Empowered Healing: Dr. Carol Lourie on Holistic Breast Cancer Recovery, Prevention & Self-Advocacy

Welcome to the Wellness Sherpa Podcast, where we engage with passionate leaders, holistic thinkers, and disruptors who courageously share their personal journey, mission and wisdom with you. Together, we create a safe space to empower you to live your best, most vital life. Thanks for being here. Well, I am so excited to share with you today the wonderful Dr. Carol Laurie. We were just having a brief conversation about my. My healing journey and our philosophies, and we are so connected on that. And I'm so thrilled to have you here, Carol. If you could share more about what you do and how you work with women, that would be fabulous.

Well, first of all, I'm so excited and honored to be here. Thank you for having me. I help women heal from the chronic metabolic diagnosis of breast cancer. And as we were just speaking, it's like a diagnosis of any cancer is a very big message from your body and your psyche that there's a big out of balance moment. And medical oncology addresses the tumor, which I think is important. You don't necessarily need to do that path. But that's a conversation for another moment. But it's very important to look at whether you're doing standard of care or not. What are the driving factors of your diagnosis and what contributed to it physically as well as emotionally?

How do you get to that? Let me just preface it with my understanding from my own journey is there were kind of three prongs. I had a toxic load in my body that was creating inflammation and mitochondrial dysfunction. I had an immune system issue because my immune system, if it would have been strong, would have taken care of it. And then I had trauma. So are those the three prongs that you look at as well? Is, is there something else? And how do you kind of break that apart? Because those are huge components, each one individually. And then when you put them together, it's kind of like this big ball of spaghetti that you've got to kind of start to pull apart to get to the root. And the contributors to this dis. Ease in the body. So can you share kind of a little bit more about how you look at that and are there other contributing factors?

Well, I think the three prongs are really important. And I would put within that toxic load standard and American diet. How you nurture your body not just with food, but your mindset, your. How you talk to yourself is very important. So I think there's maybe I like to divide it a little bit more like the how you nurture yourself with your food is a fourth prong. And the Fifth prong would be in emotional toxins. How you. Your mindset, how you talk to yourself, how you support yourself emotionally. But yes, your three prongs are. Are. Are very large and do incorporate in. How do we. How do we. You know, when I was little, there was this pick pickpock game. I think I got the name wrong, but it was those sticks where you throwed them together. I love those. Yes, yes. So it's sort of like that. So I usually when I talk to women individually, we focus on the area that they want to focus on first. I let them guide the beginning of that con. We first of all have the conversation about, well, let's talk about what were the contributing factors that led you here? And when you take a moment to take a breath, where does your psyche tell you and us that you need to start? So I let them be the guide because it's not about me telling. I mean, one of the messages that I think it's important for women and anyone with breast cancer, any disease to hear is, is that the. The messaging of medical oncology is sort of missing the point. For example, women say to me, well, the doctor put me on, or the doctor's having me, or the doctor ordered these tests. So the doctor is telling you. Right. And I think that it's very important. Another one the doctor said to me, I'm part of the team. So I think it's very important to realize you're not part of the team. You're the top of the team. Right. And I want to put this out with a different messaging. I had a conversation with the doctor and they recommended XYZ now. The. And then I decided that I was going to do that. So that's a very different energy that you're giving your body. And I think that starting with that, it's very important because there is a lot of victim mentality around. Well, you have cancer, you know, what are you going to do? I mean, this is a dire situation. And I think that that instills fear.

Yes.

And fear is the antithesis of what you need for deep cellular and emotional healing, which is what needs to happen with this chronic metabolic disease.

Well, and fear even lowers our immune system. Right. It has such a negative impact on our ability to heal. And I, and I love what you said. We were talking earlier about just this, the energy of cancer. And I actually had a friend who said, I never say the word cancer. I say can cure, which I thought was really amazing. I said, I'm going to adopt that. I love that can Cure great, can cure. It's, you know, it's fear based. There's a, you know, a collective consciousness around the death. Like you said, the victim mentality. How do you help women move through that? How? Because it's an empowering piece. Right. So a big part of, I know my cancer journey was to feel empowered and be able to make decisions that my body was clearly communicating to me. And so how do you, how do you support them in that? Because that's a, it's, it's almost like a 180 mindset shift of something happening to me. And instead like you said, you are the team lead is I am choosing to do X, Y and Z after I've read this or I've talked to this person or whatever it is. So can you share more about that?

Well, it's interesting you said the word empowerment several times because the name of my online life group coaching program is Empowered against Recurrence. Empowerment is an extremely important word for me personally as well as professionally. I think women have been disempowered for centuries and even though it's better on the outside, the messaging through American advertising and medical, not just oncology but medicine standard of care is very disempowering and we need to become aware and wake up. And I don't think women can hear that enough. So how do I help women with the energy of breast cancer? As a homeopath, there is a very specific energy to breast cancer. It's known as the breast cancer miasm in homeopathic philosophy. There are certain diseases, cancer being one of them, that have very specific energies to them, the energy of breast cancer. And there's a homeopathic remedy made from a breast cancer tumor that is, and I'm going to describe it and people can listen to it and think, oh yeah, that's me. So there's a lot of rushing feeling that you have inside of you. You feel pressured to do this, to accomplish that. You make lists, you're always rushing and you're taking care of everyone at the expense of yourself. You have sort of low self esteem because you do things for people where it's not necessarily in your best interest. You're somewhat of a perfectionist and you don't like to ask for help. Somebody's not going to do it as well as you do. So you're always in the state of exhaustion and then there's no time for you to take care of yourself. So how do I help women become aware that they're disempowered? It's by having conversations. And also I think that when somebody comes in, either in my concierge plan or in my life group coaching, and they're very depleted and they barely have energy to think and they're in pain, you can't go into those emotional places until their energy starts to come back. So I often find people, local acupuncturists. I'm an acupuncturist also, to get acupuncture and Chinese medicine treatment. And they start with the healing smoothie, which is my free gift to everyone today. And we start slowly. You can't throw 15 new things. Like, every prong that you mentioned is a major chapter in my book. So we can't do everything at once. And that's part of the compulsion with the miasma. Breast cancer, you want to do everything at once. It doesn't work. We have to have the person decide. Well, this month I'm going to focus on getting this into a new habit because it takes three months to turn a new activity into a new habit. And the good news is there's a lot of research about how of all of these topics that we're talking about.

So what is the name of your book? So tell us about it.

Oh, to be Determined. It's in process.

Okay. Well, I'm excited for it to come out.

I'll be one of the next year. Oh, thank you so much. Next year. I'm in process of writing it. I'm looking for publishers, but it's not yet named. There's several options on the table, but thank you.

Yeah. Beautiful. And this information is so important and powerful because, you know, when we get scared, we often will kind of shut down. And, you know, I know, you know, part of the healing journey is that empowerment piece. So let's talk about how you meet people, where they are. What does that mean?

Well, I think one of the first things we need to do is, or that's important to do is to look at this attitude of the war on cancer, which was started when Ronald Reagan was in president many, many years ago. And it wasn't until Betty Ford came out with her breast cancer diagnosis that breast cancer went from being this shameful disease. A woman must have done something really horrible. Nobody talks about it to being like, okay, you know, I'm wearing pink. I have breasts. You know, women, I haven't had breast cancer, but women yet, one never knows. But women, you know, who have breast cancer, pink somehow has become the color. But I think pink is a very optimistic and hopeful color. And I really Love the color.

We're both wearing pink today.

It's interesting. Yes. So about it. Yeah. Unconscious. So I think we need to look at the words a woman just said to me. I have to fight the cancer. Cancer isn't a war. We're not attacking, we're not fighting fighting, we're not conquering. Those are very inflammatory and aggressive words. And healing needs to come from a place deep within where you're connected to your intuition and your soul. And a thought comes up that's positive and you go, oh, yeah, I'm going to start doing that. So it takes a long time for these shifts because when you come to this diagnosis, you're anywhere between 32 and women are getting diagnosed even at 29 because of all the toxic chemicals they're putting on their body and the environmental and influence. Unfortunately, that's, that's a long time between 29 and you have fertility concerns as well as up to 70. I mean, it doesn't matter how old you are. 80. I mean, we, nobody wants this diagnosis, but once you have it, I think the message is, okay, this is like a little blob on my path. It's a beautiful rock. We have to make it look nice. What do we need to do to. Initially, you want to go around it, but now how can we address this in a way that we can have it dissolve? Because you don't want to attack it with a hammer. That's going to make you sick. That's what chemo, radiation and surgery do, although at times they are necessary. If a woman is choosing standard of care, there's a lot she can do to keep herself as healthy as possible during that, all of that. And then the task becomes how do you restore your emotional well being and your immune system afterwards? Because standard of care is not going to do that for you, right?

Yes. And when I was going through my experience and the doctors were saying, okay, I know you can fight this, you're strong. And I remember like it was yesterday, this voice that said, no, now you get to learn to love yourself.

Oh, that's beautiful.

And, you know, I felt so guided on my path when I went through it. And it was really the first time I grew up with those messages of, you know, don't cry or I'll give you something to cry about. So shove your emotions.

That was the 50s.

Yeah, yeah.

Perspective of the 50s and 60s. That's really traumatic. I remember that.

Yeah. And so, you know, a lot of, you know, this, this, you know, I viewed it as, this is an opportunity to Come back to me to come back to who I am without all of the stuff and the programming and all of the things which I found to be, you know, I found it to be one of the most profound experiences of my life. And it can be right. It can be a life altering, life changing and it requires connecting into our own selves, it requires empowering ourselves and things like that. Would you agree with that?

100%? Yes, 100%. And I love that you said it so beautifully because it's my message too. It's ultimately about coming home to yourself, coming back to yourself. And this is a beautiful phrase, profound healing. Because there is dysbiosis or disorganization in the messaging and in your being from your cells to your emotions, until you in into your mind and how you talk to yourself. And if you're doing everything right and you're still giving those negative, oh, I didn't do this right. Oh, why did I do that? That was stupid. That was dumb. Those toxic negative messages will keep feeding the fire of inflammation. And inflammation is like the how you feed the grass to grow. We, we really need to reduce that inflammation.

So let's talk a little bit about prevention. So I know you work with women that have been diagnosed and you walk with them and meet them where they are in their journey. Do you also teach women prevention? Well, you do because you have the.

Well, it's one of the courses I'm developing for my large Healing Beyond Breast Cancer platform. Prevention is critical and I aim to, it's for next year also. I aim to get to women who, number one, they have a family member with genetic breast cancer and they know about it. So a lot of women come in and one of the things I always ask them, have you been tested? And it's not just the BRCA 1 and 2, it's the full panel. And part of my program is to empower women to be educated so they can go back to their doctors and say, hey guys, I think you forgot to do this test at standard of care. I'm wondering why it wasn't done. And so somebody overlooked this, but can we do it now? Like please? So a lot of women haven't had that test. A lot of women haven't had the breast cancer index test, which is a standard of care. It should be done at year five, which gives statistical DNA evidence whether it's beneficial for you to remain on hormone blocking therapy longer than five years. And my opinion is you don't want to be on it longer than if you don't have to be. And if this number is low and you're doing everything from an integrative perspective, maybe you'll decide, well, I've had this enough. So this, there's a lot of education about this. And what was the other half of your question? I got sideshow.

I was asking what women can do to prevent it. And do you also teach that?

Right? Yes. So you have had, you know that you have a family history of either breast, colon or pancreatic cancer, which is also BRCA2 driven, by the way. What do you do? You're 29 and you're the first thing I always start with, or you're 30 or 40 and you're perimenopausal is what are you putting on your body? There's now this commercial where there's this doctor who uses this shower wash all over her body because she doesn't want to smell. And that shower wash has horrible estrogen disrupting chemicals, as does standard of the laundry detergent and the shower wash and the dryer sheets. When you walk down that aisle in your regular supermarket and you have that assaulted smell, which we've sort of been brainwashed, that, oh, that's what clean smells like. Those are estrogen disrupting odors and they get in through your nose. And what estrogen disrupting means is it sits on your breast receptor site. And so the healthy form of estrogen, which should be able to detoxify and leave your body, doesn't get to do that. So it hangs out in your body too long. Phase one and phase two detoxification pathways get blocked up and backed up and then it becomes an unhealthy version of estrogen. And then that can contribute to breast cancer, polycystic ovarian syndrome, infertility and ovarian cancer, and major inflammation. We always start with what are you using on your body from the laundry detergent to your shampoo, your makeup, your underarm deodorant. And then we look at how are you eating? The standard American diet literally quadruples the cancer rate. So if a woman is going out to eat in fast food or starts her day at Starbucks with the frappy sugary coffee thing and a scone or something, you're setting yourself up. The messaging for your cells is, oh, great, let's have inflammation, gluten and sugar for the day. And sugar feeds cancer. So we need to really begin to look at how are you nourishing your body in a way that that provides your cells with the nutrients she needs to give your cells healthy Energy and to keep that cancer gas tank as empty as possible.

So what type of diet do you recommend? Because you know, you. I've read keto Mediterranean. Okay. So.

So there's everything. Everybody has everything. Everybody has an opinion. And there's as. I'm sorry, interrupted you. There's 8 million different versions of how to eat. As you were saying, what's the best one? So there is a ketogenic style diet. Keto diet specifically has been shown to be critical for managing breast cancer. I'm sorry, brain cancer. Brain cancer. I always get the two of them confused. There's research. There was somebody who presented at the Society for Integrative Oncology several years ago, a surgeon who came in with slides he was about to publish before and after. And people were coming to him with brain cancer. And he was talking to them about changing their diet. And they said, I'm coming to you for brain surgery. Why are you talking to me about my diet? And so he got people to be on ketogenic diets and he did before and after. And you could see the dramatic shift in the size of the tumor in people's brains. And some people had remission of their brain tumors.

So that these were things like glioblastoma.

I know that surgeon and I know Arizona. Right.

Yes.

He's an amazing doctor and a person.

Yes.

But for breast cancer, it's a mixed bag. Some people feel. And we have dear colleague who says it should be a ketogenic diet. But I feel like that we need to find something. First of all, that's not a diet. Right. This is a lifelong approach to eating. And I like this phrase, modified Mediterranean. And I've done an enormous amount of research about this, as I'm sure you must be aware. So the people have to be able to follow it. And it's not like I'm on it and then I'm going to cheat because that's not it. It's a. It has to be a plan that works. Right? Yeah.

You. Yeah. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. You could say it's a lifestyle.

It's a lifestyle.

Lifestyle.

Right. So for example, this morning I was up early and I made. I used to be a pastry chef and now I have these recipes. I'll be publishing them also for how to bake with gluten free and almost no sugar. And it needs to taste good. And my attitude is, yes, you're going to want to eat these things and yes, let's be in control and make them and freeze them. So I Made blueberry muffins with 1 tablespoon of sugar for 10 muffins. I baked them, I cut them in half and they're cooling. And now I'm going to put them in the freezer. So that lasts a long time. Now, you can do that with lots of different recipes, but I think that we need to find a plan that works. So for me, it's how you start the day is really important. And it shouldn't be necessarily the messaging we've gotten as children that it comes out of a box or it's a pop tart or, you know, frozen waffle or something that is horribly toxic for your body and puts cancer and in the cancer gas tank. So protein and fat, that's how I would start.

Do you have a recommendation of. I've heard actually one of our mentors who says you need a gram of protein for every pound that you weigh. And I'm keeping this in the context of cancer prevention or how to eat if you've had cancer. What is your perspective on that and how much, how little? Because I often hear women say, there's no way I, you know, I'm getting 20 grams of protein a day. And that's not enough.

No, we both said it at the same time. That's clearly not enough. I mean, in my healing smoothie, if you do two scoops, that's 22, that's 22 grams right there. So I, I say aim for between 65 and 95. I mean, I weigh 110. I don't, I think 110 is pushing it for me. But, you know, some women weigh 150. I mean, that's, that's a lot of grams of protein. So I think we have to figure out. But I would say aim in general between 65 and 90. And there needs to be, in my opinion, if you're. Somebody once said to me, well, you have to meet people where they are. A physician said that because I was saying people need to eat organic. And he said, you know, get them to eat regular broccoli. And I said, actually, broccoli that sprayed had the spraying. The chemicals have killed the sulforaphane. So why are they eating broccoli that's been sprayed? You know, better they should buy frozen organic than eating fresh sprayed broccoli. So I think it's important if you, you, you think that you can't afford only organic. I think this is a conversation, people saying I can't afford organic to really make some choices about what you will eat and what you Won't eat. And if you have this philosophy about what you can't afford, I think it's very important to open up your pantry and look what's in there. That's in a box. If you have Triscuits, if you have box cereal, if you have boxed cookies and you read the ingredients on those labels, red dye number such and such. One of the images I have in my slide deck, in the first four lines, there's five different references to glucose and fructose and corn syrup and sugar. So what are you doing when you're spending 8.99 or 1397 on a box of toxic food when you could be buying a ton of lettuce and cauliflower and, you know, kale from the farmer's market or Whole Foods or something? I think that if you're spending a lot of money on Pepsi or Coke, I mean, I can't imagine doing that or even fruit juice. What do you. Where is your budget of money going? And this comes back to empowerment and taking control of every aspect of your life. It also comes back to saying no to the status quo of the messaging from American Advertising.

Yeah, and we have groups like the Environmental Working Group where they've got the clean 15 and the dirty Dozen. I mean, even starting there is a good starting point. Would you.

Okay. Oh, 100%. I think that Environmental Working Group is great. And they have an app that you can put on your phone and then you can take it with you when you go to the store. It's great.

Fabulous. So tell us a little bit about your programs you have. I heard you say you had several. So can you talk about your programs and how can people find you to sign up for those?

Well, thank you so much for letting me share this empowering information. So I have a six week life group coaching program. It's called Empowered Against Recurrence. And it's really appropriate whether you're in the middle of treatment or you're suffering from the side effects of tamoxifen and aromatase inhibitors, which is, I think most 99% of women do. Very few women don't feel any pain. But there's hidden side effects that they're not feeling, such as severe osteoporosis and inflammation. And the messaging from American Medical Oncology is you take these drugs and they're going to do the job. Unfortunately, that's not the case. There's a very high risk of recurrence during the first two years. So the program really addresses sort of what we started with, which is the arms of what contributes towards cancer. And it's also about recovering your health. So we look, we take a deep dive into how to eat to heal, which I think is really important. It's not a diet, it's a lifestyle change. And then I love supplements. People say to me, well, can I get everything I need from food? Why do I need to take supplements? Even if you're 100% organic, when you've had cancer and then you've had medical oncology treatment, you can't eat enough to provide your body the nutrients she needs to really recover the cellular health and detoxify from those treatments. So we do need supplements and they need to be made to pharmaceutical quality standards. And it's not the kitchen sink approach. Well, everybody's taking this, I should do that. We gotta have the supplement regime work for your lifestyle so they become part of your life and not run your life. And it starts with organization. Because if you have 12 bottles of supplements and you leave them on the counter and you think, oh, I'll just open up the ones I need when I eat, that's called. It's not going to happen. So I have a whole system which I share with women, which is how to be organized. And you do need to spend time being organized, so then you can be free. And that is really important. One of the weeks is about what testing do you need to become aware of so you can say to your oncology team, hey, guys, I think I need these tests. That's really important because once again, the messaging of medical oncology is, well, there's no evidence of disease, you're fine. And then all of a sudden something shows up and they act like, well, how did that happen?

Right?

Or we didn't know that that was going to happen. But your body gives messages that, hey, you're heading down a slippery slope. And if you find that out, if you see it earlier, there's a lot that you can do from an integrative perspective with your integrative practitioner. I can put you on certain protocols that will really address that. And then you can ask for more advanced testing from your oncology team. Because you don't want something to all of a sudden show up and act like, well, why did that happen? How did it happen?

And that's fairly common. Recurrences are actually fairly common, right?

Unfortunately, yes.

The terrain is not changed.

We haven't mentioned the word terrain yet, but we both believe in the terrain. The terrain is the environment in your body. It's like when you have a garden and you have your rows of lettuces and carrots and everything. And the soil has to be healthy, it has to have microbiomes in it, it has to be watered, it has to have fertilizer in it. If you plant lettuce in the desert or carrots, it's not going to grow. So we need to have a terrain inside our bodies that supports vibrant health and has, you know, enzymes and nutrients that feed the mitochondria, which is where you get energy from. Right. So I'm glad we brought that word in. We both love that word terrain. It's really important.

Yeah, I'm, I'm on Naysha, Dr. Naysha Winter's board, so.

Of course you are. Yes.

Metabolic terrain.

Right, yes, right. And metabolic lifestyle. And I, you know, she's a dear colleague and friend of mine and I support her work wholeheartedly. I was one of the sponsors of one of her events last year. I think she is an amazing leader and woman and is. We all love her.

Yes, she's brilliant. Okay, so as we wrap up, where can people find your program? So if you can tell us, give us the website and we'll put it in the show notes and then I want to ask you what one to two pieces of wisdom would you share with women who have not been diagnosed but may be at risk? And then women that have and what's.

Their future hold for the women who haven't been diagnosed but may be at risk? Start doing self breast exams every month. Begin to look at what you're putting on your body. Are you using body wash? Go buy organic soap. Are you using standard deodorant? Go buy organic deodorant. Are you eating donuts and toxic standard American diet? Gradually change your diet, there's a lot of information out there to begin with and then find some, an integrative practitioner who can really help you dial in. You don't have to, you know, when you have a genetic wrist, you have a light switch. Whether that light switch gets turned on or off is you have, you have authority over that. And then if it does get turned on, despite everything that you've been doing, maybe you can influence what happens. So it's not so aggressive because you can't control what shows up on your pathology report. Right. As they say. But if you've been leading a healthy lifestyle, maybe you can. And then you'll have advanced notice of, yeah, there's something that's not right. And if you go to the doctor and they go, oh, it's a cyst, don't don't be dismissed because I heard that story for, you know, I went to the doctor for years. They kept saying, it's a cyst I had. You know. No, we're not dismissing. We're doing a. Either a diagnostic mammogram and an ultrasound or an mri. You. You get to say, you know, guys, it's my life, and I have a family history, so I'm not taking any chances. And if you're refusing to do this for me, I want you to note in my chart that I asked several times and you refused. And then you need to find yourself a practitioner who's going to honor your wishes and listen to you. If you've been diagnosed and you're doing standard of care, it's very important for you to understand that their expertise is within their box. My perspective as an integrative practitioner is you need to take the best of both worlds. Medical oncology and then what? Practitioners such as myself or Dr. Naish's team, we all are working towards the same goal. It's more than medical oncology. Once you've addressed that tumor, you need to then address the entire inner workings, your terrain of your life, emotionally and physically. It's very important. And how people can reach me is if you go to my website, carolauri.com there's a contact me form there. Okay.

So people can sign up there and then.

And my program is listed in that.

Perfect. Well, it has been such a joy. You are a wealth of information. I feel like we could talk for another five hours and still just scratch the surface, so. What an honor. Thank you so much for joining us today, and it's been lovely to connect with you.

It's been really wonderful. Thank you so much for having me.