The surgeon general nominee earned her medical degree at Stanford University but did not complete her surgical residency program. During her time in the mainstream medical system, Means has held full-time biomedical research positions at the National Institutes of Health, New York University, and Oregon Health and Science University and published seven scientific articles listed in the NIH PubMed research library database.

Means says she quit her residency training program because she became jaded with the perverse incentives of the medical system to go without treating the root causes of chronic disease, a mindset that brought her into alignment with the skepticism of mainstream medicine espoused by supporters of the Make America Healthy Again Movement.

In January 2024, Means started her Good Energy newsletter, where she shares wellness tips, recipes, and health news. Five months later, she and her brother Calley Means, who is now a close adviser to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., published their highly influential nutritional wellness book under the newsletter’s namesake.

Most of the criticism of Means, including from Trump’s first-term Surgeon General Jerome Adams and the Wall Street Journal editorial board, has focused on her comparative lack of experience in public health and her skepticism of vaccines rather than her wellness influencer writings and social media content.

The Washington Examiner reviewed two years’ worth of social media content and newsletters from Means to get to the heart of her philosophy, which stresses the connection between bodily and spiritual health.

Here are some of the highlights of Means’s wellness influencer content, in her own words.

Means says she embraced the ‘woo-woo’

Means has said she embraced the so-called ‘woo-woo,’ a term often used to dismiss supernatural beliefs or practices, to deepen her spiritual connection to the universe in her mid-thirties after the loss of her mother to stage 4 pancreatic cancer.

A section of her October 2024 newsletter, titled “Embrace the ‘Woo Woo’ (AKA the mystery),” Means describes the steps she took to “tap into the ‘mystical’ side of evolving my consciousness.”  

“I set up a small meditation shrine in my house and prayed to photos of my ancestors asking for support on my personal journey, and wrote mantras and manifestations on small pieces of paper and tucked them around the shrine,” Means wrote.    

Means said she also “talked (literally out loud) to the trees” asking them for guidance in her romantic life, “did full moon ceremonies,” and “did plant medicine experiences with trusted guides.” 

During this period in her life, Means said she also read a great deal of poetry, particularly from transcendentalist and modernist writers such as Sylvia Plath and Kathleen Jamie, among others.

Means published a poem of her own as one of her newsletters, titled “The Devil’s Wellness Plan.” The speaker in the long-form poem outlines how they would use an overload of screens, processed sugar, pollution, and other societal ills to “zap our life-force.”

‘Source,’ the divine, and the body

Means frequently refers to a connection to a God-like presence or divine awareness, which she calls “Source,” in her discussions on metabolic health and maintaining the body. For Means, living a healthy lifestyle is necessary in order to be connected to the spiritual realm.

In an October 2024 newsletter, Means describes that she believes “the body is simply the material ‘radio receiver’ through which we can ‘tune in’ to the divine,” saying that body and soul are disconnected in a “dualistic reality.”

Means made a similar point in a September 2024 interview. Then, she said it is easy to lose sight of our inherent divine nature if we do not take care of our bodies.  

“As we make the healthy choices, as we eat the healthy food, as we get sleep, as we move our bodies, we are creating the form of the body, the structure of the body that I think has an easier time connecting with Source,” Means said.

This connection to “Source” influences Means’ understanding of how food fuels the body and her description of metabolism, the process by which cells break down chemicals in food to release energy needed to sustain life.

Means makes this point clear in an April 2024 interview posted on her Instagram page, in which she said that a healthy relationship to food “has to come down to, like, honoring it and kind of worshiping it in a way” because of its role in maintaining the body.

“The reality is that every atom, every single molecule in your entire body is 100%, built from food,” Means said. “You are food. You are just this big 3D printer that’s using food as the ink to reprint your cells.”

Restoring femininity and praise of ‘yin energy’

Another strand of Means’ thought emphasizes returning to a “divine feminine” energy, largely based on women’s reproductive cycles. 

Means argues that a woman’s natural hormonal fluctuations affect her productivity levels. As echoed by other TikTok and Instagram influencers in recent years, the argument goes that a woman is creative and productive when estrogen is at its peak in the follicle and ovulation phases, and her energy levels drop during the luteal phase due to a rise in progesterone.

Under this logic, women are naturally more effective during the first half of their menstrual cycle and wane in ability following ovulation and before their period — a view which critics say diminishes women to biological functions rather than full humans.

In her May 2025 newsletter, inspired by the naturalistic elements of the Disney movie Moana, Means says women “can’t have ovulation without a cycle that has both yin and yang phases of hormones” and that creativity must be “followed by rest, restoration, and fallowness.

“Feminine creativity happens in cycles,” Means writes, “like the seasons, the tides, and the phases of the moon. Women are lunar beings who exist on a 28-day moon cycle, inherently reflecting the cycles and patterns of the cosmos.”

In an earlier newsletter, published in October 2024, Means describes how modern U.S. feminism was “co-opted by forces who saw women as workhorses” for economic benefit and tax revenue, ignoring the ebb and flow of women’s natural hormone cycles.

Means criticized the “do it all” feminism of the 90s and early 2000s, in which women were encouraged to be the so-called “modern woman” who could do both motherhood and career.

“Choose to do one or the other and you’re either a lazy housewife (and gold-digger) or a selfish capitalist career-woman,” Means wrote. “Choose to do both and you’re an absentee mom and a suboptimal employee and an [anti-depressant] junkie. Women have allowed themselves to become economic commodities, and are increasingly treated and traded as such.” 

She then compared industrialized agriculture, which Means says exploits the “life-giving” power of soil, to the exploitation of women’s creative capacity. 

“Just as soil needs gentle tending and nurturing to produce abundant food for the world, so too women can benefit from gentle tending and nurturing to be in a biological state to produce life,” Means wrote.

Christian criticism and defense of Means

Since she was nominated by Trump for the surgeon general post in spring 2025, conservatives have characterized Means’ views as pseudo-scientific at best and pagan at worst.

After Means’ confirmation hearing last week, conservative radio show host Erick Erickson lambasted Means in an essay for the Christian publication World, calling Trump’s nominee “a near Wiccan speaking spells,” referring to the modern paganist religion Wicca, which worships the Earth’s natural cycles.

Erickson’s critique following her confirmation hearing was the most scathing to date. He cited New Testament scripture in telling Christians to steer clear of “the spiritual forces of evil.”

“Means has engaged in occult practices to connect outside this present reality,” Erickson said. “But some Christians with illnesses or with children who are ill have bought into Means’ repackaged occult beliefs in good and bad energy.”

Other conservatives, however, have come to Means’ defense, saying that unorthodox spiritual beliefs ought not disqualify anyone from public office.

Heritage Foundation Vice President Roger Severino, the chief of HHS’ Office of Civil Rights under the first Trump presidency, told the Washington Examiner in a statement that Means’ critics should be careful not to discriminate against Means based upon religious affiliations or spiritual conviction. 

“Critics should consider the ramifications of disqualifying people from public office because they hold controversial religious beliefs given how liberals regularly attack Christian nominees who believe in marriage and the sanctity of life as a matter of faith conviction,” Severino said via email.

An HHS spokesperson did not directly respond to questions from the Washington Examiner regarding Means’ spiritual content creation or how those insights would inform her tenure as surgeon general should she be confirmed. 

“Her credentials, research background, and experience in public life give her the right insights to be the surgeon general who helps make sure America never again becomes the sickest nation on earth,” said the HHS spokesperson.