The Hybrid
1:1 Virtual Coaching Program
Stop the struggle.
Discover what life is like again without fearing food, anxiety or depression.
The Hybrid
Functional Gut-Brain Recovery Program
What is the hybrid program anyway?
I’m Cassandra Hope, a tenacious AF, curious, science-geek, who’s cracked the code on metabolic dysfunction after periods of heightened stress.
In 2011, I launched my biz and started out as a holistic weight loss coach and personal trainer, thinking whole foods, mindful eating and achieving great digestion were great approaches to weight loss. Some of my clients achieved incredible results, but many were not responding well to traditionally effective approaches to weight loss. I noticed the same thing when I opened The IBS Academy in 2015. Some of my clients resolved from IBS and others had persistent symptoms.
In 2018, I made a huge discovery in my practice. I found incredible research to support that autonomic nervous system dysfunction caused by heightened periods of stress and traumas was keeping my clients in a fight or flight state.
When chronically in sympathetic overdrive (fight or flight), we aren’t optimally digesting our food, detoxifying, sleeping, or feeling mentally well. The gut health movement is exciting but there are many who still fall through the cracks when common approaches like; eliminating gluten, dairy and food that cause irritation, as well as taking digestive enzymes, eating probiotic-rich foods and increasing fibre don’t work.
My commitment is to those clients who have no idea what else to do to resolve their chronic gut dysfunction and mood instability. By understanding your genetics, history of stress, coping mechanisms, and mindset, we can create a blueprint to heal your body by using research-based approaches to repairing the gut | brain connection, once and for all.
The Hybrid
Gut | Brain Recovery Program
This program will help you to…
✔️ Stop cyclical, ruminating fears surrounding your food choices (most foods should betolerated well)
✔️ Obsess less about which supplements to take
✔️ Stop fearing your thoughts, mood changes or sleepless nights
✔️ Get to know who you really are, without being stuck in sympathetic overdrive (chronic stress)
✔️ Identify and re-route thought patterns and beliefs that occupy hemispheres of the brain that are keeping you sick!
✔️ Eat, live and interact with calm, peace and confidence in every decision
Create a life of freedom from fearing food, anxiety, depression and metabolic dysfunction.
The research shows…
STRESS
Heightened periods of stress will rewire the brain leading to a chronically activated nervous system, and in turn, immune and inflammatory pathways also.
SYMPTOMS
By not addressing brain function in any gut | mood rehabilitation program, we’re only treating the symptoms, not the root cause.
FOOD
Foods are not always the trigger for gut symptoms. We’re now learning that it’s the state of your nervous system that does.
TRAUMA
Trauma will leave neurochemicals stored in our fascial network (if we don’t do the work to clear them). This can lead to a host of structural issues in the body; pain, limited mobility and altered organ function.
BRAIN
Our brain is plastic and is capable of recovery post-trauma. When we learn to identify and groom our thoughts, we can rewire our grey matter, and in turn, improve our genetic expression.
SUPPLEMENTS
In most cases, food, probiotics and mindfulness are not enough to get the body back on track. Using a few key supplements, specific to your needs can be pivotal for your healing journey.
This program is for you if…
💚 It feels like you’ve tried everything but you still struggle regularly with gut/mood symptoms like gas, bloating, constipation and/or loose stool, periods of anxiety and depression as well as restless sleep
💚 You’re tired of having to avoid social engagements due to being so reactive to unknown food and social triggers
💚 You get some improvement after trying a new diet or supplement but your symptoms ultimately return
💚 You’re ready to do a comprehensive program that is strategic vs playing ‘symptom whack-a-mole’ every day
💚 You’re struggling with rumination, ADHD / ADD, OCD, PMS and other cognitive, mood-based symptoms
💚 You’re sick of feeling like you’re unfixable or permanently broken
💚 You’re sick of no one understanding or believing you that something feels off
💚 You want to understand the science behind the life events that caused you to end up in the health situation you’ve found yourself in
CTRL ALT DELETE
It’s complex but not complicated
Discover the evolutionary-based reasons you’ve been struggling to keep your health in great order.
Stop blaming yourself for not intuitively knowing how to maintain stellar gut/brain health in today’s rapidly evolving environment.
What you get
Over the course of 2 months, we’ll be working closely to re-pattern the way you think about yourself, your past traumas, your current symptoms and discuss the neuroscience of healing the gut-brain connection. We’ll get you to a place of releasing fears surrounding food, being social, being misunderstood for your chronic illness and develop a lifestyle maintenance plan that feels good and that’s unique to you.
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An initial 90-minute in-depth intake session
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7 themed
follow-up sessions
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Worksheets to help pull concepts together and self-identify opportunities for improvement
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8 weekly workbooks and reflection exercises
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Ongoing support via my private CTRL ALT DELETE Facebook group
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Lots of love!
Get excited, your recovery is possible!
Let’s get micro
The Functional Gut-Brain Recovery Program is a 2 month plan
STEP 1
We’ll begin with a 90-minute in-depth intake over zoom or Facetime. We’ll be covering your intergenerational traumas and genetics, history of stress and personal traumas, develop an understanding of your symptoms, when they started and what’s affected the progression and tenacity of your illness(es). By doing so, I’ll be able to give the best recommendations for testing and strategy. You’ll receive a proposed treatment plan including short, medium and long-term steps to make the most of nutrition, lifestyle and neuroscience approaches to healing your gut-brain connection. This will be the foundation of our work together, though there’s always room to be dynamic with what life might serve up, and will be a place for you to return to for reminders on how we’ll be approaching your healing in the months to come.
STEP 2
In week two we discuss how things went as you began implementing the initial strategies we carved out in session one. We’ll gain insight into what we’ll want to troubleshoot as you progress through our work together. In our first follow-up session, we’ll be discussing the neuroscience of trauma and stress and identify how your patterns have been contributing to your chronic symptoms as well as explore some custom self-regulating strategies to begin to implement.
STEP 3
We’ll be meeting weekly over the course of two months and will include themed workshops, education and coaching in the areas of healing the gut and brain post-trauma, identifying and strategically clearing any infections, supporting gut-brain recovery via nutrition and proper supplementation, as well as continuous support in the area of effectively connecting with and clearing stored traumas in the body.
STEP 4
This stage is about making sure you feel clear on the root cause(s) of your chronic illness, the strategies around food, mindfulness and neuroplasticity that will support you in avoiding relapse, and the tools you can use in the years to come to best support your digestive, nervous and immune systems.
THE MICRO ON THE MACRO
The Program
As much as this is a structured 1:1 coaching program, it’s also dynamic.
As we work together and I get to know your unique needs, I’ll be customizing your curriculum as needed. We’re going to be using research-based techniques to re-route neural pathways that have been shutting down your gut function, keeping the body inflamed and primed for infections. We’ll not only get to the root causes of your responses to life’s stress, we’ll also re-pattern them so to support longterm health and personal freedom.
This Program will empower you!
Recover from your gut-brain illnesses and live a life free from constant hypervigilance around food, your symptoms, and social interactions.
Live without fear, anticipation of pain, or worsening disease presentations, come home to the person you are without chronic illness!
After working with me
✔️ You’ll feel informed, calm and empowered with info on how the human body becomes vulnerable to disease post-stress and trauma.
✔️ You’ll know how to make informed decisions on foods, booze, relationships, thought patterns and scheduling so to best protect your amazing vessel.
✔️ You’ll have the skills to place self-judgement and perfectionism down, and nurture a self-compassionate, yet action-based approach to maintaining great health.
✔️ You’ll be able to incorporate foods back into your diet that have been ‘dangerous’ in the past.
✔️ You’ll deeply understand the energetic states that you’ll want to foster when eating, thinking, doing, and connecting in order to keep your brain using the parts of itself that encourage great digestion, mood, sleep, hormones, and presence.
✔️ You’ll look forward to eating and will have confidence in your body’s ability to process foods without pain or symptoms.
✔️ You’ll be able to say YES to more travel, dates, dinners, business opportunities.
✔️ You’ll see your hormones fall back into place (bu-bye PMS).
✔️ You’ll be able to explore new ingredients and recipes and have fun with food again!
✔️ Your sleep will regulate, attention and focus will be restored and you’ll feel at home in your body.
✔️ You’ll be you again. You’ll be low stress, confident, balanced and have restored faith in lifestyle medicine and its ability to keep you happy and healthy.
Ready to end the story that life is hard, food is scary, your mood is unpredictable
and your body doesn’t want to work for you?
This program includes…
An initial 90-minute in-depth intake session
7 themed follow-up sessions
8 weekly workbooks and reflection exercises
A functional food, lifestyle and supplement protocol specific to your unique needs
Find out if The Hybrid Functional Gut-Brain Recovery Program is right for you.
Book a complimentary consult call to find out!
FAQs
I’ve tried everything already, how do I know this will work for me?
This is a progressive and cutting edge, science-based approach to healing the body post-periods of heightened stress and trauma. By addressing the foods, supplements, lifestyle habits AND neurobiology hacks we can begin to see your symptoms change, and stick.
How do I know I won’t relapse after our work is done?
I believe this to be a very patriarchal way of looking at healing and health. The truth is, we will always be challenged. The difference after taking this course is that you will know how to nurture yourself going forward by creating boundaries and implementing strategic ways of protecting your brain and body so you can sidestep future traumas and self-regulate much quicker.
Will I have to go off my pharmaceuticals?
Definitely no. I am pharma-positive and work well with my clients (and their other practitioners) exactly where they’re at. After taking this course you may in time decide with your doctor to go off medications, though I personally will never give that recommendation.
I’m already working with an ND, Nutritionist, or Coach, how will this differ?
That’s great! In many scenarios, it takes a team. I love working/collaborating with other practitioners and each coach brings their own magic to a person’s recovery. I focus largely on neuroscience and education on how your brain and nervous system are setting the scene for your disease presentations, as well as how to self-regulate to change those presentations. I’d reflect on whether you’re getting that kind of education/coaching with your current practitioner and see if there are any overlaps.
Are you covered by my insurance plan?
Although it isn’t as common as coverage for other services, nutrition coaching is becoming more common in health insurance. I’m an RHN and can provide my licence number for you to call and double-check with your provider.
Will I be better after the 2 months of coaching is completed?
This isn’t a take my 8 week course and be healed kind of course.
It’s a learn about why you got sick, and how to implement food, lifestyle and mindset shifts to best support your chances of self-healing kind of course <3.
Will my food intolerances and IBS symptoms go away?
That’s definitely the plan! The root causes of food intolerances and IBS are multifactorial. If you take the principles that I teach and implement them regularly, as well as reach out if there’re any stubborn symptoms, we can troubleshoot issues as they come up. There is no perfection or linearity, just consistency, an open mind and lotsa tenacity.
I hate meditating. Do I have to meditate for this to work?
Ok, i feel you. Meditation isn’t available to everyone, especially if there’s a history of trauma and being still doesn’t feel available to you. I meet you where you’re at, and there’re many practices to incorporate to encourage healing the nervous system that don’t include meditation. I’m happy to explore those with you.
Are the costs of supplements / testing included in the cost?
The cost of supplements and testing is additional. The fees of this course covers solely our time together.
I’m more than excited to work with you…
Cassandra Hope (@bewellwithhope) is a Toronto based functional gut | brain coach, holistic nutritionist and founder of Be Well With Hope, dedicated to her life’s mission of coaching those who have been negatively affected by chronic stress and trauma, so they can heal their gut, balance their mood and become empowered again to live a life free from chronic illnesses.
Cassandra’s compassion-first approach to coaching has helped hundreds of clients learn how to nurture themselves, their nervous, and digestive systems back to health. She teaches her clients how to easily recognize the symptoms that lend to chronic gut | brain inflammation, and implement tangible strategies to help reroute neural pathways, and in turn, your health.