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In this episode, Mason sits down with Dr. Carol Haddad to explore a topic close to the hearts of so manyโhow traditional medical treatments and complementary approaches can work together for deeper healing. Instead of choosing one path over the other, Dr. Carol shares how integration creates a more personalized, compassionate, and effective journey toward wellness.
Youโll hear real-world examples, practical strategies, and encouraging insights that remind us healing isnโt just about treating the bodyโitโs about nurturing the whole person: mind, body, and spirit. Whether youโre a patient, caregiver, or simply curious about integrative approaches, this conversation offers hope, wisdom, and a refreshing perspective on whatโs possible when different worlds of medicine come together. By the end of this episode, youโll feel empowered with new ways to think about health, inspired by stories of resilience, and encouraged to see healing as more than a diagnosisโitโs a journey.
Key Insights & Timestamps:
- 02:15 The importance of blending science with holistic approaches
- 05:42 Why patients shouldnโt feel forced to choose โeither/orโ in treatment
- 09:10 Dr. Carolโs story of how she embraced integrative care
- 14:27 The role of nutrition and lifestyle in healing
- 18:55 How mindset and emotional health impact physical recovery
- 23:40 The science behind complementary therapies
- 28:05 Stories of patients who found strength through integrative care
- 33:12 How caregivers can support the journey with compassion
- 38:46 The future of medicine: collaboration over competition
- 42:19 Practical steps to begin your own integrative path
Who is Dr. Carol Haddad?
Dr. Carol is a highly trained physician who bridges the gap between conventional oncology and holistic healing. With a background that includes a Medical Science degree from UNSW, a postgraduate degree in Medicine from the University of Sydney, specialty training in Radiation Oncology, and certification in Functional Medicine, she has more than a decade of experience treating patients within hospital and cancer center settings. Her journey led her beyond traditional medicine into the world of integrative oncology, where she combines evidence-based treatments with complementary therapies such as natural medicine, psycho-energetic healing, nutrition, and lifestyle interventions. This unique approach allows her to deliver truly holistic cancer careโaddressing not just the disease, but the whole person. Dr. Carol believes that patients deserve a more balanced model of treatment, one that draws from the strengths of both science and spirituality to improve outcomes and quality of life.
Today, she consults with patients and healthcare professionals worldwide, offering guidance on functional medicine, integrative cancer strategies, and ways to minimise side effects while maximising recovery. Her mission is to empower individuals to embrace long-term wellbeing, reduce recurrence risk, and experience healing in a more sustainable way. If youโre curious about functional medicine, holistic oncology, or integrative cancer support, this episode is for you.
Resource guide
Email: drcarolhaddad@gmail.com Website: www.drcarolhaddad.com
Connect With Us
SuperFeast Instagram
SuperFeast Facebook
SuperFeast TikTok
Check Out The Transcript Below:
Mason:
Thank you for coming.
Carol:
Oh, it's my pleasure to be here. It's, and thank you for the invitation. Yeah.
Mason:
I like to follow those nice threads, especially when people I love, introduce me to people. It was great to meet you. It was like a couple of months ago.
Carol:
Yeah, exactly.
Mason:
Now you're living up here.
Carol:
That's right. And that's ride in itself. Yeah. We're in Cumberland. It's actually quite good. It's really beautiful where we are and we are loving the area. And of course it's only been two months, so we're still generally finding our feet and exploring and getting to know people as well. So building the community a little bit, but we love it here. I think it's the right move for us. Do you?
Mason:
Yeah. Yeah. You tend to know pretty quickly. Yeah. Don't you?
Carol:
Yeah, I think so.
Mason:
Well, it's also you have like a,, you and your husband have a really solid. Foundation, not just in relationship and Bubba, but, professionally you've got a foundation. I think that's always what makes a big difference. Otherwise, sometimes you can get like sucked so deep into by this land, into into internal inquiry and it's sometimes it's then hard to like build a foundation.
Carol:
We heard that. We met one of our neighbors and he was saying the, it was his partner and she was saying how she moved from Sydney initially and it like, it chewed her up and spatter out essentially.
Mason:
I think that's literally the wording everyone uses. Chewed up and spat out.
Carol:
Yeah, and we haven't had that experience at all. Ours feels like a really beautiful initiation, so it's been welcoming to say the least.
Mason:
Heck yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, it's nice to have you here.
Carol:
Yeah. Thank you. It's nice to be here.
Mason:
You run your, is it a clinic or your. Doing trainings, you're doing the clinical work and you're doing all of that online. Is that how you've been able to manage this?
Carol:
Yeah, essentially that's exactly what's happening. So I work online globally, and I work with patients who are looking for an integrative approach to their cancer care. So it's allowed me the freedom to move around and actually explore how other places and regions in the world also do it, and the different modalities available. Then I've been able bring it back to Australia and then give it to Australians who are actually so hungry for this approach to healing cancer.
Mason:
Yeah. I just felt myself try to like bundle like five directions and questions at once. I didn't realize how much I, you know, what you said about modalities coming from a place where you are, you're a doctor. You're not just going and looking whatever the counter, you know, you're looking for integration, which is something is literally the only way. How can we continue to divide and split, um. Especially when there's been one certain approach in modern medicine is used to address an exploding population and an institution I feel like is trying to address on a mass level. Mm, this thing that's seemingly very mysterious. And then whether we just cut, you know, there's like, you must have some fun with people like, especially from like my crop of crew who were just like. So highly anti all of that. And in some areas I still am.
I think it's very healthy and I feel every time I get really anti something, I find all right, there's something. I think if I found something that's really worthy of me going after and helping to like evolve and decay, it's gonna expose. That institution and that process will expose that something in me, which really needs to also be exposed and composted and grown. That's how I've kind of done it with SuperFeast. So just to address the whole like integration, I think that's how it works. Maybe out with a bath water is just like a real shit approach, right?
Carol:
That is beautifully said. So I literally went from one extreme to the other extreme.
Mason:
What was the one extreme to start? So the
Carol:
one extreme was the conventional setting I was working in the hospital setting became a little disheartened with the results I was seeing, and I presumed that there was more. Was available to patients, and I didn't know how to deliver that. So I went into the complimentary and alternative worlds more on an exploration, and I did think that all I would do was essentially just then offer that, but I realized that neither modality is actually. Strong alone that the best modality is when we combine them. And so that's when I came back to the middle way, so to speak. So I went from one extreme of the conventional to the other extreme of the alternative, and I said, no, the best approach is actually integration. And I did notice how on both sides of the argument, they're looking to shun the other or make the other wrong and.
That's not my approach, and that wasn't what I desired to do whatsoever. I consider myself a little bit of a bridge between the two worlds, and my hope is that this is the direction that healthcare is going and taking. Uh, we're not yet seeing that wholeheartedly, but I think that we're seeing more people who are interested in integrative approach and practicing in that way, which makes me happy.
Mason:
Yeah. Whenever I hear, or whenever I've related to being. A bridge and often, yeah. Not necessarily bridging for other people, but just. Being the bridge myself so I can comprehend two opposing ideas. And I think I've said that this quote by, um, Scott Fitzgerald, it's got a Fitzgerald sign of true rate intelligence, has been able to hold two opposing ideas at the one time and still function. I mean, in the Dao, humans are literally a bridge between yin and yang and there to. Comprehend that invisible bridge between yin and yang, but between opposites and literally sit in it and sense it and comprehend it. So whenever I hear that, that bridging journey taking place, I'm always peaked with interest 'cause it's such a path. I'm curious for you, you went into an exact opposite. Did you find one of the most exciting yet confusing things being like the conviction that people have?
In the alternative world, very, so many different modalities and so many different protocols. With so much conviction of their ability to beat cancer. But then it becomes, I've always really empathized with like people like, Hey, do you like this therapy? And I'm like, I've heard of it. What about this herb? I've heard this. Her was this person completely cured their cancer just through this herbal, you know, I'm like. Wow. It's a landmine. And sometimes you can see, you know, that someone was being like, had maybe the right, you know, for this type of this, at this stage this is helpful because it has this, but that was extremely rare. It just seemed like, take your pick, depending on whether you're a.
A vegan or a conspiracy theorist, or you want conventional, or whether you lean towards fasting or whether you lead towards Chinese medicine and nourishing, it's like so many different approaches. So how did you find that map when you got into that kind of counterculture?
Carol:
That's a really good question. I would say that the only person that I ever saw that was able to reverse a diagnosis of breast cancer naturally was a very dear friend who actually put me onto this path of exploring the alternative and complimentary worlds. I was never able to repeat her results, and I was never able to see or meet another who was able to repeat the results that we saw in her. And so that's why I. Took an integrative approach because I felt that it wasn't a generalizable approach. It's like what you've just said. It was a rare case or a unique scenario, or another word you used, which I think is valuable, the person's conviction in that they could feel that they could heal themselves and they did everything they could to do so, and that's really the case for her. But I found as a generalizable approach, it wasn't the case.
And that's why I stepped into the integrative approach because I felt that there was more to offer when we took both parts. And that's just me in my little experience. I don't wanna assume that this is the case for everyone. Also, people like to speak up when it's something that's very favorable and perhaps, or even speak loudly when it's not favorable. So there's a loud voice on either side of the coin. And in terms of exploring to see what truly happened, I would often find that they used an integrative approach. So they might speak loudly about the energy healer they saw, but when I started to take a history. Explore what they were doing. I found that they were also taking conventional medicine through their doctor, and this is only for cancer.
So I find that maybe chronic disease and chronic illness is a little bit different and we can make a hell of a lot more of an impact using natural modalities alone. At least for the setting of cancer. I think an integrative approach is the best I've seen in terms of outcomes achieved. And that again is just me and my little experience.
Mason:
Mm. I mean, maybe whether I should go, that's why sometimes people are confused about just how much, say in my own personal world, like, you know, when I'm doing my. If I'm doing any like skits or I'm doing like standup comedy, just how much I rip on the natural world one, because that's what I know and I'm still in it. And I remember if someone wrote on one of my posts, I just was like ripping into like, here's how to be a natural wellness influencer. And this person was like, hang on, like you do all of these things. And I was like, yeah. And I put up that little Mc Simpsons McBain thing going like, that's the joke. I'm like. However, the reason I do rip on it and myself, there's endemic like immaturity and I think that immaturity lies within the medical system just as much as it does in the natural. I think it's an inherently human thing.
We are having different approaches to try and mend it currently, which. Each side doesn't seem to acknowledge in the sense of exactly what you said is let's just talk about the unicorns. Let's not talk about, you know, at the moment I'm working with emerging charity around creating birth centers. And when you go into, and rightfully so, when they're looking into any like bad outcomes in home birth, they'll really dive in and rip on these outliers. With zero of that same approach when you have deaths in hospital, you know, and not the one where there's a better or worse, but it's like, okay, where same mentality when someone heals themselves from cancer and they're perhaps a unicorn, or perhaps they've happen to hit on psychological. Factors you reiterated the resilience. Sorry, everybody, I'm talking here and sorry that I'm, I'm just like, I'm getting really excited here.
So if I don't let you talk enough, we'll have like, we'll get another episode straight, straight up. We just went the other night to our Steiner school just training for little kids in their communication and their relationship kind of night and we were going over how they go through these stages of like that what happens when they get like ostracized and they get lonely. And now you're not gonna be able to patch them the entire way through it. It's just gonna be their capacity to develop their resilience, to get through those patches of being left out and being lonely, and how they approach those kinds of things. Now, if that's missed and you don't have that resilience when you're an adult, that's clearly gonna be something that needs to be addressed when you go and seek an alternative therapy. Now, if you have that.
Resilience and that resilience is genuinely digging in, and you find that maybe it's an emotional thing you need to hit, maybe it's a spiritual thing. Maybe it's a very, very physical thing. Maybe it's all of them. You don't actually know what that mysterious matrix of things were. You were integrated. You might convince someone to be like, just have the belief. They don't actually have the resilience of internal inquiry and genuine. Biological feedback, they've just gone dogmatic that no, no, that person healed on this protocol and doing this, and I'm gonna get hell bent because I believe like there's, how do we determine whether that is genuinely the case? 'cause I really don't want to discredit these beautiful unicorns in modern medicine likewise, who just have these perfect experiences. And likewise, these people who just go off off the rails and they're like. It went away.
And then for both of those cases, well, what happened in 10 years? What happened in 20 years? I just wanted to bring that up there just 'cause I know if I was listening to this podcast, I'd want that acknowledged. But for you, you are trying to look at like, how do we approach this on a mass level and not just rely on everyone being a unicorn. Right.
Carol:
Precisely, and I think what you've hit on there is individualization. So one of the philosophies through which I practice is individualization of medicine itself, and that means that some people will need more care around the emotional aspects of healing, and some people will need more care around the physical aspects of healing. And unfortunately, that's the part that is non generalizable, where you do. Uh, ideally have a practitioner you can work with who can create a protocol that meets all of those needs. I also think that the, the person themselves is the best doctor for themselves. So they will often be able to identify where there is the trigger for illness
Mason:
or how do you facilitate, 'cause that's a, I would say it's not a hard skill, but it's a soft skill that it's either there. Or isn't there? The awareness to be able to understand what the trigger is. Mm-hmm. How do you work with people on that?
Carol:
So sometimes it's such a sensitive subject that it needs to come up much later in the relationship after developing a lot of rapport between us. But otherwise, one of the key questions I ask is, why do you think that cancer happened for you? And it's funny where people's. Mind will go, it will go to that point. They will just know what it was. It'll often be met with tears. I will say to myself, it's been a successful consult if there were tears throughout the consultation, and then that's where we start unpacking it. I don't claim to be able to do it all either. What I do. Do know is that I can identify what needs attention and then I can refer to really, really good competent practitioners who can take them the rest of the way. So if it is psychospiritual emotional healing, I'll often get them to work with someone, um, or, or three people who will be able to.
Essentially just heal what we've discovered or un or surfaced.
Mason:
What's an example of what they would say?
Carol:
I'd say that childhood trauma is a huge one. So people who identify either sexual abuse in their youth that they never really acknowledged or, uh, dealt with. Abusive relationships so often in terms of marriage or other relationships, parental relationships, they can be things that are real triggers, and then it's essentially stress. So anything that feels like a compounded stress that they knew was there, but that they never changed or didn't address, they just allowed it to perpetuate. Whether that's a professional. Life or personal life. And then it can get really specific. So for some, and I'm starting to identify themes across the different tumors
Mason:
I was
Carol:
gonna ask. Yeah. So for example, gynecological malignancies, so cancer of the ovaries or the uterus. I'll often find that women have had either one of three things. They had a miscarriage or they had a termination, or they had a longing to have a child and weren't able to conceive or, or fall pregnant or have children in this lifetime. And I'll often find that they've been diagnosed with a uterine or an ovarian cancer, and we'll work on that a little bit. What I do wanna say is that. It's not everyone who has experienced that, that would develop a cancer. It's really important for me to say that so that it doesn't become, you know, the para suggestion. And also not everyone who has a tumor of those bo parts of those organs would've had that trauma either. So it's really important for me to say it's not an. All or none thing, but they're the things I've observed.
Mason:
Uh, it's so many questions. Like with the theme, there's gonna be say of course, maybe, I don't know if this is even appropriate, like, you know, like biological factors in terms of susceptibilities, you know, in Chinese medicine there's always a weakness in one of the constitutions that leads to you being that type of like elemental type. That's one way to approach people who have got genetic. Epigenetic and then just environmental factors. Now, sometimes that really splits me, and when I think about this though, everyone says, okay, you know, normally it's gonna start emotional or psychospiritual. I don't know if I find that overly helpful, but, you know, as a, like a rule, a hard and fast rule, 'cause it's so interdimensional, but when someone say, has those, you know, for, did you say it was like cervical? No, of, of
Carol:
uterine or ovarian.
Mason:
Oh, okay. In that instance. Those say emotional mourning, maybe grieving, you know, like that. Do you see that leads to a pattern of personality and lifestyle and tendency towards certain habits that then open up to particular environmental factors that may be exacerbated just to ground it in, you know?
Carol:
Yeah. What a great question. I absolutely agree with you. In terms of, is it that trauma in itself or is it a pattern that this person is then predisposed to? That has created the environment. Hard for me to answer that with any certainty, but I agree that there's genetic and epigenetic factors. I wanna also say that genetics accounts for. About 5% of all tumors that we see, and the rest really is epigenetics. Wow. Which means that there's so much that can be done to counteract or prevent cancer from developing. In terms of the epigenetic factors, that might be the reason I notice, well, this is actually an old philosophy that's coming back into popularity, and it's the metabolic approach to cancer. It's very buzz word at the moment, but essentially it means that the terrain or the.
Body itself has become under a state of stress that those cells that become cancer cells are actually in survival mode. So those cancer cells have become cancer cells because they metabolically changed the way that they act, behave. And that is because the body itself. Is under a stress physiologically. So whether that's psychological, whether that's physical, whether it's the way they eat, the way they don't move, the way their sleep is lacking, whether it's their mindset, a constant state of fight or flight that's creating cortisol surges in their body. There's a lot that has created this cancer cell to now act in the way it's acting. So it is a chicken and an egg thing, whether the mentality has created the problem.
Which then the problem has created the mentality, but I think it's hard for us to distinguish, and I'm glad that you've brought that into light, that it's not necessarily the trauma, but is it a pattern that occurs in the personality that creates the stress for it to then manifest the way it does?
Mason:
Yeah, you know, I really, I think I've become way more sensitive in this is, you know, rather than needing to feel like I have to wave the flag for these distinctions, which really feel counter culture and counterintuitive, which 'cause I think they are. And I think rightfully so. It's hard, there's a lot going on in this world and there's a lot going on in society and this is a very, you know, while you're kind of like, while we're stressfully building our lives, this takes a lot of energy to be able to hold this interdimensional nature of approach to a disease. You know, I really do understand, you know, feel for when people, you know, you must, how much would've you seen, like the stickers? It's, you know, fuck cancer.
It's one of the biggest hashtags, you know, like, oh, not one of the biggest, but in disease, say like the way that the, a lot of people who, I guess like going through a conventional treatment that's, and that's like, I really understand that. However, then. To put it in that context of like metabolic, you know, maybe an, you know, underperforming thyroid, excessive nervous system. I can understand. It'll be annoying for people to maybe go like, listen, this is way beyond just a trauma. And it's like, I would agree. Because it's been gone for so long in a body that is so stressed or so malnourished that the body hasn't been able to do what it needs to do to resolve that trauma or integrate it or bring the unconscious into the conscious and understandably and environmentally and culturally or lifestyle wise, that's the been the case. And so it's built and built and built and built.
And these last resorts for the body. Occur, which are, you know, disease and degeneration or perhaps in some way it's a, a survival stay alive response that creates. A very cathartic moment. I can imagine in a lot of, you know, that's what's taking so long for the general population, and I imagine for me as well, I, I, I don't know how I'd go because it's so, you'd have to meet so much of your, you know, yourself. But that's how I resolve that. Yes, it can start as an emotional. Thing that can potentially be resolved early on if you support the system. Mm. But likewise, I do hear you that if it gets outta control and then you go and deal with the emotions, is it just gonna magically go away? That must be something that you see the hope in people's eyes when they hear these miraculous mm, healing stories, but then. For some biologically, that's just not something that's possible.
'cause it's gone so far. Right? Yeah.
Carol:
Well said. So the emotional aspect of healing is only one aspect of it. And I don't see that when we work on the emotional aspect of healing, that we get tumor regression. You know, I think it needs to be treated on a whole body. Uh, level. And so that brings me to a second part of the philosophy of how I work, which is the first was individualization. The second is holistic, which means that it's not enough to just work on the spirit or just on the mind, or just on the body. It is a, for lack of a better cliche, it is a mind, body, spirit approach. And so we need to, now that it's manifested in the body, we need to treat it in the body. As well as treat those other factors as well. Again, just my little person experience in one little corner of the world, it hasn't been enough to just work on the mind and emotional status to achieve, you know, remission in the, in the physical body.
Yeah.
Mason:
Yeah. Well, you, you are taking on the weight of addressing this in a mass approach. I mean, I dream and I think I've met people who have gone, you know, claim to have had their. Instantaneous remissions and so on and so forth coming out of the Amazon. Mm-hmm. It's gone. And I like believing in fairy, like, you know, although not, it's not a fairytale, like I know it's occurred. Mm-hmm. But I, I agree. Uh, there's like, that's why Hook is my favorite movie. There's never, never land over there and it's real. And then when you hit the ground and you approach a mass, you know, maybe we refine this to the point where we can. Get this really somewhat instantaneous, but it's not the reality right now. It's like, yeah, I'm totally with you on that. I feel every time I go and look at what cancer is, I get. Quite different definitions of what's actually going on.
Or maybe it's just because it's evolved over the years. So I'm curious how you actually define what it is on a very biological, grounded level.
Carol:
Yeah, that's a really good question, and I think the definition of cancer has evolved, and if you had asked me in. The midst of my medical training and working in the hospital setting, I would've said it's DNA mutation that has been now propagated through the, the cell lines of, of that cancer cell or cancer stem cell.
Mason:
What's the cell line? Sorry.
Carol:
So it's essentially the cell. We'll divide and we'll keep dividing. Oh, right. To create, yeah. Clones of itself,
Mason:
the line of the division.
Carol:
It precisely
Mason:
like the lineage.
Carol:
Yes, precisely. And more recently, I've come across the metabolic definition of cancer, and I feel that that feels a little bit more accurate to me, which is the one where the body has come under a state of stress and the cell now is adapting to. Essentially survive in a state of stress. And that's where it starts to, and this comes from the Warberg theory, who was a gentleman who saw that the metabolism of a cancer cell was very different to the metabolism of a normal cell. And what it starts to do is ferment glucose, and that's how it starts to survive. And. Also, there's some hallmarks of cancer, which we see that are different in cancer cells than normal cells. And those include things like they stop listening to or responding to the normal signals that would otherwise cause broken cells to die.
So what that means is they can perpetuate or survive even in an environment where they're a little bit broken. So they stop responding to the normal cell signals to die. Um, there's also, their off switch isn't, is no longer working. So cancer cells are able to proliferate in an aggressive and uncontrollable way. So normal cells don't do that. Whereas cancer cells do do that, which means they no longer respond to the switch that tells them to stop proliferating or stop dividing.
Mason:
What do those healthy cells. Well, I, I know it's a over a long period of time, but, well, I don't know if it's a group of cells or one cell or what, but what is it deprived of in the healthy self-regulated system that then triggers it? Is there anything specific that it stops being able to access or, um, yeah.
Carol:
Yeah. It's thought to be the internal environment and the DNA itself, so the DNA mutations. I thought to create the scenario where it's unable to respond to the cell signals. So you hear about it in things like mutations of specific genes that then become targets for chemotherapeutic agents to actually treat and reverse the mutation that's been identified. Uh, so we do a lot of this. When we do molecular profiling of a tumor cell, we can identify. Which of the genes have allowed the cell to essentially propagate in the way that it's pro propagating or proliferating?
Mason:
Is the metabolic theory say in terms of like a prevention or, you know, or let's at least support the body now even if we can't prevent what? Other trigger functions. You mentioned cortisol. Mm-hmm. I think I just threw thyroid out there. I don't know. 'cause I know metabolism and thyroid's tied in, but I don't know. Yeah. You know, macro nutrition, what are those? What would you be working on that you would say if these functions in the body are working, you can see whether it's observation or data that. Less chance of a tumor forming?
Carol:
Yeah, great question. So I think diet is a huge one. So nutrition is so important. Um, I think that especially in this world where there's access to fast food and processed foods, then we're introducing toxins into the system that the body never had to deal with. And it's why we're seeing different rates of cancer in this age rather than in previous ages. So nutrition is really important. Also, just the exposure to sugar or carbohydrates, preservatives, even then looking at pesticides and herbicides and environmental toxins. So all of these are the epigenetic factors that create a stressful environment for us. Cell to then have to switch. So toxins themselves, even the purity of water that we are now consuming or not consuming. And then other things that you touched on, which are the hormonal environment. So whether we've now.
Essentially in sedentary lifestyles, more sedentary lifestyles. That's a big factor That's creating more stress in the system. And then as you mentioned, as well, the worldly stress and also at personal stresses. So that can create a mindset where you are in fight or flight, you're essentially constantly in fight or flight. But there's no tiger chasing you. You are just in a state of fight or flight because that's what life has designed or that's how we've designed our lives to be. So there're some of them that we can work on. It's,
Mason:
it's always comes back to simplicity. It's like mm-hmm. There's. Endocrine disruptors out there. There is, yep. You expose yourself to an excessive toxic load. Mm-hmm. If you are doing excessive or a lack of certain macros that, you know, leave out, you know, you having a balanced mm-hmm. Diet extremism, then you're gonna stress the body. I think that's something that, it's almost too simple when you hear it, but the most difficult thing to do. Right. Because you will have genuine. Stress pop up in life consistently. And it's whether you can manage the load, have the resilience, not just to bear everything, but cut certain things, move away. Mm-hmm. Change relationships. Go on a healing journey. Stop a healing journey, and go get a job. Mm-hmm. Do your bloody taxes and prepare and actually save a bit of cash, like it's the most. For me anyway. Some people love it.
You go and talk to my brother Hayden, he's like, God, that's, damn. That's some fine life planning. It's awkward. I'm like, no taxes and consistent routine. It always comes back. To that little biological factors.
Carol:
Mm-hmm.
Mason:
Yeah, it's, it's so funny.
Carol:
I was gonna say, habit change is one of the most difficult things for human nature to do. You know, we know that from whenever we've tried to change a habit. And so we know as practitioners, when we're trying to facilitate habit change how difficult that is as well. Mm. So it takes an incredible amount of patience. And I'd say accountability is one of the most important factors for changing habits. And then. Having the awareness of what needs to change and having the wherewithal to do so. So that's not always available.
Mason:
How often do you get the I was doing everything right. I was meditating, I was eating. Right. And then in those instances, I don't know exactly what markers you are looking at, but do you then go and look at the markers and go. You were doing everything right, however, it wasn't in alignment with your biology or your endocrine system. Do you find that's always the case? Generally,
Carol:
yeah. I will often see that. And then when you dig deeper, you'll identify the true areas that. Could be improved upon that we're just in someone's blind spot. I think they're in our blind spot 'cause they're in our blind spot. And that's why it's helpful to work with a practitioner who doesn't have the same subjectivity and can actually see through to the blind spot that we've been missing or the the person, the patient's been missing. So that's why I think it's helpful to work with someone who can identify it rather than trying to put your F finger on it yourself. Yeah.
Mason:
You know, that's when I, um, pulled back from, I guess I was a health educator. I talked on a very macro level about health and detox and, you know, it's like late twenties, you know, stars in my eyes. And very aspirational in talking about like what the goal is and arriving somewhere when we get older. And then I would get like Facebook messages and Instagram messages with these like hectic like diagnosis. And then I was like, whoa, like. So outta my depth and I wonder, what am I saying that's making it seem appropriate that, you know, I was like, always was like, oh my gosh, so grateful that you would feel comfortable enough with me that you would write this to me.
But at the same time I was like, I better change because it's not appropriate that someone would associate me as outside of my, I would be like, there's gonna be a massive practitioner involvement here, and I'd go down that route. But that's the one I would get and that's where my heart would break. Is there like. With so many blind spots and someone who's gone and done personal development, that literally works on blind spots, but it just builds at times. This is again, why I take the piss out of the health world so much because I've been so affected by the building of my own fantasy and the living of my own fantasy, even though I do the.
Distinction work and the plant medicine show me things and it's all very fantastical and, and I build this world and this belief and it's, you know, mostly it's like objectively real, but there is just this holding onto fantasy that's stopping me from just like grounding and getting some very obvious. Objective feedback of what's working and what's not working.
Carol:
So well said. So well said. I've been in that same idealism where I have a philosophy of how I think it will work, but it's just not the reality of how it's unfolding. And so I just come back to the drawing board and what am I missing? And you just keep refining. I keep refining, keep refining and grounding. I think grounding is. Such an important aspect of the work we do, we can speak in Idealisms, but the truth is it needs to be grounded in reality and that's the only effectiveness that we can actually muster. So yeah, I'm glad that we're on the same page around this. Yeah, I wasn't expecting it to be honest. Oh good. Yeah, no, I definitely don't
Mason:
present that way. Again, that's why like, you know, I think you guys listening, if you've been here a while, you've heard me talk about it many times, like, why hook? I think it was my favorite movie growing up. The Peter Pan, you know, he completely grows up boring, boring, boring, loses himself, then goes and finds the appropriate way to engage with his imagination, and then has to hoo it back and then, but, you know, bring the qualities of joy. That come from imagination and then take it back into work. And your role as a parent and your role, you know, the chop would carry water essentially, which for, you know, I wouldn't put myself in a highly traumatized child, but you know, enough of a, you know, few little kinks in the childhood. It's like, God, we want that childhood to be restored. Go back and resolve it. Mm-hmm. So that we can enter into the chop wood mundane.
Benness of adulthood with the spark of joy. But you must see some pretty cathartic journeys occur when the, the reality of mortality is laid at people's, yeah. At their feet and. They're like, there's only one way and it's grounding and it's reality. It must be wild.
Carol:
Yeah, and I'd like to continue being controversial with that kind of cliche of fuck cancer. I don't tend to believe in that anymore. I used to, but now I see more of a. Uh, and it's gonna sound a little controversial, like I said, and I also don't mean to be insensitive to people's personal journeys, but I now try to shift the narrative to, can we love cancer? Can we love it into normality, so to speak? So can we bring it into the scope where we can have gratitude for what facing mortality and what that brings, what the insight that that brings to people. As you said, when people are facing their mortality, I find that it's one of the most humbling experiences for me to witness and for me to be a part of. And it's like all of the bullshit is just cut away. And what's left is this raw vulnerability that makes it so much more fulfilling to work with.
And I think we all need to be stripped down to that level of humility in order for true healing to occur. And. That dare I say, is the gift that a diagnosis like cancer can bring, even though I would never wish it on anyone nor myself, and I dunno how I'd react in a position where I was in, in that personal experience, but I find that that brings a lot more healing than the attitude of fuck cancer.
Mason:
Yeah. I don't know how I'd go with that either, but I, it is definitely, that's been one of the, um. I guess cornerstones of the counterculture. I guess there's a spectrum there. I wonder if you found someone say like smack bam in the middle of a hospital without the capacity to maybe say, to love cancer, or even made me think, I've got a friend at Lainey who has a comedian who has a podcast on her epilepsy and she's got Love Your Diagnosis. That's her show. But in say in the middle of a. Have you seen like some unicorn doctors who have like a, an allopathic wording for people in that sense where they might not use the word love or grateful, but I'm always curious as to how that sentiment, 'cause I'm with you, love is the word and probably the most potent cut to the chase. But I wonder what someone who's coming from, you know, maybe an environment where love isn't, you know? Mm-hmm.
Like a way to analytically get themselves to the point where this is genuinely a sign from the body and if you didn't have this, you would be off. And so what, you know, like practically this is something that is like not good or bad, just is, but thumbs up. You might, you know, this is like, you can't be angry at the person that. Breaks your leg stopping you from skiing off the side of, of a cliff. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Have you come across any interesting ways to describe the love of
Carol:
Yeah, that's a good question too. So I don't think I've seen it in the allopathic world the way that I'm describing it. I do agree that sensitivity is very important in around the subject as well. I think in the way I think about it is. It's almost a point that is being reached where it's giving you now the opportunity and not in every case. So in early stage, it's giving people the opportunity to change the way that they are being in the world because. They wouldn't have survived staying in that way, that of being in the world. Does that make sense? For early stage,
Mason:
so you're saying you can change through lifestyle factors?
Carol:
Yes. So it's kind of a sign to say, Hey, if you don't change the way you are, what you're doing, like how you're eating, how you're moving, the relationships, you're surrounded by, how you're looking after yourself or not looking after yourself, then you're gonna get to a stage where this is going to be incurable. Actually, you can't come back from this. And so in early stage then we've caught it at a point where all of these changes can be made so that it's not perpetuated to a point where it becomes a late stage or terminal diagnosis. However, in a terminal diagnosis, I do agree that it's a little bit trickier to love your diagnosis when you're facing it in that way. The only other way to think about it is that the fight against cancer. Puts our body in a constant state of stress.
So we are thinking about it in a way that we're at combat, and that's not necessarily a healing state to be in. Whereas if you come into a state of some sort of appreciation, gratitude, or love for the moment that's brought you here, then at least now your body, your vibration, your energy, your. Whatever it is is no longer in the sympathetic state, but it's possibly in a parasympathetic state. And the parasympathetic is the state where the immune system is boosted and it's then allowed to conquer the cancer cells. And so that's the sort of science around the attitude and what type of attitude can create a different physiology inside the body that becomes then more available for healing. I'm not saying healing's gonna occur. But it becomes more available if there's a mindset shift that brings the sympathetic into the parasympathetic. I don't know if that,
Mason:
is this the source of a lot of your talks when you go and you walk into the allopathic world? Is it around stacking odds in your favor and showing the data and the incidence of maybe not healing the cancer itself, but just keeping the body. More resilient so it can go well through treatment.
Carol:
Absolutely. We also see the outcomes are superior when we implement these holistic and integrative approaches where we are just seeing that survival, although it's not complete remission, survival is longer, quality of life is better, recurrence rates are lower. So we're seeing that in real life, which means that when we stack the odds, then those odds are more in your favor, for sure.
Mason:
Mm-hmm. I mean, it's so obvious and so difficult when it's been so entrenched in a mindset of battle and yeah, like I feel like, again, I've softened not in the sense where, I don't think, you know, that it's worthy having like just this fierce of a conversation and, and driving this into the mainstream. Likewise, I feel like the institutions, especially the ones that you've come from, are kind of like a sign of us to be like. Hey, listen, slow down. Remembering we're and dressing an entire population. Yeah, an entire mentality. An entire culture, an entire calmer, and we need to do it realistically. So I feel like that's where I've been. I was gonna say softened, but sharpened. Yeah. But it's.
If I now put that aside and stop being politically correct, it is so obvious that when you walk into that oncology clinic and it is all battle, you know you poor thing, this horrible thing is attacking you. The state of fight, freeze flight, stress, suppression of endocrine cascades and. Sometimes it works, you know, sometimes it doesn't, but you gave it a good fight. There's nothing we could do without any of the inclusion of these things. You're talking about that very, in a data driven and highly traditionally, you know, classical text driven as well in terms of what it takes to heal and improve outcomes. It's kind of blatantly been ignored at this point.
Carol:
Yeah, it certainly is, but I guess it's also why evidence-based medicine is all that they can practice. The problem with evidence-based medicine is that it's been so skewed by funding and industry and sponsorship that the evidence we do have is biased in itself. So if there was the same effort, energy and finances put into sponsoring studies that looked at integrative therapies versus. Conventional therapies alone, maybe we would have more of the data and more of the resources to create the environment where everyone's receiving the integrative approach. Even in a hospital setting, I'm encouraged because I'm starting to see it slowly, very slowly evolve. I'm hoping that it's not just because integrative is now a buzzword. Mm,
Mason:
isn't it?
Carol:
Mm-hmm. But what I am seeing is more open-mindedness. In the conventional setting. Very much so in my colleagues, especially generationally in the group that I trained with. So my hope is that it goes in that direction, and even if all we're addressing is the conversation around nutrition and diet, even if that's all we are doing in a hospital setting, I still feel it's one step forward compared to where we were.
Mason:
I'm with you. I mean, like as much as I get fired up and angry, I just think about. Maybe these doctors that are old and grizzled and you know, like bashed into a calcified corner of mentality and approach and feel completely, you know, maybe like, you know, integrated, get outta here with that. You know, you gotta feel of what it was like for them sitting in the trenches of, I guess the point is like, you know, the difference is here is, uh. A need to, I guess, commodify and make everyone the same versus an individualization and the amount of energy and EQ it takes and training it takes to individualize someone is not what they were set up with in any way. So, whereas in this gnarly transition, aren't we? And I think the thing is where the battle is, is if we're gonna be transitioning now, you'd know this on, you know, you're on the front lines, you know there's an opportunity.
And a time to strike. And if we're in that movement now, we just need to shift and get integrated as much as possible and not miss the boat in actually bridging it in as much as possible because. You're right, there's an explosion of consciousness. There's an explosion of like access to even understanding what integrative is and, but yeah, it's just a matter of how hard and fast we can actually get integrated. Right.
Carol:
I wanna quote a study in Johns Hopkins actually where they were exploring and investigating, this is why I'm encouraged the use of psilocybin mushrooms in chronic illness. Do you know Yeah.
Mason:
About psilocybin?
Carol:
Well, do you know about the studies? Not the study. I don't think,
Mason:
I mean, they've been, lots of studies have been. Yeah. Quoted, I think on here. Yeah. Um,, I'm assuming it's not this one.
Carol:
Yeah. So No, it's just that there's an actual tertiary hospital in the US Yeah. That's exploring this on a bit more of a mass scale, doing the scientific studies, the data that is taken seriously by that world, that conventional world. And so it's encouraging for me to see that the data. There's enough interest to create the study, to gather the data that can then support recommendations to be made on a wider scale. They showed massive reductions in things like anxiety and depression, chronic illness. It was even used in a population of. People with cancer, and it wasn't about healing the cancer itself, but it was more about an acceptance of mortality. And funnily enough, similar to what I'm describing, as you come to accept your mortality with more surrender, it's almost like it frees up the energy and makes it more available for healing.
So it's counterproductive that you are preparing for death, but there's a greater. Probability of healing in that preparation for death because of the mindset shift that has occurred through a psilocybin journey that's just allowed your mind to open up to the possibilities. So I wanna see more of that. There's even, I mean, let's bring it away from psilocybin and just into everyday mushrooms. There's been meta-analysis that show that the use of Turkey tail in the integrative setting, so that's either alongside conventional medicine or after the fact, improve survival by 10%. Just the use of Turkey tail mushrooms. I use all sorts of other mushrooms. In different settings to improve patient outcomes. We see it to help maintain blood counts during conventional therapy.
We see it to improve the side effects of treatment, so we see it in the treatment of peripheral neuropathy, chemo brain, things like that. Lion's mane is amazing for that. Then we also look at using it so the, I can never pronounce this properly, but agaricus blase can be used in the hormone positive cancers because it blocks aromatase, which is the enzyme that is creating estrogen in a system where we
Mason:
flower another really great aromatase inhibitor.
Carol:
It's just beautiful what we're seeing, and I feel like there's growing interest, especially in the medical population who were then conducting some of these studies. You can even. Just look on PubMed and see how many more of these publications are available. And the Society for Integrative Oncology of which I'm a member, will do an annual scientific meeting and they'll describe the different studies around botanicals. And to me that's a really riveting and positive direction we are going in. There's that much interest that an actual annual scientific meeting is addressing the botanicals and how they can be used in the setting of cancer. So that's why I'm encouraged, because I feel that the world is starting to bridge those two philosophies.
Mason:
I'm with you as well. My, I had a family member go through chemo recently and talk to the. I can't remember that. I'm pretty sure they weren't a chemo dietician, but they were a dietician that specialized to it, you know, and he ran all kinds of herbal botanicals by them, and he had a very good reason for saying, no, you know, I've had a look and it has an interaction of this. I want this. I don't want that interacted with. But actually gonna like suggest you move in this direction to other herbals and the diet was addressed. Look, it's still an institutional diet recommendation. Mm-hmm. I think the whole point is the job of that institution is to take those who don't have the energy to go and do a whole lot of their own research and maybe don't have the capacity to be completely aware of how to approach their own metabolic health. Which is, that's the counterintuitive you thing.
You, you keep on talking about this like slow awakening giant that. If you do this psilocybin appropriately, you know, lifestyle, bush walks, beach walks, meditation, diet, then you're going to see metabolic outcomes improved as just one basic measurable to see. We now know, like empirically, that with greater outcomes of your metabolism, and sure different constitutions respond different ways to in metabolic health, but we know that across the board it's the same optics that, you know, show us that someone's metabolically healthy. We know that the majesty and mystery of the body is gonna be able to go through. Either a healing or more greater chance of survival. Like I really feel, I, I respect that this institution punching out doctors and barcoded patients coming through, they need a refinement of one. KPI in the human and I really understand it.
It gets very complicated if it's like, Hey, you've got this onslaught. You are understaffed. You need to do, look at all of these things. And it's like impossible. We don't have the time or the resources. However, a refining of the few KPI seems so cold that I say that, but that's my world at the moment in business. A little refining them that, and those metabolic ones are just like, I find that really exciting as well, that they're even starting to be mentioned that maybe even. In, I've heard, maybe you can tell me in the integrative space, I'm sure like just having a look at cortisol, having a look at T one and T two. Is that coming through yet, that testing?
Carol:
Yeah, I, I also think it's unrealistic for us to expect doctors in a hospital setting to practice in this functional medicine integrative way. I feel it's unfair to put that expectation on them because, I don't know, it's just that they're stretched as it is. Yeah, and I think it's very fair to delegate to practitioners or who are so much more qualified as well. I think naturopaths are amazing how they look at the body, how they assess the body, and I feel like I've learned a lot of what I do now from. Really amazing and patient naturopathic doctors in the states and naturopaths here in Australia. So the testing has become a lot more available and a lot more popular still.
Not necessarily in the conventional hospital setting, but I'm certainly identifying a few doctors that are opening up to that, that don't necessarily market themselves as integrative, and they're just conventional, but they're using those tools. I think if, uh. Person wanted a most comprehensive assessment of the tumor and their internal environment, then they would work with either a functional medicine practitioner, an integrative oncologist, or a naturopath. I think any one of those three professions or specialties can give them information that doctors themselves might not have the capacity to conduct or or perform. And I think the availability of testing is becoming a little bit. Better. It's remained a little bit pricey, I'll be quite honest. I still feel that there's big costs around it, especially when a lot of the conventional care is Medicare and bulk builds.
Mason:
Yeah. There's no rebates on that.
Carol:
Yeah. So maybe with enough demand, we'll start to see even the Medicare and that world changing a little bit where it can hopefully start to cover some of the costs around complementary and integrative therapies where it used to, and then it kind of. Was taken away. Maybe that will start to crawl back. The other reason that a lot of these things change is because we just don't see the data that allows it to support it remaining, you know, debatable. So. I think that onus is on individual doctors and practices to publish their data and actually show that the outcomes are more favorable when we implement these strategies. And then that is enough to hopefully support an application to Medicare to have whatever it is covered by Medicare. So I think it needs to be, it's patient driven and then industry driven.
Then hopefully there's changes that then allow more patients to access testing that at the moment just feels completely unaffordable. Yeah.
Mason:
Oh my gosh. There's so much to go through. Look, probably coming up towards the end. But one of the things in terms of integration, just something you brought up then around publishing results, because the one thing I. Maybe there's, we've got 5%, we've got 5% of psychopaths in the population that actually are the, you know, so if anyone's like, no, not my doctor, or not my person, or whatever it is, like humans are, we're trying to create like a, we're trying to create a beautiful world. We're trying to, you know, the intentions of like, I mean, I've never come across one of those, you know, like a doctor who generally didn't have the greatest interest of, you know, someone who, you know, someone in my family, and likewise nurses.
People are really trying to drive to the same thing, but we've just got these pockets of institutions that are under such burden and stress and have understandably like a myopic outcome. You know? And there's insurances involved, there's the people funding them and not letting them go in other directions. But is there any type of conversation? I often think about Jing Q and Chen. Like, not that I'm suggesting this is an approach. When I talk to practitioners, I talk to them about having a unified goal or outcome for all patients, which soften the myopic ones that we have. And likewise, my soften, my myopic one that I have as a decentralized non practitioner who's involved in people healing as well, because I become very excessive if people follow. Me as well. And that beam.
You know, like we look at a person's jing, which is perhaps their epigenetic health, their long-term bone health, long-term endocrine, self-regulating capacity so that they, and they're not going to be super susceptible to degenerating. Then there's their qi, which is daily energy, daily metabolic energy, you know, life force to go through and really not just survive, but hopefully thrive through the big challenges and knowing you might be going through this now, there's gonna be another big challenge for this person coming up. So we need to maintain their health and their capacity to get through that next thing. 'cause. I don't know about, um, I'm sure you have. I've seen a lot of people successfully survive treatment and get a big tick and pat us all on the back. Something stressful happens to them.
Bang they go despite the fact that they're someone in remission and successful treatment. They were left. Hyper susceptible, um, walking on eggshells. They weren't referred to anyone to rebuild or anything along those lines. And then likewise, she is that person. We're gonna try and get 'em to the end of their life or to their death if it's coming sooner. With being, you know, wise, mind intact, emotions intact, and being a rad, individualized person. I can talk about like. Think about that person at 80 and 90 and then it'll often soften the edges and force you to have to open up to, I can't not open up to working. I have to work with a naturopath, even though it's difficult and we don't see, I, I have to work with. An oncologist because I just can't take any chances and it softens and forces that integration in a way.
I don't know what the west, I don't expect the DAOs terminology to be that thing, but is there, as you see integration happening and a handing over a profiles, do you see some kind of like growing macro intent or outcome that is work is starting to occur?
Carol:
Yeah. What if I said it happens organically? What if I said that it doesn't necessarily need to be looking like an organization that's lobbying at the moment. What if, and this might sound way too woo woo, but what if just the little. Each person's little individual consciousness opening up and waking up each little practitioner, little humble practitioner like myself, but then there's another one and another one and another one. And as we keep popping up, what if consciousness itself is driving it? What if consciousness itself gets to a point where now there is an organization that's large enough that can lobby a trend that has been the convention for so long, that then creates this change. So what that does for me, it doesn't mean that.
I shirk my responsibility, I will take my responsibility for what it is right here, but it also means it takes the load off my shoulders to change the world. And I trust that if I see it in my highest level of expression and I invite others into their highest level of expression, that somehow there's gonna be such a ripple and knock on effect that it's gonna organically create exactly the vision that you and I are describing and seeing. But at least I'm relieved of feeling like it's burdensome for me to do it or that it's hopeless because then it's just the the, is it the hundredth monkey or the 10th monkey? I don't know how many monkeys it took, but maybe that's all it takes.
Mason:
I love it. The thing you said there, I talked to, I think there's a few. A couple of oncologists I've come across, maybe when I was in like my mid twenties, I was quite judgemental towards like the neurologists that like were, you know, that were working on my mother. And I think about them now and the pressure they're under, the silo that they're in, you know, the industry pressure and you know, this, the load that they were under, the watching, the emotional spiritual loads that their patients were under and. That alleviating of all weight of responsibility, where you nail what you're doing, and then that conscious opening of like, okay, then hand it over to this person. You don't, you're not in a silo anymore. It's not all on you. It's so important, you know, healing the healers. Caring for the carers, isn't it? Mm,
Carol:
it is. It is, it's also just receiving them with compassion and trusting that the vision that we hold is a vision that can be shared and is translatable. And it doesn't mean not grounding it, it doesn't mean not taking, you know, actionable steps towards it. It does. It does involve that too. But I think our personal energies the most, we're responsible for in any one moment. And there's a lot that can be done in that moment.
