0:00

Continue the conversation at

0:02

dannymorell.com backslash awaken you.

0:06

Welcome to this week's episode of the higher

0:08

self. I think you're in for a treat,

0:11

especially if you find it difficult to

0:13

deal with your emotions, to deal with anxiety,

0:15

or if you or someone

0:18

you love is battling cancer right now.

0:20

Chris Carr, how are you? I'm

0:22

so good. It's good to be with you. Thank you. Good

0:24

to be here as well. I got

0:27

to ask you in 30 seconds

0:29

or less, why should they listen to this episode

0:31

until the very end? What do you think they're going to

0:33

get out of it? Every

0:35

single one of us is going to experience

0:37

a time when our world falls apart. Whatever

0:40

that looks like for us, whether it's

0:42

a diagnosis, the loss of a loved

0:44

one, a miscarriage, a divorce, for me

0:46

it was cancer diagnosis, and then ultimately

0:48

losing somebody very dear to me to

0:51

cancer. And I think the

0:53

more we're able to understand how

0:55

our big messy emotions are

0:58

here to actually teach us things and

1:00

how that we're able to surf these

1:03

storms that are inevitable and they will

1:05

come, the easier

1:07

it is for us to get back to fully

1:09

alive living, which I believe is the reason why

1:11

we're here in the first place. I'd

1:14

like to say we can't have the rainbow

1:16

and not expect some rain. I love that.

1:18

Speaking about the rain, where did

1:20

your rain begin? Valentine's

1:24

Day, 2003. I love how you know, like you know.

1:26

Oh yeah. That must have been a tough storm.

1:28

It was. So

1:30

I was diagnosed with a rare and incurable

1:32

stage four cancer that was 21 years ago

1:35

and I've been living. Hold on, 21 years

1:37

ago? Yes. Wow. 21 years ago

1:40

and I've been living with stage four

1:42

cancer ever since. So I'm

1:44

a cancer thriver. I'm a wellness coach. These

1:47

are things that I hadn't planned on being when

1:49

I grew up. You know, I didn't say, oh, this

1:51

is what I'm going to do with my life. But for

1:53

many of us, our lives change as a

1:56

result of these warning signs or wake-up calls.

2:01

the first doctor that I spoke to suggested

2:03

a triple organ transplant. I didn't

2:05

know much about medicine at the time but I thought

2:07

that was nuts. Right. The

2:10

next doctor gave me 10 years to live,

2:12

the one after that suggested radical treatments that

2:14

wouldn't do anything and so it inspired

2:17

me to become what I call the CEO

2:19

of my health. Stop right

2:21

there. I can't express like what I'm feeling right

2:23

now and how important I think it is for

2:25

every human being to listen to what you're about

2:28

to say because I don't know

2:30

what you're about to say but I can

2:32

feel like you you're you're there like I

2:34

know I know you're tapped

2:36

in like I feel that I feel

2:39

that well what

2:41

did that mean for you to become the CEO

2:43

of your own life and and

2:45

and my god the power and

2:47

strength and the conviction and

2:49

courage you must have felt to

2:52

say no to what the mainstream says

2:54

you have to do with your own

2:56

body. Well

3:00

for me it was about saying I have

3:02

to be the leader of my life and

3:04

to learn how to become my

3:07

own patient advocate and

3:09

wellness is a business and I decided

3:11

I would be the the CEO of

3:14

me and so first

3:16

it was about finding the doctor that

3:18

knew the most about my disease who

3:20

had his finger on the pulse of

3:22

the latest research and treatment because again

3:24

I live with a very rare cancer

3:26

so there's less known about rare cancers

3:29

partly because there's less funding and

3:31

so it was like finding a needle in a

3:33

haystack but when I did find him he

3:36

said something very interesting to me he

3:38

said you know your disease is a

3:40

total black box we need

3:43

to establish a baseline so we're

3:45

gonna watch him wait and let cancer

3:47

make the first move and we're not going to

3:49

do anything because

3:51

sometimes it can be slow-growing and sometimes it

3:54

can be aggressive so we're gonna track you

3:56

but while we're doing that you go

3:59

off and watch. and live and

4:01

get busy living. And

4:03

that was like this permission but also I

4:05

didn't know what that meant. I didn't

4:07

know how to do that. And so

4:10

I literally left the hospital and I went to

4:12

the grocery store and I bought

4:14

vegetables because I figured vegetables

4:17

are good for you. I guess I'll

4:19

start there and slowly figure

4:22

it out because none of us come

4:24

to this planet with an owner's manual.

4:27

And figuring it out and then teaching people what

4:29

I've learned is what I've been doing for the last 21 years. Wow.

4:35

Talk to me about that. Talk to me

4:37

about you started with food. I did. Right?

4:40

And I think that it's so interesting.

4:42

Jen and I went on a little

4:44

day date yesterday. There's a

4:46

place here in Austin called Nourished.

4:48

The name alone says it all.

4:51

And it's like really gut friendly food.

4:53

And as I was getting the plate,

4:55

right, and we started to eat, I

4:57

looked over at Jen. I literally

5:00

tasted this. I said, maybe they

5:02

made this food with love. You

5:05

could feel the energy and the

5:07

frequency of the food was different. And

5:09

I feel like when we are not

5:11

awakened to the importance of food, like

5:14

we're out here just eating dead food

5:16

like that isn't really nourishing our bodies

5:18

on a day to day basis. So

5:20

let's start there, right? How has food

5:25

made an impact on your journey? In

5:28

a very big way. So that's where I

5:30

started because I felt so out of control.

5:32

And I thought, the one

5:34

thing I can control is when I put in

5:36

my body, when I put on

5:38

my body. And then much later, I

5:41

realized how I'm talking to myself

5:44

and how I'm taking care of my mental well being.

5:46

But with food, it was a good

5:49

place to begin because the truth is I wasn't feeling

5:51

well, I didn't have a lot of energy. And this

5:53

was, you know, outside of even

5:55

cancer. And I thought,

5:57

well, if I start on my plate,

6:00

and I can start to make a little bit

6:02

of traction, then what else can I accomplish?

6:04

And you said it, I began

6:06

with taking care of my gut health. And

6:09

we know that our gut is really the heart

6:11

and soul of our immune system. And

6:14

I began to practice a whole

6:16

foods plant-based diet. And

6:18

in the beginning, I didn't know what I

6:20

was doing, but I just started to get

6:23

cookbooks and try to make things in my

6:25

kitchen and then certification programs and slowly but

6:27

surely you find your way and again, you

6:29

start to feel better. And

6:32

then I wrote some books about that

6:34

and cookbooks and whatnot. And

6:37

that's where it began is how I nourish

6:40

myself. But it didn't stop there.

6:42

Really wasn't until my 10 year

6:45

anniversary or cancerversary where

6:47

I got to be honest with

6:50

you, I

6:52

was a little frustrated because I was doing

6:54

all this self-care and I was teaching people

6:56

a lot of what I was learning. I was already

6:58

a New York Times bestseller. And

7:01

I felt as though I was failing unless I

7:03

was completely cured. And

7:06

we went to my 10 year scan

7:08

and my doctors thrilled, my family's thrilled.

7:10

The only person that wasn't thrilled was

7:12

me. And

7:15

I realized that there's a big

7:17

difference between curing and healing.

7:20

Curing may happen and it happens

7:22

in the physical body. But

7:24

I've been living with stage four cancer for 21 years. My

7:27

disease continues to be stable. And

7:30

yet there was a part of me putting my life off

7:33

until the doctor said

7:35

you're in remission, until everything looked perfect

7:37

on paper. And I said,

7:39

what a waste. What if I live this big,

7:41

wonderful, beautiful life? I met my husband

7:43

as a result of this incredible journey.

7:47

What if I lived this big life, but I never really

7:49

lived it because it wasn't good enough. And

7:52

that's when I realized that my path is a

7:55

healing path because healing can happen. For

7:57

every single one of us at every stage, even

7:59

beyond. our physical bodies. And

8:02

that's what I practice today. I teach

8:04

people how to become empowered participants in

8:06

their health and healing, whether they're

8:08

patients or they never want to be patients, and

8:11

just how powerful it

8:13

is to be on this healing path, body,

8:15

mind, and spirit. It's impossible for you

8:18

to have a successful relationship with another

8:20

human being or a partner if you

8:22

don't have a successful relationship with yourself.

8:25

And what we as human beings

8:27

don't realize is that we are

8:29

deeply disconnected. We're

8:33

disconnected from Mother Earth, we're disconnected

8:35

from peace, we're disconnected from love.

8:37

What we do at AWAKEN is

8:39

we curate different exercises

8:41

to help you reconnect first to

8:43

yourself and then the beautiful

8:46

process of reconnecting to everybody begins.

8:48

And that's why AWAKEN is so

8:50

powerful. You'll do more in three

8:52

days at AWAKEN than you would

8:54

do 30 years

8:57

anywhere else. I

9:00

was so stuck and now I

9:02

feel peace. AWAKEN has been

9:04

the best thing we have done for marriage.

9:06

Coming here I realized that the

9:08

answers were inside of me all

9:11

the time. Head on over to

9:13

dannymorel.com backslash AWAKEN

9:15

now to get your tickets

9:17

today. Yeah, it's

9:20

so wild to me that you're

9:22

here right now. Last

9:24

night I've been on this

9:27

journey with food for a while and

9:30

I was vegan for four

9:32

years and I

9:34

was having some issues sleeping which

9:38

as a result of being vegan

9:40

I correlated it with being vegan

9:43

which brought me back to a journey of

9:45

eating animal protein again.

9:47

And which

9:49

about two weeks ago

9:52

I'm laying in bed after sleeping a

9:54

full night's sleep and I cannot get

9:57

out of bed. I

9:59

literally couldn't get up. out of bed. And

10:01

I tell Jen, I said, baby, I

10:03

don't have the energy to even move

10:05

right now. And something told me like,

10:07

I'm just stuck with a bunch

10:09

of like, dead stuff.

10:11

Right. And I'm like, maybe this

10:13

isn't working for me. So then

10:16

I go back to eating a

10:18

predominantly plant based diet, right? I

10:20

do I do organic, we do

10:22

all that. And maybe once

10:24

a week, I'll have a little animal protein, if

10:26

that's what, what I'm sensing

10:28

or I'm listening to. But last night, I didn't

10:30

sleep. And I

10:32

realized that I overate. And

10:35

the overeating caused my gut

10:37

to be so stimulated, that

10:39

I thought to myself, Oh my God, what you

10:41

just said is so true. And you're literally here

10:44

to confirm it like, this is

10:46

like my third brain. Because

10:48

we essentially have three brains, right?

10:50

The brain, the heart and the

10:53

gut, right. And

10:55

it was really wild to me

10:57

to see that like, because of my

10:59

actions, because of overeating, I stimulated

11:02

my body so much that whatever happens

11:04

in there was happening. And it was a

11:06

big wake up call. And this

11:08

is, this is wild. What I always

11:10

tell you guys is that you don't

11:12

ever have to know how. But

11:14

life tends to be so magical in there.

11:17

And where I don't think there's any coincidence

11:19

that you're here, literally just a couple of

11:21

hours after that happened to me. Yeah. That's

11:24

amazing. You know, I really resonate

11:26

with what you're talking about, because

11:28

I'm a big believer in listening

11:30

to ourselves. And the

11:33

more we're able to, I think, first

11:35

and foremost, create that relationship with ourselves, and

11:38

hopefully, at some point, get to the

11:41

point and the place where we enjoy

11:43

our own company, the easier it

11:45

is to tap into that intuition,

11:47

that deep wisdom, that knowing. And

11:50

I think that we complicate

11:52

things. And well being is

11:54

a little easier than we think it doesn't

11:57

mean that it's always easy to practice. But

12:00

oftentimes I see certainly in

12:02

my profession there's always the latest

12:04

hack or the latest trend or fad.

12:06

We're always trying to mess with

12:09

our beautiful bodies that are so

12:11

much wiser than we are. And

12:13

if we can just go back to the basics, I

12:15

teach what I call the five pillars of wellness. And

12:18

that's about being mindful of what

12:20

you're eating, what you're drinking, what you're

12:23

thinking, and how you're resting and renewing.

12:26

And those pillars rest on a foundation

12:28

of stress management. And

12:30

stress, another way to say

12:32

stress is inflammation. So whether

12:35

you're taking care of your gut, you're taking

12:37

care of your mental well-being, you're taking care

12:39

of your heart, what you're really doing is

12:41

taking care of your inflammation. And

12:44

inflammation is the root of most, if

12:47

not all, chronic diseases. Okay,

12:49

so I literally want to be a student here,

12:52

right? So how do

12:54

I take care of my mind?

12:56

And most importantly, how did you

12:58

realize that that was one of the issues?

13:00

Like, take me back to that moment and

13:02

then like, what did you do to start

13:05

being more kind to yourself in your

13:07

mind? I

13:10

realized it was an issue because I

13:12

was living with fear and anxiety about

13:15

what if, what if is

13:17

today the day cancer gets

13:19

turned on? And

13:21

there were moments when I would be not present with

13:24

the people in my life because I was

13:26

in a fear spiral or

13:28

I was ruminating with anxiety. I don't know

13:30

if that's ever happened to you. Absolutely. Perfectly.

13:34

It happens to many of us. And what

13:36

I have learned is we can't amputate any

13:38

of our emotions and expect to

13:40

be whole. And wholeness is our goal.

13:43

But what we can do is start to get curious

13:45

about them and understand

13:47

that in my opinion, emotions

13:50

are two things. One, they're information, they're

13:52

here to teach us something, and

13:55

they're energy. And energy needs to

13:57

move. When it's stagnant, we become

13:59

stagnant. become ill. And

14:02

so for me thinking, okay,

14:05

I am a marathon runner, I

14:07

have to go the distance with stage four cancer.

14:09

I hope it

14:11

doesn't wake up. But if it does

14:13

someday, I want to have the fortitude

14:15

and the resilience and the wherewithal

14:19

to handle that. But it's a

14:21

mental game for me, more

14:24

than anything right now. And

14:26

so saying, okay, fears

14:29

here. What is fear all about? What

14:31

is the anatomy of fear? What does it have to

14:33

teach me? Why do I have it in

14:36

the first place? It's here to protect me. Same thing

14:38

with anxiety. It's really when those emotions

14:40

get out of control or out of

14:42

balance, where we start to feel the

14:44

the ultimate pain of them. So

14:47

if I can start to understand that when I

14:49

am in an anxious place, I'm

14:51

having an out of mind out of

14:53

body experience. What can I

14:56

do to bring my self back to that present moment? We

14:58

were just talking about how you love to work out and then you

15:00

have a gym, going to that

15:02

gym and getting on your treadmill or your bike

15:05

or lifting weights. It literally

15:07

brings you back into your body. Instead

15:10

of for me, oh my God, what's gonna happen

15:12

at the next scan? What if this

15:14

what if that what if this in that moment right

15:16

now? I'm sitting here with you. I am

15:19

not at the next scan. Cancer has

15:21

not turned on and yet my body doesn't

15:23

know the difference because I'm activating all of

15:26

the fight or flight responses

15:28

and cascade of hormones in my

15:30

body. So I can literally

15:32

stop, drop and

15:35

come back to myself through the

15:37

breath, through movement, through calling

15:39

my best friend, through being with the

15:41

people that we love. It's like changing

15:43

the channel and coming back to the

15:45

present. When we're in fear,

15:48

when we're in anxiety, where it's almost like a

15:50

dog licking a hotspot. It's

15:52

like we got to break the focus through the tennis ball

15:55

and come back to us because in this moment, all

15:57

is well. That's

15:59

right. Absolutely.

16:03

And I think

16:08

people might be listening and

16:10

they might say, you know, in

16:13

many ways, especially for people who suffer

16:15

with anxiety, that that could be easier

16:18

said than done, you know. But

16:21

here you are living,

16:23

literally living proof that,

16:25

you know, in what could be for

16:28

most people, a pretty scary thing,

16:30

you have found a way to like overcome

16:33

it. I gotta be honest with you, I didn't

16:35

know when you showed up here that

16:38

you had cancer. I actually mistaken

16:40

you. I thought that you were like a

16:42

child psychologist or something like that. So then

16:44

when Casper shows me the notes, because

16:48

you look so healthy and so

16:50

vibrant and you have a wonderful smile

16:52

and you look like you really embody life.

16:54

So I just want

16:56

all of you guys to really realize that like

16:59

you could, you're an embodiment of the fact

17:01

that you can be and overcome anything. And

17:03

I want to take it a step further. What I

17:05

teach people is that a lot of times in our

17:07

life, our trauma, our

17:09

woundings, the worst things

17:11

that happened to us could lead

17:14

us to our life's purpose. And

17:16

that's what happened with you. Yeah,

17:19

it led you to your work, it led you to your

17:21

husband, you know, how did you

17:23

go about that process, right? It's one thing to

17:25

take care of yourself, but then it's another to like,

17:28

find passion and wanting to help and take care

17:30

of the world, right? Yeah.

17:32

Well, just going back to anxiety for

17:34

a minute, because I have

17:37

not overcome it, but it's a

17:39

practice. So all of these tools

17:41

that I think that we develop and tools

17:43

that you teach, they're there for us when

17:45

we need them, right? They're there when the

17:49

ruckus pulled out from under us, when

17:51

we're having a panic attack, when we're

17:53

in a very difficult time, and they

17:55

don't make it go away, but they

17:57

can start to sort of start to thaw it

17:59

out so that you you can come back to yourself.

18:02

And there have been times along the way in

18:04

my journey where medication was very helpful, right? So

18:06

I blessed all of the

18:08

things that we use to help us

18:10

come into our own peace. So

18:15

to this, how

18:17

did I turn this into, you know,

18:19

my vocation and something bigger? I'm

18:22

a creative spirit. So my creativity has always

18:24

been the thing that I have leaned on

18:26

when I'm trying to figure things out

18:28

and when I'm struggling. And

18:30

so when I was diagnosed, I turned the

18:32

camera at myself. I came from a film

18:34

and television background and I

18:36

decided to tell the story of my

18:39

experience because I knew that I wasn't

18:41

the only person out there who

18:43

was living with stage four cancer, especially as

18:46

a young adult. I was 31 when

18:48

I was diagnosed. And there were very little

18:50

resources back then for people like me. It

18:53

was a lot for a lot of people who

18:56

are older, who had gone through

18:58

raising their children and their second divorce or

19:00

whatever it was. And here I

19:02

was, you know, just starting out. And I was like, there's

19:05

nobody like me out there, you know? So

19:07

I said, well, I'm gonna make it.

19:10

And that gave me a focus. And

19:13

it was a decision. It was a decision and it

19:15

gave me a focus and it gave me a purpose.

19:17

And it was also very helpful in dealing

19:20

with the fear because I could

19:22

just throw it into my creative process. So

19:24

my first book came out, my film came

19:26

out. I was on

19:28

Oprah. You know, it was actually, it

19:31

was picked up by Discovery Channel and it premiered

19:33

here at South by Southwest. And

19:36

it started me on a trajectory

19:38

that I hadn't planned for. You

19:40

know, I remember when I was on Oprah

19:42

and my website crashed, this was like

19:45

a little blogspot.com website and back in

19:47

2007 that I designed myself. It was

19:49

the ugliest thing you've ever seen, right? And I didn't

19:51

have an email capture. You know, there was no way because

19:53

I didn't know what I was doing. We

19:55

were living in Brooklyn and we were sitting

19:57

on our little couch that we found on this trajectory.

20:00

my husband and I looked at each other and he helped

20:02

me make the film. They were like, this

20:04

is what we're doing. We're helping people. We don't

20:06

know how to do it, but we're going to

20:08

figure it out. Beautiful. I love that. That resilience.

20:12

So if you've been listening to

20:14

my podcast, you know, I'm a

20:16

strong believer and proponent of plant

20:18

medicines ability to awaken your mind,

20:20

body and soul. And

20:22

many of you have asked me where

20:24

I recommend going to experience the power

20:26

of these medicines. And the only place

20:28

on planet earth I would ever recommend

20:30

is reunion. It's a not for profit

20:32

healing center with over 30 years

20:35

of experience in Costa Rica,

20:37

which I trust wholeheartedly. I'm

20:39

honored to have a line with them to

20:41

create the higher self scholarship fund. So

20:44

a hundred dollars from every booking from

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our community goes into this fund and

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we will award the fund to someone

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code Danny reunion when registering the link

20:56

to register can be found in the

20:58

podcast notes, or you can learn more

21:01

by going to reunion experience.org. So

21:05

I don't think we spoke enough about like

21:08

diet and food. And I

21:10

think this is such a big conversation because,

21:12

you know, if you look anywhere on social

21:14

media, it's like everyone is

21:17

now fighting over what to eat

21:19

and what not to eat. Right. And

21:23

I have to admit that's a journey that

21:25

I had to go on, which was just

21:27

learning to listen to what made sense for

21:29

me. Right. But if you could

21:32

give us a brief outline of

21:34

maybe some best practices when it

21:36

comes to nutrition and taking

21:38

care of our gut, what would that be? Eat

21:41

real food, Michael

21:43

Pollan, mostly plants and not too much.

21:46

And when you say real food, because a lot

21:48

of people don't understand what real food is

21:51

like me and you get that. But like

21:53

real food is not Coca Cola. Real

21:55

food is not, you know, certain

21:57

rice, crispies. Real food is not.

22:00

Snakers bars, right real food

22:02

constitutes of what exactly?

22:06

If it comes from the garden, it's

22:09

probably something that's good for you, right? So

22:12

it I want to just take a step back because It's

22:15

this is hard stuff for a lot of people and

22:17

I think that before we

22:19

go into best practices what I want to do is soothe

22:22

anybody out there who might feel

22:24

overwhelmed because our bodies

22:26

are very resilient naturally and It

22:30

is not about being perfect I think what

22:32

we see mostly on social media

22:34

and Instagram are these diets

22:37

that people will go on They're quite

22:39

extreme and that are very

22:41

hard for most people to not

22:43

only do but certainly stay consistent

22:45

with and so If

22:49

it's made in a lab, it can take a

22:51

lab to digest so it more often than not.

22:53

Are you eating real food? Are you

22:55

eating food that is in packaged? Are you eating

22:57

food that is an over process that's filled

23:00

with empty calories and lots

23:02

of sugar and things that are actually going to

23:04

hurt your Gut and hurt your immune system. And

23:07

so my diet is very

23:09

simple, you know I'm gonna probably

23:11

have a salad with some tempeh

23:14

and beans and rice and avocado

23:16

and lots of healthy fats and

23:19

and foods that are easy to digest and You

23:23

know a lot of people in my

23:25

community aren't plant-based and that's

23:27

okay I think for me, it's are

23:29

you practicing these principles more often than

23:31

not? Are you making vegetables the

23:33

the main? Star

23:35

of your plate as opposed to you know

23:38

Having being a bit player over on the

23:40

side and you don't even want them And

23:43

finding ways to make this delicious and

23:45

we all come from different cultures and

23:47

and food is what can unite us

23:49

And maybe some people have great traditions

23:51

that they don't want to let go

23:53

of but then I say well Let's

23:55

find better ways to prepare those foods

23:57

so that they're a little healthier It's

24:00

about the decisions that we make more

24:02

often than not. And I'll give you one

24:04

more tip. If you're just starting out, I

24:07

like to say add before you subtract. Again,

24:09

trying to get people out of the place

24:12

of overwhelm because that's what I think in 21

24:15

years of doing this really stops us. If

24:18

I can't do it, perfect why bother? So

24:20

if we start to add some goodness into our life

24:22

on a daily basis, that could be a smoothie. For

24:27

me, it's usually the same thing. It's

24:29

cucumber and kale or whatever greens we

24:31

have, avocado, berries, probably some

24:33

hemp seeds, maybe some plant protein, although

24:35

I'm getting it a lot from my

24:37

almonds and things like that. They're

24:40

rich, they're nutritious. I have a 24

24:42

to 30 ounce smoothie

24:44

every morning helping with my gut

24:46

health. And I'm getting

24:48

this big blast of plant-based nutrients

24:51

that's filled with the vitamins, minerals,

24:53

enzymes, phytochemicals, which are the cancer

24:57

fighters, antioxidants which combat free radicals.

24:59

I didn't even have to cook

25:01

anything. I put it in

25:03

the blender and if the rest of my

25:05

day goes askew, I'm

25:07

winning. Yeah, absolutely. You know? So

25:10

it's like what's the one thing we can do? We can make

25:12

a smoothie and start to add that goodness into our life. Beautiful.

25:14

I love that. And on a completely other

25:17

note here, because what you've done is not

25:19

only as a woman, but

25:25

as a woman facing something very

25:27

difficult in life, you are

25:29

out making an impact in the world. And

25:32

I always love to ask people, if someone is

25:34

out there listening, 80% of our audience is

25:37

women. And they want to say, enough

25:39

is enough. I

25:42

want to make an impact on the world.

25:45

I want to find my life's purpose. I

25:47

want to get more creative. I want to

25:49

step into my own creative spirit. How

25:51

did you do that? And

25:54

how could they? I

25:57

didn't take no for an answer. I absolutely

25:59

love that answer. So

26:01

my film which we made, you

26:03

know, back in 2007, it's called

26:05

Crazy Sexy Cancer. And

26:08

the definition of it is crazy. It's

26:11

that out of the box thinking that

26:13

someone says, oh, that'll never happen. That's

26:15

crazy. And we say,

26:17

watch us. Sexy is empowered.

26:19

It's usually, it's, to me, it's using your

26:22

full gifts that you come here with. And

26:24

cancer is my teacher. It's been my teacher for

26:26

21 years. It will always be my teacher

26:29

even if there's a day when I don't have it.

26:32

And so that's why I called it Crazy Sexy Cancer.

26:34

But back then, every network,

26:36

every producer, every everybody, even, you know,

26:38

my doctor was like, do you think

26:40

you could call it something else? And

26:43

I was like, no, because I'm making this

26:46

for a certain group of people. And

26:49

to these people, that title

26:51

is like oxygen. Because

26:54

everything before then was not

26:56

at all like Crazy Sexy

26:58

Cancer. And so

27:00

everybody said no. And I didn't take it for an answer

27:02

because you know what? I said, none

27:05

of this is as hard as cancer. So

27:09

I was like, no, I'm doing

27:11

it my way. And

27:15

it didn't mean that I didn't have to make compromises

27:17

along the way. But I stopped

27:19

looking for permission from other people. And

27:22

that meant that I had to build my own

27:25

company. And that meant that I had to bang

27:27

down many more doors. And that meant that I

27:29

had to keep looking for an agent who would

27:31

represent me when everybody else said, no, that's crazy.

27:34

And that meant that I had to say

27:37

that there's nothing wrong with me.

27:39

I just haven't found the right person to

27:42

work with yet. All I need

27:44

is one person to believe in this project. And

27:46

I found that person. And she

27:48

ultimately bought it and sold it to

27:51

Discovery Channel and then it went

27:55

from there. I love

27:57

that. Any final thoughts? So

28:03

I wrote a new book, it's called I'm Not a

28:06

Morning Person. You

28:08

got a knife for great titles. That's

28:10

a great title. Yeah. Thank

28:13

you. It's

28:15

all about braving lost grief and those big

28:17

messy emotions that happen when life falls apart.

28:21

And I'd say the first part of my career, I was

28:23

really focused on what we're eating. And this portion I'm

28:25

doing a lot of work with what's eating us. And

28:28

every single one of us are going to have that moment,

28:31

that rupture. And what

28:34

I have found through the course of

28:36

my own life of living with these

28:39

difficult emotions and things

28:41

that could happen is

28:44

that our messy emotions can teach

28:46

us how to be free, but

28:49

not necessarily free of the pain,

28:51

right? Because that pain may

28:54

still be there, but

28:56

it's free of the

28:58

barriers that keep us

29:01

from fully alive living. And

29:03

so whatever you're experiencing

29:06

right now or any of your listeners are

29:08

experiencing right now, tend

29:11

to your hearts, tend to those

29:13

emotions, tend to your body because

29:16

you are meant to be here.

29:19

And the more tending we're willing to

29:22

do for ourselves, I

29:24

believe the more joy we

29:26

get out of this precious life

29:28

that we've been given. Yeah, absolutely.

29:31

In spite of whatever's going on. Yeah. And

29:33

that's what it's about. I love that. Thank

29:36

you for the teacher that you are seriously.

29:38

I think it's really beautiful what you're doing.

29:40

Thank you. How do people find out more

29:42

about you? So I'm at chriscar.com. I always

29:44

spell that because I always want to ask.

29:47

Thank you. Chris with a K. A. R. I.

29:49

S. C. A. R. R. and

29:51

yeah. Are you on Instagram? I am. I'm

29:54

at crazy sexy Chris. Oh nice. Crazy

29:56

sexy Chris. Okay, beautiful. Thanks for

29:58

being here. You're awesome! Thanks!

30:01

Yeah, that's it for this week's

30:03

episode of The Higher Self. I

30:05

hope that you can see. That

30:07

regardless of what you're going through, regardless

30:10

of what you're feeling, there is another

30:12

way. And there's there's a way to

30:14

experience is beautiful. A life. Filled.

30:16

With love so was joy and to help other

30:19

people to do with the same way as crisis

30:21

the way or the in next week on my

30:23

yourself. They. For

30:25

watching this week's episode of The Higher Self,

30:28

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30:30

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30:32

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