Episode 43: Diagnosis, Loss, & Critical Details: A Chat with Expert Carol Lourie
Breast Cancer is not a surgical emergency
A breast cancer diagnosis is a shock to most who hear it. And often our response is simply to allow the medical community to sweep us along into the usual process of treatment. But generally, says expert Carol Lourie, breast cancer is not a surgical emergency. You have some time to listen, to learn, and to consider your options. The emotional components In this conversation, Grief Coach Wendy Sloneker talks with Naturopath, Acupuncturist, and Homeopath Carol Lourie about how one of those options may be learning more about the roots of the disease. Understanding emotional components of disease can help support your physical and spiritual health through treatment and beyond. |
If you or someone you care for is undergoing treatment for breast cancer or has been through treatment and is looking for ways to prevent recurrence, please listen and share this very important podcast.
Then be sure to check out Carol's Empowered Against Recurrence course: https://carollourie.com/wendy-sloneker.*
You can learn more about Carol Lourie at her website, https://carollourie.com/.
You are Invited
And of course, if illness or other changes have resulted in unmanageable grief or sadness, please make a complimentary appointment with Wendy right away. You can find contact information on her website, https://www.wendysloneker.com/.
*Disclosure: This is an affiliate link, meaning Wendy Sloneker will receive a small commission if you purchase the product via this link. Wendy only endorses products she has personally used or which have come highly recommended by trusted peers. There is no additional cost to you.
Then be sure to check out Carol's Empowered Against Recurrence course: https://carollourie.com/wendy-sloneker.*
You can learn more about Carol Lourie at her website, https://carollourie.com/.
You are Invited
And of course, if illness or other changes have resulted in unmanageable grief or sadness, please make a complimentary appointment with Wendy right away. You can find contact information on her website, https://www.wendysloneker.com/.
*Disclosure: This is an affiliate link, meaning Wendy Sloneker will receive a small commission if you purchase the product via this link. Wendy only endorses products she has personally used or which have come highly recommended by trusted peers. There is no additional cost to you.
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Full Episode Transcript
Wendy Sloneker
You are listening to the Heart Healing from Loss Podcast with Wendy Sloneker. This is episode 43. I'm thrilled and a half to bring Carol Lourie to the microphone, especially right now in the month of October, Breast Cancer Awareness Month and I have the inimitable Carol Lourie here with us and for us, Carol, welcome.
Carol Lourie
Well, I'm so excited. And thank you for that wonderful introduction. I hope I live up to it.
Wendy
Heck, yeah, I've been I've known Carol for four or five years, we were just chatting before we hit the record button. And I can't believe it's been four or five years that we have known each other and you've been working to help hundreds of 1000s maybe at this point. 1000s Yes, 1000s. I'm getting the head nod 1000s of women to reclaim and empower themselves in their health, especially if they've been on a path of breast cancer.
Now, Carol's here to talk with us not only about experience and strength and hope in going through, but also she has a little something new that talks about empowerment from recurrence.
Carol, welcome. I would love to hear a little bit about like how you started in this work. Please share with our listeners who may be going through either recent or continued diagnoses. Bring it on? Well, what do we need to know? Right away?
Carol
Okay. Well, thank you so much for that. And I want to start out with what women need to know right away, which is, if you're recently diagnosed, it's very, very rarely a surgical emergency. So you are in a state of shock. And you get an abnormal mammogram. And I have had women tell me well, the doctor immediately said, Well, we're just scheduling you for biopsy house tomorrow at three o'clock or Monday.
Wendy
Oh, my God, that is so rapid.
Carol
Yes. So you don't need to say Yes, right away. You need to go home and prepare. And how I mean prepare is that your life is going to be disrupted, radically disrupted, if you have children. When you think about everything the mom does, even before the kids get out of the house, or even before you go to work. I've had women short this, there's like 35 things.
Wendy
Oh my gosh, right.
Carol
So with all due respect to your partner, whether it's a man or a woman, I mean, who is going to take over those 35 things. There needs to be conversations, I recommend getting a spreadsheet going, getting your family, friends and community involved and writing down everything that you will need help with? Who's going to pick the kids up from school and take them to xyz activity? Who's going to drive you to treatment?
Wendy
Right? Right?
Carol
And who's going to help with the meals because there are going to be days when you're just can't deal with it. And unfortunately, the family needs don't change, right. So that's the very first thing.
Wendy
It's so interesting, too, because our brains just say, yeah, get it done immediately take that, like next day, three o'clock, at all costs. And I imagine that it's also difficult to get information into the understanding part of your brain. Is that true? Like the shock just getting through the shock and having the information come in? We don't I guess what I'm saying is, we don't really know that we have a choice in in declining that initial immediate come right in in 24 hours sort of biopsy.
Carol
Yeah, yes, you don't you do have a choice. And unless you have this huge tumor, and it's pressing on something which most women do not. But I think that term shock is an interesting word because it carries women carry women carry that for months and years. And then they come to my empowered against recurrence program. And one of the things I hear all the time is, I still haven't recovered from the shock.
Wendy
Honestly, yeah.
Carol
And that's been 18 months or two years or whatever. So when we have this shock response, we take a breath in and we hold our breath. That's it unconscious, of course, and that energy gets put into our bodies or cells. And we carry that with us until we feel safe. And we can then begin the process of letting go of that. So that is just understanding and acknowledging that and bringing it into your consciousness is the beginning of turning the volume down on that shock. Right?
Wendy
Oh, thank you. So, immediately, thank you, because there's so much fear that goes into receiving news about our health, that it can change kind of our, our own identity of what we consider ourselves in our vital bodies. Absolutely, that's amazing.
Carol
And that your energy that we have in our body really determines a lot about what happens to us moving forward in life. One of the aspects that I think is very important that I always bring into the conversation with women is have you ever had anything traumatic happened to you in your life? Now? I've had I had a woman get very upset with me and say, Well, I haven't had anything traumatic happened to me. So my attitude is, as an adult, it's almost impossible not to have had something traumatic. So I said, Well, if I change the word, trauma to the word upsetting experiences, how do you feel about that? And she goes, Oh, yeah, I've had a lot of those. And then she starts telling me, like these really traumatic events.
So this is what I want to say to everyone, we have a tendency to minimize upsetting or traumatic experiences as a protective mechanism. And so she had some pretty difficult experiences as a young girl with being inappropriately treated. And she just thought they were upsetting. And when we're younger, and we are the victim of unfortunate experiences, and inappropriate experiences, it's a protective mechanism to put them in a little box and sort of pretend they're not there or classify them is anything less than traumatic. But that energy carries forward with us as we become adults. And then you have stress, overworking all of these types of activities. And that ping, all of a sudden, you have a perfect storm, and you get a diagnosis, such as breast cancer. So we always need to bring in the emotional component of any illness, whether it's breast cancer, infertility, or autoimmune disease.
Wendy
Right. Right. Well, and when you're talking about storing in the body, this is also what we're encouraged to do in terms of grief feelings, or loss emotions, they're upsetting, but we don't really know what to do with them, or how to process them specifically. So this is, I'm just so glad you're here. I can't say it enough. I can't say it enough.
Okay, so gathering organized. Now, you mentioned gathering community around you is one other thing that we as women or people born female, have learned to do is to not ask for help and try to go it all alone. So for the people who are listening, who are like, yes, but I, I don't want to ask for help. Please, what would you say to these people, because I don't particularly enjoy asking for help. However, when I need to, that is like taking a form of medicine for me. What would you say to the people who were saying, Yeah, well, I may need to ask for help. But I don't want to Yeah, right.
Carol
Well, I want to talk about the energy of breast cancer. As a homeopath, there are certain diseases that have energies to them. And in homeopathic philosophy, we call that a miasms. Oh, and breast cancer is one of those diseases or diagnoses that has a miasmatic energy to it. And what that is, and I'm going to share it and as I talk, see if any of this resonates with you, you are always feeling rushed, rushed, rushed, like I have to do this, I have to do that you make lists every day, if you don't put it on paper, it's in your mind. There's a level of perfectionism in your work. So that makes it doubly difficult to ask for help, because I'm sure that the person who asked for help or not, will not do it exactly the way or as good as you do it. And so that that's one of the areas that prevents you from asking for help.
There's a level of not wanting to feel vulnerable, which is another reason that you don't ask for help. And our society does not talk about vulnerability with really, more men or anything and In fact, it's discouraged and processing is discouraged. And the messages you get from watching television, which I encourage everybody to watch as little as possible is a woman's depressed, she takes a pill and the next moment the house is sparkling, clean, and she's serving the family a picnic lunch.
I can't even tell you as a feminist, how much that upsets me? And I'm heating up my language here a little bit. Yes, that's totally not the right messaging.
Wendy
So ask so untrue.
Carol
Yes, asking for help, is really acknowledging your vulnerability and your lack of feeling safe. So I think a good place to start when you think oh, I don't want to ask for help is to realize that this is a situation that you haven't gone through before. And it's going to be more difficult than you are aware of? And who can you feel safe with, that you can ask for help.
So when you look at it from that perspective, that helps change your feeling like Oh, I'm not going to ask for help, I'll be fine. Because you need help, and you won't be fine. You can't drive yourself to chemotherapy, and drive yourself back. And you just it's not physically possible. They give you steroids, you feel nauseous, sometimes it's dangerous to get in the car afterwards.
Wendy
Yeah. Well, and like what you were saying, there's some real value in honoring that you haven't been here before done this before. Right? So you don't know how you're gonna feel. And so having support versus having more support versus less support, seems, one responsible, in a way, but also, very loving for yourself.
Carol
That's a good way of putting it, you're, you know, you're giving yourself love and positive energy and you need, women need a lot of that, because we have this very active mind. And one of the things I talk with women about is our mindset, and it life, sort of like you want to stay at the top of the wave. When you start looking at it like that, and you realize how you're talking to yourself. It's very easy to understand why it's very difficult for you to stay at the top of the wave and you get sucked into the negativity to societal messaging. And when you physically don't feel well, it makes it that much harder to stay at the top. Right.
Wendy
Right. Well, and in fact, I was working with a client the other week where she was just she had something physical going on. And her self talk was that much more negative because she just wasn't feeling her best or feeling anywhere near well. That's that's also when my brain I've noticed in my experience, like, Oh, my self talk goes in the crapper when I don't feel well.
Carol
Absolutely.
Wendy
Yeah. Yeah. That's so interesting. What else about the word miasms is so interesting to me. And is there anything else to share about miasms miasmic energies?
Carol
Well, there's a lot, you can change that. You can change the energy you don't have to, once you know what it is, or you're doing consultation with a qualified homeopath. Once you know what that is. Homeopathic remedies change that energy. But once you diagnose it yourself, or you become realizing it yourself, and you really become aware of it, you can start to be conscious and track it.
So if you find yourself spinning out and going, Oh, my God, I have 15 things to do today. How am I going to get all of this stuff done, you can pull back and start to do some self soothing and self talk. Because really, the most important thing is to feel positive about yourself. More important than how many items you get crossed off your list in a day.
Wendy
Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Like that 35 That you were talking about before anybody's ever leaving the house? Yeah. It's highly valuable. And we just don't often take credit, or offer ourselves credit
Carol
Or value, what we're doing how we're spending our time.
Wendy
Oh my gosh. So how how important is mindset around just the long game of walking through either an initial diagnosis of breast cancer, or going through say your program of being empowered against recurrence mindset in the long game is really is that like the most sustainable? It's the most skill to work on?
Carol
Most important, most important, and it's also the most difficult to sustain because there's very little societal support. When you go into your oncology office, it's not something that they will ever bring into the conversation.
Wendy
Mindset, really?
Carol
No. Well ask you, are you depressed? Are you anxious, and the next thing you know, out comes the prescription pad. And you're being given a prescription for an antidepressant or an anti anxiety medication, which I know there are rare instances. But as a naturopath, my attitude is, let's do natural. First, let's see if we can look at the gestalt of the picture, and see what's contributing to that, because sometimes it's appropriate to be depressed or anxious.
And let's find out what's contributing to that. So first of all, you're not crazy. And second of all, then let's get you in with the right coach or therapist to help you with that. And third of all, let's use the beauty of botanical medicine and homeopathy to help turn down the volume of what's happening for you. And sometimes just acknowledging that it's appropriate for you to be depression as a chapter heading. Sometimes underneath that there's sadness, there's grief, there is anger. So when you start to differentiate what those emotions are, it can really shift because depression is like stuck or blocked energy. So if you get really real with, you know, I'm really sad about this, I'm traumatized that I lost my breasts, I didn't want to lose them. I feel like I was rushed into this decision, I should have gotten a second opinion. I mean, there's a lot of shoulds. So we need to be really begin to like, open the drawer and see every little detail that's in there. And then that is the beginning of being able to process the stuck emotions that are causing them to be depressed or anxious.
Wendy
Well, and having a feeling of depression is different than having a clinical diagnosis of depression. Right? Would you agree?
Carol
Yes, I agree. Although sometimes the doctors don't differentiate.
Wendy
Right? Right. And so you being clear, a person being clear about how they're feeling is that much more powerful. As, as a self advocate to I would imagine, being really clear that I'm actually sad. I'm also angry, and I, you know, I'm feeling loss based on my body, and what my body is going through this is actually appropriate.
Carol
It's very appropriate. And sometimes when a woman is under the wave, she doesn't have enough self advocacy skills. Or she's physically not feeling well.
Wendy
Right. Right. And so asking for that help, would you recommend that, if possible, that support come with you to appointments to I mean, certainly driving to treatments and services, but also advocates coming into the rooms, people who feel safe for you, for you to have their with you.
Carol
I don't think a woman should go to any appointment by herself.
Wendy
Oh my gosh, I love that.
Carol
Emotionally, oh, upsetting experience and overwhelming. And the doctor was talking sometimes about science stuff and you're like, with your eyes wide open and you don't remember anything that was said. So you have a person who's taking notes and then scribes to support you and keep you feeling connected into your body and safe. And I used to go with my friend, this is how I began my the creation of empowered against recurrence. I accompany a dear friend through 18 months of her breast cancer journey through by a diagnosis biopsy and I was in the biopsy room with her and for women who have had this experience not one of your better days.
It's not pleasant, even though everybody's doing the best they can. It's still very traumatic to have anesthesia, you anesthesia injected into your breast and then you don't feel anything but you feel pressure and it feels violation. And it's and you know, what's coming is upsetting news, potentially.
Yeah, and through treatment and chemo radiation surgery, so and then taking care of her afterwards. So I got an upfront and very personal experience of what medical oncology had to offer. And I just want to share this with the women who are watching. My friend was treated at UCSF in San Francisco and the first time we went into her chemotherapy infusion it's a very large room, there's little dividers, and it's not very private. But the nurse said Oh, you're just here you look a little thin would you like some insurer? Now, the number one ingredient insurer is glucose and we said no thank you and then she gets the infusion is started. Oh, you know, we find that sucking on Hard Candy helps with the nausea or would you like a popsicle or, you know a cookie? Gone? Yeah, cupcake, I'm not exaggerating five times. So on one hand, you're getting chemotherapy to kill the cancer cells. And on the other hand, they're giving sugar, which is gas for the cancer gas tank. Oh my god. So if you're doing this and you're in chemotherapy, you do not want to be eating any of these sugar products ever.
Wendy
Ever. Well, this is also you know, similar to, what happens when people try to distract from a feeling or an emotion is they replaced the loss? Oftentimes, we're taught from early on to do that with food or sugar, or a puppy. I mean, a puppy is not sustainable either.
Carol
I'm like, said she gets a new puppy. She's has like, seven. They're all great.
Wendy
They're, they're sugar free.
Carol
Little love buckets. Right? Whatever your desire is. Right?
Wendy
Right. Exactly. Also a distraction, but also a different one. That's all Yeah, totally healthy and lovable. Right? Right. So interesting about, you really recommend once in treatment, or once, a diagnosis has come up to not ingest sugar whenever possible.
Carol
Well, this stems back to the adage, the medical fact that cancer is a metabolic disease. What that means as a lot of other diseases, but let's specify cancer, there are many different biochemical processes and pathways and unhealthy passive pathways which are activated that create cancer. And cancer loves sugar.
So when you're eating sugar, it's not just white sugar, it's honey, it's maple syrup. It's sweet things. It's also simple carbohydrates. And that means crackers and bread. I had a woman tell me that she went to see the oncology nutritionist and the woman said to her, and she was talking about what should she eat? And the woman said, we'll just switch from white bread to whole wheat bread. So I said, No, that's not an accurate statement. You do not want to be eating any gluten or any bread. And when you do become gluten free, the tendency is to go out and buy gluten free crackers and gluten free bread and gluten free pasta and go, Oh, I'm gluten free cereal. I'm gluten free. This is fine.
These are all very high glycemic foods. So you really need to be aware of not just you know, being gluten free, but how much? How easily are these white foods and often they're white when they're gluten free? Because they're made with rice flour, which is a very glycine, highly processed. Right? How often how quickly is it made into sugar in your body? So being gluten free doesn't eat lots of carbs. Right.
Wendy
Right. Right. Wow. So the fewer the simple carbs, the fewer the less the sugar? This is just all in the sense. I mean, I've never heard that cancer was a metabolic condition. Oh, real. It's so yeah. How about that? That's, that's totally new for this is so interesting. Wow. What else? Like I feel like you've already shared 11 things that are highly valuable. What else do we need to know Carol?
Carol
Ah, when Gerald Ford was president in the 60s and I'm giving my age away. His wife came out that she had breast cancer. And before that, breast cancer was a horrible, shameful disease. It was a secret. Women didn't talk about it. They were made to feel like they've done something wrong. And she came out and that was the beginning of no longer being a secret and lessening the shame. And then Ronald Reagan came out with the war on cancer or fighting or attacking. Oh, hunkering.
So I have I think it's very important to have a more feminine approach towards this diagnosis or disease. It's a disease of the feminine as is ovarian or any gynecological cancer. So we don't want to attack it or fight it or anti cancer diet. It's not anticancer anything we it's not something we want to conquer. Because those words, who are we doing those activities with ourselves? Cancer is part of you. Right? It was part of you. And so right. It's part of your metabolic process is part of your body was part of your body.
So what's the new attitude? What's a more feminine approach? Thinking about this diagnosis or disease for you? Do that doesn't involve inflammatory negative violence to yourself. Those are very violent words, and there's a lot of violence in our society.
Wendy
Yeah. So what would some of those options be in terms of if I'm not going to fight it? What am I going to do? With it or about it?
Carol
Good? Great idea. Great question. So you need to think about your vision. I like to share with women as you're going along in your life, and this there is this, like, you have this beautiful path that you've created, and this little blob is there. And it's taking up the whole path. So you can't go around that you have to go through it. And when you have difficult moments in your life, an empowered approach is well, I didn't volunteer for this. But now that it's here, what can I do? And I know this may sound weird, to make the most positive experience out of this unfortunate moment.
Right, that staying at the top of the wave? Yeah, what kind of team am I going to bring together to support me, so I don't feel isolated, so I have the care that I need. So I can take the best of both worlds what medical oncology offers. And then there's another side of medical treatment, which is what I do, and we are each expert in our own areas, it's not one or the other, it's you need both to be able to get through that little blob on your path, as healthy as possible on the other side.
Wendy
So you don't have to fight it, to go through it. And you can go through it and not love it. But still, there can be life that's happening while you're going through it as well.
Carol
Right
Wendy
This is a lot of what I talk about some, sometimes with my clients, when they feel like there's a loss and their everything around them is just stopped. Looking for places where life is still happening, your toenails are still growing, your hair is still growing, this is happening around you, your lungs are still breathing you this is still life that is happening. You don't have to love it. But you don't have to fight it either. To go through it, I think that's very wise.
Carol
I think it makes a difference in your outcome. And part of what you're doing to get through that little blob is you're doing everything that you know that you've gathered information to when you're in treatment, reduce the side effects of treatment.
And then when you're through treatment, to reduce the side effects of treatment, recover from treatment, and know that you're doing everything possible to minimize your risk of recurrence. Now, notice I'm saying it's never going to come back. I mean, you don't want it to come back. That's one of the number one fears that women share with me. I don't want this to come back. Sure, or it's not. So you know, when you go to oncology, you go through active treatment, most women or they ring the bell and they're given a diploma and that's I guess that's a nice ritual and then you're given an aromatase inhibitor or tamoxifen to block estrogen if you have hormone positive cancer, and then you're sent home.
So it's a little alarming to me about and then the woman says, I feel like my oncologist fell off the face of the earth the minute I finished treatment, and one other woman said, I know this sounds weird, but I liked going to radiation every day because I felt like I was doing something.
Wendy
Active, active like we've got something proactive.
Carol
So proactive taking that forward. You're proactive when you change how you eat
Wendy
huh yeah,
Carol
The best thing you can do is to divorce the standard American diet. The initial SAD should also be called dangerous because it literally quadruples the cancer rate.
Wendy
Wow, Wow.
Carol
Science based statement. So you're eating like you're eating you know, coffee in the mornings go pastry on the way to work, where you don't eat breakfast and then you eat lunch. It has you know, noodles are an over the counter on healthy fats. And you have dinner you have a drink every night with something that you know you put together.
It's like where is the nutrition? What is the metabolic messaging that you're giving yourself? How are you telling yourselves to stay on the healthy path as opposed to the unhealthy pro cancer path? How what are you giving messaging to your cells? So what you eat and how you eat is one of the first things that I always talk about. Nutrition is the foundation of disease is also how we heal
Wendy
Wow. So are there two or three things besides Okay, like really get clear and truthful with yourself about sugars and carbohydrates. But what else can we be looking at? Do you think? Yeah.
Oh, thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry about that, Carol. Thank you, Shannon. Okay, can you still make? Can you still hear me? Can you still hear you, honey? Thank you. Thank you. Okay. You can still hear me. Can I have a thumbs up? Sweet. Thank you. Okay. So, Carol, I would love to hear just a little bit more about nutrition. And I imagine that getting some help and support would be part of what you're doing in your work and in the course that you offer as well. But could you tell our listeners just a little bit more around?
What to do nutrition wise, if sugar and carbs and getting really honest with yourself around sugar and carbs is one of the steps what what are their things? Do you need to retrain your taste buds? Do you need to sort of like because things can get different and noticeable? And feelings can come up when sugar goes down? Especially processed sugars?
Carol
Well, I think the first thing to realize is that the standard American diet is the only culture where we've been trained through American advertising to eat Pop Tarts, frozen waffles, and sugar in the morning, when you look at their cultures. It's not about that, yes, there's coffee involved. But there's not that level of sugar.
And the Japanese culture which had very, almost zero breast cancer, until the culture began to become westernized. They had their very specific way of eating breakfast, they had fermented food, they had protein, they had a little bit of rice, they had seaweed, and they had soy products, which, unfortunately, America has decided that soy is bad, quote, unquote, for breast cancer. But actually, there is an enormous amount of research that the woods difficult or creates problems is non organic soy, but non GMO, organic soy is actually fine. Now, are you going to eat eight ounces? Seven days a week? I hope not. But if you're eating four ounces a few days a week. There's nothing the matter with that.
So how do you start your day, I think there's an enormous amount of research for the metabolic and medical benefits of drinking green tea. Now I just share this with my community. And a woman showed me that she had gone out and gotten green tea bags from Safeway, and she thought that that was green tea. So I want to read be really clear, you need to go on to Amazon and buy organic high grade Japanese green tea, it's called matcha. And it should be a powder and you want to steep it and then you need to strain it. And if you and that has caffeine in it. So you will feel a jolt from that. If you're used to having your coffee in the morning. You can have benefits just from drinking two cups of green tea in the morning before you then eat your breakfast. And what should your breakfast be leftovers from dinner or lunch? protein and vegetables. You don't need to have it be toast and carbohydrates and cheese or anything like that.
Wendy
You can still keep it simple.
Carol
Keep it simple. You don't need to do a lot of or you no massive cooking. You can make a frittata. Right? Yeah, organic eggs with vegetables doesn't food should be delicious. It doesn't need to be I wouldn't want anybody to have anything but delicious food. I used to be a chef and I think eating wonderful food is important.
Wendy
You have quite a few really good recipes in your resources that you offer Carol.
Carol
Yes, I do.
Wendy
Yes, you do. So good. So good. So as we wrap up, and I'm so grateful for our time together, especially during this month. Carol, what would you like to offer our listeners just in terms of, additional information before we close out? I'm going to have a link it's going to be special. There's going to be a special rate just for you. Dear listeners who are listening from here. Definitely want to connect you with Carol. But Carol, what is your sort of parting message for those who have either who are on this path and who resonate with what you're saying?
Carol
Cancer creates chaos. So if you feel once you've been diagnosed that your life has spun out of control, and the image I want to share is that the puzzles have been thrown up in the air and you're sitting there and they're all around you, and you don't know where to start. You're there's nothing the matter with you, you're not crazy, that's very normal.
So you can't put those puzzle pieces together yourself. And when you do, your life is going to look different than it was when you started. And that is a good thing. So changed is sometimes not easy to go through going through that little blob that showed up on your path. Not, you know, a walk in the park.
But what I encourage and I support women, I want you to feel like you're better in some many ways than you were when you started. When you get on the other side. Women have quit their jobs. They've either left to unhealthy relationships, or they've gone into couples counseling to get their relationships better. They become more clear about who they are, and what's their purpose. They've gone back to school, they've taken up knitting, our family and I are both knitters. You've learned to draw, they go to pottery class. I mean, what is it that you really want to do that you go, I'll just do it later. There's no time now.
So if you stop watching addictive television, you get about two and a half to three hours back up your life every day. What do you call every day? A time? That's a lot? What are you going to do with that time, that's fun, and nurtures you are you going to write a book or write poetry? You you work at something that nurtures you, a couple of days a week, you start exercising, you get in front of the zoom, and you start finding somebody to help you exercise, you start really cooking for yourself that you have. So you have healthy food for yourself in the family during the week. These things take time. But if you're rushing home from work, and you're watching television, and you barely have time to go to the grocery store, the changes stopping on television is a life changing moment for people and they go through withdrawal.
Wendy
It's true. It's true. Well, and it's also less chaos. Because if you're watching chaos on television, then that's something that you're informing yourself of as well. Yes,
Carol
Yes. So how you behave on the outside reflects the energy on the inside. So with my program, one of the things we do is we have the five steps. And then we have a special workshop, which is all about reducing Tamoxifen and aromatase inhibitors side effects. And when you have that plan, those strategies, those tools that you know, work, that contains the chaos and really makes a huge difference in how you feel every day.
Wendy
It's like getting your life back. Yeah.
Carol
Recovering your health and restoring your life.
Wendy
Oh, Carol, thank you so much. Thank you so much. Please connect with Carol sooner than later. And thank you very much for being here. Carol.
Carol
Thank you for having me so much.
Wendy
Hi, this is Wendy, thank you so much for being here and spending time with me for you. Yeah, the whole purpose of walking through grief and loss is to find out how to feel better. Did you know there are tools and skills to be learned about how to do this?
Yeah, for real, and I do it. Let's get on a connection call. It's a 45 minute Free call. We'd love to offer to you when you're ready. And we'll just see if we'd be a good fit to work together. If you're ready for a little more support, and not less, and if you're ready to feel a little bit better. And to find out how to learn these tools and skills.
I'm ready for you. Reach out through my website. Connect with me directly through [email protected] and we'll set it up. Heck yeah, we will. All right. Till then take really good care.
You are listening to the Heart Healing from Loss Podcast with Wendy Sloneker. This is episode 43. I'm thrilled and a half to bring Carol Lourie to the microphone, especially right now in the month of October, Breast Cancer Awareness Month and I have the inimitable Carol Lourie here with us and for us, Carol, welcome.
Carol Lourie
Well, I'm so excited. And thank you for that wonderful introduction. I hope I live up to it.
Wendy
Heck, yeah, I've been I've known Carol for four or five years, we were just chatting before we hit the record button. And I can't believe it's been four or five years that we have known each other and you've been working to help hundreds of 1000s maybe at this point. 1000s Yes, 1000s. I'm getting the head nod 1000s of women to reclaim and empower themselves in their health, especially if they've been on a path of breast cancer.
Now, Carol's here to talk with us not only about experience and strength and hope in going through, but also she has a little something new that talks about empowerment from recurrence.
Carol, welcome. I would love to hear a little bit about like how you started in this work. Please share with our listeners who may be going through either recent or continued diagnoses. Bring it on? Well, what do we need to know? Right away?
Carol
Okay. Well, thank you so much for that. And I want to start out with what women need to know right away, which is, if you're recently diagnosed, it's very, very rarely a surgical emergency. So you are in a state of shock. And you get an abnormal mammogram. And I have had women tell me well, the doctor immediately said, Well, we're just scheduling you for biopsy house tomorrow at three o'clock or Monday.
Wendy
Oh, my God, that is so rapid.
Carol
Yes. So you don't need to say Yes, right away. You need to go home and prepare. And how I mean prepare is that your life is going to be disrupted, radically disrupted, if you have children. When you think about everything the mom does, even before the kids get out of the house, or even before you go to work. I've had women short this, there's like 35 things.
Wendy
Oh my gosh, right.
Carol
So with all due respect to your partner, whether it's a man or a woman, I mean, who is going to take over those 35 things. There needs to be conversations, I recommend getting a spreadsheet going, getting your family, friends and community involved and writing down everything that you will need help with? Who's going to pick the kids up from school and take them to xyz activity? Who's going to drive you to treatment?
Wendy
Right? Right?
Carol
And who's going to help with the meals because there are going to be days when you're just can't deal with it. And unfortunately, the family needs don't change, right. So that's the very first thing.
Wendy
It's so interesting, too, because our brains just say, yeah, get it done immediately take that, like next day, three o'clock, at all costs. And I imagine that it's also difficult to get information into the understanding part of your brain. Is that true? Like the shock just getting through the shock and having the information come in? We don't I guess what I'm saying is, we don't really know that we have a choice in in declining that initial immediate come right in in 24 hours sort of biopsy.
Carol
Yeah, yes, you don't you do have a choice. And unless you have this huge tumor, and it's pressing on something which most women do not. But I think that term shock is an interesting word because it carries women carry women carry that for months and years. And then they come to my empowered against recurrence program. And one of the things I hear all the time is, I still haven't recovered from the shock.
Wendy
Honestly, yeah.
Carol
And that's been 18 months or two years or whatever. So when we have this shock response, we take a breath in and we hold our breath. That's it unconscious, of course, and that energy gets put into our bodies or cells. And we carry that with us until we feel safe. And we can then begin the process of letting go of that. So that is just understanding and acknowledging that and bringing it into your consciousness is the beginning of turning the volume down on that shock. Right?
Wendy
Oh, thank you. So, immediately, thank you, because there's so much fear that goes into receiving news about our health, that it can change kind of our, our own identity of what we consider ourselves in our vital bodies. Absolutely, that's amazing.
Carol
And that your energy that we have in our body really determines a lot about what happens to us moving forward in life. One of the aspects that I think is very important that I always bring into the conversation with women is have you ever had anything traumatic happened to you in your life? Now? I've had I had a woman get very upset with me and say, Well, I haven't had anything traumatic happened to me. So my attitude is, as an adult, it's almost impossible not to have had something traumatic. So I said, Well, if I change the word, trauma to the word upsetting experiences, how do you feel about that? And she goes, Oh, yeah, I've had a lot of those. And then she starts telling me, like these really traumatic events.
So this is what I want to say to everyone, we have a tendency to minimize upsetting or traumatic experiences as a protective mechanism. And so she had some pretty difficult experiences as a young girl with being inappropriately treated. And she just thought they were upsetting. And when we're younger, and we are the victim of unfortunate experiences, and inappropriate experiences, it's a protective mechanism to put them in a little box and sort of pretend they're not there or classify them is anything less than traumatic. But that energy carries forward with us as we become adults. And then you have stress, overworking all of these types of activities. And that ping, all of a sudden, you have a perfect storm, and you get a diagnosis, such as breast cancer. So we always need to bring in the emotional component of any illness, whether it's breast cancer, infertility, or autoimmune disease.
Wendy
Right. Right. Well, and when you're talking about storing in the body, this is also what we're encouraged to do in terms of grief feelings, or loss emotions, they're upsetting, but we don't really know what to do with them, or how to process them specifically. So this is, I'm just so glad you're here. I can't say it enough. I can't say it enough.
Okay, so gathering organized. Now, you mentioned gathering community around you is one other thing that we as women or people born female, have learned to do is to not ask for help and try to go it all alone. So for the people who are listening, who are like, yes, but I, I don't want to ask for help. Please, what would you say to these people, because I don't particularly enjoy asking for help. However, when I need to, that is like taking a form of medicine for me. What would you say to the people who were saying, Yeah, well, I may need to ask for help. But I don't want to Yeah, right.
Carol
Well, I want to talk about the energy of breast cancer. As a homeopath, there are certain diseases that have energies to them. And in homeopathic philosophy, we call that a miasms. Oh, and breast cancer is one of those diseases or diagnoses that has a miasmatic energy to it. And what that is, and I'm going to share it and as I talk, see if any of this resonates with you, you are always feeling rushed, rushed, rushed, like I have to do this, I have to do that you make lists every day, if you don't put it on paper, it's in your mind. There's a level of perfectionism in your work. So that makes it doubly difficult to ask for help, because I'm sure that the person who asked for help or not, will not do it exactly the way or as good as you do it. And so that that's one of the areas that prevents you from asking for help.
There's a level of not wanting to feel vulnerable, which is another reason that you don't ask for help. And our society does not talk about vulnerability with really, more men or anything and In fact, it's discouraged and processing is discouraged. And the messages you get from watching television, which I encourage everybody to watch as little as possible is a woman's depressed, she takes a pill and the next moment the house is sparkling, clean, and she's serving the family a picnic lunch.
I can't even tell you as a feminist, how much that upsets me? And I'm heating up my language here a little bit. Yes, that's totally not the right messaging.
Wendy
So ask so untrue.
Carol
Yes, asking for help, is really acknowledging your vulnerability and your lack of feeling safe. So I think a good place to start when you think oh, I don't want to ask for help is to realize that this is a situation that you haven't gone through before. And it's going to be more difficult than you are aware of? And who can you feel safe with, that you can ask for help.
So when you look at it from that perspective, that helps change your feeling like Oh, I'm not going to ask for help, I'll be fine. Because you need help, and you won't be fine. You can't drive yourself to chemotherapy, and drive yourself back. And you just it's not physically possible. They give you steroids, you feel nauseous, sometimes it's dangerous to get in the car afterwards.
Wendy
Yeah. Well, and like what you were saying, there's some real value in honoring that you haven't been here before done this before. Right? So you don't know how you're gonna feel. And so having support versus having more support versus less support, seems, one responsible, in a way, but also, very loving for yourself.
Carol
That's a good way of putting it, you're, you know, you're giving yourself love and positive energy and you need, women need a lot of that, because we have this very active mind. And one of the things I talk with women about is our mindset, and it life, sort of like you want to stay at the top of the wave. When you start looking at it like that, and you realize how you're talking to yourself. It's very easy to understand why it's very difficult for you to stay at the top of the wave and you get sucked into the negativity to societal messaging. And when you physically don't feel well, it makes it that much harder to stay at the top. Right.
Wendy
Right. Well, and in fact, I was working with a client the other week where she was just she had something physical going on. And her self talk was that much more negative because she just wasn't feeling her best or feeling anywhere near well. That's that's also when my brain I've noticed in my experience, like, Oh, my self talk goes in the crapper when I don't feel well.
Carol
Absolutely.
Wendy
Yeah. Yeah. That's so interesting. What else about the word miasms is so interesting to me. And is there anything else to share about miasms miasmic energies?
Carol
Well, there's a lot, you can change that. You can change the energy you don't have to, once you know what it is, or you're doing consultation with a qualified homeopath. Once you know what that is. Homeopathic remedies change that energy. But once you diagnose it yourself, or you become realizing it yourself, and you really become aware of it, you can start to be conscious and track it.
So if you find yourself spinning out and going, Oh, my God, I have 15 things to do today. How am I going to get all of this stuff done, you can pull back and start to do some self soothing and self talk. Because really, the most important thing is to feel positive about yourself. More important than how many items you get crossed off your list in a day.
Wendy
Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Like that 35 That you were talking about before anybody's ever leaving the house? Yeah. It's highly valuable. And we just don't often take credit, or offer ourselves credit
Carol
Or value, what we're doing how we're spending our time.
Wendy
Oh my gosh. So how how important is mindset around just the long game of walking through either an initial diagnosis of breast cancer, or going through say your program of being empowered against recurrence mindset in the long game is really is that like the most sustainable? It's the most skill to work on?
Carol
Most important, most important, and it's also the most difficult to sustain because there's very little societal support. When you go into your oncology office, it's not something that they will ever bring into the conversation.
Wendy
Mindset, really?
Carol
No. Well ask you, are you depressed? Are you anxious, and the next thing you know, out comes the prescription pad. And you're being given a prescription for an antidepressant or an anti anxiety medication, which I know there are rare instances. But as a naturopath, my attitude is, let's do natural. First, let's see if we can look at the gestalt of the picture, and see what's contributing to that, because sometimes it's appropriate to be depressed or anxious.
And let's find out what's contributing to that. So first of all, you're not crazy. And second of all, then let's get you in with the right coach or therapist to help you with that. And third of all, let's use the beauty of botanical medicine and homeopathy to help turn down the volume of what's happening for you. And sometimes just acknowledging that it's appropriate for you to be depression as a chapter heading. Sometimes underneath that there's sadness, there's grief, there is anger. So when you start to differentiate what those emotions are, it can really shift because depression is like stuck or blocked energy. So if you get really real with, you know, I'm really sad about this, I'm traumatized that I lost my breasts, I didn't want to lose them. I feel like I was rushed into this decision, I should have gotten a second opinion. I mean, there's a lot of shoulds. So we need to be really begin to like, open the drawer and see every little detail that's in there. And then that is the beginning of being able to process the stuck emotions that are causing them to be depressed or anxious.
Wendy
Well, and having a feeling of depression is different than having a clinical diagnosis of depression. Right? Would you agree?
Carol
Yes, I agree. Although sometimes the doctors don't differentiate.
Wendy
Right? Right. And so you being clear, a person being clear about how they're feeling is that much more powerful. As, as a self advocate to I would imagine, being really clear that I'm actually sad. I'm also angry, and I, you know, I'm feeling loss based on my body, and what my body is going through this is actually appropriate.
Carol
It's very appropriate. And sometimes when a woman is under the wave, she doesn't have enough self advocacy skills. Or she's physically not feeling well.
Wendy
Right. Right. And so asking for that help, would you recommend that, if possible, that support come with you to appointments to I mean, certainly driving to treatments and services, but also advocates coming into the rooms, people who feel safe for you, for you to have their with you.
Carol
I don't think a woman should go to any appointment by herself.
Wendy
Oh my gosh, I love that.
Carol
Emotionally, oh, upsetting experience and overwhelming. And the doctor was talking sometimes about science stuff and you're like, with your eyes wide open and you don't remember anything that was said. So you have a person who's taking notes and then scribes to support you and keep you feeling connected into your body and safe. And I used to go with my friend, this is how I began my the creation of empowered against recurrence. I accompany a dear friend through 18 months of her breast cancer journey through by a diagnosis biopsy and I was in the biopsy room with her and for women who have had this experience not one of your better days.
It's not pleasant, even though everybody's doing the best they can. It's still very traumatic to have anesthesia, you anesthesia injected into your breast and then you don't feel anything but you feel pressure and it feels violation. And it's and you know, what's coming is upsetting news, potentially.
Yeah, and through treatment and chemo radiation surgery, so and then taking care of her afterwards. So I got an upfront and very personal experience of what medical oncology had to offer. And I just want to share this with the women who are watching. My friend was treated at UCSF in San Francisco and the first time we went into her chemotherapy infusion it's a very large room, there's little dividers, and it's not very private. But the nurse said Oh, you're just here you look a little thin would you like some insurer? Now, the number one ingredient insurer is glucose and we said no thank you and then she gets the infusion is started. Oh, you know, we find that sucking on Hard Candy helps with the nausea or would you like a popsicle or, you know a cookie? Gone? Yeah, cupcake, I'm not exaggerating five times. So on one hand, you're getting chemotherapy to kill the cancer cells. And on the other hand, they're giving sugar, which is gas for the cancer gas tank. Oh my god. So if you're doing this and you're in chemotherapy, you do not want to be eating any of these sugar products ever.
Wendy
Ever. Well, this is also you know, similar to, what happens when people try to distract from a feeling or an emotion is they replaced the loss? Oftentimes, we're taught from early on to do that with food or sugar, or a puppy. I mean, a puppy is not sustainable either.
Carol
I'm like, said she gets a new puppy. She's has like, seven. They're all great.
Wendy
They're, they're sugar free.
Carol
Little love buckets. Right? Whatever your desire is. Right?
Wendy
Right. Exactly. Also a distraction, but also a different one. That's all Yeah, totally healthy and lovable. Right? Right. So interesting about, you really recommend once in treatment, or once, a diagnosis has come up to not ingest sugar whenever possible.
Carol
Well, this stems back to the adage, the medical fact that cancer is a metabolic disease. What that means as a lot of other diseases, but let's specify cancer, there are many different biochemical processes and pathways and unhealthy passive pathways which are activated that create cancer. And cancer loves sugar.
So when you're eating sugar, it's not just white sugar, it's honey, it's maple syrup. It's sweet things. It's also simple carbohydrates. And that means crackers and bread. I had a woman tell me that she went to see the oncology nutritionist and the woman said to her, and she was talking about what should she eat? And the woman said, we'll just switch from white bread to whole wheat bread. So I said, No, that's not an accurate statement. You do not want to be eating any gluten or any bread. And when you do become gluten free, the tendency is to go out and buy gluten free crackers and gluten free bread and gluten free pasta and go, Oh, I'm gluten free cereal. I'm gluten free. This is fine.
These are all very high glycemic foods. So you really need to be aware of not just you know, being gluten free, but how much? How easily are these white foods and often they're white when they're gluten free? Because they're made with rice flour, which is a very glycine, highly processed. Right? How often how quickly is it made into sugar in your body? So being gluten free doesn't eat lots of carbs. Right.
Wendy
Right. Right. Wow. So the fewer the simple carbs, the fewer the less the sugar? This is just all in the sense. I mean, I've never heard that cancer was a metabolic condition. Oh, real. It's so yeah. How about that? That's, that's totally new for this is so interesting. Wow. What else? Like I feel like you've already shared 11 things that are highly valuable. What else do we need to know Carol?
Carol
Ah, when Gerald Ford was president in the 60s and I'm giving my age away. His wife came out that she had breast cancer. And before that, breast cancer was a horrible, shameful disease. It was a secret. Women didn't talk about it. They were made to feel like they've done something wrong. And she came out and that was the beginning of no longer being a secret and lessening the shame. And then Ronald Reagan came out with the war on cancer or fighting or attacking. Oh, hunkering.
So I have I think it's very important to have a more feminine approach towards this diagnosis or disease. It's a disease of the feminine as is ovarian or any gynecological cancer. So we don't want to attack it or fight it or anti cancer diet. It's not anticancer anything we it's not something we want to conquer. Because those words, who are we doing those activities with ourselves? Cancer is part of you. Right? It was part of you. And so right. It's part of your metabolic process is part of your body was part of your body.
So what's the new attitude? What's a more feminine approach? Thinking about this diagnosis or disease for you? Do that doesn't involve inflammatory negative violence to yourself. Those are very violent words, and there's a lot of violence in our society.
Wendy
Yeah. So what would some of those options be in terms of if I'm not going to fight it? What am I going to do? With it or about it?
Carol
Good? Great idea. Great question. So you need to think about your vision. I like to share with women as you're going along in your life, and this there is this, like, you have this beautiful path that you've created, and this little blob is there. And it's taking up the whole path. So you can't go around that you have to go through it. And when you have difficult moments in your life, an empowered approach is well, I didn't volunteer for this. But now that it's here, what can I do? And I know this may sound weird, to make the most positive experience out of this unfortunate moment.
Right, that staying at the top of the wave? Yeah, what kind of team am I going to bring together to support me, so I don't feel isolated, so I have the care that I need. So I can take the best of both worlds what medical oncology offers. And then there's another side of medical treatment, which is what I do, and we are each expert in our own areas, it's not one or the other, it's you need both to be able to get through that little blob on your path, as healthy as possible on the other side.
Wendy
So you don't have to fight it, to go through it. And you can go through it and not love it. But still, there can be life that's happening while you're going through it as well.
Carol
Right
Wendy
This is a lot of what I talk about some, sometimes with my clients, when they feel like there's a loss and their everything around them is just stopped. Looking for places where life is still happening, your toenails are still growing, your hair is still growing, this is happening around you, your lungs are still breathing you this is still life that is happening. You don't have to love it. But you don't have to fight it either. To go through it, I think that's very wise.
Carol
I think it makes a difference in your outcome. And part of what you're doing to get through that little blob is you're doing everything that you know that you've gathered information to when you're in treatment, reduce the side effects of treatment.
And then when you're through treatment, to reduce the side effects of treatment, recover from treatment, and know that you're doing everything possible to minimize your risk of recurrence. Now, notice I'm saying it's never going to come back. I mean, you don't want it to come back. That's one of the number one fears that women share with me. I don't want this to come back. Sure, or it's not. So you know, when you go to oncology, you go through active treatment, most women or they ring the bell and they're given a diploma and that's I guess that's a nice ritual and then you're given an aromatase inhibitor or tamoxifen to block estrogen if you have hormone positive cancer, and then you're sent home.
So it's a little alarming to me about and then the woman says, I feel like my oncologist fell off the face of the earth the minute I finished treatment, and one other woman said, I know this sounds weird, but I liked going to radiation every day because I felt like I was doing something.
Wendy
Active, active like we've got something proactive.
Carol
So proactive taking that forward. You're proactive when you change how you eat
Wendy
huh yeah,
Carol
The best thing you can do is to divorce the standard American diet. The initial SAD should also be called dangerous because it literally quadruples the cancer rate.
Wendy
Wow, Wow.
Carol
Science based statement. So you're eating like you're eating you know, coffee in the mornings go pastry on the way to work, where you don't eat breakfast and then you eat lunch. It has you know, noodles are an over the counter on healthy fats. And you have dinner you have a drink every night with something that you know you put together.
It's like where is the nutrition? What is the metabolic messaging that you're giving yourself? How are you telling yourselves to stay on the healthy path as opposed to the unhealthy pro cancer path? How what are you giving messaging to your cells? So what you eat and how you eat is one of the first things that I always talk about. Nutrition is the foundation of disease is also how we heal
Wendy
Wow. So are there two or three things besides Okay, like really get clear and truthful with yourself about sugars and carbohydrates. But what else can we be looking at? Do you think? Yeah.
Oh, thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry about that, Carol. Thank you, Shannon. Okay, can you still make? Can you still hear me? Can you still hear you, honey? Thank you. Thank you. Okay. You can still hear me. Can I have a thumbs up? Sweet. Thank you. Okay. So, Carol, I would love to hear just a little bit more about nutrition. And I imagine that getting some help and support would be part of what you're doing in your work and in the course that you offer as well. But could you tell our listeners just a little bit more around?
What to do nutrition wise, if sugar and carbs and getting really honest with yourself around sugar and carbs is one of the steps what what are their things? Do you need to retrain your taste buds? Do you need to sort of like because things can get different and noticeable? And feelings can come up when sugar goes down? Especially processed sugars?
Carol
Well, I think the first thing to realize is that the standard American diet is the only culture where we've been trained through American advertising to eat Pop Tarts, frozen waffles, and sugar in the morning, when you look at their cultures. It's not about that, yes, there's coffee involved. But there's not that level of sugar.
And the Japanese culture which had very, almost zero breast cancer, until the culture began to become westernized. They had their very specific way of eating breakfast, they had fermented food, they had protein, they had a little bit of rice, they had seaweed, and they had soy products, which, unfortunately, America has decided that soy is bad, quote, unquote, for breast cancer. But actually, there is an enormous amount of research that the woods difficult or creates problems is non organic soy, but non GMO, organic soy is actually fine. Now, are you going to eat eight ounces? Seven days a week? I hope not. But if you're eating four ounces a few days a week. There's nothing the matter with that.
So how do you start your day, I think there's an enormous amount of research for the metabolic and medical benefits of drinking green tea. Now I just share this with my community. And a woman showed me that she had gone out and gotten green tea bags from Safeway, and she thought that that was green tea. So I want to read be really clear, you need to go on to Amazon and buy organic high grade Japanese green tea, it's called matcha. And it should be a powder and you want to steep it and then you need to strain it. And if you and that has caffeine in it. So you will feel a jolt from that. If you're used to having your coffee in the morning. You can have benefits just from drinking two cups of green tea in the morning before you then eat your breakfast. And what should your breakfast be leftovers from dinner or lunch? protein and vegetables. You don't need to have it be toast and carbohydrates and cheese or anything like that.
Wendy
You can still keep it simple.
Carol
Keep it simple. You don't need to do a lot of or you no massive cooking. You can make a frittata. Right? Yeah, organic eggs with vegetables doesn't food should be delicious. It doesn't need to be I wouldn't want anybody to have anything but delicious food. I used to be a chef and I think eating wonderful food is important.
Wendy
You have quite a few really good recipes in your resources that you offer Carol.
Carol
Yes, I do.
Wendy
Yes, you do. So good. So good. So as we wrap up, and I'm so grateful for our time together, especially during this month. Carol, what would you like to offer our listeners just in terms of, additional information before we close out? I'm going to have a link it's going to be special. There's going to be a special rate just for you. Dear listeners who are listening from here. Definitely want to connect you with Carol. But Carol, what is your sort of parting message for those who have either who are on this path and who resonate with what you're saying?
Carol
Cancer creates chaos. So if you feel once you've been diagnosed that your life has spun out of control, and the image I want to share is that the puzzles have been thrown up in the air and you're sitting there and they're all around you, and you don't know where to start. You're there's nothing the matter with you, you're not crazy, that's very normal.
So you can't put those puzzle pieces together yourself. And when you do, your life is going to look different than it was when you started. And that is a good thing. So changed is sometimes not easy to go through going through that little blob that showed up on your path. Not, you know, a walk in the park.
But what I encourage and I support women, I want you to feel like you're better in some many ways than you were when you started. When you get on the other side. Women have quit their jobs. They've either left to unhealthy relationships, or they've gone into couples counseling to get their relationships better. They become more clear about who they are, and what's their purpose. They've gone back to school, they've taken up knitting, our family and I are both knitters. You've learned to draw, they go to pottery class. I mean, what is it that you really want to do that you go, I'll just do it later. There's no time now.
So if you stop watching addictive television, you get about two and a half to three hours back up your life every day. What do you call every day? A time? That's a lot? What are you going to do with that time, that's fun, and nurtures you are you going to write a book or write poetry? You you work at something that nurtures you, a couple of days a week, you start exercising, you get in front of the zoom, and you start finding somebody to help you exercise, you start really cooking for yourself that you have. So you have healthy food for yourself in the family during the week. These things take time. But if you're rushing home from work, and you're watching television, and you barely have time to go to the grocery store, the changes stopping on television is a life changing moment for people and they go through withdrawal.
Wendy
It's true. It's true. Well, and it's also less chaos. Because if you're watching chaos on television, then that's something that you're informing yourself of as well. Yes,
Carol
Yes. So how you behave on the outside reflects the energy on the inside. So with my program, one of the things we do is we have the five steps. And then we have a special workshop, which is all about reducing Tamoxifen and aromatase inhibitors side effects. And when you have that plan, those strategies, those tools that you know, work, that contains the chaos and really makes a huge difference in how you feel every day.
Wendy
It's like getting your life back. Yeah.
Carol
Recovering your health and restoring your life.
Wendy
Oh, Carol, thank you so much. Thank you so much. Please connect with Carol sooner than later. And thank you very much for being here. Carol.
Carol
Thank you for having me so much.
Wendy
Hi, this is Wendy, thank you so much for being here and spending time with me for you. Yeah, the whole purpose of walking through grief and loss is to find out how to feel better. Did you know there are tools and skills to be learned about how to do this?
Yeah, for real, and I do it. Let's get on a connection call. It's a 45 minute Free call. We'd love to offer to you when you're ready. And we'll just see if we'd be a good fit to work together. If you're ready for a little more support, and not less, and if you're ready to feel a little bit better. And to find out how to learn these tools and skills.
I'm ready for you. Reach out through my website. Connect with me directly through [email protected] and we'll set it up. Heck yeah, we will. All right. Till then take really good care.