Unlocking Your Body's Healing Potential with Kelly Gores

Michael: Hey! What's up, Unbroken Nation! Hope that you're doing well, wherever you are in the world today. I'm very excited to be back with another episode with my guest Kelly Gorse. Kelly is the writer-director and producer of HEAL a documentary feature about the mind-body connection and our body's innate ability to heal. She also authored the follow-up book HEAL and is the host of the podcast Heal. Kelly, my friend, welcome to the show. I don't think I've ever said heal that many times in one sentence. How are you? What is going on in your world today?

Kelly: Thank you for having me, Michael. And yeah, I'm just sitting here in awe of how you just pump these amazing episodes out and your intention is so pure to help people heal. So I'm happy to be here and ironically I had a busy week. I have a two-year-old, who's fighting a cold. So I'm doing my best to self-care right now because I feel myself I could be falling off the cliff here and not practicing what I preach but otherwise, I'm doing great!

Michael: Yeah, well I get that. I think so much of life is very much like this weird ebb and flow of the balance of like – am I doing the things that I'm always telling other people to do? And recently about two months ago, I cleared like a whole schedule. I was just like, everybody knows I've got to take care of me and you know, I think that's actually a really wonderful place that we can start this conversation is talking about a little bit of your journey, your background and what has brought you to this moment?

Kelly: Yeah, great. Great question. I wish it was an easy, succinct answer. A lot of people have, you know, one event in their life the kind of slapped him over the head, a diagnosis or a loss that got them interested in healing and health. I think mine was more of a long life journey and definitely a calling. I haven't luckily had to deal with anything very serious myself and I haven't lost anybody to a serious disease, which is quite shocking because you would assume that I had, but I think, it was just a little series of events that happened over life. One very quickly was in high school, I went on a camping trip with my friends and my mom was like just, you know, don't get sick, take care of yourself, don't drink too much kind of thing and sure enough. I came home and was sick for a week and my glands are swollen and so, you know, as High School, people assume that you get, mononucleosis, I got tested for mono, I got tested for Epstein-Barr, you know, and I tested negative for everything. I just had these massive glands and coming out of my neck. So I got better felt fine, but I still had these glands swollen. They threw every antibiotic at it at the time we didn't know what a detriment antibiotic will do to the gut. So we just took them and try them and they didn't go, you know, the glands are still there cut to six months later, they decided to do a lymph node biopsy. I went under general anesthesia for the first time, they did an instant incision in the side of my neck, again, inconclusive benign. And a few months later, I went to my mother's chiropractic appointment and he felt my glands and he said, try taking a shot of apple cider vinegar twice a day for the next week and I did and sure enough in a week my glands were gone after a year of like throwing everything at it.

So I think that may be planted a seed even if I wasn't conscious at the time of like, I'm not really into like there's something more than just this Western medicine, you know, cut burn poison kind of thing. And then I became kind of more of a spiritual, mental, emotional journey. And ultimately, I just wanted to put all the teachers that empowered me into a film to empower others because we've just kind of been hypnotized slowly and conditioned to believe throughout the last 150 years that you know, the answer lies outside of ourselves. And, once I learned about epigenetics and how really our bodies are designed to heal and we're healing and every moment it's just, we get in the way with stress and diet and other with all these other things that put a burden on the system that, you know if we just learn how to get out of our own way and actually do things that support our natural healing process so much more as possible than we're told.

Michael: Yeah, and I agree with that, and I look at my own journey. And I think if you're a child of the 80s like I am or earlier. Antibiotics, always seem to be the precursor to healing, right? It was always throwing it at it, throw it out, like, take this, and I tallied this up one time that I estimate that I'd been on antibiotics 40 times, by the time that I was 30 years old. And, you know, so I grew up in a place where there was no nutrition, there was a lot of poverty and homelessness in my life and I said this in passing it, something that I think is funny but it actually holds a lot of weight. I didn't have a salad for the first time tells probably like 20 years old it was all processed food, government food stores, house food, things like that, I end up getting sibo, I end up getting seed if, I end up getting E.coli and you know, that's that all comes from, I think an antibiotic usage but also the massive amount of chronic stress growing up and I was living in Bali was livid Ubud Bali when your documentary Heal came out and I was watching it. I was like damn where was this shit 15 years ago? When I actually needed someone to be like – Yo! Maybe there's another way to step through sinus infections other than this. So, what I'm curious about is, you know, I think we often have this opportunity as storytellers, which innately, I think we are you go back hundreds and thousands of years, we sat around campfires, we told stories that was how we create a narrative and connection as a community.

And I think we're often driven by this idea like, oh, there's just thing I want to talk about this story that I want to tell, but we kind of get stuck in held back due to the fear of possible repercussions that come with this. And I recognize and I understand that on the backside of you, creating what was a practical and really empowering film for me, there were a lot of people who, like, who does this person think they are? What are they talking about this is nonsense, blah, blah blah? How do you step into this place where you're willing to confront that and say, you know what, my message and my story is worth, whatever comes along the backside of it?

Kelly: Yeah, great question. I anticipated a lot more kind of scrutiny and push back than I received so that was kind of odd. I think that leading up to it, you know, actually this the movie, The Secret was one of my kind of initial seed planters of doing this film because it was a film that not particularly my documentary style, but I took these nuggets away that I applied instantly in my life and within months’ weeks my life changed and I was like – wow! It is all energy and what we put out there we do get back and it just opened my eyes and I applied it and I was very empowered. And so, around the same time, as I watched the secret, I started meditating, I was going to Agape, and I was listening to Michael Beckwith, I'm sure, you know, him, he teaching and he was just empowering me like – we're co-creators with life, and if we get a calling in our heart, within every acorn as an oak tree within every dream, is everything you need to see that dream realized.

If you have a calling to be an actor, if you have a calling to be a poet, if you had a calling to be an astronaut, that means that life, nature, the universe, God, whatever you believe puts that calling, there, you have the ability to see realize.

So I was acting at the time, and I've been acting my whole life, I grew up in Southern, California, and off and on because it's just a tough business. You're getting rejected all the time and I actually initially started seeking out healers to, like – remove the block so, I would be a better actor and just be free unless self-conscious. And so like around the same time, I started listening to Michael's teachings, practicing my gratitude work, and seeing you know, crazy manifestations occur and just my life feeling better and I really got these concepts that we are co-creators. So and then I started meditating at the time so that that really rooted everything down.

So all of that to say, once I was ready to do the film I just had complete trust that this calling in my heart, and the reason I brought up acting was that I started getting more excited talking about manifestation and healing and epigenetics, and we have so much more power than we've been led to believe and is a world of infinite possibility. I started lighting up talking about that and less so talking about acting something that I thought I wanted to pursue my entire life and so I paid attention to that.

And once I was ready to do the film, it took about eight years marinating, this idea and gathering more research, and more experts and once I was finally ready to do it, I was just like, you know God take the wheel, you put this calling in my heart, it is very strong. So I'm just going to trust that, it's all going to unfold and I'm just going to say yes and keep moving forward and let you take care of the hard stuff.

Michael: Yeah, and I think that's so much of the human experience, right? We all have dreams, we all have ambition, we have goals, but the reality in and I think one of the biggest misconceptions that people have about creating your life is like, you actually have to do some stuff, like as much as I love meditation and journaling and it's a part of my daily practice. I know that those things are simply catalyst for me to figure out like, okay, cool. Now I have a better and more fine-tuned understanding of what it is that I'm going to have to do to make this dream, idea, a vision come to fruition.

When you're in this and you're starting to build this out in your learning and your growing and you're like, okay, this is the story that I want to tell, I think that a big part of it as we subconsciously fight ourselves, right? And we're in this place where, all right, I have this idea, have this dream but who am I to tell it? How do I do that? Why me? Was that a part of your narrative in this as well? And if so, like, how did you combat that?

Kelly: Yes, for sure. I think we all have that like, moments of impostor syndrome. I now have a very successful film and a book and a podcast and a platform and I still question like, who am I to be this like wellness expert. I still have human flaws. I still get sick. I overdo it or we're evolving, it's an ongoing process of healing, healing will stop, will be healing up until the day we leave this physical body. So absolutely, and again, I love what you said, it's like we have these daily practices, but we, it's all to stay grounded and have that clear communication between our kind of higher self, our guidance, spirit, whatever you want to call it to then get clear on what action you need to take. So, again, it was just like, it was such a strong calling in my heart, it was such a clear vision people kept coming up to me and saying, how are you so happy? How are you so healthy? What do you eat? What do you do? What's your workout? And so I literally was like, well, I can't I'm just going to put all of the people that empowered me into a film and it's still strange to me that it was about healing because again, but I just was like, there's so much more than just taking a pill to manage a symptom.

We can do extraordinary things if we're just given first the awareness, then the tools and then the examples of possibilities. So inspiring stories of other people who did extraordinary things. So I just really trusted that passion pull and my heart and I think it was a big, because Michael Beckwith is so inspiring. He's up on the stage and he's like, fire and me up, I'm like, yeah, I can do this. So it was just that perfect storm of inspiration support and I've always been of a risk-taker, I played three Varsity Sports. I'm a competitive athlete, you know, I want to push myself to see my potential.

So, that was the last factor was just like, I'm just going to do it and I'm going to do see where it goes. I'll jump, I'll take the leap.

Michael: Yeah, and so much of it is taking the leap and on the backside of that leap because what I think about all of the time, like, if you face your fear, on the backside of being willing to face that like greatness awaits you or at least a really cool a story, right? And so, I think about that all the time and one thing in my healing journey, not only from the traumatic experience of my life but the physical healing that my body went through, was really recognizing that there is a part of your body which when you understand biology, the number one thing is our brain is designed for is survival. So, what does that mean? You have to be able to heal, you have to be able to continue to be resilient. What I'm curious about those if you'd be willing to dive in and talk a little bit more about the human body and the way that it is designed to in every moment, right? Be able to look at disease and symptoms as feedback and ways that we can kind of step into the healing process and yet somehow in that we still seem to intend to get into our own way.

Kelly: Absolutely. So, just a few like pillars that, I think might change someone's perception. If this is the first time they're hanging out of it, is the signs of epigenetics. So we've been told for, beginning of time our whole lives that we are victims of our genes or were subject to our genetic code, and to an extent, this is true, but what we learn with the science of epigenetics and Bruce Lipton is one of the pioneers in this field as a stem cell biologist. He discovered that it's actually environment that turns genes on and off. So, genes are like little switches, our genetic code is a blueprint, but then it's our lifestyle choices, our lifestyle behaviors, the diet that creates an environment within the body. Literally, our physical environment around us, if there are toxins, if there's nature, fresh air, polluted air, all of that, will create an environment or outside of us, and then our perception of the environment. So, we have this brain that from the age of 0 to 7 years old, this brain is just like a computer, that's downloading software programs from the people around you. So usually your parents or your grandparents, the people that are raising you, your teachers, and you're just, like a sponge, picking up the behaviors, and learning how to survive in the world by paying attention to the people around you.

So, when we talk about, oh, it's genetic. Well, a lot of these genetic expressions are because you have the same pattern of diet, environment, behaviors, beliefs about life, those subconscious programs become your belief system and they're kind of downloaded into you between the ages of zero and seven, they're not even your beliefs you’re just adopting them from other people, so and then they color the lens through which you look at life. And the best example of this is if you are raised a snake charmer in, let's say India and you were taught to be around snakes and how cobras or whatever, I'm just making this up I know nothing about sinks Army. If they are signs of a good omen and power and it's actually a blessing, if you get bit or whatever the story is, you're going to have a very different experience in your body than someone who is afraid of snakes, you're walking down the path, one person sees a snake and has a flood of oxytocin and joy because it's the good omen they've been asking for, and they're not afraid of the snake and the other person is going have stress chemicals and adrenaline's person through their body. So based on their belief system they have two completely different biochemical reactions in their body.

And so, our subconscious beliefs absolutely always need to be addressed when you are doing any kind of healing because they're just this, their subconscious we're not even aware that this lens is coloring our life and attracting people circumstances, etc. to give us feedback as to, what we're believing about life.

And then the final component of that you talked about symptoms and physical disease. You know, our symptoms are your body telling us that there's an imbalance, so whether it's a skin rash, with it's a pain in your neck, whether it's appendicitis, whatever your symptom is, that's giving you feedback that there's something off and Western medicine tends, to give you immediate relief by silencing that symptom by steroids to get rid of the rash, you're basically taking away the feedback. It would be the same as if your house starts to get on fire, the smoke alarms going off because the smoke is billowing up and that smoke alarm is really annoying, it's really painful, it's itchy but instead of putting out the fire, you just take out the batteries of the smoke alarm so you don't have to hear that feedback. And so as we understand that, we know that, we may have to take the batteries out just so we can have sanity while we're putting out the fire, but if we never put out the fire, we're just going to have to keep, we're never going to really heal, we're just managing disease through symptom management. 

Michael: Yeah, and I think one of the parts is difficult about that is and I've come to understand this in my own personal journey. Like, the pain has been such a part of my human experience, growing up in a hyper-vigilant cortisol, state, where I'm constantly invited in flight for effectively really what I'd call the first 27 years of my life in looking at the detrimental health ramifications of that and looking at a measuring, my life now, heading into my late 30s and going okay, how do I manage pain? How do I manage to heal? How do I grow into this place where I have an understanding and maybe I'm wrong in it, but I think pain is a part of the human experience and I felt like the more I tried to numb it, right? Drugs, alcohol sex, that kind of thing, and then add on Pharmaceuticals because my doctor said, well, that's the thing that you're supposed to take. The more I felt removed from my body and then I started getting this other practice as like well, what is this yoga thing people keep talking about and like 11 years ago I started doing yoga and nobody was doing yoga, not in Indiana, I promise you, it wasn't happening.

And so, I'm in this thing where I'm like, trying to learn this and trying to get deeper into myself and there's a still, this programming, and this is kind of what I want to talk about in dive into you with you a little bit deeper.

So let's say, look at someone's life and they've gone through traumatic childhood like me and they have grown up in a cortisol state and they have tremendous anxiety, depression and stressors, they always have a creek in their neck, their so as always hurts, their vagus nerve is all over the place, the more like the amygdala is misfiring but you know it all right you've heard it all. What do you do? Because like to me, the simplified answer, is everyone goes well go to the doctor, take a med, go talk to therapy, you’ll be fine. My experience is, that's literally not what works, so, I'm curious about your thoughts.

Kelly: Yeah, exactly. So there's especially when you're dealing with trauma, like, so many people are, we talked about this in the film and Darren Wiseman, says; it much more articulately than I could it's articulately at work. And he talks about, these like a disease or symptoms as gifts and very strange wrapping paper and often when trauma occurs, we don't have the tools because it's just too painful, our body literally thinks we're going to die. So we just have this survival mechanism, our brain does the shutdown like we repress or suppress our feelings, and we go into a state of shock and we just survived because it's just too much for paying for us to process, emotional pain or physical pain, or both often.

So if we don't ever address and that just becomes everything is energy, right? If you go down to the molecular level and atomic level, we're just different, you know, waves and particles vibrating at different speeds. So we talked about that in the film too, so that is an entered that the suppressor repressed feelings, emotional pain trauma gets stuck in our system, whether it's in our aura, whether it's in our shoulder, whether it's in our liver, wherever that is, it just gets stuck and until we can go back and figure out the ways to and there are so many different modalities, as I'm sure you've explored on the show, to really like let it go like – figure out a way to go into where that energy is stuck and this is what again, we call it alternative medicine, Eastern medicine, but that Eastern medicine has been around for thousands upon thousands of years whereas, Western medicine has been around for like 300 or the philosophies behind it. And so it's all about energy meridians, it's all about getting our freeing up our life force Archie, chakras, whichever culture that you are and kind of type of traditional medicine, you're seeking, there are different ways to unstuck that energy that we have trapped in our system that if not addressed over time will lead to, you know, something in our gut or psychological mental illness.

So for things like that, I mean, it's yes, we are the healers and we have the ability to heal but sometimes, you know, we all we're all humans, we have blind spots, we need to seek out some therapies and modalities that can help us tap into where those things are stuck and process them because now we have tools now, we're an adult, we're not a scared child, whatever it may be, and we can we have the ability now the capacity to process what happened so that then we can release it free up that energy and get the system moving as it was designed to move.

Michael: Yeah, I agree with that and I had this really profound experience once where I'd walked into an EMDR session and I came out of it and I felt just this unbelievable sense of relief and tension that had left my body whereas I'd have this tension in my life forever, right? It's just natively turned on and what happened at that moment as I recognized something that I would later come to better understand when I read John Sarno's book healing back pain was when you get to this place where you can start to expose what you're holding inside he has no choice but to release and I think it's going to be a different pace in a different speed for everyone who goes through it.

And I will say this facing the difficulties of the truth of the reality of your experience is the only way that you're set free from them. And I know that's hard and that was my experience for a long time. I was like, I just keep this in. I'm strong, I'm strong, I'm strong, but then it's like, eating you alive and eventually, you have to come to this place where you recognize like you have to sit down that burden, it is not yours to carry alone and if you try to okay for context, I was at a point in my life as having five panic attacks a day and was like, oh, this is weird, hmm, okay, cool, I just tried all the different things, I started meditating and it started to dissipate. I started journaling dissipated more. Started getting serious about therapy, wow, they're few and far between now I think today had like to panic attacks in the last five years, right? Because there is a release that comes through that, but here's what I think is interesting. A lot of people will look at Eastern medicine, which I'm a proponent of I think there's a mix and balance for both, of course, and I'll go, that's just the placebo effect. And I know that you have some thoughts around Placebo and the Nocebo effect and I would love for you to talk about that a little bit.

Kelly: Yeah. So the placebo was kind of all aware of, you know, actually incorporate it into the testing drugs because it is a factor in everything we do, there's an element of placebo and so like when they're testing a drug, they have one group that's taking the actual chemical, let's just take the antidepressant world as an example because the placebo is very clear here in these studies and then they test it against a sugar pill or an eight substance, so if you put this sugar pill in your body, it's not gonna have any biochemical reaction in your body that has any sort of consequential reaction. Then they're comparing the response from that group, the placebo group against the response of the people taken the actual drug and neither the scientists nor the participants know which one they're taking, so they're all kind of going in expecting to feel better on this antidepressant.

So what they found is in 40-50 up to 75% of the placebo group had similar beneficial response to the sugar pills. So an inert substance yet they report feeling better in their body and their mind and their spirit, which is what they were expecting if they took the antidepressant. What's interesting is everybody says, oh, well, that's all in their mind they didn't actually feel better, they're just like, oh, I'm they're pretending but what people don't realize is the placebo effect is a real effect, our brain is our most powerful Pharmacy. And so when there is a ritual, which is taking a pill like we've all taken a pill and we expect a response from that pill, so and I barely take anything unless it's an infection or something acute that I need to address but if I have a headache and it persists, usually, when I have a headache, it's something that I've done that causes it, so I know exactly where it's from. I'll take an Advil and take an Advil so many times that over my life that I'm going to expect that it'll relieve my pain within 20 to 30 minutes.

So there's the ritual of taking the pill and then the conditioning of having that relief after taking that pill. So when you combine the ritual and the conditioning in the meaning, but I'm okay that this is an antidepressant and I know that taking a pill will give me sort of relief or what that's going to do in 30 minutes and so, your body expects that. So whether it's the sugar pill, or the antidepressant, your brain, then releases, the actual chemistry that the pill you're taking or, one group is taking is delivering to you. So basically if it's an SSRI, that's like – whatever that pill does, your brain is actually doing it in the bodies of its releasing that exact neurochemical reaction and neurochemistry in the placebo group. So it's not just in your mind, your brain is physically releasing something, it's the same as when you working out, you've heard of endorphins your body endorphins are your body, your brains natural, morphine-like substances. So you feel fantastic, but these endorphins so our brain is a very powerful Pharmacy and you know, it has so much power. So just imagine what that says I mean, we could take an inert substance that has zero negative side effects, and with the proper conditioning and ritual and meaning, we can release the exact chemistry we need to feel better or heal and whatever way. So there's so much to be done to support the placebo, unfortunately, science today, just kind of discards it and looks at it as a metric to see how effective their drug is, but that's very exciting.

And then on the flipside of that, you mentioned the nocebo, that's kind of the negative belief and we see this, it's so detrimental, we've been conditioned again, conditioning as a part of this. We've conditioned to believe that doctors, you know, go through medical school, they're smarter than us, they're educated, they know they're specialists, they know, much more than we do about this certain condition or whatever.

So, if a doctor, if the authority in a white coat, we give them meaning that they know more than we do. If they tell us, you have three to six months to live, you've got the stage, whatever, cancer and we buy into that, we believe that creates a negative belief system and bell curve, 70% of the time, 80% of the time, you're going to fall into that, and they just continued the statistic because you believe it and then your body starts to degenerate and they see it time and time again, where you've given a wrong diagnosis, and they end up following that three to six months, prognosis path, they die and then they go back and look at the charts and they're like, oh my God, they didn't even have what we thought they had. So belief is so powerful and we have to be very careful about what we buy into and so in and heal kind of our motto is seek out the best medical, you know information, go to the best Specialists, get as much information you can, get the diagnosis, find out what's going on, but never let anybody tell you what's possible for you. Don't accept a prognosis, especially one that is not favorable to what you believe, or feeling your body is right for you.

Michael: Yeah, and that's, you know, there's so much about ownership in that, right? And taking control over your life and I think that one of the hardest parts for many people's we're used to not taking ownership over our life. We're used to just people going, this is the way that you do it, you know, don't color the moon purple in third grade, walk on the right side of the hall, go to the bathroom after you raise your hand, this is the way that you do it, go to high school, go to college, job, career, pick it thins, blah, blah, blah, whatever. And then you're in this position where you have to do this thing called taking care of yourself, and you don't really know how to do it because of conditioning, right? To your point then you're faced with this really interesting dichotomy or juxtaposition I should say of wanting to take care of yourself, but not feeling empowered to do it because we do Harold people who have doctorates or whatever has so much far and above us. And that was my experience too until I walked into a doctor's office one day I'm battling this tremendous thing and sibo, right? The small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, and it's just destroying my life, is destroying my livelihood, it's crippled me and I walk into this gastroenterologist office and the guy was morbidly obese, sitting there eating candy, and I was like, oh, wait for a second, there's something extremely wrong here. And I left, and I did the thing they always tell you not to do, I got on fucking WebMD, then I just started trying to like puzzle piece this thing together. Well, fast forward like literally 45, doctors and a lot of money later, I finally recognized like, okay, if I'm going to have the solution for this, I need to find the doctor who's willing to listen to me and let me be the one who's in control of my life, right? I turned down every like I had a doctor went to remove my colon and I was like, woah, woah, dude, like we're not there yet like I'm not there and that's what's really difficult about this entire journey is because we want to trust in medicine, we want to trust that people have our best interests in mind for us but ultimately, sometimes it really comes down you have to trust yourself first. And in that, that's how you're going to create change in your life and luckily enough I found a doctor and she was like, oh, you definitely have sibo, let's do a breath test. My methane levels were off the chart, couldn't record them, they were so high and I end up doing a fecal matter transplant, Eastern medicine coming into play here. I won't go in the details for if you want to find out, you got on your own research and it literally saved my life, right? I was on the other side of E coli on the other side of c-diff, and it really came about this thing about ownership.

So looking at that and understanding like taking control of your life, while in the context of Western medicine and living in a western state and trying to put yourself in a position to take care of yourself and balancing this idea that doctors know, best like from a practical standpoint. Do you think there's a way for people to do that is beneficial and not actually endangering themselves?

Kelly: Yeah, I think, one of my favorite parts of the film is the research done by Kelly Turner who was getting her doctorate degree and she was actually studying cancer, she wanted to be a scientist researcher and she was looking at all these spontaneous healing cases. And so, basically, she would these people was sent home to die, they were like, okay, your stage four, we've done all, we've tried the five chemos, we've done the radiation, we've done the surgery, it's still spreading, there's nothing we can do, you know, good luck go, get your affairs in order. And she kept finding more and more people who were sent home to essentially die and they were all living years later. So she was like, isn't it? We should be studying these people, what these people dead, you know, and again she likes to be very careful. Like her research is specific to cancer, she studied 1500 cases of people that were sent home to die and spontaneously healed a radically were missed and what they do and she found that they did these 10 essential things. At the time I made heal was nine, she has since added movement/ exercise, which when she went back to her research, they all did a version of movement even just walking.

And so these 10 essential things, one of the things that they all did was follow their intuition and this is Sookie. I mean, literally, our answers are within us and these why I like journaling, seeing a therapist, meditating all of these things to quiet the noise and to distill down to what our truth is and what our heart is pulling us to do and we are such intelligent sensitive creatures I mean, this is why if someone walks into the room and we get chills, you know, that could be a good thing, it could be like wow, that's my soul mate or it could be a very bad thing. So there, ever again, everything is energy and we can have coherent vibes with someone or incoherent vibes to someone and if we are our practice presence and awareness, enough and practice these things that strengthen our intuition like meditation, yoga, spending time in nature, disconnecting, from technology, etc., all of these things really enhance this inner voice. We all have this connection to the Divine or our higher self or our soul spear whatever terminology you do and if you don't believe in any of it, I mean, synchronicities happened in your life where you think of someone and they call, I mean, we are very connected to each other and so, we have this internal guidance system. And so the following your intuition is essential to healing and so I would just recommend, as you that, you went through 45 doctors, just really listening like if walking in and seeing someone eating candy and who's not the picture of health, that's a little bit of your intuition going. I'm not just going to blanketly trust him because he's got seven degrees on the wall, and he's admired in this field at this does not resonate with me that's a little bit of intuition. So we all have it and it will never lead you astray, that's how beautiful nature is. We have this built-in really this internal guidance system and we just have these practices to connect with nature, disconnect with tech from tech and really turn within, or just quiet the mind or do yoga to, just keep getting all the energy flowing so that communication is really clear intuition is never going to lead you astray and it's just going an art and a science and it just takes practice to learn how to listen and decipher what's intuition, or what's your kind of critical mind or was someone else's, you know, believe that they've thrown on your head, but in your intuition will never lead you astray and the key is just finding how to tune into that voice so that you have that guidance available to you.

Michael: That was so profound for me and my journey. One of the things I always recommend to my clients when I'm coaching them I talk about that in the podcast ad nauseam for a reason because it's a truth I mean; it is like the best GPS system you could ever have in, your spot on, you know, is this going to make your life better is that not like make up your mind, but listen, like, trust yourself. What I'm really curious about is, were there any misconceptions that you had personally prior to making this documentary and going through this journey with yourself about medicine about healing, about health that ultimately became debunked in your experience?

Kelly: You know, before I did the film. I was pretty well-versed in all these experts' teaching because they had such a profound effect on my life and I read all their books and so there wasn't much room for surprise in interviewing the experts. I also followed two people on real healing journeys that was like, I want to do a documentary where I'm not just interviewing people that have healed as a talking head. I really want to understand the nuances of the like healing journey, there's no one-size-fits-all, you know the recipe for healing I wish there was but there are so many factors. And so I think the biggest surprises were or just kind of you know things that made me pause, just all of the intricacies of like – what would blind spots we have? Because I've follow one woman who has this really intense skin disease and these this mystery illness. She's been to every specialist under the sun still to this day she really doesn't have answers and I followed her on the journey and it's clear to the audience like some of these she's got some serious trauma that is trapped in her body, you know, and it's her condition is like expressing through the skin and skin is often tied to the liver, livers often time to anger and you want to make assumptions. But like it was really clear to me that she had some unprocessed trauma and she was so brave and allowed, was vulnerable enough to allow me to film her working with a practitioner and she was doing EFT and Reiki and had some really beautiful emotional releases and it's mostly everybody's favorite part in the film because we get a cathartic release as an audience with her really genuine release of this trauma that she shares with us, her mother and her father are leaving her and just what she's had to do.

And so, you know, I think that it may be like – so clear to us and I have judgments about what she needs to do to heal but she's still on her healing journey, and I was put in check many times like this is not my journey to be on and I think I know like what may help her or what she's got going on, but everybody's got to go through their own journey. So I think it was less of like a surprise, it was more just like a humbling like, it's not but healing is not black and white, it's so complex and complicated. There are so many elements to it and I just continue to see that we're all human and we have our blind spots. I mean, even the experts in the film, once you like to meet these people, they're still human and they may be like on the platform pedestal preaching, these profound things that are changing people's lives but in their daily lives, they have their own blind spots in our seeking out healing and help and support from an outside mirror to reflect back to them. So I think I guess that would be the thing it's just like we all have our blind spots and to be very compassionate for someone else's journey because, you know, we're all kind of fighting this invisible battle than, you know, other people aren't quite aware of that gravity of the battle that we're all facing in our lives.

Michael: Yeah, and I definitely subscribe to that and I think about this constantly like being in these positions, like, I also have people I looked towards, I understand, and I know that I don't know everything and that's been such a beautiful part of maybe understanding myself in a deeper way is looking at my life and going, I know a lot, but actually, I don't know anything because there's fucking 8 billion people on planet Earth and there's always more to learn, always more to decipher, always more to cultivate and that's been really beautiful I mean, same reason I have coaches, I have mentors, I read 70 books a year because I always in this position where I'm like, how do you extrapolate what took somebody else 15 years to understand but then also at the same time, (A) have the humility to recognize, like I don't understand this and then (B) probably, more importantly, have gratitude for it. And I think about the role that gratitude has played in my life and I know that people like shouting this from the rooftop, but I'm interested in your thoughts on gratitude in relation to co-creating with other people and what it means to allow that to be a part of your daily practical tools.

Kelly: Yeah. I love gratitude. I think I mean we talked about often about love is like the greatest healing kind of, you know, the greatest healer is love, you know, and I personally believe that. We come from Anita Moorjani was my film and she had a near-death experience and kind of died went to the other side and joined basically the source, you know, like love that surpasses human understanding that's how she described it in the essence of her father and his beautiful story and when she came back into her body, her body healed from stage 4 cancer, which there is not a human of those eight billion people on the planet, you would look at her organs were shutting down, the lemon-sized tumor is coming out her body, just she was so far gone, there's no way that you could physically recover from the state that she was in and within three weeks, no cancer left in her body and she was a healthy woman again, because of the shift in consciousness that she had in connecting with source and forgiveness with the essence of her father.

And so again, love is the greatest healer, a lot of philosophers believe it, certainly, all the experts in the film do, but then we get to gratitude and I think gratitude is like the greatest creative force, you know, and Joe Dispenza who is in the film and I follow a lot and I do his meditations a lot. He talks about combining visualization with elevated sandwiches gratitude. So he healed his own spine by he was just paralyzed in a bed and the doctors told him he's gonna be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life, which is devastating to him he was a triathlete and all he had was the power of his mind. So every day visualize his back healing and then he'd get distracted, and his mind would go to him in a wheelchair and then he'd bring it back and he would just practice visualizing the healing. And then he realized, then he got through the body, like the whole spine healing and he odd picture himself, running on a beach, or taking a hot shower, all these things that he had taken for granted before that he really, you know, missed and he's like God if I can get back to this if I can heal I will never take for granted anything again. And so he would feel the feelings of being in love walking on the beach, making love, having a hot shower, running a triathlon, all these things he took for granted and he would just feel the gratitude and what he found he eventually healed within 10 weeks, he was walking and within 12 weeks, he was training and again, for the next Triathlon, again, miracle story, but his formula that he found was visualizing using the power of the mind, seeing what you want, whether it's healing, whether it's a relationship, whether it's abundance, whether it's a goal that you have, a promotion, a child, whatever it is. So every day getting into a meditative state and just even if it's just five minutes a day picturing what you want and then feeling the gratitude as if it's already in your life and that generates such as that puts out such a strong signal into the world and I've done it in my life with gratitude journaling and it feels silly at first because you're giving your like thanking like, I have a baby, you know, like doing all the things but gratitude if you can just do that exercise every day and you flood your body with oxytocin and he's elevated emotions, which releases really healing energizing chemistry in your body. You know, the brain doesn't recognize if something is happening in reality or something is just happening in our imagination that's why we can think of the past trauma that's happening and it feels as stressful and scary as it is the moment it's happening. So the brain doesn't know it is still releasing that stressful chemistry, it thinks we're going through the trauma right now. So let's take the reins of our brain and apply that function to create the life that we want rather than being stuck in the past and in trauma. Let's everyday focus on what we do want and feeling into that and if we feel gratitude, we trick the brain into thinking that it's already happened. So not only are we releasing that positive chemistry in our body, we're sending a signal out to the universe and then of course, frequency brings us more things to be grateful for in our life.

Michael: And I will say this, like so if I rewind my life and it's called 15 years ago, if you said that to me, I'd like you are so full of shit, like what is wrong with you? I cannot believe that those words came out of your mouth. Let me tell you this, though, I have found the truth of the reality that not only having that practice in journaling, right? I journal into the future things that have already happened, I visualize, I meditate, I've done stuff now. Look, there is a timeline to this, I've done things in my life that took me, seven years, five years, four years to accomplish, right? But here's what I think about all the time if we can be on this ball, all of whatever gas allows us just to happen to be able to exist spinning in the middle of the universe and God knows what, why can you not have your dreams come true? And so with that, before I ask you, my last question, can you tell everyone where they can find you?

Kelly: Yes, thank you. So I just started the HEAL Podcast this year. So the HEAL Podcast is kind of what I'm focused on now and it's on Spotify and iTunes and I guess anywhere podcasts are found which I think it's just the spices and then on Instagram, you can follow us @healdocumentary, we're on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook there and then personally, I'm @kellygores on Instagram, I'm probably the most active there, so yeah.

Michael: Amazing. And will put all the links in the show notes. Of course, Kelly my friend, my last question for you is, what does it mean to you to be unbroken?

Kelly: Beautiful question, beautiful show title, beautiful mission. Unbroken to me when everybody asked me what is healing. And healing, I think is coming back to wholeness and as we go through life, we get disconnected from each other, from our purpose, from ourselves in the instance of trauma. So healing is wholeness and when you get a level of healing, whether it's spiritual, emotional, physical, or all of the above, you're coming back to wholeness and that is being Unbroken.

Michael: Beautiful, my friend, thank you so much for being here.

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