56: Your Path to Recovery from Trauma and Breast Cancer with Dr. Keesha Ewers

Hello and welcome to the Kenya breasts podcast with Dr. Jen. The show dedicated to empowering women through knowledge, tools and resources to take control of your breast health journey. I'm your host, Dr. Jen Simmons, and I'm thrilled to have you join me on this insightful and inspiring journey. As a breast cancer surgeon turned functional medicine physician, I'm on a mission to empower women to live their breasts and need best lives. This podcast dives deep into all topics related to breast health, including prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and holistic approaches to support overall well being.

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Breast health is health. So no matter who you are, a breast cancer survivor, newly diagnosed in treatment, living with metastatic disease, or you're simply seeking to improve your breast health, this podcast is for you. Join us on this transformative path towards better breast health and a thriving life. And now, let's get to today's episode.

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Keeping youg Breast Podcast. I AM your host, Dr. Jen Simmons, and what we have for you today is someone who is truly special. We're going to get right into it with her because Dr. Kesha Ewers is here and Dr. Kecia has a story to share, experiences to share, and invaluable information in the world of breast cancer and sexuality. And so, Dr. Keisha, I've been so looking forward to having you on the podcast. We did an amazing, amazing, amazing interview. I think it was two or three years ago for my first summit, and so it's been a while, it's been a minute since we've gotten a chance to connect and so welcome. I'm so happy to see you.

I'm so delighted to be back. Thank you so much.

So I would love it if you would start off by sharing your story and how you came to be a breast cancer expert. Let's. Let's start with that.

I only come to be a breast cancer expert, so to speak, through my own trials and tribulations. And so I think a lot of times the kind of medicine that we practice is informed by our own experience. Right? Your story is no exception. Mine isn't either. Yeah, pain. Exactly. I started out as a 19 year old nurse in the ICU and I did that kind of medicine and critical care for about 10 years. Had four children, got married, was a marathon runner, and, you know, was very type A, very driven. And then all of a sudden, this is what my patients say too. Overnight I got sick, which is, of course, is not accurate. It was not all of a sudden, but overnight. One night I gained 10 pounds in while I was sleeping of inflammation in all of my joints. And I got in to see a physician the next day and I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. And it was like someone had taken the batteries out of the Energizer Bunny. So I was handed two prescriptions at that time, you know, for methotrexate and a non steroidal anti inflammatory drug. And I was told, come back when you get worse, not if, and we'll change your meds. And you know, this was back, I'm 59 and so this was back when I was 30. This is still the same today. Yeah, same meds, same same party line. It's the same, right? So sad. And so I remember like many of my patients, you know, saying, well, hang on, time out, time out. I'm very healthy, I make my own food, I run, you know, what else can you, can I do? And my doctor looked at me and she said, well, you know, in your history form here you said your grandfather had rheumatoid arthritis. And so this is a genetic issue. This is it. Like these are your only options. And so on my way home, I remember thinking, my model of medicine, which is good for a lot of things, clearly is not good for this. And you know, the way that I was raised and educated has some limitations. I wonder if there's another way to think about this. And so I went outside in the PubMed and looked up the research articles and I found an article on yoga and I went to my first yoga class and I remember the teacher wandering around the studio while we're holding our postures. This is my very first class and he's talking about the science of ayurvedic medicine, which is the medical arm of yoga science. And he said, enough. That got me very fascinated. And I went home from that class and went back online and looked up Ayurveda and what I found out was quite transforming. So back 10,000 years ago, these thinkers who were observing humans on the planet in relationship to their food and their environment and each other, the stars said the autoimmune disease is undigested anger and cancer is undigested anger. And that, oh, by the way, we're not all the same. We're not supposed to eat the same things or sleep the same way or exercise the same way at the same time of day, that we have individual constitutional types and that the way that we do our medicine where we try to have like a triage right, a decision tree, if this Is true, then do this. We try to standardize everybody and we call it evidence based medicine and we are not standardized people. So it doesn't work very well, especially for chronic problems. So I changed a lot. And in that time period I learned to meditate. And I remember having this sort of download that, oh, this word autoimmune means I'm doing this to myself. That means my immune system is going after me and there's nothing outside of me to blame. I wonder if this is sort of like a societally acceptable way to commit suicide. Do like, is there a time in my life that I actually wanted to die? Because that's basically what I'm doing to myself right now. Why am I attacking me? That was a really interesting question and I was glad I asked it because then I was really willing to self confront and I went back in my little memory banks and as I was sitting there meditating and thought, is there a time in my life when I wanted to die? And sure enough, I came upon this 10 year old little girl version of myself who was being sexually abused by the vice principal of the elementary school that I was attending. And I remember looking at her and going, you wanted off the planet. My dad was out to sea. I had tried to tell my mom what was going on, but I actually didn't have the right words. You know, like back in those days, it was a different era, we didn't have social media, I was raised with no television. I don't even know if I honestly knew what the word sex or molestation or abuse even meant. And so I, you know, I, I remember thinking I was very confused about had I done something wrong. This is a person in authority. I tried to tell a teacher, they scooted me off the playground, said, stop flapping your mouth, you know, and, and so I remember looking at this little kid version of myself and going, oh, I'll bet you this has something to do with up. We now would have this word called upregulating genetics coded for disease. I didn't have that word back then because we didn't have this genetic understanding that we have today. But I knew it was connected somehow intuitively. So I started doing some really deep trauma work and guess what? My RA was gone within six months and it never came back. And I never took those meds. Now here's the answer to your question you actually started with. Ten years later, my diet's changed, I'm a regular meditator, I'm doing, I walk my talk, I'm doing everything that I teach. My patients to do and my students. I'm healthy. Healthy as a horse. My son comes home from college, and he says, mom, I have to tell you something. And I sat down. I was like, this sounds serious. And he said, well, back when, you know, and he. He told me, like, back when we lived in this other neighborhood in another state, There was a boy in our neighborhood who was 12 years old, and my boys were 5 and 3. He used to come over and take the kids out back, and they jump on the trampoline and, you know, play together. And his mom was my running partner. And I remember one day I had my baby on my hip. I looked out back, they were all jumping on the trampoline, having a good time. And I opened the sliding glass door, and I yelled down, hey, do you want to stay and babysit while I take her to the grocery store? Just for a couple of hours, and then I'll pay you when I get back. And then you guys don't have to move or change anything. Apparently, in that afternoon, he sexually abused my boys. So my son tells me this, and with my history, this is like, oh, my gosh, the very worst thing that I think I could possibly hear. And I totally freaked out, of course, because now I'm, like, the very worst mother that there could possibly be. But I left my attention on my son, and I said, so what. What I would like to do is get you and your brother into counseling. And I went into icu, nurse, like, critical care form and got them into therapy. I. I found the young man who is now grown in his 20s. I tracked him down. I called him up. He said, Mrs. Yours, I've been waiting for this call for 15 years. And, you know, I asked him some questions. I facilitated after they'd gone to counseling for a while, this amazing forgiveness process between him and the kids. And, oh, my gosh, it was so beautiful. And then when everything I think had been. It'd been like at least a half a year, everything had kind of settled. I went into this rage about what is possible when you tell your parents. And I realized that my parents had not done any of that. And I was so angry. And so right around that time, I found a lump in my breast, right in my left, right over my heart. So I went in, got it looked at in the ultrasound. You could see this blood supply to this tumor. It was amazing. It was, like, feeding it, and I could just tell what was going on. And I remember the. The radiologist, I was just like, oh, my gosh, look at that. Blood supply. And then I said, give me. After I had my consultation, I said, give me a month. I know exactly where this came from and I know what I need to do. And so I went into very intense therapy again. And this time I had the hardest time forgiving myself. It was so much easier to forgive my vice principal, but to forgive myself. I could see this 30 something year old version of myself, like I think I was 38 or 40, like opening the sliding glass door, yelling down. And I, I could just like from that place I was screaming at her, you know, like, you lazy cow, go get your kids, do not leave them with him. Like, oh my gosh. So rageful against myself and my earlier version of myself. And finally one day I got it. When I was in therapy, I went into this like really intensive residential. I knew I had to do this or I was going to die. And so I went into this, this therapy program. And I remember I had four teddy bears that I was holding and I was just sobbing. And the woman that was my therapist that was, that was sitting there with me, I was just like, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, you know, And I opened my eyes and she was crying and she said, I wish my mother would have given half the shit that you're get that you give about this. And it was this really interesting compass shift for me of, oh, I'm being so selfish right now because if I don't forgive myself, I'm like checking out my kids won't have a mom and what good that like a mom that can't forgive herself, right? How useless is that? And I remember it just like clicked like, this is not just for you, this is for your youngest daughter who is still in middle school and she needs you, right? This is for your other kids who are going to be needing you as life goes on. And so after that point I was able to go back to that 30, you know, or 40 year old and say, oh, you didn't have all the information, right? You did what you with what you had, you did the best that you could. And also I recognized that each of my kids had their own path and it wasn't for me to be saving them from all their bumps and bruises and that they also had wisdom to learn. Like I thought about all the wisdom I attained from my own trauma, digesting it. That's why Ayurveda calls it, you digest the trauma and out comes wisdom. If you're willing to not sit and regurgitate the traumatic story again and again and Again with blame and shame. It actually helps you develop compassion if you digest it. So I remember like, okay, it's time. It's time to do this, digest it. And I came out of that. I went back to get another ultrasound, which had been my agreement with my oncologist. I went back in and that tumor was completely gone. And that blood supply was just hanging there at nothing. There was nothing in it, there was nothing to feed. And I remember the radiologist going, whatever you did, keep it up. And it was like, I don't tell that story a lot because everybody's reason for getting cancer is different, right? However, this one is a biggie. This one is a real biggie. That trauma informs how you upregulate your genetics, that code that you have in there. You know, my mother had had breast cancer, her mother had had breast cancer. I had a genetic propensity for it for sure. My phase two liver detox pathway genetically doesn't get rid of estrogen receptor positive, right reproductive chemicals that we have being poured by the ton in our air, water and soil. So you could definitely point to chemicals and all the things that we talk about when we talk about cancer. However, I was regularly detoxing, regularly testing for toxic burden, knew my genetics, regularly taking care of my gut microbiome, my adrenals, my hormone metabolites, like all of that for 10 years had been right on track. The only thing that changed was I was filled with self loathing and hatred for myself. I got cancer.

Yeah, yeah, I totally. I hear that. I get it. And I think that that is a pretty common thing for people that, you know, you said, instead of telling your story over and over again with blame and shame, I think that's what's happening so frequently. And I did. I remember a statistic where they looked at trauma in the breast cancer population. And when you're talking about the early breast cancer population, it's probably 30 to 40% of people that recall a trauma that had a significant impact on their life. And then when you look at the metastatic population, it's in excess of 80%. And I'm always reminded of this story of a patient of mine who came to me and I mean, similar to what you were experiencing when you were an ICU nurse and a runner and a, you know, like doing all the things and doing too many things and burning your candle at both ends and, you know, you kind of get it, why you develop some dysfunction. This was a very high powered lawyer for the government who, you know, granted, she had a stressful job. And she was probably drinking more alcohol than her body could tolerate and process. You know, we talked about some of the things that you deal with personally are that you do not have the strongest of detoxification genes and capabilities. And she definitely had that. But the thing that she had that was so unique to her story and it, it resonates with your story is that her parents owned a ski resort which was like an amusement resort in the summer and a ski resort in the winter. And at the age of 10, she was gang raped by a bunch of the 12 year old boys who, who you know, frequent this ski resort and amusement park. And when she told her parents about it, they didn't do anything.

Yeah, yeah.

And she relived that trauma over and over and over again, probably until the day that she died. And by the time she came to see me, I mean, there was so much blame and shame around that. Mostly because, and again, like, I'm not blaming her parents, but that lack of acknowledgment, that lack of belief, that lack.

Of.

Help, support from, from your parents, the people who are trying to protect you, the mo or should be trying to protect you the most in this world, like wasn't there. And I hear you that everyone. You can't shield your kids from everything.

Yeah.

And there are some things that they need to experience in order to gain wisdom because we don't learn from our successes, we learn from our failures.

But that pray to God they don't have to be gang raped or sexually abused. That's exactly right thing. Right. It's like, oh yeah, I don't mind if they fall off their bike and skin their knee. But this, Right? Yeah, yeah.

This is a far cry from that. Like don't wear a jacket, get cold. Right. That's a consequence and a life lesson that we're willing to take the risks of our kids dealing with. But you know, with these deep, deep traumas, it's hard to say, like, well, you know, my kid needed to learn from that or I needed to just get over it because it's not something that you can get over so easily.

No, no. And this is a, this is the thing about this is in my spiritual belief system, I believe we sign up for our parents and probably a lot of our trials that we're going to go through. And so I fully believe that about myself. Like, I could, I could say, oh my gosh, I know why I went through this. It's so that when I wrote Solving the autoimmune puzzle, I've Helped thousands of people reverse their autoimmunity by helping them see the missing link. The missing puzzle piece is trauma. Right. When it came to actually granting the autonomy and freedom for my kids to be capable of healing from trauma and gaining their own wisdom so they could be leaders in the world, I wasn't. I wasn't there. I was in full out blame and shame of myself about being a shitty mother. Right. Lazy. Going to the grocery store because I didn't want to grab them off the trampoline and have them complain at me for messing up their summer day.

Right.

Oh, my gosh. I just could not forgive myself.

But could you have possibly known? I mean, even. Even in retrospect, but were there any going off for you?

I mean, when I, when I talked to the kid who's again, close family friend, which is. This is actually statistically how it usually does work. Right. As, you know, person. So, you know, he's a close family friend. When I talked to him 15 years later and I said, I just have a few questions, like why? And he said that he and his friends had found a porn magazine and he was experimenting with the closest thing that was there, which happened to be my kids that day.

Yeah.

So, you know, it's like, I know that that motivation is very different than my vice principal. Right. And as a sexologist, my PhD is actually in sexology. One of the things in our curriculum that I remember talking about and learning about and developmental, like what I call the libido map, as you're coming into your sexuality through the different ages and stages of development, is that in our culture we tend to pathologize. I'll look at yours. I'll show you mine if I. If you show me yours. Right. Playing doctor. And some of the things that actually children are curious and want to experiment. And in that kind of like world, that wouldn't have been as bad as I was making it out, but in it, it is this culture, it is this world. And I wouldn't have wanted that to happen to my children. Right. And so it's this very interesting out the outcome of that. Oh, we pathologize, you know, a lot of this and make it much worse is how the parents respond is really important. Not downplaying it, not saying get over it. Like really asking questions about what is the impact in their developmental libido map from this event. Like staying present, not freaking out about. Like, I freaked out about what a terrible mother I was. I did stay present to his pain and. Right. I freaked out about judging Myself as a terrible mother. There are some things in that moment I would redo if I could. So it's a very complex issue that we tend to try and make black and white. So it is really interesting and it is very hard for us. I have so many women with autoimmunity and cancer who, when I start looking for the places they haven't forgiven their younger versions of themselves. There are so many things, because we have a bar, that we're going to be perfect parents. Our kids will never suffer. Right? Of course we don't want our kids to suffer. And at the same time, when disappointment presents itself in life, are we there to then help teach them the tools for navigating disappointment? Things didn't go the way we would want them to. There's a lot these days with people, I call it painting a Norman Rockwell picture of what a parent should be and then comparing their parents to that painting and getting angry that their parents weren't that perfect parent, and then trying to be the perfect parent for their children. I think that's the. That's like our stage of development in my age group. And it's created some problems, actually. Narcissism is on the rise, and a lot of it is like, we don't let our little ones be disappointed. They're not allowed to get hurt, and we're going to actually punish anybody now. Again, sexual abuse is a place where I would want to do that. You know, it's like there's a spectrum here, right? Yeah. Yeah.

But we are a little bit creating a generation of monsters because, like entitlement. Yeah, entitlement. Having no idea how to navigate the. No. Right. Like, they just don't understand that word. And they never really experience failure because we don't let them. Because we act like a safety net all the time, and it crushes their development. Right. Their sense of self, their ability to.

Problem solve, to come out underneath a failure, a disappointment. When somebody. I remember my daughter. I teach nonviolent communication and empathy building in my practice and as. As a teacher for my students. And I taught this to my daughters, who are very adept at it now. But I remember I. About six months ago, there was a. I was involved with a wire transfer fraud. You know, it was quite a bit of money I lost in a wire transfer because someone was fraudulent. And I remember my daughter texting me. She's 29. And she said, well, I'm not gonna be able to say exactly what she said, but she goes, mom, your need for people to not be absolute shits is not being met right now. That must feel very frustrating. You know, and it like, that's empathy. Right. Where you say your need for something isn't getting met right now. That must feel awful. We actually don't teach our kids how to find the need. Right. That they have. And we do, we do sort of like project out there that people are supposed to be honest, are supposed to have integrity, are supposed to be compassionate, kind and wise and developmentally grown up. And that isn't actually accurate. There are many people that walk the planet that are not interested in self awareness and being developmentally grown up. And they have arrested development because they continue in their trauma story of victimization. And so, you know, I think that was so astute of her to be able to recognize that. Yeah, sometimes people act in terrible ways and that's a very disappointing experience. And here's some empathy for that. And then she, she recognized that I would be able to digest it and deal with it and move on. Right. And that's exactly what happened. And so it was, it's. I was really, actually I was looking at her text going, wow, that's amazing. She's only 29 and she's able to track all of that. Right. That.

Yeah.

There are people out there who aren't going to behave the way you expect them to. And all suffering comes from unmet expectations that you have of life. Right. And nobody's agreed to your expectations. Yeah, yeah. No one has agreed to them. So.

Yeah. So let's talk about expectations because I feel like we are not preparing people for their breast cancer journey at all.

Yes.

They are thrust into treatment. You know, you, you had a very unique position and advantage in that. You were so knowledgeable, you knew where to go, you knew where your work needed to be. Most people don't even know that they have any power. Most people don't know that they have a voice, a vote that they can. That, that, that they have options beyond what is being presented to them at this point time, at this moment. And they're so rushed into sign up for surgery, sign up for treatment, sign up for chemo, sign up for radiation, that they don't have time to think. And their ability to make informed decisions is almost not there because they're not talking about the information.

That's exactly right.

Yeah. And so I just wonder, first, what are you saying to the people who are recently diagnosed? I know I cover this as the first chapter of my book, the Smart Woman's Guide to Breast Cancer, because I think that it needs to Start from the very beginning.

It does.

We need to empower people to make decisions that are right for them from the very beginning. So what, what is your counsel to people who are right there in that spot?

Well, that spot is going to look radically different for each woman and man because, you know, not binary beings. Right. So female bodies and male bodies get breast cancer.

Yeah.

So when, when I talk about this, then I'm going to say people. And everyone's position of where that spirit spot is is different. So one of the things I'll do is ask. First thing I say is, how do you feel right now about all of this? Check in with, are they grounded or are they overwhelmed? Are they completely in shock or are they. Their chronological age right now? Have they reverted into an upset 6 year old? An upset 6 year old is not going to be taking in any kind of information, sorting it, and being able to come up with a plan.

Right.

So I'm looking for, where are you developmentally right now? Are you in or out of shock? Because it's very common to go into shock when you have a diagnosis like that. I also want to know how rapidly is this growing? What kind of Runway do we have? Right. So if this is something that is slow growing, it's just been diagnosed, there's, you know, it's. We're in stage one, then we have a longer Runway. And so then I will recommend you have some options here. You've got some time. I call it a Runway for a takeoff. Right. Like, you've got some time here. And here's what I would do if this were me. And you know, I always ask them, first of all, what, what is it that they need for support? And if they're there, if they're in front of me, it's usually because they want to know what I would do.

Yeah.

So. So I'll say, like, I want to know what your hormone metabolites are. I would like to take a look at, you know, like a number of different things. Right. And we can actually turn things around that are fairly simple if we know that they're there. So don't, don't guess. Let's test. I always say test, don't guess. If we have time. If something is very aggressive, there's already mets, you know, then I'm saying different things. So I don't know how you are with us, but every person I think of as an individual puzzle, and I don't say the same thing to everyone I do ask is your oncology team. And you should have a Team, not one oncologist. Is your team, have you gathered it? Who's on it? Do they communicate well together? And is your team open to listening to you, answering your questions? Right. Creating a unique and personalized plan that is based on you, not on the sort of protocol. Right. Run by pharmaceutical and surgical interventions?

Yeah, and I hear you. It's all individual and I love the fact that, that you consider what is best for that person, that you're helping them to build a team. Where does that exploration for.

That, that.

Thing that you went through yourself, where is that exploration for trauma, for what might be at the root of this? What is driving this? What part of you wants to exit the world and how?

I ask that immediately. I go into that. A lot of times people come and see me because they've heard this story. So if they get a diagnosis of cancer, they come to me and they say, I know that this past event must have something to do with what's going on here. And I mean, I work with plant medicine, with people to do things pretty rapidly with that.

You know, can you say more about that? Because I think that this is a fascinating, fascinating field that I think is going to really, truly forever change how we treat people for cancer, for any chronic disease, that trauma and the effect, the long term effects of trauma might be continuing to. And I know that you are working with different kinds of substances to try to, to help, to facilitate this, this work. So can you talk about that work?

Yeah, I can. And also the science behind it is incontrovertible. I mean, you just, it's so crazy, you know, how we don't automatically have this folded in. The research that's come out of Johns Hopkins, the research that Maps is doing, it's, it's just irrefutable. So one of the things that I'm going to premise all of this with Jen is I don't think that the worst thing to happen is death. And that's, that's kind of first, right, Is I believe the autoimmune disease and cancer are a bit like a yoga practice of meeting death and making friends with it, because there's not anyone getting off the planet without it. And to me, like we come in through a series of contractions through our mother's wombs or some females wombs. And, and we come into the light, right through the tunnel into the light. And then I believe that when we leave, we're also birthing, not deathing, right, where we're being released through a series of contractions. That's what chain stoke Breathing is out of the crown of your head. And it's like you've just outgrown your favorite dress. You know, you're leaving this shell behind because you've outgrown it. And the vast, luminous, infinite consciousness that you are is released from the shrink wrapping. And so I think of that as a birth right, and I don't think of it as a bad thing. So I believe that psychedelic medicine is super helpful for people to reach that place which, when you are not contracted in fear, when you are filled with expansion, right. Spaciousness, then toxicity can leave your mind and your subtle energy channels and your cell wall and through your detox organs. When you're contracted. We know if you're a zebra being chased by a lion, your entire reproductive system contracts, and so does your digestive system because it's not safe to reproduce or have a bowel movement when you're getting chased. So coming out of that place where there's a fear of death is one of the very wonderful utilities of psychedelic medicine. And that is what, you know, participant after participant after participant in these studies say. Like, it freed me from this very obvious event that's going to be happening. I'm freed of the panic that goes with that. We do Lamaze training to birth our children. Like, why are we not training for leaving our bodies? It's crazy. It's so crazy. Instead, we'd rather spend our money on face, lips and fillers to pretend like that's not going to happen.

Yeah.

And so, you know, and I just go, oh, my gosh. Facelifts and fillers are fine as long as you're also preparing for this. Like, the aging process is meant to get you ready for this very important. One of my teachers calls it the big day. You know, it's when you got to practice and train for it. And then when it happens, you're not doing it with a ton of fear and contractedness, and your death is pretty peaceful and easy. I did years of hospice, and that is very accurate. So when we talk about the use of psychedelic substances, and I call it psychedelic medicine, each psychedelic medicine is different in what it does. Every journey that you have, even if it's the same dose of the same thing at different times, will behave differently in you because all they are, they are not a magic wand. They do not change you. They do not transform you. They don't take anything away. They don't heal your trauma. They don't move you up the developmental scale. All they do is invite you into a space A gap between your reactivity imprints and thoughts so that you can turn around and look at the way that your mind works and you can go, oh, I see. And it will show you how your mind operates at any given moment, and then in integration the next day. As a skilled facilitator, I can help you with steps to integrate what you've seen so that you can learn a new way of being. You can re. Habituate, actually, you can habituate to openness and expansion and love rather than the habituated pattern of fear and contraction and resentment, those, you know, contracted fear, shame, guilt, resentment, frustration, anger. Those are like. They're more toxic than any of the chemicals. They're more toxic than glyphosates and BPA for sure. Right. And we create it for ourselves and ourselves have to bathe in it. What psychedelic medicine does is it allows you to see that that's it. It doesn't take it away, it doesn't change it by itself. You know, so that's why Timothy Leary said back in the 60s and 70s that set and setting is everything. You know, people like to do psilocybin mushrooms in their living room or outside with friends, and they'll have a lot of what's called state changes where they have insights, but they're developmentally staying the same. And they'll still complain and rail on about politics and people who are acting terribly and, you know, about their expectations that aren't being met because they're not moving into open, awake awareness. They're not waking up because they're not taking that and integrating it. That's actually what I think the utility is for cancer.

But that requires a facilitator, that requires someone to. To help them make something of the experience that they're not. They're not getting themselves.

Exactly.

Yeah. But at the same time, and I, you know, I. I've looked at the studies from Hopkins. It is extending life.

Yeah. It's amazing, isn't it?

Yeah.

Because once you're not contracted and fearful and resistant any longer, mad at your body, mad at someone that victimized you, mad at the medical model, mad at the government, mad at your spouse, mad at your children, you know, mad at your parents, once you're not holding on to all that anger and resentment and you have this open expansiveness, it affects your biochemistry, it affects cellular apoptosis and mitosis, it affects detoxification capability, and it affects the other four layers outside of your physical body, your energetic body, your emotional mental body, your wisdom self, and even what's called The Anandamaya kosha, which is your spiritual layer of that connects into what Carl Jung called collective unconscious. Like that's, that's what we want to have access to. That's bliss right there. Right. But we don't get to that space unless we can clear our subtle energy channels of all this. Your body is the repository of your unconscious mind. So when you are contracted, when you have a disease process, it's your unconscious mind storage in there that's still active. It doesn't matter how much therapy you do from your prefrontal cortex talk, you know, talk therapy, cbt, talking to a therapist about your problems and coming up with different strategies to get your needs met if you haven't un, you know, un. Kinked your subtle energy body. And I'm not talking about vagus nerve, I'm not talking about the nervous system, talking about something else. If you haven't emptied that out, then it's still going to affect how your genetics express themselves.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I know this might be a little off topic, but I'm just curious. Do you believe that when our souls release that there is an, an eternal place for our souls and that, that this, this physical body is a temporary repository and that rules exist in some kind of eternal fashion?

I'm probably not prepared to talk about all of what I believe around that. And I also believe that a lot of the ascended masters that have returned have done so because they have really let go of all of the stuff that's in unconscious mind and been able to take another life coming back to help us. I would like to be that kind of a person. Right. That really works on getting as, attaining as much wisdom, digesting my stuff, opening up my subtle body so that I can come back and be of service to this planet in whatever way it asks. Right. That that source asks of me. And so I'm a very big. I love St. Francis's prayer, you know, St. Francis of Assisi of just like being an instrument in the hands of the Creator. So I'm not sure that I believe that people go and just rest in one place. I do believe that those that come back that help us have gone through this process.

So, yeah, I mean, you know, for me I, I do believe in our, our souls are eternal.

I do, yeah.

Believe that this is a temporary place. And I kind of love what you said about if you can overcome the fear of death, it makes this journey so much more beautiful.

Oh, so much you can actually live.

Yeah.

Every single anxiety we have, every single fear we have Every time we're angry, it's because it's a fear of death in some way. Whether it's a death to our image that we want. Like someone said something about us that isn't in alignment with how we want to be seen. Our financial status, our whatever it is. Like something got in our way of what we want to be true about us. Right. Instead of. So it's all death anxiety. It's like death to a dream. And when you think about that, like if you have a spouse who has an affair and you get divorced, then that there's death anxiety in there. It's the death to a dream you had with that person. Right. It's all about death.

Yeah.

And so a lot of people say, I'm not afraid of dying. And I. I would say, I understand you're not afraid of the big day because you have a belief system that says, it's going to be wonderful outside of this body and outside of this plane of existence. And right. In every breath that we take, the kingdom of God has the opportunity to be inside of us if we will just acknowledge that that's happening. Heaven is actually here on earth if we let it be. And we're not so afraid from an egoic standpoint of, you know, ego doesn't want to die. It has, like, a lot of desire to stay alive. Right. And the voice of the ego is always going to have contraction and fear associated with it.

But it is amazing that we do have those moments in our life where we do get to experience. Experience that deep, deep connection with God, creator, universe, like birthing a child. Like there are. There are times and opportunities in our life where we are such firsthand witness to miracles.

I know that it really.

It really fills you with that expansion. And you know that there's something so great and so big and so beautiful, and you contrast that with the times in your life that are so filled with fear that you forget that you're part of this great, amazing picture. So I want to talk about loss a little bit because that ends up being a huge part of the breast cancer journey for a lot of women. They lose a lot. And this goes back to what we started to talk about, which is a lack of information, a lack of informed consent, a lack of understanding of what is awaiting them on their journey, a lack of knowledge and appreciation for what they're going to have to deal with. So some women lose part of their breast, some women lose all of their breast, some women lose their fertility, some women lose their virility, some Women lose their mood, some women lose their mind, some women lose their energy, they lose.

Hair, their skin.

Libido, their relationships.

Yep.

Right.

These are all the little mini deaths that I'm talking about.

Yes. And so how do we help them to not only survive this time, but find a way to find expansion despite all of the loss?

By getting comfortable with death. Think about it, what I said earlier. All unhappiness and suffering comes from unmet expectations. If you somehow have an expectation that you're going to die with everything intact and you're going to look fantastic like you were 25, then that's you're going to suffer.

I don't know that anyone is that delusional.

No, there are quite a few people, actually. And so these are those mini deaths that are getting us ready for the big day. Right. And so if we're attached to the body, to how it looks, and this is where we spend our time, externally instead of internally with the core of who we actually are.

Right.

We are Christ consciousness, we are Buddha nature, we are luminosity, we are pure awareness. However you want to say that we are divine. And so when you lean in back into the core of that white light that is in your core channels. Right. None of this other stuff actually matters as much as we think it does. So there's a grieving process that needs to happen. Does it mean you can say, lop off my breast, no big deal, move along?

No.

It's really important to digest every experience that you have. This is Ayurveda again. This is what I learned when I was 30, is learning how to digest your memories, your feelings, your experience, experiences. Going into them, a hundred percent, really experiencing them. So if that is a thing that feels like, oh, I'm not a female anymore, if I only have one breast or half a breast or no breasts, and I have scarring and I. And the external looks ugly. When I was in India about. It was in 2005, whatever that math is. 20, 20 years ago. Yeah. Wow. I shaved my head. And one of the things I was doing was getting rid of my attachment to external appearance. I just like, it was an impulse. I thought, oh, I'm going to do this. I think this is, this would be such a good exercise. And I was going to be there for two and a half months. And so I. I have like laundry soap and a Bic razor in my backpack and a Swiss army knife and I used those little tiny scissors and cut off my hair was this length. Yeah.

I was gonna say, you know, how long it took me to shave your head with that hair.

I know.

You must have gotten halfway through and thought, well, if I had thought this through, I probably had all.

These little bloody nicks and things from using, like, detergent and water and a Bic razor. I was a hot mess. But what it did was I found that as I moved through the world, I acted differently. I no longer felt attractive. So I did. My gregariousness, my willingness to make eye contact with people was gone. I receded into the background. I watched people more. I looked for what they were thinking. I was like, oh, this is so interesting. And I gradually, gradually stopped doing that and just became myself. But it was a really wonderful exercise for. Oh, you don't even realize how much you lean into looks, right? Yeah. Your smile, your. The way that you are in the world, like what you're trying to manipulate, to feel safe and get something back that's friendly. And so I was just like. It woke me up really big time for that. So I think that cancer will do that for us. It's not a choice anymore. It just does it for us. Right? That had been a personal choice. I could. I could step into it at, like, the level I wanted to. I could play with it because it had been my choice. When you lose your hair because of chemo, irradiation, that's a different story altogether. But if you can come around to that place where play with it, right? Make it into a spiritual practice, it makes that loss something that creates the ability to digest the experience and come out with wisdom. So, I mean, I love the verbiage of digest, right? Like, if you have an apple, you know, it has certain nutrients in it, has fiber, it has all these things that we know are really good for us. If you just look at the apple, you're not going to get those nutrients. If you talk about the apple, if you hold the apple, you're not getting the nutrients. You actually have to bite into it, you have to chew it, you have to swallow it, and then the digestive process does its thing. I think about this as our experiences too, and life hands us experiences that we didn't expect all the time. Quite suddenly, things have just, like, changed overnight, right? If you can take that as, oh, this is an apple I need to bite into, really chew and savor and taste, and then am I going to get the nutrients from it? And then I'm going to flush down the toilet all the parts that don't serve me, right? We don't hold the whole apple forever. Yeah, right. We get rid of what we don't need. That's the meaning of digesting trauma. Digesting memories that are hard, digesting experiences that are tough. The times when things are happy and complacent are times we're resting, we're not growing, we're not learning.

Yeah.

It is the time when we're going through loss that is our greatest moment of being able to digest that and attain wisdom.

Yeah.

So it.

It goes back to kind of, you know, when you're faced with this adversity, what are you meant to learn from this? What are you meant to get out of this, to extract from this, to digest from this?

I think everyone's different in what that will be. I remember a woman that had breast cancer. That was a patient of mine who turned into a friend that was. She got breast cancer three times. First time she came in, she said, I don't know what. So I do a lot of pulse diagnosis because the Viruda. And when I'm in someone's pulse, I get a lot of visuals, like things get shown to me. So I was doing a pulse diagnosis on her first breast cancer go round. And I said, oh, it looks like you've got some things in here to learn that are about men in your life and trauma. And she started crying because her husband had died about five years prior to that. And the. You know, when someone dies, I think a lot of times they get sanctified. And she hadn't really dealt with some of the abusive situations that had been in her marriage. She hadn't talked about it. And she just started crying. She said, I have so much. So much, as you say, undigestive stuff in there about this. And I feel like I can't do it because he's dead. I said, no, no, no, no. We can absolutely do that. And so we really worked at that level with her. And her cancer went away second time. And she said, all right, what is it this time? And I went into our pulse and I said, well, we'll see what. What your body tells me, what your spirit says. And what came forward that she went, oh, this makes so much sense, is that she was meant to step into a leadership position and really help women learn what she had learned. And that's what she did for the next five years. She held. She created this goddess group, she called it. And she. Oh, she was so such an amazing leader and really helped shepherd women into these places where she had gotten to with her journey. Five years later, she got cancer again. And she came in and she Said, all right, what is it this time? And so I said, well, what do you. What do you hear? Like, what is it that you hear back on this? And she goes, honestly, I'm not going to tell you. I want you to go into my pulse and we'll see if they match. And so I went in her pulse and I said, you know what? I get that it's time to go home. And she burst into tears. And she said, so do I. And I'm so happy. I'm so excited to go home. And that was it. Like, this was. This was her time to go. And she did. And she did it so beautifully. I mean, I had such an honor and a privilege to be by her side as she transitioned and, you know, with her community of women that she had just nurtured for the five years prior to that. And, oh, so beautiful. So, you know, like, I think that what you're meant to learn, for me, I had to learn how to forgive myself. I think that this is going to be different for every person.

I want to talk about. I mean, this has been, like, so amazing, and it's going to resonate with so many people. I do want to talk about sexuality, though, after a breast cancer diagnosis, because I feel like this is an area where so many people struggle. You know, it's not like pancreatic cancer, stomach cancer or colon cancer. It is such a part of our identity. It's a sexual organ. It's a physical organ. It is. It is part of a relationship between partners. And people really struggle with their sexuality afterwards, not only because of the physical aspect, but because many of the treatments for breast cancer materially change your hormonal makeup, which makes you. You feel differently, your mood is different, your sleep is different, your desires are different. So how do you counsel people who are in this kind of situation and their relationship, as a result, is really suffering? Because that is one of the main parts of a relationship, is how you are relating to one another physically.

That. That can be true for people. For. It's shocking how many couples that's not true for, actually. But that. That's. As a sexologist, I hear all kinds of things, right? So, yes, this is a major part of recovery. And I find. And one of the things that I do. You know, your question is, how do I counsel people? Is that it's like, what is it that you want for your next steps in intimacy with yourself, your significant other, if you have one, your community life, God, you know, whatever your name for that is. So because you've just Come through what's called a liminal space. A liminal space is like a bardo in Buddhist terminology, where it's a space between two realities. Cancer is that. And on the other side, there's often a birthing into a new developmental level. And when you. Anytime, no matter if it's from cancer or anything else, when you move into a new developmental state, then a lot of things need to be restructured because you're in a more expansive space. And so it might even be that trauma work that you've done before in a different developmental state. You have to kind of redo in this new place because that material comes up in a different way. So your sexuality might be engaged with differently in a new developmental state, whether it's from cancer or not. And so it's like, what is it that you desire? I work a lot like my PhD work. The study that I conducted in 2013 was on women with low libido. And it's called the Healing Unresolved Trauma Study. And the Healing Unresolved Trauma or hurt model came from that. And so I work with people, you know, men and women just from that hurt model, helping them identify from this place that I stand right now, what do I desire? Because often when you've been a people pleaser and a perfectionist and holding on to the poison of past pain for so many years and now you're freed of it, it's a brand new world and you might not even know what you desire. So getting in touch with what your desire is, is first. And then what do you need to remove in your life? And that's usually beliefs of your own right to be in that space that you desire. And again, cancer is often like the, I think about repotting a plant where you shake off the dirt clods of your roots. Sometimes cancer is that it's like God's repotting you into a bigger pot shakes off the dirt clods with cancer and then puts you back in this bigger pot where you can flourish and get, you know, thrive and your fruits of your labors will be bigger, you know, and so what is it that you need to have that happen? So I have a seven week course called the Libido Cure, and it's based on all of my research and, and it gives you ways of identifying where am I now in my libido story and where do I want to be? Because I can't even tell you, Jen, how many people I ask that question of and they don't know what do I desire? What do you mean, what do I desire? I'm so used to like filling everybody else's desires, and now I realize that I need to be on the front, you know, the top of the list of who needs to get cared for. But I don't even know how to start that. So if that's the person in front of me, that's where we begin.

Do you think part of a cancer diagnosis is that so many women never ask what they want or what they need?

Exactly what do you desire? I mean, I do this work with psychedelic medicine in group and one to one settings. And in the group settings, I can find that person in a heartbeat that has not ever gotten in touch with what it is they desire. And so when, when I ask them that, oftentimes the plant medicine will slow down what's called the default mode network of the brain, which is the I, I, I, me, me, me, mine, mine, mine part. And if that person's I, me and mine self worth has been based on taking care of everyone else and not themselves, then I invite them into that space to ask their inner child part. What is it that you most desire right now? Right. Their older, wiser woman self, what is it you most desire right now? And to just start that dialogue right there. When I teach doctors, I'm on the faculty for the Institute for Functional Medicine and I teach functional sexology a lot. I'm the mother of functional sexology. And one of the things that I'll say is, you know, really good sex comes from good communication. But scrape you off the ceiling sex comes from scrape you off the ceiling communication. And that's not necessarily with everyone else. It's also with yourself. Right. That where it begins. What's in your head goes to your bed. And so the, that's where I start. Right. Not with standing in front of the mirror naked and loving your body. That's also important. But that's jumping over a bunch of steps to, you know. Too early.

Yeah. I actually think that, you know, that that whole thing that you just said, what's in your head goes to your bed. I think that that connection is not about a physical connection at all. I think that the people that are truly connected, they, they, they see something more beautiful than any physical combination that you could come up with.

It's exactly right. Yeah. There's a connection there that, that comes from again, the inner core, core of that energy center that you have spent time really fostering and then you've met the other persons. This was what tantra sex actually is. Tantra is not about sex. Tantra is about the realization of the divinity within you, nurturing it and getting all of the garbage out from in front of it that's obscuring it. Then when you meet another person that's doing that same work, though, that's where you connect from. And then your sex is amazing. But it's not tantric sex. Right. It's. It's about really establishing your Christ consciousness, like being. And it's already there. You don't have to do anything. It's releasing anything that's covering that up for yourself.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I love that. So you have a couple of programs that I would just like you to talk about a little bit because, you know, it's great that people are listening to this podcast, but often that is not enough to really uncover what needs to be uncovered in order to find that freedom of fear of death, find that openness, find that, that consciousness. So I would love for you to tell us about the libido cure and about healing your trauma.

Yeah. So I have two programs that are what I call do it yourself that you can just do online. That one's called the Libido cure program and it's seven modules that go through. It's really like I said from my doctoral research, there are five root causes to low libido and two kinds. So one kind of low libido is called innate low libido. That's innate means you've always had it. There's. There's never been a time when you've had sexual desire for yourself or another person. The causes, the root causes of that are oftentimes, and this is about 45% of people will have innate low libido, which is interesting. That's a lot. You know, it can come from trauma, sexual trauma or otherwise in your background. I always say a hyper vigilant mind, where you're not sure if you're safe in the world, creates a hyper vigilance in your endocrine system and your immune system. So this is where autoimmunity and cancer eventually emerge from. So acquired low libido is the other kind. So innate will be mental health issues, ocd, anxiety, past trauma. So obviously hormones are not going to help that, right? These, these are. My TED talk was about this. Have you heard from your libido lately? And I said people often think hormones are the thing, right? If you have innate low libido, hormones are not the thing. Because when you had your highest peak hormones at the age of 14 and your libido didn't turn on right? Then that's not a thing. So then acquired low libido is the one where we go, oh, yeah, let's do some hormone testing, some metabolite testing, some adrenal testing, some thyroid testing. Let's see what's going on with your microbiome. Acquired means you've had a sexual desire level that you are completely satisfied with, but something happened and now you no longer have it. That could be cancer. It could be chemo, radiation, surgery, diagnosed illness of some kind, like Hashimoto's, right? We've talked about that before. Any autoimmune disease, any cancer. It can also be menopause or andropause. I always say relationship dissatisfaction is the number one root cause for women with low libido where it's acquired. So I used to love to have sex with this person, but now they've had an affair, or they started drinking, or I found out they have a problem. A porn addiction or a gambling addiction, you know, whatever it is. And now I don't want to have sex with them. And then they come in to see me and want hormones. I'm like, that's not the answer. Right. So if you don't like your partner, hormones aren't going to fix that. Like, we have to get at this from a different space. So those are the two kinds. And then the five root causes of low libido will be found physically. I've rattled off a bunch of physical reasons. You know, medication side effect is another one. Guess what? You have low libido. You go in and see your medical provider. Guess what the number one thing is that you're given an SSRI antidepressant whose number one side effect is low libido. It's so crazy making. So, you know, like, those are. Those are the physical reasons. Then there are mental reasons for low libido. I don't feel. Feel attractive. I've gained a bunch of weight. My partner's gained a bunch of weight. They're not attractive to me. You know, I don't feel safe. Like, those are the kinds of things. And then emotional root causes and spiritual root causes. You may have grown up in a sex negative culture, religion, or household. You weren't allowed to have sex until you were married. Desires of sin. And then all of a sudden you're married. And now you're supposed to be able to turn on that floor faucet. And sometimes that doesn't work very well. And then in your libido story, the way that you tell your story the map, how it was, how it was starting to get created as you went through your different developmental states and stages. So that Libido Cure course goes through all of that. It's very comprehensive and it gives you a lot of beautiful, beautiful awareness around the context of the importance of libido, which is life force, vitality. It's not just about sex, right? It's the energy for you to live your life purpose. It's the passion that you have for whatever, maybe your grandchildren, maybe writing your book, maybe creating a piece of music. You know, you might be a spiritual renunciate who doesn't have sex. And the energy that you were expending sexually that you're supposed to be now using for spiritual awakening, if it's not there, then you're not going to get that either. So it's like this energy is really important to find and fix the kinks and the blocks, right? So that's what the Libido Cure program is about. And then the other program that I have is a nine module program on helping people really get into the process of digesting trauma. I always tell people they're not getting rid of their trauma, they're not healing their trauma, they're not even transcending their trauma. They're digesting, digesting it so that you get to the wisdom attainment place, right? And they can flush what you don't need down the toilet.

I love that. If people want to hear more from you, where can they find you?

@Drkeisha.Com and my book, Solving the Autoimmune Puzzle.

Amazing. Dr. Kesha, thank you. This has been an enlightening conversation. I know that it will help so many women or people to see their diagnosis differently, maybe give it a different meaning, maybe give it a second thought and be able to come at it from a new perspective that is not consumed by fear. Because I really think that that is what defines almost everyone's breast cancer journey currently. And if we can get out of that fear space and get out of that space where we are making these kind of rote decisions based on fear, because that's what's happening across the board. Really, truly. And that's why the mastectomy rate continues to increase. That's why we haven't changed the death rate, we haven't changed the experience for women in decades because we're still completely operating from a place of fear. So I know this is going to help so many women and really resonate with them and change the way that we, that we experience breast cancer. And hopefully all other chronic disease. So thank you so much for your time today, for your work, for your beautiful, beautiful person and spirit and mind. I'm so grateful to you. I'm so grateful to know you and I look forward to many, many, many more conversations between us.

Me too. Thanks for your work and everyone buy the book. It's going to be life changing and really help you on your path.

Yeah.

Bye everybody.

Thank you so much. So if you liked this podcast, please like it, comment, share it with someone who needs to hear it again. My book the Smart Woman's Guide to Breast Cancer is available on Amazon and I will be back here same time, same place next week. It's Dr. Jen. Bye for now.

Thank you for joining me on this episode of the Keeping a breast podcast with Dr. Jen. I hope you found the discussion informative and empowering. Remember, breast health is healthy, so by staying informed and taking proactive steps, you have the power to optimize your well being. My team and I encourage you to apply the knowledge gained from today's episode to make positive changes in your life and share what you've learned with others. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our podcast and leave us a review. Your feedback and support mean the world to us and help us to reach more people who can benefit from these conferences, conversations. Stay connected with me on social media where I share additional resources, advice, updates and announcements related to breast health. You can find me on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. Dr. Jenn Simmons and remember, my Jen has two N's, so until next time, remember to stay proactive, informed and confident in your breast health journey. The key to your health is you.

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