Today we’d like to introduce you to Kristen Poe.
Kristen, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I am very passionate and enthusiastic about health and wellness, which is what led me to start POE Holistic Health. My life has certainly taken me down many different roads, but I am finally living out my passion working in the Holistic health and wellness field, and most importantly helping others. My educational background includes a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology, an MBA in Marketing, a Post-Graduate Diploma in Holistic Health, and a Ph.D. in Alternative Medicine.
My work experience and history include experience in psychology, co-owning a small business, the pharmaceutical industry, and now Holistic Health and Wellness. You are probably wondering how I ever landed in the alternative medicine world with such a diverse educational and professional background, especially one that included the pharmaceutical industry.
About 10 years ago, I found myself feeling tired and lousy almost daily and not taking care of myself. I was making many poor life, health, and nutrition choices, and I knew something had to change but was not sure what or how. With time, I made positive changes in my physical and emotional health and became familiar with what it meant to have good nutrition.
I started exercising and working with a fantastic personal trainer (Jen DiCandia of NV Fitness), as well as eating mindfully (and understanding) what it meant to have a balanced diet. This unlocked my passion for nutrition, and I soon became involved in fitness competing for several years. It completely blew my mind that just by eating well and choosing the right foods, I felt like a new person and achieved a physique I never thought was possible.
I have a unique and multi-dimensional perspective when it comes to Holistic Health. My father is a practicing primary care physician and has always been one of my biggest role models. My original plan was to go to medical school, and possibly specialize in Psychiatry. I wanted to be 100% sure that traditional medical school was the path I wanted to take, so I worked and took some time off to ensure it was my calling. Life led me down a completely different path for a while, but with time, soul-searching, research, and personal experience, my passion, and love for Holistic Health and Alternative Medicine grew and continued to call me. I have always had an unwavering passion to help others with their health, and always wanted to be a doctor. I finally realized being a wellness doctor was my calling.
Growing up in a traditional western medicine family, and having a lot of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, I gained a lot of knowledge about allopathic medicine. I have the utmost respect for Western medicine and have certainly had many instances in my own life, as well as the lives of family members and friends, where I have been extremely grateful for the modern medical field and its cutting-edge doctors, procedures, technology, and medicine.
However, my own experiences, as well as those of others, have given me the opportunity to also see the ways alternative/holistic health and good nutrition can truly prevent, improve, and help heal many medical conditions. Research has shown significant statistical decreases in many diseases and co-morbidities that exist today just by making proper eating and nutrition a focal part of our daily lives. This is where my journey of studying Holistic Health began.
There are many instances in my own life, as well as the lives of some of my patients and clients that require the synergy of Western and Holistic/Alternative Health modalities, which has elicited tremendous results. On the contrary, there are some situations that can be remedied with lifestyle changes, nutrition, and Holistic Health alone.
There are many schools of thought when it comes to Holistic Health and Alternative Medicine, but I strongly believe in a harmonious synergy of traditional Western and Holistic methods for truly optimized health. This is where POE Holistic Health begins. POE represents my health vision and passion (and also happens to be my last name). POE stands for Personalized Optimized Essentials.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
One of the biggest challenges I have faced is the time constraint of building my business and balancing my family life. It seems as if there are not enough hours in the day sometimes to achieve everything I want to do. Many days, I work from the time my children go to bed at night until the early hours of the morning. I am incredibly blessed with my 3-year old daughter as well as a set of twins, who are my pride and joy. They certainly keep me busy, and It can be challenging balancing mom and home life and work.
This challenge is precisely what helped me create the idea for POE Holistic Health. It dawned on me that balancing time constraints and the normal demands of life are challenges that most of us face daily.
There are a lot of holistic health clinics, but I realized there are very few virtual wellness clinics. A virtual wellness clinic would eliminate the stress of scheduling an appointment during normal work hours, having to figure out daycare or babysitting, and accounting for travel time. People can access virtual appointments at their convenience and from the comfort of their own homes, and from all over the United States and the world. I also have office hours at Conscious Body Natural Medicine in both Holden and Brookline Massachusetts, which is owned by my mentor and preceptor Dr. Karen Clickner.
POE Holistic Health – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
POE Holistic Health stands for Personalized Optimized Essentials. I believe that these are the tools needed to live a consistent and healthy lifestyle. They will ultimately facilitate improvement in physical and emotional health, and promote better daily functioning, performance, and stress management. My goal is to start a Holistic Health revolution through my multi-dimensional virtual holistic health clinic!
If I have to leave a legacy behind, it will be to be known as ‘America’s Virtual Wellness Doc’ that helped as many people as possible optimize their health and wellness. Small and subtle lifestyle modifications and habits can truly impact overall wellbeing, and serve as a catalyst for even more optimal health! I want to help as many people as I can live healthier and in a more holistic way, but in a realistic way. “Live Holistic, but realistic!” Small and subtle lifestyle changes over time can lead to significant improvements and health outcomes.
The services I offer include purification and detox solutions that are personalized and customized, holistic nutrition and weight loss solutions, personalized holistic health supplementation programs (including practitioner based whole-food nutritionals, hand-crafted herbs, essential oils, and homeopathic remedies), a variety of wellness lab testing services, as well as in-office services including European Regulation Thermography, trace mineral hair analysis, Genetic DNA testing for weight loss and aging.
Purification and detoxification are one of my specialties, as well as personalized supplementation programs, as well as mom’s and women’s health. A large part of POE Holistic Health is providing health and wellness education and motivation on social media. Social media is a powerful tool because it provides the ability to reach countless numbers of people around the world, which traditional marketing modalities cannot do.
I blog regularly on a variety of health and wellness topics, and have daily specials on living a holistic lifestyle posted on social media including Motivational Mondays, ‘You Oughta Know with Dr. Poe’ Tuesdays, Work-Out Wednesdays, Tasty Thursdays which features healthy recipes, Fatloss Fridays, Stress Less Saturdays, and Spiritual Sundays. My goal is to provide as much wellness education as I can, in order to help others and impact their lives through knowledge and health optimization.
What is “success” or “successful” for you?
I personally define success as being the best mom and wife I can be and balancing my work harmoniously. Success for me is being able to help as many people as I can and live out my passion daily. In his book entitled ‘Crush It’ American Entrepreneur and four-time, New York Times bestselling author Gary Vaynerchuk talks about identifying and living out your passion. He posted a statement that will stick with me for the rest of my life.
He essentially said that you know you have identified your passion when you would choose to do it even if you did not get paid for it. I realized at that moment that I would choose to do this even if it was not my career. Helping others achieve better health makes me happy and is extremely motivating. There is no better feeling than when a patient or client reaches out to me and says “thank you, I am feeling much better” or “I feel like a new person!”
Pricing:
- Virtual Holistic Health Consultation-$50 (30-45 minute session)
Contact Info:
- Website: www.poeholistichealth.com
- Phone: (508) 388-2853
- Email: drkristenpoe@poeholistichealth.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/drkristenpoe
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/drkistenpoe
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/drkristenpoe
Image Credit:
Reg Bradford & Mike Brochu, Canva
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