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Reclaiming Your Divine Blueprint of Well-Being with Beena Patel | Holistic Pharmacist Podcast · Pharmacy Podcast Network

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Speaker 1: You are listening to the global network of podcasters dedicated
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Speaker 1: to the pharmacy profession. Welcome to the Pharmacy podcast Network.
0:27
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to the Holistic Pharmacy Podcast. I'm your host,
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Speaker 2: Marina books Of and I'm a functional medicine pharmacist in
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Speaker 2: New York. I'm also a clinical herbalist and an integrative
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Speaker 2: health coach specializing in mindfulness and empowerment. I'm on a
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Speaker 2: mission to transform the way we approach healthcare by bridging
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Speaker 2: the wisdom of traditional medicine with modern practice, and in
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Speaker 2: this podcast, I will be highlighting guests who do just that.
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Speaker 2: I'm constantly inspired by them and I know you will
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Speaker 2: be as well.
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Speaker 3: Hello everybody, Welcome back to the Holistic Pharmacy Podcast. I
1:08
Speaker 3: have a very special guest today, as I usually do,
1:12
Speaker 3: and her name is Bina Patel. She's the founder of
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Speaker 3: the Yoga movement and a licensed physician associate. She's also
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Speaker 3: yoga teacher, reiki healer, and health coach with clinical training
1:22
Speaker 3: from top academic institutions such as Columbia University Medical Center
1:28
Speaker 3: and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. She blends modern medicine
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Speaker 3: with ancient wisdom to help high achieving women and organizations
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Speaker 3: shift from burnout to deep alignment. Through her transformative coaching
1:40
Speaker 3: and healing work, Beena empowers clients to reclaim their health, purpose,
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Speaker 3: and legacy, bridging science and soul for lifelong impact. So,
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Speaker 3: without further ado, Bena, welcome to the show.
1:51
Speaker 4: Thank you so much, Marina, It's such an honor to
1:53
Speaker 4: be here.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, likewise, I was so impressed when I saw your
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Speaker 3: website and I just felt all the love that you
2:00
Speaker 3: were pouring in and also deeply touched by your personal
2:04
Speaker 3: healing journey. So I'd love to ask you how did
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Speaker 3: that all begin? Where did it all start?
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Speaker 5: Yeah, thank you so much. Also for that lovely way
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Speaker 5: of just bringing someone onto the show, I really appreciate it,
2:17
Speaker 5: or to your podcast. So at twenty one, which was
2:21
Speaker 5: over a decade ago now, I was diagnosed with diroid
2:24
Speaker 5: cancer and it actually happened right after I graduated from college,
2:29
Speaker 5: and so you know, you're at the peak of your life,
2:31
Speaker 5: thinking like you're walking to your prime years, like you're
2:34
Speaker 5: about to go into grad school. I was actually going
2:37
Speaker 5: into grad school to become a physician assistant, and so
2:40
Speaker 5: all these exciting things are happening and then it's like
2:43
Speaker 5: first semester anatomy and physiology, and then it's like, oh wait,
2:46
Speaker 5: but you're diagnosed too, and it's like everything is kind
2:49
Speaker 5: of pausing. And at that time, it wasn't just the diagnosis.
2:54
Speaker 5: It was a series of other things happening too, such
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Speaker 5: as being a narcissistic, abusive, toxic relationship and noticing the
3:02
Speaker 5: competitiveness in the program where it's like you couldn't really
3:05
Speaker 5: trust anyone the pro because everyone's trying to outwin other people.
3:08
Speaker 5: It didn't really feel that supportive. There were definitely some
3:11
Speaker 5: supportive people, but for the most parts, like you know,
3:14
Speaker 5: each semester goes the school lets you know that there's
3:17
Speaker 5: going to be some students that are no longer there
3:19
Speaker 5: as part of the journey, So all these stressors are
3:22
Speaker 5: coming my way, and you know, in that moments like
3:24
Speaker 5: you're trying to hold it on together. And I was
3:27
Speaker 5: that type of person, you know, feeling like I'm the
3:30
Speaker 5: one that people lean on for support, not the other
3:32
Speaker 5: way around, that I would need to ask for it,
3:35
Speaker 5: and so in that moment, it's kind of like you
3:37
Speaker 5: can't really bypass that, and I felt like I was
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Speaker 5: just being I wouldn't say crushed. The only parts I
3:43
Speaker 5: felt crush was when I was resisting. It felt more
3:45
Speaker 5: of like this softening, softening, softening. It's like, just let
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Speaker 5: all this go and just be in the moment and
3:52
Speaker 5: see what it's trying to teach you. But I know
3:54
Speaker 5: this now. You don't know this when you're going through.
3:56
Speaker 5: When you're going through, you're like, what's happening?
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Speaker 6: You know?
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Speaker 5: And so fast forward two months shy of graduation. In
4:03
Speaker 5: that program, I actually was Also there was a theme
4:07
Speaker 5: of abuse, abusive dynamics, and so I had this rotation, interestingly,
4:12
Speaker 5: which had to do with women's health, which is actually
4:14
Speaker 5: why I went into medicine. I was really passionate about
4:17
Speaker 5: women's health and helping underprivileged populations. And so I'm in
4:21
Speaker 5: this rotation. I'm really excited. I think this is going
4:24
Speaker 5: to be my favorite rotation. Instead, me and the preceptor,
4:28
Speaker 5: for many reasons, just didn't get along and I was
4:31
Speaker 5: afraid to speak my truth. Which is interesting because I
4:34
Speaker 5: had thyroid cancer, which is in the area of the
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Speaker 5: throat chakra. And no matter how many times this woman
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Speaker 5: would just do things like I was pushed into the
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Speaker 5: wall one day, like things that I talked about now
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Speaker 5: like so freely because I've healed through it, but at
4:46
Speaker 5: the time like wow, like why wouldn't have spoken up?
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Speaker 5: And it's because there was trauma around the throat and
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Speaker 5: speaking my truth and just saying things as they are authentically.
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Speaker 5: And so what happened was she actually reported what was
4:59
Speaker 5: happening to the school from her lens.
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Speaker 4: I didn't get to speak or say anything, and within.
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Speaker 5: A few months the school, that school said, you know,
5:06
Speaker 5: we don't think that you have what it takes to
5:08
Speaker 5: become a physician assistant, and so I was dismissed too much,
5:11
Speaker 5: shy of graduation and even being in the appeal process.
5:16
Speaker 5: I'm listening to the people speaking and they're like her gps,
5:19
Speaker 5: completely fine, Like what's going on? They're speaking out loud.
5:21
Speaker 5: I'm like, yeah, I know this is part of my story.
5:24
Speaker 5: I know this is not fair, I know this not just,
5:26
Speaker 5: but I just knew, like I had this sense of
5:28
Speaker 5: me that this is going to be part of my
5:30
Speaker 5: story one day, I know this is part of what
5:32
Speaker 5: I'm here to do. And so I ended up going
5:35
Speaker 5: back to actually I end up going to Costa Rica
5:38
Speaker 5: and it's like a month later, my friend has her
5:42
Speaker 5: own challenge. Her mother had passed away to cancer, and
5:44
Speaker 5: she was like, you know, we're going to Costa Rica
5:46
Speaker 5: and it's me and all of her high school friends.
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Speaker 4: And part of me was like, why would I go
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Speaker 4: to this, Like I don't even.
5:52
Speaker 5: Know anyone here, but I went and it was just
5:55
Speaker 5: this beautiful healing for my soul. That's what happens when
5:59
Speaker 5: we're in me sure, when we're in the natural elements
6:01
Speaker 5: and you do this work so you know, and when
6:04
Speaker 5: you're in nature, she just holds you. I was in
6:06
Speaker 5: my twenties. That's not why I came to Costa Rica.
6:08
Speaker 5: I came to drink at my party and all those things, right.
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Speaker 4: But it's like she's holding me.
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Speaker 5: And when I come back, I just feel like this
6:16
Speaker 5: burst of energy and it's like you're applying back to
6:19
Speaker 5: Peay school. You are going to do this. There's going
6:21
Speaker 5: to be more, but this is where we're starting. And
6:23
Speaker 5: I fell in love a week later. All these things
6:25
Speaker 5: are starting to open up to me. I'm hearing about
6:27
Speaker 5: yoga and all these other different modalities, and so fast forward.
6:31
Speaker 5: I do end up becoming a physician assistant. I only
6:33
Speaker 5: work at the top cancer institution in New York City,
6:35
Speaker 5: Columbia Memorials Sloan while Cornell, And it wasn't like I
6:39
Speaker 5: felt like I had to. It's more of a soul calling,
6:41
Speaker 5: like we're going to learn from the top academics because
6:43
Speaker 5: they're the ones who are so passionate about what they're doing.
6:46
Speaker 5: And then we're also going to learn that there's things
6:48
Speaker 5: like integrated medicine, which literally came to me in my
6:51
Speaker 5: first role. I worked at Columbia and I got to
6:54
Speaker 5: know the chaplain. I saw him bring, you know, the
6:56
Speaker 5: Tibetan bowls. I saw him wear like a certain outfit
6:59
Speaker 5: every day, and I knew why he was doing. He
7:02
Speaker 5: was wearing black to not take on other people's energies,
7:04
Speaker 5: but more to shield himself as he was doing his work.
7:07
Speaker 5: And he would say, Vina, do you want to come
7:08
Speaker 5: into the room, And one by one, the path was
7:11
Speaker 5: kind of leading and opening itself up, and my only
7:14
Speaker 5: job was to follow. And so what led me onto
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Speaker 5: the path of holistic healing eventually and going really fast
7:20
Speaker 5: forward into it was I got my dream role at
7:23
Speaker 5: a dream institution. You know, it's like the top cancer institution.
7:27
Speaker 5: I loved my time there. However, I'm noticing that a
7:30
Speaker 5: lot of people there didn't actually want to be there,
7:33
Speaker 5: as in like coworkers, they're just miserable, can't hold their emotions.
7:37
Speaker 5: And this is a problem not just in hospitals, but
7:39
Speaker 5: in a lot of the world where we're not just
7:41
Speaker 5: feeding off of the emotions of other people without honoring
7:44
Speaker 5: our sovereignty and our boundaries. We're also taking on things
7:47
Speaker 5: from other people, people we work with, with our clients,
7:50
Speaker 5: people in the world. So it's like we have to
7:52
Speaker 5: understand how to honor emotional intelligence and how to operate
7:57
Speaker 5: in the world, both as an individual unit as well
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Speaker 5: as a collective unit without the messy gunk of codependency
8:02
Speaker 5: and narcissism and all these things. And so in that
8:06
Speaker 5: time I was really questioning my role there, and my
8:09
Speaker 5: manager really loved working with me and had heard good
8:11
Speaker 5: things about me from evaluations. You know, that's how it
8:14
Speaker 5: works in the institutions. So she said, if you really
8:18
Speaker 5: don't want to be in this department, we can open
8:20
Speaker 5: up a role for you in any department you want
8:22
Speaker 5: to be in.
8:23
Speaker 4: So I had best of both worlds at that point.
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Speaker 5: However, as the universe will read route us, God source whatever,
8:28
Speaker 5: you want to call it. I literally go to one
8:30
Speaker 5: of my favorite shops to just decompress, and I'm like,
8:34
Speaker 5: this meeting went so well. My life is coming together
8:37
Speaker 5: after months of wondering what's going to happen. And this
8:39
Speaker 5: woman goes, she just ends up talking to me the clerk,
8:41
Speaker 5: and we end up talking for an hour, and she goes,
8:43
Speaker 5: you were meant to do wholeistic healing, and you were
8:45
Speaker 5: meant to be an entrepreneur.
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Speaker 4: She goes, your face should lights up when you talk
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Speaker 4: about yoga and raking all these other things.
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Speaker 5: She goes, this is your path. And after that day,
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Speaker 5: everything just kind of unfold itself, and the yoga movement
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Speaker 5: was birthed within that month.
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Speaker 4: Here we are today.
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Speaker 3: Wow, what a powerful story that you've been weaving together.
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Speaker 3: And I have to say, you've become a great speaker.
9:12
Speaker 3: I don't know what you sounded like before when you
9:17
Speaker 3: mentioned that you had trouble speaking out and standing up
9:20
Speaker 3: for yourself, but it certainly seems like that has been
9:24
Speaker 3: transformative for you, that whole process, and it sounds like
9:28
Speaker 3: you were able to kind of take a step back
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Speaker 3: and observe yourself in those moments of strife and challenge
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Speaker 3: and still understand that there is a way through and
9:39
Speaker 3: looking for that path through and looking for ways to
9:42
Speaker 3: overcome the challenge instead of like, sometimes it's so difficult,
9:47
Speaker 3: and you know, people end up succumbing to depression and
9:53
Speaker 3: rumination and worry and all of these things that, you know,
9:59
Speaker 3: because we don't know what to do, we don't know
10:00
Speaker 3: what the right path is. So what you mentioned about
10:04
Speaker 3: surrendering and trusting that really is aligned to some of
10:09
Speaker 3: the deepest religious and spiritual teachings. And also when you
10:13
Speaker 3: wove in the stories about how they too intersect with
10:17
Speaker 3: the way that they dress and the way that the
10:20
Speaker 3: tools that they use, right, because it's all the same language,
10:23
Speaker 3: the spiritual healing or religious healing. It's just that we
10:26
Speaker 3: separate them in our modern world. But it really is
10:31
Speaker 3: very very similar in how we approach it. So I
10:34
Speaker 3: think focusing on what is the same and similar can
10:38
Speaker 3: be so healing in today's world because we're just seeing
10:42
Speaker 3: and witnessing so much difference and so much controversy.
10:46
Speaker 6: All the time, and we're exposed to it on a
10:48
Speaker 6: daily basis.
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Speaker 3: So I think this is one of the key messages
10:52
Speaker 3: that I'm proposing that we try to focus on what
10:57
Speaker 3: is in common and what's the common goal, and how
10:59
Speaker 3: can we get along just a little bit better and
11:01
Speaker 3: understand each other just a little bit better, And like speaking,
11:06
Speaker 3: your message has a lot to do with that so
11:08
Speaker 3: that you can be understood and witnessed. So again, just truly,
11:13
Speaker 3: truly amazing to hear that growth that you experienced. And
11:16
Speaker 3: I also want to say it's quite similar in a
11:20
Speaker 3: way and parallel to my own journey because all of
11:24
Speaker 3: what I'm about now has also started to coalesce at
11:30
Speaker 3: around the time that I graduated pharmacy school and I
11:33
Speaker 3: had my own health challenges at that point. I also
11:36
Speaker 3: had a relationship that I broke off after six and
11:39
Speaker 3: a half years after a lot of realizations about that path,
11:44
Speaker 3: and I had to come to my own way of
11:49
Speaker 3: surrendering as well through that and there was a lot
11:51
Speaker 3: of resistance, I have to say, for my path, a
11:54
Speaker 3: lot of resistance to that surrendering process. And you know,
11:58
Speaker 3: still I'm still on a journey. But this is how
12:01
Speaker 3: it goes, right. It's it's either you lean into it
12:05
Speaker 3: and you relax into it, or you just fight it.
12:09
Speaker 3: But the end result is which way is kind of
12:11
Speaker 3: the easier way, which ways the way of grace and flow,
12:15
Speaker 3: because sometimes the result is not the point. The point
12:19
Speaker 3: is the journey itself. And how hard are we making
12:21
Speaker 3: it for ourselves or how much harder are we making
12:23
Speaker 3: it for ourselves by bringing in the positivity and the
12:27
Speaker 3: fear I'm sorry, the negativity and the fear. So so, yeah, Bina,
12:32
Speaker 3: tell us more about how you grew up, where you
12:35
Speaker 3: grew up, how you got to practice in New York City.
12:39
Speaker 3: I am based in New York City too, and how
12:41
Speaker 3: you're now based in Costa Rica.
12:44
Speaker 5: Yeah, so how I came to Costa Rica Now, I
12:50
Speaker 5: actually want to go back to the New York City
12:51
Speaker 5: piece because New York City was actually my dream city
12:54
Speaker 5: and I still go back when I'm when I'm traveling
12:56
Speaker 5: back and forth, like I have to be in that city.
13:00
Speaker 5: So when I came to Costa Rica in twenty twelve,
13:02
Speaker 5: this was after everything went down, and just for the record,
13:05
Speaker 5: I resisted a lot too. There was a lot of
13:08
Speaker 5: resistance because you know, in every single change in life,
13:11
Speaker 5: every single transformation we go through, I feel that it
13:14
Speaker 5: takes a true master to learn. And this is just
13:17
Speaker 5: like you said, You said it beautifully it's not necessarily
13:19
Speaker 5: the destination, it's the journey. You don't just say hey,
13:21
Speaker 5: I'm transforming and then it's done. Part of the transformation
13:24
Speaker 5: is honoring that you're about to dissolve, like you're going
13:27
Speaker 5: to dissolve, and in that dissolving something new is going
13:30
Speaker 5: to emerge. But it's not actually new, it's just more
13:33
Speaker 5: of who you are. So I love the way that
13:34
Speaker 5: you said that, and I just want to echo that.
13:37
Speaker 5: So after I came back from Costa Rica, I just
13:41
Speaker 5: went to New York one day, and again it's like,
13:43
Speaker 5: the throat Trucker is all about communication and not just
13:46
Speaker 5: any communication, authentic communication, authentic self expression. And it can
13:51
Speaker 5: come through writing, through speaking, chanting, there's many different ways.
13:55
Speaker 5: And so one of the ways that my throat trucker
13:58
Speaker 5: got opened up after that trip Costa Rica is I
14:02
Speaker 5: started writing things that I just never really allowed myself
14:05
Speaker 5: to be seen in before. And there was a lot
14:07
Speaker 5: of different what I like to call cosmic codes, like
14:10
Speaker 5: coming through. I was starting to write about the cosmos
14:13
Speaker 5: really like this, the divine, the cosmos were all interconnected,
14:17
Speaker 5: all these different things, and a part of me at
14:19
Speaker 5: first was very shy to show my work. I think
14:21
Speaker 5: it was a WordPress or a live what was it
14:23
Speaker 5: live journal? And then I put the link in my Gmail,
14:26
Speaker 5: but I wouldn't share it with people openly, like if
14:28
Speaker 5: you found it, you found it. Otherwise I wouldn't tell people.
14:31
Speaker 5: And as I'm rereading some of those entries, I'm like,
14:34
Speaker 5: that wasn't just me, that was something moving through me.
14:36
Speaker 5: That was Divinity coming through. Because as we clear out
14:39
Speaker 5: some of those living beliefs and stories like oh, I
14:41
Speaker 5: have to live in the States, I have to be
14:43
Speaker 5: here because this is where my family wants to be,
14:44
Speaker 5: this is where I'm meant to be, then that energy
14:47
Speaker 5: can naturally flow through us. And so I went to
14:50
Speaker 5: New York City was my dream city I dreamed about
14:52
Speaker 5: all of college. For college, I was in Philadelphia. So
14:55
Speaker 5: I go to New York and one day I'm just
14:57
Speaker 5: walking aimlessly. I didn't have any age, and I was like,
15:00
Speaker 5: I'm just going to walk inlessly and just see where
15:02
Speaker 5: the city takes me. And I went to this busy
15:04
Speaker 5: street I think it was like Park Avenue, and I'm
15:06
Speaker 5: sitting on this bench and I take out my journal
15:08
Speaker 5: that one of my friends gifted me for graduation, and
15:10
Speaker 5: I just start writing all my intentions, and Marina, I
15:13
Speaker 5: kid you not, every single one of those intentions came
15:16
Speaker 5: true even in the time that I wanted to. The
15:18
Speaker 5: only things that I didn't see happened within a few
15:20
Speaker 5: years after that were the ones I did not write
15:22
Speaker 5: down because I was too afraid to put my desire
15:24
Speaker 5: on paper. So it's like a part of me already
15:26
Speaker 5: knew that when you put it on paper something, the
15:28
Speaker 5: energy is starting to move. Like it's not just you
15:30
Speaker 5: putting out there the universe, you know, Cosmos is just
15:33
Speaker 5: like you said, whatever you believe in, this interconnectedness is
15:35
Speaker 5: starting to move and float through us. And so one
15:38
Speaker 5: of my dreams was to move into the city. By
15:40
Speaker 5: the time I was thirty, and so I had been
15:42
Speaker 5: traveling in and out and living like a little bit
15:45
Speaker 5: out of the city, which I enjoyed too. But four
15:48
Speaker 5: months before I turned thirty, I got I landed my
15:52
Speaker 5: dream job, I started it, and then I moved into
15:54
Speaker 5: the city Upper east Side.
15:55
Speaker 4: I loved that apartment eighty fifth and second.
15:58
Speaker 5: Right next to the spautiful restaurant that I still go
16:01
Speaker 5: to sometimes.
16:01
Speaker 4: It's a beautiful time restaurant.
16:03
Speaker 5: And so all these things are starting to shift, and
16:06
Speaker 5: as they're shifting, I'm realizing, Okay, it's not just I'm
16:08
Speaker 5: dreaming about this.
16:09
Speaker 4: I'm actually able to co create the reality.
16:11
Speaker 5: That I want. And one thing led to another. Obviously,
16:15
Speaker 5: the world went through the lockdown twenty twenty, which was
16:18
Speaker 5: a lot of like there was a lot of challenges
16:20
Speaker 5: for those of us in healthcare, and that year alone
16:24
Speaker 5: was almost like the soul was preparing for something. I
16:27
Speaker 5: could feel it, but I didn't know what. And again
16:29
Speaker 5: I found myself in another relationship, which this time was
16:32
Speaker 5: long distance and repeating this pattern of emotional unavailability. And
16:38
Speaker 5: I'm not seeing it. You don't see it until you're
16:40
Speaker 5: in it, right, unless you're awakening, you've done the work
16:42
Speaker 5: and you've healed, like you don't really see it.
16:44
Speaker 4: And that was part of my journey, and I honor that.
16:46
Speaker 5: So all these things are happening, and by the time
16:48
Speaker 5: August twenty twenty comes, I just know that I'm not
16:51
Speaker 5: meant to be in the city anymore. Like I've learned
16:53
Speaker 5: what I need to learn. I've worked in the different institutions.
16:55
Speaker 5: I enjoyed my experience. I made some really incredible connections
16:59
Speaker 5: that I'm still close to to this day, and I
17:01
Speaker 5: know that I received everything I needed from the scientific
17:05
Speaker 5: point at least from the standpoint of like a foundation,
17:08
Speaker 5: Like I understand what the academics are looking for.
17:10
Speaker 4: I understand community centers, all these different things.
17:13
Speaker 5: And I moved back home for like a year, and
17:17
Speaker 5: that year I learned a lot about childhood wounding and
17:22
Speaker 5: how I'm still tiptoeing around what my true purpose is.
17:25
Speaker 5: I ended up going into another role as a medical
17:27
Speaker 5: science liaison, working as a consultant for a biotech company.
17:30
Speaker 5: And this company actually opened up something in me because
17:34
Speaker 5: a lot of times we have judgments with pharm and
17:36
Speaker 5: we were like, oh, they just want money, they want this,
17:38
Speaker 5: and I would I have to share my story. I
17:40
Speaker 5: felt like I was meant to see this. I actually
17:42
Speaker 5: worked with a lot of people who wanted to understand
17:45
Speaker 5: the root cause they shared, and I felt really at
17:47
Speaker 5: home with these people. I felt like they were my
17:49
Speaker 5: sole family. And I'm like, this is interesting because this
17:51
Speaker 5: goes against everything I heard and everything I was so
17:54
Speaker 5: adamant about. And so I'm not saying this is the
17:56
Speaker 5: general rule, that this is how people are, but it's
17:58
Speaker 5: just like you said, like if we like often ourselves
18:00
Speaker 5: and understand there's still this piece of interconnectedness.
18:03
Speaker 4: It's like there's good people.
18:05
Speaker 5: Back to share a lot of these intrinsic values for
18:08
Speaker 5: humanity and for the grade of good of humanity in
18:10
Speaker 5: any place, you know, you in jails, you could find
18:14
Speaker 5: it anywhere. So that experience was an awakening moment for me.
18:19
Speaker 5: And then I had what I can only call the
18:21
Speaker 5: dark Knight of the soul. Even though I've had many
18:23
Speaker 5: different awakenings, this was like a full stripping, like the
18:26
Speaker 5: relationship had ended. I realized that I can't just keep
18:30
Speaker 5: doing this and just going in between my purpose and here.
18:32
Speaker 5: I have to go into what I'm here to do.
18:34
Speaker 5: I know that cancer patients are experiencing more than the diagnosis.
18:37
Speaker 5: They're going through divorces, they're going through their own financial
18:41
Speaker 5: issues and trouble. It's like there's something deeper here. And
18:45
Speaker 5: at the same time I'm understanding this, I'm starting to
18:47
Speaker 5: teach yoga a lot more, and I just feel this
18:50
Speaker 5: soul calling, and so I go to Sedona, go to retreat,
18:53
Speaker 5: and I literally just set the intention and we know
18:56
Speaker 5: it's Sidona's a spiritual vortex. Any place that has heavy
19:00
Speaker 5: spiritual energy, it's like your intentions are being amplified. You
19:04
Speaker 5: can do this anywhere, but places vortices around the world
19:07
Speaker 5: where the energy is amplified. It's like it adds something
19:10
Speaker 5: to it. It adds a spiritual component. And what it's doing,
19:13
Speaker 5: it's not like adding anything into us. It's just unlocking
19:15
Speaker 5: what's already inside of us. And so the practitioner I
19:21
Speaker 5: was working with, he goes, you are a healer, you're
19:23
Speaker 5: a teacher. He goes, You can label all these other things,
19:26
Speaker 5: but at the court essence, that's what you're here to do.
19:28
Speaker 5: And literally six months after the letter that I wrote
19:31
Speaker 5: to myself in that retreat, they mailed it to me
19:33
Speaker 5: and things that I wrote to myself were already happening.
19:36
Speaker 5: And so I realized, at this point, it's just like
19:37
Speaker 5: you said, we have resistance. But usually when we have
19:41
Speaker 5: that much resistance, it's our soul telling us our spirit
19:45
Speaker 5: it's time to let go. Like there's something on the
19:47
Speaker 5: other side of this, on the other side of this.
19:50
Speaker 5: It's just it's time for us to let go. So
19:52
Speaker 5: we can actually allow that to unfold and see what
19:54
Speaker 5: could come of it. And so one thing transpired after
19:58
Speaker 5: the other, and then I went a retree in Italy,
20:01
Speaker 5: I learned about the medicine of Cacao, and when I
20:05
Speaker 5: came back home, just at this point, things are just
20:07
Speaker 5: starting to unravel, and I've been here so many times.
20:10
Speaker 5: I'm like, there's just no point of me resisting. I'm
20:12
Speaker 5: going to let life unfold. And so by the time
20:15
Speaker 5: twenty twenty three comes, I am in this beautiful space
20:19
Speaker 5: of serenity. I don't want to be bothered by anyone.
20:22
Speaker 5: I tell people that I love like this month is
20:23
Speaker 5: about me. I'm starting off the year being more intentional
20:27
Speaker 5: and conscious to see what is next, what's unfolding, Even
20:29
Speaker 5: in a place as busy as the United States, like
20:31
Speaker 5: we can still slow ourselves down. And in that month,
20:34
Speaker 5: I just kept hearing your moving to Costa Rica, like
20:37
Speaker 5: in my meditation, even as I'm typing emails, like I
20:40
Speaker 5: was so in it that I could just hear. And
20:43
Speaker 5: for the next year, I just hear about Costa Rica
20:45
Speaker 5: everywhere I go. I know there's an element of if
20:47
Speaker 5: we think about something enough, we could put it out there.
20:49
Speaker 5: I'm talking about in the most bizarre places that even
20:54
Speaker 5: my families want to it because they don't really like
20:56
Speaker 5: the idea of me moving and they're noticing little things too,
20:59
Speaker 5: And I'm like, yeah, when you're being called, you're being called.
21:02
Speaker 5: And so I moved in twenty twenty four just through
21:06
Speaker 5: a certain like a sequence, and that's unfolded and one
21:09
Speaker 5: thing led to the other to another. It was never like, oh,
21:12
Speaker 5: you're moving for the whole year. It was just like, okay,
21:14
Speaker 5: let's try one week. One week ended up being a month,
21:16
Speaker 5: it ended up being a couple of months announced, and like, yeah,
21:18
Speaker 5: this is my soul's home and this is the happiest
21:21
Speaker 5: I have ever been.
21:25
Speaker 6: Wow, I mean, that is just such a beautiful story.
21:30
Speaker 3: Once again, I have to say the resistance and the challenge, right,
21:34
Speaker 3: Like that theme that we're talking about that often is
21:38
Speaker 3: the way, like you said, you know, the automatic reaction
21:42
Speaker 3: and the habit of most people is avoided, right or
21:46
Speaker 3: like this is a bad.
21:47
Speaker 6: Thing, you know, and judgment about it.
21:51
Speaker 3: And that's not really possible, right, to avoid all challenges
21:55
Speaker 3: that are possible out there. So we're we're limiting a
22:01
Speaker 3: lot of our potential that way when we just try
22:04
Speaker 3: to avoid it as a strategy, right, or other strategies
22:06
Speaker 3: that we may have. The thing is sometimes it's inevitable
22:10
Speaker 3: So the way out, like we've been saying, is through,
22:14
Speaker 3: So by allowing yourself to surrender and lean into it again,
22:18
Speaker 3: sometimes then you see different potential solutions that you didn't
22:22
Speaker 3: see before because you were all contracted and in this
22:26
Speaker 3: fear state and this vigilant state. And you know, it
22:32
Speaker 3: just sounds so beautiful like what you're sharing about manifestation, right,
22:35
Speaker 3: And I have to say I have similar stories too
22:38
Speaker 3: that I would write something down or go to like
22:42
Speaker 3: a workshop or ceremony, you know, or read about something
22:45
Speaker 3: and then try it out, and sometimes things would happen
22:50
Speaker 3: faster than I thought, you know, on my timeline. Sometimes
22:53
Speaker 3: the most important things to me happen actually first, even
22:57
Speaker 3: though it wasn't again a price already at the time.
23:01
Speaker 3: So that's what I noticed for myself, Like the truest,
23:03
Speaker 3: most authentic things do you end up coming through. So
23:08
Speaker 3: whichever path aligns to you, whichever modality or method doesn't
23:12
Speaker 3: really matter. You know, there's a ton like you said,
23:14
Speaker 3: it's just choosing something that resonates with you and leaning
23:19
Speaker 3: more into it and really allowing yourself that exploration, which
23:23
Speaker 3: sounds like you have done.
23:25
Speaker 6: And I'm the themal surrender as well.
23:26
Speaker 3: Just surrendering, right, and listening to your own voice, into
23:30
Speaker 3: your own intuition, and following that even if people around
23:35
Speaker 3: you are against it, even people you love, you know,
23:39
Speaker 3: and just allowing yourself to listen to yourself, your heart,
23:44
Speaker 3: your soul, whatever you want to call it, rather than
23:47
Speaker 3: everybody around you, because they're not you, right, they're not you.
23:51
Speaker 3: You have your own individual soul and your body. And
23:55
Speaker 3: so that's the scary thing and also the beautiful thing,
23:58
Speaker 3: depending on how you.
23:58
Speaker 6: Look at it.
24:01
Speaker 3: So, yeah, thank you so much for sharing all that
24:03
Speaker 3: wisdom with us. And I want to go back a
24:05
Speaker 3: little bit to your healing journey because that is a
24:08
Speaker 3: very scary diagnosis to get at any point in your life.
24:12
Speaker 6: But like you said, especially like at.
24:13
Speaker 3: A point where you're young and everything is ahead of
24:17
Speaker 3: you and you thought you had everything figured out.
24:21
Speaker 6: So how did you deal with it at the time?
24:23
Speaker 3: And I'm sure you know, looking back at it now,
24:26
Speaker 3: you have a lot of different tools that you could
24:28
Speaker 3: lean on, But at the time, what was your approach
24:30
Speaker 3: and how was your healing journey as you were building
24:33
Speaker 3: your career?
24:35
Speaker 5: Yeah, so when I was going through it, it's going
24:39
Speaker 5: back to what you said, like when you're in it.
24:40
Speaker 5: There is resistance. And something that I noticed, I've actually
24:44
Speaker 5: been pretty vocal about this is noticing that, you know,
24:48
Speaker 5: I noticed I was passed off quite a bit by
24:51
Speaker 5: certain clindicians, and I think it was partly because of
24:54
Speaker 5: being a woman, also a woman of color, Like I've
24:56
Speaker 5: worked with healthcare equity and you know, disparities looking at
25:00
Speaker 5: like this, we can't deny it right, like it's run
25:02
Speaker 5: through this programming in society. And it was very outward.
25:07
Speaker 5: It wasn't like being passed off like you feel like
25:09
Speaker 5: subtle things. It was just like yeah, I mean, you know,
25:12
Speaker 5: like just feeling like you're not being heard. It was
25:14
Speaker 5: so like sometimes I think about it, I'm like, it's
25:16
Speaker 5: so interesting. And also noticing that some of my appointments,
25:19
Speaker 5: a lot of them, actually I went by myself. It's
25:21
Speaker 5: not because my family didn't support me. I almost felt
25:24
Speaker 5: like I was meant to see some things, just like
25:28
Speaker 5: what would it look like for a woman of color
25:30
Speaker 5: to just walk in with this diagnosis young who's not
25:33
Speaker 5: typically at the age where you would see a woman
25:35
Speaker 5: typically in power. I'm not saying that there can't be
25:37
Speaker 5: twenty one year olds in power. Times are changing drastically now,
25:40
Speaker 5: but at that time, you know, you're still wobbling in
25:42
Speaker 5: your confidence, because if you just shifted out of your
25:44
Speaker 5: teenage years into young adulthood and you're still figuring out
25:47
Speaker 5: who you are and who you're meant to be in
25:49
Speaker 5: this world. And so I'm noticing these things, noticing, feeling unheard, unseen,
25:54
Speaker 5: which these things can also be related to the throat
25:56
Speaker 5: trucker that I didn't know at that time. And so
26:00
Speaker 5: even though I didn't see at that time, I actually
26:03
Speaker 5: had the courage to at least walk away from one
26:05
Speaker 5: of the physicians and be like, I want to see
26:06
Speaker 5: someone else who can actually listen to me, and that
26:08
Speaker 5: next physician was very attentive. There have been some changes
26:11
Speaker 5: because I learn, and I'm sure you know this too,
26:14
Speaker 5: that we can doct your shop. It's about using your intuition,
26:16
Speaker 5: discernment and understanding who's best for our care too. And
26:20
Speaker 5: so even then, you know, came to Costa Rica, went
26:23
Speaker 5: back and Costa Rica obviously this I feel like it's
26:27
Speaker 5: coming through. This is a very sacred land, like the
26:29
Speaker 5: part that I'm in currently. It's part of one of
26:31
Speaker 5: the blue zones. And some people will say there's no
26:33
Speaker 5: real evidence behind that, but I can share with you
26:36
Speaker 5: our environments matter, and when I say that this is
26:39
Speaker 5: my soul's home, there's.
26:40
Speaker 4: Just been so many beautiful things unfolding for me.
26:43
Speaker 5: So it's one of the underrated aspects of holistic health,
26:46
Speaker 5: knowing that certain places in the world actually expand our
26:49
Speaker 5: souls in beautiful ways and hold space for that transformation.
26:53
Speaker 5: So came back from Costa Rica, and even though I
26:57
Speaker 5: felt full of life and full of vitality again, I
27:00
Speaker 5: was in this new relationship and I noticed that even
27:03
Speaker 5: though this person treated me really well, he was my
27:05
Speaker 5: first love and he treated me to the best that
27:07
Speaker 5: he could, I still felt this sense of I can't
27:11
Speaker 5: really speak to my full truth, or whenever I do
27:13
Speaker 5: speak to my emotions and give a voice to my emotions,
27:16
Speaker 5: I was being told things like, oh, that doesn't matter
27:18
Speaker 5: right now, we don't need to speak to that right now.
27:20
Speaker 5: And a year later, or like roughly a year later,
27:23
Speaker 5: I actually had a recurrence.
27:24
Speaker 4: Of the cancer.
27:25
Speaker 5: And so your question, going back to your questions like
27:29
Speaker 5: how did you navigate that, A lot of it was
27:31
Speaker 5: really not really knowing from the logical mind, but following
27:35
Speaker 5: the heart, like something is happening here that I don't
27:37
Speaker 5: fully know yet, but I know this is part of
27:39
Speaker 5: the journey. And so when you don't learn the lesson,
27:42
Speaker 5: it keeps repeating itself and fast forward. I end up
27:46
Speaker 5: going back to PA school. Six months later, I got
27:48
Speaker 5: acceptedto another program in my dream city in New York.
27:52
Speaker 5: And while I'm in New York, all these things are
27:54
Speaker 5: being uncovered for me, like my love for music going
27:56
Speaker 5: to concerts. Aren't all these things? And noticing that even
28:00
Speaker 5: the roommates I lived with at that time, there was
28:02
Speaker 5: a lot of hostility, a lot of bullying, and I
28:04
Speaker 5: was a perfect either. However, I just knew this environment
28:07
Speaker 5: is unsafe, and I feel that this has been a
28:10
Speaker 5: theme like what's happening. So when I went through the
28:13
Speaker 5: dark Kny of the Soul and I'm in Sidona, I
28:15
Speaker 5: felt that one thing I was learning is that yoga
28:17
Speaker 5: is really beautiful, and I have been doing yoga.
28:19
Speaker 4: I became a yoga teacher. It's really powerful for balancing.
28:22
Speaker 5: The different chukras are naddis, our different energy centers. However,
28:28
Speaker 5: sometimes the nervous system can get acclimated to a certain practice,
28:31
Speaker 5: so it's nice to also branch out and become versatile,
28:33
Speaker 5: whether it's breathwork, meditation, doing other things, energy healing, shamanism,
28:38
Speaker 5: the work that you do working with different plants, and
28:40
Speaker 5: understanding the natural elements of our planet that are available
28:43
Speaker 5: to us. Right, so all these things are being slowly
28:47
Speaker 5: available or coming into my awareness throughout time. I think
28:50
Speaker 5: that was part of the journey. And I would say
28:53
Speaker 5: the biggest thing that has shifted for me that has
28:55
Speaker 5: been happening, I would say within the last year is
28:59
Speaker 5: this land, because it is helping me heal my soul.
29:02
Speaker 5: It will bring you the right people and opportunities that
29:05
Speaker 5: are going to help you look at your shadow so
29:07
Speaker 5: that you can transmute it into light and expand into
29:10
Speaker 5: more of who you are here to be. And what
29:12
Speaker 5: I noticed is that there's a bit an element of
29:15
Speaker 5: narcissism all around the planet. Like this has been long
29:19
Speaker 5: known and I don't want to say, like, oh, it's
29:22
Speaker 5: in everyone else, Like there's also things like narcissistic traits
29:25
Speaker 5: in each and every one of us, as in things
29:28
Speaker 5: you know, there could be subtle things, there could be
29:30
Speaker 5: bigger things, but things like self importance, arrogance or like
29:33
Speaker 5: meaning me it's all about me, Like this journey of
29:36
Speaker 5: self love, which I love speaking to, can have a
29:38
Speaker 5: fine line between what is self love versus self absorption
29:41
Speaker 5: right or self entitlement, And on the other spectrum there's
29:44
Speaker 5: full on narcissism. And while I'm not a mental health
29:47
Speaker 5: practitioner and don't want to speak to that, like you know,
29:50
Speaker 5: I know all the ins and outs of that given
29:52
Speaker 5: my lived experience, what I can speak to is I
29:56
Speaker 5: realize the power of boundaries, and I have to you think,
30:00
Speaker 5: like you know this, you just say no. Well, the
30:02
Speaker 5: thing is when you've had generations ancestors like my maternal
30:06
Speaker 5: grandmother excuse my paternal grandmother had throat cancer. And this
30:10
Speaker 5: is the irony marine The irony is that a lot
30:13
Speaker 5: of people didn't even know until she passed away. She'd
30:15
Speaker 5: even tell a lot of people, you want to talk
30:18
Speaker 5: about throat cancer that is so metaphorical for a throat
30:22
Speaker 5: that is blocked, Like you cannot make this stuff up.
30:26
Speaker 5: And so when I started doing ancestral healing, getting it so,
30:28
Speaker 5: I would speak to my dad like what was her
30:30
Speaker 5: life like being married to your dad? Like what was
30:33
Speaker 5: it like? And he goes, she couldn't really speak much
30:35
Speaker 5: once she got married to his dad, like my grandfather,
30:39
Speaker 5: she had to follow whatever their rules for it was
30:42
Speaker 5: part of the culture. So whatever their rules were, she
30:45
Speaker 5: had to go. She would, like, you know, drape herself differently.
30:47
Speaker 5: She would look down on the floor, be very submissive.
30:51
Speaker 5: And that's not the truth of who anyone should be,
30:53
Speaker 5: woman or a man, child, no one, no animal, no plant.
30:56
Speaker 5: And so as I'm learning all these different things and
30:59
Speaker 5: this idea of narciss is is really coming up, I
31:02
Speaker 5: realize the more that I was clearing this energy, even
31:04
Speaker 5: the ancestral wounds, I was starting to say no more unapologetically,
31:09
Speaker 5: rather than feeling guilt around it. After going back and
31:11
Speaker 5: cleaning up and explaining and over explaining and people pleasing,
31:13
Speaker 5: it's like no, It's like it's okay, it's okay to
31:16
Speaker 5: say nope, I'm honoring myself. I'm actually helping someone else too,
31:20
Speaker 5: even if they don't like it in the process, because
31:22
Speaker 5: the reality is it's just like what you said, we
31:25
Speaker 5: are having our own human experience and our souls are
31:28
Speaker 5: on their own journey too, And I actually can't please anyone.
31:32
Speaker 5: I can't make anyone else happy. I can only make
31:35
Speaker 5: myself happy. And while that sounds selfish. The reality is
31:38
Speaker 5: there is a part of selfishness to us all, and
31:40
Speaker 5: it's also being self full like self it's self care,
31:43
Speaker 5: it self love, it's it's self confidence, and self awareness
31:46
Speaker 5: is putting all this self mastery together. And so as
31:49
Speaker 5: I learned that there's power in having healthy boundaries, there's
31:52
Speaker 5: power and saying no, even through the discomfort. It wasn't
31:54
Speaker 5: always like oh yeah no, it was like no, you know,
31:58
Speaker 5: like dim like no, like you know, because all these
32:01
Speaker 5: like people pleasing, And then slowly and slowly you honor
32:04
Speaker 5: your journey with acceptance and with the love. It's like
32:07
Speaker 5: you're transmuting it. And then eventually you learn to walk away.
32:10
Speaker 5: And as you learn to walk away from all the
32:11
Speaker 5: bits that aren't you, that aren't your authentic expression and
32:14
Speaker 5: authentic parts of you, you come back more to the
32:16
Speaker 5: wholeness that you already are. And as you continue to
32:20
Speaker 5: do that, you reclaim your health and your wealthy Like
32:24
Speaker 5: that's really what it is. Like. I thank you for
32:26
Speaker 5: the comment that you shared about speaking, because over a
32:29
Speaker 5: decade ago, any type of speaking gave me so much
32:31
Speaker 5: anxiety and fear. Of course, like it makes sense. And
32:34
Speaker 5: then as you do this work you realize that you
32:36
Speaker 5: speaking and standing in your truth is you literally just
32:40
Speaker 5: taking a stand in your divinity, Like this is your birthright,
32:42
Speaker 5: this is a birth right for everyone on this planet.
32:46
Speaker 5: And so I'm able to see that, Yes, I take
32:49
Speaker 5: sirit supplementation, and I'm also I'm not just science and biology.
32:54
Speaker 5: I'm also spirit and soul. And what feeds that part
32:59
Speaker 5: of me is by life looking at my energy and
33:01
Speaker 5: cleansing all these other patterns and wounding around not being
33:05
Speaker 5: able to speak our truth. And as we do that,
33:07
Speaker 5: as we let go of these abusive dynamics, which can
33:09
Speaker 5: even be us abusing ourselves, not speaking our truth, silencing ourselves,
33:13
Speaker 5: not saying the things that we want to say, and
33:14
Speaker 5: as we start to come online and let ourselves move
33:17
Speaker 5: through the discomfort holding ourselves like we would a child,
33:20
Speaker 5: like you move through on the other side and it's like, Okay,
33:23
Speaker 5: this voice, this is who I really am.
33:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, it's eleven eleven as we're recording this actually,
33:32
Speaker 3: so that's pretty neat.
33:35
Speaker 6: Yeah, And.
33:39
Speaker 3: Into that theme we were talking about about surrender and
33:42
Speaker 3: also building your self trust by listening to those whispers
33:46
Speaker 3: before they have to get loud, right, Like you said,
33:49
Speaker 3: the lesson will keep on repeating your itself. So when
33:52
Speaker 3: you notice those patterns, it is up to you to
33:56
Speaker 3: take control. And that is how you build the trust
33:59
Speaker 3: and into it is by listening to it and seeing
34:02
Speaker 3: what happens and following that curiosity. Like we talked about,
34:05
Speaker 3: and I do want to speak to like the selfishness
34:08
Speaker 3: and the narcissism, Like I feel like that word is
34:11
Speaker 3: so popular now, especially when we talk about relationships, and
34:15
Speaker 3: it's true something that we really have to be careful
34:18
Speaker 3: with and pick up on.
34:20
Speaker 6: But also I feel like it's not a cause.
34:23
Speaker 3: Like people don't just like get born as a narcissist,
34:26
Speaker 3: you know, or they don't just like wake up one
34:27
Speaker 3: day and say, you know what, I want to be
34:29
Speaker 3: a narcissist because you know, I think that will really
34:32
Speaker 3: serve me.
34:32
Speaker 6: I think it's more like a response, right.
34:34
Speaker 3: It's a result of things and trauma that they have had,
34:38
Speaker 3: and so they feel like this is the only way
34:40
Speaker 3: that they can get love and receive love is if
34:43
Speaker 3: they act in that certain way or pattern. So you know,
34:47
Speaker 3: I do try to look at that with grace and
34:50
Speaker 3: also like looking at the physical experience and the human experience,
34:55
Speaker 3: like you were saying, you know, we have a lot
34:58
Speaker 3: of extractive patterns in general in the patriarchy and capitalism, right,
35:04
Speaker 3: so it's up to us to kind of unwind and
35:08
Speaker 3: try to not.
35:09
Speaker 6: Participate in that.
35:10
Speaker 3: But it does come with a level of awareness for
35:13
Speaker 3: us to be able to pick up again on those
35:15
Speaker 3: patterns and then choose different patterns or try to cultivate
35:18
Speaker 3: better habits. And that is definitely easier said than done
35:22
Speaker 3: because we're just so entwined in the system that has
35:26
Speaker 3: been built. But I also yeah through the healthcare system,
35:33
Speaker 3: because I have had similar experiences where either you know,
35:38
Speaker 3: people would dismiss me or they would you know, try
35:42
Speaker 3: to bring out all the big guns all at once,
35:44
Speaker 3: and it is pretty traumatic because I felt like I
35:47
Speaker 3: couldn't trust them and I couldn't even trust my own
35:49
Speaker 3: judgment with receiving the kind of care that I really
35:52
Speaker 3: wished for, and it wasn't really available to me, and
35:55
Speaker 3: I felt like, Okay, I have no other options. I
35:57
Speaker 3: have to choose something from these bad options that have
36:00
Speaker 3: and put in front of me, you know.
36:02
Speaker 6: And I've also had.
36:03
Speaker 3: The experiences where they weren't I wasn't warned of potential
36:07
Speaker 3: negative side effects and then they happened, So I just
36:11
Speaker 3: felt again traumatized by that. And I also want to
36:14
Speaker 3: share my sister was diagnosed with like a cancer, not
36:18
Speaker 3: a cancero is, but they thought it might be cancer
36:21
Speaker 3: a nodule in her thyroid, and so they I acted
36:25
Speaker 3: kind of very quick and cut everything out, and I
36:30
Speaker 3: think they might have actually cut a portion out, not
36:32
Speaker 3: the whole thing, but she still does have to supplement
36:36
Speaker 3: and the biopsy showed negative, you know. So it kind
36:39
Speaker 3: of just goes to show you that we sometimes just
36:42
Speaker 3: you know, are so afraid that something bad is part
36:45
Speaker 3: of the diagnosis that we we make a decision and.
36:48
Speaker 6: Then you can't take it back, right So such a scary.
36:53
Speaker 3: Thing to navigate when you're a diagnosed with something very
36:57
Speaker 3: very challenging. And I'm wondering if you can speak now,
37:01
Speaker 3: like now that the experiences are mostly behind you, you know,
37:05
Speaker 3: what would you advise somebody about approaching such a diagnosis
37:10
Speaker 3: that sounds just, you know, so scary and also that
37:14
Speaker 3: you have to make a decision right now.
37:18
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's a really beautiful question. So looking back, this
37:24
Speaker 5: is what I would say. You know, what actually comes
37:25
Speaker 5: up for me, what comes up for me is remembering
37:28
Speaker 5: that there was so much. I remember the doctor that
37:33
Speaker 5: I was seeing at the time.
37:34
Speaker 4: He was just this beautiful blue eyes, so calm.
37:36
Speaker 5: He was a surgeon, and most times you think of
37:38
Speaker 5: the surge and you're thinking of like this big you know,
37:41
Speaker 5: our judgments are generalization, but he was the softest, pure hearted,
37:45
Speaker 5: loving man, and I remember him saying being that, like
37:47
Speaker 5: it's malignant, we have to take it out, all these things,
37:50
Speaker 5: and there was you know, when it finally hit me.
37:53
Speaker 5: At first, I was in denial. So when it finally
37:55
Speaker 5: hit me, I just couldn't stop crying. And I knew
37:59
Speaker 5: I had to go through with the surgery, and like
38:02
Speaker 5: there was a part of me that knew, like, you
38:04
Speaker 5: are going to go through with your surgery. However, I
38:07
Speaker 5: had a lot of fear around it. Also fear around
38:09
Speaker 5: what could happen after because if diroid also you know,
38:11
Speaker 5: it's responsible for metabolism also other hormones too. It's not
38:15
Speaker 5: just thier level, like all our hormones are impacting one another,
38:19
Speaker 5: and so things like I know this sounds really superficial,
38:22
Speaker 5: but I was doing freelance modeling at the time, and
38:24
Speaker 5: one of the questions I kept coming up is will
38:25
Speaker 5: I be able to manage my weight?
38:27
Speaker 4: And you know, when you look at the internet, you're
38:29
Speaker 4: only going to see horror stories.
38:30
Speaker 5: So I just I felt so much resistance.
38:35
Speaker 4: Marina, you really took me back to that place.
38:38
Speaker 5: And so I remember one of the things that's coming
38:41
Speaker 5: up for me is that after they removed everything. It's
38:45
Speaker 5: interesting because with all the fear, they do the staging
38:48
Speaker 5: and it was stage zero. This is the first time
38:50
Speaker 5: I've ever shared that publicly, and I just remember thinking,
38:53
Speaker 5: why all this fear? And like afterwards, you know, they
38:56
Speaker 5: didn't have enough research at the time, but I remember thinking,
38:58
Speaker 5: like does it have.
38:59
Speaker 4: To be removed?
39:00
Speaker 5: Is there no other way? And I used to question
39:03
Speaker 5: I question a lot of doctors. A lot of doctors
39:05
Speaker 5: weren't expecting questions from a younger woman, I think, but
39:08
Speaker 5: I would just question it because you know, women were
39:10
Speaker 5: very intuitive. Everyone's intube, but women were even more enhanced.
39:13
Speaker 5: We're like direct channels. And I remember even when I
39:18
Speaker 5: had the recurrence, I was asking about radioactive idem like
39:20
Speaker 5: what are the negative side effects?
39:22
Speaker 4: All these things?
39:22
Speaker 5: They just kept denying it, and obviously we find out
39:24
Speaker 5: different things years after, and so this is what I
39:29
Speaker 5: would recommend both as a clinician and as a healer,
39:34
Speaker 5: as a holistic health coach. All doing the things I
39:36
Speaker 5: do now, empowering patients also is first of all, do
39:40
Speaker 5: your own research. However, when you do your research, make
39:43
Speaker 5: sure it is evidence based medicine, not the Internet, not Reddit,
39:46
Speaker 5: you know, like, go to evidence based clinicians, evidence based practitioners. Also,
39:52
Speaker 5: even working with healers and trying to understand what's best
39:55
Speaker 5: for you, work with healers that are really empowered in
39:58
Speaker 5: what they do. There's a journey that everyone goes through.
40:00
Speaker 5: I truly feel there's a healer within each and every
40:02
Speaker 5: one of us, and it's part of our journey. However,
40:05
Speaker 5: in moving from needed healer to empowered healer, that is
40:08
Speaker 5: the journey. And it's true that sometimes we do share
40:11
Speaker 5: our medicine even before we've gotten to the other side.
40:13
Speaker 4: It doesn't mean this is the journey of perfectionism.
40:16
Speaker 5: However, I feel that integrity is really one of my
40:19
Speaker 5: big core values. And without understanding some of the science
40:22
Speaker 5: and biology, even doing this energy work, like I'm still
40:25
Speaker 5: learning the science of it.
40:26
Speaker 4: It still is related to science, right, So do we
40:29
Speaker 4: need to know the hardcore science of everything? I personally
40:32
Speaker 4: don't believe that.
40:33
Speaker 5: However, I think that the more that we understand both
40:36
Speaker 5: aspects logical and intuitive, we're actually putting all the pieces
40:39
Speaker 5: together in a very holistic, balanced way. So why would
40:42
Speaker 5: we not want to do that? And then, above all,
40:45
Speaker 5: listen to your intuition. I think a lot of times
40:48
Speaker 5: when we are just outsourcing what do you think? What
40:50
Speaker 5: do you think? We lose our own capability of trusting ourselves.
40:54
Speaker 5: We start to question ourselves. And then if you're questioning yourself,
40:58
Speaker 5: you're questioning the world. It works like that, and so
41:01
Speaker 5: the way to honor that, Like people constantly ask me,
41:04
Speaker 5: how do you learn to trust yourself? And it's like,
41:06
Speaker 5: I can't answer that. For you, that is your journey
41:08
Speaker 5: to learn. That's why you're asking, because you don't trust
41:10
Speaker 5: yourself yet. And every time you lean into trusting a
41:13
Speaker 5: little bit more and more, that's how you build the
41:15
Speaker 5: muscle of intuition and using discernment and anytime that you
41:19
Speaker 5: feel wobbly. I am my end Personally, I'm a woman
41:23
Speaker 5: of faith. I invite in prayer, I pray, I say,
41:26
Speaker 5: God lead me to the right person who's actually going
41:28
Speaker 5: to help me make the most empowered decisions so we
41:29
Speaker 5: can collaborate. I'm not always like on my A game,
41:32
Speaker 5: like yeah, I got it right, Like we're wobbly. When
41:34
Speaker 5: you're going through the experience, it's not easy to just
41:36
Speaker 5: tap into your intuition. It's like what's happening? All these
41:39
Speaker 5: things come up, and in that moment, if you are
41:41
Speaker 5: held by the right person, whether it's a master healer,
41:45
Speaker 5: really experience, a clinician who has your best interest at heart,
41:47
Speaker 5: and they see the light and love in you, then
41:50
Speaker 5: you will receive the tools that you need. I don't
41:52
Speaker 5: regret having my surge or any of the treatment. Let
41:54
Speaker 5: me say that because for the record, I still remember
41:57
Speaker 5: to this day. The surgeon. I'm like, already a little
42:00
Speaker 5: woozy with the anesthesia, and we're about to go in
42:02
Speaker 5: surgery and the resident is poking my hand to get
42:06
Speaker 5: the IV in and he doesn't exactly know what he's doing,
42:08
Speaker 5: so he's bleeding and I'm noticing, but I'm also super kind,
42:11
Speaker 5: so I'm just letting him do his thing. And the
42:12
Speaker 5: other resident is like, don't worry, he's gonna get He's
42:14
Speaker 5: going to get it.
42:14
Speaker 4: I'm like okay, And.
42:16
Speaker 5: The surgeon comes and he makes sure everything is fine.
42:19
Speaker 4: He holds me.
42:19
Speaker 5: He just looks into me. He goes, Vina, You're safe
42:22
Speaker 5: and hope, like we've got you. Everything is going to
42:24
Speaker 5: be fine. His voice is super soft, and I just
42:27
Speaker 5: felt such love and before you know it, like you're
42:29
Speaker 5: in that moment and you're drifting off and your body
42:31
Speaker 5: and your soul is going through the transformation that it
42:33
Speaker 5: needs to for your journey. And so that's what I
42:37
Speaker 5: would recommend. And then there's organizations like Patient Empowerment Network.
42:40
Speaker 5: There's lots of you know, advocacy groups that are weaving
42:43
Speaker 5: together so many different people, different backgrounds, Eastern traditions, Western traditions.
42:50
Speaker 5: As you allow these different organizations to support you, you'll
42:54
Speaker 5: find the help that you need. Like I always feel
42:56
Speaker 5: that we are routed to the right support if we
42:58
Speaker 5: open ourselves up, you know, and it's not something that
43:00
Speaker 5: we need to do alone. Like even this process of empowerment,
43:05
Speaker 5: there are moments where we don't feel so self empowered,
43:07
Speaker 5: and that's when the right person can help us remind
43:10
Speaker 5: us of who we are. They mirror that back to us.
43:12
Speaker 5: And so that's what I would say. That's what I've
43:14
Speaker 5: done for a lot of patients. A lot of clients.
43:16
Speaker 4: I feel that all of us are looking to be
43:20
Speaker 4: empowered and to be reminded that the power has always
43:23
Speaker 4: been within us.
43:28
Speaker 6: Wow, thank you so much for that message.
43:31
Speaker 3: You know, I think it just tied everything that we
43:33
Speaker 3: were talking about together very very neatly. And that is
43:38
Speaker 3: the journey back to self trust, back to wholeness, back
43:41
Speaker 3: to sovereignty. And again, it doesn't mean you have to
43:45
Speaker 3: do it all alone. They say it takes a village
43:48
Speaker 3: to raise a child, right, and you know, we're all
43:51
Speaker 3: still children, right. None of us has really got it
43:54
Speaker 3: all figured out, even as an adult, like you said,
43:57
Speaker 3: so we still need that village as a adults, you know,
44:01
Speaker 3: especially as adults that are going through a challenging diagnosis
44:04
Speaker 3: or health issues. So thank you again for this wonderful
44:09
Speaker 3: podcast episode. I feel like I really got to know
44:11
Speaker 3: you and what you're about, and I'd love to wrap
44:15
Speaker 3: it up with a very quick wrapid fire around if
44:18
Speaker 3: you're up for it. Sure, Okay, awesome. So Number one,
44:22
Speaker 3: what's the number one advice you have for somebody to
44:25
Speaker 3: improve their quality of life?
44:27
Speaker 6: Right now?
44:30
Speaker 5: Get to know yourself?
44:33
Speaker 6: Awesome?
44:33
Speaker 3: Number two, what is your favorite food to cook or
44:41
Speaker 3: to make? Yourself or to enjoy, maybe you go out
44:44
Speaker 3: and eat it.
44:45
Speaker 5: I love pizza. I love a really.
44:49
Speaker 4: Authentic time pizza.
44:51
Speaker 6: You did say you went to Italy.
44:53
Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, I also watch my weight, but when
44:57
Speaker 3: I was in Italy, I was eating pizza and gelato
44:59
Speaker 3: and all the thing.
45:00
Speaker 6: Things every day.
45:00
Speaker 3: So I hear you and Brooklyn, Yes, one of my
45:06
Speaker 3: favorite favorite restaurants my high school was around there. But yeah,
45:12
Speaker 3: I was really watching my weight in high school. But yes,
45:16
Speaker 3: I did frequent that one. Let's see, what is a
45:21
Speaker 3: fun fact about yourself for a favorite hobby of yours.
45:26
Speaker 5: I love to dance. I think that's part of my
45:29
Speaker 5: yoga background. But like dancing and very sensual, fully self
45:32
Speaker 5: expressed ways.
45:33
Speaker 6: Yeah, yes, somatic release of the hips, hips and the
45:40
Speaker 6: jaw right they're related and the throat all of what
45:43
Speaker 6: we were talking about. Amazing. Yeah, and this is why
45:46
Speaker 6: I was watching my weight too.
45:47
Speaker 3: I was never a model, but I was always a
45:49
Speaker 3: dancer soul.
45:51
Speaker 6: Yeah.
45:52
Speaker 3: Okay, Well, Pina, thank you again so much for this
45:54
Speaker 3: wonderful episode and sharing your wisdom. Please let our listeners
45:59
Speaker 3: know where they can learn more about you and how
46:02
Speaker 3: you might want to work with them.
46:04
Speaker 5: Yeah. So I offer holistic health coaching. It's through my
46:07
Speaker 5: signature offer Love your Life, and for any information on that,
46:11
Speaker 5: you can go straight to my website. It's the Yoga
46:13
Speaker 5: Movement NYC from New York City dot com and also
46:17
Speaker 5: Instagram at the Yoga Movement and yeah, I offer different
46:20
Speaker 5: I'm actually going to be starting to offer the treats
46:23
Speaker 5: either late this year or next year, and probably in
46:26
Speaker 5: Costa ricause I'm really excited about that. But that's the
46:29
Speaker 5: easiest way to reach me and all my contact informations
46:31
Speaker 5: all my website as well.
46:34
Speaker 6: Amazing. Again, thank you so much, and I look forward
46:37
Speaker 6: to keeping in touch.
46:38
Speaker 5: Thank you, Thank you so much, Brandon.
46:40
Speaker 2: Thank you for tuning in to another episode of the
46:43
Speaker 2: Holistic Pharmacy Podcast, and I truly hope you enjoyed the show.
46:48
Speaker 2: If you learned something useful in this episode, please consider
46:51
Speaker 2: giving the show a five star rating and a sincere
46:54
Speaker 2: review so that more people can find it or share
46:57
Speaker 2: it with a friend directly. To get in touch with me,
47:00
Speaker 2: you can find me on social media by looking up
47:02
Speaker 2: my name Marina books Of or email me at Marina
47:07
Speaker 2: at rawfork dot com. Take good care and see you soon.