Latest / Two Girls and a Cup of Wellness / Starting Over at Any Age: Healing & Purpose with Crissy & Marie | Ep 17

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Starting Over at Any Age: Healing & Purpose with Crissy & Marie | Ep 17 · Two Girls and a Cup of Wellness

• Crissy Florio: Hey everyone, welcome back for another two girls and a cup of wellness. We are feeling a little extra spicy today. We have been interviewing a lot of amazing people over the last few weeks and we have a lot of amazing ones coming up. But we also know that we are getting some new followers ⁓ to our social media. ⁓ outlets and YouTube and everything. And we just miss the two of us. I know. So we just wanted to come on and chat with you all a bit about us and all of our happenings and doings. Yeah. So I know I'm excited to do this because like I said, we have amazing guests, but it is kind of nice to just get back to the OG chat. Yeah. So Marie, what are you up to these days? am I up to? A lot of things. Well, I started a podcast. Yes. ⁓ my God. With some really awesome girl. Yeah. Let's see. Well, let's go back. I mean, for most of our listeners, you know that I have been in medicine for two decades. That's crazy. That is crazy. I'm not. I'm very young. No, you're beautiful. ⁓ And it's funny because I never, most people that go into medicine or nursing, they know they want to do it. They have this calling to want to help people. And I really just picked one of the top scores on my Myers-Berg test. Actually, I started going to be a dental hygienist. Did you know that? No. I started dental hygiene school. Well, I met Paul and then I went back to school and I knew I wanted to be a wife and a mother and I wanted to have my weekends and holidays off. So I had worked for dentist when I was in high school and I thought that's a good job. It's a decent pay. It's great hours. But then when I was in my prerequisites, this is like, you know, the third time I've gone to college. So I did that quite a few times. I'm still in school right now. Actually, I just signed up for another class. forward, you love learning. So it all makes so much sense. So I was in the courses, the pre-reqs, anatomy and phys, nutrition, all that kind of stuff, chemistry, in all of the students were nurses and they said, Marie, why are gonna be a dental hygienist? At least in nursing, you can do all different types of things and dental hygiene, you're limited to one thing. And I was like, ⁓ I do like, I took it up in people's mouths the whole day, all day, every day. Which I'm sure I'd be satisfied scraping plaque off because I kinda like some gross thing with the history of wound care. But I realized then that I do get bored. So when we moved to Florida, I started at a school called, well, now the hospital is called Advent Health. Oh, yeah. There in Orlando. And it was at the time Florida Hospital. And the college was Florida Hospital College of Health Sciences. And that was the longest check to write out. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. But I started there. Back in the day of having to write checks. Very competitive program. I had to do some more prerequisites, met a bunch of my friends I'm still friends with now. And my first time I applied, I did not get in. I applied a second time. And I think there was 1800 applications for 80 seats. It was intense. And you had to write a paper about why you wanted to be a nurse. And I was honest. I said, because there's so many different things I can do and I really get bored. Everybody had these great papers about their aunts or their uncles and all this in medicine and I didn't. But anyways, ⁓ after that I worked in the ICU there and... Then when I got pregnant with my son, we moved back to Massachusetts and I worked in the ICU in Boston, which was excellent, children's, and it was hard. I preferred adults better. Then we moved back to Florida because Paul wasn't happy in Massachusetts. Anyway, I've lived in lot of places. Did you know that? Yes, yes. I love it. I love it. Then we moved to Chicago and it was at that point I decided to be a stay at home mom because my salary, I would be lucky if I brought home after the cost of daycare, maybe 20 bucks a week. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes it's just not worth it. Right. And I got a farm. And during all this time, I was reading more crispy cancer or more different books because I was tired of seeing all these sick people in the hospital. And I said, you something's not right. And I started reading about food. so when we moved from Chicago down to Tennessee, we bought land, which Paul really didn't want to do because we weren't farmers. But I said we were going to be farmers. I want to have a farm. I'm gonna be farmer Marie. Where's my overalls? Like I'm actually wearing right now. We got 10 acres of land and all sorts of animals and it was nuts. We had no idea what we doing. But I a 4,000 square foot garden, which was unbelievable. One season I had 80 tomato plants, all heirloom and I was bushels of tomatoes. I canned and everything. So it was amazing. And I think we very, healthy at that time. But then we moved back to Florida. I said, all right, I want to get back. The kids were getting older in school and I wanted to go back into nursing. So I did home health. And I saw that there was such a need for good providers. In fact, I always wanted to be a nurse practitioner, but as most women, everything kind of goes on the back burner and you give to your family. And my kids became number one in my husband and around the household. So I was in home health and I had this lovely little patient and I love her. She's gone now in heaven. She said to me, she said she wasn't feeling good. She was like 99 years old. And she said, Marie, they're just not listening to me. I'm going to the doctor. As he comes in, he listens to my heart. And he just looked at me and said, you're old. This is what it is. And I felt so sad. She said, he didn't spend any time with me. And I said, it was at that defining moment that I decided to enroll in my master's to become an interspecititian. Because I said, there's such a need to give people time. in education and really work with people, she shouldn't have felt that bad. Yeah. So sad. order to be seen and like, Yeah, and supported on a different level. Yeah. Yeah. And then, so then I went back to school and I still worked a little bit, after once you start clinicals, you really can't. And I saw in school, my very first clinical actually, I thought, what in the world have I done? I can't believe I'm spending all this money going to school, enjoying school. But once I saw my started my clinicals, I said, this is out of control. It's nuts. Patient after patient after patient after patient, prescription after prescription after prescription. No time, no education, not able to do the things I love, building relationships with people and talking to people and educating people. But I went through the grind and went through the process because Paul said I couldn't quit because he said, what kind of an example are you setting for the children? Mommy went to do her master's degree and flunked out or quit because she got stressed out in her clinicals. So really it was the kids. really thought about quitting quite a few times. And then we had an incident, both of us, one of our friends' husband passed away. And it was really a down part for me because I saw a different, I was one of the first people at the house, so I saw a different side of it. And I was in my pharmacology program at the time and it was so hard. And I thought, why am I doing this? I'm a much better nurse, much better nurse. But I stuck it out, finished, graduated. 3.9. Nice. Just saying, the first time I to college, everybody, I flunked out because I was like at the parties. So for those of you who aren't ready to go to school, travel or do something fun and then go to school later when you're serious because it is a complete waste of money if you just party. When you said, oh, I've moved all around and you know, I think that's a really beautiful thing to mention to people is that life can change and you can. move if you're not happy and you don't ever feel like you're stuck in either one place, one relationship, one job. If you are truly unhappy and you feel it to your soul and to your core, then change. It's okay to change. doesn't make you a failure. change. There's always something else out there. Don't stick with the status quo because there's no growth. And I've had this happen to me before. I'm like, this paycheck's good, or this is a good position, but I'm not happy. I'm not thriving. I'm wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, doing everything. happens to a lot of people at some point in their life. And some people stick with it, and they stay in it. And you can tell those people because they're misery on every level. But then you can tell some of the people like myself. I've been in jobs before where I loved what I did, but then they started to not be so great and I had to just find another way out because it just was not doing my body any justice at all and my energy at all. So primary care, I did some moon care and I found out quickly that unfortunately as a nurse practitioner, unless you find a great practice to work in and I just don't think there's enough of them, you're a tool for somebody else to make money. and you're used to bill and prescribe and it's so unfortunate and I hated it. ⁓ I had a patient that came to me with probably eight pages of labs and I had no idea what they were and she showed them to me and I said, I don't know what any of these are and she said, well, this is how I'm feeling and my normal labs are this and I went online and did some other lab tests. It was a functional medicine thing and at the time, the word wasn't really, it's very trendy right now and it's almost saturated and everybody says they do functional medicine. But there was three pages of labs and I couldn't tell you what one thing was on there because I didn't know. So that was very intriguing. So I kind of on my own, I'm working and I'm kind of researching functional medicine. I'm liking this whole root cause for like philosophy. And I read Casey Means books, a few other books, some of Dr. Hyman's books. so I'm kind of exploring these different areas. And I decided to enroll in the Institute of Functional Medicine. their applying functional medicine and practice course. And it was so eye-opening because instead of just saying, have this, let's prescribe this, or you have this, it's like, well, why do you have that? Well, let's do some other labs or let's look at some other different areas. So you're having all these symptoms of hypothyroidism, but your thyroid's functioning well. Well, there's all these other labs we can draw and kind of look in peace together and it doesn't necessarily maybe mean medicine. Maybe we need to look at some nutritional things. What's going on with your stomach? It's wild when you start to put the body all together. So I liked that. It was a very eye-opening. ⁓ So then I was working a job that was great. It was a great job. I just wasn't happy. And I was just doing it. I was going through the motions. So I kind of had bounced off with a few of my friends. I wanted to do something on my own in my own practice. And one of my closest, dearest friends, colleagues from nursing school 20 years ago, She said, let's just do this, Marie. She had been working in hormones for 10 years. And now at the same time, she's trying to convince me to do this, Donna, and we will eventually have her on the show. I have all my friends telling me, I have these symptoms. Can you help me out? Can you prescribe these hormones? I'm like, nope, hormones are bad. Hormones are bad. I'm not doing any of that. So I'm kind of like learning this functional medicine world. And then my friend Donna, she said, just take this one class. And I said, oh my gosh, but this one class is $1,600. And I just finished my master's degree and I just took this $2,000 function or $2,600 functional medicine course. How is Paul going to like look at me? He looks at me as the most educated person. He's like, where's my return on investment? So I took the course and I researched it obviously because I never want to be sold something. So you have to be careful when you're looking at different. for anybody out there in medicine, there's all these different courses and they're really pitching something or they're trying to get you on board to do this, that and the other thing. And I wanna go in with an open mind and not be sold a philosophy or sold a product to sell my patients. I'm not into that at all. So I took the first course and I was blown away. This doctor has been doing hormones for years when nobody else had prescribed them. And the research, it's all research, just piles of. randomized controlled trials, right? And I'm thinking, where is this? It's not mainstream at all. Now it's becoming more because they've released some of the black box warnings. There's other people talking about women's health, but this stuff has been known and so well, I don't know, hidden. I mean, it's there. If you research it, it's there. If you want to find something in anything, you research it, you'll find stuff. I also think that in our world, intimately here, we are women tapping into our perimenopause, menopause and postmenopause time. So of course it's starting to become more of a conversation because of the people of our age. And I think people are more open to say, oh, my vagina is dry. Nobody was going to talk about that 20 years ago. It's very taboo. I have absolutely no libido. And is that OK? No, it's not OK. That's intimacy between you and your spouse. it's very important. absolutely. People don't talk about these things and they need to be talked about. And when they do go and talk about these things, and I have seen it firsthand in practice, they are shunned away and told that it's just a part of all in your head. It's a part of life. But if a man comes in and says he has an erection problem, Right. It is like, here's a little bit of Leleluya. This is such a problem. We have to work on your erection. It's like, are you kidding me? Like we're suffering. We're losing our mind. Our hair is falling out. Our nails are brittle and like, no, it was just aging. It's just a process of life and you have to get through it. And it's actually whatever junk. So I finished with this program, the four module program. I took an exam and certified and I love it. And I love now that I have my own practice. Me and Donna opened up our own practice. Platinum Health and Balance, are Telehealth in Florida and we are a concierge style practice and although our main focus is on hormone replacement therapy, I will tell you I do everything for people because it's never just the hormones are off, it's the vitamin D, it's the ferritin, it's you know and I love it because I will flat out tell my patients I'm not gonna know everything and I'm okay, you're telling me I'm. listening to your symptoms, I'm looking at your labs, we can dig deeper here, we can work on here, and I'm trying to just, I want people to be healthier, like I genuinely mean that. I don't want people to get sick. I'm tired of it, I don't want people in the hospital anymore when I was working in a skilled nursing facility. Everybody I was taking care of was preventable chronic disease. You don't need to be in a skilled nursing facility with no legs at 60, obese, uncontrolled diabetes, we can see these things before they're coming. And if you are willing to put in the time and the effort and the energy as a patient and work with it, there are providers out there that'll help you. You have to find them. You have to find me or Donna. Yeah, exactly. So I love it. And I love the testimonials that are coming up now as I take care of people. It's validating all the reasons why I decided to leave conventional medicine. Yeah, that's so good. I love it. And I'll research tinctures. mean, I'm going to get the oregano oil. And I love it. And now I just started a SIBO class, which it's so great. I've known a lot about gut health. But really taking the SIBO course is my jam. I love it. Yeah. And that's the cool thing with you and nursing and being in the medical world is that there are so many avenues that you can take. just adding in this and adding in that is just giving you more and more knowledge. to when you look at somebody, you're looking at them as a whole person. And lifestyle and their diet and their sleep, right? It's like all of it matters. Their relationships with others, you know. Their emotional standpoint, like their emotional mindset. That is huge because when you were talking about the person with no legs and obese and, but mentally, how did they allow themselves to get that way? I don't know what I mean. I don't want to say it like that in a bad way of like, oh, they just let themselves go. I'm sure they probably went somewhere and worked with someone who didn't have the time. Like I didn't have the time. I was lucky if I got 10 minutes. That and I think that there is a disconnect with self-worth and self-love and self-compassion when somebody just doesn't do things for themselves. There is a blockage. And I say that in the kindest of ways, not in a way that I'm putting anybody down and be like, ⁓ they just don't care about themselves. They just let themselves go. Not in that manner at all. But for somebody who will choose to just go to McDonald's every single day rather than eating a home cooked meal or trying to be healthier in any way. there is a disconnect there somehow, former or another, because I think everybody on this planet knows that like eating out fast food every day. I don't know, Chrissy. I'm telling you, I talked to these people and I don't know how many times I wrote down my favorite smoothie on a post-it note that I was like, I need to patent this and laminate it and give it to people because people don't know how to make a smoothie. Right. Not to say that they don't know, but they just know that they go into fast food every day. know it's bad for them, but they also- They don't know what to do. Right. How to change it. There's this great little clip on Instagram and it's a woman and she goes two different ways. So you're looking at the screen double and she goes the route of like getting healthier and changing her life. And then she goes the route of eating the chips and not working out and scrolling and eating bad. It's a good visual. It's not true, but it's like an AI thing, but it's such a good visual. That totally reminds me of one of my favorite movies from the nineties called Sliding Doors with Gwyneth Paltrow. I love that movie. I should see that again. I know. Let's watch that. Let's have a girls night and watch that. ⁓ It is it's like one of those things where if if you were to get on the train or not get on the train, right? So it's like you're either get on the train of your health and wealth and your body is gonna go this way or you stay stuck and You go nowhere and you get unhealthy I think I'm healthier and unhealthier like a lot of the podcasts and all the people that were interviewing that You know have had cancer. I think that a lot of these conventional medicine doctors get stuck They don't go on the train or the state, right? And it was that one patient years ago that said I ate a public sub every day that made me think, ⁓ my gosh, and then I found Chris, and then I found all these other books. And if you continue to think outside of the box, you can't know everything. One of my nursing instructors told me that a long time ago. The second you think you know everything, you are the most ignorant nurse ever. Yeah, so true. And it was such a strong statement. I can't remember her name, but I remember the statement. But I think that thinking out of the box and loving to learn and taking that time. Being open. And if you get stuck in the grind, I feel like it started to happen to me. I'll admit it. I was like, ⁓ my gosh, the pay is good. I'm just doing the same thing. I'm just doing the bills and the coding and it's go home and you're done. But I wasn't thriving. I was surviving. That's it. That's it. I felt the same way, like I said before with the job that I had before. I didn't go down the college route. I, when high school, when I graduated high school, I was going out to LA to dance. That was my jam. I was going to go be a dancer and I just got so homesick and realized that was not the way that I wanted my life to go. And so I moved back home a few months later. this here? Florida? Yeah. born and raised in Florida, ⁓ down in Fort Lauderdale and, ⁓ moved out to LA for a little bit. And every summer while in high school, I would go out to LA for like a month at a time and go out there and dance. And ⁓ when I went decided to move out there, I just got, I got like, ⁓ I don't think I can do this. And, you know, to have to do auditions all the time and because my type of dancing was going to be more ⁓ concerts and backup dancers. Backup dancers and my, my number one job that I wanted when I was like, probably in middle school at this time was to be a fly girl from In Living Color. Do you remember the fly girls? They were so badass. And I was just like, ⁓ my gosh, I love them. And I actually danced with the first white girl, Carrie was her name. And that was like my dream. I'm like, no, I'm gonna be a fly girl. And so going out to LA, I would go out there and I would dance. And it wasn't for me. So I came back home. and just went right into work. Like for me, my parents never really pushed college. It just wasn't a thing. And so I just went right into working. And then my boyfriend at the time, now husband, decided to go into the Air Force. So we moved to Charleston. We lived in Charleston for seven years. And that was almost like our college time, partying and having fun, but yet working. So what were you doing? I was working. I worked at a bank, a local bank up there. And I loved that job. That job, I moved kind of up. started a part-time teller in the actual banks themselves and then went to full-time and then I was travel and then I ended up in branch administration. And then we ended up moving back to Florida and I was pregnant with Gabriel. Oh, sorry. Gabriel was born in Charleston, but three months after we decided to move back. So we moved back here. I was kind of in the same thing. like, I want to get back into banking because that's just what I know. but I have this, you know, baby, what do I do? So I did work for a little bit, realized like the banking was not my jam. I ended up going into sales, selling window treatments. My father-in-law was in selling window treatments, like plantation shutters, blinds and stuff like that. I can't see that. know. So I would. I did that for a little bit and then Antonia was born and I stayed at home for ⁓ a year with her because to have two kids in daycare, there was just no way. Yeah, it's ridiculous. And I did end up going back into window treatment sales, but I went to go work for another company, a female owned company, which was amazing. And I love my boss and I worked for her on and off for many years while the kids were little. And in that one, I felt more artistically challenged because I would design draperies and custom bedding and reupholstery and then go in. was definitely more like the design field, like interior design. And I remember saying to her, ⁓ the first time I went to go work for her, I'm like, I don't know if I want to get back into window treatments because I really think I want to do interior design. I might go back to school for interior design. And I ended up never doing it. And I went to go work for her. goes, just come work for me for a little bit and then we'll see if you want to do interior design. And I just stuck with the window treatments because I still, felt fine with that. I felt good. Right. And, um, when the market crashed and everything crashed, when was it 2007 or nine or something like that? Um, I just was kind of like, what do I really want to do with my life? I actually almost went to school for acupuncture. I went to traditional Chinese medicine school. almost did, but I had to go get some of my prereqs first. So I started getting some of my prereqs and I'm like, what am I doing? First of all, I'm never going to want to drive down to Fort Lauderdale five days a week and leave my children and my husband. That's just silly. ⁓ Not silly. was just silly for me. If anybody else out there doing it, that's good on you, but it wasn't for me. And I just decided at that moment, I'm going to I'm going to go, I'm going to get my 200 hour in yoga and complete, like, mean, total change and shift, but I just was like, I think I want to do that. So I did my 200 hour in therapeutic yoga. it was up in St. Augustine and it was lovely. And in my teacher training, because it was therapeutic, it was more geared towards energy and healing and ways that we can work with people. who are experiencing, who have Parkinson's or multiple sclerosis or migraines or things like that. So it just was a very different approach to yoga. And I had been teaching vinyasa yoga for like two years prior to that. But getting this one, I was just like, wow, there's really so much I can do. And I started to really fall in love with like the chakras, which are energy centers in our bodies. I think I've... kind of briefly mentioned it before in one of our other chats. And just understanding that these energy centers in our bodies, when out of whack, out of balance, can start to manifest as actual physical sensations and ⁓ things happening in our bodies, right? So I just was like, okay, I want to start learning more about those. And So over the next few years, just my own little studying and researching and teaching in my regular classes, just talking about them a little bit more and teaching more and more about them. Well, when I was diagnosed with breast cancer, I stopped teaching completely. Was it 20? 2020. 2020. Yeah. Actually, let me back up real quick. While I was doing my 200 hour and teaching yoga, I still also had a part-time job. So I worked for a very well-known window treatment company, nationwide, global wide actually. And when I went to go work for them, I was working for a family friend, but a phenomenal man, so smart, brilliant. He was very high up in this organization. I was like, wow, he asked me to come work on his team. I was so honored and it was awesome. Amazing. was one of my favorite jobs because I was the first time I was able to work from home. This is 2012 that I was working from home, like well before it was kind of a thing. And I worked part time. So I was able to do that part time, be there for my kids part time, and then also teach yoga. And when he left the organization is when I started, when they brought somebody else in, that's when I was kind of like, ⁓ funny how one person just changes the trajectory of your life. And it was like the start and the shift of customer service changing, right? Of, no, they're not going to call you even though you're their main point of contact. They're going to call the 800 number and either get somebody in another country or get an automated number, you know, person. And I was just like, this does not feel good at all. And so the end of 2019, I quit. And I was like, what am I going to do? ⁓ my gosh. And I then just was like, I think I'm going to go to school for interior design. So early 2020 online, I was going through a interior design certification while doing yoga and ⁓ then 2020 happens. And it actually forced me to really finish that certification. what's interesting is as I was doing that certification, I'm like, ⁓ I love this. I'm so excited. Then 2020 happens. like, I'm still excited. I can still just do things online. When life gets back to things, I could just, I'll go do it and I'm going to be an interior designer. And it just like never really got back to life because in August I got diagnosed. And once I got diagnosed and I was really, really closed off, I never got to go work for a company that could help me. I was just like out there swimming alone in this field of interior design and not knowing like wholesalers and distributors and where can I go and buy things? What are the right ways to do things, right? It has the ins and outs of interior design. And I just realized, I'm like, oh, don't, this isn't, this isn't me. I just gotta do yoga. I feel like multiple things in my life happened to me. as indications of like, stop doing what you're doing. Focus on yoga, focus on the body, focus on spreading your light that you love so much of the energy and the physical body and all these things. And once I was diagnosed and I took some time off, that is when I realized like, this is really what I need to be doing. There is just no other, there's no other way. And so, I created my organization called, my company called Healing in Harmony because for so many reasons, I wanted to have ⁓ a foundation and a platform where I could get out in front of more and more people, not even just locally here and locally here with workshops and events, but thank you, COVID, how can I do it also online now? And I played with a lot of things and I've got a lot of amazing online. private clients, but I play with trying to put myself out there more and more in the online field. Whether it's like monthly memberships or more events online. And so I just play around with it every now and then I'll do something and I know more is going to be coming. is. I mean, our cancer rates, arguably anywhere between one and two and one and three and in having a program. and someone to work with that has gone through everything that you've gone through is, I just think it's huge. People need you. Yeah, it is very needed because people, when they're diagnosed, there's this just disconnect. And then there's the fear that settles in. And then it's like, ⁓ my God, I got to do all the things. But then it's like, you can't do all of the things. You got to do the things that are right for you. So the ultimate foundation of any of my teachings is... Get back to yourself, listen to that inner voice. What feels good to you? Make decisions truly that feel aligned to you. And that's hard for a lot of people to do when they're so disconnected from their bodies and they are only thinking with their minds. Or they are getting bombarded by what everybody else thinks they should do. Sure, sure. Again, yeah, that's pulling them away from that inner voice that should be the loudest voice, not. not feeling the need to have to go to so many other people to ask, what do think I should do? Right? I mean, I know I've done that too. And again, our society is something's wrong, go to a doctor. Go to a doctor, fix it. Ask them what's wrong with you. Now talk about your book. Oh, yes. I love my little book. And I'm funny. I'm not one that gets out and you know, I didn't do like the whole promoting thing. You should. You should have like a book signing at like the bookshop. I actually did. I know I do. I should do one here locally. did something in Nashville, which was amazing. I love a bookstore. Yeah. Yeah. And we need like a good bookstore. somebody owns the bookstore. Right. Right. Exactly. I I seek those out when I go on vacations to meet places because I'm such a reader. So yeah. There's definitely some cute ones. But yeah, no, the book. was, so for the love of jugs, a breasties guide was really created because when I was diagnosed, I didn't, I knew a lot of people were gonna be wondering how I'm doing and what's going on. And I didn't wanna have to be texting everybody and emailing everybody. So I created an online private Facebook page to where I personally invited certain people into this Facebook group. And I would just go on and say, ⁓ chemo number one. And then like a couple of days later, I'm doing well. This is what's going on or some pictures or whatever. In that, I started writing a lot. And a couple of women, girlfriends of mine that I hold dear, and they are both very knowledgeable, smart, successful. ⁓ They both said to me, you're a phenomenal writer and you need to write more. And I never thought of myself as being a writer. I hated school. Like, I just flew by school. Schooling was not my jam. That's probably why I never went to college, right? It just was not, it's just not easy. And so when they were telling me I'm a good writer, I'm like, ⁓ my God, I hated writing in high school. So I was like, but then it came to me that there is a need. I wish I had a book. that when I was diagnosed would help me see things in a different light, in a more positive light, and help navigate this craziness that I was getting ready to step into. And so I took a look at my journey and just started to kind of write down certain things that I found helpful or that I know would help people. things that I know for a fact are super helpful, like a positive mindset, right? And so I just started writing some things down and then I grouped them together and I was like, I'm gonna write this book, end of story. And so it probably took me about two years to write ⁓ from beginning to end. And because it was a very part-time, it wasn't like, you know, it was towards the end where I was like hyper-focused where... I was like, she's just got to get out into the world. She's not going to be perfect ever, right? So I just got to just get it out. ⁓ so yeah, she came out in February of 2025, I believe. Yes. And ⁓ I don't even know how well she's doing. I just hear from people from time to time, ⁓ so-and-so got diagnosed or a friend got diagnosed. I'm sending you a book. ⁓ ⁓ a quick second of joy and then it's followed by like, shoot, another person is diagnosed. But that's what the book is for. It's that bittersweet type of thing. But that's what the book is for. It is there to feel as if your girlfriend is holding your hand throughout your journey from the moment you hear those words to hopefully the moment you hear the words, there's no evidence of disease. But that's not the case for a lot of women who are dealing with metastatic. There we go. yeah, yeah. Right. So it's, it has everything from looking at your journey as a gift rather than a curse down to trying to incorporate a little bit of a holistic mindset and not necessarily having to choose, you know, one way or the other, but how can you integrate both conventional and contemporary care or excuse me, ⁓ like traditional and contemporary care. And then. to like, do you need during chemo? What's a checklist or body image, right? That's a huge thing that people don't take into consideration. Right. I've been hearing that from survivors, yeah. Yeah, so, and then offering in... We do put a lot of pressure on ourselves. We do, we do. mean, and it's just not fair to ourselves. We're all beautiful beings, right? And there's not one thing that's perfect in this world. So why do we think that we need to be? So... ⁓ Okay, so let's end with three of your goals going forward. ⁓ girl. Or two, three, four, whatever. Number one, ⁓ I hope to be helping this really amazing organization here kind of get their word out a little bit more. So that's number one. Number two, I will be doing a... advocacy type of program ⁓ or affiliate type of program. Mentorship. Yes, and a mentorship, right? A ⁓ holistic integrative wellness mentorship. ⁓ yeah, so those are kind of like three things. The mentorship, the affiliate program to work with partners such as oncologists or breast surgeons or breast coaches. people who are in the world of helping the healing through breast cancer and kind of missing that in-between link of like the emotional standpoint, right? You're done with treatment, now what? And creating these videos and ways to access things that I know that I can help it with healing. Videos on yoga and breath work and meditation and EFT tapping and... And we need to talk about that. Yeah. What's happening. We need somebody to come on here. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. So yeah, those are my three things. Okay. things. You ready for mine? I am. So obviously having the business grow and helping more people and reach out to patients and really make people healthy. I really would like to speak more. I have done a few speaking events. I am in Toastmasters and I'm facing my fears, but I love to educate people. and I love to empower people and give them tools on how they can change their health. So getting out there and speaking more and doing more events. And then I need to let go of my fear and work towards, I would love to work with, I can't even talk. Cancer patients to be like integrative. I have so much knowledge because I've been studying cancer, even though I've never worked in oncology as a nurse or a nurse practitioner. I have so much knowledge of that holistic side of it, like working with diet and other types of therapies. And just even today, amla powder, that's one that I learned and all the things that I've learned from all these books that I've read. And I would love to be able to incorporate that in my practice and kind of be an adjunct. to somebody going through cancer and help them along the way look at some of those more inflammatory labs and say, you should be doing this or you could try this. That would be huge. I think you would I have a fear. I have a fear. reading, I'm in Jane McKellen's class and she's just so knowledgeable. My goodness, that woman's unbelievable if you haven't read it. It is How to Starve Cancer, her book. But you know, I keep on reading and I would love to be able to... to offer that because there's not enough, there's not enough doctors or nurse practitioners or PAs that'll step away and say, I want to help patients with their cancer journey. Yeah. And then talking to somebody here recently when they said that they had an ⁓ integrative cancer person, that's amazing. It's amazing. Right. We need more of that. Like, so you have your regular oncologist and breast surgeon or surgeon or whatever, but then having that kind of like in between person to also take a look at what you're doing there, but how can we now add in specific supplements or healing modalities or? And I mean, I've studied it forever. The knowledge is there, but I'm scared because there's no course. Right. And I like the course and I like the certification. It's almost like I've done that, you know. I'm advanced, bioidentical, hormone certified and trained. I'm gonna be SIBO trained and certified. I'm gonna get a certification. I have the degrees. And there isn't in that world. Right, right. So there is a sense of fear. Yeah. around that and the unknown. I gotta get over in the unknown. exactly. I'm gonna on it. Because you have the knowledge. You have the passion. I have the passion because I am And people are craving this. I wish I would have had that. There's so much cancer and I can't Thankfully I had already had all of my- background and knowledge and to where I did, you know, meditation, I did the EFT tapping, I did visualization, I did energy work with my energy healer, but then also like somatic work of just like, get it out of my cells, let's move my body, right? And a lot of these things are so important, but people just don't know about them. no. So anyways, that fun. I know love these impromptu ones. and we'll do them more often, but I know we love all of our amazing guests. many great guests coming up soon and many more to come and it's just awesome. love it. I know. I know. to us. Cheers to us. We're really, really awesome and cheers to you all. showing up in the world. listening. And until next time, bye. Bye.