Q1; I think we must start with you and your experiences with mental illness and cancer. Can you share an, understandably abbreviated, version of your health journey?
Yes, my mental health issues started first – one could say at age 14 with the onset of menstruation came severe acne for which I was prescribed antibiotics for several months. Back in the 1980s there was no conversation about the gut microbiome and the connection with mental health; so subsequent to that I developed an eating disorder, then depression and anxiety for which I took MAOI antidepressants, and then I had my first manic episode 3 months later. My mental health proceeded to be unstable for the next 15 years until I went to see a naturopathic doctor and a nutritionally oriented psychiatrist, Dr. Abram Hoffer. During this time of instability with my mental health, I was also diagnosed with malignant melanoma.
Q2; In your talk, you spoke about the emotional component of cancer – can you describe how you see our emotional being involved in our experience of cancer?—
Simply put, as people we have 4 aspects to us: physical, mental, emotional and spiritual – and many are not taught to be with their thoughts or emotions in a healthy way. Emotions = energy in motion – so the vibrational quality of emotions needs to be discharged or expressed. Most of us growing up in the last century were either taught that they had to suppress or repress their emotions. And this energy has to go somewhere – so if it doesn’t get discharged, it will disturb the internal milieu.
Dr. Gabor Mate is one of my teachers and he identified personality features commonly present in patients with chronic illness from cancer to autoimmune disease to persistent skin conditions, migraines, fibromyalgia, endometriosis, etc and they all speak to self-suppression and/or repression of emotions. These traits are:
-an automatic & compulsive concern for the emotional needs of others, while ignoring one’s own;
-rigid identification with social role, duty, and responsibility
-overdriven, externally focused hyper-responsibility, justifying one’s existence by doing and giving;
-repression of healthy, self-protective aggression & anger; and
-patients were fueled by two beliefs: “I am responsible for how other people feel” and “I must never disappoint anyone.”
As a clinician, I feel it is important to investigate the underlying beliefs patients hold as these can be driving illness AND the opportunity lies in allowing the expression of suppressed/repressed emotions; as well as changing faulty beliefs that might be behind one’s behaviour.
Q3: Cancer may be a response to trauma and cancer is itself a trauma. How can utilize trauma as a part of our healing process?
In Naturopathic Medicine, we talk about addressing the root cause of disease and we have to understand that the root can lie in one or more of the 4 levels (ie physical, physical, mental, emotional and spiritual). For me, the healing process started on the physical level by supporting my neurotransmitters and hormones with botanicals and neutraceuticals. However, I wasn’t upfront with my clinicians about my eating disorder and so from a root cause, my poor diet and self-esteem went unaddressed. As such, when I stopped the physical level support, I plummeted into anxiety and depression. Eventually, by facing the trauma I had experienced in life – which for me stemmed from being adopted - I learned to address my thoughts, core beliefs, shadow beliefs, limiting beliefs emotions, reactivity, triggers, etc as well as my eating issues so that I could maintain balance on all levels. This involved seeing therapists as well as receiving clinical training in 5 psychotheraupeutic techniques:
- Compassionate Inquiry
- Gestalt psychotherapy
- Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
- Mindfulness based therapy
- Integrative Reprogramming Technique
For me, addressing trauma from a compassionate perspective was the last piece of the healing puzzle. Our feelings about ourselves & how we treat ourselves is critical to our wellbeing – so why is self-compassion important?
“Because its driving force is love not fear. Love allows us to feel confident and secure (in part by pumping up our oxytocin), while fear makes us feel insecure and jittery (sending our amygdala into overdrive and flooding our system with cortisol). When we trust ourselves to be understanding and compassionate when we fail, we don’t cause ourselves unnecessary stress and anxiety. We can relax knowing that we’ll be accepted regardless of how well or how poorly we do. Unlike self-criticism which asks if you’re good enough, self-compassion asks what’s good for you?” ~ Kristin Neff - Self- Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself
I know for myself, I was doing everything BUT loving the diagnosis of bipolar disorder that I had been given – I hid these parts of myself in shame and judgement. Condemned them even. It wasn’t until I learned to love and accept these parts that ultimately they have become integrated in my life. And ironically, I have been mentally stable since.
Q4: What do you consider to be the most important aspects of health to address to achieve true healing?
I love this quote from the Journal of Naturopathic medicine: The human being is not simply a physical entity. We have minds, we think. We have emotions, we feel and we translate these feelings into meaning. We are spiritual beings. ….Causes of disease manifest in four groups or levels. Of these four aspects, the spirit is the center; the next layer is the mental aspect of the person, then the emotions and the outermost layer is the physical. If there is a distortion on the spiritual level, it will create distortion through the system, like ripples from a stone thrown into a pond.
If one continually throws garbage out the kitchen window, there will eventually be flies to contend with. One can deal with the flies by spraying poison on them, and even spray the garbage pile itself. This is like using antibiotics or antidepressants. Or, one can clean up the garbage. Not only will the flies go away, but the kitchen will smell better. This is the naturopathic approach. Clean up the garbage. If you do, the flies won’t come back when the poison wears off. And the flies won’t build up a resistance to poison either.” ~ Journal of Naturopathic Medicine
Listen to the interview here: https://www.ithriveplan.com/blog/2024/6/24/beyond-the-physical-the-emotional-journey-of-cancer
