Sometimes, you never really know why you’re drawn to something - drawn to read a certain book, walk into a specific coffee shop, or to strike up a conversation with a stranger.
I love it when the synchronicities of life feel like a divine nudge along your path for the greatest good of all. These little nuggets often turn into the nourishment you need at the exact right time.
We at Apogee Wellness thoroughly enjoy the HEAL Documentary, and overtime, we’ve chipped away at consuming the books and content created by the cast.
In January, I felt drawn to a book shown in a brief clip on the HEAL documentary called “Radical Remissions: Surviving Cancer Against All Odds” by Kelly A. Turner, Ph. D. Within the book, the author summarizes the commonalities of the radical remissions cancer cases she studied during her research of such cases.
The book highlighted several survivors and their inspiring stories. It was easy to see how one could apply these practices to optimize patient health. The author recently released a docuseries that not only highlighted cancer survivors but also people who also went into remission from a typically life-long, debilitating diagnosis.
Shortly after finishing the book, I learned of Dr. Chris and Dr. Emilea’s mothers’ cancer diagnosis. To read more about their journey, check out last week’s blog post here.
Divine timing, people!
The beauty lies in the inspiration gained from the stories, the power in knowledge, and the privilege to gift the book to someone in need of inspiration, hope, and self-empowerment.
The book and docuseries left me wondering what would happen if we started living as if we had cancer?
Now, I am not saying that we should all live in fear of impending doom - quite the opposite, actually. Why not live out the common principles this book describes out of love for ourselves? Why not proactively implement these steps now versus waiting for a diagnosis to change our lives?
Here, we will outline the commonalities implemented by the survivors discussed in the book, how this applies to our practice, and how our mothers are implementing similar steps to be a radical remission statistic!
Common Themes
The author discovered during her tenure as a therapist for cancer patients that radical remission cases existed. The medical community cast those cases aside. She decided to return to college for her doctorate to study the cases where the patient survived cancer when statistics were not on their side.
During her research, she found that while everyone had very different stories and strategies, there were 10 commonalities to their remission stories.
Self-Empowerment
The survivors took full responsibility for their own health journey. They researched, experimented, and sought out healers that shared in their belief that remission was possible.
Sondra, Dr. Emilea’s mom, and Ranell, Dr. Chris’s mom, chose their healthcare path and built the team around them. When Sondra received her diagnosis from her oncologist, they told her that she had stage IV ovarian cancer and would not live long even if she survives this round. Can you imagine hearing that? While many of us would simply allow our energy to crumble below us from an “expert” calling out our fate, Sondra said, “yeah, I’ll show you!”
By God, she is showing him
Drastic Dietary Changes
Many of you who read our last post know that Ranell is not a fan of this step as many of our clients often struggle to accept, implement, and break addictions necessary to heal. However, one cannot get healthy in the same way one got sick. While that statement applies to all the common steps the survivors implemented, the research highlighted in the book denotes just how crucial it is to overhaul one’s diet. In fact, the chapter is called “Radically Changing the Diet.” The survivors fully committed to their nutrition plan and continue with these strategies for many years into remission.
The author states that the diet protocol changed from person to person, and as the doctors at Apogee Wellness will attest, each body’s needs are different from one person to the next.
Supplements and Herbs
The Apogee docs customize herbs and supplements based on their patients' needs. The docs even adjust these herbs and supplements daily for some chronically ill patients, and at one point, Sondra and Ranell were those patients.
The body’s needs change and differ from one person to the next. The survivors researched had some common supplements, but largely, they relied on the customized support of medicinal herbs and supplements that a doctor supervised.
Movement
As you can imagine, the docs at Apogee Wellness live for movement! These former college athletes incorporate a diverse amount of movement into their lives every day. Moving your hundreds of muscles, bones, and joints every day in different ways moves energy and nutrients, improves the immune system, and strengthens the body among other radical benefits.
Sondra, following her diagnosis, started incorporating walking and tapped into her love of swimming. Sondra thoroughly enjoys swimming! We find that movement looks different for everyone, but success in this area will come when you move in a way you enjoy.
Community
We are pack animals. We thrive when connected to one another. We accomplish more together than we do alone.
In this chapter entitled, “Embracing Social Support,” the survivors illustrate the important role that connection made on their journey.
Ranell continues to utilize her company email to keep her connected to her beloved coworkers. She lights up when a coworker, family member, or friend calls, texts, stops by, or emails.
The beauty of the modern world lies in connection even if physically isolated.
Sondra started to reconnect with old friends and continued to serve and connect to her church community, swim club, and work colleagues. Both women made the recent flight to Hawaii to support the joining of their families via the wedding of Dr. Chris and Dr. Emilea.
Spiritual Connection
Much like all the other chapters, spiritual connection does not look the same for everyone. The survivors all reportedly connected to an energy source outside and within themselves. They essentially connected and/or strengthened their mind, body, and spirit relationship.
We at Apogee believe that an effective method to strengthen one’s mind, body, and spirit connection involves meditation. Meditation simply starts with drawing in your awareness. Thoughts will come and go, but you practice drawing your awareness to your body, your energy, and not to your thoughts - you let your thoughts enter and exit without focusing on those thoughts.
From there, you may start to draw your awareness to the energy around you. Some may call this God energy, universal consciousness energy, evolutionary energy, or simply energy. The calming force one receives from allowing the divine energy to work and connect with you scientifically improves your health as seen in this Harvard Study.
Dr. Emilea will never forget the day her mom said, “I want to learn how to meditate!”
Inner Healing
Healing is multi-dimensional, and the author highlights the common thread of inner healing work each survivor noted.
Anyone that’s worked with the Apogee docs has likely experienced the doctors clearing an NET or NEC. In other words, the doctors work with the patients on clearing the blockage emotional energy created within the physical body.
Negative emotions and emotional traumas create blocks within the body and even block the body’s ability to heal.
For Sondra and Ranell, they work with a reiki and biofeedback practitioner that helps move subtle energy and intuit the origination of the energetic block. The awareness of the emotional trauma and energy allows for the person to heal and clear the emotion.
Increase Healthy Emotions
Just as negative emotions may block your body’s ability to heal, positive emotions expand your body’s ability to heal! Radical Remissions survivors articulate in the docuseries how increasing healthy, positive emotions contributed to their remission.
For us at Apogee, we believe an example of this lies within the placebo effect phenomenon. The body’s ability to heal when someone simply believes in the remedy occurs so often that it must be considered during clinical trials. To learn more on this topic, we recommend reading “You are the Placebo” by Dr. Joe Dispenza.
The Apogee moms do their best at pulling in the healthy emotions while simultaneously releasing negative emotions and traumas that suppress them.
Intuition
We are all intuitive beings. Just like animals can sense an oncoming storm or know when to prepare bedding for birth, we have a knowing. The author found that the survivors all followed their own internal guidance, which absolutely paid off.
Ranell and Sondra used their intuition all along the way. They knew when and who to see at the hospital clinic. They decided what treatment plan was best for them based off their own internal guidance.
Will to Live
Why does one swing their legs out of bed in the morning? Is it simply out of obligation, or they just have to pee and might as well stay awake? Does one know that each day is an opportunity to fulfill their life’s purpose and soul’s mission? Does one want to actively participate in their grandchildren’s lives like Sondra and Ranell?
Future or present obligations do not provide the healing momentum needed to beat the odds. One needs uplifting goals to attain and feel as though they have a purpose to fulfill, which further amplifies the positive emotions we discussed earlier.
As the book points out, this practice of keeping your energy moving forward for a fulfilling goal applies whether or not you received a cancer diagnosis.
What gets you out of bed each day? If you struggle to formulate your why, we urge you to make an ongoing list of all that you wish to accomplish in this lifetime. Then, take one item on the list and make it your next goal!
While all these items may seem like common sense, sometimes, it’s the obvious that we overlook. If it isn’t obvious, we loved this book and docuseries! We highly recommend that you read and/or watch the collection of stories to inspire you, bring in healthy emotions, and reinforce your internal knowing that your body is capable of miracles!