Realfoodology - Overcoming Cancer, Crohn's & Mold Toxicity with Holistic Healing | Dr. Jill Carnahan

Episode Date: June 21, 2023

151: Have you ever wondered how your personality traits and sensitivities could impact your health? Join me as we dive into an enlightening conversation with Dr. Jill Carnahan, a functional medicine expert and MD who focuses on finding the root cause of health issues. Together, we explore her experiences with breast cancer, Crohn's disease, and mold toxicity, and discuss the power of diet, lifestyle changes, and a functional, holistic approach to managing health. Books Mentioned: The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking Topics Discussed: 0:07:01 - Functional Medicine and Education 0:19:30 - Surviving Against the Odds 0:23:20 - Religion and Personal Baggage 0:41:17 - Sensitivity and Overload 0:44:54 - Friendship, Self-Care, and Psychic Potential 0:48:35 - Codependency and Breast Cancer Correlation 0:55:07 - Deep Healing and Toxins 0:58:19 - Self-Compassion and Intuition for Healing Sponsored By: Honed Supplements livehoned.com  Use code REALFOODOLOGY for 15% off Seed's DS-01® Daily Synbiotic seed.com/realfoodology Use code REALFOODOLOGY for 30% off your first month's supply of Seed's DS-01® Daily Synbiotic Cured Nutrition www.curednutrition.com/realfoodology REALFOODOLOGY gets you 20% off Organifi www.organifi.com/realfoodology Code REALFOODOLOGY gets you 20% Off Check Out Dr. Jill: https://www.jillcarnahan.com/ Buy her book Check Out Courtney: Courtney's Instagram: @realfoodology www.realfoodology.com My Immune Supplement by 2x4 Air Dr Air Purifier AquaTru Water Filter EWG Tap Water Database

On today's episode of The Real Foodology Podcast. What we see now, we have epidemic portions of depression, of anxiety, of mental illness, and physical illness, and it's so devastating. But part of it is because a lot of people have lost a sense of anchor, but that anchor can be so powerful in times of turbulence because we know why we're here, we know what our purpose is. And for me, it's like, I know now, I've been through a lot and I wasn't always this way, but now that I've been through cancer and Crohn's and mold-related illness and tragic divorce and all these things, I know there's nothing that can come my way, even death, that I can't handle. And that's a powerful place to be.

Hi friends, welcome back to another episode of The Real Foodology Podcast. As always, I'm your host, Courtney Swan, and I am so grateful that you are here today. Today's episode was a really special one for me. I talk to a lot of people. I talk to a lot of different experts in the nutrition field, and we dive a lot into science and biochemistry, and we talk a lot about the body. And this one was way more spiritual. And I love when this happens. I always come into my conversations with an open mind and open heart. And I always come in with notes and a general direction that I think that the conversation is going to go. And sometimes it does go that way. And other times, just like in life, we can make plans and then life has other

plans for us. And this conversation really had other plans for us and went in a totally different direction than I initially had expected, but it was so beautiful and exactly the way the conversation was meant to go. And it was very, very resonant for me. And I hope that it's very resonant for you as the listener. I sat down with Dr. Jill Carnahan. She is a functional medicine doctor, but she's also an MD. So she has that allopathic conventional medical training, but she approaches her patients from a functional lens, meaning that she practices preventative care. She practices a mix of allopathic conventional medicine, but also the holistic side of things. So she really tries to get to the root cause of things first and tries to treat things with diet, lifestyle, other interventions and changes before having to go down the medicine or like surgery route. And this is really a practice that I

personally believe in. I think it's the safest and in my opinion, best way to approach patient care. Because many times when we make lifestyle and diet changes first, we can often reverse whatever it is, whatever illness or whatever thing that we're dealing with. And obviously, if we can't with those interventions, then of course, we have things like surgery and medicine and thank God we have them, right? But if we can avoid those more intense interventions and do something that's a little bit easier and less hard on the body, then why would we not try that first? So this is what she practices. And we talk a little bit about this in the beginning, and she shares with us her diagnosis of breast cancer at a very, very young age. You're going

to be shocked by this. And also her mold toxicity, as well as dealing with Crohn's and really what she did to deal with all of this, what really has helped her throughout the years to maintain not only a positive attitude, but also what has really helped her get through these pretty intense disease diagnosis disease. And what we talked about the most that was really resonant for me was this concept of HSPs, or also known as highly sensitive people, and empaths, and what the difference is between the two, how there's a bit of an overlap, how you can tell if you're one as well. And I shared my experience as being an empath and a slight HSP. So I really loved this conversation and I really, really hope that it resonates with you. And if you guys loved it, if you could take a moment to leave a

rating and review on the podcast, it would be so amazing to me. It really helps the show. And also, please don't forget to reach out to me on Instagram and let me know. My Instagram is at realfoodology. Please send me a little DM. Let me know if it resonated with you. And I really hope that you guys love the episode. Did you know that blindly taking supplements can end up doing more harm than good? You need to understand what's going on in your body first before you start supplementing. I'm a huge proponent for mineral and vitamin testing so that you know exactly what's going on in your body, what mineral and vitamin deficiencies you have. And then from there, you can decide what vitamins and minerals your body actually needs. I love honed vitamins. They use hair tissue mineral analysis, which is a foundational tool

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I've seen. If you want to hear more about it, I had the founder on the podcast, Joe Sheehy. He's amazing. He's a good friend of mine. I can't speak highly enough. If you want to try these products or any of the other cured products, go to curednutrition.com slash realfoodology and use code realfoodology, and you're going to save 20%. That is cured, C-U-R-E-D, nutrition.com slash realfoodology. Dr. Jill, I'm so excited to have you on today. We have so much ground to cover. First of all, for people listening, if you could just give them a little bit about your background, what kind of doctor you are, and then we'll start from there. Sure, Courtney, excited to be here. I am a functional medicine expert. I'm a medical doctor, an MD, but I practice functional medicine, trying to find the root cause and not just

treating symptoms with drugs and surgery, although there's a place and those are perfectly appropriate. It's just that our toolbox is a lot bigger. I moved to Colorado. I'm near Boulder, a lovely place to be in the mountains in 2010. And I've had a functional medicine consulting practice ever since then here. But I actually love to teach and write and do podcasts and all these other things as well, just because I feel like the more we educate the physicians and train the trainers, teach the teachers, influence the influencers, the more we can really get a... I can only see so many patients, right? So I'm really passionate about educating other doctors and patients and getting the information out there because nowadays the information is power, right? Yeah. And this is what I love so much about you is that you're not only an MD,

but you also practice functional medicine. And I think this is literally, in my eyes, the perfect combination because you have that allopathic traditional conventional training, but then you also go above and beyond and you treat people from a functional lens of where it's more about prevention. And like you said, it's not meaning that we're not ever going to treat with drugs or anything like that, but it's like looking at the lifestyle first, looking at the preventions that we can do, looking to see what we can fix by getting to the root cause. And then from there, if you're not able to fix that, then that's when we do other interventions. Yeah, I would say the most gentle approach, right? And so often in medical training,

we're taught to get an ICD-10 code, which gives a diagnostic category. It's a label, right? And so often in medical training, we're taught to get an ICD-10 code, which gives a diagnostic category. It's a label, right? And it does frame where the patient is in their journey and kind of gives them a picture of like, what's the description of what you have, but it doesn't go the next step, which is to say, well, why did you get here? How did you get here? And tracing that path back, because often when we trace that path back from the journey, we can find things, triggers, mediators, antecedents that change that trajectory into one of wellness to disease. And if we go back and reverse those things, we can see things like autoimmunity become completely reversible. I mean, it's incredible. And if you can avoid the really, the more intense interventions,

like the surgery, like the drugs that have side effects, then it's incredible. Obviously, we have them for a reason and we're so grateful that we do have those interventions. But if you can avoid those, it's incredible. Yeah, there's other options. So what inspired you to get into medicine? I know you have a history of cancer, which I would love to go into with you, and also mold toxicity. Is this kind of what inspired you to go into the field of medicine or did this happen after you were already practicing? This happened after. So I was born on a farm in the middle of central Illinois, one of five children, this idyllic,

wonderful childhood, lots of outside time and very strong, hardworking German Swiss roots and some beautiful things. But what I didn't realize was unbeknownst to me, there was toxicity lurking. And I later learned when I got breast cancer at 25 in medical school. So I basically started pursuing my path to become a physician. And it was a very untraditional path in the sense of I knew I wanted to help people. I knew I wanted to learn and I love to learn and read and study. And so like the study of the biochemistry, that stuff fascinated me. So the learning was no problem. And I knew that I wanted to help people. And I literally looked at naturopathic school chiropractic school physical therapy school massage like all these other things

and then I started applying to regular allopathic medical schools because I well why not just check this out I started getting accepted and that was literally my first thought of well maybe I can be a doctor because my mind hadn't really thought of it as far as I knew I wanted to do a more holistic approach like even from the farm we had a half-acre garden and my mom was a retired nurse, so we grew our own fruits and vegetables. Granted, we went to doctors, we were normal kids, but first, before we go to the doctor, mom would try, maybe she has some chicken soup or she'd always try these things. And sometimes she'd help us without even taking us to the doctor. So there's this idea that number one, food matter. Number two, some of my primary doctors were chiropractors

and massage therapists. And my mom saw kind of alternative in the day practitioners, and it was very normal to see a chiropractor or to see a naturopath. So those things were all normalized. And I knew there was more to healing, like food and environment and all that. And so when I kind of went into that medical route, I was like, oh, I don't know if this fits with my philosophy but then my thought was first of all oh gosh if I can get accepted to medical school maybe I should be a doctor maybe I could be a doctor I'm one of the first man or woman in my entire family that's ever gone into medicine so it's farmers and nurses and like you know not medicine at all um I guess the nursing but all I have to say that I had this kind of aha as I'm applying to medical school it's like well why well, why not go in, really learn the system? Because right now, at least

20 years ago, it's the most reimbursable system in the US. And it's the most well-recognized, even if it's not the best, there's a lot of things that are wrong with it. And with that system, why not learn the system and learn how to work in a system, but start to be the person that's the change in the system? I always say I kind of infiltrated in medical school and I took all the good. And then I said, okay, what can we do to be different and change? And even in medical school, I was the crazy one that was bringing integrative practitioners into the students. I had a group, a club, we called it, where we bring massage dippers and chiropractors and acupuncturists and all these different practitioners so that the student body would be exposed to other ways of thinking. So way back then I was causing trouble and, um, kind of continue.

I mean, that's incredible. You know, and like I said in the beginning, I think it's so cool that you have that lens and then you were able to go through that traditional conventional allopathic route and then also bring in this more integrative holistic because I think that in my mind having that full spectrum is how we help people the most you know because we do need we need both you know I don't think that going down either route like I don't think going super holistic is helpful for people and I don't think going down just the conventional allopathic where we just throw meds at everything is a solution either and this is a great way to meet in the middle and you can be inspiring your

colleagues and getting them more into holistic stuff. And then also maybe some of your patients that were not super aware of like a more holistic approach. I think it's the best way to go about it. That's incredible. Some of you are suffering, whether it's patients or even so on the clinician side, the physician side, like my colleagues, they're burned out. One in four, literally this last year after the pandemic, the statistic was one in four is either clinically depressed or burned out. And they said in 2024, maybe up to 20 to 25% of physicians are retiring and partially because of burnout. So this field is full of burned out physician. It's not because they don't love medicine or love helping the patient. It's because behind me, you don't see it. I have charts and charts and charts with prior authorizations and paperwork and bureaucracy

and things that don't really help the patient. So the physician all of a sudden is this scribe writing notes and writing things to satisfy the insurance company. That's not why we went into medicine. We're healers. So it's no wonder they're depressed. So the practice of medicine has gotten so cumbersome. And then on the patient side, the patients are there.

They go into their doctor. They know they don't feel well, right? And they walk in like, doc, I'm not well. I've been exhausted. I can't get out of bed. My hormones are a mess, whatever things they're saying. And the doctor gets a basic panel labs and looks at them and says, you know what? Everything looks fine.

Do you want an antidepressant? And nothing wrong with antidepressants, but this is not a depression issue in most of the time. And even when it is a depression issue, we know inflammatory issues, gut issues, or so many other things that are driving mood issues. So most doctors just, they're not that they're not trying or not wanting to help the patient. They don't have the tools or the information. So then on that side, I'm really passionate about helping docs to see there can be a way to practice medicine that's fun and that's invigorating that it goes back to why we went into medicine in the first place. Yeah. I mean, you brought up a great point.

I've heard this a lot recently that a lot of doctors practicing more allopathically just feel like they're not actually helping their patients and they don't feel like they really know how to because they've only been taught to treat the symptom and not to actually get to the root cause. So they just know like the drugs to prescribe and how to treat it from that angle. And this is not at all to like talk badly about doctors. I mean, I think they all got in the field because they genuinely want to help people, but it's this way that we have conventionally been treating patients. They can only go so far. And so they're seeing all their patients suffer. And we're seeing, I mean, we're seeing chronic disease go up like crazy right now.

And it's like they're not being taught the tools to actually help their patients. And so they feel like they can't help them. Massive numbers of patients or doctors that are going back to things like IFM or ICI or all the groups that teach the functional and integrative components because they are starting to, I remember back in the day, all my colleagues in medical school thought Jill was a little out there, right? I was a little crazy. And then in the years since, so many of them school thought Jill was a little out there, right? I was a little crazy. And then in the years since, so many of them have called me and been like, Jill, my husband has this thing and no one's been able to help him.

Do you have any answers? Or my daughter has Crohn's and could you? And so it's really rewarding. Not that anyone ever has to suffer, but you can see when you're in medicine, you hit a wall at some point. And it's usually with yourself or a colleague or a loved one that you can't help. And those are the stories over and over and over again of somebody who goes into integrative functional medicine from an allopathic career. It's usually some wall they've hit where they're like, wait, conventional medicine isn't helping this. What else is there? And then the eyes are opened to the other approaches of root cause medicine. Yeah. Well, and speaking of root cause medicine, I know it was a long time

ago, but when you were diagnosed with breast cancer, did you ever get an understanding of maybe what caused it? And did you treat this from a functional, or not preventative lens, but from a more functional, holistic approach? Yeah. So my story, basically, I'm in third year medical school in the midst of rotations, insanity, crazy schedule, intense stress. And that goes back to something we'll definitely have to talk about, which is highly sensitive persons, right? We'll come back to that. Because part of my story of cancer is this, I was this highly sensitive person, totally suppressing my needs for rest and sleep and food and bathroom and basic, basic core stuff. And you learn in medicine, our culture of medicine

is don't complain come to work unless you're dead like there's no room for any um even kindness to yourself and for sure not just basic needs like food and water and using the restroom and sleep those things are like you know get by with the least amount so you're trained to basically suppress all of your needs which isn't really healthy um and so it's no wonder we have physicians coming out that are not super healthy because they don't know how to take care of themselves. All that to say, third year medical school, I found a lump in my breast. I was 24, just had turned 25. And like literally days after finding the lump, wasn't concerned at all. But at the insistence, of course, of everybody around me, I went ahead and had a biopsy and mammogram

and all this stuff. Bottom line, two weeks later, I get a call from the surgeon and said, Jill, I don't know how to tell you, you have aggressive breast cancer. And my world changed. And it was interesting because here I am literally at Loyola where I went to medical school. I was the youngest one ever diagnosed. Sadly, in the last 20 years, there's been more people under 25 diagnosed since then. Sadly, very many. But at the time, I was the youngest one. So it was very unusual, very aggressive. And at 25, it's a whole different disease than 55, 65. It's way, way more life-threatening and fatal. So I was up against a battle in my life and I decided what to do. I ended up choosing three drug chemotherapy, about as high a dose as I could have that totally destroyed my gut and my immune system and many other things. Did radiation, did multiple surgeries.

And I got through about nine months later, considered in remission. So I remember this is for listeners or anyone out there. Yeah, I think it's so important. I remember really clearly in that time, I didn't know what the right decision was. And many people facing these kinds of decisions, like, what do I do? I did the best I could with the information I had. And I remember telling myself, I will never, ever, no matter what happens because of this treatment, go back and say, what if, what if I had done something different? So that's helped me a lot because there's not one regret. And that chemo did a lot of damage to my system, but it also saved my life. So I did all the conventional high dose toxic therapies. But again, here I am 20 years later, I'm alive. And that there was a group of young women under 40.

I'm the only one who's still living. So that's a pretty big testimony to the fact that I did survive. But then I've spent the last decades really restoring my gut and my immune system and all the damage that that toxic therapy did. No regrets, but it's been quite a battle since then to really recover. But I also did nutritional therapy.

I saw a natural bath, prayer meditation. I had family and friends. I had lots of other more integrative, holistic things at the same time. That's incredible. And so what do you think outside of the obvious, which was the medicine, what do you think really, really helped you through that as well? And has prolonged your life? Because like you said, you're the only one surviving from that group. What do you think has made the most impact? Yeah. Well, it's interesting. It's one of the reasons I call my book, Unexpected Finding Resilience Through Functional Medicine, Science and Faith,

because I wanted to take these two things that people think that can't go together and say, what if we put these together? And to me, it's like, you can talk about science and faith and I'll kind of define what that means in a second. You can talk about right brain, left brain. You can talk about the masculine energies and the feminine energies that we all have. All these things, we need both. And the perfect balance of humanity is staying in that place where we embrace right brain, left brain, faith and science and all these things. For me, I do have a strong belief in a higher power, but you don't have to because faith can also be just that belief that something else is possible.

So for wherever you're standing, wherever you come from, again, I have a very strong belief that it doesn't have to be yours but what it does we've seen even with centenarians in the the blue zones data from Dan Buechner that having a belief in something greater than yourself is absolutely connected to longevity and to overcoming illness and so when you ask what is it it wasn't the chemo it wasn't the drugs it wasn't the surgery it was number one this mental fortitude we see this in like holocaust survivors Viktor Frankl, this thing inside me that's like, I am going to live. I know, I just like, I have a knowing so deep inside me that no one could dissuade me that I'm going to live, I'm going to overcome. That's number one. Number two is a faith

and belief that everything, suffering, difficulty, illness, all has some pearl of meaning and purpose inside. If you look, it doesn't mean it's fun. It doesn't mean I wish it on anyone or even want to go through it myself, but in the midst of the suffering, there's always lessons. There's always things that actually transform us if we allow it. And when we look at those things and we shift our thinking instead of the suffering, or we look for someone who's suffering more than us and try to help them instead of focus on ourselves, those are the kind of shifts that I think allow transformation and I think are part of survival. God, that was so beautiful what you just said. And I think this conversation right now is really important to be had because there seems to be this rejection of faith and of believing in

a higher power and believing in something. It's almost like, well, there's this huge rejection of saying God or saying that you believe in some sort of religion. And I've actually had a lot of conversations about this with a girlfriend who for the longest time was like, I won't say God, I'm going to say universe or higher power or whatever. And then she realized, she was like, I just made my peace with it. And like, I like using the word God, but also she's very careful

about how she talks about it with her audience where she's like, I use the word God, but just because I believe this one thing doesn't mean that you have to believe the exact same thing. And it doesn't have to be a trigger for us, right? Like, and that's exactly what you said, where it's like, for example, for me, I believe in a higher power as well. I believe that everything's happening for the betterment of

us and that the universe has our back. I use the word universe a lot. And so it doesn't necessarily have to be this super religious thing where you have to attach it to certain, like a God or whatever it is. It can be something as simple, like you said, is just having faith that things are all working for the betterment of us and having faith maybe in something outside of us. But we can all define it for ourselves. And just because I believe this one thing and just because you believe this one thing

does not mean that we're telling everyone has to believe the same thing. Just find something that you really believe in and let that be your anchor in life. I love that. And I also love that science actually supports the belief in something greater than ourselves is better linked to longevity. So it's even like scientifically backed and the science doesn't have to define, like you said, because what you said, I think is so real. People have their own baggage. We all do, right? And we all have baggage around

religion, especially. In fact, I don't think- It's a big one me too and i have my own baggage with it too yeah and so like words can be triggers it's funny because one of the things i wrote in my book and i got so much flack on both sides for this is my one of the the names i refer to this uh higher power is the divine creative some people call creator creative whatever but to me it's like this force that actually got allows me to be my most creative and most um brilliant self in the world. And brilliant, I don't mean like to stoke my ego. I mean, like brilliance is associated with creativity and curiosity. And so I like to, just like any of us who are trying to attach to identity, like I want to be that person.

I want to become that person. And by, again, the divine creative is a way that I love to talk about it. Because to me, that just like my heart just feels so full of like, oh, this ultimate source of creativity. And again, for me, it's a higher power, but for, you know, depending on who you are. And Julia Cameron wrote about this. I mean, she's one of those famous persons who's written all about writing.

She has 50 best-selling books. The Artist's Way is one of them. And she talks about this connection to a higher power is one of the most important assets to a great writer. Wow, that's cool. I think, and the fact that there's actual real data and science behind this, I mean, I remember when I was in school, we looked at a couple studies, just the power of the mind and your mindset alone and believing in something outside of yourself can literally change your diagnosis for, for example, cancer. I mean, you said that you very much relate to this. And I mean, this is really what, this really blew my mind because I grew up in a super religious home. I was pretty,

I really rejected it just because I felt like it was forced on me and I didn't have a choice. But as a result, as an adult, so I have a certain rejection of like religion, but then at the same time, it made enough of an impact on me that I do believe in a greater power outside of myself. And then when I was in school and we were looking at these studies and we were shown like various studies that basically had the same outcome of like people that had, you know, a pretty serious diagnosis, like a cancer or whatever it was, the ones that had some sort of faith. And again, it wasn't like in this one religion or in this one God, it was just like faith in general. They had higher outcomes of having positive results and living longer lives and overcoming these diseases.

And that really made a huge impact on me, made me realize just how important it is. And again, like I really, really wanna stress this because I know that this is super triggering for people. I'm like, I'm a full supporter of just everyone finding what works best for people. I'm a full supporter of just everyone finding what works best for them. So whatever it is that you believe in, whatever religion you practice, whatever you believe in, whoever creator is or whatever it is, I'm

such a huge supporter of it. I just think it's so important to have this conversation because I do find that there has been this kind of rejection in general of all of this. And I think we're doing ourselves as a society and as humans, a huge disservice. Yeah. And you think of like a ship with an anchor and anchor is like to pull down to the source of solid base of the ocean to make when the waves come and all this stuff happens, the ship's like anchored there and there's only a certain splay of where it can go back and forth. And this is what we're talking about here is you see all the, I think now more than ever, there's things that create stress according to the research from Hans Selye years ago, or this acronym called NUTS, novelty, newness, something we've never

experienced before, unpredictability, we don't know what to expect, threat to ego or threat to health, which again, think post-pandemic and sense of control. Like right now, novelty, unpredictability, threat to ego, sense of control, all of these in most of our lives we're experiencing. So that means this science is showing those are the things that create stress. So guess what? We all have stress. We all have higher stress than we've ever had. We have more uncertainty than we've ever had. We have more novelty than we've ever had. We have more threats to our health than we've ever had. So if you're the ship in the storm and you have all the nuts criteria for high cortisol and stress, and you don't have some, and again, we're saying you can pick whatever anchor you want, right? I know what mine is. You know what yours is, whatever you're listening out there, you pick your anchor. But if you don't have

an anchor, you're going to be displayed about no sense of solidity. And for me, there's this, and even just purpose in me, like, why are you here in this world? For me, it's to inspire others and to show unconditional love in everything I do in the best of my ability. And I know so deeply that purpose that no matter what comes, what happens in my world, I just go back to, okay, this is hard, but how do I just show love and how do I inspire others? And it's so easy when you know your purpose and that's your anchor. And so often what we see now, we have epidemic portions of depression, of anxiety, of mental illness and physical illness. And it's so devastating.

But part of it is because a lot of people have lost a sense of anchor and whatever that means. I like to say, because that's a very neutral term, right? But that anchor can be so powerful in times of turbulence because we know why we're here. We know what our purpose is. And for me, it's like, I know now I've been through a lot and I wasn't always this way, but now that I've been through cancer and Crohn's and mold-related illness and magic divorce and all these things, I know there's nothing that can come my way, even death, that I can't handle. And that's a powerful place to be.

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of my favorite products in that store and you're also going to get 20% off. That's O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I.com slash realfoodology. Did you know that you may not be getting all the beneficial probiotic bacteria from some of your favorite fermented foods? For example, kombucha, kimchi, sauerkraut. Unfortunately, a lot of these probiotics and the good bacteria in these foods don't always survive the trip to your gut. This is why in addition to eating those very healthy and nutritious foods, I also like to take a probiotic like seed. And the reason I really like seed is because unfortunately not all probiotics are created equal. A lot of probiotics on the shelf also do not actually

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So if you guys want to try seed probiotics today, please go to seed.com slash real foodology and use code real foodology to redeem 30% off your first month of seeds. DSN01 daily symbiotic. Again, that's seed, S-E-E-D.com slash real foodology and make sure to use code real foodology. Yeah, that's a really powerful place to be. And I think quite literally with an anchor, you're anchored down and you think about, if you're in a ship, like waves come, stressors come, they're gonna rock your boat, but you're not gonna go get lost at sea. But without that anchor, you're gonna get lost at sea

and the waves are gonna take you out. So it is, and there's no denying, I think everyone listening can relate to this, that life is beautiful, amazing, magical. It's also really hard. It's really hard. We deal with deaths and heartbreak and illnesses and stressors and so much unknown that we all, you know, need to find something to hold on to or else we're going to get lost at sea, you know? Yeah. And I think it's really important to find something to hold on to or else we're going to get lost at sea. Right. You know? Yeah. Yeah.

And I think it's really important to find that. That's so cool. I love, and I love that you have that, you've made that connection between the science and the faith and it's that kind of meeting in the middle because a lot of people really need that tangible. I think that's where a lot of people struggle too. Obviously, we can't, there's no way to ever have scientific evidence for every single thing in the world because there's just too much going on that we can't explain and we'll never have full data for. But it is cool that we do have enough data to know that there is a backing to this, right? And that there is true evidence that this helps people and it works.

Okay, so you mentioned, okay, so I told you before we recorded that I really want to talk about this and I want to know your correlation with your diagnosis and this, the concept of ESP or sorry, HSP. I don't know why I said ESP. HSP, which is a highly sensitive person and an empath. So I have always identified myself as, well, really honestly as both, but maybe not fully understanding what they are because I kind of thought they were the same. So if you want to explain what a highly sensitive person is, what an empath is, and then we can talk about the differences. Sure. And you're right. There's similarities. I remember it was in my 30s that I finally read, Elaine Aron was the book that I read because it's called The Highly Sensitive Person.

And there's another one by Susan Cain called Quiet, The Power of an Introvert in a World That Can't Stop Talking. And it's funny because I've always identified, I love people. I love to talk. I love to communicate. I love to speak, all these things. But then I kind of need to recharge alone and I get overwhelmed easily with lights and sounds and people and too much small talk. And I love going deep with one person like you and me here. I could talk all day or carp you know, carpets up with a dear friend, but like, if it's just a mixture of people I don't know and I have to make small talk, that's like super stressful for me. And that's classic with an empath or an HSP.

So for me, when I read this book, both quiet and the HSP person from Elaine Aaron, it was a massive aha. I literally cried because like, Oh, I'm not a freak, right? I'm not an alien. Like before that, because our world is so dominated by extroverts and non-empaths and the narcissist and these kinds of people, I think there was this piece of me that was like, I am so weird. And inside, I felt this hidden shame about like, okay, what's wrong with me? Because I love people, but I would need to

retreat to recharge and I would need to kind of, and that's classic introvert, right? So I have this extroversion, but I'm introverted. And what does that mean? And then say, like, I always say the example of an amusement park is it's hot, it's sticky, there's horrible foods, sticky sights, sounds, noises, rides, movement. And that is like my worst nightmare because it would like give me a headache and overwhelm my senses within an hour. So that is not my fun place. My fun place is a library or a coffee shop. And it's like me in the corner, like watching people. I love to, you know, be in the midst of the energy, but like not in the midst of the energy. And when I realized HSP, so HSP, what it

is, it's a nervous system trait. It's about 10 to 15% of the population. And the nervous system trait is related to how we experience the world and how we cite, sound, smell, taste, take in inputs in the world. So basically, the HSP person is going to, at the same number of pieces of information, they take in hundreds of times more units of data. So it's no wonder their sensitive immune system is overwhelmed by too much heat, too much sight, too much sound, too much noise. Even for the radio, some of the people will be like, why are you keep turning the radio? The sound, even if the song changes will matter so much that if I don't change it just slightly, it'll be too loud for my ears, or then I can't hear it. So like, I just noticed those things. Now the curse of this is in this world of crazy toxic chemical sites, sounds, exhaust, airports, travel, you know, hotels with

mold and all these things, I get affected by everything. And I can go on a trip and get totally taken out because it's too much mold in the hotel room, too much, you name it, chemicals, whatever. And Elaine Aaron talks about the sight, the sound, the conversation, the noise, the light, all these things. But she doesn't talk about how like chemical toxicity and mold affect these people, but it's very similar. And I take that to the next level and say, these are the people I see in my clinic that are having multiple chemical sensitivities

and reactions to the environment. And that might be your difference between the empath because the HSP is literally all nervous system inputs are more expansive and taking it at a greater level. So it overwhelms the system. And the downside of that is you're usually sensitive to chemicals, sensitive to too much parties. You'd have to leave early, those kinds of things.

But on the upside of it is you're taking in so much more data and detail than the average person. You're a good problem solver. You're a good mystery solver. You're a good detective. You're a good friend. You're a good empath. And the empath quality. So if I had to look at it as a picture, the empath bubble is within the HSP bubble. And it's a piece of that in the emotional realm of someone who, so the empath piece is someone who literally feels others' emotions deeply and energetically in communication with another human being or an animal or even a plant. They have this depth of comprehension and understanding that they literally can feel what you're feeling and notice what you're noticing. The HSP is that plus the sight and sound and noise and color and everything about the world can be too much, even chemicals, whereas an empath may not have chemical sensitivity,

but an HSP would. Okay, that's fascinating. I've never heard that before. I will say I had a similar experience as you when I, it was probably in my early 30s I read an article about a highly sensitive person and I was like I just remember being so relieved I was like oh my god this is me right because I you know I had this narrative we all have these stories we tell ourselves right and this one of the stories that I was telling myself for the majority of my life until that point was something's wrong with me what is wrong wrong with me? Because I, yeah, because I was so sensitive. Like I'm just so, I am so sensitive to other people's feelings. And I, I mean, I, I describe myself often as a sponge and granted ever since that I read that article

and then I started inquiring about it too with friends that also know about it. I also started talking about it a lot with my therapist and started creating like coming up with tools and also like just awareness and understanding around like what is other people's is sometimes not always mine. But I remember before that, like I was such a sponge for other people's emotions. I mean, I can in an instant, I can tell you the second someone's mood changes without before they even change anything on their face. Like I just feel energies so intensely. And when I was younger, I often would think like, oh my God, I did something wrong. What did I do? Why did I make them mad? Or like, how did I make them mad? And I was always thinking that it was something I did. And now as an adult, thank God, I'm like, okay, their mood shifted 99% of the time. It has nothing

to do with me. But it's funny, like my boyfriend and I laugh about this all the time because he's like, sometimes all, you know, well, I always pick up on his stuff. And sometimes he's like, you're just picking up on my stuff right now. Like you're good. Yeah. And I'm like, oh, but I'm just, I'm so sensitive to it. It's literally like a changing of like a wind. I'm like, whoop. Okay. You know, motion is changing here. And I've always said oh, but I'm just, I'm so sensitive to it. It's literally like a changing of like a wind. I'm like, whoop, okay, you know, motion is changing here. And I've always said that it's a superpower and it's a blessing and a curse because I can really, really tune into people.

But then also sometimes like I take it on as my own. And then two, the HSP component of it, I've never been super sensitive to like chemicals and smells and stuff like that. But I've also, I've been very, very sensitive to sounds and colors and like lights my whole life. So I think I have like maybe like an, a little element of it, but mine's not so intensely that like I get affected by like chemicals and. Yeah. And there's grades for sure. Cause even me, I'm way less chemical sensitive than it used to be. And I think, and it's interesting cause like you talked

about that. Okay. I'm not, I'm'm not abnormal that i think is such a relevance to not only you and i but everybody listening because we all have these little quirks we're like okay if anyone knew what this about me they would think i was really weird or i don't fit in or whatever and i remember thinking like at these big events i would go speak and then like feel like okay you speak and then do this event and then go to dinner and it'd be like 12 hours of interaction with people and i'd be like oh no room service i'm going back to my room. I need to kind of go and do that little pull inward and recharge. And then I could go back out. And I always like, why can't I keep up with everybody? And it was not that I couldn't have the energy. It's this

HSPP thing because I was getting so many inputs and information. It was just overwhelming to my system. Yeah, we get overwhelmed. We get overloaded. I've always joked, because I'm actually, I'm a very, I can be a very extroverted social person. And so I've always joked that I'm an extroverted introvert. Because when I'm extroverted, I am on. And like, you would never know. And then I get to these points of introversion where people are like, oh my God, you're like a totally different person. Because I'm like, no one talked to me. I need to be alone.

I need to recharge. Like I can't do anything until I like take care of myself. But when I was younger, I wasn't super aware of that. And I mean, I have gone in and out the last like five to seven years of like pretty extreme burnout because I got to this place where I realized that similar to what you said earlier, where I was not taking care of myself at all. Cause I'm so sensitive to everyone else that like I had this mentality my whole life growing up that I was like, okay, I've got me, I'm good. Let me make sure that everyone else around me is good. So I'm going to bend over backwards, make sure that you know, this person's taking care of and I'm going to do this, that and that and that. And then I had to really sit with myself and realize like, okay, I'm so concerned about everyone else that even though I tell myself like, I'm okay,

I'm good, I can like handle this, I'm completely not taking care of myself at all. So true. And so common for the empath and for the HSP, very, very common. Yeah. And so I think it was very relieving for me to understand that this is actually like a real thing. I don't know, just that other people also have this too, because I was like, what is wrong with me? Not to mention like once I really started to understand more about it, it helped me and understand how I could take care of myself and protect myself and my energy better too. And also not feel so bad about it because knowing that like, if I was taking care of myself,

it only allows me to show up as a better version of myself so then i can do my life's purpose and my work coming from a more healed and full place that's the core and that's for me too like i go now to the hotels or do my thing or do my speaking and i just know i go back to the hotel room take it up some salt bath sometimes i order room service and i don't ever apologize anymore or be like, oh, I'm such a weirdo. I'm like, no, no, this is what I need to perform. And I love this phrase. I think you'll love it too. Because I pack what I need. I pack a lot of stuff.

And I always say, it's okay to be high maintenance if you're high performance. And so for me, it's like, how do I perform well and take care of myself? And that's kind of what we're talking about, right? It's okay to take those things, whether it's an Epsom salt bath or time alone or time to walk with your puppy or whatever it is that you can recharge and not apologize for that need to recharge anymore. And that's where you and I both are finally at that place. Yes. It's really freeing. It's also just like, yeah, we already have so much to worry about and stress about that, like knowing that I need to take care of myself first. And also, I mean, I've got, God, I really,

I learned a lot of lessons in all of this, but also learning that like the people that can't like support me in needing to take care of myself first, realizing that like those friendships were pretty one-sided, you know? And so also just like being strong enough and like knowing enough of myself that there's certain things that I need to do so that I don't continue down this path of being burnt out and fatigued and like maybe

getting sick down the line. And the people that will support you and are okay with that are the real true friends. And the ones that don't, they probably weren't great friends in the first place, you know? So the true ones will understand. Absolutely. So you said that there was kind of like a connection between, do you think your cancer and the ESP? Or, oh my God, I don't know why I keep saying, I don't know where I'm going. Well, there's actually a connection there too because we're so in tune. We often do have more psychic potential. So it's kind of interesting that goes on. I know.

It's like my brain literally wants to keep saying that and I don't know why. So maybe it needs to come out. So the connection for me would be, I grew up in this kind of stoic German Swiss family. Don't show pain, don't complain, don't show anger, you know, certain like suppression of certain unhealthy emotions. And then also just work hard, you know, don't complain. And then medical school just reinforced that because it was basically, unless you were dead, you show up to work, even if you're sick or running a fever i mean after my therapy for cancer i got through remission went back to work and i was running cyclical fevers before i knew i had crohn's disease up to 102 and i kept working i didn't tell anybody so i was very sick and continued to work just because

you don't complain and so that connects to the hsp in the sense of like i didn't know that i could acknowledge my sensitivity as a superpower and as something that was okay. I thought it was so shameful. It was like a secret, because weak was a dirty word in our family. So as a farm family growing up, you're strong, you're robust, you work hard. And so if I felt like I needed to rest or was weak, I mean, I remember the days I love to read, right? And on the farm, there's always work to do. And for me, I was allergic to corn and soybean. So a lot of my work was like household chores, ironing, you know, making some meals, helping with the little younger kids, just all the kind of stuff. And I remember when I get done with my list of chores, I would go to my room and read. And I would get in trouble so many

times because there was never, like you never rested, right? And again, my parents were amazing because that's all they knew. But I remember so often like getting in trouble for reading. I look back, I'm like, oh my gosh, like how many parents would love for their kids to go read? And I got in trouble for reading. And it was after I finished my list of chores. It wasn't like I was just so like, but what was happening there was there was always more work. You don't rest. And so again, an HSP needs rest. An HSP needs lots of rest, needs recharge time. So I didn't have any model in my family because they didn't know. They didn't know I was an HSP. I didn't know I was an HSP. And so I kept pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing. And I think that pushing got exacerbated in med school when you're working 36-hour shifts. And I think that

was a piece of the puzzle for my cancer. I mean, I could talk about toxic chemicals on the farm too. So there's a lot of things, but the biggest thing definitely in the realm of psychosomatic pieces are the lack of rest, the lack of taking care of myself. Well, and you think about if you're not allowing your body to rest and take care of yourself, you're creating a lot of stress for yourself. And I've heard my doctor say this several times, that stress equals breast, meaning that they think there's a huge correlation with breast cancer and stress. And so there's probably a huge piece to that. And what we're saying is ignoring our own needs and being so concerned about taking care of everyone else first, of course, is going

to create stress for ourselves. Yeah. And you mentioned earlier about taking care of making sure it's kind of like the codependence technically, right? What we're talking about. And it's easy as the HSP or an empath to be a little codependent because you're so in tune with people's emotions. And before when we're're younger we don't know any better we think it's our fault and it's not right until we learn and understand oh no no that's them just like you explained but it's important because that um gabor mate talked about breast cancer and breasts are a nurturing organ to the world to children right to babies and so it's like this over nurturing of everybody around us and under nurturing of ourselves and there's actually a correlation with breast cancer and that kind of personality type of what you just described.

Wow, that is wild. Oh, and it makes me so sad too, you know, because you think about just like overgiving and it's, you know, coming from a place of like genuinely wanting to take care of people around you. And yeah, it makes me really sad. So do you, and so I've heard this a lot too. Do you think that HSP, okay, so do you think it's something that people are just genuinely born with and it's just like a nervous system thing? Or do you think it's a trauma response? Because I've kind of toyed with thinking, I've heard both. I went through something very, very traumatic as a kid. And as a result, I think a lot of it, I learned to be very, very in tune with my parents and their emotions and was like highly sensitive

to them around me as like a safety mechanism. So I think it's both ends. And I think you're absolutely right to bring this up because there is like Elaine Aaron did the research and she says 10 to 15% of the population are this genetic trait. And she shows that generations often they'll have some patterns there. So it's almost like there's a genetic, but we now know that some of the epigenetics like Holocaust survivors and their children are affected and imprinted. And even if they've never had that trauma, their children and grandchildren can have some of the same startle reflexes and things that they've never experienced, but their parents or grandparents have experienced. So there's that factor. And then what you're saying, it's funny because I wrote a little bit about this in a social media or a blog, and it got a lot of kickback because

like, oh, that's all mold or, oh, that's all Lyme disease or, oh, that's all trauma. Everybody had their own flavor and their own lens at which to view it. And the truth is mold will make you more sensitive. Yes. Lyme and some of the co-infections mold will make you more sensitive. Yes. Lime and some of the co-infections will make the brain more sensitive. Yes. Autism, some of the spectrum disorders, which are chemical, environmental, there's so many players into autism. There's not just one cause. Yes. And then you talk about trauma. Yes. So I think there's a combination of there's probably genetic, just like happiness is genetically predetermined to a certain extent, which is crazy to me. So like our natural, say it's a one to 10 or maybe eight or nine

throttle on the happiness scale is genetically pre-programmed. And that's amazing. But then of course, trauma or lifestyle or environment growing up could make that higher or lower. And I think it's the same thing with this trait. I think we're prone to the trait, but then absolutely, because what you described, let's say a classical example, and this isn't you or me necessarily, but say a child of an alcoholic. Child of an alcoholic, when the alcoholic walks in the door, a parent, they're kind of waiting to listen and see the sound of the dad's breath. And it could be dad or mom, whatever. I'm just making this up, right? The footsteps, if they're shuffling or tripping

or falling, and they notice every single detail, because that detail is going to make the difference between if they get yelled at or maybe hit, or if they are safe that night. And this makes me want to cry because those poor little kids, but what happens to those kinds of situations, that's just one example of a million in a situation where it's unsafe. As a child, you learn to look at external clues for your safety and you can become very, very good at listening to all the clues. And I think it's a variation or maybe an exacerbation of an already inborn trait, but I think it can be both end. And I think trauma absolutely can play into this. Wow. And that was a, yeah, I mean, a very sad,

but a great example to really like to understand it from that lens. So when you, okay, so you were first diagnosed with cancer. I want to go back more into a little bit about your story because it's really inspiring that you've been through all of these, all these things. So that was the first diagnosis that you had, right? And then what did you experience after that? Yeah, so 25 years old, breast cancer, went through three-year chemo, radiation surgery, got through that, went back to medical school, still sick, but I didn't tell anyone. I just thought it was post-chemo. I had no hair. I was so sick from the chemo, but I had to go back to work. But I was having sickle fevers. And one night I passed out while I was taking a patient with blood pressure, ended up myself in the ER and was admitted to surgery

that night for an abscess, kind of an emergency surgery. I woke up the next day and the doctor came in and said, Jill, you have Crohn's disease. I was like, oh. So that was the second diagnosis. Could have been life-threatening autoimmunity where your body attacks the gut lining. And long story short, I learned with diet, looking at the microbiome, all the things we do with functional medicine, I've completely reversed Crohn's. I don't have it anymore. Many people will say, well, you're in remission. Well, after 20 years, I mean, what's remission? I guess it could be, but it's gone in my perspective. And it's why I like to talk about reversible autoimmunity because when we go to the root cause and it wasn't overnight, it took me years, but I completely was able to reverse that. And then I went on to do pretty well. I was thriving and doing well, moved out

to Colorado and there was a huge flood in Boulder and my office flooded. And then, but as to me, there was some nasty black mold in the basement of my office. I got really, really sick from mold related illness. And I had to learn that and overcome mold related illness. And in the process, I became a mold expert and overcame that. And that was really starting in 2014, 15. So it's now been, it's going on nine, eight or nine years. Wow. And mold toxicity, I think more and more people are starting to understand this now, but it still is newer in the realm of health of people really understanding the detrimental effects on your body that mold toxicity has. And I can't even imagine for someone who went through cancer, went through the chemo, and then you had Crohn's and then you had mold. I mean, how,

can you give us a look into a little bit how you treated all of this and how you were able to survive through all this? I mean, looking at you, I wish the listeners could see right now, like you're glowing, you're thriving, you know, and it's, and your body's been through a lot. It has. And I was like, it's funny because this is actually important. I love our conversation on the deep levels of healing because, you know, I remember the cancer. I was like, it's funny because this is actually important. I love our conversation on the deep levels of healing because I remember the cancer. I was like, oh, I kind of hated my body for betraying me. Like I had this like love-hate relationship. Like, why are you doing this?

My mind is strong and I have so much to do in this world. And why are you getting cancer? And then the same thing, like, oh, this like, and there's this fight mentality. Like I'm going to fight cancer. I'm going to fight Crohn's. I'm going to beat it. And I did, right? But then I got to mold and mold.

Part of the battle is this toxin, which you can't clear well. There's about one in four patients who have a genetic predisposition towards they have trouble tagging these mold antigens. And so they kind of go around in the body and create collateral damage and it's hard to clear them. So all of a sudden I realized in the midst of mold that that toxin was actually creating inflammation in my body, creating damage and some of the symptoms and side effects that I had. And the fight in my immune system was actually killing me. And it was that aha moment. I remember on a walk, I'll never forget it. And I started doing a meditation and I just chose the little minions, which I'm going to hold on here. I don't have this for me, but I got to show you because I have it right here.

Oh, this is why I have a little minion. those of you who are not who are listening not watching i just pulled out my my ceramic minion and i imagine those guys as my immune system and those are happy guys they're just like whistling and walking around and those are my image for my visualization and my meditation of my immune system i made that my immune system and i literally started meditating on minions as far as helping the mold get out of my system in a healthy way and not a fight because what happened is I realized that this kind of self-hatred, self-loathing, again, Gabor Mate talks about autoimmunity. It's attack of your own tissues, right? There's a piece of that, that if you don't heal that self-loathing or self-hatred or parts of yourself that you're not accepting, you'll never get well. And all of my journey has been kind of continuing to

accept myself. But some of the most profound changes with this mold and minions, but also with just starting to love and accept myself now, I'll be like, oh, sweetheart, you're doing a great job. You're so strong and so beautiful. And you've done so much and you've overcome so much. I would have never talked to myself 20 years ago that way. I would have been like, oh, come on, get with it. You're so stupid.

And you can change that programming and that changes our body. And part of the glow and the joy that I feel today and that you're seeing is because I do have deep compassion for this beautiful body that's been through so much. And now I'm like thankful. And I never could have told you that before I did the work around it. Wow. That's really beautiful. And I think it's really important for people to hear that because like we mentioned earlier, life is really hard and we go through a lot of really beautiful. And I think it's really important for people to hear that because like we mentioned earlier, life is really hard and we go through a lot of hard things. And a lot of what gets us through is not only our faith, but the way that we talk to ourselves.

We don't always have parents or aunts and uncles or grandparents that did the best they could, right? I have such deep passion because we're all doing the best we can. But often we have little deficiencies because we're all human and we're raised by humans. And so if we didn't get exactly what we needed in childhood we can go back and love and reparent ourselves and this is such a powerful way to heal oh my gosh it's so oh god i know i'm so glad that you brought that up because it's so important i i've been a journey myself the last couple years of really healing that as well and they say that not always but often if you had like maybe one

parent figure that was harder on you, that's usually what your internal voice is, is that parent, like you have made that voice then be that parent that maybe is a little bit harder on you. And if you can really start like stopping those voices in your head and reframing them and saying, you know, and just practice compassion and love and recognizing like I did the best that I could at the time and now I'm doing better and just having like love and gratitude for everything that you've been through and the place that you're at now. I mean, it really is life-changing. It completely can change your life around. I think some of the most

powerful, because I've been through a lot, healed from a lot, but some of the most powerful changes that I've seen in my own body and immune system have been in this realm of self-compassion. And really, I'll tell you, one of my therapists once told me, and I thought this was so profound, you can't trust your intuition, which is part of our healing as well, knowing where to go, what direction, what to take, what to do, how to heal this, if you don't love yourself. So you have to trust yourself first before you can even love yourself. And so those two things go hand in hand. And much of that intuitive wisdom i always tell patients you know

what i'm here as a guide and i'll give you the best knowledge that i that i have but you know your body well more way more than i do and so i'm going to always trust if you have an intuition about this doesn't feel right we'll explore it together because i trust that you know intuitively the right way to go for your body and unless it it's harmful, which I'll tell you about if it is, I'm going to help you to trust your intuition about the healing things that we need to do. Wow. I wish more doctors practiced that because I think that's a really important component of this is that you, as the doctor, you're the expert on the human body and the various ways to help whatever they're dealing with illnesses, but they're the only ones that's the expert in their own body. And we need to remember that we know a lot about our bodies and we're the only ones that know our own experience, what it's like

living in our bodies. And that counts for a lot. Yes. You are the expert in your own body. Don't let anyone tell you differently. Yes. I love that so much. Well, in the interest of time, I want to make sure that we get, I always ask before we go, well, two things. One, is there anything that we haven't covered that you really want people to hear? I feel like we've covered a lot and I just love your insight, but if there's anything else you wanted to add. Gosh, I love the direction you've taken this and all the fun things we get to talk about on this. And maybe if you're listening here, I would just say this one you might like oh come on Jill I want to know the science the medicine of mold and the statistics of breast cancer but I'll tell you what some of the stuff we talked about today if you really dive in it is the most powerful fodder for healing so

I think it's so important that we talked about what we did and the one thing that I want to say most of all and we kind of danced around this during our conversation. When you create a container for your friend, your mother, your child, your partner, even yourself of unconditional love and acceptance, which is kind of what you alluded to even about when we talked about faith and all this stuff is like creating this place where people around us, no matter what they believe, who they are, where they come from, they know that they're loved and accepted by us. And we get to choose that when we for my patients, we'll just talk in that realm. When I create a container for when they walk in the door and they're served in a wine glass, just water, but it's in a wine glass, making them feel like they are important, they're special. And then they come in here and they get

to tell me their story and they know there's no judgment. There's nothing but me listening with all my heart, trying to help them. Those pieces are so powerful for healing. And so often we go around with its partners or children or parents or whatever in our life. We want these things from other people. But if we start to focus on what do we give ourselves for love, and then we start to shine that unconditional love to those around us, it cannot help but reflect back. I am amazed. And I could literally cry talking to you about all the ways I feel love coming into my life. I don't feel like I deserve it, but I feel it every day. And it's partially just because my goal in life, my purpose is to love and show unconditional love. And that is it.

And everything I do and say, don't know I succeed, but I really, really try hard. And what happens when you come with that spirit of unconditional love, you create healing for yourself. You create healing for everybody around you. Even if you're not a doctor like me, you are creating healing for those people in your life. And I think it's like as our world goes crazy and politics and religion and chaos and fighting and school shootings, the only thing we have to really transform is unconditional love. And it may sound like fluff, but I am standing here and will go to my death saying, this is the most important healer that we have. Yes. Oh my God. I mean, I'm speechless. I don't even know what to add onto that because that was so beautifully put. And because of everything that

we have been going through, especially the last couple of years with the divisiveness and everything, the pandemic, all of it, that is such an important message. And I'm so glad that we're ending on that because that's so beautiful and it hopefully gives people a lot of hope. And it's true. I mean, at the end of the day, what else are we doing on this planet? Like what, what else are we actually truly here for other than, um, to hopefully live out our life's purpose if we're connected with that and hopefully we are and to love each other. Like literally why else are we on this planet? We don't really know. So why don't we spend our time loving people, you know, because it's way better and more fun that way too, you know? Yeah. Yeah. That's amazing. Also, I had so many questions that I

wanted to ask you about, like, I mean, I have this whole list of like breast cancer and everything else. So if you wanted to come back on and talk about that, I'm so happy the way that this conversation went because I haven't had a conversation like this actually. And I've dove into a lot of like the science of the health side of things and all this, but I haven't had a conversation like this. I think it was really important and it was, I'm a believer that they're meant to go the direction that they're meant to go, you know. Also, so the last question I have for you, which is what i ask all of my guests before we go is what are your health non-negotiables these are things that you prioritize daily or weekly to ensure that you live a healthy long life yeah gosh i could give you 100 but i'm gonna keep it

to just like two or three um sleep this is so boring but i'll tell you what my superpower is i get amazing sleep and And I can sometimes have a night, say I only have five hours, I can get five hours, but 50% of it is deep and I can wake up. Now, I don't routinely do five hours. I get seven or eight hours a night, but I am a phenomenal sleeper and I do everything in my power, PEMF, Epsom salt baths before bed, turn off the blue lights. I just make those habits because I feel like if I sleep, I can do anything. And so sleep is the number one thing. And like I said, those other things in there would be the PEMF mat, the Epsom salt baths at night, and just winding down and making sure I have a little bit

of quiet time right before bed. I love that. A lot of people have been saying sleep, and I think for good reason. Well, please tell everyone where they can find you. Yeah. So my regular website is just my name, jillcarnahan.com. You've got loads of podcasts, free blogs, all kinds of things there, resources for you if you want to know more about all the stuff we're talking about. Thank you so much, Jill. I really loved this conversation. Me too. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of The Real Foodology Podcast. If you liked the episode, please leave a review in your podcast app to let me know. This is a Resonant Media production produced by Drake Peterson and edited by Mike Fry.

The theme song is called Heaven by the amazing singer Georgie. Georgie is spelled with a J. For more amazing podcasts produced by my team, go to resonantmediagroup.com. I love you guys so much. See you next week. The content of this show is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for individual medical and mental health advice and doesn't constitute a provider patient relationship.

I am a nutritionist, but I am not your nutritionist. As always, talk to your doctor or your health team first. Looking to build a more robust foundation in your health and well-being? From the producer of the Real Foodology podcast comes one of the most popular alternative health shows on Apple Podcasts, The Dr. Tina Show. Dr. Tina Moore is a naturopathic physician and chiropractor, traditionally and alternatively trained in science and medicine. The show features exclusive interviews with experts such as Shawn Stevenson, Mike Mutzl, Mark Groves, and even solo episodes covering metabolic health, Thank you.