Episode 37 Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue: Khadine's Insights on the Healing Journey

Picture this; an active massage therapist suddenly crippled by a anxiety, leading to a diagnosis of chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, and complex post-traumatic stress disorder. This was Khadine Aharon's reality. On this episode we follow her as she navigates through life, from being unable to work to graduating from TAFE and eventually university. She bares it all, sharing her struggles with anxiety, brain fog, and the academic challenges she faced along the way.

Have you ever wondered how sunlight and nature could improve your health? Listen in as Khadine shares her strategies for managing sleep issues associated with fibromyalgia. You'll learn the power of EFT and integrative medicine for individuals dealing with trauma.

The journey to healing is not a straight path, and Khadine's story is a testament to this. We discuss the importance of becoming your own advocate and keeping an open mind throughout the healing process. We challenge the idea of 'finding the cure' and explore how nutrition plays a key role in our overall health. You'll hear Khadine's personal experiences and insights on the importance of listening to your body and intuition.

Whether you're dealing with chronic health conditions or seeking ways to improve your overall health, this episode promises to inspire you with a compelling story of resilience, recovery and self-care.

Khadine Aharon's website: https://embraceempowerment.com/

Learn more about Fiona's speaking, radio and consultation services at Informed Health: https://informedhealth.com.au/

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Credit for the music used in this podcast:

The Beat of Nature

Music by Olexy from Pixabay

Transcript

Fiona Kane: 0:32

Welcome to the Wellness Connection podcast with Fiona Kane. I'm your host, Fiona Cain, and today my guest is . Hi, Cardine.

Khadine Aharon: 0:42

Hi, how are you, fiona? Nice to get to meet you. Well, thank you.

Fiona Kane: 0:47

Now for those who don't know, you introduce yourself. Tell us a little bit about who you are.

Khadine Aharon: 0:53

Thanks, fiona. So I'm Khardine. Obviously I'm a accredited social worker and I specialise in EFT tapping emotional freedom techniques. With my clients. I tend to work with trauma and phobias, anxiety, other life challenges and I also provide training in emotional freedom techniques. I'm also a foster care for cats for traumatised cats so I use all my skills with cats as well, great.

Fiona Kane: 1:25

I've never heard of people talking about treating traumatised cats before, so it's always interesting. I love chatting to people and hearing about the different things they do, because there's so many things that I didn't know were even there.

Khadine Aharon: 1:37

Oh, absolutely, and it's great when you can help a little being that doesn't have a home or someone that loves them and help to get them to a place where they can be adopted and they can live a happy life rather than live on the streets.

Fiona Kane: 1:55

Yeah, it's actually good to know that there's services like that there, there's people who can do those things, because you just don't know what you don't know and I just yeah, that's really interesting. It's a little side note, but I thought that was interesting.

Khadine Aharon: 2:07

Yeah, there's got rescue services out there, like with everything. There's not so great ones. I've fostered a mini kitty commune and they're fantastic. They supply me all the food, they pay for all the get bills. They have the highest level of care for their cats. Yes, and yeah, they're a great organization. So what?

Fiona Kane: 2:27

were they called again?

Khadine Aharon: 2:28

Mini kitty commune.

Fiona Kane: 2:30

Okay, and they're in Sydney somewhere or in the Blue Mountains.

Khadine Aharon: 2:33

They're in Sydney and Canberra, and then they have another branch called Ark and Animal Rescue Cooperatives. So they get donations from all over the place and then they spread out all the donations to all the different rescue groups. So when we had all the flooding, was it last year? I can't remember. I've lost track of time now.

Fiona Kane: 2:52

Yeah, there's been so many.

Khadine Aharon: 2:55

No off sending food and things that pets needed or wildlife needed during that time. So they're great organizations, absolutely yeah.

Fiona Kane: 3:08

Great. So the reason that I got you on today's I wanted to talk to you a little bit about your story, your sort of your health story. It's a bit of sounds like a bit of a complicated story, but I'd be really interested to hear a little bit about. I know you can tell me where does it begin, where does your story begin? Tell me a little bit about your story and what's happened for you and really ultimately, where you're at now. So you started any place that you feel is relevant to you.

Khadine Aharon: 3:38

Yeah, sure. So when I was 25, I was actually providing training in massage therapy. I was a massage practitioner and one day during, I think it was- a neck massage. I had this massive anxiety attack. I'd never had one before and within a month I pretty much couldn't work. I went from a 50 hour week doing massage and training to if I did the dishes I wouldn't be able to do anything for the rest of the day. So I had really complete emotional and physical crash.

Khadine Aharon: 4:10

I was told I'd probably never work again. As time went by, I was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia and complex post-traumatic stress disorder. I'd had a very interesting childhood and it had all caught up with me essentially, and I had a huge crash it must have been very frightening.

Khadine Aharon: 4:36

It was Because I was very active at that time. I'd be massaging through the week. The weekends would come and I'd go for day long bush walks by myself or going to the park and just playing basketball and I was highly active and then all of a sudden I couldn't do anything and I had to find meaning in life not being able to actively use my body and it was very challenging and to go from a 50 hour week to not being able to do much. It was really hard and I lost everything pretty much. I mean, I no longer run my business. What I did do as part of my coping initially is I enrolled for a training at TAFE in community services welfare because I knew that I couldn't do just do nothing and kind of stay sane. I knew that I had to keep myself stimulated so I would fall asleep in class. It took me twice as long to finish. During that time I also got a virus in my eyes so I couldn't see for six weeks.

Khadine Aharon: 5:44

Oh wow, and that was a really interesting time. It was, you know, when the biggest lessons then was to learn to accept help. It was very hard for me to even consider asking for help, but I really had to learn that when you can't see, yes, yeah, you really have to. But thankfully I had a really great GP and friends that were really supportive. But it took me twice as long to get through TAFE, but I did. Well, I think it's helping class in all and I got distinctions, which is the highest at TAFE. And then I thought, well, you know what's next. And by this time I was already in regular counseling, obviously, but I really wasn't helping the post-mati stress disorder at all and not much, either medically or naturally, was helping my health at all.

Khadine Aharon: 6:40

I pretty much lost hope for any improvement. And I got to uni and some silly person told me uni was easier than TAFE. I don't know what they were thinking, but I went from distinctions to failing and I would take any attempts to read a single sentence in any of my readings and I knew something was really wrong with my brain. It felt like there was just this really dense fog and bits of information floating around. It was so hard just to pick one bit and then somehow link it to the next bit. And I remember chatting to my GP at the time. He had no idea what could possibly be going on, Because there's very little understanding really about fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome in those days.

Khadine Aharon: 7:30

And one day I came across this MRI study that compared healthy brains to the brains of people living with fibromyalgia. I thought this would be interesting and it was. And what they had shown that when people live with fibromyalgia they have an average 8-12% reduction in gray matter, and they hypothesized that that was due to high cortisol levels. This was before everyone knew about cortisol.

Fiona Kane: 7:59

Which is a stress hormone. For anyone who is not sure yeah, it's a stress hormone.

Khadine Aharon: 8:04

These days, if you're in the health and wellbeing industry, you know about cortisol. We know so much about it, but in those days, none of my lecturers had even heard about it, and so I thought wow, okay, so that's what's happening. I've got too much cortisol and I need to reduce it. So I went on an admission to reduce it and I found natural ways to reduce it. At the time I had a GP and he was very open-minded and he said oh, I just went to this conference about chronic fatigue and they suggest testing your cortisol and your DHEA.

Fiona Kane: 8:39

Which is another hormone.

Khadine Aharon: 8:40

Which is another hormone. So cortisol is high, DHEA can be really low. My DHEA was really low at that time and I would lose hours sitting on my lounge not knowing where time went. It would be very easy to put that down to just dissociating. Because of my trauma Once he gave me the compounded script for DHEA within a month, I've never needed it again and I've never been like that again.

Fiona Kane: 9:08

Okay, so that helped you correct those cortisol levels then.

Khadine Aharon: 9:12

Yes, well, it certainly helped to increase the DHEA, because when that's low then we get really depressed.

Fiona Kane: 9:18

Definitely.

Khadine Aharon: 9:20

And so it helped to create that harmony and I've never needed that intervention again, so that was really helpful. Not many people know about that. We're talking about chronic fatigue or fibromyalgia or trauma. All of those health challenges can have issues with those stress hormones, and it's not what we talked about, and so I like to make people aware of that, because it's very simple saliva testing that we can do to find out about that.

Fiona Kane: 9:52

Yes.

Khadine Aharon: 9:53

So that was really helpful for me. But I also started meditating before I went to sleep to help me to get into a deep sleep faster, because when you have fibromyalgia you often aren't getting your deep sleep.

Fiona Kane: 10:07

On that note actually, for anyone who doesn't know what fibromyalgia is or what it looks like or what it feels like, can you just give us a bit of more detail about that, in case that word is a bit unfamiliar?

Khadine Aharon: 10:18

Sure. So fibromyalgia is essentially a neuroimmune type of condition. It affects your nervous system, so your body perceives pain about 10 times the norm. It can become sensitive to lights and sounds. But it also affects your hormones and so you're going to have a whole lot of hormonal challenges which I certainly have over the years and it impacts your immune system. So really it's multi-systemic. When something impacts your nervous system and your hormones, essentially it impacts your whole system.

Fiona Kane: 10:52

Yes.

Khadine Aharon: 10:53

And you can become extremely tired with it, and with me, because I had chronic fatigue syndrome as well, I certainly got very tired, but the main symptom with fibromyalgia is high levels of pain throughout the whole body. So it's never in one place. To fit the criteria for fibromyalgia, you have to have it in all four quadrants. So if you just put your body into four, it has to be in all four quadrants of your body for an extended amount of time. And yeah, depending what guidelines, which country guidelines, but if the Canadian ones are the most progressive, you need to have an impact on your immune system as well to fit that criteria.

Fiona Kane: 11:34

Okay, all right. And so that affects your sleep One, I imagine because of the pain, but also because it messes up the hormones. Tell me a little bit about the sleep issue with it.

Khadine Aharon: 11:44

Well, it also impacts the sleep. There's still a lot they don't know about why it impacts the sleep so much, so I can't totally answer that. But they do know. With fibromyalgia, often you don't get enough deep sleep, and it's not just because of the pain, because sometimes, yes, the pain can wake you up, but sometimes just that your brain doesn't go into that deep sleep. So even if you're sleeping a lot, you're not getting the regeneration. So then when you wake up, if you're tired and you're in more pain because your body hasn't been able to regenerate during the night time, and so it's like a vicious circle, really yeah.

Fiona Kane: 12:25

Okay and then so you were talking about what you were doing that was helping you with the sleep, and I think you started talking about was it meditation that you're talking about before?

Khadine Aharon: 12:33

I just had to listen to meditations at night time, just the visualization ones as I go to sleep. You see CDs. It's better for you than your phone, by the way, rather than having all those waves near your head, yeah, and I'd go to sleep that way. So that was one of my strategies. But spending time in nature and grounding. Grounding helps us to reduce our stress, hormone levels and our anxiety, and so I found a range of natural ways. Getting enough sunlight is really important. If you're unwell, often you don't go outside to get sunlight.

Fiona Kane: 13:10

Yes.

Khadine Aharon: 13:11

And we really need that sunlight, particularly in the morning, without our glasses on, so that we're getting the full spectrum of sunlight.

Fiona Kane: 13:20

And so that's part of how our bodies make melatonin for those out there listening who are unsure about that and melatonin is a sleep hormone, so essentially, we have this sleep wake cycle that is controlled by hormones, and having time in the sunshine without your sunglasses on is part of it.

Khadine Aharon: 13:36

Absolutely. It's really essential to our health and I think we've become so informed about slip, slot, slap. We're not really taught how to go into the sun safely. Yes, for our own skin type. There was an app that I found that my optometrist actually recommended me, and it was very good D-Minder and you put in your skin type and how much your skin is exposed, how much skin is exposed, and it will tell you exactly how much time you can spend in the sun on that day.

Fiona Kane: 14:07

D-Minder. Did you say D-Minder?

Khadine Aharon: 14:10

D-Minder.

Fiona Kane: 14:11

Okay, I'll have to look that up.

Khadine Aharon: 14:13

It's a really handy app, but I tend to go swimming or walking from 4pm to 5pm, so I'm still getting the later gentler sunlight.

Fiona Kane: 14:23

Yes.

Khadine Aharon: 14:25

But I'm not worrying about having to put sun blocks on because they're full of chemicals. I'm sensitive to chemicals.

Fiona Kane: 14:31

Yes.

Khadine Aharon: 14:32

And they're not great for the If I swim in fresh water. So if you're swimming in fresh water, it's best not to wear sunblock because it can harm the native wildlife in the water.

Fiona Kane: 14:44

Yes, it's just about the time of day that you go into the water. The-time of day. time of day. That's right, and it's not back in the 80s. I don't know about you I'm not quite sure what age you're at, but I know for me certainly. I was in my teenage years then and we used to sort of cover ourselves with coconut oil and sunbake. sunbake, sunbake. In the 40 degree days, yes, we literally roasted ourselves, so we're not advocating for that.

Khadine Aharon: 15:12

No. People used to intentionally get burnt. We must be in the major group. I'm about to turn 52. So yeah, people got burnt to get a tan.

Fiona Kane: 15:23

Yeah, I'm 52 as well and now I spend a lot of time at the skin cancer clinics getting my skin checked with my Irish skin. It just really wasn't a good idea. So just clarifying we are not advocating for that. However, we do need some sunshine and the app sounds like a great way of knowing what's right for you and your skin and that kind of thing D-I found that really helpful, and so from failing at uni, I did get through uni twice as long again, d-well done.

Fiona Kane: 15:54

Congratulations. That is an achievement anyway, but it's a huge achievement when you've got all of those other things going on, all the fatigue and the brain fog and the pain and all the things you've been talking about, that's really that's a mighty achievement. So I just want to remind you that is huge in itself. Well done.

Khadine Aharon: 16:14

And I really struggle for the right to even study part time at uni because you think social work it's all about access and equity. They would have that, but at that time that was not an option at the uni I went to. So I had to really push for that. But I did graduate and I ended up with first-class honours. So reducing the cortisol worked. It wasn't easy, it was still torture and I'd never go back to uni because I just don't want to put my brain through that torture. Yes, yeah.

Khadine Aharon: 16:47

I really prefer practical learning anyway, but I did graduate. I did get first-class honours, so it is possible. For anyone out there who's experienced something similar, it totally is possible.

Fiona Kane: 16:58

Yes, yeah.

Khadine Aharon: 17:00

When I left uni I was online again. They came across this thing called EFT and I thought, well, what's that? And I just knew I had to learn it. And so I remember the first EFT training. I went Like they're highly practical, and I worked on a event I thought I'd totally done in the years of counselling. At this stage, my PTSD, my experience of it, was still really uncomfortable. My anxiety was still very high. Not much had really changed at this stage. After all those years and my first training, I worked on this event. I thought I'd totally done, had no emotions thinking about it, but once we started the process, my body started responding. All these emotions were coming up. The trainer had to get a bing because I thought I was going to vomit. I thought, wow, I thought I'd totally done that one in counselling.

Khadine Aharon: 17:50

Yes, I thought I'd totally done that, and the next day when I sat in the sun, I was like all the cells in my body were starting to wake up and they were dancing to the sun like it. As weird as that sounds, but that lasted three days, I thought wow.

Khadine Aharon: 18:05

EFT can do that for me, how can I use it with other people? And so I certainly used it a lot for my health and for my own trauma and that's been like the biggest change I had trauma-wise for me and for my health, because before we released the trauma from our body, then our body's in a better position to heal itself.

Fiona Kane: 18:28

We don't realise that trauma is not just something that's in your mind or in memories and things. It's actually in your body, and so emotions and trauma are in our body. So physical touch or movement, or you can tell us a bit more about EFT as well. But those things are an important part of it as well, because just talking about it is not the whole solution. We do need some sort of energy or body treatment or movement or something. But for those who don't know what EFT means, what it stands for, what it is, can you tell us a bit more about that?

Khadine Aharon: 19:03

Sure. So EFT stands for Emotional Freedom Techniques. That's techniques, not technique, because it's a whole range of techniques. So if you're looking at it online generally, you just see the very basics of EFT. And the basics are great because you can learn to do them on yourself Really easy for self-regulation or to work on your own challenges to a minor level. And then there's the more advanced techniques that you would do with a practitioner to work on significant traumas or to change beliefs or to resolve phobias or to work on cravings, for example.

Khadine Aharon: 19:45

It's a very flexible tool. It does reduce cortisol by about 37%. Okay, so it was a part of my passion about reducing cortisol, janie.

Fiona Kane: 19:57

And it's such an easy way to reduce cortisol because Because- this is the tapping You're talking about, the tapping techniques, aren't you? That's what you're talking about. Just again clarifying, because some people listen to this, might be all over it and others maybe just have never heard of it before and have no idea what you're talking about. So it's not anything invasive or painful or anything like that, so I just wanted to ensure that. So it really it's just understood yeah.

Khadine Aharon: 20:21

It combines the Western knowledge of psychology with the Eastern knowledge of the meridian system. Well, these days a lot of people saw that as airy fairy energy stuff. But these days, with the latest technology, we can actually see the meridians and they call it the primovascular system in your body.

Fiona Kane: 20:40

Okay.

Khadine Aharon: 20:41

And so we can actually see them now. So they're not just this energy thing yeah.

Fiona Kane: 20:47

So, once upon a time where bacteria people couldn't see bacteria, what are you cleansing your knife for, or your equipment for, or your surgical equipment? What's the little? Thing that you're talking about that's right.

Khadine Aharon: 20:58

That's right, we couldn't see them so we didn't believe in them.

Fiona Kane: 21:01

But now, more and more, we're getting more technology that we can see the things that we. A lot of people already know that they were there, but not everyone believed it because they couldn't see it. That's right.

Khadine Aharon: 21:14

A lot of ancient cultures have had all this knowledge and we haven't believed it because we couldn't see it. And yet now we're getting technology where we can see it, and so if it is a mind-body technique, it works on the mind and the body at the same time, and that's why the reasons why it's so powerful. It's also great because people don't need to share their stories, so when we're sharing our stories all the time.

Khadine Aharon: 21:40

It just wires our brain into that trauma and everyone who wants to share their really traumatic stories honestly like who wants to do that. I know I still have experiences that I don't want to talk about, but in EFT we focus on emotions and physical sensations, so we don't actually need to know the details, which is great for clients and it's great for us as practitioners, because it maintains our longevity as practitioners. Yes, yeah.

Fiona Kane: 22:10

And I think that that's just, you know, it's really really important that point, because I think that by the time a person gets to the place where they've experienced whatever traumas and pain and experiences they've had, often people have tried lots of different things and they've had therapies and they've done different things and not saying that all of those other things haven't. Sometimes it's a multiple things that work. You know, it's not so much that this didn't work or that didn't work, but it's the cumulative effect of all things and sometimes things haven't worked as well as both. But I think it's important for people who are sort of maybe thinking about this to kind of say look, it's just, that's the good thing about it.

Fiona Kane: 22:50

It's kind of non-threatening because you're not having to bring up your trauma, you're not having to share that trauma and it's just simple tapping which is, you know, not invasive. So there's nothing scary about it, you know, and I'm threatening about it. So there's, you know, the. I just think it's good to understand that, because I think that I know that in the past when I've talked to different people about different options they might want to try for their health, people can be very fearful about the things they don't understand, or they don't know, or about something that might traumatize them more or be really scary or whatever it is, or a lot of people with anxiety, which is a lot of these sorts of people, other ones that suffer from anxiety this is all very scary. So I just think it is good to clarify that and just really emphasize that that, yeah, you don't need to re-traumatize yourself. It's not about that at all.

Khadine Aharon: 23:47

That's right and it can be. You know, working on our trauma is scary. That's why working with a really qualified and skilled practitioner if you have significant traumas really important to not just tap along online because emotions and memories can come up while you're tapping. So really important, if you do have significant trauma, to work with a really skilled practitioner who will work at your pace, not their pace, and who will prepare you for working on specific events. So generally, I always teach my students to start very surface level and then we slowly work deeper and deeper and we have all different techniques to do that.

Fiona Kane: 24:37

Okay, yeah, and so that's what you found has been one of the major things for you in regards to sort of managing your health and getting yourself back on track.

Khadine Aharon: 24:49

Absolutely. Eft has been the big changer for me in regards to the post-matic stress itself. Kinesiology has also been wonderful for me. Different naturopaths at different times have been great.

Khadine Aharon: 25:06

When I first had my crash, I pretty much couldn't tolerate any food as well I would. I remember I was putting on weight and my GP said, well, you're just having too much calories. And I'd go to the dietitian and she'd say, look at my food diet and say, oh, your diet's really low on sugar, it's really low on fat and you're doing low GI. Really well, you must watch your chocolate intake. And I had to laugh at her because my chocolate intake was one piece of the darkest lint chocolate you could buy a day.

Fiona Kane: 25:43

Wow, okay, that was worth noting.

Khadine Aharon: 25:46

Yeah, and she was playing me on that one piece of chocolate. You know, I went to a naturopath and they do all this testing on a computer tells you what, how your body's reacting to different things. So whether it's good, whether it's over stimulating or under stimulating, and when I had that, that testing, I wasn't tolerating a lot of food at all. And so what's happening? My body wasn't absorbing any nutrients and so I would feel sick every time I ate and I'd have massive headaches every day. And, yeah, I was scanning away because my body wasn't able to assimilate the food properly. And so that naturopath, she got me eating again. I can eat most things these days, and so different practitioners have been very helpful. I go to GPs, but even they admit there's not much that they can do for me when it comes to my specific health challenges.

Fiona Kane: 26:45

Yeah.

Khadine Aharon: 26:46

They've been helpful, say with the DHEA.

Fiona Kane: 26:48

Yeah, that was a life changer in itself to have that and to have the Just being monitored like someone who can just do the basic, you know, basic blood tests, neuro and test live tests, whatever. Not saying that naturopaths and other people can't do those tests, but in Australia a lot of those tests are covered by Medicare through your GP. So it can be really handy to have a GP just over Just keeping an eye on it all from an overall perspective. But then you know, sure, go and have those therapies elsewhere Because, like you said, there's only so much they can do.

Khadine Aharon: 27:21

That's right, and it's important to have a GP who's open-minded to doing natural stuff. In combination with however, they can help you.

Fiona Kane: 27:30

A good.

Khadine Aharon: 27:31

DHEA will acknowledge when they can't help you as well as when they can.

Fiona Kane: 27:38

And.

Khadine Aharon: 27:38

I'm really fortunate to have a GP who does that and he will support me.

Khadine Aharon: 27:42

When I was having a lot of trouble sleeping, he actually advised me to go and have some herbs. He didn't try and give me a sleeping pill, he advised me to go and have some herbs to help, and that actually did help to a degree. And so I think it comes down to having a team, and sometimes that team will change. And for me over the years I've had so many different therapies, and different ones have helped in different ways, but certainly EFT with a really great practitioner, kinesiology with really good kinesiologists and help with other really super naturopaths or nutritionists have been great for me. So I'm on a metabolic program at the moment and for that I had to have a range of blood tests and my naturopaths had the results somewhere and I got a personalized package which shows me exactly what foods I can have, and that was actually really great for me because I used to be bloated all over and it was impossible to release weight, no matter what program. I went on and I did release eight kilos on that.

Fiona Kane: 28:56

OK.

Khadine Aharon: 28:57

And it made it very clear what I could eat and so I was getting sick when I ate, and in that way it made it easier for me. And sometimes it's just we have to go to different people until we find the right person for us and at that particular time, because I need to change throughout time. Exactly, yeah.

Fiona Kane: 29:18

And I think that that's exactly what I've seen personally with myself and with many of my clients is exactly that that there's in these situations. They're usually complicated situations. A lot of these health issues, there's complicated things behind how they began and once they begin, often it's multi. Like you said, they're multi-systems things. There's lots going on. So to think that there's going to be one answer, I think that's very rarely ever the case. But what there is is there's lots of strategies and there's lots of small answers and there's lots of small steps and that cumulative thing and there might be things that are the things that the biggest shifts happened from this thing or from that thing or whatever, but it's like it was getting the DHEA from the GP and it was different things that you learned from your naturopath or the doctor told you to use herbs for your sleep or the EFT.

Fiona Kane: 30:16

It's all of the things and, like you said, different times, different strategies, and I think that's where I think that sometimes, when we have chronic health issues, we're so overwhelmed with it and we just want someone to fix us, and I understand that. However, I think it's a journey, and it's a journey that requires lots of little steps along the way and sometimes you go forwards and sometimes you fall backwards and it's a bit like snakes and ladders really you get going up and fall down and whatever. And I think that once you understand that, you can be kinder to yourself around it, more compassionate to yourself and have more patience around it, whereas if you think it's the thing, and I've got to find the thing, and it's going to be just going to this one person there's one naturopath, there's one doctor who's going to just cure me I think you'd be very disappointed and, find yourself feeling very frustrated a lot of the time if you think that that's the answer.

Khadine Aharon: 31:19

Absolutely. If you have complex health conditions, we kind of have to become our own specialists and we can't treat anybody else like God and just go with everything that one doctor, one specialist or one naturopath says, because we're all different and every practitioner we go to they come from their own lens, they have their own expertise.

Khadine Aharon: 31:47

So, these practitioners have their own lens and expertise, which is why we have to become our own specialists, because we know ourselves best, and if we just follow what everybody else says and take it for gospel, then often we get no result or we could go backwards. And that's why we need to listen to ourselves first and have an open mind to try different things, because everyone has that expertise. Like I know, you have a lot of expertise in nutrition and, as we've had discussions when we've met before about this and people will say, oh yeah, go gluten-free, but sometimes gluten-free is not a healthy option either when you buy processed gluten-free stuff.

Fiona Kane: 32:35

No, not if you walk down the supermarket aisle and buy all the juice, gluten-free junk food. Junk food is still junk food, whether it's gluten-free or not.

Khadine Aharon: 32:42

I'm using a Muesli but it's still junk food.

Fiona Kane: 32:45

Yes, yeah.

Khadine Aharon: 32:46

And I think the whole food topic can be so confusing. And I know for people like me I'll go used to eat what other people would say is really healthy and still struggle. And yet when I go, alternatively, where they do a whole range of blood tests that are very thorough, or the saliva testing or the computer testing which says exactly what's happening for my body, well it's a whole different story. What's healthy for one person isn't necessarily healthy for another person. Like I can't have anything from the cabbage family, for example.

Fiona Kane: 33:22

Yes.

Khadine Aharon: 33:23

In fact, there's not many vegetables that actually agree with me at the moment. Yes, but if you don't know you could be having lots of salads.

Fiona Kane: 33:32

Yeah, exactly, and generally speaking, when the more your gut is compromised, the often the more that you won't be able to cope with lots of vegetables and things, and the more you heal your gut, the more you can.

Fiona Kane: 33:44

But again, it's complicated and I think this is something I go on about all the time, because people get very religious about nutrition. Yes, and I don't think it's something to get religious about. Actually, religion that's a separate thing, that's your own business. But nutrition is a science and simply it's about what's working for you and what works for the individual, and what works for the individual at that time, because what worked for you last year might not be what works this year. So rather than get all kind of because and also if people find something that works, they can get quite religious about this thing works, so it works for everybody, or it's going to work forever and it's worked for you now. It might work for you for five years, one year, the rest of your life, I don't know and it may or may not work for someone else, but that's okay, that's individual.

Khadine Aharon: 34:29

Yeah, and that's why I try and say to people it's great that being a vegetarian works for you. I prefer to eat as a vegetarian, but I actually need me. I should do better with it, and we're all different and our bodies change. There was a time when I couldn't tolerate me, for example, I couldn't eat it without being sick, but now I know that I actually feel better when I do have it, and so I need change. And whatever health condition that we have that we live with, it's a chronic health condition and needs aren't going to be stagnant. The more we do to improve our health, then our body will change and adapt and we'll have different needs through that journey, and I think it's really important to see it as a journey.

Fiona Kane: 35:17

Yes, yeah, I think the sooner that we get to a place where we see it as a journey and we learn to listen to our body, the more healing that you can have, because when we're in that kind of you know, fixed place of we must find the cure. And you know and this is going to be answered and every time something isn't the answer, there's this big let down and there's this big and I've seen that like that happened. I know that's happened for myself, but I've seen that happen to other people as well. The mindset is a really, really big part of this, and understanding the way to approach it is really, really important. And something that you said you've said a few times throughout this is you've talked about listening to your body. You've talked about sort of noticing and the signs and symptoms and or what you needed or what was working for you. So do you want to just talk a little bit about that? That's just the listening, listening to your body, yeah sure.

Khadine Aharon: 36:12

So before, before I had my health crash, I couldn't listen to my body because I was totally numb, physically and emotionally.

Khadine Aharon: 36:19

So, when I had my crash, I went from from not feeling any pain to extreme pain so, and I just couldn't really tolerate anything. But as time went by and particularly with EFT, because when we're doing EFT we start to be able to associate different emotions more and be able to feel what's happening in our body more of the more we do it I had to start listening. So you know, okay, so the doctors told me to have this thing, but I'm not reacting well to it, so I better go to the doctor and saying that's actually making me worse, and let's put that on my list of things not to have. Remember, I had a pain medication once and it made me. It was a sustained release once. It made me trip for 12 hours.

Fiona Kane: 37:16

Wow.

Khadine Aharon: 37:17

I said basketball, women's basketball game. I couldn't follow the game. It was like it was the weirdest experience.

Fiona Kane: 37:25

Yes.

Khadine Aharon: 37:26

When it comes to eating food, sometimes it can be hard to listen to our bodies, because we start to crave the things that are really bad for us, and that's where I actually needed help first, and now that I'm having foods that actually suit my body, I know when I'm having something that my body doesn't like, because then I feel I'm well after it or I'll get a migraine after it, whereas when I'm sticking to my program, that doesn't happen.

Fiona Kane: 37:56

Yeah, that's my experience. When you tune in, your body just starts to very quickly tell you what's working and what's not, and then you can just adjust things. But when you first start paying attention it can be quite overwhelming and confusing, but it's worth. It is worth doing because it's actually the listening that allows you to guide your healing, I think, or it's part of your ability to guide your healing, because how can you guide your healing if you don't know what's going on?

Khadine Aharon: 38:24

Absolutely. I think a big part of that is learning to trust your intuition. If you've experienced so much trauma, you might not trust your intuition.

Fiona Kane: 38:35

Yes.

Khadine Aharon: 38:36

And a great way to start doing that, I learned, was in the morning, when I get dressed, to ask my husband what do I wear today? And go with that, no matter what, no matter what, and take that out of my wardrobe and wear that. And that's a really easy way to start following our intuition and for me, I followed that when it comes to what do I need right now, if I'm in a lot of pain or if I'm not feeling well, what do I need right now? And I'll go with the first thing that comes to my mind. Last week I think was last week I'll lose track of time I didn't know that my body spirit festival was on Again and I woke up and it just popped up on my phone like I'm going today.

Khadine Aharon: 39:22

Hmm and and I was there. I didn't buy anything, but I did a training a few years ago and I had a stall. Then I just knew I needed that therapy. That day, and after months of being in agony, I had a treatment with them and I had zero pain for three days.

Fiona Kane: 39:38

I was so happy and I have pain now, then then.

Khadine Aharon: 39:42

But if I hadn't followed my intuition, I wouldn't have thought about going next. I really haven't thought about that therapy since I attended the training.

Fiona Kane: 39:51

Yeah, yeah. So really it's connecting in with our body, connecting in with our, with our. You know, whether you call it soul or whether you call it your intuition or that inner part of you, whatever however you describe it, it's really up to you, but connecting with that inner part of you is really, really important I'm I actually wanted to share with you. There's a singer Artist who I've been really obsessed with this year. Anyone who watches Mrs this podcast will know his name is Ren and he has experienced a lot of. He had a tick bite and he's had that Lyme disease and so he's had the all of the chronic fatigue and all of the what's it called now, but the brain inflammation and all of those awful things issues.

Fiona Kane: 40:38

A lot of stuff you were talking about and he's he's a, he's a creator, so he's always got stuff coming out, whatever and he's he's struggled with, you know, with his brain issues and with Getting stuck and not been out of you know, not been a thing straight, and he was in bed for many years and all the rest of it. But he at the end of his he's had a song called high Ren which is well worth watching and at the very end it's a bit confronting those to just be aware of that. Be do it when you're feeling emotionally up for it. But at the end he talks about he does like a spoken word section and just one of the paragraphs he says I'm just gonna read this paragraph to you. He says it was never really a battle for me to win, it was an eternal dance. And like a dance, the more rigid I became, the harder it got. The more I cursed my clumsy footsteps, the more I struggled. So I got older and I learned to relax and I learned to soften and that dance got easier.

Khadine Aharon: 41:35

I love that. I love that so much because we need to find a peace within that and darkness. I call these things ago and I had my crash and I could no longer do the things that I wanted to do. I still can't do a lot of those things yet. I can now go paddleboarding and I can kayak and I can walk as long as it's pretty flat. I can walk for hours. I struggle a bit up hills, but I can do. I've regained a lot of those things and I found joy in other things.

Khadine Aharon: 42:09

So I've opened up other interests for me, and it also led to the work that I do now. I would have been doing what I do now if I hadn't experienced that? Probably not, and I wouldn't be as good a practitioner or trainer as I am now.

Fiona Kane: 42:25

Yeah, and that's the thing I think I find the um, when you've been through trauma and pain, it's hard to understand that softening is going to be helpful for you.

Fiona Kane: 42:36

But softening actually is helpful for you, and I like this, the way he talks about the dance, because I think that's what it is.

Fiona Kane: 42:43

I think that the journey is learning how to connect with your body and how to dance in that body, and and it also means being able to be Flexible enough to kind of sway and go where you need to go. And this treatment, that treatment you know what do I need today? You know what a self care look like today that might be different to what self care looks like tomorrow, and it's just having that um, that flexibility to kind of go with it, rather than this rigid sort of thing of this is how it should look and this is how it should be, and Because it that's just that's just not true anymore. So it's you've got to create a new. It's a new reality and and um, and I think the a lot of the healing comes from that acceptance and and then being prepared to kind of just dance with it. You know, and I just think that that's I like I've never seen anyone in body, just in language. In body, they experience more than what I've seen with him, which is why I've really connected with him this year.

Khadine Aharon: 43:37

Yeah, I'll have to have a listen sounds good. But, yeah it's really important. We can get very stuck in our pain or whatever. Sometimes our health condition is creating and it's very easy to use hope. I certainly did, and Yet we need to find ways to still find pleasure in life.

Fiona Kane: 43:58

Yes, and sometimes it's just about the small things. It's just little things.

Khadine Aharon: 44:03

That's right, the little things like I can go out into the sun today. I can, yes, walk across the road. Today, like in the last lockdown, my pelvic floor went to spasm. I couldn't sit, stand or walk for six months. We're in one of the, and I was in one of the 5k restricted zones.

Khadine Aharon: 44:22

Okay and my joy was my foster cat at the time, mr Gorgeous, and he. He kept me saying we helped each other during that time. Um, we have to find joy in the, in the little things. It's one of the reasons why our foster cats? Because, no matter what's happening with my health, I'm helping them. Yes, but they, they give back. So much and so Helping them is a part of my own healing at the same time, because it is a small thing that brings me joy.

Fiona Kane: 44:52

Yeah, yeah. So I'm very aware of time now, and so I'd just like to ask is there anything that you would like else that you would? I mean, what you said is great already. Is there anything else that you would like to add before we finish up?

Khadine Aharon: 45:06

Yeah, just for anyone who are, who is struggling, persistence is the key being persistent and having an open mind to possibilities. Don't take on board One statement someone says like I could have taken on board, you'll never work again and just settled for that and probably Died. If I just took the word of one person, I'd still be stuck in bed. So persistence is key trying different things, seeing what works for you, having an open mind, looking for the little things that bring you happiness and joy a little bit each day, for you might be going to touch a plant or just sitting on your balcony in the sunshine in the morning, and just that can make a huge difference.

Fiona Kane: 45:52

Just sunshine and grounding can make it a massive difference to our wellbeing. Yeah, just finding those moments.

Khadine Aharon: 45:59

Those moments yeah.

Fiona Kane: 46:02

Well, thank you so much, cardine, and if anyone wants to get in contact with you, what's the best way for them to do that?

Khadine Aharon: 46:08

Easiest way is just to go to my website embrace empowerment dot com.

Fiona Kane: 46:13

Okay, that was an embrace empowerment dot com.

Khadine Aharon: 46:16

That's right, and all my details are there. That's the easiest way to find me.

Fiona Kane: 46:21

Well, thanks again, Khadine. It was really great to hear your story and and learn more about the things that you've, that you've found that have helped you. I think it's just really great to share these things so that people can start to see there's more, more than one option Of how to manage our health.

Khadine Aharon: 46:36

Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure. Thanks for you now and thank you.

Fiona Kane: 46:42

For those of you who are watching and listening, please like, subscribe and share. I really appreciate if you would do that and I will see you all again next week. Thank you so much. Bye.

Khadine Aharon: 46:55

See everyone.