[00:00:00] Dr. Katie Deming MD: Have you ever felt overwhelmed by all the conflicting health advice, especially when dealing with a serious illness? Today I sit down with Lauren Vaknin, a holistic health and life coach, wellness educator, TEDx speaker, and host of the popular Reconditioned podcast.[00:00:18] Dr. Katie Deming MD: Lauren shares her incredible journey from being wheelchair bound at age 18 to achieving vibrant health through natural methods. As a health writer and speaker, Lauren's [00:00:30] dedicated her life to helping others find their path to wellness. She understands firsthand how making lifestyle changes can seem daunting at first, but is crucial for long term wellness.

[00:00:41] Dr. Katie Deming MD: Stay tuned until the end to hear Lauren's simple tips for starting a meditation practice. Even if you think you're quote unquote, not good at it, you'll walk away from this episode with practical tips to tune into your body's innate wisdom and take charge of your health journey.

[00:00:58] Dr. Katie Deming MD: [00:01:00] [00:01:30] I am excited to be joined today by Lauren Vaknin. Thank you for

[00:01:41] Lauren Vaknine: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited for this conversation.

[00:01:45] Dr. Katie Deming MD: Me too. So Lauren, you have a fascinating story of self healing that spans three decades, and I would love for you to share a little bit about your healing journey of how [00:02:00] you got to the place where you at today.

[00:02:02] Lauren Vaknine: So, I was diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis just before my second birthday.and I, my parents, at the time it was the 80s, and the only, um, Available treatment for childhood arthritis was very high doses of oral steroids, and the top pediatric rheumatologists at the time were suggesting this.

[00:02:24] Lauren Vaknine: And my parents, who had no background or knowledge about [00:02:30] Medication, holistic healing or anything really just felt that this wasn't the right option. They just had, my mom had this really, this, she calls it the niggle. She had this niggle that was telling her, don't put this into your 2-year-old. it was also, you know, her hearing about how they were going really hard with it and their, their approach at the time was just hit it really hard with really high doses, and they hoped that that would knock it on the head. It turns out that 15 years later, those same top. Pediatric rheumatologists had to issue an [00:03:00] apology because this was the wrong thing. And the children who had been put on those high doses now have multiple deformities and joint replacements and joint damage and secondary illnesses. So my mum's niggle was really right.

[00:03:14] Lauren Vaknine: she took us down the homeopathic route. not because she knew anything about it, but she didn't know what else to do, and she went to the library and researched, and homeopathy felt right, and what that did for me, it didn't cure the arthritis throughout my childhood, it, It supported my immune [00:03:30] system enough that the autoimmune disease wasn't taking over, so I didn't have any damaged joints.

[00:03:36] Lauren Vaknine: I was growing properly, uh, when, you know, we got to kind of puberty, all the girls within my weekly hydro class were, you know, not getting their periods, they were all very short, they had multiple deformities, and I didn't have any of that. And I was developing properly. So, though the homeopathy wasn't curing it, it was because we kind of hadn't put the pieces together at that time.

[00:03:56] Lauren Vaknine: You know, we, we didn't know the root cause. There were lots of, [00:04:00] lots of toxicities we hadn't detoxed. There was a lot of diet, dietary stuff that my parents didn't have the resources to fully understand. So it was very nuanced. So they were doing what they could while at the same time there were lots of missing pieces and it would take until I was an adult to put those missing pieces together.

[00:04:18] Lauren Vaknine: so essentially my childhood was very up and down. I was much better than the kids that, I went to this hydro class with who all had arthritis.

[00:04:27] Dr. Katie Deming MD: can you describe the hydro class? I assume is [00:04:30] for children with rheumatoid

[00:04:31] Dr. Katie Deming MD: arthritis, but you can you explain that just a little bit? So,

[00:04:33] Lauren Vaknine: Sure. It's a hydrotherapy class. So, in the, the warm water, it's like a physiotherapy, but in water. So we had, weekly physio followed by the hydro class and, and we were the same group of kids for years and years and years. So we all grew up together and we, you know, it was very interesting because at that point my mom and I were able to observe.

[00:04:53] Lauren Vaknine: The difference between me and them. And I was the only one not taking the conventional medications [00:05:00] and I was the only one who was growing properly and didn't have joint deformities. So it was very interesting and it gave my parents the The drive to continue in the direction we were going. That didn't mean that I wasn't having flare ups or that I wasn't suffering with it.

[00:05:13] Lauren Vaknine: I just wasn't having any of the other secondary things that were happening.so it was very up and down. and I had, you know, I had to have steroid inject injected into the joints, into the eye as well. I had an associated eye condition that I was diagnosed with the year after I was diagnosed with arthritis.

[00:05:29] Lauren Vaknine: And that one [00:05:30] was quite hard to maintain. And, And so kind of, I'm going to cut a long story short, but that kind of my high school years were my best years, so much so that my husband and I were in the same class in high school and he, we only got together 10 years after we're not childhood sweethearts.

[00:05:45] Lauren Vaknine: and he didn't know that I had arthritis. So,I was pretty good most of the time. And then I left school to go to performing arts school. And when I was 17, I had a huge flare up in the joints and the eye. And, something [00:06:00] was just happening. My knees were swollen. My ankles were swollen. It was very much like how it used to be when I was a younger child.

[00:06:06] Lauren Vaknine: And the ophthalmologist said that what was happening was that because of all the years of steroid eye drops and the years of inflammation in the eye, The eye had grown cataracts, kind of one over the other, over the other, and it was pushing against the optic nerve, and the pressure had dropped dangerously low, and so they needed to put me on this medication, because they needed to be able to remove the [00:06:30] cataract, so that they could operate, they needed to be able to operate to remove the cataracts, but they couldn't operate while there was so much activity in the eye, so they wanted me to take this chemo based medication, and I was nearly 18, And they said it will help the joints as well, so really it's a win win.

[00:06:45] Lauren Vaknine: And I, my attitude at the time was, well, clearly this homeopathy has done nothing for me my whole life. look at the situation I'm in now. Very kind of victim y, teenager way of thinking of it. And my parents didn't want me to take the drug, but I went ahead and did it.[00:07:00] I'd had arthritis in just the four joints for all those years, for 15, 16 years, in the knees and the ankles.

[00:07:06] Lauren Vaknine: And within 10 months of taking this drug, well within 3 months, I became very, very sick.I couldn't hardly swallow because my mouth was full of ulcers. My stomach was bloated like I was 7 months pregnant. My hair started falling out. I was nauseous the entire time I felt so ill. And, um, within 10 months of being on this drug, the arthritis had [00:07:30] spread to every joint in my body from literally my jaw down to my toes.

[00:07:36] Lauren Vaknine: And within, uh, at the end of that 10 months. I couldn't, I couldn't walk, that was the least of my worries, I couldn't grip cutlery, I couldn't bend my elbows to bring food to my mouth, I couldn't chew food, and I couldn't even sit up straight because my hips were too stiff. And my mum wheeled me in a wheelchair into the rheumatologist's office, and she wasn't shocked by this at [00:08:00] all.

[00:08:00] Lauren Vaknine: And I had a moment of realising, oh, she kind of expected it to go this way. And She, all she said to me was that it works for 70 percent of people and it doesn't work for the other 30. And I fell within that 30%. And I was only 18, but what I took from that was, I don't believe I'm a statistic. I believe there must be more to what makes the human body and mind work and not work than statistics.

[00:08:25] Lauren Vaknine: I believe there must be more to why some people react to drugs in ways that others [00:08:30] don't. And This model isn't working for me and I'm going to have to find another solution. and I pretty much made a decision in her office on that day that I was going to find a way to, to get myself better. That wellness would be my story and disability wouldn't.

[00:08:44] Lauren Vaknine: And I went on a journey, to make that happen. So from the age of 18, I started immersing myself in everything. I possibly could, intensive self study about what makes the human body and mind work and not work. And I started with [00:09:00] meditation and I started with nutrition and I went very slow and it took a long time because this was 2002 and I didn't have internet and I didn't know where to look or who to ask and everything was very fragmented and I had to teach myself everything.

[00:09:12] Lauren Vaknine: But over the years slowly, slowly, I started finding missing pieces. I started learning about epigenetics. And what the epigenetic effect of, these, this drug that I took was on me and what the catalyst for, to trigger the autoimmune response in the first place could have been. And I learned about nutrition and I [00:09:30] learned about brain training and disability thinking and I learned about how trauma would be trapped in my body, affecting this and all the things.

[00:09:37] Lauren Vaknine: And it made me realize that. know, for so long, I was kind of on this journey to heal the body. And I was focused so much on the body at the beginning of my journey. And, and it was very interesting realizing that. Actually, we are one complete organism, one complete being, and you can't heal one part of you until you heal all parts of you.

[00:09:55] Lauren Vaknine: So I had to go into healing the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. And once I [00:10:00] started doing that, the pieces all started fitting together. And it took me over a decade. So I started the journey when I was 18, and really kind of on my own, and no money behind me to kind of see lots of therapists and practitioners and everything, and it was a very slow journey, and for that reason it took me over a decade, but at 29 I finally went into, well I don't like the word remission really, because it assumes that, it's kind of, you know, that kind of medical binary view of things, but I achieved a state of wellness, Where I was completely able [00:10:30] bodied, no signs of auto immunity or, inflammation.

[00:10:34] Lauren Vaknine: And I'm now 40, so I've been there for 11 years, and I continue to maintain my wellness through all the things I do, which is quite a lot, and teach others how to achieve the same levels of transformation in their own lives.

[00:10:46] Dr. Katie Deming MD: This is, it's such a beautiful story. And one of the things that I think is so important here is that description of when you were 18, like your mom knew when you were two and she had [00:11:00] that niggle that these steroids were not right for her child, but you had to come to the same conclusion. And that experience of taking those medications was like, It for you where you realized, okay, this is not the way for me.

[00:11:16] Dr. Katie Deming MD: And also, you know, realizing that that doctor wasn't even surprised. You're right. And actually now in retrospect, you can see it. You were in those, um, hydro classes with all those other children who were [00:11:30] experiencing the things. Way before you, right? Because they had been on those medications that had affected their growth and development.

[00:11:38] Dr. Katie Deming MD: And because you hadn't, when you then started those medications and that happened to you, it wasn't surprising to her. But I can only imagine as, you know, an 18 year old girl realizing, oh, my goodness. My doctor's not surprised that I'm in a wheelchair and I can't even sit up. What does that mean for me?

[00:11:58] Dr. Katie Deming MD: And really just having [00:12:00] this opening for you to then be, you know, on your own journey, even though you'd been on the journey since you were literal clear, little clearly, but it's like now taking that into your own hands and taking responsibility for your own health. So it's, it's really beautiful. And actually I love you summarize that very well.

[00:12:18] Dr. Katie Deming MD: That's a, you know, many, many years of. Struggle and, you know, working through, you know, growing up with, with an illness like that. So, you know, I [00:12:30] loved what you said too, that, you know, 11 years ago, you found achieved a state of wellness in your body and not remission. And this idea that, you know, we've created this binary system.

[00:12:43] Dr. Katie Deming MD: It's like when you have a disease like rheumatoid arthritis, that you then that's a forever thing, and it can go into remission. But it's basically there all the time, and that is making the differentiation of, of not using that language is part of getting [00:13:00] yourself out of that paradigm. When someone comes to you, now that you're in this space of helping others through illness and achieving wellness through basically wholeness, and this is what I talk about all the time, that we need not only physical healing, but emotional, mental, and spiritual healing. When someone comes to you and wants to, you know, know what's going on, address the root cause of like, why did I get sick?

[00:13:28] Dr. Katie Deming MD: How do you guide people? [00:13:30] Like, what are some of the things that come up when you're looking for the root cause of why illness has occurred in the body?

[00:13:37] Lauren Vaknine: It's always, it's different for everyone and there are always so many, so many facets to it. And this is where my issue with conventional allopathic medicine comes in, because what it doesn't do is allow for all the nuance that makes up a human being. and so for example, with me, there were many factors when we looked back on [00:14:00] it.

[00:14:00] Lauren Vaknine: Gave birth to me and got a virus and she couldn't hold me so she couldn't breastfeed me So that was the first thing so I didn't get that breast milk the colostrum to prime the gut microbiome She wasn't passing the microbiome, that fourth trimester microbiome to me because she couldn't hold me So I was held by my grandmother for the first two weeks and my dad was around but you know different generation of men and So those are the first things right and those things are pivotal.

[00:14:26] Lauren Vaknine: Those are those are formative things important parts. [00:14:30] Now, what people say is, well, I didn't breastfeed my kid. And I'm like, okay, so what I didn't know was that I had the gene mutation MTHFR or polymorphism. It's not a mutation. It's a polymorphism. which means that that's a whole nother story altogether.

[00:14:43] Lauren Vaknine: But when you understand kind of the genetics and the epigenetics behind it, and this is where we're going wrong, and this is where allopathic medicine is going wrong, right? Because how can you know what was the cause of something? And I say that In quote marks because it's not that there is one, you know, they call arthritis the [00:15:00] type of arthritis.

[00:15:00] Lauren Vaknine: I had juvenile idiopathic arthritis idiopathic meaning no defined cause No, there isn't a defined cause but there are many things that will trick that will that will be catalysts and so it would have been all of those things. And the doctors wouldn't look at my mum when I was being diagnosed and say, How was your birth?

[00:15:17] Lauren Vaknine: Did you breastfeed her? Did you have any trauma during pregnancy or during birth? All those things, contribute. Actually with me, it was, there were all those things and then there was the, the catalyst. I had the measles rubella vaccine and I, [00:15:30] showed instant, I got a virus straight after that and the inflammation came up in the, in the joints after that.

[00:15:35] Lauren Vaknine: So, you know, was that the cause? No, it was a catalyst within many of the causes, that all contributed. together. so all knowing all those things, then we're able to work backwards. So that's where I start with my clients. And so it's taking like a whole complete history. A lot of the time it's emotional stress and trapped trauma, trapped emotion.

[00:15:56] Lauren Vaknine: So my program is basically, I have a membership [00:16:00] for women. And the reason I put it together was when I was trying to heal that what I needed was everything in one place. And that didn't exist, and it still doesn't exist, so I created it. So it's everything from inner child healing, trauma work, shadow work, self love, meditation, brain training, health optimization, nervous system regulation, like everything you can imagine, to actually what does an entire person need to heal the whole self.

[00:16:27] Lauren Vaknine: So when I'm working with someone, it's very much a [00:16:30] complete whole person approach, and working backwards. It's An understanding that there are many factors that lead towards the healing of a whole person and many factors that contribute to the onset of disease in the first place.

[00:16:45] Dr. Katie Deming MD: Absolutely. Well, and this is something that I say all the time. It's not just one thing. It's many things that came together in this way to create illness for you. And so it's not going to be just one [00:17:00] thing, but there are going to be clues in your story of your life of the things that you've experienced, both physically, mentally, emotionally.

[00:17:09] Dr. Katie Deming MD: And then. You know, personally, just through my own experiences is that, you know, all healing has spiritual roots, that all healing is spiritual, that when something shows up, there is something deeper that needs to be healed as well. And this can be actually. The hardest piece [00:17:30] for people to uncover.

[00:17:30] Dr. Katie Deming MD: Sometimes it's easier to find all those other little things like what in their environment may be contributing to illness. What you know about their lifestyle and starting to put those pieces together before you're able to get to the, Uh, the deeper issues that are underlying, but all of that is necessary, right?

[00:17:51] Dr. Katie Deming MD: So, you know, one of the things that for me as a, you know, practicing in traditional oncology for so long, it was like, yeah, [00:18:00] we can make the cancer go away. But we haven't addressed any of these issues as to why it happened in the first place. And now, on top of that, we've given you medications that suppress your body's ability to, address disease and keep yourself healthy.

[00:18:18] Dr. Katie Deming MD: That these are things that now we've put you in a worse situation. We've Reduce the, the cancer burden, but then we've also reduced your bill, your body's [00:18:30] ability to address those things on its own, right? So this is the piece where I just couldn't reconcile in it. And finally, at some point, I said, I have to leave the system because I truly believe the system is keeping people sick because we're not looking at all the different pieces that might be making them sick.

[00:18:47] Dr. Katie Deming MD: We're just focused on this one treatment and that's it. You know, that's the only thing there is.

[00:18:53] Dr. Katie Deming MD: So yeah, with cancer, you see that a lot actually because, for example, we've got a charity here, Breast Cancer [00:19:00] Charity, and I get really annoyed by it because they're talking about You know, finding solutions for breast cancer and putting people are paying loads of money to support this because they've lost people with breast cancer.

[00:19:11] Lauren Vaknine: And none of these charities are actually saying to people, Hey, why don't you not use aluminum deodorants underneath in your armpits where you're right near where your breasts are? Why don't you think about potentially reducing exposure to toxicity? You know, there's so many things that are linked with breast cancer, including [00:19:30] You know, the emotions, the trauma that a lot of women go through, and all of that is trapped in the body and can create cancer.

[00:19:35] Lauren Vaknine: I know, I'm just focusing on breast cancer just because, you know, I see this charity, it popped up today because one of its, a founder of one of these charities passed away today, sadly. But, you know, and it's just like, my whole ethos is about prevention. I believe that modern medicine, allopathic medicine, is And, you know, anyone in the holistic health community will always say this, I hope.

[00:19:59] Lauren Vaknine: I'm very [00:20:00] grateful for it when I've, you know, got an emergency. If I break my foot, or when I had an ectopic pregnancy that ruptured, I was very grateful. That I lived in, in the age that I live in, in a town that has, you know, good hospitals. but I do believe that the majority of chronic illness can be prevented with the right lifestyle.

[00:20:20] Lauren Vaknine: And it's about educating ourselves on that lifestyle. And that's where the challenges come in because that's not easy. And we live in a time in society [00:20:30] where we want things easy. We want convenience. And unfortunately that's not conducive with the right lifestyle. Good health.

[00:20:36] Dr. Katie Deming MD: Yeah, well, and I think that this is a point that is really important. It is that healing is not easy and achieving wellness in our modern industrialized lifestyle is challenging. It goes against the things that we've been conditioned to think that. Things should be easy and quick and convenient [00:21:00] and Preventing illness, which basically healing and preventing illness is all the same, right?

[00:21:07] Dr. Katie Deming MD: It's just that when you're healing you may need to do deeper work but the things that you do to prevent cancer are also the things that are going to heal you because basically My perspective is that you know cancer We've got a metabolic issue where the mitochondria are either deficient or not present in enough numbers that those cells switch from [00:21:30] using one form of metabolism to another and end up in fermentation, which basically makes them sick and ultimately develops tumors.

[00:21:38] Dr. Katie Deming MD: And so reversing that is just getting their mitochondria. Mitochondria back online and healthy and doing the things that we used to do, which was, you know, go outside and be in the sunlight and have your feet on the earth and Eating real foods and all of those things that you know, there's that piece I know, right?

[00:21:59] Dr. Katie Deming MD: And, [00:22:00] but it's, it's actually now that I've started living in this way, because I really believe in the things that I'm teaching is like, I realized that it takes work. It really takes work to live this lifestyle. And then on top of that physical, component. There's all of the emotional, mental, contributing factors.

[00:22:23] Dr. Katie Deming MD: And we live in an environment that, almost breeds, uh, you know, toxic emotions, right? So you just [00:22:30] only have to turn on the news to see that there's fear that is Everywhere in our media and, you know, polarizing views and politics of just everything is this very emotionally charged, but in a negative way, we're bombarded with that.

[00:22:47] Dr. Katie Deming MD: Right? And then the thoughts about, you know, That healing is not possible. And that if you're sick, you're just doomed to that. So there's all of these pieces, right? There's just the lifestyle of like the things that we used [00:23:00] to do, that we got away from because they weren't convenient with all of us working, you know, busy lives, careers, and all of that.

[00:23:07] Dr. Katie Deming MD: And then the mental and emotional piece that is also counter to what we have as our standard in society. So the one thing that I really. encourage people to recognize is that if you want to heal, it really requires you creating a totally different lifestyle that may be at odds with the people [00:23:30] around you and the life that you lived before.

[00:23:34] Dr. Katie Deming MD: But this is what's required and it's not easy.

[00:23:36] Lauren Vaknine: I mean, Katie, I have, I literally have people who will call me or, you know, or get in touch with me and say, this is what's going on with me. I really want you to help me. And I, I will tell them what's involved and I will say, are you willing to go down this road? And there are literally people that say, no, it's too much hard work.

[00:23:52] Lauren Vaknine: I have those people that say that and I'm like, yeah, it's work, but you know, as Glennon Doyle says, we choose our hard. So for me, it's harder to be in a [00:24:00] wheelchair. You know, I've been there way harder to have cancer than to heal from cancer, you know, or to prevent cancer in the first place, it's much harder to have cancer than to work on preventing it.

[00:24:09] Lauren Vaknine: And the, the issue I see with the way we live is that people live as if they're not going to get cancer as if they're going to be exempt from it and they get shocked. When they get cancer, which amazes me, because I'm like, why are you shocked? It, you're not doing anything to prevent it, but it's not just cancer.

[00:24:26] Lauren Vaknine: It's autoimmune diseases. It's, it's everything. It's our brains. It's [00:24:30] the ADHD, it's everything because our nervous systems are shot to hell, are, you know, everything about us is not in homeostasis and you mentioned the spiritual aspect. For me, that's the, the icing on the cake. It is the, the, the everything really.

[00:24:45] Lauren Vaknine: so much for having me. You can do all of the other work, but without having that. Those kind of teachings to solidify everything else, you know, and also It's like, you know, you and I work with the same spiritual teacher So so we get this from the same kind of perspective but when you operate from a place of [00:25:00] fear, you're lowering your vibration so So much and when you're vibrating from that sort of frequency, you are more susceptible to dis ease So from one side of it and like I said So, you know, living in a human body means you are living in that body and you are also hosting a spirit and you've got the spiritual self, but you are also expected to keep this vessel that enables you to live out this human incarnation.

[00:25:26] Lauren Vaknine: You're expected to keep that clean. And so you can't do one [00:25:30] without the other. Because I know a lot of like And quote unquote spiritual people who don't really look after their bodies because they're like it doesn't matter I'm spiritual I'm connecting with source And I I think source wants us to keep this vessel that we've been gifted healthy as well So for me when you live in fear You're lowering your vibration you make yourself more susceptible to illness and then you're taking the energy from all around you as well You're the emotions the trapped emotions the trapped trauma We know now, you know, previously, lots of people thought it, it [00:26:00] was hypothesized, but we know that emotion gets trapped in the body and can metastasize into dis ease.

[00:26:05] Lauren Vaknine: So generally the whole idea for me of having a spiritual practice enables me to understand how to move out of fear and how to operate from a higher vibration. And that really solidifies all the other stuff for me.

[00:26:17] Dr. Katie Deming MD: Yeah, absolutely. Well, and I think that in David Hawkins writings, you know, his, one of his most popular books is power versus force. And he talks in there about [00:26:30] the levels of consciousness and emotions and how illness is created in those lower vibration, emotions, fear, anger, jealousy, and that health and healing happens.

[00:26:45] Dr. Katie Deming MD: In the range of the frequencies of peace, love, and joy, and peace being the highest one, actually, that when we can find peace, it allows the healing to occur, right? And not saying that our [00:27:00] goal is to move, always be moving up. It's like, we're emotional beings. We're meant to experience emotions, but allowing those to run through you so that you don't get stuck in them.

[00:27:10] Lauren Vaknine: Well, interesting because, because the, the Hawkins, sorry, the Hawkins Scale of Consciousness has helped me so much actually, but for people listening who are like, I don't know how I'm going to reach peace, just know that all those low vibrational frequencies like fear and shame, which are right at the bottom, they, they vibrate at a frequency of about 30.

[00:27:29] Dr. Katie Deming MD: I think, uh, [00:27:30] uh, uh, guilt and shame are about 30. And then, and, and, um, fear is down there as well. And love is 500. But acceptance is 350, so even if you can get yourself from, from fear and guilt and shame to acceptance, you're already, you know, really on your way to being in a healing mindset. Absolutely. Absolutely. And that it's you can move up this scale. And then also that you're constantly kind of coming in and [00:28:00] out of these different levels. Absolutely. And I think you said something in there about honoring this vessel and from a spiritual perspective. And, and I, that is a lot of why. I'm on the path that I'm on now with physical healing is for that exact reason is that I recognize and I see this a lot.

[00:28:22] Dr. Katie Deming MD: So in my career, uh, 40 percent of my practice was palliative, meaning that the people had cancer that was [00:28:30] considered incurable. And, many of them did pass away of their cancer. And I, I realized that, you know, when people are facing the end of their life, they start to value things differently and they start to value their body and they start to value like who they are authentically and not what the world wanted them to be.

[00:28:51] Dr. Katie Deming MD: But that really taking care of my body. Was important that I needed to do that because as you said I [00:29:00] was Gifted this body for this lifetime and it's my job to take care of it And even if the way that we're being taught to live by society is counter To what is good for my body I need to choose that like that is an active choice And that is a spiritual practice in and of itself caring for your vessel is Spiritual work, you know because if and this is part of what I've I'm realizing too And this is this timing of this conversation is [00:29:30] kind of perfect.

[00:29:31] Dr. Katie Deming MD: Is that I'm realizing in the way that I'm Helping people heal cancer is that You There's this physical component, like the, there's a protocol of like, you know, what ways to eat that can help heal cancer and what you're drinking and then physical practices to boost your mitochondria, but that that work actually is part of the spiritual work, because I really believe [00:30:00] that all healing comes from higher consciousness.

[00:30:03] Dr. Katie Deming MD: But when you are so inflamed. Because you're eating a standard diet, a lot of carbohydrates, you're also not doing the things to get your body kind of back aligned physically, you can't actually do this deeper spiritual work of the healing that is coming up right now. Related to this illness to heal the deeper things, and you need to actually do the physical stuff to [00:30:30] clean people out so that then they have a better capacity to manage their emotions.

[00:30:35] Dr. Katie Deming MD: Because we do know this, if you can get people grounded, if you can get them drinking the right water, eating a diet that's less inflammatory. They have more capacity to experience their emotions and not get trapped in them or suppress them. And then also they then have more awareness to recognize, Oh, what might this illness be telling me that needs to heal [00:31:00] on a deeper level?

[00:31:01] Dr. Katie Deming MD: That I can address, but you can't do those things until you clean people out. So, and I'm learning this as I go, right? Like I didn't know that when I started this practice, I had no idea. I thought that it was all, you know, it all needed to happen and it does, but I'm starting to see, Oh, if you clean people out, if you can help them get their physical practices clean, then they're in a better place to do some of this deeper work.

[00:31:26] Dr. Katie Deming MD: And I don't know if you, if you've noticed that as well.

[00:31:29] Lauren Vaknine: [00:31:30] yeah, so much. you, like I said, this, this, this human body is a vessel. it's just a vessel. We've just chosen, like we chose to incarnate, sorry if I'm getting too woo woo, but we chose to incarnate for a reason and we're in this meat suit to be incarnated. in existing in form so we can learn lessons and elevate to the next wherever we're meant to go next but in order to do that it's very hard to connect to the self when the vessel is unclean and when it is When we're [00:32:00] filling it with things that are low vibrational, that, you know, vibrate at a lower frequency, like processed foods and stuff, you know, and, and you measure the frequency of these foods and that water, like you mentioned water, water's such a huge thing, if the frequency of that water and that food is vibrating at a low frequency, you're unlikely to be able to heal your body.

[00:32:20] Lauren Vaknine: And you're also then less of, you have less of an opportunity to connect more deeply to something beyond you and the healing comes when, when you're able to do that, I think. [00:32:30] So, yeah, totally agree.

[00:32:31] Dr. Katie Deming MD: Absolutely. And I'm wondering for you, you know, if there was some lesson, because one of the things that I've, I've experienced with clients who are dealing with cancer is that, yes, there are things that we need to clean up around their diet and there may have been, some emotional trauma, but also, oftentimes there is like a lesson that they're needing to learn that this is bringing up for them.

[00:32:59] Dr. Katie Deming MD: And I'm [00:33:00] wondering for you with your illness, and it's hard. This is one of the reasons why pediatrics for me has always been challenging, like as an oncologist. As a radiation oncologist, I was trained in pediatric radiation oncology, but after I finished my training, I was like, absolutely not. I don't, it doesn't make sense to me a world where children have cancer and just living that.

[00:33:23] Dr. Katie Deming MD: So personally, I knew I wasn't the right person to be practicing that way. But I'm wondering for you [00:33:30] now, looking at your experience of, you know, rheumatoid arthritis as a child and then growing up, if you have specific things that this was here to teach you, that you see now that maybe you didn't see at the time.

[00:33:45] Lauren Vaknine: Yeah, absolutely. It's all a lesson, all of it. So, you know, clients come to me for all sorts of things as well. Like, you know, I have people who just want to, you know, they, they want to find what the perfect career is for them. They don't feel fulfilled or, you know, [00:34:00] they're Lacking confidence or they're really, you know, not, don't feel like they're doing well in their parenting or they want to improve their health optimization.

[00:34:08] Lauren Vaknine: You, like every people in unhealthy, I look at a lot of women in unhealthy relationships, unhappy relationships, and it's all the same thing, right? We talk a lot about. The woman's, um, and it relates to men, but I'll just speak about women for a minute because I, I work with women. energetic death, the dark night of the soul.

[00:34:26] Lauren Vaknine: The women need to go through these multiple times, those [00:34:30] crying on the bathroom floor moments where everything comes crumbling. And it doesn't feel like it can get any worse than that. Because what happens is, most people live stagnation. The no man's land of I'm fine. When we're fine, that things aren't great.

[00:34:46] Lauren Vaknine: But they're mediocre and they're okay, but, but you don't, you're not being forced. To do anything about it. So you put up with whatever it is, whether it's the the niggling health It's not awful, but it you know, it's fine [00:35:00] The marriage that just isn't serving you that you're not fulfilled in that you there's no, you know, you're just not there anymore But it's fine.

[00:35:08] Lauren Vaknine: And you know, it's not bad enough. He's not he's not hitting me. So it's fine, you know Um, I And all these different situations in life, it, well, unless we get to that point where the universe pushes us so deeply into such dark holes, we don't do anything about it. So my biggest lesson came at 18, when I couldn't possibly get more disabled, and I was [00:35:30] like, okay, so, had I have not got this disabled, I wouldn't have worked to do everything I did.

[00:35:36] Lauren Vaknine: To get myself better so I can pretty much guarantee you that if I hadn't got as sick as I did, I would still be just like semi arthritic plodding through life with, you know, under with arthritis that came and went all the time. That was just part of my life. I'd be living a very kind of from a place of victim consciousness.

[00:35:56] Lauren Vaknine: I have arthritis, my arthritis. And by the way, I never say that. And it's [00:36:00] something I always. You know, offer to people is a little lesson. Don't ever say my arthritis, my cancer, my, it's not yours. The second you say it's yours, it owns you, it defines you, it shouldn't define you. and I'd still be there. So that taught me what these lessons, like when we get pushed to that extent, that that is the best way to go.

[00:36:19] Lauren Vaknine: Our higher self, the universe, God, whatever you want to call it, pushing you to do something to elevate because you didn't incarnate here to live a life of [00:36:30] stagnation. You incarnated here to do way more and to learn lessons and to go deeper on this conscious evolution. You incarnated to grow. And you're not going to grow from a place of stagnation.

[00:36:43] Lauren Vaknine: And there's no growth from that place. You have to get uncomfortable. You have to get comfortable in your discomfort if you want to grow. And sometimes the only way for us to do that, because humans like comfort is to be forced into it. So I think for mice, I think I [00:37:00] believe my journey was a very spiritual one.

[00:37:02] Lauren Vaknine: I believe that I had to be. Forced, even as a child, even, you know, as an infant, even, you know, it was before I started the symptoms at 18 months old, you know, I was, I was an infant. and I believe that that was part of my, my, um, my spiritual evolution to find, to have to go to those depths of trauma in order to, Were, to heal, to learn what it means to heal, and to connect to something deeper and bigger than me, [00:37:30] and that's been, I wouldn't change it for a second.

[00:37:32] Dr. Katie Deming MD: Yeah. Well, and I think that, you know, what you're describing right there, The way that I explain that to people who are dealing with cancer is that you have opportunity in crisis. So crisis is symbolized by two symbols in Chinese. The first one is danger, which makes sense. But the second symbol is opportunity.

[00:37:55] Dr. Katie Deming MD: And what I tell, you know, and I told this to my patients, even when I [00:38:00] was practicing in my conventional practices that This is an opportunity. You've now been shaken. The cage has been rattled, you know, and, and now you can do something about it because you need to make big life changes in order to come back to yourself and find wholeness, but you can't make those same changes when you're not sick or when things aren't going wrong, because when things are kind of going, okay, it's like people will be like, why are you rocking the boat?

[00:38:29] Dr. Katie Deming MD: Why do you want to [00:38:30] like change everything? But once someone's had a, you know, experience of being diagnosed with an illness, it's an opportunity that like, Hey, use this to be like, look, I didn't ever think that this was going to happen to me. Right. Or wrong. Right. If we're living the lifestyle that everyone's living right now, and we're projected that half of us will have cancer in our lifetime.

[00:38:50] Dr. Katie Deming MD: It's not a surprise, but people are surprised, but okay. How are you going to use that surprise? How are you going to use this crisis [00:39:00] now as a way to Get closer to yourself of who you came here to be and to change your lifestyle so that you can heal. And I think that that wake up call is so important to take it, you know, like that, that, and this is one thing that I see.

[00:39:19] Dr. Katie Deming MD: People do is that they'll be like, yeah, yeah, I know, but I don't want to like, you know, upset my family. This is a lot for everyone, and I don't want to take time off work. So I'm going to work [00:39:30] through the whole thing because I can get chemo on a Friday and I could be back at work by Monday and And I'm like, yeah, you, you're right.

[00:39:36] Dr. Katie Deming MD: You can do that. And your oncologist is probably going to tell you that you can keep up your work schedule to do that, but you're not taking advantage of the opportunity that is being given to you here. And the opportunity is to stop and to say, how did I get here? Is this where I want to be? And what do I want to create?

[00:39:57] Dr. Katie Deming MD: And that is, you know, the [00:40:00] huge opportunity that like you describe is that it gets people uncomfortable and most people don't want to stay there, right? They want to just get right back out, out of that and go back. But when illness presents itself, it is the opportunity to embrace that discomfort and start to peel back the layers, to look at their life, to look at all of the pieces, how they come together.

[00:40:22] Lauren Vaknine: Yeah. Elizabeth Gilbert, who is my favorite author, she says, Suffering without catharsis is wasted pain. Don't waste your [00:40:30] pain. You know, so like go into that pain and, and see what it's trying to tell you and what these lessons are. Everything is a lesson, like all of it, even, even if you're dealing with something like when I'm going through things in my business and I'm like, you know, it's so easy to go in a hole about it or you can be like, okay what's it trying to show me?

[00:40:49] Lauren Vaknine: Because the lessons don't ever stop and they cut, you know, I have, from what you were just speaking about, I have an amazing client who has been through a whole life of abuse really from [00:41:00] childhood and then abusive marriage and finally got out of that marriage and got her children out three months later to discover she had breast cancer and she'd been working with me for a while already and so she was at this point and she said to me This is my body healing. And I thought it was the most incredible thing to hear from someone who had breast cancer, that she was fully able to acknowledge that this was her body's way of healing of telling her what it needed, like all this, these years of abuse and trap trauma that needed to be [00:41:30] healed in so many different ways, you know, physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.

[00:41:34] Lauren Vaknine: And she was here for it and she's still healing. She's still on her journey. And, And it can be an opportunity if we see it in the right way.

[00:41:42] Dr. Katie Deming MD: Well, what you just described there with your client. is so important to call out because we, I had Melissa sell on from German new medicine. back in, I think it was March or April. And she described how [00:42:00] sometimes the tumors actually show up when you're finally in safety and you finally recognize that there was a problem.

[00:42:09] Dr. Katie Deming MD: Like say there was some trauma. When you finally start to acknowledge it and heal it is when the physical experience of illness will occur in the body. So what your client described actually fits with that particular biological paradigm with German New Medicine, where it describes that shocking emotional events [00:42:30] can lead to physical illness, but that the presentation of the illness can actually occur at the most, the unexpected time, which is when you're starting to fix the problem.

[00:42:40] Dr. Katie Deming MD: But in some ways it makes sense, right? Because when you're in an abusive relationship and your children are in danger and you're in danger and You're

[00:42:48] Lauren Vaknine: You're in survival mode,

[00:42:49] Dr. Katie Deming MD: body.

[00:42:50] Lauren Vaknine: evolutionary thing of, of, we just need to survive, we don't need to focus on the long term, we just need to get through it, and the body has these incredible survival mechanisms to get us through [00:43:00] that, and then afterwards is when we have to deal with it.

[00:43:02] Dr. Katie Deming MD: Absolutely. Yeah. I think that that's beautiful awareness by your client. Well, I'm wondering if, you know, You can speak a little bit to you. You talked about how the first things that you did were nutrition and Meditation and meditation is something interestingly. We have not had a guest on here to talk about Specifically and so I'm wondering if you want to share You know kind of [00:43:30] your thoughts or practices around meditation that can be particularly helpful for people who are healing

[00:43:35] Lauren Vaknine: Yeah, absolutely. it was the first thing because my mom's friend who was a healer came to me one day I was very immobile and I was sitting on the armchair in my living room 18 years old was meant to be at university had to cancel my place I was really in a dark place and she brought me this cassette tape literally, you know an old cassette tape It's 2002, and it was Brandon Bays, I don't know if you've ever [00:44:00] heard of Brandon Bays.

[00:44:01] Lauren Vaknine: she is an incredible, incredible practitioner of healing. She has a method called The Journey. And, this particular meditation was called the Healing Sands Meditation. And I listened to it, and I was like, you know, when you've never done meditation before, because don't forget this was 2002, this wasn't something that was everywhere.

[00:44:20] Lauren Vaknine: It hadn't even been in my sphere of consciousness. In any way so all of a sudden I listened to this thing and I'm like, whoa This is incredible. Like someone's helping me [00:44:30] relax. She believes my body can heal She's like telling me things that it was mind blowing to me And so I started meditating then I had to go on this journey to learn how to meditate not just to Listen to guided meditations, although that was super helpful for me then.

[00:44:46] Lauren Vaknine: and by the way, that meditation is still available on YouTube, The Healing Sands Meditation by Brandon Bayes. And I still have it on my YouTube favorites, and I listen to it quite often, because it, it's funny, you'd think it would put me back in that dark [00:45:00] place. And it doesn't, it just reminds me of, kind of, the opportunity to heal, and those first glimmers of hope.

[00:45:06] Lauren Vaknine: And it just makes me feel so calm and, you know, Relax. So yeah, I highly recommend looking it up on YouTube and doing the meditation. It's really nice so I went on a journey off to that to kind of study different types of meditation over those 10 years And I first studied I went to the Buddhist the Buddhist Center here in London and I started kind of just going into that and just learning kind of how to Slow the body down slow the breath down [00:45:30] and start just tuning in Um, and that was kind of the first step.

[00:45:34] Lauren Vaknine: And then I studied transcendental meditation, which was really a step forward for me, in knowing how to meditate myself properly. I say properly, there's no proper way to do it. I studied chakra meditation. I've done, lots of chanting. I, we're very kind of, involved in the Hare Krishna temple here.

[00:45:52] Lauren Vaknine: And so we do a lot of Kirtan events and just cause I find chanting so You know, transcendental and, and, so [00:46:00] there was all these different types of meditation, but essentially my spiritual practice, the deeper I went with that, brought me to a place of silence and what I call my stillness practice, which is where you work to silence the mind.

[00:46:13] Lauren Vaknine: I don't want to call it work, but the idea that we do have this choice. And I find this all very liberating, right? When you realise, wow, I have a choice. I have a choice that I can be happy, even if something was really shitty today, I can say, oh, but I could [00:46:30] still actually just be happy, yay! And I have a choice to stop those thoughts, to shut off those thoughts, to shut off that internal dialogue, and to silence the mind, and to give myself 20 minutes of peace. Is it easy? No, it's not easy at all. And two of the biggest, hardest lessons in my spiritual journey that, will I ever master? I don't know, but I'll continue trying, are silencing the mind and detachment. Detachment is a whole nother thing. So I'm not going to get onto [00:47:00] that, but The silencing the mind thing, yeah, I have a very active mind.

[00:47:03] Lauren Vaknine: I've got quite high cognitive function. I, I, I look after my brain health a lot, but I've always been, you know, what they would probably describe now as ADHD. I don't like to put any labels on anything because I think it kind of diminishes and, and, um, it's a bit reductionist for me. I don't, I feel like I can, I have this very racy brain, but I can also make choices in how I look after my brain, through diet and lifestyle and what I do.

[00:47:29] Lauren Vaknine: with [00:47:30] meditation. So I go out into nature a lot, and I'm still and silent with nature, and see what nature wants to tell me. And I just sit in my healing room a lot, and just sit in silence, and just try and connect with no agenda, right? You can do affirmations another time, you can do a guided meditation another time, you can do a sleep meditation, a nervous system practice, whatever it is.

[00:47:52] Lauren Vaknine: But that moment of silence for me is with no agenda. Not asking for anything, not even giving anything. Just silence and, and not asking [00:48:00] for answers as well. The answers do come in the silence, but not asking for answers, just being in that place of complete present moment awareness and silence and what that does.

[00:48:09] Lauren Vaknine: So meditation from, you know, a brain perspective. So from an evolutionary perspective, we, we have evolved to just survive, right? We, that is what the human brain does. body and brain has, has evolved to be able to do. And now we're living in these times where we've never had so much expected of us [00:48:30] ever.

[00:48:30] Lauren Vaknine: and in the space of really such a short amount of time, uh, physically, but from a brain perspective, like we take in more information in one day now than a person in the 1700s took in, in their entire life. Lives.and, and, and there's another little statistic which I love, which is that more information has been, released, I guess is the word, from between, uh, 2003 to now than was ever available in, from the [00:49:00] beginning of history until 2003. And we think. That we can just cope with that. So it's not that we all have these things that we need labels and diagnoses for, it's that our nervous systems and our brains cannot cope because we, we cannot possibly evolve quickly enough in the space of 20 years from 2003 to now to be able, our brains just haven't evolved that quickly and our brains have evolved to just be able to survive.

[00:49:26] Lauren Vaknine: So, When we're in that fight and flight mode, which we are a lot [00:49:30] of the day, when the brain is in the beta state, that heightened brainwave beta state, it thinks that it's kind of trying to fight to keep us alive. So what we have to do, and we have a duty to do if we want to be healthy, because while it's in that state, you're increasing cortisol levels as well.

[00:49:47] Lauren Vaknine: So anytime you're stressed in any way, and your cortisol rises, you're weakening immune function. If you've got continued high cortisol and you've got, therefore got continued. Lowered immune function, you're more susceptible to all [00:50:00] sorts of illness. Whichever illness you are genetically predisposed to will at some point be triggered.

[00:50:04] Lauren Vaknine: And that stress will be the catalyst for that. So we have to find ways to bring the brain down into the alpha state. And the alpha state is a beautiful place to be. It's just under beta. It's just above theta. Theta is the meditative state. And alpha is this beautiful state where you are focused, you're focused.

[00:50:21] Lauren Vaknine: You can concentrate, you are here in the 3D world, but you're calm and your cortisol levels are low. You're not in fight and flight. [00:50:30] You've brought yourself back to the parasympathetic nervous state, as opposed to the sympathetic nervous state, which is survival mode. and, So there are so many physical factors to why meditation is important, because without being able to have those practices, Every day, because it's not like my life is, is not, is without stress.

[00:50:50] Lauren Vaknine: You know, I've got two young children. I run a business. My husband runs a business. We live in London. you know, we've got a lot going on and they're as everyone does all the [00:51:00] time. So it's, you know, how can I manage that stress? so that it doesn't affect me physically. And meditation is the way to do that.

[00:51:09] Lauren Vaknine: So that's from the physical perspective, but then you take it one step deeper and then you're going onto the spiritual. So it's, it's affecting my physical body. It's helping my physical body to stay healthy. It's one of the many tools in my daily wellness toolkit that I use to keep me healthy. And it's also connecting me.

[00:51:29] Lauren Vaknine: more [00:51:30] deeply to something beyond and so, you know, my spiritual practice is, is kind of different, I would say, to my meditation, but both of them are helping keep me in that state and, and, and so that's, yeah, I think in a nutshell, the importance of meditation.

[00:51:45] Dr. Katie Deming MD: Yeah, no, well, and I think that what you said is beautiful in explaining to people that there are a lot of different Practices that you can use to bring us down out of that beta state and there are you know guided [00:52:00] meditations? Which you started with and we will link the healing sands meditation on YouTube

[00:52:06] Lauren Vaknine: And I've also

[00:52:07] Dr. Katie Deming MD: can easily

[00:52:08] Lauren Vaknine: also got quite a few guided meditations of my own on YouTube, if anyone wants to do those, like inner child meditations, nervous system, uh, no, nervous system isn't on YouTube. We've got sleep meditations, anxiety meditations, because I want people to have access to things that are just going to calm them, where they don't have to think about it themselves.

[00:52:27] Lauren Vaknine: But on my program, I actually, there's a [00:52:30] whole module dedicated to meditation where I teach people a simple, Kind of methodology if you like to make med because you know most people that come to me say I really want to meditate I've tried I find it really hard and I I like to create i'm Not a very formulaic person I'm quite flowy, but I like to create formulas to make things easier for people And so I actually teach a whole module on meditation and then we have a nervous system regulation module as well That offers a different [00:53:00] perspective on actually how to You Calm the nervous system in a different way to your daily meditation.

[00:53:05] Dr. Katie Deming MD: Yep. That's beautiful. And we will link as well to your site. So people can find, your resources as well. But I think that the explanation of the different types of meditation and the different ways that you can access this, and that you can just simply sit in silence and that be a A form of quieting the mind and [00:53:30] accessing a physical state that is beneficial for us, getting us out of this, you know, continuous cortisol release, and interest, but then also allowing things to open for guidance, you know, and personally I too sit in silence.

[00:53:49] Dr. Katie Deming MD: So I, you know, spend time in silence every day. but it's not necessarily a specific meditation, a specific way. Sometimes it [00:54:00] is. Sometimes I'm doing a breathing, you know, specific breathing meditation, or sometimes I'm doing a chakra activation, but many times I'm just sitting in silence and that physiologically is so good for us.

[00:54:14] Dr. Katie Deming MD: But then also it tunes us. And this is one of the things I've since my shared death experience that, you know, something happened during that experience that kind of tuned me to higher consciousness, higher levels of information. But [00:54:30] I may only able to access that information in silence when I can really.

[00:54:34] Dr. Katie Deming MD: Get myself into a quiet space, not doing anything. It's like in the non doing, you know, and this can be done actually while you're doing other things, not to confuse people completely, but you can be in the silence and in the not doing while you're washing the dishes, while you're folding

[00:54:52] Dr. Katie Deming MD: the laundry. It's like just being present and getting quiet within yourself. And, you know, that's [00:55:00] That, uh, statistic that you gave that in one day we are exposed to more information than someone in the 1700s experienced in their whole life, I think is just, puts a number to something all of us have experienced. And I think this is the most common thing that I hear from people who are experiencing cancer.

[00:55:23] Dr. Katie Deming MD: They are overwhelmed. There is just. Way too much information. It's not for lack of information. It's what [00:55:30] to do with the information. And so I, I want to say something about this is that I to feel that overwhelm of all the information and especially someone who, you know, I had been trained my whole life so much.

[00:55:44] Dr. Katie Deming MD: Information crammed into my head, right? And that I used. And then now, as I've switched into this new way of practicing, I'm needing to learn different ways because there's a whole bunch of things that I was never taught in medicine about nutrition and about mitochondrial health and all of [00:56:00] these things.

[00:56:00] Dr. Katie Deming MD: But. One of the ways that I determine what I listen to is by getting into that quiet and that silence and checking in with me about what resonates. And I. Go there first. I like, I follow the things that light me up and that resonate with me. And then I look for the data to make sure it's scientifically sound, which [00:56:30] is backwards from the way that I was trained to study.

[00:56:33] Dr. Katie Deming MD: I was trained just to study everything that's in front of me. And then just not even tune into my intuition at all. And now I just completely focus on my intuition first. And then use my scientific skills second to verify that yes, okay, this does fit with scientific evidence and is clear. And I think that that is one thing that people could take away from this episode [00:57:00] is that it is normal to feel overwhelmed because there is so much information, but you have a knowing inside of you.

[00:57:09] Dr. Katie Deming MD: About what is right for you. And so one of the ways that you can cut down on some of the noise is just tuning in. And when you're listening to someone, does this person touch me in a way that feels resonant, like that lights me up or gives me something that feels true [00:57:30] versus sometimes you just have this feeling where you're like, I'm not sure what's wrong.

[00:57:33] Dr. Katie Deming MD: Like the information that there's giving, they're giving is not right. and so what we're trying to do is we're trying to make sure that everything is accurate and correct, but there's something not in frequency there is that if you can tune to the frequency of things that are put in front of you, that will help you distinguish what's important for you to pay attention to now, and then it may be different tomorrow, but this is a way for us to come back to ourselves and get out of the [00:58:00] overwhelm of all the information and it's a real thing, it's a real issue that all of us are Dealing with and exposed to.

[00:58:07] Dr. Katie Deming MD: So Lauren, if people want to find you, can you tell us where they can find you? And, yeah, it's been such a pleasure talking to you. I

[00:58:17] Lauren Vaknine: too. thank you. So I, my website is laurenvacneen. co. uk. That's V A K N I N E. and on there you'll find my RISE membership, which is my main offering, because that's everything in one [00:58:30] place. So anyone that wants to kind of go on a real healing journey, that's there. My Instagram is at laurenvacneen.

[00:58:36] Lauren Vaknine: I'm there quite a lot. sharing lots of health optimization tips, Lots of, you know, nuggets of information and my podcast, uh, Reconditioned with Lauren Vaknin. So, yeah, I'm on YouTube. I'm pretty much everywhere, but those are my main channels.

[00:58:52] Dr. Katie Deming MD: love it. Well, thank you so much for being here. It's really been a privilege to have you.

[00:58:56] Lauren Vaknine: It's been great speaking. Thank you, Katie.

[00:58:58] [00:59:00] [00:59:30]