Using Compassion And Love To Heal Our Bodies

Hello and welcome to the Love and Compassion podcast with Giselle.

We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world.

Today I'll be speaking to Savio P.

Clamante,

A TEDx speaker and stage 3 cancer survivor who embodies the journey from stumbling to soaring.

His experience battling cancer ignited a fire within him,

Shaping not only his character but also his mission.

Empowering aspiring leaders who have overcome medical adversity to unleash their full potential.

As a media journalist,

Savio covers inspiring stories of resiliency and wellness trends,

Collaborating with notable celebrity and TV personalities.

Through his best-selling book and impactful work,

He encourages individuals to love their inner stranger,

Rewrite their narrative,

And become unstoppable leaders.

Through his transformative Aloha reboot,

Savio,

A board-certified wellness coach,

Guides individuals towards living a truly healthy,

Wealthy,

And wise lifestyle.

At the core of his message echoes the profound truth,

To know thyself is to heal thyself.

Please join me in welcoming Savio.

Hi Savio!

Hi Giselle,

Thank you so much for that lovely intro.

So excited to be here.

So excited to talk about all the things that you described,

So thank you.

Yes,

Thank you,

Thank you so much for being on the show.

I was wondering if you could start by sharing with them what got you started on this journey.

Unfortunately,

It was cancer.

It showed up in my life in July of 2014.

And from that experience,

I decided I had two options.

One,

I could be defined by the diagnosis,

Even though I'm in remission,

Or I could actually use it as a source of healing and empowerment for not only myself,

But for other people.

I can delve a little deeper into that story,

But that's the impetus of the work that I do and why I feel so passionate and grateful being able to do the stuff that I'm doing.

That's beautiful.

And I saw from your talk that your cancer journey was about four months,

About four months long,

Which seems pretty amazing,

Considering the people that I have known,

Who have had that journey,

Usually say it's,

It could be quite a lengthy journey.

What do you think helped you really turn the corner after such a short time?

I'm sure it was a difficult time.

I don't want to diminish that,

The four months,

But I'm just wondering if you could share with the audience what helped you really get to the path to healing.

You know,

Mentioning that particular timeframe,

I often am very cautious because it looks to others like I'm bragging or that I'm saying that I discovered a secret that they didn't discover.

But for me,

I think what helped me was a few things.

So before cancer came into my life,

I've always been on an exploration of just learning and growing as a person.

I grew up Catholic.

I was an altar boy.

I went to Catholic elementary school.

And somewhere along time in college,

I discovered that there was other secrets or other things that I wanted to learn,

Other things that I wanted to get my hands on or experience for myself.

And so for me,

I discovered or researched things like Buddhism to spiritualism.

And I wanted to understand that.

And when cancer came at that time,

I was a longtime meditator.

I was meditating,

Started out with like a minute or two a day,

And then it was about 20 minutes a day.

So I think that helped me to a large part.

My care team.

So the way cancer showed up into my life was that I went on a trip with a friend to Amsterdam,

Paris and London.

I had deep night sweats.

I thought that was really odd.

I came back to the States,

Night sweats,

Then my stomach started getting stented.

At that point,

I ended up seeing a naturopath who I saw for a good eight years in a row.

He would analyze my blood,

Tell me what vitamins to take,

What structure,

What food structures to eat and whatnot.

And he said,

This is really odd.

It could be a whole bunch of things here.

Savio,

I suggest you get a sonogram.

And I'm like,

A sonogram?

He's like,

Yeah.

I'm like,

Okay.

So I get a sonogram.

They wouldn't let me leave the office.

And they told me to have a relative come pick me up.

And I was like,

That's odd because I have my own car.

But my dad came,

Took me to the hospital.

And within an hour and a half,

They admitted me to the fifth floor.

And then within the next day,

I heard nurses talking that they would transfer me to the seventh floor,

Which they call the cancer floor.

So that's when I found out I had cancer.

And so I made a decision in that moment.

A flash of insight came to me from a movie back in the day.

And I tell the story all the time.

I think it's very important is that there was a movie with Keanu Reeves called Little Buddha back in the early nineties.

He played Siddhartha.

He played the little Buddha who gave up all his worldly possessions.

He was meditating with two other ascetics.

And he overheard two individuals on a fishing boat,

One older,

One younger.

The older person had a instrument in his hand and told the younger person,

If you hold the string too tight,

It will snap.

And if you leave it too slack,

It won't play.

The path is the middle way.

And that was like,

Wow.

And so the medical director said to me,

If you don't do your first round of chemo,

I don't know where you'll be.

Even though a friend of mine said to me,

Are you sure you want to go down this path?

Because chemo ravages the body,

The good and the bad.

And so I said,

Well,

The middle way is the path for me.

And so I tell this story because I think that helped me as well.

So I did six rounds of chemo every three weeks.

In between that,

I did a whole bunch of integrated modalities from ozone therapy to energy medicine,

To the black seed oil,

To putting a Google alert on my phone so I can learn about the cancer in general.

So I think that was it.

And I think also was the belief somewhere along the way that,

And I echo this in my talk,

Is to know thyself is to heal thyself.

So I found that my physical body was dying,

But I found that the other parts of me were still alive.

My emotional sectors where I was really alive and caring and understanding and empathetic,

Even with other people who would come in and out.

I had four roommates,

Two of them had brain cancer.

I was empathetic to their needs.

My relationships with my family and friends were still heightened.

My mental body was still there.

I was still Googling and researching.

My dreams were very vivid.

And so I think allowing myself to grasp or grab onto that person who was dying allowed me profound depth insight into realizing that this is the reality and I can't shake this reality.

What I can do is make a choice on how I want to deal with the reality.

Yeah.

Beautiful.

Thank you for sharing that.

And I think it makes,

You make an important point that I think people should choose what feels right for them in terms of what their journey is going to look like.

And so I think that's great.

What decision did you make at that time,

Like in terms of how you were going to live your life and how did that lead to the work you're doing now?

Yeah.

So I,

This is a tough one,

Because I,

My family and friends were all,

You're going to handle this fine.

If someone can handle it,

You can,

Even though it's stage three,

They're like,

We got no problem.

We're totally confident in you.

And although I appreciated their trust in me or their expectancy in how I'm going to handle this in me,

There was a lot of pressure.

And so I decided to just focus like a laser beam on the healing and I let everything else in my life go.

Fortunately for me,

Doing those integrated modalities,

I think helped stave off any of the negative side effects.

I was still working out six days a week.

I was eating well.

I was still meditating.

I was doing,

You know,

Work as much as I could.

I only had a little bit of lethargy.

And I think with all that,

The decision that I make was to,

It's not over until it's over.

And even though I felt healthier as every infusion proceeded,

My oncologist was very clear.

He's like,

We need to go through the whole protocol and then see what happens.

And so for me,

The story goes that in four and a half months of six rounds of chemo plus integrated modalities,

I ended up getting my remission status five days before Christmas that same year.

And this past December of 2023,

It's been nine years of remission.

Wow.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

Yeah.

And so how is it that that journey helped you get to the point where you are helping leaders overcome their medical adversity and then kind of really step up into their own power?

Sure.

So after five years of being in remission,

I said,

Okay,

I want to do something with this.

I didn't know what it was,

What it would look like.

A little background information about me.

I studied IT.

I did a lot of project management and IT and software.

Com and all the good stuff,

But I never really loved it.

Then I teamed up with a group of people.

We did some TV production as well.

That was interesting to me.

But after five years,

I said,

I need to do something with what just happened to me.

And so I decided to get my board certification in wellness coaching.

It's the same certification that it's given by the NBME,

Which is the National Board of Medical Examiners.

It's a serious test.

And I remember taking it four and a half hours of really focused and concentrated because I wanted to make sure that if I'm going to do this,

I'm going to do this right.

And I'm going to be going to be there and create the container and be able to give what I need to give.

My writings were still there.

So I pitched a topic to my editor on my community,

Cancer Survivor Community,

And he thought of a great title.

So we launched an interview series called I Survived Cancer.

Here's How I Did It.

And at this point,

I've interviewed 200 cancer survivors.

It then became a subsequent book.

I took 35 of the stories,

Told my own.

And one day before my birthday,

Became a bestseller in four categories.

So the work that I do is really about individuals with medical adversity,

Whether it's cancer or not,

Allowing them to just own their story because no one can take away their story.

And in order for someone to follow you,

If you're a leader,

You need to walk the walk and talk the talk.

And so I made it a mission and a point of mind to do that.

Wonderful.

Can you tell me a little bit about some of the stories that people share in the book in terms of maybe stories of resiliency or compassion or even even some miracles and magic maybe?

Yeah,

So a few stories.

So a story of resilience is this one individual in the book.

He was a finance guy and he had stage four pancreatic cancer.

It's not a good diagnosis to have,

But he was told he has two to 4% chance of living or surviving.

And he's like,

Wait,

I'm a finance guy.

Why do I have to be the 98 to 96% who don't make it?

Why can't I be the one who makes it?

So it was growing,

But he made it.

So that's number one.

Another story of an individual named Rob Paulson.

He's a voice actor.

Hollywood,

He's done Animaniacs,

Pinky and the Brain.

And he had throat cancer,

Which was a double-edged sword because it affected,

It was cancer,

But it affected his livelihood,

What he loved to do,

Which is voices.

They told him,

Rob,

We're going to have to kill you before we can cure you.

And so he used what he knows best,

Which is humor in order to get through it.

And he's still working in Hollywood now.

He says food is no longer something that's luxurious to him.

He only eats to maintain a certain level of health,

But he's still alive and he's able to do what he needs to do and spread the word.

And then probably the third one would probably be a model,

A former model who took her pain and turned it into purpose.

And her story's really amazing to me because she said before cancer came into her life,

Everything was about the visual.

And when she no longer had the visual,

She had breast cancer.

Then she realized her identity had to shift in some way.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Thank you for sharing that.

How does this all fit with the profound truth you share about to know thyself is to heal thyself?

How has knowing yourself really led to you towards your path of healing?

So in my talk,

Which is called Seven Minutes to Wellness,

How to Love Your Inner Stranger,

I actually did the talk this past October in Raleigh,

North Carolina.

And I use an acronym in the talk and it's called the Aloha Reboot.

And basically it stems from a healing in Hawaii called Huna Healing.

And from that,

There's an offshoot called Ho'oponopono.

And that basically just means self-forgiveness and self-compassion.

And so A stands for acknowledgement.

Acknowledge where you are in the present moment.

Don't pretend.

L stands for listen.

So listen to that inner voice.

So in Huna Healing,

They talk about talking to different parts of your body.

It sounds odd,

And I don't expect people to do this in public,

But in the privacy of your own home,

Speak to those areas.

There's a concept that I use called the three brains,

The head,

Heart,

And gut.

And so speak to those areas because they hold a lot of wisdom and understanding.

There's consciousness between those areas of the body.

O stands for opening.

So open yourself up to that self-compassion and self-forgiveness.

A very major point,

Because after doing 200 cancer survivors,

That was the thread line that I kept seeing over and over again,

That they had to forgive and have compassion for not only others,

But for themselves as well.

H stands for harnessing.

So harness that wisdom from within.

And A is very simple.

Act on that purpose with intention.

And so for me,

The whole combination of that is that ancient saying that I heard a long,

Long time ago,

Which is to know thyself is to heal thyself.

It's always an inside job.

I mean,

The doctors do what they do,

But you can't control a test.

A test is a test is a test.

But what you can control is how you feel about it.

You can't control how you think about it.

You can't control how you react to it.

You can't control how you.

.

.

And I'm not saying it's easy to do that.

We need tools.

We need resources,

Breathing,

Meditation,

Yoga,

Exercising,

Going out in nature,

Journaling,

Singing,

Humming,

Chanting,

Whatever works for you is whatever you need to do.

But that's the main thing that I always tell people.

So it follows some of the teachings of Yogananda,

Which is self-realization,

Said to know what's going on in your internal universe is to know what's going on in your external world.

Thank you so much.

Beautifully said.

Let's talk about forgiveness and talk about the I always pronounce this wrong,

Hoponopono.

Like it's a practice I've used myself,

And it's amazing how powerful it is.

Do you know the history of it?

The history of hoponopono?

No,

I don't know the full history of hoponopono.

The way that I had to be very careful in how I described hoponopono in the TEDx talk,

Because when it comes to health and wellness,

They're very keen on not presenting a lot,

Because it has to be science backed.

And so I wanted people to just touch their dip their toe into that practice.

So I didn't even talk about the repetitive affirmations that people say,

Because you have to be sort of very careful in how you disseminate information to the public,

Because they speak to a larger audience.

But I don't.

If you could enlighten me,

That'd be great.

Yeah,

Apparently,

If I'm correct,

And please,

Any of my audience,

If I am wrong,

Please clarify.

So my understanding was that this was a medical practitioner who decided to treat people that were criminally insane,

But he actually never physically treated anyone,

He treated their files.

And so this was a,

It's like,

I guess,

A psychiatric ward that was really not working well.

It was very toxic.

There was a lot of danger,

A lot of violence.

And this individual actually used that hoponopono and actually did it through the files.

And one by one,

People started healing,

They started getting better,

The violence decreased,

The ward became more calm.

And so it's amazing how powerful intention is how,

How powerful forgiveness,

How powerful it is to do these practices.

And so how did you come across that Hawaiian practice?

Yeah,

So I,

The hoponopono was actually I stumbled it by accident.

I think algorithms with social media are wonderful,

Because they,

I mean,

Okay,

Wonderful in a,

In a sense,

Yeah,

Of course.

Yeah.

Because they can be a little,

A little too icky sometimes.

But I know about HUNA healing from just my studies in general of different healing modalities,

Because I often tell people all the time,

Even though I'm a board certified wellness coach,

And I believe in the medical profession and medicine is wonderful and great.

Healing doesn't always occur in those dimensions.

It doesn't occur always in a doctor's office or a chemo bed.

It occurs in mysterious ways that we have to search and find and know and unearth and release and catch and,

And let go of.

And I was just on a search of just healing in general,

I just I made it my mission.

It was like a laser beam of focus.

I was I didn't let anything deter me from that focus.

And so I just feel like in order to help another,

You have to help yourself.

And so I'm like,

If I get through this,

Then maybe I can help other people.

And so I'm,

I'm doing the work.

Yeah,

For sure.

How did forgiveness actually help you in your healing journey?

Well,

Brene Brown would have a field day with this.

So cancer for me showed up in many different ways.

And it's a little bit of what I talk about in the title of my talk,

Which is to love your inner stranger.

So the stranger was Savio dying,

Physically dying stage three.

And I had to come to terms with shame and vulnerability,

Which is two areas of my life that I tried to keep locked away or hidden because I,

I was that guy who was very independently minded.

I come from two other siblings,

They're both female.

We're all three years apart.

And I just was just one of those people that just did did my own thing.

And so I had to rely on other people to help me dad to pick me up from a six hour chemo session.

Mom,

I lost 12 pounds,

I was in the hospital for 15 days,

I was bedridden for a week,

I lost 12 pounds.

She's like,

No,

No,

No,

We got to fix this problem.

And so she fed me really,

Really well.

And I just had to rely on other people to believe in me,

Not to not to overly assume things,

But to believe in my ability to see and to understand that this is happening.

I don't know what the reason I don't know what the cause of the effect is.

But I do know how I'm going to respond to it.

And the response was a way for me to unearth some of the garbage that I was holding on to or some of the baggage that I was not letting go of.

And so that's how that aspect showed showed up in my life.

Thank you.

Thank you for that.

Let's talk about self compassion,

And how how much self compassion is needed doing a healing journey.

I think it's extremely needed because I can cop to it.

I am.

I think being a coach and being a journalist,

You have to meet people where they are.

And I'm very good at that.

Like,

I'm extremely kind to other people.

But to myself,

I'm very hard on myself.

And even through cancer,

I was very hard on myself.

I wasn't blaming myself,

But a part of me just felt like shame,

Like I brought this upon me,

Or this is something that I created through icky thinking.

And so self compassion in my life shows up in ways where I just allow myself to appreciate where I'm at.

I don't have to be there tomorrow.

I don't have to be there in six weeks.

It'd be great if I'm there.

And I'm doing the work to get there.

But I can allow myself to just be truly focused.

And people use the word presence all the time.

And I think that's an easy word to throw out into the world.

But it's very difficult to be present when you're someone like myself,

Who always tries to see the bigger vision and coaching,

We call the vision,

Not the goal.

But the vision is how you want to be how you want to feel when you see yourself fully being yourself.

And so I use things like putting my feet on the ground and feeling where that is being in nature,

Breathing things of that nature.

Why do you think that having that inner critic is so predominant,

Especially in today's society?

I think we're people historically have been taught to be critical of one another.

And there is that misconception about compassion sort of being weak.

What about for men in particular?

What sort of messages did you receive about compassion?

And what do you think sort of really reinforced your belief about the inner critic?

I love that you brought the inner critic out,

Because people often say,

Oh,

When you talk about inner stranger,

You mean the inner critic?

No,

I don't mean the one that's pounding on you.

The inner stranger could be anything.

For me,

It showed up as the vulnerable,

Shameful person.

For other people,

The stranger to them is someone that they haven't fully seen their eyes.

For people who believe in Buddhism,

The inner stranger is a past life that they haven't fully unearthed or tried to work through the karma that's there.

And so when it comes to my understanding and what I try to sort of see as the inner stranger,

The inner critic,

Especially when it comes to men's work,

And I've attended a men's retreat,

It actually was right before COVID.

I was invited to the Catskills.

And it's my first time with a group of men,

18 of them.

And it was so refreshingly amazing.

I'm not even kidding you.

We did something called eye gazing with another man staring at their eyes.

Wow,

That's amazing.

Not as like,

Who's going to flinch,

But as just from love in a compassionate way.

And it was transformative.

I couldn't even believe that happening.

Then to add to that,

We put our hands on each other's hearts and did the gazing at the same time.

And then to be in an environment where men were just not performing or thinking that they had to be masculine,

But just be and exist as souls having the experience in the moment was amazing.

And so I think historically,

I can just speak for the culture that I'm Indian,

So I can speak a little bit about that culture as well.

It's getting better.

But growing up,

My dad used to use the word,

Got to be a man,

You got to be a man.

And men in Indian culture are extremely revered in most Asian cultures they are.

And so there was a lot of pressure put upon me when I was really,

Really young.

And so now moving forward in America and seeing it,

I think it's gotten better.

I think men are able to speak about it.

Mental health is the big topic that's now happening.

COVID brought that out in positive and negative ways.

I think just generally,

I think we need to look at each other as people having an experience in the human form.

And I think once we do that,

We're allowed to just let the other stuff that's binding us or holding us back.

It's just fruitless energy and wasteful energy.

Yeah,

Thank you so much for sharing that.

I love that you shared that experience.

I definitely think that experience should be expanded and everyone really kind of participate in that,

Especially men,

Because I think that we've done our young men a disservice,

I think,

By forcing them to subdue their emotions.

And by only allowing really anger to be the only acceptable emotion,

We really have harmed our boys.

And I was thinking about this too,

In terms of even,

Even the whole kind of sexual relationship,

You know,

We wonder why we're kind of in the state that we are.

But really,

The only closeness we've allowed men to have is sexually,

Right?

We wonder why there's so much rape,

And there's so much all of these assaults and stuff,

But really,

We haven't really encouraged men to seek comfort and connection in any other way.

And so I think it's great that now we are moving away from that and shifting towards removing those and really allowing men to focus on loving themselves,

Being compassionate towards themselves,

Really tapping into those needs,

Right?

Tapping into the need for affection and hugs and being vulnerable.

And so I think that's great,

And it's important.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And thank you for even mentioning that,

Because I think just even what you're saying,

It seems like historically,

It's also about what can you do in the physical?

Like what can men do?

Can you play a game in the physical?

Can we roughhouse in the physical?

Can we play football in the physical?

What about expressing our needs and our desires emotionally?

What about expressing what we are sensing and feeling?

What about expressing those things?

And I think that dialogue needs to be expanded.

I know when I went to the men's retreat,

It was marketed as because of the Me Too movement,

Men have to rise up.

They have to get better.

And I just really went out of more curiosity than not,

But it was revelatory because they had these sessions where men were crying.

Literally,

Write a story to your dad.

Write the story that you would love to tell if you could actually have the courage to tell it.

And there was just wonderful insights that came out of that experience.

Breath work where guys were going full on trauma.

And so of course,

This has to be facilitated by individuals that know what they're doing.

Fortunately,

It was facilitated by someone who knew what he was doing.

But to me,

Just witnessing that was just an amazing opening.

And I think the messaging around we have to change and we really have to tap in and to find that inner child within,

I think it also has to come from men as well.

Historically,

I have heard that all of these things like loving yourself and being compassionate are very feminine traits.

But it's not true.

I think everyone's got a masculine and feminine perspective,

Right?

We've all got both of these things.

And I think we need to kind of shift away from naming it masculine,

Feminine,

And really just say it's a human thing.

It's a human thing to want to belong.

It's a human thing to need to acknowledge our own difficult feelings.

It's a thing.

But I definitely see the merit in having men teach that sort of work.

Yeah.

Well,

What was also refreshing about that group was,

And it was all about the inner work,

This is my world,

Was also about individuals saying,

I didn't want to express that side of me because I didn't want people to think I was gay,

Which was,

It's a very honest,

It's a very honest thing to say.

It's extremely honest.

But why is painting your nails or thinking that you're why is that something to not be seen as something positive,

Right?

That's the larger question there.

The larger question is not about you want your nails painted,

Have your nails painted.

The larger question is how do you see yourself in that context,

Right?

And why is that triggering for you?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so thank you for sharing that because I think right now we have,

I feel,

A culture,

I do,

I do think this is changing that it's like people are very eager to cancel one another without hearing each other out.

And I think that's a genuine,

It's a genuine fear that people have,

Whether we perceive it right or wrong.

And like you said,

It doesn't make sense to me either.

It doesn't make sense what color nails you,

You color,

Like boys can wear tiaras and have fun with that.

The same as girls could wear different things that we have perceived as men.

It really doesn't matter.

But I think these are genuine fears that people have,

And that's really preventing them from connecting with themselves because they think,

Oh,

Then people are going to think this or that of me.

But by having these conversations,

We are beginning to uncover that and say,

Hey,

These thoughts,

Okay,

There's a genuine fear for you.

That's okay.

Work through it so that you can then connect with your inner self so that things can finally change.

But without having difficult conversations with ourselves and other people,

We're not going to be able to help each other get there,

Which is the real challenge.

Navigating this in the world of different cultures,

As well as different people's perspectives.

So you mentioned that self-compassion in the forgiveness was a theme throughout all those different people.

What other themes did you find among the stories?

I would probably say when it comes to just cancer in general,

It's this idea that it doesn't have to be a death sentence.

It was just over and over again that you can be one of the ones that are surviving and living and thriving and doing what you can from the experience that happened to you.

Another theme that really caught my attention was this idea that you can rely on community to help you through this.

So I didn't.

So I'm the first one to admit it.

I didn't.

But other people use their friends and families as scribes in their doctor's appointments,

Use them and gave them certain jobs to do because they just didn't want them to keep asking them about how you're doing,

How you're doing.

It was more about how can you help me be the best I can be in this moment in time?

And I think probably the third thing also was this.

And this was a prevailing thing where people saw you as less than because you had cancer.

So there was a feeling it wasn't said and no one said it,

But it was this feeling.

And so it was about reframing that idea.

So,

For example,

For me,

I instead of seeing the chemo as as this horrible thing,

I reframed it as an elixir,

As something that was there for me,

That was going to give me the source of life that I was looking for.

So and I that's what I chose to do.

So every infusion session,

Six hours long,

I did that and allowed myself to allow that medicine to come into my life and not resist what was what it was doing.

I think you said some really key things.

Number one was really the focus on like envisioning,

Like meaning that you have to really and you had mentioned this,

The fact that you didn't waiver,

You have to see yourself beyond it.

And so when I was reading a book about the Holocaust,

They were talking about the people that made it out were people that were able to see their life beyond that circumstance.

So I think that's really key.

And I love that the reframe that you used around around experiences,

Because so often we resist the things in our lives and cause us most suffering.

In your case,

You decided to take something that people had said is toxic and do all these things and say,

You know what,

I'm choosing to experience this in a very positive way.

And you said you had very little side effects and then you know,

Other than sleeping and so on.

And so if we choose to perceive everything as an opportunity and as a as a as a positive,

Are we then opening up to the potential of experiencing it in a positive way rather than in a negative way?

And of course,

This is very easy for me to tell you this,

Giselle,

10 years later,

Almost at the time,

Obviously,

I was just doing what I needed to do.

I was reacting to the situation because it was fast and furious.

I had no choices.

The hospital,

Seventh floor,

Cancer,

Bedridden,

Chemo,

Like it just went fast and furious.

I had no time to deliberate or to think about it.

So this is easy.

I guess people listening might be like,

Well,

This is easy 10 years later.

Even at the time,

Though,

I knew that there was a rhythm happening,

That there was a connection.

Why?

Why was I on the seventh floor with all these other people?

What's the connection there?

Why is this happening to me in my life?

Or not only that,

But how can I find a way to get myself out of the situation?

What do I need to do?

What do I need to see?

What do I need to experience?

What do I need to let go of?

What I need to embrace?

And I asked those hard questions of myself throughout that whole journey.

Maybe in hindsight,

It could have been a little easier if I added a bit of community to it.

But that's not what I chose to do.

I knew it was my challenge.

I felt it was a cross,

My own cross to bear.

And I felt that was the only one who could get myself out of this mess.

Because as a YS friend once said to me,

Just because you created it means that you can also uncreate it.

So the choice is yours.

And so that's what I decided to do.

I think that's very important.

Because you know,

And I don't want people to think that it's their fault.

People consciously don't choose that.

However,

They do have power.

And I think that's what you're alluding to that people do have power.

Can you talk a little bit about life post?

Because I think most of the stories seem to end there,

Which is like,

Okay,

I'm in remission,

Whoop-dee-doo,

Right?

So what is life for most people in terms of post of the stories you shared?

And how can people choose to live a life not to focus on their whole identity being surviving cancer rather than it being one chapter out of a very,

Very beautiful book of their life?

So a lot of people,

It's controversial,

Say that cancer,

They would never define it,

Even for myself as a blessing,

But more of as an opportunity.

So a lot of people from the book,

The Hollywood voice actor is still doing his craft.

Another person had her documentary in on Netflix,

Another person just did a movie,

Another person just,

You know,

Built a business.

So a lot of stuff has happened in their lives.

I can speak for my own self,

Cancer opened up a whole new world.

So a lot of stuff has happened in my life.

And I have to say,

If it wasn't for cancer,

None of it would have happened.

Maybe something else would have come into my life that I could be this energized and this passionate and this full hearted about,

Because I really believe for me,

If I can empower other people to see beyond the adversity that has happened in their life,

Then maybe they can find a glimmer of hope to allow others to see that as well and thus become leaders in their own right.

Beautifully said,

Beautifully said.

Going back to the Aloha part,

The last part is action.

Can you talk a little bit about,

Do you mean just like grinding it out?

Or do you,

What kind of action are you talking about?

I'm talking about inspired action.

So we can all act,

We can all do something,

We can write something on our to-do list and actually do it.

I'm talking about actually put your full self into that particular action.

And it's not easy.

It's not like,

Oh,

I'm going to say hello to five people today and get out of my shell.

For some people who are extroverts,

That's probably easy.

I'm an introvert who's an extrovert when I need to be,

Like right now.

And so I'm talking about things that move the needle in your own way.

So things that not only are prudent to do or that make sense intellectually,

But things that move you from a soulful perspective or an emotional perspective or even long-term perspective.

So action just really inspired action really,

To me,

Just means this idea.

And it was one of my trainings from Dr.

Siegelman at the University of Pennsylvania,

Where he talked about gratitude.

This idea of gratitude is wonderful,

Making lists.

But what really makes it even more potent is why did the thing that you wrote down happen?

So for example,

I'm grateful for my car.

Well,

Why are you grateful for your car?

Because I saved really hard and I bought,

Let's say,

The car of my dreams.

It adds a level of savoriness to it.

It adds a level of just saying,

Oh,

I actually accumulated that.

I actually made that happen in my life.

So that's what I mean by inspired action,

Taking those types of steps.

I love that you said that.

I was just thinking about one of the things I say often is I'm grateful for my children.

And as you were saying,

I'm like,

OK,

But why am I grateful for my children?

I'm like,

Oh,

They get me.

They allow me to be a parent.

I learn from them.

They get me to remind me of joy,

Of the,

You know,

The funnest sometimes that I forget about.

And so now that's amazing.

Thank you for that.

That's wonderful.

My daughter and I were talking the other day about how do we know when it's like inspiration from your soul or spirit versus something coming out of your mind and very fear based.

And I'm curious as to what your answer would be.

I would say both are valid,

But I say that if you feel like the tinge or the impetus is to go with things that are more soulful,

Ask yourself that question,

Like write it down,

Create that particular document or that particular list and figure out for yourself,

Like move into your head,

Heart and gut and see which one is paying to you at the time,

Because it's a lot of anecdotal research,

But says that we make decisions through emotions first,

Not intellectually.

So we buy through our emotions.

We go to the grocery store and buy a brand because we feel a certain type of way about how that brand makes us feel or what that brand has done for us.

So I would say inventory list and ask yourself those deeper questions and just not,

It doesn't,

And the answer doesn't have to be right away.

It could take some time.

I think the other thing also,

Which is really interesting,

Is that when it comes to making long laxing decisions,

I think all of us would lean more towards things that make us feel a certain way.

But sometimes we need to make rational decisions.

Like if I get into a car accident,

I need to make a rational decision.

I can't just like go on my guttural emotion and be like,

Why the hell did you just like bump into me?

It's an accident.

It happens.

You know,

What I was thinking about when you were talking was about the difference between when I get inspiration from like spirit,

Which sometimes doesn't make sense versus when it comes from my mind,

Right?

So sometimes I'm guided to do certain things that I don't always know what the outcome is going to be or what the purpose of that is.

But if I follow it,

There's usually something amazing that happens at the end.

But sometimes like my mind will talk me out of it.

Well,

It doesn't make sense.

Why are you doing that?

What's,

What's the point of that?

Like,

And so that's where when the two conflict,

Well,

First of all,

I don't do anything.

I pause until I have greater clarity.

And the second thing is,

Is I will be more likely to go with my heart and gut than,

Than what my,

My little mind has to say.

I find sometimes it can be fear-based.

Yeah,

100%.

And it actually reminds me of Star Wars.

What did Yoda say?

He would end every conversation with,

Let me meditate on it.

Or he would say something,

Something to that effect.

So I think the key there is obviously the,

You know,

The,

The word discernment,

But also when it comes to messages or pings,

People call it download.

Now there's all these words for it.

I think it's great to have them because that's a spark of inspiration,

Creativity,

A spark of insight,

A spark,

A stroke of genius,

As they say.

But I think the key there is to filter it down and see if there's any greater,

Deeper meaning to it.

That's when you know,

It comes from a more profound or a wisdom-centered space is when you can actually find proof and evidence for that particular insight that you got.

Going back to what you had mentioned about meditation,

What do you tell your clients when they say that they have a hard time meditating and that maybe that's not such a good thing for them?

I tell them,

I tell them,

Let's not call it meditation.

Let's quiet,

Let's,

Let's call it quiet time.

So let's call it mirror time.

Let's call it coffee break.

Meditation doesn't have to be so serious.

I know,

And you know,

There are certain things that allow meditation to foster and to become stronger.

There's things like positioning,

Lotus position.

There's things like listening to music,

Not listening to music,

Chanting the OM,

Saying the I am,

Humming,

Doing all these different things,

Breathing exercises.

And those are wonderful and great.

But I think when it comes to someone who just feels like they want to get a benefit of tapping into their own inner wisdom or tapping into the sea of energy,

Whatever you call that energy,

God,

Jesus,

Buddha,

Krishna,

I don't care.

If you want to tap into it,

The first thing is to be okay with being with yourself.

And most people are just not.

And that's one thing that I feel really privileged as someone who grew up in the Northeast in New York and went to,

I went to,

I lived in the suburbs,

But I went to school in the city.

I was comfortable eating by myself and doing things by myself.

I love spending time with myself,

Not a problem at all.

But if you can't even do that first,

Then you will find meditation very hard because you have to be really baseless in terms of nothing else interfering with you and that other person,

That other energy that's trying to get your attention in life.

And another thing I just really wanted to say about when you asked that question that came to me,

And I'm going to rephrase it because it was very powerful when I heard it,

Was this idea of not rejecting a truth when you found error into it.

And I know for myself,

If I find error in something,

I'm going to reject the truth,

Right?

But the truth is expanding and growing,

And there's errors in every sort of truth.

You find new truth in new truth.

And so if you find that happening to you,

Then you need to just have more compassion and understanding for where that person is.

It doesn't mean that it has to filter to your own knowingness.

It just is part of the understanding possibilities.

Mm hmm.

And I love that you said that,

Because I think people have a misunderstanding about compassion.

Compassion means that we know sometimes right.

And then,

You know,

We're trying to help other people.

And then when they don't take our help,

We're like get frustrated.

And so I think,

You know,

One of our definitions of compassion here is allowing things to be and just,

You know,

With unconditional love.

And so I think that that fits quite well.

And actually,

Going back to my next questions,

What's your definition of unconditional love?

So I grew up in a culture where my parents showed me love in so many other ways than what is considered normalized.

So they didn't say I love you.

You talked about hugs,

Rarely that happened,

Except for like,

You know,

Religious occasions.

And so when it comes to unconditional love,

And it's a it's a work in progress for me,

I can be really honest about it.

Because I tried to I tried to implement this idea of,

Of this concept in Buddhism about the empty pot,

The empty mind.

And I come into conversations and with people with that perspective,

It's hard.

But when it comes to unconditional love,

I'm always challenged by my own barriers with it by my own history with it by my own leanings or yearnings for it.

So I would really define unconditional love in my lens and my experience as the ability to allow others to see you.

Love that.

Wow,

Thank you so so much for sharing your wisdom with us and for being with us today.

And please join us for another episode of the loving compassion podcast with Giselle.

See you soon.

Bye.

Thanks,

Giselle.

Bye.