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Welcome back to the Habit Within Podcast. I'm your host, Camille Kinsler. Yeah, this is the 50th episode.

I have been recording this podcast for almost one full year. I cannot believe it. I have been consistent.

I am so proud of myself. I want you to think about one thing that you can be proud of yourself for as well, something that you've been consistent with, because here's the deal. No one is going to throw us a parade every time that we achieve something, so we have to do it.

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We have to reward ourselves. Actually, I didn't even think about that. How am I going to celebrate the release of this 50th episode to be announced later, to be determined? But in this episode, I'm going to share something really personal to me.

I feel like, actually, I do that quite often, but this is my healing journey as it has to do with abnormal cells that were found in my breast several years ago. I'll share a little bit more about that throughout this episode. I think this is going to be three parts because this is so important, really learning how to trust your inner healer, trust your body's innate wisdom.

I feel like this is something that I really want to spend some time on. It's something that I've had to learn to trust in myself as a recovering Western medical provider, as somebody who has grown up in Western medicine. This is something where we have been taught within our culture and our society, especially in Western society, to look outside of ourselves for healing and wellness, when in actuality it does come and stem from within.

In this episode or in this series, I'm going to refer to a few books that have really touched me. One is this book called Dying to be Me by Anita Morjani. I think that's how you pronounce her last name.

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I'm reading her book. Currently, I'm not finished. I'm at the very tail end of it right now, but this is where this whole podcast has been inspired from.

Then I'm also going to refer to some other books as well. I have referred to You Are the Placebo by Dr. Janice Benda multiple times in the past. I will also refer to Mind Over Medicine by Lisa Rankin.

I believe one other book I'm going to refer to in this series. Let's go ahead and dive right in and let me tell you about Dying to be Me, this book that has inspired me over the past several weeks. If you're not familiar, it's this incredible account of surviving cancer after a near-death experience and the radical shift that this woman, Anita, experienced and how this shift changed her perception of life, of healing, of authenticity, and what authenticity means.

We'll dive into more about what this word, being authentic, living an authentic life, truly means. For a while there, I don't think it's much of a buzzword anymore, but for a while there, I felt like that's all we were hearing is how do you live your authentic life, but it has been hitting differently recently, and so I'll share with you what my definition is of this idea of authentic living. But back to Dying to be Me, what struck me the most about this powerful story is the powerful truth that lies within it, that lies within ourselves, that lies within our very health, and that is how authentically living, how we need to authentically live in order to deeply love and accept ourselves, and when we deeply love and accept ourselves, we have the ripple.

I talk about that a lot in my podcast, the ripple effect that has on the rest of our lives, but then also on our health and who we are and how this affects our vitality. So this powerful truth about how our health depends on living authentically and loving ourselves is deeply highlighted in Dying to be Me. She discovered after this near-death experience that the key to her healing was not about the medical treatments, but about reconnecting with her true self and embracing self-love.

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And as somebody who has worked on this idea of what does self-love really mean, what does self-trust really mean, because in order to trust ourselves, we have to love ourselves, I know that you might immediately and instinctually want to just roll your eyes and turn this podcast off. So let me paint this picture for you before you do that of kind of these two examples of what it means to not live authentically, maybe ignoring some of your, the signs within you, ignoring self-trust and ignoring the signs that you need to maybe change your life and trust yourself more, thus not loving yourself, and then what it looks like when you do. So imagine somebody who is constantly living according to the expectations of others, maybe that's your job, your family, your society, your culture, even your religion.

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They might, this person, this woman, might feel like she is fulfilling this role, like she's doing a really rad job. But inside, she feels frustrated. She feels resentment.

She feels even maybe these physical symptoms of tension, jaw pain, headaches, exhaustion. And over time, this misalignment between this authentic version of self and the external life separates more and more and more. And when this authentic self, this true self, and this external life become more and more separate, then this increases these symptoms of potentially of chronic fatigue or of chronic illness or of stress.

Okay? So the body is constantly sending us signals, but we so often ignore them. I know that I did for very, very long. And this is very common.

I've heard it so many times in my clinical practice, all from women, by the way. I was actually thinking back and looking back to see if a man ever said this to me. He had his own stories, but it wasn't this one.

And what women say to me so frequently when they come in sick is they say, I don't have time to be sick. Just give me the pill. I don't have time to be sick.

Just give me the antibiotic. And this is when they've come in and they've had a cold and cough for one to two days. I don't have time for this.

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Just get me well. You do it. You get me well.

Okay, I'm not blaming you, if that sounds like you, because that was me too. That has been me. But now what I want you to do is I want you to consider what would happen if you began to live a life more authentically.

An authentic life to me is one where your needs are met. You are fulfilled. You are experiencing self-actualization.

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You're flourishing. Authentic living is this balance between what's occurring within ourselves and how we express and represent ourselves outside. So those two things match up.

We don't wear one hat in this scenario and another hat in the other scenario. We are wearing the same hat in every aspect of our lives. And when we can align with our choices, then we're really aligning with our inner truth and desires.

What this would look like is you would say no to things that drain you. So you would do this energy audit of your life. What's working? What's feeding me? And what's bleeding me? You prioritize your health and your vitality above anything else and everything else.

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And you engage in activities that bring you joy. And again, I am working through this as well. I have come a long way over the last 10 years.

But I had an incident this weekend. It was the normal thing, the normal Saturday routine where my oldest was going to basketball. We were going to drop him off at basketball practice while my husband and I go to the gym and put my younger one in child watch while we work out.

And then we go and pick up the big one again and then go about our day. Well, I really wanted to hang out with my friend that day. I had been thinking about it all week.

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And I really wanted to talk to my husband about it, just mention that this is what I wanted to do. But I didn't. And so when Saturday came around, I felt like it was going to disrupt the family too much if I changed the plans all of a sudden.

So what happened instead is when I when the idea popped into my head, like, Oh, God, I really would just want to go and hang out with my friend. I moment, I didn't realize I was doing this. But then I started kind of picking a fight with people in my family.

I got more annoyed that my youngest wasn't getting ready quickly enough. I got annoyed that my oldest wasn't practicing his lines for his play. As we were headed out the door, I got annoyed at the fact that I was going to have to go to the gym at all.

So all of these things were occurring in a split second, all within like three minutes of trying to get out the door where everyone ended up in a tissy. I ended up leaving because I wasn't helping the situation at all. I texted my husband about five minutes later and said, Sorry, I took off.

I definitely wasn't elevating the situation, like elevating it in a good way. I was elevating it in a negative way. And I reflected on it.

I said, Oh, my gosh, the reason why that occurred is because I really wanted to do something else. And me taking the moment to care for myself in that moment would not have been detrimental. No one would have died.

It would have been fine. There might have been a little bit of chaos, but nothing more than what already happened because I wasn't in alignment with going to the gym. I mean, this is a very simple, very simple and very easy example of if I would have just chosen myself in that moment, it wouldn't have harmed anybody else and everyone would have been happier.

So this is when the inner truth of what I was really needing wasn't in line with the choices that I was making. And then what happened was, is that it became kind of a shit day for everyone, or at least for that moment before we all chose to perform differently, to feel differently. So really looking at things that bring you joy can be quite challenging.

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Like what does bring me joy in this moment? And when we have a family, it's sometimes hard to pivot on a dime, but we can. And I didn't make that decision, but now moving forward, I'll be able to look at this a little bit differently when I wake up in the morning and say, what do I want to do today? Right? And I hope that my husband will do the same. What is he going to do? And then we can work that out together where we can both feel fulfilled and then be able to come back together as a family to make it a more happy, playful, fun day for all.

But this shift can be extremely subtle at first. So when we start to choose ourselves and activities that bring us joy and remove things that will drain us, it can be subtle. We often think that any change that we make is going to have this drastic effect when that is just not the case.

And just like my example of not choosing joy in that moment, that's something that I've been working on and practicing for several years. So again, it's not only just subtle, these changes, but it's also non-linear. We can have these setbacks and that's okay if we recognize it.

But when we can start choosing our joy, then our stress levels decrease, our energy improves, our physical symptoms begin to dissipate. And that's because the body recognizes at some level that it's being supported, that it's honored in a way that's aligned with our true needs. And in the case of Anita Morjani, the author of Dying to Be Me, her healing came when she realized that her life's purpose was not about pleasing others or living out the fear, and her specific thing was around her culture and religion, but about embracing her true self and loving herself unconditionally.

And when she did this, her body responded in miraculous ways, in miraculous healing. This isn't just her story. If you've heard and read other near-death experiences, there are many who have experienced something similar.

Maybe not to the profound effect that she did, because her body was riddled with cancer, but something similar. And again, I haven't read all of them. I've only read a handful, but it seems like there is definitely a common thrive.

And this demonstrates this profound truth that we all have within, that our health isn't just a matter of managing these symptoms by taking pills or pushing through the symptoms. It's about being true to ourselves, loving ourselves deeply, and creating a life that supports that. Because when we're able to do that, it gives our body space to heal, and we can thrive in ways we never thought possible.

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And this journey towards living authentically and embracing self-love, I feel like fits perfectly in this topic of midlife, of women in their 40s, right? How we're in this really transformative time, both physically, emotionally, and psychologically. And so this gives us this beautiful opportunity to step into who we are, to merging that external world and that internal world to where they match. And I think that this hormonal shift that's so common is sort of the wake-up call that we need, right? It's this wake-up saying, all right, the things that were working before are not working now.

And we need you to revere your body, right? Like, we need you to love us. We need you to accept us for all that we are. We need you to slow the heck down.

We need you to recognize that you don't have to play many roles anymore, that you only have to play one, and that's the role of yourself. It's time when your body needs to change. It's the time to re-examine and ask the question, who am I now, and who do I want to become? All right, so now let's consider this 40-year-old woman, and let's call her Sarah.

And she's this dedicated wife. She has this really rad, awesome career. She's been a professional for many years.

She's climbed the corporate ladder. She's a mother. She's a caretaker of all the people, right? So however that looks, however that looks like in your life, it's where you're putting your needs last.

She's a rock star. She's done everything right. But over time, she starts to notice that she is exhausted, has difficulty sleeping, maybe focusing, and she feels this growing sense of dissatisfaction.

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And maybe she asks herself, where the heck has time gone? It's moving way too fast. I have too many things that I want to do, and life just keeps moving forward. Hormones are fluctuating.

She's experiencing symptoms like hot flashes, weight gain, mood swings, anybody else out there. Her body that was once this ally, where she could only curb her diet a little bit and the weight would fall off, now feels foreign to her. Okay? Now it feels uncooperative.

It's just not doing the thing that it used to do. She feels disconnected from herself. She's unsure of what she really wants anymore.

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And her body is sending these signals, but she's ignoring them. Her energy levels are low. She's disconnected from her desire and passion.

She might even feel like she's losing herself in the midst of all the roles that she's playing for far too long. But guess what? She continues to push on. But then one day she listens to this podcast or something else occurs, hopefully not too severe, and she begins to listen to her body in a new way.

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She takes time to slow down. She reflects on her life. Instead of pushing through exhaustion, she starts saying no to things.

She starts doing that energy audit. She starts looking at things that drain her and bleed her and instead focusing on things that fill her up. And she prioritizes self-care, which equates to self-love.

She practices self-compassion. She practices saying sorry to herself. She practices saying, you're doing so well today.

Great job. And she realizes that it's okay to put herself first. And as she does this, guess what happens? She makes times for activities that bring her joy.

Whether that's walking in nature or painting or some artistic or creative venture. Or maybe it's just spending quiet time by yourself. Or maybe it's going out again at night or having dinner parties or maybe engaging with her community more.

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Whatever feels most aligned for her. But over time, when she does that and she feels more aligned with herself, she begins to trust her intuition. She begins to honor her body and the changes that's going on within.

And she redefines her sense of purpose. And over time, what Sarah notices is that she feels just more aligned with herself. She begins to trust her intuition.

She begins to trust what her body is telling her. She honors the changes that are happening within her instead of resisting them. She gets to redefine her sense of purpose and not just what society has told her to do.

And then her energy improves and her mood stabilizes and she finds that her symptoms, like hot flashes, have become more manageable. And she taps back into her body's natural ability. This is what self-love looks like.

This is what not turning away from yourself looks like. This is what it looks like when you stand in that powerful truth and become your authentic self. It's when you become to love your idiosyncrasies.

It's the moment where you begin to love the wrinkles on your face. When you start to honor yourself, your health improves. When you start to honor your miraculous ability to heal, your health improves.

Your relationships flourish. When you truly begin to love yourself and listen to what your body truly needs, that is when you can step into your authenticity. And that is the powerful truth of what happens when we turn 40 and beyond.

I hope the generation after us does this sooner. I hope that we are leading the way, that they can ride on our shoulders and we can show them the way. But this is where it all happens.

This is where vitality happens. This is where healing happens. It happens in this place of authenticity.

It's not about fighting the change. It's about embracing it. It's about asking the questions, what's working in my life? What's not? Who am I when I strip away all of these roles and expectations and stories that I've carried for so long? And what do I truly want to say, to do, and who do I want to become? It's a time that asks us to step into our authenticity.

But to do that, we must slow down and we must listen. We must remove the outside noise and chatter. And dying to be me reminds us that our health, our happiness, and even our survival can depend on how well we embrace and express our authentic self.

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And trust me, this is something that I have been working on. This series is inspired by that message and also by my own healing journey. And I understand just how hard it can be to trust in our inner self.

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I like to call myself this recovering western medical provider. Not only did I study medicine and was a direct primary carer for many many years, I was also raised in western medicine. My dad was a physician.

I would spend many hours at his clinic, at his medical office, growing up. I mean, I was the model child when kids would be afraid to get their finger poked. I would sit there and get my fingers stuck just so they could see that it didn't hurt.

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I was the same age as them and I was okay with getting my finger poked. And I actually kind of liked the anticipation of when that hammer was going to stick my finger. Now looking back on it, maybe they should have been concerned.

But anyway. So yeah, this idea of having to really listen to myself and what my body was needing instead of the expert was difficult. But it was something that I knew that I needed to do.

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Because when I found myself on the opposite side of the exam table, when I found myself as a patient instead of the provider, trusting my inner healer was so extremely difficult. And I knew better. I often times recommended to patients, clients, friends, anybody who would listen when they go in for a medical test, I recommend that they think about what their test results would mean.

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So if they were positive or they were negative, what those test results would mean for their life. What would they choose to do? Would they choose to have an intervention? How would they choose to live their life if it was negative? How would this change their life if it was positive? I started doing this work over 20 years ago. I started recommending this viewpoint over 20 years ago when patients would wait for their HIV tests or they would wait for their pregnancy tests.

And so while it was pending, I would have them do this introspective work where they could really think about how this could be life-changing in a positive way regardless of the test result. And this one thing can have such a profound impact on the rest of your life. Because first off, you'll know what you want to do before somebody tells you.

Or if they give you some suggestions on what the next steps are, then you can be like, oh intuitively this was going to be my next step. So now I know that I can do more research and take a beat and then decide. So when I was on the opposite side of the exam table and diagnosed with ductal cystic carcinoma in site 2, it was stage 0 breast cancer, I felt like everything happened so quickly from that moment on.

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After my first mammogram at age 40, they had me sitting in the waiting room so I knew something was wrong. But the fact that I was waiting after my mammogram, they didn't let me go. Then afterwards they did a diagnostic mammogram and they found a teeny tiny tiny little spot.

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From there they ended up doing a fine needle biopsy and then from there they recommended a lumpectomy. The lumpectomy leaded to a second lumpectomy which basically was a revision where they were removing any of the abnormal cells. After the second revision, I went in to visit my oncologist for the results.

And first off, she didn't have the results. She wasn't prepared for the visit. So when she walked in, she floundered a little bit.

Once she found the results, she was okay. So what I recommend is that we already took out so much tissue from your breast that it would look abnormal if we took out more. So instead, what I recommend we do is a mastectomy.

We remove one breast, but since we're removing one, let's go ahead and remove two. We can do reconstruction of both of them because insurance will pay for that. And then radiation and lifelong medication.

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And I was overwhelmed by the whole process because again, it went very quickly from the point of the first mammogram to the second revision. And I just kept telling myself, wait, what was the diagnosis? It was DCIS, ductal cystic carcinoma in situ, meaning that any of the cells were inside of a duct that I then had opened up and it was stage zero, very slow growing cells. So at this point, I came to this place and it was from a place that was very deep within me that just said, you need to watch and wait.

So I had done the research. I hadn't spoken to my dad, my dad, the medical doctor, he came to all of my appointments. He was so sweet, but he did not interject.

He was there to support me, but he didn't tell me what I should do, nor did he tell me the research that he had been doing unless I asked. That's his MO. Unless you ask him specifically for his opinion, he will not give it.

And so this decision of watching and waiting came from what I believe was this intuitive place. Now, of course, being a medical provider, I did have the knowledge and experience to be able to look at different studies, but the biggest thing that I needed to do was reject the urgency. And I think this so often happens in Western medicine world is that there's this urgency that's tied to a diagnosis.

And so if you can release the urgency, then you can give yourself space to be in alignment. Because I know for the first, I don't know, until after the second lumpectomy, it's also called a revision, I was in fight or flight. I couldn't think about anything else except for the state of my potential health or poor health, because that's the way I was thinking at that moment.

And until I was able to step away and think of myself as this miraculous healing being that needed to be in a calm state in order to find the answers within and then decide what my next steps were. And again, my next steps were to watch and wait. For you, it might be to proceed with whatever expert advice that you are given.

And again, I suggest that you do that from a place of peace and a place of healing, that this will work, that whatever intervention or treatment that you're will work. And so after I made this decision, I checked in with my dad. So I spoke with my father about it.

And I told him based on my research, and then really just checking in with my intuitive hit on whether I should proceed or not. With her recommendations, I said that I was going to wait and see, just do the watch and wait method. And he agreed with me, he agreed that based on his research as well, and what he was feeling, that he agreed the watch and wait method.

So I'll tell you more about how that ended up. But I really want to hit home, not just based on my experience for this woman who had this near death experience, but also from physicians who have experienced this in their own practice, and also with the research that they've done. One book that I recommend is called Mind Over Medicine.

And that's by Lisa Rankin, such a great book. But her research demonstrated that the body is innately capable of healing itself. When you have the right environment and emotional support, it can do that.

And she really focused on the placebo effect, and how the placebo effect has this profound ability on the body to heal. So just so you guys know a little bit about the placebo. So think of a person who believes a sugar pill will help them heal their headache.

It's a person that receives a treatment that doesn't actually have an active medication in it. They do this even in surgeries where somebody will be operated on, their knee will be operated. One person will have hardware put in their knee, and the other person will have nothing, but they'll have the incision to show that a surgery was done.

And so they do the placebo effect, not just on pills, but on procedures as well. And they've found that it's hard to beat the placebo. And so what that means is that any test done on a medication, the new medical treatment that's being tested has to beat the placebo.

It's always compared to the placebo, and it has to beat the placebo to be considered an effective treatment. And if it doesn't beat the placebo, then it's considered a failed drug. I mean, when y'all if y'all ever want to rabbit hole into the placebo effect, it is so fascinating.

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And one article I read on the Harvard Medical School website was that there was a study done on on migraine medication. And one group was reading