Latest / Two Girls and a Cup of Wellness / Cancer Healing: More Than Survival with Chris Wark | Ep 13
Transcript
- Crissy Florio: Hey everyone, welcome back for another Two Girls in a Cup of Wellness conversation. This is Chrissy and this is Marie and today we have on one of my most favorite people in the world, Chris Squarck. Welcome Chris, we're so excited you're here. Chris Wark: Thank you. And most favorite people in the world. That's, that's a pretty, gosh, that's, that's pretty high praise. I don't feel worthy. Crissy Florio: the total order. So I'll give you a little bit of my history. When I was a brand new nurse starting in ICU, I would always have these patients and I could figure out why they had cancer, what was going on. And I had one patient that was young, marathon runner, very healthy. And I couldn't figure out why she had, it was some gastrointestinal cancer that had metastasized to her lungs. So she was in our unit for the ricotomy and I couldn't figure out why she had cancer. And all the doctors said genetics. they said, she has no medical history. Nobody in her family has this cancer. I don't understand. And one of her friends brought her in an Italian sub. And she said, Maria, I love these. I eat them every day. And this was a long time ago. So I had to go to the library and figure out about it. Now you can just ask Chachi Guti. So it was mind blowing to me. And a few weeks later, when I saw that oncologist, said to him, Chris Wark: What's that? What's a library? Crissy Florio: I think it's, I think it was her diet, think it's the nitrates and the way they process meat. And I'm young. I was learning all these things. I really thought farmer Joe lived on a farm with a red barn and all the animals and quacking and it was really happy. I had no idea about the food industry then. And he told me I was an idiot. And normally I would be offended, but it really irritated me and it fueled that fire. So this is, I'm trying to put everything together because I know I started following your blog well before your book came out and somebody must have mentioned it to me and I. had no idea that nutrition could impact until I started reading your story. was like, somebody can get rid of their cancer with food and diet and nutrition. It was mind blowing to me. So this is really exciting for me to actually meet you because I think I had told everybody about your book and it's really fun. was telling my friend the other day and she said, ⁓ Chris beat cancer. Marie, you need to enunciate because I literally thought it was crispy cancer. ⁓ of course not. Nope. Chris Wark: I get that a lot. Yes, Chris beat cancer. That's right. Crissy Florio: Chris, speak. Yep. So yeah, just share your story for our listeners. Yeah, it's amazing. to be able to go back that far and obviously you're going to share your story a little bit, but to be able to go against the grain and go against doctors and say no to things, I too have experienced that in my own journey with breast cancer. But why don't you tell us a little bit about your journey and your story and what got you here today? Chris Wark: Sure. And before I do, I just want to say, I appreciate so much that first of all, it just makes me feel so good that my book reached you as a frontline medical worker, as a nurse, because in my opinion, nurses are doing, I mean, the interaction that nurses have with patients is so much more intimate and meaningful and nurses have such a huge impact and can have a huge impact on patients. ⁓ and a lot of nurses that I, you know, I've experienced and talked to, know, we'll take the time to share things that they've learned with patients that doctors won't share. And so, yeah, that really means a lot to me to just to know that there's, there's another nurse out there that is, you know, ⁓ sort of the light bulb has gone off and, and understand. Crissy Florio: but taking the time, Yeah. Yeah. And I'm a nurse practitioner now. it's, I, I appreciate all my years of nursing because I've held the hands. I heard the patients cry in pain and I never want to down talk anybody because I've seen the physicians do that. So I feel like I, am proud of, to be a nurse, proud to be a nurse practitioner. Chris Wark: Hmm. Crissy Florio: appreciate doctors, but I do not want to be associated with doctor in the nicest way possible because I think I have that other loving, compassionate type of side to medicine which is needed, especially in the cancer world. And when you're going through a cancer diagnosis, it could be potentially one of the scariest times that any of us go through. And hopefully you never have to go through that. But ⁓ Chris Wark: Yeah. Crissy Florio: you know, for you, Chris, going through the stage three colon cancer back way back when and making the decision and recognizing and realizing that food is medicine and that it can help you and can help heal you along with, you know, now, obviously, you know, a lot of different ways that kind of accompany that, too. But what was it like back then? Again, just kind of being in the this was like the start of of this of really, really, really understanding that food can be medicine. Chris Wark: Yeah, well, I was diagnosed in 2003. I was 26. I had abdominal pain for the better part of a year. You know, it was, it was mild. It just would kind of come and go. I would say it was like, you know, between a level one and a level three out of 10, you know, pain or discomfort. So it wasn't severe, but it was just enough to be like, Hey, what's going on in there? You know, and, and, ⁓ wasn't affecting my quality of life at all, but toward the end of the year, you know, it started to progress and it was getting up there. It was like, you know, five, six, seven in terms of pain. And I'm like, man, whatever this is, has not gone away. And it's seems to be worse. And so I had a series of doctor's appointments eventually went to the gastroenterologist and they did the colonoscopy. And when I woke up, they said, you've got a golf ball sized tumor in your colon. And of course they biopsied it. And within a day or so I found out, ⁓ it was confirmed. colon cancer. This was just a few days before Christmas. So I mean, it was like total shock again, 26 have been married two years. I was just getting going, you know, as an adult, like two years out of college, basically two years married, you know, it was like, I had my whole life ahead of me. And this was a major threat, you know, to, to my Crissy Florio: you of young. Chris Wark: My future plans, right? They just kind of went off the rails. And, and so, yeah, there was a lot of fear. was anxiety, stress, worry, confusion, you know, all of those things, right? All of those factors were at play. And I think every cancer patient, right, is struggling with, with those emotions. And what happens in the cancer industry, typically the conventional cancer industry is that patients are rushed into treatment out of fear. And whether they get a stage one diagnosis or a stage four diagnosis, they're quickly rushed in. Okay. You need surgery. We're to get, know, before you leave, we're going to get you scheduled for your next thing. It's surgery or it's radiation or it's chemo, you know, ⁓ or maybe it's immunotherapy. But, ⁓ you know, before the patient has time to even think about their situation, to read, to research, to pray, to do anything, you know, it's like they got them signed up, right? You're, you're sort of, put you on the conveyor belt and strap you down and. And you feel powerless. and, and my, my big criticism of the medical industry and I have dear friends who were doctors and, of course trauma care is incredible. Um, but my, my criticism of the conventional medical industry and cancer industry, when it comes to chronic disease is that patients are victimized. They are told, right. They're told in so many words that there's nothing you did to contribute to your disease. Crissy Florio: powerful. Chris Wark: And therefore there's nothing you can do to help yourself. Right. Your only hope is to show up for treatment. Right. Do this procedure, take this drug. This is your only option. It's nothing you did. It's not your diet. It's not your lifestyle. It's not stress. It's not environmental pollution. Right. It's, it's not a parasitic infection. It's not microbial. It's none of those things. Right. Crissy Florio: That's just the draw, right? Chris Wark: It's just bad luck or bad genes. And so that message, right? That sort of brainwashes the patient, right? They accept this new belief system that, well, it's not my fault. There's nothing I can do about it. And that is the essence of victimhood, right? It's powerlessness. And on top of that, really to make matters worse, many patients are given permission to continue the diet and lifestyle habits that we know contribute to cancer. So they're told, no, it doesn't matter what you eat. You don't have to change your diet. Like they're not even told to quit smoking or stop drinking. know what I mean? They're not, doctors aren't looking at the medications they're taking and the increased risk of cancer from the medications that may already be on. Crissy Florio: Yeah. Chris Wark: Like there's no investigative work whatsoever done in conventional medicine typically in terms of the causes, like what caused this? The whole mode is like you have this, now we treat it. We don't know what caused it. We're not investigating what caused it. We don't care what caused it. We just have treatments for you. So that's a tangent. But the point is that's where I was. I didn't know anything about anything. And I was told, look, you got to have surgery right away and we got to... get this tumor out of view before it spreads and kills you. And so just within a week or so on December 30th, I went in for surgery. ⁓ When I woke up from surgery, they said you're worse than we thought. You're stage three C, which ⁓ we were all hoping it would be stage two, which at that time stage two means surgery and you're Stage three means surgery plus chemo. And So, you know, I'm on heavy pain medication, right? They just cut my, they didn't do it laparoscopically. They like cut me open, right? And so all my stomach muscles had been severed and I was in a hospital bed on heavy pain meds and I'm just like, okay, you know, I guess this is my life and this is my future. It's like, and so, but a couple of things happened in the hospital. The first thing that happened was they The first meal that I was served after they took out a third of my colon was a sloppy Joe. Crissy Florio: Wow. I kind of want to sing the song right now, but I'm not going to. have to tell you that every time I see a slow picture, I think of you. I'm bizarre. Chris Wark: Manwich. Yeah, just cut to a shot of a Manwich commercial. So, I mean, the sloppy Joe, it's just, it is hilarious. I mean, it's so unbelievably absurd that they're serving sloppy Joes to sick people in hospitals that have just had triple or quadruple bypass, you know, or cancer surgery or whatever. Like it's the worst cafeteria food you can imagine. It's like what they serve in prison, you know, like, and Crissy Florio: Terrible. Yeah. Chris Wark: Yeah, that was lunch. That was my first meal. so that was, you know, they kind of got the wheels turning a little bit. I'm like, man, this is, can't believe they're, this is horrible. Crissy Florio: something something doesn't feel right. Chris Wark: Yeah, like this is like prison food. Why is this like, why are they serving me this? And then the other thing that happened, and I'm thankful that happened, I really am I'm thankful because again, it gave me a little glimpse into the disconnect, right between healthcare and actual healthy living. But the second thing that happened in the hospital that's worth sharing is a few days later, they said, okay, you're gonna get be able to go home today. And my surgeon came and he was doing his rounds and He was just came in to check, look at the stitches or whatever, you know, and, I just happened to say, Hey, you know, is there any food I need to avoid? Because I'm thinking, you know, I mean, they just, I've never had any major surgeries. They just cut out a part of my digestive tract, right? Like, seems like there's probably food that may be problematic, like hot sauce or something, right? And, you know, his answer was no, just don't lift anything heavier than a beer. Crissy Florio: I had a similar situation, I, so stage two breast cancer, getting ready to, you know, go figure out what my next steps are. And my oncologist was like, okay, chemo first, then surgery. And I asked her, I had already been somewhat quote unquote a healthy person, right? Been teaching yoga for a long time. love meditation, eat fairly well. And so I was already getting my, you know, wheels turning of, okay, I'm gonna start juicing because your story definitely was a huge impact on me. So I'm gonna start juicing, I'm gonna start eating, I'm gonna go plant-based. And I asked her, what supplements can I take? Or is there anything that you can provide or any information that you can give me that might be helpful so that the chemo symptoms and side effects aren't as intense? And she says, no, everything in moderation. So I don't need to stop drinking or subject. No, everything in moderation. Okay. Well, I knew better, right? So I then went on my own path, it ⁓ is kind of quite interesting. ⁓ That's, yeah. Chris Wark: I love that advice, you know, and I only take, you know, only do cocaine in moderation. So, you know, just, yeah, just, you know, yeah, it's just the most worthless, right? It's the most worthless cliche, everything in moderation. Like it doesn't mean anything, right? It means nothing. And so, yeah, and I've heard it many times, of course. ⁓ Crissy Florio: Just a smidge. We used to take a little footsie cup, know, ice cream. Yeah. No, no. Chris Wark: you know, the next step for me, I get home from surgery, I'm recovering and weaned myself off the pain medication. And ⁓ as I sobered up, I just was like really thinking about my life and my future and like what is to become of me. And I was extremely thin, I was obviously sick, you know, and I had a strong resistance to chemotherapy. And I didn't know what to do about it. And so I prayed about it. And I was just like, God, if there's another way besides chemotherapy, please show me. I don't know what to do. You know, I just, I don't have peace about it. And that's not to say it isn't helpful or the right option for other people, but I didn't feel good about it. You know, I just felt this resistance to it. And so I prayed about it. And two days later, I got a book that was sent to me from a friend of my dad's who lives in Alaska. And that book was about healing with raw food. And the guy that wrote it, George Malcomis had healed his colon cancer with a raw food diet and juicing. I was like reading his story, just completely blown away. I was like, I can't believe this showed up. This is the answer to my prayer. I prayed and this showed up, like I'm going with it. And so it was like so clear to me, you know, and I was so thankful that God had answered my prayer and given me an alternative. Right? There's, there's more than one path to health. And this was an alternate path. And so I went, I went to Whole Foods, bought a juicer, loaded up the cart with vegetables, got the 25 pound bag of carrots when they used to sell 25 pound bags of carrots. And yeah. And I was like, I'm doing this today. I was like immediate, you know, I didn't, didn't waste any time thinking about it. Crissy Florio: you know, an extra workout for you. Chris Wark: And, you know, surprisingly, there's a lot of people in my life that thought I'd lost my mind. ⁓ And words started to get around that like, you know, I was thinking about not doing chemo. And then I was, you know, turning into this health nut or whatever. And I had people close to me, you know, try to talk some sense into me. So you like you have to do exactly what the doctor says you have to do chemo. You know, I know somebody that tried alternative therapies, whatever that means, and they died, this kind of thing. And that, that just amplified the fear and anxiety, right? And confusion. ⁓ I wasn't expecting that. And it made it harder. And it really forced me to, to sort of double down on my faith, you know, cause I'm like, okay, I prayed. I got this answer. Most of the people around me are telling me it's wrong. What do I do? Right? Do I step out in faith and continue down this path alone? Or do I just do what everybody wants me to do so that I'll have support? I mean, that's really hard. Crissy Florio: It is hard. It's listening to that inner voice of what feels right for you versus what's right for somebody else is something that we weren't taught to listen to, right? We go with the grain. We listen to everybody else. Don't step outside of that because you're going to be different in the, if you do something different, then everybody freaks out. And it's really just because it's fear, right? It's, fear or listening to alignment. A lot of people are going to tell you everything of what you should be doing because they're projecting their fears on you. just easier to cave to the system. Yeah, exactly. And that's why we're doing this podcast because we want to inspire all of our listeners and our community to not only listen to that inner voice or listen to your faith, what feels right to you, whatever that is. And like you said before, doesn't, know, chemo is not for everybody, but for some people I went through chemo, but I have that same resistance and that same feeling with radiation, right? So I said no to radiation. I said no to doing tamoxifen. My oncologist left me in tears one day because I was going against her and I was thinking, ⁓ my goodness. Am I gonna die? If I don't take this tamoxifen, she's making me feel like that's it. This is the worst thing you can do. And I had to take a day and really sit and listen. And it was, my body was screaming at me, do not do it. Don't do the radiation and do not take the tamoxifen. It's not for you. But it's not to say that's not for anybody else. I'll never tell anybody what to do or not to do. Chris Wark: Yeah, exactly. It's important, I think, as survivors and patient advocates to ⁓ to educate people, to help them make good decisions, right? Because most cancer patients just, they're uninformed. They don't know anything. They don't know what they don't know. And that was me. ⁓ you know, again, I allowed myself to be rushed into surgery, which is fine. You know, I don't have any long-term effects from the surgery. It's totally fine. You know, in hindsight, they got this tumor out. Good, right? ⁓ But, I created a free download. It's called 20 questions for your oncologist. It's on every page of my website. So if you go to ChrisBeatCancer.com, just click around, you'll find it. And that is, I created it because if you don't ask the right questions to your doctor, they're just going to give you the standard boilerplate pitch, right? Which is pretty much just fear based. You have this diagnosis. This is, these are the treatments you need. This is your only hope. And But if you ask the right questions, and again, this guide has them, you will get all of the details that you need to make the best decision for you. And some of those questions seem obvious, but patients don't ask them, which is, will this treatment cure my cancer? Yes or no? you'd be shocked at how many patients never even asked that question. Right? And because the answer is kind of scary, you almost don't want to hear the answer. Like what if the answer is no, but you need to hear it. Like you got to rip the bandaid off. Like you really need the truth. You don't want, you don't want to go through all this treatment with a false hope that it's going to cure you when there's no chance it will. And it depends on your cancer type and stage and all that stuff. So ⁓ I've dealt with, you know, personally in my own life, three different oncologists. Crissy Florio: Sorry, sorry. Chris Wark: The first one I saw told me I was insane if I didn't do chemotherapy and use fear to try to coerce me into it. I never went back to him. The second oncologist I ended up working with was just an incredible prince of a man who I met through a naturopath. And he was a career oncologist. He had retired and then come back out of retirement in his seventies. ⁓ And in his second phase of you know, oncology. He was doing IV vitamin C. He was researching like how to improve immune function with like compounds like Allo, like Manos and Ace Manon and Allo. And he was studying Chinese medicine. Like he had completely shifted his perspective because he had spent an entire career just following the rules and treating cancer patients with chemo and surgery and whatnot. And he saw the results. So he supported me. You know, he, and he did, we did, he ordered my blood work every month, ordered scans every six months for a few years. We did IV vitamin C and anyway, like he was a blessing and a godsend in my life. And just a, just a sweet man. He's passed away now because he was 70, you know, 20 something years ago, but in his seventies. But, um, and then, uh, and then when he passed away, the oncologist that I inherited, you know, that he referred me to was, is another really, really, uh, you know, that does my follow-up, you know, Crissy Florio: Yeah. Chris Wark: blood work and scans and stuff. Also very kind, very considerate, know, lets me direct my own, you know, care and whatever. I mean, I don't need treatments, but you know what I'm saying? So, but, and even he confirmed to me, which is, this is wild. Years later, we were having a conversation. I was doing the follow-up. ⁓ And he said, you know, you didn't, he was looking over my chart and everything kind of, you know, refreshing himself with my case. And he's looking at my turn to say, he's like, didn't do chemo back in 2004. You know, when you're, you know, and I was like, No, no, I didn't. I decided not to do it. And he said, well, he said that was actually, yeah, it's actually was probably the best decision because you have Lynch syndrome, it wouldn't have helped you anyway. Crissy Florio: Wow, wow, to get that confirmation, it's gotta be very inspiring. Chris Wark: Isn't that amazing? Yeah, years later, right? Years later. Now they know, right? They know that based on my cancer subtype and all, the chemo wouldn't have helped so much that my instincts, my intuition were correct, right? That it would not have benefited me, that would only caused harm. And so ⁓ that was incredibly validating to hear that. But anyway, so back to the story. I found a naturopath, I found an integrative oncologist, I went from book to book to book. Right. There was no help online at that time. It was 2004. mean, there was no YouTube. There's no, there was no social media, right? No social media, maybe my space, but no one was talking about cancer on my space. Okay. If they were, I wasn't following them. Right. So, so yeah, I just went from book to book and it was, it was really, ⁓ pretty amazing because Crissy Florio: Right. Yeah, yeah, probably. Yeah. Chris Wark: It seemed like every book that I read and every new book I found out about my mom had most of these books, these like old school books on natural health and healing and alternative cancer therapies, natural therapies for cancer. Like she had collected all these books. She was a voracious reader, kind of a, she wasn't like today's crunchy moms, right? ⁓ she, I mean, my, I had my first birthday at a McDonald's, you know I'm saying? So like she wasn't a vegan or vegetarian or anything like that, but she just was. She just loved to read up on health, you know, and just read tons of Crissy Florio: like this one. Marie constantly is reading. She's like, did you read this book? Did you read this book? Dr. Asselton. Chris Wark: Yeah, she just read all the books. She loved to go to the health food store and buy. Most of these books were like back in the day when the health food store had a little book section, you know, so it'd be like books from Paul Bragg or Pablo Arreola, you know, ⁓ books on raw food and juicing and, you know, herbal remedies and all this kind of stuff. So anyway, ⁓ but what I found was that every book on healing cancer, Crissy Florio: Yeah. Chris Wark: didn't matter who the author was, whether it was a survivor or it was a doctor of natural medicine, integrative doctor, ⁓ or even, ⁓ you know, sort of a conventional medical doctor that had, you know, ⁓ switched sides, defected to a more holistic. Crissy Florio: There's a lot of those up and coming. Chris Wark: Yeah. And there weren't many back then, but there were a few, but, I kept getting the same message, which was raw foods, right? Plant, whole food, plant-based diet, raw foods, juicing, detoxification, parasite cleansing, exercise, like rebounding, but all exercise is wonderful. ⁓ fasting, a strong belief, like a strong will to live faith and forgiveness. Like all of these are just like, Crissy Florio: Yeah. No, mean. Chris Wark: So powerful and so important in the healing journey. And guess what? None of those things are taught in conventional medicine. None of them. And whether you're doing conventional or not, the beautiful thing, this is what we, you know, so what I teach and what we sort of support in our community is that whether a patient does conventional or not, they need to understand there's so much more they can do to help themselves. Crissy Florio: Take an integrative approach, right? To kind of marry the two if you're gonna go down the conventional route. Yeah. Chris Wark: That's Like your story. Exactly. Like you can do some of conventional, you can do all of it, but guess what? There's a lot more you can do that empowers you. So we're trying to help people take their power back and realize that your choices matter. That what you eat every day matters. That how you think matters. That your environment matters. Like from the air you breathe, the water you drink, what you're putting on your skin. ⁓ you know, supplements you take, the people that you spend time with, your thoughts and emotions, like all these things really do matter. And you can take control of every aspect of your life and really, you know, get in the driver's seat of your healing journey instead of just being a passenger on the conventional train. And if you're willing to do those things, which, you know, sadly, a lot of patients are not, right? A lot of patients Crissy Florio: ⁓ they want the, yeah. Chris Wark: are trapped in that victim's mentality that I mentioned earlier and they don't want to change anything about their life. Right. But there's a small percentage that do. Those are the people that I'm here to encourage and you too, I'm sure. The people that want to change, man, like it's so exciting to see them grab a hold of like this information and run with it. You know, just like, I'm changing my diet. I'm changing my outlook on life. I'm going to forgive everyone who's hurt me. Like, I'm to start exercising. I'm going to get fresh air and sunshine every day. I'm going to embrace. Crissy Florio: Yep. Chris Wark: this new season of life, right? This healing journey and, ⁓ and just trust the Lord to lead me through it. You know, it's just all these things. And so if you do those things, I can confidently say you will increase your odds of survival significantly, right? Significantly with your daily choices, you can impact your future. You're not a victim. You're not just subject to the, to the whims of fate. And your life is not just in your doctor's hands, unless you just put it there. And, and so, yeah, that's, you know, that's the bigger message. And of course, granular, I we can, we can really, we can go real deep on anticancer nutrition and all these little strategies to talk about my first book and, and, and more time than we have in this interview. But the big picture stuff is like, there are these big levers that you can pull. Crissy Florio: much put it there. Right. Yeah. Chris Wark: There's little switches, you know what I mean? And there's kind of little levers and then there's big levers, right? And just for analogy sake, little switches would be like supplements, right? Big levers would be diet, right? Change what you eat. Don't keep eating crap and then take supplements and think, ⁓ these supplements are really gonna help me. You know what I'm Like you're much better off changing what you eat and not taking supplements than taking supplements and not changing what you eat. Crissy Florio: Yeah. ⁓ Well, I think also too, it's taking ⁓ a beat to look at your healing as a whole. You're not just trying to get the cancer out of my breast, colon, wherever, lung, heart, whatever, wherever it's at. We're trying to change as a whole and live the most. Chris Wark: Right. Crissy Florio: healthiest life that we can. And that is hard for a lot of people because they get so stuck in their ways and they don't want to make the changes. And they want to even, you know, go to everybody around them and ask all the questions instead of really diving in and understanding what feels better for them. And I think that's one thing that I just don't agree with our medical system here in the States is that it is so compartmentalized, right? ⁓ you have breast cancer. Let me go take your breast away and, you know, zap the heck out of the breast, right? Rather than let's look at the body as a whole and then, yeah, yeah. And so I guess that's also too where we can bring in that integrative approach and marry the Eastern and the Western modalities and conventional and contemporary or, you traditional and contemporary care as well. So. So I have a question. There's been a lot of change since you started to now, and I feel that Chris Wark: Yeah. Crissy Florio: I mean, I've been reading about this stuff forever, but I feel in the last maybe two years, everything's exploding with food and cancer killers and Dr. Mark Hyman and who was he a year ago? I don't know. You know, maybe you see it. Maybe it's because my phone's always listening to me. So these are things that I constantly see, but everybody's talking about a lot more. So how, one question is how do you feel about watching this movement grow, but at the same time, we're still getting very unhealthy in this country. Chris Wark: Yeah. So this is a, this is a can of worms in it. so I have mixed feelings, mixed feelings. One is it's awesome that there's so much information, right? I created crispy cancer.com in 2010. Cause I was, you know, I wanted to create a website that I wish had existed for me. And I've interviewed dozens and dozens of people who've healed cancer. against the odds, all types and stages using a holistic approach. Like I want to share those stories. It's even though it's called Chris beat cancer, it's not about me. Like I'm one of many stories and there's a lot of healing stories that are way better than mine, right? People that have healed ⁓ with no conventional treatment or people that have healed after conventional treatment failed them. And I love to share those stories. So that's really cool. And it's great that more and more of stories are coming out there and patients are Crissy Florio: you Chris Wark: People are feeling empowered to take control of their health and they're sharing their stories online and you're just seeing more and more about it. And more doctors are, waking up to diet and lifestyle medicine and talking about it publicly. So that's all great. ⁓ the flip side, the part of the part of that bothers me a little bit is there's also a lot of what I'd say misinformation and I wouldn't even say it's deliberate. just think there's people that there's a lot of what I call, ⁓ just add water, instant experts. And they read one book and now they're an expert on, know, carnivore diets or whatever. And they're telling everyone they need to eat a carnivore diet, you know? And so that adds, it really adds a lot of noise and confusion to people. like hearkening back to my story, Crissy Florio: Thanks. Mm-hmm. Chris Wark: Every, every source of information I found was saying the same thing, right? There was back, you know, again, 2004, it was like the path was very clear and everyone who had healed was talking about healing pretty much followed the same path. And now there's a lot of people claiming to, to, uh, to know how to heal cancer that haven't done it. Right. And so What I now find myself talking about a lot is how important it is to follow the success stories, to learn from survivors. Don't listen to the experts. Don't listen to doctors. If they haven't healed their own cancer, if they haven't helped anyone else heal, that advice is arguably not worth much, right? Not worth much. Right? Crissy Florio: Mm-hmm. That in itself is really great advice. Yeah, I've heard you say that before. Chris Wark: Listen to the survivors. Like if you want to climb Mount Everest, study and learn from the people who've done it. Right? Don't ask like your next door neighbor, like how to climb Mount Everest if they've never done it. Right. And so that's why these survivor stories I think are just becoming increasingly more and more valuable. Because again, if a person tunes into my podcast or whatever, and they start listening, they'll Crissy Florio: Yeah. Great. Chris Wark: over and over and over, they'll see and hear these common threads that, that against the odd survivors incorporated. It's like I said, it's nutrition, it's predominantly plant-based, it's forgiveness and exercise and faith, detoxification. It's like, these are the core principles. And, ⁓ so that's, that's the concern. Crissy Florio: It seems so simple too. It sounds like a blue zone. Right, it sounds like a blue zone, but it sounds so simple, but it's not easy. It's hard. It's hard to get people to change. Chris Wark: Yes. That's right. Simple, but not easy. Crissy Florio: And I'm like, we can reverse this, you can reverse this. And I'll tell you, not many want to, no. They're like, give me the medication. And so that pill for whenever ill, I forget who said that first, but that mentality is still strong in our culture. Mm-hmm. Chris Wark: Right. It's a quick fix mentality, right? I mean, we have short attention spans. Most of us, you know, if you're in the U S right, or many countries, everything's at our fingertips, right? There's food on every corner. Like anything you want, you can have. Yeah. You don't have to leave your house. Any product you want, you can get on Amazon. I mean, you know, it's like our lives are so easy and we just, get everything instantaneously, right? You want to watch a movie from some random movie from 1982? Crissy Florio: Now all you gotta do is order food in from your grocery store or anything. Yeah. Chris Wark: You can probably find it on prime, you know? Yeah. so, and prime's got a better selection than Blockbuster ever had. And so it's like, but the same applies to health, right? A lot of people, they don't want to change. And I'm not trying to beat anyone down, but it is the reality is human nature is a lot of people just don't want to change and it's frustrating and it's hard to help those people. so, and I don't, in the beginning, when I first started to get well and I wanted to like evangelize and Crissy Florio: You don't have to go to Blockbuster anymore. Yeah. Chris Wark: help people. realized, man, there's gosh, so many people around me that I want to help. They don't want my help. Right. They don't want it. Yeah. They don't want it. And so I had that was sort of a tough pill to swallow. Like, man, and this is the big takeaway. It's like the people that you want to help the most, you typically cannot help. Right. Right. And Crissy Florio: Yeah, no, no. They want to hit that Staples easy button. Yeah. Yeah. They have to want it themselves. They have to love themselves enough and want to live a life of good health and joy and gratitude and peace and all the things. Chris Wark: Mm-hmm. Yep. And so you want to focus your energy on the people that do want, right? That do want your help, that do want to change. And so when I finally realized that, like things got a lot easier because I was like, okay, I just can't worry or stress about these people in my inner circle or close to me that have health problems that I know can be reversed, that don't want to change. Like I just have to let that go. And once I started sharing my story and I, you know, I'm online and talking about health and, and healing. Yeah. People are coming to me that won't help. And I'm like, ⁓ okay. Great. Yes. I can encourage you, you know, like this person wants to hear what I have to say and I'll focus my energy on helping them. And then that makes me feel great. So yeah, that's, you know, on a population wide level, you know, it seems like there's some good people in the administration. you know, trying to improve the food system and reform the pharmaceutical industry and the medical industry. know, I'm, cautiously optimistic, right? I'm, I, I'm cautiously optimistic because I don't want to be disappointed, you know, but I'm hopeful. I'm hopeful that we've seen some positive progress incremental, ⁓ so far in the last couple of years, and I'm hopeful that that will continue. ⁓ and that, and there will be some, some massive impact on patient care on diet and lifestyle medicine, that there'll be some good studies funded on diet and lifestyle medicine. And there'll be some reevaluations on a lot of pharmaceuticals that are probably causing harm that should have never been approved, things like that. So we'll see. You know, we'll see. just, at the end of the day, I'm not trying to change public. Crissy Florio: I know. . Yeah. Yeah. Chris Wark: There's different, you know, some people that's their mission. I'm not trying to change public policy. I'm not really trying to change conventional medicine. I'm just trying to reach real people and empower them with diet and lifestyle and stress and faith strategies that they can incorporate today. Right. You know, they can, you can do these things now. You can do them today. You will see a benefit if you do them and just to be encouraging and hopeful. ⁓ Crissy Florio: sure. Chris Wark: despite what you know, the the official public policies or conventional standard of care is. Crissy Florio: Yeah. And, you know, and coming back to everybody has what feels aligned for them, right? And people are going to make the decisions that feel right for them. And, you know, it goes all the way up to our government. Right. But one thing that, you you mentioned when we were talking kind of about like support and being around people who who get it when I met you at the Anteapple Seed Conference a few months ago, ⁓ you know, just being in a one place where there's hundreds of people all there who have either gone through cancer or have been touched by cancer in some form or another. The feeling that I left there with was like, wow, this is the club I never wanted to be in, but I am grateful I am in it. To see Chris Wark: Mm-hmm. Crissy Florio: everybody showing up and wanting to learn and wanting to be educated and wanting to make changes as much as they can was just so beautiful. It was, I walked in there, I just could feel the energy of everybody just like fluttering around. And I just really appreciated your speech as well. It was very powerful, you know, and I think it made everybody feel calm and good and ⁓ empowered for sure. And I know I did too. And it just, you know, when you're around people like that, It just empowers you to do more and to continue to show it for yourself more and more. Chris Wark: What did I say? forgot. I'm just kidding. I'm kidding. Crissy Florio: You know, you were just saying. I do that. People are like, Chrissy, in your class, you said something was so good. I'm like, wait, I have no idea what I said. Chris Wark: No, I do remember. do remember. mean, obviously I say a lot of different things when I give talks, but ⁓ you know, events like that are wonderful because you've got so many like minded people there. Obviously there's a lot of patients, cancer patients there that are, you know, that are on the journey who are, who are ⁓ seeking information. They're, taking control of their lives and their health, and they're trying to learn and read and research and grow and find a solution. And But at the same time, it can be overwhelming because you've got a lot of different speakers and a lot of different topics and a lot of different strategies that are talked about. And so I do remember kind of addressing part of that in the talk to try to put folks at ease and just understand like you can't do it all, but just pay attention and listen to your instincts and your intuition and, and focus on the fundamental things that you can do. Right. Make these fundamental life changes, these proven dietary and lifestyle strategies, like make those changes. most of which costs you nothing. And then you can build on those with integrative therapies and who knows, you know, just all the little, all these little extra things that are out there, ⁓ and available to you. Right. But I just hate to see patients go on a wild goose chase, right? Where they're just doing just a bunch of sort of expensive, unproven sort of therapies that are not dangerous, right? They're, generally safe, there's no risk of harm for most integrative therapies, but you know, the clinical benefits are not necessarily well-documented, you know what saying? And you can spend tens of thousands of dollars, 50,000, a hundred thousand working, you know, going to clinics and working with integrative practitioners and, and you really get nowhere. And, ⁓ you know, with, with putting a lot of false hope into, sort of integrative miracle cures. So that is something that, we're constantly, ⁓ dealing with in our community of folks that are trying to get well as trying to keep them on the healthy path and help them distinguish between like, what do we know is the most helpful? What are the big levers? Like I mentioned, like pull those, make sure you get all those pulled. And then, you know, I have a coaching program called Square One and it's called Square One because it's like, hey, this is where you start. You got to start with these things, these foundational principles of health and healing that I didn't make up. I learned them. I'm passing them on. They've been around for, gosh, thousands of years, some of them, and others are newer discoveries. But anyway, that is the real challenge. Crissy Florio: That's like you said, listen to the survivors, learn from the survivors. There you go. And you're putting it into action for everybody to easily access. And that is wonderful in the world of overwhelming the cancer world and fear-based everything in the cancer world. So the fact that you're making it accessible to cancer patients is really powerful. Chris Wark: learn from the survivors. Yeah. And you can be exploited by, by, you know, naturopaths too. So, I mean, you have to be careful, right? There, there are people in the, in the natural world, natural health world, whether they're integrative or, you know, functional medicine or naturopath or whatever they are, you know, that are, they're no better than a, you know, a standard oncologist, right? They're just Crissy Florio: Yeah. ⁓ Yeah. Chris Wark: It's a career, it's a profession. They're trying to make as much money as possible. They don't really care about their patients. So you really have to be wise and not naive because you can be taken advantage of by product sellers, salespeople, marketing gimmicks. There's just a lot, there's a lot of that out there. Crissy Florio: Well, I was in London last year at a functional medicine course and you know, in room with a bunch of doctors and providers from all over Europe, and everyone's saying, what's the best supplement? What's the best test? And this doctor, she's in Massachusetts functional medicine, and she said, you don't need a test. If you clean up someone's diet and listen to their symptoms, there's a lot you can do without a test and $5,000 worth of supplements. And I love that because I was, didn't want to go into functional medicine because when you hear that, all I hear is $5,000 worth of supplements for six months, and then people still don't feel well afterwards. So. But talking about nutrition, I love the cookbook, it's in the background. And I know your wife, you know, my banana's under there. I know your wife did a lot of that. So I have a question, and I have teenagers now, and I'm sure your daughters or teens are a little bit older. How do we keep these kids eating healthy? Chris Wark: Yeah. ⁓ there it is. Yeah, there it is in between two bunches of bananas. Nice. Yeah. Okay. So I have, I have a few, a few pieces of advice. One is I have a 17 year old and a 21 year old. So they're way older now than the picture on crispy cancer.com, which is like seven years ago. But, what we've done is we focus on feeding them really well at home. Right? We just, we buy whole foods. We cook dinner every night pretty much. Crissy Florio: Thank you. Mm-hmm. Chris Wark: ⁓ and we sent them to school every day with whole healthy foods. Yes. My wife would buy like little organic snack crackers and different things. Like she wasn't like, ⁓ health Nazi. Like some, some crunchy moms are right. She wasn't that hardcore, but we just generally taught them principles of eating healthy and fed them good food. And then we just didn't worry about the choices that they made. You know, they go out with their friends and they go to Sonic or something. Crissy Florio: Mm-hmm. Chris Wark: You know, they're not going to get a lecture when they come home. You know what I'm saying? And what we found is that, is that both my daughters, yeah, they still gravitate toward healthy food and neither one of them are, are hardcore. They don't have that same motivation that I had to be a hardcore healthy eater, but they still generally, you know, it's funny that my older daughter, ⁓ in high school, like junk food was like her form of rebellion, which Crissy Florio: Mm-hmm. Yeah. ⁓ Chris Wark: is so sweet. If you think about it, ⁓ no pun intended. ⁓ you know, there's a lot worse forms of rebellion, you know what I'm saying? Way worse. And, ⁓ and so, yeah, that was kind of her form of rebellion and you know, it didn't cause any problems in the house, but we could just, my wife and I could just tell, you know, cause she'd be like, I had a, I had a slushie today, dad. Crissy Florio: Yeah. Hahaha! ⁓ Chris Wark: you know, or whatever. Or she'd come home with like, like her entire mouth is like blue. You know, we would joke because it's like anytime she wanted some kind of junk food, it was always blue. Right? It was always like blue raspberries, something or other turn her lips blue and her tongue blue. But, but then when she went to college, she, you know, she kind of binged a little bit on junk food and then started feeling bad and had a had her own epiphany. Crissy Florio: Yeah. Chris Wark: And realized, ⁓ man, like I can't binge on sugar. makes me feel terrible. And so now she, now she'll send me pictures of like, Hey dad, I had a smoothie bowl today, dad or whatever. So it's great. Like that really makes me feel good that she's now learning. Crissy Florio: haha because then, she's learning that. She's learning about her body, understanding if I have too much sugar, if I have too much fried foods or meat or whatever, it doesn't feel good. My daughter has done the same thing. She's also 21, but my son, who is almost 24, doesn't have that type of intuitive hit yet. We're still trying to work on them. What do you think they learn in phone? Chris Wark: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Crissy Florio: parents took my son, 15 year old to Costco the other day and Harry's walking down the aisle going, that causes cancer, that causes cancer. And my mom said, people are looking at him, can't eat that, it causes cancer. I said, ⁓ he's listening to mom. Even the moon like me. Chris Wark: Yeah. It makes you feel good. Yeah. They, they act like they don't, they're not listening and they disagree with you, but then later you hear them repeat things you told them and you're like, they, they were listening. Yeah. Yeah. So, so that's, you know, I feel, I feel really good. I'm, I'm happy to report my, daughters do not have any health problems. mean, they don't take any medications. Like they're, healthy young people, you know? And so I'm just really thankful. Right. I'm really thankful that. Crissy Florio: Yeah. You're like, ⁓ it is working. OK, this whole parenting thing is working. We're not so bad. Chris Wark: They have, ⁓ you know, that they just, and we made some decisions, you know, I mean, yeah, we made decisions early on because of my cancer journey. Like we just approached parenting with the, with that perspective on, on health that a lot of parents don't really think about. And so just had never occurred to them. And ⁓ when their kids develop health problems, they don't make that connection, right. That it's, the food really could be the cause of this, right. It really be exacerbating this. chronic condition, whatever it is. so, but I mean, there's so many, you know, health and wellness influencers out there, right? That are preaching a, I'd say a pretty solid message. If it's a whole foods message, it's a good message. ⁓ you know, we disagree, I may disagree with someone on the amount of meat and dairy they should be eating, but generally if they're promoting eating whole foods, that's great. Right. It's like, Crissy Florio: and moving their bodies too. There is a wellness trend in the younger kids, our kids' ages. There is a wellness trend. They're wanting to work out. They're wanting to get out and go for walks and get outside and meet up and do some of these exercises together rather than going out and clubbing, kind of how I grew up. Right? Yeah. So it's... Chris Wark: Yeah. ⁓ yeah, same. Yeah. I mean, I grew up in the nineties, you know, it's like, like everybody I knew smoked cigarettes, like we all smoke cigarettes. That's teenagers, you know, and in college. Yeah, for sure. I mean, yeah, kids now it's like they are generally speaking. Yeah. And there's an, it's, cool to see those like statistics. I think I've seen even recently, there's a lot less young people that are drinking alcohol. Definitely a lot less that are smoking, although the vaping thing is Crissy Florio: That's, yeah, I mean. Yeah. the vaping happens as Chris Wark: problematic, you know, but smoking even drug use seems to be way down, with high school students and stuff. So, ⁓ and even, even like promiscuous sex, like, so a lot of the things that realize all these really risky behaviors, like kids today are, are not engaging in. So that's, it's encouraging. Crissy Florio: Yeah. to step in the right direction for sure for our future and for their future health. Because I mean, I grew up, I was a dancer when I was younger and my mom worked in the ER, she was an ER nurse. And so my father would take me to dance every night. We would probably have McDonald's on the way and then maybe like Burger King or Wendy's on the way home. I literally grew up eating fast food twice a day and it was terrible, right? Until I got older and then started realizing I don't feel good with Chris Wark: Mm-hmm. Same. Yeah. Crissy Florio: that and probably in my early 20s when I ⁓ moved with my husband, well, he was my boyfriend at the time, my husband. ⁓ And we just were like, no, we don't feel good eating like that. And then so when fast forward, our children were little, we really never gave them fast food. They didn't chip filet every now and then, but they didn't grow up eating a ton of fast food. ⁓ And they, don't think they knew what they were missing. They weren't really missing out on anything, but you I didn't think they were fine with that. Chris Wark: You know, it's funny. It reminds me there was a, there was a, there was an incident when my oldest daughter, I don't know if she was like four or five or so, you know, around that age, but one of the grandmothers took her to McDonald's. She'd never been to McDonald's and one of the grandmothers took her and we were like, ⁓ like, like, you know, it felt like we were, my wife and I were, we we were like pissed, you know, like, Crissy Florio: Why? Yeah. Chris Wark: can't believe you took her to McDonald's. But you know, they still and even beyond that, it was like, yeah, whoever I can't and again, I don't want to throw it under the bus. I don't remember if it was my mom or my wife's mom. But but between that and then like, there were a couple school trips where they were like on a bus trip somewhere for like, you know, and they would stop and the stop was like, okay, we're all getting McDonald's on the way to Washington DC or wherever they went, you know, like That was probably the only times my kids have ever eaten McDonald's. It's like a handful of times they don't like, yeah, they don't ever want to eat that. Not that they want to eat other fast food, you know, but yeah, it's different. But I'm like you, I grew up, yeah, eating, ⁓ you know, Burger King, Wendy's, KFC, McDonald's, Subway, right? I mean, my generation, Gen X, I mean, we're the fast food generation. Like fast food exploded in the eighties and nineties. Crissy Florio: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Hmm Chris Wark: Like when we were growing up, it was, mean, it was just, they could not build these places fast enough, right? I mean, just, they're just popping up everywhere. So there's just massive franchising of, you know, again, all the major fast food brands. And so, yeah, it was a big part of growing up and culture and all that. And it, yeah, it definitely has ⁓ produced a lot of ⁓ unintended consequences, right? And, and the general Crissy Florio: Sure. Chris Wark: widespread ill health of so many Americans. And, ⁓ you know, I, know we're probably short on time here, but I want to, I want to mention something that's like so important. I just feel like, you know, I love to talk about forgiveness and how important forgiveness is. And, ⁓ I just want to encourage the folks listening, like one of the most powerful things you can do for yourself, it costs you nothing. And that is to forgive everyone who's ever hurt you. And it sounds hard. and, and I'm not telling you to do anything that I haven't done because I've done it. I've worked through every person who has ever hurt me in big ways, small ways in my life. have consciously forgiven them by name. Right. And when I forgive, just say, God, you know what they did and you know how I feel about it, but I'm, choosing to forgive them, even though I don't want to. Right. I'm choosing to forgive them and I'm letting this go and I'm just giving it to you. So I just surrender. Crissy Florio: you're only benefiting yourself. It's that you're only benefiting yourself also when you do that, you're shedding layers of energy around your heart space as well. And it just, you're receiving more love when you can forgive, right? And you can kind of release that tension around your heart and you open yourself to more. Chris Wark: What's that? That's right. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Bitterness and anger and resentment are powerfully toxic emotions and they are a burden to you. These are not just thoughts in your skull. They affect your whole body and the stress. Yeah. The stress that comes from those emotions has been proven to suppress your immunity, like to literally hinder your body's ability. Crissy Florio: No. We all know. Chris Wark: to fight off infections, to fight off cancer. And it makes you prone to chronic disease if you stay in a state of, if you hold onto anger and bitterness and resentment. I mean, if, if the folks listening don't remember anything else I said in the last hour, I hope you will be challenged and encouraged to start forgiving the people who've hurt you because I promise you it will lift a weight off of you that you didn't even know was there. And it will free you from a prison of pain when you just decide to forgive again. Your feelings don't matter. It forgiveness is a decision that you make and you just say, I'm done. I'm letting it go. I'm putting this down, right? I'm giving it to God. God, you can deal with them, right? You can deal with them. I'm letting it go. And, and then you just got to stick with that decision. Right. And yeah, don't pick it back up. Right. It's like putting down. Crissy Florio: It's no longer yours to carry. Thank you. Chris Wark: I went for a walk this morning with my dog and I have a couple different weight vests, you know, for exercise and stuff, but I have a 40 pound weight vest. It's pretty heavy. And yeah, I'm a 20 pounder and a 40 pounder and I, and I put the 40 pounder on and I walk my dog a mile in it. And it's a burden. Like after about 400 meters, like it starts to hurt. Crissy Florio: Yeah, per se. Chris Wark: It's just like presses down on your traps. And it's like, man, this thing like, ⁓ like it is not easy. Yeah, 40 pound vest, no problem. The 40 pounder is a whole different ballgame. But I just was thinking about, know, it's like when you when you forgive, it's like you take off this weight vest and you put it down, right? You put it on the ground and you walk away from it. Like don't go back and pick it back up and you'll be tempted to pick it back up. You know what I mean? It's tempting to go and like revisit. Crissy Florio: Tell me why again am I doing this? Chris Wark: the resentments and the bitterness and let those feelings creep back in. But you just have to resist and say, you know what? I made this decision to forgive. I'm sticking with it and I'm not going to pick it back up. then beyond that developing, I call it exercising your forgiveness muscle, but being quick to forgive, you know, and we all know people that just have huge chips on their shoulders. They're constantly looking for things to be offended about. I mean, even right now in our culture, right? We've got this offense is a virtue type culture where the more offended you are, the more somehow virtuous you are. Right. And righteous, you're so righteous because you're offended by everything. and it's really a trap, right? It's an emotional trap that keeps you miserable, you know, and there's an alternative, which is don't be offended, be unoffendable. Crissy Florio: It's so funny. Yeah. And let people have their own thoughts and opinions and not have to bothered by it, not have to fight against it. We're getting older, so. Yeah. We're getting more wise. More wise. Chris Wark: Right? Yeah. And it's okay to stand up, right? It's okay to stand up for what you believe and speak up, know, speak the truth as you understand it and believe it and, and all those things, but you can do that at the same time while choosing to not be offended, right? And choosing to forgive quickly when people are deliberately trying to offend you. And I'm attacked all the time. Like, right. There's two types of offense. There's the... intentional, right? Where people are just mean to you because they want to be mean to you. And then the unintentional where you just like, you know, you're just choosing to be offended by something someone said about some politician you like or whatever, right? And, but either way, right, you have a choice, you can say, you know, I'm not going to be offended by that. I'm not I'm going to rise above it. This is like, I'm not going to get down in the muck and like, let this steal my joy. Crissy Florio: not you it's right. Chris Wark: Right. I'm going to be unoffendable. And, ⁓ I'm telling you that has been to me, it feels like a superpower when you realize. Yeah. You have the power, you have power over your own emotions. Like you don't have to be ruled by your emotions and subject to your own emotions. Like you can choose to not be offended. You can choose to be. Crissy Florio: It's a protection. You are protecting yourself. Right? It's sometimes looking at the situation or what the person is saying or what the person is doing and not necessarily attaching meaning to it or labeling it. Right? Like there are so many situations that can go on and you're like, oh my gosh, you're going to make this whole scenario in your head. And if you just call it for what it is, it is what it is. And I'm not going to attach any meaning or emotion to it. Chris Wark: Yeah. Crissy Florio: then it's just like, then that whole situation bypasses. But so many people just add on their own layers of emotions and probably past trauma, childhood traumas too, on top of it, that makes things worse. And so again, that's kind of one of the things that I always teach to people is just sometimes it's just, you just don't need to label it or attach meaning or emotion to it just be with it, whatever it is. Chris Wark: Yeah. Just letting it go, move on, you know, and gratitude is the other sort of part of that equation. think when you, know, anytime I get, anytime I'm bothered by something and look, life's full of stuff, right? It's full of things that bother you. Right. Right. There's, we've got all these challenges, got problems, things don't go right. You know what I'm saying? With your kids, with your job, with whatever, like there's always problems to deal with, but, ⁓ Crissy Florio: you Chris Wark: My gratitude hack is, ⁓ it's just a simple phrase that I can remind myself in any situation. I can just remind myself, you know what, right now there's someone dying in the hospital that would love to trade places with me. Right. They would love to have this problem. And that is just such a hard reset on perspective. You know, as soon as I just remind myself, man, there's so many people right now that would love. Crissy Florio: That's quick. Chris Wark: this problem that I have because their problem is so much worse. And thank you God that, you know, that I just have this problem instead of that problem, right? That I'm not dying in the hospital today. Like, man, that does it for me every time. It really works. And I can go so far beyond that. I mean, I just start counting my blessings. I've got a wife who loves me. I've got two beautiful kids. We've got a nice home. You know, we have enough money to pay our bills. You know, we have access to food. We're not, you know, missiles aren't coming at our house. You know what I'm saying? Like we have freedom. Like, I mean, I can just, I can practice gratitude and be thankful just all day. Crissy Florio: Right, yeah. One of my favorite sayings and quotes is there's always something to be thankful for. And it's so true. And it can just be little like, you know, I have friends or I have a beautiful home. have roof over my head. I have clothes to put on my body. I get to do laundry because I have clothes. I get to do dishes because I have a house that I get or clean the house. Right. It's we always have something to be grateful for. It's just pausing enough to take a look at it and switch the lens of your brain to grab from black. Chris Wark: There's a friend of mine told me this and I thought it was so good. He said, ⁓ if you have a problem that money can solve, you don't have a problem. Crissy Florio: you Chris Wark: You know what saying? Cause there's some problems that money cannot solve. Right. And like they're legit. And, ⁓ but so many of our problems, money can solve them. It's maybe money we don't really want to spend or feel like spending. had to, had to, I had to spend $4,000 to remove a benign tumor from my cat's neck last week. Yeah. And yeah, you know, it's like, Crissy Florio: Right. ⁓ Poor kitty. Goodness. Right. Chris Wark: Hmm. Okay. Wasn't planning on that expense and I don't want to put him down. Yeah. I could have saved a lot of money putting him down, but he's my buddy. You know, I love this little guy. ⁓ he's, he's, we're bonded pretty hard. And, ⁓ so he's like, yeah, well, I like to joke. So the kid, his name's cash and he's, he's like 13. He's always, if I sit down, he's in my lap. If, if, if I get in the bed, he's laying on me, you know what saying? He's just like, Crissy Florio: Doesn't always have to be great, but you know, that is. $4,000 funded. Chris Wark: always around. He's really not interested in hanging around while I'm like in my office for some reason, but any other part of the house, he's like always around. And my joke is like, I'm not sure what he thinks I am. If he thinks I'm like his brother or his dad or his lover. I'm not sure. But but we are we have a very strong bond. So anyway, yeah, I had to drop four grand to do this. Crissy Florio: you Chris Wark: golf ball sized tumor on his neck, but fortunately it wasn't cancer. Anyway, it was a problem money could solve and I'm thankful that I had enough money to solve it. Crissy Florio: I went in the wrong profession. Yeah. And pets are a part of our healing. They're very important. They can be a part of our healing as well. is our biggest fan. She's over there on the Yeah, Lucy is her dog, and she's the cutest thing. She's our mascot. Chris Wark: Yeah. We have a dog and a cat. are, we love animals. We are animal people. Crissy Florio: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, this has been so wonderful. And I think you, I don't know, I know our community is just going to absolutely love the conversation and all of the information and nuggets of inspiration that you provided everybody. So thank you. That's all I can say. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, our heart, and you'll just have to come on again. Chris Wark: Thank you both. Yeah. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. It was great to meet you at Annie Appleseed and appreciate the invite and just the opportunity to share a little bit of what I've learned and part of my story. if anybody wants, you know, to learn more, obviously we've got, got three books. You can find them on Amazon. Um, yeah. Yeah. And there's a, thanks for bringing it up that we also have a, a coaching community. It's called square one. It's, it's a 10 mod module video course, but then we have a private online support community and just a lot of resources. And most of what my team does is really around supporting that, that community of survivors and thrivers that are, you know, transforming their health. just, we just walk them through all these, these steps of life transformation. The stuff that I've Crissy Florio: Mm-hmm. you Chris Wark: you know, touched on diet and lifestyle strategies, forgiveness, faith, like all those things. And yeah, so that's it. If you go to Chrisbeatcancer.com, there's a, there's a link that says coaching and you can learn about that. ⁓ But yeah. And the big thing I want to make sure people understand is like, I've interviewed dozens and dozens and dozens of people who have healed cancer against the odds, all types and stages. And if you go to the Chris Beat Cancer podcast on Apple or Spotify or YouTube or you go to my website, you can search by cancer type. And I just want to encourage folks, if there's anybody, you know, watching this or listening and you need some encouragement, go listen to these interviews with survivors. I mean, you will be encouraged. You will be inspired. You will, they're going to give you hope and encouragement and practical advice, wisdom. Like you don't have to learn it from me. You could, you could never read or listen to anything I say. But there are so many other wonderful people out there who've healed that you can learn from too. So, I have not monopolized this information. I'm trying to share it freely. So it's out there for anyone who wants it. Crissy Florio: Yeah, you're doing a great job. There's so many great stories out there and I don't luckily have any cancer, but I want to be healthy every time I listen to the stories. exactly. it promotes that prevention of erectile care. Chris Wark: Yeah. I mean, prevention it's, you know, an ounce of prevention, like they say, right. It's worth the pound of cure. It's like, you know, I want, like you, I want to reach as many people as I can with this, with the same message that cancer can be prevented. can be healed. You know, we know our diet and lifestyle and environment are big drivers of cancer. And so the more you can shift your situation out of the conventional sort of mode of living. and to be more naturally minded, ⁓ the lower your risk is going to be. You'll never be cancer proof, but boy, you can put yourself in the lowest risk category by doing the same things, just incorporating the stuff that I've teach that I've learned. Crissy Florio: That's it. You don't have to have cancer to do some of this work and some of these changes. And we joke about this because I don't love the word prevention because like you said, I don't believe we can fully prevent anything. However, we can all take a proactive approach to our health and make little changes or big changes and start showing up for ourselves better. So in our community, we're really talking to both sides of it, right? For the people who already have Chris Wark: Mm-hmm. Crissy Florio: walk to the walk through cancer of you trying to remain cancer free and then for the people who haven't walked that walk yet how can we take that a proactive approach and encourage people more and more to show up for themselves and so this conversation is beautiful for that so thank you. Chris Wark: Yeah, you're welcome again. Thank you both. Crissy Florio: Yeah. All right, guys, until next time. Thank you so much for listening and we'll see you next time. Bye. Thanks, Chris.