Meet Erika Bustos of Turning Pain into Purpose in Pomona

Today we’d like to introduce you to Erika Bustos.

 

Today we’d like to introduce you to Erika Bustos.

So, before we jump into specific questions, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
In March of 2016, I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, rheumatoid arthritis. Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic progressive illness that causes inflammation in the joints, deformity, and immobility. Most people assume that elderly people are more likely to develop it, but due to our modern lifestyle, it is becoming more frequent in younger people.

As a child, I watched my grandma suffer from this. Unfortunately, she passed away, but it wasn’t necessarily from the disease itself or old age. Medications used to manage this disease are extremely powerful and can have life-threatening side effects. Due to complications of medicine, she was on, my grandma’s life ended at a very short age of sixty-two.

At the age of only twenty-eight, I couldn’t believe that my life would be consumed by dealing with a disease. Prior to my diagnosis, my husband and I were rock climbers. We would climb at an indoor gym as well as outdoors. Our life revolved around camping, hiking, road trips, and just being in nature. Our group of friends is mostly in the climbing community. The worst thing that could happen to a climber would be to develop arthritis.

In addition to being passionate about rock climbing, I was very immersed in my education. I am a first-generation college student and I have spent so much of my time and energy focusing on my career. I started off in community college, then eventually transferred to the University of La Verne to study psychology. Then, when I finally entered my graduate program for Marriage and Family Therapy, I had just received the news about my diagnosis.

But here’s where my story begins, or I should say, where my evolution began. After being diagnosed and prescribed medications, I decided that I didn’t want to end up like my grandma. I didn’t want to lose my hair, feel more fatigued than I already had, increase my chances of cancer, or risk the consequences of getting pregnant on the medication. Although I wasn’t planning on having children anytime soon and I wasn’t married at the time, I didn’t want to risk having a miscarriage if anything changed.

So, I made a pact to myself that I wouldn’t go down the same route as my grandma. My husband and I immediately began to search for alternative ways to heal the body. We wanted to find ways to bring back homeostasis to my body. In my undergrad, I was fascinated with the mind-body connection. I even wrote a research paper on psychoneuroimmunology; the study of the interaction between psychological processes and the immune system. I was intrigued by Rene Descartes, one of the great pioneers of philosophy. He’s most known for his philosophical statement, “I think, therefore I am.” His concepts were cutting edge at the time and opened up a new way of thinking about the mind-body connection. At the time, there was no scientific evidence or brain scans to show how our thoughts directly impact our bodies.

I’ve always been introspective about myself and curious about the manifestation of mental illness. I, myself, had battled depression and anxiety for most of my life. That’s what actually led me into the field of psychology. So, with that blanket of knowledge and personal experience, I knew that my immune system had been triggered by what I had been thinking and doing. In the medical world, there is currently no known explanation for developing autoimmune diseases. Despite the resistance from my rheumatologist, I knew there had to be an answer.

After seeing a naturopathic doctor, I discovered that there were a lot of things I needed to work on. Soon after, I decided to start an Instagram account, Turning_pain_n2_purpose, to document my journey towards health. But in the beginning, my main focus was on my diet. At first, I had many people in the autoimmune community who tried to discredit my approach. Despite some of the push back, I chose to believe that I could heal my body. I had read stories from the very few people that had reversed their disease and lived almost symptom-free without medications. I knew that I could be that success story; I could give people hope.

The diet, I should say lifestyle that has worked the best for me is a vegan/ plant-based diet. This is a diet that is rich in vegetables, fruits, legumes, tubers, and whole grains. This diet also consists of minimally processed food or oils. Through my own exploration of the current research on diet and disease, I discovered the anti-inflammatory properties of plants and the inflammatory properties of animal products. I suggest reading the work done by Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, Dr. Campbell, and all the current research on diet and disease gathered by Dr. Michael Greger. Almost daily, I have my green juices and tons of leafy greens. On my Instagram, I love to share simple and healthy recipes I’ve learned over the years.

Over these three years of trying different dietary changes, supplements, and protocols, I’ve shared this all with the people following my IG account. It documents the highs and the lows of dealing with this disease naturally. I try to remain as truthful as possible about the reality of what it takes to heal the body. I’ve experienced remission, which is rare even with medications, and I’ve experienced the worst flares imaginable. Because I’ve continuously persevered and remained dedicated to my health, there is a good chunk of people that believe in my message. Not only do they believe in my success, but they are also now experiencing their own. My main goal has always been to remain authentic and genuine. I want to maintain the connections I’ve built with each person that shares their own story with me.

During my last big flare, I began to question all the work I had put into healing my body. Things just seemed to feel out of my control, despite my attempts to control everything with diet and exercise. For such a long time, I was obsessed with controlling everything in my external world. But I hadn’t really taken the time to explore what was internally going on with me.

To give you a backdrop on my most current flare, a lot of stress starting to creep into my life. After my first year of graduate school, my passion for becoming a therapist was diminishing. Although I was doing well in all my classes, by the time I was going to start my training, my desire to help people in that way had changed. I started to see mental and physical health in a very different way. From my own experience and communicating with hundreds of other people dealing with autoimmune diseases, I realized how much diet played a role in a person’s mental health, as well as making positive lifestyle changes. As my body began to replenish itself with all the vitamins and minerals it needed, my depression and anxiety slowly went away. All that happened without even trying to focus on that!

So, I left my program after the first year. It was a big move for me because I had dedicated most of my life to my education. I just knew my purpose in life wasn’t to sit behind a desk all day in an office. I knew if I truly wanted to help people, I wanted to have the freedom to connect on a more personal level. As a therapist, I would not have the ability to discuss things that would be out of my scope of practice, such as the role diet plays in mental health. I wouldn’t be able to share my subjective healing process with anyone. And most importantly, I couldn’t sit and listen to people without full heartily believing in the techniques I would be boxed into implementing.

After leaving my program, I didn’t focus much on a career. I had a general idea of becoming a health coach, but I didn’t dwell on it. The main goal for my husband and I was to focus on my healing. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t going to school or working. This allowed me to dive deep into myself. Everything was going great until stress crept in. The weight of leaving graduate school started to weigh on me. I started to worry about finances, paying loans back, and saving for my future. Once again, all my pain, inflammation, and stiffness came back.

After nearly three months of being bed-bound in absolute agony, I watched a documentary called Heal. It was about people who have overcome life threating conditions such as cancer, autoimmune diseases, physical injury, or trauma. Through research in the field of neuroscience and biochemistry, scientists have now been able to measure and study the impact of our thoughts on our body. If unhealthy thoughts and stress could create disease, then happy thoughts and living in peace could reverse that. This was the missing link that I had forgotten about. It was much easier to focus on my diet and exercise than to dive deep into my subconscious mind.

I began reading and listening to the work done by Dr. Joe Dispenza, a man who has spent many years of his life dedicated to understanding the mind-body connection. He’s an absolutely brilliant man with a multifaceted perspective and education on how people develop and recover from different alignments. His work led me to start meditating and becoming mindful of my thought patterns. I recognized that on the surface, I had been doing things to heal my body, but my subconscious mind was telling my body a different story. All of the emotional baggage in my life and stress had still been there. I had unknowingly been living in my past.

I love this statement by Dr. Joe Dispena, “If you are viewing your life from the same level of mind every day, which is in the past, you’ll never experience the future of your dreams. Everything clicked for me. How could I expect different results if I hadn’t really changed anything that was going on inside my mind? I had been hard-wired to operate in a high-stress state of mind. For me, stress meant I was doing something right. I had conditioned myself to feel comfortable or familiar with stress. Chronic stress is a very unnatural state for our bodies to be in. When there is sustained stress, it wreaks havoc on our bodies.

Since reading countless books on this new realm of knowledge and immersing myself in meditation, I’m able to manage my stress better and be more aware when it’s creeping back in. My immune system is balancing, my body is feeling significantly better, and I’ve started to be able to rock climb again. Most of all, I feel like I have control over the outcome of my life.

Right now, I am working on writing a book for those who suffer from chronic illnesses. It’s going to be a full-spectrum approach to healing. So many people out there are feeling hopeless and lost. Sadly, most people end up surrendering to their disease or circumstance. Simply because they don’t know they have other options. This is why I am now in the process of getting my health coach certification. It’s important for me to reach as many people as I can.

When I was diagnosed, my rheumatologist told me that in ten years, I would be disabled. Here I am, three years later, living a significantly healthier life. I have no deformities or disabilities; I’m living in alignment with my inner purpose. and I’m helping people all over the world find their own purpose. It’s crazy to think that I’ve become a vegan activist, health advocate, and a pioneer in this movement towards healing our bodies naturally. This is a drastic change for someone like me that lived on the standard American diet, who drank excessively and ran on high-stress. The only way to bring about real change in this world is to focus on the change that needs to happen inside us. As you uplift yourself, you uplift everyone around you.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
It’s definitely been a very challenging road, but also, very rewarding. Without this happening to me, I wouldn’t have done half of the things I’ve done. I’ve challenged myself to do workshops, I’ve spoken at a university, and have shared my story with thousands of people. I’ve had to push myself outside my comfort zone and be completely vulnerable. The biggest challenge is to stay motivated in times of pain. It’s easy to feel optimistic when you are feeling good, but when things get rough, it’s hard to always have to pull yourself out of it.

Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Turning Pain into Purpose – what should we know?
I don’t have my health coach certification just yet, but I will be graduating in January of 2020. As soon as I get that, I’ll officially be able to put my experience and knowledge into practice. I’ve already read countless books published by very well-known doctors, researchers, and scientists in the field of plant-based nutrition. I’m constantly listening to podcasts, reading, and watching videos on all things related to health. Most recently, I’ve been reading tons of books on consciousness, meditation, and mindfulness. I’m always looking to expand my knowledge so that way I can be as well-rounded as possible. Whatever I’m learning and implementing, and if it’s truly helping me, I want to share it with others.

Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
My husband definitely deserves the most credit. He’s been there through the toughest decisions I’ve had to make and the hardest challenges I’ve had to overcome. He’s really modified his life to ensure that I stay on track. All of the changes that we’ve had to make, both as a couple and as individuals, have made our relationship stronger. We’ve helped each other become better people. My mom and mother-in-law have also been a huge support system for me. They’ve helped us out so much over the last few years, and I am so thankful for every little thing they’ve done for me. Support is such a key component of someone’s healing process. Without the support of loved ones, there is less motivation to keep persevering. I can’t imagine life without them.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.Turningpainn2purpose.com
• Instagram: Turning_pain_n2_purpose

Image Credit:
Harris Ahmed

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