Episode 87: The Vibration Of Food & Healing With Jamie Forward Mazza

What if you were entering the prime of your life, embarking on your greatest days ahead, and all of a sudden your health takes a turn and you are diagnosed with a cancerous tumor? Today, on the Limitless One Podcast, I dive deep into the mental, physical, and spiritual journey my dear friend Jamie Forward Mazza is on right now as she heals herself of a cancer diagnosis. We explore the power of the vibration of food and so much more.

Jamie Mazza is a Holistic Health Coach, lifelong dancer, and passionate mental health advocate. Jamie has been working as a Coach since 2013, receiving her certification from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, and deepening her education under wellness experts like Nicole Jardim, Gabrielle Bernstein, Aimee Raupp, Dr. Daniel Amen and more. Jamie is passionate about putting her clients in the driver's seat of their health to build the tools to foster a healthy relationship from within, and build lifestyle and nutritional habits that will encourage a healthy, happy life.

In 2023, Jamie received a diagnosis of a rare thymic tumor and autoimmune disease, and has been diving deep into naturopathic healing on her journey towards radical remission. She started her podcast, The FWD Think Tank in 2024 to share her healing journey, and stories from thought leaders in the wellness industry, as well as stories of hope from others on their own healing journey, in hopes to help someone who needs it. Currently, Jamie resides in Jersey City with her loving husband Nick. When she's not working, you can usually find her out in nature, starting a dance party, enjoying a delicious meal, cooking or traveling.

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The Vibration Of Food & Healing With Jamie Forward Mazza

What if you were entering the prime of your life, embarking on your greatest days ahead, and then; all of a sudden, your health takes a turn and you're diagnosed with a cancerous tumor? In this episode, I dive deep into the mental, physical, and spiritual journey of my dear friend Jamie Forward Mazza who is on as she heals herself of a cancer diagnosis. Jamie Mazza is a holistic health coach, lifelong dancer, and passionate mental health advocate.

Jamie has been working as a coach since 2013, receiving her certification from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition and deepening her education under wellness experts like Nicole Jardim, Gabrielle Bernstein, Aimee Raupp, Dr. Daniel Amen, and more. Jamie is passionate about putting her clients in the driver's seat of their health to build the tools to foster healthy relationships from within and build lifestyle and nutritional habits that will encourage a healthy, happier life.

In 2023, Jamie received a diagnosis of a rare thymic tumor and autoimmune disease. She has been diving deep into naturopathic healing on her journey towards radical remission. She started her podcast, The FWD Think Tank, in 2024 to share her healing journey and stories from thought leaders in the wellness industry, as well as stories of hope from others on their healing journey in hopes of helping someone who needs it. Jamie resides in Jersey City with her loving husband, Nick. When she's not working, you can usually find her out in nature, starting a dance party, enjoying a delicious meal, cooking, or traveling.

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Welcome to the show, Jamie Forward Mazza. How are you?

I am doing well. We are spending a lot of time together so I'm loving it. I'm good. I'm feeling jazzed and energetic. I’m so grateful to be here. Thank you for having me on the show. It's an honor.

My honor. We wrapped up an episode where you interviewed me for your FWD Think Tank Podcast. It’s a lot of fun. I talked a lot. I'm sorry I went over a little bit but there were a lot of amazing nuggets. I get to explore your mind.

The roles reversed.

Living A Limitless Life After Cancer

Thank you so much for coming on. First of all, Jamie and I have been close friends since the opening of om.life Wellness. We got to meet each other through the mutual connections we had at Busy Bee Organics and om.life Wellness. It's a friendship made in heaven because Jamie is one of the most inspirational people that I know. I'm so blessed to talk to you. We get to dive into your story and the story of healing. Let's start with the banger. Jamie, what does living a limitless life mean to you?

I was looking through some of the questions and I knew we were going to probably kick off with this one. This is something that if you ask me this years ago, I would have had a completely different answer. I realized in 2025 of growth, healing, rapid change, and decision-making that I was somebody who used to live within limits. I used to have timelines of when I wanted to accomplish things. I used to sometimes tell myself, “You can't do that yet.”

In 2025, all the masks have been lifted and all the layers have been peeled back. I've been thrown into extremely vulnerable situations and scenarios where I've had to make quick decisions that are also pretty critical for my health. Being limitless to me is taking all of that fear, judgment, and that, “I can't. I need to wait until a certain time.”

It’s putting that all to the side, stepping into your power and truth, taking life by the rails and handles, stepping in, being open to receiving, and not allowing your mind to stop you from creating what is possible, which is anything that you want to bring into this world. Step into that. Pay attention to the things that make you feel good, allow you to vibrate at a higher frequency, and bring you joy. Take those shackles off of limiting yourself and going through life as narrow-minded. Being open and free is to me what feels like I'm living limitless.

It's crazy to think that the biggest obstacle in our way to living limitless is ourselves and also the biggest driving force behind living limitless is ourselves. It seems to me that there's one common denominator. What is the value that's always there? It's us. Once we understand that, take responsibility, and move forward with that knowledge, what is the limit? How much do you want to put the accelerator and brake on? It's up to us.

If 2024 has shown me anything, it's that I need to trust myself more and tap into that wisdom. I have nothing to be fearful of at this point, which feels very powerful to say that. Bring it on, life. I'm ready.

From Corporate Stress To Cancer Diagnosis

Jamie, tell us a little bit about your background. Bring us to the point of everything that happened in 2024.

This could be a loaded story. How far back do we want to go? Many things are coming to mind but let's back it up a little bit further to college. I studied psychology in school. I was always a deep feeler, a pretty sensitive person, and introverted. I always knew that I wanted to help people so people would often come to me with their problems. I was a good problem solver for others. I wasn't always a great problem solver for myself.

I studied psychology and thought that was the route I wanted to go. I wanted to have my own practice. That was the beginning after I graduated undergrad of not trusting myself because I wasn't sure what direction I wanted to go. I knew intuitively that I did not want to prescribe medicine so I did not want to step into the psychiatric field. I wanted to help empower people to live their best life and help them overcome some of their limiting beliefs and barriers. I found myself overwhelmed around that time. I’m not sure what I wanted to do and what direction I wanted to go in my career.

Fast forward a few years, I had experience working in Corporate America and corporate marketing at some of the most prestigious companies that anyone would be happy to be working for but I wasn't feeling that fulfillment. I had a background in dance. I have danced since the age of three. It's always been something that has truly brought me joy and lit me up. It's always been an outlet emotionally for me. I danced professionally in the NFL for a year when I was in college. I was a professional cheerleader for the Buffalo Bills. I danced on the dance team throughout college.

When I moved to the greater New York City area, I started teaching dance fitness. I did that for almost a decade. That was always something I did on the side. I was having these people come to my classes and experience that joy and magnetic energy when they stepped into my class. I'd often have them coming to me talking about issues of weight loss, mental health struggles, or all these things. It's that psychology theme that came up again.

I ended up finding the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. I went through that training. I loved it because as you and I talk about, we view health from a holistic lens. I have been coaching ever since 2014. I had done it on the side for a long time. I was never fully stepping into that passion and fulfillment that we spoke a bit about on my show. There were all these things happening in the background.

I grew up in the suburbia of Upstate Western New York and moved to New York City, where there's a pulse, an energy, a fast pace, and a hustle culture. I thought I was thriving in it. I always had a full plate and a lot on my mind. I always had these projects that would come to me like, “I need to do this and that.” I never fully stepped into any of it because it was spinning in the background like, “One day, I will do that.” I was pretty chronically stressed. I didn't always realize it.

I also suffered from cystic acne and that sense of insecurity that a lot of people have when we get into our young adulthood, navigating the waters. I don't have that structure of school and knowing what my plan is. The world is my oyster and I don't know where to go. I stayed at the cushy corporate job. That sounded good on paper but I would always say to people that it was eating away at my soul.

Now that I understand the power of those words and our body listening to those words, I don't even think I realized what I was doing to myself because your body is always listening. I ended up in the last decade of life being out here in this area, leaving that corporate job, starting to work for a small business in the area, Busy Bee Organics, and stepping more into a coaching role but also behind the scenes in a small business.

I had the large Corporate America experience and then a very small, intimate, not a startup because she's had the business for a decade at this point but being in a small team environment. I was wearing a lot of hats. Nick and I had gotten married. We had saved money to buy a couple of properties, one that we're living in and one that we rent out. There were a lot of things happening over those years where I was trying to keep up with the Joneses and look good on paper but there was a lot brewing internally that I didn't even realize.

In the last few years, Nick and I have been trying to start a family. I had gone to multiple fertility doctors trying to get to the bottom of it because I started having irregular cycles. This started years ago at a point where I was under pretty extreme stress. We were saving up to buy the house and living with Nick's parents. I was commuting three-plus hours every day into the city to this job that I hated.

That was when I first noticed how it impacted my body and my whole system from stress. My reproductive system shut down. I lost my menstrual cycle for almost a year. Eventually, I got it back but then it was this huge world shift in the pandemic that happened in 2020, where I was alone with my thoughts and working from home at this job that was so unfulfilling. I didn't even have my friends in an environment that kept me going in a way socially. I was like, “What am I doing with my life?”

We all have those moments and thoughts. My cycle started to get a little funny again. I ended up talking to multiple doctors, going on hormone replacement therapy, and all these things that I'm realizing probably had a big impact on what was going on in the environment inside of my body. 2021 hits. January fresh of that year, I was told that I had problems with fertility. My best friend of two decades took her life.

It was one big hit after another. I was a total shell of myself. Knowing how profoundly and how big of a blow any type of psychological stress can be to my system, everything shut down again. We’re trying to navigate that water and figure out if we can have a child and get pregnant. It's all the stress of that. Eventually, I ended up leaving my corporate job and stepping into Busy Bee but the environment there is a beautiful place. I love our customers, our mission, and what we do. I was running around so much. I wasn't taking time to decompress my nervous system, which affected everything in my body.

In 2024, my husband and I had an incredible trip to Greece, which I needed so badly. I came back all recharged. I was like, “This feels good.” I started to notice some trouble with my vision. I wear contacts and glasses for many years. I was like, “I need to go to the eye doctor. It's been over a year. I may need a new prescription.” I went to go see the eye doctor. He was like, “I can't figure out what's going on. You have an astigmatism. We know that. Let's give you the corrective lens. You've never worn it all these years. Let's see if that helps.”

I tried that on. It didn't help. I could almost feel my eye oscillating. It was a very strange experience. I started noticing it getting progressively worse. I thought it was the hormones that I was on. I talked to my reproductive endocrinologist. He was like, “Let's taper off of them. That could be a side effect but it's very rare.” We tapered it off and it eventually stopped but it was getting progressively worse.

It got to a point where I went back to the eye doctor. He was like, “I can't figure out what's going on but there is some muscle weakness.” My eyes started wandering, which was crazy. I was closing one eye to see clearly and focus on screens. I was in my house doing a workout from home. I had this small crack in our ceiling from the previous owner and some water damage. I looked up at it and was like, “It's like the shape of an L,” instead of one straight line. I closed my eye that was bothering me and I was like, “I'm seeing double.” At that point, I knew it was something a bit more serious.

I called the eye doctor again and went in there terrified. I remember crying in his office. He's like, “I can't get to the bottom of what this is but you need to go see neuro ophthalmologist and you should go soon.” I'm trying to call these specialty doctors. They don't have openings for months. This was October at this point. They're like, “January.” I'm like, “What? I can't.” I finally got someone on the phone who was an angel. I was like, “Listen, this is what's happening with me. It feels serious. I'm closing one eye to do things. Something's wrong. I need to be seen. I can't be told that I have to wait two months. This is critical.” She was able to squeeze me in.

Long story short, without reliving the trauma of that whole emergency room experience, we found a rare large tumor on my thymus gland, which some people may remember from school. I oddly remembered what the thymus gland was but it's responsible for your immune system, which is more important when you're younger. It's supposed to shrink over time as you get older and then become irrelevant.

I was doing some MRIs and testing. I thought something was wrong with my brain so they sent me to the hospital right away to do some imaging. We ended up taking multiple scans and finding the tumor. What I was experiencing with my eye was an autoimmune reaction to the tumor, myasthenia gravis, which is often a common presentation that goes along with the presence of a thymoma.

I had to go through the biopsy. All of that tells us it was not benign. It was cancerous. My husband and I were stunned. As much as I painted a picture of myself being a stress ball, I was also someone who was very physically fit as a health coach. I had the highest integrity of food always in my system. I was trying to check the boxes and do all the right things so to get a diagnosis like this, I was like, “WTF. What do you mean?”

That was November of 2023 so I've spent 2024 on a unique healing journey, mixing with my reluctance to some conventional medicine intervention, which was at the time we thought was needed with the world of naturopathic medicine, which I truly think has been very eye-opening. As healthy as I thought I was living, I've learned a whole lot about myself, the cancer process, and what can lead to these types of things. My whole life has been flipped upside down.

This healing journey I've been on has been something that if you talk to people who get a diagnosis like this, they say 1 of 2 things. There are people who are completely full of fear and think that death is upon them at any time. There are people who say, “Getting this diagnosis was the biggest gift to me because it taught me XYZ. It allowed me to change my life and these ways.” They have a completely different perspective on life in general.

I shared probably a bit too much timeline-wise but it's important to look back at some of the things that were happening. What I've learned is that these tumors don't just present themselves out of nowhere. By the time they are large enough to be detected in an imaging, they've probably been growing anywhere from 10 to 15 years.

Tumors do not just present themselves out of nowhere. By the time they are large enough to be detected, they have probably been growing anywhere from 10 to 15 years.

There’s so much to unpack there. I wasn't aware that you were going through so much stress in the last couple of years prior to your diagnosis. I always saw you as someone so positive and bright. You’re always in a great mood and being inspirational. It shows that we don't know what people are going through until they share about it because we're all going through some invisible pain that we're dealing with. If somebody looks great on the outside, don't assume that everything is hunky dory.

I always looked at you. I see the relationship you have with Nick. That's the couple’s goal I aspire to someday when I was single. I always saw you as someone who's amazingly positive person. I never saw you in a bad mood. To hear that you went through so much at that time and coming into this diagnosis with so much knowledge of health and everything like that, it gives you a unique perspective on how to then make decisions going forward.

Conventional Vs. Naturopathic Approaches To Cancer Treatment

Let's talk a little bit about that. Once you get diagnosed, the knowledge that you have is so much into the holistic health part and then having to understand the gravitas of this situation that it might not be just holistic health that you have to take this path. Tell us about that decision. What were your initial thoughts on, “How am I going to start treating myself?”

First of all, thank you for saying that about the relationship I have with my husband and perceiving me as this happy, joyous person. Being an introvert, I'm a listener. I'm usually the one to draw the stories out of other people. I'm not one to unload my bag of complaints, my trauma, or the shit that may be happening in my head onto others. I try to be mindful of that. I also am realizing that sometimes you need to be vulnerable. You need to share and be open to letting that out.

In terms of my husband, he is probably one of many people that I'm blessed to have in my life that bring out the best in me. He has been a huge support and a rock. I'm so grateful for him. He's very much a glass half full kind of person where that energy has rubbed off on me. If you had talked to my friends in high school and college, I could sometimes be the glass half empty.

Vibration Of Food: My husband is probably one of many people I’m blessed to have in my life to bring out the best in me. He has been a huge support and my rock.

I'm evolving a lot but in terms of the diagnosis, when we were in the hospital and I first got an indication of what it likely was because we hadn't done a biopsy yet, I had this overwhelming feeling wash over me. I think it was God or whatever you believe in, the universe, or spirit. I had this overwhelming feeling, which was odd. Most people getting that news would be like, “I'm devastated. My life is over.” They go into crisis mode. Sure, there was a little bit of that but I had this overwhelming sense and voice telling me, “You're going to be okay. This is big. You're going to learn a lot from this but you're going to get through it, share your story, and help others.”

That message has been the thing that has guided me. That was the very first thing that happened. It was very obvious. That also felt comforting to me. I spent 24 hours in the emergency room and a week in the hospital initially going through a lot of very scary tests. Thankfully, my husband, being who he is, slept in that uncomfortable chair the entire week, not leaving my side. I was sitting there somehow getting sleep at night. I'm sure he was up all night, a nervous wreck.

He went on social media and searched thymoma because it's such a rare thing. It's not something you hear people get diagnosed with. He found somebody. @CancerFighterOwen is his handle on Instagram and YouTube. He had a similar diagnosis to me, similar in size, and went through all the conventional stuff. It returned and came back worse. The doctors had told him, “There's nothing more we can do.” That's when he reached a point where he's like, “I'm going to be open to other things.”

He's pretty vocal about his story but that was the only person we had found at that point in time that had something similar. He had talked about a metabolic approach to cancer and mentioned a few different naturopathic doctors that he had worked with. I was fortunate enough for Nick to put that in front of me from the very beginning. If I had to go down the rabbit hole of research, I truly don't know where I would have been. I would have wanted to lean into the holistic side but I have no idea where my mind would have been if that wasn't presented.

Nick is very faithful. He has a great relationship with God. I'm sure he was praying like, “Give us a sign. Help us out.” That fell into his lap. I had that as a guiding point from the very beginning. I listened to a few different podcasts with some doctors who were trained under Dr. Nasha Winters, who developed the metabolic approach. She herself had stage 4 ovarian cancer at a very young age. That changed the trajectory of her career path. She got into naturopathic medicine, developed this whole protocol, and has doctors trained all over the world from all different types of practices.

Some of these doctors are more conventional, naturopathic, osteopaths, chiropractic, nutritionists, and all different types of people all over the world under this training. We ended up going with Dr. Lori Bouchard. I interviewed her. She is the head of the naturopathic practice that I have been working with. I couldn't tell you the comfort that I felt to be in that care. Like me being a holistic health coach looking at everything, not just the very narrow, and looking at the tumor like, “How do we attack that,” you're looking at me as a whole person.

The first conversation I had with one of her doctors was, “Tell me about Jamie,” not, “Tell me about your diagnosis.” It's like, “I want to know your story.” From the very moment that I entered that world and working with them, I felt this deep sense of comfort. They do monthly lab work so much more in-depth and with a much more finite range of normal and abnormal than conventional medicine. I would do that monthly.

Can you tell us a little bit about the conventional lab work that a doctor would prescribe? What are some of the other markers that they look for?

There are different buckets and categories that Dr. Nasha looks at with her protocol. There are certain inflammation markers. It’s things like your hemoglobin A1c, which is your fasting glucose over the course of three months. Some other inflammation markers are your IGF-1 so your fasting glucose and insulin. There are also things like your angiogenesis markers.

Does this tumor have the ability to bring in a blood supply and create its blood vessels and energy source? It’s things like VGF. Your iron, copper, and ferritin levels. Those things all work together. It's a laundry list. Every time I go to get my blood work, these people at Labcorp are like, “Are you serious?” I'm like, “Yes, we want to look at everything.”

When I went in to see my oncologist, I did end up working with one. That was truthfully because of the guidance of the naturopath. They see a time and a place for them to work together. Once I had my biopsy, the first thing they had me do was look at a stain, which is called the Ki-67 percentage, which I had never heard of. I was like, “What does that mean?” They said, “We can take this and test the biopsy. It gives an indication of how quickly the cells are proliferating.” Knowing that this is on my thymus gland, it is very close to my heart, lungs, and major organs.

That number came back pretty high, which was alarming. That made the decision to try chemotherapy and more conventional treatments the next right step. I had to wrap my mind around that because I was kicking and screaming. I remember going into the office of the oncologist like this. I had a whole list of questions like, “What is the likelihood that this is going to work?” He said, “There's anywhere from a 50% to 80% chance that it's effective.” I said, “I'm sorry. All I heard was that there's a 20% to 50% chance that it's ineffective.”

I don't agree with that so I went to meet with the surgeon because typically when thymomas are smaller, which a small percentage of them are large but more often than not, they are detected when they're a bit smaller, the typical process for eliminating that from your system is getting it surgically removed. I was like, “Let's opt for surgery.” The surgeon said, “I can do that surgery. It’s going to be pretty invasive and a very intense surgery. I would recommend you try treatment to see if we can shrink it. Let's do two rounds and see what happens.” I'm like, “I got to wrap my head around this.”

The first time I went through it, I didn't. I tried my hardest. I felt in my body that it wasn't the right thing to do. While we saw a minor reduction in size, it wasn't going to be an easier surgery, to say the least. That was frustrating. I had some hiccups along the way, which then led me to try a different series of conventional medicines, which triggered an intense autoimmune flare, which was very scary.

As somebody who's physically active, even though I've changed the course of my workouts, I'm not doing the intense lifting because of where the tumor is located. I need to be a little bit careful. I'm also trying not to stress out my immune system and spike my cortisol. My level of activity and types of activity has changed. I'm very physically active every day. That's a non-negotiable for me. When it got to the point during the second round of treatment, I was having the serious reaction.

I couldn't breathe or walk up the stairs. I was having trouble getting comfortable sleeping. It got to the point where I was nervous to eat and swallow. I was trying not to go to the hospital but there was the time and the place for medical intervention again. I'm grateful for that but to look back on it, my body knew that the chemo wasn't going to work or give us the outcome. Unfortunately, in the medical system, it's like, “You have to try X and Y.” If those don't work, then what? We go back to the complicated surgery that was on the table from the beginning.

The conventional route has been quite a journey. Truthfully, in those two times of doing treatment, my only setback is working with the naturopathic doctors, We dive deep into diet and the lab work and reducing inflammation. Also, different types of IVs and other types of protocols that you can do to help your body, even if you are choosing the conventional route, which they did align with.

With where it was in proximity to my heart and lungs, they said, “If this can help, which sometimes it does, we’ll reduce your dosages.” It wasn't as toxic to my system, which the conventional doctor did not agree with but in the end was okay with doing that. That allowed me to bounce back a little bit quicker and not have as serious of a reaction as I could have.

It's gathering the data and then having multiple inputs and options. At the end of the day, figure out what aligns best with you. You know your body best. It turned out to be the case when you tried the suggestions. The doctors try to suggest whatever they think is the best course of action. How much communication was there with the naturopath about the course of action? Was it separate or was it more integrated where you were taking guidance from the naturopath as well?

I was taking as much guidance from the naturopath as they could give me. We did a specialized test that was done with my blood that looked at circulating tumors and also tested different types of treatment. We looked at chemotherapy effectiveness, IV, more supplementation type of treatment, and then off-label drugs. It’s things that are typically prescribed for another type of diagnosis that could be beneficial for your unique cells.

Unfortunately, we didn't get those results in time before the initial treatment. The guidance and the recommendation were to lower the dose as much as possible. I was a little nervous because I didn't know what we were doing. Instead of doing 100% of the dosage, we reduced it to 75% the first time. After getting my ass kicked, we reduced it to 50% the second time. We only did those two treatments initially.

By the time I went through treatment again, the advice was to dose as low as possible. We did a dose as low as 25%, which is considered fractionated chemo. It’s like a microdose of chemo. Having experienced some of the side effects that I did in the first round, I said, “If this is going to limit those side effects but still put a push on those cells to die off, which is what we're hoping for but keep me as healthy as possible, great.” We did a different round of meds the second time that was guided by the test that we did.

Unfortunately, I don't think it took into consideration the autoimmune piece, which I don't think anyone was expecting. We spread those two treatments by 25% across 8 weeks. In the first seven weeks, I was fine. I rebounded in less than 24 hours. I was feeling great. By the eighth week, it was like the straw that broke the camel's back. My eyes started flaring up again and then it turned into a host of other symptoms. I was so grateful in that moment to have the support of the naturopath.

I can't breathe. I think something's wrong. I'm not okay. I had full-body muscle aches and pains. I was tired. It was awful. My eye was flaring up. My oncologist was like, “Maybe you caught something. Maybe you got sick.” I was like, “I haven't been around that many people. I've been trying to be mindful.” He washed his hands of it, which bothered me. In hindsight, we ended up looking at some of my inflammatory markers outside of even what we were looking at with the naturopath. There was this one marker that indicated muscle wasting or muscle weakness. The healthy range was somewhere between 0 and 140. Mine was measured in the 2000s.

He was running all these labs and didn't say much about it. I then went to the naturopath. I'm like, “This is what's going on.” I'm not going to lie. We chose to go through treatment again for a complication that I had a couple of months prior because it seemed like it was impinging on the heart. We want to protect those major organs. That's the only time that the naturopathic oncology team would say, “Let's lean into treatment.”

She gave me a whole protocol. She's like, “Your autoimmune is flaring. There's a lot of inflammation in your system. That's what triggers it. Here's your protocol, diet-wise and supplement-wise. Here's what you're going to do.” They've had my back this entire time. They don't necessarily want the first line of treatment or what they're recommending to be the conventional piece. They are not naive. They see a time and a place for it when it is critical. I've been so blessed to have their guidance this entire time.

It’s to find a naturopath or anyone looking to consult or help you with the medical diagnosis and also find someone who's going to be unbiased in their approach. Others are like, “If they go through my therapies, I'll make this amount of money.” It's having somebody who has your back. It's important to understand that everybody has some kind of incentive, especially on the medical side. There's a lot of money that can be made with these things, unfortunately.

I'm sure there's a lot of good intentions and knowledge that people have that maybe they're limited in their scope of thinking. They think maybe this is one option. It’s important to understand and widen our perception of how many options there are out there. You are a holistic health coach and you understand diet very well. What was the approach recommended by your naturopath? Did it align with some of the approaches that you conceived of when you were planning your therapy regime?

The world of nutrition is one of those things that's always changing, especially in the world of fad diets but one thing that everybody agrees on and was always very important to me is making sure to get mostly vegetables but enough fiber in your diet from fruits and vegetables. I was somebody who previously ate primarily gluten-free because I felt better. Not because I had celiac but because I do think that there are too many processed grains in this country. We all can feel a bit of inflammation from that.

The work that I had done on myself over the last decade, I started by healing my skin. It’s correcting my gut health by introducing fermented foods. It got to the point where I wanted to balance my hormones and hope for pregnancy. I started to make sure I was getting enough healthy fats. I started to bump up my protein. With people who have healthy environments inside, that is necessary but what I learned when I started working with the naturopathic team about how to treat a cancer process, it completely flipped the world of nutrition upside down for me.

What we started doing is implementing more intermittent fasting or long extended periods of fasting. The reason is cancer cells thrive. Maybe this is not every single type of cancer but more commonly than not, most cancers across the board are thriving from an environment that is rich in glucose. Glucose comes from carbohydrates, whether that is fruits, even the wholest of whole grains, or more refined carbohydrates. That's where your body is getting its source of quick energy.

If that is constantly circulating in your system, cancer cells have more insulin receptors and feed off of glucose. That's giving them power. The whole intention behind fasting and then also doing more of a ketogenic diet where your body is switching from being fueled on glucose to being fueled off of ketones is something that cancer cells cannot take on, not get energy from, and have no fuel from. You're essentially starving them quite physically with doing intermittent fasting and then also starving them with a ketogenic diet.

If you're looking at not the standard food pyramid but as a pyramid, you want to have your fats as the biggest component of your diet and protein in moderation. That was something that was a role reversal for me because I was doing moderate fat and much higher protein, including carbohydrates. I was limiting my carb intake from I was never even measuring it to 25 grams of net carbs, which is essentially taking your total carbohydrate subtracting the fiber and 25 grams of net carbs. That's almost impossible unless you are tracking and paying very close attention.

I eliminated essentially all fruits, except for berries and in small moderation, organic Granny Smith apples because they don't have as high of a sugar content. Also, certain animal proteins. I was talking at one point about certain biomarkers and blood work that we would look at. My angiogenesis markers were quite high so my iron and ferritin levels were high. I reduced my red meat significantly. It was more focused on lean protein. Lamb was okay. Fish is good. Also, pasture-raised chicken and organic turkey.

I was taking things that I knew about nutrition that made sense and still focusing on the fiber piece. I’m making sure to get whether that's fiber from things like chia seeds, other nuts and seeds, or vegetables. Your green vegetables are essentially your carbohydrates and some nuts. It was tricky but I felt so strongly about it that I was like, “Let's dive deep.” I can go from 0 to 100 in the world of nutrition. If I know that it's going to benefit me pretty easily, it, unfortunately, costs me a bit of isolation because it's so much easier to do that from the comfort of your home.

It made it hard to go out in public because you don't know what types of oils these restaurants are using. It doesn't always matter but if their vegetables are organic or more importantly, with animal protein, is it conventionally raised? Is it full of hormones and steroids? It’s things that my body doesn't need when I'm trying to heal. Is it qualitative? Is it grass fed and grass finished? What was the animal eating? You can go down a dark rabbit hole asking all the questions and half the time the servers have no idea. Bless their hearts.

It made it tricky to go out. I was often preparing my meals from home. It was a very controlled environment. I started testing my glucose and ketones on a daily basis. It was amazing to see what types of things could set off your glucose. What was even more interesting is that our glucose is not only measured and indicative of the carbohydrates we're taking in but it can also be bumped up by stress.

Cortisol.

It’s huge for me. Not only was I honing in on the food piece but the biggest lesson for me has been slowing down, retuning my nervous system, setting stronger boundaries, and taking care of myself. There were so many things that created the perfect storm over the years. There were viruses that were undetected in my system. There were so many things that I would have never known if I had only listened to and worked with the guidance of a conventional doctor.

I want to get back to boundaries in a little bit because that's a huge part of the healing process. I want to push that a little further down the river. Here are couple of macro points. Eating out is a big point that my wife and I consider, knowing that there's a good possibility that there's a lot of stuff in restaurants, especially when you're cooking for a large group with the kind of seed oils that they use, the canolas, and the eggs. They're buying in bulk. They're not going to buy for the most part. There are exceptions to great restaurants and stuff like that but even organic restaurants. They might buy the Costco organic eggs versus the ones that are raised and all this kind of stuff. That's one perspective.

Cut out all the possibilities of taking on antibiotics, steroids, and all this stuff. When we go outside, there's a good possibility it's not going to be clean. Secondly, the whole thing with oils. Oil is in a renaissance, especially good oils. Much of our body needs good fats because our brain is mostly fat and all of our organs are fat, water, and blood. Understand everything that we've learned for our whole lives in the food pyramid.

This has been years that people have been talking about fats, which is amazing. Also, the ketogenic revolution and all this stuff. I even went keto for a while. Let me tell you, it works when you do intermittent fasting and you starve the body of carbohydrates. In my case, I did it at a time when I was opening a business. I was under a lot of stress and going through a breakup. There were a lot of crazy things going on. I lost so much weight and I wasn't working out at the time. None of my clothes fit me.

Long story short, the ketogenic diet does work. It starves a lot of the fat cells out and does clean your body in many ways because all the negative aspects or elements are being starved. The micro part I wanted to mention is it's good that you're checking out certain biomarkers and then catering your diet to what your needs are. For a lot of people, they're on the low side of iron when you are on a high end. You're reducing red meat. Other people should be increasing the things that are going to increase iron, whichever diet they decide.

Bioindividuality is something that we talk about a lot, especially in the nutrition field. You and I both went to the Institute of Integrative Nutrition. The number one principle they talk about is everybody is different. Working with a holistic health coach is so vital. If you're not versed in all this terminology or nutritionist, dive deep into what specifically you need.

You'll hear about all these diets. You'll hear Mikhaila Peterson on a podcast talking about how the carnivore diet saved her life. That worked for her but maybe the carnivore diet is not good for somebody else. You'll hear a lot of noise out there. Every diet works for certain people who are genetically predisposed to have success on that diet. I would say that is very important. Whatever we talk about here, we're talking about Jamie's journey.

I always want to make that clear. I've even learned that with different types of cancer processes. I'm in a group call weekly with my naturopath and a lot of other patients who have different types of diagnoses. Some have similar. Maybe there are multiple people who have breast cancer or lung cancer. Even having the same diagnosis, there are so many different underlying causes of what can stimulate that growth in unique individuals.

It's not one-size-fits-all for other people who have thymomas. You brought up the carnivore diet. I was talking to a friend of mine who I found on social media and we've become great friends. She is on the other side of her diagnosis. She's had a couple of surgeries. She's thriving and doing well. The carnivore diet helped her. For me, it's not quite that simple. I'm at a point where I'm alternating animal protein, a keto diet, and more of a plant-based diet for multiple reasons.

Vibration Of Food: I’m not at a point where I’m alternating animal protein, a keto diet, and a plant-based diet for multiple reasons.

I have the autoimmune piece and she didn't. I agree with what you're saying 100%. This is not a one-size-fits-all approach to anything. It's so important to know your body and work with a practitioner who can help you understand that because there are certain things that make sense for you that may not make sense for someone else. It's hard to take some of the trending information out there about anything, whether that is a workout, a diet plan, or even the right mental health tools. There are some things that are going to resonate for you because you're you. There are some things that aren't going to resonate with the person sitting next to you because they're them.

It's like a duality where we're living in the greatest of times in terms of information that's accessible to us. The other aspect of it is there's so much information that it might be challenging to find the information that's best for you with so much noise out there and many trends. We’re cutting through all that noise. We went into the allopathic approach.

The Power Of Diet: Keto, Fasting, & Bio-Individuality

We talked about diet, which is super important. Tell us a little bit about the holistic remedies or modalities that you chose to use but also frame it from the perspective of being realistic because there are so many different options out there. Secondly, there is research on many of them but big pharma is not funding holistic remedies. When people say, “There's no research,” the FDA is not funding the research on holistic remedies.

They’re not making enough money doing that.

Holistic Therapies For Cancer: Ozone, Mistletoe & Hyperbaric Oxygen

The pharmaceutical companies are funding the FDA to green-light all of their stuff but it's challenging. There are amazing so many things out there. You hear a lot of success stories. How do you narrow down what is the most appropriate for you in your case? There's a limitation because everything is out of pocket. There's a budget aspect to it all. It’s going through that framework of, “Which revenues did you choose? Which are you continuing with? Which are some things that you might be exploring going forward?”

It is but there are a few that I'll probably touch on that are the biggest key players. I did not make these decisions on my own. I did this in partnership with my naturopath and understanding how this cancer process is being fueled so knowing that and doing some of the more in-depth testing like the test that looked at the chemo effectiveness but also looked at off-label things, IV therapies, or supplementation. That guided what made sense because it showed what made sense for my cells.

One thing that I do that is pretty common in the naturopathic world is IV vitamin C. When people think about vitamin C, they think, “It helps me not get sick over the winter.” That is true. An oral dose of vitamin C is going to be helpful for immune support. A high dose of vitamin C is 25 grams or more. At one point, I was doing 50 to 75 grams. It has to make sense of your body weight. Make sure you can tolerate it. A high dose of vitamin C is oxidative to the body. You want oxidation when you're trying to get these cancer cells to die off and go into apoptosis so get killed and then get flushed out of your system.

A high dose of vitamin C is something I am doing on a weekly basis. It is something that you need to pay attention to how your body's reacting to it because there were a couple of points in time over the year when I was doing other oxidative therapies on top of it. Disguised behind me under a sheet, I have my hyperbaric oxygen chamber. That is another thing. Not only can cancer cells not thrive in an environment that is fueled on ketones and short of glucose but they also cannot survive in an oxygenated environment.

Quite often, when there are tumors present in the body, it is an environment of low oxygenation. Getting into the hyperbaric oxygen chamber when you're in a state of ketosis is what's going to put pressure on those cells to die off but too much oxidation in the body is never a good thing. That's why you want to eat an antioxidant-rich diet in general if you're healthy and you don't have these health challenges going on. You want to make sure you're maintaining a good level of antioxidants because there are so many oxidizing things happening in our environment in the world.

Cancer cells cannot survive in an oxygenated environment. Getting into the hyperbaric oxygen chamber when in a state of ketosis will put pressure on those cells to die off.

In the 1930s, Otto Warburg won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on cancer. He stated that cancer cannot live in an oxygenated environment. Cancer can only grow in acidic environments. We've known about this since the 1930s. If we put the amount of resources we have in medicines, all this kind of stuff, and pharmaceuticals, it's the work that he came up with. This is the 1930s. This is a long time ago. Why haven't we been focused on this in terms of the pH balance in the body? Your stomach's digestive enzymes need high acidity and low pH acidic values. Other parts need to be alkaline but balancing the pH and hormones is so important.

One of the major things we should be asking ourselves anytime we get a diagnosis or we have some health issue is if you look at everywhere in nature, it doesn't strain to thrive. When you look at grass growing on the field or trees growing, as long as it's in a good environment, it's going to thrive. Our bodies are meant to be the same way. The question to ask is not, “Why does this specific thing happen inside my body?” The question to ask is, “What environment exists within my body to allow that to thrive?” Once we realize that, become aware of it, and then start changing the environment, then we're going to not see those things being able to thrive.

You're disabling it. Thank you for adding that. That's a very valid point. To add one more thing to the list, I've also done some other IV therapies based on what made sense for my system. I've done IV curcumin. There were certain things on that supplementation list.

You're doing ozone as well.

I just started it. I will talk about that but I have this sitting in front of me. This is a vial of mistletoe. This is the mistletoe plant. It's grown in Germany. This is also commonly used in Europe to treat tumors.

It's like the Christmas mistletoe.

Exactly, but there are multiple different varieties of mistletoe so it's important to work with a practitioner who knows what they're talking about. When I got that testing back, I could see what was ranked highest on the scale, which then determined how you wanted to work with that. With mistletoe, you could do it in IV intravenously, which creates a very strong reaction in the body. I did that at one point when I was working upstate with a naturopathic doctor and had the size of a grapefruit on my abdomen. They're like, “No, that's normal. You want a reaction with mistletoe.”

This is less oxidative but more supportive for your immune system. It can be shown to attach itself to tumor cells and help the cells die off but it's helping modulate your immune system. When you have a cancer process inside of you, your immune system is highly dysregulated. It is confused. It is clearly not recognizing the cancer cells. I heard this from my naturopath early on in working with her. She's like, “All of us have cancer cells in our body at any given time.”

“When you have a healthy environment and ecosystem inside, your immune system knows to attack it and get rid of it but there are certain underlying conditions or environments that are not ideal but more ideal for a cancer to grow and strengthen. The immune system turns a blind eye. That is starting the domino effect of growth.”

Ozone is something I just started. That was something that had always been put out there as something I could try. As you know, it's a very costly treatment so it is something where I feel like I'm at a point where I'm not even paying attention to the bills being racked up because I want to do whatever I can to allow my body to thrive and support that healing process. My priorities have completely shifted but when I had that bad autoimmune reaction to the conventional treatment over the fall, I was so humbled. I've never experienced anything like that in my life. It was scary.

Vibration Of Food: My priorities have completely shifted. I'm not paying attention to the bills being racked up because I want to do whatever I can to heal.

I was still seeing high inflammatory markers, even a few weeks out. I decided to try ozone. That is also an IV therapy. It's wild. The easiest way to explain it is it's drawing out your blood and it then gets mixed with ozone and oxygen. Cancer cells cannot thrive in that environment. It's not only used for cancer. It's also used for autoimmune disease, which is why it made sense for me. It can help with viral load, bacteria, pathogens, and any type of fatigue or other underlying health conditions. Always consult with a doctor and make sure it makes sense for you.

Over the last few weeks of doing it, I'm finally getting my groove back. I’m even talking to friends and other people that I work with. I also see an acupuncturist. On top of everything else, a therapist. I'm doing all the things that when people ask me how I'm doing, instead of saying, “I’m still recovering,” I say, “I feel good and so much better.”

What blew my mind when I was doing that ozone is I got a little queasy. I don't like to look. I'm like, “Poke me. Don't tell me. Let me know when it's over.” They will do multiple draws of your blood, mix it up with the ozone, and put it back into your system. They do that multiple times. It's a very labor-intensive process so the nurse has to sit there with you.

For how long?

I haven't got to the point where I've done ten passes, which is the max. I've done 7 or 8 based on what my body is able to handle in one setting. It's not long. Those 7 to 8 passes took me 45 minutes.

It can't be the entire amount of blood volume in your body.

No. It's a fraction. I can't speak to that. I want to say it's maybe a quarter and a little bit more than that. I’m by no means, the expert in this. This is very new to me. I don't even need to know all the details. Just tell me what to do. The nurse was like, “I want you to take a look if you're open to it because you see all these little white specks in the blood. This is what got drawn out of you.” I'm like, “What the heck does that mean?”

She's like, “These are signs that impurities are being drawn out of your system. This is a good thing. It's not good to see all that but it's good that it's being cleansed from your body.” Clearly, there were things that needed to come out. I did it again and we didn't see as many. I can't even tell you. My energy is better. I'm hoping that my inflammation is going down. My digestion has oddly improved. There are a lot of physical symptoms I'm noticing that are helping improve my healing process.

From a common sense perspective, even if you don't know all the science, if you're taking the blood and adding oxygen to it, which our body needs and thrives on, and your ozone, which is 03, it's going to purify. We use ozone in our float tanks to purify the water. It kills all pathogens. If you're doing that to the blood, it would be incredible. It's expensive but it's a simple thing where you're taking blood out. I was aiding it and then putting it back in. There's no harmful surgery or anything like that. It's pretty amazing.

I've also been using the Energy Enhancement System. I feel like we need to talk about that.

Tell me about your experience doing the EE System.

I remember seeing you putting some information out there about it. I didn't know what it was but sometimes less is more. If it's going to be helpful for me, I'm going to try it. I saw some of the benefits you were highlighting. It's increasing the vibration of your healthy cells and it's also great for inflammation and the nervous system. I'm like, “Why not try this?” I've stepped back from how much physical work I was doing. I'm doing a lot more behind the scenes so I have the time.

I remember the first time I went into the system. It's the coolest thing ever because you don't know what to expect. I always tell people it's so hard for me to put it into words because it's more about how I feel after but the environment you create in there is so peaceful. You've got a light-blocking shade so it's a dark, peaceful environment. You've got the tranquil music and the zero gravity chair. I was like, “I have nothing to lose.” I sat there.

The first time, maybe I came for an hour. I remember asking you because, at the time, I was in the middle of doing conventional treatment. I'm like, “Can this have any adverse reaction?” You're like, “Absolutely not. It's only going to help.” The first time, I was doe-eyed and wanted to watch and see what was going on. I was playing music. I didn't necessarily fully allow myself to relax but I had gone home after I had done the detox protocol with the bath.

I had the deepest sleep that I had in a very long time. There's been so much percolating in my brain and a lot of waking up in the middle of the night to pee or with a nervous thought. I slept peacefully throughout the night for the first time in months. That alone felt amazing. I felt so good so I decided I was going to get back in there. I've made it a point to go as much as I can once a week and sit for a couple of hours. I'm able to fully relax. I turn my phone off. I fall asleep and take the deepest naps in there. I wake up feeling so refreshed. I typically go into the sauna after sweating it all out.

I noticed very obviously with that autoimmune flare that happened over the fall, all I could think about after I talked to my doctors when she's like, “Here are the supplements you're going to take and the diet changes we're going to make,” that I couldn't wait to get back into that system. I remember reaching out to you after. Whether it was an energetic feeling, I had a little bit more of a pop in my stuff. My eye was starting to feel a little bit better. It’s all these visible signs that inflammation was lowering my body and also a nervous system reset because it's so peaceful in there.

I was like, “My body needed this so much. Thank you for existing and for having this, technology in there.” It's something I truly look forward to every week because my brain gets overloaded pretty easily between the treatments I'm doing and people asking me how I'm doing that I'm sharing my story. People are asking me questions. It's so hard. It's not like apples to apples. People are asking about certain treatments and it's like, “You need to talk to your doctor about this.”

A lot of times, I'm taking out a lot of heavy things and then working. I have my relationship with family and friends. I’m trying to keep the house afloat, starting the pocket, and all these things. I feel like by the end of the week, my brain's always overloaded. I typically come into EES either on a Thursday or Friday. I know how much I need it but I always appreciate it so much more than I realize once I get there.

Consistency is key. The fact that you're coming in every week also gives you a reprieve from all the things that are going on. It's an opportunity to unplug. You've tried floating in the past. Floating is great. Some people think it's the best thing in the world. Some people have a hard time with the salt and sometimes the salt in the hair and all this stuff. The EE system is very similar. It allows you to unplug from the world and put you into that parasympathetic state right away.

People feel relaxed within seconds. I bring people up there and they're like, “I feel my pulse and heartbeat. I feel like I'm sinking into this beautiful feeling like, ‘What are you doing to me?’” It's a field. Your body deserves this. The goal is for our bodies to resonate with this energy on their own. We're getting you back in tune and giving you the right frequency so that your body can generate it on its own. I would hope at some point in this reality we live in that this becomes obsolete because we're our own power generators that we can create this field.

Sometimes, when we're out of balance, it brings us back into balance. I love to hear that it's helping you on so many levels in conjunction with everything else that you're doing. The fact that you're continuing to evolve and elevate in so many different ways. We're not the same person we were a year ago because we've done so many different things and expanded our minds in so many different ways. Who is Jamie now versus years ago when you started this healing journey?

I mentioned this in the beginning of our conversation. I am no longer limiting myself to what is possible. I realize after having a diagnosis like this, if you notice me dancing around, saying the word tumor or saying cancer process, I don't even like to say the C word to myself out loud because I don't like to embody it. I'm trying to focus on the healing process. There are lots of facts that have presented themselves.

I was somebody who used to get stifled by making big milestone decisions in my life. I would often idly sit and spin in my comfort zone until something kicked me in my ass and forced me to make a decision. Fortunately or unfortunately, I've sharpened my decision-making skills. I've also put into perspective what matters and it's not all the big things. It's not the money. I was able to willingly take a step back from my job and the money.

Do I want to have more resources to be able to do all these things and have a full life? Of course. I'll get there but now, that's not the focus. I’m reprioritizing my piece. I have nothing to fear. At this point, some people will say that I looked death in the face. I've been fortunate enough not to have that scary of an interaction with this experience.

Certainly, the autoimmune flare up was pretty close but I'm not scared of anything anymore. I realized I had been living a life that was so based on expectations of what others wanted from me. It's time for me to step into my power, live a life that's important, figure out what I want, do that, and make that happen. I've shown that I can make those hard decisions and I can quickly pivot. I can rally, heal, and do all these things.

Do not live a life based on expectations of what others want from you. Step into your power and live a life that matters to you.

I've enabled myself and put myself back into the driver's seat as opposed to being somebody who was like, “Eventually, I'll do this and accomplish this. Years down the road, this is what I want.” Why not now? A lot of people who get a diagnosis like this will say, “Why me?” From the very beginning, I said I had this overwhelming feeling I was going to be okay. It's like, “Why not me? How am I different from anyone else?” There are ways that I'm different from other people. Sometimes you hear that saying, which sometimes I'd like and sometimes I don't. Sometimes it's empowering. God gives you things that you can handle.

I've proven to myself that one of the scariest things that can happen to somebody is something that I can handle and I've got a pretty good grip on it. A lot of that has been all the work that I've been doing over the last few years to get to a better headspace. A lot of it has been due to isolation and spending a lot of time with myself but also surrounding myself with the right support and knowing who I want to take advice from and who I want to take any type of insights from. What we consume feeds our brain and every decision that we make.

We talked a lot about the mindset and the emotional health, especially tackling something that's a challenge in your life and that you've been dealing with on a balance every single day. What are some of the coping strategies you do in terms of keeping your mind sharp and your emotions positive to inspire some other people who might be going through something similar?

It is not always easy. I do my best to start my mornings in peace and quiet, not reaching for my phone right away and taking at least 5 minutes, if not 15 to 20 minutes to meditate. Sometimes, meditation is playing healing frequencies because I can't listen to somebody talk in a guided way. Sometimes it is the guided meditation. Sometimes it's more breathwork or me laying on the floor and letting my thoughts come.

Emotions can bubble up a lot. In a healing journey like this, especially when you're watching other people continue on with their lives, nothing is wrong. Find the right support system. I have that group coaching aspect with my naturopath, which is very unique. Be able to talk to other people who get it and the right kind of people. I say that with kindness because there are a lot of people who are full of fear and you don't want to take that fear on. You want to very much protect your energy.

Vibration Of Food: Emotions can bubble up a lot in a healing journey, especially when watching other people continue with their lives like nothing is wrong.

I’m reminding myself that even though this is heavy, I need to have moments of joy. I’m getting out into nature, spending time connecting with my husband, spending time with my nieces, nephews, and friends, and making a point to dance and play music that feels good. Even though this is happening, I can still have a joyful life and create moments of goodness along the way. That's only going to make the healing process that much better.

Finding Support & Setting Boundaries While Healing From Cancer

Dance in the rain or storm. Dance through this life because we get to make that decision whether we want to dance or sit on the couch and sulk. On the flip side of, all the support and the mindset, there also is the importance of boundaries. Many people want to give you advice. I'm sure family all mean well and friends. Everybody has a story that they want to share and tell you. How do you manage your boundaries during this time and also maybe going forward in life, maybe something that you've realized?

Probably the biggest lesson that I'm learning is setting those boundaries. Sometimes I'm great at it and sometimes they fall away. I've been putting my story out there so much so I get an influx of messages and questions. Sometimes I take that on and then I realize I've been sitting there for an hour responding to people going back and forth taking in their stories, which can feel like a lot. More often than not, setting my phone on Do Not Disturb can be helpful if I know that I'm not expecting an important call. It also limits the distraction so that is one.

I've had to have a lot of pretty tough conversations with my family members, especially. We can have the most special moments with the ones that we love and the ones that are closest to us but they're also the people who are not afraid to speak their mind to you. There's often no filter. Not all but a lot of my family members were very skeptical of me taking the naturopathic route. There was a lot of fear around that and hesitancy. There was a lot of, “Why aren't you listening to the conventional doctors?”

The more that I walked my walk and also talked about why it was so important to me and even starting this podcast, my mom was one of those people. She's slowly starting to learn from all these conversations that I'm having on this platform or all these stories that I'm sharing, even how she's seeing how I'm feeling. Unfortunately, on my mom's side, her mother passed away from lung cancer and so did a couple of our other family members. I have to remind myself that she's witnessed that experience and that she is scared.

I remember my dad, on the other hand, who's much more open to spirituality and more of the witchy stuff for the naturopathic healing. He was like, “Jamie, mom's been listening to your podcast and she's getting it. I see her sitting there very intently listening. She's taking it all in.” I've noticed that our conversations have been much less stressful. I say stressful for me because I'm the one receiving what feels like criticism, questions, and judgments. That is something I need to work on. I can totally control how I react to that.

I’m being mindful of my reactions and having intentional conversations with loved ones to say, “I'm going about it this way. If you can't have that conversation, get on the bandwagon, or support me, then we can't talk about it because it hurts.” I physically sometimes feel the sensations here where the thymus tumor is. That's how my body's reacting to the stress. It's wild that I know that and I can recognize that. Emotional boundaries are extremely important.

Sometimes, you need to step away. There have been so many moments in which unfortunately I've had to say no to social invitations because it doesn't feel right or I don't want all the questions. Whatever you can do, it's a fine line between protecting yourself and delicately handling your emotions but then also being mindful that you can't live in isolation forever. We are human beings. We need to support and love each other. Be open to accepting that but from the right people who feel good on your nervous system.

The vibrational energetic match. You want to be around those same resonate. You don't want to lower your frequency and energy. That brings me to the next topic having a supportive partner. I see how Nick adores you and how he takes care of you. Tell us a little bit about that journey. You're going through this together. Tell us about some of the things in the ways in which it takes a lot of the pressure off you on how Nick's supporting you. Maybe share some advice for those going through something similar and how their partners can support them best.

Nick's downstairs working. I was like, “You can't come up in this room because I'm going to be podcasting for hours.” He's like, “Tell Anand I said hi.” If he was here answering this question, he would say the number one thing that has gotten him and both of us. I've opened up my heart a little bit more to this and leaned more into my faith in God. Not everyone believes in God so I'm not saying you need to do that but believing in something bigger than you.

Both of us being able to offer that up has lifted the weight at times that it feels heavy. He prays all the time. We've started going to church together, which sometimes resonates with me and sometimes it doesn't. I got to be honest. I feel like I can talk to God at any time. His faith is what has kept both of us as positive as we've been. We’re reminding ourselves to have fun. Talking about all of this openly and being able to have an open line of communication with your partner or whoever that special person is in your life is important. It's not always easy. He doesn't always see eye to eye with me but we always remind ourselves that we are a team.

When one of us is down, the role of the partner is to support you and keep you afloat. We are in this together. Even though sometimes I'm like, “No, it's physically happening to me,” it's also emotionally happening to both of us. He's been incredibly supportive. Not only has he been doing some of the research and putting some of those facts in front of me, putting the right level of support in front of me, or at least giving me things to look at so that I don't have to do all the heavy lifting of that research has been helpful.

Vibration Of Food: We always remind ourselves that we are a team. When one of us is down, it is our responsibility to support the other and keep them afloat.

He has stayed with me in the hospital and witnessed a lot of my breaking points but if I need to cry, he lets me. That's something that comes out of nowhere sometimes. I let it flow. Not always but I used to at times suppress those emotions. You then realize it's doing nobody a favor because they bubble up and become so much more intense than they need to be in that moment and letting it pass. Crying is extremely cathartic.

Surrender to the support. Your spouse holds you and sees you, and you can share that vulnerability. It's such an important thing in any relationship to be able to express how you feel at any moment. It's magical when you can find a partner like that, like you found with Nick and I found with Kate, to feel safe in that container.

Safety is a big thing. He has always felt like home to me. I feel like there's always a safe space for me, even if we're sitting there saying nothing. Keep in mind the lighthearted moments too. Even when we were in the hospital that first week and had no idea what was going on, we were deer in the headlights. I was like, “We need to ground ourselves.”

I'm putting music on and we're going to dance every night. Every day, we dance. That's important to me. It also helps work the emotions out of my system. It always puts a smile on our faces and it reminds us to not take things so seriously all the time. You can't always be living in this stress state. “Let's look at the problem state.” Life is so much more than that. I need to remind myself of that.

I wanted to make a point so I'm going to throw it in here randomly but that is what feels good about going into the Energy Enhancement System. It is a therapeutic protocol in a way. It's not something that is asking anything of me. It's not like somebody's sticking a needle in my vein. I need to think about that and hope that everything works the way we want it to. No. Nothing is demanded of me at that moment than for me to go and sit there in peace and quiet and have a moment for myself. That is one of the most beautiful things about that system to me. It requires nothing of you but pure enjoyment.

Vibration Of Food: The Energy Enhancement System has been a lifesaver. It requires nothing of you but pure enjoyment.

Including myself, sometimes I'll be up there and tears will start coming down my eyes. It’s something that allows you to connect to your inner heart, self, and emotions that could be for no reason, whether it's tears of joy, release, or whatever it is. Sometimes, I'll be in a conversation with somebody up there and I get emotional. It's weird but cool.

I've had the same experience. I'm always like, “I hope no one's watching me.” Everyone's having their unique experience up there.

Jamie's Advice For Thriving After A Cancer Diagnosis

What can you share with others going through a health challenge or something similar to you? What is one piece of advice you'd like to share and impart to them?

This whole conversation has been a string of advice in different areas but the biggest piece of advice I can give someone who has been most helpful to me is to trust your gut and inner guidance. Your body cannot lie. When you're having conversations with the doctor and you get that puff, that doesn't feel good. Your body's responding. Whether or not you feel comfortable enough to trust that is up to you but your body is always guiding you.

Trust your gut and inner guidance. Your body cannot lie.

Don't be afraid to get multiple opinions, which is something that didn't feel good to me because I'm a less is more person in many ways. Sometimes, information overload is too overwhelming. If you can go into it with a level head and prepare questions in advance for these people, don't be afraid to ask questions. They work for you. I had a surgeon who I changed over to tell me, “I work for you. You're the boss.” That put me back into the driver's seat and made me feel comfortable at the thought of eventually getting surgery.

Ask questions, trust your gut, and pay attention to those people who feel good about your system energetically and emotionally, knowing who to talk to about the things that feel heavy. You want to leave those conversations feeling lighter, brighter, and not darker and deeper. That to me would be three key pieces of advice.

It’s full empowerment. You are the boss. You are the originator of any action that's going to happen to you or what you put out there. Tell us about your podcast. I heard there was this amazing guest on.

That's right. You and I did have an amazing conversation and I can't wait for that episode to be released. It is something truthfully that I had been thinking about for many years. I have had The FWD Think Tank as the name for years. It was something that was very much on my heart in the beginning of the pandemic but it wasn't the right time. I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted to talk about on the podcast.

I knew I wanted to have these deep, meaningful conversations, sharing stories of people who have overcome, whether it was their limiting mindset or it's turned into people overcoming these serious health diagnoses but also talking to people like you who are, to me, thought leaders in the wellness industry and my doctors. I've had my conventional doctors and naturopathic doctors on there.

I want this to be a place of comfort, wisdom, and sharing information that may not be your standard protocol. I want to cover a lot of different topics but it's important to, in my mind, look at the people who have overcome these things and see how they have learned in their journey and unique path of what has helped them come and rise above and move on to a healthier life.

I want this to be a safe space for people. I want it to be a place of learning and provoking thought, and empowering people who are going through a serious diagnosis or know someone. We all know someone who's going through some health crisis or mental health crisis. I want this to be a place that people can lean into, tune into, and find support that they may not have known existed. It’s also a place for me to share my personal story. Truthfully, sometimes I get tired of repeating myself over and over.

Whether it was our conversation earlier or this one, it's part of the healing process for me. Instead of feeling like it's drawing so much out of me, I feel good most of the time in these conversations, opening up my little personal stage and theater, and sharing what's happening with me. I know if it will help at least one person, that's why I'm doing this.

It's an incredibly inspiring podcast. I see everyone in the community is loving it and is so supportive of you. You're sharing so many ideas and introducing so many people. It could be beneficial for people to know about it. It's perfectly named, FWD Think Tank, because to think, you have to explore something that's not necessarily a concrete path that's already derived. Sometimes in medical fields, there are options. There's not a lot of, “Let's step back and see the whole picture.” It’s important to everything we're doing and talking about. We're trying to figure things out. We don't have all the answers.

Nobody does.

We know that there's a solution and where the destiny that we want to be in and the destination. We're coming up with our own path. When you start creating and paving your path, it's not going to look the same for everybody but once you understand that, you are that main character and you're walking that path. Sometimes you have to cut trees and go a different way. Once you start coming into that power for yourself, then you are living a life on purpose. It's so important to sink into that as the main character of this show. We're all in our own universe. Don't let anyone else guide you when your heart, body, and mind tell you differently.

I resonate with that so much.

Me too. Jamie, why do you think you came here to planet Earth as Jamie Forward Mazza? What did you want to experience?

That is the question that's still slowly unfolding. I always knew that I wanted to help people. Even as a young girl, I always had this inner knowing that I was going to do something big. I just didn't know what that was. I've had visions of me on a stage talking to people. I wanted to get into the mental health side of things and got into the coaching. I'm sitting here sharing this information, learning all I can about myself, and experiencing life in the purest form along the way. I don't know. If I had asked myself this question years ago, I would have had a different answer. For me, it's constantly evolving. I don't know that I have this clear picture of why I'm meant to be here but it is in a capacity to help inspire others.

Who or what is your definition of God, since we talked about it?

I was raised Catholic so I do believe that God exists in a sense in that way but I haven't always resonated with everything that the Catholic way of life has to offer. I feel like I can talk to God at any time. I also lean a lot into my guardian angels and personal angels. Also, my relatives and friends who have passed on. I'm always tuning into all of that, talking to God at all times. In my mind, I picture shining over the world but talking to my angels too. It's all a part of it for me.

I believe I can talk to God at any time. I pictured God as a He as I'm saying this but I believe that God's always listening and guiding. I do think that when you think about why you were put here on this earth, God knows the answer to that. I'm here learning. The more you can follow your heart and trust your intuition, whether that is God or your internal knowing. It is a blend of what I learned was God as a young child and what I've experienced in my accumulation of life experience and more of the spiritual world. It's a little bit of a mix of both but something bigger than me that I honestly can't even understand.

The more you follow your heart and trust your intuition, the more you understand why you were put here on this earth.

How can we learn more about you?

The easiest way to connect with me is I'm pretty much on instagram daily. I’m @JamieFWD on Instagram. You can also check out my site, which I'll be completely transparent is a work in progress. It needs a little bit of a facelift. I want to start embedding my podcast episodes on there but you can certainly tune in any time to The FWD Think Tank on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. I'm slowly uploading onto YouTube as well.

Jamie, thank you so much. I said this at the end of the episode we did, the one that I was a guest on yours, that I truly appreciate you. I’m so inspired by you. We're always here to support you. We love you very much.

Thank you. I am very blessed to call you a friend. From the moment we met, we hit it off and there was this exchange of good energy. I'm so glad that we've stayed connected. I try not to get teary-eyed but I appreciate you having me on the show and allowing me to share all of this. For all the questions you asked, I didn't necessarily prepare for them because I'm not a scripted person. You and I can both speak from the heart. That's what has made these conversations feel so beautiful to me. I appreciate your time and appreciate you having me here. Thank you.

It's my pleasure. I have to give Kate, my wife, a lot of credit. She did come up with some of the questions, especially the one about boundaries.

I love Kate.

I want to throw that in there. We got to get together soon.

We'll make it happen.

Love you. Bye.

Love you.

Important Links

• Jamie Forward Mazza

• The FWD Think Tank - Spotify

• @CancerFighterOwen - Instagram

• YouTube - Cancer Fighter Owen

• Dr. Lori Bouchard - Past episode on The FWD Think Tank

• @JamieFWD - Instagram

• The FWD Think Tank - Apple Podcasts

• YouTube - Jamie Forward Mazza

About Jamie Forward Mazza

Jamie Mazza is a Holistic Health Coach, lifelong dancer, and passionate mental health advocate. Jamie has been working as a Coach since 2013, receiving her certification from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, and deepening her education under wellness experts like Nicole Jardim, Gabrielle Bernstein, Aimee Raupp, Dr. Daniel Amen and more.

Jamie is passionate about putting her clients in the driver's seat of their health to build the tools to foster a healthy relationship from within, and build lifestyle and nutritional habits that will encourage a healthy, happy life. In 2023, Jamie received a diagnosis of a rare thymic tumor and autoimmune disease, and has been diving deep into naturopathic healing on her journey towards radical remission.

She started her podcast, The FWD Think Tank in 2024 to share her healing journey, and stories from thought leaders in the wellness industry, as well as stories of hope from others on their own healing journey, in hopes to help someone who needs it. Currently, Jamie resides in Jersey City with her loving husband Nick. When she's not working, you can usually find her out in nature, starting a dance party, enjoying a delicious meal, cooking or traveling.