Dhru Purohit Show - What Chronic Illness and A Life Altering Diagnosis Can Teach Us About Living Life To Our Fullest Potential

Episode Date: June 9, 2025

This episode is brought to you by Pique Life and Cozy Earth. Navigating illness—whether it's our own or that of someone we deeply love—is one of life’s greatest challenges. It can shake our foundations, test our resilience, and bring uncertainty to even the most grounded lives. But amid the struggle, illness also holds the potential to awaken us—to deepen our understanding of the body, sharpen our intuition, and reconnect us to something greater than ourselves. Today on The Dhru Purohit Show, we’re bringing you a special compilation episode featuring Dhru’s conversations with top experts on near-death experiences and how these profound moments can become portals to healing, clarity, and deep self-discovery. Anita Moorjani shares the life-changing lessons and mindset shifts she experienced during her coma, and how her near-death experience transformed the way she lives today. Dr. Cynthia Li opens up about her journey with autoimmune illness and the limitations of a traditional medical system that often waits until symptoms are severe before taking action. She explains why it’s essential to create space between your identity and your diagnosis, and highlights the key pillars that guided her path to healing. Anita Moorjani is a renowned author and spiritual speaker known for her transformative journey beyond the brink of death. Anita battled end-stage cancer before experiencing a remarkable near-death experience (NDE) that shifted her perspective on life. Her bestselling memoir, “Dying to Be Me,” chronicles her profound journey and miraculous healing.  Dr. Cynthia Li has practiced as an internist in settings as diverse as Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, San Francisco General Hospital, and St. Anthony Medical Clinic, serving the homeless. Her personal health challenges led her to integrative and Functional Medicine, and she currently has a private practice in Berkeley, CA. She is the author of Brave New Medicine: A Doctor’s Unconventional Path to Healing Her Autoimmune Illness. In this episode, Dhru and his guests explore: What Anita experienced during her coma and the feeling of unconditional love (2:40) Lessons from beyond (9:40) The freedom and challenge of returning to the status quo (14:51) Dhru’s personal story about the passing of a loved one (19:56) When Dr. Li discovered she was suffering from an autoimmune condition (35:46) The limitations of traditional diagnoses (43:56) Why we need to create space between ourselves and our diagnosis (45:56) One of the first steps Dr. Li took toward healing (52:23) How she learned to tune into her intuition and let it guide her recovery (56:07) The key pillars that played a crucial role in her healing (1:00:16) The transformative impact of qigong on her journey (1:03:22) Hitting rock bottom—for the second time (1:05:46) Also mentioned: Full episode with Anita Moorjani Full episode with Dr. Cynthia Li This episode is brought to you by Pique Life and Cozy Earth. Right now, Pique Life is offering 20% off the Radiant Skin Duo, plus a free beaker and frother when you go to piquelife.com/dhru. Right now, get 40% off your Cozy Earth sheets. Just head over to cozyearth.com/dhru and use code DHRUP.   Sign up for Dhru’s Try This Newsletter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi everyone, Drew Brode here. Navigating a health crisis, whether it be your own or along someone you love can be one of the most difficult experiences we face in life. But they can also, these health crises, they can also teach us an immense amount, in part through a greater awareness of how our physical body operates. But more than even that, illness can also open doors to a deeper connection with ourselves and our higher power or the universe or anything else that you believe in. In today's compilation episode, we have something really unique and interesting from a few past episodes with people who have faced life-altering health challenges and emerged with powerful insights and new approaches to the ways that they approach their daily

lives and how they treat other people. Anita Mourjani is a renowned author and spiritual seeker known for her transformative journey beyond the brink of death. Anita battled end-stage cancer before experiencing a remarkable near-death experience that shifted her perspective on life forever. Her bestselling memoir, Dying to Be Me, chronicles her profound journey on the path to a miraculous healing. And also on today's episode, we have Dr. Cynthia Lee, who received her medical degree from the University of Texas, Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. Her personal health challenges led her to an integrative and functional medicine approach in life, leaving behind her traditional allopathic approach. And she currently has a practice in Berkeley, California. She's also the author of Brave New Medicine, a doctor's unconventional path to healing her autoimmune illness.

First, let's listen in to this incredible discussion with Anita Morjani, as she shares what it was like to have a near-death experience that allowed, in her words, to temporarily leave her body and return back with some incredibly profound messages that we can all learn from. How would you describe this realm? And I know words are limited. So you often will use analogies. Yes. To describe this place that you're in where you don't have physical control of your body. You can't talk.

You can't move your vocal cords. You can't move your hands. You have an awareness of what's happening around you. In fact, in a very beautiful and eerie way, you actually have awareness of what's happening in other parts of the room. We're going to talk about that in a second. and you have these messages which are coming again, for lack of a better term, from another place.

You're having a conversation with your dad. How would you describe where you were during that moment? So it didn't feel like I had actually gone somewhere different. It felt like a whole world opened up to me. And I sometimes use the analogy of a warehouse. And this is how I would describe it. Because, you know, there are no words to describe it. There's no language we've developed to describe what we call the other side.

And it isn't even another side. It's right here. It's like another dimension which our sensory organs cannot pick up, cannot read, see, feel, touch. It's like an in-between. Yes, it's like an in-between. And so this whole world open up. And in this analogy I use, I would invite you to imagine that you have this little flashlight,

and it's pitch black. You're in a pitch black room, completely dark, except for this little flashlight you have in your hand. And so you're navigating your way around this room with this little flashlight, and you're shining this flashlight maybe up on the walls or down on the floor and you're navigating your way. And the only things that you're able to see

is what you shine this flashlight on. And so you're only aware of things in the room that you have shone your flashlight on at some point or another. Now imagine if one day the lights go on and you realize that this room is huge, It's way bigger than you could ever have imagined. And it's lined with these shelves from floor to ceiling. And it's a really high ceiling.

I mean, this room could be as big as a football stadium. And it's lined with shelves going way up like 20 feet high. And these shelves are filled with all kinds of things. It could be books, it could be records, it could be CDs, it could be stuff, just could be toys, it could be clothes. just all kinds of things, even pictures, scenes from your life, animals, pets, whatever. It's just lined with all kinds of things. And again, this is imagination.

So even if it's filled with animals, we're not being cruel to animals here. I love animals. So, and it could be people on these shelves, relatives, friends, people from your life, people you've met, not met. So all of a sudden, you're seeing all these things. some of which you have seen before because your flashlight has shone on those things. But most things you've never seen before because your flashlight never got to them. And all of a sudden, you're realizing that, wow, there's all these things that exist.

Right now, I'm seeing them all at once, which means they all exist simultaneously. And some things are amazing. Some are beautiful. Some are creative, artistic. But some are like meh, and some I don't really like them. They're scary things. And then the lights go off and you're back to one flashlight. This is, and you're back to one flashlight.

And again, all you can see is what you're focused on with that one flashlight. And so you're back to just seeing one thing at a time. But now you're aware that the one thing you're focused on is among millions of things. of other things. And if you don't like what you're focused on, you know you can shift your focus until you find something that maybe is more pleasing, something that you like or something that feels good to you or something that serves you better in some way. So the flashlight

is an analogy of your awareness. And when we're in this physical life expressing from a physical body and we look at things with our physical eyes and use our five senses that we're limited to, our awareness is actually limited. It's limited to our environment, what we see on TV, and so this is our flashlight. It's like when you're hearing scary news every day, your flashlight is focused on that fear. And that is your awareness, this physical body is that flashlight only focusing on one thing. But when you are able to perceive above and over just the five sensory three-dimensional world, in other words, when you don't have your physical body, you are a multi-sensory being

existing in a multi-dimensional existence. And you become aware that so many things exist simultaneously. and just to make it more tangible, just to bring it down, but you can let your mind take this anywhere. But is that, say, in this planet, healing exists as well as sickness. Birth exists as well as death. But there are more people who are being healed from illnesses

than there are people who die from illnesses. But our flashlight is constantly focused on the sickness and the death, and this is what we fear. We start to fear that. In other words, if you're living a life that is fear-based, it means your flashlight is focused on the fear-based messages, whereas the love-based messages, the energy-expanding messages, the beautiful things, exist simultaneously. But your flashlight is just not focusing on those things. things right now. You know, before we hit record, we were talking about a friend of yours and an acquaintance

of mine who's been on this podcast, Dr. Bruce Grayson. Yes. And he is a medical doctor and a researcher based out of the University of Virginia who studies these near-death experiences and has gone through the literature, interviewed people like yourself, who've gone through these things. And his whole message is, we may not be able to. able to understand it. But these individuals have gone through something. You know, everybody's story is a little bit different, but there's some common themes that are there. But more importantly,

for those that, who of us who are here, who haven't gone through that, there are lessons to learn from it. You had a profound experience, but you're not here to tell everybody that they need to go have a near-death experience and get stuck in the in-between in a coma for a while, right? God forbid, We don't want that to be happening to people. Absolutely not. But you do have some important messages, just like Bruce had for our community on the podcast. What are some of those messages? Here is that truth.

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which contains anti-inflammatory compounds and antioxidants that can help protect the skin from damage, especially as we get older. It also features BT Fountain. A high hydrating beauty electrolyte that has clinically proven seramides to protect the skin barrier and reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles. BT Fountain is actually my younger sister's favorite product, and she's noticed that her skin has become visibly more glowy, as she likes to say, when she uses it consistently. I fully believe that what we eat and what we drink is reflected on our skin. This is why I've chosen ingredients and products that I can trust. So if you're ready to transform your routine and your skin health. Right now, you can get 20% off Radiant Skin Duo, plus a free starter kit,

including a rechargeable frother and glass speaker with my exclusive link at peaklife.com slash Drew. That's Peak, P-I-Q-U-E-L-I-F-E dot com slash D-H-R-U. Don't miss out, glow naturally into 2025 while supplies last. So the first message I would want people to know is that your soul came here with an intention, with a reason, allow it to express itself. Your soul is magnanimous, magnificent, powerful, and don't diminish your soul. Don't dim your light.

Be who you are. Whenever we think that we have to curtail ourselves, we have to silence our voice, we're diminishing who we came here to be. And this is particularly true for people who have been brought up to diminish who they are, who have ended up being highly sensitive, highly empathic, shy people who are afraid to share their voice with the world. You need to know that your soul came here to shine.

So I would want people to know that. I want people to know that it's really important to love and love. value yourself. Doesn't matter of anyone else does or no one else does. It's so important. One of the things that I promised myself when I was on the other side is that I would never forsake myself, even if other people did. I would always, even if, even if I failed, I would be the one to pick myself up, dust myself down and keep going. Don't feel afraid. of failure, don't, and stop being afraid of shame. We are all so fearful of shame,

because all of us have been shamed for who we are. For whatever reason, there's body shaming and ethnic shaming and all kinds of shaming that goes on. Don't fall into being a victim of shame and love yourself like your life depends on it, because it does, it does. I learned the hard way. I share my message.

I make it my mission to share my message so that people don't have to go through what I went through. And it saddens me to see that even today, here in the 21st century, we're in year 2024, and I still see young people who beat themselves up, who hate themselves, who think that their lives don't matter. it saddens me to still see that, to see people with such low self-esteem. And when you have low self-esteem, you allow yourself to be trodden on by other people.

You look to other people for approval. So you allow them to step on you and even to use you and abuse you. And you allow yourself to be a victim. Stop doing that to yourself. You know, you were doing that to yourself right up until that point when you were in that place, whether we want to call it the beyond, the in between, whatever might be. And in fact, you felt so free and expansive in that moment that part of your experience was, I don't know if I want to go back.

Yeah. Talk to us about that. So this world is persistent. It's not always easy. People think that because I have this experience, now my life is easy. It's peachy. So, yes, I absolutely love my life right now. I wouldn't change anything.

But we live in an era, for example, that we have social media. And so that fear of disapproval is actually magnified. We were not socialized to win. approval from hundreds, thousands, millions of people. We were socialized maybe to win approval just from our parents when you're growing up, but we're now in a fishbowl where the whole world gets to see you. So in many ways, there are things about this world that have got harder. But when I was on the other side, I got the distinct feeling that I had a purpose, I had

a mission and that I needed to go back to fulfill the mission. This is what I was told. I was also told that my husband, Danny, and my purpose was linked and he wouldn't be able to complete his purpose if I didn't come back. And I knew that the one thing I had to do was to live my life fearlessly. That's what my dad said to me. He said, now that you know the truth of who you really are, go back and live your life fearlessly. Now, I wanted to know more about what I was supposed to do. And I wasn't told how to unravel the purpose. I was just told, you won't have to chase it, you won't have to pursue it, just love yourself and live your life fearlessly, and it will unfold.

And I saw little images, glimpses of my future. I saw myself on a stage talking to people, but I didn't. know how I was going to get there or what I had to do. Now, again, remember my background, I was not somebody who's ever been on stage or written a book or thought of myself as a public person. I was shy, introverted. So for me to see that, it was like really far-fetched. And then I made the decision to come back. And that's when my dad said, go and live your life fearlessly. And I came out of the coma, my eyes started to open. I'd been in the coma for 36 hours,

and I started to tell people all around me, that dad is here, dad is here, it's not my time to die. I'm going to be fine. And so my family were elated. My brother was there. He arrived in the plane. And my mom was there, and my husband, Danny, was there. and they were elated that I was coming out of the coma. And they called the doctor, and the doctor told them,

don't raise your hopes. She's still in critical condition, just because she's opened her eyes. Then I started talking about all the things I heard and I saw. And that's when they were really surprised, because I said, oh, didn't that doctor tell you that I'm not even going to make it through the night? And that's when Danny said, he didn't even say that here in the room. He said that down the hallway by the nurse's station. You couldn't have heard him.

And I just started to say, oh, and that's the nurse that tried to put the tube into my vein and said, oh, I can't find her veins. They're all retracted. And so they were shocked because I was able to say all that. That's when they knew something had happened. And then in four or five days, my tumors visibly were shrinking. They could actually see that they were softening and shrinking. and in three weeks, they could find no trace of cancer in my body.

But I was now working on just getting stronger, getting my muscles moving, and in five weeks, I was released from the hospital to go home and live my life cancer-free. And that was March 9, 2006. Wow. You know, you had a spontaneous healing event after this, in between near-death experience. And your story is such a beautiful story, which is why I wanted to have you here,

and of course tell it for our audience. And there's layers to it. And if you wouldn't mind, I'd love to just share just a quick little antidote for my life of what came to me as one of the lessons that I took away from your near-death experience. I'd love to hear it. I would love to hear it.

I mentioned to you my aunt. Her name was Hema and my mom's younger sister. And very similar to you, grew up in an Indian environment and, you know, so much, I have so much admiration for her mom, my grandmother. And I have my heart goes out to my grandfather, her dad. But he was a very fear-based person. And he ruled with a lot of fear. And even in a young age, I can remember thinking. I don't know if I'm, I feel related to this guy because I'm so different because I had my contrast of my dad who was such a different individual, you know, a loving, caring, just incredible stand-up man, respected in the community, did well in his career, but just a lot of love.

And she was raised with a different type of dad and a lot of berating and a lot of negativity growing up. And my grandmother really was the one that kept the house together. And, you know, she even sacrificed. so good at school she sacrificed her own further education to put her younger brother my uncle through school and again going back to this theme of constantly putting everybody else yeah before you which so many people in similar cultures go through and even people who grow up here in america and grow up with more traditional families they go through that i'm going to fast forward a little bit here but at this crucial intersection where you um ended up not getting married

And ran away from arranged marriage. She ended up getting an arranged marriage. And, you know, they both tried the best of it. And I would say that my uncle is an individual who was dealing with the best that he knew how, but also grew up in a very similar thing and kind of passed down that negativity that was there. Even though he did her best, it was a very stressful situation for her. And when I was in college, she had her first brain tumor that was found after years of a stressful life, environment. You know, cancer is so complex.

There's so many things that play into a role. And then she beat that. And then again, a few years later on, another cancer diagnosis that came. And we tried at the knowledge that I had and the individual doctors that I knew, I tried to put a team together for her. And we did. And she, after many years of going through that journey, you know, quote unquote, beat the cancer that she was dealing with at the time. And then fast forward to about seven years ago, you know, sometimes people who have been diagnosed with cancer before, it can come back. And especially if those stressful situations and other things and environmental, and again, it's so complicated, the milieu of things.

And cancer came back. And we tried everything. And I was so proud of her because of the first time in her life, she was making so many of those changes that she felt she couldn't make before because it was about the kids. Yeah. She had to put everybody else first. And she wanted to make sure that her kids were in a situation, that they could at least

move on and live their life. And so she made sacrifices. I don't want to go into all the details, but you can imagine. And she was an extremely. pain. She was in the hospital all throughout, you know, still reading her spiritual text, trying to practice all these things. She's a huge fan of Wayne Dyer, who's going to be coming back into this story here in a little bit. Tony Robbins and many of these individuals, she really tried and put her heart in and was surrounded by so much love and all the things that was there.

And ultimately, through a combination of things, I won't go into all the detail of her story, she ended up in a situation where she was put in hospice care. And I got the, call that we knew that it was towards the end of the stage that was there. She was being moved into hospice care to try to be made comfortable because she was going through an extreme amount of pain. And I flew out here from Los Angeles and I can remember just thinking, I just hope that I spend can get a little bit of time with her before she passes on. And as I pulled up to the hospice care facility in New Jersey and I got a call from my sister

that my aunt was not conscious, she's still breathing. I remember thinking and feeling and hoping that I just have to hope from hearing and knowing other stories like your own. I wasn't fully present with your story at the time, but I'd heard other ones. I had to believe that at least that she could hear me, that she could feel me. And I sat there right next to her bedside and I held her hand just as her sons did and many of our family members and my mom and my son. sister. And we told her stories. We shared love for her. We cried. We weeped. And there was a part of us that felt and hoped that maybe, just maybe, she could hear a little part of this love and admiration that we have and the acknowledgement of how much she had to sacrifice for everybody around her. And that she was

entering into a place where she no longer, as you can see, I'm getting a little worked out. It's beautiful. That she would no longer have to do this anymore. Yeah. That's what it is. And in hearing your story, it made me feel that that was real. Yeah. That she heard us.

She did. Even though she didn't have this, quote unquote, spontaneous healing event. And she tried her hardest and was doing all the health things and all the different stuff that was there. You know, she didn't quote unquote make it. But as you said, there's still. still that we can never know the full journey that somebody's individual, individual journey is on. But at least in that moment of freedom that she was experiencing and her having and letting us in, you know, the consciousness being aware that there was some solace, some joy that was being

brought to her life at that moment that said, everything is good. We got your back. Your sons are going to be taken care of. Please, you can be free and you can move on. Wow, that I'm so glad you shared that. That is so beautiful, like so beautiful. I relate to so many aspects of that. So, I mean, I feel like I know her because she is me in another version,

one that chose to stay there. And I want to say that my sense, well, first of all, I want to say she definitely heard all of you because I know when I was in the coma, I could hear, see, feel more deeply than if I was conscious. Yeah. She knew. She 100% knew how you all felt.

And you all made her feel complete. She felt completed. And now she could soar and do bigger and better things that she couldn't do here. Yeah. I think the other reason that's also important for me to share is that, you know, your story. And I want to hear all the stories, right? Your story was a spontaneous healing moment. But if people take away from it, that's simply by going through the exact steps you went through,

that everybody's going to have that, everybody has their own individual journey. Yes. That's there. And nothing is wrong with that. You're the first person to say that. And we can't step into that fully if we don't at least acknowledge that there is something bigger than us, the divine. Yes.

Maybe we have different words for it that maybe we can't explain with the science and the tools and the things we have, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. And that should give some sense of comfort. You know, before he passed away, we had Dr. Roland Griffiths on this podcast. I'm not sure if you're familiar with this work, but he was at Johns Hopkins, and he was the researcher that's been credited for bringing back and allowing the research to be done on psilocybin, medicinal mushrooms. Oh, right.

And many people who go on these medicinal mushrooms, in fact, one of the big studies that they did at Johns Hopkins was on terminal cancer patients. They took people that were in a terminal state based on their diagnosis and their stage and who had a lot of fear of dying, as many of us would if we were given that diagnosis. And they put them through a medically-assigned.

assisted psilocybin dosage, a heavier dosage that was there, and they had them supported. And one of the things that many of these people that went through this study said, their themes were so similar to the themes that you've shared here, that there was a knowingness that life was so much bigger. Yes.

That death is not this thing to be afraid of. Yeah. And in fact, when they came off of that journey, that trip, so to speak, that feeling stayed with them, many, many years beyond that. And they still considered it to be one of the most profound experiences of their life. So whether it's through psilocybin and MDMA, which there's a lot more research on, whether it's through a near-depth experience, or whether it's through the bigger message

that you have to share with us here, which is you don't have to die to check in with yourself. However people get there, we are just painting the picture. And really you, by sharing your story or painting the picture, So that bigger thing is out there and let's tap into it and you don't have to wait for something crazy bad to happen to touch base with that. Yes, 100%. And that's exactly the crux of my message is that don't wait until you get to that stage. And I love also how you truly can see. and I want to make this point that people,

it doesn't mean that if somebody follows everything I'm saying that they're going to heal and they're not going to die. But it does mean that they will reach a place of realizing that maybe the next stage of my journey is on the other side. And that's what I want to, I would like people to also know and understand. And that's why I mentioned earlier about, that cancer is not a battle to be fought, because what it actually is,

it's your body communicating with you. It's trying to tell you something. And as with your aunt, I'm still moved by that story, so because I can't, it still affects me when people tell me stories where I really identify with the person going through what they're going through. through. You guys had so many parallels in your life. Yeah. And so I totally understand. And I really think that she is currently on the other side guiding and helping her entire family, you included.

And she's probably doing so much more there than she could ever have done here. Yeah. We absolutely feel that way. And as I mentioned, you know, hearing your story and listening to all the details of what you went through. You can feel something, but it can feel so much more real after hearing something. Or you can feel something and it felt real there and you're reminded of it. You know, her anniversary of her, well, her birthday was just passed recently and we were all thinking about her. And as I was preparing for this interview and your team graciously said and you were excited to do the interview. And so thank you so much. Listening to and revisiting your story was that perfect remind her as it was close to her birthday just passing of yes this was the the truth that was there

and you know what for all the skeptics that are out there even if you say you can't possibly know that's what she went through here's a thing because i'm getting comfort from it it's more what does it mean for me yes i can't prove that it was real we don't know if she could hear us like you were hearing things but that doesn't matter it's what am i taking away from this what is the story what is the meaning that I'm giving to the situation? And is that meaning going to give me either peace, comfort, or more resolve to show up and support other people in my life? So even if it's not true, guess what? I don't care. That's the meaning that I've taken away from it. Exactly. And that makes so much sense because again, when something makes you feel good and it brings you comfort,

you actually feel healthier. It actually makes you healthier. You know, when people are in love, they're usually healthier, happier. And so that's the idea is to bring the things that bring you comfort into your life because it contributes in so many ways. You know, this topic is deeply personal to me. And I know it is to so many of you as well. As humans, we're not just bodies with symptoms. We're complex beings made up of mind, body, and spirit. In my next conversation, Dr. Cynthia Lee shares how she came to the understanding that healing isn't just about science and protocols, which are important, but it's about how to listen and trust your intuition and how she specifically used her healing journey to guide her

through multiple health crises. Let's listen in. Take us to the point that you knew that something was going on. The first time that you felt that something strange is happening, I'm not exactly sure what's going on. After a long day of meetings or podcasting, travels and workouts, or just trying to stay on top of life, there's nothing better than sinking into a bed that feels like pure luxury. And for me, that experience starts with cozy earth's sheets,

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So right now, if you want to take advantage of this, Cozy Earth is offering my listeners 40% off site-wide. Just head to CozyEarth.com slash Drew and use the code Drew P at checkout. That's CozyEarth.com slash D-H-R-U and use the code D-H-R-UP at checkout. Trust me, your sleep and your mornings will thank you. Yeah. It was, I mean, there are so many different points. to that, but I would say when I really recognize that something could be wrong and it might be chronic

was I was three or four months postpartum, a new mother, and I was pushing my daughter in a stroller up a hill coming back from the park, and I was having a lot of palpitations, and I was very winded short of breath. And it was a very foreign sensation, to me, but that was the beginning of what would later be diagnosed as postpartum thyroiditis, or it's a postpartum form of Hashimoto's, an autoimmune thyroid condition,

which I would subsequently be diagnosed with. And there was another point two and a half years later. So, I mean, just very briefly, I took a very, a very conventional route to address my thyroiditis. And I sought out a top-notch endocrinologist, and I took the medications. I waited. Unlike chronic Hashimoto's, the postpartum form, most people will recover. And I knew that data. I felt horrible still, but my numbers actually normalized after a year.

My primary symptoms of fatigue, palpitations, and weight loss actually were still ongoing. Oh, and I'm sorry, and insomnia. Insomnia was the first symptom. So even though your numbers improved, you're still not feeling like yourself. Yes. So, you know, a lot of different voices in my head. I did ask a lot of people, you know, it was kind of reduced down to motherhood, your working mom too, and of course your body's not the same. You know, you had a baby.

So I just thought, well, a little bit of time, a little bit of rest, and I'll start to feel better. And I actually came to the plate, but I should say I was fully functional. You know, I was living a very full life. So I came to the place of feeling like myself just before the next point at which I knew something was really, really wrong. And that was on a trip that now my daughter was about two, or almost two. And then my husband and I, we went to Beijing to visit my parents who were living there. And on that trip, I actually felt great. I felt like I'm back. You were, I remember a story of you saying you were on the Great Wall of China and you were feeling like, I feel like I'm finally myself again. Yep. I was, I had the toddler on my back, you know, in a little carrier. We were hiking, you know, some pretty steep parts of the Great Wall.

And, yeah, and my husband was like, oh, my God, this is so great. This is so great. So it was after that that we went to a dumpling palace, a dumpling restaurant. and we were kind of celebrating with my parents. And I had just a very, very sudden surge of, I don't even know what you want to call it, but energy, where I basically, yeah, I kind of, you know, I felt like a first thing I felt like I thought I was going to pass out. I did not.

And thought it was just some wave, you know, moving through me. I didn't know what it was. And then I kind of saw my life flashed. in front of me and you know okay my daughter's gonna be fine you know everything's gonna be great and I thought I was dying when I did lose consciousness when I came to I was in an emergency room there and it was there were a lot of different things going on at that time it was the beginning of you know of course I wouldn't know this for months but it was the beginning of chronic fatigue syndrome and desautonomia I had an

acute gastroenteritis that probably was one of the triggers. And then also in that ER visit, I learned that I was newly pregnant with my now second daughter. So all of those things were happening. And it was so much to just, you know, bear and endure the physical symptoms. But to recognize that I wasn't going to die, but I was actually, going to give new life was really overwhelming. It was really overwhelming. And not only are there your own feelings, there's your family's feelings about the situation, but then there's also you looking to guidance from the doctors around you to help you explain like what the heck is going on. And some of them, correct or I'm wrong, the thought might be that some of the symptoms

you were experiencing was related to maybe being pregnant again for the second time. There was still not a full clarity of why you were feeling the way that you were. Is that correct? Yeah. And so, you know, I knew that there was something really wrong. But because I was pregnant, everything was kind of just chalked up to that. You know, similar to like earlier when everyone's like, oh, you're a new mom, your new mom. Everything gets chalked up to that. So, and I kept saying, but I know there's, no, I know there are challenging pregnancies, but this is like, It was in chronic vertigo. I couldn't get out of bed.

So I was bedbound, actually, for about six months. And then after I was able to, I think being in the second trimester, the surge of hormones, like I had a little more energy. I was able to get out of bed. But I was largely housebound. It would begin the period of being largely housebound for almost a decade. And, but yeah, but because I was pregnant, not only was that the reason why, you know, or that was the explanation, but nobody actually

wanted to do anything. They just wanted me to wait it out until after I had my baby. Going back to when I had the just, I had my first daughter, I had the postpartum thyroiditis, I remember talking to the endocrinologist, right, the top specialist in this field in the area. And I said, I've been doing some research and I actually found that there are some environmental causes, right, of autoimmune thyroiditis. And is there anything I can do to reduce my risks of not having this persist? And also, if I were to get pregnant again, of not getting it again. And he said, no, it is genetic.

You know, it was very clear cut to him. And that, but that was kind of the paradigm I was trained in too. So, okay, you have genes or environment. It's kind of this or that. And this one is a genetic cause. So I was very, because he sort of reassured what I went in sort of presupposing, I was very quick to adopt that. Like, okay, yeah, I confirmed it.

He said it's genetic. There's nothing I can do. So I hadn't gone, you know, much deeper beyond that, like, oh, gluten and, you know, all these other potential triggers. And then I didn't need to because my numbers normalized. So that's kind of where I was back then. But I was aware of it, you know? So there is awareness.

It's just what do you do with it that had not been translated. The other piece that was very illuminating for me in terms of trying differently and seeing differently was that the way that we diagnose chronic diseases or even acute diseases in in medicine is, you know, we have very clear criteria. It could be a lab or a diagnostic, you know, a radiograph. It can be a pathology examination. It can be a set of criteria, right? Like a set of criteria for chronic fatigue syndrome.

Do you meet that? And then therefore you have a diagnosis. And it feels like it's kind of a hard line, right? If you have a hemoglobin A1C of whatever, it changes a lot, but let's say 5.8, you don't have diabetes, right? We don't treat you. So you're on this side, okay, you have pre-diabetes and then, okay, there's lifestyle management there. Or we just wait and we'll check it again in six months or a year and see where you are. Right, the classic, you're not bad enough to be treated yet. Exactly. So there's this, like, it was very ingrained in my mind, right? Like, there's a hard line.

And going back into my pathology textbook, I was like, that's such an illusion. Like, That line is useful as a guideline for many different things. But for a diagnosis like mine, chronic fatigue syndrome or dysotidomia, where it's so nebulous anyways, I began to see, oh, healing, you know, what we would call on the cellular level as repair, it's actually this constant dynamic movement. and what can I do to move myself into this direction of repair and healing as opposed to staying stuck in this? So I was feeling very stuck and it felt static. And then I realized it's not static.

And every day my body is different. I feel the same. I feel very similar, but it's not static. My body's still an ecosystem. So it began to break me out into this. I'm not a machine. I'm an ecosystem, how do I begin to connect my ecosystem and listen to what my symptoms are trying to say to me instead of dismissing them? Is this partially why you share the idea inside your book and you share with others on podcasts and some writing that we have to distance ourselves from our diagnosis in order to go down the pathway of healing? Is that related to this?

Yeah, it's related and it's beyond that. It is that anything that we identify with, and I will say positive or negative, keeps us actually very attached to that. It keeps us actually more in that fixed state instead of the state of dynamic change. And healing is really changed. So with diagnoses, it's sort of like being labeled a C student, right? we become, it becomes sort of the, or I will say, it can risk becoming what it is that we think we are. And so with something like chronic fatigue syndrome or disautonomia or even, you know,

Hashimoto's thyroiditis, which mine, after the second pregnancy, I did get postpartum thyroid arthritis again. And it was chronic this time. You know, most people don't recover. people don't heal. And so it can be a very dangerous place to identify. It's like, oh, I'm just not, this is kind of my life. And how do I learn to cope with it as best as I can? So I could see that. And I knew that actually as a doctor too before, you know, like what am I going to do if I diagnose someone with this? And yet, that's the paradigm that we work in. So it is both useful in terms of researching or doing treatments and how do we respond, and yet we cannot identify with it.

One of my favorite definitions of ego is by Eckartoli. He says ego is just identification with form. And when you think you are something, is very hard not to see anything other than that. Sometimes you see this even online when it comes to case studies and people's testimonials like yourself and I've had many other friends. We were just talking about Dr. Terry Walls and other individuals that are themselves, also doctors, practitioners who've had incredible healing journey. And sometimes people that are in that community, again, coming from a good place, it's like, no, this cannot be healed. I have X. I have MS. I have Hashimoto's. I have this. autoimmune condition. I have this other thing. This is my sense of identity. Everybody's told

me this is what it is and this is what it isn't. And our entire construct of life is formed around that. In this instance, we're talking about chronic disease, but it could be with your job, your car, the identification that people think that they are only, or that their entire life is them being a mom or a dad or anything. Anytime we're only identified by one particular form or multiple particular forms, we get locked into that and we can't see the fluidity of life. Right, right. And at the cellular level, it is, it's just information, right? I mean, our bodies are very agnostic. Our bodies respond to the information we give, I want to say it, but no, we give ourselves, right? We are bodies in this form. And it can be information as food,

information as, you know, whatever's in the air, right? What's in the water? It can be, but our thoughts are, you know, running somewhere between 6,000 to really high estimates are 80,000 a day. It is, those are very powerful bits of information. We're constantly feeding to the way that our genes are folding or not folding. And so it is, it's very, very powerful. And so the diagnosis fits into that.

Again, I want to say they're useful because that's how we communicate, right? But what I always encourage my patients, too, is like, okay, you know, you have imbalances that are manifesting as MS. Right. you know, and or it's not, you know, cancer is a big one, right? We can say it's just a word. It triggers all sorts of patterns in the body that there's all sorts of connotations to it. And so it's not a neutral word. And so it's okay, saying, okay, you have a tumor, right, that you are,

we're learning how to rebalance your body to respond to that versus, you know, I am a cancer patient. They're very different. It's so subtle, but just completely different vibrations that are there. Yeah, yeah, very much so. And when you step into one vibration, there's an openness of starting to explore. And going back to where you were sharing earlier, when you recognize that it wasn't either I have disease or I am cured, there's this ebb and flow that happens in the middle, this gray area.

And that gray area of being that, both on a laboratory sense, like subclinical, like it can't be easily picked up. We don't know exactly what's wrong with you. How do we exactly measure inflammation, which ultimately, you know, these chronic diseases are linked back to that. We don't have tests that are good enough right now that exactly can dial that in. but there was a recognition that you mentioned earlier that you could influence that. You could either steer yourself towards one environment or you could steal yourself to another

environment. You could influence the healing or you could influence it going into other direction. What was one of the first things that you can remember consciously choosing to do when you had that recognition of, hey, this is an input that I can control in some way, whatever that input it is, As you mentioned, there's food, there's thoughts, there's all sorts of inputs that are out there. What was one of the first ones that you took on and said, let me see if I can influence that state that I'm in? I mean, the first one, you know, again, usually most of them were kind of done not chronologically. I mean, in the book, it's very chronological because it was a book.

But a lot of them happened at the same time. But the first one I was really set on was, I have to get. I have to figure out how to get more sleep so that I have more energy to do the deeper healing that I want to do. And by this point, you know, both kids were sleeping largely through the night. And so it was learning about the circadian rhythm. And the reason why it was important to me, so it wasn't just like, oh, how do I get more sleep? You know, okay, what do I do at night for a sleep hygiene?

I had already been doing that for a long time with minimal improvement. And the circadian rhythm science was, again, much more useful for me because it connected me to something much greater than myself. And that's another piece of that's really important in healing is our whole world comes crashing in. You know, we're very, very, I mean, I became very self-focused. And it suddenly, even though I'm still in my heart, house, you know, and I'm mostly within, you know, these four walls, the, my sense of myself and

connecting, oh, okay, there's rhythms that my body as an ecosystem has connected to the sun and to the moon. So it's not just like, oh, you know, create a dark environment. It's like, oh, okay, the sun is down, the moon is up, you know, and how do I align my body with those rhythms, you know, as opposed to kind of just the prescriptive, what do I do, you know, kind of thing. And even before my sleep got better, I was just feeling much more fluid. I was feeling more ease in my body because it was like, oh, I'm aligned with nature. And I'm a part of nature. So so much of that is, yeah, is like prescriptions.

and like when I'm working with patients too, it's we get very focused on the prescriptions. What do I need to do? And we try to do it as perfectly or not, you know, or maybe something doesn't resonate and I'm not going to take that and I'm not going to do that. But this is what I'm going to do. And get really focused on that.

Forgetting again, like connecting to the healing, actually. You're connecting to yourself. You know, why are you taking that supplement or that medication? It's like, oh, it's an act of love. It's like, you know, I'm taking care of myself. And so the more quickly we can connect to ourselves into something much larger than ourselves, the much faster actually healing goes. I mean, I don't like to prescribe supplements or medications, but they are wonderful.

They're easy to do, right? They're easy. And so it can be a real foot in the door. It can be, I would say it's much easier than doing the deeper healing work. Where does intuition fit into all of this? Intuition came to me. Well, it was a, the teacher came. I guess I was ready.

I didn't feel ready when she came. And who is she? But her name is Pia Aitken. She has since passed away. But she and her husband. husband Don were, they were friends. They were, Don and Pia had known my husband through a sustainability work, you know, renewable energy work. And they're a generation older, but they came to stay with us one weekend and we had just moved to a new house. And my younger daughter

was having night terrors ever since we moved. She was two at the time. And, but they came to stay. And, you know, long story short, Pia became aware that Sonia was having night terrors. And again, that was one of those that was one of those nebulous diagnoses or symptoms that I had taken her to a pediatrician. I had looked it up myself. And everyone just said it was a phase. It was just a phase. And so we were just kind of waiting it out, but it was really taking a toll on my sleep. Every night she would scream, you know, I wake up screaming. And we knew that Pia was clairvoyant. and she had these other gifts, but we had never experienced it directly. And so Pia kind of went into that intuitive space and said that Sonia was picking up on stuff

and that she was feeling this energy that she was making her really upset. And so, funnily enough, you know, total skeptic, but we were desperate, right? So desperation really opens doors, opens minds. And they went and got some sage, some smudge sticks, or, you know, basically dried sage. And she started doing this incense around the house. And, you know, my husband and I were both like, okay, whatever, you know, Pia's doing her thing, but we don't know what's going on. Now, Pia's husband was a leading climate scientist in the United States, top physicist. And so I was really curious to talk to him, like, what are you, what is going on?

How do you even make sense of this? And he began talking about the quantum realm, and he didn't really understand it, but she was somehow accessing things beyond Newtonian, sort of this, what you talked about earlier, form, right? This material world that we can see and feel and touch. Exactly. So, you know, it was more just trusting them as good human beings and friends.

But from that point on, like Sonia's night terrors totally went away. and we could chalk it up to coincidence, we could chalk it up to her adjusting to being in a new house. I mean, there were a whole bunch of things that we could chalk it up to, but we could not deny that it happened at that time. So what I had, before Pia left, she said,

I had said, you know, if you can do that, can you help me with my health? And she said, the way I can help you with your health is to teach you how to tap into your intuition and how to trust it. So that was my journey into it. And it began to just open up my experience of the laws of nature in a much more expansive way.

So even would you say that the desire, because intuition is one of those things that it's constantly there. It's just the question of, are we at a place where we can hear it? Are we in a place where we can hear it? Are we in a place where we can hear it, or is there a lot of layers that are on top of it? Looking back on your journey up until that point that Pia, Pia, was sharing this information with you and helping you really talk about some of these practical steps to incorporate intuition to your life, could you see little moments where intuition was speaking to you?

And you did actually, you did pick it up, right? What were some examples of those? I think, well, like one example I can give, that's much more clear cut that I didn't write about was actually about my mother. She had gone and seen a doctor and had, you know, on her blood tests, it was just screening labs, an inflammatory marker that was really high. And she had some chronic conditions. that were just assumed that that was why her marker was high.

But even those, I was looking at those labs, and I was like, but nothing's really changed, you know, they actually look great. You know, you're taking your meds, you're doing all the things that you need to do, you're walking, eating, blah, blah, blah, eating right. It doesn't quite make sense, but let me just sit with it. And so I sat with it. and what emerged in the intuitive informational realm was her teeth, her teeth. And I just asked her, I said, when was the last time you saw a dentist?

And she said, oh, I just saw one, you know, a couple of months ago. And I was like, okay, maybe it's not that, right? Because a lot of learning about intuition is, it's not about being right, it's about seeing what's true. and so the egoic mind has to get out of the way. It's not about me trying to be right. It's just being open. Like what am I, what do I need to see that I'm not seeing? And then she said, oh, but you know, it's really funny that you ask that because there's a tooth that he wants to take out.

And I really don't want to do that. And so I said, you know what? go and actually get it taken care of, you know, because we know, and I knew medically that, right, any kind of oral, like tooth or peridontal disease actually could correlate with systemic inflammation. And I said, go get it taken care of, and then we're going to repeat these tests. Don't start any of the meds that your doctor recommended. We'll just see. And sure enough, she did that, and the inflammatory market was completely normal, right? So that's a very clear-cut example of how we can use intuition and healing.

But I will say also, again, these were all just learning steps for me, was in the beginning when I was using intuition, it was very much like that. It was still dictated by, like, my egoic mind was the master. My analytical mind was the master. I was choosing how I wanted to use intuition, and I wanted intuition to serve a specific purpose. and as I deepened in my own healing journey and chigong, which we can talk about later, this moving meditation was a very big part of it.

I realized like, no, no, lead with intuition, lead with mystery, lead with being wide open to whatever possibility it is, which expands what is possible. because I was still looking within a very narrow, you know, framework of how I wanted to use it, what I wanted to emerge, and it's limiting. It's really limiting. So, and then, you know, and I write about it in my book, but Jonas Salk, right, one of the discoverers of the polio vaccine has that quote, right? Let intuition tell your thinking mind where to look next so that, You know, if I have a, my experience of it is like, okay, my thinking mind, I still fully employ that. Highly useful, highly trained, very specific in what I know.

But it's, you know, that sits in the passenger seat now. And it also gives my thinking mind a sense of play, a sense of like being on that world trip with not knowing. Like, where is my intuitive mind going to take me? Where are we going on this road? idea. So it's, you know, in the beginning it was kind of scary. It felt like total surrender. And now I'm at that place where it just feels fun. It's like we have no idea where we're going to go, whether it's with a patient that I'm going to see or whether it's in my life. But we're along for the ride and we're going to pay attention. We're going to use that

analytical mind in however it's useful. I had a second health, I call it a health awakening now, but a crisis, right, for a more commonly used term, just as my book was getting published. So not enough time had passed to get it into the book, but elements of it were incorporated. And during that time, I was kind of at the forefront of internal medicine, integrative, functional, and intuitive medicine,

and I still didn't know what to do. So the first crash, I knew there was a lot I didn't know, and I would say that's opening of the mind. The second one was really opening of the heart and the spirit. And I was back on the couch, back on the bed. And this time I would say that the near-death experience, or what I would call a near-death experience was I was really on the edge. I could kind of see almost, like, I don't know, the rough. of death, I don't even know what to call it, the soul realm for about three months. And so it was really like, whoa, I could see things about myself and attachments and identities

that I was holding on to that were not serving me. And just to put this in context for everybody who's following along with your journey, you got better, right? I'm just going to use it in the best terms possible, right? You got better. You incorporate a lot of different things, many of which you write about in the book, some which I'll highlight a little bit later on. And then even within that component, there was a reemergence of something later on,

even though you had gotten better. And that pushed you to even in another place to open up and see what was there for you in the second part of the hero's journey. Well, yeah, it was a second crash. It wasn't, I wasn't, I mean, if we're talking about it in terms of ascension or decention, It was, I was, I had crashed again. And, uh, but I could see, you know, I had much more awareness of myself and my body and just, you know, reaching, I was much more about reaching out to other people, uh, instead of, you know,

kind of wallowing in shame of, you know, what the hell happened. But, um, I could see all these, uh, transactional, uh, deals I was making with myself. Like, I will do, I will eat. I will practice. Chi-gong, I will do all these things, take my supplements, you know, be a good patient as long as I'm getting better, you know, which was kind of how I was relating to myself, right? I am worthy as long as I am a doctor who's on a healing path. And so here I was with like nothing. And I realized, no, you know what? Actually, the life that I want is the one that I have right now, as I am. Sensitive,

you know, introvert, like all these other pieces and completely messy. This is the life that I want. And what I, and then I went deep into my Qigong practice. I had nothing else to do, right? Deep into the Qigong practice, I did do medical things as well. I kind of went down this path of Lyme disease, tick-borne infections, all these rabbit holes that I was resisting. Like, I don't want to go down there.

Oh my God, mold. I don't want to go down there. it's so overwhelming and laborious, and I don't want to do that. As long as I'm getting better, I'm going to just stay this path, which works for a lot of people. But because I was there,

I went deep into my Qigong practice and then was open to these other explorations as well. But what I realized, and here's the big paradox, is that the less we focus on healing as a goal, the faster we actually heal. Because I wasn't connecting to myself as my whole self. I was connecting to healing as a goal.

And so, again, intuition, everything was for that goal. There was still a big part of myself I was missing. I couldn't see. And so it took, for me anyways, it took that second crisis. And I wouldn't wish that path on anybody else, which is why I was like, you know what, I can make this public. I didn't write to publish the book. I wrote as a healing for myself, for my first.

family. And I didn't publish actually to heal people, to offer it to other people. I was very clear, like, I'm publishing it to release the story. Like, I don't own that story. It's nobody's story. And then the story you read is going to be different than the one that somebody else's, somebody else reads, because it's you, right, interfacing with my story. And I'm just going to release that thing into the world so that it's not mine. and it never was. And so it is the human story, right? It's the human journey.

And as a side effect, it can benefit potentially other people. And that to me, I feel like, is a double blessing, right? So, but I couldn't see that until that second awakening. And so, and with Chi Gong, you know, a lot of it is, it's connect, it's understanding that We, everything around us is energy, right? The whole universe, E equals MC squared, right? All matter is a form of energy.

It's just condensed. And it's just about connecting to, I mean, we call it source energy, you know, without sounding, you know, spiritual or religious, but just connecting to life. And so at the foundation, the way to heal is to begin to live your life. is to stop focusing on healing. You know, again, sort of like the diagnoses, we need to do those things, right? They're frameworks, their offerings,

they're tangible things that we can do, but that is not the focus. So can we connect to that and then disconnect? And then focus on living our lives and focus on living our lives as who we truly are. You know, early on you talked to authenticity. I didn't actually know who I was. and the parts that I knew about myself, my sensitive nature being a big part of it, I didn't,

I didn't like that. It's hard. Like partly living your life is not resisting your life. Yes. Nobody ever wishes for pain, suffering, illness, or grief. What we've seen, not just from today's story, but many other stories that are out there is that sickness and, yes, even unfortunately death, can offer us a meaningful, insight into our own connection with ourselves, as well as our connection to something far bigger

than ourselves, like our belief in God, or our belief that just there's a higher power that's out there that we don't understand, but that we know that exists. I hope that the stories you heard today have provided you with a reminder or a renewed insight into how to think about our daily life and the finite world that we live in. One day, the truth is we will all no longer be here. Yes, we want to live a long and healthy life to the best degree we can, and that's what I wish for all of you. And we know that sickness, illness, and death are also part of the human experience. If you'd like to hear more from either of today's conversations, we have them linked in the show notes, both our conversations with Anita Morjani and Dr. Cynthia Lee. You can find

the full-length interviews again in the show notes. And if you know someone who might be thinking about today's topic or might enjoy some of the messages from today's guest, please consider sharing today's episode with them. Until next time, thanks for tuning in.