Latest / Two Girls and a Cup of Wellness / Take Control of Your Health: You Have More Power with Dr. Mia Holland | Ep 24
Transcript
- Crissy Florio: Hey everyone, welcome back for another Two Girls in a Couple Wellness conversation. This is Chrissy. And this is Marie. And today we are meeting Dr. Mia Holland. This is very exciting for me because one of my oldest friends from the third grade introduced us. And I hope she said all good things about me because she knows my deepest, darkest secrets. But welcome. Dr. Mia Holland: you Thank you for having me. Yes, this is fantastic. And yes, she said all wonderful things. So you're in good hands with her. Crissy Florio: That's amazing. Okay. That's amazing. That's amazing. Well, I, when Marie came to me and you know, we try to talk about people that we're bringing on and just make sure that we're all aligned and I don't think there's ever been one person that we're like, you not aligned with, right? ⁓ And so she sent me some of the videos that you have up on YouTube and I started watching and I'm just like, yes, yes, yes. Like you're everything that we are, I feel like. ⁓ Just personable and easy to talk to, like we're talking to a real person and obviously the content and the information too is just so not only vulnerable and beautiful, but empowering and inspirational. And we're so happy to have you join our community and our family. Dr. Mia Holland: Good. Thank you, thank you. I'm sad that you're so far away because we need more connection with like-minded people. Crissy Florio: Yeah. Well, we might be making a road trip because we've had two people from Massachusetts. You're a third, actually, on the show. Yes. I mean, know lately I have been talking to so many people from Massachusetts. And I have quite a few contacts up there. So I think we need to do a road trip. I'm just saying. Two girls and a cup of wellness road trip. We need to do like a concert, a what? Not a concert. Dr. Mia Holland: Say it's a sign. There you go. There you go. I love it. I would love to meet you in person. would be fantastic. Crissy Florio: traveling retreat of some sort. I think we need to make this happen for sure. For sure. Well, let's dive into you, Dr. Mia. ⁓ Tell us all, you know, everything, not everything, but I mean, I mean, we may have to have you on multiple times, but where do we start? Where do we start? Dr. Mia Holland: Yes. There's a lot of everythings. So Marie's friend referred me to you because she knows my my little health journey I'll call it. My little wellness journey. yes 2016 two days before Christmas BAM a diagnosis of breast cancer. So definitely threw me for a loop. Crissy Florio: Beautiful. Let's start there. Dr. Mia Holland: In fact, it's interesting because in October of that year is when I actually found the tumor. ⁓ I was reaching up in my kitchen at a high cabinet and I said, ⁓ and I've reached over and I felt it. Now it didn't hurt. wasn't, it was just a strange little lump and I actually didn't do anything about it because I've always been healthy my entire life. There's no history of breast cancer in my family. I don't smoke, I don't drink. The classic workout every day, just going about my business being what I thought at the time, healthy. And I didn't do anything about it. So two months later, it was still there. And I had gone to a gynecologist appointment for my yearly, what I call the yearly invasion. Crissy Florio: Yeah. Dr. Mia Holland: He did not find it. It was there and he didn't find it in his exploration. So I decided, let me do something about this. Let me just get checked again. Let me see what's going on. ⁓ I thought it was a cyst. I had no inclination that it would be the C word. And I went for a mammogram and they couldn't find it. which is quite scary in a point that comes up later in the story. They did not see it on the mammogram and it was palpable. I could feel it. Went for an ultrasound and then there it was. I will give advice to people that are visually sensitive. Do not look at the scan when they're doing it. Don't look at the screen because that vision of the tumor will forever be embedded in my brain and I wish that I didn't look at the screen because I've detached myself basically from the entire sort of traumatic experience of it all. As you heard, I call it the C word. I tried not to give it any identity. So regardless, I got the ⁓ news the day of the diagnosis and what I did was I brought a little notebook of questions. I'm a question person. I'm also a person who writes everything down because I'll forget in conversations you know you forget you're distracted. And when the doctor came in with my little folder Crissy Florio: Yep, that's my husband. Dr. Mia Holland: I looked at my husband. We weren't married at the time, but I looked over at him and I looked back at the doctor and I could tell by his face what he was going to say. And he said it. And I said, no. No, I am not attaching to this. And he said, well, I'm sorry. Unfortunately, yes. It was about 11 o'clock in the morning. He said, you're the third person that I've had to diagnose just today. And it's only 11 o'clock in the morning. Crissy Florio: Wow. Terrible. Dr. Mia Holland: So I said, well, I only have questions on my little piece of paper here about cysts. I don't have any questions about the C word and I really am not interested in talking about it. The one question I did ask was, could this have been caused by deodorant? That's the only thing that came out of my mouth besides the no. And he sort of looked at me strangely, which I'm not surprised. And he said, absolutely not. Crissy Florio: Hehehehe Dr. Mia Holland: So I said, well, let's leave this appointment over. There's not much more we can do here. He said, you you're gonna have to do chemo. ⁓ You're gonna have to do some radiation, some surgery, blah, blah, blah. You'll be fine. My husband and I, like I said at the time, wasn't my husband, but we walked out to the car and at the time I had already been seeing an energy medicine doctor. And we were working through issues with migraines and insomnia. I had some cortisol issues just from being in... overachiever type A, stressed out, traumatized person my entire life. So was already seeing somebody in that field and the story that got me to that practitioner in the first place is quite the interesting one. But we got in the car, we were looking straight ahead, he had his hands on the wheel and he said, what are we going to do? I said, well, we're gonna go to lunch, I'm starving, but we're going to call. my energy medicine doctor. I made the call, I left a voicemail, they called me right back and he had already known me for over a year at that point and he said, perfectly fine, this is a blip. We'll get through it, you'll be fine, I'll see you on Monday. That was a Friday, so he said, I'll see you on Monday. Great. Walked into his office on the Monday and he said, this is easy peasy. In the meantime, we were sitting at lunch and because I had left, the appointment where the diagnosis was given so abruptly and I was just so upset and not happy about what had happened. My gynecologist actually called while I was at lunch and he said, okay, well, here's the thing. This is estrogen positive. This is progesterone positive. So we can take your ovaries out. Now I'm sitting there, I had my sunglasses on because I didn't want anybody in the restaurant to see all of the tears and the red eyes. And I was eating a salad and I remember thinking to myself, hold on a second. Wait, let's back the train up a little bit. You already want to take out the essence of my womanhood. And we haven't even had a discussion. I haven't weighed out what's going to happen with me. And I knew that I had already made the call to my energy medicine practitioner. So I hung up the phone and we continued to eat. And I remember sitting there and across the way was a table and it looked like a grandma, a mom, and a new baby. And I remember thinking this new baby has a whole life ahead of him or her. And here I am sitting here with a diagnosis that in many cases is deadly. And I remember feeling how surreal and weird and crazy that was. And that was the very moment where I felt like I was in this bubble. I was in the C-word bubble. And there was nothing anybody could do that was going to make me feel any better. It was really just up to me at that point. Now, I had three people who were pivotal through the entire process outside of my energy medicine practitioner. And it was my... then boyfriend but now husband at the time, my brother and my beautiful friend Heather. They were there for me every single day, every single decision I made, every single almost getting arrested situations at the oncologist. We can talk about that. And so Crissy Florio: Yeah, we might need to. Dr. Mia Holland: Regardless of how many people are around you or else speak for me, you feel like you're in this bubble and nobody can help you. And I know Chrissy, you have a story and I don't know if you felt like that during your journey. Crissy Florio: Mm-hmm. Yeah, you know, I mean, the moment you hear those words, it's just like everything just gets fuzzy and you feel, you can tell people are around you, but it doesn't feel like they're there because you're so much in your head, right? You're hearing all this stuff and you're just like, what, you get disconnected from your body. And that was definitely my story the day that I found out. And even, you know, ⁓ a few days after that, it wasn't until really like almost a week after that that fog started to diminish. And I started to get a little bit more like in my own power of like, okay, now it's time to make decisions. Let me, okay, let me, and I too had like people surrounded me, my husband, my best friend, my sisters, my best friends, that just like helping me to navigate certain things. But it wasn't for like a week after that. was like, okay, now I'm ready to make my own decisions. So yeah, it's crazy. Dr. Mia Holland: Yeah, it's very isolating and I've been a single person. I've been, you know, I've lived alone. There is nothing more alone than that moment when you hear somebody say those words to you and you think, ⁓ my gosh, now what? ⁓ Crissy Florio: Yeah. Dr. Mia Holland: So I met with my energy medicine practitioner and as I said, he was steadfast. He said, look, this is doable. This is fixable. And he knew me as I said for a little while at that point. And he said, you know what? Your type A behavior, your perfectionist attitude is going to get you through this easy peasy. You're going to be fine. Believe me, trust me. ⁓ I put all of my, if he had told me to eat cardboard and that would cure me, I would have done it. I listened to every single thing he told me to do. ⁓ But back up a teeny bit, I did have a consultation in Boston at a world renowned cancer institution, as most people do. And I went because I figured, let me see what they're going to say. I contemplated having the tumor removed, which I ended up doing. And I was telling Marie at some point in our little conversation, I said, I wish that I didn't do that because my practitioner had said, you know, you don't need to get it removed, but I know you, you're going to be a crazy person. You're going to keep touching it and wondering if it's getting smaller. Is it getting smaller? Is it getting smaller? So maybe for psychological health, it will help you. But I so wish that I didn't get it removed. Crissy Florio: just to see if the energy healing would actually minimize it or help it diminish. Dr. Mia Holland: Yep, yeah. Right, but regardless, I went for the consultation at the hospital in Boston and they were very adamant. They didn't like me from the beginning of the appointment because the questions around, will you give us your tissue? Will you give us your blood? Will you give us samples for research? And all of my answers were no. And they were very flabbergasted by that because they said, everybody says, yes, they want us to help and this is helpful and this is the research and this is this and this is that. And I don't want to be, no, they do not. So I got into the appointment. They asked me the same three questions and I gave them the same three nos. I don't want to be attached to any of this. Crissy Florio: Doctors don't like the word no. Doctors do not like the word no. Dr. Mia Holland: Just examine me, do your thing and talk to me about what you think I need to do. It was already decided in my mind that I was never going to do conventional treatment. That was never a choice for me. I want that to be clear. The surgery was iffy, I wasn't sure. The chemo, the radiation, the tamoxifen was an absolute no. And what the oncologist said in that appointment, she said, well, you know, it's more serious than we thought. We've looked at the biopsy results. We've looked at everything. It's more serious than we thought. And you're going to need more treatment than we thought. And I said, OK, explain to me why you keep telling me that. My gosh, you're young. I was only 45 at the time. You're so young, we don't know why you had this. So I said, explain to me this. People travel from all over the world to come talk to you. This is the world renowned Mecca of cancer treatment. And you don't know why a 45 year old has gotten it with no history in the family, no smoking, no drinking, nothing unhealthy and you don't know. ⁓ well, you know, the environment, it's full of radiation. Okay, question number two. If the radiation in the environment has done this to me, then why do you want me to send, you want to send me down the hall for 30 rounds of radiation? Well, it's different. Does it have a biohazard sign on it? It's not toxic. Crissy Florio: You Dr. Mia Holland: Does it have a biohazard sign on it? Yes, then I'm not doing it. You just contradicted yourself. Nothing they could say to me would ever convince me to do that. Now I understand there are people, and I know your story, Chrissy, there are people that it does resonate with and it's okay with them. And it's something that they are okay with doing. But personally for me, Crissy Florio: Sure, yeah, yeah. Dr. Mia Holland: I was not interested in doing anything that I felt was toxic, harmful, or would exacerbate the problem in the long run. Crissy Florio: Well, even from an energetic standpoint, if you're making a decision to move forward with something that you are already listening to your body and your body's like, hell no, you're going to get every symptom under the sun. And it is going to have that kind of, ⁓ not so great effect on your body. But if you're like, maybe some of our listeners on here that hear the word radiation, they're like, fine, just do whatever you need to do. That's fine. Their body is almost already halfway there to receiving it. Dr. Mia Holland: Mm-hmm. Crissy Florio: because they're okay with it and they are one with that decision. But if you go in kicking and screaming, then I feel like that's when your body is going to fight it or to work against it and you're gonna get all the symptoms. So. Dr. Mia Holland: It's such a very interesting phenomenon. agree with you entirely. ⁓ I said to her, I am going to do this holistically. Now, if anybody knows when you say the H word in a traditional medical setting. Crissy Florio: Yeah. There's not a lot of research for that. Dr. Mia Holland: There's not a lot of research for that and oh my god, you're gonna die. She said, if you do it your way, you will die. So at that point, my sweetheart was sitting across from me in a chair and he got wide-eyed. He's got these cute little eyes. His eyes blew. He knew. He said, oh my god, my wife is probably going to slap this woman and I'm going to need bail money. So I looked over at him, he knew me too well at that point already, and I looked up at her, I was sitting down, she had her hand on my shoulder, and I must have gotten this look on my face like I was upset. And she said, I know, I know this is terrible. And I thought to myself, you think you got me? You didn't, you're not scaring me. So I said, you know, please don't touch me. I would like my file, I'm going to leave. I don't agree with anything that you've said. So this appointment is over. And I think I remember saying when she said, you know, I know this is hard. You're probably feeling upset. And I said, what I'm feeling is I'd like to slap somebody right now. So it was just very, it was, I'm thinking this is what happens here. This is, this is the bullying that happens. This is the scare tactics that happen to people that Crissy Florio: Thank Dr. Mia Holland: Unfortunately, most people don't know that there are options. There are other ways to navigate a journey with C word, with the C word. And that's what bothered me the most in the moment. It wasn't my situation. It was I was thinking of all of the people in this world that have sat in that situation. and not fairly received all of the information possible so that they can make a decision. People that just don't know. Crissy Florio: or been given the time, right? They rush you into, you've got to make a decision. We've got to start treatment right away. And granted, some cancers are fast growing. I get that. But just not giving the time to where people can go and start to do their own research and form their own identity in their situation and in their own process. But I I also think that those doctors and oncologists, they only see one light at the end of the tunnel. They don't think outside of the box and they don't spend the time to read about other things. That's what we're missing for sure. And why? Because I'm always reading. The integrative approach is the not just the one way of looking at things, but how can we bridge and be comfortable using the word holistic, right? Because really, what does that word mean? It's just you're looking at your body as a whole. It doesn't necessarily mean that you only have to go, I mean, yes. Dr. Mia Holland: Yes. Crissy Florio: to go natural ways and stuff, but you're looking at root causes. You're looking at how can I remain cancer-free and not just in my breast, but as my whole body? How can I make decisions that feel aligned to me and my intuition and my gut? Right? It's, it's, they don't think like that because textbook research, med school, body part, right? It's, it's compartmentalized. It's here's a specialist for everything. Dr. Mia Holland: Right. Crissy Florio: and I'm a specialist on your breasts, so I'm only gonna look at the breasts. I'm not gonna worry about if there's a 1 % chance that you can get uterine cancer if you're on tamoxifen. I said to my oncologist, what if I'm not 1 %? I'm not willing to do that. It just doesn't feel right to me, right? It's just, a lot of people don't listen to their own inner power when it comes to saying no to doctors. Dr. Mia Holland: Yeah. Right. Right, right. It's interesting. The holistic community, for those that don't know, there's a piece of what they believe that the C word is a syndrome. It's not just your immune system is broken and it has allowed... rogue cancer cells to proliferate and coagulate and make a little tumor, a little sac for themselves. It's not just that. And I believe in the idea that it is this syndrome. Yes, something is broken in the immune system, but what has gotten it broken? So it's a combination of things. It's lifestyle, it's the environment, but it's also for me, and this resonated so well when I was talking to my practitioners about it, ⁓ there's such an emotional component to it. And when I heard that, I thought, huh, wait a second. and I started reading and I started researching. You you say this all the time, Marie, you love to learn. You're always reading, you're researching. I became a voracious researcher. I always joke with people that I'll be paying my student loans for my degrees for the rest of my life. But I can tell you in the first couple of years after the diagnosis, that was the biggest education I have ever gotten in my entire life. Crissy Florio: Yeah. Dr. Mia Holland: It far surpasses any formal education I have had, which has been many years in the classroom. ⁓ I took it on as if I'm going to take everything in, I'm going to be a sponge. I'm going to take every bit of information I can and just heal and make whatever has broken me, make it go away, fix me, all the aspects of me. and let's move on. I've thrown away every single piece of paper related to the entire journey from the medical side. So those appointments and I think I have one piece of paper left that might be the biopsy results and I don't even actually know where it is because I have detached. ⁓ the emotional piece of it and the trauma piece of it, you I started reading things like the body keeps the score. I went to a shaman. I went to acupuncture. I went to all sorts of things that could release the whatever was built up in my body ⁓ from, as I said, I was 45. So 45 years of something in addition to whatever I have taken from my ancestors as well, right? So there's all that ancestral trauma and all of those things that live in our body that we don't know about. I went to Emotion Code Healing for years, ⁓ did a bunch of things. And I had gone to, in my teens, 20s, and early 30s, I had gone to traditional therapy, pretty much my whole... Crissy Florio: Mm. generational. Yeah. Dr. Mia Holland: all those years, I would say 15, maybe even 20 years, traditional therapy for things that happened in my childhood, which were very tragic, very horrific. And I always thought, I'm strong. I'm past it. I'm strong. I just keep moving on in life. I keep moving on. I'm not going to let it. Yes. Crissy Florio: Yeah, but your tissues are like, no, we're keeping some of that. We're going to keep some of that in the tissues. Dr. Mia Holland: Yes, yes. So that resonated with me because it made me think, wait a minute, okay, I've gone to talk therapy, traditional therapy, ⁓ my whole adult life, let me try different things. And that's when I went, as I said, to the shaman and emotion code healing and therapeutic massage with sound therapy, just everything under the sun I was doing to release all of the trauma from my childhood. and it was working. It worked in so many ways but the initial piece of it where my practitioner said okay we're going to tackle this in a multifaceted way You're going to be on a certain diet. You're going to take certain specialized supplements, not the ones at CVS. And we are going to move forward. And what you're going to do is change your body chemistry so that it no longer is a hospitable environment for cancer cells to be happy and want to grow. And I thought, all right, that makes sense. Many people had said to me, well, you got the tumor out. That's why. That's why you're cured. You got it out. But that's not necessarily true. In my view and in my research, I have the belief that you can take out all the organs you want. It's going to go somewhere else if you don't change the hospitable environment that it loves to grow in. Crissy Florio: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Think about like, you know, weeds in our garden, right? You can pluck some of them, but if their stumps still stuck down and deep down, they're going to move and show their face in other areas as well. And I'm not a gardener, but that just came to me because I'm sitting next to the number one gardener. Dr. Mia Holland: It's a great analogy. It's a great analogy. But I'm typically insulted by people who say, you got the surgery, so you took the easy way out and you were probably cancer free after that. No, because your body chemistry doesn't change. Crissy Florio: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and you've seen, have you seen more of the research about biopsies now coming out? They're actually spreading it in other places because we're releasing those stem cells and those tumor cells, they're circulating and they're going to the liver or somewhere else, you know, now they're thinking those might be bad. It's crazy. is. is. But that's where I think adding that layer of emotional healing, energetic healing is so important. Dr. Mia Holland: Yes, I know. Crissy Florio: during a cancer diagnosis and in anything, right? In life in general, because I say this all the time, everybody goes through something, right? So to be able to even do some of this work prior to a potential diagnosis is so important because then maybe you're going to limit your chances of getting a diagnosis of some sort, right? I talk all the time about mind, body, heart, soul healing, right? The mind and the body are two things that we talk about all the time, really, and it should be body, mind, because we want the body talking to the mind more rather than the mind and the ego talking to the body. But what about the heart? And I kind of add a little bit of that emotional standpoint in the heart space because we don't give ourselves enough compassion. We go through life. We... just go, go, go and give everybody else compliments, but it's hard to give ourselves compliments. It's hard to see ourselves as being a beautiful human being. So adding that layer to it, but then also the energetic layer of knowing that there's something outside of us and that we are a part of it. We're almost like a hologram of whatever it is that you believe in. If it's God, if it's source, if it's higher being, if it's the universe, whatever. that we're a hologram of that being. And so we can see ourselves in that higher source and in everybody. And to be able to kind of shed some of that heaviness, those blockages, so that our energy can shine and be vibrant and expansive is essential in healing. It just is. Dr. Mia Holland: I love it. I resonate with that completely. Crissy Florio: Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of people will only work on body. That's going to be the first one. Get the cancer out. They don't look to change the way that they view their selves or the world and the mind and how much nine, or I should really say only 20 % of the actions that they're doing is from their consciousness, right? Everything else is more subconscious. 80 % of our thoughts and actions are subconscious, right? I think that's the 80, 20. And more more people need to realize that we don't want to just think our way through doing things. We got to like feel our way and kind of heal some of those subconscious layers, whether it is generational trauma or just past trauma or just situations that have occurred to us, occurred, you know, through our lives. Yeah. Dr. Mia Holland: Sure, sure. I agree. And it was a very interesting... Like I said, when you get... when you hear the words, they come at you, and somebody says, have blank. There's a very interesting thing that happens, at least for me, in terms of taking action. I'm not a backseat person. As I said before, I would have done anything my practitioner said. And basically what he said is, your life is toxic. So in my mind, that was a little bit weird because I worked out every day. There was no smoking. There was no drinking. I ate ⁓ chicken and sweet potato and rice and ⁓ my primary exercise at the time was weightlifting. So I was eating and I still do eat five, six times a day, very small meals. ⁓ As I said, gym every day, the whole thing. Not overweight. And all of sudden someone looks at you and says, yeah, that life. is toxic and I'm thinking, what the heck about my life is toxic? I can't believe this. I've always considered myself healthy with exercise and with the way I treat my body. And it's so interesting when someone looks you in the eye and says, guess what? Your identity is way off. You thought you were healthy, but you're sitting here with the C word. Something is off. That... disconnect with who I thought I was was very shattering for me. There was a sense of grief about my identity not being what I thought it was because I walked around like a picture perfect picture of health. And that was very difficult to understand that wait a minute what you've been doing looks perfect on paper but guess what? Crissy Florio: Yeah. Dr. Mia Holland: you're missing something here. There's a big mess and this is going to really bonk you over the head and give you a reality check about how you really are living your life. And so there was this massive opportunity for exploration and I've said it a gazillion times, maybe not the day of diagnosis, but it was such a blessing. There is so much to be learned and there's such a better life to live post diagnosis if you take it into your hands. If you take your life into your hands and you really analyze and look, well, I was a perfectionist, overachiever, over worker, over exerciser, ⁓ know, working multiple careers at once, driving myself insane. to be independent, to have everything perfect, always beat myself up about my body, looked in the mirror, nothing was good enough, your body's not good enough, your face isn't good enough, your breasts aren't good enough, nothing's good enough, striving, striving, striving for that perfection, which is interesting because... also a dysregulated nervous system because of all of that striving and driving and the over cortisol levels and and that was probably the first clue actually that things were going awry and I wasn't paying attention was my cortisol issues. The levels were off the charts and that's what led me to my holistic practitioner in the first place. And it was after years of insomnia and just dealing with some things around cortisol. I had been going to regular traditional medical professionals and saying, you know, I can't sleep. I feel revved up. Something's not right. Well, Mia, you you overwork, you know, you're just excitable, da da da da da. You need to take sleep meds. I'm not doing that. I'm not doing that. Can you offer me anything else? Crissy Florio: Yeah. Dr. Mia Holland: Nope, it's sleep meds. Then it was, you need counseling. Nope, that's not it either because I've tried that and that's not helping. So I started to do my own research and cortisol kept coming up and I finally got to the holistic community and that's when it sort of was revealed, hey listen, your cortisol is off the charts. No wonder why you're not sleeping. No wonder why you're just all over the place. You're miserable. ⁓ So luckily that's what brought me to that community and that's essentially what saved me as well. ⁓ You know my central nervous system was dysregulated since I was a child because of the childhood trauma, because of growing up in an environment that was extremely dangerous. ⁓ abusive on many levels, emotional, physical. ⁓ There was sexual abuse not in the home, but there was sexual abuse outside of the home, which the memories actually just surfaced three years ago during this wonderful healing journey. ⁓ But it's all been a blessing because it all led me to the point where when I had to make the decision about which way I would go, was never a fork for me. Never a fork. was always, I'm going to go the holistic route. So everything in my life led me to that point. I mean, I even have a t-shirt that says no. And I've had that thing for 30 plus years. Crissy Florio: Hahaha. Dr. Mia Holland: I'm a no person. not a follower. ⁓ will advocate for myself and I'll also advocate for those that I care about and want to help. ⁓ But I'm not going to be bullied. I'm not going be bullied. I will heal, but I'm not going to be bullied. Crissy Florio: so much power. There's so much power there. I wish more and more people would really truly hear those words and feel those words in their cells, right, down to their core, because that's where everybody, that is how everybody needs to make decisions. Not just following the rules, but what feels right to you. And sometimes it is yes, and that's okay, right? That's okay. It's just what feels aligned to you and Dr. Mia Holland: And that's okay. Crissy Florio: When you were talking just a bit ago, when you started talking about like the nervous system and the cortisol and all that comes to my mind is people who just live in their brain so much, right? All of the actions and everything that they're doing is from their brain. And we know the one thing, the number one job that our brain has is to keep us safe. It does not like unfamiliarity. It does not like change, right? So when you're up here and you're just like, I got to have that plan for every little situation. I got to be prepared. got to, you you are not grounded and you are not in your body. And that is where healing occurs. When we are grounded and calm and really can listen to how our bodies frequency and vibe is and do things from that place and not just the mind. Just it keeps you on overload and on overdrive. And clearly you are the perfect example and I am too probably of that clearly is not working for people and it's going to blow up in your face at some point or another. So for our listeners who are listening or watching right now, stop. Easier said than done. Easier said than done. Dr. Mia Holland: Yes, I am mixed. Yes, you have to be extremely protective of yourself. And it's not just your emotional piece, your psychological piece, it's your physical piece. And that feeling of being revved up. Now, certainly when we exercise, you you have to have a little bit of excitement in order to retract and come down. But that constant reverberation and feeling like your fingers are in a light socket 24 seven is not healthy. ⁓ I'm incredibly protective of my time and my sensitivities because I rejuvenate by being alone. I like to be away from Crissy Florio: That's not good. Dr. Mia Holland: people and humans to rejuvenate. So I love a good book. I love my cups of tea. I love my blankies. That's what rejuvenates me. You know, being alone with my husband. ⁓ When I'm around a lot of people or around just even one person, but one person, one person wants all day long appointments, appointments, talking. I get very excited because I enjoy talking. I enjoy helping. I enjoy what I'm doing, but it revs me up very, very, very quickly. Now, of course, 45 years of this with cortisol is not going to be healed in a decade or less. It's something that we have to continue to work. on each day and I've reminded myself of that all of the time. So say friends will say, would you like to go out to eat? Well sure, if it's before five o'clock then we'll do it, but if it's after five o'clock, uh-uh, because I need my downtime at night. ⁓ I need to be calm before I go to bed so that I can actually sleep because the slightest thing... will rev me up. So that dysregulation I'm still working on it takes, if it took a lifetime to get to where it is, it's going to take a little bit to get it back down and to continue those habits that will keep it lower. So I'm very protective about that. And I'm very quick to say, no, no, we're not doing that. No. Crissy Florio: you Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. So good. So good. if there were, let's talk about the, like your non-negotiables and how would, if you could give somebody three tips to create their own like practice to really listen to what feels right to them as far as their non-negotiables, their boundaries. Because that's not easy for a lot of people to do. It's not easy for people to say no because they think they're going to let somebody down. That's how I am. I feel so bad when I say no. Especially when I agreed to do something and that day I'm like, don't want to this. Yeah. have been really, I feel the same way. That I feel so bad. hurt their feelings. Yeah. I... Why do I feel that way? I've gotten a lot better of just saying like, I'm sorry, this is going on. we don't... Dr. Mia Holland: it for you just call me I'll do it for you Crissy Florio: You know, here's the thing, we really don't have to be overly wordy about it, right? If you surround yourself with people who love you and understand you, you could just tell them, they should just understand. Right? They just should understand. But I think everybody needs to create their own non-negotiables and boundaries list and learn certain ways to teach their nervous system and their physical body and their their emotional body of how it's okay to say no. So let's, if you can think of maybe three things or so that could help somebody who has a, does not have a boundary, you know, set in place or doesn't understand what their non-negotiables are. How can people kind of create that practice for themselves? Dr. Mia Holland: think one of the things to Marie's point, so if you need to say no to something, if you've gotten to the point where you need to say no to something, but you think you're going to feel bad for that person, you have to understand that if there's judgment from the other person, that's their problem. So one of the best pieces of advice that I was given in my lifetime was let the people that are having the problem have the problem. Crissy Florio: judgment. That's their judgment. Yep. Dr. Mia Holland: If you own it or take it on, that's your choice. When, you know, I say this to my to my siblings and close friends, I've said this too. When people say, well, so and so said or feels and then that bothers me and ⁓ my gosh, they made me upset. Nobody can make you feel anything. Nobody can make you feel anything. Nobody's crawling. And this is exactly what I say. Nobody can crawl into your ear hole. and get into your brain and change the chemistry to make you feel a certain way. That's not happening. What you allow is somebody's words or actions to affect you and you're choosing to feel a certain way. Don't own somebody else's stuff. And that's very difficult for people like me that grew up in an environment where you are constantly on edge because you are in danger. Crissy Florio: Yep. Yep. Dr. Mia Holland: You're constantly watching other people's behavior. ⁓ my gosh, tone of voice. What are they doing? they, how's their face look? What happened to them today? Because that inherently is then going to affect what's going to happen to you next. So you're constantly on edge, wondering and worrying about what other people are thinking and feeling because you're trying to protect yourself. So that was a very hard one for me to learn. Crissy Florio: Yep. Dr. Mia Holland: and stay away from. Don't take on someone else's feelings, thoughts, or intentions to make you feel something. Crissy Florio: That's a huge, that's huge. All right, we just need one. Boom, done. One is big. That is huge. Yeah. Yeah. Dr. Mia Holland: There you go, that's a big one. That's a big one. It's hard. It's not easy, especially when, you know, we are sort of programmed culturally and societally wise in a social context to please, especially women. You we're the pleasers, we're the nurturers, we care for everybody, we can fix everything, we can make everything better. And ourselves always come last. And it should be the exact opposite. It's sort of like the, you know, when you're flying and they say put your own oxygen mask on first because you're of no help to anybody else if you're passed out. Well, we should apply that to our real lives. Crissy Florio: Mm. Mm. Dr. Mia Holland: We're constantly draining our own energy, physically, emotionally, astrally. We're draining all of that to please and take care of everyone else. And we're suffering at the end of the day. And it's interesting because breasts are so nurturing and they are the, really the representation of what it means to nurture another human because we can nurture humans when we give birth. I personally don't have any biological children. ⁓ It wasn't in the cards for me, I think for a variety of reasons, but I spent much of my life criticizing the size, criticizing the way they looked, and getting into relationships with males who also criticized size and look. And, you know, I took that on. I thought to myself, I'm not good enough for so many years. So as part of the syndrome that I talked about, it's no wonder that the C word decided to land there as sort of a reminder of Alright, well, you don't love them. So, alright, they're fair game because I can just go and live there. Crissy Florio: Yeah, let's invade, invade. yeah. That's very interesting. Dr. Mia Holland: It's very interesting. So it really brings to light. Like I said, the whole journey was very cathartic in ways and very enlightening. I thought after the years of traditional therapy that, ⁓ I'm healed. I'm great. Who cares? The past isn't here. It's gone. ⁓ no, no, no, no, no, no. The healing, I was cancer free in three months. with the specialized supplements and the new food, the new diet. And it was all, you know, whole foods, not whole foods in the store, but whole foods, no processed stuff, no sugar, no yeast, no flour, no vinegars. People always crack up about the vinegar. They're like, what's wrong with vinegar? But it's very fungal. And there's a lot of research out there that talks about the C word being fungally ⁓ derived. Crissy Florio: Mm-hmm. Dr. Mia Holland: that it loves sugar and fungus and mold and things like that and parasites. That's a whole additional topic. So it was a very bland. I mean, I looked like this when I had the diagnosis given to me and I lost 22 pounds in six weeks. looked as much as my face was glowing with health. I looked gaunt. It was terrible. My husband said, need to eat. but I was so afraid of food. I went through a period of being deathly afraid that if I ate anything bad, it was going to trigger the chemistry to come back in such a way that the C word would be able to thrive again. So I went two years with not a speck of anything on the no list. didn't even. smell chocolate. I didn't look at sugar. I went two whole years of not one iota of a cheat. No dairy, nothing. So and my practitioner had said Yikes, you I told you six months and here we are at a year and you're scaring me. You said I knew you were headstrong, but I've never seen, I wish all my patients were like you because they would live and they would be healthy. ⁓ So for me, it was, you know, I'm a control freak by nature. Right? I had no control in my childhood. So I spent the rest of my life controlling every single little thing. Controlling my career, controlling my schedules, controlling all of this other stuff to make my life what I thought would be perfect so that I could steer away from, you know, all of the negativity. And here I was in another situation where I could control the outcome. It worked perfectly with my personality. I didn't cheat once in two years. Crissy Florio: Hmm. Dr. Mia Holland: So that's hard for people. That's hard for people. And I didn't have to do that. Like I said, he was very clear about it needed to just be six months, but I was cancer free in three months. And what was very interesting was from the beginning of the diagnosis, I said, well, where's the blood work? Crissy Florio: Yeah. Yeah. Dr. Mia Holland: Where's the blood work for this? I need to see numbers. I need to see black and white. I don't want to see this silly biopsy. I want to see numbers. What's my blood doing? What is my body doing that is allowing this to happen? And from the gynecologist to the oncologists, ⁓ Mia, there's no blood work for this. You mean to tell me there's not one blood test you can do to see if... The body is a good host for the C word. And every single medical professional told me no, there was nothing. And it wasn't until we talked about it with my holistic practitioner that I said, you know, I want blood work. Okay, we'll get it. And now I get that blood work every year. and it's a full panel of all anti-inflammatory markers or inflammation markers, a full panel of tumor markers and some other combinations of markers that can tell you if your body's going a little nuts. ⁓ And so that was another thing that I thought people need to know that there is blood work that can happen. Crissy Florio: We're here. Dr. Mia Holland: where you can look at the chemistry of your body and if you're a science person, that should help you. If you're a black and white person, that should help you. Like I said, I get it every year, it exists. It is not a mystery. ⁓ Crissy Florio: Mm-hmm. It's out there. When I was in school, masters, the blood lab book is this thick. And I said, well, we only test like 20. Why is the book so big? I was like, fascinated. I'm like, what are all these labs? Wow. Yeah. Dr. Mia Holland: Is that crazy? Now, do they teach you about that? Do they say, look, here's a panel that we can do. Crissy Florio: No, no, I learned that on my own. No, absolutely not. Not even now. They're getting more open, I guess, in school to more metabolic syndrome and looking at some fasting insulin. But you know, you got to go with what insurance tells you to bill when you're in primary care. And fasting insulin and some of those inflammatory markers sure aren't on there, you know. So unless the patient wants to pay out of pocket, you know. Dr. Mia Holland: Yeah. Yeah. Crissy Florio: But I started learning that through studying and reading books and functional medicine stuff and saying, wow, look at all these great labs that you can see before something starts to happen. Even with cholesterol, there's tons of lipid panels that you can do before your LDL is elevated. That's already elevated. That's 10 to 15 years before your basic lipid panel is elevated. And you can make changes if the person wants to. And most people who are looking for that type of testing want. Dr. Mia Holland: Yes! Yes. Yes. Yes. Crissy Florio: They know something's off with their body. Yeah, it's great. Things are changing, I hope. Yeah. Dr. Mia Holland: Right. Two things you just, it is amazing. You know, two things I just thought of. ⁓ I don't know where we are with time, but two things. Chrissy, you said earlier ⁓ something about 1%. So when they tell you, I don't know if they told you five years for Tamoxifen, they told me five years. Yep. And I said, you know, absolutely not. As you said, you know, the first Crissy Florio: Yep. Five to 10. Dr. Mia Holland: ⁓ two side effects, the most common ones are ovarian cancer and stroke. And I said, okay, that's off the list. We're not doing that. Great, sign me up, that's crazy. ⁓ When I had the surgery and they sent me home and... I thought, okay, I'll just heal and I'll be fine and I'll start my detox journey, which included the food and the supplements, but also my environment, cooking utensils, ⁓ body products, cleaning products, all of that stuff was called ⁓ my brother-in-law, come rip this microwave right out of my brand new kitchen. I don't even want it here. I don't even want it here. I'm not using it anymore. Getting rid of plastics, just the whole thing. But... After the surgery, I got the side effect that only 1 % of the people get. And it was this massive swelling and inflammation and this massive pain. So it was the edema that they talk about that only 1 % of the people get. And I was in such massive pain, we had to rush up to the Boston hospital. and in the room, in the exam room, I sat up, they didn't even lay me down, I sat up and they had to stick this massive needle into the breast and pull out, without anesthesia, without anything, pull out all of this weird, most disgusting fluid I've ever seen in my life. And the needle had a pretty big tube attached to it, it was a lot of fluid. And as she was pulling it out, the pain was something I've never felt before. And she said, I love my job. And I remember sitting there thinking, ⁓ my God. So, and she turned around and she, she unscrewed whatever was attached to the needle and dumped it down the drain in the sink. Crissy Florio: You're gonna slap another girl. Ooh, I don't think that's a lot anymore. Dr. Mia Holland: not even a biohazard bend or and I thought wow this is what happens so it was just these I say little that wasn't a little thing but it was these little things that just kept reminding me you're on the right path this is not the place for you this is not the place for you heal from this Crissy Florio: Mm-hmm. Dr. Mia Holland: Do everything holistically, the mind, body, soul, the whole thing. Just finally get to a place where you are getting rid of all of the toxicities at every level, cellular to, as I said earlier, astraly. And it's a journey. For anybody that talks about or embarks on such a journey, you know it doesn't happen all at once. So a little bit happens. Crissy Florio: No, and you're never healed. It's a healing process. It's a healing journey. You're never healed. Dr. Mia Holland: Yes, it's a process and it continues and it continues and it's a fascinating thing. You know, I really attribute the journey to so many blessings. Like I said, I wouldn't have married probably. I had been with my sweetheart for many years. In fact, on the first date, I said, don't ask me to get married. We met when I was 40 and I said, don't ask. I'm never doing it. I'm petrified. My parents' fiasco has scared the bajeebaz out of me, so I'm not doing it. I'm a very committed person. I will love you forever if we work out. But don't ask me to get married. I can't do it. And after the little blip. I woke up one day and I said, what in the heck is wrong with me? What am I afraid of? This man has been by my side through thick and thin, puts up with maybe bailing me out, ⁓ know, all of the great things about him. And I turned to him, he's a jokester, but I turned to him one morning and I said, you know, I think you're right. We should do it. I love you so much. And he's like, you have made me wait almost seven years. I'm over it. Of course, that was his joke. Crissy Florio: Hahaha Dr. Mia Holland: But if that didn't happen to me, I wouldn't have realized what the heck am I afraid of? Why am I so afraid of love and the solidification of this beautiful relationship? I wouldn't have been on that journey if I didn't have this come into my life. Crissy Florio: Yeah, there's, there's fear and control that blocks a lot of people from their true joy and the story. So I'm glad that you were able to open your eyes to that and to see the beauty in life. And sometimes it brings us to a very dark place in order for us that that light to occur, you know, when you look at a lotus flower, right? Where does it grow from? And we can heal through things and we can see the light even through the darkness when days are so, so, so dark. There is light. You just got to keep showing up and know your worth and allow yourself to be as vulnerable as you can to work through it. So thank you so much. you so much. This was beautiful. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Dr. Mia Holland: Yes. Yes, anytime. This was fantastic. Always happy to help empower others. I think that's part of this journey too, is to show people there's another way. I'm available to answer any questions or help people say no to other people. You can use me as a no surrogate. Yeah, I can be your no surrogate. I'm really good at it. Just ask anybody in my family. Crissy Florio: You heard it. Awesome. I love that. Thank you so much. Well, we'll put some of your links into everything so everybody can follow you and stay in touch with you down in the show notes. So thank you again, Dr. Mio. This is wonderful. Thank you. All right. Until next time, guys. Bye. Dr. Mia Holland: Sure. Sure. Bye ladies. Thank you so much. Bye bye.