When a successful sports medicine physician begins forgetting the names of her own clinics and can’t find her way to work, the medical establishment has a simple answer: “You’re just a stressed-out single mom who needs to relax.”
But what happens when that dismissive diagnosis is only one piece of the puzzle?
Our very own Dr. Elena Villanueva’s decade-long journey from medical mystery to miraculous recovery reveals the shocking truth about what doctors miss when they only treat symptoms, and how a data-backed, holistic approach saved her life.
Elena was the picture of professional success — running three thriving sports medicine practices while raising her son as a single mother in her 30s. Driven by fierce determination to create financial security for her family, she poured everything into her work.
The demanding schedule was taking its toll. As she describes it, “I worked very, very hard because I wanted to have security for my son and myself.” The stress of managing multiple practices while single-parenting was undeniable.
But Elena was also a skilled physician who understood the human body intimately. She had built a successful medical career and was known for her clinical expertise.
That’s what made what happened next so completely unexpected — and why it would take a decade to find answers that conventional medicine couldn’t provide.
At first, Elena’s symptoms came like an avalanche, each one more frightening than the last. Elena began experiencing memory loss so severe she couldn’t remember her own son’s name or the names of the medical clinics she had built from the ground up.
“I had developed full-blown memory loss like dementia,” Elena recalls. “I didn’t know my son’s name, I didn’t know the name of my clinics, I couldn’t even get to work.”
But the cognitive symptoms were just the beginning of her medical nightmare. She was also experiencing:
Looking at photos from that time, Elena barely recognizes herself. The woman who had once been sharp, focused, and in control was disappearing before her own eyes. In her place was someone she didn’t recognize — someone whose own mind had become her greatest enemy.
As a sports medicine doctor, Elena knew the medical system inside and out. When her health began failing, she did exactly what she had been trained to do — she sought out specialists.
Elena went to:
After seeing numerous specialists and undergoing various tests, Elena received a response that will sound familiar to anyone who’s struggled with complex chronic illness.
The specialists sent her home with Xanax and an antiviral and essentially patted her on the head, telling her she was “just a stressed-out single mom” who needed to “try to relax a little bit.”
This dismissive response left Elena with more questions than answers — and would set her on a 10-year journey to find real solutions.
During her darkest period, when Elena had reached the point of suicidal ideation, she experienced what she describes as a turning point. Elena credits divine intervention with saving her life during this critical moment. “I do believe that Spirit intervened and saved my life,” she shares. This taught her a crucial lesson: “I’m not just a physical body.”
She realized that her recovery was going to require her to:
This approach was completely different from the sports medicine practice she had been trained in. Instead of just treating physical symptoms, she began addressing the emotional, mental, and spiritual aspects of her health.
Elena’s journey wasn’t quick or easy. It took 10 full years to find the answers and solutions that worked for her body and her life. But Elena’s persistence paid off and gave her a completely new understanding of what healing really means.
And now, Elena’s life looks completely different. She describes being able to “experience love and gratitude” as a grandmother to two babies, alongside her 30-year-old son, beautiful daughter-in-law, and husband.
But more importantly, Elena now wakes up each day with:
Elena’s 10-year journey to find answers became her calling to help others. As she puts it: “My 10 years of searching to find answers and solutions became my journey to help you, and that’s my purpose, that’s why I’m here.”
By 2019, Elena had completely transitioned from the traditional doctor-patient model to teaching and mentoring people through their own healing journeys. She now leads a team of practitioners who are trained under her to help people find the knowledge and tools they need, not just for their own healing, but to help their families for generations to come.
Elena’s story reveals a crucial truth that the medical system often misses: stress isn’t just having a busy schedule or feeling overwhelmed at work.
True stress that breaks down your body and brain comes in multiple forms:
Mental Stress:
Environmental Stress:
Spiritual Stress:
Maybe you’re reading this and seeing yourself in Elena’s story. Maybe you’ve been told you’re “just stressed” or that your symptoms are “all in your head.” Maybe you’ve seen specialist after specialist, only to leave with more medications and no real answers.
Elena’s journey proves that healing is possible, even when:
Elena’s transformation didn’t happen because she found one magic pill or treatment. It happened because she learned to approach healing holistically, addressing:
This is the same approach Elena and her team now use to help thousands of people break free from chronic illness when traditional medicine has failed them.
Elena spent 10 years searching for answers because the holistic, root-cause approach she now teaches simply wasn’t available to her then. But it’s available to you now.
If you’re tired of being dismissed, tired of treating symptoms instead of causes, and ready for real answers that address your whole person — not just your diagnosis — Elena’s approach could be the breakthrough you’ve been searching for.
The question isn’t whether healing is possible for you. Elena’s story proves it is. The question is: Are you ready to stop settling for surface-level solutions and start addressing the real roots of your illness?
Modern Holistic Health specializes in helping people heal from “unexplainable” chronic illness, unresolved trauma, anxiety, depression, autoimmune conditions, metabolic issues, and neurological disorders.
We use an evidence-based approach with data-driven solutions to help create a holistic healing plan to enhance your quality of life and give you a deeper understanding of what’s truly driving your symptoms and how to heal from the root cause.(For established clients)
This appointment type should only be made for an established client. (After you have had your initial/first visit completed).
Not sure WHO to book with? No Problem! Here at MHH we have an AMAZING team of coaches and EVERY ONE OF OUR COACHES can help you with ANY of your conditions, so just pick the one that has availability on the day and time that works best for you.
This package contains 12 Biological Coaching Visits at 30 minutes each. Purchasing this package can save you 10% vs. if you purchased 12 sessions individually.
Using the combined modalities of EFT tapping, Resonance Repatterning, Color, Light, and Sound, this visit type addresses:
• Anxiety • Depression • Fear • Mind racing • Feelings of anger • Feelings of hopelessness • and more…
This unique approach can address and resolve emotional trauma, present or past, that has been locked into the physical body’s memory, often below the realm of conscious thought. Our bodies replay these memories at different times, and they can adversely affect our health especially in times of great stress and uncertainty.
These packages contain 12 Brain & Emotional Repatterning visits of 60 minutes or 90 minutes each. Purchasing either of these packages will save you 15% as compared to purchasing individual sessions
Not feeling well and looking for help with your condition, diagnosis, or symptoms that won’t go away no matter what you have tried? Our holistic biological health coaches can help you! Our coaches teach you how your body works, what the underlying cause of your condition or symptoms are, and how to fix and address them using long-term solutions that are data-driven and that work!
Our holistic biological health coaches have a deep understanding of advanced functional testing and genetics testing, along with much experience in complex cases.
Our biological coaching team works with you to empower and teach you how to understand and interpret your lab results, what your results mean, how they are connected to your health conditions or symptoms, and most importantly, what to do with the information, how to put protocols together based on your lab results, and when to reorder your various labs to track progress.
You will become your own healing master learning how to navigate the healing process, how to modify your protocols, when and how to detoxify your organs and cells from the toxins discovered on your lab results. You will learn the importance of tracking your assessment forms and symptom sheets and how to troubleshoot your healing process.
In addition, you have the opportunity to learn how to understand YOUR genetic blueprint – Our coaches are trained in the field of epigenetics and understand implicitly that YOU are in control of your own gene expression and how your genes either work for or against you. If you choose to add genetic testing into your program, your genetic blueprint information can be used not only to help drive your plan of action for healing, but also it can be used to understand your body’s unique nutrition, lifestyle, sleeping, eating, and physical activity needs are so that you can optimize once you are healed.
Get help from our functional nutrition coaches who understand that there is no ONE diet that is right for everyone. Our nutrition coaches work hand in hand with our biological coaches so if you need any lab work done or specific protocols that would require supplement protocols, you have a team working on your behalf and your nutrition coach would make recommendations for which other team coaches would be able to help you.
Your coaches will teach and empower you to learn how to determine and navigate your diet modifications which are decided based on your extensive intake forms, history, and your lab data that your coaches may want to order for you. Based on all of this information, they will teach you what foods to eat and not eat according to various conditions and why.
Your functional nutrition coach will help you learn what substitutes you can use when there are certain foods you may need to stop eating for a period of time, how to put your meals together based on your dietary needs per your lab data, how and when to incorporate gut repair protocols, and what lifestyle modifications you want to address based on your labs and your health conditions.
Nutritional coaching can be a great tool by itself or combined with coaching from our biological coaches. You can schedule with either our biological or nutrition coaches and they can help you get started and make recommendations as needed.
Many people who have successfully mentored with our nutrition coaches have had past issues such as:
Mindset, past and present traumas, and limiting belief systems are some of the biggest barriers to healing, so much in fact that gene expression and biological ‘engines’ of the human body can change for the worse because of it.
In the many years, we have been working in the field of holistic medicine, helping people who have tried everything else with no success or little success, we have discovered how great of an impact our thoughts, beliefs, and past and present trauma, and chronic stress can be to the human body, mind, and spirit.
The rate of recovery and healing for those who place emphasis on creating new neurological pathways to imprint new and healthy mindsets and belief systems in how they perceive themselves and the world around them is greatly improved when the psychological aspect of mindset and integration of mind, body, the spirit is addressed through repatterning of the mind and body neurology.
By removing barriers discovered from traumas, mindset, and conscious/unconscious patterns that are not congruent for healing, health, and vitality, you set yourself up for the best outcomes in your healing journey. Healing only occurs when the physical, emotional, and mental barriers to healing are removed.
Therefore we incorporate mind, body, spirit integration work into our programs and in doing so, we see exponential increases in positive outcomes with our clients. We have put together the most comprehensive ‘whole person’ approach in the world, and this is why our results are so successful.
Our Emotional Processing, Stress Release, & Neurological Repatterning coaches work with you to create new neurological connections, anchor new neurology, and habits, and show you how to become aware of any conscious or unconscious belief systems that may be holding you back from healing and total health.
You are welcome to try one or two appointments to see what you think. We typically recommend a minimum of 6 sessions to make an accurate assessment of how this type of modality is working for you.
Here are some of the modalities our Emotional Processing, Stress Release, & Neurological Repatterning coaches use for brain and body repatterning:
Breathwork is more than just a simple exercise of intentional breathing. Specialized breathwork techniques are used to facilitate major transformation and healing by encompassing a wide range of therapeutic practices that are extremely powerful in providing immediate relief for pulling people out of fight or flight (the amygdala hijack we teach about in Part 2 of our Mastering Trauma Masterclass).
This vagus nerve activation through breath work activates the rest/digest (parasympathetic nervous system), stimulates healing, reduces blood pressure, reduces the cortisol stress response, regulates hormone and blood glucose activity, and heart rate variability (the biological stress response). It rewires the body for self-regulation of the nervous system in a manner that optimizes the body and creates resilience in times of stress.
Yoga breath therapy allows you to disconnect from the mind chatter, mind racing, and negative self-talk and reconnect with your body your energy. From this elevated state of awareness, you are able to facilitate healing, growth, and expansion. And if you are looking for some expansion of your body/mind/spirit awareness, then this type of breathwork can be nourishing and can facilitate the next layer of peace, love, gratitude, connection, clarity, and insights.
In the many years, we have been working in the field of holistic medicine, helping people who have tried everything else with no success or little success, we have discovered how great of a damaging impact our thoughts, beliefs, and past and present trauma, and chronic stress (the fight or flight response) can be to the human body, mind, and spirit.
By becoming aware of how to regulate our own nervous system, and resolve traumas, mindset, and conscious/unconscious patterns that are not congruent for healing, health, and vitality, you set yourself up for the best outcomes in your healing journey. Healing only occurs when the physical, emotional, and mental barriers to healing are removed.
The rate of recovery and healing for those who place emphasis on:
….. Find much success and amplification in their healing journey.