The Accrescent Podcast Episode 176

And in today's conversation, I'm talking specifically about cancer. I mentioned tidbits here and there, but it's not something I've ever recorded a full episode on. And so I asked Kelly if she would come on the podcast to help facilitate. a conversation around what it is I do and the frameworks and the perceptions I'm looking at when I'm working with cancer patients to not just, one, help them through this diagnosis, right?

Are there emotional contributors? Is there past unprocessed turbulence, past unprocessed trauma, generational trauma, etc? And so this is my first attempt really at trying to depict what that work looks like when I'm sitting down with a cancer patient. I wasn't planning on releasing this episode so soon, but I just felt so lit up by it that I decided to release it even earlier than I had initially planned.

If there's someone you know you think could really benefit from hearing this conversation, please consider sending it along to them. So with that, please enjoy this conversation between Kelly and I.

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But through, I think, just total providence or kismet energy, I was introduced to the Cancer Center for Healing here in Irvine, California. And at the Cancer Center, Dr. Keneally, they take a very, very integrative, holistic approach to treating cancer. And the long story short is they have something there called Evox therapy, which is a type of voice mapping biofeedback therapy that they have all of their patients do.

I got certified a year later and then I launched my own practice and now I'm almost four years in. I'm getting my PhD in depth psychology and healing. So that's kind of the journey is I had my own, you know, very mild experience with cancer compared to now what I see working with patients, but it really was this like patient to practitioner journey that has led me to where I am today.

Yeah, I think maybe I'll start with even some statistics, which is one, only 5 percent of cancer is genetic. We know this. That means the other 95 percent is lifestyle based. And lifestyle includes our diet, our hormones, our toxic burden, our emotional burden, it includes all of those other things. And I think that's something that in conventional oncology isn't being talked about a lot.

Most of the patients I work with are coming to us at the cancer center saying, yeah, my oncologist told me, no, there, we don't really know what causes this. There's no root cause. You're just unlucky. Sorry. And then, right, there's the three conventional modes of treatment, radiation, um, chemotherapy, and then surgery.

And that's something many of us don't realize. I did not know that before you first told me. Yes. And it can be a little jarring at first, but actually it's, it's a very hopeful thing because the reality is we all have cancer cells. Most of us, our body is able to fight off those cells and expel them so that they don't take over and become a cancerous.

And oftentimes there's physiological things. Taking up your body's capacity, too much of the bad stuff, not enough of the good stuff, right? Physiologically, it's what are the pathogenic load? Are there parasites? Is there mold? Is there heavy metal toxicity? Are there hormone imbalances? Are you not getting enough nutrition?

Um, Well, if they're all off fighting different things and that burden becomes greater and greater and greater, at some point, there's just going to be no army guys left to fight the cancer cells off. And so in a way it'd be really just becomes this math equation of What's taking up capacity? What do we need to do to clear that out?

But I'm working really, really specifically on that emotional piece and what is emotionally, energetically taking up capacity? Where's it coming from? And same thing. What do we need to do to clear it out? But the point I was making there is sometimes I like to give this analogy of the repressed emotions, the unprocessed experiences, the unprocessed trauma, the limiting beliefs that we maybe haven't looked at deeply.

And so, you know, again, in my goal is to go, let's gently clear out some of what's in that closet so that if you've got 50 percent of your capacity, keeping this emotional closet shut all day, every day, you only have 50%. To fight the cancer. Yeah. So that's kind of the broad strokes I think people don't realize sometimes also how full their closet may be already, right?

I know my emotions are a part of this. They, like, feel it so intuitively and they're like, let's get to work. I already have five things I want to talk about. Or there's some things that are really, really present for me. And then the other 50 percent are people coming in going, look, I'm interested in this.

But traditional. Conventional psychology really is only working with that conscious piece. And so when we think of it in these terms, if we've only ever done conventional psychology or therapy or counseling, you're addressing five to 20 percent and we're leaving, you know, 80 to 95 percent of the deeper root causes, completely uncharted, completely unexcavated.

So that's a big point I'd like to make. And with that, this idea that the intellectual mind really can move on quite quickly. And so when those, when those individuals come to me, I'm not dismissing that reality of, Hey, it's not triggering me anymore. I think I've moved on. And I agree with him on an intellectual level.

It's so muted, we can't really hear it. Was that almost your experience coming into, you know, your own cancer diagnosis and the EVOX journey? I think to an extent, absolutely, because I've always, I mean, you know, I've always been so introspective. So I've always been very interested in why am I doing what I'm doing?

and topics of this area. And yet, I didn't have any clear memories of it happening. So I never gave it a lot of time. But through EVOX, paired with this unconscious work, these memories started surfacing. And once I started working with a therapist of my own and kind of talking to some of my other family members, more pieces of that puzzle started to come together.

But I think it really speaks to. We don't know what's in the unconscious until we purposefully try to look at it and we all have an unconscious so it needs to be explored at some point. I really do think whether you have cancer or not, doing unconscious work should be a part of all of our learning.

But I think that was really the core. For me, right? Well, just like we do, you know, we can't see within our bodies. Right? So we go to the doctor, we do blood work, we get our checkup. We go through the motions to understand what we can't see and to kind of piece together what that's saying about our overall health.

This is going to be a long journey. Maybe you want to work with a therapist to help you through that journey, which by the way, isn't happening all the time anyways. So it's a start that some oncologists are even recommending that, but this goes so much deeper than that. And when I sit down with patients on, in those first sessions, I talk about these two paths that we must walk down during our time together.

over the course of sessions. One is that path of what I call present day turbulence. So absolutely, I'm working with patients to go, Hey, where is their overwhelm, confusion, conflict, maybe even in this journey, in the choices you're making. And really, how can we get you more, the most peace, calm, and clarity as possible to go through this diagnosis.

For the most part, first sessions Especially if it's a new diagnosis, right? If it's someone coming in, on occasion, I get people who are now wanting to be preventative or, for example, they're in remission and they're wanting to now go process the trauma of cancer itself, which is a whole other, whole other thing.

Even if you think you've processed them, let's just get them down so that we know I'm asking about generational trauma. I'm asking about birth trauma. I'm also asking about what's happened within the last 8 to 10 years. This is also something Dr. Keneally talks a lot about where from the time it takes a cancer cell about 8 to 10 years to become a cancer, a tumor.

And so we're always really particularly interested in that timeline as well. It's very fascinating how often the people I work with, there is some really intense trauma or chronic stressor within that eight to 10 year timeline as well. So I'm asking a lot of questions about all these things to create kind of a roadmap of here's some of the places.

But I have a pretty good sense of where we need to go. And this is also part of my process working with the subconscious is Giving really pointed questions or prompts or imagery to even allow the unconscious itself to reveal Where does it want us to go first and that is, you know, really a part of it Is that maybe one of the bigger struggles for patients that you see just even tapping into or connecting with the subconscious?

That's a good question. I mean, on occasion, maybe it's, it's more difficult than most, but I do think because I've been doing this so long, I do have a way of being able to, first of all, sort of preface it for them and say, Hey, we're, we're observing what's coming up in our thoughts. Be an observer. Just get curious.

And then things will just start surfacing so organically where clients will say, okay, this is crazy. I've spent 18 years of therapy on this topic and never had this thought come through or never had this epiphany or this clarity or this memory surface organically. Yeah, that's definitely my experience.

The first is something called voice mapping, and then the second is biofeedback. So what we're doing with voice mapping is As I'm in session with a client or patient, I can actually measure the tones in their voice as they're talking to get a graph of what emotions are imbalanced. And then once we've identified those imbalanced emotions, we are outputting into the body the frequencies that have been found to help support the balancing and the release of those emotions.

And why I love this, and you know, as a patient when I was going through it, I started to think, Oh my gosh, I think this is the tool I was meant to use to help people. Cause it pairs so well with how I work and kind of my, my flow and my gifts and working with the unconscious. But how do I use that? How does that pair with this work?

Because the reality is, for example, like traditional talk therapy. And by the way, I want to be really clear. I'm not knocking it. I think traditional talk therapy can and has been absolutely life saving for people. It's just a piece of the puzzle, right? What I'm doing with unconscious work is just another piece of the puzzle.

We start to produce adrenaline and cortisol and noradrenaline. And the body starts to go into a defense state. And so this is one of the reasons why I think sometimes talk therapy can be very slow going is we're sitting down and we're starting to talk about something really triggering. Our nervous system gets activated.

Our brain starts to shut down and then we're not able to see things as clearly. I like the analogy of if, if the mind and the psyche is like a tide pool, in the ocean and we're trying to look into these tide pools to see what's going on in here. But if waves just keep crashing and crashing and crashing in these mountains, it's so hard to get a clear view of what's going on.

And then that pair, these prompts that I'm giving to clients and patients that really help us then, you know, access even more of that unconscious state. Right. And I would just add that having gone to a lot, many, many years of traditional talk therapy, leaving a session, feeling activated, going through, you know, and revisiting a painful topic, feeling really emotionally activated, takes a long time to calm the nervous system back down from.

And I think that's been a huge gift to me. Um, and I know others in Evox who are able to leave a session just through the tool itself, feeling to your point, very calm, I can move forward in my day, even though maybe I talked through something that was very challenging. I'm able to return to work or to my family feeling still engaged with life and present to it rather than totally emotionally drained and, you know, unsettled.

and they can still leave feeling so much lighter. And what's really cool is the patient or client gets to leave with their report of the graph of imbalanced emotions. There's little descriptions that kind of talk about each of those emotions and how they can be impacting us emotionally, spiritually, physically.

But with that said, I don't necessarily need those charts and those graphs to know what's going on in the unconscious. And this is why I think Evox pairs so well with what I do, because as we're going through session and the patient is talking, there's so much I hear in the undertones of what they're saying where.

They might be talking about something over here and I'm kind of like, Ooh, I'm hearing, I'm hearing undertones of generational trauma here. Let's explore this. And then that opens up something totally new for them. Or this, you know, there's some things here that sound almost like a ripple effect of birth trauma.

So I think they pair so well together because I like to say EVOX, EVOX makes the mind, body, and spirit so much more malleable. Right. We're trying to clear things and it maybe takes that icicle and just melts it and softens it a little bit. I'm really good at identifying what needs to be released and what needs to shift.

Because to your point, you hear generational trauma and what they're saying, but if I'm the patient sitting there, I don't hear that in my tone or how I'm speaking about my own life story at all. So you're just a really gracious and I think, um, exceptionally, uh, kind of wise mirror to hold up to us and say, Hey, this is what I'm hearing.

This is what I see. I think it can be kind of shocking. I know I said that, but wow, I never thought of it that way. And, and you kind of have a unique gifts at being able to kind of hold that up and say, this is what I'm seeing. And I think maybe you see it too. And I think Evox to your point really does make.

The spirit open to that too. You know, there's, there's less of a defensiveness. I don't need to feel like, oh, well, she pointed this out. You know, there's a, an open heartedness that I think really does come even from the EVOX tool itself because the subconscious does feel so safe to sit there vulnerably.

So when there's cancer that has become overridden, it's not that your body failed you. In fact, it's that your body has been fighting for so long, all these other things going on. Again, the pathogens, the pollutants, the chemicals, the. past trauma for so long that it's like, I want to keep protecting you, but I don't have the fuel left to do it.

And I just think when we approach the mind, body and spirit in that way, it responds in a completely different way too, because there's such a knowing going on here. And when we approach it from this aggressive sort of you failed me, I need to beat you into submission. I, I think, you know, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, all the things that just causes the, you know, the defenses to go up even more versus approaching it in this really gentle, empathetic, compassionate, even grateful way of, I just want to understand what's going on and what you're protecting me from, et cetera.

affecting all parts. And also your treatment plan from that perspective is so huge. And to your point, I think they start to work in harmony, almost like the gears of a, of a bike or an engine, right? They start to really click into place and work together towards that greater healing. Yeah. And it's so funny because even in the holistic world where this emotional work is much more widely accepted still, it's maybe 1 percent of the process right now.

Right. Even at the cancer center. Patients might spend six hours or seven hours out of their eight hour day at the cancer center doing things to address physiological issues. And then maybe they spend one hour with me addressing potential emotional energetic imbalances. And so even within the holistic world, I feel there's more education I want to do around Oh, it's got to be so much more than just one percent.

And I'm trying to say you need to be doing something every single day for your emotional, energetic, and spiritual self, even outside of sessions. And I'd like that something to be, you know, ideally more than just like a five minute meditation or something, something a little bit deeper. Although there's days where we do that too, but especially when we're in the thick of treatments, again, kind of thinking of it in this way.

Yeah. And all we're doing is like this physical one. We're giving them all this food and rest and hot baths and coffee in a mug, like all the things. Right. And then these other days we're kind of like, Oh, I might spend five minutes with you guys later. Yeah. Doesn't make sense. Does it? Intentional guidance.

And this brings me to another point, which I think is worth noting that that is a skill. And I don't think this is talked about enough of, I can sit here and say, I want people to be spending some amount of time every single day on their emotional, spiritual, mental health. And, and somehow just assuming that they're magically going to know how to do that.

And don't even get me started on. the educational system and how I wish all of that was a part of our education as kids. But I say that to like, don't feel disheartened if you're like, I want to do that, but I have no idea where to start. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Most of us had no training in emotional, mental, spiritual wellness.

And I'll make sure it's linked in the show notes below as well, the episode. But after I had this conversation with her, I immediately ran out and bought. The saffron latte powder and it is so delicious I drink it every single evening and it's become such a beautiful ritual for me because i'm such a beverage girly.

I love having Different beverages to drink throughout the day, but to also have something in the evening that has no caffeine Such clean ingredients, but what you'll guys hear if you haven't listened to that podcast episode yet Is that the studies have found recently that saffron at a certain dose at a certain dose is Just as effective as Prozac for helping Anxiety, depression, ADHD and so it's something that I have absolutely loved myself.

But it's become kind of my product of the year that I'm just like, oh my god, how can I get everyone to try this? So they have the latte powder, which I absolutely love and the dosage of saffron in the latte powder is the highest But they also have capsules that you can take that still meet that minimum dosage that has been studied And the capsules are a little bit, a little bit less expensive as well.

Oh my gosh, completely. Well, and this is a part of what I'm building out. As you know, um, the, the, my online membership that's coming very, very soon. That's meant to help guide clients and patients in that and provide so much support outside of sessions. So that when I say, Hey, I want you to be supporting yourself.

They can go into, there's a part of the membership called the soothing sanctuary. That is a huge library of guided breath work. Okay. Emotional freedom technique meditations, somatic exercises, nervous system exercises, sound baths, all these beautiful resources that kind of really equip them and it's going to be really specific, which I'm so excited about to the point of like, hey, you've got an upcoming.

Right. There's so much more nuance to that. And that is also a part of the education I try to bring to sessions to offer clients that support outside of sessions is we want to become a master of ourselves. Meaning, yes, there's journaling, there's breath work, but kind of like what I already said about the soothing sanctuary, there's somatic exercises, there's vagus nerve exercises.

And I think that's important because, for example, Breathwork doesn't really resonate with me. I don't love it. I don't find it very impactful. I know, and I love it. You always say that. And I'm like, it's amazing. It's transcendental. Yes. And someone else might be like, Oh my gosh, Breathwork is my jam. It does so much for me.

But that's why I also think sometimes people can feel disheartened because when only two or three things are really highlighted in the mainstream media, And they try those two or three things and it's not very impactful. Then they kind of go, Oh, well, I guess there's just no tools for me. So there are hundreds of different tools out there.

Is it a long journal session with myself? Is it a long, slow walk? Is it a, you know, a somatic flow? Is it something physical based? Is it a breath work? And, and so there's even a deeper attunement there that's happening that I love to develop that skill of being able to attune to oneself. And because you've You know, curated and experimented with so many different things.

You're able to go, Ooh, I'm feeling turbulent and uneasy. And here's the 20 tools I could go to. And as I'm attuning to myself, I know it's probably these one or two that are going to be most impactful. Sure. I've often found that that thing that I get to the end of the day and I get in bed and I think, gosh, I didn't do that.

And I find that I often have a few ideas right in that moment of like, I look back on my day and think, gosh, darn it could have or should have. Now shoulds aren't always a great thing, but sometimes there's a little clue in there around what my body's craving and what little nudge I might be getting.

And perhaps I received it all day long, discounted it. And then right at the moment of, you know, Utter peace and quiet. I'm shutting my brain off for the night. It pops back up again. So I've been trying to take little notes on that. Like that's what I need to, to integrate into the day to day, um, just as ideas.

There's something in that that's not random. How can we listen to that? But to that end, I think where a lot of people are at initially in this journey is they feel an unease. They feel turbulence, but. Because no one has given them that training on this tool and this tool and all the different resources.

So, um, there's so much to learn and to be exposed to out there, but it can feel very overwhelming and it's, I would say it has felt, uh, like a relief to know where to go to kind of be my one stop shop for like, I know with Leanne, I'm going to get. You know, five or six new ideas that I wouldn't have thought of before because life is busy.

And honestly, I'd rather you say, go do a coffee enema that will solve your problems. Like that's a physical thing. I know I could just go do and I'll just do it. But you know, when you start feeling an inner turbulence and you're not sure what your go to might be, I think that starts to feel like, well, it's easier to just shut down and avoid.

Have you noticed any correlation between type of cancer, location in the body, and also maybe Circumstances, past turbulence, any kind of connection there, have you noticed? Yeah, it's kind of eerie, honestly, sometimes how, like, how the themes repeat from client to client. And I also want to talk about, don't let me forget, I want to talk about sort of when people come in, some of those other things.

That the turbulence that the diagnosis itself can cause and themes I see with that, that sometimes aren't always talked about or mentioned that don't seem super obvious, but are important to address. But yes, I, I most, I see a lot of breast cancer, right? I think the three I'll talk about immediately are breast cancer, colon cancer, and then like ovarian prostate cancers.

And I think the body then stepping in and saying, Hey, I can't continue in this way. This isn't sustainable. So those are some general themes there, right? Like being able to balance motherhood with my individual identity. Wifehood, sisterhood, all the things, but it's this general theme of, they are completely [00:46:00] overextended, very hard time setting boundaries, healthy boundaries for themselves with friends and family.

And that's a lot of what we work on there, but there, these patterns are so clear to the, to the extent that. The ones I'm going to share today, I haven't worked. Like, for example, what I just talked about with breast cancer, I haven't worked with a single breast cancer patient who didn't have those themes.

And that's not to say, I guess I want to be clear here. It's not diagnostic, right? That's not, maybe there isn't. Someone out there experiencing breast cancer who those themes don't apply to but right thus far in everyone I've worked with I've never worked with a breast cancer patient who didn't have some element of that the other one colon cancer this is what I'm seeing a lot more of and In general, there's a question I always like to ask with colon cancer, which is what is it in my life that I have not been able to digest or let go?

And then the other one I'll speak to, and then maybe I can also speak to just bigger themes that I ask all my patients about, but um, prostate and ovarian. And similar to the other two, I've never worked with a prostate or ovarian cancer patient who didn't have some type of sexual trauma. And it's just so interesting to me how stark that is.

So it's not always a super severe. sexual trauma, but there is some element of that in everyone I've worked with there. Aside from those, right? And I'm always very interested in where the cancer is showing up. If it's in the lungs, we're going to be talking about grief. If it's in the stomach or that area, we're going to be talking about fear.

Grief, guilt, and resentment are, I always come back to those and there's often themes of that as well. And I'm sure, you know, perhaps underneath guilt and resentment, grief swims, you know, beneath all of that, right? It's totally such a through line for. Thank you. That's actually the fourth one. Yeah. Yeah.

Type of thing. Completely. And there's more research. A great book is Molecules of Emotion by Dr. Candace. Um, the body keeps scores. Another great one. But yeah, I mean, really, this idea that emotion is energy. It is measurable. I mean, that's what we're doing with Evox is I can literally measure the emotion in your voice.

So it's not, it's not just an idea. There actually is a tangibility to it. And when that energy is not allowed to move through, it must be stored somewhere. So, yes. That unprocessed or repressed emotion is absolutely getting stored in the body. And kind of traditional Chinese medicine, Ayurvedic medicine points to certain emotions sort of go towards certain organs more so than others.

Even initially is I have all this deep unprocessed grief that's getting stored in my lungs. That's making them weak. Then over years with maybe a poor diet, a lot of toxicity. that's building up and taking up capacity so that when that cancer is looking for a place to take root, it's finding that weakness in wherever that emotion is being stored.

And I think that was going to be another question, which is, you know, people will say like, well, you know, she smoked a pack a day for 70 years and not a, not a lung, drive a lung cancer in her, but here I am. And. I think what you're kind of saying is, well, that may be traced back down to, are we getting to the root of our emotional state and our subconscious work?

Yeah, totally. Right. We also know with like MTFHR gene mutations, maybe some people detox better than others. So that's where I'm. I never have, I don't think I ever will, unless something changes, say that emotions are the sole root cause of cancer. I really see in the patients I work with that it is a culmination of multiple contributing factors.

Right. And then. Make sure you're working with other professionals to look at some of the physiological contributors which are specifically at the Cancer Center for Healing is what they're doing over there. Right, right. But your emotions play a part, right? They, they play a part in your whole body's ability to do its, you know, job of properly protecting you, which is really fascinating and something I think, you know, I would say.

Probably everyone with a cancer diagnosis is immediately attacking that physical part. What do I need to do physically to support myself? But, you know, to your point here, maybe this, the emotional state is, uh, a contributing factor, but often. Perhaps not given the, uh, the look that it needs in order to encourage health and healing.

Legally, we can't ever use the word cure, but be a part of that healing journey. And I, you know, one day I would love to be able to study that in a more specific quantitative way of the people who are doing emotional work during their journey. Not just are there tumors going away, but compared to those who aren't doing emotional work, are there circulating tumor cells less at the end of a certain period of time?

So I anecdotally see that I'd love to be able to prove it with more quantitative. But in the meantime, we'll have to just Stick with, you know, some of those patient and client experiences, uh, but that's why I want to start talking about this so much more is I see how life changing it is for the cancer diagnosis, but also just for their life in general.

And. We know, we know trauma and sometimes getting a cancer diagnosis is very traumatic and can impact the neurobiology of the brain. Sometimes people's brains get stuck in fight flight, get stuck in freeze. So sometimes a part of that initial work is helping. their brain settle, their nervous system settle, processing some of the key traumas.

What can I have peace with? What can I have peace with right now at this time? And, and kind of in tandem with that, sometimes there's family conflict that I hate that that exists, but that is something that comes up a lot more that I don't think is talked about enough, either of family members, loved ones, partners, even not agreeing with.

their treatment choice. And the hurt, the grief, the anger, the tension that that creates for everyone. And again, being able to help them navigate some of that as well. And then sometimes sessions are really specific where I just had a patient this week, who's having open abdominal surgery for colon cancer on Tuesday.

More specific things that turbulence that the diagnosis itself has caused versus what is the pre pre existing turbulence that might have caused the diagnosis. Likewise, the diagnosis itself is causing new turbulence that also needs to be addressed. And these are some of the supports that will be available within this new community that you're building.

I want to equip them to start to be able to do this work for themselves. And then yes, absolutely. When they need that deep, deep guidance, deep support, I'm there to be able to take them to places. Maybe they can't go, but it's super important to me that I'm. equipping them to do this work and empowering them to do this work themselves.

So there's going to be lots of guidance, right? There's the soothing sanctuary with all the meditations and the somatic and the nervous system, et cetera. But there's also going to be a guided workshop that is going to try to replicate what I do with patients in session, helping you identify. First of all, what might be some places I need to touch in with helping guide them through how to reprocess that on this unconscious level.

Huge, huge. And we'll have to check back in when that is, uh, launched and the community is fully growing. We're really excited about it. Thank you so much for sharing all of this wisdom with us and, and just kind of opening up the, the lid on this topic, which, really is how our bodies and our emotions and minds, it's all interconnected.

It all has a huge impact on our ability to heal from whatever we're going through. So thank you so much. It's such a joy. Thank you. It's wild to think that I've been doing this for years now, and this is really the first time. This is the first podcast I've ever recorded going deep into the work I do with.

So yeah, I'm super grateful. Thanks for kind of helping facilitate this conversation that I'm really excited for people to hear.