Welcome back to Healthier with Elizabeth. Today I want to speak to the why—why for me, why for this podcast, and also why now. There are a couple of points here that I think are important to share with you.
My 20-Year Journey
In terms of my why—next year is 2026. That will mark 20 years for me having finished the bulk of my studies, the main part that meant I could get going out into the world. Of those 20 years, I spent about five of them in research, population science, and also public health and emergencies. And the other 15 has really been about switching gears and going into naturopathy. In fact, I set up Vintage Health in March 2011. So yeah, when we hit March, I'll hit my 15-year anniversary with Vintage Health.
So, it just feels like it's time. I'm ready to speak to my experiences. I've learnt a lot along the way. As you know, I've got several different modalities that I primarily draw on—Chinese medicine, naturopathy, crystal essences—but there's also my research background and just the way I work. Anyway, all of that—I think it's time I'd like to put it together and be able to disseminate it. So this is a nice way to do it, because I'm covering different release mediums. Video and podcast platforms, and then as I've spoken before, I'll get my act together and put this all together in blog articles. So there's a written record of it.
I sort of feel that whoever wants to hear what I have to say, maybe try on some of the ideas and the experience that me and my clients and people have gone through, then you can access that information from whatever platform is comfortable for you.
Overcoming Past Obstacles
So yeah, I'm kind of in a phase of reflection I guess. Now, just to give you context though—this is probably the third time that I've seriously gone into the process of creating a podcast particularly. I was talking about it maybe back in 2015, I think. And then again, after we arrived here in Australia in 2021, I was sort of interested in picking that up again. But there were things that stopped me. And it's really personal development. I had a bit of fear before, analysis paralysis, a little bit paranoid about saying the wrong thing. I didn't want to be getting any noses out of joint. I wanted to try and get it all right. I guess perfectionism—all of this stuff was kicking in.
And I'm just at a point now—I think 2025 has really been an interesting year for me. I'm still reflecting on it and it sounds like it's a very interesting year for a lot of people as well, where we're letting go of certain old things and making way for 2026. If you're into numerology, 2026 is a year 1, whilst 2025 is a year 9, so it's the last year of a cycle. And then on top of that, we've just had the Chinese year of the snake. So the snake is about shedding, it's about transformation, and then we're heading into the Chinese year of the horse. That is about moving forwards and action and getting things going.
So it's really quite an interesting time to be creating and I'm really quite comfortable now with that. I'm ready. I'm ready to put this out there. I'm ready to do it imperfectly, which was really the only way that this was going to work for me. That's part of the imperfection—there are going to be bits and pieces that go on in my world, tracks that go past, bits and pieces.
This year I've really worked on myself and I've really looked at how I'm showing up in the world, how I want to move forwards, and it's a perfect time to do that. So yeah, podcast, video, disseminating what I know and sharing with people and hopefully helping other people with their health and wellness—that's my goal. So that's really the why.
A Commentary on AI and Authenticity
But there's another piece in terms of just a reflection or a commentary on the way the world is going right now, where AI is exploding—and I mean AI-generated content. You know, a couple of years ago, no one had heard about ChatGPT and now it's everywhere. And there's a lot of conversation in my circles around AI-generated content and how can you trust what you're reading? Even being able to tell that it's AI-generated—it's getting better and better. So it's going to get harder to tell what has been created by a person and really their experience in their life or what they have to say from their point of view, and what has been created by a chatbot.
And the other piece of that is we're now getting avatars coming out. People are looking to—I just watched a video the other day. It was advertised to me, it came on my algorithm. So clearly the internet knows what I'm looking at and what is of interest to me. But it was a man walking around and he'd turned himself into this beautiful girl, and it was pretty realistic. He was like, "Yeah, you can make this avatar, so you can attract whatever audience you want," etc. And I just—I'm still wrapping my head around that, but I'm also at this point in time not interested in joining in those changes.
And so what I'm trying to do is work in a way that is so imperfect, so authentic, that you definitely know that there is a person sitting and recording. And so that's why you're getting the ums and the ahs and I'm bumbling around and there are noises in the background. It's not going to be a perfect meeting. So if that is not of interest to you, if you need it to look pretty and you're going to be distracted by the way in which I disseminate information, then maybe I'm not the information source for you.
But if you are happy with that, if that actually is of interest to you, then yeah, I will be working from this kind of medium. It works for me and my nervous system and being able to just get things out and not overthink it and create in the moment. But it also works because I think in particular when it comes to health information, you really, really want to know that your source knows what they're talking about.
Staying in My Lane
So, I promise I'll stay in my lane because I'm not an expert, or I don't know about certain areas of health. I don't think anyone can be an expert in everything, but I'm certainly going to speak to my experiences, my point of view, the way that I've put together programmes and protocols and sort of melded different modalities to make healing and recovery and discovery about illnesses as quick and as transformational as possible for me and my clients. I will be speaking to that sort of experience.
So anyway, that's really the why for me. The why now, the why disseminating as a podcast and in the different mediums. The why it's going to be imperfect. But I hope that after all that, you're interested in joining me on this journey. So anyway, hope you have a good day and I'll speak to you soon. Bye for now.