148.Facing Cancer Empowered with Dr. Paul S. Anderson the author of “Cancer… The Journey from Diagnosis to Empowerment.”

Dr. Paul Anderson with us who helps us in the area

of cancer and other health matters. He is our nationally

recognized expert and educator and clinician with decades of

experience with cancer and other complex chronic illnesses. And

he was part of the human of the US National Institutes of

Health, the trials that were done there. And he oversaw

research into integrative therapies for cancer patients,

is a co author of a few books, including outside the box cancer

therapies and success breakthroughs with jack

Canfield. But his current book we're going to be talking about

today is specifically about cancer. It is called cancer, the

journey from diagnosis to empowerment, we Welcome to

Beyond adversity, Dr. Paul Anderson. Welcome, Paul.

Thanks so much for having me.

It's awesome to have you here today on our

podcast, where we're looking to deal with matters that get

people stuck in life. And one of the things that will stop people

in their tracks is when they hear the words, you've got

cancer. And I got a feeling that you've either experienced some

adversity and either in your own life or certainly seen that when

you've had to be with people in those positions. But I'd like to

first start with your story about some maybe some some

adversity or some pivoting points that you've had, what got

you to the place where you found you just had to zero in on

cancer is zero in on this topic for this this book, what were

some turning points for you that tell you a little bit about your

story?

Yeah, you know, it's, it's, it's a rather

protac tracted lead up to this particular book. But the, the

high points really are. Early in, in my practice and career I

was doing very general family practice for for the most part.

And because I did a lot of, at the time, a lot of integrative

therapies that were around healing and helping people with

nutrients and other things, I started to have a lot of cancer

patients seek my help for healing after chemotherapy or

recovering after surgery and any number of things.

That was a long, long time ago. And what I found was, because

there was really almost nobody doing it, certainly in my area,

I started to just gather a lot of families who had cancer in

the family. And so one of the early points if go back 20 or 25

years was really this mass of the grief that goes around

dealing with people, you know, family units that are dealing

with cancer, because it is you know, with very, very rare

exceptions, nobody wants to get a diagnosis of cancer, as you

said, I mean, that's the last thing any of us want. So when

you're working with that, interpersonally that's a that's

a heavy load to take on. It's a really the first kind of turning

point, the first wake up call really was how do I deal with

that personally, how to, you know, how do I not just maintain

space, you know, with a patient, etc. But you're involved with

the cancer patient, their family members, their health,

everything? How do you keep a good perspective on that, and

yet still have a caring healing relationship. So that was really

a critical point A long time ago. And if you fast forward to

about, I believe, about 10 years ago, you mentioned the National

Institute of Health Study, I was part of a very large group, but

I ran one area that was in interventional area, meaning we

did things to patients. And one of the things that a five year

study does is it gives you time to look backwards. So when it

was all done, and we start writing things up that we found

and what worked, what didn't work. The other thing you start

doing is thinking about well, what's what do people have in

common? Who did better or worse beyond beyond medicine, you

know, what are their things that really affected them? So the

first book that was written called outside the box cancer

therapies is more a chronicle of the study and the years before

that the the NIH work, the what I call sort of the externalized

journey, what are you doing with your cancer in the years after

that, and the book came out the next real kind of critical

turning point was, I was doing a lot more mentoring of other

adults. doctors who are dealing with cancer patients. And I

started to see there was in this is not something I just

realized. But I started to see, one of the things that it people

have in common a better quality of life and often better outcome

with treatment and length of life is that they have done

something to move from the horrifying diagnosis of cancer,

to being an empowered person around their cancer diagnosis,

as opposed to say, a victim. And so that's really what led to

sitting down and saying, Okay, let's look back over 30 years,

and, you know, categorize, how did patients get from point A to

point B, in a better way, or a worse way in? And how could you

know, a book help people go through those steps. And, as

you've mentioned, it's very much about the person who has cancer,

but also those that love them and care for them. Because we

all go through the same thing. If you know, if I'm your friend,

and you develop cancer, and I want to be a supporter, I go

through very similar grieving process and all of that. So

really, that's what led to the book was, is there a way to make

this unfortunate but necessary process a little more doable, a

little more graspable by the vision.

So it sounds like you found these transition

points, both with your patients and possibly with yourself and

the other cancer doctors you were working with as well, there

was different levels of investment and so on with their

their patients and transformations that they had to

go through. You mentioned about how different people react

differently when they get that diagnosis. And some people

respond in a more healthy manner, and therefore have a

better prognosis. Let's talk about that for a second to what

are some what are some of the things that people do? What are

some of the actions that people that you've observed, have taken

that both on the negative side where they didn't do anything,

and both? And then on the positive side, where some, some

good things happened? Tell us why some people reacted to that

news.

Yeah, well, and that's, uh, you know,

stories are probably the best way to put flesh to things. And

that is, one thing we did in the book is I have a story of two

patients who were as far apart as you could be with this

journey, to kind of give it some give it some flesh to it. But

what I've seen, and I always tell people who may make this

point in the book, too, that of course, we all get to choose our

own way of dealing with things. And if somebody wants to do to

stay stuck and angry, that's their choice. But what I see as

far as better for your outcomes are, everybody starts out in the

same place now, because we're all individuals. And what I

often is people won't think about it maybe this way. But the

first thing that happens when you hear a bad diagnosis,

especially cancer diagnosis, is it connects with the parts of

your brain involved in fight or flight. And those connect with

memories of bad things that have gone on. Now, if one of those

bad things or a group of those bad things had to do with people

being very sick or dying of cancer having, you know, some

people have lived through this with family members. And it's

been horrific. You know, we all know people who've had pretty

devastating episodes and multiple people, their families,

and it, it can take you there immediately, you don't even know

you're going there. You just feel this overwhelming, you

know, grief and anger. So some people it that turns into anger,

some people it turns into denial, some people get

extremely depressed, and then there's, you know, every other

manifestation, but those are the big ones. So the important part

in how I start the book is that you first you need to know

that's not abnormal. That's how we're wired as human beings. The

trick then about it is the people who, in my judgment, do

this in the most negative way that doesn't turn out well. They

stay there and kind of marinate in those negative feelings and

emotions. And there's actually a feedback between the fight or

flight system of the nervous system and the, you know, the

dark memories and all of the stuff. And they are sort of to a

degree self soothe by their anger or their depression or

whatever. The problem is, is that then they stay in the role

of the victim and the cancers happening to them. They have

nothing to do with it. They may go to the doctor, the doctor may

do things for maybe friends that try and help them but they're

very stuck and they actually don't ever progress my

experiences. If If you follow that pathway, which is your

choice, but if you follow that pathway, your quality of life is

horrible. It's a very passive life resignation

approach. I call that the malaise of mediocrity or the

malaise of misery where people just choose to be stuck in that.

Yeah. And and that's, that's, that's an

excellent descriptor Malays. Because it's, yes, it's

comfortable to do that. And it makes us feel good sometimes to

feel, you know, angry or sad or whatever. But the the point of

what I saw with people who did it more on the positive, you

know, health giving side was, they would start there, but then

they would realize, look, I can't stay here, this is not

good for me to stay depressed or in, you know, denial or angry,

etc. The problem might be that they don't naturally have the

skills to say, Well, what in the world do I do to go to another

place? And so what as I kind of deconstructed my experience with

people over all those years, what I really looked at were

what, what are the stumbling blocks we go through, in getting

out of that hole first, and then getting to say, what is it I

have to deal with as, as a human and here, so I can just move

past this and keep stepping up, it's baby steps literally. And,

and as we all know, if if you're a loved one, have a patient with

cancer, you have the same experience, it's just going to

be different from a cancer patient, because you have

different memories, and you have different hang ups and all that.

Yeah, well, that's, it's fascinating, because, you

know, I'm, I'm a pastor for 40 years, and, and had been

privileged, I'll say, to be with people when they've had bad

diagnoses. And I've, in my own family, my own father died of

kidney cancer about three and a half years ago, and we got the

diagnosis about 10 years ago, and my route personally

devastating that was, but you do choose how you react to it. And

then I've also noticed when I've conducted funerals, that the

families and people you know, react differently, as well, and

there's, you know, healthy, life giving productive ways doing and

other ways to do it, as well. But I think there's some

commonality here, and I'm interested in some of the common

experiences you had people have succeeded in that, and

particularly, how when some folks call upon some power

greater than themselves, you know, some sort of a life force

a words of spirituality, or meditation or reading or some

people throw themselves into study, you know, they tried to

study everything there is to do but the topic, tell me about

people calling upon some power to give them strength greater

than selves, how that was a factor in recovery.

Yeah, I certainly would say in the, in

the, in the grand scheme, that that in one way or another fit

into every story of people moving forward. Now, in the

book, the way that I tried to write about that, because

because humans have such a broad experience of, you know, a

higher power or something other than themselves. I didn't want

to be, you know, too narrow in the way I described it. But I

give examples where I've seen people who had a particular

spiritual upbringing and background that they that was

that was good that resonate with that. And it actually the

realization that I can't stay here in this stuck angry place,

or whatever they were at, in the beginning, kind of reignited a

connection to that. And so they actually were able to go and

meet with a counselor or a pastor or somebody related to

their spiritual tradition, and it actually deepen that, that

connection that they had in a lot of ways. And that became, if

you will, sort of the skeleton around which they built a lot of

their recovery. Part of that it connects to what we were talking

about just a few minutes ago, which is, you, if you connect to

something like that something that's bigger than you, it's

easier to step out of the role of being a victim, and to

realize that you, you know, you're not alone here, you can

call on something other than you something bigger than just your

worries, to help you move forward. So, I definitely, I

definitely have seen that be a core with people. I've seen some

people where, as you said, some people intellectualize it a

little bit more, they, they'll read everything about their, you

know, type of cancer or about recovery or whatever, they're

reading a lot of people and there's a great deal of research

in this area A lot of people do either prayer practices or

mindfulness practices, things, you know, in that nature, just

to help recenter them and again, you know, not feel like they're

it's them against everything. And so some people people

yeah, I

think that that's a core with, with most people I've

seen what you've seen some commonality of those people who

practice some form of a calling upon, whether you call it God or

spiritual life or meditation or study, they've caught up on some

aspect of some force greater than themselves in order to have

some healing and some wholeness and to self care. self healing

is one of the things that you advocate, I know, taking some

charge of your own situation. So and, and to in my way, thinking

that's drawing on, that's a source of some power there, you

know, you got to, in order to heal in order to have wholeness.

You can't, you know, your body is breaking down, your spirit is

being attacked, and so on and so forth. You have in my mind, I'm

just sharing with you reflecting with you, that you need, you

just can't do it on your own. You know, that's what people say

why people go to the doctor, right? They go to the doctor,

because you can't, if you're sick, you can't figure it out on

your own.

Yeah. Yeah, it's and empowering to be able

to step to that place where they're where you're, you're

calling upon, you know, other information, whether it's, say a

doctor, or a helper or, or a higher power, you're, you're

really surrounding yourself with other positive things that can

take you, you know, through it, because, you know, we're not

meant to figure everything out on our own.

Well, let's talk about people now for a second,

let's talk about relationships. In this healing and wholeness

process, this aspect of self care, we've mentioned how it's

hard for people to really have healing and wholeness with do it

on their own and calling upon a higher power. But the power

that's right before us oftentimes is our spouse or

family or friends or co workers, sometimes people put it out

there in their network, you know, online and so on these

these things, they have sometimes develop a rapport with

their caregivers, I'll my I have a son who's a hospice worker for

us to set he, even if or during relatively short bouts of times,

he developed real rapport with the people he cares for. But

let's talk about that how these friends and family and

relationships I call it the fuel of overcoming adversity. But

there can be some times when it can be a hindrance as well, I

just like to just talk a little bit about the power and the

function of health of relationships, loving

relationships, particularly. Yeah.

Yeah, it's just just like, you know, having

others come in professionally or higher powers to call upon. We

exist in community. And whether that is a spouse or close

friends or network, or all of the above, rely on that group of

people for, you know, their input, their energy, their

lifting you up, et cetera. And one of the areas that we

specifically talk about in the book is, there are there are

better and worse relationships that we have, and some are just

naturally healing. And some can actually be toxic and very

negative. And when a person gets sick, that tends to accentuate

those, you know, you can have people and sometimes they're not

trying to be this way, but you can have an extremely negatively

oriented friend, loved one family member. And when you get

sick, it, it bothers them so much in here, reflecting the

negativity on you, which is not not a healing place to be the

way I talked about in the book. And what I've seen countless

times is you want to as much as you can gravitate towards

whoever in your group, you know, they're having a hard time

dealing with your diagnosis too. It's it's a two way street, but

those who feed you who you know, who are giving who engender a

healthy attitude, and lift you up when you're down or help you

through places. And most people have those folks in their lives.

And you actually do have to be a little careful with people who,

whether it's intentional or not, are on the negative toxic side,

because they literally will drag you down with them. It's It's so

important, others are,

are part of our world. That's why the reason I

call it the fuel of healing and hold us if you get bad fuel, or

if you get no fuel or so to speak, it's going to stall you

and I've seen it happen and obviously you're sharing the

usage and happen where those toxic relationships. This is

where I know You talk a lot about empowerment in your work.

And sometimes the empowerment piece has been making hard

decisions, isn't it about even those relationships and

celebrating and lifting up the good ones and maybe, you know,

limiting the toxic ones?

Yeah, it's it's, it's so critical, because

that fuel as you say, is you It really is what drives us or

stalls us out. Most people, not everybody, but most people try

to please those around them. And they try and put other people

first. And in all these things that many of us grew up hearing,

when you have something life threatening, like cancer, it's

hard to step into a role of saying, I have to protect myself

first. And if that means limiting exposure to certain

friends and family, you need to do that because, and that's not

being selfish. That's actually being kind to yourself,

I just wanna share with you a brief story from my

own experience to this point, I just reminded me that I just

wanted, I just want to share it. I mentioned in the past, one of

the persons I was a pastor to was a judge in the county that I

lived in, which meant, you know, he was involved with local

politics, and he said, people to jail and all kinds of stuff he

developed to share identities is what I'm getting at, we got a

diagnosis one of those terrible diagnosis of liver cancer, and

he literally was dead within eight weeks later, what I want

to make with you about is this relationship, he was on the

hospital for several weeks. And he called to his bedside in the

local hospital, literally over 100 people who were in his life,

good, who had good relationships and bad relationships. Some

people get sent to jail, some people have political foes and

so on. And he had a moment. And I was one of those people, we

had a moment with, wait a moment by his bedside, we had a healing

moment, he apologized to them. He made things right. In some

cases, there was even financial stuff involved. He made it right

with everybody. And what my point is, those relationships

were all restored, because he was very, very intentional about

healing those relationships and developing a good rapport and

those relationships. And I no one else has ever forgot that

gift he gave to everyone else. And I think these positive

relationships, especially those are the gifts that we can give

to others, whether we are helping that person who has to

cancer diagnosis, but in many times it's that person who has

cancer, who's given that gift to others. Have you seen that type

of thing happen? where a person who's sick has given the gift to

a

very Definitely, yeah, yeah, some of

the remarkable and uplifting stories that that I've seen and

reviewed in my mind before writing are actually people who

be so you're in a clinic setting. Sometimes there's

things people do together, such as they're all getting IV

treatments together something in a big room. So people develop a

lot of community in that in that respect, and there would be

definitely, people with cancer, maybe the person with the worst

cancer in the room, but they made everybody else feel better,

feel more grounded, feel more hopeful. in their life, they

were that way, they were actually the sick person and

quite ill. And they were just able to uplift those around

them, you know, and bring them close. And, and as you mentioned

with me, that's a pretty remarkable story with the judge.

But also he had a very short amount of time

what he knew at that time, and he but he did

something about it, he could have stayed in bed.

And but he did yeah, it's it's that being

proactive and, and there were definitely cases, especially

with those people I was talking about that just naturally Boyd

people up where they actually did reach out to family or

friends and just clear the slate you know, make amends or, or

talk it through or whatever. Be that's also being empowered, you

know, that's your, you're in charge of what's going on

regardless of your physical circumstances. You're, you're

going to do the right thing. Yeah,

it's an there's that word. Again, you've

mentioned it several times. I think it's a theme of your book

of empowerment, of taking charge of your own health in your own

situation. And I'd like for you to talk to our audience here for

a few minutes about some of those specific steps. I'm

talking about self discipline. So talking about habits,

practices, what are some things that people can do both in, you

know, in your physical health area, your mental health, your

emotional health, that people can do to say cancer, you will

not beat me, I'm going to take charge of my life, I'm gonna be

empowered.

I think that the first the first step is

realizing that you don't have to like anything about the

diagnosis that you have or the diagnosis your loved one has.

And you You also need to be able to realize and let go of the

fact that you start where you start, which is usually some

negative emotions. The important part as you move forward,

though, as you say, the discipline of it is waking up

literally every day. Because you're gonna wake up every day

and still have cancer in this case and say, even if the only

thing I do today is remember that I have a choice over how I

feel and react to the situations I'm in. I may have no choice

over how the cancer is going today or what medical treatment

I get or but I actually have a choice over how I process that

where how much power I give that where it sits in my life. That

is a very hard thing for most of us humans to do when we don't

feel well, because Are you normally we kind of tie how

we're feeling mentally with our body is doing. And sometimes it

cancer, that tie doesn't work very well. And so the biggest

thing is, and this is very critical, and it happens with

chronically ill people too, you may wake up most days, a you

still have cancer, but be you may not feel great, you may not

feel your former self divorcing yourself from that physical

feeling and saying, I still have a choice over how I am going to

be as a patient with cancer today. That's the first, second,

third and fourth and last steps. Everything else then flows from

that which is really working the muscles, whether they're

spiritual muscles, or mental, emotional or thought pattern

muscles, so that most of your day you are actually in charge

of those thoughts and empowered. And if you go to even you know,

there's a paper written even just a year ago now, about

empowerment with cancer. And it makes the point that when they

look in, they look back at a bunch of different studies

around empowerment. The key to empowerment and better outcomes

was not Did you have control over what your doctor did, or,

or what hospital you went to, or, you know, all the logistics

of your cancer life. The key was, did you feel that you had

self determination around that, and you were in charge of your

life, regardless of what circumstances game, those people

needed less pain medicine, their quality of life was better, and

usually their length of life was better as well. I think that

because that is very much not a native human human process to go

through, you know, because most of the time people feel well,

you got

to as you just met, you got to work out, you got to,

you got to exercise those muscles. And so that's why we

have your book and your resource to help people to exercise that

a little bit called cancer, the journey from diagnosis to

empowerment. And I'd like to conclude our conversation by

being very specific and very practical, pragmatic to the

person or persons out there who may be dealing with just this,

you know, I'm sure, tell us a story about someone had some

transition or turnaround in their life. That may be a good

example to others. You mentioned a couple already.

There's a number of stories, but there's a

particular woman who was about 63 years old, and I won't use

her name, but she had she was part of the research study. So I

got to know her really well, because I saw a number of times

a week and knew her family and everything. She started out not

not negative. she of course, was not happy. She had metastatic

cancer, but she was more bewildered, it was just you

know, gee, you know, where was it past choices I made that

brought me here. Was it other health habits? or How did I get

here? So she was just stuck in this kind of cycle of self blame

and other, you know, other negative things. And we would

talk about these things. And in her mind, and this, this is not

a quick thing with most people. But as we would talk about it,

and as she process through things, once she was able to

essentially step away from the idea that she had to figure out

the the question of why, why did this happen to me? Because we

often never know the answer to that. It was amazing to watch

her become free from that even their cancer didn't change. She

was still just a second everything else. But in her

case, that was the anchor to the past. And the negativity was she

had to figure out why. And she really should never would. Once

she stopped doing that she actually became so much more

bright, so much more generally positive. And she was a positive

influence on people all around her. In her particular case, it

was figuring out that she was trying to hold on to a question

she could never answer. And she when she got free of that she

was actually free to move forward. And essentially, with

almost everybody and I talked about different permutations of

the book, there's something it may not be that it may not be

self blame or whatever, but there's something holding them

from moving forward and divorcing from that is, is life

changing?

What's that freedom that you mentioned that release

that acceptance even when someone you know we all are

going to pass away, we're all gonna die eventually. So you

have to come to a point of acceptance. Those people will

have the freedom of that whether they recover or whether they

don't, are the ones who have a much joyous life and even their

impact on others is a good thing. So good stuff.

fascinating stuff. Dr. Paul Anderson if people want to be in

contact with you or learn more about how to get your book or

get on your website or connect up with you on the things that

you offer, how can how can folks do that?

So the book, easiest way is any online

bookseller Amazon, for example, or Barnes and Noble pals,

anybody in right now it's available either as a regular

paper version book or Kindle. And so any any online if they

just start to search cancer, the journey from it'll be the first

one that comes up usually. So the book is easy that way. Oh,

in modern times, what I've found as far as other ways to contact

social media seems to be more and more what people do so the

two outlets I have there that have links to a lot of

newsletters and other content on Instagram. It's simply Dr. Dre

online, Dr. Dre online. And on Facebook, it's Dr. Period, a

online and on both of those are slightly different content. But

there's links to, as I say, a lot of free newsletters and

resources, and other any other way you need to get a hold of me

put

links to all those connections. On our website. Dr.

Brad Miller, calm. Great to be with you today. Sir. The name of

the book by Dr. Paul Sanderson is cancer. The journey from

diagnosis to empowerment, our guests on beyond adversity, Dr.