Latest / Love Matters With Leeza Mangaldas / Reclaiming The Body Through Cancer ft. Karuna Ezara Parikh

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Reclaiming The Body Through Cancer ft. Karuna Ezara Parikh · Love Matters With Leeza Mangaldas

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Love Matters, where we deep
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: them into topics of the heart that matter the most.
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  Speaker 1: I'm your host, Lisa A Mangledas, and today we're exploring
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  Speaker 1: a subject that's both personal and universal, a woman's relationship
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  Speaker 1: with her body. Often it is one of the most
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  Speaker 1: fraught relationships that can be. The guest we're going to
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  Speaker 1: be unpacking this subject with is Karana Azarah Park. Karena
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: is a woman of many talents. She's one of the
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: most recognizable writers of our generation, and her beautiful novel
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  Speaker 1: The Heart Asks Pleasure First and subsequent poetry collection Where
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  Speaker 1: Stories Gather received widespread acclaim for their treatment of themes
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  Speaker 1: like love and identity. She's also been a TV presenter,
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  Speaker 1: something we both have in common. And before I share
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: further context with our listeners, Karana, I want to welcome
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  Speaker 1: you to the show.
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  Speaker 2: Hi.
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: I'm so glad we can talk to me.
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  Speaker 4: Hi, Lisa, it's wonderful to be here.
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: Thanks so much for joining us now.
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  Speaker 1: Earlier I dread the publisher's announcement of Karena's upcoming book,
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Water Baby, a memoir chronicling her experiences from her television day.
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  Speaker 1: Is hosting a wildly popular show about beach destinations.
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  Speaker 3: But where the camera typically focused.
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  Speaker 1: More on her body in a bikini than on the
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  Speaker 1: travel itinerary. And as someone who's presented football in unjustifiably
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  Speaker 1: tight dresses often also as the only woman in an
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  Speaker 1: all male crew and for a largely male audience, I
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  Speaker 1: could relate to that media landscape that Karena was describing,
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  Speaker 1: And I thought we'd have so much to discuss, given
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  Speaker 1: that the book explores her journey to finding comfort and
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  Speaker 1: confidence in her own skin. And when I called Karena
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  Speaker 1: to share this idea, she actually shared something that ended
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: up reconfiguring the conversation somewhat. She shared that her book
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: was on hold and that she'd recently been diagnosed with
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  Speaker 1: lung cancer. She explained that she was experiencing perhaps the
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: most profound inflection point in her relationship with her body.
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  Speaker 1: So it seemed fitting that we talk about how contending
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  Speaker 1: with the body in a state of crisis makes you
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  Speaker 1: reassess your relationship with your body anew while honoring all
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  Speaker 1: that came before, as well as looking forward with hope
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  Speaker 1: for all this yet to be experienced. So Karena, I
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  Speaker 1: want to dive right in and ask you, how are
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  Speaker 1: you feeling in your body today?
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  Speaker 5: Hi, Lisa, Oh my goodness, that was a wonderful introduction.
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  Speaker 5: It made me feel really good. And I actually woke
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  Speaker 5: up really excited today because one of the things that
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  Speaker 5: I've been doing for the past five months, ever since
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  Speaker 5: I discovered I had cancer.
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  Speaker 4: Is indulging in deep rest.
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  Speaker 5: Even the language around it is funny, right, I just
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  Speaker 5: use the word indulging, And should it really be an indulgence?
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  Speaker 5: I don't know, you know, shouldn't it be something that
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  Speaker 5: we allow ourselves anyway? But that's what I've been spending
• 2:43
  Speaker 5: the last few months doing. And part of taking that
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  Speaker 5: space for deepressed was accepting that I will not be
• 2:50
  Speaker 5: working a certain way. And so today I woke up
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  Speaker 5: with great excitement because I thought, Wow, I'm going into
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  Speaker 5: the studio after a while, and I'm going to be
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  Speaker 5: doing something that.
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: Really sparks creativity.
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  Speaker 5: And it felt good, particularly doing this after such a
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  Speaker 5: long break. And the funny thing is, I think if
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  Speaker 5: it had been part of my regular life, and if
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  Speaker 5: this had been six months ago, I would have just
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  Speaker 5: come into the studio to meet you, sure with some
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  Speaker 5: level of excitement, but mostly I think with the attitude
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  Speaker 5: of this being just another work thing, and instead I've
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  Speaker 5: come in here really appreciating creating something with someone someone
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  Speaker 5: like you. So it puts things in perspective, doesn't it.
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  Speaker 5: But today I feel good.
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  Speaker 3: Thank you. I have those bumps just hearing you described that.
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  Speaker 1: You know, you sent me a voice note earlier saying
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  Speaker 1: that it took cancer to recognize that you can look
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  Speaker 1: after yourself in the ways. Let's say, you know, indulging
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  Speaker 1: in rest perhaps seems vital and not an indulgence, and
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  Speaker 1: that isn't it unfortunate in so many ways that we
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  Speaker 1: don't look after ourselves, know, just every day. So what
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  Speaker 1: has that been like for you, kind of taking care
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  Speaker 1: of yourself in these new ways? And does it make
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  Speaker 1: you re examine your previous relationship with your body in
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  Speaker 1: a way that you know, perhaps you should have had
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  Speaker 1: permission to do this all along.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's such a good question.
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  Speaker 5: I absolutely did not take care of myself many many
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  Speaker 5: years before this. I was someone who went to the
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  Speaker 5: grocery store and thought, oh my god, those walnuts are
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  Speaker 5: really too expensive.
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  Speaker 4: I'm not going to buy them.
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  Speaker 5: And the very same evening would go to a bar
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  Speaker 5: and buy a cocktail for more expensive than that, right,
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  Speaker 5: And I think a lot of us think like that,
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  Speaker 5: and investing in our health is you know, it feels
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  Speaker 5: a little boring. It feels like something that should be
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  Speaker 5: left to the later years.
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  Speaker 4: And I, for.
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  Speaker 5: Example, always thought I had a little more time to
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  Speaker 5: kind of mistreat my body. In fact, it wasn't even
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  Speaker 5: such an active thought. It was just the way I
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  Speaker 5: went about things, and no regrets, of course.
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  Speaker 4: And I truly mean that.
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  Speaker 5: I'm not someone who is looking at cancer and saying, oh,
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  Speaker 5: I wish I had done this differently, or I wish
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  Speaker 5: I had not done that. I think this is also
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  Speaker 5: part of the journey, and I'm curious to see where
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  Speaker 5: I end up on this journey and at the end
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  Speaker 5: of it. But yeah, it did take cancer for me
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  Speaker 5: to actually start prioritizing my health. And when I say health,
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  Speaker 5: I speak of it holistically, you know. I am speaking
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  Speaker 5: about the physical aspect, whether it's eating right, getting enough sleep,
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  Speaker 5: just allowing myself a day off work. And I also
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  Speaker 5: speak about the mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects of it.
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  Speaker 5: I have been deeply out of touch with those things,
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  Speaker 5: and I think most of us as a generation are,
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  Speaker 5: you know, we work way too hard, and we have
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  Speaker 5: a lot of guilt when it comes to our work.
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  Speaker 5: We have a lot of guilt when it comes to
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  Speaker 5: our rest. Had to actually work very hard to shed
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  Speaker 5: that guilt. And even now there are days where I
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  Speaker 5: tell myself, Oh, you're you're useless, You're doing absolutely nothing,
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  Speaker 5: Like you're fine, Like why are you just lying in bed?
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  Speaker 5: Get up and do some work. And then there's a
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  Speaker 5: second voice that I've had to develop a conversation with
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  Speaker 5: and a relationship with in my head that comes in
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  Speaker 5: and says, you have cancer, you have every right to rest.
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  Speaker 5: And even if you didn't have cancer, you still have
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  Speaker 5: every right to rest. I do think it's also part
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  Speaker 5: of a deeply capitalist society and economy and time that
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  Speaker 5: we live in, you know, hustle culture.
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  Speaker 4: But really it's exactly like who are.
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  Speaker 5: We trying to prove what to when we are working
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  Speaker 5: ourselves to the bone like that. So, yeah, it did
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  Speaker 5: take cancer, And in a way, I'm almost grateful that
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  Speaker 5: this very feared disease came to visit me, because I
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  Speaker 5: don't know if I would have ever actually stopped and
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  Speaker 5: paused and given myself the time I needed.
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  Speaker 4: To relax, actually need to put it simply.
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  Speaker 1: You know, I can only imagine though the journey has been.
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  Speaker 3: I suppose a lot.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: Of emotions come up when when you find that your
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  Speaker 1: body is in a state of crisis and that I
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: had a lump in my breast recently.
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  Speaker 3: It turned out to leave benign.
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  Speaker 1: But just the the word cancer and the you know,
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  Speaker 1: like doctors to the whole process was very It was
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  Speaker 1: a roller coaster of the discovery, the you know, just
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  Speaker 1: trying to be objective about it, and also like hustling
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  Speaker 1: along because you don't even.
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  Speaker 3: Want to tell people, but you're dealing with this one
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  Speaker 3: also trying to deal with real life. Do you want
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  Speaker 3: to do?
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  Speaker 1: You want to take us through the sort of process
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  Speaker 1: of this, yeah, diagnosis, making sense of it, getting to
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  Speaker 1: a point where you're willing to talk about it in
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  Speaker 1: a public setting like this, because that is also important,
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  Speaker 1: I think for people to know what you're going through,
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  Speaker 1: but it can can take time to feel ready. I'd
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  Speaker 1: love to just hear what it's been.
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  Speaker 4: Like for you. Gosha.
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  Speaker 5: Firstly, I'm sorry that you went through that, because I've
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  Speaker 5: had scares like that in the past as well before
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  Speaker 5: this happened, and I know how harrowing, that is. And
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  Speaker 5: you know, we live in this world currently, we live
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  Speaker 5: with so much fear of cancer, and I think there's
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  Speaker 5: this feeling that well, all of us.
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  Speaker 4: Are going to get it someday. You know.
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  Speaker 5: It is the disease of our times, and it is
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  Speaker 5: very much a lifestyle disease. In fact, most of the
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  Speaker 5: research that I've done over the last six months shows
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  Speaker 5: me that even if you do have cancer genes or
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  Speaker 5: cancer prone genes, let's say, you can control that with
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  Speaker 5: your lifestyle. And I think we are not given that
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  Speaker 5: tool to begin with. We are not given that information.
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  Speaker 5: You know, Big Pharma definitely benefits from us not knowing
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  Speaker 5: that that our lifestyles have the power to turn those
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  Speaker 5: genes on and off within our bodies, or those cells
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  Speaker 5: on and off within our bodies. So yeah, I'm I'm
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  Speaker 5: sorry though that sounds scary, and whether or not it's benign,
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  Speaker 5: I think that process is always very difficult, and I've
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  Speaker 5: been there before, so yeah, but in my case this time,
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  Speaker 5: I found a lump in my neck, at the base
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  Speaker 5: of my neck. And it's interesting, right because I think, Lisa,
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  Speaker 5: you know this that when it comes to women and cancer,
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  Speaker 5: the two cancers were told to really look out for
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  Speaker 5: our breast cancer and cervical cancer. So those are the
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  Speaker 5: things that we really focus on as women, right. We
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  Speaker 5: now most of us know to check our breasts, to
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  Speaker 5: get frequent pat smears, to check our breast in the shower,
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  Speaker 5: for example, mammograms, And of course that is a wonderful
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  Speaker 5: and very good thing, because we went through many years
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  Speaker 5: in the history of the world where these were the
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  Speaker 5: cancers that were most ignored because they only happened to women, right,
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  Speaker 5: And to me, what's wonderful is that finally there's a
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  Speaker 5: focus on them. And of course these cancers affect women
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  Speaker 5: in astronomically high numbers, but it doesn't mean you cannot
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  Speaker 5: get other cancers. And in some way, my reading of
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  Speaker 5: this today is also we need to move forward from
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  Speaker 5: just checking for these cancers, because once again they kind
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  Speaker 5: of reduce women to their reproductive or sexualized thoughts. And
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  Speaker 5: there's you know, a woman is an entire body, a
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  Speaker 5: woman is a human being, and it's ridiculous that I
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  Speaker 5: have to say that sentence, right, But the fact is
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  Speaker 5: I never once thought that I could get cancer anywhere else.
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  Speaker 5: So you know, I checked my breast, I looked into
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  Speaker 5: the HPB vaccine.
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  Speaker 4: All those things that.
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  Speaker 5: Are feminine cancers, let's say, but cancer is not gendered
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  Speaker 5: in so many ways, and so I never thought to
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  Speaker 5: check on other things. So when this lump came up
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  Speaker 5: on my neck, I inmediately thought it was something else.
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  Speaker 5: In fact, the doctors wanted to test for tuberculosis because
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  Speaker 5: that's what they thought it was most likely going to be,
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  Speaker 5: and it turned out to be pretty advanced lung cancer.
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  Speaker 4: And you know, I went through a series of tests immediately.
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  Speaker 5: And I say this to anyone who finds anything weird
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  Speaker 5: on their body, do not hold it to yourself.
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  Speaker 4: Do not wait.
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  Speaker 5: What really saved me was going to a doctor immediately
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  Speaker 5: the day I found the lump.
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  Speaker 4: I was at the.
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  Speaker 5: GP by that evening, and the next morning I was
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  Speaker 5: getting an FNAC.
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  Speaker 4: Which is a fine needle biopsy.
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  Speaker 5: I was, you know, getting scans, X rays, all of
• 11:57
  Speaker 5: it within twenty four hours. And I'm so glad I did.
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  Speaker 5: And I will say this, I was scheduled to go
• 12:05
  Speaker 5: for writing retreat to go out. I was teaching a
• 12:08
  Speaker 5: writing retreat there and because I wasn't taking it very
• 12:13
  Speaker 5: seriously when the lump came up and I was prescribed
• 12:16
  Speaker 5: all these tests. I said, right, but I need to
• 12:18
  Speaker 5: go to go up first, and the doctors, the doctor
• 12:22
  Speaker 5: looked at me like I was insane, and so I
• 12:25
  Speaker 5: changed my ticket. I got all my tests done and
• 12:28
  Speaker 5: of course found out that there was a malignancy in
• 12:30
  Speaker 5: my body. So yeah, it was a strange, strange process,
• 12:35
  Speaker 5: and it is not what I had planned for at
• 12:39
  Speaker 5: thirty nine. You know, no one does. The other thing
• 12:42
  Speaker 5: I do want to say is, and I think this
• 12:45
  Speaker 5: is another way women don't take care of themselves. Look
• 12:49
  Speaker 5: into medical insurance. Whatever age you are, you know you
• 12:52
  Speaker 5: should have a medical insurance. Life is full of surprises,
• 12:55
  Speaker 5: and not all of them are kind surprises. So just
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  Speaker 5: small things that that I'm grateful for and that I
• 13:04
  Speaker 5: pass on to anyone who comes at this with fear.
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  Speaker 5: There are ways that you can prepare for the worst
• 13:10
  Speaker 5: without it actually being a panic button. So yeah, but
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  Speaker 5: it was sobering of course when I first found out,
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  Speaker 5: and it was terrifying as well. But I also decided, Lisa,
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  Speaker 5: that I don't want to choose fear. I think as women,
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  Speaker 5: we have incredible strength right within us, and I do
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  Speaker 5: think women are really spectacular when it comes to that
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  Speaker 5: but that also means that very often we tend to hide,
• 13:38
  Speaker 5: let's say, our deepest fears. Very often when it means
• 13:42
  Speaker 5: that we need to protect family members or we need
• 13:45
  Speaker 5: to put on a brave face.
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  Speaker 4: We do that.
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  Speaker 5: And so I will say, while I didn't choose fear,
• 13:51
  Speaker 5: and I decided that that's not going to be the
• 13:54
  Speaker 5: path for me, over year, I did give myself the
• 13:57
  Speaker 5: days I need to feel the those things, to be scared,
• 14:01
  Speaker 5: to be terrified, to mourn whatever came before this. I
• 14:06
  Speaker 5: knew that my life was going to change forever after this,
• 14:10
  Speaker 5: so I just took the time to kind of mourn
• 14:12
  Speaker 5: that as well. And I didn't move fast. This is
• 14:16
  Speaker 5: the other thing. Yes, I did the tests really fast,
• 14:19
  Speaker 5: and I got the results, and I knew that the
• 14:22
  Speaker 5: way forward was going to be probably chemotherapy, which I
• 14:26
  Speaker 5: am now in hospital for mostly, and other newer treatments.
• 14:34
  Speaker 5: But I wanted to take my time with it, so
• 14:37
  Speaker 5: I actually took a month between diagnosis and starting treatment,
• 14:41
  Speaker 5: and that's typically quite long when it comes to cancer.
• 14:44
  Speaker 5: I think most people decide to move within a few
• 14:48
  Speaker 5: days sometimes of a diagnosis. But I just want to say,
• 14:51
  Speaker 5: for anyone listening who might go through this, or who
• 14:55
  Speaker 5: has a family member going through this, or has ever
• 14:57
  Speaker 5: thought about this. That you are allowed to take your time,
• 15:01
  Speaker 5: You are allowed to set the pace that you want.
• 15:03
  Speaker 5: You are allowed to get comfortable with an idea of
• 15:08
  Speaker 5: I don't even want to say a sick body, but
• 15:10
  Speaker 5: an altered body before you actually move to heal it.
• 15:14
  Speaker 5: So I think it's very important to take that time
• 15:17
  Speaker 5: to gather the information that you might need on this journey,
• 15:21
  Speaker 5: to gather the people around you who are going to
• 15:23
  Speaker 5: support you for it, to talk to different doctors, to
• 15:27
  Speaker 5: meet perhaps holistic healers, whatever it takes to make you
• 15:31
  Speaker 5: feel comfortable on the journey. And so much of this
• 15:35
  Speaker 5: being a success is how you approach it. So this
• 15:38
  Speaker 5: is how I wanted to approach it, and I think
• 15:41
  Speaker 5: it's served very well so far.
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: So yeah, I think for a.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: Lot of people it can be quite like people feel
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: like they don't know how to receive this information even
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: when someone shares that, people say a diagnose with can
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: So I think, and you said to me, you know,
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: I don't need this energy of people like I think
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: you're in the worst human energy. And I think people
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: don't like nobody talks about even how to have these conversations.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: So for me, it's really it was very special also
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: that you were willing with such warmth and Canada to
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: talk about this stuff, because I haven't even really I
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: didn't know how to share even just the fact that
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: like I maybe had something up with my boob, you know,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: to tell my mom like she was crying on the phone,
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: like nothing even happened yet. And it can be so
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: hard to have these conversations. You feel like you want
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: to share it, but the other person might not receive.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: You also don't want pity, and it's really quite difficult
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: to navigate topic. I think for many many people, either
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: when a loved one is going through something or when
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: they themselves are going through something and want to share.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: So I really I am grateful for this opportunity to
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: navigate that with you, and for you to really with
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: so much openness share from your perspective.
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: So thank you, Thank you so much.
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: Willing to have this conversation. You know, and your book
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: What a Baby.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: When I read about it, and before we'd even gotten
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: in touch, I was so already that was exploring your
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: relationship with your body in so many ways, right focus
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: on rest and cervical cancer, but just in general, like
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: there's this tendency to see women as vessels of reproduction,
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: you know, and society and often in medicine also, and
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: then in the media, the tendency to sexualize, right, And
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: I just would love to hear from you how you
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: reflect on all of this. This might be quite a
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: long answer, but that's your body was front and center
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: and your imagination already at this point writing water Baby.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: I think, like reclaiming the body is something you've spoken
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: about a lot, and I'd love to hear what that
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: meant for you in the context of everything that you've
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: been through up until this point, and then perhaps the
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: new reflections that came after the diagnosis.
• 17:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's actually a really good question.
• 17:46
  Speaker 5: I just I want to just go back to one
• 17:48
  Speaker 5: of the things you said about, you know, people bringing
• 17:50
  Speaker 5: their own energy to my diagnosis. And that's been so
• 17:55
  Speaker 5: interesting because so much of what we project upon ourselves
• 18:00
  Speaker 5: are the opinions of other people, right, And we live
• 18:03
  Speaker 5: in especially in India, I think, actually, I don't know,
• 18:06
  Speaker 5: perhaps all over the world, but I speak for an
• 18:08
  Speaker 5: Indian context. Here we live with this immense pressure of
• 18:14
  Speaker 5: the outside world and the scrutiny of the outside world constantly,
• 18:18
  Speaker 5: and that too, is something I had to renegotiate when
• 18:21
  Speaker 5: it came to cancer, because I was used to being
• 18:25
  Speaker 5: a yes girl, right and I was used to kind
• 18:28
  Speaker 5: of just being polite about things constantly. And I don't
• 18:33
  Speaker 5: think we realize how much those things are making us
• 18:36
  Speaker 5: unwell as well. And when I got cancer, it was
• 18:40
  Speaker 5: one of the things that I felt, I'm going to
• 18:44
  Speaker 5: draw a line about because I remember the first few
• 18:47
  Speaker 5: people who found out. Some of the responses were pretty weird.
• 18:52
  Speaker 5: I'm going to say, you know, they were really strange
• 18:54
  Speaker 5: things that came up. And of course everyone has an opinion.
• 18:57
  Speaker 5: Every auntie has an opinion. Everyone wants to tell you
• 19:00
  Speaker 5: how they think you're looking. So one of the big
• 19:03
  Speaker 5: things for me is that my chemotherapy drug is such
• 19:06
  Speaker 5: that I haven't lost my hair. I am losing it currently,
• 19:12
  Speaker 5: and every time I brush it, you know, a piece
• 19:15
  Speaker 5: of my heart breaks. Because my hair. I've made it
• 19:18
  Speaker 5: a part of my identity. It's very much a security
• 19:20
  Speaker 5: blanket for me. Over the years, you know, I know
• 19:24
  Speaker 5: many people have referred to me as, oh, the girl
• 19:27
  Speaker 5: with the long hair, you know, because that's always been me.
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: And so I needed to cut it.
• 19:33
  Speaker 5: I know it probably doesn't look a short to anyone
• 19:35
  Speaker 5: right now, but it feels very short to me because
• 19:37
  Speaker 5: I cut off a whole chunk and it's still falling.
• 19:42
  Speaker 5: But because I mostly look like this right now. I
• 19:46
  Speaker 5: think that was one of the things most commented on.
• 19:51
  Speaker 5: When I stepped out of the house or bumped into
• 19:53
  Speaker 5: people or met relatives. It was like, oh, you look great.
• 19:56
  Speaker 5: You know, you look so good. It doesn't matter. Just
• 20:00
  Speaker 5: because I look a certain way right now, I haven't
• 20:02
  Speaker 5: lost my head, doesn't mean I'm not suffering from the chemotherapy.
• 20:06
  Speaker 5: It doesn't mean that internally I'm not in pain or
• 20:09
  Speaker 5: nauseated all the time or having a difficult time with
• 20:14
  Speaker 5: this right so, I think that was one of the
• 20:18
  Speaker 5: harshest realities, that people are just going to judge you
• 20:20
  Speaker 5: by how you look, and that works both ways. Even
• 20:24
  Speaker 5: the fact that I've lost a lot of weight. I've
• 20:26
  Speaker 5: lost weight partly because I became healthier than I've ever
• 20:30
  Speaker 5: been in my life, but also because with cancer your
• 20:33
  Speaker 5: body is unweal, you typically do lose weight, right And
• 20:37
  Speaker 5: as a society, again, we are so conditioned to believing
• 20:41
  Speaker 5: that weight loss is always ninety eight percent of the
• 20:44
  Speaker 5: time is a great thing, and until you look emaciated,
• 20:48
  Speaker 5: which of course then you are again blamed and bullied
• 20:51
  Speaker 5: for any kind of weight loss is usually seen as
• 20:54
  Speaker 5: a great thing. And I find that so problematicly, sir,
• 20:57
  Speaker 5: because you know, the last time I lost a lot
• 21:01
  Speaker 5: of weight, I was severely depressed, and now I've lost
• 21:04
  Speaker 5: all this weight and I have cancer. But people tend
• 21:07
  Speaker 5: to equate weight loss with positive things, and it's really
• 21:12
  Speaker 5: frustrating to often hear people say that, and separately, you know,
• 21:16
  Speaker 5: I mean, I have never been overweight myself, but I
• 21:20
  Speaker 5: also think the problem with that is I used to
• 21:24
  Speaker 5: eat very, very unhealthily constantly. I lived on a diet
• 21:29
  Speaker 5: of like high cbs, you know, sugar high cubs, and
• 21:33
  Speaker 5: I didn't put on weight, possibly because I had very
• 21:36
  Speaker 5: high metabolism due to very high anxiety, and that was
• 21:40
  Speaker 5: no healthy weight to be living. But because I was
• 21:43
  Speaker 5: relatively slim, I think I got away with it. No
• 21:47
  Speaker 5: one would ever turn to me and say, hey, you know,
• 21:49
  Speaker 5: you need to be healthier. And I think the same way.
• 21:54
  Speaker 5: We kind of fall for the idea that someone who's
• 21:57
  Speaker 5: larger is unhealthy, which isn't always true, we also fall
• 22:03
  Speaker 5: for the idea that someone who's slimmer is healthy. So again,
• 22:06
  Speaker 5: another frustrating comment that I often got in this journey
• 22:10
  Speaker 5: is you have cancer. Oh, but you've always been so healthy.
• 22:13
  Speaker 5: And the truth is I've not been healthy. I've just
• 22:15
  Speaker 5: been slim. And it's kind of shitty that people equate
• 22:19
  Speaker 5: the two and that there's so little room for nuance
• 22:22
  Speaker 5: when it comes to viewing our bodies or the bodies
• 22:25
  Speaker 5: of people around us. So, yeah, I just wanted to
• 22:28
  Speaker 5: talk about that for a second, and I feel like
• 22:33
  Speaker 5: this relates to what you were asking about the body
• 22:36
  Speaker 5: and my relationship with it through this journey. One of
• 22:39
  Speaker 5: the things that's happened is, for the first time, because
• 22:41
  Speaker 5: I've also been kind of in this quarantine situation at
• 22:46
  Speaker 5: home alone most of the time, either with my mother
• 22:49
  Speaker 5: or my partner or my dog. You know, a very
• 22:52
  Speaker 5: kind of limited amount of people can see me because
• 22:56
  Speaker 5: of my very low immunity levels. Right now, my body
• 23:01
  Speaker 5: has also been de sexualized in some sense because it's
• 23:05
  Speaker 5: not on display. I'm not dressing up, i'm not going out,
• 23:09
  Speaker 5: I'm not being seen, and so for the first time
• 23:13
  Speaker 5: in a long time, it's kind of like I have
• 23:15
  Speaker 5: my own COVID lockdown, you know, all by myself. So
• 23:19
  Speaker 5: if you look back to that time, perhaps you'll also
• 23:23
  Speaker 5: remember what it felt like. Do not wear makeup, do
• 23:26
  Speaker 5: not have to dress up, to just be alone at
• 23:29
  Speaker 5: home with your thoughts and your being, your internal being.
• 23:33
  Speaker 5: And another decision that I made very soon after the
• 23:39
  Speaker 5: diagnosis was that I didn't want to be on social media.
• 23:43
  Speaker 5: It was too difficult to view the outside world and
• 23:47
  Speaker 5: everything that was happening, and you know, fashion launches and
• 23:51
  Speaker 5: politics and even everything that was happening let's say in Palastine,
• 23:55
  Speaker 5: which I had been very invested in.
• 23:57
  Speaker 4: I just could not witness those things any longer. You know.
• 24:01
  Speaker 4: I kept up with the news, but I could not.
• 24:03
  Speaker 5: Have that endless scroll either of joy or of sorrow,
• 24:08
  Speaker 5: of what's going on in other people's lives. So I
• 24:10
  Speaker 5: cut off from that as well. And I certainly was
• 24:13
  Speaker 5: not in a place to share anything from my own
• 24:15
  Speaker 5: life in this time. I wanted to digest it for
• 24:18
  Speaker 5: a long time before I got to this point. And honestly,
• 24:22
  Speaker 5: this is I think the first time that I'm talking
• 24:25
  Speaker 5: to anyone about this in a way where it's going
• 24:28
  Speaker 5: to be witness publicly so I think that changed my
• 24:32
  Speaker 5: relationship with my body in this time as well, where
• 24:35
  Speaker 5: it's not a body on display, and female bodies in
• 24:39
  Speaker 5: particular are constantly on display, and it has been so
• 24:44
  Speaker 5: refreshing to remove myself from that, and it has allowed
• 24:48
  Speaker 5: me to in a sense, be more than my body.
• 24:53
  Speaker 5: My relationship with my self is very much right now
• 24:56
  Speaker 5: a relationship with my innermo self. You know, I finally
• 25:00
  Speaker 5: brought those things back to the forefront after years, and
• 25:04
  Speaker 5: so it has been six months of kind of negotiating
• 25:08
  Speaker 5: my spiritual being or my emotional being, of journaling daily,
• 25:14
  Speaker 5: of meditating, of bringing those aspects of physicality back. So
• 25:19
  Speaker 5: that's been super, super interesting. We would talk about reproductive
• 25:23
  Speaker 5: aspects of a woman, and I don't know if many
• 25:26
  Speaker 5: people know this, but I wanted to talk a little
• 25:29
  Speaker 5: bit about what chemo does to the body in terms
• 25:32
  Speaker 5: of those things.
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: Is that all right?
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: Of course?
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: Of course, there's so many aspects of what you just
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: said that I'd love to talk about some more. Let's
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: absolutely talk about how chemo can impact fertility.
• 25:43
  Speaker 5: I'll just say a little bit about that because I
• 25:45
  Speaker 5: think most people, and particularly menstruating people, do not know
• 25:51
  Speaker 5: much about this and I was certainly not told this.
• 25:56
  Speaker 5: But you know, when you have chemotherapy, because is just
• 26:00
  Speaker 5: such a high dose of very toxic materials going into
• 26:04
  Speaker 5: your body to kill cancer cells, you essentially lose the
• 26:09
  Speaker 5: ability to menstrate for the time that you are having treatment. Now,
• 26:14
  Speaker 5: that meant differ based on the drug that they choose
• 26:17
  Speaker 5: to give you. But one of the other things that
• 26:20
  Speaker 5: happens is if you're my age. I'm thirty nine right now,
• 26:23
  Speaker 5: if you're my age, which is close to forty, you
• 26:26
  Speaker 5: might actually completely lose the ability to have children. You
• 26:30
  Speaker 5: are essentially rendered in futile after this. And it's interesting
• 26:34
  Speaker 5: to me that the doctors did not tell me that.
• 26:37
  Speaker 5: And I'm really going to some of the best doctors
• 26:39
  Speaker 5: in the country, and I'm so grateful for it, But
• 26:42
  Speaker 5: I was never actually told that by any doctor. And
• 26:46
  Speaker 5: it's something that I needed to find out through friends
• 26:50
  Speaker 5: who've had cancer before me and through the online space,
• 26:55
  Speaker 5: and I felt like that is something that I should
• 26:57
  Speaker 5: have been told. You know, if at thirty nine and
• 27:00
  Speaker 5: I'm going to lose that ability, perhaps I wanted to
• 27:04
  Speaker 5: have a child. I mean, side note, I did not
• 27:06
  Speaker 5: want to have a child at this point, but if
• 27:10
  Speaker 5: I had wanted to, I think I would be devastated.
• 27:12
  Speaker 5: And I also don't know if at thirty nine I
• 27:16
  Speaker 5: was ready for menopause. And I'm not sure at this
• 27:19
  Speaker 5: point if my body is going to respond differently to
• 27:23
  Speaker 5: the treatment of what's going to happen in the long run.
• 27:26
  Speaker 5: But it is very strange to be sort of experiencing
• 27:30
  Speaker 5: symptoms of menopause at thirty nine when you're certainly not
• 27:33
  Speaker 5: ready for it, and to have not even been told
• 27:36
  Speaker 5: these things. So I just thought that's also interesting. You know,
• 27:42
  Speaker 5: many women, if anyone's listening here and this context is
• 27:47
  Speaker 5: for you, I do say look into, say freezing your
• 27:51
  Speaker 5: eggs if that's what you want, because you might not
• 27:54
  Speaker 5: have that ability after this. But yeah, it's just interesting
• 27:57
  Speaker 5: how this whole little lination because it's a woman's body.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and there's also I think again social media, medical,
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: all avenues by which women's lives are impacted and shaped
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: and controlled typically tend.
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: To deny women agency.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: You know, It's like, by design, women's agency is systemically
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: surveiled and controlled. I imagine across various times in your life.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: As also in mind, we've probably experienced firsthand some of
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: these ways you know whether it's a lack of agency
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: in terms of how you're perceived just because you're because
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: you look a certain way, or because you're you know,
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: posting a travel show, making sex education content online or
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: like that you're you talked about, whatever relief it is
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: to not be.
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: On display, but even if one is on display, it is.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: A shame that one kind of loses the ability to
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: do kind of ensure you're.
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: Read the way you wish to be read.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: Right, Why could I not choose my own clothes as
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: a football presenter?
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: The men were wearing.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: Suits, you know, Speaker's air conditioned and freezing in the
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: studio and you're in a bandage dress, or you're in
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: a football pitch and stiletters making holes on the pitch,
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: like super uncomfortable.
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: You can't eat anything that that type of dresses. And
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: you don't really have to say, like if you want
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: that pacheck, you wear what you're told and you go
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: do your job.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: And you're too young to really even see the lack
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: of agency it's an issue. You just think this is
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: how it is, you know, doctor, also like this is
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: how it is with women. Your lack of agency around
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: your body is just supposed to be. This is how
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: it is matter. Rape is illegal, you know, and pre
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: medal sex is frowned upon, So you can't.
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: Even yeah what.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: You can neither say yes nor no on your own
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: terms in so many ways. Right before we move on,
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: I'd like to recommend another great podcast to you. If
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: you're like me and love to hash out every burning
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: culture question, then tune into Respectfully Disagree, a weekly audio
• 30:01
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• 30:05
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• 30:10
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• 30:14
  Speaker 2: out Respectfully Disagree wherever you get your podcasts. And now
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: back to love matters.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: I would love to hear your thoughts on just agency.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: It sounds like in some ways you've been thinking a
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: lot about agency and also reclaiming more and more age.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: I feel like even just going from twenty to thirty
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: to forty is like a really powerful.
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: Process of you know, taking back some of your agency.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: What are your thoughts on just a sort of female agency,
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: you know, in the body, both as a physiological entity
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: as well as a social engendered entity.
• 30:51
  Speaker 5: It's so funny, you know, the things you were saying
• 30:53
  Speaker 5: about wearing a dress on the football field, and all
• 30:56
  Speaker 5: I was thinking about all those times when I do
• 30:59
  Speaker 5: when in my own twenties. I think we're probably on
• 31:01
  Speaker 5: television around the same time you and I, and I
• 31:05
  Speaker 5: was remembering all those times where you know, you just
• 31:07
  Speaker 5: feel like such an idiot, and I can imagine when
• 31:10
  Speaker 5: it comes to spot it was even more exacerbated because
• 31:14
  Speaker 5: you know, you're kind of standing next to men who
• 31:16
  Speaker 5: are just wearing like jeans and a T shirt or
• 31:18
  Speaker 5: a suit, or you know, speaking to like sweaty players,
• 31:22
  Speaker 5: and there you are like dolled up as if you're
• 31:23
  Speaker 5: about to go to the disco, you know, so I
• 31:26
  Speaker 5: can I can only imagine what that's like. And I
• 31:29
  Speaker 5: had several experiences like that where you know, I just
• 31:32
  Speaker 5: felt like I was being.
• 31:33
  Speaker 4: Reduced to a body or a bobble, really.
• 31:37
  Speaker 5: And I was not there for how I could speak
• 31:39
  Speaker 5: or present or for my brain at all.
• 31:44
  Speaker 4: And I remember that.
• 31:45
  Speaker 5: And you know, you say that we are scared in
• 31:50
  Speaker 5: those moments to ask for better or to demand something different,
• 31:54
  Speaker 5: and I remember that feeling as well, thinking, oh, but
• 31:57
  Speaker 5: what if I lose my job because of this?
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: So what if I, you know, you don't want to be.
• 32:01
  Speaker 5: The difficult woman at all, like God forbid, you know.
• 32:05
  Speaker 5: So I remember that really clearly, and I just want
• 32:09
  Speaker 5: to relate it to what I've been going through, because
• 32:14
  Speaker 5: those feelings don't end, right. We continue with them as
• 32:18
  Speaker 5: we grow older, We carry them with us, and unless
• 32:21
  Speaker 5: we actively fight them, I think they become a part
• 32:25
  Speaker 5: of our beings, and we just continue to say yes
• 32:28
  Speaker 5: to things that we don't actually agree with. And it's
• 32:31
  Speaker 5: interesting because right at the start of this journey, I
• 32:36
  Speaker 5: was reading about different responses people have had tu diagnosis,
• 32:41
  Speaker 5: and one of the key things that was found is
• 32:46
  Speaker 5: that women who typically asked a lot of questions and
• 32:51
  Speaker 5: demanded a lot of answers from their doctors statistically tended
• 32:55
  Speaker 5: to live longer post to cancer treatment. And it goes
• 33:00
  Speaker 5: to show right that all that suppression and all that
• 33:04
  Speaker 5: submission somewhere is also messing with us internally. And I
• 33:09
  Speaker 5: think like for anyone who thinks that you're being difficult,
• 33:13
  Speaker 5: if you put up a fight, maybe the statistic will
• 33:15
  Speaker 5: help you because and not just for cancer, for anything
• 33:18
  Speaker 5: out there, right anything, we should be demanding more, We
• 33:21
  Speaker 5: should be demanding better pay, We should be demanding better
• 33:24
  Speaker 5: hours off. We should be demanding you know, someone like
• 33:29
  Speaker 5: about their gaze when we don't want it on us.
• 33:32
  Speaker 4: We should be demanding a change in laws, all of it.
• 33:35
  Speaker 5: So yeah, I actually found that really heartening and I
• 33:40
  Speaker 5: decided to utilize that fact more and going forward maybe
• 33:46
  Speaker 5: asking for better. And I again, I can't believe it
• 33:49
  Speaker 5: took cancer for me to actually do that, but it
• 33:53
  Speaker 5: took me back to these early days of.
• 33:56
  Speaker 4: Filming and even writing for magazine.
• 34:00
  Speaker 5: Is where say a publisher once asked me if I
• 34:03
  Speaker 5: had had a book job. I mean, just my boss
• 34:08
  Speaker 5: casually asking me that. You know, when I went to
• 34:10
  Speaker 5: tell him, I filed an article. So you know, it
• 34:14
  Speaker 5: took me back to all those things and reminiscent of
• 34:17
  Speaker 5: the stuff you were talking about as well. And I think,
• 34:22
  Speaker 5: particularly for women who have families, that is something.
• 34:27
  Speaker 4: To really really look at.
• 34:29
  Speaker 5: We always put our partners and children and in laws
• 34:34
  Speaker 5: and parents before us always, you know, they asked for anything,
• 34:39
  Speaker 5: and we are there. We turn our lives upside down
• 34:43
  Speaker 5: in order to provide whatever emotional care we can often,
• 34:48
  Speaker 5: financial care, physical labor, all of it. And I just
• 34:53
  Speaker 5: think that somewhere it's killing us on so.
• 34:57
  Speaker 4: Many different levels.
• 34:58
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's pissing off, but I think that we know
• 35:03
  Speaker 5: enough now about the body mind and body spirit connection
• 35:07
  Speaker 5: to know that saying yes to those things and gritting
• 35:11
  Speaker 5: our teeth and getting through them and constantly putting someone
• 35:14
  Speaker 5: else before us, it's not just exhausting and pissing off.
• 35:18
  Speaker 5: It is inside your body some It is creating a
• 35:21
  Speaker 5: lot of some sort. So that's also part of what
• 35:24
  Speaker 5: I've been looking at in these last few months, the
• 35:27
  Speaker 5: idea of agency and what it does to us internally.
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: And that's so powerful, Karena, and it really.
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: Like hives hard because I think the idea of beauty
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: and acquiescence is something that women owe to the world.
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: You know, it's like the rent you pay and whoever
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: plays that rent best, like the Golden Apple, where I
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: think as a young woman, there's you know you are.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: You're bombarded with this messaging with like your appearance is
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: the most important thing, and you women don't get angry.
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: You should just be pleasant looking and pleasant, right yeah,
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: and constantly minimize, make yourself small. Don't even laughed loud.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: You don't sit real legs apart, you know, don't ask
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: too many questions, don't and and but also be presentable,
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: have your hair tidy, have you Like.
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: This whole thing of making yourself palatable.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: And small and undemanding, I think is so relentlessly sort.
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: Of hammered in. And even if you have parents.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: Who are not like that, and I'm grateful I didn't
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: have that conditioning directly from my parents, but it is
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: so pervasive that the idea of the good woman as
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: like a beautiful and acquiescent being, especially in a pre
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: social media ear where I feel like we had less
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: diverse reference points and things as well. I think that
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: there's so much internalized misogyny also, where like maybe twenty
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: year old Lisa didn't even see the issues with being
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: in that tight dress on that pitch, or maybe even
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: I mean it's a glamorized role, like okay, I guess maybe,
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: I mean you kind of know that how you look
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: plain into why you were hired. It helps that you're
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: educated and can speak and all of that. So now
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: you're the golden girl who looks good in the tight
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: dress and can speak English, you know, and you recognize
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: everything that's wrong with that, everything that's wrong with that,
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: but you do it anyway, partly because you have bills
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: to pay, but partly also because I think there is
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: some amount of internalized misogyny where male attention seems like
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: something that's back in you, but like.
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: Male attention is valuable. That what a scamp. It's so
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: unfortunate how I've recruited into being foot soldiers.
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: Of our own and each other's sort of like, you know,
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: like how how closely can a woman follow a beauty standard?
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: You know, how straight, shiny, long, et cetera can your
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: hair be? Or how perfectly round can your boobs be?
• 37:46
  Speaker 4: Or your finger?
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: Like there's beauty standards for every single part of the body. Right,
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: And even when you know, despite feminist and queer and
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: other wonderful reading and kind of like ideas that you
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: try and immerse yourself in, just even when you know better,
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: you still I will still look in the mirror sometimes
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: and wish I have a prettier knees or like thinner
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: thighs or big whatever, Right even though I really wish,
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: given all that I know now, I did not feel
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: that way?
• 38:13
  Speaker 4: Do you do?
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: You struggle with that still, that the relationship to beauty
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: and beauty standards And.
• 38:19
  Speaker 5: Oh definitely, I mean, and you can imagine like having cancer. Initially,
• 38:25
  Speaker 5: you know, there's you look tired so many days. You know,
• 38:28
  Speaker 5: you come home and you you look awful. You know,
• 38:30
  Speaker 5: your grain in the face, your hair is coming out
• 38:32
  Speaker 5: in clumps. You're just kind of lying there. You know
• 38:36
  Speaker 5: that you're not desirable at this point. So it's you know,
• 38:41
  Speaker 5: it's a constant fight in the head even now. But
• 38:43
  Speaker 5: like I said, I have actively been working on that.
• 38:48
  Speaker 5: And I think this is part of what you know
• 38:50
  Speaker 5: in feminists discourse we call radical self care, right, because
• 38:54
  Speaker 5: there's one aspect of self care, which you know is
• 38:58
  Speaker 5: it's not an unless version of it, but it's just
• 39:02
  Speaker 5: one version of it where you know, you make sure
• 39:04
  Speaker 5: you book yourself the massage, and you take the day
• 39:07
  Speaker 5: off and you you know, spend time in the shower
• 39:09
  Speaker 5: and give yourself a nice shampoo and you know, get
• 39:12
  Speaker 5: the manicure, all of those things. But then there's the
• 39:14
  Speaker 5: radical aspect of it where you really do have to
• 39:18
  Speaker 5: change the fabric of your thinking, and that is a
• 39:21
  Speaker 5: self care on a different level. And you know what
• 39:24
  Speaker 5: you were talking about and this misogyny and how it
• 39:27
  Speaker 5: becomes so internalized, it also becomes a weaponized because we
• 39:30
  Speaker 5: begin to use it not just against ourselves, but against
• 39:33
  Speaker 5: each other. And that is the tool of patriarchy that
• 39:37
  Speaker 5: you know, is placed in our hands, and we brandish
• 39:39
  Speaker 5: it so conveniently. You know, men don't really need to
• 39:42
  Speaker 5: know anything, because we take each other down so often,
• 39:45
  Speaker 5: you know. And I think that's the kind of radical
• 39:48
  Speaker 5: selfkit that I've been looking into, where I check myself
• 39:52
  Speaker 5: when I'm speaking about another woman in those tones. You know,
• 39:56
  Speaker 5: I check myself when I'm making a joke about the
• 39:59
  Speaker 5: way someone on look so how they're dressed, or you know,
• 40:02
  Speaker 5: why is she behaving that way? And that's not to
• 40:06
  Speaker 5: say that, you know, you don't discuss human behavior, but
• 40:09
  Speaker 5: I think it's important to question whether we're looking at
• 40:12
  Speaker 5: something through a gender lens. And you know what you
• 40:14
  Speaker 5: were saying about us constantly saying yes to these things,
• 40:18
  Speaker 5: to the bandage stress and to looking good, and you know, oh,
• 40:22
  Speaker 5: I'd better do this, I'll fit in more. I think
• 40:25
  Speaker 5: the darker side of that is when we start blaming
• 40:30
  Speaker 5: ourselves for not fitting into those things. And then the
• 40:33
  Speaker 5: next step is we start blaming each other for certain things.
• 40:37
  Speaker 5: And I found this even with the cancer, like, for example,
• 40:42
  Speaker 5: when I told certain people that I had lung cancer.
• 40:45
  Speaker 5: One of the things that often came up is this
• 40:48
  Speaker 5: idea of blame, and it was like, what did she
• 40:52
  Speaker 5: do wrong? And I get that that comes perhaps from
• 40:54
  Speaker 5: a sense of fear. People want to know what I
• 40:59
  Speaker 5: did wrong so that they can tell themselves that they
• 41:02
  Speaker 5: aren't doing that, you know. So for example, a couple
• 41:06
  Speaker 5: of people were like, oh, you know, she must have
• 41:08
  Speaker 5: smoked a lot, or I'd better stop smoking now, or
• 41:12
  Speaker 5: I no longer smoke like that, or one friend send
• 41:15
  Speaker 5: me a message saying, I hope you will stop smoking now.
• 41:18
  Speaker 4: And the fact is I've never been a regular smoker.
• 41:21
  Speaker 5: And the kind of lung cancer I have typically affects
• 41:25
  Speaker 5: non smokers. And that's just the truth of it. That's
• 41:29
  Speaker 5: not to say smoking is good for cancer.
• 41:32
  Speaker 4: It's terrible.
• 41:33
  Speaker 5: And one of the first things they do tell you
• 41:34
  Speaker 5: with any cancer is if you do smoke, you might
• 41:37
  Speaker 5: want to stop that. But I wasn't even in that position, right,
• 41:42
  Speaker 5: But people were looking to blame me, especially other women,
• 41:47
  Speaker 5: were looking to blame me for something that was happening
• 41:50
  Speaker 5: to me. And that is part of this thinking, I think,
• 41:55
  Speaker 5: where if we don't check it and if we don't
• 41:57
  Speaker 5: radicalize our thoughts and fight back on instantly within our
• 42:01
  Speaker 5: own heads.
• 42:02
  Speaker 4: It can be a slippery slope to being a you know.
• 42:06
  Speaker 5: So, yeah, I I have been working very deeply on
• 42:10
  Speaker 5: that aspect of self care, and I call it self
• 42:14
  Speaker 5: care because at the end of the day, no one
• 42:16
  Speaker 5: benefits more from it than you. You know, once you
• 42:19
  Speaker 5: look into those thoughts. And I'm not one of those
• 42:23
  Speaker 5: people who's like, oh, I have no negative thoughts, That's
• 42:26
  Speaker 5: not true. But I think there's a way to process
• 42:30
  Speaker 5: those thoughts and we technically lash out or lash inwards,
• 42:35
  Speaker 5: and they're always of control or feel that come from
• 42:39
  Speaker 5: a feeling of lack of control or wanting control. You know,
• 42:43
  Speaker 5: they come from deep insecurity. Is they come from deep
• 42:47
  Speaker 5: patterns that have been put into us through a misogynistic
• 42:51
  Speaker 5: culture that we exist in. And so yeah, it's it's complicated,
• 42:56
  Speaker 5: and it's not always easy to show up as your self,
• 43:00
  Speaker 5: especially when you're showing up only to yourself, right, But
• 43:05
  Speaker 5: being alone for so many hours during this time and
• 43:10
  Speaker 5: just sitting with my thoughts has been a great place
• 43:14
  Speaker 5: to start.
• 43:15
  Speaker 4: Work on that and to question who I want to
• 43:19
  Speaker 4: be at the end of this.
• 43:20
  Speaker 5: And that's the other thing I think that cancer us
• 43:23
  Speaker 5: you know Lisa Ray, who's such a wonderful human being
• 43:27
  Speaker 5: in an advocate of living positively post cancer. She's a
• 43:31
  Speaker 5: dear friend as well, and right at the very start,
• 43:35
  Speaker 5: she said, I'm sorry that you have to go through this,
• 43:37
  Speaker 5: but you know that it can be a doorway, and
• 43:41
  Speaker 5: the question is are you going to step through it?
• 43:43
  Speaker 5: And adversity comes to each of us at some point
• 43:46
  Speaker 5: in our lives. But I really did want to think
• 43:49
  Speaker 5: of it as that doorway to something better. And once
• 43:53
  Speaker 5: I step through the doorway, I'm not kidding when I
• 43:56
  Speaker 5: say that I don't even see it as a better
• 44:01
  Speaker 5: place or something I need to get over, or something
• 44:04
  Speaker 5: I need to fight. I actually see it as a
• 44:07
  Speaker 5: gift that came into my life, because I don't think
• 44:10
  Speaker 5: I would have ever had these conversations or these thoughts
• 44:14
  Speaker 5: if I hadn't been pushed against the wall so harshly
• 44:18
  Speaker 5: as cancer has done to me.
• 44:19
  Speaker 4: And one of the other.
• 44:22
  Speaker 5: Things that I started as a practice, and I don't
• 44:26
  Speaker 5: think you need to have cancer to do this is
• 44:29
  Speaker 5: actually talking to my body.
• 44:31
  Speaker 4: And I don't think we.
• 44:33
  Speaker 5: Acknowledge our body as this living, breathing being. You know,
• 44:38
  Speaker 5: we think of ourselves as our mind and the body
• 44:42
  Speaker 5: exists as something the mind dolls up or presents to
• 44:46
  Speaker 5: the world, but we are very much our bodies as well, right,
• 44:50
  Speaker 5: and feeling that connection and talking to my body and
• 44:54
  Speaker 5: asking it each morning, how are you, how are you
• 44:57
  Speaker 5: doing today, or telling it during a medai that you know,
• 45:01
  Speaker 5: every cell in you is alive and well and you're
• 45:04
  Speaker 5: good and I'm going to.
• 45:05
  Speaker 4: Take care of you.
• 45:08
  Speaker 5: I read the story of one cancer survivor who said
• 45:12
  Speaker 5: that she just told her body every day, I'm showing
• 45:15
  Speaker 5: up for you. I'm here for you, and I'm not
• 45:18
  Speaker 5: going to let go. And so I've been having these
• 45:20
  Speaker 5: really kind of I won't even say they're deep, they're
• 45:26
  Speaker 5: just really like kind conversations with my body, who I
• 45:30
  Speaker 5: didn't acknowledge for so many years, and to acknowledge that
• 45:34
  Speaker 5: and to say, you have done so well for me,
• 45:37
  Speaker 5: despite all the alcohol I've put in you, despite all
• 45:40
  Speaker 5: the shitty food I've put in you, despite all the
• 45:43
  Speaker 5: trashy things I've done to you, you know you have
• 45:46
  Speaker 5: shown up for me consistently, and I'm going to show
• 45:49
  Speaker 5: up for you and I'm going to take such good
• 45:51
  Speaker 5: care of you and thank you for being there for
• 45:53
  Speaker 5: me and we're on this journey together, and it's so
• 45:57
  Speaker 5: beautiful to kind of come friends with your body at
• 46:01
  Speaker 5: this age, you know. And I think once you do that,
• 46:05
  Speaker 5: you no longer judge it so much for how it looks.
• 46:09
  Speaker 5: It's even how it's performing. You know, you have a
• 46:12
  Speaker 5: deeply empathetic relationship then with your body. And so that's
• 46:16
  Speaker 5: the place I'm trying to be in mostly, and it
• 46:20
  Speaker 5: really is beautiful. And I think for a long time
• 46:25
  Speaker 5: I didn't want to do these things also because they
• 46:29
  Speaker 5: just seemed so.
• 46:32
  Speaker 4: Woo you know.
• 46:33
  Speaker 5: I was like, Oh, my goodness, Like, am I really
• 46:36
  Speaker 5: going to be someone who like manifests good health? Like
• 46:38
  Speaker 5: this is so ridiculously cheesy. And I think that we
• 46:44
  Speaker 5: are a generation of cynics. And I don't blame us
• 46:48
  Speaker 5: look at the world around us, but I think I confused.
• 46:53
  Speaker 4: My spiritual relationship with my body.
• 46:56
  Speaker 5: With what was going on when it came to spirituality
• 47:00
  Speaker 5: religion in the country around us and the world around us.
• 47:04
  Speaker 5: And I began to view my relationship with what I
• 47:09
  Speaker 5: call the spiritual through this lens, and it became very
• 47:13
  Speaker 5: tarnished by that, and I wanted to step away from
• 47:17
  Speaker 5: anything that kind of acknowledged the divine even because to
• 47:23
  Speaker 5: me it just felt disgusting because of the violence done
• 47:29
  Speaker 5: in the name of the Divine around this world, particularly
• 47:32
  Speaker 5: in this moment for living in particularly in India, I
• 47:36
  Speaker 5: just did not want any part of that. And so
• 47:39
  Speaker 5: it's also been a process of kind of reinventing what
• 47:43
  Speaker 5: the spiritual means for me. You know, what does it
• 47:46
  Speaker 5: mean when something moves you so deeply that it helps
• 47:49
  Speaker 5: you believe that there is a power greater than you,
• 47:53
  Speaker 5: And that power is not a man. That power is
• 47:58
  Speaker 5: just something gorgeous out there that you are going to
• 48:01
  Speaker 5: apply to your life in the best possible way. And
• 48:06
  Speaker 5: maybe we are that power, you know, maybe that power
• 48:09
  Speaker 5: resides within you. I don't know, but it has been
• 48:12
  Speaker 5: a really, really beautiful journey, and I do know that
• 48:18
  Speaker 5: it is partly a cliche as well to kind of
• 48:21
  Speaker 5: be hit by cancer and then to begin to believe
• 48:24
  Speaker 5: in something greater than yourself.
• 48:26
  Speaker 4: But perhaps that's why it is a gift.
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much for sharing that, Karana, and I think
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: so much of the wisdom that you've shared is are
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: things that women, including myself, should begin applying immediately. Rest
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: you know, on the incredible resilience and joy and feeling
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: that this body gives you. And I think that it
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: would really do us all well to also realize that, perhaps,
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: you know, our appearance is one of the less interesting
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: things about us actually, like so many of the things
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: that maybe we don't even take the time to think about,
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: Like so much of life is spent just not not
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: questioning and just doing just you know, playing the bills
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: and losing the weight. And I don't know, I read
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: the other day like life, there's life and paying bills
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: and losing weight.
• 49:15
  Speaker 6: And I thought, maybe it's so profound sometimes, and it's
• 49:22
  Speaker 6: sad that it takes sometimes these drastic events, you know,
• 49:26
  Speaker 6: to make you stop and see what should have been
• 49:29
  Speaker 6: obvious all along.
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: And I think unfortunately when it when big events like
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: that happen, actually the time for reflection with others is
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: really rare.
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: So thank you for being so generous with that, because
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: I really think we've.
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: All got to to begin now, begin doing all these
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: things now.
• 49:49
  Speaker 5: Yeah, we shouldn't have to wait for something big or
• 49:54
  Speaker 5: horrible to happen. And uh, I know that's easier said
• 49:57
  Speaker 5: than done, But if there's anyway to live like you
• 50:02
  Speaker 5: have cancer, I would say do it.
• 50:06
  Speaker 4: And I'm still on.
• 50:07
  Speaker 5: This journey, Lisa, and I don't know how it's going
• 50:11
  Speaker 5: to end or where it's going to end, but I
• 50:13
  Speaker 5: will say that I'm really enjoying it. And that might
• 50:16
  Speaker 5: sound ironic because I do have cancer and it isn't
• 50:20
  Speaker 5: always fun, but I am trying to enjoy this journey
• 50:23
  Speaker 5: as much as I can and to honor it as
• 50:25
  Speaker 5: part of my wider journey as well. And I just
• 50:28
  Speaker 5: wanted to say thank you for offering to have this
• 50:31
  Speaker 5: conversation with me despite the fact that my book is
• 50:34
  Speaker 5: currently on hold because of what I'm going through, and
• 50:39
  Speaker 5: welcoming that we could have a different kind of conversation
• 50:42
  Speaker 5: about the body and giving me a space to voice
• 50:45
  Speaker 5: these feelings and thoughts in a way that is not
• 50:48
  Speaker 5: just generous but also empathetic and sensitive. And trust me,
• 50:53
  Speaker 5: so many people have asked me the wrong questions or
• 50:56
  Speaker 5: not listened or judged the way I'm approaching this journey,
• 51:00
  Speaker 5: and I didn't feel any of those things from you.
• 51:03
  Speaker 5: I only felt welcomed and loved and heard. So thank you,
• 51:08
  Speaker 5: very very very much.
• 51:09
  Speaker 3: Thank you, Karen.
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: I wish I could give you a big hug, because I.
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: Really, yeah, I feel like we were meant to be
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: friends sooner.
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: I relate to so much of what the way you described.
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: I think I could listen to you all day. So
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: thank you. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: listen to you and to help share your perspectives on
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: what you're going through. To everyone tuning in, Thanks so
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: much for joining us on Love Matters, produced by Indian
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: Express and DW, Germany's international broadcaster. We would love to
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: hear your thoughts on this podcast. If you don't want
• 51:43
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• 51:46
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• 51:49
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• 51:53
  Speaker 1: join us again next time.