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What if the harder you work to understand your fear, the stronger it gets, and the way out is something you'd never think to try?
Fear can be quietly expensive. It hums along in the background, takes a little energy here and a little there, and you may not even notice it's running. Dr. Katie Deming didn't notice hers for years. Her friends call her the most fearless person they know. Meanwhile, she'd wake up with a pit in her stomach, like something was wrong. What she uncovered about that fear caught her off guard.
Key Takeaways:
- Trying to figure out your fear can keep you stuck in it.
- Hidden fear may be draining more energy than you realize.
- Emotions rise and fall like waves when you stop resisting them.
- Expressing an emotion doesn't always help you move through it.
- One practice works for fear, shame, guilt, anger, and jealousy.
- Peace doesn't have to wait until you feel fearless.
Chapters:
00:03:11 – This Works for Shame, Guilt, and Anger Too
00:04:59 – Two Books That Tie This Together
00:07:22 – Why Expressing an Emotion Can Backfire
00:13:17 – How Thinking Feeds Your Fear
00:14:46 – What Surprised Dr. Katie About Her Own Fear
00:16:07 – The Energy That Came Back in One Week
00:16:38 – The Fear You May Not Know You Have
00:17:19 – The Truth Behind Looking Fearless
00:18:50 – The Simple Practice for Any Emotion
00:19:53 – How Fear Can Interfere With Healing
00:20:30 – Why This Is an Ongoing Practice
These days Dr. Katie hardly reads books. So it says something that two from the past month landed together: Letting Go by psychiatrist David Hawkins, MD, PhD, and Existential Kink by Carolyn Elliott. She weaves them into a single practice that may sound odd at first, then shares what happened when she tried it on her own fear.
Here's a twist you might not expect. Dr. Katie says fear hasn't been all bad for her. Learning to do things scared helped her take big leaps in her life. But she explains why acting despite fear and being free of it are two very different things, and why she's no longer willing to settle for the first one.
She also looks at where this kind of fear begins. Dr. Katie shares that the subconscious mind is shaped between birth and age eight, and through trauma, so a feeling you carry today may trace back further than you think. She opens up about her own childhood, and it might help you see your setbacks with a lot more kindness.
If you're healing from cancer or living with illness, you need to watch or listen. Dr. Katie explains how holding fear down uses energy your body could put toward healing. You'll hear why thinking it through keeps you looping, why even expressing an emotion can backfire, and what changed for her in just one week. The same practice applies to shame, guilt, anger, and jealousy.
Drawing on David Hawkins' work, Dr. Katie connects emotions to frequency, and she shares why she thinks it shapes who you feel drawn to, including the voices you choose to listen to. She also explains why emotions move like waves, and why that's good news on a hard day.
Stay until the end, Dr. Katie lays out the practice in plain terms, explains why it works best as something you come back to again and again.
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Read the Transcript Below:
[00:00:00] Dr. Katie Deming: What if the way out of fear isn't fighting it, fixing it, or figuring it out, but something that sounds completely backwards? Welcome to Born to Heal. I'm Dr. Katie Deming, an oncologist who left Western medicine to find out what actually makes a human healthy.
[00:00:18] Dr. Katie Deming: Each week, I share what I'm learning about healing, fasting, and what it takes to become truly well In this episode, you'll discover why trying to figure out your fear can keep you stuck in it, how much energy hidden fear may be quietly draining from you, and what happened when I stopped holding mine down.
[00:00:38] Dr. Katie Deming: And finally, A simple practice you can use with any heavy emotion, fear, shame, guilt, or anger, so you can move through it instead of letting it run your life.
[00:00:50] Dr. Katie Deming: Let's dive in. . fear is something that many, many people are challenged with, and especially someone who is healing. fear tends to be one of those emotions that is ever-present and can really become a hindrance to healing.
[00:01:10] Dr. Katie Deming: And so I wanna talk about that. And this– the reason why fear for me is so close to my heart as something that I wanna talk about is because I understand this. I am someone who has had fear as an ever-present companion for my whole entire life, and I didn't really recognize this actually until I was, you know, I would say 2020 is really when I became aware of the fact that I have fear every single day and, that it, it was something that I just always lived with.
[00:01:47] Dr. Katie Deming: And To be honest, actually, in some ways this has allowed me to do things that would be considered maybe remarkable in my lifetime because I've always had fear. I've always done things despite being afraid, and that has actually served me very well. So I've been able to accomplish things because I can do things scared, and so that is really valuable.
[00:02:14] Dr. Katie Deming: And so for those of you who have fear and you're able to do things with the fear, that actually can serve you very well in the world. But we don't want to live in a state of constant fear because on my last episode where I talked about the connection between emotions and frequency, we know from David Hawkins' work that in low frequency emotions, this is where illness is in, is created within the body.
[00:02:45] Dr. Katie Deming: And so what's interesting for me is that I've been working on fear for a very long time personally, and just recently have kinda hit something that has really illuminated how much fear was actually present, and is allowing me to dissolve that fear so that I don't have to live with that fear, y- you know, riding in the background at all times.
[00:03:11] Dr. Katie Deming: And so I wanna teach this to you because I think that it can help many of my listeners. and it's not just for fear. This can be used for any emotion that you wanna move out of. So it could be shame, it could be guilt, it could be anger, it could be jealousy, it could be a whole range of things, um, that have you caught in kind of a negative, frequency.
[00:03:33] Dr. Katie Deming: And so This also comes from David Hawkins. There is, you know, he has several books that are fantastic. “Power Versus Force,” I think I've mentioned that on a previous episode, is a tremendous book, um, that really explains this whole connection between emotions and frequency. But the most recent one that I have been reading is called “Letting Go.”
[00:03:56] Dr. Katie Deming: I think it's “The Path to Surrender,” but the n- the title, the primary title is “Letting Go” by David Hawkins, who is an MD PhD, who's a psychiatrist, who studied the connection between emotions and frequency, and really used these techniques for himself personally, also obviously with his patients. by the end of his life, he was, I wouldn't say like a fully enlightened being, but definitely, more enlightened than most of us on this planet and, really held a high frequency from the work that he did around surrendering and letting go of emotions.
[00:04:35] Dr. Katie Deming: And so, I think I always want to follow people who have done the work, who not only teach this, but also live it and are a living example of what is possible, and I think David Hawkins is, um, such an example in this space. And so I wanna talk about what he describes is that… And, and the other thing is, it's interesting 'cause I don't read books anymore.
[00:04:59] Dr. Katie Deming: I think that I've said before on this, I was a voracious reader before I had my shared death experience. I would read, like, 80 books a year at least and listen to podcasts all the time, and I do much less of that. I literally don't usually read books. Um, and so this is unusual that I've read two books, um, in the past month.
[00:05:19] Dr. Katie Deming: and both of them tie together here. One of them is “Letting Go” by David Hawkins. The other one, is actually really interesting, and I think it, it ties into this nicely. and that book is called “Existential Kink” by but her name who actually just passed away this, summer. But sh- her work is looking at, the things that we have in our life and that those things actually we've created on an unconscious level.
[00:05:48] Dr. Katie Deming: And I'll explain how it ties into this once I explain the process that David Hawkins describes, and then I can talk about how I think that this connects also to existential kink and, that you can tie the two of those together in a really powerful way. But so what David Hawkins talks about is that when we have emotions, in our body, we also have thoughts, right?
[00:06:11] Dr. Katie Deming: So thoughts and emotions go together, that you could have a thousand thoughts for one emotion or more than that. You can have just infinite number of thoughts, for each emotion. And when you have, when you're holding an emotion in your body and you start to, like, think through it, like, “Okay, what is this about?
[00:06:29] Dr. Katie Deming: What is this about?” The, the thoughts can just be endless, and you can just stay in this loop if you are doing the work on from a mental standpoint and trying to address the emotions. And so what he recommends is really that it's more about the emotions, that you can let go of the story because your brain is gonna make up a, a thousand or infinite stories to come up with to describe why it is that maybe you're having this emotion.
[00:06:55] Dr. Katie Deming: And what he describes is that instead of doing that, to literally just go into the emotion and allow it to be there. ‘Cause a lot of what is happening with us with emotions is that we are either suppressing, repressing, or projecting or, expressing, you know, like kind of putting that out there, i- in the world through expressing it.
[00:07:22] Dr. Katie Deming: And it, it's, it's interesting because you'd think expressing, well, expressing my emotion would be good. But actually, if you think about someone who has anger, and then they're just constantly expressing that emotion of anger, that can actually reinforce, and it is not really helping you move out of it.
[00:07:37] Dr. Katie Deming: But regardless, when we have emotions, most of us are not just allowing them to be there. They want them… We want them to go away, right? Like, well, and I already– I started this episode by saying we wanna move from these low-frequency emotions. But the truth is, is that the way that you move through them is by allowing them.
[00:07:59] Dr. Katie Deming: And I've talked about this on previous episodes too, about some techniques of emotional processing. But, we are not used to just allowing a negative emotion to be there without trying to do something with it. And what David Hawkins talks about is just really allowing the emotion to be there without any intention of trying to fix it or trying to move out of it or trying to change it.
[00:08:27] Dr. Katie Deming: You're literally just being with the emotion and allowing it to run its course. And when you do that, it has a limited lifespan. And emotions rise and fall. They have a natural wave that they come with. And if you just allow it and you don't try to change it or move out of it, it will dissipate. And so this is interesting because I think it's the opposite of what most of us think.
[00:08:58] Dr. Katie Deming: We think we need to do something with the negative emotions, process it, or move out of it in order to get to something different. But the truth is, by welcoming it and allowing it to be there, it actually is a way to allow that pattern of that emotion to dissolve. And so what he describes is that when you notice you're having some response.
[00:09:23] Dr. Katie Deming: So let's just… And also, I'm gonna say that I'm not, I'm not teaching this exactly the way that he teaches this. I'm teaching it the way that I think that it can be applied in, in your lives and, and think about this. So if you wanna read– reading that book would be an amazing idea. So getting that book, letting go and reading it would be incredible.
[00:09:41] Dr. Katie Deming: But I'm gonna give you my interpretation and the way, that I have used this and how I think that it can be helpful for you. So basically for me, let's just take fear, 'cause fear is my, you know, emotion that, I have to work with. And so I notice that when I'm fearful, like I have like a tightness in my chest.
[00:10:01] Dr. Katie Deming: And so what I do is I go into that tightness and just am with it, and I allow that emotion to be there and welcome it. Like this is, this is the emotion that I'm having right now and I don't need to change it. And so I'm just tuning into it, allowing it to be there and actually this is gonna sound really weird, but enjoying it on some level.
[00:10:30] Dr. Katie Deming: And this is what comes into this idea that I got from Existential Kink, which is Carolyn Lovett's work and what she talks about is that having anything in your life is evidence of wanting that thing in your life, okay? And so if you have something, then that means that on at some level, likely unconscious, that you want that thing, right?
[00:10:57] Dr. Katie Deming: And, and if you guys have been listening to me for long enough, we– you know that I'll talk about that most of us have been conditioned into, things through our subconscious mind that are probably not helpful for us because the subconscious mind is programmed between ages zero and eight and then through any trauma.
[00:11:15] Dr. Katie Deming: And so those things that can get caught in our subconscious mind are oftentimes not helpful for what we're wanting to create in our life. And so what she describes is that if you have something, so in my example let's just say something to be afraid of, okay? Like you know, let's just, I'll just use something simple like money.
[00:11:33] Dr. Katie Deming: It's like okay, if I have a shortage of money then that is evidence that on an unconscious level I want that for some reason. It's not logical. This is something that's in my subconscious that could be from my past that is this idea of scarcity, there not being enough. And so I've taken that concept from, Existential Kink and then combined it with what David Hawkins talks about.
[00:12:01] Dr. Katie Deming: And so David Hawkins talks about okay go into and just allow that emotion. But if I think well obviously if I have something that, like fear that I'm afraid of Not only can I allow it to be there, but I can enjoy it because I'm like, some part of me wanted to create that. And then if I allow myself to just be with it and actually enjoy it because you're like, “Okay, this is something that I created.
[00:12:29] Dr. Katie Deming: There's some part of me that wanted to create this,” what happens is that it starts to dissipate the resistance associated with it. And when we resist the fear, right? When the fear comes up and we resist it, but our unconscious actually wanted it because that's what it's trying to create, it actually just creates more of what we don't want, which in this case is fear, okay?
[00:12:55] Dr. Katie Deming: So what I do is I go in and I allow that to be there, and I'm like, “Okay, how can I just enjoy this? There's some part of me that wants to have this experience. How can I enjoy the feeling that comes with this fear and just really tap into the sensation in my body, not the thoughts that are running through my head?”
[00:13:17] Dr. Katie Deming: Because what a lot of us do is we go, “Okay, I'm feeling anxious. What am I anxious about? There must be something wrong. Let me figure it out.” And then you go into your brain, and then your brain is just giving you unlimited things to be afraid of, right? Which is not helpful. It just reinforces the fear. But when you can be like, “Okay, let me just enjoy this, and let me just sit with it.”
[00:13:40] Dr. Katie Deming: Like that's what David Hawkins would say is just be with it. Just allow it to be there. Don't have any desire to change it. Allow it to be there. And then this work with Carolyn Levitt is like take it even one step further to just enjoy it. And it's weird because I realized I actually enjoy the feeling of being afraid.
[00:14:02] Dr. Katie Deming: Like through this work, I have realized over the past, this has just been within the past like month or so for myself, I realize I get something out of that. I don't know exactly what this is, and I do know that it's from my childhood and my subconscious of like I was just, you know, raised in an environment where fear was constant.
[00:14:22] Dr. Katie Deming: You know, there was just always something to be afraid of. And also my mom was very fearful, and I think that there's definitely that gets passed down, um, you know, from being in the womb, everything that you experience, being bathed with the, um Uh, chemicals, you know, the, the pharmaceutical that is our body from your mother, I, I definitely think that that influences us.
[00:14:46] Dr. Katie Deming: So anyway, for me, there's some part of me that actually really enjoys the feeling of fear, which is so bizarre, and I am just realizing that. And so the more that I sat with it and I like just, okay, just enjoy it, just allow it to be there, and then, you know, eventually it just dissipates. That's what emotions do, is that they'll, they'll have a wave and they'll rise, and then they'll eventually fall.
[00:15:12] Dr. Katie Deming: And if you sit with it long enough, it will dissipate, and that is what I have been doing. So… And what I recognized was that, like, I would let one wave of fear go- Mm-hmm … and then there's another one, like, just right behind it. And actually, it's something that just stays with me a lot of the day, and I'll wake up in the morning and have, like, this pit in my stomach like something is wrong.
[00:15:35] Dr. Katie Deming: And as I've learned to just be with it and just allow it to dissipate on its own, not trying to do anything, actually just, like, really, “Okay, let me enjoy it. What about this, like, feels…” You know, how does it feel in my body? How– You know, I'm closing my eyes on this because I'm like, m- you know, it's really going into the sensation and letting go of all the stories, okay?
[00:15:59] Dr. Katie Deming: You definitely want to get out of your head while you're doing this and just doing it over and over and over again. Every time an emotion comes up, it's like, “Okay, how can I feel this fully? How can I enjoy what I've created and allow it just to be there?” And what is amazing is that just in, like, I mean, honestly, in a week's time, I started to notice, I'm like, ” Oh, wow, I have a lot more energy because I'm not wasting my energy by repressing and suppressing this fear that is, like, constantly present for me.”
[00:16:38] Dr. Katie Deming: And so as you do this work, it's like a constant surrender. and I can say that for any of you who deal with, emotions that are, you know, running in the background, you may not even be aware of this. Like, I wasn't aware. I knew that I was good at conquering fear. Like, I would say most people would look at me and think she's fearless because I do a lot of S that's crazy, excuse my language.
[00:17:04] Dr. Katie Deming: But I do things because I'm like, “I'm gonna do it regardless of whether I'm afraid,” because that's just the way that I've lived my whole life, right? So a lot of people would see me and they'd be like, “She's fearless.” You know, I've had friends say that. They're like, “What are you talking about that you have fear?”
[00:17:19] Dr. Katie Deming: Like, “I would say you're the most fearless person that I know.” But the truth is that I'm not. I'm actually quite, fear is a constant for me, but I've learned how to act despite the fear. But now I want to release that fear because I realize that it is wasting my energy and also affecting my frequency.
[00:17:41] Dr. Katie Deming: And by the way, you know, this is something that I probably should do a whole episode about this, but You may not even know why you come to this podcast, like why you come to listen to me, but some of it is my frequency. Like I– this is what I work on, is that like I am constantly doing the internal work so that I can raise my frequency, and you respond to that.
[00:18:05] Dr. Katie Deming: Like you are attracted to people who have a higher frequency, and I'm not saying anything about myself like that I ha- hold this high frequency, but this is the work that I'm doing, and that this is what you're attracted to. You are attracted to people's frequency. And so for me, now that I see this with the, the fear and how this fear has been a constant drain on my system, it's obviously affecting my frequency.
[00:18:32] Dr. Katie Deming: So that if I can work through this, not only do I have more energy for the things that I need to do for my body to heal itself, to stay vibrant and healthy, I also am able to raise my frequency, by reducing the fear that I'm holding. So The practice is that you are going to go into the emotion that you're experiencing and just let it be.
[00:19:02] Dr. Katie Deming: Let it be there. Don't try to change it. Don't try to transform it into something else. Don't try to dissolve it. Be with it, and if you can, enjoy it. Like, this is, like, the next level of taking it up and just being like, “Okay, I'm gonna sit with this, and I'm going to enjoy this experience of this emotion because it is something that I created.”
[00:19:24] Dr. Katie Deming: And if you do that over and over and over again with all of the emotions that come up, even– and the good emotions too, like, we want to learn to just be with our emotions and not trying to do anything with them. What you will notice is that you will find more peace within yourself, and you will find more energy to do the things that you love to do to heal.
[00:19:53] Dr. Katie Deming: You know, your… A lot of your energy may be going towards fear, especially for people who are healing, cancer. Fear is a constant and can really, really drain you and can interfere with your ability to heal. So I wanted to share this episode with you. I wanted to keep this short and sweet, just as something that you can try and see how it works for you.
[00:20:20] Dr. Katie Deming: Please, I would love to hear from you. If you listen to this episode and you use this technique, I want to know how did this work for you? Is this helping you? And this is also something that you are going to need to do over and over and over again. This is not a one and done. This is really getting into the practice of allowing your emotions to be there and to not resist them.
[00:20:44] Dr. Katie Deming: That is the way to, really move through so that you're not caught in these, um, negative emotions, and this is gonna be something that's ongoing. So leave a comment. Let me know, um, how this is working for you. If you are a regular listener to this podcast, I would love for you to leave a review. It really helps me to know what is landing, because I feel like a lot of times this is a black box that I'm just sending information out into, and I don't hear back whether or not these, um, topics are resonating for you.
[00:21:14] Dr. Katie Deming: And as I'm moving into this new season and, really focusing on bringing what will be the most impactful but also coming straight from my heart, it's helpful for me to know what is resonating. What is it that is helpful for you? How can I serve you better? And also, it helps other people find the podcast by, um, you putting a review out there.
[00:21:35] Dr. Katie Deming: Today, we talked about three things. First, your mind can come up with endless stories about why you feel afraid, so the way through is to drop the story and go into the feeling in your body. We also learned that David Hawkins' practice from letting go, let the emotion be there without trying to fix it, change it, or move out of it, and let it rise and fall on its own.
[00:22:01] Dr. Katie Deming: Then I took it one step further with an idea from Existential Kink. Her idea is to welcome the idea and even enjoy it because some part of you created it. And finally, we learned that this isn't a one-time fix.
[00:22:15] Dr. Katie Deming: It's a practice you come back to again and again, and each time you let go, you get energy back that was going into holding the fear down. I hope you leave today knowing that you don't have to wait until you're fearless to feel at peace. You can meet what's there, let it move, and trust your body to do the rest. For the first time, I'm opening a few spots to work with people one-on-one again.
[00:22:41] Dr. Katie Deming: So if something in today's episode stirred something in you and you'd like support on your own healing journey, I'd love to work with you. you can book a health and healing consult, which is a 60-minute session where we look at the whole picture of your healing, or a fasting consult, which is a 30-minute session focused on fasting.
[00:23:02] Dr. Katie Deming: Choose the one that fits where you are right now.
[00:23:05] Dr. Katie Deming: Thank you so much for listening. I know your time and attention are valuable, and I'm very grateful That you chose to spend time with me today. I release new episodes every Tuesday and look forward to connecting with you on the next episode
[00:23:18] Dr. Katie Deming: and remember, just like me, you were born to heal.
DISCLAIMER:
The Born to Heal Podcast is intended for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for seeking professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Individual medical histories are unique; therefore, this episode should not be used to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease without consulting your healthcare provider.
A thought-provoking podcast explores cancer through the lens of holistic medicine and functional medicine, discussing causes of cancer, metabolic health, and unconventional approaches like water fasting, fasting and autophagy, and detox, while weighing fasting benefits against chemo side effects and radiation side effects, sharing stories of a cancer survivor navigating chemotherapy, natural medicine, holistic healing, and even spiritual healing on the path toward cancer remission and holistic health.
