HEAL with Kelly

I didn’t know much about Johanna Hellrigl before this conversation — a friend texted me three sentences about her and I said yes on the spot. And I’m so glad I did.

Johanna is the chef and founder behind Ama, an award-winning Northern Italian restaurant in Washington, D.C., that is redefining what it means to nourish people — from the way she sources ingredients to how she cares for her team to the deeper intention behind every decision she makes. This woman is doing the work, and you can feel it.

But what really moved me was her story. Johanna shares parts of her life that shaped the way she sees health, intuition, and what it means to truly take care of yourself in a world that can feel overwhelming and confusing. It’s a powerful reminder of how much we’re capable of when we start to question, listen, and trust ourselves more deeply. 

We get into the hidden plastic crisis happening in restaurant kitchens right now, the truth about what's really in your pasta and why it hits so differently in Europe, the seed oil conversation with actual nuance, food waste, and so much more. Johanna also shares practical swaps you can make today in your own kitchen to reduce your toxic load — no overwhelm, just empowered steps forward.

I left this conversation feeling inspired, grounded, and reminded that our bodies are incredibly intelligent — and when we start to listen, everything begins to shift.

Key Moments You'll Love ✨ :

🍝 [0:00] Growing Up Organic in Italy Before It Was a Movement

👶 [11:53] Covid at 36 Weeks Pregnant and a 92 Hour Birth

🏥 [14:12] Neglected After a C-Section and Nobody Would Listen

🧬 [16:43] Her Son's Compromised Immune System and What Doctors Missed

💊 [19:20] Antibiotics Before 12 Months and a Kawasaki Disease Diagnosis at Five

🌾 [23:00] 90 to 95% of Cancer Is Lifestyle — Not Genetics

🍳 [32:00] The Cookware Swap That Protects Your Family From Toxins

🥡 [36:40] Ditch the Tupperware — The Storage Containers Worth Switching To

🌍 [40:20] 12 Minutes From a Food Desert — How Alma Gives Back

🍽️ [43:29] Why Health Shouldn't Be a Luxury and What a Real Neighborhood Restaurant Looks Like

 

LINKS

Ama Restaurant’s website: https://www.amarestaurant.bar/press

Johanna on Instagram @chefjohannahellrigl

EWG website: https://www.ewg.org/

SPONSORS

TIMELINE: Mitopure now starts at just $79. Go to ⁠timeline.com/healwithkelly to get 20% off Mitopure supplements and Skincare with code HEALwithKelly.

BON CHARGE: Go to boncharge.com and use code HEALWITHKELLY to save 15%.
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What if the story you’ve been told about your diagnosis… isn’t the only one available to you?

In this uplifting episode, I sit down with Mark Ruegg, a Stage IV pancreatic cancer thriver whose awe-inspiring journey reinforced what I know is possible when it comes to healing. I first heard about Mark after two different people told me I had to hear his story — and after listening for myself, I had to have him on the podcast. Incredibly, he credits the HEAL Documentary for inspiring a sense of hope and possibility after his diagnosis. It brings me so much JOY to know the film continues to inspire this community to take your healing and transformation into your own hands!

After being told his cancer was inoperable and incurable, Mark found himself standing between two very different worlds—one rooted in fear, prognosis, and limitation… and another rooted in possibility, belief, and the body’s capacity to heal. What he chose changed everything. 

We talk about the moment he came across the HEAL Documentary — and how that experience, along with others who had walked this path before him, helped him borrow belief when he didn’t yet have it on his own.

This conversation explores the deeper layers of healing that often go unspoken — how fear can live beneath the surface even when life looks “good”… why belief may be the foundation everything else rests on… and how learning to get quiet, listen inward, and regulate the nervous system can open the door to guidance you didn’t know was available.

Mark shares the shifts he made across every area of his life — from the way he moved his body, to how he nourished it, to the way he thought, felt, and related to his diagnosis. We explore the power of community, environment, and emotional energy — and why healing isn’t just physical, but deeply mental, emotional, and spiritual.

This conversation isn’t about denying reality — it’s about expanding it. It’s about what can happen when you stop outsourcing your power… and start actively participating in your healing.

If you or someone you love is navigating a diagnosis — or simply searching for a new way to approach health, resilience, and life — this episode will open your mind to what might be possible.

Key Moments You'll Love ✨ :

💔 [0:00] Stage Four Pancreatic Cancer and a 4 to 6 Month Prognosis

🎬 [5:40] How Watching Heal Changed Everything

❤️ [8:39] Why He Chose to Love His Cancer Instead of Fight It

🤫 [10:13] The Message He Got While Praying: Talk Less Listen More

✨ [30:50] Clear Scans by Round Two of Chemo

👼 [33:12] He Put His Parents on Side Effect Duty — and Had None

🗣️ [36:19] The Mantra He Said Every Day No Matter How Bad He Felt

🌀 [42:56] The Strength Is in the Surrender

💡 [45:37] Getting Thrown Into the Dark Room — and Finding the Light

🧬 [52:10] Cancer Didn't Just Heal Him — It Rebuilt His Entire Body

 

LINKS

Mark Ruegg on Substack

Mark on Instagram @markallenruegg

SPONSORS

QUALIA:  Go to qualialife.com/HEAL for 50% off. As a special bonus, use code HEAL for an additional 15% off your order.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What if the reason you feel more tired, foggy, or just not like yourself anymore… isn’t just hormones or “getting older” — but something happening deeper in your body?

In this episode, I sit down with Jen Scheinman, a registered dietitian with over 25 years of experience in nutrition and healthy aging and Director of Science Communications at Timeline Nutrition. Jen is one of the leading educators on Urolithin A — a postbiotic compound found in Mitopure — and its role in mitochondrial health, cellular renewal, and longevity. Beyond Timeline, she also runs her own practice, Next Jen Health, where she helps women optimize vitality through the menopause transition and beyond.

We explore a part of our health that most of us have never really been taught to think about—our mitochondria, the energy centers inside our cells — and why so many women start to feel a shift in their 30s and 40s, when the things that used to work suddenly don’t. Jen breaks down the science in a way that actually makes sense, connecting fatigue, brain fog, and changes in your body to what’s happening at the cellular level.

We talk about why diet and exercise can stop working the way they used to, how your gut and environment impact your energy, and what’s really going on beneath the surface as we age. We also explore the difference between living longer and actually feeling good while you do it — and what it looks like to support your body in a way that aligns with how it truly works.

This conversation isn’t about quick fixes. It’s about understanding your body on a deeper level so you can start to feel like yourself again.

Mitopure now starts at just $79. Go to ⁠timeline.com/healwithkelly to get 20% off Mitopure supplements and Skincare with code HEALwithKelly.

Key Moments You'll Love ✨ :
🔋 [0:00] Why Your Energy Declines in Your 30s and 40s
🧬 [3:39] Mitochondria Are More Than the Powerhouse of the Cell
♻️ [8:02] How Your Body Recycles Damaged Mitochondria
🍇 [8:59] What Urolithin A Is and Why 60% of People Can't Make It
🧪 [12:29] The Research That Made Her Leave Everything for Timeline
💊 [24:41] Four Years on MitoPure — What She Actually Noticed
🧴 [29:08] Why Skin Results Show Up in Just Two Weeks
🩺 [36:43] Her Ten Year Lyme Journey and What Finally Worked
❤️ [38:35] The Doctor Who Said "I Believe You" and Changed Everything
🌱 [43:55] How to Stop Being Dismissed and Find the Right Provider

LINKS
Timeline’s website: https://www.timeline.com/
Timeline on Instagram @timeline_longevity
Jen Scheinman on Instagram @jenscheinman_nutrition

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Do you ever feel there might be more to your story than what’s happened in just this lifetime?

In this perspective-shifting episode, we go beyond the ordinary and delve into the topic of past lives —  as a powerful lens for understanding the fears, patterns, gifts, and deeper themes that may be shaping our lives. 

I sat down with past-life psychic and spiritual teacher Ainslie MacLeod, author of The Instruction and The Old Soul’s Guidebook, for a thought-provoking conversation about the deeper story of our souls, and where our fears, gifts, and purpose may truly come from. 

Ainslie shares how he works with his spirit guides, what actually happens during a past-life reading, and how we can begin to trust our own intuition on a deeper level. He even does a live reading on one of my own past lives — revealing patterns that felt incredibly accurate and, honestly, shocking — even for me! Whether you interpret these patterns literally, symbolically, or simply as a doorway into self-reflection, the real invitation is to ask: does this help you understand yourself more deeply and let go of what no longer serves you? 

We dive into Ainslie's perspective on soul age and soul types, and how our soul’s journey across lifetimes may be shaping our relationships, our fears, our sensitivity, and our drive to make a difference. Ainslie explains how past-life experiences can show up as self-worth struggles, perfectionism, people-pleasing, and emotional triggers — and how simply bringing awareness to these patterns can create profound shifts. 

This episode is a powerful reminder that we may not be starting from scratch… and that your soul may be guiding you toward something far greater than you realize. My goal was to hold this conversation with curiosity and openness, not to convince you of anything, but to explore what becomes possible when we look at our lives through a new lens. If you’ve ever felt different, deeply sensitive, or called to something more — this conversation is for you.

Key Moments You'll Love ✨ :

🌀 [0:00] Past Life Trauma Becomes Present Day Pain

👻 [1:57] How a Ghost in Hawaii Started His Psychic Career

🧬 [12:59] Soul Ages and Soul Types Explained

🔮 [14:11] Kelly Gets Her Reading Live on Air
🧬 [36:51] The Past Life That Explains Her Fear of Betrayal

🔒 [39:08] Why She Craves Freedom Above Everything

💔 [41:35] A Brutal Past Life Death and What It Left Behind

🧠 [46:29] The Leader Soul Type and Learning to Let Go

🌍 [58:22] Lost and Sick? Start Here to Find Your Purpose

❤️ [1:02:56] Why Old Souls Are Here to Build Community and Lead With Heart

  

LINKS

Ainslie MacLeod’s website: https://ainsliemacleod.com/

Ainslie MacLeod on Instagram: @ainslie_macleod

The Instruction book on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3PEE1Bk

The Old Soul’s Guidebook on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3NLhVfT

TIMELINE: Mitopure now starts at just $79. Go to ⁠timeline.com/healwithkelly to get 20% off Mitopure supplements and Skincare with code HEALwithKelly.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What if all the mistakes you've made, the shame you’ve carried and the terrible way you have treated yourself, are all part of the journey back to who you truly are. My ex-husband always used to say, "Sometimes we have to go to the wrong place to get to the right place” and he was right. And no, the irony is not lost on me ;) 

The newest episode of Heal with Kelly is near and dear to my heart because I sit down with my beautiful friend Jamie Lynn Sigler — beloved for her role as Meadow Soprano in HBO’s The Soprano’s.  We dive into her powerful new book out this week called  And So It Is... A Memoir of Acceptance and Hope. Jamie is incredibly brave and raw in her writing.  She shares with radical honesty and humility and her story rocked me to my core while lighting me up with hope and compassion. 

Jamie has lived with Multiple Sclerosis (and Lyme) for 25 years. For most of that time, she hid it — from directors, from co-stars, from the world. Before her diagnosis, she hid an eating disorder and a suffocating shame that wasn’t even hers.  She shares what those years of silence cost her, and how finally telling the truth, the most courageous act one can do, actually set her free. 

I cried so many times reading Jamie’s new book. I saw myself in so much of her story and her journey is truly gripping, heartbreaking, and full of miracles. I could not recommend this book more.  

In this episode we go deep on the inner voice that intends to protect us but turns out to be far more harmful than any external enemy. We discuss the way shame cripples our sense of worth and what it actually looks like to stop performing and start living. Jamie opens up about her son Beau's near-death experience — and the message he brought back that became her lighthouse. She shares the moment she fell to her knees in a hospital hallway and felt, for the first time, that she was not alone. And she talks about what it means to finally walk into a room and say: this is how I move. This is who I am.

 

This conversation is about surrender and breakthrough, plant medicine and prayer, generational healing and the stories we carry in our bodies. It's a reminder that healing is never about fixing what’s broken — it's about remembering who you are beneath everything you've been told to hide.

Key Moments You'll Love ✨ :

💗 [0:00] 25 Years of Hiding — The Breaking Point That Changed Everything

📖 [12:23] Why She Finally Said Yes to Writing the Book

✉️ [14:12] The Letter to Her Younger Self That Started It All

🙏 [23:46] Her Son's Health Crisis and the Night She Surrendered to God

✨ [26:09] Her Son's Near-Death Experience and What He Told Her After

🌿 [44:26] A Plant Medicine Vision of Her Ancestors Taking the Arrows

💔 [49:52] "MS Was My Calling Back to Myself"

😢 [52:08] Losing Her Brother and Making Peace With His Story

🎭 [1:02:44] Walking Into Auditions With MS and Owning Every Step

❤️ [1:03:56] What Acceptance Actually Looks Like in the Body

LINKS

And So It Is... A Memoir of Acceptance and Hope book on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4cw3W64

Jamie on Instagram @jamielynnsigler

SPONSORS:

BON CHARGE: Go to boncharge.com and use code HEALWITHKELLY to save 15%.

QUALIA: Go to qualialife.com/HEAL for 50% off. As a special bonus, use code HEAL for an additional 15% off your order. 

COZY EARTH:COZY EARTH: Go to ⁠⁠cozyearth.com⁠⁠ and use code HEAL for 20% OFF. And if you see a post-purchase survey, mention you heard about it here on HEAL with Kelly.

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