How to Live Well Inside of Unhealthy Systems with Noëlle Janka, 161

00:00:24 Chazmith: Welcome to Our Power Is Within. I'm your host Chazmith, and my mission for this podcast is to inspire you to take your power back, to realize that you are the healer that you have been looking for all along. I believe that we are all capable of healing in mind, in body, and in soul. Happy November to you all. The month of thanksgiving, of gratitude, of appreciation, of giving thanks, right? I mean, I hope that every day of the year is for being grateful for each of us, and I just want to acknowledge how grateful I am for each of you to be walking on this path and this journey with me. I appreciate you all.

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00:01:45 Chazmith: Our guest today is Noëlle Janka, back for her second episode with us. Her first episode was actually all the way back in the beginning, episode number 4. And here we are at 158 or 9, somewhere around there. I can't keep track. But that's a big difference, right? Like, wow, we have come so far. It's actually been over three years and I invited Noëlle back because in episode four, she shared with us how she was working on the foundation of a book she had a desire to write and here we are three years later and her book is officially published.

00:02:31 Chazmith: I don't know, I think that is so much fun. I love seeing people's dreams come to fruition. So anyhow, her book is called Rebel Healing and her and I get to talk all about things that are related to healing that are inspired by her book and other areas that she's really passionate about. And I just loved getting to chat with Noëlle again. So I hope you enjoy.

00:03:08 Chazmith: All right, Noel, thank you so much for being back with me for round two.

00:03:11 Noëlle: Thank you so much for having me, Chaz. It's great to be back.

00:03:15 Chazmith: Yeah. Fun fact for everyone who's tuned in right now, because I know not everyone who listens today has been here from the very beginning, but Noëlle was one of my very first guests on the podcast when I first started it, well, over three years ago now. Sometimes I forget it's already been over three years. Oh my goodness.

00:03:35 Noëlle: Yeah, you've been so successful. Keep it going.

00:03:38 Chazmith: Thanks. That's a lot of work. But three years, that means that if you were on here sharing your testimonial story three years ago, so much has probably happened in your life. And I kind of want to start with that because, I think a lot of people hear a recovery or a testimonial story. And I think that we sometimes make this assumption that that means this person's going to go out and live, like their best life with never having anything go wrong again and no symptoms, you know, and all this magic. And I'm not saying there's not magic, but there's also reality. And so I'd love to just hear a little bit about what's gone on in your life. since we connected three years ago and things like, have you had any setbacks, as some people call it, or just new physical challenges arise that have allowed you to go into even deeper layers of healing?

00:04:33 Noëlle: Great question. The short answer is yes. Yeah, so I think when we spoke then, I was actually in a period feeling better than I'd ever felt or since I'd felt since I was 15, which was very magical. And probably some other folks listening to this or other people that we know, I had a really unfortunate reaction to the first COVID vaccine, which it kind of made me in some ways more debilitated than I ever had been. And I think in addition to the physical symptoms that came with that, there was quite an attitude shift. There was a lot of, sort of kicking and screaming and like, oh my gosh, like I don't want to have to redo all the work that I did with the brain retraining. And I just like, don't want to start over and I have to find new doctors. There was definitely an opportunity for deeper healing, I'd say, you know, physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, all the way around. 

00:05:36 Noëlle: And so it's been two and a half years since then, maybe, or two years. And I'm actually really grateful for the experience. It knocked me back in a way that I think provided a lot of opportunity for reflection and living life in a slower, deeper, more intentional way. I think a lot of the things that I thought I knew in my head, I actually had the opportunity to internalize and live out, especially in my relationships with other people. So I feel grateful for that part of the experience in particular.

00:06:06 Chazmith: Wow. Okay. So was it after you had first quote-unquote healed and you felt better than you ever have that you didn't necessarily align your life in the same way that you were able to post this experience? Because you said it allowed you to align and move more slowly or deliberately. Was it something that you weren't necessarily doing prior to that experience?

00:06:30 Noëlle: Yeah, I mean, last time we talked, I think I was both running my coaching practice and had a part-time job in higher ed that I really enjoyed. And when that went all online for the early part of the pandemic, like a lot of us, I ended up on sort of back-to-back Zoom calls. And the way that the work changed, I think, just ended up really not working for me. And it took me a little too long to figure that out. So I had to leave that job and went back to just running my practice full time, which being your own boss is an awesome, awesome experience because you can really set it up in a way that works. At least I, you know, have been able to set it up in a way that works a lot better for my body.

00:07:10 Chazmith: Right. So where are you at now today? Like after that experience with the quote-unquote setback from the vaccination, you said that might have made you feel more debilitated than you had even before in your worst times. So where are you at today? And what were some of the things that you actually did do to approach your healing that second time around?

00:07:31 Noëlle: Let's see. I'll say one of the most challenging aspects physically was dysautonomia, which for me manifests as feeling faint a lot and really low blood pressure. So sitting, standing, walking were very, very difficult for a while. And working on that, learning more about that, getting the tools that I needed to live well with that has been really helpful. Even not that long ago, finally saw a specialist for that. And it's not, unfortunately, like a lot of things, you know, not very well understood, but I found a doctor who was like, oh yeah, here's what you need. Take this medicine. And I haven't always had great luck with prescription medicine as a, you know, very sensitive person, but in the last couple of years, I've actually found a couple of different prescriptions, one for bold detox. And then this one for dysautonomia that have been incredibly helpful and sort of lifted my baseline enough. That I could do more exercise and do other things that helped me be physically better overall. 

00:08:33 Noëlle: So that was on the physical side, very helpful. And then sort of on the mental, emotional, spiritual side, I've started meditating again, which I had stopped for a while. I think that's happened to some people in the early part of the pandemic. For whatever reason, even though we needed some of that stuff more, a lot of our routines went out the window. And sort of coming back to that, finding this new Qigong practice, has just been really wonderful, really grounding, really helped me come back to myself after the experience of being like, oh, my God, I can't believe I'm sick again. That's the worst thing ever. So feeling really grateful for that.

00:09:08 Chazmith: Yeah. It's okay to give yourself the moment of throwing the fit. It's okay. As long as you don't stay stuck in it, right?

00:09:13 Noëlle: Yeah. Yeah. 

00:09:14 Chazmith: But it's real. Like if it's okay, if you feel like, oh, my God. Yeah. Why do I don't want to do this all over again? Like I made this giant commitment and went all in and now I got to do it again. It's real. It's hard to do that again. Did you curiously ever actually go back and leverage some of those brain retraining tools or anything that really supported you the first time around? Or did you just find yourself in too much resistance?

00:09:38 Noëlle: No, I did. And I, I didn't go back to doing rounds daily, but definitely sort of got back into the mindset. ‘Cause you're right. There's, like the doing the rounds and then there's sort of, like the moment by moment, like how you adjust, like how you set up your life pieces. And I definitely brought that back in. And I'll say, so like, I just published this book last month, Rebel Healing. And I think that maybe my ancestors were like, Noëlle needs to really, like read this stuff 700 times because the process of editing the book and getting it ready to be published, then proofreading it. And I really had to be reminded of all these different healing lessons that I've learned over the last 22 years. And sometimes I was like, oh, yeah, I totally forgot about this. And so that, even that process allowed me to bring some stuff back in. There's a whole section on brain retraining. So that's an important part of the piece for sure.

00:10:29 Chazmith: That's a really good point. Like, yes, the process of to do something, like writing and editing and editing and editing and going over, it's like really ingraining something into you. I mean, I think about just even for me to do this, you know, podcast, I listened through the interview and then I do editing and then I listen to do timestamps to make, you know, video snippets for Instagram. So it's like, I get to hear it over and over and over myself, and that's just a few times, so I can't even imagine the process of a book.

00:11:02 Noëlle: Yeah, and because I was doing it part-time and working and working on healing, the whole process was over almost seven years, so I had a lot of opportunities to revisit it during that time.

00:11:17 Chazmith: Yeah. This is another fun fact for everyone who's tuned in and didn't hear the first episode is three years ago when I met with Noëlle, we talked about how you were going to be writing this book. You said you were working on something and you were going to be writing it. I just want to say congratulations because a lot of people say they're going to do something. To actually follow through with something as big as writing a book is a lot of work as we're talking about, so it doesn't necessarily always happen. I'm really proud of you for making that dream and goal a reality. And I'm curious to know how much over these last three years, based on all these new life experiences you've had, has that book evolved beyond what you thought it was going to be? Or is it still really fundamentally the same premise?

00:12:00 Noëlle: Thank you for that question. It definitely did. In the beginning, when I was earlier on, launching my coaching practice, I was really into blogging. And I was, I got pretty good at consistently, you know, putting out a blog post every two weeks. And a lot of those posts were about healing and things that I was seeing in my own healing journey, things that I was seeing with clients who are on healing journeys, and I thought, you know what, I'll just publish some of these blog posts. Easy peasy. It's going to be a great book. It's going to help a lot of people get better. And a lot of people experience more ease in chronic illness. It's going to be awesome.

00:12:37 Noëlle: And then I just went in this whole different direction. So something folks might not know is that I have a background in political organizing and I grew up in D.C. and I just spend a lot of time thinking about policy and politics and our systems. And I became sort of obsessed with this idea that part of what makes chronic illness in this country in particular, I think, so challenging is how hard it can be to get you know, our doctors and other medical folks on board with figuring out the root cause. I think for me, that was so frustrating. Like it took me eight years to get a diagnosis that was remotely helpful. And even then that wasn't like actually the root cause of what was going on for me. 

00:13:19 Noëlle: And so I was like, it's really interesting that what feels so frustrating about chronic illness is this sort of failure to find the root cause, you know, just treating the symptoms. And that's like also happening in our political institutions. And that's like, you know, when, when people are going out and trying to change homelessness, for example, so often, they're not getting at the root cause, they're not, there's sort of these band-aid policies and programs that are just trying to help people in the most sort of acute ways, instead of being like, okay, like, let's figure out why so many people don't have jobs or let's figure out why so many people are having challenges with addiction and sort of how do we work on all these problems at the same time.

00:14:04 Noëlle: I thought it was interesting that sort of these things were happening simultaneously and that took the whole book in a different direction, that looking at the connection between those two things.

00:14:13 Chazmith: All right. Huh. So what is it really about? I was going to ask you this later, but now I just want to ask now.

00:14:20 Noëlle: The book? It's a guide on how to heal and specifically the mental, emotional and spiritual aspects of healing chronic illness. But when I say healing to me, I don't necessarily mean, like complete resolution of physical symptoms. I'm sort of letting people define for themselves what healing is for them. But one way that I think about it is bringing more ease and joy to life experience, sort of regardless of what's happening in our bodies. And what I'm arguing is that part of that work, that mental, emotional, spiritual work, is looking at how we have been impacted by the systems that we live in.

00:15:05 Noëlle: Because another thing that really frustrated me was like, there are all these books that are like, all right, you're sick, here's what you can do to get better. You know, if you meditate enough, and you do enough brain retraining, and you eat all the right foods, you're going to get better. But then so many people don't get better, right? And if you look at the CDC, it says that the causes of chronic illness are like alcohol, obesity, and smoking. And I'm like, none of my friends are dealing with, like, this is not what's happening. And so I also wanted to put the healing process in context, right? And like the context is that we live in a society and inside of systems that don't actually try to keep us healthy or support us to get well.

00:15:49 Noëlle: One of the parts in the book, I'm comparing, kind of the way that the US regulates toxins and chemicals versus the way that Europe does. And in the US, they look for what's called proof of harm. And in Europe, they exercise something called the precautionary principle. So if there is a concern that a chemical could hurt humans, animals or plants, then they don't make it legal unless they can prove that it's safe. And so that– 

00:16:18 Chazmith: Kind of like you're not guilty or you're not innocent. Like you got to be proven guilty or something or you're innocent unless you're proven guilty. So it's harmful unless it's proven safe.

00:16:32 Noëlle: Exactly. Whereas here, it's like a lot of the regulations around toxins and chemicals haven't been updated since the 70s and it's a much, much, much shorter list of things that are illegal. A lot of us are getting poisoned all the time, even by things that we have in the shower. And I think it's important for us to recognize that. Especially because I think, and you know, you and your guests and your listeners know this so well, one of the hardest parts of this experience can be the isolation that is easy to feel, right? Like it can be easy to feel like so many people are living their lives and like we're in bed at home, but actually more than like 60% of Americans have at least one chronic condition. 

00:17:18 Noëlle: And that is because of the way that our systems are set up. And I just really wanted people to understand that, like, you are not alone. This is not entirely your fault. And there's things that we can do to reclaim our own agency and vitality inside of these systems.

00:17:37 Chazmith: It's so interesting, too, because I know that there's that number. I knew that number is really high for people suffering something. But it sucks, too, that within the systems, there's not, I mean, there is so much more information today than there was even three years ago. And then three years ago, even like six years ago, regarding the power that we have to impact our healing through mind, body, and spiritual approaches, right? Definitely more access to that information now than ever. But with that said, it's still just not widespread enough and especially lack so much in the medical system that sadly such a giant percentage of these people who do have some form of chronic condition. They don't even know that they have the power to heal. Like they don't even know yet that there's actually so much more power that they can access than they realize, because they're still so stuck in this belief that it's purely physical and it's only what the doctor says.

00:18:41 Chazmith: And only if the doctor says you can heal and only with this medicine or this, this or this, that, you know, and recently I heard this woman and she was talking about, she has, like this illness and I know she was thinking that she needed to raise this insane amount of money for this very specific treatment or she was going to die, she thought. I was like, oh, my God, this isn't true. There's so much she could do and so much she has access to without needing $10,000 to $15,000 to be able to do one said treatment and not to say that maybe that treatment could help, but I just know there's also other things that we could do to help. But if no one's telling her that, or no one's teaching her that, then how is she supposed to know that?

00:19:27 Noëlle: Totally. Yeah. I mean, and like just thinking about what's possible with some understanding of polyvagal theory is I think so remarkable, right? I mean, sometimes, like really debilitating conditions can be healed by doing a series of very simple physical manipulations by yourself. And it is something that most doctors, therapists, et cetera, don't have access to. So it's like, even if you have access to health care, and you're seeing some of the best people, they don't know about some of the best stuff. I mean, it's part of the reason I appreciate the work that you do, Chazmith, and that so many of your guests are doing is just letting people know. And that's what I was trying to do, too, is like, letting people know that there's so many more answers and so many more opportunities.

00:20:16 Chazmith: Yeah, and I just hope we continue to see more doctors and people who people are currently giving their power to, people who are in positions of power to know this information, because the reality is I can go tell my dad or my mom or, you know, my cousin or my next door neighbor, like, no, you don't have to live with this. Like, there's ways that you can help yourself. You know, there's ways that there's things you can do. And I'm just me. They're just going to brush me off most of the time. I know because it's happened. And yet if they went to their doctor who holds the power, who they look up to, who they trust, and the doctor said,  hey, I have some things that you could start doing and it could make real big impact. They would probably listen more.

00:21:02 Noëlle: Totally.

00:21:02 Chazmith: And so that's the difference, is if we can have more, and it's happening. It is happening. I hope that in my lifetime, it's abundantly happening everywhere.

00:21:13 Noëlle: Maybe so.

00:21:15 Chazmith: But okay, so something I actually really wanted to talk about, there's a few things that we've kind of just briefly touched based on that I want to go more in depth into. First, I think we're going to start with speaking of, like brain retraining and how you said how the second time around after the vaccine and you know, onset of illness, you did brain retraining, you still use the tools of brain retraining, but not necessarily like daily rounds, which for anyone who's listening, that is just the actual daily practice that is called rounds from one specific brain retraining program, DNRS. There's so many different brain retraining programs, and they all have different types of daily prescriptions.

00:21:55 Chazmith: But you said it was more for you, like just hour by hour, moment by moment, daily, like how to incorporate the concept of brain retraining. And something I know you've mentioned offline is the importance of deprogramming ourselves from societal scripts, like kind of utilizing brain retraining as part of the means to do that. And I would love for you to talk more about this and what that means. 

00:22:24 Chazmith: Because like you said, it's easy to say, hey, meditate every day, do your brain retraining, like do this, but what is the focus? What are we actually retraining? Like other than yes, we can retrain our limiting beliefs or our fears that come up around our symptoms. It's really easy to come up with all the things symptom related to retrain around. But it does, as most of us end up discovering go, sometimes deeper than that. So can we talk about this?

00:22:53 Noëlle: Sure. Yeah, just for a little bit of context, I'll say that part of what I do as a coach is help people recognize when they're getting in their own way, so that they can see what's underneath that. So, like helping people see inner blocks, sometimes called monkey mind, internal conversations. I heard another coach call it your inner evil meaning. So part of what I'm doing as a coach is kind of bringing people's awareness to when those conversations are running the show so that they can so that we can say like, okay, is that conversation actually the truth for you? And so often people even just saying something out loud that they've been thinking in their head for years, they can laugh and be like, oh, that's not true. And then we can look and say, okay, like what's actually true for you from your heart, you know, from your soul? 

00:23:48 Noëlle: And what I found in doing this work for years with all different kinds of people, but then especially folks with health challenges, is that it was even easier for people to let go of those internal conversations when they could see that it was something that they were just programmed with. So for example, there's a lot of, how do I want to describe this? In our culture, there's a lot of ideas about what it means to be a productive member of society, right? We've all heard that phrase before. And what's built into that idea is a lot of individualism and a lot of, also some ideas about, like what it means to be productive in a capitalist society.

00:24:39 Noëlle: And when a client who's really sick is struggling with what it means to work less, for example, It can be really helpful when they can see that these ideas are coming up. Like if I don't, if I'm not working, I don't know who I am or if I'm not working, I'm not contributing. Or if I'm, if I'm not working, I'm not going to make money and I'm not going to be able to buy a house that I'm never going to have the picket fence vision that I thought that I wanted. It can be really nice for them to see that, like all of that is just stuff that they were programmed with from their family, from their community, from their church, from their synagogue, from TV. We're all swimming in that all the time. And it can be so empowering to see that, like that might not be the truth. 

00:25:25 Noëlle: We do have to do certain things to survive in this country. And, but it might not be the truth that working 40 hours a week in a particular kind of job, making a particular salary is our only option, but we might really feel like it is, you know? And so part of what I'm advocating for is noticing when some of those internal conversations might be this programming. Another place that it comes up a lot is, you know, there's been some really good work, I think, in the last, I don't know, 20 years around dismantling internalized racism, which I think is really, really important work. It's work that I've participated in. I think that we need to be doing that around ableism, as well. And it's still not to say that we've solved anti-racism, because that's not true. It's something that needs to continue. I would like to see the same amount of attention on anti-ableism, because I think that it really hurts everyone.

00:26:25 Noëlle: If we were actually creating our society, our institutions, our social lives in a way that were more accessible, it would benefit everybody. And something that has worked really well for me and my clients is to really kind of call each other out on internalized ableism. I can give an example. In my book, there's a whole section on changing our language. And I share an example where a roommate and I, a former roommate and I realized that we were saying sorry all the time and we wanted to stop doing that. So we had a quarter jar in the house and whenever one of us said, sorry, when we weren't actually making an apology, you know, like I bumped into you. Oh, sorry. We'd say like, put a quarter in the jar. And it really helped us. We would say things like, excuse me, or we just sort of started replacing our language so that we weren't constantly apologizing. And it was really empowering experience. 

00:27:19 Noëlle: And I think that we can do the same thing if we gently call each other out and say like, oh, when you said that no one was ever going to invite you to do anything again, because you are using crutches, like that sounded like ableist, like that sounded like an ableist conversation. That sounded like ableist language. And you can be like, and then you can, like pause and have a conversation about it. And that might shift the way that you interact around similar themes going forward.

00:27:49 Chazmith: When you said that, too, I've always learned that it's always really good to pay attention to when you're speaking in absolutes because it's almost never true, right? No one ever does this. Or you're talking to your partner and you're like, oh, he always does that, or you always do this, or you never do this for me. Generally, when we're speaking in absolutes like that, they're probably not true because there's probably times that the person or situation or society does do certain things, but we always, you know, we go into this absolute just in that moment.

00:28:22 Noëlle: Yeah, absolutes. And then another big one is binaries, right? The brain loves to make binaries. Like it's either this or it's this, right? Like you're either pro-vaccine or you're an anti-vaxxer. And it's like, and that's really pervasive in our society, too, because it gets people fired up. So, you know, media likes to really play on that. Like whose side are you on? Or like, what do you believe? What's the truth? When in fact, there's so much complexity and so many gray areas and things that we probably just need to have more conversations about. But so if you hear yourself doing, you know, the either or thing, that's also a good indication that there's, you know, That might not be the whole truth. There might be something underneath that. 

00:29:03 Chazmith: Right. Well, what's funny, though, is if you say never, it is still either or, right? Because you either always do it or you never do it. But if you do it sometimes, it's still never. Yeah. And then what was I just thinking, too, with the either or? Yeah, I think that's another thing. And gosh, you could go so deep into this conversation. We can go on all kinds of little micro-tangents. But even just looking at your health, is, we sometimes get into this expectation that in order to be healed, I will never have these symptoms again. And that's such a limiting belief rather than seeing what healing is as a different baseline, have a different measurement for it.

00:29:43 Chazmith: I think that would be more empowering and supportive because to set this expectation that I'll never have a symptom again or this symptom again or this feeling, you know, this experience or sensation again can feel really heavy and pressure and the minute that something were to happen, now all of a sudden you have the belief that you're not well. And we don't want to hold that belief, you know, because that's not empowering or supportive. So it can be looked at in so many different facets.

00:30:11 Noëlle: Well, and why do we even think that being symptom-free is the gold standard?

00:30:17 Chazmith: Yeah. Well, because, you know, we don't want symptoms. They're not fun.

00:30:24 Noëlle: Well, sure, sure. But I think maybe that's just more programming we've received, that that's even possible. When in fact, that's like a small minority of the population is actually living that way.

00:30:36 Chazmith: Right. And speaking of, like the programming, I wonder how often we can take it, like even a step further and see how often could we say or ask ourselves or be curious or inquire into what, not only what I believe, but what do I want? Because how often do we think what we want is also programming? Oh, I was a cheerleader. So I'm going to make my daughter a cheerleader. And then the girl grows up and she thinks that this is what she wants. And she thinks she loves it. And she thinks she's so happy because every child wants to make their parents happy.

00:31:13 Chazmith: But I think that's why sometimes going to college and getting away and being out of that influence and the energies of your family dynamic is sometimes where people learn more about themselves because they're, you know, unless they're still getting all the pressure from their parents to be a certain, go get a certain degree, become a certain type of profession, do a certain sport. But yeah, it's just interesting how deep that can go into supporting us because if we're living out of alignment, well then maybe there's a lot of things we think we want. Like you said, I think I need to get this job so that I can go have this house and the picket fence and all these things. But challenging, like, is that really what you want? What if that's literally not the life you want at all? What if you'd rather live in a van and go live in some other country and just surf every day? I don't know.

00:32:02 Chazmith: Some people think they want kids because it's having children and, oh, the happiness you have from children and how you can't experience true love or happiness in any other way the way you do with a child. We grew up thinking that we want that. I just wonder if you really sat with that and questioned that, is it true for everyone? Or is it just all you thought was the right way to do or the path, like, because it's what we're taught or conditioned?

00:32:28 Noëlle: Yeah. I mean, I think getting clear on what we want is a really important part of healing and not always easy to do. I think especially for folks who've been sick for a really long time, too, it can be so hard to think beyond. I just don't want to feel this way.

00:32:44 Chazmith: Yeah.

00:32:45 Noëlle: But that's something that I write about in the book and that I try to encourage folks to do and that I've held workshops on is like, okay, If it were possible to have a vision beyond just, you know, experiencing fewer symptoms, like what do you love your life to look like? What would be so sweet and special for you? And, you know, sometimes people just in the moment, they can't get there and that's fine. But for a lot of folks, it's really empowering experience. And when we do that, I try to invite folks to get out of their brains and really into their bodies and be like, what is your body longing for?

00:33:22 Noëlle: It's really sweet what comes up sometimes and people kind of rediscover things that they've forgotten about or start to see like, okay, you know, I can't go cycling the way that I used to, but maybe there's another way to get that sort of same sort of high. And maybe I can, you know, dream into what that would look like. And I do think that's a really important part of the process.

00:33:41 Chazmith: Yeah. Yeah, I agree. And I also know that for some of us, you hear all these people all the time, like, oh, you just need to follow your intuition. You just need to tap into your truth. And yeah, if you've been sick a long time, chances are you probably weren't that tapped in to begin with. So that's hard. And people just make it sound, like it should be so easy. And then that's another thing that we start beating ourselves up over because we're like, oh, it's not easy for me. I don't know, I don't know, like, you know, I don't feel like intuitive. It's not just like, I'm going to be intuitive today and boom, you have all this intuitive magic. It's there, but we're not connected to it. And that takes practice.

00:34:20 Chazmith: And something I've noticed too is like, if we continue on this journey, Sometimes the values that I think I have today in 8 months, 10 months, 12 months, they change. You set out to heal and you think you're going to heal and you're going to go live this life and all of a sudden you're like, oh, that doesn't even matter anymore. I'm looking over here now. So it's a process though, and I definitely have been on the side where I'm like, everyone says it's so easy. Just follow your intuition. I'm over here like, but I don't know. This is a tangent, but you know what I heard the other day that was so, like mind blowing for me? I heard the other day that to say, I don't know, like, I don't know is the most, how did they say it? The most energy draining statement we can possibly say. 

00:35:11 Chazmith: Because to say, I don't know, is to literally, completely just drain yourself of all of your own power. Because it's saying, I don't know, which means somebody else must know. So to stay stuck in indecision or not knowing, or to tell yourself you don't know, rather than trust that somewhere inside of you, you do, and just begin to say, well, what would happen if I did know? Or if I did know, where would I feel it? Or where would it be? Or what would it be? So that was really eye-opening for me, because I got caught saying it. And someone was like, hey, you know, It's a really energy draining statement.

00:35:43 Noëlle: Yeah. I really appreciate that.

00:35:46 Chazmith: Yeah. I was like, wow, that's true. Okay, so something else I want to ask you about, that we were kind of just brushing on, was you talked about how we can feel really isolated in this experience and healing. And I know something that you also mentioned offline was value and building our support dream teams.

00:36:09 Noëlle: Mm hmm.

00:36:10 Chazmith: Uh-huh. How do we do this? For everyone who's listening who's like feeling that isolation or that aloneness or yeah, that need for connection and support, especially how do we do this when we don't have the means to just go hire a coach? How do we build that team that we dream about?

00:36:30 Noëlle: In the book Rebel Healing, there's literally a chapter called Build Your Support Dream Team. So it's out there in the world if folks want to learn more about it. Because I didn't want that to be something that was behind like a big paywall, right? I think that even taking a, kind of beyond the conversation of chronic illness for a moment, I think that so many of the challenges of our time are a crisis of connection. You know, I think our society has changed so rapidly in the last 30 something years in particular, we have sort of gone, moved away from a lot of the ways that we connected with people and community. And I don't know that we've replaced all of them yet. And I think that's part of the health crisis as part of the mental health crisis.

00:37:15 Noëlle: But I believe that we can find each other again. And I think part of the reason I wrote about this, is this was one of the most painful aspects of being sick for me. It was just, like feeling like I was sick and alone and, like I might always be sick and alone. And it just gutted me. I still struggle with it. It's not something I've totally mastered, but it has gotten a lot better. And that's in part because of the ways that I have practiced reaching out to people, even when it felt like there was no way I was ever going to get a response. And that rejection would be so painful that it would be worse than just being alone with it. That was, I'm not saying that's everybody's experience, but that was my experience.

00:37:54 Noëlle: And what I think it's also surprising to me how often I meet somebody who has been chronically ill for a long time. and they don't have chronic illness buddies. Like to me, that's like the most important thing is to find people who get it. So that you can just be with each other in the absurdity of what it's like to be in this experience, in this culture, in this time, and to make each other laugh, to just be able to be like, dude, I know, you know, I think that's so, so, so valuable. So I think that's where I tell people to start, is like, what can you do to find people who get this experience? And the beauty of the internet and social media, and as much as sometimes those things are fraught, but the beauty of them is that that's a way that we can find each other in online forums. 

00:38:45 Noëlle: One of the most wonderful things I found about DNRS was being able to find strangers around the world who wanted to do rounds with me, wanted to do buddy rounds. I think it's a beautiful way that communities built into that program. But so that's like one thing I recommend to folks first is to try to find your people. So find them online, attending a support group online or in person. One of my closest, best Lime buddies is somebody that I found through a Lime support group in Boston. And actually, like she never ended up coming to the group. She just, like told the person who ran the group that she was looking for a buddy. And then, like she connected us and we just like, oh, my gosh. Like, so we've supported each other so much over, like more than a decade. And I don't know that we would have been friends otherwise, but she's one of the first people I call and it's just so beautiful to have someone be like, I get it.

00:39:38 Noëlle: Or like when I was first experiencing some of the symptoms of what I now know are dysautonomia, she was the one who was like, oh, dude, get some compression socks. It's going to change your life. I think that's another way in which chronic illness community is so valuable, right? Because we can tell each other the things that our doctors aren't telling us. I mean, so much of what I've learned in my healing, like DNRS, for example, or, you know, so many of the things I've tried, polyvagal theory, I learned about these things from other folks in the community. But then sort of, yeah, going back to the broader support dream team thing, I think it starts with what we were speaking about earlier, with having some understanding of what you want. So I think, excuse me– 

00:40:21 Noëlle: I think it's really valuable to look at, okay, to do, like a little bit of an inventory, like, what is my life like right now? What would I really love it to look like? What is the help that I would need to get there? And I actually walk people through this process in the book, like making a list of like, you know, it would be super sweet if someone would bring me a meal once a week, or I need rides to this thing, or I need somebody to call me on Tuesday nights, and just like hang out with me while I do this treatment that I don't want to do or, you know, whatever it is, then starting to kind of evaluate, okay, do these people already exist in my community? Are there people that I could ask to help with this?

00:41:02 Noëlle: And if not, I mean, usually like you can fill some of the gaps, you know, with people in your life, but then for the ones that still need to be filled, kind of setting the intention of like, I'm going to find this person and I'm going to ask people, if they know people who might do this thing. I might go on Facebook or Nextdoor and see is there somebody, Nextdoor being the app, is there somebody in my community who might want to do this for me? Because magical things happen all the time. I think it can be really easy for us to be like, nobody cares. But I have found by pushing myself past that again and again, or gently inviting myself through that conversation, that that's not true. And I've seen it happen with myself, I've seen it happen with my clients.

00:41:45 Noëlle: And I'll just say one more thing about that. There's so much programming, especially, I think, for middle-class white folks, but for a lot of other people in America, too. There's so much programming around not asking for help. Like, we don't need that, you know? That's what we pay for, right? And so something that I've had to do in my own life and that I've seen happen with clients, too, is really sitting down with some of my friends and being like, look, I know you want to support me. I want to support you. How can we just get past all the, like jockeying of like, should I ask? Should I not ask? I don't want to be a burden. Like, how can we just cut through all that and just know that we can call each other at any moment for emotional support or food or whatever it is we need?

00:42:27 Noëlle: And I'm almost 40. It's taken me like almost my whole life to get to the point of being brave enough to have those conversations with people. But man, Chazmith, are those not some of the sweetest, most beautiful conversations I've ever had? And it adds so much sweetness to my life to be able to show up for my friends in a deeper way as well.

00:42:45 Chazmith: Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Right. ‘Cause yeah, like you said, it's easy to just think no one would really want to help or I'd be a burden or, but there's people out there and we all know, like if we've ever done something kind for somebody, we know that it feels good. So there's people that want to feel good too, by doing things that they know they can do.

00:43:07 Noëlle: Yeah. And I mean, I'll just say like, I had a friend with very severe ME/CFS, who's no longer with us. I mean, she had maybe one good hour a day, like on a good week. And she did so much for other people, right? So I just want to encourage people, like, even if you feel like you don't have a physical or mental or emotional capacity to support others, like, I just want to invite you to challenge that idea, because I have seen it. I've seen people with like, so little capacity contribute so much to the lives of others and bring so much joy.

00:43:40 Chazmith: Yeah. But we also, don't you think, want to make sure that when we're doing that, that we're still also staying true to ourselves and aligned, like not doing something because we want to be the good guy or good girl or nice person, even though maybe it really isn't what's best for us in that moment.

00:43:56 Noëlle: Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. That's a really good point. And I think that that comes back to really being able to discern in ourselves, am I doing this because I think I'm supposed to? Or am I doing this because it's an authentic expression of what I want to do or like how much I love this person?

00:44:14 Chazmith: Yeah. And I think the more you foster those relationships, I think that that's something that happens too. You know, like if I know somebody, if I'm friends with somebody and we're there for each other, we can support each other, but there's one day that they can't do something or they can't be there. Or I know I don't have the capacity, whether it's physical or mental or emotional one day to support them. I think the stronger bond you build, the more that you don't take those things personal and they become okay. Because, you know, like, there's just an understanding. There's a mutual respect and a mutual understanding.

00:44:50 Noëlle: Yeah. I think that's part of it, too, is how do we give each other grace. But I know for me, especially with some of my other chronic illness buddies, something like bailing at the last minute, I'm like, I get it. I'm not upset about that because I have to do that, too. And so I think we can build understanding around giving each other grace, too.

00:45:11 Chazmith: Yeah. You know, as you said, that's been one of my biggest challenges is I say, oh, my gosh, I want friendships. I want friends. I could think about I want to say yes and go do things, you know, and then I find myself still keep myself at a distance from actually forming these friendships because of the, oh, I don't want to be the person that bails at the last minute, but I know sometimes it's going to happen. And when it's somebody who isn't where I'm at or doesn't have, like any illness, you know, it's so much more challenging to do that. That's my struggle is I'll just find myself distancing and not like, oh, I want friends, but then I won't make them because you know, I go to, I make a plan and then I have to bail and I don't want to be the person that bails and I don't want to have to explain myself to them. And so then I just end up withdrawing again cause it's easier.

00:46:06 Noëlle: Hmm. Can I offer something on that? Yeah. ‘Cause I've totally been there, too. And something that one of the things I talk about in the book is kind of the opportunities for learning and community and relationship between chronic illness folks and disabled folks who might not be chronically ill. And something that I've learned from hanging out with more disabled folks is that we can train the able-bodied people in our lives to be able to hang with us. So this is something that it took me a while to really take on. But if somebody is a wheelchair user, for example, or blind, there's just things that are going to make their life better that they just need to ask for. I had a blind friend, and it was like, I'm always just going to grab your arm when we cross the street. And for wheelchair users, I'm always going to need you to open this door for me because this building's not accessible.

00:47:03 Noëlle: And I've found that we can do the same things with something like what you're describing and say, look, like, my energy is unpredictable. So I would love to make plans with you. And I'm so excited to hang out and I might bail like 60% of the time. So is that cool? And just be really upfront about it as if it's the thing that is very obvious. Because that's one of the harder parts, I think, for invisible illness is people will be like, oh, Chazmith looks just like everybody else. Must be just like everybody else. And so I think it can take even more courage to be like, actually, I need a special accommodation.

00:47:38 Noëlle: But I think I've found that people are so much more receptive to me saying something like, I'm going to bail than I ever would have expected. Like, I think for years, I'm like, oh, no one's going to want to hang out with somebody who bails 60% of the time. I've been proven wrong. I've been proven wrong.

00:47:53 Chazmith: Gotcha. That's good to know. It's definitely a challenging one for me. It's something I can experiment with, but I find myself not wanting to be honest or open about what I go through with other people. It's easy within this community that I have to be open, but outside of the community, I find it very challenging. Like I don't tell anybody in my work or you know I don't ask for accommodations at work. Like I just show up and suck it up. And so I find it's challenging for me to, I don't know if it's like ingrained, maybe it is conditioning, like maybe it's in conditioning from my brain retraining years where it became so ingrained to not give it energy and not talk about it and also I don't want to be defined by it. Like I don't want to be defined by anything because I consider myself like my birthrights, wellbeing, and I know that healing is the trajectory. I know that healing is possible. I know that's the path I'm on.

00:48:50 Chazmith: So because I don't want to be defined by it or labeled as it, or have to have a label or a diagnosis, I guess for me, I struggle with having the right language or explanation, or maybe it's just a fear that people will want more of an explanation that I don't want to have to give them or have to talk about. So then I just avoid.

00:49:10 Noëlle: Yeah. So understandable. Because we never know how people are going to show up to that truth.

00:49:16 Chazmith: Yeah. But you know what I think? I think that the more that we can show up to other people's truth, the more that we're going to find that it's just going to show up for us, too. 

00:49:24 Noëlle: Yeah.

00:49:25 Chazmith: Yeah.

00:49:26 Noëlle: I think I'm with you on that one.

00:49:29 Chazmith: Okay, I'm going to ask you another question that was something that you had written about that piqued my interest. You said something about how important it is to secure our attachments beyond romantic relationships, and you put land, body, spirit, and ancestors. And that was kind of intriguing to me. So yeah, I want you to speak about that and what that means. Because I think that for most of us, we hear about secure attachment, and we just think in romantic relationships, you know, like, oh, are you secure? Are you anxious? Are you avoidant? And so it's really easy to kind of understand it from that perspective romantically. But what are you referring to when you talk about this ability to have secure attachments for our land, you know, our body, ancestors? What does that mean?

00:50:21 Noëlle: I think about this in, sort of two ways. One is going back to what I was saying about connection. I think this is a way of reconnecting and resisting the ways in which we've been disconnected. So like, because so many of us are descendant from colonizers, we don't have the same relationship to the land that, like indigenous folks might have, for example. So being intentionally reconnecting to the land is a way that we can sort of reclaim our birthright as humans, I think. And I think it's a way that we can feel connection when we feel disconnected from humans. That's like the land piece is actually kind of where I got started because at one point in my healing journey, I was like, I got to get out of the city. I got to go be in the woods. I didn't really understand why. 

00:51:11 Noëlle: What I realized was that I could go sit on a rock or sit by the river and or be in the woods and feel as if somebody was holding me, even if there was nobody around to hold me. Also, I don't know the science behind this, but I've had experiences where, like I've had a migraine and I go sit by moving water and it goes away. Like I just, I don't know, for me, like there's a lot of magic in the land. So the idea is that it's like a different, a different approach to connection. And after I started going down that path, I heard the term four pillars of attachment. Dare Sohei is a really talented healer in the Pacific Northwest. And they explained this on a podcast that before you can securely attach to a human, you need to be attached to the land, to your body, to the ancestors, and to the divine. 

00:52:03 Noëlle: And I just became obsessed with that idea. Because I really think it's true, and I've seen it in my coaching practice, too. For the clients who are suffering the most, they don't have any of those points of connection. And as soon as they start to bring it in, even just a little bit, it makes a really big difference. So, like connecting to ancestors could be as simple as, like putting a picture of an ancestor in the corner of your desk and just like, just thinking about yourself in the long line of humans that you're in, that even that can kind of help bust through some of the isolation feelings that we can have sometimes. And I think, you know, connection with the body is very fraught for a lot of us for obvious reasons. But I have found, again, for myself and with a lot of my clients, that building a loving relationship with the body, for most of us, building it again or for the first time, it brings so much sweetness and it eliminates a lot of the struggle. 

00:53:08 Noëlle: So if you have a new symptom and you can be like, oh, body, thank you so much for bringing this to my attention. I'm sorry that you're struggling right now. I love you so much. And you're crushing it. That's so much better than being like, oh, my God, I have a new symptom and it's the worst thing ever. You know, I have definitely done and still do sometimes. The divine, like, you know, if people are atheists, that's cool. Like you can ignore that one. But I think that people can find the divine in all different unexpected places, like in a child or in a meadow, or with the birds, or perhaps in a mosque. I think there's a lot of ways to connect with a higher power, but I think for me that all four of those pillars have just been incredibly, incredibly supportive, especially when I feel like people are letting me down.

00:54:04 Noëlle: It's like I have these other things that I can attach to, that I can pull from, that I can feel held by, and then I really know that I'm not alone. People say that all the time, but you're never really alone. But if you can't feel it, then you might as well be, right? And I think that investing in connecting with any of those four, or all of those four, really make it so that you feel held. At any given time, you can know that you're held. And I think that that's such a gift for any of us who are struggling, or whether it's chronic illness or not, honestly.

00:54:35 Chazmith: Yeah. So really, by secure attachment, we can just replace those two words with connection, ultimately. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That makes so much sense. Yeah. And that's so true. I mean, and you hear that through so many people and their experiences, how important it is to like, not just, it's not just mind. It's not just body. It's not just spirit. It's like, you know, it's like we're, it's all of it. And everyone knows on this podcast who listens regularly, I'm a huge advocate for the land, too. Like connecting to the land for a multitude of reasons and just aligning to, like living in a way that's more like this mutual respect with land. I feel like that's going to make us healthier when we're living in a way that's more mutually beneficial and when we're in this like dance and in respect land. I don't know and in my opinion it makes a huge difference in all of it.

00:55:28 Noëlle: Yeah and I think a lot of us are feeling what the land is feeling and I think that there's a way in which we can kind of be ambassadors for nature connection. Like, ‘cause I think, I mean, you're not the only one Chaz, but like so many, so many people that I know in chronic illness community are really attached to the land, really connected to the land. And I don't know. There's a lot of sweetness there.

00:55:49 Chazmith: Yeah, well, you know, there's a saying, and I truly believe in this saying, even though sometimes I don't want to believe, like sometimes my ego doesn't want to believe it because it causes me to face truths or see certain realities and learn stuff about myself. But the saying is, how we do anything is how we do everything. And so I think if you're somebody who just don't have any respect at all for our earth or our land, and you just, like throw your litter out your window, I mean, you're kind of like shitting on the earth. You're just throwing your trash on it. How are you doing that to yourself? So to me, it's like how I'm in relationship with all these things impacts all the others. And ultimately myself.

00:56:34 Noëlle: I've taken it a step further recently with encouragement from some friends of mine who just have more experience with ceremony, but just like really trying to give back to the earth with ceremony and like planting fruit in the earth, for example, and really just trying to give gifts and say, thank you, you know? Like, especially at this point in my healing, I feel like I have so much gratitude and so I have more to give back. I've been trying to think more lately about how do I give back to the land more intentionally.

00:57:07 Chazmith: Yeah. Beautiful. I love that. The land will appreciate you. Where can people find your book and how can people connect with you?

00:57:19 - 57:55 Noëlle: Great question. I have a website, noellejanka.com. That's N-O-E-L-L-E-J-A-N-K-A. I'm sure it'll be in the show notes. And there's links about the book there. The book is called Rebel Healing: Transforming Ourselves and the Systems That Make Us Sick. And it's available on Amazon and wherever books are sold online. So you can find it on Bookshop if you want to support a local bookstore. That's a sweet way to do it. It is available in some bookstores and some libraries in different parts of the country. So you can always check there first and request it. And anybody should be able to order it for you as well.

00:57:57 Chazmith: Sweet. Are you on any social media at all?

00:57:59 Noëlle: Oh, yeah. Thank you. Yeah, I'm most active on Instagram, but also Facebook, LinkedIn, not TikTok yet, but maybe in the new year.

00:58:09 Chazmith: All right. Well, it was so good to get to connect with you again three years later and this time get to see your face and I loved getting to chat with you and I am really excited for you on your adventures and your next steps of your journey and see where you go from here and I hope that your book is very fruitful.

00:58:30 Noëlle: Thank you, Jasmine. Thank you for the opportunity and thank you for all that you do for our community. It’s really special.

00:58:37 Chazmith: Thank you. 

00:58:44 Chazmith: Thank you so much for tuning in. Every episode that you tune into, my hope is always that you feel inspired in some way or that you learned something insightful or practical to implement into your healing experience. Tune in to Instagram for our weekly challenges where we focus on a new theme every month. And until next time, you know the drill. Make this week great.