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Dr. Deb Muth 00:03
What if your diagnosis isn’t actually your diagnosis? What if the fatigue, brain fog, anxiety, and inflammation you’ve been told are normal are actually signals your body is reacting to something in your environment? Something no one ever tested.
What if the reason you’re not getting better is because no one is asking the right questions?
Today, we’re exposing one of the most overlooked drivers of chronic illness, and why so many people are being dismissed, misdiagnosed, and left without answers.
You guys can insert, one of our ads in here, that’d be great.
Welcome back to Let’s Talk Wellness Now, the show where we uncover the root causes of chronic illness, explore cutting-edge regenerative medicine, and empower you with the tools to heal. I’m Dr. Deb, your medical detective. And today, we’re diving into the hidden drivers of chronic illness through the lens of functional and environmental medicine.
If you or someone you love has been diagnosed with a chronic condition or is struggling with unexplained neurological symptoms, like fatigue, brain fog, numbness, or chronic pain. This episode is for you. So, grab your cup of coffee, tea, or whatever helps you unwind.
Settle in, and let’s get started on your journey to deeper healing.
Today, I’m joined by Dr. Kelly McCann. A board-certified physician in internal medicine and pediatrics, with advanced training in functional, integrative, and environmental medicine. She’s known for her work in mold illness, chronic infections, MCAS, and complex chronic conditions And for helping patients who have been told everything looks normal. She helps them finally get real answers. Dr. Kelly, welcome to the show. I’m so excited to have you here. Share a little bit about what you’re doing these days, and who you are, and who you’re serving with us.
Kelly McCann 02:42
Thank you. So, my favorite patient population is patients who deal with complex chronic illness, and I didn’t set out to deal with these kinds of patients, but I kept… needing to be able to solve the puzzles, right? So they would come in, and there would be so many things that just didn’t add up and didn’t make sense, and it started with,
it started with just doing functional and integrative medicine, and GI issues, and hormone issues, and autoimmune issues, and then it was mold as a driver, and then it was Lyme disease and the other tick-borne infections, and then all of those patients, many of those patients developed mast cell activation syndrome.
Which I’ve now gone on and become an expert in, because they all have it.
And all the related conditions with MCAS, the Ehlers-Danlos, hypermobility syndrome, POTS, postural orthostatic tachycardic syndrome, and… The one thing that really stuck out to me over the years of treating these patients is the ones who were willing to take a deep look inside. And see how their… their belief patterns, how their thoughts how they perceived themselves, different traumas that they experienced. If they were able to reframe some of the ways that they were thinking about their illness, about themselves, their relationship to themselves, they were the ones who really healed.
And not only did they heal physically, they healed emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually. I have some patients who started out disabled, and now are running their own companies. One who, again, same thing, terribly disabled, lots of emotional issues, lots of ups and downs, food sensitivities, oxalate issues, and now she’s a medical intuitive. And she’s just doing fabulously, and has blossomed, right? So, this is a missing piece that we’re not really talking about.
Dr. Deb Muth 05:04
Yeah, I so agree with you. I see the same thing in my practice, and I treat a lot of the same people you do, and you are so right. Like, if we can get down to a deeper level with them, and address the trauma that happened.
And it may be a trauma they never even remembered, right? It could be something that’s just seated in their cells and they don’t remember it. And you don’t directly think it’s causing the illness, but it is getting in the way of them healing. If you can address those things, those are the people that tend to do so much better, I think, versus the people who are getting some mileage out of their illness. That there’s a reason they stay stuck, there’s a reason they stay sick, they’re getting something from it, even though they don’t realize it in the moment.
So let’s talk a little bit, before we hopped on the recording, you and I were talking about body, emotion, spirit. A little different than what we’re used to hearing with mind, body, spirit. Talk about your philosophy on this.
Kelly McCann 06:01
So what I’ve really come to realize is that the mind is getting in the way. And we have this perception that our mind is who we are. Right? We really think that who I am are the thoughts that I have every day. That’s me. And when I’m not getting better, it’s because my body is not… Falling in line with what my mind and my will want to do. So we set up this adversarial relationship. And this has been the philosophy in Western culture since Descartes said, I think therefore I am. Where the mind is supreme, and it is the all-knowing, and the body is just a vehicle for the mind. And every… Therapeutic intervention, from trauma-informed therapy, from, you know, wonderful people who have committed a lot of help and given great information. Bessel van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score, Gabor Mate, you know, all of these folks who have done such great work in us understanding trauma I think… The next phase is really recognizing that the body is actually not against us. It is not our enemy. In fact, it is… The body that is speaking to us as the voice piece of our souls and our spirits, that is saying to us, hey. you’re not listening. The path that you are walking down and the way that you are being in the world is not really working for you. It’s not who you are. It’s not who you’re supposed to be on the planet. And we’re trying to get your attention, right?
Dr. Deb Muth 07:59
Yeah.
Kelly McCann 07:59
I mean…
Dr. Deb Muth 08:00
this thing, so I’m gonna talk louder.
Kelly McCann 08:02
Exactly, exactly! It’s like a little toddler who only can speak in so many words, right? There’s only so many ways that a younger version of ourselves, or our bodies, like, how do our bodies communicate to us? Symptoms and sensations. That’s it. Those are the ways that our bodies communicate. And if we don’t listen to sensations, well, it’s gotta turn it up, it’s gotta turn up the volume, and then we have more symptoms. And then if we’re still like, no, it’s gonna do it my way, it turns up the symptoms some more. And when… We are in this adversarial relationship, we can’t bridge that gap. Can’t bridge that gap, so… What… what happens is that
Underneath the symptoms and the sensations are emotions. Emotions that have not been processed. Because we’ve been stuffing them down, we believe that they shouldn’t exist, we don’t want to face them, we’re afraid of them, they’re not acceptable, we’re ashamed of them, whatever the reason may be, and they’re stuck in the body. And so the way through is to actually just feel our feelings.
Dr. Deb Muth 09:26
That’s kind of scary for some people.
Kelly McCann 09:28
It’s… it’s scary for the… it’s scary for the whole planet!
Dr. Deb Muth 09:32
For all of this, right?
Kelly McCann 09:33
For all of us. When we start to feel our feelings, we don’t like it. We’ve been taught it’s not okay. Boys, it’s not okay to cry. Girls, don’t be loud, don’t be angry. You’re a B-I-T-C-H if you do that, right? So there’s so many taboos about feeling our feelings. I have patients who say, I can’t be mad at my father or my mother because I was taught to honor thy father and thy mother. Like, yes, but you’re angry, and guess what?] That ain’t going nowhere until you express it, so… you have a choice. Express it, or hold onto it, and then you just kind of stay here in this space where it’s never expressed.
Dr. Deb Muth 10:19
Yeah, except in your body, in your physical being, right?
Kelly McCann 10:22
Except in your physical being. And here’s the magic. Emotions are meant to move through us, right? Emotion. They don’t last for that long!60 to 90 seconds, really? Maybe a couple minutes? Yeah. You really, really feel them. Right?
Dr. Deb Muth 10:44
Yeah.
Kelly McCann 10:46
And we’re terrified of that 60 to 90 seconds.
Dr. Deb Muth 10:50
What might we do to ourselves or to someone in that 60 to 90 seconds, right? I may scream, I may cry, I may not be this person that everybody thinks I’m supposed to be. That person that holds it all together is there for everybody, holds everybody else’s space. So well put together, right? If you’re not that person, then who are you? Are you human?
Kelly McCann 11:16
Oh, you’re more than human. Yeah, I mean, the way that I would look at it is, I would say, well, you don’t have to put on a show, right? This is really for you. Close the door, lock the… close the windows, get out your pillow. Whatever you need to do. I mean, I have some patients who will write it out. There’s a way to just, like, freeform write, where you don’t actually read it, you just write it out, scribble it out, get it all out on paper, and then burn it, or shred it, or something like that. you can pound a pillow, you can, you know, scream, whatever it is, you can cry. I mean, I think crying is, at least for… for me. Crying is the easiest way to think about it. So, you start crying, you’ve got a few little tears, you know, it’s not too bad, and then it’s a full-on sob, and then at some point, you’re like, okay, I think I need a tissue, right? But it doesn’t last forever
Dr. Deb Muth 12:22
No, it really doesn’t. I had a physical therapy friend who, when I started my practice, and you know, you start your business, and everything’s just chaotic, because you don’t know what you’re doing, and you have all kinds of people that don’t know what they’re doing, and there’s always a problem. Computer, the phone, the this, the that, blah blah blah. And she brought me what was called a Dammit doll. And I had never seen one, I didn’t know what it was, and it was this really… sturdy doll that didn’t look like anything, that had two legs that you could grab onto, that you could just beat at the table whenever you needed to. And she’s like, this is how you do it. And I was like. oh my god, that’s amazing! And I would use it every couple of hours sometimes, sometimes every day, and I would just be like. And then it was over.
Yeah, sure, but it was over, instead of me walking around all day long, carrying all this frustration and not having anybody to talk to about it, because you’re busy during the day. And then if you keep talking about it, it just gets worse. But I could do that, and then I’d be done, and I’d be like, okay, I got it out, let’s find the solution, now let’s move on.
Kelly McCann 13:28
Exactly!
Dr. Deb Muth 13:29
Coolest thing!
Kelly McCann 13:31
Exactly! That is exactly what I’m talking about, Deb. Exactly, that’s so cool. I love that. Yeah, I mean, anger is really taboo in our society. Very taboo. And, And, you know, I have a couple patients that struggle so much with expressing their anger, but it’s important. It’s important. We’ve all had so, so many instances. You know, and… of being disappointed.
Dr. Deb Muth 14:08
Yeah.
Kelly McCann 14:08
from our… from… All sorts of situations in our lives. And, you know, nobody gets out of life without any trauma. you know, little T traumas. Everybody’s got some. Even if you have the most wonderful, well-meaning parents, something’s gonna happen, and it might be the parents, it could be just life, but things happen that we misinterpret. And then we think.
We make decisions about ourselves, or about our families, or about what’s okay and what’s not okay, and those things cause us to forget who we really are.
Dr. Deb Muth 14:53
That’s okay.
Kelly McCann 14:55
Because when you look at a 1-year-old or an 18-month-old, they are joy and love incarnate, right?
Dr. Deb Muth 15:03
Yeah, they are.
Kelly McCann 15:05
That’s who we are. That’s who we really are. But we forget. We forget, because of all the rules, and all the expectations, and all the disappointment, and all the misinterpretations, we forget who we really are. And… I think… A life journey, especially a health journey, is a way back to who we really are.
Dr. Deb Muth 15:32
It’s interesting, as we’re talking about this, because I think about people who have really traumatic life events, like life and death. They are so lucky that they’re alive. They were in an accident, or, you know, they had this horrible cancer that they survived, and they weren’t supposed to. And they come out very differently, oftentimes. Because they realize how precious life is, and it’s… they look at life now as a gift instead of whatever else we were looking at it before that time, right? But they do truly look at life differently. I… I’m curious always, like, how do they… how do they do that? But yet, if we have a chronic illness.
It’s so much harder to do that same thing when there’s a chronic illness versus an acute thing, and you’ve got this second chance.
Kelly McCann 16:20
Right? I see it as, The chronic illness is this slow decline, right? And because it’s a slow decline, there’s never that. Wake-up call. Which people get in a car accident, in a cancer diagnosis, where all of a sudden, your life changes in front of you, and you have to really reflect. Where I think with chronic illness, it’s like, oh, this isn’t great, I don’t love this. Oh, this is a little worse. But we keep hoping… which is the part that’s connected to who we really are, right? We keep hoping it’s gonna get better. Keep hoping it’s gonna get better, but it’s getting worse, and it’s getting worse. And… And we… as a… again, as a culture, have an expectation that somebody is gonna throw us a bone or a line, and we’re… they’re gonna pull us back out. We’re gonna find the right protocol, we’re gonna find the right practitioner, we’re gonna get… have somebody else help us get out. And… As healthcare practitioners, we can help people get 50% better, 80% better, you know, sometimes 100% better, but not all the time, because it’s an inside job.
Dr. Deb Muth 17:42
Well, and I like to tell people, too, like, you’re never 100%, 100% of the time. there’s always going to be something that you’re not gonna like. You wake up, you’re a little more tired, you know, you slept wrong, you got a kink in your neck, whatever it is. But I think you’re really on to something here, too, because if you don’t deal with the emotional baggage, the trauma. the person who said something to you in high school. If you don’t deal with that, and you carry that around forever. you kind of keep inviting the same people into your lives to treat you the exact same way. So then you just kind of keep that same pattern going over and over and over again, and you just keep thinking, why am I the doormat? Why does everybody keep kicking me? And when we truly start to deal with what happened, you start to attract those people differently in your lives, and people aren’t walking all over you anymore.
Kelly McCann 18:35
Right. And… It’s very easy to get caught up in the whys. And that keeps us up here. Right, and what I’ve found with myself and, you know, many of my patients is that We have to stay in the body long enough with the sensations and the emotions to have it, you know, crescendo on the emotion, and then decrescendo. But when we pop out, and we start asking, well, why did this happen, and why am I a doormat, and why am I a victim, and why, why, why, or… or analyzing, or what have you, we… We stop the emotive process. Which halts the resolution, and we don’t actually get to where we want to be. So, you know, I was just talking to a patient today. She’s like, well, I’ve been feeling my feelings, and I’ve been feeling the fear. I’m like, yes, but did you actually stick with it the entire time, or did you start thinking about it? Because we do this, we pop into our thoughts, and we’re like… oh, yeah, I was emoting. You know, like, oh, that made me sad. And then come back up here, and then we realize, oh, we gotta, we gotta… we’re still stuck in it, we’re still stuck in it. And I’m like.
Dr. Deb Muth 19:56
Like, when we’re… annotate.
Kelly McCann 19:59
Exactly! Exactly! It’s kind of like that, yeah. And so we stay on this little, hamster wheel. Because we don’t recognize it. The solution is in the emotion.
Dr. Deb Muth 20:15
So how do people stay in the feeling instead of letting their mind escape to the grocery list, the kid’s to-do list, dot dot dot dot dot? How do we stay in that emotion long enough to kind of work through it?
Kelly McCann 20:30
It’s a good question. I think… Having the awareness that that’s what you need to do. is the first step, right? Is to really say, okay, I’m gonna, like, put my mind outside of the door, say I’ll be back in 20 minutes, and then really just give yourself the permission to stay with whatever emotion that’s coming up. And it’s practice. It is a lot of practice. This is not… it’s very, very simple. It is not easy for the vast majority of people, and especially if we’re really patterned. So, I actually started an online program to help people learn how to do this. Because it is… not easy.
Dr. Deb Muth 21:16
If it was easy, we wouldn’t have so many problems, right? We would just move on and keep going, but that’s where we got ourselves into a lot of trouble, is we just recognize, acknowledge, move on, and say, okay, I’m out of it, good, let’s go, next thing, next thing.
Kelly McCann 21:32
Yeah, which doesn’t work. Like, oh, I dealt with that. I, you know, talked to my parents before they passed, and we came to an understanding. Like, that’s not the same thing as feeling your feelings, because that 10-year-old, that 5-year-old who felt abandoned, or felt… Abused, or whatever it is that you’re feeling, they’re still in there. The adult you made this agreement with your parents that you’re gonna be okay, right? But that kid you still is upset. So…
I think the first… the first thing is recognizing that emotions and thoughts are very different, and to learn the difference. So if I say, I feel like blah blah blah blah blah, that’s not a feeling, that’s a thought.
Dr. Deb Muth 22:26
Hmm.
Kelly McCann 22:27
Right? I feel like, this. I’m in… I feel embarrassed. No, that’s the thought.
Dr. Deb Muth 22:34
That’s not…
Kelly McCann 22:35
the actual feeling. Feelings are really often located in the emotions. They’re very simple. I’m afraid. I’m sad. I feel terror. I’m angry. I’m enraged. Those are feelings. I… I am mad that blah blah blah blah blah. You know, we don’t necessarily have to know why we feel the feelings. Eventually, we will understand where they’re coming from. But it’s actually just feeling the feelings, and then… oh, I love this one, too. It’s like, well, I’ve forgiven them. I’ve forgiven them for, you know, what they did to me. That’s here. Yeah. If you’ve really forgiven them. it comes from here, and it comes after the feelings. So, we still have to feel our feelings if we’re angry or upset about something, if we’re sad about something, we have to feel them first, and then the beauty is in what’s underneath the emotions. It’s quiet, it’s calm, it’s soft, it’s connected to who you really are. And at that point, then you have a much broader worldview and understanding of things, and you can have compassion for yourself. You can have compassion for other people and their choices. And when I… when it’s… when it’s held in that space, it’s… it’s such a different experience. Yeah.
Dr. Deb Muth 24:18
Do you think people can have compassion for others if they don’t deal with their own things?
Kelly McCann 24:24
It’s, again, it’s… it’s from the head, right?
Dr. Deb Muth 24:28
Not from the heart.
Kelly McCann 24:29
It’s not from the heart. It’s not from the heart. And it’s a good try, but it’s, like, a carbon copy of the real thing. It’s not really the thing.
Dr. Deb Muth 24:39
Hmm. What happens if people walk around thinking that they have all this, you know, great compassion and love for the world,
but it is truly just coming from the head and not the heart?
Kelly McCann 24:54
Then, you know, they’re kind of circling and circling, and they’ll find that the thoughts and the beliefs and the things that cause them to be upset will still be there. Right? There’s a… I mean, I have to admit, I don’t really watch the news, because it is upsetting, right?
Dr. Deb Muth 25:14
I am.
Kelly McCann 25:15
And I have a number of patients who are very, very distraught about the state of the world.
That’s… not seeing the bigger picture. It’s coming from here. Rather than here. And this is a really hard thing for people to grasp. But when we are triggered, By something outside of ourselves. That is because that upset exists inside of ourselves. So, for example, if I call you stupid, Deb, and there’s no part of you believes that you are stupid, it will bounce off you. You know, like you’re a rubber ball, right? Because it’s not true. It doesn’t resonate anywhere in you, so you can’t possibly be triggered by that.
But if I say to you something that, you find hurtful, it’s not because of what I’ve said. It’s because that hurt, that upset, is still alive in you. And that… Opportunity, then, Is there for you to say, hmm… Clearly, there’s something inside of me that needs some attention about this.
we’ve… we don’t really think about life that way. Right. We think… That person made me mad. Nobody makes you mad. It’s you. That inside of you. Right? I was talking on the phone last night with one of my colleagues whose daughter is in the hospital, and she’s been in the hospital in, like, the best Children’s Hospital, in Chicago for 2 months. Two months with gastrointestinal issues. And… They haven’t done a CT scan yet.
Dr. Deb Muth 27:24
What?
Kelly McCann 27:25
I know. I was talking with another, physician colleague of… colleague of mine last night, or this morning, at the time. How… that should have been done in the ER!
Dr. Deb Muth 27:38
Yeah!
Kelly McCann 27:39
At least… At least, or maybe the first day of the hospitalization, they didn’t do an endoscopy until Last week. 7 weeks in the hospital with an NJ tube.
Dr. Deb Muth 27:53
Oh my god.
Kelly McCann 27:54
Tube feeds. like, what is wrong with these people, right? So, I was so mad on her behalf. And of course, what I realized, too, is then, okay, well, there’s stuff inside of me, like, I have really… I have some stuff about… what is expected of other people in the world, what is expected of other physicians in the world. Like, these are the worst physicians on the planet. They clearly don’t care. They should all be fired. But there’s stuff in me that is really being triggered by this, that I have… I have work to do about. And I still think it’s wrong.
Dr. Deb Muth 28:36
I had that same experience last week. I had a pharmacist tell my patient they didn’t need a prescription that I had ordered, because she… didn’t fill it frequently enough because she was using it differently than what we wrote it, which so many of our patients do. It’s a hormone, it’s not a big deal, right?
Kelly McCann 28:53
Yeah, right.
Dr. Deb Muth 28:54
And… and he said to her, well, I don’t think you need this anymore. Yes.
Kelly McCann 29:00
choice.
Dr. Deb Muth 29:01
Right, and that’s what I said, I’m like… I said, who the F is he? To tell you that he thinks you need this or not? He doesn’t know you, he doesn’t know your labs, he hasn’t been taking care of you for 20 years. I have, and you’ve clearly been using it. And so I called the pharmacy, and the conversation went a little differently on his side, of course, than what the patient explained to me, but I had to sit back, too, and I looked at that, and I was like, why was I so angry that he said this to her? And I understand, it was, you know, he was undermining my authority, my knowledge base, and I knew that right away, but I was still so triggered by it, and… and she was just kind of like. Yeah, I was really surprised he said that, but I figured he knew more than me, and I’m like, so I was coming to see you, I would just tell you, and you would tell me if it was right or wrong, and I’m like. okay, that was a good way to take it, but boy, that instantly triggered for me. But again, I recognized exactly why I was triggered with that, and had to calm down a little bit and all of that, but… I think there’s a lot of that that happens. And, you know, when you work hard to know what you know, and I work hard, and we see other people doing not even the basics, it’s kind of like, what is wrong with the world?
Kelly McCann 30:18
Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, and there’s stuff there, right? So why is it that I worked so hard to become the best doctor that I could? Because I didn’t feel adequate. And so, when somebody else shows up as inadequate, or I perceive them to be inadequate, that triggers that… my own inadequacy, right? Especially since it was a man, so there’s a man under my your authority. Yeah, that would just really get to me. Yeah, so there’s something around that, so I know that, you know, for me, that might be where I explore it, but yeah, it’s, Life is a journey.
Dr. Deb Muth 31:00
Yeah, it really is. And I think, too, from a practitioner standpoint, like, we take so many of our patients home with us, like, it’s our job to be the medical detective, figure them out.
Help them find the answers, make them feel better. And not that we do it from an eco perspective, because I think most practitioners don’t. They truly do it because they care and they want to make people better, and we have this knowledge and this expertise that other people don’t have. But, boy, it gets harder and harder and harder when you get more and more chronically ill people to help them find the answers and help them be well, especially if they don’t deal with their own house, right? We don’t… if they don’t deal with their house, it’s hard for us to come in and say, let me help you deal with your house. Right. So, how does that fit into some of this?
Kelly McCann 31:51
You know, that’s a really good question. I had to learn that over time to be able to use my own intuition to say, how much is this person willing to do? And really evaluate their… their willingness to change, their willingness to do the hard work. And… And I… and I had to hone my intuition in order to do that, and now I see… I will see there are people that… they’re happy. in their little merry-go-round, in their whack-a-mole game. And I will do my best, and I will kind of, you know, nudge where I think it’s appropriate, but when they push back, I gotta let that go. I gotta let that go, and recognize that it’s their journey, it’s their life, and I can’t be more attached to their healing than they are.
Dr. Deb Muth 32:49
That’s what I’ve done, too. That’s what I tell my practitioners, my young practitioners that come in by me, too. I say the same thing. Like, I have some that are really young, and we’re all green, right? And we want to just fix the world, and I’ve got so much I can give you, and so much you can do, and then when they don’t do it, you’re like. what did I do wrong that they’re not doing it? And I have to go back and tell them the same thing. This is their journey, not yours. You’re just here to give knowledge and hold space. And they get to pick and choose what they want to do, and if it’s not exactly what we want them to do, that’s okay, it’s their journey. And every time… and I laugh because I always see my younger self in them, too, but why don’t they want to do it? This is gonna make them so much better! We have this tool! And it’s like… they’re not ready yet. It’s okay for them not to be ready yet. We have to be okay with the fact that they’re not ready yet. And I think as a provider and a practitioner, that is one of the hardest things to do, is to sit back and go, okay, you’re just not ready yet. When you’re ready, we’ll be here to hold you and hold space. But right now, you’re not there, it’s okay.
Kelly McCann 33:52
Yeah, it is okay. Yeah, actually, one of the women that I mentioned earlier, earlier in the podcast, it took her 18 months to get to the point where I felt like she was ready, and it was one of those things, like. You’re ready! I got so excited, and that’s exactly what I said to her. I was like, okay, here, I want you to read this book.
Dr. Deb Muth 34:14
And he was.
Kelly McCann 34:14
finally ready, and I gave her the book called How to Heal Yourself When No One Else Can by Amy B. Share, which is just so awesome. And she took that book, and she was like, I am going to do this. And she wrote out journals and journals and journals, and… did lists, and then she would clear them, and then she would clear them. She got so much better, and then it was, like. Biofield tuning, and she did, Gupta, and Amya Piggin’s work, and, you know, so many other things. And then she was doing really well, 80% better, eating all sorts of foods, and there was still this little, like. Mmm, something’s still missing. Something’s still missing. Not quite where I want to be. I still have some mood issues. And then she came and joined my Unforgetting Project program. And that was the missing piece for her. This… whole thing that we’re talking about, like, just feeling the feelings was really her missing piece, because she was clearing, you know, with using EFT, but it wasn’t working anymore, because she actually was bypassing feeling her feelings.
Dr. Deb Muth 35:38
Hmm.
Kelly McCann 35:39
So I, you know, these programs, the nervous system programs, the limbic system programs, they are fantastic, and they’re super, super helpful. And then there comes a point in time where we have to shift gears, and we have to go deeper. But it… all of those programs get people, if they’re willing to put in the time and effort, get people to the place where, like, okay, now I gotta go in. Even deeper. Yeah.
Dr. Deb Muth 36:07
And that can be scary for people. That can be really frightening. I did a 10-day women’s retreat in Spain, with a priestess program, and I had no clue what I was doing. I was going to my first women’s retreat in Spain, no clue, but I had to do.
Kelly McCann 36:23
It sounds fantastic.
Dr. Deb Muth 36:25
Fantastic, right? And and when I got there, it was a lot of shamanic work, deep work, and, as we’re all… there’s, like, 30 of us women going through, and all different ages, going through things. And reliving our past as a child, and reliving all these different pieces of us as women that we’ve left behind someplace else. We’ve lost. And, And just sitting in… I still remember it to this day, you know, the crying, the sobbing, the anger, the screaming, the stomping. the silence. Like, everybody had a different way of dealing with those emotions coming out, and we had to be silent from, 10 at night till 10 in the morning. You couldn’t say anything to anybody. And, and that was a little challenging for a lot of us. But it gave you that time that after you went through one of these processes. you could process. You could just sit with those feelings, sit with what came up for you, journal. And it was a really incredible time to watch a lot of women just blossom into a new version of themselves, you know? Their old version, but a new version. A healed version of themselves, in a lot of ways, yeah.
Kelly McCann 37:45
So what… in the languaging that I’ve come up with, it’s the, unforgetting, right? So it’s actually the remembered self, because we have let go of the things that caused us to forget. So we have unforgotten who we really are, because As you’re right, it’s… it is not new, it’s just remembered, or unforgotten.
Dr. Deb Muth 38:12
Yeah. Yeah. That’s really awesome. For somebody that’s listening to us have this conversation, and they’re kind of thinking, this all sounds great, but I have no clue where to start with something like this, what kind of recommendations would you give to them?
Kelly McCann 38:29
Well, I actually have an online program. And… it’s, it’s a 9-week online program, and…
What you’re doing in community is learning how to Feel your feelings, and how to understand them, and different access points in to them, and doing it in a community, which is terrifying for some people when they start, but at the same time, it is the most loving container Because these people are also on their complex chronic illness healing journey. And they have chosen themselves, and chosen to show up, and chosen to show up for 9 weeks, which is a long time, but it’s also this beautiful, sacred time. And, half of the class is lecture, sharing, and then half of the class we spend in trios. Which means, my staff divvy up people into groups of three, and then there… each trio goes through a process. They all do the same process.
And you do it 3 times, so you have a chance to be, a different role in each iteration that you go through. So one role is the explorer. Those are the people who are actually just feeling the feelings. And exploring what’s going on inside of them. One person is what we call the companion, they’re kind of like the… the, not really the guide or the therapist, but they’re just holding space with them, maybe giving some prompts to help them work through the process. And there’s a handout that works through the process, and then there’s the third person whom is the anchor. And the anchor is holding that loving battery. And it just sets up this…
situation where you’re held in such an embrace that you’re able to express your feelings. And one of the things I learned early on was that vulnerability leads to intimacy. And so, when you’re vulnerable with somebody else, they feel… closer to you, and they feel more capable of being vulnerable with you, because you’ve trusted them, right? So, it builds this level of vulnerability, intimacy, and trust in the community, and then each time you do your trio with somebody, with new people, often.
Dr. Deb Muth 41:16
time.
Kelly McCann 41:17
And it’s a really, really special program where you’re practicing this, and you’re doing homework, so you take the things that you learned from the class, and then you go home and you practice it with yourself. So that’s what I have come up with to help people start to really learn how to do this. And then it’s gonna grow from there. So I have a foundational class right now. We’re on… we just started our second cohort, And then eventually there will be a second-tier class, and workshops, and the other thing that I’m doing is one-on-one, trainings with… what one-on-one… I call them unforgetting journeys with people. So, you know how you go to a therapist, and you’re in the middle of a story, in the middle of sobbing, and they’re like, oh, well, that’s 50 minutes, it’s Here’s your tissue, we’ll see you next week.
Dr. Deb Muth 42:12
Yes.
Kelly McCann 42:13
Yeah, so painful.
Dr. Deb Muth 42:16
Oh, bad.
Kelly McCann 42:16
So painful, and I understand, like, we have the same thing, too, as physicians, like, oh, I’m so sorry, your time is up, I gotta go, I have more patients waiting. The unforgetting journey, I don’t have a clock.
Dr. Deb Muth 42:29
Mmm.
Kelly McCann 42:30
It’s… we go until you feel complete. And for most people, it’s two and a half, three hours.
Dr. Deb Muth 42:37
Wow.
Kelly McCann 42:37
To really process through the emotions that are coming up.
Dr. Deb Muth 42:43
to get…
Kelly McCann 42:43
To the point where you’re… they feel… Okay. I feel… I feel complete for today.
Dr. Deb Muth 42:52
For now.
Kelly McCann 42:53
For now.
Dr. Deb Muth 42:54
So the next layer, kind of. shows itself, right? Yeah.
Kelly McCann 42:59
Yeah, yeah. And for now, the Unforgetting Journeys are for people who have gone through the program, or are in the program, because you really need to… you have to have the skills.
Dr. Deb Muth 43:11
So, if somebody’s interested in your online program, how do they get in touch with you?
Kelly McCann 43:17
The website is unforgettingproject.com. And you can sign up right there. The next cohort will start May 20th. It’ll be a Wednesday evening. From 4.30 to 6.30 Pacific time, so I tried to make it so as many people on both sides of the continent could make it. I know it’s a little late for East Coast, but, yeah. And then, you know, every month or two, we’ll start a new cohort, so if you’re interested, and if those… that time doesn’t work for you. You know, I did Fridays initially, I’m doing Mondays, this iteration. We’ll try, other dates and times for people, and try and get a few more dates, on the calendar, so that people have some options. But yeah, that would be my suggestion. You can sign up for our email list, and we’ll be sure to let you know all the happenings at the Unforgetting Project.
Dr. Deb Muth 44:17
That’s awesome. And for those of you who might be driving or didn’t catch that, we will have it in the show notes as well, so that you can jot it down, check it out, if it sounds like it’s something that really resonates with you. Dr. Kelly, thank you so much for your time tonight. Is there any last words you want to leave with our listeners?
Kelly McCann 44:35
Of course, of course. There’s always hope. And that hope that burns inside you, that…There is a different life… a different life waiting for you. That is your spirit. That is your soul. Talking to you, and spurring you on. And my encouragement is to really listen to that. Because then you will find your way to people like Dr. Deb, and other practitioners who have heart, who have the tools and the capacity to help you on the physical world journey, and then… You know, my other encouragement would be, really listen to your body. Consider the possibility with curiosity that it is on your side. And if it’s on your side, and it’s talking to you and communicating to you, what might it be saying that it needs from you?
Dr. Deb Muth 45:43
I love that, that’s awesome. Thank you so much for your time today.
Kelly McCann 45:47
You’re welcome, my pleasure. I’m so happy to speak with you and to talk with your, audience. I think it’s wonderful.
Dr. Deb Muth 45:54
Thank you. Boom. Wow, what an episode we just had with Dr. Kelly McCann. This is incredible. It’s a completely different way for us to think about chronic illness, and think about what our body’s actually going through, and how we can repair it from a different aspect. So, thank you for joining me today on Let’s Talk Wellness Now. If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone who’s been searching for answers and hasn’t found them yet. And if you’re enjoying our episodes of Let’s Talk Wellness now, we would love to ask the biggest favor you could do for us, which is like and subscribe and share. It goes a long way for us getting our podcasts and our episodes out into the hands of so many people Who need to hear these messages. So, if you’re feeling inclined to do that, we would love that, that affirmation from you guys. So, remember, wellness isn’t just about feeling good, it’s about thriving in every area of your life. If you’re ready to explore the root cause medicine. We can help you. Visit serenityHealthCarecenter.com or Dr. Kelly McCann, and until next time, I’m Dr. Deb, reminding you to take care of your body, mind, and spirit. Be well, and we will see you on the next episode.