Free Guide – 3 Things You Need to Know About Cancer: https://www.katiedeming.com/cancer-101/
Do you ever struggle to set boundaries, overwhelmed by your emotions, or find yourself repeating unhealthy patterns in relationships? you?
Dr. Katie has a conversation with Michelle Chalfant, a licensed therapist, holistic life coach, and creator of the Adult Chair podcast (which just hit 10 million downloads). Michelle shares her unique approach to emotional healing and personal development, offering a toolkit for transformative change.
Michelle and Dr. Katie explore how unresolved emotional issues can manifest in physical symptoms and how addressing these emotional roots can support your body's natural healing processes. Uncovering the intricate connection between emotional health and physical healing.
Key takeaways:
• How to identify and work with your emotional triggers
• Techniques for setting healthy boundaries without confrontation
• The importance of feeling emotions for overall health
• How to practice self-compassion and boost self-worth
• Practical steps to become a healthier, more empowered adult
Chapters:
11:23 – Managing your triggers and set boundaries
14:09 – Why parents are adolescents in adult suits
21:06 – Feeling and allowing emotions
29:31 – Setting boundaries with medical professionals
32:13 – Tactics for better emotional awareness
Walk away knowing the 5 pillars of the Adult Chair model, which dissects our emotional evolution into three stages. Understand how recognizing these phases can shed light to patterns in your behavior and emotional responses, empowering you to initiate meaningful, lasting change.
Michelle's approachable and practical style to break down complex emotional concepts, making them accessible to all. She shares actionable strategies for establishing boundaries, managing triggers, and cultivating self-compassion.
Gain insights into the power of self-compassion and how it can dramatically shift your relationship with yourself and others. Michelle shares practical exercises to help you cultivate this essential skill, fostering resilience and inner peace.
Listen, learn, and gaine new tools to help you feel more grounded, empowered, and in tune with your authentic self.
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Coupon Code HEAL http://theacademyofawakening.com/
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Read the Transcript Below:
Have you ever felt like you're living on autopilot, disconnected, and struggling to set healthy boundaries? Today, I sit down with Michelle Chalfant, holistic life coach, therapist, and host of the popular Adult Chair podcast. Michelle brings her expertise in emotional healing and personal growth to our conversation. She shares her innovative adult chair model along with the 5 pillars of being a healthy adult. You'll learn practical tools for feeling your emotions, setting boundaries, and taking responsibility for your life. Stay until the end to discover a simple yet powerful exercise for tuning into your body and processing emotions effectively.Katie Deming [00:00:43]:
You're listening to the Born to Heal podcast, and I'm your host, doctor Katie Deming. After 2 decades of practicing as an oncologist and caring for thousands of patients, I've seen firsthand how our health care system places obstacles in your path to true healing. My guests and I will bridge the worlds of Western medicine and alternative healing to help you achieve optimal health. Expect to uncover new insights, share a few laughs, and maybe even shed some tears along the way. But most of all, we'll learn how to heal from within together. So let's dive into today's episode.Katie Deming [00:01:18]:
Hello, everyone. I am very excited today to be speaking with Michelle Chalfant, a licensed therapist, holistic life coach, and the host of the very popular adult chair podcast that I think I saw something that said you just hit 5,000,000 downloads or something like that. Is that correct? 10,000,000. Oh my god. 10,000,000. Oh my goodness.
Michelle Chalfant [00:01:43]:
It's surreal, I gotta tell you. Like, to even say that number out loud because it's a big number.
Katie Deming [00:01:48]:
It is a big number. Congratulations. Well, welcome, Michelle. I'm so happy to have you here.
Michelle Chalfant [00:01:54]:
Thank you so much. And I'm so happy to have had you on my show and to be part of that 10,000,000. So thank you.
Katie Deming [00:02:00]:
I love it. I love it. Funny. So Milo, my cat, is with us today. And for whatever reason, he's very talkative, so we may hear him. But, what I would love to start out with is having you tell us a little bit about yourself Mhmm. And what inspired the framework of the adult chair.
Michelle Chalfant [00:02:18]:
Yeah. Yeah. For sure. So I like like you said, like, I I've always I've been a therapist and also a coach, a life coach for, gosh, maybe 20 some years, and I stopped seeing clients about it was right around COVID. I just stopped because the podcast was getting bigger, bigger, bigger, and I felt this call to really put the messaging in a different way out into the world versus instead of seeing clients 1 on 1. I developed online courses and a membership and a coaching certification program called the adult chair. So all the things. So the adult chair is a model that I cobbled together based on, honestly, a lot of different teachers, but also a lot of my own intuition as well as feedback from clients that I had over all these years.
Michelle Chalfant [00:02:59]:
So it's a model that's based on 3 distinct phases of our lives. We start with the child phase, so that's 0 to 6. So when we're in the child phase, we learn all about how to feel our emotions. We learn about how to have fun. We learn about vulnerability and intimacy and all these beautiful things, play, all the fun things. And then we move at around the age of 6 into what we call the adolescent chair. And from the age of about 6 to 25, we live here, and that's preadolescence, adolescence, postadolescence. In a nutshell, we are developing our ego, the ego structure.
Michelle Chalfant [00:03:35]:
So we learn how to not live in the moment. Now we're living in the past and the future. This is where we are really develop developing a sense of self, and I say that meaning the small sense of self s small s, not the big s. But it's a real separate identity from from who we truly are, but it's what we learn in order to survive in the world. So we learn again, typically, we learn who to become who to be in order for our parents to love and accept us, how do I need to change myself in order for my friends to love and accept me. So we start kinda putting these masks on over who we truly are to become who others want us to be. So this is where you're gonna start seeing also, for example, the fraud part of us that pops up. We see the inner critic.
Michelle Chalfant [00:04:22]:
We see the judger. And it's not bad. We really need an ego in order to survive here on the planet. But if we don't have it balanced out, it just becomes, you know, we we just live from our false self. Then around the age of 25, if we had healthy parents and modeling in our lives, which again, most of us unfortunately don't, we have adolescents in adult suits that raise us. So around the age of 25, we then slide into what we call our adult share. This is where we live in the present moment. We're conscious.
Michelle Chalfant [00:04:54]:
We live with fact and truth versus story and assumption. We live with boundaries. We live with empathy. We know how to have self compassion. You know, all of these beautiful things. So that's the model. And what's beautiful about it is it's it teaches us who we are today and how we got here. How did I develop into the human that I am today no matter what your age is? And then it's a framework that teaches you how to become a healthy adult.
Michelle Chalfant [00:05:21]:
How do I do that? The way that we do that, we plug in what I call the 5 pillars of what a healthy adult is all about. So anyone can learn how to be a healthy adult regardless of your background, regardless of what's going on in your life. We just have to have that framework. So that's the adult chair in a big or little tiny nut nutshell, I should
Katie Deming [00:05:41]:
say. No. That's super helpful, I think. And I love the way that you have defined that as a way for people to kinda wrap their heads around all of these parts of us. Right? And that it you resonates, and it's practical. And that was one of the things that as I was preparing for this, I was looking at the feedback from your podcast, and a lot of what people say is that Michelle's so practical, and she shares real examples that help me understand, you know, how this applies to whatever I'm going through in my life. So I love the simplicity of that. And I'm wondering, do you wanna talk about the 5 pillars? I think that
Michelle Chalfant [00:06:22]:
Yeah. For sure. For sure. So and this again, I I I I pulled this together after seeing clients for about 20, I don't know, 21 or 22 years. And what I realized was I kept saying the same this is even before I create I I I had developed the adult chair. I kept saying the same thing to people over and over again. So what I said for 20 some years was the same thing, which is number 1, we've got to take responsibility for our lives. So regardless of what's going on in your life, it's not about self blame or falling into victim or blaming anyone else.
Michelle Chalfant [00:06:56]:
It's just where am I? Okay. This is where I am. Let me take responsibility for where I am today. Once we do that, it's actually really empowering to do that. Another thing that then we do is we have self compassion. So so many of us are living from a place of again, we're beating up on ourselves. We're blaming. We're stuck in a negative cycle of whether it's around some of us have anxiety or depression or so many different things that we all suffer with as humans.
Michelle Chalfant [00:07:24]:
Humans are gonna suffer no matter what. The question is how do you how do you get yourself out of it? Self compassion is a beautiful tool that we all can learn. And when we learn how to apply that, boy, our lives can change. I mean, self compassion builds self worth, self esteem. It can lift us out of depression after we use it for a time period. So there is a beautiful thing that we all need to learn how to practice because if not, that small self, the ego just kinda kicks in with the with the inner critic. We all think that we're frauds, you know, that kind of thing. We then have to learn how to feel our emotions.
Michelle Chalfant [00:07:56]:
This is something that, oh my god, if I had a dollar for every client, when I said to them, hey, how does that make you feel in your body? They would look at me like, what do you mean? You know? And and feeling our emotions is something we absolutely know how to do when we're children and we just do it. We come in ready to feel. We do feel. No one has to teach us. We're feeling little beings. I don't care what sex you are. You are a feeling being. And we learn not to feel.
Michelle Chalfant [00:08:26]:
We learn to shut it down. We learn from our caregivers whom whoever raised us what to do with our emotions. So unless you had someone that raised you that said, oh, my darling, you know, what are you feeling? Tell me more. And they're able to sit with us and be with us in that space of our sadness, our overwhelm, our anger, or whatever it is. If they we don't have people like that while we're growing up, we have to do something with these emotions. So we learn to shove them down, numb them out. A lot of parents, a lot of, clients I work with, they had parents that would give them dessert. Have some candy.
Michelle Chalfant [00:09:01]:
You'll be fine. Just have this cake. Have these cut cookies or let's go over here and there's a distraction. And, again, I have no blame or judgment toward anybody. I was a parent. I did not get it perfect, but what I've learned over the years is living as a really healthy human requires us to be able to feel our emotions. Because if we don't feel those emotions, we can get sick. We can.
Michelle Chalfant [00:09:21]:
We absolutely can get sick if we don't feel our emotions because emotions are based in energy. And energy we are energetic beings so the energy needs to be able to flow and metabolize through us. So if you're not feeling your emotions there's an energy that's getting stuck or a lot of it that gets stuck. And think about a river that gets dammed up. It's not health it's not good. It's gonna overflow. There's bad things that are gonna happen. So, anyway, so feeling your emotions is the next one.
Michelle Chalfant [00:09:51]:
After that is number 4 is triggers. What the heck do we do with triggers? I personally, and I've said this for probably my entire career, I love triggers. I also love parts work. I do parts work a little differently than than Dick Schwartz does with IFS. I do spiritual parts work. So I'm working energetically and spiritually with our parts. It's a really beautiful process, but triggers fall right in line with parts work because when we are triggered, what people forget and I've done many podcasts on triggers. What people don't know, I should say, it's not that they forgot.
Michelle Chalfant [00:10:25]:
They don't know this. Triggers are a phenomenal way for us to discover unknown, and I'm being redundant on purpose. They're unknown, unconscious beliefs that we have about ourselves. So when we're triggered, there's a belief that about ourselves, like, I hate myself, I don't matter, I'm not good enough, I'm a loser, whatever we are saying, there is a belief that's rising up within ourselves about us that's delivered to us on a silver platter. And if we're willing to take a look at that and really work with that belief, then we can actually transform that inner belief that we have about ourselves. But what typically happens is that people instead wanna shut that person down that may, quote, unquote, here's my air quotes, made them feel that way. Nobody can make you feel anything unless you have it inside of yourself. You've got it inside of yourself if you're feeling it.
Michelle Chalfant [00:11:23]:
Have you ever been with a group of friends where, know, you could be sit standing with 5 friends and and you're the only one that is triggered and everyone else is like, what what are you so upset about? What's the big deal? It's because it's your belief. That belief within you is the one that's rising up. So when we learn to work with triggers, this can stand alone as something that I would say has transformed my entire life, just learning how to work with triggers. So I've got trigger scripts. I have so many things that I do with triggers, but triggers, game changer for anybody. And the last thing that that humans need to do and get better at, and I think it's an ongoing lifelong learning, is learning how to work with setting boundaries. You know? We've gotta learn and we're not great at it. You know, my my parents weren't great at it.
Michelle Chalfant [00:12:05]:
People think that and and I can't if I again had a dollar for every person that said to me when I said, I think it might be appropriate for you to set a boundary with so and so. Their response to me would be, but I'm not confrontational, so I'm not going to do that. Well, let's get something clear about boundaries. Boundaries do not have to be confrontational. Boundaries do not have to be raged or so or screamed out. You know, that's that's a really an explosive, unhealthy boundary. But a boundary simply teaches other people how we wanna be treated. And we are we are protecting our inner beliefs, our values, and our morals, and our ideas when we're setting a boundary.
Michelle Chalfant [00:12:44]:
And there's gosh. I could do the whole day experience just on talking about boundaries. But anyway, I'll stop there. So that's the that is the 5th, pillar that is part of, of course, learning how to grow and live in in what I call your adult chair, which is the healthiest version of self. There you go.
Katie Deming [00:13:01]:
That so that's amazing. And, actually, I'm like, I feel like, Michelle, you and I just practice the same thing. We're just doing it in different spaces because all of the things that you're saying are absolutely the things that I am teaching and and doing with my clients. And Mhmm. A couple of things that I just so that quote, boundaries do not have to be confrontational. I love that. And I I literally I was late getting on this call, for this interview with Michelle because I was with a client who'd just been diagnosed with colon cancer. And there were there are clearly some boundaries that need to be set up, and and I could feel that.
Katie Deming [00:13:42]:
Like, she didn't wanna be confrontational. She didn't want to and it's I love that you say that. Like, they it doesn't have to be confrontational. It's not about that. You said it's about teaching people how we wanna be treated, which is that's it. And that's I think if people can see boundaries in that way, it's like, oh, okay. You know? But then it's a it's a skill. Right? So you're teaching people how to do that in a skillful way, which I think we haven't been taught.
Katie Deming [00:14:09]:
Again, it comes back to I love that you said that, you know, the people who raised us are, like, you know, adolescents in adult suits. I think that's what you said, but it's like it's so true. Right? And the thing is that if we weren't taught how to do that, then we don't have the tools to do it, And I love that you're teaching that. And I also love what you said about triggers. And so my mentor always says to me is like, well, if you squeeze a lemon, what are you gonna get? You're gonna get lemon juice. If you squeeze an orange, what are you gonna get? You're gonna get an orange. And so I love I see triggers also as spiritual work that it's like, oh, if something triggers me, it just shows me what's inside, and and you're describing it as those beliefs. Like, these are our beliefs rising up, and what a gift that it's coming out.
Katie Deming [00:15:01]:
And I know it doesn't feel that way, and I know that it often feels like, no. No. No. It's really it's them. It's like they're triggering me.
Michelle Chalfant [00:15:08]:
But it's
Katie Deming [00:15:08]:
like we can't be triggered by someone if there's not something inside of us that is coming out with that. Absolutely. And so yeah. It's so beautiful. And then the the last thing that I'll say is that you you I love that the first pillar is responsibility, and this is a quote that my partner said to me the other day. And he so he went through a divorce, and then his wife he was a professional cyclist, and Mhmm. He lived a very selfish lifestyle because you have to do that to Mhmm. You know, perform at the highest level.
Katie Deming [00:15:40]:
And he realized though when she asked him for a divorce that he's like, I just need to, like, get myself right so that I can figure out who I am and and how I'm operating, and then so that I can also become a better partner when I am with someone else. And so he was in therapy for 3 years and intentionally by himself during that whole time. And he said something to me really beautiful that ties into your first pillar, which he said, it's like I needed to take responsibility for my past and be intentional about my future. Mhmm. And I was like, I'm like, oh, and thank God I got to meet you after 3 years of therapy. I'm like, that's amazing. But it's like, it is so true. Right? And we can't actually be intentional about our future until we've taken responsibility.
Katie Deming [00:16:20]:
Actually be intentional about our future until we've taken responsibility for, you know, who we are and and and where we're at right now. Right? We can't figure out where we're going if we don't take responsibility for where we are in this moment.
Michelle Chalfant [00:16:34]:
You nailed it. That's it. You cannot go forward until you take responsibility for what's going on right now in this moment. And what people do and I love this. What an enlightened man. Just gonna say, lucky you. You created well, honey. Way to attract the right guy in.
Michelle Chalfant [00:16:51]:
Yeah. Because I totally forgot what you're saying. I mean, that what he said to you is so beautiful that he's gonna pause, reflect, and then make a plan for the future. Like, beautifully done. And that's what we all need to learn how to do is just slow down a little bit. Slow down. Look at where you are. I'm thinking about I had a lot of not a lot, but enough handfuls, let's say, of clients over the years.
Michelle Chalfant [00:17:15]:
I lived in Nashville, Tennessee for many 13 years, and that's where I I pretty much had, that's where my full time practice was. And, I remember many people would come in and go, okay. I can only say this to you, Michelle. I'm like, what's going on now? I mean, people would tell me everything and they'd say, I'm drinking too much. Something's not right. I'm be I'm I'm aware of the fact that I'm drinking too much. I don't want to be drinking this much. Something's not right.
Michelle Chalfant [00:17:40]:
Can you help me? I'm like, great job taking responsibility. You can't make a change until you stop, look inward, and say, wow. Something's not right. I remember one of my clients said, I noticed that when I came home I'm starting to come home from work every day, and I used to make dinner and and and have, like, 1 or 2 glasses of wine. Now I'm having a bottle, and sometimes I'm even opening up a second bottle. And she said to me, that's not okay. And I said, way to go. This is not about judging.
Michelle Chalfant [00:18:08]:
Like, I was so proud of her. I said, way to go. But she was one of many people that said similar things, like, way to go. Now we can come up with a plan because you're owning it. We can we we can leave the judgment, blame, why am I doing this? Does not matter. Doesn't matter. You gotta step into the now state, which is present moment awareness state and say, wow, this is where I am today. This doesn't feel right.
Michelle Chalfant [00:18:31]:
I gotta make a shift. What does that look like? So
Katie Deming [00:18:33]:
Yeah. No. Absolutely. Well, I have a question for you as I'm thinking about obviously, my podcast is about physical healing and the and and people are listening here as, like, emotions. Like, we talk about emotions. I was wanna say, like, you know, every other week, I have someone on talking about emotions. So this is very important to the work that we're doing in healing, but I'm wondering how you see this concept of the different chairs Mhmm. And recognizing, you know, these different chairs that we all are in at different points, how that understanding can contribute to physical healing in the body.
Michelle Chalfant [00:19:17]:
Yeah. Something that I would say is if if, again, I I know that your population, there are some people that that are not well, that are listening to this show. And I worked with people that were stage 4 cancer. Not that wasn't my the bulk of my clientele, but I absolutely did. In fact, I did a whole podcast with a woman named Connie on the Adult Chair podcast. We walked through her stage 4 cancer together, her breast cancer is beautiful journey. But what I would say is the way that we wanna navigate illness, I don't it doesn't matter what kind of illness it is, is to learn how to do it from a place of self compassion, number 1, and really reflecting on what we need. And what I noticed over the years because I just I dabbled in energy.
Michelle Chalfant [00:20:00]:
I mean, I've done a lot of things over the all these years. But what I would notice is when we're putting, for example, other people first, right, and I'm putting myself last on the list. I worked with a lot of co codependence over the years that would have oftentimes autoimmune diseases. So we worked with that. And what I found was it was interesting. I should have done studies on this, but I'm putting myself last. I don't even know what I want. I don't even know what I need.
Michelle Chalfant [00:20:25]:
I don't know how to love myself. So what I noticed that happened is we have these issues with learning how to put ourselves first, learning how to love ourselves, learning how to feel the pain. And when we don't do that well and we push that aside or or just ignore it, it can develop it can develop into sometimes physical ailments within the body. No doubt about it is what I saw. So the way that I would work with people is to teach them the very basics of this is how you feel your emotions. And the reason we wanna feel our emotions, to me, the emotions lead to everything. They lead to setting boundaries. They lead to self worth.
Michelle Chalfant [00:21:06]:
If I don't know what I'm feeling, how am I gonna move forward? It's like we we've got to work with feeling emotions. Feeling emotions for me, what I saw over the all these years was it led to depression. When I'm not feeling my emotions, I'm tapping them down, depression, sadness. If I'm pushing down hard on my emotions that are trying hard to rise up, that's anxiety. So we have to learn how to let the energy flow through the body and learn how to get and this is not airy fairy woo woo when I say we gotta learn how to love ourselves. At our core, we are here as unconditionally loving beings. We're we all are, but we get covered up and we forget that. So we've got to remember how to do that and feeling your emotions and allowing them to flow through us like a stream is a beautiful way to do that.
Michelle Chalfant [00:21:52]:
But starting to get in touch with ourselves and I was talking about Connie. One of the things that I remember she came in and talked to me about, she said, you know, I want to everyone is telling me to go to the cancer support group. And so how does that make you feel? And this is why we gotta learn how to feel our emotions and tap back into the body. I said, how does that make you feel? And she said, horrible, but everybody wants me to go. And I said, sounds like it's time for a boundary. Because the more we feel and get into our heart space, the more we're connecting into our soul, into our God, into source, whatever the heck you call it is fine. But we're we're tapping into something bigger. And my belief is that that something bigger can help you to navigate anything in life including an illness.
Michelle Chalfant [00:22:31]:
So it wants to help to heal you. It wants to walk you out of your pain. It wants to walk you out of your illness. You gotta tap into that. And when we tap into our emotions and we open up the heart and we get in there, god, our whole lives can change. So that's that's a big part of it.
Katie Deming [00:22:46]:
Yeah. Well and this is a big piece, and I I really hope that we will see more data and literature upon this, but or about this. But I I see it in my practice, and now I see it more. Now that I'm able to practice in this way where I can really talk to people and understand, like, what are the dynamics that are going on in their life, this is a big one. People putting others first. I it is and maybe it's like I don't maybe it's just a human being at this point, but, it's so many people that I see. One of the biggest things that has happened is they've lost themselves Yep. In giving to everyone else.
Katie Deming [00:23:28]:
And a lot of I see a lot of women Yep. With breast cancer and a lot of women with gynecologic cancers. Mhmm. And but even with other things, like, this is a common theme of us putting everyone else first and not taking care of themselves. And what you just said that they don't know how to they don't know what they need. They don't know how to love themselves. They don't know what they're feeling in their body because they've learned how to comp or disconnect from that so that they can serve Right. You know, everyone else around them.
Katie Deming [00:24:03]:
And it often is, like, the most challenging work just for them to even figure out how they feel. And I love that example of the support group. I have I don't know if I've talked about it much on the podcast, but I definitely talk about it in, like, 1 on 1 with people. Like, support groups are not for everyone. And, honestly, in some ways, support groups can sometimes be problematic. Mhmm. Because if they're not facilitated well, people can just be vomiting all over the room, all of their stuff. And the way that I think about it is this, is that when you're healing, you're like a little garden.
Katie Deming [00:24:40]:
Right? Mhmm. And what do you do when you plant a new garden? You put a fence around it. You don't let people walk all over your garden. And so in the setting of, of healing, I teach people about this, like, tending to your garden, and the boundaries are putting up this little fence around your garden. And who gets to come in there is very specific about who you're gonna let in there so that they don't trample on your garden. But I was talking to this group of, women with breast cancer, and they were talking about support groups and some of these dynamics. And I said, it's kinda like this. Like, you guys are all these little gardens.
Katie Deming [00:25:19]:
Each one of you is your own little garden, but then you have, like, a communal garden that you guys are developing
Michelle Chalfant [00:25:25]:
Mhmm.
Katie Deming [00:25:25]:
And you cannot, from your garden, start spewing all over someone else's garden. Right? So we have to have this idea of a safe space, and it needs to be really well managed. Right. And so a lot of times, the support groups may not be, you know, beneficial depending on the way that it's done. And and that I I so I I love this idea of, like, well, what do you want, and how does it feel for you? And then when she's like, I don't wanna go, it's like then teaching them how to say it's okay. Like, you don't have to do all the things that everyone thinks someone with cancer should be doing. This is your healing journey. You get to decide.
Katie Deming [00:26:02]:
And in fact, that is part of the work of starting to stand up and say, I do know what I need. I want this. You know? So I think that it's all of that is it's so powerful. You know? It's it's powerful to start to take back your power in this way and saying, you know, I didn't know what I needed, and that's part of why I got sick. And so now my job is to say, I need this. Yeah. Or I don't need that. And sometimes, and I talk about this a lot, sometimes you don't know what you need, but you know what you don't need.
Katie Deming [00:26:37]:
Right? So if that's even it, let's just take away the things that you don't need. You know? But it's like and I think people get overwhelmed, but it's like, just start with what you do know. Like, what do you not want? What you know, if there's things that you don't want, let's start to get rid of those. If there's something, even if it seems silly that you want, starting to take those actions to step into what is really true for you and what you need.
Michelle Chalfant [00:27:00]:
And remote and and, again, it's hard for people. And when we feel our emotions, it opens up the heart space which becomes this internal navigation system for us. And if we would the more we feel our emotions, the more we're guided by the heart. And again, this is not woo woo, it really is true. We feel good or bad. So you'll go to the support group and say, this feels bad. You honor yourself and you don't go. I remember working with again, I'm gonna speak of Connie.
Michelle Chalfant [00:27:29]:
And, she was going to, get her chemo however often. I can't remember. It was years ago, but however often you go get chemo or how she however on she was getting it. But she said, I can't she goes, it makes me feel so bad when I go and get my chemo and the nurse or the doctor would come up and say, now expect to throw up, da da da da da, all the negative symptoms that you get from the fallout from the chemo. And I said, why don't you let them know that you would not like to hear that again? Not that we're in denial by any means. I said, does it how does it make you feel to hear that? She says, well, I go home and I start expecting it. And I said, god, we know our thoughts are creative. We know we're energy beings.
Michelle Chalfant [00:28:09]:
Like, it's it was so important that we are taking care of ourselves in this way. So she started going in and saying to the doctors and the nurses, like, I'm gonna get this chemo. I said, what do you want it to feel like going in? She says, like, I can't remember what she said. It was something like this blue healing energy going out. I go then imagine that and let them know, thank you, but, no, I know what to expect. I don't need it to hear it again. It was so empowering for her, and that boundary was the most beautiful thing and changed her. Completely changed this journey that she was on.
Michelle Chalfant [00:28:38]:
It's beautiful.
Katie Deming [00:28:39]:
Yeah. Well and this is I I love that you brought this up because this is something so and I from practicing it, once I started to understand more of this work, I was still practicing in in western radiation oncology, and we have to, by law, give informed consent. Right? So Mhmm. We have to say all the bad things that can happen to someone with this treatment so that then they can consent to have it or not, which makes sense. Right? But I was always like, oh, I wish I could just, like, erase that from their mind. Like, do it and then erase their mind. But what you bring up is a good point is that, like, yes, for the initial when you sign the consent to do a treatment, your doctor is gonna go through all of those side effects and whatever. And so that has to happen as part of this if you're in the traditional system.
Katie Deming [00:29:31]:
Once that has happened and you have agreed to treatment, what you just described of, like, that they'll say, this is what you can expect or and it is absolutely powerful. We know from the placebo effect, people just thinking that they're gonna have something that they will manifest those experiences in their body. And to have a doctor who has the authority and someone who knows, you know, what could happen, to have that planted in your mind is really, really powerful. And for you to give Connie permission to say, it's okay to tell your doctors and your nurses. Like, if they feel the need that they need to tell someone, you can say, here. Tell my loved one who's with me, you know, this, and and they'll they'll let me know if it's something that I need to know. But but starting to set those like, that we can set boundaries even in places where we think we can't set boundaries. You know? I think that's a really important piece that I want people to hear from this is that even with your doctors and nurses Mhmm.
Katie Deming [00:30:31]:
You get to say what's gonna work for you and what's not going to work for you. And this is a beautiful example of one of those ways that and, also, when you do when you set a boundary like that with someone that has perceived power, you feel more powerful. And not in, like, a, like, you know, egotistical way, but it's like, oh, I do have power. I am this is my body, and what I'm going to experience, I want to have influence over that. So I thank you for sharing that because I think that's just, like, such a beautiful example of ways that people can set healthy boundaries around, you know, even with their care team.
Michelle Chalfant [00:31:13]:
I love that. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's a it's a it's a ripple effect, isn't it? Because It is. Yeah. I'm I'm speaking a boundary over here, and I'm speaking a boundary over here, and all of a sudden, I'm feeling more empowered. Kinda liking having this power. And like you said, it's it's not having power. It's part of being a human.
Michelle Chalfant [00:31:29]:
Like, it's a healthy thing to feel empowered and be able to speak up for yourself and set those boundaries. So it ripples through your whole life. It's definitely healthy. No doubt.
Katie Deming [00:31:37]:
I love that. Well and can I ask you, are there you know, so you talked about, sorry, feeling your emotions and motions, you know, like a stream, allowing it to flow? Yep. Do you have any exercises or, you know, tools that you can help? Because I teach you know, psych k has been one of the most powerful techniques of teaching a whole brain technique of experiencing your emotions. Mhmm. But I'm wondering if you can is there something that you teach that is, like, an actionable tool that people can use with feeling their emotions?
Michelle Chalfant [00:32:13]:
If I may give your your audience something that comes to my mind, the adult share.comforward/innerchild. So it is it's 2 meditations and journaling prompts to help you to connect with that part of you and start to get the process going, a feeling. Okay? Right now in this moment, you can start getting curious about what you are feeling on the inside. And I don't mean a you don't need to come up with a word, but when x happened this morning, let's say, or what's going on right now with you, do a body scan. Just check-in head to toe and very slowly with curiosity, you're gonna ask yourself, what is this that I'm feeling? What is this? It might be tension in your stomach. It might be tightness in your throat. Be with it. Allow it to be there and just sit with it.
Michelle Chalfant [00:33:05]:
You don't have to do anything with it because what happens is when you put your attention on that and it's an it's an energy, it'll dissipate. It starts to break apart. So this is this is what's so cool is when you're feeling your emotions, you're just starting to get back in your body and get in touch with what's flowing through you. And that's what people don't realize. Like, well, I don't know. You know? Is it happy? Is it sad? Is this? I'm like, that doesn't matter. Throw those words out. People don't need to define the emotion in the beginning, but do get curious about just, wow.
Michelle Chalfant [00:33:32]:
I'm noticing I have a little itty bitty tension in my stomach. Great. Can you close your eyes and just sit with it? Let it be there. And guess what? With your attention, it might expand then poof, it might morph or it just goes away and it's gone and it moves through you. You're giving it attention. It's an energy that's just again, it's sliding through your being and then it's gone and then you feel neutral again. So we've got to get in that habit of, like, wow, why am I wanting to eat or why am I wanting to sit and watch Netflix all day? Why am I wanting to do this? Well, pause what you're doing and do a check-in and do a scan head to toe, like, what am I feeling? Is there something going on inside? Oh, yeah. There it is.
Michelle Chalfant [00:34:14]:
I feel like my whole chest is feeling really tight right now. Sit with the tightness. Let it be tight. Close your eyes. Feel, feel, feel, and then breathe, and it will dissipate. I promise you, I've done this 20 some years with people. It's never not. It will move through you.
Michelle Chalfant [00:34:28]:
It can't stay stuck. I've never encountered a stuck emotion ever.
Katie Deming [00:34:32]:
Yeah. That so well and, also, I think one of the things that you're doing in this, and it sounds so simple. People are like, really? It's that easy? But what we naturally do is we resist. Yep. Right? And so what we resist persists. But if you're what you're describing there is by allowing it to be there and putting your attention on saying, this is okay. Like, we're allowing this to happen. It just starts to dissipate.
Katie Deming [00:35:00]:
And that is exactly my experience as well that the allowing and just being with it is all that's necessary.
Michelle Chalfant [00:35:09]:
Yes.
Katie Deming [00:35:09]:
Like, I think people, you know, get afraid that it's gonna hijack their whole system or whatever if you tune into it. But it's like, no. When you start to allow those things, that's all your body wants is a way to have the energy flow through it. So, that's beautiful. And I'm gonna use that because I just what day? I guess it's been, like, today is my 3rd day of no sugar because sugar I'm definitely addicted to sugar. Sugar is definitely my kryptonite. Like, I I I have such a hard time that if I do just a little bit, then I just want it. Right? And so, anyway, I've been you know, when that, kind of craving comes up or whatever, I'm just gonna do that.
Katie Deming [00:35:48]:
I'm just gonna, like, tune into my body and just, like, see where it is and and be with it. So I love that. Thank you for sharing that.
Michelle Chalfant [00:35:56]:
Yeah. And I love I love that you're doing that. A a sugar a detox for sugar, but soothe yourself. There's a little part inside of you. It's like, I gotta eat. I gotta eat. I gotta eat. It's like, little sweetheart, it's okay.
Michelle Chalfant [00:36:06]:
I'm gonna breathe. I'm gonna have that craving and breathe at the same time. Right? And and the other thing that we do is we go into story about why am I feeling bad? Why do I feel guilt? We try to figure it out. What I I what I call living chin up. So we go we step above the chin. We slide up above the chin. We go into the mind mode and we get into that loop of, well, if I can figure out why I'm sad, why I'm mad, why I'm this, why I'm this, then it'll go away. No.
Michelle Chalfant [00:36:34]:
That's not how it goes away. We gotta drop chin down in the body and we feel, wow. I had an argument with my child, with my partner, with my whomever this morning, with my boss. I'm I'm feeling scared around this, why, this or that. Feel it. Allow yourself to feel it. As Jill Bolte Taylor taught us, you know, what many, many years ago is that we have emotions for 90 seconds unless we're stopping them. 90 seconds.
Michelle Chalfant [00:37:00]:
We gotta let those emotions it's an energy that's flowing through us unless we're lost in story trying to figure them out. There's nothing to figure out. Just let it go through you, then it's done. Then it's done.
Katie Deming [00:37:10]:
Yeah. That's so funny. I totally forgotten that Jill Bolte Taylor said that. That's exactly right. And it that is the truth. When you allow it, it's short lived. But we're just not taught to do that. So this is us relearning how to be with the emotions.
Katie Deming [00:37:26]:
So, Michelle, I'm I'm sure I'm gonna have you back because I love talking to you. I think you and I could just talk and talk. Talk. But what and we will put that link that you mentioned there for the inner child meditation. So thank you for sharing that. Can you tell people where to find you, and we will make sure that we have all of your links in the show notes?
Michelle Chalfant [00:37:43]:
Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Everything honestly is at the adult chair dot com. That's where you can learn more about the podcast. I have a coaching certification program. I have online courses. But I wanted to offer your audience, so the adult or the inner child, the adult chair dot com forward slash inner child, it's it's a free inner child resource.
Michelle Chalfant [00:38:01]:
People absolutely love absolutely love it. People have big clearings around doing these two meditations. But I have an online community. It's called the Academy of Awakening, which I'm inviting you into as one of our speakers. And this this online community is all around helping people to remember who they truly are and step into the most authentic version of self. So I would like to offer anyone that would like to try it out for 1 month just for a dollar, and you can just put in the code heal in honor of your podcast. So it's heal, all in caps, but that's the academyofawakening.com, and the promo code is heal, and that's a dollar for a month. And the month of October, I'm actually doing a big inner child course.
Michelle Chalfant [00:38:49]:
So if you wanna learn more about emotions and all the things, come on in. But we do a lot of great things in there and have a lot of special guests, and I do a lot of live teachings and q and a's and all the things. So that's them.
Katie Deming [00:39:01]:
I love that. Okay. So we definitely will have that link to that with the coupon code of heal in there. And thank you so much for offering that to my audience. We really appreciate that. And I can't wait to come in and speak in the academy, so that's exciting. Well, thank you so much, Michelle, for being here with us, and I look forward to the next time that I bring you on.
Michelle Chalfant [00:39:21]:
Thanks so much for having me.
Katie Deming [00:39:25]:
You're listening to the Born to Heal podcast, and I'm your host, doctor Katie Deming. After 2 decades of practicing as an oncologist and caring for thousands of patients, I've seen firsthand how our health care system places obstacles in your path to true healing. My guests and I will bridge the worlds of western medicine and alternative healing to help you achieve optimal health. Expect to uncover new insights, share a few laughs, and maybe even shed some tears along the way. But most of all, we'll learn how to heal from within together. So let's dive into today's episode.
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.