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1:52

Hey everyone, Chris Kresser here. Welcome to another

1:54

episode of Revolution Health Radio. This

1:56

week, I'm excited to welcome Dr. Jill Carnahan

1:58

as my guest.

1:59

She has a new book out called Unexpected,

2:02

Finding Resilience Through Functional Medicine,

2:04

Science, and Faith. Jill

2:07

is a board-certified physician

2:09

in functional medicine space. She

2:12

was diagnosed with aggressive breath cancer

2:14

at age 25, and that really

2:17

changed the trajectory of her life and her

2:19

career, and then later struggled

2:22

with severe mold toxicity

2:24

and illness and Crohn's

2:26

disease, which has brought her

2:29

a unique perspective to treating

2:31

a variety of complex and chronic illnesses, but

2:34

also on how

2:36

to respond to

2:39

illness in your life, how to find meaning and purpose

2:41

in the midst of your suffering, the

2:43

power in turning from a purely analytical

2:46

mind to a more heart-based or intuitive way of

2:48

living, the importance of forgiveness

2:51

and grieving in

2:54

the face of significant health

2:56

challenges or other challenges, the

2:58

addictive ways that we use to escape

3:00

pain and how to overcome them, finding

3:03

support in your community, strategies

3:05

for healing trauma. These are a lot

3:07

of the capacities

3:10

that we need to develop when we

3:12

are struggling with any kind of complex

3:14

chronic illness that's not something that's

3:16

going to resolve quickly or easily

3:18

or perhaps ever, or really any

3:21

significant challenge or long-term difficulty

3:24

in life. Over

3:26

the course of my career, I have come

3:28

to believe that how we relate to ourselves

3:31

in the process of healing

3:34

is as important or sometimes more important

3:37

than what we do to heal. That's

3:40

really the foundation of

3:42

this conversation with Dr.

3:45

Carnahan. I hope you enjoyed as

3:47

much as I did. Let's dive in. Jill,

3:50

welcome to the show. It's such a pleasure to have you

3:52

on.

3:53

Thank you, Chris. It's great to be here.

3:55

So, I've been aware of you and

3:57

your work for many years. We haven't had

3:59

a lot of interaction, but after

4:02

reading your book and learning a little

4:04

bit more about you, I think we have a pretty

4:06

similar story in some respects,

4:09

as is the case for many people

4:11

in our field, right, who come to it from their

4:13

own health journey and background.

4:15

And I know you've written an entire

4:18

book on this, so I'm not gonna ask

4:20

you to rehash

4:22

the entire book in this introduction. We're

4:24

gonna talk a lot about the book in

4:26

the course of the interview, but just as a

4:29

sort of brief overview for people who

4:31

are not familiar with you,

4:33

how did you come to this

4:35

point in time where you

4:38

wrote this book and, you know,

4:40

what inspired you to do that?

4:42

Yeah, thank you Chris. You know, it's interesting because

4:44

I grew up on

4:46

a farm in Central Illinois and had a

4:48

mother who was a nurse and retired after she had five

4:51

children, so I had a fairly

4:53

holistic upbringing and I knew that I, I

4:55

guess I didn't know I was born a healer,

4:57

like probably you and many of our colleagues,

5:00

but in that journey I knew I wanted to help people. I

5:02

had no idea I would go into conventional

5:05

medicine, but as I did

5:07

that journey and the doors opened up, I realized

5:09

that maybe the best way to actually

5:12

make a change in our system was to

5:14

infiltrate and to actually go

5:16

that route, even though I grew up not really,

5:18

I was a very holistic minded. My main

5:21

contacts as a child were chiropractic and acupuncture

5:23

and those kinds of healers and I still went to

5:26

the doctor, it wasn't like we were anti-medical, but

5:28

I knew that there was more holistic ways

5:30

to heal, so I went into medicine with

5:33

a very different mindset and then, as

5:36

you know from the book and anyone who's heard my story,

5:38

at 25 I was diagnosed with aggressive

5:40

cancer and I had to kind of come to grips with what

5:42

it was like to actually be the patient and and

5:44

to navigate that from the patient perspective

5:47

and the divine knew because what happened

5:49

with that experience for me is it shaped

5:52

everything that I do. It was, could have been the worst

5:54

thing that ever happened and it turned out to be the best

5:56

thing that ever happened because it framed my

5:58

experience as a patient. I wanted to see

6:00

in doctors, what I didn't want to see in doctors, and

6:02

even how to navigate all the information that comes

6:05

at us. That's been 20 plus

6:07

years ago. It's only exponentially more that

6:09

we're dealing with.

6:10

Right. Yeah. I

6:12

mean, it's a problem that is

6:15

somewhat intractable. I think, unfortunately,

6:19

my second book, Unconventional

6:21

Medicine, was about this

6:23

topic. I'd be

6:26

dishonest if I didn't say that I've

6:28

been disappointed

6:31

in the lack of progress in many areas

6:34

since I published that book in 2017. Of

6:37

course, there have been bright spots as

6:39

well in areas of progress and improvement.

7:06

As long as those incentives continue to exist,

7:08

it's just human nature that that

7:11

will be the direction of things. We

7:13

have to figure out a way to change those

7:15

incentives. That's a totally different

7:18

but related topic. I

7:21

want to talk a little bit more about, I know

7:23

you were diagnosed with breast cancer at

7:26

a young age, 25, I believe. That

7:29

was a big wake-up call for you. Talk

7:32

a little bit about that and how that changed your

7:35

trajectory. Yeah.

7:37

Here I am going along in medical school. I decided

7:39

to attend conventional

7:41

medical school, go that way, and

7:44

was thriving, doing great. In my

7:46

third year, just the beginning, it was literally when I was

7:48

still 24, when I found a lump in my

7:50

breast during a surgical rotation. I

7:54

really, at that moment, did not think anything of

7:56

it. Most of us in our 20s, we think we're

7:58

invincible and mortality isn't real.

7:59

really in the conversation.

8:01

And this was no different for me. I

8:04

would have probably ignored it. I was in intensive

8:06

rotations with surgery, like 36 hour

8:08

shifts and crazy insane stresses

8:12

on my physiology because of lack of

8:14

sleep and all that. But at the insistence of

8:16

my husband at the time, I went ahead and got

8:18

it checked out. I'll never forget Chris sitting

8:20

with a radiologist because as a medical student, what

8:22

you do is you learn. Everywhere

8:24

you're at, you're learning. So the radiologist took

8:26

me back to look at my mammogram and

8:29

ultrasound on the big screen. And he's looking at

8:31

it, pointed out

8:31

these are calcifications. And he looked

8:33

at me. And there was just this glint in his eye

8:36

that I caught because I'm very intuitive. And

8:38

I thought, oh, this is not good. And he kind of

8:41

hit it well. And he said, Jill, if you're 55 years old, this

8:43

would be highly suspicious for cancer. But

8:46

you're 25. And again,

8:48

I caught it there. And that was the first moment

8:51

that the reality of the fact that this could be serious

8:53

hit me. And I think on an intuitive level,

8:56

I knew. At that moment, I knew I had cancer.

8:58

But I went on to get a biopsy and actually determine

9:01

the diagnosis. And then the second call

9:03

and experience with a doctor, a colleague, teacher

9:05

in my medical school was the surgeon

9:08

calling me, Dr. Smith. I'll never forget

9:10

her. She called me and said, Jill,

9:12

I don't know how to tell you this. But you have

9:14

aggressive, very aggressive. These cells

9:16

are some of the worst we've seen, breast cancer.

9:19

And that's pretty typical in a young person. It's

9:21

incredibly more aggressive, more

9:23

life threatening than someone who is 50, 60, 70 years old. So

9:27

I knew I was in the battle of my life. But

9:29

I'll never forget the song on the radio, the

9:31

color of the walls, that experience. And we all have

9:33

those where our life shifts and changes in an

9:35

instant. And it's never the same.

9:38

And that was one for me just a week after

9:40

my 25th birthday, the call from the surgeon

9:42

saying, you have aggressive cancer.

9:45

What are you going to do about it? She didn't say it quite

9:47

like that, but it was in my heart. And that's

9:49

where I started to learn, number one, I

9:51

went to the library and started searching on

9:53

treatments. I started doing consults, starting getting information.

9:56

And that's when I first realized I had

9:58

an almost full medicine. I

10:01

was nearing the end of my medical education. And

10:03

it was so overwhelming, the complexity.

10:06

It was not black and white like we expect. And

10:08

that was my first aha of like, wait, what

10:10

we think medicine is just like the doctor has the

10:13

idea of this is the right thing to do and this is the one

10:15

way to do it. It is so far from the truth.

10:18

And as I dove in even to just the types

10:20

of radiation, the types of chemotherapy, there

10:22

was no black and white and for sure no

10:24

black and white for the youngest person ever

10:27

diagnosed at Loyolin University, Stritch

10:29

School of Medicine where I attended medical school. So

10:32

it was really the first aha was this

10:34

is complex and I have a medical education. How much

10:36

more complex is it for the average patient? Second

10:39

aha was there is no standard

10:41

of care. They make it sound like there is,

10:43

but there isn't. And that was my

10:46

first incentive to actually I created

10:48

my own treatment plan and I still because

10:50

of the might my aggressiveness of the

10:52

cancer my age, I went with a very aggressive

10:54

regimen. And the third thing that I learned

10:56

was

10:57

when I made that decision to go forward

11:00

with chemotherapy, knowing that there was toxic

11:02

effects that would probably affect me the rest of my life. If

11:05

I was cured, I decided

11:07

to make a decision at that moment in time and never

11:10

ever in the 20 years later or 30 years

11:12

later,

11:13

look back or second guess that decision. And

11:15

I believe that's one of the things that's created resilience

11:17

in my mind and body because I've never said I

11:20

still today Chris suffer from the effect

11:22

of that chemotherapeutic regimen 20 plus

11:24

years ago. But I've never once

11:26

said what if I hadn't done it or what if I did

11:28

it? So I've never had to wrestle with that

11:31

because in the moment did the best with what I

11:33

had and I never looked back.

11:35

I would hardly endorse that as

11:37

a general strategy in life

11:40

and in respect to our health

11:42

and any other decision we make, we're always just

11:45

doing the best we can with the information

11:47

we have and with our current

11:49

capacities and abilities. And I know

11:52

you talk in the last chapter

11:54

of your book a lot about this unconditional

11:57

love and self-acceptance and I'm

11:59

sure return to that. to this throughout

12:01

the interview. So you

12:04

recovered from cancer,

12:06

finished medical school, went

12:08

into the practice of medicine. And

12:12

I imagine that initial cancer diagnosis

12:15

really opened your eyes to some of the limitations of

12:17

the conventional system. But what

12:19

continued to draw you toward integrative

12:22

and functional medicine?

12:25

Yeah, so it really was. The neat thing was

12:27

I still had that mentality of holistic. So

12:29

while I was in chemo and radiation, I had

12:31

prayer, meditation. I had friends and family surrounding

12:33

me, close network. I had a

12:36

naturopath, I did a supplement regimen that

12:38

worked with the oncologist. So

12:40

I had lots of alternative and

12:43

integrative therapies during that. And then

12:45

as soon as I was done with the aggressive treatments, I did

12:47

everything I could to restore my gut. And one

12:50

little piece I'll mention here, and we can move on, is

12:52

six months after I got finished with the chemo and

12:54

radiation, I was once again

12:56

in the ER for emergency. I had passed out,

12:59

found out I had an abscess, and was told

13:01

that I had Crohn's disease. So all of a sudden,

13:03

I was at another level. And again, that related to

13:05

the chemotherapy, damaging my gut,

13:07

creating this predisposition towards

13:10

attacking self in this autoimmune disease

13:12

and my gut lining, and then I had Crohn's.

13:14

So all that experience was really just,

13:17

I think, confirming my

13:19

desire to combine. And what I always

13:21

wanted to do was say, how do we take the

13:24

good science of conventional medicine and the good

13:26

diagnostic skills and the good clinical skills

13:29

and just open the minds and hearts of myself

13:31

and those around me to what else

13:33

is possible? Like what other therapies can we

13:35

use? And not just be so narrow in our scope.

13:38

So I came out, and then, of course, as

13:40

many of us could say, I heard Jeff Bland.

13:43

That was my aha to help the

13:45

lesson, because in my heart, I knew I wanted to do

13:47

functional medicine. I just didn't know I had a name. And

13:50

at the time, the common term was alternative and

13:52

integrative. I never liked alternative medicine

13:54

because I felt like I was putting it, relegating it to

13:56

the side. So I hated that term.

13:59

conventional medicine is an alternative

14:08

residency

14:35

in family medicine and I started

14:39

doing all the IFM training and I was among the very first class of graduates from the function

14:41

medicine IFM.

14:44

Well I didn't know that, that's great. Yeah

14:46

I described the difference in a similar way. It's

14:49

functional is much more systematic

14:52

in its approach and always looking

14:54

at the root cause. You

14:56

can still practice integrative

14:58

medicine in an allopathic framework

15:01

right where you're just like oh

15:03

you have high cholesterol I'm going to give you

15:06

this herb or this nutrient

15:09

to reduce your levels. You have anxiety

15:12

I'm going to give you this thing to reduce

15:14

that instead of looking wait

15:16

is there a common underlying cause that

15:19

we can identify and address

15:21

and to me that's the key distinction with with

15:24

functional and integrative medicine.

15:27

So

15:28

another thing we share in common is

15:30

a history of our own

15:33

experience of mold illness and

15:36

biotoxin exposure

15:38

and also treating a number

15:41

of patients with those conditions

15:43

and

15:45

it's tough right? On both sides

15:48

experiencing that and treating

15:50

patients with it is one of the most tricky

15:53

constellations in my

15:56

experience to address

15:58

because there's so many factors not just just

16:00

what's happening internally with the patient, but

16:03

playing detect, finding the right indoor

16:06

environmental professional to do the

16:08

diagnosis of the house

16:10

or environment, remediation, all

16:13

that stuff. So

16:15

let's sort of fast forward in your timeline

16:18

where you were practicing, doing better, and

16:21

then

16:22

mold came into your life. So

16:24

tell us what happened there and how that

16:27

changed your trajectory again.

16:29

Yes, I always say I would have never

16:30

chosen mold. Mold chose me.

16:33

I don't know anyone who would.

16:36

Right, like it is the, I really think it's

16:38

completely massive on mold. It is the most complex

16:40

area of medicine because it affects all systems

16:42

and it's very hidden. So

16:45

often after my mold exposure, which I'll talk about in

16:47

one second, I would be like, I

16:50

want to be objective. I want to see what's going

16:52

on with this patient and not everybody has mold,

16:54

right? Well, over and over and over

16:56

again, it would come out that the mold

16:58

was not 100%, but a very large

17:01

percentage of people who are suffering with autoimmune

17:03

or something else that doesn't appear to be mold

17:05

at first glance is actually mold

17:08

at the root. So that awareness really, I'm

17:10

sure like you, it changes everything because then you have this

17:12

lens and

17:12

you understand, oh, that's what I'm

17:14

missing. So my experience was after the Boulder

17:17

flood. I had moved to Boulder 2010 to start

17:19

my functional consulting practice with

17:21

thriving and doing well and loving life in

17:23

Colorado. And there was a flood in 2013, a massive epidemic.

17:27

I remember that. I mean, literally, I think

17:29

it was almost a billion dollars of damage. So significant.

17:32

And my office flooded. I had had an older office

17:34

anyway, so I think there might've been an issue before. Now

17:37

in hindsight, this is almost laughable. I

17:39

had a second story office that had been remodeled.

17:42

The, the remits up, not remedied, but the

17:44

contractor actually threw on a brand

17:47

new beautiful bamboo floor over old 20 year

17:49

old carpet. Like duh, that's not very good. So

17:52

I was like soft bamboo, probably puffing

17:54

that gross, moldy, whatever

17:56

carpet, every

17:57

step that I took. Number one, number two. My

18:00

office was right above a cross face on the first

18:02

floor, totally unfinished, standing water,

18:04

had no idea. And then the bottom floor,

18:06

the basement was also full of mold.

18:09

And when that flood occurred, the basement got even

18:11

more flooded, the cross face got even worse. And

18:13

within the next six months, I started having horrendous

18:17

rashes, acne, itching,

18:19

histamine symptoms, brain fog,

18:22

congestion, trouble breathing. I

18:24

had a new diagnosis of asthma at the age

18:27

of 40. Like, that's very unusual. So

18:29

these are the things

18:29

that we see in adults. New diagnosis

18:32

of asthma, there's something going on. If you're 30, 40, somewhere

18:35

in your later years, not later, but later

18:37

than teens, and you

18:39

have a new diagnosis of asthma, that's suspicious for

18:42

some external environmental thing on the

18:44

lung lining. So all that just say,

18:46

I was in denial for a while because I did have

18:48

a suspicion mold was at the cause. But

18:51

as many of our patients, I'm sure you've encountered this,

18:54

it's overwhelming. And when you're in mold, there's

18:56

actually a limbic activation that happens through the chemical

18:58

inhalation and hypothalamic pituitary

19:01

axis that triggers a limbic response.

19:04

Even if you're healthy, well-adjusted, you have

19:06

great contacts, you've done therapy, there

19:08

is a trauma response just from the chemical

19:10

inhalation. And I think that adds to the

19:13

confusion because the overwhelm is present,

19:15

the brain is literally short-circuiting

19:17

because of this toxin. So there's a piece,

19:19

I've seen almost 100% of patients, and

19:22

I was no different. I was a little overwhelmed and

19:24

I didn't know what was wrong, and I was in denial.

19:26

But finally, I found a bulk mold of stachybotryse

19:29

in the basement, same type of toxins

19:31

from that, trichosapines in my urine. I couldn't

19:34

deny it anymore, and then I had to figure out

19:36

how to heal.

19:37

Yeah. So tell me about that

19:39

process because I know from

19:41

personal experience and from treating hundreds

19:44

of patients with mold illness that

19:46

that can be arduous and

19:48

certainly not linear and two

19:52

steps forward, one step back, or sometimes

19:55

one step forward and five steps back, depending

19:57

on how things go. So what was that like?

19:59

for you?

20:01

Yes, it was very difficult. In

20:03

fact, I went through divorce a year or so after

20:05

and I really think my ex-husband, who we're

20:07

friends now, but he had Lyme and I had mold and our brains

20:10

were not working and we both attribute our

20:12

illnesses and that trauma of those events

20:15

to our divorce and it

20:17

ended up good but it was, it's that

20:19

big a deal and I want to say that because a lot of people

20:21

in the midst of suffering and mold are struggling

20:24

in their relationships and it's no wonder because

20:26

it takes all the resources you can possibly muster

20:29

to deal with that illness and you, like for me, I barely,

20:32

I just held together the clinic and

20:34

slept and ate and that's all I could do. I didn't

20:36

have a social life, I didn't do anything outside of that

20:39

and to frame it, I really feel it took me about 18

20:41

months to get to a point where I was really

20:44

starting to feel a little bit better. Now granted, I have

20:46

ups and downs like you mentioned but I like to

20:48

frame it like that because so many patients say, how

20:50

long will this take and they expect three months or

20:52

six months and some people do get better

20:54

quickly but it's very common for it to be

20:57

a year or over a year for you to really,

20:59

really make that progress and as you

21:01

mentioned, this was no different with me.

21:03

I started doing binders and all this detox

21:06

and I always say there's two parts of getting rid of toxins.

21:08

There's mobilization and there's excretion.

21:10

So mobilization is getting it out of the tissues

21:12

like the microtoxins that have settled in your fat.

21:15

You need to mobilize them through sauna and all those

21:17

things that we move the toxins

21:19

back into the bloodstream so that our liver,

21:22

our kidney, our skin, our sweat, all

21:24

those things can filter but if you mobilize

21:26

too quickly and you're not excreting that

21:28

other side of the equation, then you get stuck and

21:30

you get toxic and I had to head

21:33

to toe for two months because I was pushing,

21:35

mobilizing way too quickly and

21:37

not excreting and now I understand that but

21:39

that's part of the reason why people get and then

21:41

I had mast cell issues because all of that

21:44

microtoxins that was being mobilized were

21:46

triggering my mast cells to produce prostaglandins

21:49

and histamines and so I was incredibly

21:52

sick. I had to literally when I found

21:54

out that my office was contaminated with mold,

21:57

I didn't set foot in the office again.

22:00

I took my charts and left everything. I

22:02

just literally walked away from all my medical

22:04

school textbooks, my furniture, everything

22:07

in the office, and I started over.

22:09

Yeah, and sometimes that's necessary

22:11

for sure. If you've

22:13

listened to this show for a while, you know that I'm

22:15

a super active guy. Depending on the

22:17

time of year, I'm either skiing, mountain biking,

22:19

hiking, backpacking, surfing, or

22:22

lifting weights on most days of the week. I

22:24

also live in a really dry climate at high

22:26

elevation. For these reasons, I

22:29

pay a lot of attention to hydration.

22:31

I've learned the hard way what happens when I get dehydrated,

22:34

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22:36

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22:38

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22:41

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22:43

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22:56

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22:58

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23:00

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23:02

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23:04

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23:07

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23:20

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23:25

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23:27

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23:39

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23:41

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23:43

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23:46

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23:48

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23:51

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23:57

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24:04

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24:24

So I want to shift gears and talk a little bit about

24:27

the

24:28

emotional, psychological, psychospiritual

24:31

aspects of struggling

24:34

and working with

24:37

a chronic illness. You've

24:39

had multiple experiences of this in

24:41

your life. You've treated a lot of patients with

24:43

chronic illness. And

24:46

I, over the course of my

24:48

career, have become increasingly

24:50

interested in this as a topic

24:52

because, from my

24:55

perspective,

24:57

there's more to health than just the absence of

24:59

symptoms. And there

25:02

are people who are symptom-free who I would describe

25:05

as incredibly unhealthy in terms of

25:07

how they relate to themselves and other people

25:09

and how they operate

25:12

in the world, their ethics, their attitude,

25:15

their mood, all of those things.

25:17

And then there are also people who still

25:20

experience symptoms but

25:22

live incredibly rich, meaningful,

25:24

and rewarding lives. I

25:27

also have seen in my practice

25:30

a distinction between people who are

25:32

able to

25:34

allow their illness to

25:37

change them in positive ways

25:40

and help them grow and evolve as people and

25:42

people who are

25:44

stuck in, and

25:46

this is said with compassion and

25:49

empathy, but a sort of like,

25:51

poor me, why is this happening

25:53

to me? It's not fair. This

25:57

shouldn't be happening. in

26:00

a kind of victim mentality. And

26:03

look, I mean, I was in that mentality

26:05

myself for a period of time, so again,

26:08

there's no judgment or criticism there. But

26:11

I think

26:12

illness can be a powerful teacher, and you

26:14

write about this eloquently in your book.

26:17

So I'm just curious to hear a little bit more

26:19

about your path in

26:22

terms of your relationship with

26:24

chronic illness and what that

26:26

has meant for you and how that has helped you

26:28

to grow and evolve as a person.

26:31

Yes, so when you first

26:33

experienced suffering, and we all are

26:36

either have just gone through it, we're in

26:38

it right now, or we're coming up, like there's

26:40

only three possibilities, because life

26:42

is life, and life has surprises. And

26:45

my first experience that was a major suffering

26:48

and trauma was the cancer, of course. And

26:50

I remember being a little bit shocked by

26:53

the diagnosis, but it wasn't too long after

26:55

where I heard a message on the radio that said, the

26:57

sickness, well, it was a pastor, but the sickness

26:59

will not end in death, but it was for the glory of God.

27:01

And whether you believe in God or not, the idea for

27:04

me was that there was some greater purpose

27:06

and meaning, and I remember hearing

27:08

that and immediately grabbing onto that.

27:10

And in my soul, to me, it was

27:12

actually a little promise that I would survive.

27:15

And from that moment on, I never once again doubted

27:17

that I would survive, but it doesn't

27:19

take away the suffering. It doesn't take away the difficulty, like

27:22

when I'm sitting cramped up from the chemo and wanting

27:24

to die because my stomach hurts so bad, and

27:26

my mouth is ulcerated, and I had no hair. I mean, there was some

27:29

really, really difficult things that

27:31

I still had to go through. And that was just the first

27:33

experience, because then there's Crohn's and there's mold, and

27:35

there's all these things that come. But if we

27:37

can, when that happens, believe

27:40

there's not to negate the suffering. Like you said,

27:42

I don't want to minimize and be like a Pollyanna and

27:44

say, oh, it's all great, because it's not, it hurts,

27:46

it's painful, it can be devastating. But

27:49

in the midst of this suffering, and

27:51

I learned this from my hero, Victor Frankel,

27:54

Man Search for Meaning, and Edith Eger, and

27:56

The Gift, and these are people who have suffered

27:59

far more than I can ever. imagined in the Holocaust. So

28:01

I can't even compare to their suffering. But

28:04

what they've done is teach us how

28:06

to find purpose and meaning in the midst of

28:08

the deepest suffering because if we have a number

28:10

one purpose and meaning that's greater than our physical selves,

28:13

like a mission, a plan,

28:15

for me it was I want to be a healer, I want to be a great

28:17

doctor, I want to learn through this. And

28:20

so I had this motive that was

28:22

outside of the suffering that I could grab onto

28:24

and look to pearls in that

28:26

experience that would help me accomplish that greater

28:28

purpose. And then the second thing is

28:30

knowing that deep inside no matter how much suffering

28:33

what man takes away from you, what relationships

28:36

does to you, what the financial ruin is, all those

28:38

things that we can deal with outside of ourselves, no

28:40

one can take away our choice, our mindset,

28:43

our self, our faith, our beliefs, all these

28:45

kinds of things we own. And

28:47

there's not one type of suffering that can actually

28:49

steal that from us unless we allow

28:51

it to. And by knowing that we can

28:54

really, really own. I recently heard

28:56

someone who framed it and I've always thought this way

28:58

but I didn't have the frame to say it this clearly.

29:00

And what she said was, it's

29:03

all about safety. Where do we

29:05

find safety? If we find safety in our

29:07

bank account and all of a sudden the markets

29:10

go crazy and we lose all the money in the bank, we're

29:13

terrified, our limbic system gets activated

29:15

and we're in trauma and we're a why me. If

29:17

we have faith in our relationship, our marriage, our

29:20

spouse, our partner, our children, our parents,

29:22

and all of a sudden we lose them due to an unexplained

29:25

event or something terrible happens or divorce happens,

29:28

that again, the sense of safety is blown apart.

29:30

If we have sense of safety in our physical bodies

29:33

that we are beautiful or healthy

29:35

or that our heart works or that we don't have

29:37

cancer and our physical health gets disrupted,

29:40

that sense of safety is blown apart. And every single

29:42

one of those situations, our limbic system is activated

29:45

and that activation puts us in a state of trauma where

29:47

we can't heal. However, if

29:50

we take something outside of ourselves, our

29:52

vision for our legacy, what do we want

29:54

to leave in this world? What is our meaning and

29:56

purpose of why I'm here? For me, it's

29:58

existential. a higher power

30:00

and for whatever, you know, you don't have to, whatever peace

30:03

that is for you, if there's something that's outside

30:05

of yourself, no one can take away my purpose, no

30:07

one can take away my vision, my legacy, no

30:09

one can take away my belief in God and a higher power

30:12

and the meaning and purpose there. No matter what

30:14

happens, that sense of safety will never

30:16

ever be shaken and that's the kind

30:18

of thing that will help us pull out of the difficulties

30:21

because everything else is fallible.

30:24

Absolutely and I'm a big

30:26

Viktor Frankl

30:28

fan as well and I think

30:30

he can speak with authority on

30:32

how to use

30:34

mindset to overcome adversity

30:37

having been through, you know, what he, the concentration,

30:39

for those who are not familiar with his background,

30:42

concentration camp survivor in World War

30:44

II and man's

30:46

search for meaning is, has been, was

30:48

a kind of bible to me at one point in

30:51

my life and in the most difficult moments.

30:54

Let's talk a little bit

30:56

more about

30:58

the tools and resources you drew

31:00

on when you were in the most difficult

31:02

places. You

31:04

mentioned in your book

31:07

forgiveness as a key

31:09

to this process for

31:12

you. Forgive, I imagine

31:14

that's forgiveness of self and forgiveness

31:17

of others. It's not something

31:19

that really gets talked about very much

31:22

in, you know, functional medicine

31:24

generally and even in

31:27

the recovery from illness but I think it's

31:29

an important factor because

31:31

without that we can really get stuck and

31:34

in these sort of repetitive

31:37

loops of self-judgment

31:39

or judging other people or again judging

31:41

what has happened, why did this happen

31:43

to me and not in

31:46

my experience can really interfere with

31:49

getting well in the broadest

31:51

sense. So tell me more about your

31:54

perspective on that.

31:56

I'm going to frame it in an acronym because I think that's always

31:58

memorable for those listeners.

31:59

and it's BLT, like

32:02

the sandwich.

32:04

And that came from, I was writing

32:06

the book, and in the midst of COVID 2021, I'm

32:09

sitting in a chair, a home alone, of course, isolated,

32:12

and I thought, you know what, people are turning from books

32:14

to screens, and everybody I know is watching these serial

32:17

Netflix and things, and if I really want to influence and

32:19

inspire, I need to be on screens. But

32:21

Chris, I don't know what I'm doing, but I had this idea,

32:23

and then I started talking to friends, and within a week,

32:25

I had producer, director, an idea for

32:28

a doctor to say, I was like, oh my

32:30

God. So all that to say, I ended

32:32

up, in the last two years, producing a documentary,

32:35

and as we sat down and say, and

32:37

it was based on kind of the story of the book too, like

32:39

my journey and my patient's journey in this whole

32:41

thing of life, and how do we overcome, and

32:44

I promise I'll get back to forgiveness. But as we sat

32:46

in the car talking about, what is this

32:48

movie gonna really mean to people? We said

32:50

BLT, and BLT means this.

32:53

Number one, believe. Believe

32:55

in yourself, and that's part of the forgiveness,

32:58

but you can't really love yourself

33:02

until you believe and trust in yourself. And

33:04

you can't really trust in believing yourself until you've

33:06

forgiven the places you consider

33:08

flawed, or not enough,

33:11

or all those things that we have, those lies we tell ourselves.

33:14

So the B is for believe, the L is

33:16

for love. And once again,

33:19

love others is, unconditional love is one of the

33:21

foundations of healing that I know you and I both believe

33:23

in, but you can't really, truly extend

33:25

unconditional love without conditions

33:28

is what it means, of course, to someone else until

33:30

you do that to yourself. And what I realized

33:32

is, like I said, and I couldn't really love

33:35

myself until I trusted

33:37

my body's signs and symptoms and

33:39

my own physiology. And

33:42

how that works is, if you

33:44

have had trauma in your life, which we all have

33:46

in some form or another, and I certainly know different,

33:49

often what I did before the age of 40 is

33:51

I learned to dissociate from my body because I felt

33:53

like it had started to betray me in my 20s

33:55

with cancer and stuff. So I was all here

33:57

in my head, and I could analytical lies, anything.

34:00

that I experienced and just suppressed

34:02

and shut down my body's anger, my

34:05

fear, and my sadness and my pain. And

34:07

I was really, really, really good at dissociating

34:09

from all of that. And I always say I was like superhuman.

34:12

I could do anything and it didn't affect me. I didn't

34:14

cry. I didn't have a lot of sadness. I didn't feel a lot

34:16

of anger. I first told my therapist the first

34:19

visit, I don't get angry. Well, she laughed at

34:21

me. And then of course, I had to feel like I had

34:23

just probably suppressed that emotion. But what we

34:25

do when we do that is we are suppressing

34:27

our intuitive body's ability to

34:29

tell us how signs and signals of what's wrong. And

34:32

autoimmune in general, I experienced Crohn's and Hashimoto's

34:35

is metaphorically, as Gabor Mate

34:37

would say, is attack of self or self-hatred

34:40

or self-loathing. So before you can extend

34:42

this healing love to the world and the forgiveness

34:45

that we're coming back to, you must first

34:47

address those parts of yourself that you have denied,

34:50

suppressed, hated, loathed,

34:52

that you all those pieces that we've dissociated

34:54

from, you have to reintegrate in your whole

34:57

self and start to love those pieces

34:59

of yourself. And instead of saying, oh, that

35:01

was stupid, you idiot. Why did you do that? You

35:03

say, oh, sweetheart, you're doing a great job.

35:06

Let's try that again. Like, that's

35:08

a way to like, wait, like show that compassion

35:10

to ourselves. And you know what? When I started talking

35:13

to myself, I'm talking like the chatter in our head,

35:16

like that with the sweetest, kindest words

35:18

like I would to a dear friend, that

35:20

was probably the most transformative thing

35:22

in my health, in my autoimmune disease, in

35:24

my mindset of any of the therapies

35:27

I've done prior to that. And that's why I think what you're on to

35:29

here is so important, Kristi, because I

35:31

took a lot of supplements. I did a lot of IVs. I

35:33

did a lot of things. And the most powerful

35:36

transformations came from believing in myself,

35:39

loving myself, every part of myself unconditionally,

35:41

and then extending that to the world, to

35:44

everybody that I met. And then that

35:46

P

35:47

is

35:48

trusting your intuition, trusting that your body

35:50

signals. And I close my eyes and touch

35:52

into how am I feeling today? My body tells

35:55

me everything that I need to know. But

35:57

for 40 years, I had suppressed those

35:59

signals. so I didn't have any contact with

36:01

my body and it was streaming out with cancer

36:04

and Crohn's to say, please give

36:06

me some love and attention and I promise

36:08

you I'll show up for you.

36:10

That's beautiful. Yeah

36:12

and I agree I think, I

36:15

mean it goes in part goes back to safety

36:17

what you were talking about before when we're criticizing

36:20

and judging ourselves we don't feel safe

36:23

and forgiveness is something

36:25

that helps create that sense

36:27

of safety, self-acceptance,

36:29

self-love and from that place

36:32

we can escape

36:33

those continuous loops that

36:35

we often get stuck in that interfere with

36:39

making good choices, treating

36:41

ourselves with kindness and doing

36:44

the things that we actually need to do to get

36:46

well. I think a lot of people

36:48

end up getting stuck in cycles

36:51

of self-flagellation,

36:53

alternating back and forth

36:56

between making progress and then beating themselves

36:58

up and then making progress and beating themselves up

37:01

and forgiveness and self-acceptance can

37:03

go a long way toward breaking

37:06

that cycle and just

37:08

creating a lot more space for

37:10

a more appropriate response to emerge.

37:14

Another aspect of that for me and I'm curious

37:17

how this has been for you is actually

37:19

taking the time to grieve.

37:22

I think in our culture grief

37:25

is

37:26

almost disdained. There's

37:29

certainly not much space created for it. It's

37:34

not something that is typically

37:38

recognized as being important. There's

37:41

often a lot of judgment around it. It's

37:43

weak. But if you look at most

37:45

traditional cultures, they

37:48

all had grief rituals and

37:50

considered it

37:53

to be very important to leave

37:56

time and space for grieving, not just

37:59

death. death of

38:01

a family member or friend or something like

38:03

that or a relationship that didn't go well. But

38:06

anything that really resulted in sadness

38:09

or loss on a big

38:11

scale like

38:14

being diagnosed with cancer, for example, or

38:17

having to face a serious mold

38:20

illness and potentially not being

38:24

able to be in your office or your

38:26

livelihood being threatened or your home being –

38:28

having to leave your home or

38:32

completely got your home and rebuild it

38:34

from scratch is what people often

38:36

have to do. So I'm curious

38:38

how you've related

38:40

to that on your journey.

38:43

Oh, you're getting so many important points,

38:45

Chris. And grief is definitely one of those

38:47

big ones for me because I grew up in

38:50

a culture that was pretty conservative, fundamental,

38:52

and so women were optimistic,

38:54

happy, helpful, not

38:57

complaining, not too sad, never angry.

38:59

Like he was just, you know, stereotypes that we kind

39:02

of ingrained in me. And so after

39:04

my divorce, which was one of my wake-up calls,

39:06

who am I? What am I doing here? What's my identity

39:09

after divorce? I started doing neuro-linguistic

39:11

programming and I did a lot of other therapies

39:14

besides that. But that was the first one that

39:16

kind of opened the door for me to go

39:18

down to the somatic self and feel again. And

39:21

as I did that, I started really understanding

39:24

that I had suppressed sadness and anger

39:26

for 40 years. And when I first

39:28

started allowing that emotion to come back,

39:31

I remember the first two weeks after that

39:33

first few sessions of neuro-linguistic programming,

39:37

I had so much sadness it felt like a wave, like

39:39

a tsunami that was going to drown me. And

39:42

I literally, I thought I was going to die because

39:44

I'd never, I'd always held it back and suppressed

39:46

it. And finally I was allowing it. Now what

39:48

the truth is, is that you're not going to die and it comes

39:51

in a wave just like a wave or tsunami. It's a very

39:53

good metaphor because it comes and washes

39:55

over you and then actually as it washes over you actually

39:57

feel better. You feel relieved. larger

40:00

self to feel. But in the beginning of the first

40:02

two weeks, I thought this must be what depression

40:04

is like. I had never experienced that in

40:06

my life. And it was so hard and sober when

40:08

I could barely work this for a few weeks. But

40:11

then gently as I allowed myself to feel

40:13

a little by little by little, I became

40:15

more normal. And I recognize all of a sudden,

40:18

like my my hands were clenched. And before I

40:20

told you, I thought I was never angry. But like, Oh,

40:22

I think I'm a little upset. I'm a little angry.

40:24

But I would let myself feel those things and

40:27

allow them to flow through. And it

40:29

wasn't so bad. And it's interesting, I

40:32

always also equate in this realm, addictions,

40:33

right? Because addictions

40:36

are just way of suppressing or numbing

40:39

our ability to feel. And I

40:41

remember sitting in a room with a famous,

40:44

you know, health entrepreneur who was talking to a

40:46

group of us and he said, he

40:48

said, my addiction and I just totally tuned out because

40:50

I was like, I'm not I don't do drugs, I don't smoke,

40:52

I don't drink alcohol. And so I thought I was clear,

40:55

of course not. But he started

40:57

looking and pointing in the room, he said, all of you in this room are

40:59

addicts and you're at your addiction is a socially

41:02

acceptable addiction of work. And

41:04

I started to kind of pay attention because I was like, what are you talking

41:06

about? But as he proceeded, I realized

41:08

he was right. Because what happened for me is I

41:10

love my work. And I would want nothing else. I'd

41:12

nothing else I'd rather do probably like you.

41:15

I love to learn. I love to help people. But

41:17

it's still for me with something a way of

41:19

keeping busy on that treadmill and

41:22

not sitting with my feelings and being

41:24

quiet. I was so busy that it was

41:26

just one more way of suppressing that feeling.

41:28

So I had to really as we just talked before we got on

41:30

here, I had to create since that time, a lot

41:33

more space in my life to actually

41:35

be with myself to be with my emotions

41:38

to allow them in. And this is another

41:40

thing where it's forgiveness and compassion, you have to have

41:42

a lot of kindness to yourself in this process,

41:45

because it's messy. And it's up and down

41:47

and up and down. And it's not I always

41:49

think, Oh, I've done all this work. Well, there's still more to

41:51

do. It's kind of a process that we continue to grow

41:54

through. But I think that feeling is

41:56

so critical to healing. Absolutely.

41:59

and very much underrated in

42:02

our culture in general, and

42:05

I think in the medical field. Of course, there

42:07

are a lot of people, Gabra

42:09

Maté talks about this. There are lots

42:11

of, you know, Bernie Siegel, lots

42:14

of pioneers who have

42:16

discussed the importance of this over time. I

42:19

mean, there's even this idea of, which

42:22

I'm sure you've come across, and I'm always, I don't

42:25

like generalities and labels,

42:28

but like the type C personality. You

42:31

know, for the listeners, you've all heard

42:33

of type A personalities, people

42:35

who are very driven, and to

42:38

succeed and be accomplished

42:40

in the world. This idea

42:43

of the type C personality is generally

42:47

more oriented around people who hold feelings

42:50

inside. Do you think there's anything

42:52

to that? Was there anything to that for you, do

42:54

you think, in your experience?

42:58

Yes, absolutely.

43:01

Yes, I think that's a question, and

43:03

you know, this is again, Gabra Maté talks

43:05

about it, I think also Peter Levine, and some of our favorite

43:08

trauma experts, I'm sure you've read

43:10

as well as I talk

43:12

about this. Yeah,

43:12

my wife is actually an SE practitioner,

43:15

so I'm quite familiar with Peter's work.

43:17

Amazing, so you know this very

43:19

well.

43:20

And he shows the data

43:22

on the incidences of cancer with the

43:24

type C, and it's actually ALS especially.

43:27

He talked recently in his most recent book,

43:29

The Myth of Normal, about ALS,

43:31

and how ALS is very, very commonly associated

43:34

with the suppression of emotion. It's kind of

43:36

a conscientious personality, it's a very kind of

43:38

like, people pleasing, you

43:40

know, not complaining, not asking for needs to be

43:42

met, pretty, you know, kind and compassionate,

43:45

it's not a bad kind of person to be. But

43:47

the truth is, with ALS, with cancer

43:49

and certain other diseases like autoimmunity, there's

43:52

a much higher prevalence of

43:55

these diseases with this personality.

43:57

Absolutely, yeah,

43:59

and just to be clear.

43:59

I

44:01

think it's overly simplistic

44:03

to suggest, and I don't

44:05

think you're doing this, Jill, but I

44:08

see this happen sometimes,

44:10

that everyone

44:12

who has cancer is responsible

44:14

for their own cancer

44:17

diagnosis because they didn't adequately express

44:20

their feelings. That's I

44:23

think a simplistic view

44:25

of it and probably not accurate. The

44:28

way I like to think about it more is

44:31

as a process of inquiry. If

44:34

I am diagnosed with cancer, is

44:36

this a useful perspective? Is there anything

44:39

useful to learn from this idea of a type

44:41

C personality? Is that true for me? Is

44:45

it something that I can use as

44:47

a springboard for learning more

44:49

about myself and growing and evolving

44:52

as a person? I think the danger

44:54

of course is that

44:56

then it becomes the whole guilt,

44:58

blame, shame game. I

45:01

did this, it's my fault that I got cancer.

45:04

There's something wrong with me and if I could just be

45:07

a better person, then I wouldn't

45:11

have gotten cancer. Something

45:13

that

45:14

I think easily dispels that idea

45:17

is the fact that

45:18

young children, even babies are

45:21

sometimes diagnosed with cancer

45:24

and die of cancer. I think it would

45:27

be pretty ridiculous to suggest

45:29

that the toddler who's diagnosed

45:31

with cancer got it because they

45:34

didn't adequately express their feelings.

45:39

It's tricky, it's nuanced

45:42

as most things of

45:44

any kind of depth are. I

45:47

just wanted to make sure we introduce that

45:49

because...

45:50

from

46:00

this, that's more the perspective you and I are

46:02

taking is not that we caused

46:04

it, but it's like, okay, well, now that we're here, what is there

46:07

that could possibly help us to be

46:09

better?

46:10

That's right. The other

46:12

perspective is a rather egocentric view

46:14

that we're in so much control that we

46:18

cause all of these things to happen. The

46:20

perspective you're talking about is we

46:23

have a choice in how we respond to

46:25

what happens. We're not necessarily

46:28

controlling everything, but we

46:30

do have, like you said before, in

46:32

fact, one of the only things

46:34

that we have ultimate that nobody, one

46:37

of the only sources of control that no one can

46:39

take away from us is how we respond

46:41

to what happens to us, which

46:43

is, you know, can either be

46:46

terrifying or liberating depending on how

46:48

you look at it. I think it's liberating, but

46:51

it does require acknowledging

46:53

that we are not in as much control

46:55

over the circumstances of our lives as we

46:57

often think we are.

46:59

Yeah.

47:00

So we're getting to the end

47:02

of our time here, and I just want to conclude

47:05

the way that you concluded in

47:08

your book, which was with

47:10

a discussion of the importance of

47:12

unconditional love as it

47:14

applies to our healing journey, and

47:17

I think that's a great way to end the book

47:19

and the podcast, because

47:22

for me, there's nothing more powerful than

47:25

that, both in terms of how

47:27

my relationship with myself

47:30

has evolved over the course of my life and

47:32

with my family, with my patients,

47:35

just with hopefully everybody

47:37

that I interact with. So talk

47:39

a little bit about your journey

47:41

toward unconditional love.

47:43

Yeah. So this is absolutely the

47:46

secret sauce, and it's funny because I have

47:48

a, you know, wonderful clinic. I love what I

47:50

do, and I feel like I

47:52

like the diagnostics and all the depth

47:55

of the work. It's very similar to what you do,

47:57

but at the core, I feel like the secret.

48:00

to any success that I could claim is

48:02

this concept of when the patient

48:05

walks in the door, do they feel

48:07

safe and do they feel unconditional love? Because

48:10

I feel like that walking in, literally, I've said this

48:12

before, but my staff will get a wine glass and

48:14

we'll get them a glass of water. But that starts

48:17

there, that little tiny thing, it's no big deal,

48:19

it doesn't cost us anymore. But what it

48:21

does is just symbolize the tiniest little thing of you

48:23

are special, you're important, you're valuable,

48:26

you're worthy of the most unconditional love

48:28

possible. And I believe that literally

48:30

offering them a glass of water and something a little more special

48:33

than a normal glass is the start

48:35

of the healing process. And then

48:37

all the way through, my staff and hopefully

48:39

myself, that love that's

48:42

extended is really, really core

48:44

to the healing. Because like we talked about earlier,

48:47

safety, I think a person

48:49

can only truly relax in themselves

48:51

or in the presence of another human being when

48:53

they feel completely at ease

48:56

and accepted and loved without

48:58

mask, without stipulation, without having

49:01

to perform or having to do anything

49:03

at all, just being that human

49:05

in front of me. And I feel like that is truly

49:08

the magic or the hidden

49:11

secret to any success that I have is

49:13

I really, really, truly love the patients

49:16

I get to see and I'm so grateful for those opportunities.

49:19

And it's always a work in progress, but it started

49:21

with the stuff we talked about earlier, it's really, truly

49:23

loving myself and then being able to extend

49:26

that to the patient that walks in the door. Absolutely.

49:30

So Jill, tell everybody who's

49:32

listening where they can find out more

49:35

about your book and pick up a copy.

49:38

Yes, you can go to readunexpected.com and

49:40

there's all kinds of free bonuses

49:42

there you can get as well. And my regular website

49:44

is just jillcarnahan.com.

49:47

Great. Well, thank you so much. And thank you for your

49:49

book. It's a really

49:51

important contribution to the field.

49:53

I love seeing this book out there. Because

49:55

like, as I've said, I

49:58

know there's lots of great books on functional medicine.

49:59

medicine and the

50:02

tools and techniques and things we need

50:04

to be thinking about from that perspective, which your book

50:06

also includes. But

50:09

as I have continued to progress

50:11

in my own career and just

50:15

zoom out and get a broader perspective,

50:17

I think a lot of what we talked about

50:19

in this interview is what people need

50:21

most.

50:22

So I'm really glad that you wrote this book.

50:24

Thank you, Chris. And thank you for the work that you do in

50:26

the world. And thank you for having me on. I'm so

50:29

grateful. It's been a pleasure. Thanks

50:32

everyone for listening. And

50:34

we'll see you next time. head

50:37

over to iTunes and leave us a review. They really do make a difference.

50:39

at chriskressor.com slash podcast question. Thank

50:42

you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank

50:45

you. Thank you. Thank

50:47

you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank

50:50

you. Thank you.

50:52

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You

51:00

can also leave a suggestion for someone you'd like

51:02

me to interview there. If you're on

51:04

social media, you can follow me at twitter.com

51:06

slash chriskressor or facebook.com

51:10

slash chriskressor LAC. I

51:13

post a lot of articles and research that I do

51:15

throughout the week there that never makes it to the blog

51:18

or podcast. So it's a great way to stay

51:20

abreast of the latest developments. Thanks

51:23

so much for listening. Talk to you next time.