Self-Love: The Prescription We All Need

Together we will do this. This is not me just writing a prescription and saying, take these pills and come back in three months. It's I am here for you through your journey into a healthier, more optimized life.

Hello, everyone. I'm your host, Dr. Schaeffer of Talks with Dr. Schaefer. I'm a physician, my mom, life coach, musician, author, publisher, and I am passionate about helping you reclaim your story so that you can build your most beautiful future. Now today, I'm so excited to have a special guest, fellow physician on the show. Dr. Tanya Beaubrun is a functional and integrative medicine physician located in the Caribbean. She's a speaker, transformational coach and entrepreneur. And she has so much to share with us today. I am so, so glad that she was able to spend this time with us on the show. Dr. Tanya Beaubrun, thank you so much for being here.

Thank you for having me.

My pleasure. I was very privileged this weekend. We were celebrating International Women's Day and you were a speaker on a panel. And you know, for me, I get so excited when I'm at a conference or listen to a panel or read an interesting article and I say, oh my goodness, I have to have them on the show to share their wisdom with the audience because they have so much to share. To start off our discussion, could you tell us more about why you chose to begin with years ago, a career in medicine and how your life, as your career has progressed, has been influenced by medicine and how you are trying to influence the practice of medicine currently?

I think medicine chose me. I have never known not wanting to be a doctor from as young as, I think, six or seven, I knew I was going to be a doctor. I would, I would have my little, my doors as patients and I would be tending to them and putting on band aids and stuff on them. And then I had, my parents had this book called Modern Ways to Health, which I actually have in my office now I keep just to remind me of my why. And it was, I think it was written in the late 60s or 70s, but there were photos of doctors at patients bedside and they would give it was, I think it was geared for the layperson to understand health better. And I would read it cover to cover and it was my favorite pastime reading it. And I think at about 9, I diagnosed one of my aunts with stomach flu. And she says, what's that? I've never heard of that. So I promptly went to the book and I said, this is what you have. And then she says she Went to the doctor and they said, yeah, well, so I was. I was my first patient, and I just knew I was going to do medicine, Went a traditional Western medicine path and did it, and I loved it until I didn't. I did everything in the way that I felt I was supposed to. Where you do you see a patient, you tick off the symptoms, the symptom, pattern, disease process, and you treat according to whatever latest treatment protocol there is. I did that for maybe 15 years. And then slowly things would. I would start to have doubts. Like I'm seeing the same people all the time, and then they're coming to me, and all I'm doing is either changing the medication or adding medication, but am I really helping them? And there were two moments that really will stand out where one patient came and she had a prescription for nine drugs written by another physician. And I thought to myself, what are we doing? She has drugs to counteract the side effects of other drugs, and this makes no sense. And I asked her, how are you coping with the drugs? And she pulls out a pillbox, and she says, well, I have the morning one and the afternoon one. Doctor. I don't miss any thought to myself, this is probably going to be the last time I ever write a prescription for nine drugs. Because a part of me died that day. Some things just shifted where I said, first, do no harm. But I felt that in doing that, I may be doing harm on so many levels. And the other incident was me being on the other end of a stethoscope as a patient and realizing that I was being treated the way we had all been taught to treat disease. Nobody touched me, nobody looked at me because, you know, everything is automated now. So my blood pressure was checked with the monitor, my pulse and my heart rate, everything is checked automatically. And then a stethoscope is put to my chest, but nobody physically touches me, depending on what you have. And I'm looking up at my. At my colleagues, and I'm begging in my mind, look at me. See me. See what's really happening to me. And they're looking down on me with that look. You know, the look that we've all been trained when you've ticked off all the boxes and you've given the right medication, and still the patient doesn't get better. And you think, okay, what's wrong? What else is wrong? Is there really something wrong with the patient at that point? And I saw that look, and I thought to myself, we've all been trained to look like that. And I felt such shame That I know I had probably looked at patients like that on so many occasions. But to be looked at that way and to be fair, it wasn't in any negative way. They were just, they were caring for me. But I don't think anybody looked beyond the disease and saw me. And I vowed then that I would never see a disease before I saw a patient, that I would see a human being in front of me and then see why they got the disease. And that's how I got into functional medicine. Wow.

And for our listeners that maybe don't know the difference between Western traditional medicine and functional medicine, but are hearing this more and more often or seeing it on billboards and information about new practitioners in their area or what is functional medicine?

Functional medicine is patient centered medicine. It is root cause medicine where we look at patients individually and see why that particular patient is presenting with what we call a dis ease or imbalance. It is science based, it is personalized. And I think it is medicine that is being practiced the way it should have been from years ago, before other things got involved in western medicine. It actually puts the patient at the center of everything. And it's a holistic way where we don't just look at physical causes of imbalances and disease. We also look at is there emotional and mental, sociological cause, environmental, spiritual cause. What exactly has brought this patient to this point in time?

Right, Exactly. And what have you found in your feelings as a physician, practicing medicine, as you have re entered the educational sphere, learned more about functional medicine, had that certification, and now are practicing functional medicine? How has your relationship with your patients and your experience of how well they do under the care of a, of a doctor changed in that time?

It's infinitely more fulfilling. The patients get the personalized touch. We spend more time with our patients. We are able to really get down to the root cause and really heal the patients. And the patients feel that they are seen and they are heard. And I always say in my practice at Satya that they are held as they are healed. And that's what I think people are looking for now, a safe space where they are given permission to heal themselves. Because we all have the innate ability to heal ourselves. And in doing that and giving the patient this safe space, this ability to a permission to say, I see you, I hear you, I feel you, I was you a few years ago as well. And we will together we will do this. This is not me just writing a prescription and saying, take these pills and come back in three months. It's I am here for you through your journey into a healthier, more optimized life.

That resonates so much with me and I personally feel and professionally feel that's so important. Because I think what has happened often in modern medicine is our prescriptions and our recommendations become somewhat of a depersonalized laundry list. We're following algorithms and the steps people need to go, and all of those things are correct. But if people don't understand the why behind it, and they also don't feel an investment in them, their relationship to those recommendations are going to be different. And that's not necessarily a lack on their part. We could use some self introspection into how we are providing care and how we are practicing medicine to say, okay, we're, we're giving the right information. As you were saying, you know, I'm seeing the same problems coming in. I'm not necessarily seeing solutions that I expect. You know, when I look at this medicine and it has a 50% efficacy rate, but I'm not seeing that in my, in my patients. Why is that? Taking a look at what's missing in the way we practice and tapping into those really superhuman skills of creating those connections. But I want to highlight that, you know, that can take time, one which can be on really short order in our clinical practice, depending upon where you practice. But it also can be a lack of skills and education in delivering the information in such a way that's not just informative, but also connecting and building that rapport and relationship with patients. And I think we miss out on that in medical training often.

Yeah, it's something that we're not trained to connect with our patients on any deep level. It's depersonalized medicine where we can't get emotionally involved. We must be strong and unemotional and just very clinical. And I keep saying that we were trained about the science of medicine, but we didn't bring the heart and soul into the practice of medicine. And I think this is what has been missing. And this is what I think patients deserve. They need it, but they deserve to be seen as humans and to be held in safe spaces. Because the clinical Western medicine saves lives every minute of every day. But we're not changing the course of chronic disease or cancer or mental disorders or anything. We're not truly making a dent in that. And I think we need to shift focus and say, okay, where can we change our perspective and how can we form deeper connections where patients truly trust us?

You know, when we talk about quality of life as physicians, we often only start to think about this, you know, this coming, coming to Jesus talk about the quality of life. Often in the end of life, right. We don't even necessarily discuss it at all those other seasons of life and when we're prescribing medicines with side effects and when we're making recommendations about o okay, to optimize your health, you have to do this laundry list of things. But realistically, if we looked at our lives and we were to say, okay, would I do that or would I say cost benefit ratio? No, thank you. But we're not having those in depth conversations and not necessarily having the opportunity to know our patients in such a way that they understand that we're giving them choices. Right. And they're not non compliant if they don't follow every single recommendation, they have these choices. And so it's so complex. And in order to really tap into that, I think we need to bring this quality of life consideration earlier in life. Because even in the later moments of life, even at the end of life, when we have these conversations, for example, with families, with children of people who are at the end of their lives, they are dying and we bring up the words quality of life, that can even be jarring. Some people, I think, can feel it as almost a defeat or a giving up from the side of the medical team. You're giving up on my person. And I think what we often are trying to communicate is no, we want to lean into the end of their life being a quality, loving, supported experience because we can't skip this part. They've got to experience it. And how do they want to experience it? Is it in the hospital with all of these interventions or is it, does it look a different way? And that's so hard for us to even talk about at the end of life when honestly, yeah, it's difficult. And now how do we bring that conversation earlier into life?

Well, I have been telling my patients as early as in their 20s that really what they're doing is investing in, in a bank account, a health bank account for the future. And the more you invest, the more you take care of yourself, you know, lifestyle practices, you're really building up a significant deposit that you can then tap into as you get older. And we're all talking about menopause right now. And I said the preparation for menopause actually starts in your 20s, if not earlier. And it's about educating our patients on what's happening with their bodies and how to feel and how to examine their bodies and how to stay in tuned with their bodies. Because so many people have not been taught about what's happening to their bodies, their body, even. We don't even name the body parts properly. You know, we have nicknames for them. So we have to get people comfortable with their bodies and their body parts and feeling what's happening and tuning into what's happening, you know, within their bodies and then empowering them to make the changes. But if we don't educate them and give them a why, why should I eat like this? Why should I exercise? Why should I drink adequate amounts of water? Why is sleep important? Why is stress management important? If we don't give them these easy answers and put it in ways that I think touch their hearts? Because we're trained to talk at patients where we talk to their heads. And I think we need to learn to talk with patients. It's a deeper connection. We talk with them at their level, meet them where they are, and then say, okay, together we're going to do that, but we empower them. Now, I can give you the information, but the huge step that's going to really make a difference is when you decide to take action. And that's where the transformation will take place.

Absolutely. I love that, and I love this idea of diversifying your investment. Right. We are trying to get young people to have financial literacy earlier in life, because those of us who are later in life, we're saying, oh, gosh, I wish I had made just these simple changes in my 20s, and then I'd be much more financially better off at this point in time. And I can't get that time back. And our health is the same. But often, like you said, we have to speak to people's hearts. We have to meet them where they are, we have to connect with them. And so I love this idea of helping them understand that they need to invest in their health and they need to diversify their investments. So exercise for strength, sleep, proper nutrition, education, healthy relationships, personal fulfillment, all of those things. And then something that I know you've shown on your Instagram account, and I love that you've done this is even you've taken. Taken videos of yourself doing screening. You know, you had a video of you going to get your colonoscopy done, because this is a normal thing that we need to be doing right, and we don't talk about it, but it's an investment in your health. Because if we do preventive screening, that can save us a lot of time, money, pain, and even save our lives. So helping people have this education, meeting them where they are is such a great way to try to change, change that momentum early in life so that it can be built up over time as an investment.

Yeah, I think it's important that we start to talk to people earlier in their lives about health later on. So my 20 year olds will come in and I start to see, listen, what we're doing now, you may think it's not important, but I promise you, in 30 years, you'll be so grateful you did it. And I share quite openly about my experience, my experience with burnout more than once. And I think one of the biggest hurdles I had to face was deciding whether to share openly that I had burnt out because there was an element of shame. How could me, the doctor, you know, how could you let yourself burn out? And then I had to realize I didn't let myself burn out. I was just doing life like every other woman in her 40s. And then there were the hormonal imbalances and everything coming with that. And I just burned out, you know. And when I shared that story, I got so much. So many people come with the feedback and say thank you. They were crying, they were saying, I didn't know what was happening to me. Which is why I think if as physicians and healthcare workers, if we are authentic and showing our lives, showing that we're not perfect either, you know, we have to do the same test that you do. We have to go through all the labs and do pap smears and do the mammograms and everything. We do those things as well. And last year I showed, I did my mammogram and I said, guys, you know, you go in to do the mammogram and you think, well, there's a 50, 50 chance that they're going to find something. You know, we don't know. It's either going to be okay or it's not. Unlike every other person, you cannot hold your breath until you get the result. I'm a human. It can happen to me. I could be the 1 in 8. So when I show people that, and I said, I really do go through these things. Well, we can't, as healthcare workers hide the fact that we have a human side, because I think that prevents the true connections with the people who come to us seeking help.

Yes, I think reflecting on your humanity and sharing with patients is a superpower that we often don't tap into in medicine. And it's such a shame because it's such a beautiful way to connect with people. Now, you've mentioned about hormonal Health, You've spoken a lot about that. And then also the balance of making sure mental health is in check, making sure that you tending to the entire garden of your life and not just focusing on one flower, so to speak. You recently participated in a panel about empowering women's sexual health. And I know you've spoken on this topic for years. What do you feel are the most pressing issues currently around women's health?

I think, and I'll be honest with you, that I think there's far too much focus on menopause right now. Not that it is not important, it is critical, but I think if we keep pushing menopause, we have women thinking that their only problems are menopause, that all their symptoms and the issues will be solved by hormone replacement therapy. And I think we're missing the opportunity to get deeper and truly connecting with these middle age of premenopausal patients by truly getting an opportunity to educate them on what's happening to their bodies, that they are more than hormones. And that hormonal imbalance is not just about your sex hormones. It's about your insulin, your thyroid, your adrenal gland function, your HPA axis. There's so many other hormones that dance with the sex hormones in your body. And if we only focus on one set, then we may be missing the boat. We may be missing the woman with insulin resistance who may be going on to be pre diabetic because some of her symptoms may be actually menopause, but it might be that her blood sugars are fluctuating all over the place. But every woman now just comes and I want hrt. And I said, well, I understand you're having symptoms, but we need to get to the bottom of what's really happening to you. You are not your best friend who magically slapped on some estradiol cream and she was better. Because it may not work for you, because your issues may not necessarily be that. And they look at me and I'm like, I need to get to the root cause. And yes, you will probably need hrt, but let's see what else is happening. You may have a vitamin D deficiency. You know, there's so many other things. Your thyroid may be working, not working right. And years ago, in my early years of practice, I'll never forget that I had a woman who came in and said she was in menopause and she was in her early 40s. And I said, well, I need to test everything before we test. And it wasn't menopause, she was hypothyroid. And within two weeks of putting her on the correct dose of thyroid medication, her husband made an appointment to see me. And I thought, you know, you're young in the practice. And I thought, oh dear, something's wrong. And he said, I made an appointment to tell you thank you for giving me back my wife. And that has stayed with me because she is one of those patients who would have been given the prescription for premarin and all of these things in those days and we would never have picked up the fact that she was hypothyroid if we didn't look for it.

Yes.

Convinced she was menopausal, she was nowhere near that, but her thyroid was so dysfunctional that. And I mean, when her husband came in and said, I said, you mean to tell me in two weeks, she says she is, she's my wife again. And I said to my, I thank God that day. I said, you know, I'm really grateful that I ran the whole gamut of tests because had I just done, you know, the usual, we would probably have missed that.

That's a wonderful story and a great reminder. It's interesting because I think, you know, there are trends in medicine and for such a long time we weren't thinking about hrt, we weren't thinking about hormones. Someone would come in with symptoms of, of having a hormone deficiency of perimenopause and, and they'd be given perhaps an ssri.

Yes.

Right. And so I think that there is this pendulum swinging of now. No, no, no, we're not going to miss this. But then every time that pendulum swings, it swings away from something too. And we need to come to the middle and say, as you said, it can be this, but we also need to keep our eyes open for other things. And that's so important. And I really relate to it as a neurologist because when someone is referred to a neurologist, you're doing a wide swath of testing because someone's coming to you with mild cognitive complaints. There's not one thing we look at. And women have been really gaslit often throughout the years in medicine and in other parts of their lives where they come in and they say, I'm not remembering things. And people say, oh, you're just a little depressed or oh, you know, you just need to sleep better. Oh, you're stressed, you know, and that has happened so much over the years. And then when we find something that's a very tempting treatment or replacement for the bad old days, we used to ill advisedly just say, Everyone was depressed. It's easy to want to reflexively lean into it. But I love your focus on saying no. We are going to treat you as an individual, as a human who has the potential to have a myriad of issues, and we need to make sure we're treating you as an entire person.

I think it's critical that we never forget that we are treating a human being with our physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual bodies. And we have to treat all aspects of our patients and not just well, you know, there's a physical aspect, and we write a prescription or we do surgery and you're fine. Even I was just thinking, there are patients who've had heart attacks or mis, and nobody thinks of sending them and say, you need a few cases of therapy. Critically important. We do not address the fact that we have just discombobulated their lives by saying, your heart is not working very well, which is a critical part of your body system. And we've put in the stents and we've given them the medication, and we send them on their merry way, and we may do cardiac rehab, but nobody wonders what is happening to this person because we've changed their lives. And years ago, I was really honored to have a chat with Mark Nepo, who's an author, and he really writes from his heart. And it was in the midst of COVID and I was a little down because I was missing the interaction with my patients, because telehealth just wasn't working for me. And I asked him, how do I soften the cushion, the blow? When a patient walks into my office, I shut the door and I have to tell them that the test reveal cancer or something like that. When they walk out the door, their lives have changed. How do I cushion? That's that transition. Because for the rest of their lives, they've changed. And he says, you do it with as much compassion, with as much empathy, with as much gentleness and kindness as you can. And I started to cry, and I said, you know, we're not taught to be empathetic. We're not taught to hold somebody and cry with them, because it hurts me when I have to give the diagnosis. It hurts the patient when they have to receive it even more. But it does hurt the physician to give a diagnosis, especially if it's a patient you've been seeing for years. And to soften the blow, I think, is by truly connecting with them and saying, I see you. I'm giving you this space to fall apart, and then I'm going to scoop you up and as you leave my door again, I'm going to cushion. I'm going to create a bubble of kindness and compassion around you as you walk through them, walk out my door. And I would stay in touch with you throughout, because many times we refer them to the surgeon or we're through to oncology, and we never check on them. We are the ones of being, as the family physician, being there for them through so many other things, and then we just, you know, refer them and we walk away. And we need to remember that we are their homes, we are the havens. In some places, we need to create these spaces for them to just come and fall apart. And see, yesterday I had this where I saw one of my room was falling apart, and I said, okay, you're gonna. You're gonna fall apart now. Okay, you have five minutes. Because he needed tough love. Because he knew. I said, you have five minutes, and then you're going to get on the couch and we're going to continue. And then he took us, and then he sent me a message. He says, you know, thank you for giving me that time to get into this space, but also pulling me back out, because had I not pulled him back out, he would have spiraled. And I saw that, and I'm like, you have less than five minutes to get on that couch. You can fall apart, but in five minutes, I need you on that couch. So I pulled him back out with as much love and kindness as you could do when you, you know, you're giving somebody a smack on the button, say, you know, this is some tough love that you need.

And it's such an important role. And I think when we, in our personal lives and our professional lives and the patient and physician relationship, when we distance ourselves from that moment, we think that we can protect ourselves from that pain. We think that's the right thing to do. But we're prolonging the pain. We're prolonging our own pain and feelings of shame of having not really been there with that person, having walled ourselves off, we are prolonging their pain of them feeling, I have the information, but I feel so disconnected from it. Whereas when we lean into it and we connect one, we've coped with it. We don't have to carry it anymore. We've coped with it. They've had their moment to respond and react to it, and now they can respond in, how am I going to move forward? And I think most importantly, when we give them that gift of saying it's okay to feel this emotion and you matter. You're worth this time to not only receive the information I want to give to you, but to allow you have that time to process it. I think that carries forward with patients, and then as they are on their healing journey, it gives them that feeling of, I deserve. Right. I deserve to invest in myself on this process. I deserve to choose my course of care. And if it's tough, okay, it's tough. But I deserve to invest in myself in this way to get better. I think we really set people on the right trajectory. We start that momentum when we connect with true empathy in those moments. Because if we don't, we're giving the diagnosis, but we're not leaning into them as a person. And in a way, it's kind of saying like, oh, no, we're keeping that wall between us and them as a human. And when we feel that wall, it puts us back. It doesn't set us forward on our healing journey.

Yeah. And I always tell people, as I heal a patient, I too am healed. So when you put the wall, we're actually delaying our own healing. So every time you see a patient, there's something in that patient that reminds you of something you've gone through or something with a family member or something. But in really leaning in, you're able to heal a part of yourself. And it's, you know, healing goes in layers. It's like the onion you peel and you peel and you peel. And I think that if we start to lean in more and we start to truly be the empathetic humans that we are meant to be, the compassionate and kind and gentle people that I think we're all meant to be, we will heal our patients faster, and we will have fewer relapses of things. Because I think there are many layers to healing. There are many layers to disease. There's the physical, emotional, and spiritual layer. And in only looking at the physical healing, we're delaying the true. The completion of the healing process. And sometimes I tell people the healing doesn't mean that you get better, doesn't mean that you're cured from cancer. It means that you've come to a place of acceptance and that you're using that as your life purpose, to serve and to heal other people. By sharing your story authentically, by telling people about what happened in your journey, you may save lives, because they would then have their tests early and, you know, do their screenings. So it doesn't always mean that healing means you get better or you do know you no longer have disease. It means that you've come to a space where you've accepted it and then you're using this as a tool to help other people.

You know, it makes me think, I don't know if you've seen this Netflix, I believe it's a Netflix movie. It's not really a documentary. It's. It's based on a true story, but things have been changed.

It's.

And it's called Apple Cider Vinegar and I don't want to get into too many details about it. I recommend people watch it. It's about the predatory practices of us trying to as a culture now and this fast fix culture trying to sell people on quick fixes, non medical fixes, et cetera, that will fix if you have cancer, if you have this, you have that, and how people built empires on this. And it's very dangerous thing. The interesting part of the documentary though is towards the end, as people are dying because they haven't treated themselves with proven treatments, right? They've leaned into things that really aren't great choices. Once they stop fighting and trying to lean into external things that won't help them will likely hurt them, right? And once they stop fighting that process and then they lean into acceptance, all of a sudden their lives have so much more peace and they're focusing. They have terminal illnesses and instead of being preyed upon in the end of their lives, they're focusing on joy and connection and how do I want to spend this time? It's a really beautiful movie. Towards the end, it's difficult. Excuse me. I think it's actually a series, a small, a short, limited series rather than a single movie. But I think it's worth watching to experience this acceptance and we as physicians. And one of the characters, actually the beginning of her journey is getting a diagnosis from a physician that doesn't really connect emotionally and it cues in this person in this family who's quite young, and they're really not at a place of acceptance. This, this journey of trying to make it not true. And I wonder if in that individual's life if it would have gone differently if something else had happened in that initial conversation that leaned into this is the diagnosis, this is you as a person. How do you want to proceed? These are our options instead of we're out of options. Right.

I think as healthcare workers, sometimes it's frightening. You know, sometimes the person in front of you reminds you of your parent or your sibling or a friend and you just want to get them out as fast as possible because you're thinking about yourself and it's painful. And you want to alleviate that pain. And getting them out of your office you think will alleviate the pain. But what actually happens is that part of your, in the back of your mind you wonder, how is this person doing? Because if you are truly humane, you will understand that by shepherding that patient in and out with just listen. You know, sometimes they don't even look in the patient's eyes. They look down at their notes and now everything is electronic health records. They look at their computers and you know, and they say, well, the test showed that you have this, this, this, and it appears to be this. And you may have six months left. And I say, you tell a patient they have six months, they will have six months. You tell them 16 months, they will take 16 months. Who are we to give people time or get your affairs in order? You know, things like that? We have to find a more compassionate way of delivering news to patients. You know, when we give good news, we're excited and we look into their eyes and touch them. And when we have what we think is bad news, we, we don't want to, you know, we're looking down and we're scared to look at them. And you delay their appointments sometimes or you just, you know, I remember as a medical student I was sent to telepatients that we had gone into surgery and we had couldn't do anything and we closed him up. Nobody had prepared me for that. I was still a medical student. And I was sent to tell this man and to this day I remember his face. And that left a mark on me because I, you know, I didn't know what words to use. You know, I explained to him what, and he had questions that I couldn't answer. I was just too young to answer the questions. And I could just explain to him in medicales. And I wish that part of our medical training was used in saying, listen, we need classes in compassion. We need classes in empathy and kindness and gentleness. We don't have to be all science all the time. We can be heart based, we can practice soul, you know, from, from the heart and soul. Science is important, but we have to balance the two. And sometimes you need more science, sometimes you need more soul. But if you don't do that, and I'm constantly doing this, and that's why I like functional medicine. Because there's the science there, but there's the soul. And I have, my, my method is called the More Joy method, which has body joy, mind joy, soul joy. So there's this soul Joy part where we truly connect with the patient and have the patient then connect with themselves. Because there are many of our many people walking around who are disconnected from themselves. And that's, I think got worse during the pandemic. Became isolated and shut ourselves off. So the people were walking around, were totally disconnected from their feelings, their thoughts, what they want to do. They just totally just there isolated from others. Their smiles don't go to their eyes. You know, you could see those. And then you see somebody where you've worked with them. You know, I've done the coaching, I've done the, you know, my method. And they come in six months later and they're literally floating through this office. And that is my soul joy moment where I see that they have connected with themselves, that they have taken control and ownership of their health. And one day I saw and I said, you know, you look even better than me today. And she was just, you know, she came with a shirt, self love. And I'm like, that was your prescription. That's what you did to heal yourself. And she's just like a new person now.

And that's something that you talked about on the panel and I've seen you discuss many times and I think is such a valuable prescription for patients is not just medicine, not just exercise and sleep and nutrition, but prescription for self love critical.

And I think more than anything else, self love and self forgiveness is one of the most powerful healing tools that we have at our disposal. And we're not tapping into that if we don't. If we don't tap into connecting with ourselves more and loving on ourselves. And this misperception that self love is self, self care selfish. And I tell people, take the ish out, replace ish with love. And that's your prescription. Because if you don't start loving yourselves because we have not been taught to love ourselves, we've been taught that self love is selfish, that putting ourselves first is selfish. I remember the first time I was on a plane and I've been hearing it for years. Put your oxygen mask first. It's not until I flew with my kids did it, did it hit me what put mine on before my children. And then I realized, but if you are not able to save yourself and to be coherent, you can't help these children who can't. So you need to put your oxygen masks first. And that was something that was like a huge aha moment for me because I took it for granted. I figured, you know, before you're single and you're traveling alone, you like, I'll put my masters. And you know. But when you are traveling with your children for the first time and you hear that and you think, put mine on before, because your instinct is to take care of your children first, take care of those you care, the loved ones first. We are not pouring into ourselves if we're not putting our oxygen masks on. We can't give the people in our lives the care and attention that they deserve.

And we have to. And I think it's a poignant reminder because our children, especially early in their lives, their self image is being modeled out of what we are modeling for them, not what we're telling. Their self image isn't being created by how we treat them only. It's also being created by how we treat ourselves. And I can remember a time in my life where I was very financially strapped when I was leaving an abusive relationship and there was financial abuse, and I only had enough money to pay lawyers, and I would get enough food to feed the kids. I didn't have enough food for myself. And the kids ate normally. It looked normal for them. And I worked really hard to make sure it did. I barely ate anything, and I very quickly lost weight. And now, years later, to this day, my daughter. We'll sit down to eat and the table. We won't have anything on the table yet because we have some, you know, specifications for food. So, you know, some people like certain things and others. So I kind of don't modify the entire meal, but it's plated differently for different kiddos. And so I'm bringing the plates out and. And pretty regularly, she'll ask, are you. Are you gonna eat, Mom? And I remember years ago her telling me, because I thought I was so covert about it, but she started to notice that mom didn't eat. Why do we always eat and you don't eat, Mom? And it was out of a necessity, a need at that point in time. But this was also a young woman who was seeing me literally not eat, which has its own effects on a young woman. And it just devastated me when she said that to me. And it devastates me to this day. I get really emotional talking about it as I am now.

Because we have.

To teach our children self love. It's not just for us, it's also for them.

But you did what you had to do at this point in time. And I think it's important that we have these type of conversations with the children and give them an understanding and says, I did what I felt I had to do. At this point in time, I realized that I patterned this for you. As you get older, you will understand why. Had I known better, I would have done better. But I was acting out of a place of deep love for you. So she will understand. And I think we have to have these honest conversations with my children. So for years, I thought I felt guilty because I worked too hard, and I felt that I had missed so much of their childhood things. And I remember once leaving my office and running to the school, which was not that far away because my daughter had her first on stage recital. And when I got there, there were parking issues, and I was trying to park, and I was begging the office, the police officer, to please just let me stay there. My daughter is coming on because my friends. And as I walked in, she was walking off the stage, and I sat on the stairs and I cried. I sobbed. But the beautiful thing about it were the moms who rallied around me. And I got phones put in front. I caught it for you. I knew you were trying to get here. I caught it for you. Here she is. Look, she did this. And I took a photo for you. And then she came. She says, mom, did you see it? And I said, yes, darling, I saw because I was able to see. I saw it because I had watched a video. But the beautiful thing were the moms who recognize my devastation. And I just. I collapse. And I just put my hand down, and they just came around and they lifted me up and I got a video. I got a call, you know, this kind of thing. And I think as. As women, we need to always be there to lift each other up. You were going through this, give yourself grace, because you showed her the strength of a woman and the sacrifices a woman sometimes has to make for her family. And that is something that she will never forget. And there was strength in what you did. So she knew you didn't eat. Had you not patterned a deep empathy and love, she would not have recognized that that was not a selfish child. That was a child who was raised knowing about empathy and love and awareness, aware enough to realize that you were not eating. She was not centered on herself. So give yourself grace, mama. You did that. And then have the conversation and say, listen, I get emotional about it because I feel that I may have shown you this. How are you feeling? Because when I had the conversation with my kids, as they were 18, and so they didn't remember. They did not remember. And I'm like, you remember the time I missed this? And, you know, I figured one day I'm going to apologize for everything. I was holding on. They didn't remember. And I'm thinking to myself, you've carried this on your heart for years. Feeling guilty. The children didn't remember. They didn't have a clue what I was talking about. And they were genuinely looking at me like, what are you talking about? Like the day I didn't come to the Chris and I would listen, I was able to list the day I missed your Christmas thing and the day I forgot to bring this to the school. I carried this, didn't remember.

I think a huge part of self love is letting go of assumptions and leaning into that communication and those curious questions.

That was a huge thing. When I decided to have the conversation and say, okay, I'm going to come clean, fresh slate. And then I'm sitting, I remember we're sitting together and we're at, at cafe and I'm talking and they were looking at me like, what are you talking about? You don't remember that? I'm like, okay. And I always tell parents, I said, trust me, they don't remember. We carry it, but they don't remember. But I'm glad I had the conversation because it was a huge aha moment where I carried this for years and the children didn't remember. One part of me was disappointed. You really don't remember that I missed this? Nope, didn't remember.

And it's important to remember also that you know, the nervous system, the brain is really good at forgetting things that, that aren't helpful for us. It's funny, we will beat ourselves up over the thing that we did, but we let a lot go that other people did, we really do compared to what we do to ourselves. So that's a good thing to remember too. And to ask the questions. A part of self love and self care is to not stew and the what ifs and I can't believe I did that and oh, what are they thinking of me? But just ask. Because even that act of asking the question is so connecting because so rarely do people even ask us questions.

No, because we're afraid of the answers and we're afraid of, we're afraid of what they say. And then half the time the answer's like, oh, that's it. Like you know, you're expecting something more than no, I'm actually okay. I didn't even notice you did this.

Okay, so we can let go of the shame and the self loathing because it's toxic. It's toxic to our mental health and to our physical health. And so self love definitely is in your prescription pad. What would you say the top three things that you do to make sure that you stay on your health every day that you would. If you had a prescription pad that you're giving everyone you met, what would the top three, four, five things be?

Gosh. So I should be talking about the pillars of my mojoi method. So I think for me it's exercise. Consistent exercise is my sanity saver. If I don't exercise consistently I'm going to go crazy. So it's during exercise that I process whatever happened in my day. Whether it's good or bad. I get ideas, I get the most creative ideas during exercise and I feel so much better after exercise. So for one a consistent just move your body. Movement, hydration, we're not drinking enough water. Many of us are thinking that we have headaches or joint pains and brain fog and we're just dehydrated. Sleep is underrated as a healing tool. I wear an aura ring because I really very, very diligent about tracking my sleep and HRV to make sure that as I get older I am actually getting quality sleep. And what it has shown me is that it picks up when even I, even if I don't feel stress or my body's coming down with something, it picks it up at least 48 hours before. So it tells me when something is wrong. So it's sleep and self forgiveness and I think it's something, it's a, it's an underrated tool but it's the first thing I think we need to do and I'm giving you permission now to do that as well. It's self forgiveness because we carry these things and it, it sort of sticks in. And I sometimes ask patients where are you feeling that or what, what does that feeling? What color is it? And everybody says it's this dark purple and it's, you know, it's this kind of. And everybody bar non tells it's this deep icky thing. And I think self loathing that we have and you know a regret is always a dark sticky thing. And I sometimes picture it as moving through our bodies trying to just find that area where it could stick to and create disease. So I am like no, this is not going to happen. So I try to, if I have something that if I've had a conversation with somebody and I didn't like the way it went within 24 hours I'm going to call and say listen, either I'm sorry I overreacted or I didn't like what you said. I just want you to know that I'm moving on. But I didn't like what you said, and I move on with it to the best of my ability because I think holding on to the regret and the negative feelings can actually precipitate some really serious disease processes in our bodies. So I think these are the five things. Being in nature, it all boils down to joy. All boils down to joy. Glimmers of joy. Throughout my day, this conversation has been a massive glimmer of joy for me. Just coming here because I'm in the Caribbean. When I looked outside, the sun was up and the cloud was blue sky, and I'm like, wow, it's, it's a great day. I have found as I got older, the little things bring me the greatest joy. You know, the moon isn't quite full, so you just see it coming up. And during the day here in the Caribbean, you see that you, you can still see it. And I'm like, wow, this is amazing.

I love this and I love that when we talk about the things that truly, from an expert in health's perspective that you've listed that truly impact our health, the greatest, the most wonderful thing is most of them are free. Yes, they're free. We don't have to buy anything to do them. They're achievable. We can track it daily and we can celebrate. Just like you said, we celebrate the sunrise. We can celebrate. I didn't doom scroll last night. I got enough sleep. I had that conversation. I forgave myself. There are things that we don't have to pay for that we can do every single day that we can add to that list of things we're grateful for, add to the list of things that we've shown ourselves we're capable of. And that just boosts us on that journey of really reclaiming our strength and really investing in ourselves if we're coming from a space, a mental space where we didn't feel empowered to do so. So I love the advice that you give and I am so excited to share this conversation with our listeners and I have sparked so much joy from this conversation as well. Thank you so much. Please tell listeners how they can learn more about you and learn about the body story quiz that you have.

So I, I, after years of being within, in, in my practice, I realized that people were coming in with various disease patterns and some people would manifest it physically, some emotionally, some of the spiritual disconnection. And I realized that if people were in tune with how their body manifests a disease, they would be better able to come because usually if there's a physical issue, they come in quickly, but if it's an emotional issue, not so quickly. If it's a spiritual disconnection, you don't see them, but they need to come in. So it provides insights into your primary imbalances. So I created this quiz, it's on my website called the Body Story Quiz and it gives you. It's a short quiz. When you take it, it will tell you whether you have a body joy imbalance, a mind joy imbalance or soul joy imbalance. And then it takes you through the process with a video as well as an ebook where you can do the things that you can easy things that you can do to rebalance your body so that you don't get into a really heavy state of disease. You know, the imbalance can be shifted faster. So it's something that I've been wanting to do for a while and it finally came together and I got the videos and it's, it's. I'm excited. I'm excited about it.

I'm excited to share it. So where can listeners go to access the quiz?

It's on my website on Tanya and it's right at the top and you'll see. Take the Body Story quiz and it takes you through the process and it's, it's exciting. I'm really looking forward to feedback from people to hear what they think about their imbalances.

That is really exciting. And I will take the quiz too and find out. You probably have theories already from our discussion today. So it'll be fun to take it and then discuss.

You may be surprised.

Be fun to take it and then discuss it. I encourage everyone to go to the website and you also offer coaching. So if you're accepting.

I, I have online programs if you reach out to me and I do 90 day programs usually with patients for the transformational coaching. And if you want to come see me in person in St. Lucia, then there's always that option.

Oh, wouldn't that be amazing? I'm up in northern Michigan and I have still several feet of snow in parts of my yard. But it's going to melt soon and then, and then it'll be beautiful. Yes, spring is coming and it's again, I'm glad you said that because it's a great time when we're doing physical spring cleaning. It's a great time because we're already kind of have that momentum for spring cleaning. It's a great time to do the mental cleaning house too. And form these new habits. Form these new perspectives. So I'm so grateful that you are here to share your wisdom with our audience. I'm sure people have taken so much. I'm grateful for you and for the joy that you spread. And also storytellers. I am so grateful that you're here. Until next time, stay safe and take care. I'll talk to you soon. Everyone needs something. Something. Let me be that one thing and I will try to ease your mind.