How Betrayal, Divorce & Trauma Wrecked Her Body — And How She Healed

Lysa TerKeurst joins Dr. Josh Axe to share her journey through betrayal, emergency surgery and breast cancer—and the emotional and spiritual healing that followed. Together, they explore the connection between emotional trauma and physical well-being, the power of forgiveness, setting healthy boundaries and finding peace when life feels beyond your control.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  The combination of going through extreme betrayal, but then also keeping it all locked inside of me,

• 0:06Josh Axe?

  Yep.

• 0:06Speaker 00

  Fearful to tell anyone, fearful to get the help that I needed. It almost cost me my life.

• 0:13Josh Axe?

  Unforgiveness is, in my understanding in medicine, maybe the most harmful of all emotions you can have.

• 0:22Speaker 00

  Duke University came out with a study that said this very thing. They said, "One of the number one killers in America right now is unforgiveness."

• 0:30Josh Axe?

  Really?

• 0:31Speaker 00

  And I was so shocked.

• 0:32Josh Axe?

  Almost everybody has some sort of hurt in their life that they have not fully addressed. Where does someone need to start in order to finally heal?

• 0:41Speaker 00

  Forgiveness is actually God's prescription for the hurting human heart to heal.

• 0:45Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 0:45Speaker 00

  I don't even have to have a forgiveness conversation with them. It's for me.

• 0:49Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 0:50Speaker 00

  And so I deserve to stop suffering because of what another person did, and so do you.

• 1:09Josh Axe?

  You know, when it comes to your health, some of the most important things you can do, in fact, I believe the most important thing you can do is not necessarily take a vitamin or try a new diet out. It is get to the emotional roots of why you're sick. You know, I've taken care of tens of thousands of patients in my career. And one thing I can tell you is, one of the biggest drivers of major hormone imbalance, digestive issues, even cancer is caused by emotional baggage or emotional hurt. If you've ever been betrayed, if you've ever been hurt in some way, if you're living with something that's happened in the past, or you're living with guilt, or shame, or worry, or anxiety, or fear, you need to get to the root of it.

• 1:52Josh Axe?

  And today I've brought in Lisa Terkehurst. She's a New York Times bestselling author. She is the founder of Proverbs 31 Ministry. And today, we're going to dive into how to heal yourself, body, mind, and spirit, by focusing on spiritual health and wellness. Lisa, welcome to the show.

• 2:11Speaker 00

  Thank you so much. And you said it perfectly. You know, it's definitely something that outside issues produce inside problems.

• 2:20Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 2:20Speaker 00

  And I've often said, "What we don't work out, we will act out." But also, our body will react to if we're having emotional trauma. And I certainly have seen that in my own body as well.

• 2:34Josh Axe?

  Well, I want to let you know, I got turned on you from, I had somebody I knew that was really dear to me. And she, her husband was having an extramere affair. And I was able to see how crushing that was for that person. And then I started hearing about you, and she read your book and was so helped by it. And then I started reading your own story. And honestly, I was emotionally impacted hearing about just the level of betrayal you went through, having been cheated on, going through a divorce, and then developing breast cancer,

• 3:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:10Josh Axe?

  which I really resonate with because I grew up with a mom that had breast cancer and saw how traumatic that was for her. And so just tell me a little bit about sort of your story. How did that lead you to healing? Because I think there's a lot of people today, I know there's a lot of people today, they have really deep emotional wounds and hurts. Some of them have just sort of shoved it so far down, they almost don't even fully realize it consciously now. But that can make you sick. So I would love to hear a little bit more about your story.

• 3:33Speaker 00

  Absolutely. Well, a lot of times when we go through emotional trauma, what's hard is, it does affect our body, but we don't often get to open up our bodies and see inside, to see the emotional impact, or the physical impact of the emotional trauma. I had the unique ability to do that through a very tragic thing that happened to me. So in February 2016, I found out that my husband was living a double life, my then-husband. And it crushed me. I mean, we'd been married over two decades. And I thought that our life was together, secure, moving in the same direction.

• 4:18Speaker 00

  In 2016, three of our five kids were getting married. And so to have this happen in February, it was actually the night before my oldest daughter's rehearsal dinner that I made the discovery.

• 4:31Josh Axe?

  Wow.

• 4:31Speaker 00

  Seven weeks later, my next daughter was getting married. A few months after that, my son was getting married. So it was a year of extreme highs and extreme lows. When I made the discovery, it was crushing. But what made it even more crushing is that he wasn't immediately willing to assure me that he wanted to work on this. And so, and he didn't disclose anything beyond what I would discover. You see, there's a big difference in how much it impacts you emotionally and physically. If it's disclosure, then that's an easier, it's hard, but it's an easier healing process. But when it's discovery, and you just keep discovering things,

• 5:15Speaker 00

  and you never can quite figure out, have we hit ground zero or not?

• 5:19Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 5:20Speaker 00

  That's pretty devastating. And so that happened in February, and I got through the first two weddings. And then by June of that year, I kept telling all of my friends, "I feel like my insides are all twisted up." Well, one morning, I woke up and stepped out of bed, collapsed to the floor, and I knew something horribly had happened to me. I knew something was desperately wrong. They rushed me to the emergency room. And it took them a week to figure out what was going on. But basically, what happened is, my colon ripped away from the abdominal wall, twisted around itself, cut off the blood flow inside of me. And by the time they discovered with, they'd been doing CT scans,

• 6:05Speaker 00

  but they had to do a CT scan with contrast, and they finally figured it out. By the time they took me into surgery, I had to have a significant portion of my colon removed. That's how I got to see a picture of what it looks like when someone has been traumatized emotionally, the physical impact of that.

• 6:22Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 6:22Speaker 00

  Because the doctor, when he pulled out my colon, you know, it's supposed to be like this big round. It was the size of a newborn baby. It was so distended, so massive. And he took a picture of it. And then he brought it to me after I was in, you know, back in my room, and I had woken up from the anesthesia. And he asked me this question. He said, "Lisa, your insides looked like you'd been hit by a bus. What's going on? Like, what is going on with you? Have you been in an accident? Like, what has happened to you?" And I looked at him and I said, "Nothing. Everything's fine."

• 7:03Speaker 00

  And I kept it a secret, what I was going through. And I think the combination of going through extreme betrayal, but then also keeping it all locked inside of me,

• 7:17Josh Axe?

  Yep.

• 7:18Speaker 00

  fearful to tell anyone, fearful to get the help that I needed. I think that it almost cost me my life.

• 7:26Josh Axe?

  Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you know, one of the things that I think, and first off, they don't teach doctors this at school. Absolutely not. But I can tell you right now that the most harmful thing for a person's health is not their diet. It's probably the second most harmful. Emotional wounds is the single most harmful thing. I mean, I've had so many people over the years where the reason they developed autoimmune disease or cancer was due to the fact that they were going through a stressful relationship or divorce, or loss of a loved one, or something in their life. You know, even my own mom, when she was diagnosed with cancer, I think about my mom. She had a mom that was very controlling. She was trying to do everything, be supermom, take care of three kids, work a job, like, you know, do everything all the time. And this is interesting.

• 8:11Josh Axe?

  Like, we see this when I started studying breast cancer and different types of cancer specifically, different emotional patterns cause cancer or disease in different areas. And so for breast cancer, it tends to be a woman who has given, and given, and given, and given until they have nothing left, and they're never poured into. That tends to be one of the biggest causes there. And we see this all the time, right? I mean, how many moms now are like, "Okay, you know, that's, you know, that's been me to a degree." Well, walk me through this. So, but then you were diagnosed with cancer.

• 8:39Speaker 00

  Yes. So one year later, I had barely healed from the trauma of the, you know, having a significant portion of my colon removed, trying to heal from that. Almost to the day, one year later, I heard the words, "Lisa, you've got breast cancer." And I don't have the breast cancer gene. I don't have a history of it in my family. I breastfed my kids, did all the things. There's actually no history of cancer in my family. So it was very shocking. But what was interesting is when I went to go talk to the oncology surgeon, she asked me this question. She said, "Has your husband ever cheated on you?" And I thought that was such a bizarre question.

• 9:22Speaker 00

  And at that point, I had finally gotten to the place where I could talk about it and I said, yes. And she goes, it doesn't surprise me.

• 9:30Josh Axe?

  Yeah, well, I want to show, so in, in, when you look at the Chinese medicine specifically, they'll say it's, there's two causes of breast cancer. And it depends on what side you get cancer. One is the pouring out of like, you know, of everything you have emotionally and not being filled up. And the other one is really tied to your relationship with, uh, you know, a husband, you know, with, with, with, with, with a male and, and being hurt in that, that way.

• 9:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I think I probably had both.

• 9:54Josh Axe?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 9:55Speaker 00

  You know, I think, um, my then husband also struggled with substance abuse. And so it was kind of this perfect storm of me not realizing how damaging and how much it would cost me to constantly try to rescue. And enabling without realizing that that's what I was doing. I thought I was protecting, I thought I was saving, I thought I was helping. But you want to talk about being poured out between being a mom to five, being an author, a speaker, and then also the ongoing turmoil of being married to someone that struggles with substance abuse.

• 10:38Speaker 00

  I mean, I think I had both, I had the betrayal trauma, but I also had being completely poured out and emotionally, physically, and even spiritually exhausted.

• 10:48Josh Axe?

  Wh- wh- wh- when did it click for you, this emotional trauma is destroying your body physically? Like, when was it like, okay, I, this is impacting me and I've got to do something about it?

• 10:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, when I went from being a very healthy person with very few issues to all of a sudden seeing this scar every day. I would like get out of the shower and I would see a scar. It ran from the top of my stomach all the way down.

• 11:15Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 11:16Speaker 00

  And then, um, then I had breast cancer. So then I had scars from having a double mastectomy.

• 11:22Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 11:23Speaker 00

  Um, and then right after that, I had to, you know, start the reconstruction process.

• 11:28Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 11:28Speaker 00

  And then after that, I, um, had, because it was emergency surgery, um, my abdominal wall didn't get sewn back quite right. And my abdominal wall ripped open a few years after that, and a massive hole developed right here, like inside the muscle wall. And so then they had to cut me hip to hip and do all the repair work for that. So when you stand in front of the mirror and you see a scar hip to hip, all the way up your middle, all underneath your breasts, underneath your breasts. You know, it's a little shocking to have gone from a healthy person who didn't have any of those scars to a person who now has this almost roadmap.

• 12:11Speaker 00

  Leading straight to the reality that emotional issues don't just cost you emotionally. It's a physical impact as well.

• 12:20Josh Axe?

  You, you know, it's interesting because when I, when I, and I, I, when, anytime I'm working directly with a patient, I have a part in their protocol when I'm going over it. And there's a part in their plan where I say, this tends to be the emotional root of what you're experiencing. So what I do now is I put together, I have people do this extensive blood work. I also get a picture of their tongue, which tells me what's going on in their digestive system. And then I get their full history and I'll sit there and go over it and you'll, and, and it becomes very obvious of, of this person has worry or anxiety or fear. Cause fear is going to impact the reproductive organs and adrenal glands. Worry is going to impact the digestive system. Anxiety is going to be more tied to the brain and heart and some issues there.

• 13:01Josh Axe?

  And I always go over, hey, there are some things that you're carrying here emotionally that, you know, we really need to go and fix if you're going to get well and you're going to get healthy. But I think for people, it's the most surprising thing for them. I mean, nobody's surprised when I go over their blood work and I'm like, you've got a magnesium deficiency or your inflammation is too high or your estradiol or your thyroid hormones or T3 as well. That actually doesn't tend to shock anybody, but the fact when I'm like, hey, this is showing that your digestive system is absolutely tanked because you're care, you're trying to control things out of your control. I think a little bit they're like, okay, I am trying to control things out of your, but that's, it's the most surprising thing for them.

• 13:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I think also it feels harder to deal with.

• 13:42Josh Axe?

  That, that's right, yes.

• 13:43Speaker 00

  And so, and, and maybe even a little embarrassing, you know?

• 13:47Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 13:47Speaker 00

  Like I could imagine someone listening and going like, wow, I really want that test. Like I, I want to know how to improve my health. I want to feel better. I want to be able to think more clearly.

• 13:56Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 13:56Speaker 00

  You know, I want my digestive issues to go away, all of that. But then knowing that you're going to actually peek inside the most vulnerable place. And that's where our emotional stability sits. That feels a little harder, you know, to, it, it feels more complicated to deal with. And also it feels a little maybe embarrassing or threatening to go, okay, you can check out my physicality. But you're going to actually be able to see inside of me, like my worry, my fear, my control issues. You know, that feels a little more vulnerable. But look, I will be the first to stay, stand in line.

• 14:36Speaker 00

  Like I'm all about getting healthy emotionally because I know for sure how much it impacts my physical body. So I'm signing up. I'm going to get the blood work done and I'm excited about your program.

• 14:47Josh Axe?

  Well, so let me ask this, I, I want to, I want to give people a place to start, okay? And I, I'd love for you to kind of go through, you got to start here and then, you know, the, the steps in order to finally heal. Because again, I know that there are so many people, almost everybody has some sort of hurt in their life that they have not fully addressed. And because of it, there's a lot of worry, there's anxiousness, there's feeling overwhelmed. And then poor sleep, hormone issues, all these things are adding up for so many men and women, especially today. Where does someone need to start in order to, to, to finally, to finally heal?

• 15:20Speaker 00

  Okay, I think there's two places we need to start. The first place is I want you to think about something that's been spoken over you in your life. And it's usually a line, a statement, something someone said. And what can happen is when someone speaks that statement or that line to you, suddenly it lands on you because maybe that person has great influence in your life. Like you want them to love you and maybe, you know, you've opened your heart up vulnerably and now they say something that feels detrimental or shocking or hurtful or whatever it is. So that line spoken over you can quickly become a lie you believe about yourself.

• 16:02Speaker 00

  That lie you believe about yourself can then quickly become a label that you put on yourself. And that label that you put on yourself then becomes a liability to you emotionally, physically, spiritually, and relationally. And so I think that's, that's a good place to start.

• 16:20Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 16:21Speaker 00

  Where in your past has someone spoken something over you and it landed so deeply? Now it's almost become a trauma script that you repeat to yourself over and over. So I think that's a great place to start. The second thing is trauma is not just what happens to us. So it's, it's, it's the facts of what happened, that's part of the trauma. But the bigger part to determine whether or not we ever emotionally heal is the story we tell ourselves because of the trauma that happened to us.

• 16:53Josh Axe?

  Yeah, wow.

• 16:54Speaker 00

  So do you see how these two things work together? You have this liability that was because of a line that became a lie that became a label that became a liability from something someone said.

• 17:05Josh Axe?

  Yep.

• 17:05Speaker 00

  And now you have this story that you're telling ourselves. So you're grabbing that liability of thought and it becomes part of the narrative of your life. So let me share with you how it worked out in my life. Okay, so a line that was spoken over to me when I was very young is you're an inconvenience. And it landed with such gravity in my heart that it truly became a lie, I believe, that then became a label I put on myself, that then became a liability. Because I determined I really can't ever count on other people.

• 17:40Speaker 00

  I would rather try to control someone than, and stay in control myself than to ever really trust and be vulnerable or risk trusting them and then having them disappoint me or reject me. So you see how that turned into this liability? Now, other things happen. So now, fast forward into my life, I have this rejection of my ex-husband. And then, you know, going through the betrayal and all of this. And so the story that I told myself is people are not safe. No one's safe. If this person that was supposed to love me forever truly did wind up seeing me as an inconvenience.

• 18:23Speaker 00

  Now, that's probably not actually what happened in my marriage. But because it was the lie that I believed that turned into a label, that turned into a liability and now became a script, a shame script that I repeated in my life. When hard things happen, it's almost like the validation of that then becomes a story, a narrative that truly can impact whether I heal or not. So a lot of times you'll hear therapists talk about, you need to do your story work. People often think, ah, that means going back in my childhood, like I'm good, like all that, I'm good with it. Well, it's not just rehashing what happened to your childhood, it's identifying where are your shame scripts?

• 19:04Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 19:05Speaker 00

  And then it's identifying because of those shame scripts, what story are you now telling yourself because of what you've walked through? And so if we really want to get down to the essence of why people control, it's because they're afraid.

• 19:19Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 19:19Speaker 00

  They're afraid.

• 19:20Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 19:20Speaker 00

  They're afraid of one more thing validating this shame script. And they're afraid the story that they've been telling theirs, themselves is I'm not safe. I'm not lovable. I'm not worthy. And so when you combine all of that, I say, wow, of, of course, a lot of people try to control. It's not that we're inherently controlling people. It's that we're afraid if we don't control, what will happen?

• 19:46Josh Axe?

  Yeah, I mean, the thing I love about this is, is this is getting to the root cause, right? This is what I've tried to do in medicine my entire career. Cause, because you know, when my mom's life was on the line, it was like, okay, we have got to do everything we can to see what is actually causing this and fix it. And I love that that's what you're doing here. But I resonate with this so deeply. I think about myself, I think about my own mom and so many patients. Like when I was in, like I can identify myself right now. I was in English class my freshman year of high school. And I was getting not good, I was getting bad grades. And I had a teacher who told me to stay after class. Her name was Miss Noble and I stayed after and she said, Josh, what do you want to do after you graduate? And I said, I really want to be a doctor because the year before my mom has breast cancer, I saw her go through chemo, all the trauma.

• 20:30Josh Axe?

  And, um, and she laughed out loud and she said, Josh, listen, with your GPA, you'll never get into med school. My own daughter barely got in with 3.8 GPA. And, and she gave me my paper back, I'd gotten F, I was getting a D in the class and. She was like, try harder. So I walked out of there thinking, I'm not smart. And then two weeks later, my mom brought me to see a medical doctor, who was talked about me like I wasn't in the room. And he said, your son has a really severe ADHD. It's a really severe learning disability and I'm prescribing Ritalin. So then I thought, Lisa, I thought, not only am I not smart, I'm like medically not smart. There's like something wrong with me. So then I just stopped trying. So throughout high school, I graduated high school with like a 2.2 GPA. So I mean, I literally barely,

• 21:12Josh Axe?

  the only reason I graduated is I knew my dad would be irate if I didn't graduate. And then I went to college, I barely got in college. Here's how I got in. I went to University of Kentucky.

• 21:22Speaker 00

  And you know, this story is going to be encouraging to so many people and so many parents. So I love that you're sharing this.

• 21:29Josh Axe?

  Yes. So I ended up, first off, like I get a letter from, because I applied to a bunch of colleges, didn't get in where I wanted. And then I got a letter back from one college and it basically said, you're not in, but we were starting a new program this summer of summer school. And if you come and average above a 3.0, we'll let you in.

• 21:47Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 21:48Josh Axe?

  And so I'm like, okay. And so I went and I'm like, I'm going to try. I'm actually going to try. And the first class I had to take was English 101. Okay. And my first big thing was a paper. And I went and I wrote this paper. I really tried, handed it in, felt good about it. And then the teacher, her name was Ms. Williams, she says, Josh, can you stay after class? Literally like identical scenario. And my stomach dropped. I'm like, oh no. And she goes, what's your major? And I said, Ms. Williams, I don't have a major yet. I just, you know, I'm just trying to get in here. And she goes, well, I really think you should consider being in English or journalism major, because you got the highest grade of the class of 40 kids, you're a really talented writer. I just want to tell you a great job. And I was literally like, I walked out of there, but Lisa, for me, it was like, I, I, I call it a,

• 22:32Josh Axe?

  it was like a memory transplant. I went from believing I wasn't good enough. I wasn't smart. I can't do school well. I'm a bad test taker. All these things I constantly was believing. To finally somebody saying, hey, you could be good at this. And then from then on, I averaged well above a 3.0. I eventually went to John Hopkins, got a 3.9 GPA. And, you know, got my doctorate and then did, you know, did some of the things I've done. And, but I just share that to say, but I was the kid where my parents were just worried, like I was going to be able to even finish high school. But so much of it was, I just really felt like I wasn't smart enough to, to do school.

• 23:09Speaker 00

  Yeah. And you see how powerful those thoughts are.

• 23:11Josh Axe?

  And the words of other people in your life.

• 23:14Speaker 00

  Yes. It can, it can truly make or break you, truly. Here's an exercise that I think would be a practical thing. Someone sitting here like, okay, well, how do I identify the lies? Cause I'm sure they're there, but I, I can't quite figure out a story. Like you have a very definite story, you know? So here's one thing that I would recommend. It's something my therapist did with me. Take a big poster board, draw an egg shape on it. It's called the trauma egg. Okay. It's going to sound really hokey and silly. Don't tune me out, because this is.

• 23:46Josh Axe?

  I like this already. I think it's powerful.

• 23:48Speaker 00

  Okay. So poster board, draw a big egg shape on it. Then divide your egg up into little squares and like all the way up. Inside each little square, draw a stick figure representation, a picture of a moment from your earliest memory of when you were hurt, rejected, shamed, you know, abused, anything like that. So you draw a picture of your earliest memory of something really hard happening. And then you keep going, like through elementary school, through middle school. And it doesn't have to be like this huge trauma. It could be like, one of mine was in high school. This guy said, you know, you'd be really cute if you didn't have tangles.

• 24:30Speaker 00

  Well, the rest of my high school and college year, I refused to wear a dress because I believed something was wrong with my ankles. So see, that wasn't like this big abuse thing, but it was something. It was that line that was spoken over you that became a lie, that became a label, that became a liability. So you keep going all the way, earliest memory, all the way up to current day adulthood. Then you take that to a trusted friend, a therapist, you know, a counselor, you know, whoever. And then ask them to listen to you, share the story of each one of those things. And what they're listening for is your shame script. And it'll be repeated over and over, and you may not even realize it.

• 25:15Speaker 00

  You may not even hear it. And so I would imagine if you did this, you would get going on your thing and you would hit upon that thing. And then that teacher told me I wasn't smart and, you know, then the doctor, da, da, da, da, da. And you would probably weave in, you know, because I, I believe that I wasn't smart. This happened and then that happened. And so that friend or that counselor, that therapist, ask them, listen for these statements. Help me identify what are the lies? Because as you tell the story, they'll come out. And you may not be able to recognize it yourself, but someone else, they'll say, you know what? You repeated over and over and over. It was this and this and this. Once we identify that, then we can start listening for it in the story that we tell ourselves

• 26:00Speaker 00

  because of current things that are happening to us. Because those left untreated and unhealed, they will continue to be part of this narrative that can sometimes keep us stuck and hold us back. And stuck is a trauma word.

• 26:13Josh Axe?

  Yeah, I think it's so good. You know, I, I, one thing I would just encourage people to think about with this too is, when you're living with this trauma, it is, it is akin to having a parasite live in your, in an organ. And it is destroying it. It's eating it. It's causing decay. And until you address it, like Lisa sharing, it's going to continue to build disease. And you can take all the right supplements. You can go on a lot of walks. You can eat a lot of broccoli or whatever it is. And it's still not going to fix this issue. And this is the root for so many issues. If you're dealing with major hormone imbalance, high cortisol, of course, is a starter of that insulin resistance,

• 26:54Josh Axe?

  inflammation, this is a major factor contributing to so many of these areas. And one of the things in particular, I remember watching a YouTube video of yours where you started talking about this somewhat. And, and I, I want to, I want to go through a few of these things. I want to talk about unforgiveness. I want to talk about control and a few others.

• 27:14Josh Axe?

  But I want to go back to when you were hurt by your first husband and the betrayal there and some of the other things. How, how did you, I think some people have been so hurt by some people. They feel like maybe forgiveness is like condoning or being okay with what they did. Can you walk me through a little bit? Like, how do you forgive something that feels unforgivable?

• 27:34Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, often when something big, like a divorce happens, which I like to change that word to the death of my marriage, because that's what it really was. The immense amount of grief that was woven into that experience. And it was, it was just unbelievable. It really was a death to me. And so the unchangeable can feel quite unforgivable. Like I think part of, part of what sometimes we think, okay, if I, if I have this conversation with them and I come with a posture of forgiveness, they'll own what they did. They'll say they're sorry. And then they can fix things. They can make it right. And then the forgiveness process makes sense in our brain.

• 28:18Speaker 00

  But we all know that's often not how it plays out at all. Because if someone is refusing to own what they did and never say they're sorry, we can easily get stuck in this pattern of unforgiveness. And so what we have to learn is that this person, if they're never willing to say they're sorry and own what they did, we can't also allow them to hijack our healing journey and our future. So we have to detach our ability to heal and move forward from that choice that they may never make. And we have to put a stake in the ground and we have to say, my choice to forgive is my choice to live. I deserve to stop suffering because of what another person has done to me.

• 29:02Speaker 00

  And you see, we don't actually have to have that person own what they did and say they're sorry. Now, we can forgive them and we may need to have very strict boundaries. And that's why I also have a whole message on boundaries that's very, very important. Because while the Bible commands us to forgive, reconciliation is very dependent on a lot of things. And their repentance is number one. But let's say they don't repent and all of that. So it's not actually, what I discovered, it's not actually that I needed that person to say they were sorry. What I actually needed was to write down all the pain that that person caused me. And I needed some other human in this world to dare to bear witness to my pain.

• 29:45Speaker 00

  I needed someone else to say to me, I believe you, what happened was wrong. And I am so sorry that that happened. And that's what my therapist did for me. And it changed the course of my healing journey. Because I realized I just needed someone else to say it was wrong. And when my therapist did that, he believed me. He said that he was so sorry for what had happened to me. And he just stood there with me and dared to bear witness to all that I had shared, all the many ways. That did something in my heart that made me desire that I wanted to move forward by forgiveness.

• 30:27Speaker 00

  And I realized forgiveness is not an unfair gift that I have to give to this person who hurt me the most. Forgiveness is actually God's prescription for the hurting human heart to heal. I don't even have to have a forgiveness conversation with them. It's for me. And so I deserve to stop suffering because of what another person did, and so do you.

• 30:46Josh Axe?

  You know, it, it's so powerful. I had, again, I, I've studied a lot of biblical medicine, wrote a book on it. But I also really have studied a lot of these sort of ancient forms of medicine, like Chinese medicine. And by the way, it's so funny, because most Christians understand it's just kind of a different language now. And a different way of sort of interpreting, reading the body, like we read blood work today. There's a way to read the body or feel someone's pulse, look at their tongue, look at their eyes, look at the color of their skin. I mean, you can tell so much from the human body. But one of the things they'll say that affects the liver is part of, so they would say, unforgiveness actually shuts down two organ systems in your body. They would say it's resentment tied to something in the past.

• 31:28Josh Axe?

  The past is tied to your immune system. It's your colon and it's your, it's your lower digestive system, which is kind of what you had. And so if you've had something happen in the past and you have not let go of it, that affects that area. The unforgiveness part, the resentment part of it that's living with unforgiveness impacts the liver. And they would say it causes your liver to be stuck. Well, now your liver cannot clear and detoxify. And when we're talking about something like cancer, the two primary organ channels that cause cancer are your immune system and your detoxification system. And so anyways, but just to point out, unforgiveness is, in my understanding in medicine, maybe the most harmful of all emotions you can have because of how, especially increasing

• 32:13Josh Axe?

  your cancer risk because it's so hard on two organ systems simultaneously.

• 32:18Speaker 00

  I agree with that. You know, Duke University came out with a study that said this very thing. They said, one of the number one killers in America right now is unforgiveness.

• 32:27Josh Axe?

  Really?

• 32:28Speaker 00

  And I was so shocked that this very secular university would actually acknowledge, acknowledge that forgiveness is necessary because of course forgiveness is the cornerstone of the Christian faith, you know?

• 32:40Josh Axe?

  Yeah, wow.

• 32:41Speaker 00

  And so I became very fascinated by that. And I'll use that sometimes when I talk to people about forgiveness. Because look, the resistance to forgiveness, boy, do I get it. You see, bitterness can actually feel like a protective thing for us.

• 32:56Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 32:57Speaker 00

  It's like if I feel bitter against this person, then I can create enough emotional, maybe even physical distance to where I can keep myself safe. But bitterness is not the solve here. It's appropriate boundaries that are the solve. Because bitterness, it doesn't just want to be a feeling in our heart. Bitterness wants to be a consuming feeling. And it will absolutely consume you from the inside out.

• 33:22Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 33:22Speaker 00

  And so I do believe that for the sake of our health, just, not just emotional, but for the sake of our spiritual health and our physical health, forgiveness is worth pursuing. But I also want to say, I recognize when we say the word forgiveness, people often attach it to the hardest thing that they've walked through, the worst thing someone else has done. And so I get it. But again, I go back to that statement I said earlier. Forgiveness is not an unfair gift that you're giving to them. It's your opportunity to choose to move forward. And so putting a stake in the ground, saying, I deserve to stop suffering because of what this other person has done.

• 34:03Josh Axe?

  Yeah. You know, in a way, we covered a couple of systems here that get diseased and damaged with emotional trauma. We talked a little bit about the liver, this detoxification system, immune system. Another thing that I think is so interesting, control. You know, I, that actually impacts the upper digestive system. Okay? And control is, you know, I, I spent some time reading, like, a lot of the ancient philosophers like Aristotle and these people. And they talk about this thing where it's like, it's called the golden mean, like, okay, you want to love people, but not enable them, right? Like, so there's this sort of balance of what you want to have when it comes to things. And so you want to control things that are maybe within your control, not the things that are out of your control.

• 34:46Josh Axe?

  And, and I think of a lot of times with taking care of so many moms with this, it's like, okay, like, this is, this is so hard as a mom. Right now, like, my wife, we've got a about to be six year old and a two year old. And there's this element of, okay, they're, they're your baby chicks. Like, you're supposed to protect them and watch out for them. But at the same time, you need to keep giving them more and more and more freedom and releasing control, just gradually more and more and more over time. But what gets a lot of people in trouble is this, you're trying to over control things, right? And so walk me through, because, you know, most people wouldn't think of that as the same way as like bitterness or unforgiveness. I mean, those things kind of sound like, you know, like, like vices, right? These sort of things.

• 35:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, they're more obvious.

• 35:28Josh Axe?

  Yeah, yeah, more awful moral failings in a way, or, or again, bad moral habits. But control doesn't seem, you know, that didn't seem that bad.

• 35:39Speaker 00

  Yeah. So here's the thing, and, and I just want to let everyone take a deep breath right here. As a parent, of course you want to control. Like, of course you do.

• 35:50Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 35:51Speaker 00

  As someone who loves any person that you see making mistakes that you know are not going to end well, of course you want to control. Of course you want to rescue. Of course you want to save. Of course you want to manage them, you know, and their choices because you can see things that appears as if they can't see or they don't care about the consequences. So I just want everyone to take a deep breath and go, okay, maybe we're not naturally controlling persons, you know, like, maybe if you and I were going to lunch today, I would totally let you pick where we go. I would totally, like, let you decide the route that we would take and who else you wanted to invite and all of that.

• 36:31Speaker 00

  Because I'm very laid back until I get afraid. And when I get afraid, that is the pathway to me wanting to control. So it makes complete sense that parents want to control because we want so much for our kids and we get afraid of what might happen if they don't make the choices that, that we feel are the right choices and the safe choices and the good choices that lead to a good eventual outcome. So here's, there's two words that I want us to focus on that I think are really important. One is steward. Now, when we say steward, we often think of a good financial steward. We often attach that. But I want you to think of steward as someone who is taking their responsibility seriously. Okay?

• 37:16Speaker 00

  So we want to be a good steward. The other word is control. Now, let me tell you the perspective of someone who's in stewardship mode.

• 37:26Josh Axe?

  Can I mention something else about stewardship that I'm curious? Like, the other thing when I think about stewardship is, I'm steward, stewarding over something that I don't fully own.

• 37:34Speaker 00

  Exactly. Yeah. So you are helping manage what is within your control to manage. That's the perspective of a steward. I will manage what is in my responsibility to help manage. I will do that. And I have a scope. I'm limited in my scope. Because I can't, I can't control another person. I can't make other people do things. I can't make people see things. I can't make them have a certain narrative. Okay? But I'm going to be responsible to manage what is within my ability to manage. Okay? So that's the thought process of someone who's in the stewardship mode. Someone who's in control mode, that's

• 38:14Speaker 00

  not what their thought process. Control mode is, I have to do whatever I can do to get the outcome that I think is best.

• 38:22Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 38:23Speaker 00

  And then the release mantra of a steward is, at the end of the day, I have made peace that I can only do what I can do. So the outcome of this, I have to leave in the hands of God, ultimately.

• 38:36Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 38:37Speaker 00

  A controlling mantra is, I am only willing to accept the outcome that I think is best. And that perpetuates us always trying to control whatever we're afraid of.

• 38:49Josh Axe?

  You know, can I share something? I went through this, one of the most stressful experiences I've ever been through was when I was months away from moving to Nashville, opening my own clinic. So when I was in school, and I was, I was in student clinic, and I was seeing patients for the first time. And I was seeing a lot of people telling them what to do. Some of them would follow what I advised. Some were seeing great results. Some were, it just depend, you know, depending on the person. But I went in, I felt this like massive, for some reason, I felt like this massive heaviness. And I went in to see my pastor. I had a great pastor. And I sat down with him, and he was one of these pastors, he was actually like, he was a surfer too. And he was, and he taught at the seminary school. He's just a really brilliant guy. But like, I went in there, and then he just didn't

• 39:32Josh Axe?

  talk. He just sat there. And we probably sat there for five minutes. I didn't say anything. And finally, I'm like, Larry, I'm like, I feel like I am trying to like, carry the weight in the world on my shoulders. I said, I feel like so exhausted right now, emotionally, that I feel like I can't even cry. Like, I'm like, I just feel really heavy. And we started, he started asking me questions, just talking about things. He's like, Josh, it sounds to me like you're trying to control things that are out of your control, and that God should be controlling. And basically it came down to this, I felt like if my patients didn't see a great result, it was completely my fault. But it's like, I couldn't control whether they went home and ate salmon, you know, and whether they were taking their supplements, whether they were doing. But I felt like that was completely on me. That was fully my responsibility.

• 40:15Josh Axe?

  And so him kind of talked me through that. And I walked out of there like the weight of the world was off my shoulders. I felt this sense of responsibility. No, my, my, my job is just to love them and be a good doctor, put the best plan together. My goal is not to heal them. That's God's job.

• 40:28Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 40:29Josh Axe?

  You know, so, so for me, I experienced that letting go of control was such a release for me emotionally. It was like, I, I, again, I felt it physically almost immediately.

• 40:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, there's this fascinating word that when my therapist first threw it out, I was like, oh, that does not apply to me at all. And it's this word called codependency. And I was like, that doesn't apply to me. I'm a very independent person. Remember my shame script? Don't ever be an inconvenience to anyone, right? So I was like, oh no, I'm very independent. Like, I'm definitely not struggling with codependency. And he said, well, think about the definition this way. I need you to be okay, so I can be okay. So how can I make you okay? Because I want to feel okay, okay?

• 41:15Speaker 00

  And boy, when he said that, I thought that hits the nail on the head. And that's often where we find we're crossing from being a faithful steward, managing only what is within our ability to manage to be responsible. But we cross over into control is when I need this person to be okay, or else I can't feel okay.

• 41:36Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 41:36Speaker 00

  So then I have to control things to make them okay. Because if they're not okay, I'm not okay. And I need to feel okay, okay?

• 41:44Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 41:44Speaker 00

  Right?

• 41:44Josh Axe?

  I love it, yeah.

• 41:45Speaker 00

  And so that's kind of what I see in that story. It's like you need your patients to be okay, so that you can feel like a good doctor.

• 41:51Josh Axe?

  That's right, yeah.

• 41:52Speaker 00

  And if, if, if they're doing the program and you feel like a good doctor, then you're okay. But if they're not okay, then you're not okay. And you need them to be okay, okay?

• 42:00Josh Axe?

  That's right. That's exactly right.

• 42:01Speaker 00

  I think that's a simple way for people to go, huh, am I doing that?

• 42:07Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 42:07Speaker 00

  Is it that I need someone else to be okay? Because if they're not okay, then I'm not okay? Now, look, as parents, this is going to be a complicated one. Of course, you don't feel good when your children aren't doing good, right?

• 42:23Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 42:24Speaker 00

  But there's a difference between feeling deep emotion and needing them to be okay, or else you can't stabilize.

• 42:32Josh Axe?

  Yeah, right.

• 42:33Speaker 00

  You've got to be able to stabilize on your own. And so because you're going to need to stabilize on your own, there are certain things that you're going to have to make peace with what you can't control.

• 42:43Josh Axe?

  I mean, this is one I can tell you my mom has dealt with for so long, because she was just so invested in her kids, as so many moms are. And so being able to like, say, God, you know, you, you know, like, give that to them, I know, was such a big part. Because when my mom, my mom had cancer, we really went in depth doing a lot of the type of work you're talking about of like, she was such a people pleaser. I mean, that was something that just really going through of like, no, we're called to please God, not people. And in letting go of her worry, letting go of her fear, I mean, it was such a big part of her healing journey. And another big one was this for my mom. And this is one of the last things I really want to dive into with you is setting boundaries, right? This is, by the way, I don't know if you ever like, personality profiles,

• 43:23Josh Axe?

  like whether it's the big five, or Enneagram, or Myers-Briggs, or DISC profile, there's so many of these today. I'm wired to just, like, that's easy for me, actually. I'm like the lay down boundaries person. I feel pretty good about that. I feel like a lot of people in my life, my mom, my wife, others, they have a lot of, a harder time with it. But boundaries, I mean, you're like, I, this is my mom growing up. Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, you want me to do this? I mean, literally, she was like the movie Yes Man. It was like the Yes Woman. She said, yes, volunteer, do everything, all the time. Talk to me about boundaries, why those are important, why, why are those even, why are those important to healing?

• 44:02Speaker 00

  Okay. Well, boundaries are not meant to shove other people away. And a lot of times, people hear the word boundaries and they think, oh, danger. Because maybe you've had someone be inappropriate with their boundaries to you, and they've used it as a control tactic, a manipulation tactic, or even they've, they've tried to force you to do something. And that's not an appropriate use of boundaries. See, boundaries aren't control tactics. Boundaries are meant to have open and honest conversation, to preserve what can be preserved about that relationship. And so a boundary is really your opportunity to communicate what is and is not okay,

• 44:42Speaker 00

  what is and is not acceptable, what you can and, and cannot do, your limitations. And we're all limited. We're limited because we have certain limited capacities. So think about it. You have a limited physical capacity. You have a limited financial capacity.

• 45:00Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 45:01Speaker 00

  You have a limited emotional capacity. And obviously, we need to check ourselves to make sure we're not being selfish. But the reality is, we're limited, not because we're bad people, we're limited because we're human. And for us to act like an unlimited supply to other people is us basically saying, I can be their savior. And we can't be their savior. We're not God.

• 45:22Josh Axe?

  Right.

• 45:23Speaker 00

  So here's a great way to think about, uh, when you're thinking about boundaries, and even communicating boundaries. Where I was getting in trouble is that I was giving people let, like, unlimited access to my limited areas of capacity. So I was giving level 10 access to, to some people, to my finances, to my emotional capacity, to my physical capacity. And if you're giving level 10 access to someone, and they're only demonstrating a level 3 responsibility to have that kind of access to you, the distance between those two, that's where chaos is. And wherever chaos exists, that's where a boundary is needed.

• 46:08Speaker 00

  And so, so many times, we think, okay, well, I need to force this person. If I'm giving them level 10 access, I need to force them to bring level 10 responsibility. But we all know, we cannot make another person do anything.

• 46:21Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 46:21Speaker 00

  We can have a conversation, and if they're willing, then maybe they will lift up their area of responsibility, their level of responsibility. But if they are unwilling or incapable of anything besides level 3 responsibility, then we actually put a boundary on ourself, and we reduce the access we grant that person down to their demonstrated level of responsibility.

• 46:43Josh Axe?

  That's good. That's really good. You know, the other thing I think that's helped me with boundaries is have, one thing I just wanted to say too, I, I love that your ministry is Proverbs 31 Ministries, right? This is the book of wisdom. It's one of my favorite books to read over and over and over again. And, um, and with that, I think also knowing what the trade off is.

• 47:05Josh Axe?

  Like, I'll give you an example, like, I think everybody today wants to do more with their time than they even have access to, right? It's like, I want to, I want to go on more, more time with my wife, more time with my kids, more time. I love my business and what I get to do and being a doctor. I love, I have an amazing friend group here in Nashville. And so I want to spend more time on all those. I can't, right? And so one thing I try and think about is, okay, if I say yes to this, this is sacrificing time with my girls that are two and five. I mean, Chelsea and I were just talking about this yesterday. Like, our two-year-old, right now, the way she says my five-year-old's name is like the most cute precious thing you've ever heard. And then she started saying it more like, older now. And so Chelsea, like, I was, I was literally tearing up yesterday because she's like,

• 47:50Josh Axe?

  she'll probably never say it like that again, you know, again. But just thinking about that, like, okay, if I give up or say yes to this thing, I'm, I'm, I'm saying no to more time with this.

• 48:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:02Josh Axe?

  You know, and so for me, that's been so convicting and helpful, just, just, you know, knowing I want to spend this amount of time with my girls, with my family. But also knowing, you know what, me going and spending time with guys a day a week, that actually makes me a better husband, a better father. Like, that's something that is, iron sharpens iron to me, so it allows me to do more of this. But I think just being conscious, you kind of mentioned this, like, I kind of know, like with weight training or something, it's like, okay, I can say yes to these, and I'm going to start bending, but I'm, I'm not going to allow myself to break. Like, you know, or break or harm these relationships in some way.

• 48:36Speaker 00

  That's right. Well, I think we have to have honest conversations with ourself. And in order to have honest conversations with ourself, is we've got to provide space and time. You know, one of the number one signs of an emotionally healthy and stable person is that they can be alone with their own thoughts and be okay. And that may sound like, well, that's strange, but it actually makes a lot of sense because it's increasing your self-awareness and really having these honest conversations. Like, where am I hyperextending myself? Who am I allowing to have too much control over me? Or where am I people pleasing? Or where am I demonstrating some levels of codependency?

• 49:17Speaker 00

  You know, those kinds of self-awareness conversations, that's really going to lead to positive action.

• 49:22Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 49:22Speaker 00

  But if we never take the time to be self-aware, we'll just continue with the flow. We'll continue the codependency, the people pleasing, the controlling. We'll just continue it all because to some extent, it makes us feel like, like, hey, we're doing pretty good, like, we're getting what we want. But in reality, you know, I know you've probably read this book, The Body Keeps the Score. You know? And we just don't realize that every time we hyperextend, every time we just sit in the trauma, in the unforgiveness, in the bitterness, in the overworking, overspending, overeating, all of that has such a dramatic impact.

• 50:02Speaker 00

  So I think boundaries are a really important thing, but we also need to remember, like, we've got to put boundaries on ourself.

• 50:10Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 50:11Speaker 00

  And sometimes that's the hardest place to be honest for us is how can we put appropriate boundaries on ourself to say, I will extend this far, but not this far.

• 50:22Josh Axe?

  Yeah, you know, one of the reasons I love this conversation is this is so important in healing and being your best. You know, when I think about, I think there's a couple of things that are real important. One, I'm, in the past, I was really, and I still love goal-setting, setting a vision for your life, vision board, those things, like, I really love that. And that's really important. But what's just as important and sometimes more is knowing, where are you at now? You know, and, and being able to have this level, and I would really say that's more emotional intelligence, self-awareness of saying, okay, doing that exercise you talked about, the egg exercise, like, what are my hurts? What are these emotions I'm feeling? What is the narrative and story I keep telling myself? Becoming aware of where you are now. And it's kind of like, if I'm creating a health plan for somebody, I mentioned this,

• 51:07Josh Axe?

  I really like doing, you know, the blood work. I know where you are now, and then we have the goal of, hey, we're going to help you lose 20 pounds, we're going to reverse the autoimmune disease, we're going to, you know, get these hormones and these blood work within the normal levels. That's a goal, right? That's the future, but kind of knowing both of those, but you have to go and do this, just take some time and, you know, read the books and see the counselor or the person to get some guidance on, hey, where am I at now? Do I not have boundaries? Am I saying yes to everything? Am I living with some unforgiveness? Like, what are those things? Becoming aware and then being able to become your best you, become more Christ-like and healing, and so I love that. And I want to say this too. So I was driving here and I was talking, and I, I talked to my mom a lot. And, and I was saying, I've got a podcast.

• 51:52Josh Axe?

  I'm like, you'll probably know who's on today, Lisa Turkers, and she was so excited. By the way, when I say certain people, I mean, you're, by the way, you're up there in the top, like, 10 for her. She loves, I mean, Joyce Meyer, you know, Lisa Bavir, you know, I told her recently, John Eldredge, I had him on, but she, she loves you, she loves your books.

• 52:08Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 52:09Josh Axe?

  And so she was, she was really excited, so she's going to be excited to watch this episode. But I want to encourage everybody to check out Lisa's new book. It's Making Peace with What I Can't Control. Her books are fantastic. They're in bookstores nationwide. Again, New York Times bestselling author here, amazon.com, a great and easy place to go get the book here as well. It'll be coming out here very soon. And again, want to encourage you guys to get the book here. It's a, it's a, it's a great one. She's got a lot of great books that you can check out online on Amazon there as well. But I want to encourage you guys to check out this latest book here. And Lisa, where can people find out more about you and your amazing work you're doing?

• 52:47Speaker 00

  So, proverbs31.org is my ministry. They can also, if, if you're interested in a healing retreat that I do, havenplace.org is the place to go. I built a small retreat center on my property in North Carolina, and I bring in a therapist, a theologian, and myself using experiential wisdom. And we do these intensive retreats to help people on their healing journey. We've got a couple coming up on forgiving what you can't forget. We've talked a lot about forgiveness today. So it is going to fast-track your healing and give you a real chance at pursuing forgiveness and what does it look like? How do I do it? How, what are my markers of success? All of that.

• 53:30Speaker 00

  I also do one called Surviving an Unwanted Divorce, and we do another one called Good Boundaries and Goodbyes. So you can check out that. You can find me on Instagram, at Lisa Turkers. My name is spelled kind of weird, L-Y-S-A-T, and then it'll pop up wherever you can find me on all the social media channels.

• 53:46Josh Axe?

  Well, Lisa, thanks so much. And hey, I want to encourage you guys to, if you're watching on YouTube, leave a comment. Have you dealt with some sort of major betrayal or pain? We'd love to hear from you, know how we can support you, pray for you. And was there something that Lisa shared, just a piece of wisdom that really resonated with you, something you're excited about? Have you read one of Lisa's books? We would love to hear from you on that as well. Also, just remember this, we were talking about this, your body is keeping score. If you don't deal with this stuff, it's like, it's like keeping poison in your system. We've got to get rid of this so you can heal physically, mentally, spiritually, and take your health and your life to the next level. Also, remember, the number one thing you could do to support the show here is subscribe. Just know, I'm so grateful for all of you that are subscribed to the show here and share

• 54:31Josh Axe?

  this. There are so many people today dealing with emotional and spiritual pain that's also causing physical pain, and this could help somebody heal and transform their life. So thank you all for subscribing, for sharing, for being on mission with us. We can't wait to see you on the next episode.