Xenia Brandstetter | Autoimmune Diseases, Healthy Living, & Narrating the Story of Your Life

“Your diagnosis does not have to be your prognosis. Your life isn’t ending, it’s just getting started." ~ Xenia Brandstetter

Guest Bio: In her previous life, Xenia used to work in Finance until she fell ill in her mid-20s with multiple autoimmune diseases. She couldn’t keep up with her job and her life, was bedridden for a while, and eventually decided to quit her job while focusing only on her recovery. During that time, she overshot and became obsessed with living a healthy lifestyle, struggling with depression and disordered eating. She was eventually able to turn it around and find balance, which is when true healing finally happened. She is now symptom-free and started coaching because she wants to support others who are going through the same thing & share her knowledge.

Xenia Brandstetter | Autoimmune Diseases, Healthy Living, & Narrating the Story of Your Life

SHOW NOTES: 

• Website: https://www.xeniabrandstetter.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/xeniabrandstetter/

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For more Remarkable Episodes, the Inspiration, and Motivation, please visit https://davidpasqualone.com/remarkable-people-podcast/

Transcript

Xenia Brandstetter | Autoimmune Diseases, Healthy Living, & Narrating the Story of Your Life | 19 Aug 2024

David Pasqualone: Hello friend, welcome to this week's episode of the Remarkable People Podcast, the Xenia Branstetter story. This week Xenia talks to us about how she was an achiever, she was driven, she really cared about what people thought, she obsessed about perfection, and how her life was a quote unquote success.

[00:00:24] David Pasqualone: But then she was not only getting more and more miserable, but she started to get sick. She got auto immune diseases and then her life not only spiraled out of control, but once she hit her bottom, she also started thinking about what was I even working towards? Is this my dream or somebody else's? So in this episode, we talk about auto immune diseases.

[00:00:50] David Pasqualone: We talk about mental health, physical health. Spiritual health. We talk about all sorts of balance in life. We talk about how looking at the cause is more important than looking at the symptoms. And how when you are told by the doctor a diagnosis, That does not mean it's your lifelong prognosis. So there's so much to this episode and Xenia gives a lot of hands on practical tips.

[00:01:21] David Pasqualone: Like, Hey, here's one, two, three, what I did. Try it. Hopefully it helps you too. And then at the end of the episode, there's a transition like always, where we give the information how you can connect with the guest. So this is a great episode for anyone struggling with The demons in the head, so to speak.

[00:01:39] David Pasqualone: This is a great episode for people struggling with mental illness, with physical illness, but specifically with autoimmune diseases. Cause we talk a little bit about how our past and emotion. Left unresolved can turn to physical health issues in reality. So this is a super important episode that people all around the world of any culture deal with.

[00:02:05] David Pasqualone: And I hope it's a great catalyst in your life. So after this short sponsored commercial, you're going to get into Xenia's story. I hope it helps you a ton. Stick through to the end, connect with Xena, connect with me. Let me know how I can help you. Let Xenia know how she can help you and share this with your friends and family so we can just help as many people in the world grow, thrive, have a victorious Christian life, and glorify God so you can have a great life in this world, but most importantly an eternity to come.

[00:02:38] David Pasqualone: So, I'm David Pasqualone. This is our remarkable friend Xenia. Enjoy her episode right now after this short commercial.

[00:02:48] David Pasqualone: Hello, friends. Welcome to this testimonial on Jasper Air Filters. I'm David Pasqualone, part of the Remarkable People Podcast, and we only support and accept affiliates and sponsors that we use and believe in, and Jasper Air Filters is one of those companies. Jasper Air Filters have been cleaning our condo where we can actually feel a difference in the air.

[00:03:15] David Pasqualone: I'm sleeping better, waking up with more energy. The plant in my bedroom is thriving. When we cook, we had pots and pans that when we'd cook, we'd actually hear the jasper kick on, come to find out they're releasing toxic chemicals. So we got rid of those pots and pans, got a new set. So it makes you aware of things you're not even thinking of.

[00:03:38] David Pasqualone: Then when we'd spray cologne and perfume, it's like, whoa, That thing just kicked on, right? You don't realize how toxic some of the things you use every day are. So we're cutting that out of our lives for a better, healthier life. I highly recommend Jasper. I've used several air filters over the last, you know, 47 years of my life.

[00:03:59] David Pasqualone: But. When I used the Jasper for the first time, I was a little hesitant. It's attractive. It's beautiful. But I was like, you know, it's just, is this another saying one thing and doing another, but no, the Jasper air filters are the real deal. So if you go to their website, their promotions change, but if you use promo code, remarkable, you'll get the best deal.

[00:04:22] David Pasqualone: You can usually save 10 percent off or more, and you're going to get an air filter. That's just, So check out Jasper. com, that's J A S P R. com and shop, use promo code Remarkable and get 10 percent or more off your order and you're going to love it. We do and I have super high standards. And hopefully you'll love it too.

[00:04:47] David Pasqualone: Leave a comment telling us about your Jasper experience, and let's just share goodness with the world. First with God, and then tools and products that help each other. I'm David Pasqualone. I thank you for listening. [00:05:00] Have a great day.

[00:05:03] David Pasqualone: Hey, Xenia, how are you today? Hi David, I'm great. Thanks. How are you? I am remarkable. So I just told our listeners all around the world a little bit about you and what to expect in today's show.

[00:05:19] David Pasqualone: But from you directly, we're going to cover your life story, the highs, the lows, the pretty, the ugly, the pretty ugly, and everything in between. What is the main message that you're going to deliver today, though, to our remarkable community around the world, that if they commit to listen, you commit to delivering this truth to them to help them grow in their own life?

[00:05:39] David Pasqualone: It's a pretty big task. I think the main message I have to deliver here is that a diagnosis of a chronic health condition does not have to ruin your life. Your diagnosis doesn't have to be your prognosis, no matter what any doctor is going to tell you, no matter what the internet is going to tell you.

[00:05:58] David Pasqualone: There's always so many things that we can do to improve our health by so much more than we thought was possible, and simply lead the best life that. is possible for us, no matter any restrictions that might come with a chronic health condition, because I went through that myself, and I can say now, after being diagnosed with three different autoimmune conditions which are not curable, that now my life is better than it has ever been, even before I was sick.

[00:06:28] David Pasqualone: My health It's better. I feel better. I am happier. So for me, that really turned my life around in the best way possible. And I hope it's a message of hope for anyone who is in a similar boat, for anyone who has a chronic health condition, has an autoimmune condition maybe. Yeah, it's a message of hope.

[00:06:47] David Pasqualone: Amen. Amen. And hope is what we all need in different ways for different people. But right now with so many wacky things going around after the pandemic and so many people getting vaccines and people's bodies are being turned upside down and you have autoimmune disease, you've worked through it. So this is gonna be a great episode to help encourage people to know life's just starting, it's not ending.

[00:07:11] David Pasqualone: So, Xenia. Talk to us. Where'd your life start? What was the beginning? Cause obviously you got to this place of just peace and contentment, but what was your journey like getting there? Cause I'm sure there were some valleys, not all just top of the mountains, right? Yeah. I love what you just said that life is just starting and not ending because for me, when my health declined and everything went downhill, it really felt like that was the end for me.

[00:07:39] David Pasqualone: And I had peaked at now at, I think it was. Mid late 20s when, when all of this started, it felt like my best years were already behind me and everything that's going to come is just going to be a smaller version, a kind of a toned down version where I have to stay below my potential, below anything that could have been.

[00:08:01] David Pasqualone: And maybe now I'm going to take a step back of what was my life before. So I was I used to work in finance. It was, I think my first real job out of university. I had studied for five years or so, and everything was going exactly according to my plan. I had the exact job that I always wanted. I had moved away.

[00:08:21] David Pasqualone: From home, left the country, went to a big city to, to get that job and everything was perfect. I thought, so I was really excited about that because I had always planned my career very strictly and always knew exactly what I wanted. And I had all of this suddenly in front of me. And then as I was living that life, I noticed I wasn't happy at all.

[00:08:46] David Pasqualone: Actually, the opposite was happening. I was super unhappy. I was not understanding why. I couldn't really figure out why I wasn't enjoying it as much as I thought. But mostly it was, I was simply exhausted. I wasn't, you know, Be able to enjoy it because I didn't have any energy to enjoy it. I was working myself on the ground at work.

[00:09:06] David Pasqualone: It was a very intense job, very intense working environment, super long hours, weekend work. I wouldn't sleep a lot. I didn't really make time to eat. Good food, but also eat in general. I was eating at my desk, just kind of between breaks. And that was not really how I thought life was going to be because outside of work, I didn't really have much life.

[00:09:31] David Pasqualone: I was trying to stay physically active. I went to the gym, I went did yoga. So that was kind of my, my, my, therapy at the time, but the way I was doing it was just the same way that I was also approaching everything else in my life, just doing it as hard as I could, and not in a way that felt good to me.

[00:09:46] David Pasqualone: And that was always something that I never even thought about. Why am I doing things? Not for the sake of, you know, Feeling good, but for the sake of having some kind of output, like some kind of productivity associated with it. So when I [00:10:00] went and did yoga, that was to get in shape, to have like a fit body and things like that, not to do myself a favor.

[00:10:06] David Pasqualone: Just the same way that I was approaching work, it wasn't because I was enjoying it, but I knew that it was going to lead to a good career, it was going to lead to a good amount of money. So that was how I approached most of the areas in my life. And eventually that fired back because suddenly I found myself really sick and really unhappy.

[00:10:22] David Pasqualone: And then I was diagnosed over a longer period of time with an autoimmune disease autoimmune hepatitis. So autoimmune disease is basically when your immune system that's supposed to protect you somehow becomes dysfunctional and starts to attack own cells because it loses the ability to differentiate what is.

[00:10:43] David Pasqualone: a foreigner? What is an outside invading cell? And what are your own body cells? So that happened, my autoimmune, my immune system started attacking my liver. And from there on, really, my health just started declining, declining, declining, declining. It got worse and worse and worse, and I couldn't really stop it.

[00:11:01] David Pasqualone: And from a medical standpoint, of course, I asked, what can I do? What is there that I can do to get better again? And I was told there isn't I can do it, except taking my Medication has prescribed. And that never really set well with me. Cause I felt knowing my life and knowing everything that I have put myself through up until there, to me, it made sense that the immune system doesn't just break randomly.

[00:11:32] David Pasqualone: There must have been something that triggered that happening. So it only made sense for me that if I could change that, if I could maybe not go back and do things differently, but if I could do things differently now. Then my immune system would also improve, heal, repair itself, because our body is able to repair itself from so many different kinds of injuries, so many different kinds of setbacks.

[00:11:57] David Pasqualone: Our body can overcome so many different kinds of challenges, right? So the immune system should be able to also repair itself, regulate itself, and become functional again. So that's when I was starting to look in different, into different things that you can do. Like, of course, diet comes up all the time.

[00:12:12] David Pasqualone: If you Google, you know, like, what can you do to improve your health? There's always diet, but there's so many different other things. And that was a whole, yeah, rabbit hole I lost myself into for a couple of years, to be honest before really understanding what works, what doesn't work, making a lot of mistakes on the way.

[00:12:31] David Pasqualone: So, before I got better, I got a lot worse after trying out so many different things. And yeah, it took me a long time, a lot of learnings to turn that into something that works for me. And that's where Sorry. Oh, no, no, no. I was just going to say, one, because we definitely want to get to what works and what turned around.

[00:12:53] David Pasqualone: That's what this show is all about. Not just what you faced and what you had to deal with, but how you achieved or overcame it. And we're going to break down the practical steps. But I want to talk about, if you don't mind, exploring that dark side. Like you said, you were just going down the rabbit hole and was spinning, getting worse and worse and worse.

[00:13:11] David Pasqualone: And I know that in my own life and so many people I talk with, when you are hurting, you're looking and hoping. And even though let's say your rational brain's like, oh yeah, that's not going to work, but I'm going to try it anyways. Like you're almost like just hoping for that miracle and that, that one in a million shot.

[00:13:27] David Pasqualone: So what were the things that you were trying that was failing? And what were the things that you were hoping for? And people were, you know, I hate to say this, but when people see others sick, they take advantage of it. They rob them for money. They. Oh yeah. You know, here's a snake oil, use it and you're going to get better and you're going to grow six feet tall.

[00:13:43] David Pasqualone: You know, it's all this crazy stuff. But what kind of stuff were you dealing with? Yeah, so, I mean, you're making a really good point because I probably spent hundreds of thousands in Europe, so euros, on any kind of fad that someone sold me. I was listening to all the podcasts, all the shows, reading all the blog posts listening to all the experts, webinars, seminars, like, you name it, I listened to everything.

[00:14:08] David Pasqualone: And that wasn't just really bad for my mental health, because it's literally become my life. Like health at that point was just my life. Everything was about health. But at the same time, you always hear from these people, Oh, I did this test and it told me that and that, and that made me healthy again. So you feel like if you don't take that test, if you don't do this one thing, you're missing out because that might be your one shot at turning everything around and suddenly everything will be great again.

[00:14:33] David Pasqualone: So you spend money on this thing, then you spend money on that thing, then this didn't work out, then you find another thing, and it was just one thing after another, constantly chasing the next thing that might work, the next thing that might work. It's like, not really, I mean, you know there's no miracle pill, but still, you're trying to find the miracle solution somewhere.

[00:14:54] David Pasqualone: You're trying to find the one thing that someone else has missed, the one thing that suddenly everything makes sense, right? [00:15:00] And. Yeah, I spent so much money on different tests, so much money on different experts, so much money on consultations with different doctors, different kinds of therapies, and nothing worked.

[00:15:11] David Pasqualone: And I wouldn't say it made me sicker, because I think if there would have been that kind of risk associated to it, that would have been a red flag for me. But it just made my mental health decline a lot, because you put so much hope into every single thing, and then that doesn't really give you the So I think that you expect, that's the frustration every single time.

[00:15:31] David Pasqualone: That's huge disappointment every single time. And every time, again, you stand in front of nothing and have to find something else to put, stake all your hope on. And that's exhausting because you don't slow down anymore. Like you feel like whenever you relax, whenever you do something that is not leading to finding another solution.

[00:15:53] David Pasqualone: You're wasting time. You just can't sit still and just do something for fun because during that time you could have watched another seminar, taken another course, and found another solution that works. So that was probably the worst thing that I did to begin with and something that I see People do all the time.

[00:16:11] David Pasqualone: Because now I'm, I'm a health coach. So I work with people who are going through the same thing. And most of them come to me telling me that they've been trying a hundred thousand different things already. So it's, it's really a problem in that community of people living with chronic illnesses. You, you want to feel better, of course, But it's just this rabbit hole that you lose yourself in.

[00:16:31] David Pasqualone: And it takes away all the energy that you have left. And there isn't much to begin with because chronic health conditions drain you of energy, right? We don't have a lot to begin with. And then we spend everything on looking for different solutions. Yeah, that was one of my biggest learnings. One of my not fastest learnings, but probably the one that changed things the most when I recognized how detrimental that really was.

[00:16:57] David Pasqualone: And then I think, after that, What I noticed is I was focusing all of my energy on curing the symptoms. Like there's, with autoimmune diseases, different chronic health conditions, there's always different symptoms, but most of them have a couple in similar, for example in, in in common. For example, fatigue, just being exhausted all the time is probably something that everyone with a chronic illness deals with.

[00:17:25] David Pasqualone: And for everyone who doesn't deal with that, like fatigue, isn't just Being tired. It's like literally having nothing left to give. Like you can't, you feel, you wake up, you feel like you cannot possibly get through the day because you're already exhausted. Walking anywhere drains you. Like listening to someone talk, digesting that in your mind, processing information, it drains you.

[00:17:47] David Pasqualone: You have, you just don't have capacity to deal with anything. That's what fatigue is. And so you have a really big interest to solve that problem, right? But how do you, how do you even solve that? People always tell you, Oh, work out because that's so good for your energy levels. But if you have nothing left, how will you work out?

[00:18:06] David Pasqualone: Like it's not possible, but then you do that and it drains your energy even more. So that's not the best place to start. Then people tell you, oh, eat a good diet. But then changing your diet, that whole process, takes so much energy. It's not easy. If you've been cooking food the same way all your life, it's been eating your food.

[00:18:26] David Pasqualone: If you, if you've been eating the same food for all your life, and suddenly you have to change up your whole diet, With no energy, how are you going to do that? You need all the mental capacity to plan that, plan meals, cook ahead of time, because you're also supposed to eat only home cooked food, right? Not eat out anymore.

[00:18:44] David Pasqualone: How do you do that? Where do you take that time from? And all of these things, you can't do them when you start with zero percent battery. So what I was doing is focusing on curing all these symptoms. I wasn't looking at What is the problem behind all of this? What is connecting all my different symptoms?

[00:19:03] David Pasqualone: Why am I so tired? That is where you have to start because there is a reason why we're so tired. Our body doesn't have energy to deal with this anymore because there's so much already going on just to keep the lights on, just to keep functioning. That's where all the energy goes. So you can't do more things and take away the little energy that is left.

[00:19:23] David Pasqualone: Somehow you have to give your body the rest first. Think about how can I. With little tweaks here and there, just give myself a little more rest, make it a little bit easier for my body. And then when you slowly, slowly rebuild these capacities, then you can invest that energy that you have and do a major thing like changing your diet or starting to work out or something.

[00:19:45] David Pasqualone: And little things that we can do are often not, not the things that we think of first, like actually doing something, but doing nothing. That's a powerful thing. Giving yourself rest. Or also [00:20:00] taking a mental load off because our mind racing all day long drains us so much. So these are things that are completely overlooked.

[00:20:10] David Pasqualone: What's going on in my mind, right? So that would then lead to the first thing that I did wrong. I completely ignored that there is a connection between the mind and the body. And if we start with the mind, it doesn't take a lot from us to do that. It doesn't take a lot of like physical investment. We can simply do little things to take a little bit of strain off our mind.

[00:20:34] David Pasqualone: Thinking about where does my mental energy go to? Do I have maybe, you know, Relationships that drain me, right? Social strain. Do you have any kind of mental, emotional stress that you're going through on a daily basis? Do you have, like, are you kind of exhausted at work in terms of multitasking? Is it that too many things, too many deadlines, too much pressure?

[00:20:55] David Pasqualone: Those are mental strains we can work with, right? What are your, what are your responsibilities at home? Is there someone who can help take a little bit of mental load off you? How do you relax? Are you exhausted? And then you go home and spend the whole evening in front of the TV. That's not going to help your mental health, right?

[00:21:13] David Pasqualone: So what is helping your mental health? Are there things that you can do to calm your mind down a little bit? Because that's going to have a huge impact on your body. That's going to then give you rest. that you need to take on another big thing. So that would be three different things that I learned.

[00:21:26] David Pasqualone: First of all, jumping from one fad to another, looking for a miracle cure, then thinking about symptom management instead of looking at the cause, what, what's the cause behind all the symptoms, and then ignoring that there's a connection between the mind and the body and fixing the mind a bit first. So then you can turn your attention to your body.

[00:21:49] David Pasqualone: And I think the last thing that I learned was. You don't have to do all of this on your own. And I really felt like I had to go through everything on my own. I couldn't share that with anyone else. It would be too much to share with anyone. They didn't want to know about my problems. I don't want to be a burden to other people.

[00:22:06] David Pasqualone: It made me so vulnerable to talk about everything that was going through that I couldn't ask for help. But then I had to do everything on my own with no capacity to take that on. So, things really started to improve for me when I did start to ask for help. And I asked, I couldn't ask for help in my family.

[00:22:25] David Pasqualone: I didn't feel like, I don't know, I could have done that, but I didn't. I felt like the burden there, the hurdle there was too high. So what I did was reach out to a coach, someone neutral, who would be just on my side, who wouldn't be judgmental, who wouldn't be too involved with a little bit of a distance who I know that I could just confide in because they wouldn't tell anyone else.

[00:22:46] David Pasqualone: And that felt, to me, safe. And that is when things started to turn around because suddenly I didn't have to carry everything on my own, do everything myself. Yeah. And that's a huge moment. Absolutely. So I want to tie a couple things up before we take a short break Xenia. And for our listeners, I want them to make sure they're understanding what you're saying, the importance of balance, because you can have no hope and get worse.

[00:23:12] David Pasqualone: You can be searching for crazy solutions and you get sicker. And like the Bible says, cover to cover. And like anybody, even if you don't believe the Bible, I believe in God, I hope you believe in God. But if somebody doesn't believe in God, you know you have to have balance. Anything out of balance, carrots are good for you.

[00:23:27] David Pasqualone: But if you eat too many carrots, what happens? You turn orange, right? Anything out of balance, even good things, is going to turn out not well. And when you're looking for these solutions Xenia said it perfect. Look for the root of core problem, try to solve that. Don't just be solving the symptoms.

[00:23:46] David Pasqualone: That's what the medical industry does. They give you pharmaceuticals, which goes back to pharmacia, which goes back to sorcery and witchcraft, right? That stuff's terrible for you. Sometimes you have to take it, but you don't want to take it unless you have to. And what Xenia is talking about is finding that balance and addressing her root causes, not just the symptoms.

[00:24:07] David Pasqualone: And one thing you said, another thing you said many great things, but when you were talking about how you just don't have the energy and real fatigue, like what is real fatigue? Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. There's people who are overweight and they go to the gym and like, I'm so tired cause I got all this extra weight.

[00:24:25] David Pasqualone: But when you're actually thin and overly thin, like underweight, you physically, physiologically don't have those energy cells to give you the energy to move forward. So if you've never experienced true fatigue, it doesn't matter again, which side of the spectrum you're on. What Xenia is talking about is there's just, No gas in the tank.

[00:24:47] David Pasqualone: Is that correct? Is that how you'd explain it? Yeah, exactly. You have no fuel. You can't do it. You have no fuel. And then it goes back to the one more thing. I said this, but I want to make sure it's clear to the [00:25:00] audience. When I talk about people trying to lure you in, it's because I've been critically ill three times in my life.

[00:25:07] David Pasqualone: And I know people just, they're like what's it called? Like sharks with blood in the water. They're just swarming, trying to get every penny before you die, right? You can never, ever, ever quit being your hardest advocate. And Xenia, you correct me if I'm wrong, you never stop fighting. You never stop looking for the solution.

[00:25:26] David Pasqualone: Because I personally believe that every answer to every question in the world is in the Bible, and when it comes to our health, we're to fight, fight, fight, and search for the health problems, and to find the solutions to those health problems. That's my personal stance. I've seen it work in my real life, in my own life.

[00:25:43] David Pasqualone: I've seen it work in other people's life. But, if God has it where your course is different than you do, my grandmother passed away of cancer. I remember watching her for the first five years of my life. It was painful to watch, let alone what she was going through. But that was God's plan, and now she's in eternity with him in peace, right?

[00:26:01] David Pasqualone: But you have to have the balance there. Don't accept the doctor saying this is your ticket. Like, I love that quote you said at the beginning Xenia, and I'm squinting here looking at my phone. You said your diagnosis does not have to be your prognosis. So, no matter what the doctors say, ladies and gentlemen, don't do it.

[00:26:19] David Pasqualone: Be afraid to fight. Keep looking. Get more doctors. Don't go to the doctors. Do whatever it takes to get well and never stop fighting there. But don't be giving your money and your time to snake oil salesman. That's going to exhaust you and the fatigue. So talk to Xenia, you know, set up a coaching call, get with her privately.

[00:26:40] David Pasqualone: But you got to find that balance where you're always moving forward. You're never quitting. You're being encouraged. And after this short break, Xenia is going to tell you how she did it. So you can too. Before we cut to a quick break, Xenia, is there anything else you want to add into that long dialogue I just threw in there?

[00:26:59] David Pasqualone: I think one thing that I really loved with you started with that saying that the key is balance. And I learned for myself that this is exactly where it went wrong for me and for so many people, why the immune system becomes dysfunctional, why we get sick in the first place is because things are out of balance.

[00:27:18] David Pasqualone: in life. And when we're looking at finding the root instead of the symptoms, that is usually where you have to look. Where's my life out of balance? And that can be any area in your life at all. It can be in terms of diet. You're not eating what your body needs you to eat, but it can also be things like leading and complete living in complete misalignment with Your deepest values and beliefs.

[00:27:44] David Pasqualone: And that is something that for me, for the longest time, I didn't notice because I never questioned what are my values actually? Am I living the life that I should be living? That I'm designed to live, right? I was kind of blindly following what everybody else was doing, what I was taught in school, what I was taught in university, what my peers were doing.

[00:28:02] David Pasqualone: I wasn't stopping and questioning if that is really my dream and if that is really In alignment with my values. So as I was going through this whole process, and we're talking about that later, right? The actual steps that I did, but that is the main question people have to ask themselves. What is balance for me?

[00:28:17] David Pasqualone: And where's my life out of balance? And again, can be in any area, but it's, it's probably much simpler than we often make it out to be because it doesn't take 500 different supplements to put your life back in balance. It can be tiny changes within us that can make all the difference. Amen. And we're going to talk about those tiny little changes that are going to make massive differences in your life, right?

[00:28:41] David Pasqualone: Right after this short affiliate commercial. So you not only get this amazing time with Xenia, but you get a special offer so you can benefit even more in life. And then we're going to come back and finish this great episode with our friend Xenia. 

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[00:29:57] David Pasqualone: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome [00:30:00] back to the show. Hope you use that affiliate commercial sponsor promo code Remarkable from our friends at MyPillow. They truly have the best products I've ever used. They are quality. They're an American company. They love God. They love America. And you are going to sleep better than ever.

[00:30:17] David Pasqualone: If not, you send it back for a full refund. You just use promo code Remarkable and save 30, 80 percent off everything you order every time, just for being part of our global community. So thank you and enjoy. Now! Welcome back, Xenia. Xenia is going to talk about not only what she had to deal with in that first half, but now in this second half, she's going to tell us how she basically adapted and overcame, but kick butt and took names.

[00:30:45] David Pasqualone: So Xenia, pick up. You're at this point, you're trying things, it's getting digging in the hole, you're, you're losing money, you're spending money, you're being robbed of money. You're emotionally, physically, mentally exhausted, and the doctors are pretty much giving you no hope, and they're like, take more drugs so we get richer and make our Mercedes payment.

[00:31:05] David Pasqualone: Right? That's where we're at in your life. Take us from there. Yeah, pretty much. So I just told you the four biggest learnings that I had during that time. It took a long time to learn that. But it was really during that self exploration. So I took a year off work, actually. That was my plan because I couldn't deal with everything at the same time.

[00:31:27] David Pasqualone: And I knew that if I wouldn't fix my health, then nothing else really matters, right? Because I wasn't, so I was in a fortunate position. I had a good job at the time. So I had savings that would finance that gap year for me. And I thought that was a good investment in myself because if I couldn't fix that.

[00:31:44] David Pasqualone: Then there would also be no way that I could keep making money because I was really in no position to work anymore. When I quit my job, the feedback that I got that really surprised me was that people were mostly impressed commenting on how brave that was. While I had expected them to be more judgmental about it, be more, why are you doing this?

[00:32:02] David Pasqualone: That is crazy. But it really made me understand that so many more people are playing with this Thoughts are kind of fantasizing about breaking out of the corporate world, leaving the job behind and just doing something for them. And to me, the thing is, When they were saying, Oh, this is brave. It didn't feel brave to me.

[00:32:23] David Pasqualone: To me, it was really the last thing that I could possibly do because I was with my back against the ball. I didn't have any options left. The only option I had at that point was quit and just focus all of my energy on myself and my recovery. So that's kind of where I started. Then that year didn't turn out at all the way I had expected it to be.

[00:32:41] David Pasqualone: That's what I was just talking about, how I was just getting worse and worse and worse. And during that time, that's when I noticed those changes. for learnings that we just spoke about. So then what I did was really think about what does that mean for my future? How can I use that, turn it into something that does work?

[00:33:00] David Pasqualone: And the first Most obvious thing for me was, we just talked about the mind body connection, right? So, there's a huge connection between our mind and our body. And what that means is really, our mental health, Impacts our physical health. If our mind is healthy, that means it's going to have a physical impact on our body.

[00:33:23] David Pasqualone: But also the other way around, if our body is sick, that has a negative impact on our mind. So mental health is more likely to occur when we're sick. When you have a physical problem already, so since I was struggling with fixing my body, fixing my physical health, I was starting now with fixing my mental health, because at the point where I was starting out from, I really felt like I was severely depressed.

[00:33:48] David Pasqualone: I had no hope. I had no optimism. I was frustrated all the time. I was disappointed all the time. I was fed up with the whole situation. I was ashamed of myself for letting it go that far. It wasn't really my fault, right? But at the time you can't see that. At the time you feel like you're this huge burden for everyone else around you.

[00:34:08] David Pasqualone: You can't keep up with them anymore, right? You can't really keep up with your life anymore. You have all kinds of thoughts of just it really like You don't, you don't want to share these thoughts with other people. You withdraw from other people, you isolate yourself, that doesn't help your mental health, right?

[00:34:29] David Pasqualone: So it's, it's a ton of things that really happens to people with chronic illnesses that people don't talk about. Because we only really talk about the physical impact of chronic diseases. But the mental aspect is what really makes it so much worse. Because that's what you're often with on your own. And nobody can see that.

[00:34:46] David Pasqualone: Nobody can help you with that. Yeah. And can I add something there? Yeah, of course. If somebody hasn't gone through a long term illness, you know, it's like there's levels of understanding. Like, I don't understand. Yeah. I [00:35:00] get it. But you really don't. Oh, okay. I get it. Oh, I understand. Oh, I get it. And then it's like, you're a master.

[00:35:06] David Pasqualone: There's like different levels of learning. But if you are listening to Zinnia and you want even a small piece of what she's talking about, I don't care if you're from India, if you're from England, if you're from Iceland, or if you're from Canada. Wherever you're from, picture yourself, you get a cold.

[00:35:23] David Pasqualone: You have a cold for a day, it's no big deal. Cold two or three days, it's annoying. You get a cold for a week or more. How many people here have been depressed? You start getting sad. You're in the house, you're, you're, you're like, Oh, I'm going stir crazy. You don't feel good, and when you don't feel good and you're in pain, you get cranky, you get snippy, you get depressed.

[00:35:41] David Pasqualone: You get all these emotions that aren't necessarily, quote unquote, you, on a daily basis. But they come out, you Well, picture Xenia and other people with chronic illnesses. They're in pain all day. There's they're tired all day. They're like lack of hope all day. And so this is what. Xenia is talking about.

[00:36:02] David Pasqualone: It's very lonely and very scary. And I'm, and I'm just trying to make sure Xenia, people who've never experienced this can connect so they have more compassion for people they know that do. And if they ever get it, they can be prepared. And if they have it, So I just wanted to make sure we added that in.

[00:36:20] David Pasqualone: Yeah, no, thanks for doing that. I think I, I still tend to brush over the fact of how taxing that really is sometimes. But you're totally right. It's, it's really, I don't think people who are not going through it can often empathize with it well enough because you simply don't see it. And you feel like if you can't see it, it's not there anymore.

[00:36:41] David Pasqualone: And I, I mean, I was recently talking about it with my, my own partner, right? During that time, he didn't realize how hard it was on me because I didn't share it. And I felt like I couldn't share it because that's just going to scam away, right? You're so worried how other people are going to react if you tell them, I don't want to join today because I feel like I physically can't, like, I can't go out.

[00:37:04] David Pasqualone: I want to come out. I want to go out with you. I want to go out with these other people. I cannot, can't physically do it. And that's a big thing to say, because you can say that once or twice, right? But if you say that all the time, they're going to think, Oh, what is wrong with this person? Like, do we want to keep including her?

[00:37:21] David Pasqualone: Like, what's the point? If she never comes, she never joins, we're just going to stop asking. But you don't want to be the person left out. Right? So you kind of push through your boundaries sometimes to pretend everything is fine. So they keep including you. Little things like this, or just if you think of anything you do on a daily basis, or even on a weekly basis, that brings you any kind of joy.

[00:37:45] David Pasqualone: If you can't do that anymore, what's left in your life, right? You don't have the energy to do the things that you love. For me, that was going to my yoga class. That gave me life. I couldn't do that anymore. Physically couldn't even, I couldn't even do child's pose, which is the most basic thing because everything was hurting, right?

[00:38:02] David Pasqualone: So it's, it's tiny things like that. Other people who like to do, I don't know, like now I like doing pottery. I wouldn't be able to do that. I simply wouldn't be able to focus. I wouldn't be able to put the strength that is required with my hands on the potter's wheel, right? Wouldn't be able to do it. The only thing I can do is sit at home, wallow in your pain.

[00:38:26] David Pasqualone: And that takes a strain on your mind. So that is where I started thinking about how can I fix my mental health? How can I also fix my, my nervous system a bit? Because when our mental health is really bad. And on top of physical health is pretty bad, what does that mean for our nervous system, right? So our nervous system has two states, the sympathetic and the parasympathetic, which is one is your fight and flight response, your stress response.

[00:38:55] David Pasqualone: And the other is your rest and digest response. And that is where healing happens. But most of the time, these days in our day and age, we're spending so much time in fight and flight mode because we're constantly stressed. Everything in our environment is triggering us and triggering a stress response.

[00:39:14] David Pasqualone: And that's something I didn't realize for the longest time because it's just so normal, right? You rush from one thing to another, 90 percent of the day you're stressed. Your heart rate is elevated. Your breath is kind of shallow, right? We don't breathe deeply anymore because we're always stressed.

[00:39:30] David Pasqualone: We're always tense. People around you stress you out. The things that you do is stressing you out. You're running between different kinds of appointments, running, running, running, and you can't slow down for your body. That means you're being chased. There's something stressful happening, right? So your body is constantly producing stress hormones and this fight and flight mode that's supposed to be temporary.

[00:39:52] David Pasqualone: becomes chronic. And when that happens, our nervous system is dysregulated because it cannot slow down [00:40:00] anymore. It can't move into rest and digest. It can't move into the state where healing and recovery happens. So if that is not physically possible for your body, You can't recover. It's literally impossible for you to recover because this, this function is impaired because you're always in fight or flight mode.

[00:40:20] David Pasqualone: Your body is always struggling to rest and calm down. So when you start with the mind, you can also, through that, access this rest and digest state because you can calm down your mind. You can calm down your thoughts. You can calm down your, your heart rate by doing that. That signals your body you're safe.

[00:40:43] David Pasqualone: And if you're safe, healing can happen. That is kind of, in a nutshell, how nervous system work works. And it's, it's much more complex than that, but it's little things like meditating and meditating is something that's like, so like, I don't even know how to say, but people, people tend to cringe when the word meditating comes up.

[00:41:05] David Pasqualone: Right. But it is a miracle tool that you can use, right? Little things. You can do during the day to just slow down and do something good for your body. Center yourself. Ground yourself. Tune out from all of the stress around you. Tune out from this fight and flight mode and give your body a break to slow down by simply sitting with yourself, sitting with your thoughts, trying to let the thoughts pass by and not influence you so much because our mind carousel It's always on.

[00:41:40] David Pasqualone: And that is the most stressful thing that we have. We often have a voice in our mind that is super stressful, super negative, little gremlin, sometimes people call it, right? Someone who is there bullying you the whole day long. It's also something really interesting for people with especially autoimmune diseases.

[00:41:56] David Pasqualone: There are different studies that look at personality traits and characteristics. And there seems to be a link between people who would as being a perfectionist. or as being a people pleaser with autoimmune disease. Because it's these traits push you to go the extra mile, that push you to not listen to your own needs, that push you to do more than you actually want to do, and have blurry boundaries.

[00:42:25] David Pasqualone: And those are things that we can influence by having a stronger mind, by really working on strengthening our mind, focusing more on our own needs, listening to what is good for our body. And by that, influencing this whole mind body connection in a positive way. Should I take a break here or should I go on to the second?

[00:42:46] David Pasqualone: No, let's do this though. A lot of people, two things I want to touch on the meditation. One is even Jesus meditating the Bible to be alone with his himself and God. And you know, there's a lot of different versions of meditation and different ways you can meditate, but there is a biblically balanced Form of meditation.

[00:43:07] David Pasqualone: And there's ways to like Xenia is saying to disconnect and to slow down your thoughts, because I love how you put that. And if you can't slow down your mind. Your body's not going to kick in and start healing because it's using all the energy to worry, right? So what are some ways you found, especially because I know you're getting into it as someone who's an achiever and a striver and a perfectionist and a people pleaser, as somebody who's always go, go, go, go, go, and the mind doesn't shut off.

[00:43:34] David Pasqualone: What are some of the tricks you found? Let's just focus on that. Just being still. What did you find works for you that maybe our listeners, it'll work for them? Yeah, that's a great question. Because for me, when I started and I started with meditation and I felt like it didn't work at all, I hated meditating.

[00:43:53] David Pasqualone: I couldn't sit still for like two minutes. Not even thinking about 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes, like you're supposed to, right? Felt impossible to me. It was like physically painful for me to sit in silence because so much negativity came up. So many mean thoughts came up. So then I thought, okay, that doesn't work.

[00:44:14] David Pasqualone: What can I do to get ahead of these thoughts to make meditation a little bit easier for me? I found journaling works really well, especially before Meditating, because you can sit for a moment and you can just see what comes up, analyze your thoughts. What are the thoughts that you have in your mind?

[00:44:34] David Pasqualone: Because when they come up during meditating, you're supposed to just let them pass, right? But if they are troubling thoughts, that's very difficult because we're attached to these thoughts. But by processing them, by journaling on them, by writing out on a piece of paper, what is going on in your mind right now, that is something that worked really well for me to let those thoughts go.

[00:44:55] David Pasqualone: Because I felt like by putting them on paper, I had physically [00:45:00] processed them. I had given them the room to get out of my mind, onto the paper, out of my life. And then I could sit down, even for five minutes, and I felt like my mind was clear and kind of empty. And that is something that worked pretty well for me.

[00:45:15] David Pasqualone: On the other hand, Did you ever clean a pool? No, I did not clean a pool. Or, I mean, anything. Like, I always picture my thoughts in journaling. I agree with you. Just to give a visual is if you've ever seen, like, trash floating on water, And you use a net and you scoop it up, it doesn't matter if there's two or three leaves, or if there's three thousand.

[00:45:36] David Pasqualone: If you scoop enough and dump it, that water is going to end up being clean in the pool. That's how I always picture journaling, it's like I'm capturing those trash nuggets and throwing them away, and then I can even burn the journal later, I just get rid of them from my mind so we can have that still water.

[00:45:51] David Pasqualone: Is that kind of how you feel? That's exactly how I would describe it. Yeah. And I know people who don't like journaling. It doesn't work for everyone. Just like meditation might not. See, I think it does. I think it might work for everyone. I think it does. I think the people who don't like it, there's deeper reasons why they don't like it, but I think it's possible.

[00:46:11] David Pasqualone: I think foundations are the same for everybody, and I do believe that if any human journals, it does work, but the question is why does someone loathe journaling? I think there's a deeper, deeper, deeper issue there. No, I think you're right. I think I shouldn't have said it doesn't work for some people, but I think No, no, no.

[00:46:29] David Pasqualone: I know. I know what you mean. Some people don't like doing it, right? Just like meditation didn't work for me to begin with. For me, I needed to find something else where I could start for some people that might be journaling for some people that might be a gratitude exercise, because that gets you in a more positive mood.

[00:46:48] David Pasqualone: If you think about things you're grateful for, right? Just write down three to five things. What are you grateful for? And then you meditate. That already takes care of so many negative thoughts because suddenly your mind is primed for positivity, for everything that's good in your life, everything that has happened on that day, you're grateful for.

[00:47:07] David Pasqualone: That is another way that works for some people. Didn't really work for me either. So for me, it was really the journaling that helped make the difference. But that is something you do kind of, how do I say, like, In the moment. That is a thing you do now and it helps now. But then I just talked about different character traits or characteristics personality traits.

[00:47:30] David Pasqualone: that people with autoimmune diseases have in common, like being a people pleaser, like being a perfectionist, things like that. So there's a lot about that we can also do that has more of a long term impact on our mental health. Looking at these different belief systems that we have that we have accumulated and grown over the years from all kinds of different external influences, like people telling us you have to work really hard.

[00:47:56] David Pasqualone: If you want to become successful, it has to be really hard. We expect that. So if the way is hard, we just accept it as that because if you don't work hard, no pain, no gain, right? It's like these little things you sleep when you're dead, you don't make time for your sleep. These are little things that shape our belief system around how life is supposed to be.

[00:48:15] David Pasqualone: If your belief is, if I work really hard to please other people, they're not going to find a fault with me. They can't attack me, your strategy, your default strategy is always going to be to go the extra mile farthest on your own personal expense. You'd rather sacrifice your own health to make someone else happy than think about, is this actually what's serving me in the moment?

[00:48:41] David Pasqualone: And that is something you can't fix immediately. But thinking about these things, And again, journaling is a great tool to do that, to think about these different beliefs that you have that impact your health and how you make decisions and how you simply process life, right? Doing that work is going to help on a whole different level, not really impacting meditation, but impacting, on a different scale your whole life, right?

[00:49:06] David Pasqualone: And how you act, how you protect yourself, how you learn healthy boundaries. What are your boundaries even? Because when I started doing that, I didn't even have any healthy boundaries. I didn't know what felt good and safe for me anymore. So establishing that is also really important to fix that home mind body connection because that's what you're doing.

[00:49:24] David Pasqualone: It sets your mind up to be a healthy place, a supportive environment. And I was talking also earlier about this, this mental voice that we have sometimes, this inner gremlin that's sitting on your shoulder and telling you, you're not good enough. You didn't do this right. Everybody else is doing it better.

[00:49:41] David Pasqualone: Like what's the point of doing it anyway? Right. We all have this voice. Also, some of us more than others, that is something like, if you don't feel safe in your own mind. Especially when you're meditating, right? That's when this voice can be really, really loud. How do you deal with that? And we often don't deal [00:50:00] with that.

[00:50:00] David Pasqualone: We often just accept it as it is, but you can change the narrative of that voice. You can make a conscious decision and say, no, you're not going to talk to me like that. Instead, you're pushing positive thoughts into that voice. You consciously stand in front of the mirror, even if that feels super silly, and you talk to yourself in the way that you want to be talked to by that inner voice.

[00:50:25] David Pasqualone: You say, good morning to yourself. This is, it's a nice day. It's nice to see you. I like you. You look good today, right? Things like this, they teach your brain to be kinder. With you, when you talk to yourself, simple, everyday communication that we have going on with our mind, right? We can't train that. That is something where we also have to start at the same time, simply making sure that this space that we have in our brain, the space that we have in our mind is a positive one and not one that is super destructive and judgmental.

[00:51:03] David Pasqualone: So those would be all different things. Yeah. To heal that mind body connection. Yeah. That constant nagging. Inside yourself. People are so used to it, they've lived with it for so long that they don't realize how exhausting they are to themselves. They hear, you suck, you're no good, you're fat, you're ugly, you're this, you're that, you're too much, you're too little.

[00:51:26] David Pasqualone: That's old! That gets old fast. What are some of the tips you really use first hand, Xenia, to get rid of those demons in the head, so to speak? What I do with my clients is usually we look at their narrative there is a whole field of narrative practice in positive psychology where you think about how do I narrate my life?

[00:51:49] David Pasqualone: If I look at my life, what are the different things, the different events that I think of, connect with a red line and say, this is my life. And to everyone else that will look different. And if you narrate your life, if you have. Your mom or your sister narrating your life, they will pick different events that for them make sense to put together in one story.

[00:52:11] David Pasqualone: And what we often do is we choose events that hold some kind of meaning for us. Now, who decides what that meaning is, right? Often it's meaning that we get from other people, meaning that we get from our peers. If someone judges us, we connect an event with that negative meaning. That is really impactful for us in our life.

[00:52:37] David Pasqualone: Now, if we connect all the negative events with a red line and say, this is my life, we're missing out on all the positive ones. If we connect all the positive ones, now you can see what a difference that makes because we're dropping all the negative ones. So our whole life view is completely different.

[00:52:55] David Pasqualone: That's going to impact our internal voice by a lot, because either they think about all the things we've done well, all the things we're good at, all the things that are going great in our life. All we're thinking about, all the things that we failed, all the things that we got negative feedback, where something went badly, where something didn't go out the way that was planned.

[00:53:15] David Pasqualone: So if you see those two different things, you have a choice, how you're going to narrate your life. And with my clients, what we're doing is, we're Developing this alternative story, the positive story, the empowering story, that's what we're developing together because it is the same story, it's the same life, right?

[00:53:33] David Pasqualone: You don't have to lie. It's not about being delusional or yeah, living a lie. It's simply about shifting your focus to everything that's going well. And that's going to impact how this internal voice talks to you also. That's going to impact how you think about yourself because suddenly you're no longer the spader that you thought you were.

[00:53:53] David Pasqualone: Actually, there are so many things that you've already done well that are going well. I couldn't agree more. I think that's so important and I want people to know the depth and the seriousness of this. I believe that most illnesses, not all, but most illnesses we have. are the unmet, I don't want to use the term, needs, but unresolved emotions, unresolved pain, and we let it just build up and eat us away from the inside out, and then it can turn to cancer, it can turn to an autoimmune disease, can turn to depression.

[00:54:37] David Pasqualone: I really believe that most of the stuff people deal with in life has to do with unresolved needs. Unresolved issues, mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually. But, but when you're talking and you're talking about you know, having these issues that you need to resolve and shifting your voice and setting healthy boundaries.[00:55:00] 

[00:55:01] David Pasqualone: Do you feel like if you could go back and talk to your younger self? And teach her to journal and to, to shift this voice. Do you think you wouldn't have had the autoimmune diseases or do you think you would still have them? I can't say, I think definitely it would have impacted my health in a positive way though, because I know going through this process, there were so many unprocessed emotions that had I been able to resolve them and let them go earlier, they wouldn't have impacted my health.

[00:55:35] David Pasqualone: in that negative way that they did. And I definitely think you're right with this, this like emotional burden piling up and leading to health issues that there's so much research about that already. So there's definitely something there and still people tend to disregard that mind body connection. And they think about, What diet can I do, right?

[00:55:59] David Pasqualone: Like everyone always wants to change their diet. And like, there's a good reason for that, but it's not the main thing. It's not the only thing that you can do. Your diet, it can be as good as you want it to be. Like it could be the perfect diet if you don't fix. Your mental and emotional turbulences and turmoil, right?

[00:56:19] David Pasqualone: That's only going to get you that far. So you have to address that at some point. And many people are afraid to address that. You don't want to go back and dig up all of this stuff and dig through your mind, but that is the brave part that you have to do for your body to actually be able to heal.

[00:56:38] David Pasqualone: Yeah, I, I totally believe that and I think the reason why I want to kind of address it is so for all the listeners out there Who are maybe young for all the listeners out there who are sick, but they're not at the end, you know, like they don't have stage four cancer. Listen to what Xenia is telling you and apply it now before it gets worse.

[00:57:02] David Pasqualone: So you can still have the worst and hit the low and turn around and get better. We're not saying you can't. But why go through all the pain, learn from our bad experiences and avoid it. Right. So that, that's where I was going with that Xenia. So thank you for sharing. So continue, what other things helped you for this mind body switch and shift?

[00:57:23] David Pasqualone: Yeah. So I think I mentioned probably most of it. So the mind body part was definitely the first one that I tackled, because what I mentioned earlier already, once your mind is stronger, you're going to You have kind of a stable foundation that's gonna give you so much energy also, because if you're switching from being all negative and frustrated to being positive and hopeful, that is fuel for your body, right?

[00:57:49] David Pasqualone: So all these mental shifts that you're making, we said through the mind body connection, they impact physically the health of your body. Now you're also able to do other things and take on other things and bigger things. And that leads me then to my second kind of lesson learned. We talked about shifting from a symptom based approach to kind of a cause based approach, looking at the root, looking at why, why did I get sick?

[00:58:16] David Pasqualone: Where we can now think about diet and movement and sleep and all of these different lifestyle factors that, that people often talk about, because now you have I'm. Base. From. You. Have. Already. Built. Some. Capacity. Built. Some. Internal. Resources. To deal. With. Those. Things. So, looking at. Physically. The body.

[00:58:36] David Pasqualone: Looking at. The. Root. Cause. Of. Chronic. Disease. For most of them. That is. Inflammation in the body. Why does inflammation happen? All kinds of reasons. We don't, we don't always know. But one big thing, again, comes back to things being out of balance, because we've been living in misalignment. We've been doing things that are not good for ourselves.

[00:58:58] David Pasqualone: We've been running ourselves into the ground. We've been overworking ourselves. We've been overstimulated. All these different things. Put our body out of balance and that leads to inflammation across the body. And inflammation can lead to all kinds of different health conditions, right? Like maybe, maybe all health conditions in a way are rooted in inflammation.

[00:59:20] David Pasqualone: So instead of addressing the symptoms, what we want to do is choose a lifestyle that addresses the symptoms. Inflammation, because if you can get the inflammation controlled, you're also going to control your symptoms. But the outlook is going to be very different because you're not looking at different silos, different little things you can do to tackle this symptom and that symptom, but you're looking at one holistic approach.

[00:59:42] David Pasqualone: That tackles everything at the same time, that kind of cascades down through all of your different symptoms, throughout the different body part of the different body symptoms systems, and heals it in a more holistic way. So that's when I was then thinking about changing my diet. What kind of options do I have there?

[00:59:59] David Pasqualone: So [01:00:00] since I have an autoimmune condition, the diet that made most sense for me is the autoimmune protocol of AIP. And I became a certified AIP coach because I was really struggling to make that work for me. And because I'm really curious about that and I wanted to know and understand why I was struggling so much, why that wasn't working for me, why it seemed to be working for everyone else.

[01:00:22] David Pasqualone: I became certified as a coach to really understand that. And then I could make that work for me. And basically what the AIP is for everyone who doesn't know about that it's kind of a elimination. diet, where for a short period of time, you take out all of the different foods that are potentially inflammatory, that many people don't tolerate well, for example, gluten, for example, dairy you take them out of your diet.

[01:00:49] David Pasqualone: You give your body, your gut specifically, time to recover because it's no longer exposed to these foods that might potentially be troublesome. And when you got, your gut recovers, your body recovers, you can then reintroduce the foods one by one. And typically we tend to see really well which foods we do tolerate because we don't have an injection.

[01:01:09] David Pasqualone: Or the foods that we don't tolerate, because suddenly after the gut has been restored and recovered, then it can appropriately react and tell you, I don't tolerate this food. And from from experience, I know that many people with autoimmune diseases, probably all people with autoimmune disease have some kind of food intolerance.

[01:01:30] David Pasqualone: And when we don't discover that, they are constantly exposing their body to a trigger to the autoimmune system. Because that's also a way how we can bring our, our body out of balance by feeding it foods that it doesn't tolerate. Those foods constantly trigger the immune system because the immune system thinks there's something that's not supposed to be there.

[01:01:50] David Pasqualone: I have to fight it. So it's active. It's active. It's active. It's always attacking, always attacking. That's why our gut sometimes is. So severely compromised and inflamed and damaged. And if we don't heal that, like things, things go so wrong for our immune system because 80% of the immune system are sitting around the gut, are sitting around the gut lining.

[01:02:12] David Pasqualone: So if that first defense, this gut lining isn't solid, your immune system is constantly exposed to things, it's not things it's not supposed to be exposed to. So fixing that is the first point. Then fixing your sleep, fixing the way that you rest and restore your energy, because sadly a lot of people with autoimmune diseases We talked about fatigue, right?

[01:02:40] David Pasqualone: They really need their sleep, but they also don't sleep well at the same time. You might have issues falling asleep at night, you might not make it through the night fast asleep, you might wake up and still be really tired, right? There's different reasons why we don't sleep well. And fixing that sleep is really a priority because otherwise you can't recover the energy that you need.

[01:03:02] David Pasqualone: But also at the same time, sleep is only one way how you can Relax and restore energy. There's many different ways how you can do that during the day. Also, how you can find little energy breaks here and there. Some people, like, they recover energy by being around other people, by being around supportive people, right?

[01:03:24] David Pasqualone: Being around their family and their friends. Other people, for them, that's really draining. They need alone time to recover their energy. For some people, they like to I don't know, expose themselves to sources of inspiration, right? Go out in nature, go out to a museum look at a painting, look at something that brings them joy that can recover energy, like nature.

[01:03:46] David Pasqualone: Anyways, it's a really good energy source for source for many people, right? Just going out, going for a walk looking at plants, as silly as that sounds, that is really energizing for people, right? So there is different ways how we can recover. Energy apart from sleeping also. And then lastly, also movement, physical movement like that, that is something that is very relevant when you have a sick body because movement is very anti-inflammatory.

[01:04:14] David Pasqualone: If we don't move. We also spike inflammation, so we definitely have to move. But at the same time, we already talked about it, if we don't have a lot of energy to begin with, we don't want to start a super intense exercise routine. We don't want to do high intensity training. We don't want to go to spinning class and burn everything that we have.

[01:04:31] David Pasqualone: We want to do something that is supportive for our body, right? Just going for a walk is maybe already enough. Going to a restorative yoga class instead of a hot yoga class, right? That is so much more appropriate. Start small, but do a little bit every day, right? Those are different things, how we can shift our lifestyle from a pro inflammatory one to an anti inflammatory one.

[01:04:56] David Pasqualone: And again, by that, addressing all our [01:05:00] symptoms holistically, instead of going one by one with different levels of fats. And maybe I'll pause here for a moment. Yeah, no, that's great. I want to. Take us from where we've gone through your story, and if we've missed anything from your birth, through today.

[01:05:17] David Pasqualone: Let's cover that before we transition into where is Xenia today, and where are you headed next? How can we help you get there? And how can our listeners reach out to you and connect if they want to continue the conversation? So the first part is, is there anything we missed from your birth through today, Xenia?

[01:05:35] David Pasqualone: That or other thoughts you want to put in there for our listeners before we move on to the next section? From my birth I think not that would be relevant to the current topic. So I think I have one more lesson learned that I would cover. One more thing that I did. I don't know if that fits here or if it fits in a future question, but Just go through it, go to it. Cause there's like, we didn't really talk about your background and we did talk about how we believe that like a lot of emotional things lead to physical illnesses.

[01:06:09] David Pasqualone: And sometimes we're just born wired to be achievers and we're wired to be, you know, super concerned about other people's welfare. But other times we were abused as a kid or we're, Molested as a kid, or we were picked on as a kid, or bullied as a kid. There's things that drove us to that. So that's why, if you want to talk about what kind of shaped the way for the path of thinking that caused you to be sick, you can talk about that.

[01:06:33] David Pasqualone: Or if you're just like, forget the past, this is the solution, you know, whatever you feel comfortable with. No, it's, it's pretty funny that you bring that up because this is exactly my third learning or the third thing that I did looking at who am I actually? Yeah. And what does that mean for my health?

[01:06:52] David Pasqualone: And how do I also stay myself and not become my illness? throughout that whole health journey, because I think what many people also deal with, I mean, I already spoke about this like rabbit hole that I lost myself in, where everything in my life became about health. And I felt like I wasn't really a person anymore.

[01:07:12] David Pasqualone: That really take, took away my, my humanity in a way, right? Everything was health related. If it wasn't To better my health, there was no point in doing it. There was no enjoyment about eating anymore, right? Food was simply medicine, literally. And people tend to say, like, food is medicine. And I find that so silly to say, because food isn't medicine.

[01:07:40] David Pasqualone: Like, yes, it can be good for you, right? But first and foremost, you want to enjoy food. Eating should be an enjoyable process. For me, there wasn't any enjoyment about that because I ate food that I hated because it was supposed to be good for me, right? And that was every area of my life. I did things that I hated all the time because they were supposedly good for me.

[01:08:02] David Pasqualone: But if you do that with the attitude that you hate it, it's impossible that that is going to be good for you at the end of the day, right? That's just going to make you more and more sick. So really the last thing that I tackled was how do I approach This whole healing journey from a point of view where I still say my, I still say myself, I stay true to myself and I stay a person who also does things for fun.

[01:08:31] David Pasqualone: And there is more to life than health, right? Because for the longest time, health was like, you could have said health was my hobby. Everything I did, like I said, was about health, but it also, there comes a point where you realize health is more of a hygiene factor, right? Like if you don't have it, You're in trouble.

[01:08:52] David Pasqualone: You need it. But if you have it, there is a reason why people take it for granted. Because if you have it, it's a, it's more of a vehicle to allow you to do everything that's really important in life, to allow you to do all the things that you'd love in life, to spend time with your family, to like, to travel, to go after your hobbies, right?

[01:09:14] David Pasqualone: That is why you need your health. You don't need your health for the sake of your health. You need it. Because it allows you to be the person that you were born to be and to do all the things that are important to you. But I didn't even know what that was because I didn't think that far ahead. It was just about in the moment, I'm not healthy, but why did I actually need my health?

[01:09:37] David Pasqualone: And that is a question that I had never asked myself. And that is a question that's also so much bigger than just health, because it leads to like, who are you at your core? What are my values? What are my beliefs? These are things I never questioned myself. But that also is why I was living in misalignment with my values and beliefs for the longest time of my life, because I didn't even question [01:10:00] why I was doing certain things.

[01:10:02] David Pasqualone: So for me, eventually when I had more capacity to take on new things. That was really important to me to really explore who am I beyond that illness? What makes me, me? How does my life path look? How has it looked? Did I like that? I didn't like it. It made me sick. So what do I do in the future? How do I turn that around?

[01:10:26] David Pasqualone: And that I find is a really critical step for people to move out of this. victim mentality, and this patient mentality, and this like, I'm sick person mentality, and become a proper functioning person again, where the illness is just one part of them, but there's so many more parts. That make them a beautiful human being and a person who has a life, who has the right to lead the life that they want and deserve to be the life that they want.

[01:10:56] David Pasqualone: And I think that is, that was the last of my three big learnings or three big steps that I took that is probably the most important one. Yeah, no, I couldn't agree more and thank you so much for sharing us your story Xenia. Now, if someone wants to get a hold of you, continue the conversation, learn more, check out your classes, what you have to offer, what's the best way for them to reach you or to continue the learning?

[01:11:25] David Pasqualone: They can reach out to me through my Instagram or my website. So it's both of them is zinniabrandsetter. com. We can probably drop that in the show notes because it's a complicated name. We will put it in the show notes. You can just click, ladies and gentlemen. On my website, they will find a free roadmap document where I actually In detail, describe exactly what I was talking about here, but more actionable steps, one by one, what I did.

[01:11:54] David Pasqualone: So if they want to read up on that it comes with a short one week email series also to explain a little bit more in detail where they can take everything that I have just talked about, see how that applies to their life. If there's any steps that they've already done, if there's any steps that they haven't done and yeah, hopefully find some information there on how they can move forward on their own healing journey.

[01:12:18] David Pasqualone: Beautiful. Thank you so much for being with us today, Xenia. And ladies and gentlemen, like our slogan says, don't just listen to great content, but do it. Repeat it every day so you're going to have a great life in this world, but most importantly, an eternity to come. So, Xenia, if you can do us one more favor, we just talked.

[01:12:39] David Pasqualone: You gave us great information, a great starting point, great things to consider, things to try. But if you were to take a moment and just reach out to all, specifically the young ladies out there, all the women out there, like if you could travel back in time and talk to your, you know, 10 year old self, what message would you say is just, Hey, it's, it's simple and clear.

[01:13:05] David Pasqualone: You just got to do it. This'll change your life for the better. Where would you leave the audience today? I think what I would tell myself if I could go back, and that might not resonate with everyone because it's not very clear how it's related to health, but I think I would just tell myself, don't be so hard on yourself.

[01:13:27] David Pasqualone: Because that for me was really the root of so many issues that I had. And simply being my own worst critic of simply feeling like I could never do things well enough. I've always Going the extra mile of always having to do everything perfect, being so hard on myself and pushing against my boundaries.

[01:13:47] David Pasqualone: That is really where everything was rooted. And there's no reason for us to be so hard on ourselves, right? Why do we have to be harder on ourselves than other people are? There's no point for that. If we're just a little bit more focused on what's actually good for us, We're doing just a little bit more of the things that we love, we, that we enjoy, that give us life, that give us energy.

[01:14:11] David Pasqualone: We can avoid so much damage down the road and so many health issues down the road. Yeah, I think that's a great truth for men and women, old and young. Like, why are we so hard on ourselves? God loves us and forgives us. Move on. Right. And figure it out and don't let it happen again. And I mean, if people are judging us, those probably aren't people we want around us anyways.

[01:14:35] David Pasqualone: Right. I'm sure. Did you have to cut relationships off after moving forward and getting well? I mean, definitely. I think there was definitely a part where I evaluated who are the people that I want in my life and that, that give me life and who are the people who are just draining and making me miserable.

[01:14:53] David Pasqualone: And those I don't need in my life, especially after learning that I have to put my health [01:15:00] first because nobody else is going to do it. So that's where that point comes where you decide who other people you want to spend your life with. Yeah, exactly. And just to clarify, ladies and gentlemen, and I think Xenia will back this up, when she's talking about who gives life and who takes life, that doesn't mean you agree with everything everybody says.

[01:15:20] David Pasqualone: That doesn't mean they're yes people and they're always like, oh yeah, you're wonderful, you're wonderful. The people who challenge you the most And cause you to question yourself sometimes are the people who give you the biggest growth and are positive. So it's not all just the people who like agree with you because then you're gonna run yourself off a cliff.

[01:15:37] David Pasqualone: But what Xenia is talking about is the people who suck life out of you versus the people who give life to you. And you should be given and taken as well. Everything should be in balance. So Xenia, is that what you're talking about? Exactly, and I think we all know who they are if we simply listen Think about how they make us feel.

[01:15:56] David Pasqualone: Like if after meeting someone, we go home and we feel great, we feel energized. Those are the people who gave us life. But if we just feel exhausted and like that conversation gave us nothing and it just drained us. Do you really need that in your life? Nope. Exactly. Exactly. And there's a fine line sometimes.

[01:16:14] David Pasqualone: I remember there was a guy in business. Every time I got around him, man, he was so arrogant. He pissed me off. And he would be insulting. But when I left, I was charged up. And it made me a better human. Because I'm like, okay. Where's the truth in what he said? There's a 10%. I'm gonna apply that and become a better man.

[01:16:34] David Pasqualone: So he was a person that just sharpened the crap out of me as a sword. So, you know, just make sure you're wise and following a good balanced life. So Xenia, Thank you for your time today and appearing on the Remarkable People Podcast. I'm so glad you are better than you've been ever in life. And I know that our listeners can be able to reach out to you and apply what they heard today, and then reach out to you and continue their healing journey.

[01:16:58] David Pasqualone: Any final thoughts or anything you want to say before we wrap it up today? No, I was really grateful to be here and to spread a little bit of my message. And I hope if anyone found that useful, that is really all the job I needed to do today. Take what what you need from my words and hopefully that helps someone.

[01:17:17] David Pasqualone: All right. Well, Xenia Brandstedter, we appreciate you being here today. Ladies and gentlemen, we love you. Go apply what you've learned. Let us know how we can help you share this episode with your friends and family. Not so we are the most popular podcast in the world, but so we can help the most people in the world and we'll still be the most popular, but we love you very much.

[01:17:37] David Pasqualone: Have a great day and we'll see you in the next episode. Ciao. Thanks again, Xenia. Thank you so much for having me. 

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