so they will never feel as lost as I did. I left my career in international education with an unrelenting commitment to help those who want to be healed.
I have spent the last three years devouring books, taking classes and learning everything I can to help others. In addition to my formal qualifications, I have completed a certification in electrodermal screening because it helped me so much, and a flower remedy course so that I can help others heal their emotions naturally.
I love what I do and feel fortunate that I had this struggle - it led me towards my passion.
I will never stop taking classes. There will always be more to learn. More importantly, I will never stop learning from my clients, because I will always be listening.
