The Wellness Connection with Fiona Kane
Real Conversations about things that Matter
All things life and health - physical health, nutrition, mindset, mental health, connection plus society and culture with Fiona Kane, experienced and qualified Nutritionist, Holistic Counsellor and Mind Body Eating Coach
Frank discussions about how to achieve physical and mental well being.
I talk about all things wellness including nutrition, exercise, physical and mental health, relationships, connections, grief, success and failure and much more.
Some episodes are my expertise as a nutritionist and holistic counsellor and some are me chatting to other experts or people with interesting health or life stories. My goal is to give you practical and useful info to improve your health and tidbits that you may find inspiring and that may start discussions within your circle of friend/family.
The Wellness Connection with Fiona Kane
Reframing a Diagnosis: How Language Shapes Your Healing Journey | Ep 104
Reframing a diagnosis isn’t just about thinking positive — it’s about reclaiming your power when facing illness. In this episode of The Wellness Connection Podcast, host Fiona Kane speaks with strategic psychotherapist Sarah Chemaissem about how the language we use around health can shape our experience, outcomes, and healing journey.
This conversation is especially valuable for:
🧠 Those living with a chronic or terminal diagnosis
💛 Carers supporting loved ones
🌱 Anyone exploring the mind-body connection and holistic wellness
We explore:
The emotional impact of receiving a diagnosis
How your inner dialogue can shape your healing
The science and stories behind language and belief
Why purpose, connection, and reframing truly matter
🎧 Whether you're navigating illness or supporting someone who is, this episode offers powerful insights and hope.
👉 Like, share, and subscribe to spread awareness.
Learn more about booking a nutrition consultation with Fiona: https://informedhealth.com.au/
Learn more about Fiona's speaking and media services: https://fionakane.com.au/
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Credit for the music used in this podcast:
The Beat of Nature
Hello and welcome to the Wellness Connection Podcast with Fiona Kane. I'm your host Today. I've got a guest and we're going to be talking a little bit about how we need to choose to live, regardless of what diagnosis we have or what illness we're living with. Ultimately, we need to choose to live. So that's what I'm going to be talking about today, and my guest is Sarah Chemaissem . Hi Sarah sarah.
Sarah Chemaissem:Hi Fiona, how are you? Thanks for having me today.
Fiona Kane:I didn't ruin your name too much, did I?
Sarah Chemaissem:You usually got busted growing up in school, but you did a good job.
Fiona Kane:I do my best. I think, oh, I know that, and then I go to say it and then I don't know what, or I say it wrong half the time. So we're doing okay, I think I said it. Okay, it's not too bad.
Sarah Chemaissem:It's good considering the beginning of the week as well.
Fiona Kane:Yes, yeah, exactly. So look for those who don't know you, would you like to introduce yourself? Tell us a little bit about you.
Sarah Chemaissem:Okay, well, okay, well, I'm just an ordinary human being, just like everyone else, right? But I work as a strategic psychotherapist. Amidst many other methodologies we utilize in treatment, like clinical hypnotherapy, but we do it in a strategic way, in a manner of language, utilizing your own purpose of life and what you're good at, and it's just very freelance and a lot of timeline therapy, counseling just stop therapy but very experiential um, the modalities that I use throughout my work and I work a lot alongside a lot of um one-on-one clients and even couples and more so, uh, with a lot of cancer patients that come through.
Fiona Kane:yeah, okay, that sounds interesting. So we did. Uh, when we chatted before, we did talk a little bit about cancer diagnosis and about how, really how we could reframe in our minds or change our language in regards to our diagnosis that could support our health. Now, before I go any further, I will clarify in this conversation. We're not talking about just wish yourself to health or don't get treatments, or any of that. All we're doing is just talking about the fact that the truth is and this is something that I've talked about a lot on this podcast that language does matter. The language we use matters, and how we describe things to ourselves or how we think about things really can make a difference to our experience. So that's essentially what we're talking about here today, but would you like to expand on that a bit, sarah, in regards to what we can do that can make a difference in regards to those diagnoses?
Sarah Chemaissem:So when we're talking about diagnosis, they have a lot of similarities in the approach of receiving it from a doctor. So we notice that when we don't have an expectation of something going on or running within us that's a disease or discomfort or things like diagnosis of cancers, and depending also what stage we, the first initial thing that happens to us as human beings we go go into a bit of a shock, right, it's the initial absorption of the information from that doctor and, depending on the approach of the doctor and everything as such, they generally begin the conventional medicine of treating the disease. Now, within our discussion today, we're just going to maybe look at it a bit more in a holistic point of view, but still, understanding conventional medicine is one of the basics and is the fundamental part, because we cannot let 10, 12 years worth of work be parked on one side, because it's very essential to have within any diagnosis. They do help and help us through the processes. But what tends to happen to some of us? Depending on the approach of how we've received the information, because we're in such a vulnerable state of mind with somebody that is trusted so well, we can take the suggestions really deeply and those suggestions become the wiring of our thought patterns and how we perceive the world, which can create that anxiousness and grow the idea a little bit larger within us because we're freaking out about something right, especially if it's a terminal illness, and it can put us in that stance of I didn't really consider death at this point in time, let's just call it. If it was a dramatic disease, this is something like cancer or stage four metastatic as such, and so what my perception is around all of that.
Sarah Chemaissem:There are many other ways to deal with this situation and to perceive your language and what language you've received, to filter through you know, the gp and what they've said to you, and and what, what aligns with your inner values in your current state of mind and where you're at in your life, and really to to delve a little bit deeper with your thoughts. Are you expanding on what they've said or have you taken, you know, the chance to do a bit more research to see what else could you adapt and apply throughout the process? But my main goal would be reframing meaning, language, language, language, language. The language you've received and how you've observed it, perceived it, how you speak about it inside your head and the language that you give out to the universe or just within yourself when you're trying to adjust to a new disease that's come through.
Sarah Chemaissem:Reason why it's so essential and important is the unconscious mind, and for the people that haven't heard of that, it's just a subliminal. It's a deeper part of our inner selves, that inner voice, you know, the one that we, the intuition that sometimes we ignore. Even as such, it doesn't know the difference, fiona, between what is real and what is not real, and due to that we build and stack up beliefs which expand what we might be experiencing, and then it hones so deep that we end up having other things that come out from it, like anxiety and depression and these other so-called diseases in mental health, let's call it. So. It's very essential to really like watch what you say and what you say to yourself and what do you accept from the information you receive from the outside world, because it does affect your healing journey.
Sarah Chemaissem:Um, it plays one part and parcel, but it's not the main, definitely not. There's environmental factors, there's food, there's genetics. To some degree there's many things involved, but also one partial part is what we'll be discussing today is yourself in a talk and language, and thoughts, and reframing and how to go beyond that.
Fiona Kane:Yeah, okay. And so if you give me examples, so say I have just received a diagnosis, and say I'd received a diagnosis like a stage four metastatic or something which is pretty much the worst diagnosis from a cancer point of view, Obviously, initially, like you said, there's shock, and I feel like and personally what I say to my clients anyways it is okay in the beginning, when something happens to you, to have the feelings that you need to have and to process those feelings, and if you feel like, oh my God, why did this happen to me? You're like, whatever it is, like, that's all fine, there's no issue with that. Essentially, though, it's kind of moving onwards. So I suppose it's then what you do and it's then how you reframe things, or how you, how you look at things. So what, what would you say to to, uh, someone who who had had that sort of diagnosis? What's the sort of starting point for them? Or or how can you, um, maybe just make it a bit clearer of what we mean by this?
Sarah Chemaissem:sit with it for a moment. Sit with those emotions that you just discussed. Don't be afraid of them. Sit with the shock. Then sit with the grief of learning something new, right um. Sit with the anger and the frustration and the blame, but don't sit there too long, because it turns into a vicious cycle and then you'll be in a victim mentality. And then that victim mentality only grapples you deeper instead of actually embracing where you're at in this very moment. It draws you backwards instead of keeping you in this very moment.
Sarah Chemaissem:So the first step is is sit in it. But then some people would ask how long do I sit in it? Or sit in it for a day or two? Give yourself maximum seven days, sit in the whole process of absorbing this information and then look outside the window and start thinking beyond that. What do I want? Just because I've had this diagnosis, it doesn't make it who I am right now. It's just another part and parcel of me for this very moment, whether I can heal from it, reverse it or cure it, that's one part, but let me work in.
Sarah Chemaissem:What do I want right now in life? Maybe, maybe it's a calling for you just to sit down and notice. Are you. Have you been living to die or have you been dying to live? Maybe it's one of those alarm bells to just process where am I at what? What do I want to do? Who do I want to become from this?
Sarah Chemaissem:You know what changes could I adapt? Who? Who haven't I called lately? Um, who are the people that I want in my life? Who are the people that I want to filter out of my life or I want to spend more time with? These are all things that, naturally, we should be thinking about day to day, but unfortunately, due to the race that we live, especially here in Sydney, we we park those ideas and we get so exhausted that by the time the evening comes, we just want to switch off and unwind. So we don't do those calls and we don't, you know, create those connections. But then, when we get a diagnosis, it's that pause, it's that forced pause to reflect. So I would be sitting with that sit, with the emotions, and then see what do you want and how have you been living and who is it that you want to start to connect with? Because, regardless of a diagnosis, my belief system is nobody can tell you when you're going to die.
Fiona Kane:Yeah, nobody knows for sure.
Sarah Chemaissem:No, no, you don't know when you are going to be birthed and when you're going to leave.
Fiona Kane:Yeah, and that's actually an interesting, that's a conundrum or something I've talked about with a friend of mine before is there's the whole idea of okay, there's an ethical issue here, right? So the ethical issue in medicine has always been you should tell people the truth, because obviously they need to plan and they need to know how dire things are and whether or not they should take your recommendations, blah, blah, blah. So I totally get that and I totally understand there's an ethical question there. And then once upon a time they didn't tell people and then they didn't get the opportunity necessarily to change things. And now they do tell people. But then there's a whole level of okay. So ethically, if you say it's right to tell people and I'm not arguing that it's not, this is just one of those dilemmas, I think.
Fiona Kane:But the problem is then, if it's ethical to tell people and you tell people, well, essentially you are kind of making up a number and you're making it up based on, obviously, what you might have seen X amount of people live for this long and X amount but obviously they use the data and then they just project based on that. It's not the truth, but just project based on that. But once they say a number. The problem with that is a little bit like in the indigenous culture in Australia. There's like pointing the bone at someone. It's like you point the bone at someone and then they go away and die, sort of thing. So it's almost like this. Once you believe that. So if someone gives you a x amount of time, x amount of months or whatever, does that happen because you believe it, because you've now taken that on that's.
Sarah Chemaissem:That's an extremely good question because if you look at it and if you look at the studies through harvard university or any study for that matter when you want to when they do surveys for the people that have been prescribed a timeline for their expiry date which nobody has the right to do, that, quite frankly, because it's something not with us, right, but unfortunately, you know, the medical system has chosen to take that on board as a responsibility but then if you look at the percentile and the average of people that have survived beyond the expiry date that has been prescribed to them, or the ones that have passed away during that time and they were correct there is a difference in thoughts and beliefs.
Sarah Chemaissem:The ones that lived beyond that said no to the limitations a human being put on them and said no, no, that it was not accepted as a suggestion. Hence why, at the beginning, I was discussing it's you and your life. Sometimes, which doctor is giving you the information? Because some doctors are very blunt, some are very compassionate in how they say things. Well, you know, they give you the positive first and they say, oh, but you know, like dr ste, steve Berman is a classic example of this and he's had a lot of cancer patients. If people don't know him, read his book. It's phenomenal, right.
Fiona Kane:So Dr Steve Berman did you say it, how do? You spell that.
Sarah Chemaissem:S-T-E-V-E and Berman B-E-I-R-M-A-N. Berman. Okay, brilliant doctor, I'll give you the name of the book. I think it's Pills and Potions. It was called something like that, or Healing Through Pills and Potions. He said something really magnificent.
Sarah Chemaissem:Now, he was working in the emergency department for many, many years and they had a patient that ran through that was having a heart attack, and then they needed to put her in a theater room to operate. But they didn't have a theater room available at that time. Right Simultaneously, a similar incident was happening in a room next door to her, right. So this is in the ER. And he heard the doctor in the background. So this lady is stable right now. He heard the doctor saying you know, if we don't get her a theater room, this woman's going to die right now in the ER.
Sarah Chemaissem:Now Dr Steve had an observation. This is the first time where he awakened hypnosis and the whole nitty-gritty of the unconscious mind. Right, he noticed that on the monitor the heart monitor she started to have high palpitations. The doctor didn't speak in front of her, but she heard the conversation. So her unconscious mind took on board a suggestion behind the curtain and that was his first observation. Now the one next door didn't hear anything like that and she was fine. They, that one survived.
Sarah Chemaissem:That one ended up having another heart attack in the ER in that emergency department and they ended up putting her in theater room and everything he ended up going to in a theater room and everything. He ended up going to learn about hypnosis and NLP and language, just to understand what was going on. Over the years he ended up applying this to his practice and when he did have a cancer patient, he learned something. He learned two things visually and language as a doctor. Now, not all doctors have this skill. The first thing, when he comes to give a diagnosis because it is valid, it is there, it is the truth, it's conventional medicine and it's not a lie he uses his hands, fiona, and he says you know, you are a part of this side of people of a diagnosis, but I have seen 2% of people survive or 98% survive right, so it's part and parcel of observation in the mind, visually and language.
Sarah Chemaissem:He's getting the person to be naturally reframed. What do you want? I can't put an expiry date, but according to the person tiles that we've seen over the years, this is only a survival rate of six weeks. But I know and I wonder if you'd surprise yourself and be the two percent or whatever it is, or 98 percent of people that would survive this, and so that's another suggestion. Now, not all doctors give you this approach right, yeah, so he's actually just reframing it.
Fiona Kane:So he's telling the truth he's reframing it in that you might, you could maybe, be the one, one of the ones in the percentage of people who survive this exactly but, and so he'll speak about the positive because, being a doctor, using the ethics, they have to deliver their information.
Sarah Chemaissem:That's a part of their job, right? So he'll deliver it. This is the rate. But he won't deliver the rate at the beginning, he'll deliver it at the end, he'll reframe and he says he goes. I've noticed that every patient I have had almost every from what he's told us right, and I've done a few of his courses and read his book he hasn't had any death.
Fiona Kane:Okay, what does that mean? Yeah, obviously the mind's a big part of this. Clearly, I mean, I don't know, I haven't read the papers or seen the evidence, but going from what you said, but yeah, I I do know that uh, the mind has a lot of power, because even I've talked about this before on the podcast, but I talked about a um. There was a really big study done on stress and the um. The study was done. It was like over 30 000 people I think it was a lot of people and essentially what it did, is it looked at.
Fiona Kane:It asked people at the beginning of the study if they'd had stress in the last 12 months, and so they put people in the category of people who've had high stress, people have had moderate stress and people have had a low stress. And then what they did? Is they monitored, how? Oh? And then they asked them if they think it was affecting their health, and so they got them to say you know and and and you know it's affecting my health. It's not blah, blah, blah. And essentially at the end of the day, when they looked at, they basically just looked at data of people's health outcomes and whether or not they died over this sort of long period of time, and what they found is the people that had the highest stress but didn't think it was affecting them were the people who lived the longest, whereas the people who had the highest stress and did think it was harming them they died sooner.
Fiona Kane:So what they came up with was that the belief that the stress is killing you is what is killing you. Right, people died from the belief that the stress was killing them. So I totally get what you're saying. I don't have the data in front of me of what you're talking about, but I've seen the data for the stress, and so I do know that the mind is really powerful. And, yes, if you say that this is killing me, then you're probably right.
Sarah Chemaissem:Almost every time because, regardless of a diagnosis or not, we are all heading that way. The sooner we accept the idea, the sooner we can live to die as opposed to dying to live.
Fiona Kane:So can you just clarify when you say live to die, die to live, can you just explain that a little bit more detail?
Sarah Chemaissem:So I usually use it as a metaphor with my clients when they come through and they're feeling very suicidal or really in a depressive mindset and they can't seem to come out of it. And I question them a lot and I use my hands as well and I always say, like pay attention to my hands. You've entered this world without permission. You didn't even ask to. You're going to leave without distinction. You didn't. You didn't ask to either. Okay, so there's two ways to life, so the entering and the exiting. Now there's two types of people people that they have entered and accepted life and are living to die. So they're driving the right way, so they're driving towards the end, but they're fulfilling their needs. They they're satisfying whatever it might be, you know, if it's a career or building a family, building connections, living a legacy, whatever it may be. So these people are living to die. They're with the flow of life, they're accepting the processes and challenges. But then you have the opposite people, which are walking or driving the opposite direction of the right way to drive is dying to live. So it's a struggle because you have all the cars that are living to die and the people that are driving against that. It's a big trap. You end up with more challenges because you're finding more obstacles, because you're focusing more on the negative, you're noticing more of the darker colors than the lighter colors. You're not observing everything around you except what is in front of you. And that's a very foeble position to be in. It's very tunneled and to be in a tunneled position, you don't have any chance of possibilities, of more doors and opportunities to come out of right. So that's a very depressive way to look at things. Let's just call it Hence. They might be looping in in chronic stress, or anxiety, which is fear, um, or depression, which sits in a lot of sadness of an old challenge. But that's behind you. But you're dragging what is behind you to in front of you. But you're also driving the wrong direction of the right way. And it's a choice.
Sarah Chemaissem:If and I get them to observe where are you? How long have you been living? Are you 20, 30, 40? Observe that. Have you really been living in the now, this present moment? Because yesterday doesn't exist anymore. Fiona, quite frankly, tomorrow we may or may not live. So what are we doing today, now? This is what is essential for the possibility of tomorrow. It's a possibility, it's not a certainty and just knowing that we can adjust to the uncertainty of not being certain of tomorrow, but being certain enough that we could live to tomorrow, that we have the motivation and drive to live in the now for tomorrow pushes us and our perceptions and our thought patterns. And now we're not dying to live anymore, we're living to die. We're in the moment and the past no longer defines who we are and where we're going to moving forward, and this helps reframe that perception. Well, no, I've been dragging my past along with me and I've always worried about death. But worrying about death is like worrying twice. How about if you didn't die tomorrow and you're worried about it today?
Fiona Kane:what was the point? What's the point in worrying about it will happen when it happens, but why obsess about it now?
Sarah Chemaissem:and if you worry about it right now for tomorrow, fiona, and then tomorrow comes and it doesn't happen, you just worry unnecessarily. And then let's just say something does happen, a challenge or something that you're worried about. You're worried about it today and in a week, it happened, and then you're worried about it, then You've just doubled up your worry, you've stacked up on unnecessary stress.
Fiona Kane:And you see this a lot. And look, I just want to just again say in this conversation and when we have this conversation, there's no judgment about what people do and don't do and what they choose to do or how people respond to their diagnosis or any of that, because it's not me, it's you, and everyone has their individual experience and I don't want to make any judgment on anyone. None of this is meant to be a judgment. We're just having a discussion about what we've observed, either in clinical practice or in studies or things like that or things that might be useful for people, but in no way is this meant to be a judgment.
Fiona Kane:In saying that, that, something I have observed is that I do see it in people, and not even just cancer diagnosis, I just mean in general, there are people who, as they get older or as the people who shut down a lot earlier in their life.
Fiona Kane:There are people who and I heard someone say in a speech where someone said this at the end of the speech the other day about how people kind of almost die in increments because they're kind of closed down earlier in their life and you do see that with some people where and it's probably more often people who are living in their head about what might happen or or stressed or whatever it is. But these people, they they close, they make themselves smaller, they make them their lives smaller and it's kind of like they. They kind of almost sit down and wait to die, but they might do that 10 years before, 20 years before, five years before, six months, whatever it is. And it's really really sad to see when people do that, and a lot of that is what's going on in their, in their mind um, I'm going to expand on that if you don't mind.
Sarah Chemaissem:Uh, a very strong observation. Over the course of 12 years, roughly, a close friend of mine, she, was first diagnosed with breast cancer. She was the initial starter for me to go on a hunt and research to understand cancer so well and hence why it's one of my um research, parts of my work and field and the people that I work with and so forth. The first observation was over the years, when I started to do a lot of research and write a lot of notes to watch what was going on. She made a conscious or unconscious decision, you could say, at the time Her dad had passed away. Once her dad passed away, she was very close to him at the time. This is just one amongst many things and everybody has different factors involved, but this is just one observation over one human being. There was a close friend and her father had passed away and her son was only six months old and she was in a second marriage and she was unhappy that her father had passed away. Then her husband started to, let's just say, not treat her fairly and so within three to four months she had a diagnosis of breast cancer. Now I remember the conversation so vividly, like as though Fiona, it was yesterday, when I was on the phone and she was crying when her dad passed away. In that moment, four months before her diagnosis, and she had a six-month-old boy, she told me I don't want to live anymore. She said I don't know what's the point of living once the thing that meant so much to me has been taken away. So that was her style of dealing with grief right, but unconsciously not recognizing her language. Yes, I don't want to live, sarah, I don't want to do this now.
Sarah Chemaissem:Four months later, she was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer and all throughout four to six of her lymph nodes down left side of her body. So she made a conscious decision to go into surgery. That's fine. She went into surgery, she began chemo. But they also told her something very interesting, because it was very deep into the lymph nodes close to the heart, that you've got six weeks to live.
Sarah Chemaissem:And I recall that conversation because I was sitting there with the doctor and I told him that's absolutely not acceptable and we're not accepting that suggestion and I took her out of there. I was really frustrated I was very young at the time and I walked down. I go. Listen, we're not accepting that suggestion. We're not accepting it as a suggestion. No, nobody has the key to the unknown right. I go, but you've got a newborn, he needs you and she looks at me and she goes, but I miss my dad. That was her response. With that, it's like almost you could say, in this case, a manifestation I'm not saying this is not all cases, this is just one scenario. And I go, but your son needs you and so within six weeks she began um treatment with the chemo and she passed the six weeks. She began treatment with the chemo and she passed the six weeks and she was in remission within three months. Miraculous remission, right, because her son is what she wanted. To stay around with Five years in remission it came back.
Sarah Chemaissem:Now, the time it came back, she was having a lot of troubles with her partner, a lot of heavy troubles, and she wanted to leave that relationship. But she was carrying shame. I don't want a second divorce. So what was the exit strategy? Unconsciously for her, it was cancer. She ended up with passive aggressive cancer. Again. They called it metastatic, went into remission within 12 months, again she wasing.
Sarah Chemaissem:And then I sat down with her one day, because I was treating her during that process and teaching her about. You know, it's not just the mind, it's also food, environment, the people. There's so many things involved in anything that could happen to us. It's our belief systems and what we want and we don't want, right? And I told her you're not doing a great job in dying. She looks at me, she goes what do you mean? I go, well, you want to die, but you've boxed yourself in a prison that hasn't brought you to the conclusion of what you're after, because you don't have the key to the unknown. The only way that life could end is suicide and that's not acceptable, right? And she sat and she bursted into tears and she goes to me you are right, I've been attempting to die by creating this ease, without consciously realizing she goes now, what do I do to get out of it? So she had a limiting belief and she recognized it.
Sarah Chemaissem:So we did a lot of hypnosis and then she ends up with cancer in her uterus. We reversed that before they did the surgery. She didn't have it anymore, um, and then at the end she passed away, march 16 last year. But she was cancer free. She didn't have cancer anymore, but she was unhappy and the only thing was her body started to shut down in every way due to a lot of treatment and radiation and all of that. That it's a very rare, it's a, it's a unique case. It's a unique case. And I recall before she passed um and before she lost her language and her words those few days and she was like just take care of my kids, I'm happy to go. Yes, she was ready. Right, she was ready, she was ready. But then I've had other people come through, which I'm not going to share too much detail, and they didn't want cancer to take and grapple their life. They're like no, I've got more to live for, I want to hold on. And they've gone into miraculous remission and moved past that, utilizing conventional medicine, treatment of um, chemo and whatnot and some radiation in some cases. Some cases went full holistic. It's a choice at the end of the day and some utilize holistic treatments like hypnosis and the reframe.
Sarah Chemaissem:Where am I? What are my limiting beliefs? You don't create dis-ease, your body just keeps score, according to Basil Vandiver. So I don't know if you've read his book the Body Keeps Score, but he discusses the anchoring of the challenges and thoughts that we have gone through without choice, sometimes gets held into the body and, similar to louise hayes work it gets, it gets attached to certain organs in the body or parts in the body which then impose and show up as a disease, a diagnosis, and so it's up to us to sit down with that and see how do you want to unpack it, and it's not always the case. There is many other factors. This is just one parcel. In my personal opinion, these are two different people, perceptions similar, but my opinion is there's other factors. There's environment, there is food, there is, seriously, who you're hanging out with high vibrational people, low vibrational people. Which is your environment and your belief systems, your traumas have you cleared them? Have you worked on them? Are you happy where you're at? Realistically, what happiness might mean to you? Which is contentment really?
Fiona Kane:Yeah, you're right, there are a lot of factors and this is just one of them and we're talking about one of them. And one thing I have certainly seen is I see this a lot and myself included, I have to have an awareness of my language sometimes as well. Is that in people when you get to a point with carers? So for me it's caring of older people, like I was caring for my mother before she passed and and I've been caring recently for another relative and uh, and you see a lot with carers I hear them say things like this is killing me, we'll die before they do, and then that I hear a lot of that language and people sort of say it jokingly, but sort of jokingly and sort of not. And I've seen it when, when people do say this a lot, how they often pass not long after the person they were caring for and I've often wondered how much of their belief that it was killing them and that they wouldn't, that they would go it. I just wonder how much of that belief contributed to what happened.
Sarah Chemaissem:I know that there has been a lot of studies around that and it's been growing a lot more increasingly with the younger generation to find out and understanding the mind a lot more deeper. But a classic scenario of what you just explained. I'm also a carer for my mother and recently she's got glucoma right. But growing up she always discussed that I don't want to see this anymore. I don't want to see this anymore and then she ends up with glucoma under the knife. So she was in a surgery, um, and she ends up with the rare side effects of the surgery and ends up with glucomoma moving forward and I tried to reframe her and everything. But she's very stubborn elderly woman. She doesn't want to. She's not happy. She's gone through a lot of trauma herself and it's unfortunate to be part of witnessing that. You know big portion of that growing up.
Sarah Chemaissem:But recently, which amused me, she actually asked me a question. So recently we had a reunion with one of my siblings and it's a step-sibling, so she was a part of big chapter in his life. When he was sitting there, she wasn't herself, fiona, she wasn't herself. When he left I felt she was very disorientated and then she approached me. She was something happened to me and what happened to you, mom, she goes. I went completely and utterly blind in that moment. I could not see. That's why I was very withdrawn, trying to heed, but I wasn't able to see. So her balance, she lost balance in that conversation, I go. Well, I asked you did you want to see, in this confrontational moment? Did you want to see your step child? You know my brother, I go. Did you want to see this confrontational moment? Did you want to see your stepchild? You know my brother, I go. Did you want to sit? And she goes? I did, I did want to sit and I did want to see him. I go.
Sarah Chemaissem:Mum, watch your language. At a conscious level, you did. But did you, at an unconscious level, just tap into that gut? You know the third brain, your intuition, and she goes. Well, I didn't want to see and be reminded of my history. I go hear what you said. I didn't want to see and be reminded by my history. I didn't want to see. So you're reminded of my father and he looks very similar and it triggered all the traumas, right, and I'm like mom, do you realize what is happening?
Sarah Chemaissem:You didn't have congruency. Your conscience wanted something, but your unconscious, which hadn't healed because you've never gone to therapy and you've chosen not to because you're so stubborn. Right, there wasn't a congruency. So, because there was a separation and a gap, it showed up because you don't want to see the past. And it showed up in that way and it was very dramatic and you couldn't see. I go, but are you seeing? Right now?
Sarah Chemaissem:She goes, yes, but as soon as I was speaking to you about it, I started to feel very blurry. Are you picking up on the cues? Language, language, language. It's so essential, it's so important. And I go to her Mom, reframe your words.
Sarah Chemaissem:We were in the car, I was driving her. I go reframe it. Say I noticed that I didn't want to see, but I'm going to choose to see through this because, at the end of the day, he's not my husband, he's my stepson. And when she started to learn that language in the car, we had a 20-minute drive and I was teaching her and she was very emotional. And she goes, I'm seeing. I'm seeing clearer again. So her vision was coming on and off fiona momentarily in the car, like people witnessing this, and she only sees in one of her eyes more so than another. What does that mean? Right, the meanings that we're giving to the language that we're using is so essential. So we've got to watch our steps. We've got to catch ourselves.
Sarah Chemaissem:I don't know, have you you heard of Jose Silva? No, jose Silva created the Silva Method, which discusses a lot of language and reframing similar to NLP, but he had a beautiful. A lot of people can go and do his course. In New South Wales. There's one teacher that runs it. Find it online, but he talks about language, language, language, language.
Sarah Chemaissem:Once again, yes, limiting beliefs created by the words that you speak. So if you and you create a model and I'll give you this, and this is a tool that people can take away today, the moment you catch yourself saying you know, I can't hear this anymore, I don't want to see this anymore. Oh my god, I feel like dying. I'm dying today, or I wish I could have a break from work. Listen to all these words. You turn around and reframe, cancel, cancel. I'm just exhausted, hence why I don't want to go to work. I'd like to have a time out, holiday, not break, because break means you're gonna break a leg and you still don't have your annual leave, right, yes. So cancel, cancel, you just reframe it, um, and you build on that and you stack on that, and that's. That's something you can do every day. It's very light.
Fiona Kane:People can hear it when they hear that language and they've done the course, they'll know that you're doing jose silva's work, which is silver method yeah, so and what you said there is like reframe as well, because what you're not advocating for lying or making things up, you're actually just advocating for clarifying things and saying saying the truth, because it's the same as when people define themselves by their disease or by their problems. So one of the things I talk a lot about with my clients is emotional eating. Right Now, I could refer to myself as an emotional eater or I could refer to myself as someone who sometimes emotionally eats. There's very different energy around those two things. Now, while it might be accurate to a certain extent, an emotional eater isn't who I am. It is a behavior that I do sometimes and if we make something who we are, then it's very hard to fix that because we can't necessarily well, we might feel like we can't change that or we're not able to change that. But when it's something you do, when we are able to separate it something we do or something we experience from who we are, it's not the same thing. So in that format, language really matters as well. So language really does make a big difference. But also in what you were talking about before in regards to you know, if people like they don't want to see you or whatever their language is.
Fiona Kane:The other study that I think of is there's a big Harvard study and I think it's a longer study on longevity. It's been going for 100 years or something and this study, what they found was that they were looking for what's the key to longevity and they were sort of is it someone's cholesterol level or what is it right? And what they found is that it was relationships, and they found that it was having a relationship particularly your main relationship, your partner or whatever with someone who has your back, someone who you feel you can trust. They have your back, you feel safe with them. Not necessarily someone you never fight with or whatever, because that's just not realistic because we're human but just someone who has your back, as opposed to say, someone like. What they found is that if you were in a relationship that was a combative relationship like a nasty combative relationship where someone was undermining you or you were in danger psychologically, physically, whatever it is you were more likely to die sooner, you were more likely to get alzheimer's or like some sort of dementia, um, and so essentially, what you're doing is like, if you're living in this unsafe environment, what is happening is you're withdrawing from that, either just mentally and just shutting down, getting dementia, or actually passing away. And so you're more likely to survive and keep your faculties when you're in a relationship where you feel safe and where you feel someone has your back.
Fiona Kane:And again, how powerful is that. That in those cases it was about their environment, of who they were with and how safe they felt in that environment. And again that shows you how powerful it is and whether or not there were certain things they said to themselves, or whether or not they just felt unsafe and so they shut down, or not there were certain things they said to themselves, or whether or not they just felt unsafe and so they shut down and pulled away. But you can. You can see the different ways in which we can shut down. Or we can use language to shut ourselves down, or or we can talk ourselves into things that sooner than we need to, or that we don't need to at all, or that simply aren't true, but we make them true because we create it.
Sarah Chemaissem:So it's Fiona, it's the unconscious idea. And if we don't, as I said earlier on and as we discussed earlier, there's multiple factors. Yes, there's food and nutrition, 100%. That plays one large parcel, because this is the faculties within your body. That's filtering through things that you're eating, whether it's got pesticides and whatnot.
Sarah Chemaissem:If it's not organic, that's a whole different scenario, right, and the other part and parcel of it is the environment, the people that you're hanging around with, the people you're connecting with um, do they have a lot of control factors over you and who you are as a character? And the environment that you grew up in, initially, the conditioning, the programming that has brought you to who you are right now. People are not their behaviors. You know the actions and the things and the styles people are delivering is based on the conditionings from history, right, and then that creates the invitation to gravitate and invite similar people back, and they call it trauma bond in the current environment as you get older, it's because of the old conditioning belief system. So the one strong factor was the environment. And then you have other parts, the externalized part of your environment, your next circle. What's that? The socioeconomics, so the people outside of that, your work, what happens after that? The global aspect are you watching the news? Because there's only bad news in the news. That's the, that's the facade, right, and they're only honing in onto what the fee? Fee? What happens to you unconsciously being wired to see fee if you go down a level? And then you see the environment of your work if it's a circus that you're working in, there is a lot of control and power in there and you're not finding your safety zone. And then you hone a bit more deeper in and the relationship is toxic. And then you hone in onto your food and then you tell me that I've got eating habits. Well, look at the whole outside in, go back into the root.
Sarah Chemaissem:What was happening at the first early conditioning? What were the belief systems that were installed in you that you haven't maybe confronted, sat with let go and just presented them as it's okay, we can deal with this like any child that has a tantrum. You've got two options you sit with them and you comfort them and give them the safety so they can go past it, or you can neglect them and then over time, they feel that that neglect means I'm not going to get attention. So then they withdraw, they go inside their world. They feel that that neglect means I'm not going to get attention, so then they withdraw. They go inside their world, they create that bubble and that eventuates into dis-ease. A classic scenario of this, which a lot of people can watch on Netflix. I'm not sure if it's still on there, but it's the blue and red zone, the people, the longevity of life. About the blue zone. Have you watched it?
Fiona Kane:I've watched some of it. What are you talking about in regards to it? Just so you can trick my memory, because I remember looking at the nutrition side of it. But what were you talking about?
Sarah Chemaissem:The longevity of life, how you can reach the age of 90 without this ease, without anything, the connection that you're in the nature you know the grounding, it's all of the things, yeah. The exercise.
Fiona Kane:So the oldies over there in Greece live in a village, but they're always walking uphill yeah, yeah, I talk about that a lot actually, that it's not just what you eat, because when we look at, like, the Mediterranean diet or whatever, people think it's only about the olive oil and there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with the Mediterranean diet or the olive oil. But, yes, exactly what you said when you look at those zones, the people usually have connection, they're part of the community and they have that.
Fiona Kane:They have that till they die as well. Like they're not kind of, they don't offer the nursing home somewhere as the old songs though that nobody listens to. They're actually a part of the community that's important and respected, and people are interested in what they have to say and see them as a wise elder, and they are usually working or, if not working, still very physically mobile right up until they die. So they're out, like you said, in Greece they're walking up those hills like mountain goats. They've got those hills that they walk up, or they have the olive groves that they tend to, or they've got the rice paddies that they tend to, or the milk of the cows.
Sarah Chemaissem:They're milling by hand.
Fiona Kane:They've got a machine, yeah, yeah. So they are very, very physically active, usually doing something, they're involved in their community, they are expected somewhere, they're needed somewhere, they have purpose, and so there's all of those things. And then when you look at, like the, the, how important it is for stress to be sort of part of a community and to be needed and to have purpose and and if you're, usually there are places where they will eat and the food, when we get back to the food, it's it's usually it's local food and it's real food and it's usually ancestral food, the food that they've been eating in that community for thousands of years or hundreds of years or whatever it is. And and often they, when they do eat, it is like a family or a community thing and it's a slow thing and they, you know, they prepare it together and then they eat together and it's like they're not sitting in front of the news. Uh, they're eating their microwave meals. So, yeah, all of those things make a difference. And that's actually where, when I think of, there was someone I interviewed on this podcast a few months ago.
Fiona Kane:His name is Hazem and I can't remember the number of, but I'll put in the show notes, I'll put a link to the episode. I can't remember the exact episode, number 70-something I can't remember now. Anyway, he is a really interesting man and it's really worth listening to the episode. And he's been dealing with sort of cancer diagnosis for many, many years and I did check in about a month or so ago and he's still got some really major challenges happening there. But what I would say and he's had like over 50 spinal surgeries and uh and, but really, um, he's really struggled and had challenges with his health for a really long time. And he's to the point now where, uh, when I spoke to him I'm not quite sure what's that now, because he's had a few surgeries since then but when I spoke to him I'm not quite sure what's that now, because he's had a few surgeries since then but when I spoke to him he was I think he called it triplegic where he only had the use of one hand but not the rest. He's not his other arm or his legs.
Fiona Kane:He and what I noticed when I spoke to him, as opposed to when I've spoken to other people who might have some really harsh diagnosis or that kind of dealing with those things is he had such a strong sense of purpose, so what he was doing, and he'd had everything taken away from him because he was a fighter pilot. And he lost his career as a fighter pilot because he lost the use of his legs and it happened while he was in the air. Actually, he had to land to the plane without the use of his legs and, you know, it happened while he was in the air. Actually, he had to land to the plane without the use of his legs and then, you know, get himself, took him an hour to get himself out of the plane when he landed and you know so, getting to the point where you could become a fighter pilot, I mean the level of excellence and dedication it takes to get there. And it was just taken away from him, right.
Fiona Kane:And then he studied law and he worked as a lawyer within the defence, but then later on, more recently, what he's been doing is he's been advocating for people with disabilities and he's been advocating for them to get the services they need and the wheelchairs they need and really fighting for really, really, very, really important causes and really important situations where people need, you know, even just basic like there was.
Fiona Kane:I think there was one person who couldn't get. Like this person was quadriplegic and they gave them a wheelchair or something that had hand controls. I was like no, this person needed cheating control. So even just like basic things like that. You wouldn't realize it, but apparently you've got to fight for some of those things because the people who push papers somewhere don't understand the reality that those people are living in. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is he had such strong sense of purpose as far as I'm concerned, based on the information that he gave me about his health he's been living on fumes for years, you know but he's got such strong sense of purpose that he has survived for years and years and years and years, where, frankly, I don't think I would have Again language, but based on what he's told me, I'm just like, oh, my God how do you survive?
Fiona Kane:But I think it is because he has such a strong sense of purpose and a strong sense of what he's here for and what he's on this earth for and what he needs to achieve, and he's got such a long list of things to achieve that I think that is what's keeping him alive, and you're right.
Sarah Chemaissem:You're right because I've've said over and over with many people, not just him, yes, multiple stories that we can utilize as examples of that. Because what I've, what I've noticed over the years, if you wake up without a sense of purpose, who are you in that morning? Yes, who are you for who? If it's not for yourself, then for who? Hence we're, you know, going back just to the olden culture, which, unfortunately, in the Western world has been minimized. But the clan value level two, having clans. You know the community similar to Greece, the Aboriginals. They still carry that inheritance, it's a heritage for them, it's absolutely phenomenal, they live long lives. Why? Why, it's a heritage for them, it's absolutely phenomenal, they live long lives. Why, yeah, why?
Sarah Chemaissem:it's a village, it's a clan, it's, it's the, it's the value of connection and purpose. And, as you said earlier, and it's so true, when you watch these documentaries and just to see the longevity of life and why it lasts so long, you're not going to work at the age of 80 and 90, but you are still awake every day with a purpose, because I want to make a meal for my great-great-grandkids. They want to see me there, they want to hear my wisdom. So I have a reason to wake up. I move, I go down and get their groceries while they're at school, so when they come they have less things to do and we can all sit on the dining table together. That's clan level two, the values. Number two, the old-fashioned cultural community which we unfortunately now lack in society in the Western world.
Fiona Kane:Yeah, and the other thing that those communities have and again, look, sometimes when I bring things up, I'm not necessarily arguing for it, but just saying that that was just the truth at the time and there's advantages to it.
Fiona Kane:Just the truth at the time and there's advantages to it. And they didn't have as much choice as in. You know, you, you were born. You know, back in the back in the day, if you were born into a village, you were born and you were going to have a fairly specific role in that village, or if you were part of a tribe or whatever, and that role might have been that you were going to be the healer, or you were going to be a wife and mother or gatherer, or or you were going to be, um, go out to war, go out and hunt and gather, go go fight battles or whatever it is a warrior or something right.
Fiona Kane:And in some ways, like we, you know, obviously, as a woman living in 2025, I really appreciate how far we've come and that we have choices and that we have options and all things. So I'm not arguing necessarily against that. In saying that, though, there was something about the simplicity of that, and now we've made our lives so complicated, so we've gone to the nth degree of complication and when you look at our society at the complication, and when you look at our society at the moment, and when you look at the issues with physical and mental health at the moment, you cannot tell me that making things that complicated overall has been a good thing it's very interesting.
Sarah Chemaissem:you say that because we've over stimulated ourselves, created so many things to make life easier, which has created the complications of the mind, because we haven't been built to have everything easy. You know the saying that says hard times create strong people. Yes, strong people create easy times, and then easy times create weak people and then, unfortunately, the cycle begins again because these weak people create hard times for their families and those families that have come out from hard times cycle back and become strong, which create easy times for the weak people.
Sarah Chemaissem:And it's just a cycle, right. But when you look at the faculties we have, look at us having this conversation who would have known? In 2025 we can be live, you and I have a camera in front of me. You know one of these speakers and have this flow conversation while you're in another place, completely far from me. Right, such an easy flow. But it's created timidness, it's created restrictions. As much as it looks like it's freedom, it's actually restrictness because now our creative side of our minds are no longer functioning because everything well, classic example chat, gpt. Now you don't have to think what to say yeah, yeah.
Fiona Kane:And I look the number of people who young people who've asked me questions that they could just google. I'm like fair dinkum I grew up when you, we had an assignment, you had to go to the library or had to had to refer to the the funken wagnalls encyclopedias that we had that were probably 20 years old. And these, these people, all they have to do is like just google and they still ask the question because it's too hard to google.
Sarah Chemaissem:It's too hard to comprehend because they haven't exhausted the ability to flick through things to capture the information. Another classic example the GPS. I'm curious to know, gen Z, do they remember the routes to where they go? Always relying on the GPS, so a part of the brain is no longer functioning.
Sarah Chemaissem:Now if we have high functioning back in the clan to values of villages, highly functioning for survival. And now these, these great things that have been explored and added to our life to make it easier, but now we're low functioning people which only can create disease because we're not active in our minds, in our language. I'm sorry, but back in the days when, when, when this ease started to show up a little bit more and more, what was happening, life was getting easier yes we weren't as busy.
Sarah Chemaissem:We now are more tired than ever. We are now more exhausted than ever. We're now more stressed than ever. Hold on a second. We missed the whole concept. We made our life easier so we can enjoy life, not to run in it further yeah, yeah.
Fiona Kane:and when you actually look at a lot of disease concept and this is going down a whole other you know we could do it for hours but we won't. But when you, when you look at the um things like how much the body clock and and hormonal regulation and uh, and living with the body clock and all of that relate to health issues. What we know is that when you wake up in the morning, you should have high levels of cortisol. That is completely normal, and the reason you have high levels of cortisol is because you need to go out and hunt and gather, and then in the evenings you should have high levels of melatonin, because that's when it's time to sleep, and so we have these circadian rhythms.
Fiona Kane:And when we move out of them which we do in modern life because of you know lights and you know 24 hour life and shift work and all of the other things we've moved completely away from that and I've talked about that in more detail in other episodes, sort of what that is and what that means. But essentially, when we've moved away from that and we've sort of lost that sort of whole circadian rhythm, and then hormones all change and everything, well, that is a big part of why we have so much dis-ease and disease and issues. So we've moved away from that, which was living in a natural cycle, and I know I forgot where I was going with that. I was talking about how it causes disease and how that's associated with disease, but I was tagging on from what you had said. What had you said before that that made me go into that.
Sarah Chemaissem:I'm trying to I was just saying how we've created such a simplicity of life, making things easier, but it's only could be bringing our intelligence down. Yeah, that's right. Invite the idea of this ease, because so how much are we going to attain now? Right?
Fiona Kane:yeah, so now I'm there. Yeah, it was the ease, it was making things easy. So if we get up in the morning and now we sit down and have a bowl of cereal well, not that I do, because I don't advocate a bowl of cereal, but we don't actually have to hunt and gather a bowl of cereal. So that's what I was sort of actively saying, because we've made it easier on ourselves. So, instead of getting up and using that cortisol in the way that we should and going out and gathering, an alternative these days would be go out and exercise, right, but instead of doing that, we get up and sit down in front of a bowl of cereal and without which has been processed.
Sarah Chemaissem:Yeah, it's been processed.
Fiona Kane:Yeah, yeah, so you can see kind of where you know what has happened here. This is obviously a big topic and it's been really, it has been really interesting talking to you about this today. Now, obviously there's, you know, we might have to have a part two and talk about something else, but is there anything in particular that I've missed in regards to our topic today that you really think it's kind of just worth mentioning before we go?
Sarah Chemaissem:um, I I just feel that for everyone that's listening to this, um, just parking the idea of judgment, just being a little bit more open mind to question yourself, question where is this coming from? You know, um, what is my purpose? And if you don't know your purpose, go and help someone, because through that help of other people and that contribution you find your own inner purpose. And the reason why I say this, um, is I think it's really essential for our disease and comfort of within ourself just to get a little bit out of our zones and it gets us to rewire our mind frames again and again and again, through others and just creating that connection within our community, so we can have that sense of fulfillment and purpose when we wake up every day, which then essentially shrinks parts of this ease, because we have a reason now to get up.
Sarah Chemaissem:So sit with yourself, notice where you're at. What do you really want in life? And when I say what do you want, we're not talking about cars and houses. What do you you really want? If there was no existence of anyone in the world you and I, fiona, I don't even exist in this conversation, it's just you Would you have what you have? Sit with that, ponder over it. Would you dress the way you dress? Would you speak the way you speak? Would you own what you own? I wonder, how would you shift and move in life? Sit and ponder with these types of questions. Based on that, you can find your authenticity, your inner self, which then distracts and moves and shifts.
Sarah Chemaissem:This ease, because that's the inability of believing beyond that foeval vision. Right, it's a, it's a box, as you were saying before with one of one of the um, harvard university's uh surveys that they did. It was very boxed. Right, people were very boxed. They were honed into smaller particles. Well, in order to expand beyond that, think of yourself and nothing but yourself in this world. Who are you? What do you want? And then, based on that, that's a form of reframing when you come back up, to show up into the world the appearance that you give, so it can be aligned with your inner self, and then that can be part and parcel of your healing journey with the disease you know that you could be having right now, or maybe underlying, that hasn't even been, hasn't shown up yet. Yes, not giving a suggestion that it's going to show up. No suggestions, we've got a suggestion.
Fiona Kane:And I suppose something to remember as well in regards to what we've been talking about, is right here, right now, you're alive and regardless of whether you've had diagnosis or not, or where you're at in your life, you're alive right now and now's the time to live. We need to live while we're alive and live well Live well Connect, well Connect.
Sarah Chemaissem:You know there's a book that says the five regrets or something of life. You know it discusses that. What are your, what would be your five regrets?
Fiona Kane:yeah, yeah, and people don't regret not having a ferrari or whatever. That's not then, when they're at the end of their life, they're not talking about ferraris and houses and things like that, that's just. I've never heard a story where people are talking about those things not once. But they are talking about connection and what actions that they wish they took, or or people that they wish they'd said certain things to, or they're the kind of themes, aren't they?
Sarah Chemaissem:a hundred percent. It comes back down to human connection. No matter how you turn the story, the main regret is I wish I didn't say this, I wish I I said that. I wish I said sorry more often. I wish I didn't study as hard as I did, which distracted me from the connections at home, for instance. Yes, just a classic example.
Fiona Kane:Yeah Well, we could talk about this forever. However, we won't, Not this time. But it's been great having you on and look, if people want to contact you, where can they find you um, pretty much everything's shown up on our website, so just wwwbeyondnlpcoachingcomau. It's got everything our socials, workshops and everything that we run okay, so we'll also put the appropriate links into our show notes. Look, thanks. Thanks again, sarah. It's really been great having you on today.
Sarah Chemaissem:Thank you so much for having me Really appreciate it.
Fiona Kane:For those of you watching or listening at home, please like, subscribe and share this podcast. It's really important for other people to find out about all of the valuable things that we talk about here on this podcast. It's important that people find out about it, so please like, subscribe, share and also rate and review the episodes so people find out more about our podcast, which is, you know, what I aim to do here at the Wellness Connection is have important conversations about things that matter. So, looking forward to seeing you all next week, I hope you have a great week. Thank you everyone, and thanks again, sarah.
Sarah Chemaissem:Thank you for having me.
Fiona Kane:All right, bye.
