I AM HealingStrong
Discover how to transform the most challenging chapter of your life with Jim Mann's inspiring podcast. As a stage 4 cancer survivor, Jim interviews famous musical artists like Tasha Layton, Ellie Holcomb, Katy Nichole, and Tim Timmons, as well as health influencers who beat incurable diseases like depression and addiction. Through humor and a renewed sense of purpose, guests courageously share their stories of overcoming the toughest times and learning to trust God. Tune in to Jim's powerful podcast to find hope and inspiration.
I AM HealingStrong
82: Stage 2 Hodgkins Lymphoma: A Mother's Journey to Emotional Resilience & Holistic Health | Cortney Campbell PART 1
Navigating the stormy waters of a cancer diagnosis while starting and raising a family, Cortney Campbell is not only a survivor but a beacon of hope. Her story is a testament to the healing power of faith and emotional resilience. As we peel back the layers of her journey, you'll discover the integral role that prayer, scripture, and personal reflection play in navigating life's toughest battles. The solace found in the Psalms echo throughout the conversation, offering a reminder of God's unique design for each of us.
Cortney opens up about mental health, recounting a chapter in her life where anxiety, depression, and burnout threatened her overall well-being. The pivotal support she found from a friend helped her find peace in a part of her holistic healing journey. Setting boundaries and letting go of the pressure to maintain a perfect facade not only helped Cortney in motherhood, but in every aspect of her life and emerged as an essential piece during her healing. This episode is a candid exploration of the pressures and expectations we face and a guide to finding His peace through surrendering.
Cortney discusses emotional healing, emphasizing the importance of acknowledging our nervous system's sensitivities and the beneficial role of routine in fostering a healing peace. We discuss the HealingStrong 'FIYAA' affirmation, which is a call to embrace forgiveness and God's hand in the healing process. So, join us in this heartfelt discussion that honors our shared experiences and the individual paths we tread in the pursuit of health, joy and healing.
FIYAA says, I WILL:
- Forgive myself and others.
- Invite God into all aspects of my life and healing.
- Yield to the needs of my body during this healing season.
- Accept my diagnosis and symptoms as temporary.
- Abandon negative expectations and think possibilities.
Connect with Cortney Campbell, the "anticancermom" on:
Cortney's blog
Facebook
Instagram
HealingStrong's mission is to educate, equip and empower our group leaders and group participants through their journey with cancer or other chronic illnesses, and know there is HOPE. We bring this hope through educational materials, webinars, guest speakers, conferences, community small group support and more.
Please consider supporting our mission by becoming a part of our Membership Program, as a monthly donor.
When you do, you will receive additional resources such as: webinars, access to ALL our past and most recent conference videos, downloadables and more, as a bonus.
To learn more, head to the HealingStrong Membership Program link below:
A lot of people will say, well, how do I create flow? And like, have my emotions flow? And of course you know some people are like you, jim, probably like do I even need to deal with this stuff? And maybe just for that person you just start with prayer, you know.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Reading the Psalms and seeing which Psalms you that really like resonate in your heart. You know, because the scriptures do speak. You know speak to people differently at different times. You know, because the scriptures do speak, you know speak to people differently at different times. And the Psalms are always a great place to start just going through one a day, um, because I mean you're going to feel the Psalms differently when you're facing a cancer diagnosis than you do, or any, or like an emotional, um upheaval in your life any emotional upheaval in your life, you're going to feel the different Psalms in different ways at different times, and it's going to help you in different ways, and so I would just start, of course, there.
Speaker 3:You're listening to the I Am Healing Strong podcast, a part of the Healing Strong organization, the number one network of holistic cancer support groups in the world. Each week we bring you stories of hope, real stories that will encourage you as you navigate your way on your own journey to health. Now here's your host stage four cancer thriver, jim Mann.
Speaker 2:Well, I can't believe it. This is the third time I've got Courtney Campbell on this podcast. I am just beside myself, whatever that means. That's funny. It took 45 years to get you on the first one and now, boom, you just keep showing up. You tell me you must.
Speaker 1:You must come on the podcast though the first one, of course, was your story.
Speaker 2:So if you don't know Courtney's story, I mean she was diagnosed and she was healed and she's fine and she's got 27 kids yes, that's how you heal Six kids, feels like 27 some days. Yes, yes, the sound is all the same. And then the second time you were on with your little hubby talking about the 10-year anniversary, right?
Speaker 1:The Healing Strong 10-year anniversary. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, not your 10-year anniversary.
Speaker 1:Before the conference yeah, no one's going to care much about my 10-year wedding anniversary, but the conference of celebrating Healing Strong was a big deal.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes it was, but now we're going to talk about another aspect of health. We're going to talk about another aspect of health First of all. Now I'm very I think I say this before every podcast I don't know a lot about this topic. I don't know a lot about a lot of things and a little about some things. So, and I've made it through life so far without hurting myself. So so far, so good, and I'm like at least two thirds of the way through. If I follow my dad's path, I still have another 33 years, so I'm good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, get it.
Speaker 2:I know. But there are issues, emotionally and mentally, that people go through. Well, everybody goes through in life period, especially when you're facing or gone through a diagnosis or some kind of a journey with cancer or other life-threatening disease, I don't know. Hopefully I'll learn about what's wrong with me, because I just don't seem to. I don't know. Things don't affect me that much. I just go along like nothing's happened. I think it's like an immaturity.
Speaker 1:Easygoing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, is that good.
Speaker 1:I think it's probably. I mean, I think that's great.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, you've had. You've had your own journey of ups and downs. And again, I'm not blaming this on your kids, but when, when the mom has kids, there's a lot of emotions involved and there's a lot of chemistry that goes on or I don't. I don't know, it's out of my field. That's why you are here. So tell us a little bit, give us a little background of your journey.
Speaker 1:perhaps Sure, I would say that I am wired as an extremely emotional person. I am always been very in tuned and driven by feelings like big feelings. Sometimes I'm as young as I can remember I'm crying at movies Like I'm talking really young. Like you know, I see my children now at three years old, four years old. I've never seen there's one of them that does cry, like scenes that are moving, not just sad. Or, you know, sometimes these Disney movies can have traumatic moments, but just the deeper feeling.
Speaker 1:The example I'm thinking of is anyone seen Little Mermaid? And at the end she leaves her father and, like you know, goes to be a human right? And I mean I can remember, at four years old, crying you know four or five very young crying at that scene, like you know, no one else was crying, looked around, no one's crying, none of the adults are crying, no one else. But I was like sob, like ugly sobbing, you know. So just just deeper feeling person. And when, learning as I got older, I think I was sent the message kind of like that I was strange or it was weird to be a very sensitive kid. I learned as I got older that it was actually okay and it's part of how God made me.
Speaker 1:But not everyone. You know we're all we are all capable of balancing and experience. We experience emotions different and you know we apply it to our prior experiences differently. You know I was very close with my dad. You know he's a he's, he's still alive, or you know he's still here. But I mean as a thinking, as a kid, I think I was so close with my dad. You know he's a he's, he's still alive, or you know he's still here. But I mean as a thinking, as a kid I think I was so close with my dad that when I saw in that movie you know her she's leaving her dad, of course that, you know, tapped into me. So I'm going on way too much about the little mermaid and all those feelings.
Speaker 1:But my point is is that I took that into adulthood and, you know, struggled with fear, probably more than the average person. I had something I don't talk about much, but you know adverse childhood experiences. You may, some people might be familiar with the term, the ACE study which studied childhood experience. Adverse childhood experiences are not just these big, you know wars being like the bigger, big T traumas, right, and and and children's childhoods. But you can have little T traumas too that stick with you. That you know.
Speaker 1:You remember the feelings you felt if they were negative, and one for me was being a spending a night at a friend's house when I was five and um, they watched. They watched a horror movie, like her dad was watching a horror movie, and I was there and and saw this horrible thing play out in the movie and very, very we even watched it as adults one time, a couple of years ago. My husband and I were like, was it really warranted what I felt? And we watched the movie I mean, it's a 1970s horror movie and we were like, yeah, that was, that was not appropriate for a five year old. You know, uh, I can see why I had issues.
Speaker 1:But that night I wanted to go home more than anything, but everybody in the house was asleep and I was stuck there as a five-year-old in a panic, in this dark house all by myself, and I didn't feel the parents had their door locked and closed. I couldn't get out and I had this intense feeling of being trapped and I couldn't get out and I had what I know now was my first panic attack as a five-year-old. I mean, I can remember it clear as day. I remember like the cars on the road seeing the headlights around in this dark room I was in. I anyway, I can. You know, I've had some therapy about this situation, which is, even as a parent, I'm very like nope, no, spending the night. It just says it shaped me Right. So our, so our emotional experiences as children shape us as adults and some people might, you know, even as a child. Maybe some kids would have dealt with that better, you know, oh, go to bed, go to sleep, and then, you know, never think about it again. But for me, because I experienced such deep feelings of panic and entrapment and you know stuff like that it, it really stuck with me. I never spent the night at a single house for like until, I think, until eighth grade. I was petrified of feeling not, not, it wasn't about that horror movie, it wasn't about spending the night. Really, it was about those intense emotional feelings of being trapped, of not being able to get out and get, and get to where I needed to go, to feel safe. So that kind of has led me to even with Healing Strong.
Speaker 1:When we wrote the Healing Strong Leadership Guide, I wrote the. I wrote the emotional healing section because I've done a lot of work as an adult to deal with these big feelings that I have and that's just you know. To deal with these big feelings that I have, and that's just you know. Little T traumas or big T traumas. You know the wars, the, you know abuse from an adult. I never had any of those big T traumas no abuse, no danger, no divorce in my family. But there, you know, there's these little T things, and especially for a sensitive person. But I felt everything and I and when I was diagnosed with cancer I had to deal with some of that stuff Um, some of those deep feelings of how maybe I felt, um as far as my self-worth, dealing with just decision-making, like being afraid of hurting people's feelings, forgiving certain people in my past you know we talk a lot about forgiveness, um at healing strong.
Speaker 1:So all of that hopes. I hope everybody listening is still staying tuned because I have some good stuff to talk about. But that's just my personal experience with emotions and and handling anxiety and and some um also depression. If anyone's ever dealt with that who's listening from feeling so anxious. For a good amount of certain seasons in my life I've felt just strong feelings that you have to let your, you have to learn how, even with the hardest, most negative feelings of anxiety, depression, hopelessness, entrapment, whatever you're feeling like, those feelings have to be dealt with and when they're not, they get stuck and you stuff them and I'm a firm believer that physical symptoms are often a result of emotional stuff that is not being dealt with.
Speaker 2:I've noticed so many people talk about depression and I don't think I have ever experienced depression and I think I'm in the minority there, which I'm glad I am. I guess I feel left out is what I'm saying. I'm glad I am. I guess I feel left out is what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:Well, I think maybe your hard has come in other forms, you know, maybe not depression, but other things. You know God uses all of this human experience to sanctify us and to make us more like him because of our experiences.
Speaker 1:you know it's all used for good and to those who love and believe. I mean, I think he has a plan for everybody and he does use those negative experience to draw us closer to him. And don't get on me if my, my scripture and my my world is wrong here, but I'm pretty sure that's accurate.
Speaker 2:Yes Wow not a bible scholar jim and obviously your world is is full, in which most moms can understand this and dads are like what are you talking about? But most moms, you know, once you start having more than two kids, it then it just gets blurry. There's so much going on and you forget to you know, the self-care and taking time for yourself, and then yeah, you're spot on for someone who's not a mom of two, you get it.
Speaker 1:Yes, six, rather, mama six I'm observant.
Speaker 2:How about that?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah maybe I do get depressed, or maybe I've had depression. I just didn't recognize it because it wasn't that deep. I don't know. I just don't pay attention to things. That's probably what it is. But I do know when I look back there are times in my life I probably should have. Maybe I would love to have therapy, just because I like talking to people. But I was raised with the Christian parents that, oh, you don't need therapy. That just means something's wrong with you if you have therapy, like well, isn't there something wrong with all of us? I mean, it doesn't have to be that deep Therapy is. And I've changed my mind about that, of course. And I've been to a therapist who said, oh my gosh, you're so well-balanced I'm just kidding, but he was close to that actually.
Speaker 1:I think you give off well-balanced vibes.
Speaker 2:I don't know what that's about, but anyway, everybody needs a perspective from the outside looking into our lives, and someone who's trained in that area will be even better, not just giving their opinions, but I think we all need somebody from the outside saying hey, you know what You're doing too much in this area. You need to balance it out with this area, or whatever it may be. I think we all would definitely have a better life if we had someone else's perspective in there. Is that how it should be? Am I right?
Speaker 1:Yes, no, you are A hundred percent. I have children coming in all stealth, like on the side here, asking me for their passwords to their tablets.
Speaker 2:Yes, of course I went to a therapist and we just basically had a good talk and I don't know if I learned anything from that, but it was just good to talk things out sometimes and I think that's what it is they let you talk things out and you pretty much can figure it out yourself when you realize hey, I just heard me say that out loud and you see a therapist is smiling like, okay, I think you understand what you need to do here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it sounds like you're doing pretty good, because when I seeked out a counselor I don't even like calling it therapy, that's how much of a stigma it has right, I went to therapy, but it was there, it was therapy thought out. I've there's two times in my life I've I've went because I've just wasn't able to sort through my life decisions. Um, and the in the first case, um, if we're going to go into specifics, it was in my early twenties and it was before. I was a believer and so I didn't have the faith to ground me and to guide my decisions. I didn't believe that God was in the details. You know, I was all in control and I had to figure it out and that was really what I would kind of call sometimes people call it your quarter life crisis because I was about 23.
Speaker 1:And I was trying to make a decision about moving to Atlanta because my husband, who was just a boyfriend, you know, a guy I was seeing long distance was here and I just I was so afraid of hurting him and I was also unsure about the Christianity thing because I was starting to kind of explore that, because he was a believer and I was not and I was just like it's all so weird and I just I wanted to make sure I was right. I had a lot of anxiety about becoming a Christian, believe it or not, so there was all that tied together, but I was mostly just so confused about like, whereas my life was about I've experienced a great spiritual and emotional battle with anxiety was when my life, god was changing me and doing something that was going to change the trajectory of my life and I was going what is happening? So that first time being, I wasn't a believer and I was having all this anxiety about this boy. He was so perfect for me and yet I didn't feel worthy and I had a lot of baggage from my you know honestly, my party, days of college and things feelings of shame I felt and I kind of pushed him away and I was remember feeling so stupid. Why could someone so great for me be so like? Why was I having such issues?
Speaker 1:Feeling like, um, like I wanted to be with them, even I just, and I, so I had to dig into that a little bit and that's when that's when I actually, like, I experienced just what people would call generalized anxiety, where I just started feeling anxious about everything and it seems so simple like, well, just do this or just do that. And I had people in my life saying, well, just do this and just do that. And I was like, but you don't understand, I feel anxious about everything Every part of my life. I feel like I'm just revving on. I describe it as you're in neutral, with the, with your foot on the gas. That's what it feels like to have generalized anxiety and and, crazy enough, through a series of events, all kinds of miracles. God helped me so much it's a whole podcast of its own. Um, I ended up coming to Christ and being baptized in the ocean Like I like this, that's so me, you know to to have that spiritual experience of being baptized like a. It took a while and it took took not only therapy, but just like a complete immersed program I had to go through to really get through those hard feelings of anxiety that I had.
Speaker 1:Generalized anxiety is different than just I feel anxious about this decision at work. Right, it is. You are stuck in your your. Your body is pumping adrenaline when it doesn't need to. You become afraid of your anxiety and of your feelings of anxiety because they make you, your brain. Chemistry shifts, you feel a little crazy. Then there's that stigma of am I crazy, am I going to do this crazy thing? And you really do. Your thoughts do become controlled by the chemistry that's happening because of, really, the initial panicky moment that you had a panic attack. So it's it's like a anyway, it's a total, like I said, a totally different podcast, but I but I did come through that season.
Speaker 1:I ended up moving to Atlanta and I got married to my husband and then, a year later was when I was diagnosed with cancer. That's how fast that all happened in that in that time and I had zero anxiety through the cancer and so, dealing with some of that emotional stuff I had already dealt with a lot of that in my, you know, a year before going through counseling and and, uh, sorting some of that out, learning about prayer and that I could pray to my heavenly father, cause that was not really something I was raised to do. So that's why, when one time, Chris work at the 2018 conference asked me what my favorite scripture was on stage, and I was just like I never really memorized scripture. I was such a new Christian when I was going through my cancer that I wasn't like this spiritual guru that, just like no one was advising me to memorize scripture and to have it in my heart, you know. But now, of course, you know, having raised six children, to know the Lord and to know, you know, do our best in memorizing scripture and especially scripture based on fear. Knowing they have my genetics and some of them have my disposition around fear and being a little more sense on the sensitive side I'm I'm definitely approaching motherhood a little differently in that way.
Speaker 1:But the second season I went through with this was when I, when our third daughter was born, healing strong, was like two years old. We were writing the guide. I was trying to keep up with my blog anti-cancer mom and trying to keep up with the social media. We had just moved cities. There was just so a way of just like I quit my job, like so much change and I, I just like all of these stressors just came at me in one big explosion and I, when, once our third daughter was born, I really could have used probably a little mommy help, like maybe a.
Speaker 1:You know, I just try to do it all on my own. I try to do everything and I, I, I kind of experienced what I guess people will call burnout, but it was from just intense feelings of if I don't, god won't, and I have to have my hand in all these things or people are going to die from cancer. My children can't go to that daycare or that babysitter because I have to have control over them too and it there's just not enough of me to go around. And, of course, like we homeschooled at the time, I can't go to school because we got to be a good homeschool family and keep every. You know, you know, and I was just trying to do too much and I just it was like I just didn't. I was a huge lesson for me because prior to that I never struggled with balancing all these things. You know I didn't have as many things to balance, but I learned my limits for sure.
Speaker 1:This is a really short version of that story. That was even worse than the first time I had gone through anxiety and depression. At one point I had asked my husband like I can't do this anymore, like I, I was so anxious that I couldn't even be around my children because, uh, like I mentioned before, when you have intense anxiety, your thoughts, you know people, you've heard people say you're struggling with your mental health. I was struggling with my mental health. I had never, you know, you see the commercials right, people struggling with their mental health. Or you have depression, just take this pill and you'll feel better, or, and they look so sad but then they look so happy and it's so easy.
Speaker 1:And here I was, after my holistic cancer story, saying like I can't go on an antidepressant. I can't and I never did. And that's another crazy story, cause I actually, the day I remember one of my horrible symptoms was that I um, at one point there was a point, and I can tell you the months, it was September of 2016. I, my body was, my adrenaline was so jacked up that I couldn't fall asleep. Every time I would try to fall asleep, I would just jerk back up and my heart would be racing. And this is this has just happened over and over again.
Speaker 1:My body would try to fall asleep. I would just jerk back up and my heart would be racing. And this is this would just happen over and over again. My body would try to fall asleep, it was exhausted, but it would wake back up again and my heart would be racing and I and I. This went on for six weeks and at some point in that six weeks I called Susie and I said Susie, I am desperate, I need you to to just I don't know what to do, cause she was always like a prayer warrior to me. You know, susie and I, we at this point we had been working with healing strong for what? Three, three years, um doing healing strong stuff together, and she prayed with me and um talked to me off the ledge.
Speaker 1:I'm not saying that antidepressants aren't for, like, some people that's their thing, but for me I knew it wasn't my thing. I had already tried them earlier in my life and it wasn't for me. It made me feel even worse a little bit. But she said court, it sounds like you have. Your cortisol levels are off. She said my son, ryan, has Addison's disease and he has to take cortisol to like, just get his cortisol, right he's. She was talking more about my sleep correction and sure enough, my doctor had already prescribed for me cortisol and get this. I didn't want to take it because it was a pharmaceutical and she said, court, it is just like the easiest drug. You know, you won't even know it's not, it's not going to affect your system.
Speaker 1:I was. You know people who feel holistically. We're so afraid of, like, doing something right that will set our chemistry off and the cancer might come back. But I realized so many of my decisions were just out of fear. And so, since this is something I prayed with Susie about, I felt like it was a God thing because Susie said it and my doctor literally had already had the prescription. I just hadn't felt build it. And so I went that day right to the store, build the prescription and, believe it or not.
Speaker 1:Within like, within, like a day or two, I started sleeping again, which was like the first step for healing, for me, to heal my emotions and my everything Right. So in that same conversation with Susie about the cortisol and all that, she called me and told me she had arranged this meeting with this woman. Her name was Brenda Stockdale and she was basically the emotional healing director of mind-body medicine at Cancer Treatment Centers of America and she was a friend to Healing Strong, I think her book's recommended as far as addressing mind-body medicine and emotional healing with cancer. She said I'd love for you to come with me because Susie and I at this point we were writing the leadership guide. All this was happening while we were writing the leadership guide and I was just trying. I was trying so hard to make it. We wanted it to be perfect, right?
Speaker 1:We knew that the future of Healing Strong was in the groups and we wanted our leaders to be well-equipped. So I was carrying that pressure while I had like and we wanted our leaders to be well-equipped. So I was carrying that pressure while I had like my friend who's my husband, kevin's business partner's wife, um, that she was telling me about that I needed to go see Dr Milton. And anyway we realized that Dr Milton is Brenda Stockdale's husband, and so it was just like this big God thing that was all orchestrated. Um had already had an appointment because of someone that was totally unrelated to this, to Susie and Healing Strong, with Brenda Stockdale already at her counseling center, at her counseling office.
Speaker 1:And so here I am meeting this woman who another friend recommended to me and I was going to see her in like two weeks for counseling because I was dealing with this major problem emotionally Right. And here's Susie, I meet her two weeks ahead of time and I'm like what? You're the same person. It was just crazy. I didn't even look at her name, I just knew her as Dr Milton's wife. She just happened to have a different last name. My point is God's in the details. And he was taking care of me and I learned a lot about trust and that he does care and he is in it and you might not see that he's you know healing you like like a genie in a flash, but he does care about our. You know our stuff and he's in it.
Speaker 1:So anyway, um, I healed from that time in my life Eventually. It took time and it was just one miracle after another. I think that was the same time I was at that doctor's office and I found this book and it was called. It was something about depression Like you can heal depression naturally. And I opened the book up and somebody had used a newspaper clipping from a newspaper in North Carolina and had clipped the article out of this newspaper and it was for a healing strong meeting, had clipped the article out of this newspaper and it was for a healing strong meeting. And I opened the book up and I was just like lord, you're so amazing, like how in the world someone clipped a healing.
Speaker 1:We were not big at that time. We had, like I don't know, 25 groups or something and one of them was in, I think, near Asheville, north Carolina, and, um, I just it, just those little things, and he was showing me I see you, I see you, and I got you and I did buy that book and I learned a lot from that book. I won't say the name of it because it's not, you know, christ centered book on depression. It's a lot of new, agey stuff, but some of the stuff was helpful. If anybody wants to know it, they can email me at Courtney at anti-cancer momcom and I'll tell you. But anyway, just a crazy time. We're just Ram. I'm just rambling here, jim, but thank you for giving me a platform for this. I've never talked about my emotional healing story or anything like that. There's probably so much I'm going to think about after this podcast airs and go.
Speaker 1:Oh, I should have said that and I should have said that, but it's just not you know, like I said, everything's been so focused on, like the cancer healing story that I've never really talked much about it's emotional healing story and how, you know, people can struggle with different things to different degrees and I don't think it's any coincidence that you're here telling me I don't struggle with this stuff. You know, you're kind of on this end of the spectrum and then there's me going. I struggled with this stuff a lot and it was a big, it's a big part of my story. You know feeling a little crazy and the stigma that goes with feeling like you're crazy because you have your chemistry hijacking. You know your, your thoughts.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, this helps me a lot, cause I have, you know, I got four kids not quite as talented as you are, but I do have one of them. I won't mention his name, but he doesn't listen to this podcast. Anyway, he doesn't listen to the podcast.
Speaker 1:We're going to talk about people behind their back.
Speaker 2:But he, he, he deals with a lot of anxiety and I don't know what to do for him. I'm like why, why are you worried about this? Or why, why is this affecting you? So much Is all his, uh, his surroundings affect him greatly. I mean, we'll be in a restaurant and he's like doesn't feel right in there because it's just too noisy or too crowded. And I didn't even notice.
Speaker 1:I like yeah, talking about, so we got up and left, because you know yeah, his baseline nervous system is a little more elevated than yours, jim. Like I've learned how to talk in this way, my nervous system is a bit elevated and I need to just take a minute to bring it back down. I have, I have lots of strategies. If we're talking specifically to anxiety, but I also want to talk about just for people that don't deal with anxiety. There are other valuable things. As far as, say, you're diagnosed. We stress so much in Healing Strong about like you got to deal with your emotions. You know Right, but what does that look like? You know?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and of course, if you have cancer and of course there are so many different protocols you can pick, and that raises your anxiety level Because you're like, oh, I got to pick the right one. What if it's not the one that heals me? Maybe I need to do something else and and uh, I can understand that anxiety because you feel like that's more of like a like, a right now.
Speaker 1:acute anxiety, um, and then they got, of course, the more chronic anxiety which is you know what I dealt with.
Speaker 1:I deal with both, of course, but the acute anxiety I can all because, because my baseline nervous system is just kind of chill, I can go oh, I have this one decision I gotta get. I gotta work this out Right, like you have this one thought that's bothering you or this one decision that's pestering you. You know those. Um, I talked I think I talked a little bit about the beginning, about creating like flow in your life.
Speaker 1:When people are diagnosed with cancer or any chronic disease. I think they always need to look at how well is your routine? Are your routines in your life flowing? How well is your emotional like? Are you feeling like those negative emotions? Are they flowing through and then they're done, or are they kind of sticking here and they're not resolved? And so those are the. Those are what we aim for at Healing Strong. We created the Faya. You know the Faya? Um, what did we call it? It's just like a. It's our saying right, our like motto forgive. Forgive each other's and yourself um invite God into your healing yields.
Speaker 1:Um, I got I. I can't remember it's been so long I wrote it. I wrote fire. You know where it came from. This will be the first time I talk about this no there's a song, um. That was popular around that time. We wrote the healing, the leadership guide and it went just like fire, burning up the waves.
Speaker 1:Anyway, it's not a Christian song I don't know, if you know it, pink sings it, but it was really popular and I was like fire, we should do fire. So we spelled it F-I-Y-A-A. That's where it came from. Anyway, a piece of feeling strong trivia, that's beautiful.
Speaker 2:Fire. I was about to make fun of that Like a campfire yeah.
Speaker 1:Beautiful fire, I was about to make fun of that. Like a campfire. Yeah, no fire, I just like fire, that's it, that's beautiful man.
Speaker 2:I feel smarter now than the rest of the people in Haley trunk.
Speaker 1:It won't last as far as, like, a lot of people will say, well, how do I create flow and like, have my emotions flow? And of course you know when you're. You know some people are like you, jim, probably like, like, do I even need to deal with this stuff? And maybe just for that person you just start with prayer, you know, right Reading the Psalms and seeing which Psalms you that really like resonate in your heart. You know, because the scriptures do speak, you know, speak to people differently at different times and the Psalms are always a great place to start just going through one a day, because I mean, you're going to feel the Psalms differently when you're facing a cancer diagnosis than you do or any, or like an emotional upheaval in your life any emotional upheaval in your life.
Speaker 1:You're going to feel the different Psalms in different ways at different times and it's going to help you in different ways, and so I would just start, of course, there, and then, of course, you want to take it to the next level, you know. Then there's your. Okay, let me write down all of the you know. I think it's worth it, if you're dealing with a physical diagnosis of cancer, to go through. Well, what are my emotional stuff I've gone through in my life? And, of course, just starting to write down in a journal or wherever you want, maybe a special place that you just keep it. Like this thing happened in my childhood, my, you know it could be those big T traumas. Like my mom died when I was whatever five and, um, I think I've always been fine because, you know, I just I was a kid and I dealt with it in the way kids do. But in reality, like you've gone through your whole life and all these things your mom wasn't present for. That you really need to go through and either talk it through with somebody or write it down, talk to God about it. Like Lord, this is this, this stuff, or Lord, this stuff, or you know, take it as far as finding a good counselor. You can find Christian counselors, usually through your church. They'll have a list of, like, trustworthy counselors, um, or you know, ask around or just show up randomly and it's all put together for you, like it did for me, like it was for me Right, basically a freeway. It can be completely free to kind of go through your emotions with, um, a trustworthy friend or a pastor. But you can go as far as a counselor. But God's always like a free friend, right, a free person to go through. And let you know, because I know when you're healing holistically, goodness, it gets expensive. So but yeah, all these things need to be just talked about. I think best talked about out loud to somebody who listens, even if you're praying out loud.
Speaker 1:Or you know a spouse, uh, kevin is my. I call him my lie samurai. My husband, kevin, because I am such an emotional. Uh, I have to process out loud and I have to talk it out. That he's I call him my lie samurai, because often I'll be like this and this and I feel this because almost every day when I'm homeschooling six kids, I have some negative emotional experience of some sort that I'm wrestling with and I can't work it through in my mind. I have to talk it through and God bless him. He's so wonderful for me.
Speaker 1:You know, I, I, I see why, uh, why the adversary was so heavy on me when we were dating and like I had all those problems. Because we have. Now I feel like we have made such a difference in so many people's lives through the work we've done together, you know, through the things that we've been involved with, through my cancer story or bringing six kids into the world, or whatever that like it. It kind of makes sense now, you know, if that makes sense, that's something like a just a trustworthy friend or a spouse. I mean, I'm trying to get back to my notes now. Had a sentimental moment there.
Speaker 2:So now I know how to pray for Kevin.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, he's, he's amazing. I mean, anybody listening, that's an emotional wife. I see you. I see you and people may not know that about me. I don't know if I've ever opened up that much, but I'm just. You know I'm not.
Speaker 1:I'm not an unstable person, but I am very like I feel hard and I feel frustrations and I can get really worked up because I want to do my best. I want my kids to, you know, I want my kids to have the best childhood. Like you know, issues you know no like, and then that is not realistic and those things I've also dealt with, as you know. Notice, I can't protect them from everything. In fact, that's probably, and I learned this through my counselor, brenda. She's like it's honestly a little negative to try to control everything in your children's lives. You need to let them make their mistakes and go play and whatever, and we do. We're not, we're not helicopter parents at all, but there are just certain things I think because of you know, in the holistic health space where you're always like you can't eat that and you can't, you know, can't take that, and you know, well, you got. You get what I'm saying. Oh, there's chemicals in that. There's so many things to fear that you can get a little weird.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I'm borderline there.
Speaker 1:We can get a little weird and we have to let some of it go and, honestly, a lot that's a lot of my anxiety was about after you know the time I'm telling you, the last time was eight years ago now.
Speaker 1:And I've been great since I recovered. It took, honestly, a few years to completely recover, until we had a four-year gap between our first three kids and our second three. Fourth, fifth and sixth came at 36, 38, and 40. So any woman listening to this, you can do it. Keep your body fueled by healthy plant foods and take care of yourself, and you, emotionally, can handle it too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my wife is 41, with the last one.
Speaker 1:Yes, oh gosh, yeah, now it's just a matter of like okay, god, you said six, so that's it. It's kind of a nice feeling knowing we're moving forward and once this last one's potty trained. We're going to be no more diapers or you know those little things that we're grateful for and we're cherishing right now. But we're kind of like we want to spend a little more time with our big kids doing big kid things.
Speaker 2:Seasons.
Speaker 1:So when people ask about, like, why is emotional healing so important? Um, it's because it kind of completes this idea that we need things to just flow through us rather than things stick in us, and that when you're healing holistically, this is your diet, right. You want your food to do what it needs to do inside nourish your cells, heal your body and then flow out, right?
Speaker 1:Your digestion should flow with anything chemical, wise it shouldn't stick in your body, it it? It shouldn't go in there in the first place, but it does. But if you're, you're making sure your detoxification pathways are open. That a lot of time happens with our, when we're checking our mineral deficiencies and our vitamin deficiencies and making sure those are optimal. And then your methylation can you know, methylating everything that needs to go through and it's doing its job and it's not getting stuck. And then with your emotional health, same thing it needs to come. You know your thoughts come through you, you deal with them and they don't get stuck in this sort of negative vibration. I hate saying that it's like such a new agey term, but, but your body is constantly like we're made of cells that vibrate against each other.
Speaker 1:God, God knows what he's doing, and so we just your emotions need to flow through as well. I think that, real quick, if anyone's going well, I'm dealing with all this and it's, you know, I'm what. If I'm not vibrating well, or whatever they're thinking, you're doing great, Right. If, if, if you're not feeling a sense of constant anxiety and worry and you're not, you know things aren't happening in your life and you're kind of like stuck on them and worrying about oh what if I said this or what if I did that, Then you're doing great. You just just let things flow through and talk to yourself in a positive way, Cause life, life happens right Every day. We probably experiences, you experience conflict, or you experience anger or, um, you know a child that's not doing what you need them to do, and those are the things I'm talking about. People don't think they have to deal with stuff, but that's even those little micro things. You got to deal with them. You can't let the sun go down on what's the saying like anger or whatever.
Speaker 1:But yeah, so I would just say watch for flow, Things got to flow. That's when the healing happens.
Speaker 2:So Wow, yeah, so that I mean that's something I have to learn is to simplify, streamline, which is pretty much that's a workflow things of things just keep flowing. Same type of principle, I guess, because and I sit here it's hard for me to concentrate on something when I see piles like, oh, I got to get to that one, oh, I got to get to that, and what in the world is that? It's stuff from my parents when they passed away years ago, and I'm like yes, that's a good point, because clutter can be a point of like.
Speaker 1:I haven't dealt with that yet. Right, it's just there. That's why people have storage units, you know. That's why every time I look, there's another storage unit going, because people emotionally can't cope with their stuff. It's just sometimes you have to do that, you have to stick it somewhere for a little while and then you can come back to it. And how many times? Even just with this schoolroom, I got rid of even more stuff Cause I used to be a fourth, fifth grade teacher for 10 years in public school and I came home to homeschool. I have all this public school stuff and I say public school stuff it's meant for educating 30 kids of the same grade and I'm not doing that anymore. I don't need binders and binders of worksheet things to copy, because I'm homeschooling six kids of different ages and we don't always. You can't just sit and say okay, kids, we're gonna blah, blah, blah, different. You had to pivot, right, you got to pivot to create the flow, because it's not there with my old methods.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's part of the. That was part of the problem. You know, in some ways, even you know in this, in this time, I talked about in this podcast.
Speaker 2:So yeah, this has helped a lot of people, especially moms, because they're linked to all that stuff, and then people going through cancer.
Speaker 1:You want me to give a word to moms Jim.
Speaker 2:Yes, please do, cause I can't Can.
Speaker 1:I Okay. So I have been in the place of where I thought I could do everything and that was when I burned out. So my biggest advice is that you know I had I wanted to homeschool, I wanted to do healing strong, I wanted to work on my blog, I wanted to get up and work. Get up and work out at five in the morning and have this great body, um, and I wanted to eat perfectly, right? Oh, that was such a point of stress after our third because I had eaten perfectly for seven years, that was.
Speaker 1:It was seven years after my cancer diagnosis that my third was born and I went through all these emotional anxiety. You know depression problems. My third was born and I went through all these emotional anxiety you know depression problems and I just learned that I couldn't. I had to let things go in almost every category. I had to stop homeschooling. I sent my oldest to school for two years and God was in those details. He helped me. She went to a school I was actually. I was happy for her to go to and it was a charter school. We didn't have to pay $10,000 a year for her to go there, it was free, like there was so many. He's in the details. You just pray through it.
Speaker 1:I had to my diet, my I that was. I talk about the Budwig mixture, which is my cancer, my cancer fighting, like cottage cheese, flaxseed oil mix. My body said no. I started getting gallbladder pains and I had to stop that. And I was nervous and so fearful because I was like I've been doing this for seven years and I've stayed cancer free. What if I stop and my cancer comes back? I had, like really legit fears. I had no time. There was just countless days where I would get to lunch and I'm like I haven't made my cancer fighting smoothie. What do I eat? And I would eat like literally just because I was coping with my stress, like a box of crackers. You know things that were not. And then the next day I would feel horrible, regroup and the next day I would do better. But I just had that constant stress of feeling like I wasn't doing enough to keep my cancer away.
Speaker 1:Um, in the blog front, I people who read my blog. From the beginning I've had. I've been writing since 2011. I had to take all my contacts because people would write me and say I have cancer. I have cancer and I'm pregnant, I have cancer and you know I'm your age or whatever. I have a family. We homeschool too, and I had to take everything off and that broke my heart, because I love helping people. I love helping especially women with children and everybody people with lymphoma, you know because they were similar and I had to take everything down. I left my blog up but all my contact info I had, and I had to put up a message that said I love you and I want to help you, but I can't because I'm in this season of life.
Speaker 1:It took me a month, a year, to finally, under that amount of stress and pressure that I was putting on myself, to finally realized that I had to take these things down. I had to stop going on Facebook. I had to stop even, you know, posting on Instagram or whatever it was. Um, and then eventually it came that I had to, you know, talk to Susie about stepping down at healing strong after the leadership guide was done, because it was so much pressure and stress and just too much and I couldn't handle it all. On those and so, all of these things, I just, god, kept saying, nope, take it off your plate, take it off your plate, take it off your plate.
Speaker 1:I had at one point I had to send my kids to God, put her in my life and angel couple doors down homeschool mom. I was looking to make a little bit of money and just so I could recover my nervous system during that time, cause I was so elevated and anxious and dealing with that which cover my nervous system during that time, cause I was so elevated and anxious and dealing with that which is also not good for me, which also stressed me out and made me worry my cancer was going to come back. But she took my kids for like three hours. Um, at that time it was like three hours three times a week where I could just lay in the bath with magnesium like, or with Epsom salt and sniff essential oils, because I was just trying to get my brain and my body and my nervous system to chill out, because I was trying to do too much and I was trying to take on all of it. And so that's my message to the mom that's like me, a little bit of an overachiever, a little bit of a perfectionist, all these things that are just like perfect recipe for an anxious, depressed person, that you don't have to do it all and you can say no, and you're, you are, and this is still me talking to myself, because I still love, I'm very much back active, doing anti-cancer, mom stuff and helping people again. And I do sometimes feel those feelings again and I realized I have to take a break, you know. So for now it's I realized what I can handle is like I can do a newsletter for my email list once a month, whatever I think I just put it in that newsletter and sometimes I like I haven't even written one this month, I didn't write one in December. Um, you know. So it's okay.
Speaker 1:Not everybody's just sitting there going, oh, you know, when's your next thing coming out? I can't, you know, no one's doing that, no one's. Everyone's back in their own lives doing their own thing. You know, and as far as you know, your kids are going to be okay If you, if they ate a cupcake with dye in it at a birthday party, like I seriously have moms that will say do you give your? Do you let your kids eat the cupcakes at the birthday parties or do you bring your own desserts and I'm like what? No, eat the dang cupcake. You know, like, let them be a kid and they're going to be okay.
Speaker 1:What they're not going to be okay from is you obsessing over all these things, that is, sending them the message that they're not okay, like that, they're not okay.
Speaker 1:This world is dangerous place and they are not okay and the chemicals from the rugs are going to kill them and give them cancer and they're not going to have babies one day Cause the you know, or whatever, like you know, the endocrine disruptors are going to get in their thyroid or you know. I'm not. I'm joking, jim, but this is the stuff that, like, would go through my mind and it goes through a lot of mom's mind, cause we're, we have so much information and we're taught that everything's bad for us, especially in the holistic cancer world. But you just got to do your best and if you're feeling anxious and like you are trying to control and you're controlling everything, you need to take a step back and go. Okay, what I'm doing right now is actually the thing that's not okay. Like this is not good for me, but doing your best is good for you and giving God the rest. So I think it's a good way to end this.
Speaker 1:And of course, if people want to get ahold of you.
Speaker 2:they can go to the anti-cancer momcom.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, you can go there. I'm more present on on Instagram when this airs. Maybe I'll be back to doing more on there but I'm actually on a pretty good break. Right now. Homeschooling is kind of my number one priority.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, courtney, thank you so much, and I know you helped a lot of people and I understand more now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I hope that gives you some insight of the brain of a person who needs some emotional healing.
Speaker 2:All right, well, thank you, and enjoy those kids while they're in the house. Oh thanks, Tim. All right, well, thank you and enjoy those kids while they're in the house.
Speaker 3:Oh, thanks, tim. You've been listening to the I Am Healing Strong podcast, a part of the Healing Strong organization. We hope you found encouragement in this episode, as well as the confidence to take control of your healing journey, knowing that God will guide you on this path. Healing Strong is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to connect, support and educate individuals facing cancer and other diseases through strategies that help to rebuild the body, renew the soul and refresh the spirit.
Speaker 3:It costs nothing to be a part of a local or online group. You can do that by going to our website at healingstrongorg and finding a group near you or an online group, or start your own, your choice. While you're there, take a look around at all the free resources. Though the resources and groups are free, we encourage you to join our membership program at $25 or $75 a month. This helps us to be able to reach more people with hope and encouragement, and that also comes with some extra perks as well. So check it out. If you enjoyed this podcast, please give us a five-star rating, an encouraging comment, and help us spread the word. We'll see you next week with another story on I am healing strong podcast.
