Mikayla Lynn Sprung (@the.raw.sol) is a women’s health and nutrition coach with a focus on herbalism and aligning with our true design. She’s also the founder of Gordita Skincare, a line of tallow-based products that she formulates and makes by hand.
#89: Mikayla Sprung
Alberta, Canada
What does health, or being healthy, mean to you?
Health, to me, is about coherence. It is harmony between the body, the soul, the environment, and God. It is a deep sense of alignment, where life feels divinely ordered.
Coherence comes from a raw intimacy with life, being in it deeply, tasting it fully, suffering honestly when suffering is present, and then choosing to create from those experiences. When we fall out of coherence, the body often communicates through symptoms what needs our attention. We can slip out of coherence quite easily in our modern, disordered living conditions, and I think we often have to live quite intentionally to return to alignment.
I personally feel healthiest when I’m living close to nature and close to God. This is when my default state becomes faith, even when the world feels saturated in fear. I notice more synchronicities, playfulness, whimsy, and desire to live. I feel a stronger desire to engage with life instead of bracing against it. I see health as the capacity to stay present through pain and discomfort. It’s about having the energy to do what I love, and the ability to be present with the people I love, not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually.
It’s essential to care for physical health, but I think it is very important not to obsess over it. It’s meant to support your life without taking it over. There is a fine line between strengthening and honoring the body God gave us, and worshipping it. The body is something to tend to with reverence. Health is something to steward.
How would you describe your current lifestyle?
My current lifestyle is slow and inward. There is a lot of integration happening and a lot of love. It feels like I am peeling back layers and facing parts of myself that I avoided for a long time. I am learning how to step away from noise without completely retreating from, and how to be in the world, but not of it. I am in a season of letting go and letting God. I spend a lot of time alone in deep reflection. I am practicing staying present in my life instead of constantly reaching for distraction. I still feel the pull to numb out sometimes, but I’m getting better at choosing stillness.
The body is something to tend to with reverence. Health is something to steward.
I spend time with people I love, with animals, and in nature. I ride horses. I walk. I spend a lot of time outside, and a lot of time in silence. I am growing into a quieter life, and starting to love it. I am nurturing myself and my relationships. I’m not in a rush. I used to live life with a lot more intensity, and now I’m allowing it to be steadier.
How do you start and end your days?
I wake up and, when possible, get natural light in my eyes. I take my supplements, usually with orange juice. I do a coffee enema as part of my mineral-balancing and heavy metal detox protocol. I oil pull, then brush my teeth. I shower, turn on my red light panel, apply a simple skincare routine using tallow and hydrosol, and do facial massage. Then I do dry brushing, the Big 6 lymphatic routine, and the vibration plate. I make a cacao elixir, burn frankincense resin, read the Bible, journal, and write down my dreams when I remember them.
After that, I walk my dogs, eat breakfast, and go to the gym most days. I mostly do functional and strength training about 4-5 times a week.
During the day, I usually make tallow, pack orders, and study. I’m currently in the process of becoming a clinical herbalist. I often work on my laptop while walking on my walking pad, which sometimes makes me feel like a hamster in a cage, but it seems to be quite beneficial, especially in the winter.
In the evening, I eat dinner and then either sauna or take a bath most nights. I turn on red lights and candles, use the vibration plate again, sometimes do myofascial release, spray myself with magnesium, and read under a chicken light before bed.
This routine may sound like a lot, but I stack many of these practices.
Can you recall a moment when you became more aware of your health, or your relationship to it changed?
My family was fairly health conscious growing up. We ate whole foods, much of our meat came from hunting, we had filtered water in the house, and we spent a lot of our time outside.
In my teenage years, I began experiencing extreme fatigue, insomnia, and mental health struggles. I was prescribed ADHD medication, anti-anxiety medication, and antidepressants. I was also drinking and partying a lot. Even though I performed fairly well academically and athletically, there was a lot happening internally that I did not know how to process. I still cared about health, but I can see now that I was spiritually compromised and deeply disconnected. In my first year of university, I developed chronic kidney infections and eventually discovered I was celiac. Removing gluten resolved the issue, and that experience changed my view of the body completely. I went off all pharmaceuticals and started to feel a lot better. That was the beginning of my deeper interest in nutrition and herbalism, and eventually in the relationship between emotional pain and physical symptoms.
Health became a central focus in my life and the work I pursued. For a while, I genuinely felt like I was doing well. I felt resilient. Then this past year, I went through more emotional turmoil than I think I ever have in my life, and it felt like the ground was ripped out from under me. Within six months, three close friends, all only in their 30s, and my father died. There were also relationship strains and endings during that time that created additional emotional turmoil. It felt relentless. The grief was layered and confusing, and most of the time I could not even tell who or what I was grieving. I felt extremely unregulated, like something bad was always about to happen. For the first time in years, I watched my health start to shift alongside my emotional state. My chronic pain flared intensely, I was exhausted, I gained weight, and I looked inflamed and puffy. It was confronting to see how directly the emotional state can impact the body.
This showed me on a whole new level that health practices can only take you so far. Bodywork, herbal support, massage, and homeopathy were helpful, but they could not carry me through grief. I was forced to turn to God in a way I never had before. Grief shattered my illusion of control and made it impossible to pretend that I could hold myself together through willpower alone. Death became my harshest and greatest teacher. It exposed how much presence I had been avoiding. I still feel like I am integrating it all, but I live differently now, and I see life differently now. I feel like a completely different person. Grief has a way of shifting life very quickly.
After my father passed away, I received a message that felt like it was from God: I must keep my heart soft, no matter what. Allowing your heart to harden is what creates hell for yourself and others, and it does not matter how much pain you go through, you must fight for softness.
Do you have a spiritual practice?
I’ve explored many spiritual paths over the years, but Christianity is where I feel the most peace. It was not an instant conversion for me. It has been a slow burn. I was lukewarm for a long time and, in many ways, I still am more lukewarm than I would like to be. I would say my faith is the most important thing in my life right now.
I pray in the morning, in the evening, and throughout the day. I try to speak to God honestly and regularly. When my thoughts spiral, I pray about it. I have a strong tendency toward self-criticism, and prayer has helped soften that pattern in me over time. I’ve been reading the Bible daily and doing guided studies, which have been grounding.
The more I stopped trying to fix myself through endless analysis, the more peace I began to experience.
I initially resisted Christianity because of my own misconceptions and assumptions. When I actually read the Bible, I was surprised by how much it resonated. I used to be immersed in self-help, self-love culture, and New Age spirituality. Some of it felt helpful temporarily, but it never felt stable. It kept me circling myself, always searching and never satisfied. Looking back, I can see that I was trying to save myself, and I was exhausting myself in the process. I now believe much of that culture promotes narcissistic tendencies rather than healing.
For me, confidence did not come from trying to love myself harder or constantly trying to escape shame. It came from focusing less on myself altogether and orienting my life toward God. I think our culture treats constant self-examination as a form of healing, but in my experience it often becomes another form of self-obsession. What I actually needed was meaning, responsibility, community, and a life rooted in service. The more I stopped trying to fix myself through endless analysis, and instead surrendered my life to God, the more peace I began to experience.
What’s your relationship to self-healing?
I like to understand my body and take responsibility for my health and well-being. I feel fairly in tune with my body and emotions, and most of the time when something comes up, I can sense what it is connected to and address it early. At the same time, I am very aware of my limits, and I am not afraid to ask for help. Many of my close friends are health practitioners, and I trust their judgment, so I ask their advice often. Discernment is key. Sometimes rest and prayer are enough, and sometimes professional support is necessary. Humility shortens suffering.
Do you work with any practitioners, texts, or modalities on a regular basis?
I regularly receive acupuncture, massage, and chiropractic care, sometimes craniosacral therapy as well. I have scoliosis, and these seem to help quite a lot with related symptoms. I also work with a practitioner for mineral balancing (HTMA-based). Many of the modalities I use are already part of my daily routine that I mentioned earlier, but I also incorporate herbal and homeopathic remedies and experiment with different supplements. Lymphatic work has been a major focus for me recently.
How do you reset?
Baths. I spend a lot of time in the bath. I often add baking soda, Epsom salts, niacinamide, salicylic acid, Celtic sea salt, orange and lemon peels, as well as herbs. The herbs usually include rosemary, rose, chamomile, blue lotus, calendula, and lavender. I always feel better when I have at least a few baths a week and will sit in one for 2-3 hours most of the time.
Cleaning, making a beautiful meal, and spending time in nature are also things that help me reset. Leaving my phone at home and going for a walk helps too. Writing helps as well. Working out. I’ve been lifting weights for over 10 years now, and that always seems to make me feel better. Movement in all areas.
When do you feel the most nourished?
I feel most nourished when I am with people I love, when I sing, write music, spend time in nature, attend Orthodox Church services, have honest conversations, eat homemade food, and ride horses. Above all, I feel nourished when I focus on my faith. I can do every health practice perfectly, but if I neglect prayer and scripture, I feel it immediately. Everything else feels secondary to that.
What types of foods are you typically drawn towards? Do you have a favorite meal?
I love tartare and raw steak, and I eat a lot of raw meat. My diet consists mostly of raw meat, cooked vegetables, juice, raw dairy, cottage cheese, honey, sushi, and gelatinous soups. I eat a lot of mushrooms as well, and I incorporate plenty of fresh herbs into my meals. I prioritize local, organic, and seasonal food as best as I can.
What advice would you give to your younger self?
Stay humble. Consume less. Get off your phone. Read slowly. Have more fun. Do not get swept up in the current thing. Remember that God has already won. Accept the death of who you think you are, and let yourself die again and again. Let God walk you through the fire and allow it to purify you, and keep your faith even when it does not make sense. Sing more, write more, and express yourself creatively, because so much suffering comes from what stays trapped inside. Stop being so hard on yourself. Constant self-deprecation helps no one. Nurture relationships that bring you closer to God.
Shift out of the fear-based mindset where you are constantly trying to fix yourself. Trust God and stop trying to control everything. When you get that intuitive feeling that something is not right, listen to it. The tests will get harder, and that is a good thing. Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid. Call out evil, especially the desires within yourself. Be honest with God about your struggle, and remember you do not need to do it alone.
A hardened heart can make you productive, detached, and “successful” in a worldly sense, but it comes at a cost.
Guard your heart. This does not require closing yourself off, it requires discernment about what you allow into your mind and heart, because whatever you repeatedly take in will shape you. The more you drift from God, the easier it becomes to harden without even realizing it, and the world will often reward that hardness. A hardened heart can make you productive, detached, and “successful” in a worldly sense, but it comes at a cost. The rewards are material and fleeting, and they are never worth what they take from you.
Remind yourself everyday that you are a child of God!
To the person reading this?
We live in a culture shaped by lust and gluttony, and it is easy to underestimate how much it affects the mind. More is not better, and consuming more will not make you wiser or more enlightened. It often creates overwhelm and a false sense of progress. There is a spiritual sickness in the modern world that constantly pushes you toward more: more stimulation, more pleasure, more identity, more consumption. It never satisfies, it only deepens the hunger. The more you feed your appetites, the more they demand from you. Constant consumption of information means nothing without integration. Slow down and integrate what you take in. Humility matters more than ever, because it is easy to become arrogant and think you know better simply because you know more. A mind flooded with input becomes fragmented, restless, and easier to manipulate.
Return to what is real. Read physical books, write with pen and paper, and spend time in nature and with people you love. Reduce your reliance on technology and do as much as you can in person. Choose quality over quantity, not only in what you consume, but in how you live.
What would you like to see or create more of in the world?
I would like to see more handmade things, more in-person gatherings, and more real community. I want to create for and with others, and to make things that feel meaningful and nourishing.
I want to create from a place of love and truth. I really would like to create more music. I feel torn about sharing it publicly because it is deeply personal and vulnerable, but I also feel that it is a calling, and I do not want fear to be the reason I keep it hidden.
Ultimately, I want to live a life rooted in presence, and I want to create things that invite other people back into presence, too.
❤️
This interview was amazing and really resonated!