Dr. Deb and Lyn talk about how a misdiagnosis of cancer can change your life for the better. Wondering how something so horrible can actually help you find your destiny? Lyn’s cancer diagnosis did just that and now she helps others heal from trauma and illness.
Do not miss these highlights:
[1:40] How preparing for a breast reduction surgery led to a confusing medical situation
[7:18] The impact her diagnosis had on her mental health
[9:22] Her exploration into alternative healing methods
[12:25] How she was wasting away but her physician took little time in her care
[14:37] Changing physicians led to the discovery of a misdiagnosis
[23:46] Dealing with the symptoms not the cause
[27:44] Discovering the benefits of Body Talk
[34:18] The impact that the intensity of the pandemic is having on our bodies
[39:19] Learning to calm your mind through yoga and meditation
About Our Guest:
Lyn Delmastro-Thomson is a mind-body medicine practitioner, using the healing systems of BodyTalk and Body Intuitive. She is also a speaker and author of the Amazon Best Seller, You Are Not Your Diagnosis. Lyn holds a master’s degree in somatic psychology and has completed additional specialized training in biofeedback, therapeutic yoga, and Reiki.
After being misdiagnosed with leukemia at the age of 25, Lyn became passionate about sharing with the world her message that just because a doctor has said an illness is “chronic” or “incurable” doesn’t mean that it has to be a life sentence, and that western medicine isn’t the only approach to healing. When we explore other holistic options, true healing, rather than symptom management, can occur.e
Tell our listeners who you are and what you do:
I am a powerful energy medicine practitioner, helping my clients uncover the story behind the symptoms they are experiencing. As the story is revealed, the body can begin to rebalance and heal itself. The tools I use are gentle, non-invasive and effective and creating long term healing.
Through my one-on-one work with clients over the past ten years, I have helped hundreds of women reclaim their lives and health after receiving a life-changing health diagnosis. Many of my clients have been able to decrease or eliminate certain prescription medications, as well as increase their energy and stamina. In addition, I have worked to support clients with a variety of other issues, including hormonal imbalances, metabolic imbalances, stress, anxiety, depression, and trauma. I’m passionate about helping all my clients to uncover and unleash their true healing potential!
https://heartfirehealingllc.com/
https://www.facebook.com/heartfirehealingpdx
https://www.instagram.com/heartfirehealing/
Sign up now for Serenity U – https://debra-s-school-1b7e.thinkific.com/courses/serenity-u
Transcription of Episode #101:
Debra Muth 0:02
Welcome to Let’s Talk Wellness Now! I’m your host, Dr. Deb. This is where we talk about everything wellness and learn to defy aging and live our lives on our own terms.
Debra Muth 0:16
Lyn, welcome to the show, I’m so happy to have you as a guest.
Lyn Delmastro-Thomson 0:19
I’m so happy to be here. Thanks for having me.
Debra Muth 0:22
You’re welcome. So you have a very interesting story to share with our listeners. And as I was saying, before we were on camera. You know, I always think I’ve heard it all after all these years of practicing. And then there’s another story that it just amazes me that it occurs. Do you want to tell us a little bit about your story?
Lyn Delmastro-Thomson 0:45
Sure! So my story kind of begins. Right after I graduated from college, I decided to go and pursue a PhD in history. And I was miserable in that program for a couple of years. As it pretty much it was instant. As soon as I got there. I was like, What am I doing here, I don’t really feel like I belong. And my body started to kind of give me some messages of that. And I was really good at dismissing them. So I started feeling a lot of anxiety. I was starting to notice depression symptoms, I got migraine headaches, again, which I had kind of gotten under control. And I was like, Oh, well, I’m supposed to be miserable. I had this idea or this belief that you know, grad school is supposed to be hard. So I wrote those things off for three years, which is a really long time to make yourself be miserable. But that’s what I did. And in the summer of 2004, I was scheduled for elective surgery, I was going to have a breast reduction. And you know, did all of the normal stuff leading up to surgery, including pre-op bloodwork. And the night before the surgery, I get this phone call from my surgeon and he says your pre-op bloodwork looks off. And immediately my heart started racing and my mind started racing. It’s like what’s going on what’s wrong? And he said, Well, don’t freak out quite yet, you know, labs make mistakes, which is not something we want to think about. But it’s true. And he sent me back to the hospital to run the tests again, just to make sure it wasn’t a lab error, you know, switch sample, get a phone call another hour later, nope, not a lab error. There’s something wrong, and I can’t do surgery, you need to go see your primary doctor as soon as you can. And that was just like being dropped down this kind of rabbit hole of like, What’s wrong, but he didn’t tell me what was going on. He just said I can’t do surgery. And I think the next day, I went to my primary doctor. And of course they did more tests, because that’s what gets done when you know, they’re trying to figure it out. And the next thing I know, I don’t know how, what the timeframe was maybe a day or two later, I get this phone call from a doctor who I’ve never met. And he says, How are you doing? And I’m like, other than my heart is like racing because I don’t know who you are, why the heck you’re calling me. I’m okay. And he said, Okay, well, if you don’t have any symptoms, come see me at the hospital tomorrow morning. And if something shows up tonight, come to the hospital immediately. And I’m like, okay, nobody gave me any indication of like, what I should be looking for. I think I was so stunned. I didn’t ask that question. You know, looking back on myself that I’m like, why didn’t you say well, what should I be looking for Doctor? So I spent the whole night you know, just like in panic of like, I don’t know, is this a symptom? Is that something you know? Very anxiety-producing? Yeah.
Debra Muth 3:42
Am I gonna wake up tomorrow morning? What’s gonna happen here?
Lyn Delmastro-Thomson 3:45
Yeah, like what am I supposed to be looking for? Am I gonna have a heart attack? I kind of got a little hint since he said he was a gastroenterologist. I’m like, okay, so something digestive maybe, you know, I was educated enough to know what that type of doctor did. And so I go to the hospital The next day, and it just basically was this two-week-long process in that hospital. And then they referred me to a different hospital because I was living in Santa Barbara. And that’s not a major, you know, major medical center. There’s a local hospital.
Debra Muth 4:17
And during any of this time, did anybody give you a hint about what was going on?
Lyn Delmastro-Thomson 4:22
They started to when I was in that hospital, they basically said, you’ve clotted off the veins that drain your liver. And that’s and I was like, That’s not good. That’s not supposed to happen. Right? You know, it was like I know enough about bodies to know that’s not good. And they said, but we have to figure out why we don’t know why yet, you know, so then that was like the poking and the prodding and then sending me somewhere else too, because they basically needed to do a procedure to go in and like balloon open those veins, and that they had never done that at the hospital that I was in. You know, that’s a pretty rare thing to happen. Especially in the liver. So they’re like, we don’t want to be like practice on you. We want to send you somewhere where they can actually say we’ve done this before, and we’ve been successful.
Debra Muth 5:11
Well, that was nice.
Lyn Delmastro-Thomson 5:13
Yeah, exactly. But you know, the medical system, it was basically one hospital didn’t want to take me without my insurance, basically saying they would guarantee a liver transplant and the doctor was like, you’re far away from needing a liver transplant. But this is just like this. They want to put this caveat. So I went from they were going to send me to LA to they sent me to San Francisco instead, because San Francisco would accept me without that guarantee of a liver transplant, should it become necessary. Yeah, so you know, more tests more poking and prodding, they opened up the portal veins of the liver. And finally, after, I think it was about 10 days, the diagnosis was given. And I still remember, you know, being in that hospital room and hearing the word leukemia. And just feeling like all the air was sucked out of the room all of a sudden.
Debra Muth 6:07
So you go from planning an elective surgery to we don’t know what’s going on, and we’re not going to tell you everything right away to 10 days of poking and prodding, a liver issue, a vein issue to you’re diagnosed with leukemia.
Lyn Delmastro-Thomson 6:22
Yes.
Debra Muth 6:23
Wow.
Lyn Delmastro-Thomson 6:24
Yeah. So it was quite the, you know, overwhelming experience of, you know, going from seeing myself as I was, you know, 25 at the time, like, I had been pretty healthy, maybe not the happiest person at that point in my life, but you know, not having to
Debra Muth 6:39
figure out what they’re gonna do in college and what you’re gonna do with the rest of your life?
Lyn Delmastro-Thomson 6:43
Yeah, those kind of issues. So all of a sudden, you know, you have leukemia, and you know, what, and I still remember thinking, what does that mean? Like, do I? Are they going to say, I need chemotherapy, and I remember being terrified that that was going to be the treatment, which it wasn’t, but I was, like, so terrified that that was what I was going to have to go through.
Debra Muth 7:06
All this time, you know, obviously, there’s anxiety, there’s fear, there’s worry. How do you process all of that being 25 years old? How did you get through that,
Lyn Delmastro-Thomson 7:18
So kind of the first year after that diagnosis, it was really rough. And I kept kind of trying to shove myself into the wrong shoe, so to speak of like, I’m gonna keep going with this PhD program, even though like duh, you’re miserable, what’s wrong with you. But you know, it felt too overwhelming again, to try to figure that out. So I just kind of was like plodding along day by day. And then the next year, my best friend died very, very suddenly. And that I view is just kind of like the final push over the, the edge of the cliff of my mental health was just destroyed by that it was sudden, she actually died of a blood clot after having her tonsils removed. So it struck a chord because there was this commonality of blood clots, and you can die of a blood clot and you’re 26 at that point. And so I wanted to a pretty dark place. And that was when I really started, after about a month of not eating, like not taking care of myself not taking my medications on a proper schedule. I finally gave in and got help my parents convinced me that you know, you’re not doing well, you need some support. You know, we don’t blame you for any of this, because it’s a lot as a young person for anybody, but you don’t know how to navigate this. And that was kind of the realization, I remember in one of the appointments with the therapists there and kind of having this aha of like, Oh, I don’t really want to die, because I thought I wanted to die at that point. But I just had no idea how to live with, you know, having this diagnosis, losing my best friend A year later, what was I going to do with my life. And that was really where I started to climb out of that dark place and getting regular therapy at one point like three times a week after I’ve had been in this inpatient program for about five days. Just massive need for support and therapy. And then I started getting curious too about other things my therapist sent me to this class that was called yoga for healing. And I was like, What the heck is that? Like, I’ve only seen yoga in a gym. There’s a yoga for healing. Hmm. And it was amazing. You know, I started to just kind of find all these other things that helped me begin to heal physically and mentally and emotionally as well.
Debra Muth 9:47
That when you started getting opened up to the alternative world of healing, was that your first intro into that world?
Lyn Delmastro-Thomson 9:54
Pretty much you know, I had grown up in a small town in Idaho. So I had experienced something biofeedback as a teen when I got migraines, so there was like a little familiarity with something, but that’s still kind of has a little more medical application to it. You know, it was I was referred by a doctor when I was a teen. But I had never, you know, experienced anything like yoga or acupuncture or energy work, or it was like this cool, you know, and I lived in a place where at that time where there was availability of that, Southern California is a great place to explore all of these things.
Debra Muth 10:32
Absolutely, absolutely. So tell it takes us on that journey of how you had your first introduction to alternative medicine, and then transition into what you’re doing now. I get the feeling that your story is very similar to mine. So I’m very curious to see how you transitioned that.
Lyn Delmastro-Thomson 10:53
Sure. So I think I, you know, I just started dabbling, and everything at that point, kind of when I, you know, had gone into therapy, and then I started going back to biofeedback to help me with my anxiety. And then I started going to this yoga for healing. And then I met somebody who liked did Reiki, and he said, Would you like to try Reiki? And I’m like, I don’t know what it is. But okay, I had a profound experience of that. Started seeing an acupuncturist, which I thought was really cool as well. And I just like anything that people would, you know, say, that sounded cool. I was always like, yeah, I’ll try it. Like, why not?
Debra Muth 11:33
It can’t hurt, right?
Lyn Delmastro-Thomson 11:34
It can’t hurt and, and at that time, you know, after in 2005, after I had gone through that second trauma, I still wasn’t physically feeling that great. And so these were things that were helping me when doctors weren’t really helping me, because there’s that other piece of my story, which was actually I was treated for the wrong thing for three years, and came to find out that it wasn’t that particular it wasn’t chronic Myelogenous Leukemia was a different blood disorder.
Debra Muth 12:04
Oh my gosh, was it a cancer of any kind at all?
Lyn Delmastro-Thomson 12:08
And it’s Polycythemia Vera, which is classified yes, as as a, you know, blood cancer, but not as you know, scary of a one compared to CML.
Debra Muth 12:20
So how did you find out that you were being treated for the wrong disorder? After three years?
Lyn Delmastro-Thomson 12:26
It was quite a process. So I felt like probably after that first year, when I came out of that dark depression, and I started to question like, they’re saying, everything looks good. And my labs are saying, You look like you’re getting better. And then I, my body was actually physically wasting away, I lost a ton of weight, even though I was eating at a certain point like, and doing what I was supposed to do. And I was like, this doesn’t feel right. Like, why is nobody questioning this? And when I would try and question the doctors, they just kind of, you know, dismissed me and spent three minutes in an appointment with me, and we’re like, you look great. And I’m like, how are you telling somebody that people come up to on the street and say, don’t lose any more weight, that you look great like that? That’s just was mind-boggling to me. Like you’re a liar basically, was my experience.
Debra Muth 13:23
And clearly not feeling like you looked great to the outside world. Right?
Lyn Delmastro-Thomson 13:27
Exactly. I was like, I was kind of getting to be skin and bones at a certain point, you know, how do you tell someone like that, that you look great, you know, that’s not comforting at that point to deny the reality.
Debra Muth 13:40
The problem with our society, right? Is that a certain look means you look great, and you should keep going. And that’s the distorted way we look at people and especially women, unfortunately.
Lyn Delmastro-Thomson 13:55
Yeah. And I think this doctor just didn’t want to deal with anything, you know, he just wanted to like rush out of the room and you know, not engage with me. And so it took basically three years for me to extricate myself from the program I was in and I had student health insurance, which meant, you know, I had to go through who they referred me to for my specialist, and you know, the whole nightmare of that finally, got different while I got a job with medical insurance and got a different primary doctor who I immediately at the first appointment, I said, send me to a different hematologist. I don’t want to see this talk to her again. And that was in 2007. And immediately in the first appointment, he questioned the diagnosis. I brought like two inches worth of like paperwork, you know, all my labs from the past three years and he flipped through and he’s like, I don’t think it’s CML.
Debra Muth 14:54
Your heart must have dropped.
Lyn Delmastro-Thomson 14:56
Well, I was it was like this mixed emotion, right? Because I kind of Like I sent that maybe it wasn’t or that something was wrong, but then at the same time, it was like, so nobody was listening to me for the past three years, you know, and I was treated for this for three years with a medication that had a lot of side effects that weren’t very fun for me.
Debra Muth 15:18
It could have left some permanent damage for you.
Lyn Delmastro-Thomson 15:20
Right. And I always still wonder to this day, you know, it’s like, what was the impact of taking a drug that I didn’t need for three years?
Debra Muth 15:28
Well, and this is a, you know, this is a really interesting conversation because of your, because of your health insurance, you were limited by whom you could see, this is just a window into what socialized medicine looks for looks like for our country. And people don’t understand that. And I’ve traveled a lot around the country and around the world where they have socialized medicine because that’s what I do I always find people to talk about health care, right? And I want to know, like, how does your system work? Do you like your system? Is it good? Is it not? What’s the upside, what’s the downside? And everyone that I’ve talked to that’s in a socialized system says, it’s not a great system, you know, you’re going to wait for care. Most of them if they work, they have a private insurance so they can get to the head of the line so they can see different people and navigate the systems and, and I think it’s really important for us to understand that just because you have insurance doesn’t always mean you’re going to have the best use of the best doctors, you may be limited by who you see. And we see that a lot in big, big organizations, big hospitals that are local to us. If you get into a specialty, like say, neurology or gastroenterology or something like that, and it’s a group of five or six doctors and, and you sign up with, you know, Dr. Smith, and you don’t like him, they will not let you transfer inside their group to one of the other doctors, because you’re you belong to Dr. Smith, right. And you have to transfer completely out of the system to see a different doctor. And that’s craziness. Right? It is craziness. And they won’t, they won’t give a different opinion within that group. So even if you ask for a second opinion, they review your records, they give you the exact same opinion, you don’t get that objective, look into your care. I’m so glad that you were able to do that. And find somebody to think outside the box and look at it differently for you.
Lyn Delmastro-Thomson 17:21
Yeah, for sure. I mean, on some level, I feel like he did save my life. You know, if I had kept getting that wrong treatment for forever and not gotten the right treatment, you know that that was not helpful to my body healing from all the underlying issues? Yeah,
Debra Muth 17:39
yeah. Is that what kind of walked you down that path of alternative medicine is to look for a way to heal some of the things that had happened to you during your treatment?
Lyn Delmastro-Thomson 17:49
That was definitely part of it. Yeah, as I, you know, in that kind of three-year window, when I wasn’t getting the care from doctors, you know, it was like, Okay, well, what can I do to help myself feel better? And then I just started to see, like, all of the benefits of that and get really excited about it. And the possibilities, you know, because I thought, well, if I’m somebody who grew up in, you know, this small town, and I’d never heard of these things, I’m sure there’s other people out there that haven’t heard of these things that can help them, you know,
Debra Muth 18:18
yeah, same thing when I was sick, and I didn’t have a diagnosis, like you’d had it all. But I went to my conventional Doc, and I was convinced I was walking out with either one or two diagnoses, MS or fibromyalgia. And I walked out with a diagnosis of fibromyalgia, and a prescription for narcotics and a prescription for antidepressants and was told to go home and prepare to be disabled in four years. I was 28 years old. And I was like, You’re crazy. There’s no way and I was very conventionally trained nurse practitioner didn’t have a clue about alternative medicine. My only window two, that was my wacky friends that were kind of witch crafty. And that’s how I looked at them back then. Thank God, they didn’t care I called him that because they were the ones I reached out to when they sent this to me. And I said, Okay, you guys have to know somebody that can help me. And they took me under their wing and started taking me to people who looked at things differently. And within, I’d say, probably two months, I was completely better. And the diagnosis was not correct at all. It was the thyroid issue. Nothing to do with fibromyalgia. And and that at that moment, I said, I need to figure out what you guys know, I need to learn what you know. And that was my window into the alternative world and I found that whole path of naturopathic degree and master herbalist and all of that because I wanted to learn everything I could learn about all this alternative stuff that’s available to people for the same reason, because nobody knew about it back then.
Debra Muth 19:55
I’m Dr. Deb, founder of Serenity Health Care Center. I want to thank you joining our let’s talk wellness now podcast, it has been such a pleasure to share our knowledge. With so many people, we are averaging about 25,000 downloads an episode. And that is amazing because it’s showing us how much people want to learn about health and wellness. at Serenity Health Care Center, we have had the pleasure of changing lives for over 8500 clients, both men, women and their children. As a result of this, I have created serenity, you know, university Learning Center where you can access all of my knowledge that I have developed over 25 years of practice at your fingertips in an easy to find index library, you will have access to this dashboard 24 seven, it will be like having your own personal naturopath at your beck and call, anytime a day. I’d like to encourage you to check it out at Serenity view.com.
Lyn Delmastro-Thomson 21:10
Right? Yeah. And I just was so passionate that also like I don’t believe that things just happen for no reason. I’m like, if I went through these, especially, you know, I would say three years of really intense, you know, horrible Plus, you know, after that the ripple effect of I healed? Like, did that just happen to me? For no reason? I don’t really think so.
Debra Muth 21:32
Yes, the universe or God, whatever we want to call our higher power, it puts us in a line for a reason. And it was an awakening for you as an awakening for me and put you on a different path and one that you seem to really enjoy now and are happy with compared to the path you were walking down before. Right?
Lyn Delmastro-Thomson 21:51
Right, exactly. It did put me on the right path, even though you know, it was a very intense thing. And you know, some of me wonders if I had gotten the clues a little sooner, you know, if I could have made that transition differently.
Debra Muth 22:05
Yeah. Did you have to get hit over the head with something to make the transition? Right?
Lyn Delmastro-Thomson 22:10
Right, exactly. Because I kind of felt like my body was like, Hey, you know, this isn’t really what you’re supposed to do. But I didn’t. I think my big sticking point in that, you know, early part of the experience was, I don’t know what I wanted to do. And I remember conversations, even with my mom, where I would say I’m miserable here, I don’t really want to do this. And she’d go well, do you know what you want to do? And I was like, No, you know, and to me at that age, it was just scary to go out and get a job. Like, it just felt like that was being an adult and being a grad school for some reason in my brain didn’t feel like I was fully in the adult world, even though I was pretty much the same.
Debra Muth 22:53
Yeah, for sure. You know, I think it’s really interesting when we talk to patients, and you probably talk to people about this too. And, and I always tell them, you know, the body’s going to talk to you, and it’s going to tell you what’s wrong. The more you choose to not listen to it, the louder it speaks. Yes. And it continues to speak until it’ll cripple you if you continue to choose not to listen to the little hints that it’s giving you. And I think that’s really important for people to understand is that our bodies tell us everything. It’s whether or not we choose to listen to it and take action so that we don’t end up in that crippling state, where now you know, your body is crushed, and you’re you’re flatlined, and your body’s saying I’m done with you, you’re gonna have to rebuild now because you aren’t listening.
Lyn Delmastro-Thomson 23:37
Right? Yeah, very much. That’s the message. I’m always kind of saying, you know that symptoms are really just communication from our bodies, but we’ve become so trained to think, you know, they’re annoying, they’re frustrating, they’re inconvenient. They’re things that we need to just take a pill so that they go away as quickly as I can, you know, it’s just unfortunate that we live in a society that that’s kind of the general paradigm of like, Oh, well, you know, symptoms, or just, you know, take a Tylenol, you have a headache.
Debra Muth 24:07
Mm-hmm.
Lyn Delmastro-Thomson 24:09
You have an upset stomach? Well, why don’t you go take some Tums or, you know, take something for that.
Debra Muth 24:14
Exactly, instead of looking at what the cause is, and what are we doing in our life to either a physically manifest this because we’re eating the wrong foods, or we’re not exercising or we’re not doing whatever? Or is it an emotional piece that’s driving that physical symptom, and I think that’s one of the hardest ones for people to understand is that there could be an emotional component to your physical symptoms as well.
Lyn Delmastro-Thomson 24:36
Very much. You know, sometimes they even just see it like in a session, certain things that come up to work with someone on and it’s like, clearing a particular emotion out of an organ and they actually can feel it in that moment of the clearing of that emotion and it’s like, oh, wow, that’s like painful or uncomfortable as it’s moving out. Like that. It’s kind of a window into Well, that’s what emotions can do when they’re trapped in our bodies.
Debra Muth 25:03
So true. I had that experience the other night. I always listen to like, chakra healing things before I’m ready to go to bed. It’s my way of kind of cleansing everything I’m exposed to. And all of a sudden, in the middle of the night, I was woken up with this horrific shoulder pain. And I literally felt this, like, rip, and it woke me up out of a dead sleep. And I woke up and I went, Oh, my God. And I sat there for a minute going, what the heck just happened. And then I realized, like, I just removed some kind of emotional attachment that I had, like, oh my lord, was it painful? I could have swore. And then I was like, Oh, yeah, what was I doing before I fell asleep. I was doing this chakra healing. That’s like eight hours long, so you can do it while you’re sleeping. I think my husband’s gotten so used to me doing some wacky things that he doesn’t look at me like, I’ve lost my mind.
Lyn Delmastro-Thomson 26:03
You wake up and you’re like, AHH!
Debra Muth 26:07
I tell you the next day, I felt great. My shoulder pain was gone. I felt great. I was lighter. I was like, Oh, this is awesome. That is awesome.
Lyn Delmastro-Thomson 26:15
It is amazing how when we let go of those things, you know, like the body can shift the pain or the symptom dislike that? You know?
Debra Muth 26:23
Absolutely. Absolutely. So tell me what, um, Lynn, what was one of your biggest challenges that you’ve had to overcome or work through during this process that you’ve been through?
Lyn Delmastro-Thomson 26:38
I think one of the biggest challenges and especially in the initial experience of it was feeling like my body had become the enemy, like feeling like my body had betrayed me. And I remember that pretty strongly, you know, in that 2004 2005 window, like, what did I do to deserve those? Why are you feeling me body? And that was really like something that I had to work through and change my mindset around that now. My body hadn’t failed me, you know, probably more likely I had failed my body in certain ways.
Debra Muth 27:12
Yeah. Isn’t that the truth? So tell us a little bit about what you do. Now. You’ve transitioned through, you’re working with people. Tell us a little bit about what you do now and how you got there.
Lyn Delmastro-Thomson 27:25
Yeah, so kind of I, I started with a couple of the healing modalities that had helped me originally. So I originally was working in biofeedback. And then I trained in therapeutic yoga with the teacher that I was taking classes with. And I studied Reiki. And so that was kind of where my business started. And then about seven or eight years ago, I experienced this other modality called Body Talk. And I was just so amazed by it. And so my work really shifted in that direction. And there’s a little interesting story of kind of how I got brought to Body Talk was, again, just through my body and through pain. And I had had pain in my left knee. And I knew it wasn’t from a physical injury, or like, there was no like mechanical cause to my knee hurting. I just woke up one morning, and it was like, Hello, I’m going to hurt. And I spent a couple months like doing all the alternative things that were already in my wheelhouse. And I was getting massage and acupuncture and seeing my chiropractor, and I was studying yoga therapy at the time. And none of the things were resolving this pain in my knee. And I’m like, what’s going on? What the heck. And so I think it was about three months into that experience. I remembered fortuitously, this woman I had met the year before. And she had said she did something called Body Talk. And she told me a little bit about it back at that time. And I had thought it sounded interesting. But at that time, I was like, Well, I have, you know, like a zillion things I already do. Like, I don’t need one more. And I thought, well, I don’t know, I feel like my knee is talking like I at that point had the awareness that it was like a voice. But I it was like speaking a foreign language that I was like, Where’s my translator, I don’t understand what it’s saying. So I went for a session. And in that very first session, it was so profound, the pain shifted immediately, because she helped me pinpoint what the underlying cause was. And the underlying cause was something traumatic that had happened that I didn’t even like, associate with it, or that I didn’t even acknowledge to myself as a trauma. So my dad had been sick and they my parents had come to Oregon where I live now to try and seek some second opinions and try and get him help for his severe depression and anxiety. And he was almost suicidal at one point. And then they came stayed with me for two weeks and they left. And then I was like, I had taken two weeks off of my business and I was like, well, I got it. You know? Like what we do in our culture, I got to get back to work. Yeah. And I had never acknowledged that, you know, it never acknowledged it was a trauma. And so in that session when she said did something traumatic happen right before this, it was like the light bulb went on. And I was like, Oh, yeah, that was traumatic. As soon as we cleared that, as soon as we cleared the emotion around it, I got up off her table, and my pain was completely gone. And I think my, my chin could have been down on the floor. I was like, how’d that happened. You mean, I’ve been doing this for three or four months with it, like only minor improvements. And now it’s like, completely gone?
Debra Muth 30:42
Yeah, you know, we don’t realize how much stuff that happens to us emotionally, that we stuff. And, you know, there’s a lot of practitioners that really believe when we don’t clear those kinds of emotional traumas or those emotional hits, whatever you want to call it, they can lead to significant disease, including things like cancer. And it isn’t until you deal with some of those emotional pieces that you can actually feel the physical things that you’re experiencing.
Lyn Delmastro-Thomson 31:13
Yes. For sure,
Debra Muth 31:15
You hit it right on the head, our culture doesn’t allow for us to take time to process or, or deal with emotional things that are hard, you know, it’s just not accepted in our culture, which is really sad.
Lyn Delmastro-Thomson 31:30
It is very sad, because it’s like, if I had given myself, you know, maybe a couple days to just be like, wow, that was intense two weeks, maybe it would have even just processed on its own, but I was immediately you know, switched into gotta get back to work and productivity. You’re self-employed, you gotta start making money again.
Debra Muth 31:53
Yeah, Isn’t that the truth. I mean, it’s so hard for us to do that. And, and I think we’re ingrained in that in our culture. And I’ve been through the same thing in my life being self-employed, and I employ a lot of people in my practice, so they all depend on me. And I remember not taking time to be with my friends, not taking time to spend time with my dear friend who was dying of cancer. And last year, it finally hit me. My father-in-law was diagnosed with stage four cancer, my best friend was diagnosed with stage four cancer, my other best friend was literally dying at that moment of stage four cancer. And then my only other best girlfriend that I had was diagnosed with a severe illness, and it looked like it was cancer, all three of those women were ovarian cancer. Wow. And you sit there and you go, okay, like you had said earlier, clearly, this is a message right? early, there’s something going on here. And I knew I had to sit back and say, Okay, I need to look at me, and what’s going on, and I need to make time for these people in my life. And then I need to figure out how my life is going to look after this, because it can’t look the same way. After going through all of this in a six-month period.
Lyn Delmastro-Thomson 33:14
It’s just not, you know, that’s a tremendous amount into process. So you know, all these key people in your life. Yeah, exactly. And passing away. And yeah,
Debra Muth 33:24
it’s really horrible. And, and two of them are already gone. And two of them are still there. But like you had said, it’s so much trauma on you. And if you don’t take the time to process it, you’re gonna end up in a really bad place, a really bad place. And, and for me, I took some time, I didn’t take nearly as much time as I should have, I know that. But I did take some time to just sit with it. And now even now, when it comes up, it’s like, okay, it’s coming up for a reason I need to process this, I need to deal with it, so that it doesn’t lodge itself someplace else physically. And I allow myself the time to do that. And then when I’m ready, I move on with it again. But I’ll tell you, it took a lot of years for me to learn how to do that. Because if this was 15 years ago, I would have done just like you I would have just pushed through.
Lyn Delmastro-Thomson 34:08
Yep. Yeah, unfortunately, you know, I think that’s all too common that we just learned to be really good at pushing through. In fact, I found just even in this past year with the intensity of the pandemic, and just all of the other things that are going on just kind of on a bigger level. It’s like I’m finding myself more and more like I have to slow down more and more just to make space to process because there’s a lot of intensity. And you know, having to quiet that part of the mind that says well, you know, you should be doing X, Y and Z business tasks. Like I’m laying on the floor doing research. Because my nervous system is like I need some TLC right now.
Debra Muth 34:49
Okay. Absolutely. Speaking of what we’re going through, what are you seeing from your clients? are they struggling a lot with what’s going on in the pandemic and, how have you been able to help them through some of that?
Lyn Delmastro-Thomson 35:04
Um, you know, it’s always interesting because I find a lot of themes like each week and people I’m working with. And one of the themes that I’ve seen lately is a lot of kind of digestive type of things, even from people who say, I don’t normally have digestive things. And to me, that’s interesting, if you think from BodyTalk brings in a lot of kind of Chinese medicine perspective, you know, the stomach isn’t just digesting our food, it’s digesting life, and we’re trying to digest like these big chunks of, you know, the world is not the same as it was a year ago. And all of these big things happening in the US and you know, it just in the world, it’s like, our poor stomachs are like, I don’t know how to, like, digest your food and help you, you process.
Debra Muth 35:51
all this emotional stuff along with it. Right?
Lyn Delmastro-Thomson 35:54
exactly. So that’s been, you know, one of the themes and, and a lot of, in fact, I’m working on kind of the idea of creating something around just motivation, feeling really stuck. Because that feels like that’s another area that a lot of people, including myself, at times struggle with just feeling like, you know, you keep getting derailed by everything changing, and then it changes again, and, you know, hard things happening in our life. I think my teacher described it the other week, to me is like, it’s like, you’re in this big pit of mud, you know, like, you can kind of move through the pit of mud. But you know, it’s not easy here kind of like trying to muck through. And I think that seems to be a very common experience of just feeling like it’s hard to feel motivated. It’s hard to feel productive in life, because we’re just kind of mucking through all of this emotional intensity and psychological things that we’re trying to process as well.
Debra Muth 36:53
Do you have some tips for our listeners on how they can process some of these things that are going on for in the world that we’re, we’re struggling so much with right now. But you know, there’s a lot of loss, there’s a lot of transition. And for some people, it’s a lot more difficult than others. But do you have some tips that you can give our listeners?
Lyn Delmastro-Thomson 37:12
I think, you know, as we’ve kind of been talking in our conversation, the first thing is just making space for that like, rather than just feeling like, you know, I shouldn’t be feeling this way or judging ourselves or not making time for it, just allowing that to be there because it is there. And when we deny it, it doesn’t serve anything really. And just, you know, supporting our body’s support. I think one of the things I’ve really been emphasizing with one on one clients and people in my group is just really trying to like nurture your nervous system as much as you can. And for each of us, you know, different things like for me lately, it’s just been doing a lot of restorative yoga and meditation because I can feel my body just go Oh, yeah, that’s what kind of calm centered feels like again, yeah, that’s nice. Or you know, getting outside in nature for those you know who it’s not too cold. You know, now we’re in the winter season. And that’s, that’s more challenging. I found myself a lot more in the summer trying to get out and into places and, you know, go for walks and breathe a lot of fresh air.
Debra Muth 38:20
Yeah, for sure. For those type A personality people, kind of allowing yourself to just be and calm is going to feel really awkward at first. I know when I started doing it, I felt like, God, I’m so worthless. Why aren’t i doing something? Why am I just binge watching Netflix and not doing anything and turning my brain off and disconnecting from the world and I, I felt so guilty, because that’s not me at all. But then afterwards, I was like, Oh my gosh, I feel so relaxed. This is so nice. Like, this is what normal people feel like. Now, now I can now I can take you know, an hour or two and just kind of just be Be quiet, just sit, relax, enjoy time with my family and not feel guilty that I need to be working on something, move my career forward or help a client or do whatever I it’s okay, I give myself permission to just be and I think a lot of us in the United States need to give ourselves permission. Yes, you just let your bodies be once in a while.
Lyn Delmastro-Thomson 39:19
Yep. Yeah, I remember when I was, you know, used to teach restorative yoga. And there were some people that you could tell their experience with yoga was always a very active form. And it was always fascinating to watch the people that would just fidget you know, because you you put a bolster under you and you like lay in a position for like five or 10 minutes and some people you could see they were just like, how much longer to sit in this position.
Debra Muth 39:44
That’s how I was when I first started. I’m like, I can’t do this so that I would do fat burning yoga because it would be quicker and I’d be moving more and I write this is easier. And now it’s like okay, now I can try to hold the post up too. Like a minute, I can hold a poster minute, which is pretty good. Before my mind is going, Okay, what’s not? Right. But yeah, it’s a challenge for a lot of us.
Lyn Delmastro-Thomson 40:11
Yeah, to get because it’s it’s kind of it’s confronting I think, in certain ways. It’s like, you know, when we try to get quiet our mind is like, Oh, well, hello, you’re trying to be quiet.
Debra Muth 40:23
I’m gonna send you all these really great ideas and these great thoughts,
Lyn Delmastro-Thomson 40:27
right? Or it can be the reverse to, you know, some people just get into spirals to where you’re just kind of like, get more anxious when you’re trying to be still. And it’s like, well, I’m trying to relax, but my brain is like, freaking out about, you know, XY and Z.
Debra Muth 40:42
Yeah, you’re quiet.I’m gonna give you these thoughts now. Yes, perfect opportunity. Right. It’s the first time you’ve been quiet and how long? So I have all your attention now. Right?
Lyn Delmastro-Thomson 40:53
Exactly, exactly. I think that’s too, you know, when people think, Oh, you know, when you meditate, your mind is supposed to be really quiet. It’s like, usually, that doesn’t really happen for maybe moments. Like I find those sometimes where I’m like, Oh, that was a nice, you know, a couple minutes where my brain was just kind of, like, serene, like the surface of a lake. But most of the time, it’s like, you know, you’re constantly like a small child bringing it back, like, okay, we’re not gonna go on that tangent right now. You know,
Debra Muth 41:25
Exactly. Let’s, let’s bring it home again, right?
Lyn Delmastro-Thomson 41:28
Yep, we’re just gonna sit here, and we’re just gonna focus on our body or on breath, or, you know, whatever you’re using to try and bring a little focus. And then the brains like, No, I’m gonna go off or, you know, run after that next shiny little object.
Debra Muth 41:44
Absolutely.And that’s where guided meditation for me, it’s so helpful. Because if somebody’s speaking, or there’s music, I can get my brain to focus on the sound so that it’s not on 100% quiet. That’s one of the only ways that I can really get my brain to kind of aligned. Otherwise, I’m like, you, I’m my brains everywhere, you know. So, so if you’re listening to us, and you’re struggling with this, you know, don’t be afraid to download something or somebody guiding you through or there’s some music that you can focus on, you’re not alone in quieting your mind, all of us have that challenge, you know?
Lyn Delmastro-Thomson 42:15
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, guided meditation can be so great. And there’s so many, you know, ways that you can get access to tons of different meditations, that, you know, you can try to see, you know, what feels like it’s the right fit for you.
Debra Muth 42:32
Lyn you are just such an inspiration, I’m so glad you shared your story with us today. If our listeners are connecting with you, and they want to experience some of the things that you teach, how can they do that?
Lyn Delmastro-Thomson 42:46
And the best way is to reach out through my website, and my website is hurt fire healing llc.com. And there’s a way that you can reach out and even have a conversation, book, a free call and kind of chat about what you’re experiencing right now. And how I might be able to help. I’m a very low pressure person, so don’t feel like you’re getting on a call and I pressure you into things I’ve like if it feels like it’s the right fit. That’s always what I’m looking for, rather than just, you know, everybody needs me. Not everybody needs me, everybody has the right person that they need.
Debra Muth 43:20
Yeah, that’s awesome. So if you’re driving, don’t worry about pulling over and writing that down, we will have her website and all of her contact information on our let’s talk wellness now website, also on all of our social media challenge channels like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. So Lynn, thanks for joining us today. Is there anything you want to leave our listeners with?
Lyn Delmastro-Thomson 43:45
I think just kind of where we started the conversation about learning to listen to your body, you know, and making that a practice, that’s one of kind of my core messages for people is just, you know, start conversation with your body. And even if it feels weird in the beginning or awkward or you ask your body. So what does this symptom mean, and you hear silence, like, Don’t give up, keep trying it, because if you’ve never done it before, it’s gonna feel probably weird and awkward. And it’s gonna take a little while for your body to kind of get into that habit with you of being able to communicate back to you. So don’t give up.
Debra Muth 44:22
Absolutely. That’s a great tip. Like, don’t give up, it can happen. And don’t give up on finding the right person for you. You made a perfect, you know, comment there is everybody has their right person. And it doesn’t have to be the right person forever too. Sometimes we outgrow our teachers and that’s okay for us to grow and move on and experience somebody else because we can always take each other to a different place.
Lyn Delmastro-Thomson 44:49
Exactly. Yeah, I’ve definitely felt like that’s happened or you know, even with therapy, it’s like, Okay, that was the right therapist for that time period, and then you move forward and then Like I need somebody different or I need a different teacher or mentor for this particular thing that I’m struggling with, and that’s not that person’s wheelhouse.
Debra Muth 45:08
Yeah, as we grow, we need people that are further ahead of us than we are. And that’s okay. That’s really okay.
Lyn Delmastro-Thomson 45:18
Yes, for sure.
Debra Muth 45:19
Thank you so much for joining us today. It’s been such a pleasure chatting with you. Yeah. It
Lyn Delmastro-Thomson 45:24
was wonderful to chat with you as well. Thanks for having me.
Debra Muth 45:27
Hey, it has been really great sharing this time with you guys on the let’s talk wellness now podcast. If this episode has helped you, or you feel as though this episode would help someone else we’d love for you to leave us a review, share this podcast. And if you don’t want to miss the most exciting episodes we have coming. We’d love for you to subscribe to our podcast on iTunes or Google Play. Until next time, live every day to the fullest.