The Science and Faith of Resilience - Unlocking the Secrets to Healing and Overcoming Life’s Challenge with Dr Jill Carnahan

8:51AM Jun 13, 2023

Speakers:

Angela Foster

Dr Jill Carnahan

Keywords:

oestrogen

chemicals

cancer

breast cancer

talk

diagnosed

women

pfa

call

journey

water

autoimmunity

patients

suffering

healing

body

detoxify

love

sauna

chemo

I have on my bathroom mirror, a little note I've had for two years now, that little sticky note handwritten, and it says, what does she need for me today? It's just a way to remind myself to check in and say, Do I need a walk? Do I need to cancel it? Extra meeting today? What do I need today to love and show compassion to my own soul? Because that's where the healing starts.

Hi friends, we have a lot of new listeners who I'd like to welcome to the show. I'm super excited to spend time with you today. I also want to shout out to my longtime listeners, thank you, as always for supporting the show. If you're enjoying it, and you haven't already, please leave us a review as it helps us to reach more listeners. And the bigger the show gets, the bigger the guests. In today's episode, I am joined by Dr. Joe Carnahan, a medical and functional medicine doctor, and the author of her latest book unexpected finding resilience through functional medicine, science and faith. In today's episode, you'll hear of Dr. Jill's incredible story of overcoming breast cancer at the age of 25. And later Crohn's disease, we talk about the importance of detoxification in today's modern world, and why Loving yourself is key and developing greater resiliency. I loved our conversation. And I hope that you will too. If you know someone who's going through a difficult time with their healing journey that you think this would help, please share it with them. Now without further delay, let me introduce you to Dr. Joe Carnahan.

So Dr. Joe, I am so excited to have you on the show today. You have an amazing new book out unexpected, which just released a month ago. And I just love the way you're kind of combining tricky concepts like science and traditional medicine with things like faith and healing. And I'm just really thrilled to have you here today and dive into all of this. So first of all, very warm welcome to the show.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

So let's start with your journey because you have a very interesting journey and actually a very difficult journey from med school when you were diagnosed with breast cancer at a very young age at the age of 25. Can you give listeners a bit of a background on your journey to where you've arrived today?

Sir, so I grew up on a farm in central Illinois grew corn and soybeans, I you know, dad was a farmer. And I was one of five children. So it was the most you know, ideal it kind of Norman Rockwell esque kind of place you can imagine. And we actually grew some of our own food. My mom was a retired nurse to raise our satisfied children and really lovely childhood in all sense of the word. But what unbeknownst to me was happening was on the farm, they were still using in the 70s and 80s, pesticides and chemicals and organophosphates and things. And these things have an endocrine disrupting effect, which just means they have a hormone like effect on the body. And for someone like me who I didn't know when I was born, but I had a very poor detox ability. So this toxic load started to accumulate very young. And I talked in the book about all of us have ability to detoxify and we have this ability to get rid of toxins, we're kind of our bodies are created to do that. But when that bucket starts to fill up over our years of life, often at some point and for me, it was very young, it will overflow with cancer or autoimmunity, or neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and we're having on all three lenses of those illnesses. We're having epidemics, of autoimmunity of cancer and of neurodegenerative diseases. And I think part of it is this toxic load. And I find that because I had a great childhood, I had a great family, all this good stuff. But unbeknownst to me, I believe that these chemicals, were actually starting to cause the damage to the DNA that led to my cancer diagnosis at the age of 25. So I went to undergrad I studied bioengineering then went on to medicine, and was in medical school in my third year, and I was in the most difficult year of all the training. And it's funny because trainings changed a little bit. But the medical training in the United States at least, is still pretty brutal. And the hours that were required to work I would do 36 hour shifts, sometimes without sleeping or eating or you know, just like, and it's funny, because now how do you really train a compassionate physician, when you're teaching them to deny their basic needs to eat and drink water and sleep and use the restroom and all those kinds of things? So now I have a real passion to actually talk about medicine and how do we change how we view medicine? How do we even change the the training of physicians because this was the setting in which I developed cancer. And I think it's no coincidence that the massive stress is the massive denial of my own needs and my own self and, and that in that context, was part of the process that led me to get cancer. I didn't know it, but I was born a healer I was born to overcome and I was born a very empathetic soul. So all these energetic things that were happening in medical school, and I wasn't even aware of them because I was living in my head as an analytical bioengineer kind of person, but these things were affecting my body to such an extent that boom, about a week after my 25th birthday, I found a lump in my breast. I went ahead and had it checked out even though I was crazy busy. I kind of felt like I don't even have time for this. And mammogram ultrasound were suspicious I ended up getting a biopsy and you know those times in your life If when everything changes, maybe you hear the news of a death of a loved one or some diagnosis or you know, some crisis and you can remember, you can remember the colour in the wall, you can remember the music in the background like you'll never forget that moment because it was such a poignant moment in your life that really changed everything. I'll never forget the day, just a week after my 25th birthday when I got the call from the surgeon. And she said, Jill, I don't know how to tell you this, but you have aggressive breast cancer, you're going to be in for the battle of your life. You're going to need, you know, chemo, radiation, whatever we can throw at it. And at that moment, I was the youngest person ever to be diagnosed with breast cancer at the University where I was studying medicine. Now, sadly, since then, there's a lot of younger women in their 20s. And even like late teens that have been diagnosed, but at that time in 2001, at that medical centre, major medical centre in Chicago, I was the youngest ever diagnosed. And many people I'm sure your listeners have had friends, family members, mothers, grandmothers who have had breast cancer, it's affecting so many of us, but most of the time and 50s and 60s is the slower growing type of thing. When this hit someone in their 20s. It's a death sentence. So I didn't know when I got that call if I had six weeks or six months or six years to live. And I can tell you it changed my life. At that moment I was just in shock. But then what I did with it was really the foundation of my own journey to healing and probably a bigger part of my medical training than any textbook in medical school because all of a sudden, in one instant I was changed from doctor to patient.

Detoxification is so important now more than ever, with the number of toxins we are exposed to daily in our food, water, personal care products and environment. No matter how careful we are, it's impossible to totally get away from the chemicals. And we also have to think about detoxifying the toxins we produced through cellular respiration and clearing excess hormones like oestrogen. Our skin is one of the key ways we detoxify. And that's why I love to include sauna as part of my weekly routine. But going to a facility with a sauna can be time consuming and investing in one yourself has been expensive in the past. That's why I love Bong chargers sauna blanket. It has so many benefits from raising your heart rate to that a physical exercise, so you burn calories whilst you relax, you can burn up to 600 calories in just one session. The sweating helps flush out heavy metals and other toxins and the infrared light which heats the body directly rather than the air around you mean you get the same benefits at a lower heat. On charges sauna blanket is easy to set up taking less than a minute. It heats up rapidly and you can enjoy a session for 30 to 40 minutes whilst relaxing, reading watching TV or even meditating so you can truly stack your hacks on charges sauna blanket is also low EMF compared to other brands on the market. And it's the quickest on the market to heat up. So it's an easy thing to fit in. When I'm not working out in the morning, you'll find me meditating in my bong charged solar blanket with their red light therapy mask on my face boosting collagen while I relax and bond charger giving listeners of this podcast 20% off their sauna blankets, red light therapy devices and other wellness products. Bomb charge ship worldwide in rapid time with free shipping on every sauna blanket and 12 months warranty. Simply go to bond charge.com forward slash Angela and enter code Angela 20 at checkout that's B oncharg.com forward slash a n g e l a and use code Angela 20 to save yourself 20% Wow, what a story what a story. Oh my goodness, you have really been through it and what you say there in 25, just as you say seems so incredibly young. I've noticed it as you say everyone seems to know somebody who's had breast cancer. I've had friends who've had it in their late 30s in their 40s Which again already seems even younger than it used to be. I want to kind of unpack some of that if we can because you have so much experience obviously your book is amazing. And just all the research and everything you've done you were talking there about growing up on the farm you had a happy childhood. Obviously the med school was putting you through the paces lack of sleep and me as a corporate lawyer, we just think you know, sleep is awful. And and it's terrible because you in your mind think that is what resiliency is that you can kind of invincible and you can just go through the night and work the next night and just carry on regardless which it isn't. And I know we're going to come on to talk about resiliency in a moment. But I picked up on what you were saying that around the toxins that you feel you were exposed to during that period of of growing up and things like glyphosate. How do you think that is causing damage to our DNA?

Yeah, this is the elephant in the room of our modern illness or chronic conditions or autoimmunity or epidemics of cancer and it's the thing that I'm sure on your part. case you've talked about, but it is literally the thing that people don't realise is absolutely, probably affecting us more than anything else. Every year into our environment, especially in the US, I'm not sure how European is but in the US, the EPA does not really regulate chemicals or test them appropriately. And especially in conjunction when you synergistically add multiple chemicals at the same time into our food supply or water supply. Our clothing our you know, paper products are just everywhere. And if you look at a curve of like how many new chemicals are introduced, each year, it's exponentially it is just rising like hundreds of 1000s of new chemicals. And because of this, what's happening is we're all swimming in toxic soup. Just last year in the state of Colorado where I live, they tested the water supply, and they put a report out that PFA owes, which are toxic chemicals from like gore tex and Teflon like the waterproofing when we go camping or hiking or waterproofing on some of our dishes that we use to cook or if you buy takeout and you bite that cardboard container that has a little bit of a slick lining. All of that is PFA O's. These are forever chemicals, which means once they get to our environment, scientists can't even calculate the half life, which means they're going to be there for our lifetime in the lifetime of our children and our grandchildren. And so they're forever. And all of the water supplies that were tested in Colorado last year were contaminated with PFA O's, which is kind of scary because these guys, right, there's no way and so all over the world we're finding, and there's so many other things, I just use that as an example because it's kind of scary. It's a forever chemical. There's not like a half life, we're in 20 years or 30 years, it'll be diminished, it's going to be there. And if it's there now, now you can filter water with reverse osmosis or charcoal activated carbon filters. And that will filter it out that if you're not actively thinking about ways for your environment to have clean air, clean water, clean food, then you're behind the eight ball because we are all swimming in toxic soup. And this is one of those things back to your original question. I grew up in a farm again a beautiful place beautiful family, you would look at it and see this is the best childhood in the world. And unbeknownst to me, it was super toxic. I had well water that probably had runoff from the fields and organophosphates, herbicides, pesticides, glyphosate all affect the body and many of them it disrupt our endocrine processing. So our body thinks that it's like an oestrogen like effect on our, say breast tissue, but it's a chemical. And so we have this excessive stimulation of DNA and damage and replication, that in someone like me who wasn't poised to detox will lead to cancer. And a perfect example is my younger sister. She's seven years younger than me, at 28 years old, which is of course, after my breast cancer, she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. So that's two girls, same family, same environment, same genetics. And granted, there's a nature nurture. There's some of genetics, but there's a big piece of it, that proves if anything else, you know that there is there was a predisposition towards this chemical exposure. So for your listeners, part of resiliency, part of overcoming part of optimising our health and our wellness is, how do we really do our best to avoid these toxic chemicals and to live as clean as we possibly can. Because there you can take all the supplements in the world and do all the right things. And if you are swimming in toxic soup every day with the things you put on your face, on your body, the things you clean your home with you are you are at a disadvantage with your health because those chemicals can affect your health in ways that a really profound.

And you say your sister was at 28? Did you say, Wow, this is so young. In terms of the chemicals that when we just stick with water for a moment, because water is such a controversial piece, it's very difficult for people and obviously, there are parts of the world we have listeners all over the world where actually the water isn't clean. And so they are drinking out of plastic water bottles. And I think that a lot of people are saying Oh, you must never drink out of plastic bottles, because it's kind of exposing you. I'm not sure that cancer rates actually in those countries are as high as it sounds. And from what you're talking about there that actually there's toxicity from chemicals that's going into the water as opposed to what the water itself isn't necessarily in unless it's heated seems to be more of an issue is was running in were in countries where people think I have a clean water supply. And actually they don't.

That's a great point, because I think you're right and even like travelling I don't I don't love plastic water bottles, I try to avoid them. But if I'm travelling, I would rather get a bottle of water that's certified and reverse osmosis filter then to drink tap water in a hotel where I don't know where that's coming from. Because nowadays, again, if we look at well water or city waters, there is lots of salads and parabens and heavy metals and cadmium. There are the PFA O's, of course and there's just so many things that can get into our water supply. That if we are not like again in our home having a choice and you can do a simple fridge filter. I use that a lot. It's not expensive. And you know a really good quality fridge filter, you can definitely instal in your house or reverse osmosis system. That's great, but that's expensive and you don't have to have that to have clean water but to your point in air is a world where the contamination the runoff of chemical companies or farms or things is affecting the well water, the city water, or other sources of municipal water, it might be better to buy filtered or spring water from plastic water bottles. Again, I don't love that. But I agree with you, I think it's a better choice.

Because I think people are jumping to Oh, I must avoid the plastic. But actually, we're looking at parts of the world where they, they realise they can't have everything in glass. They don't seem to be as toxic as we are. Obviously, that's not to say like you leave it in your car. That is a really bad idea. Even a reusable bottle that people use it in a heating, it obviously isn't a good idea. With the you also mentioned offline when we were talking and this was very interesting to me, because you said that after breast cancer you went on to develop Crohn's disease, my understanding as well is that things like glyphosate, often in combination with gluten can actually really disrupt and cause inflammation in the gut. Do you put that down to that chemical exposure? I mean, obviously, in treatment for breast cancer, unfortunately, now you're having even more chemicals, right to get rid of what was caused by chemicals. What do you think was that that was the result of?

Yeah, so in my journey, like I said, I was born a healer, I didn't really know it until I kind of went, our soul always has like these purposes and meanings, and we sometimes discover them through what we go through. And as we were talking to him before, it's like somebody's this stuff, that's the most difficult in the midst of it, it's horrible. You would never want to experience that. But it turns out to be a blessing in disguise as far as your trajectory where you go in the world what you do in the world. But back to my story. What happened is after I'm always wanting to find out the why behind my patients illness isn't behind my own. So part of my own journey has been like, what happened? Why did I get cancer? Why did I get Crohn's and to me, it's very clear now. So I have a genetic predisposition towards celiac disease, which is gluten intolerance at a pretty severe level. I didn't know that. And at 14, probably due to low stomach acid and low absorption of zinc. I was like, I don't really like meat. Now on the farm. It's mostly like steak and potatoes, and lots of that lots of vegetables, but it definitely is a meat heavy culture. And so I at 14 years old, told my parents, I don't want to eat meat anymore, I'm gonna be a vegetarian. But at 14, I didn't have the tools or the knowledge to be a healthy vegetarian. So I just took meat out it a lot of carbs. And I kind of call myself a carpet terian didn't know it. But again, I was very heavy on the carbs. And it was really a wrong diet for me, because I didn't do it in a healthy way. I now see differently, and up until 25 When I was diagnosed with cancer, and I realised, oh my goodness, I have to take control my diet. I was a vegetarian for all those years. And I say that because because of the proneness to celiac, I was eating gluten. I was eating gluten every day all day long, didn't know it was causing damage. The other thing was I had a genetic predisposition towards Crohn's. So what Crohn's is is your body's immune system and the gut lining reacts abnormally aggressive to normal microbiome contents. And it was a perfect setup because one of the drugs I had for chemo called Cytoxan is known to induce leaky gut or intestinal permeability. So what happened is I had this already brewing like a silent celiac, I didn't know my gut was already been inflamed and damaged by the gluten I was eating on this carpet terian diet. And then second, I threw in a drug to cure my cancer. And for ketosis, I had three drugs, chemotherapy, I had radiation at surgery, I pretty much everything you could throw it that cancer, they threw at me, up until the point that my heart would stop. It was intense and very toxic. But I do believe it saved my life. And so I got out of that chemo, and my gut was destroyed. And basically, because that drug created more permeability in my intestine, all of a sudden the contents of my intestine that contains normal microbiome was dumping into the bloodstream into the immune system. And because I had that genetic predisposition towards Crohn's, that was a trigger for my immune system to get over aggressive and reactive and start to attack the lining, which presented at Chrome as crowns. So I basically that came out of chemo, I was exhausted and sick and tired and bald, I had no hair from the chemo, went right back into rotations. Another thought that we can come back to is the old training of, you know, legal system and medical system, and especially women, because it's so masculinized and driven and aggressive and like achievement oriented. And that was part of the problem probably for both of us as well, but I didn't know it. So I went right back to school, I didn't take any breaks. I didn't have any sort of kindness or compassion for myself or my own body just went right back and I started having cyclical fevers. And one day about four months after maybe six months after my chemo was done. I'm in the ER taking a patient's blood pressure. I'm working in the ER, I passed out cold on the floor. I was taken that night into emergency surgery for an abscess diagnosed with Crohn's. And I woke up the next morning in the hospital post surgery. And the doctor the surgeon came and he said, Joe, you have Crohn's disease. So that was kind of my awakening right after cancer to Crohn's. And I just laid out probably how it happened. It was this chemo induced leaky gut. I was on the wrong diet for my body type, and then the perfect storm One of those microbiome contents triggering an immune response and leading to Crohn's disease.

Wow, what a story. I'm like, Oh, my goodness, I mean, waking up to that, how did you, you know, you'd obviously developed a mindset that enabled you to heal from cancer, but then to be met with that, it must have just been like another blur, right? You're trying to get back up and you get knocked down straight away. I wanted to talk to you about the mindset and the spiritual component alongside everything that you were doing to, to heal yourself from a physical perspective. How did you kind of see the light at the end of the tunnel? Like what what was keeping you going at that point?

Yeah, so you know, I've always been someone who believed even as a very, very young, maybe five or six, I had this sense of something greater than myself. And whatever you believe God to be, I would talk to that entity like I would just, you know, like, it was kind of part of who I was, is this kind of connection to a greater source. And I also had this view that no matter what happened in my life, number one, this, I think we call it mental fortitude, there's so many different ways to name that. But there's something that is inside of all of us, some of us have a stronger than others, I had a really strong, so from a very young age of like, I think it was I there was some difficulties in my childhood that you could call trauma. Again, I had a loving, wonderful family, but I remember very young feeling, you know, what it's, it's kind of up to me, and I'm going to have to be strong and overcome and kind of deal with life, and I have to learn the tools and whatever, I need to have that. And then when cancer hit, I had to dig really deep. But very shortly after my diagnosis, I heard, it was actually a pastor on the radio. And it was basically the sickness will not end in depth. But we'll bring up for the glory of God. And again, whatever that looks like for you. For me, it was a very real thing. Like there's a greater meaning or purpose. If I look here, and like you and I talked briefly before, sometimes when you're in the midst of suffering, or you're in the midst of a diagnosis, or you're in the midst of a divorce, or something related to loss of job, loss of income, these things in the middle, they're never fun, and they can be so stressful and so difficult. But even in the midst of we can always change our mindset to be looking for, could there be something even just asking that questions triggers our subconscious to start looking for positives? So we can even ask if we don't even know what it is, we can say, could there be something meaningful here? Could there be something that helps advance my soul's journey, and I did that very, very early with cancer, I had this sense, all of a sudden, when I heard that on the radio, oh, maybe, just maybe there's something here. For me, that's actually beautiful, and powerful, and transformative. So all of a sudden, my lens of the world shifted, and instead of being like, oh, woe is me why this happened to me, this sucks. I was like, Oh, this is not fun. But maybe there's something beautiful here. And what happened in that we shift our view, we find the beautiful, we find the meaning and purpose, it does not take away the suffering. It's still painful. It was still days, I couldn't get a bed, I was bald. I mean, I just wasn't myself at all. And it was hard. But in the midst of the suffering, if we can shift that frame, and I felt like that was my lesson in life, the first one of many, I always joke, I'm like a cat with nine lives. And I'm on like, number 10. Because I've been through so many things that should have taken me out. But each time and I get stronger each time like now I believe with all my heart, that anything that comes my way. I don't care how difficult it might be painful. It might include great suffering, but I know deep inside of me, I have the resilience I have what it takes to face anything that comes my way. Because I've learned over these years I've been in the school of life and the School of cancer in the School of crowns. But now I have the tools and your listeners we can you can have the same. It doesn't make it easy. It doesn't make it fun. It doesn't make it not you still have to go through the suffering. But if you can change your lens, all of a sudden, you can have this deep abiding sense of hope and joy despite whatever is going on around outside of you.

One of the many benefits of being part of my membership, the female biohacker Collective is that you get to ask my special podcast guests your questions, and my members have the wonderful opportunity of asking Dr. Mindy pals their questions in relation to fasting, optimising around the menstrual cycle, and perimenopause and a whole lot more. If you'd like to be part of an amazing community of women and get your questions answered alongside monthly live masterclasses, biohacking toolkits and live challenges with me and my team then head over to www dot female bio hacker.com. To Learn more at www dot female bio hacker.com To learn more beautiful music kind of like no matter what's happening if you developed a belief that it was happening in some way it was happening for you as opposed to two. And that there would be meaning at the end, almost like Steve Jobs says you can only connect the dots looking backwards. And now you're in this wonderful opportunity to inspire and empower so many people, right, who are going through suffering.

Absolutely, yeah. And it is, if you're in the midst of it, it doesn't, it doesn't feel good, doesn't make it easy. But if you can condense a little piece inside to know that you have that result, that resilience is all about knowing that you have the tools. And here's the thing I've learned to so often, we want to be guaranteed ahead of time that we're going to have what we need. So we want to have all the resources, we want to have the insurance policies in case something goes wrong. And we try to do that, because we like to think we have control. And that's how we face uncertainty. But the truth is, we don't have any control. That's all an illusion. But if we believe that in the moment when we have difficulty suffering adversity, that we will have the resources in that moment in the future, when we need it, then we can go confidently forward, because we have that confidence, knowing that in that moment, when something strikes that we are not expecting, we will have whatever we need, but we don't necessarily have it right now.

That takes so much, you are such a beautiful person, Dr. Joe, I mean to actually have that level of resiliency, and I guess just security within yourself to know that you will have what you need. I mean, when you were going through that journey on the way, what were the practices that you engaged in on a daily basis, like how were you able to kind of turn that around, because as you say, you, you might be able to see that there is hope. But being able to see that objectively, and then simultaneously deal with the suffering. I remember listening to how Elrod and his story on overcoming cancer. And then also when he had his car accident, and he thought he was never going to walk again saying that he made this commitment that he would be the happiest, most grateful person ever to be in a wheelchair or the happiest, most grateful person to be living with cancer. And I'm just curious, like, what did you have some kind of mantra or something that was guiding you through?

Yes. The first thing is, I was always like I said, I kind of have this connection to the divine. And I would, I would literally, like when I felt overwhelmed, or whatever that was one of the sources of strength was, I guess prayer meditation would be. But for me, it was, it was a conversation. It's just like, if I was my dad, or my brother, or my mom, or you know, like, to me, it's a very real, and again, whatever that looks like for you. It doesn't have to look like my face. But it was very strong in the sense of I had this sense that there was something greater watching over me guiding me. And even in the midst of suffering that had my back. I could say it that way. Like there's something that has my back that is a guide. And I felt that very rarely. And probably it's funny, I felt that even more so in the worst suffering. So it's almost like I was closer to the Divine, in the most difficult like the most most when I woke up from the surgery for the breast cancer and I am bruised and scarred and so sore. And then I had chemo and I'm vomiting and nauseous and losing weight, losing all my hair, and like feeling like not even human. I mean, when you wake it's funny. So many women with cancer have lost their hair, who will say this, but the breast cancer, the scarring that was kind of easy relative to losing your hair and being bald, there's something about being bald that just feels like you're not even a human. It's really hard. It shouldn't be because it seems like it's very vain. But it's a big deal to have here. And I remember Oh, yeah, of course. Yeah, we're looking in the mirror and being like, you know, what, how can anyone love me, and those are like core issues that are on our, you know, heart and but like knowing Wait, there's a greater purpose and meaning here. And even if just the divine, I feel that love. And like Hal Elrod, I love that you mentioned his story, because I love that perspective. So often, we search for meaning and purpose and worthiness and love. I mean, we all have some wounds around those kinds of things. And one of the biggest things that helped me was instead of being like, Oh, I hope that I'm lovable, I hope I'm worthy of love. I hope I do enough and achieve enough and be enough whatever things that we have. But when it flipped to, how can I be love personified to the world, all I have to do is like show up with love. And be that the rest will come right, the rest will come through attraction or whatever else, I don't have to worry about being loved. I just have to worry about loving others and being the most loving being that I could be in every situation. And when you shift that all of a sudden, it takes the thing off of you and your fears and your worries. And you just can be that in the world and I'm not perfect. I try every day to show up that way. But that shifts everything because that's doable. Okay, I can be love. And what happens is inevitably love comes back. So so what you want in the beginning kind of comes back anyway, but it's a shift in focus.

As you're trapped what you are. Yeah, yeah. But that's amazing to actually be able to, in all that suffering amidst that to be able to transform and see it through that lens of well if I can be loved and I can show love to others are so selfless, amazing, amazing person. How has this inspired you with your patients? Have you found and also just in the way that you've found treating them? Have you found that this spiritual component and this this mindset and believing in the universe or higher being or source energy, or God, whatever you liked, anyone likes to call and reference that? Have you found that you've seen better prognosis in patients that have embraced that? How much do you think that's playing? Apart? Yeah, so

I always start with again, I'm like a bio engineer background. So I still super analytical, and I start with, you know, good history and labs and all the science, but what's allowed me to really connect with patients and help them to heal, and maybe in places where they haven't found healing, otherwise, prior to seeing me is really being present with them and really listening. And often there'll be something they say, and if I catch it, if I'm listening, and I'm clear and present with them, I might ask, tell me more about your childhood. How was your relationship with your father? And I bet you there's not a lot of doctors that say, how was your relationship with your father or your mother or whatever. But what I see is if there's clues that are leading to maybe something, they're just being open, I'm not an I'm not a therapist, I'm not a psychologist. So I never do anything in that realm that that's not, you know, licenced, but what I do is I create a space that for that patient, they feel seen, and they feel heard. And they feel that they're safe, that there's a container there of safety. And sometimes for many of us, just sharing something that's been difficult, and being seen and being heard, I don't even have to have the answer, but because they know that they are safe, and that they're seen in their herd and that I'm present with them and helping them on this journey that is so powerful, and healing. And then I can direct them to a professional or someone else to maybe go work on that aspect. But what I found in my own journey, and in my patients journey, we can do wonderful nutritional supplements and protocols and natural healing and nutrition and diet and lifestyle, even drugs and surgery if necessary. But the deeper healing, the profound healing shifts that happen are on this other level of loving ourselves, trusting your intuition, accepting yourself showing up with love and compassion. Those are the kinds of shifts that make such a profound impact on health, maybe more so than any of the other interventions.

That's so interesting, isn't it? I remember speaking to Dr. Libby Weaver on the show, and we were talking about PCOS and something she'd observed. I suffered with PCOS, and just how she'd observed that a woman who had PCOS in patients she's seen not in all cases, but in quite a few. They had had very kind of quite sort of often empowering and inspiring, but quite authoritarian, I suppose fathers strong fathers should I say, and I remember being, you know, my dad was a really strong man, and just being a total daddy's girl and wanting to be like him. And you know, being a very much type A personality, which is among corporate lawyers. And it's just really interesting when you look at things like that and how they manifest and how that might, you know, lead to kind of more masculine hormones dominating and leading to potentially conditions like that. I think there's so much we don't fully understand, right?

Oh, this is so huge. I could not agree with you more. And a little piece of the book talks about growing up with this like, like you and I in law and medicine, like those are two very achievement oriented, masculine driven. And in order to keep up and perform and succeed, you have to take on a lot of masculine energy, like you have to be there and show up and achieving success and all this stuff, and medicines the same way. And I always joke with one of my friends who we now speak and teach other doctors. And when we first started, we put on the black pantsuit, which is so not feminine. Right? Now I wear a floral dress or do something much more who's what's in line with my soul. But back then I felt like I had to become more like this paternalistic masculine society in order to succeed and achieve. And part of my own healing was actually realising way, I can be more feminine, I can start to colour I can dance, I can embrace this more. And the feminine side is more the creative side, the there's not enough sort of schedule, the letting it flow. I mean, there's all kinds of these and we all have both characteristics, right? The masculine and the feminine. But for me, I had somehow early on associated achievement and success with love and worthiness. So I was on this treadmill to achieve and to achieve and to achieve, and it was slowly killing me because what happens with that it can be like an addiction. And we're covering up the trauma by just achievement, achievement, achievement and success and society actually endorses that. So it just reiterates that trauma and that basically addiction to work. So I had to really unlearn that and start to be more kind to myself be more gentle. Do more things like dance and colour and more creative pursuits right? And embrace that and that feminine side to become more balanced. Because again, in a lot of these careers, women you know, have to take on this rule that maybe too harsh for their soul, you know, like, as far as there's a balance, we need both masculine and feminine.

super interesting. I remember when I gave up law initially I was I was going to go for to become a judge. And I was toying. And then I was like, Well, shall I take a career break? What should I do? My best friend who was also a lawyer said to me, you know, it's like, is your self esteem in any way wrapped up in your career as a lawyer, and my immediate instinct was like, no, like, and then I kind of like, well, maybe I struggled when I go back, like I such severe depression, like, you know, clinical major depressive disorder. And I wonder how much of that was related to this, as you say, you're just on this treadmill of achievement, and the next thing and the next thing and the next thing, and then suddenly, it's like, what, what is my identity without that it's, and you have to go through that soul searching, exercise and find yourself. I think, for people listening, one of the things that I know many, many women struggle with, because we have that inner critic is something you touched on there, which was about self love. How can we love ourselves more?

Oh, this is maybe the most the whole book if I had to summarise the most important piece, it's loving ourselves having self compassion, and trusting her intuition, which is a very feminine trait. Again, we need both. There's nothing wrong with the masculine traits, I still have a lot of those, but we need both. And what I learned in my journey is, I was in a culture growing up that was very, like self sacrificial, that women would often marry have children take care of their husbands and I was very different as I went into medicine, you know, so, but the culture was put yourself aside and serve others that kind of like, like, put everybody ahead of yourself. And that's a beautiful loving thing to do. But I had to learn in this process of healing. First of all, let's go to autoimmune disease, which Crohn's is one of them. Many, many, many women suffer from autoimmunity, autoimmunity, metaphorically, is attack of self. And so if we have any parts of ourselves that we're denying or not loving or not accepting, there is a metaphorical connection to developing autoimmunity. Now, I'm not saying that's the only cause that that's one piece of the puzzle. And so if you out there have been just diagnosed with Hashimotos, or lupus, or MS, or any of these autoimmune diseases that are becoming more and more prevalent, there's going to be a small piece of healing that involves finding and searching out any pieces of yourself that you've denied, or that you don't like, or that you load, and starting to love all parts of yourself. But what I realised in that journey of learning to love myself, and you can also reframe that in just being kind to yourself, like, like treating yourself like you would a dear friend, or like your child, or like your mother, like treating yourself the same as you would anyone else that you're being kind and loving to instead of being like, Oh, come on stupid, that was a dumb thing to do, or those are those kinds of things are in our head. But we can shift that to like, Oh, sweetheart, you're doing a great job, you were so brave, I can't believe how much you've already done or accomplished, or you know how well you're handling this, that kindness to ourselves is actually one of the most powerful healers. But back to how we start, we can't really love ourselves until we trust ourselves. And for me, I lived my first 40 years of life from the head up, I was very analytical I would problem solve, I was great at analysing situations, solving problems, thinking in systems, and I lived from the neck up because I suppress my emotions, I suppressed anger, I suppress sadness. And I suppress kind of my needs. Because in medical school, we were taught to just go and push and drive and all that. And in order to heal, I had to kind of tap down into my heart space, my intuition and say, What do you need from me today? And how can I be more kind to myself in starting to trust that, oh, well, my chest feels tight. Maybe I need to take a break and go for a walk instead of pushing through for this project. Or maybe when I feel an upset stomach, maybe I need to have a conversation with somebody I care about because this is not working for me. So those kinds of bodily sensations that drive what we need to do next, at least for me early on, I suppress them all. So I literally lived here. And in order to love myself, I first had to go down into my heart space, and start to listen to myself because our bodies will give us clues as to what's healthy for us. And what's not, whether it's relationships, whether it's jobs, with even with your career, and all that changes, you listen to your heart and did a massive shift. And that allowed for this beautiful transformation and all the wonderful work you do today. But had you not tapped into that you might have kept going on that treadmill just like me and not go into this heart space. And so what does my soul really want to do? So in order to heal, you must trust yourself. You must go into your body and listen to those clues that your body is giving you. And then second, you must love yourself and incorporate all parts yourself and be kind to yourself. I have on my bathroom mirror a little note I've had for two years now, that little sticky note handwritten says What does she need from me today? It's just a way to remind myself to check in and say, Do I need a walk? Do I need to cancel that extra meeting today? What do I need today to love and show compassion to my own soul? because that's where the healing starts.

I love that. That's so powerful. I love that. And I guess in a book, you also you have lots of exercises that people can do to kind of help with that self love. Just tracking back a little bit of breast cancer and more of this sort of medical side as well there. You mentioned about when you're growing up, you're exposed to all these chemicals. Obviously, it sounds like you weren't absorbing particularly well. If you have the signs of celiac that would have been affecting right your absorbability of vitamins and nutrients, which in theory could have helped you. But also, you talked there about detoxification and detoxification pathways. This is something that I think, concerns many women and rightly so around excess oestrogen, and how oestrogen can become toxic within the body and cause issues. Can you elaborate a little bit there on what you found yourself on with your patients?

Yes, this is a great topic. So at the core, one of the triggers for my breast cancer was oestrogen like substances and for detox of my own internal oestrogen, because when you have oestrogen causes cells to divide and grow, progesterone will stop that and cause them to mature. So if you have really nice balance between oestrogen and progesterone, things are going to go well, you're not going to get prone to cancer and endometriosis or even PCOS or some of the things that's more of an androgen dominant, but all of these hormonal dysregulation is heavy, painful periods. Painful cystic breast fibre adenoma is breast cancer. And, again, uterus, we have heavy periods or endometriosis or any of these things. They're all oestrogen dominant. And because of the chemical load on many of us, we are seeing more and more women with oestrogen dominant symptoms. It could even be moodiness during your cycles. So in your first half of your cycle, oestrogen should kind of go up and then you ovulate as a little blip and then it kind of goes down. And the first half of that cycle that follicular phase progesterone is low and then it goes up in the luteal phase. And that yin and yang that flow of up and down of oestrogen and progesterone, oestrogen and progesterone. That's how we should healthfully perform and function and do well and not have all these symptoms. But what happens is, again, environmental chemicals contribute to excess oestrogen. And then if we're not detoxifying, and I'll talk about some practical tips, then we can have this excess of oestrogen and many, many, many women more than ever suffer from symptoms from oestrogen excess. So first thing is there's an enzyme called aromatase, and if that is activated, which it can be activated by chemicals by mould exposure, by heavy metals by other things in our environment, that enzyme will steal from our testosterone and make more oestrogen. So men get manboobs central weight gain low libido, women will get cystic breast endometriosis, excessive painful periods, moodiness, and this aromatase enzyme can be blocked by things like Chris Bryson or dim. So those are two things that you can get over the counter supplements that will help. Another pathway is called glucuronidation. long word for one of the liver pathways that helps your body to naturally detoxify excess oestrogen, and that pathway can be supported by calcium D glue great another supplement you can get pretty easily. So dim and calcium D grade are two important players. Another player new to the game that's really powerful is sell for things sell for pains or from broccoli sprouts, so you can eat a lot of broccoli, but often you'll get like two pounds worth of broccoli sprouts in a cap. So often people will take it as a capsule. It's called sulforaphane. And there's many companies many brands that make those those will also help to detoxify. And then some of the very basics with our liver gallbladder pathway which oestrogen is treated like a chemical in our body, it's detoxified in the liver through that pathway of phase one and phase two. And so we need to support that liver in order to detoxify in ways that you can support liver liver, our glutathione our lipoic acid or alpha lipoic acid and acetylcysteine, milk thistle, those are all liver supportive ingredients and all things that help that phase one and phase two. So the things that help break down oestrogen would be dim and so forth veins and calcium D glue great. And then any sort of liver support and other things you could do would be castor oil packs, which is you know a flannel cloth with soap with castril over your liver for 20 minutes with a hot water bottle. You can do Epsom salt baths. So taking a bath at night with Epsom salts. You can do dry brushing which stimulates lymphatics and drainage you can do infrared sauna which helps get those toxins out of your skin and tissues. And all of these things just finding what you can incorporate that works for you will help your detox pathways and help if you have oestrogen dominance.

And what I love about those last ones that you shared is that all about self care practices as well which I think is where type A personalities to readily kind of go are but that often I'll do that tomorrow but as double benefits for doing that. Amazing. Thank you so much for coming and sharing all of this please link where can people connect with you? I know that we wanted to connect to find your book, the SATA

Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, you can go to read unexpected.com So just read unexpected.com The book, all the bonuses, all the fun stuff is all there but you can get this book anywhere books are sold. So wherever you like to buy books, it's available. And then be sure and connected with me on Instagram is just Dr. Jill Carnahan. I have all kinds of fun stories and silly videos. They're on Dr. Joe Carnahan.

Amazing. We will link to all of that in the show notes. It's been so wonderful to meet with you or be on Zoom, and connect with you today. Thanks again Dr. Joel, for coming on the show.

You're welcome.

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