The Dr. Hyman Show - Navigating Grief As A Doorway To Healing with Kris Carr

Episode Date: October 4, 2023

This episode is brought to you by Rupa Health, ButcherBox, Mitopure, and AlgaeCal. Loss is something we all have to deal with. But few of us are taught how to heal from these difficult experiences—a divorce, an accident, a miscarriage, a cancer diagnosis, losing the love of your life, or the death of a loved one.  Today on The Doctor’s Farmacy, I talk with my good friend, Kris Carr, about some of the greatest lessons she has learned through her own grief, and how even the most difficult losses can reveal a roadmap to our next chapter of fully living.  Kris Carr is a multiple New York Times best-selling author, wellness activist, and cancer thriver. She’s been called a “force of nature” by O magazine and was named a “new role model” by The New York Times. Kris is also a member of Oprah’s SuperSoul 100, a group of the most influential thought leaders today. Other media appearances include Good Morning America, The Today Show, and The Oprah Winfrey Show. She and her work have been featured in Glamour, Prevention, Scientific American, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, and other national publications. Kris has helped millions of people take charge of their health and live like they mean it through her award-winning blog, books, online courses, and membership communities.  This episode is brought to you by Rupa Health, ButcherBox, Mitopure, and AlgaeCal. Access more than 3,000 specialty lab tests with Rupa Health. You can check out a free, live demo with a Q&A or create an account at RupaHealth.com today. For new members of ButcherBox, you can receive New York strip steaks for a year PLUS $20 off your first order. Go to Butcherbox.com/farmacy and use code FARMACY. Support the growth of new, healthy mitochondria and get 10% off Mitopure. Head to timelinenutrition.com/drhyman and use code DRHYMAN10 at checkout. Right now, you can get 10% off AlgaeCal calcium supplements when you go to algaecal.com/markhyman and use coupon code MARKHYMAN. Here are more details from our interview (audio version / Apple Subscriber version): The importance of getting curious about your emotions (5:51 / 3:41)  The moment that Kris decided to learn about grief (7:37 /  5:40)  My recent experience with loss and grief (10:30 / 8:31) Normalizing our experiences with grief (13:01 / 10:48)  Embracing difficult emotions (19:48 / 16:50)  Diseases of despair and how emotion manifests in the body (28:19 / 24:38)  Prioritizing joy in the midst of loss and grief (38:57 / 34:50)  Practical ways to navigate grief (43:24 / 42:27)  Sharing our experiences with others (57:00 / 52:53) The message Kris received from her father after his death (1:00:07 / 56:25)  Get a copy of I'm Not a Mourning Person: Braving Loss, Grief, and the Big Messy Emotions That Happen When Life Falls Apart.

Coming up on this episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy. We can't amputate any of our emotions and expect to be whole. And we live, we're domesticated in a grief-phobic, messy emotions-averse society. Hey everyone, it's Dr. Mark. Now I know a lot of you out there are healthcare practitioners like me, helping patients heal using real food and functional medicine as the framework for getting to the root cause of the issues. Now, in my practice, this often means looking at lots of internal variables to find the most effective path to optimize health and reverse disease. But up until now,

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experienced loss or grief, I think you're going to love this podcast because it's with one of my good friends, someone I deeply respect and admire, who's had many challenges in her own life and I think has written an extraordinary book about it, which we're going to talk in great detail about today, Chris Carr. Chris is, I don't know where to start with Chris. She's a multiple New York Times bestseller. She's a wellness activist. She's a cancer thriver, not a survivor, cancer thriver. We're going to talk about that. She's been called the force of nature by O Magazine, was named a new

role model by the New York Times. She's a member of Oprah's Super Soul 100, which is a group of the most influential thought leaders today. She's been everywhere on the media, Good Morning America, the Today Show, the Oprah Winfrey Show. And her work has been featured in Glamour, Prevention, Scientific America, and Forbes, Wall Street Journal, and lots more. She's helped millions of people take charge of their health and live like they mean it through her award-winning blog, her books, her online courses, and her community. So I just love Chris so much, and here she is. Welcome, Chris. Hi, Mark, my friend. I Chris so much. And here she is. Welcome, Chris. Hi, Mark, my friend. I'm so happy to be here with you.

Well, we've known each other a long time. And we've seen each other go through many challenges in life. And as we go through life, we hit bumps in the road. When you're a little kid and a baby born, everything's fine. but then stuff starts to kind of go sideways sometimes. And whether it's a diagnosis of cancer, which you had when you were a young woman, or loss of family members or business disruptions. And we've all experienced these moments in life that are just so challenging. And we don't really have a map. We don't really have a map. What do we do? How do we get through it? How do we manage our grief? How do we manage loss?

How do we not turn inward into depression, anxiety, and self-destructive behaviors? I mean, it's really, you know, it's really like you can't get through life without getting beaten up. And how do you kind of come through that on either side and be whole and happy and not shrink and shrivel and contract and live in fear and and i i see this in a lot of people like when you know they hit those bumps it's like i'm like they retreat and they kind of withdraw but you kind of have a different view of all this and uh it's really beautiful and your new book i just want to sort of highlight it this. And it's really beautiful. And your new book, I just want to sort of highlight it because it's such a beautiful book. It's beautifully written.

It's deeply felt. It's a tearjerker for sure. And it's called I'm Not a Mourning Person. And that's not M-O-R-N-I-N-G. It's M-O-U-R-N-I-N-G. Braving loss, grief, and the big, messy emotions that happen when life falls apart. So I'm just so excited to talk to you about this because it's not something we really talk about much. Now, I'm sorry. I'm yammering on, but we'll get to you in a second. I kind of want to start with, you know, this recent moment you had a few years ago where your father was dying, your business was having challenges, you were about to hit your 20-year milestone of living with stage four cancer, and you were sort of at a breaking point and you're like in the parking lot bawling in CVS parking lot. Tell us about that and what that moment was for you and how it, you know, catalyzed something good. Yeah. Thank you. Well, you know, it's called, I'm not a morning person because it was the one

emotion that I was really afraid to go near Mark. And when I was newly diagnosed with cancer 20 years ago, and as you said, I've been living with stage four cancer for 20 years now. The first thing I did was run to food because food was something I could control. And I desperately felt like I needed to control something because I felt so out of control. Yeah. Right. And what a wonderful place to begin your healing and wellness journey. And you have taught me so much. I've been so blessed to be your personal friend, but also, you know, to devour all of your books and, and follow your

career and always learn from you on your IGs and all the things that you do in the world. It's true. I'm like, what do you have to say now? I'm in, you know, but you said something to me a long time ago in a galaxy far away, which, um, you also teach the whole planet, which is food is information. Yeah. And where I started my life and my career, my wellness life and my career was like being mindful of what you're eating. And 20 years in, I'm really focused on being mindful about what's eating you. And right. Yeah.

I thought you liked that one. It's not what you're eating. It's what's eating you. I had a friend who lost 20 pounds as soon as he got out of a relationship that was toxic, right? Well, and that's the holistic lifestyle practice that we talk about. And sometimes it goes back to heal or heal thyself. And so 20 years in, I've done many incredible things and written books and had the privilege

of lecturing with you and all of these wonderful opportunities. And yet I had a blind spot. Yeah. And the blind spot was around grief because I thought that if I allowed myself to feel it, I completely fall apart and everything would change and I would no longer have my shit together. And as we know, the opposite is true and the way out is through. And it was through this perfect storm, so to speak, of all the things that you talked about coming together. And by the way, we were also in the middle of a global pandemic when all of this was happening right and i'm at cvs because my

my mother you know my father's dying of terminal cancer yeah and i'm at cvs and my mom had asked me to pick up more insure and i didn't consciously have these thoughts right we can't choose our first thought but we can certainly work on our second one. The first thought was, how many do I get? Do I get a six pack? Do I get a 12 pack? Do I get a case? Because I didn't know how long he had to live. And so those thoughts brought up this tsunami of grief. And I remember dropping the insurer and like, you know, running out of CVS, hoping nobody's seeing me. Of course they're seeing me. I'm acting like a nut. You know what I mean? And I'm running to- You are a crazy sexy bitch, right? Keyword. Yeah. So I'm running to the car and I get there and I completely fall apart. It's all the stuff that I had been holding back.

And it wasn't just the stuff of what was happening recently because my brilliant therapist said something to me that I use in the book a lot, which is when the grief train pulls into the station, it brings all the cars. Yeah. It's like all the stuff that's been backing up that you haven't actually faced or looked at in your life around grief or loss or pain. Yes. You're very right. That was it. And it's all energy. And if we can think of it that way, maybe we can have some more curiosity around it as opposed to perpetuating the stigma of it. And so she says this and, and, and so it's all coming. And then I allow myself to just totally fall apart. I mean, it's a mascara festival, right? It's just like there. And, um, and I felt better. It was a moment like when the medicine kicks in and I was like, if this feels better, even just a little bit, why have I been so hell bent on avoiding it?

And if I stopped avoiding it, what could it teach me? And then that was the moment where I was like, I'm going to learn about grief. Wow. Yeah. It's something that I know is uncomfortable. And, you know, humans tend to avoid pain and seek pleasure right and so i i i really relate to what you're saying and i actually it was it was probably around the same time the same thing happened to me i a covet happened i had back surgery that

was sort of unexpected uh for a disc thing that was just debilitating with bad complications. And my marriage ended sort of relatively abruptly in the middle of all that. And I just, I was in this place of total loss. And I would literally have to kind of just sit in the experience of being broken, you know, my broken back, my broken heart. And, you know, I lost my mother recently. Before that, I lost my father, my sister a number of years before. And I kind of had just buried it all, man. And because, in fact, COVID stopped everything, I actually had the time to sit with it all. And I really had to feel it. And I remember going to be meditating,

and I would literally just start crying as I was meditating, and I just started all these feelings coming up. And so I think for so many of us, we're just not familiar with how to navigate that and navigate loss and how to heal from those ruptures, you call ruptures, right? The things like divorce, accidents, miscarriage, back surgery, cancer, death. So how do we begin to start to heal these wounds? How do we actually learn from them in a way that actually allows us to get a roadmap for living fully? Because what you describe is what I felt. When you actually go through it, on the other side is light right if you bury it on the other side is often

darkness it doesn't go away it eats at you right it's what eating you you said and it causes illness it causes grief i mean it causes anxiety depression and anger and all these other things that kind of come out sideways. So how do we, how do we sort of begin to tend those wounds and how do we, how do we kind of get a roadmap for, like you say, fully living and thriving in the next chapter after that? Yeah, that's a great question. And we'll talk about, I know we will get into some practical tools that we can use, but I think taking that big step back, it's first and foremost for me, I'm not a grief expert, although, you know, when I'm onto something, I'm like, I'm going to learn

everything I can about it. But what I learned through the process of going through this first and foremost, and also writing my book, so a lot of research was to take that big step back. First, we have to normalize the experience. And we can't amputate any of our emotions and expect to be whole. And we live, we're domesticated in a grief-phobic, messy, emotions-averse society. So it's normal that we're walking around. I have a chapter called Awkward Times, Awkward People. Yeah, we'll get to that. It's normal that we're walking around clueless, many of us. And so we want to give ourselves grace and forgiveness because, you know, we haven't been given, as you said, roadmaps

for how to navigate storms of this magnitude. So I would say the first step is just to get clear that this is normal. And if we go back to your brilliance of food is information and we apply that brilliance to emotions or information, then we can start to get curious about them. And I was talking to a doctor the other day and what came to me was, what if we could create like the anatomy of emotions? And I was thinking about when I was first diagnosed and I have tumors in my liver and both of my lungs.

If I were to say to you, a physician, I don't like my liver and I would like, it's not attractive. It's clearly not functioning properly. It's not like the other livers on the playground, you know, who obviously got better educations than my liver. And I would like you to remove it because it's just unbecoming as my grandmother would say about an emotion. She thought a lady shouldn't partake in, you would say, Chris Carr, are you out of your rocker? Like you need your liver. Your liver's incredible. Your liver does over 400 or more, I don't know, you know, things for you. And maybe if you learn a little bit more about

your liver, you will like be in awe of that organ. And maybe if you learned a little bit more about your liver, you will like be in awe of that organ. And maybe if you learned a little bit more about your liver, you might actually get super inspired to take care of it as opposed to judging it. So big metaphor that we can apply to our emotions. If they're information, what are they here to teach us? And if we can get curious about those emotions and put on like our little wellness detective hats that we put on when we're sick, if we put on our wellness detective hats and we get curious about our emotions, then we're not going to judge them as much. We'll forgive ourselves when we mess up because we will. And we'll be like, oh, you said it so beautifully.

There's ways for me to tend to these emotions so that I can feel better. And I think that's the first step is like first and foremost, like applying that mindset and then allowing it to take you to the places that it will take you. Yeah. You know, it's so fascinating, Chris, because, you know, we don't really have any education in navigating navigating our internal emotional psychological spiritual worlds right i was like it's just like reading writing arithmetic but like being a human no we have no idea about how to do that right and and i just came back from india and i went to the the see the dalai lama and dharamsala india and there was a tibetan monk at geshe which is

like a phd you know monk and he he saw that there were these kids that were living you know on the street and that were begging and lived in slums and were just it was just the worst and he decided he wanted to do something about it and give them a place to live and give them food and give them some nutrition. And they started that. And they just kind of snowballed into building this whole school. And now he has this whole massive complex called Tonglen, which essentially is a Buddhist meditation practice of breathing in the suffering of the world and breathing out healing. It's a very powerful practice. But anyway, the school is teaching these kids social, emotional, ethical learning. And it's not religious. It's a very powerful practice. But anyway, the school is teaching these kids social, emotional, ethical learning. And it's not religious. It's not Buddhist. And it's secular.

It's really secular ethics, he calls it, secular emotional learning. And I went to this school, and there were these kids literally that were from, and I visited the slums. It was really so heartbreaking to see how these, I mean, it was the worst of the worst I've ever seen in my life. And these kids came from this place, but in the school, they were now educated and they were talking about compassion and their emotions. And they literally had, instead of like, you know, math on the wall, they had, here's all your emotions. Here's how you navigate them. Here's how you relate to people. Here's how you be kind. Here's all your emotions. Here's how you navigate them. Here's how you relate to people. Here's how you be kind. Here's what compassion is. Here's how you have disagreements.

Here's what dialectical conversations are that allow you to kind of get to the truth. And, you know, I was like, I was like, what? And these kids were just so amazing and so aware of the need to kind of be a good human. And it's not about Christian or Buddhist or Jewish or Muslim. It's just about how do we human better, right? And we don't have that map. And so what you're talking about is starting to kind of learn. And what your book, I'm Not a Morning Person, is about, is about how to sort of learn to confront and to navigate things that are unpleasant or difficult and understand our own internal landscape. And

how do we, how do we dance with that? And how do we play with that? And how do we actually use the, you know, the rough bits of life to actually come out the other side better, right? And can you talk about that a little bit? Yeah. First and foremost, I want to go to that school. It's amazing, Chris. You have no idea. Holy cow. That's so beautiful. Compassion. I'm like, what? Compassion. I can never think of one of those. Can you imagine if we learned these things earlier in life? Like usually, like I learned about compassion because I was such a jerk to myself and I couldn't, I was so uncomfortable in my skin that I started to learn.

I went to a monastery. I was like, you know, you got to check yourself in. This is too much. Like you're not, this is not a weekend pillow experience for you, girl. You know? And so, so I, yeah, that's just breathtaking. I think, um, we humans limit ourselves by only allowing ourselves to believe that a certain spectrum of emotions are, um, tolerable and, um, you know, emotions that will, will be supported in society. And I think it does us a great disservice. It's like saying, here's a pack of Crayola crayons, but you can only use brown and blue and red. That's it. And you have all these other crayons. You're like,

but the masterpiece will happen if I can use all of them. It's like, I don't, I, I love that you said that we're all going to go through it. And I think in our society, especially as we get sucked deeper and deeper into social media and technology, we think, well, everybody else has a rainbow. I want a rainbow of a life, right? But we can't have the rainbow and say but no rain right oh right yeah no rain thank you bad rain bad rainbow good like well how are you gonna so you know going back to this idea of the big emotions one of the things that i didn't realize is that i mean i knew this to some on some level but not until i really had to go, decided to say yes to this adventure, let's say. So saying yes to the adventure of exploring the harder parts of

my life and myself, my emotions, I realized that the big emotions come with something like grief. So when I was in the storm of my grief and really trying to avoid it as best as I could, what would also come forward was past trauma. What would also come forward was rage. What also came forward was shame. And so it's like it's coming forward. So you can either continue to smush it down, but there's also emotional physics. Yeah. Emotional physics. Wow. What a concept.

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week's episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy. You know, we think about emotional anatomy, that's one, but emotional physics is like, if it doesn't come out one way, it's energy, it's going to come out another. And coming out another could be, you know, in my past life, it would come out through drugs, it would come out through heavy drinking, it would come out through drugs. It would come out through heavy drinking. It would come out through toxic relationships. It would come out through either explosions or implosions. And none of that would make me feel happy, healthier, or more vibrant. And so I said, well, what choice do you have?

You can continue down this path, or you can take another path. And the other path actually,'m going to sit with you and we're going to figure this out and we're not going to do it by ourselves. Right. So help, just like I would say, you're the CEO of your life and you have your wellbeing and you want to build a medical team and you're going to hire and you're going to interview and you're going to fire and you're going to find your second in command and you don't have to know at all. They do, but you have to know enough to know when they suck. So, so basically the first part of your journey was creating, you know, save my ass technologies. Yes, sir. The second part is save my heart. Save my heart, save my mind technologies and say, okay,

who's on my team here? Because these are places that are scary and I want to go, I want to navigate them with support. Yeah. Yeah. You know, a few years ago, I, I, um, you know, as a consequence of all this loss and breakdown and, you know, physical, emotional challenges that I was, I was in, um, I decided to really go deep, like as opposed to turning away from it, which I normally would do in overworking and writing 19 books and changing the world and doing being Mark Hyman, I decided to like stop, like just pull the plug. And it was COVID. So it was kind of easier to like scale down and just really go into the grit of the emotions and the feeling. And so much stuff came up.

And I, I realized that, you know, I really had never dealt with my, my childhood. I just had like, oh, just a flesh wound, you know, just kind of move on. And, you know, it's okay. I was like, not that bad. You know, I didn't, I know I wasn't, you know, beaten with hooks and locked in closets. And so what could be bad? But I realized that, you know, there was a lot of things that happened in my childhood, whether the rage of how I let father, incest with my sister,

my mother using me as her therapist because she was in a bad second marriage. And I never got to be really a child and to actually have a happy childhood. And there was so much grief around that, so much loss, so much taken away. And I remember literally just like actually having to go into that. And it was almost like physiological. You talk about emotional physics, like it was physiological. You talk about the experience in the CVS parking lot where you actually felt the relief after that. And for me, it was like something just got unlocked.

And in all this fatigue and stress and, you know, just kind of weight kind of dislodged. And it was like all of a sudden it was like, you know, a thunderstorm coming. It's dark and the clouds are banging and the thunder and the lightning and then it just like goes away it's like fresh and clear and bright and like you know magical and it it's kind of felt like that it was like weird to kind of have so much pain and and kind of feel all of it and and understand what happened to me and then get to the other side of it feel that grief and loss and like kind of move through it and have this almost ecstatic experience on the other side. It was a little surprising, but I was happy it ended up like that.

But it's kind of what you're talking about. It's like the areas where we're unhappy or depressed. And I think I kind of want to dive into this next part where you talk about in your book, this is really this epidemic we're facing of anxiety and depression, you know, the diseases of despair, the suicide, the drug addiction, alcoholism, we've all living in this sort of state of heightened alertness and stress. And, and it really causes huge damage to our bodies, you know, to our immune system, hormones, our adrenals, our resilience, and, you know, and we don't really have a map for how to navigate out of that. How do we, how do we sort of understand these emotions of fear and anxiety and depression, things that are

so rampant? How do we kind of learn what they have to teach us and use that as a way to kind of move through this, this sort of messy emotions that can get us to the other side. Yeah. I love that you, I'm going to go there in a second, but I love that you brought up fatigue because what I didn't understand, especially with something like grief and loss was how it manifests in the body. So I didn't understand the connection between my brain fog and grief, I didn't connect, understand the connection between my extreme fatigue and my lack of appetite and grief. And just even understanding some of that again, like when we learn the landscape a little bit more, you can say, oh, this is grief.

This is actually normal. But I, I'm the first one's going to be like, what, what, how do I have to change my diet? Let me get a blood test. What are the next 77 supplements I need to take? It's got to be my thyroid. Call Mark. Mark, I need to get a thyroid check. And maybe that's true, but I think those are the obvious places to go. What we're talking about are the less obvious places to go that have a very interconnected, impactful impact, so to speak. And so like, for example, fear and anxiety, you know, if we take every chapter in the book handles a different emotion or experience that you may face when the rug gets pulled out from

under you. They're not all of them. They're the ones that I included in the book that I can speak to firsthand. So with fear and anxiety, I used to think, Mark, that I was a very fearful person. And maybe that's not something I projected on the outside, but it's what I felt on the inside. Certainly coming from my own childhood wounds and my own, the traumatic impact of being diagnosed at 31 and living with cancer for 20 years. Right. So it's very hyper vigilant. Are you? I'm 52.

Come on. I just turned 52. Yes. It's true. It's true. Oh yeah. Well, I'm grateful for it though.'s for sure because what's the alternative

better on the side of the grass for the moment yes i'm gonna hold off on the dirt nap but you gotta have a sense of humor when you talk about this stuff, right? Because it's, it's tough stuff. So we have to bring levity and lightness to it. Um, but, uh, anyway, so I, I thought I was a very fearful person because I'm, I tend to be more hypervigilant. So I like to control and where does that come from? That comes from my own past traumatic experiences in childhood. And I am adopted. So my biological father left when I was conceived. And so my chosen father, Ken, who raised me from nine on, was a huge part of healing, of participating in healing in that wound. Is it completely healed? No, not all wounds completely heal, right? And that's what we learn. But I think what can happen is, is that all these beautiful experiences and all this incredible development builds around that wound. Like joy happens around that wound. My marriage happened around that wound,

you know, like my friendship with you, like the wound still exists, but I have so many wonderful other things that are also true. And again, we live in this sort of like black and white society where it's either one or the other. And I think that's probably the biggest thing that holds us back. And so just going back to the idea of fear and anxiety, fear is actually kind of simple. It comes on in an instant. It has a beginning, middle, and end. Both of these emotions are designed from an evolutionary perspective to keep us safe. That's it.

So we don't need to judge them. We can actually thank them. Like, thank you, fear, because it made me get up and go when the lion was chasing me. Thank you, fear, when a deer jumps in front of my car and I swerve really quickly and then, you know, the stress warmer is flooding through my body and then I'm going to have a hangover because it takes a while for me to return to some sort of homeostasis after that. Thank you, fear. Anxiety, on the other hand, is like the fear of what could happen in the future, what may or may not happen. And so a lot of us who maybe think we're fearful people, we might be more anxious people.

And we can say, okay, let me learn more about the anatomy of anxiety. Am I finding myself ruminating in this moment? Am I talking to my friend Mark? But really, I'm someplace else. And in that someplace else, I'm telling myself a effed up story about what's going to happen after this call because I didn't send that email on time, right? And all these other things that we're actually living some sort of chaotic horror story dream. And we're not actually in the present with our emotions, with our wellbeing, with our relationships. And so even just being able to

diagnose some of that and say, wait a minute, I'm going to catch myself in this moment. I might even give that story that I'm telling myself a funny name just to like make me giggle. Yeah. And then to, you know, all of the wonderful things that you could teach us is like, well, what are some of the tools to bring me back to this moment here and now that can also soothe my nervous system and bring my brain back online? Because when we're in those places, our brains are offline. Well, you know, a lot of us try to go around the feelings, right? Instead of going through them. So

the only way out is through, right? The only way out is through the, the facing directly and feeling the, the reality of whatever is happening to you and, and actually having a way to metabolize it so that doesn't actually end up causing illness. And I think, you know, as a way to metabolize it so that it doesn't actually end up causing illness. And I think, you know, as a physician, to me, you know, this is one of the sort of big unexpressed things in medicine. And, you know, we kind of give sort of a nod to stress being a factor. But, you know, it's not just the stress of, you know, living in the modern world. It's not just the stress of work and kids modern world. It's not just the stress of work and kids and responsibilities. It's all this unmetabolized emotion and unprocessed experiences and feelings and loss. actually gone through you know horrible first marriage an alcoholic single father you know

back surgery at 32 chronic fatigue at 36 you know mercury poisoning second marriage I mean just one thing after the other for so long and you know I could kind of easily see myself being kind of shrunken and depressed and disabled. And by literally just leaning into the experience of the pain of life and not running away from it, but actually – and like you said, working with your team of save your ass technologies team or save your mind and heart team. It's like save our soul right it's really about saving our souls and and getting free so we we can actually have an authentic direct experience of life that's unmediated by the the kind of unresolved unexpressed unfelt unprocessed emotions and And what's so beautiful about I'm Not a Morning Person, your book, is that it sort of normalizes this and it actually helps us to kind of think of

practical ways that we can start to do this. And through your own stories and your own experiences, you've been able to actually get to the other side, right? So a lot of us have this, and I'm sure many people listening are going, well, that sounds good, but like, what the heck do I do? Like, how do I get to the other side? How do I, you know, I've had all this pain, all this suffering, all this loss, all this challenge in my life, and we all do. How do I find my way? And can you kind of talk about some practical ways that people can start to sort of move through this instead of having to sublimate it with drugs or sex or food or depression or anxiety or whatever the heck we do, Netflix, bingeing? That's my drug du jour. It's better than some of the other things I used to do. That's for sure. Well, I want to just start by saying that you, I know, you know, we've been friends for so long.

So I've been a part of your life during some of these chapters. And one of the things that I love about you, and I imagine that your followers will instantly realize when I say this, is you have a light-filled energy. You have an energy that exudes joy at the cellular level. Thank you, Chris. You do. You are so filled with light. And I think that's one of the reasons why so many millions of people gravitate towards you. And so I think you're an example of, yes, a lot of trials and tribulations can happen in your life and you can navigate them and they can grow you deeper and you can be super successful and you can really still love life. And so just you

even being here shows me that that's possible for me too. And another thing about you, which is so is you prioritize joy. Yeah, I do. You do. And I'd say that joy is one of the most underrated medicines that we could prescribe for ourselves because it helps us at the physiological level. You could tell about all those things. It helps our mental wellbeing, our physical wellbeing, our immune system. And the last thing sometimes we think that we even deserve, like we would feel guilty if we were to prioritize joy is when we're going through a tough time,

especially with, let's say we're a caregiver and we're helping with end of life care for a family member or partner. Like you were with your dad. You could say, oh gosh, I feel so guilty to take this moment for myself and prioritize a little joy. That's the opposite behavior that we want to implore you not to do that because for me, it doesn't have to be this big, huge thing. Like I'm not, you know, like if I don't go to great adventure, it's not going to be joyful enough.

You know, it's like, no, that's not what it is for me. It could be, I'm feeding my hummingbirds. I have three feeders. I have this naughty little bully male hummingbird that will chase all the ladies around. And I have to like go out there and like keep the peace with the gals and the little bully. And they know me and they come chirping, chirping, chirping around my head. And it is just a moment of sheer joy for me. So what are the moments of joy? You know, one of the things that my dad said to me, I promise I'm going to start to answer your question. I promise you, but this is important. Good story. And I think that if you take nothing from this, take what we're saying right now.

But one of the things that my dad said to me, and he was, as he was getting closer to dying, he was dropping all the fatherly wisdom bombs. we had a very close relationship again. He was my chosen father and, um, and my mentor and still is my mentor, just in different form. Um, he said, make your golden years now. Yeah. Wow. Don't put them off because here I was, I was retiring. I'm in my early seventies. I sold my business and thinking on now I'm going to spend more time with my family. Now I'm going to play golf with my brother. Now I'm going to do X, Y, Z PDQ. And here I am dying of terminal pancreatic cancer. So you have to make your golden years now love every single day, not tomorrow, today. What are you going to do today to make your life more golden? And that changed

everything, you know? And, and I have to also say that even though his life was cut short, the, it wasn't about the quality of time. It was, sorry, it wasn't about the quantity of time. It was about the quality because I saw him make more golden days in four and a half years than I had seen in the 40 years that I knew him. Wow. Yeah. So how do we begin? There's no one specific path. What we're not going to do is like create a blueprint. We're not going to hack anything. Like none of that's going to happen. But what we're going to do is hopefully inspire- And steps to be free of grief. Yeah, that's not going to happen. If I ever write that, never buy another book of mine. I'm just

saying. Because it doesn't work like that. And we're all so unique. But if there's something that we're saying and becoming more emotionally literate and prioritizing joy and understanding that you don't have to hold it back, it's actually too painful. Like picture waves stacking. At some point, they're going to overtake you. So you're not more powerful than the ocean. Sorry, honey. You know what I mean? But can we dive through it? Yes. And so here, in addition to the things that we've already talked about, get support. You know, for me, that was going back to therapy and I've been in therapy on and off again for 30 years. And

sometimes you think like, don't I know it all by now? Do I really need to pay for this? Right, right. Oh my gosh, did I need to? And then some, I was just like, take my money. You know, so getting that support and then understanding some of the things, the lifestyle choices that you can make that will support you on this journey. Right. So one of the things that I began to prioritize for different reasons, like I used to prioritize exercise because I was like, I like my ass to move up a little higher. I mean, I'm like, I don't want to, in a bathing suit, I'd like my thighs to be a little toner. Like, you know what I mean? Or in the beginning with my diagnosis, it was like,

I should exercise because it's good for my immune system. Exercise became, I need to exercise because it helps me change the channel. Yeah. Yeah. So I know I've gone on and on and on and we can come back to other things, but I realize it's probably time for me to pass the microphone back to you. No, no, this is so great. I mean, I think, you know, you're right. Everybody has to find their own path to navigate toward the experience, the feeling, the processing, the metabolizing of challenging and difficult emotions that come up in the course of going through the trials and tribulations of life.

And I think many people find life coaches or therapy or workshops or just a good friend who can really just deeply help you see what you can't see. Or there's programs like the Hoffman process, which is something that, you know, is, is kind of like a, I think emotional intensive care. It's like the ICU for, you know, like where, you know, you can let all the, all the fluids out, you know, and all the emotions out and, and, and actually face things that you can't easily do on your own. So I think it's an, it's an important conversation, Chris, because bringing this forward for people, helping them to kind of normalize it, to understand that we are, you know, we are not going to get free until we understand, like you said, our emotional

physics, until we understand the things that are, you know, turning in on us. So if you are experiencing depression, if you are experiencing anxiety, if you are experiencing things like food addiction or alcoholism or drug use or any of these things, they're all ways that we turn against ourselves instead of actually meeting the feelings. And it's so hard to meet those feelings that we don't have the constructs or the systems or the structures in place in our society to do this easily. And it's actually, it's always seems worse than ever like we see you know and i and i like i said i just got back from from being in in nepal and india and you know it was a buddhist culture there and in some of these places and they have a very

different frame of life and in in even the most challenging, there's joy and there's a meaning of life quite differently. And I think because they do get taught about these concepts as part of their culture, and we don't. So, you know, in the book, Chris, you do have sort of a little bit of a roadmap where you talk about some of the five pillars of wellness, which really help us to kind of deal with the emotional piece too. I'm glad you talked about your mind and your thoughts being so important and how to actually influence everything else. But I'd love you to sort of talk about these five areas that you frame in the book around

our wellbeing and what the practices are, like, you know, what the pillars of the practices. So, you know, as you were saying in, when we're going through difficult times, this is a perfect time to double down on our self-care. And you probably know Dr. Judd, Dr. Judd Brewer. He, he wrote, he has a great book about anxiety and he talks about how it can actually be something that's habitual. Like every habit has a trigger, a behavior, and a reward or a result, because not all rewards are actually rewarding. So let's say we're really struggling. And so when we're struggling, we want to drink a glass of wine every night because it's going to help us,

I don't know, just self-soothe for a minute in some way. But we know that the result of that night after night after night, multiple glasses of wine or whatever it is, I'm just giving that example, actually starts to maybe impact our mental health. We start to feel more depressed. We're dealing with brain fog and all these types of things. And so it's like, I think that the tools that we sometimes reach for that are less productive, they're good intentions gone wrong, right? You're not doing it because you're weak. You're doing it because you're looking for help, right? But sometimes we're looking for help in places that don't actually provide the help that we need.

And so going through difficult times, I think that's when we can double down on our self-care, but in a different way. So when we talk about the pillars, it's just my way of distilling the, I would say the principles of a healthy lifestyle practice, which is about being mindful about optimizing what you're eating, what you're drinking, what you're thinking and how you're resting and renewing. And, you know, that kind of rests on

a strong foundation of stress reduction. Those things actually help to reduce inflammation. And, but the key word isn't optimized. The key word is mindful. And I think what can happen is we get really hard on ourselves. We want to get it right. And then we want to do it perfect. And if we don't do it perfect, we think we're failing in our healthy lifestyle practices. And I would say, you know, what, what you did when the chisel was hitting the fan for yourself is so, so, so essential. It's like, we got to slow it all down. What can we handle at this moment? We are not going to be at full capacity, nor should we expect ourselves to.

And so what can we prune? What needs to be let go of? How can we make more time and space for our own processing and healing and self-care, especially if we're caregivers? Because then we're already stretched thin, right? And so I like to say first and foremost is like lower the bar. Yeah, lower the bar. Lower the bar. Good enough is good enough. Yeah. Like expect less from yourself is what you're saying, which is kind of the opposite

of our culture, right? A little bit because look, when we expect so much of ourselves, like let's just break it down. Like expect less from yourself is what you're saying, which is kind of the opposite of our culture, right? A little bit because look, when we expect so much of ourselves, like let's, let's just break it down. Like, like let's make it really obvious. So the pillars, like if I'm at optimum, like I'm, I'm working the pillars, like the lifestyle might look a little different, but let's say I'm going through a divorce or let's say I'm going through my own diagnosis or the loss of a loved one. I've just lost my job. It shocked me. My boss kicked me in the teeth and fired me for no reason. Let's say that just happened. I don't feel like eating or I feel like eating the whole planet. And so for me, it's going to be like, I don't feel like eating. And so what am I going to do? Well, I got to eat. I might be going for the three pints of hog.

Chunky monkey. You want some chunky monkey, right? So like, I'm going to say, well, you know what? I don't have the energy. I'm completely, I'm so sad. I can't believe how sad I am. I'm going to make myself a smoothie because that takes very little time. And it's got the good fats and healthy proteins and, you know, all the good stuff.

Your people know, I don't even have to say, but that is a commitment I'm going to make to myself. I am going to drink water. That is a commitment I'm going to make to myself. That's what I'm saying about lowering the bar. You might open your pantry and see your 77 bottles of supplements and say, F you. I'm not, I can't. For whatever reason at that moment, you're like, I can't, you know, but what are the like three things in there you probably should be taking right now? And you'll talk to Mark, he'll tell you, but like lower the bar because if it's so high, you'll probably do nothing. And if you do nothing, you're going to feel worse. So it might not be that you're going to go to the gym and do all of the big things that you usually do with your trainer. But like, for me, if that's you, for me, it's like every single day, as my grandmother say,

by hook or crook, I'm going to take my walk after work. It's a 30 minute walk. I'm not doing it to lift my ass to the sky. I'm doing it to release my day and get some movement. Yeah. And so what I'm talking about is practical wellness that strengthens these, this lifestyle medicine that you so beautifully teach us about. Yeah, I think it's true. And I think, you know, what I've uh as a physician and as a human being and and and and and i i heard tony robbins talk about this uh once and it was it was such a powerful concept which is learn how to change your state yes right learn how to change your state whether it's like you know yelling and screaming jumping up and down a hundred times, going for a run, jumping in the cold river, you know, standing on your head, whatever it is, there are ways to

change your state. And it's, it's, it is emotional physics. And so I've learned that, that I actually have a channel that I can get to. It's a different channel by actually doing some simple practices that access my kind of emotional realm and help to resolve some of the sort of emotional distress by a kind of physical means, right? So I've learned all these practices and I'm talking right about them, but maybe it's like a cold shower, you know, like in the morning, it was like step in an ice cold shower. That'll change your state, right? process where you're actually changing your physiological state. And it's an incredible medicine because it discharges a lot of the stress. Because what we're talking about is whether it's grief or whether it's anger, whether it's anxiety, depression, these are all states of stress. And so it's a physiological process. And as a doctor, I deeply understand what the physiology of stress is.

But as a human being, like I can understand it and it's still going to, you know, mess me up unless I actually learn the tools and the techniques, whether it's having my morning smoothie, right? Yeah. So for me, it's like if I'm in a bad way and I, and when I was, when I was going through the divorce and the back surgery and a broken heart and my life kind of falling apart and, you know, having just lost my most, all my family, close family members, my nuclear family, I, I actually set myself up where I would, you know, do these practices, no matter how crappy I felt or how

depressed I was or how much grief I was experiencing, I was like, okay, I'm going to wake up and I'm going to journal for a half an hour, just like get out everything. Then I'm going to kind of work out or go for a bike ride or jump in the ocean. Or, you know, I had a set of practices that I would do and I'm going to have my smoothie and I'm going to eat these vegetables. And, you know, it kind of worked. And I didn't mean I wouldn't sit and meditate and cry, but I was actually able to move through it. And it helped me not to kind of get ossified in this state. And I think our emotions tend to get ossified. And unless we kind of learn how to, you know, break them up and change the

state we're in. And this is really why I think your book is so important because it helps us to see the greater context of it's, hey, it's okay that things fall apart. Stuff happens to all of us. But how do we actually navigate that? And how do we use some simple practices and tools to actually fix it? It's not that hard. It's like what you're eating. It's what you're drinking. It's what you're thinking. It's how you're resting, how you're renewing.

All the things you talked about, the pillars in your book. And I think those simple practical things are not overwhelming. They're really accessible to all of us. And it's, it's like a, it's kind of like the medicine that we're missing, right? I, as a doctor, you know, I, it's hard to treat diseases of despair, right? You, we've got to find a different way. And I mean, maybe if you all went to that Tonglen school in India and learned social, emotional, ethical learning, you know, like we'd be okay, you know, but we're not,, emotional, ethical learning, you know, like,

we'd be okay, you know, but we're not, we have to kind of, you know, go back to school, really. And your book is, in a way, a curriculum for us to kind of relearn how to be in relationship with our feelings, our emotions, our hardest, you know, most difficult things that we have to face in life. Thank you for that. You just said so many wonderful things. And, you know, these are the, this is like the work boots of how to get, how to get moving when you don't want to be moving. Um, it's, and, and I'll, I'll just take a step back real quick and say, you know, sometimes it just begins with courageous acknowledgement of saying, this is where I am right now. And that's why the first step of that emotional literacy is so helpful so that you can understand where you are and then actually say it. Because, you know,

when we think about diseases of despair, we think about loneliness. We can be in community and still feel lonely. Why? Because we're actually not sharing the truth of what we're actually experiencing. And when we do share the truth of what we're experiencing, it gives permission for somebody else in our community to say, well, you know what? I'm very sad too. And that creates that deeper bond because we do need each other. It's very hard to lone wolf difficult times. And yet when we're in difficult times, what do we do? We tend to withdraw. And so I'd say just even being able to, here's an example. I was in a meeting the other day and somebody asked me how I was doing. And I said, I'm sad. Not something you say in a meeting. No, no. And I'm not saying that you should,

like, I'm not giving you like, go, go tell your boss you're sad. You know what I mean? Like, but I'm in a meeting and I said, I am sad. That was such a huge win because what I was doing is saying, you're asking me how I am. but for whatever reason you were moved in that moment and you cried and you didn't say, I'm sorry. You just said, thank you for, you know, holding space for this moment. First of all, everybody would be like, Whoa, what kind of stuff does she take? That's amazing. Like that was brave. It was brave. What was so brave about it? It was just being with the truth of the feeling. And for you, it could be just starting with naming it. What am I feeling right now? Like what would it be like to start your day and write this question for yourself? How am I feeling right now? Like, what would it be like to start your day and write this question for yourself? How am I? And then, and then like literally free form and let yourself actually know how you are. That's where we're going to start before we even put the work boots

on. If you just developing that relationship of how am I? Well, I'm, I'm this and I'm that. And, oh, you know, it's just even getting in touch with those emotions because we can give you lots of tools. There's box breathing, there's mirror work. There's so many, I write about a lot of the practical things in the book. And that's not box breathing. Isn't like being in a box and breathing. No, it's a box. No. I just want people to know. It's a technique of actually breathing in, holding it, breathing out. Very good. You don't need that mess in the comments.

Yeah, you're like, it's so stupid. But anyway. They told me to go in a box. Yeah, no, that's not it. But let's make it, let's simplify it all and start with the truth of where we are.

Yeah. Yeah, it's beautiful. Also in the book you shared after your father died, you took a beautiful walk with your mom on the beach. And that was really profound for you. And then it was a moment know, on Valentine's day, it was your 18th year cancerversary, you call it. It was a few days after your dad died. And, you know, tell us about the walk and what happened and you kind of had some kind of

message from your dad. And, and I think that'd be very meaningful to share. Yeah. You know, I have to say I have a very feral, fluid, fickle relationship to faith. And I like, you know, alliteration, obviously. I think like everything, I question life very rigorously. And I was going through a time where I was really questioning if there's anything beyond this, even though I know that energy doesn't die, it transforms. And I believe that's the same with love. But I can get very cerebral very quickly. And we were going for a walk on the beach. We're both so soaked in grief. We're in shock, really. And we had an incredible experience through his passing and being present with him.

I learned so much from the hospice, nurses and doctors. I'm no longer at the place of really being afraid of my own death as a result of going through this, which was what a gift, but we're walking and I'm, I'm like, dad, if you're there, I could really use a sign, you know, and a little further out and there's nobody on the beach. We see, I see these two long stem roses standing at attention. And he would have sent me red roses for Valentine's Day because he often did. And it was one for me and it was one for my mom. And the crazy part was, is that beforehand my husband had gotten me roses, but he was like,

I don't know what to do. Should I get your mom roses? Is that going to be weird? Is that going to remind her of her loss? I said, look, if you're so stuck on the roses, they're not yours to give. And so here we are. And I was like, mom, it's dad. And we go running to these roses and it was just such a beautiful moment. Again, I don't know how it works and I'm very open to the mystery and I'm so excited. I think we'll really know when we know. But it just filled my heart with hope and possibility. And we got back to the car and we were in the parking lot and I could see this little apartment complex and there was a man getting ready to watch a movie. He's like in his lazy boy, big screen TV that I can see. And I see

Netflix come on and the title card of the movie that he's about to start watching is called Surviving Death. And I'm like, the sons are coming fast and furious. All right, dad, here's the situation, you know? And so I think the point is what I've, what I've done since then is really, it's given me an opportunity to not only strengthen the faith of my knowing, but to build, to build a new relationship with the people that I love who are no longer here. And so that relationship continues and making, you can even say like, I'm going to make my life a treasure hunt. I'm going to look for signs, signs that I'm in a loving universe, signs that, you know, I'm still in relationship with people who have passed that are still a big part of my heart. And when you start to make your life a treasure hunt, you'd be surprised how many treasures you see. And so that was a big aha for me, as was the making your golden years now and

then saying, okay, well, how am I going to do that? It's not just about the wonderful people I want to have in my life or the experiences I want to have, but it's also about what kind of nose am I going to say now? What is the perspective this has given me and how do I embrace fully alive living and really live more in alignment with who I am so that I can continue to share the truth of that and also blossom deeper into that person? And that means that there's some things that probably will fall apart. Like sometimes when things fall apart, there's a domino effect because there needs to be. Yeah. You know, it's like Leonard Cohen, right? It's like, you know, the crack is where the light gets in, right? Yeah. And things are cracked open in our life, it's often the most juicy moments. It's the moments of healing, of repair,

of learning, of discovery, of kind of getting to the next quantum level of our own emotional, spiritual evolution. It's hard. It's not fun. It's painful. But it also is kind of juicy. It's like we kind of push away the

things that are uncomfortable right we we avoid pain and we see pleasure as just human nature right but but it actually it undermines our ability to actually feel the pleasure it's it's kind of paradoxical as we bury the pain and the grief and the loss and whatever we're feeling and we don't go into it, it actually causes more pain. It's kind of this weird paradox. And actually going through it and meeting it and facing it and experiencing it and breathing through it and getting the help. Like I said, you said it very well. You can't do this on your own. You need a team, right? And it's a hard thing for people to kind of get in this life because we all want to sort of not feel those feelings. But actually, your book is an invitation

to think about it differently. It's an invitation to meet those feelings to to go through the grief to go through the loss to face it all and actually to kind of emerge through it free it's like i i i it's like like you sort of said it like when you were in the parking lot and you had this moment and afterwards there was something that felt light or free in you you know i was talking to a friend last night in my men's group. We've men's group of, you know, friends we've been have for 40 years. You know, it's like, so we know each other really well. And, you know, he's talking about, you know, the sense of, you know, when his mother died and how, you know, the undertakers came to take her away and the grief he felt and the, you know,

the sobbing and then, and afterwards, how, how much lighter he felt and how much freer he felt. And I think that's true for all of us. Like if we go into it on the other side, it's like, it's like climbing a mountain, you know, it's like so hard to get to the top and then you're like, Oh, and then it's like, and then it's kind of, it gets easy on the way down. So I think you've climbed a lot of mountains in your life, Chris, you know, you've climbed the mountain of your own cancer thriving, which is amazing. It's like 20 years. And I've been with you a lot through that journey. You have.

And, you know, the loss you've shared, you know, about your dad and other things that we've all gone through, it's such a gift. Your being on the planet is a real gift. Your book is a gift. And I wonder if you have any final thoughts or words you want to share with our audience. Yeah. Well, first, thanks for having me.

This is such a highlight for me to be with my dear friend and mentor, Mark. I would say just give yourself grace and as much as possible when you allow yourself to become more curious to explore the conversation that we're having today is to also make sure that you are very compassionate with yourself. But as we've been talking about, this is the path, right? It's so easy to say, we are in the personal development world in many ways. And I see the trends where people are talking about creating their best life and manifesting and all these wonderful things. Like who doesn't want that? We want to attract the abundance into our life and so on. I do. But I think that this is the groundwork because sometimes when we're doing that work or we're searching desperately for ways to do that, it's kind of like putting lip gloss

on a problem, right? The problem is still there. And so by being courageous enough to say, I'm going to go to some of these deeper places, it's almost like we unlock the potential for the lives that we want to live. And you, you keep mentioning the beautiful word freedom. I mean, that's just such a core desire of mine and of each and every one of us. And we may never be completely free of the pain and that's normal too. It's not a failure, but I believe that we can be free of the fear of the pain and the barrier it creates to fully alive living. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I love that, Chris, that's a beautiful way to end. And anybody who's listening, I'm sure you have had loss. I'm sure you have people in

your life. I mean, we don't get through this life without having that. And I think this book, I'm Not a Mourning Person, Braving Loss, Grief, and the Big Messy Emotions That Happen When Life Falls Apart is a must-have book. So I would encourage you all to go out and get it right now. It's available anywhere you get your books. And if you love listening to this podcast and learn something about it and learn about grief and repair and healing, share with everybody, because I think everybody needs to hear this conversation and to know Chris

subscribe every year podcast. And we'll see you next week on The Doctor's Pharmacy. Hey everybody, it's Dr. Hyman. Thanks for tuning into The Doctor's Pharmacy. I hope you're loving this podcast. It's one of my favorite things to do and introducing you all the experts that I know and I love and that I've learned so much from. And I want to tell you about something else I'm doing, which is called Mark's Picks. It's my weekly newsletter. And in it, I share my favorite stuff from foods to supplements to gadgets to tools to enhance your health. It's all the cool stuff that I use and that my team uses to optimize and enhance our health.

And I'd love you to sign up for the weekly newsletter. I'll only send it to you once a week on Fridays. Nothing else, I promise. And all you do is go to drhyman.com forward slash pics to sign up. That's drhyman.com forward slash pics, P-I-C-K-S, and sign up for the newsletter. And I'll share with you my favorite stuff that I use to enhance my health and get healthier and better and live younger longer. Hi, everyone.

I hope you enjoyed this week's episode. Just a reminder that this podcast is for educational purposes only. This podcast is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional. This podcast is provided on the understanding that it does not constitute medical

or other professional advice or services. If you're looking for help in your journey, seek out a qualified medical practitioner. If you're looking for a functional medicine practitioner, you can visit ifm.org and search their find a practitioner database. It's important that you have someone in your corner who's trained, who's a licensed healthcare practitioner, and can help you make changes, especially when it comes to your health.