Dr. Katie Deming [00:00:02]:
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 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. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Born Heel podcast. I am thrilled today to be joined by Jess Bobakow, who is a writer and teaches about intuition.Dr. Katie Deming [00:00:51]:
Jess, thank you so much for being here.

Jess Bubbico [00:00:54]:
Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be talking about this topic with you today.

Dr. Katie Deming [00:00:58]:
Me too. So I think, actually, just for my audience, I wanna explain why we're talking about intuition on the podcast and just to set the stage for this. But I talk a lot about Kelly Turner's work with radical remissions and the ten factors that are common for people who cure their illness. And my practice includes, you know, many of the things that are on Kelly's list. And intuition is one of the things that is listed. So people who cure their cancer without conventional therapy tune into their intuition and let it guide them in their healing. And so this is why we're having the conversation, and this is why I think that intuition is so important when we're talking about healing and especially because a lot of times, the treatments that are recommended to you, your intuition may be telling you this is not the right thing for me. And people shy away from listening to that little voice when they have an authority telling them this is what you're supposed to be doing.

Dr. Katie Deming [00:02:04]:
So this is why I've brought Jess on here, and I'm excited to have this conversation. But I wanna start with you, Jess, just asking you, what is our intuition, and how can people use that in a healing setting?

Jess Bubbico [00:02:20]:
Yeah. Absolutely. Well, I think, 1st and foremost, I wanna say I'm excited to have a conversation about this with you today because I know that you yourself are very intuitive and very in tune. And I think that everyone has a different experience of what intuition is, what it feels like for them, how it comes through for them. When I started working in the space of intuition and talking about intuition and I would say the word intuition, people would come to me and be like, oh, I actually had an experience once where? And they would tell me different stories of the different ways in which intuition would come through for them. And so the way that I understand intuition or teach about intuition is it's how you know something in your life that you maybe don't have a logical, tangible answer to. So whether that is you know, there's different ways that intuition come through. For some people, we talk about, you know, our clear senses.

Jess Bubbico [00:03:16]:
So whether that comes through a feeling. Maybe you get chills down your spine when something is, like, correct. You hear something that feels true. Maybe you're somebody who has really vivid dreams, and so you kind of get answers to things when you go to sleep at night. Maybe you're somebody who, you know, gets a knot in your stomach or maybe feels like, you know, you just have a knowing. You don't know how you know something. You just know it. But intuition is something that, I think, is unique to all of us in how it comes through, but I think universal to all of us in that we've all had those moments in our lives when we've known something and we maybe didn't really know how, but it ended up being true.

Jess Bubbico [00:03:54]:
Maybe it went against conventional logic.

Dr. Katie Deming [00:03:57]:
Absolutely. So and I think that that is one of the things that you said at the end. It may go against conventional logic. And I think that is one of the things that people often dismiss, that little knowing or that pit in their stomach or a message that they're receiving because it goes against what they've been taught to think is correct. And that has been the case for me, especially with my decision to leave Western medicine. I was getting that message from 2019. You know, something was telling me that I wasn't supposed to be practicing radiation oncology, and it made zero logical sense. And it wasn't until I had the shared death experience that I was basically slapped across the head and was like, hey.

Dr. Katie Deming [00:04:46]:
Wake up. Like, either you're gonna do this or you're not. And it was really scary because it made no sense logically. Like, it just didn't. There was nothing about it that made sense in my life and the life that I had built. So I love that you said that. And I think this is something that you said a couple things in there that were important is that it's not the same. We are all important is that it's not the same.

Dr. Katie Deming [00:05:08]:
We are all unique, and so our intuition, that knowing that we have inside is gonna come through in different ways and and to honor that. And to also start to recognize, okay. What is it? You know, what are the ways that you receive information? Is it from your dreams? Is it from, you know, just that tingling in your spine? Is it that you see things? And so I think knowing that it's different and then starting to tune in and say, oh, yeah. I had that before. And this is, I think, the clues. Like, we have clues in our life, so you can look back at a time where maybe you ignored that knowing. And then it turned out and you're like, oh, I knew that. And so looking back at our lives can be a way for us to start to recognize how we work and how our body is receiving information and tuning into that.

Jess Bubbico [00:06:06]:
Totally. Can I ask you a question?

Dr. Katie Deming [00:06:08]:
Yes, please.

Jess Bubbico [00:06:09]:
Okay. Because you had said and this is why I'm excited. I feel like we're gonna have a good conversation because I think we can all relate to, like, real life stories and things that have happened. You said that shared death experience, which I believe was pretty visual. Was it pretty visual for you? Could you see, or was it more of, like, you were in, like, hearing and knowing? I can't fully remember the shared death experience story.

Dr. Katie Deming [00:06:30]:
Yeah. So for me, it was this is what's hard to explain is that I heard things, but I didn't hear them. And then I saw things, but I didn't see them. So I was in a space that I was receiving information that I would associate with my senses, but it was beyond my 5 senses for that particular experience. But, like, with my TED talk, people don't know this actually on the podcast, but my TED talk actually did come in a vision. So in 2022, I was just meditating on my lunch break in the clinic, and I saw the TED symbol. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. And then I saw this woman's face with the TED symbol, and her name is Brynn.

Dr. Katie Deming [00:07:20]:
And I knew Brynn, but not really well. We had been in a speaking group together where there was a speaking coach doing a master class, and she invited some professional speakers in to be the student so she could record the class, and then she was going to launch it online. And so Brynn and I had been in that course together, but I didn't really know her. And I saw her name with the TED symbol, and I just know now. Like, I don't ignore. When something like that comes in, I even if I look like a crazy person, I follow those clues because it has in the past, I've found things come together in really synchronistic ways when I do that. And so I reached out to her and I said, I know this is crazy, but I don't do you have anything to do with TED? I don't know why I had this vision of you with the TED symbol. And she said, wow.

Dr. Katie Deming [00:08:09]:
She said, your, you know, higher I forget what she said. Something like your higher self is spot on. She said, because I'm on the TEDx Reno selection committee, and we have 7 more days in our selection process. She said, do you think you have a talk? And I was like, I don't know. She said, let's get on a call. And literally within 3 days, I had submitted the application for TED Talk. So it's like that

Jess Bubbico [00:08:30]:
Mhmm.

Dr. Katie Deming [00:08:30]:
Some of my stuff does come in visually, but that particular, the shared depth, it was beyond the senses that I can you know, the 5 senses that we associate with.

Jess Bubbico [00:08:39]:
Yeah. And I love that because I think we can, again, all to some degree relate to having, again, that little nudge or that feeling or an image that came in. And and we can talk about the different clear senses because which are the senses of our intuition. The way that our intuition speaks to us speaks through the same senses we use to perceive our physical tangible reality around us. Right? Seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, and even tasting. That's a, you know, another way that intuition can come through for people. And you had said that your shared death experience was sort of, like, the knock on the head that was like, you can't ignore this anymore. Do you feel like there were little instances leading up to that that you had little knowings before the shared death experience?

Dr. Katie Deming [00:09:23]:
Absolutely. And that's in 2019, I started having these conversations with my husband just saying, something's not right. I don't think I'm supposed to be practicing radiation oncology. And coming back to the whole logical thing, he basically said, If you're not happy with having a job where you make half a $1,000,000 a year and you work 4 days a week and you're, by the way, treating cancer, which is meaningful work and your colleagues love you and your patients love you, maybe something's wrong with you. Like, maybe you're never gonna be happy if you have all this. And so I was getting those messages, but then I started dismissing it because the person who was most important to me in my life was telling me this was not right.

Jess Bubbico [00:10:10]:
Yeah. Yeah. I think that's part of the challenge. So when we start to look at intuition, like you said, it's like we have the ways in which it comes in. You it's something didn't feel right. Like, this doesn't feel right to me. Everything looks right, and the picture looks perfect, but something about it doesn't feel right. I can relate to that because when I started practicing speech therapy, I kept feeling the same way.

Jess Bubbico [00:10:31]:
This was 10 years ago. I was like I knew, and I remember calling my dad. I was, you know, fresh out of graduate school, and I'm like, okay. This feels off. Like, something is off here, and I don't exactly know what it is, but I know I need to be pursuing something else. And I think a lot of the times when we're being led out of something, sometimes it does start as this this whole picture looks good. This whole picture looks right, but something inside of me feels off about it. It's kind of like if it's all lining up the way that it should be.

Jess Bubbico [00:11:01]:
Right? Even if we think about it from the perspective of pursuing a certain treatment or something like that in our care plan or whatever it may be, it typically does start as, like, something felt off about that. And I think our bodies are so intelligent, as I know you talk about on this podcast, that, you know, our bodies, we were born to heal. Our bodies know how to heal. And I think when we we look at animals in nature, like, their bodies know what to do. Like, their bodies know to run from something. Their bodies know when to migrate. They're no one's going like this time of year, so this is what you should do. It's like they have this inbuilt system that tells them and directs them with what to do.

Jess Bubbico [00:11:46]:
And our intuition comes through our body. You know? It speaks through our body. It speaks through those 5 senses. And so I think that being able to pay attention knowing that we're no different from nature, you know, we're no different we are different from animals in certain ways, you know, but we're no different in that we all have that inner system that tells us when something is off or what we should do something or shouldn't do something. And I think it's a matter of, can we learn to trust and embrace ourselves enough to be able to say, I love me, and it's okay to go potentially go against what somebody that I love in my life might be telling me to do or at least to go and explore it and say, I don't necessarily have to tell you you're wrong, but maybe I open up my mind to start to follow some of these intuitive nudges and see what happens as a result.

Dr. Katie Deming [00:12:37]:
Yes. Well and I was just reading. So the Ellen McPherson story, you know, just came out within, like, I don't know, past day about I think she has a new book out talking about how she did not end up pursuing conventional therapy for her breast cancer diagnosis. This was like 10 years ago now, and she said that her son, one of her sons, really disagreed with her approach and plan, and it created this big disconnect there in her family about her decision. And this is something that I see all of the time. You know, it's so common that someone will have a knowing or a sense or, like you said, that something just does not feel right about what is being recommended, but then you have family members or loved ones who are like, you're crazy. Like, why would you not do what is considered, you know, the standard of care for treatment? And I think this is the biggest piece that comes up, especially when someone is sick with an illness like cancer when you have that intuition that something's not right. And you're exactly right that it is often not that you know what to do.

Dr. Katie Deming [00:13:53]:
It's just that you know what's not for you. And to honor that and trust that when you're scared for your life, you know, this is a real people don't wanna get it wrong. So I think that when you get that combination of having something that's very serious and you don't wanna get it wrong and then family members are questioning or loved ones who love you and really want the best for you but are questioning it can be really scary to how do you and that's actually, I think, part of the role that I play for people is standing alongside them and not telling them what to do, because I have to say, I don't know what is right for each person. I really trust that they know what is best for them. But what I can do is come alongside them as a guide to say, you're not wrong, like, in your intuition. And, actually, I had a consult with a woman yesterday, and she knew something was wrong with what had been recommended and actually had had a very dramatic surgery, and it's not even clear that she needed that surgery in the 1st place. But she didn't stop and she just and now she's, you know, questioning and saying, okay. Well, I'm not gonna follow the rest of the recommendations until I'm really clear about what's happened.

Dr. Katie Deming [00:15:07]:
But I think that this is, like, we often know what's not right, and then it can really cause this conflict about how do I follow that. So one question I have for you is, like, how do you know if that is, like, your intuition speaking or if you're just scared and something is it's not true, I think this is the big rub where people don't know what to do with that information.

Jess Bubbico [00:15:33]:
Yeah. And I think this is a really it's a great question. I think that a lot of the time that the question that people ask is, like, is it my intuition, or is it that I'm anxious or nervous or scared about something? And I don't know that it's always a super clear cut answer of, like, a plus b equals c equals, you know, whatever. Oftentimes, it's like a plus z equals f. You made a great point, and I think that this like, if I'm thinking about someone who's going through an experience where they're wanting to be able to connect with their intuition, but maybe they don't have the support around them, When your nervous system is activated, so that fight, flight, or freeze response, we find ourselves in, like, the lower recesses of the brain, which is the survival brain. What we're scanning for in that moment is, how can I survive this situation? And, oftentimes, what we end up doing is we start to hyperfocus on this now moment and this present moment. And so sometimes it can be hard to perceive our intuition when, you know, we're saying something doesn't feel right, and a family member is like, well, you have to pursue doing that because or a doctor is telling you or right, whatever that is that activates that fear. And we can often find ourselves feeling that sense of anxiety or wanting to run away.

Jess Bubbico [00:16:49]:
Or I actually, yesterday, was very anxious about something, and I found myself, like, almost feeling like I was gonna faint a little bit. And I was like, this is the exact moment when I want intuition, and I wanna be able to connect with it. But it's the exact moment when I'm actually most disconnected from it. Right? I'll say this. When I first started doing intuitive readings many years ago, I found that most of the people who were coming to me had a level of this, like, I need an answer. Like, I need an answer to a question that I have. And there was oftentimes a level of anxiety, and they were coming to me because they were having trouble listening to their intuition because their emotions and their anxiety maybe were sort of clouding what their knowingness was trying to tell them. And so you made a point.

Jess Bubbico [00:17:35]:
You said, people come to me so that I can guide them because you have a relaxed nervous system about it. You're coming from a place of openness. And I think when we find ourselves in a state of fight or flight or heightened anxiety or heightened emotion, sometimes the best thing that I think that we can do is find someone who has, like, a neutral nervous system who can be relaxed, who can guide us, who can help us to see that bigger picture. Because just like you said about the TED Talk, when you went into meditation, you went into a state of relaxation, that's when you saw that TED symbol, and that's when you saw that person next to the symbol. What happens with our brain, when we go into a state of fight or flight, we go into those survival parts of the brain, what ends up happening is we tend to have a lot of thoughts. We find ourselves in this, like, high beta sort of state where we're, again, perceiving the environment around us, the immediate environment around us to survive. But when we go into a relaxed state, we come into almost even a relaxed like, a gentle state of meditation. That's when we can perceive our intuition.

Jess Bubbico [00:18:45]:
That's when we kind of access those higher parts of the brain that we would say, you know, especially if you look into, like, doctor Joe's work, but, like, where we can actually access the superconsciousness. And so we can perceive things that are not in our immediate environment that are not connected necessarily to just trying to survive. And that's when that information can kind of slip in. So I think if you're finding yourself surrounded by a lot of people who maybe are in that state, it's putting you into that state. Having somebody who can serve as that neutral party, that grounded party that can guide you back to your knowingness because we're pack animals. We're meant to regulate ourselves with other people, and sometimes the best thing you can do to get out of that survival state is to, what we would call, coregulate with someone else who's in that more grounded, neutral, regulated state. And then we can make a decision that's not rooted in survival, but that might help us to better understand what those intuitive senses might be saying to us.

Dr. Katie Deming [00:19:53]:
Yes. I love that. And this is I just recently, you know, was going through, like, what is it that I actually do with people? And the method that I'm using in my practice is they're really, like, 3 or 4 steps to my approach in conscious healing. And the first one is calm their nervous system. Like, that is what I do. I help regulate them to bring them down to a place where we can start to get clear on what is true and what's not, and you cannot do that when you are in that fight or flight. And to be honest, cancer just the word cancer, hearing that, an association with yourself is, like, immediately puts you into fight or flight. You know, it's immediate activation of the sympathetic nervous system.

Dr. Katie Deming [00:20:46]:
And so that is the what I'm doing when I'm connecting with people. And I love that you said that it's like finding that neutral party. And this could be anyone. This doesn't have to be you don't have to come and see me, although I'd love to see you. But it's finding that person in your life that does not have a vested interest to say you have to do this, that they are open. Because I and I think it can go either way. Like, some people are like, for the love of God, you cannot do anything in conventional medicine. Right? So those people are gonna pull you in one direction, and then there's people you have to do exactly what the doctor said.

Dr. Katie Deming [00:21:19]:
And it's like, if you can find someone who can be neutral to say, like, what is it that your body is telling you? What feels right for you? And, also, slowing things down. And this is actually an uphill battle because the system is designed to push you through very fast. You get a diagnosis, then, you know, you wanna get you right into surgery or right into chemotherapy. And I think one of the most important things that you can do in addition to finding people who can help you regulate is to also slow down the process and understand there is no huge rush. You can take your time to make decisions because the decisions that you make, say that you rush into a very toxic treatment that doesn't feel right, you're gonna live with those complications for the rest of your life. You know? And I think that making decisions out of fear can push people to do things that later they regret and and would have maybe done differently if they had taken more time.

Jess Bubbico [00:22:27]:
Absolutely. And I think you made a really good point with what you said about, like, you might have somebody who's like, don't do any conventional treatments, and somebody who's like, do all of them. You know? And you might have, I think, that polarity, right, of, like, do it a 100% this way or do it a 100% that way. And I think, oftentimes, there's a lot of nuance when it comes to what our intuition is even telling us. Because just as an example, I recently had something in my life that I had to make a decision on, and I found myself going, well, it's either this way or it's that way. I either have to do this or I have to do that. If we find ourselves in that state of, well, ether has to be a 100% this way or a 100% that way, Oftentimes, I think that can be a very good indicator as well that we're in that space of, like, fight or flight. Because think about it.

Jess Bubbico [00:23:18]:
Like you said, we wanna go fast. The system kinda puts you into that go now because you have to survive. Like, it always comes back to that survival. And you think about it, fighting moves fast and flighting. You know, running away from something moves fast. And so for me, when I found myself in that state of stress, I was like, let's back this down a little bit and slow down. Something's feeling off, but does something need to be done today about this? And I really felt into my body, and I was like, nothing needs to be done about this today. I was like, okay.

Jess Bubbico [00:23:53]:
Do I wanna take this action right now? And, again, I've become attuned to my body, and I think we need to recognize that intuition takes practice because we've often been taught not to trust it. And so to have, again, a neutral party or to just start to learn to slow ourselves down or to maybe go into a meditation or go and walk if that's something that makes you feel connected to your intuition. There's so many ways we can connect to it. But to be able to slow it down and parse out the pieces because it might be like, yeah, going to this just as an example with thinking about, like, course of treatment, it might be like, okay. Yeah. Going to this doctor does feel correct for me, but something about taking that medication doesn't. And this thing has been pinging in my mind about I keep, you know, in my dreams or I just my attention keeps getting pulled to this podcast or whatever it may be. Okay.

Jess Bubbico [00:24:47]:
That's when we start to, I think, follow the breadcrumbs. And I've learned as I've followed my intuition, like you said, like, life doesn't always have to move as quickly as I have thought that it needs to move. That often tells me I am in fight or flight. I'm trying to figure out the answer. But I've also found that life sometimes too has its own flow. Like, there's things come into your life at the right time. People come into your life at the right time. So I love what you said about slowing down because I think there's a real importance in being able to feel into the nuance of things and sense into what pieces and parts might feel right.

Jess Bubbico [00:25:29]:
And then, again, taking the time to learn, like, you're not always gonna know maybe if you feel the chills down your spine, that's a way your intuition comes through for you. You might not know in the beginning if that means, like, yeah, it's good for you or, no, it's not. But if you have that experience 3 or 4 times and you're like, okay. Every single time that I get the chills down my spine, this has happened. You know, you can start to notice the patterns, and then I think intuition is a lot seems a lot less unpredictable because you've started to map out the language your own body speaks to you.

Dr. Katie Deming [00:26:04]:
Yes. And you said something in there that I think is really important to talk more about, which is that intuition takes practice. So let's just step back and say someone is wanting to cultivate their intuition. What are some of the practices? Obviously, slowing down in, you know, meditation. But are there some practices that people can do to tap into their own intuition?

Jess Bubbico [00:26:35]:
Yes. I think there's multiple ways that I would say that you could start with this. First off, I have a an ebook that I can send you on developing your intuition that has games in it that I think are, like, fun intuition games. When I was working so my background, I worked as a speech therapist in my very first job was in the schools, and I had the preschoolers. So they had to come to the school that because there was no preschool on-site, and I had to do, like, an after school program with them. And so I started really, like, paying attention and waking up to intuition, like I said, around 2013, 2014. And I would say, okay. I'm gonna test and see if my intuition is correct because the hallway to go and get the kids, I had, like, a 5 to 7 minute walk.

Jess Bubbico [00:27:22]:
I was where they came to get dropped off and where my office was was a long walk. So before I would go and get the kids that day, and I never knew who was coming or who wasn't, I would sit down, and I knew that intuition. Like I said, you need to be in a bit of a relaxed state. So I was like, let me just relax for a second. I know it's gonna come through my these certain senses, seeing, hearing, feeling, knowing. So I would close my eyes, and I would go through all of the senses, and I would be like, okay. Is Blythe gonna be here today? And I would pay attention. If I felt expansion through my body, I'd be like, okay.

Jess Bubbico [00:27:57]:
I think she's gonna be here. And I'd be like, is Colin gonna be here? If I felt expansion, I was like, okay. I think she's gonna be here. And I would play with that sense. So you can play with, like, expansion and asking yourself yes, no questions. Sometimes, I would be like, okay. What color do I think Margaret's gonna wear today? And I would let a color appear in my mind and be like, okay. Purple.

Jess Bubbico [00:28:16]:
And then I would test it, and I'd be like, is she actually wearing purple? The key was that I needed to also I would write it down and track it for myself. And I gotta tell you, I got really good at it. It was very, very fun. I was like, yes. Like, she's not here today or she is here or whatever. So I just went through the sense like, these different senses. And like I said, I I have the ebook I'll send you so you can play with it for yourself. But I started to track, like, okay.

Jess Bubbico [00:28:41]:
That day, I got a sense when I went through my list of 4 students, I got contraction in my body on the one student, but they were there that day. But when they they came for therapy, they were totally unable to attend. Like, they were they were there, but they weren't really there. You know what I mean? So I think what if from a perspective of what I would say is, like, start practicing on very neutral subjects that you don't have an energetic charge around. Again, it might be like let's say you're at home. You had a treatment. You're like, I'm very tired. I have an Uber Eats guy coming to drop off food today.

Jess Bubbico [00:29:18]:
I'm just gonna in my mind's eye, I'm gonna ask what color do I think his shirt is gonna be, and then I'm gonna notice what color pops into my mind. So I think you can start to play with it. And maybe you hear a color or you see it, but I think just starting to to actually play with it in neutral spaces will start to teach you how that language comes through.

Dr. Katie Deming [00:29:40]:
I love that. And I think also one thing you brought up the food. This is actually one way that I practice with my intuition when it was first starting to come through is that I would intuitively sense into what food felt right for me. And, actually, I think this would just be valuable for people who are going through, you know, a diagnosis like cancer is sometimes food can become very challenging. And just sensing into, like, what does my body want? And then noticing, like and then tracking, okay, did that agree with me? And then I love how you said that, how you had the contraction and then the child was there, but they weren't really there. Because this is the thing where you can trip yourself up is that the answer is slightly different, but it's actually just a nuance. And so one of the things is that I always said and, actually, it's funny. I taught a course in must have been 2021 on intuition.

Dr. Katie Deming [00:30:44]:
And one of the things that I taught was not to make yourself wrong, to look for ways that actually you were right, but you maybe misinterpreted the information. And so when you're playing with this, you really wanna do it with, like, this very gentle hand of not being like, I'm right or wrong, and kind of making yourself right or wrong because, actually, you're usually right, but something about the way you're intuiting the information is, you know, you haven't quite learned what it means. If you can stay open and not make yourself wrong and look for, oh, what about this was slightly different, but that maybe I did perceive something about it? You'll start to notice that you do know and you'll learn the pieces that are unique for you because it's different for everyone.

Jess Bubbico [00:31:38]:
Yes. I think the best analogy I have for what you just said is think about it. If in intuition is a language, it is a language of energy that comes through for you. If you can think about it like you just got dropped off in France to be a study abroad student, and you have not learned a lick of French or you have very remedial French, and now you have to live with a French family, and now you have to learn what the heck they're saying at dinner every night. It's kinda that same thing. Like, pattern recognition is a very big part of learning your intuition. So, you know, you can't give up once you start practicing and playing with it. It's just that level of curiosity.

Jess Bubbico [00:32:21]:
And I think it's like that going at it with a growth mindset, if you will. Like, I know this is real. I know this is true. Like, people ask me now, like, how do you trust your intuition so inherently? And I'm like, just practice. I've been really I mean, I I had a lot of experiences when I was younger, but I will tell you, I actually didn't realize this till we started having this conversation. I I was telling you, I started working at a school and teaching creative writing to kids as well. It's like a fun project for the year. And I completely forgot.

Jess Bubbico [00:32:51]:
I knew we had this interview today, but I was a little more nervous because I know you. I was, like, more nervous about going to the school, like, and working with the kids. I realized that I had a very vivid dream about this exact conversation because we we were originally gonna kinda talk in a different direction today. But I had a dream last night, and I woke up this morning scratching my head going, that was the weirdest dream. But it's actually exactly what we're talking about today. So I woke up scratching my head, but now I'm going, oh, okay. I get it now. Right? Like, it it all starts to make sense.

Jess Bubbico [00:33:24]:
So sometimes you can always what do they say? You can't connect the dots looking forward, but sometimes you can connect them looking backwards. So I also think looking back to past experiences where you didn't trust your intuition on something can be equally as pow and going, well, what happened? And what did it feel like? And what happened as a result? It can be just as powerful as, you know, studying and moving forward.

Dr. Katie Deming [00:33:47]:
Yes. And I think I was just thinking about this, like, for people who are dealing with a cancer diagnosis, ways that they could practice. And I we absolutely will link your ebook in the show notes so people can access that. But the little things that are inconsequential, like say that you need to make a decision about when you're going to have, let's just say, someone, you know, needs an IV or something that has been recommended, like tapping in and saying, like, when does that feel right? Does that feel right to do it today? Or maybe it's tomorrow. Or with having testing done, tapping in and just saying, you know, when does that feel right for me to do it? And this is something that these are like it's not gonna make a big difference because you're likely you're gonna do it anyway, but it's just tapping into, like, when does it feel right? And starting to trust that because the thing that I'm thinking about that the listeners might be saying, well, okay. That's fine. Like, we can practice it with the delivery guy or what I'm gonna eat, but I'm in the middle of this situation. And how do I use it with my care so that I can trust that and and start to use it? And so I think that looking for ways that these are things that are not huge consequences of making the decision one way or the other and starting to trust yourself.

Dr. Katie Deming [00:35:18]:
And, actually, I had the most amazing story with one of my clients yesterday, and I think this is important to call out. So especially with breast cancer and gynecologic cancers, there is often a people pleasing aspect to those diagnoses and just doing what people want you to do, and and that's part of what is contributing to illness in the body. And so shifting that and changing that pattern is part of your healing. And what my client was describing to me is that she's been having to have thoracentesis on kind of a regular basis. It's just draining fluid from the lungs. And she goes in. She has the procedure done. They remove the fluid, and then she has to have an x-ray, but then she has to go from the X-ray up to the floor to be discharged.

Dr. Katie Deming [00:36:08]:
But she's actually already done, and they don't have enough orderlies in the hospital. So she, each time, has ended up sitting in this hallway for, like, an hour and a half waiting just to be transported up to this floor so then she could just leave the hospital. And she was, like, finally the other day, she was like, no. I am not. She she basically was like, I am not staying in this, like, hallway for an hour and a half. She's like, I don't care. I'm, like, walking right now. And they're like, you can't walk.

Dr. Katie Deming [00:36:38]:
And she's like, look. She's like, I you're gonna discharge me when I get up to the floor. I don't need to wait for someone to come down. And I think this is one of those things that it's not necessarily intuition, but it's starting to speak up for yourself. There are experiences that you are having in the hospital, in the clinic that you know are not right, but you will kind of just go along with it because you don't wanna ruffle feathers. You don't wanna be the difficult person because then they're gonna label you, and then you're not gonna get as good care. It's like this I watch this. This is a real thing that people get afraid of speaking up and saying, like, I need something.

Dr. Katie Deming [00:37:16]:
But I think one of the things about your intuition is you need to be taking care of yourself. And so if there are things that are happening to you that are putting you in a position where you are not speaking up and you are not getting what you need, that also diminishes our intuition because we're basically giving our power away to the people around us. And the system of Western medicine can really put us in this position where we feel helpless to stand up and say what we need. But I was so excited when I heard her. I was like, yes, you go. Because I was like, that is ridiculous. You know? And I said, the next time you go in before you even have the procedure, you need to tell the front desk. Like, when I am done with this procedure and I have an X-ray that says you haven't dropped a lung, I am walking out of here up to the clinic, or you're gonna send a nurse down to get me because I'm not gonna wait like that.

Dr. Katie Deming [00:38:09]:
So I think that's just one of the things that came up for me as we're talking is that your intuition comes from you standing in your power. And so starting to speak up and say what you need is going to help more information come through.

Jess Bubbico [00:38:25]:
Absolutely. Yeah. I love that. And it is about standing in your power. It really truly is because think about it. That's a level of self trust to follow what you know is true. And so even just those little micro moments that and, truthfully, it's like again, it comes back to that idea of survival. Like, I wanna go along with the pack.

Jess Bubbico [00:38:45]:
I don't wanna be ousted. I don't wanna have the worst care. So I am afraid to follow what I know inside of me because maybe the risk in this moment doesn't seem like it's worth the reward. But I love what you're saying, and I I think too, if you're sitting back and listening to someone speak to you or listening to a doctor or listening to a a care team, pay attention to what if you're kind of in a neutral place, pay attention to what you notice that you're like, that's not sitting right with me. Like, pay attention to your body in the moment as well as you're having those conversations. You can hear, like, what's my mind saying and then what's my body saying? Because they might be saying 2 very different things. And just even being able to pay attention, you know, you might not know in the moment, like, am I having an intuitive thought? Am my body's in fear, or am I having, like, an anxious thought? My body is connected to my intuition. You might not always know, but even just being able to parse apart, there's 2 separate distinct things, messages that are coming through me right now.

Jess Bubbico [00:39:49]:
1 might be the voice of anxiety, and one might be the voice of intuition. You can take something and do something with that. And once you're in a maybe not in that situation and you're by yourself or whatever, I mean, be you might be able to even parse through it even better in the moment. But I I love what you're saying with food and sometimes even just holding food and being able to touch something. Sometimes touching your medications and being I mean, I know for myself, I'll be like, this one feel how does it feel in my hand? Again, for those, maybe you don't need to make a decision exactly in that moment. I think those are really great places to play with it as well.

Dr. Katie Deming [00:40:26]:
Yes. And as you were saying that, say you're with a doctor or whatever, and you're, you know, tuning into those senses that you have, like maybe your thoughts and the feeling that you're having in your body don't align, or you're sitting there and saying something just feels off. I think one of the most important things is you're picking your doctors, and I wanna make sure that people understand you get to pick your doctors. Like, if your doctor is not listening to you or you feel like you're being just dismissed, you can go see someone else. And I think when you see someone, when you see a provider, you should feel a sense of calm when you're in their presence. If something is making you feel upset inside when you're with someone, that's a sign that maybe this is not the right match for you. And so I wanna give people the permission to listen to that and say, it doesn't even matter because it's not like a right or wrong. And, honestly, this is one thing that I hear a lot people say, well, I don't wanna make them mad, and then I'm gonna have to go see someone else in the practice.

Dr. Katie Deming [00:41:35]:
And then maybe I'm gonna see them, and I'm gonna tell you. The doctors have so many patients. And so, like, this happens all the time switching. Like, I would hear this all the time that I would be the radiation oncologist, and then they would be with medical oncologist, but it wasn't a good match. But they were afraid to say it. And I was like, those doctors are so busy. It is absolutely fine, and they honestly may not even know. You know? Like, I mean, sometimes if you're in the middle of treatment, obviously, you're gonna know because there's gonna be transfer.

Dr. Katie Deming [00:42:02]:
And, actually, it's better to make these transfers before you would start any treatment. But it's really important, and it's less of a big deal than you think it is to just say, you know what? This is, like, just not the right match for me, like, for what I need. And if you think about it, we're all human beings. Right? So a person who really likes to see me and they feel like I'm a good match for them, I may not be good for someone else. Someone else may be like, you know, I just don't jive with her, and I am never offended by that. So I wanna help people feel empowered to tune into how are you feeling about your team and also the people in your life. So, you know, we talked about finding that neutral person, and I've talked about this before, the idea of a garden or, like, a little yeah. Like, when you're healing, you are like a new garden that's been planted.

Dr. Katie Deming [00:42:56]:
And when you plant seeds in the ground, you don't let people walk all over your garden. You put up a fence, and you protect it so that those shoots can come up out of the ground while they're still, you know, young and fragile, you are the same way when you're healing. And there are people that maybe you need to push to the side for a little bit so that you can have the space to get clear about what you need. And sometimes these people are very close to you. If you think about it for me, with my decision to leave medicine, ultimately, I had to say to my husband, I love you. Like, I would do anything for you, but I can't betray myself to be with you. You know? And so I think that this is important for people to tune into. How do you feel with the people around you? Because your surroundings are really important in your ability to tap into your own knowing and knowledge.

Jess Bubbico [00:43:56]:
Absolutely. And I think sometimes too, we find ourselves stuck sometimes in the predicaments that we find ourselves in with certain people in our lives. Sometimes those people, those environments, those experiences continue to reinforce those beliefs of I can't trust myself. I shouldn't speak up for myself, this and this. And so sometimes I think following your intuition, following your inner knowing with even with what we started with, what you were talking about making the choice to leave Western medicine, like, it does take a risk sometimes, and it does take a change in behavior. And, oftentimes, that's what our intuition is drawing us towards. I personally believe my intuition's always trying to lead me towards more life and whatever that might mean. That doesn't always necessarily mean more time or more, but it's more of me coming through, more of my essence coming through, more of my own life coming forward.

Jess Bubbico [00:44:53]:
And I think that that sometimes does involve risk, and that does involve sometimes going against the grain. But, again, I think, essentially, what we've been talking about is how do we develop self trust over time step by step, little by little? You know, it doesn't sometimes, it's a big crazy leap with our intuition, but sometimes, it's little small things that help us almost like resistance training to build up that trust muscle and build up that connection to our own inner knowing.

Dr. Katie Deming [00:45:22]:
Absolutely. Well, Jess, thank you so much. I've actually I love this conversation because I think sometimes people think it's weird to talk about in the health care space of like, oh, your intuition, what does that mean? But we have data to say people who cure themselves follow their intuition. So this is an important conversation, and I'm just so grateful to you for your connection and your ability to talk about this to help us bring attention and give people permission to start to tap into their own knowing. And I love how you said it's it's about becoming more of yourself. And I think that is absolutely what this is all about, and your intuition is going to lead you to yourself. And oftentimes, an illness is a separation from self. We become separated.

Dr. Katie Deming [00:46:19]:
So I'm wondering if you can share where can people find you. And I hope we'll have you back and do another conversation because this was really fun for me.

Jess Bubbico [00:46:26]:
Yeah. Absolutely. I I was just thinking. I'm like, this was like a conversation on intuition, which is so fun to explore that topic. And I'll also say too, like, there are

Dr. Katie Deming [00:46:35]:
a

Jess Bubbico [00:46:35]:
ton of studies on intuition and medicine. Like, they're they are out there. So if you're somebody who is, like, okay. I've had this experience, but I also kind of feel like I don't know. And, you know, because it's something that we don't talk about as much in Western culture. Other cultures do, but we don't talk about it as much. That there are studies on intuition, so you can go and check those out too. But you can find me, I would say, on Instagram at jessbubbico is probably the best way to find me.

Jess Bubbico [00:47:03]:
I am also a lover of human design, so I've been running my business in very interesting ways lately. And I I've been putting up a bunch of little intuition tests. So you can actually go to my Instagram if you're like, oh, let me let me play with this thing. I've got all sorts of little intuition games on my Instagram and stuff like that, but I am very passionate about helping people connect to and and follow their intuition. So I've got all different kinds of classes and things like that. So go find me on Instagram at jessbubbico and send me a message. I'd love to connect.

Dr. Katie Deming [00:47:33]:
I love it. Thank you so much, Jess, for being with us. Thank you. Thank you for joining me on Born to Heal. It's been a privilege to share this time with you, and I hope that today's episode has offered you valuable insights on your journey toward optimal health. Please consider subscribing, sharing this podcast with your friends, and leaving us a review. To learn more about how you can work with me, please visit katydemming.com. You can find additional resources in the episode show notes linked below, and remember to join us next week as we continue to explore more holistic approaches to healing.

Dr. Katie Deming [00:48:12]:
Until then, this is doctor Katie Deming reminding you that just like me, you were born to heal.