This Podcast Is... Uncalled For - Tamara Usman

Episode Date: April 3, 2026

Mike is pleased to be joined today by his dear friend Tamara Usman.  Tamara is a massage therapist and energy healer, and is currently based in Honduras.

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Tuning now just waiting. Just press play when I'm always the shop. Hi, everybody. Welcome to the podcast. I'm very pleased to invite my dear. your friend Tamara Usman to the podcast. So Tamara, good to see you. Thank you, Michael. May I call you, Mike? Yes, you may.

It's my pleasure and honor. Mike and I met, do you think 15, 16 years ago now? Yeah, yeah, 15, 16 years, yeah. Yeah, amazing. But we're both under the age of 30. Yeah, we're just bad. I see what you did there. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So,

so I have you been? Because it has been a while since I've last seen you. Yeah. I think it's been a number of years. I've lived overseas here in Utila Island Honduras, which is 1,700 miles as the pelican flies directly south from Kansas City. Nice. So I've.

I've been on this Caribbean island just under six years, and it's been quite an adventure. Great. Yeah, I'm still in Casey, but that's okay. That's the life I had chosen. Yes. So, yeah, what have you been up to down in Honduras? Well, I moved here with my former spouse, and we moved here for semi-early retirement. at the time I was 45, I'm now almost 51,

and it's been really interesting to live in an emerging country. Some people call Honduras a third world country. I say emerging because, you know, we're all immigrants someplace. And a lot of times when somebody is called an expat, they usually have kind of a negative connotation that somebody is moving from, oops, from Europe or, oops, sorry, about that from Europe or Canada or America from a wealthy country to an impoverished country. So I don't call myself an expat here.

I call myself both an immigrant and a member of the community. So the main thing I've been working on is my PhD in conscious business ethics. And so that's been almost six years in the making. I've been working on that process. So I'm on the home stretch. Yeah. Excellent. Yeah.

Yeah, as I recall, you did, you ran a couple of days spas up here and did massage and energy work. Yes, yes, you're absolutely correct, Mike. I have been in the career of massage therapy, specifically Hawaiian Lomi Lomi Massage, which is a forearm dance with my forearms working on my client. And it's a very effective form of body work. as well as healing touch, which is an American holistic nursing form of energy work that follows protocols. So if you have pain in a big joint, you do this. If you have sinus infections in a small area, you do this. So it's a protocol-based, science-based form of energy work and really the first of its kind. Most of us have heard of Reiki and many other forms of energy work.

They're also wonderful and very effective, but like Reiki, for example, is based on a Buddhist form of meditation from a long time ago. And so that's why it's Reiki. It's a Japanese term. It's a Japanese word. And so, yes, I've done that. And I continue to do that for the community here in Honduras. But I also teach the women here how, especially the women, I'm open to teaching men. But the women here seem to really enjoy learning a trade and a vocation here.

Excellent. Excellent. So you're still doing all that, Dana and Honduras? I am just on a much smaller scale as opposed to having Aloha Day Spa and Aloha Wellness Center. I work much fewer hours. That's the thing here is that most. of us who are in America, we don't realize that there's a very big world and there's only 330 million Americans and 8 billion people on this planet. So we forget how other people live. And so

living here for six years has been incredibly eye-opening for me because, for example, one of my neighbors, literally Mike has a lean-to for a home. They have three walls. They can't afford that fourth wall and they're working hard to get that fourth wall. And so when you see it, when you see it puts it in perspective that are champagne problems, if you will, or, you know, the things that we consider serious, our Wi-Fi went out. Well, that's normal here. Yeah, that's, yeah. I see, yeah.

So I do want to take a slight detour because I remember our prep getting ready for a This conversation you mentioned about with cancer. Yes, yes. I, fortunately, I haven't had any myself, but both my, both the siblings I'm living with have added one form or another. I've lost friends to lung cancer and participate now in lung cancer walks every year. I found out my, friend about that through my football coach who himself survived lung cancer. Really?

Yeah. So it's really personal for you. That's beautiful. And also sad, too. It's both. Yeah. Yeah. Yes.

In November of 2015, about 10 years ago now, I was diagnosed with advanced stage, stage four, metastatic right breast cancer that had metastasized. into my liver. Actually, it was considered vascularity associated with malignancy into my liver. And I am chemically sensitive. I'm neurodivergent and probably on the spectrum somewhere. So I have to vote sometime at this podcast talking about that. Yes, so I think there's over one billion of us out of the eight billion of us on the planet who are out-of-the-box thinkers. And some of us also have brain.

inflammation and that's okay. And so and gut inflammation, but needless to say, I can barely take an ibuprofen. I'm very chemically sensitive. Is it that way for you too, Mike? Or? No, not really, but whoa, cameras falling in. I'm going to turn it. Yeah, let's turn it this way, see how that works better. Can you see my nurse shark in the background? I can. Yeah, that's awesome. Nice. Yeah, that's from the reef here. So, so, yes, a decade ago I was diagnosed with end-stage cancer, and I was 40 years old and about to turn 41 and was diagnosed. And my conversations were, well, I can barely take an ibuprofen. How am I going to take chemotherapy radiation? All the necessary protocols. So my primary care physician, she is retired now, but her name is Dr. Lil. L-I-L and she's a phenomenal doctor of osteopathy. And maybe you know that osteopaths usually adjusted the small bones, ligaments, and fascia of the nose, ears, brain, spine, osteopathy.

And so she was very holistic and she told me Tamara, you have two weeks from your date of diagnosis until you're going to meet with KU-Med with the Oncology Center. And so I did my work, Mike. I created a protocol of 13 action steps. Basically, I just pretended it was Mike coming to me with this diagnosis at the spa. And I acted as if you were my client, except I was my own client and just wrote those protocols down, based both on science and my studies and also on my intuition.

And less than two weeks later from the date of diagnosis, there was no sign of anything in my right breast except for, I believe the word was debris in my right mountain reduct. The only thing that was left was debris. And about six months later, there was nothing detectable in my blood serum or in my liver scans of liver cancer. So I was told that was either a medical mistake or a medical miracle. It's okay. It's okay. You know, whatever it was. I wrote my protocols down. gave it to KU Med and said, what if this could help other people? And they said to me that that's not really the way it works. So that's also a big impetus or reason why I'm here in Honduras

because I can freely speak about that in English and in Spanish, both of the languages, to be able to talk about that because there is no FDA, federal drug administration, there is no USDA, there is no AMA, there is no ADA, there is no ADA, You know, there's no governing bodies essentially. So everything is really rebellious. And that is to my advantage for somebody like me who is mostly a rule follower. But I want to be able to educate people to think outside of that box.

So yes, it's been amazing just to have experienced that myself and have scans since then that prove that my breasts and my liver and my overall health is. incredible. One thing that I like to educate, and maybe this may help with some of your lung cancer friends or family who are still with us in this physical world, is that we have 50 trillion cells in our bodies, Mike, 50 trillion. And if we have cancer diagnosis, that means maybe one or two, maybe even 10 trillion of our cells are cancerous. So if we have 10 trillion out of 50 trillion, then that means that 20% of us, 25% of us is cancerous. That means 75% or 80% of us is whole and well, right?

Right. Nobody talks about that in traditional medical. Maybe functional medicine, maybe doctor of osteopathy, maybe chiropractic, maybe massage and energy healing, will talk about those cells that are still well. And so that for me is something that's very important to look at, you know, what would you say your your vitality is this morning today as we as we record this podcast out of zero percent being the worst day of your life and 100 percent being the highest vitality of your life?

I'm in I'd say I'm in the 90 range. Nice. That's what I want to hear, right? Yeah. I'm like that too. I wake up that way. And if I'm not, then I take the action steps to get myself to that high vitality. And you did too to be able to have yourself at such a high vitality today.

Yeah. Yeah, and this is followed by a couple of days and not being able to sleep, focus on my other job and all that. Yeah, that's pretty impressive considering all that. Being sleep deprived is a big part of vitality. Yeah, I agree. And I used to work security. I used to be up nights. You may recall from long ago.

From very long ago. Yeah, before we even met long. long ago, yeah. So yeah, part of me is kind of used to that sort of thing. But, yeah, it'd be nice to be able to get a good night's sleep and then get it. Also not helped up, but the fact, Tuesday evenings, I work late. Like, I'm at the office by nine, but then I have to be up at five in the morning to get to a club at seven. Oh, wow.

So you don't get any rest on Tuesdays. is what you're saying. Generally speaking. Pretty much. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, those things consistently really affect us. And in Ayurvedic medicine, which means science of life for over one billion people,

it's their primary form of medicine in India. And then, of course, we have acupuncture in TCM or traditional Chinese medicine in China. Again, over one billion people, primary form of medicine. But yet in the West, we tend to not give it any credence, right? We don't give it a lot of weight, shall we say. And so in Ayurveda science of life, what that means is our bodies need to rest between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. That's our wheel of life, essentially, that all of our organs need to rest during that time. So for those of us like yourself who do work at nights and many of us on the planet do, how do you make sure you catch back up?

one of the ways that I tease is I keep a sleep savings account, if you will, just like you keep a savings account, you know, for money. I like to keep a sleep savings account. So do you ever get to replenish yourself for that? That isn't that the point of a savings account to have money in case something bad where to happen? Right. Exactly.

So, you know, your podcast is uncalled for, right? I think that's a phenomenal, a phenomenal name, right? You want to tell you the origin of the name real quick? Please, I'd love to know. I'm sure your audience would too. Well, I've already shared it a couple times, but I'll share it again. It came from when I did my first podcast, you know, SunFlight Brew. Remember that?

Oh, yes. Yeah, the political podcast. We did photos with all of our guests and one particular photos. was wearing my favorite duke hoodie and uh one of my friends one of my political friends uh saw the photo posted a comment that sweatshirt is uncalled for well what do you want at least a yeah i got okay you can you can wear um and uh when i started this podcast i thought well i won't keep as light hard as possible so uh yeah i think about to that particular quotes I just said, yeah, let's have it be this podcast is uncalled for.

Exactly. That way we get to talk about everything that, you know, is out of the box and called for and uncalled for both, right? Absolutely. Absolutely. And I've used this podcast to talk about all sorts of different issues. Like being in film, being in board gaming and teaching chess and all. Well, that's in reconnecting with old friends. And talking about the subject that did bring us together, the subject of natureism.

So I do still practice. In fact, I came at this goes to appearing naked because I do sleep naked. Well, you know, that may change our audience some. That's all right. It's all right. I've had a tie-in mark. I've both been on. And we've talked about if I'm on,

we did that one at a nature's event. So we're both naked for that one. And I do still practice every day and every opportunity I can. Sure, sure. It's interesting because being here, especially in Honduras, you know, it's a Catholic country. And so something like that is not so normal, right? Natureism, nudism, just being free is not part of the social structure here.

Unfortunately, it's just not. And so when you get further south into South America, it becomes more European-based and still Catholic-based, but because you have the European influence, natureism is not an issue. but here in this small, small tiny community, it is. And we also have, you know, so many school children. And so there's, you know, there's different parameters, right? And I remember that the first time I came here in 2019 with my former spouse, it was Halloween.

And I had a costume on that showed quite a bit of skin. It was an adult costume. It was nighttime. I was with my husband. my former husband. I was with another friend. And I remember somebody drove by, Mike, and called me Cochina, dirty girl. Dirty, dirty girl. That's a very naughty term. That's no different than, you know, any other derogatory term for women in the United States or in the English language. And I got rid of that costume after that because it really made me retract. It made me realize cultural appropriateness

for where I am. So it's been very interesting. And I also, I also, Also, I'm now a board member for the Methodist school here. And so there's a modicum of behavior that's really important. All right. So I see. Yeah. It's very different. It's very interesting to be some place where the machismo culture, you know, the male

dominated culture here is certainly like nothing I've ever experienced living in both California and Kansas, the two states that I had lived in. I never have experienced anything like that, but it is here. And so we are also in a dive community, and it's the dive mecca, if you will, for 18 to 35-year-olds coming because it's such a small island and it's so cheap to scuba dive here. Let's say you wanted to come here and get your open water certification. It's under $300 U.S. dollars to do that here, and it takes you a short time frame, two or three, four days.

But if you were to do that in Kansas City, let's say, that fast cost would be closer to to over $1,000. I believe that. Right. For the same. And it would take you a lot longer than three or four days. And so, and you would have to travel and you'd have to go to a pool and then a lake. And then instead, you can just come here to the Caribbean scene.

And so because we have that huge, you know, 18 to 35 year old international travelers coming through, what you see oftentimes is you see, um, not. much men without their shirt, but you see a lot of women, especially European women, so they're wearing thongs, they're wearing skimpy bikinis. And this is a community so they don't put on a cover up. And they are looked very, very down upon here, very, very down upon because it is such a small island, because it was also a British island, you had lots of British pirates who were hiding from Britain. And so you have that lawless culture, but yet it's this mismatch of an undercurrent of different things.

So it's very intriguing to observe and to be here. So, yeah, I do deal with cultural fatigue. Have you ever been to Honduras, Mike? No, I've never been outside the U.S. Oh, funny enough. Really? Wow. Yeah, there's a lot to see even in the United States.

So it's hard. That's true. Oh, that's certainly true. And expensive. Yeah, that's the big thing is the expense type. the expense thing yes sure yeah well i think as close as we can get to be in natural i think if left to our own regard i believe maybe other people think this way too that our bodies are meant to heal and heal doesn't mean fixing heel means balancing so i think that the closer we can be to nature

both in our bodies and around us having natural sunlight waking up to that natural sunlight going to sleep when the sun sets, all of those aspects. And like you say for you, not having clothes on and doing podcasts in that direction too, the closer you feel, I assume, to being whole and to being well, right? Right. Right. Wonderful. All right.

Well, I think we'll go in because we are running at time I'll go in here for the recording parts. I think we'll stick around and talk a little more after I've finished the recording. Sounds great. And for everyone listening, thank you again for listening. We will talk again soon. Thank you all so much. And thank you, Mike, for facilitating this. This podcast is Uncalled For is hosted, produced, and edited by myself, Mike Charnepski.

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