S6 EP23: Hannia's Story - Living With Epilepsy And Leading With Courage!

Hannia Zanana, founded her coaching practice out of Cairo that has grown entirely through word-of-mouth across several countries. She was diagnosed with epilepsy at 18, later with Hashimoto’s, and had a 5kg fibroid surgically removed. What she’s most fired up about is the thing her own body taught her over a decade: the life you are living has a direct relationship to the health of the body you are living it in. As she left the family business, stepped into her calling, and made the deeper changes, her symptoms started to ease. Her body, she says, had been keeping a precise account the whole time.

She works as an Intuitive Guide, holding coaching, inner child work, astrology, and numerology. Her clients describe her as someone who sees your best self even when you cannot.

This is an amazing story of self discovery! Thank you Hannia!

https://www.instagram.com/be.hlth/

www.behlth.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 1:30

Welcome to another episode of Well, that fucked me up. I am your host, Luke Colson. And today we're joined by Hania Zanana. Hi Hanya, how are you?

SPEAKER_03 1:40

I'm great, thanks. How are you, Luke?

SPEAKER_02 1:41

Brille. Where are you calling us from today, Hania?

SPEAKER_03 1:44

I am in Egypt, in Cairo, Egypt.

SPEAKER_02 1:48

You are my first Cairo, Egypt guest. Very exciting.

SPEAKER_03 1:56

And hopefully not your last. No, hopefully not my last.

SPEAKER_02 1:58

And um, my mom is half Egyptian, born in Cairo, so to a fully Egyptian mother and an Australian father. And so yeah, so she lived nice combo. Nice combo. She lived in Cairo till she was uh 17 years old, so she grew up there. Okay. Nice.

SPEAKER_03 2:18

I guess it was meant to be for you to reconnect with your roots.

SPEAKER_02 2:22

That's it. That's exactly it. So I got another team to root for in the World Cup, too, depending on I got Australia, England, now I'm in the US and Egypt. So between the four, maybe one of them does okay. Anyway. Anyway. Anyway, um, every week we have a guest who comes on and we talk about surviving life-changing events and experiences. And that can be your life, it can be a series of events, it can be your childhood, it can be emotional, it can be relationships, it can be physical, it can be displacement, it can be toxicity, it can be anything that really caused sort of trauma along the way. And we like to focus on the journey through what happened and where we are today. So, Anya, with that, where would you like to begin?

SPEAKER_03 3:06

Um, well, let me start one out the day I was born.

SPEAKER_01 3:10

Ah, it's an excellent place to start.

SPEAKER_03 3:15

Um actually, I could because I was born and I couldn't breathe for the first two minutes.

SPEAKER_02 3:20

So I guess that was a sign since the very beginning.

SPEAKER_03 3:23

I've I've been fighting life.

SPEAKER_02 3:25

But yeah, oh my god, some days I have such bad anxiety I can't breathe. And I think that probably happened to me when I was a kid as well. It's like kind of the times.

SPEAKER_03 3:35

Yeah, no, but but uh all jokes aside, uh, I think I think uh I should start when I was diagnosed with epilepsy at 18. Um, it was when I first moved uh abroad for university. And that I came back and I was diagnosed that I have epilepsy, right? And I'm there, I'm living alone. Uh, for those who don't know, epilepsy is a neurological disorder that causes um energy in the brain to or excess electricity in the brain to misfire.

SPEAKER_02 4:07

Yeah. And that can result in seizures of different types, right? I've seen um I'm not an expert, so you're you are because you have epilepsy by I've seen people who just literally just like zone out or they freeze. I've seen people who have much more, you know, big, big seizures where their whole bodies are, you know, they fall to the ground, and that's dangerous. Had you been having episodes before you got diagnosed?

SPEAKER_03 4:33

Um, so I'm the latter, just um, so I get the ground, I get the big seizures where I fall on the ground. Yeah, yeah. And whether I I don't know if I used to get them or not before. Maybe I used to zone out or something, and we never, but it was first diagnosed at 18.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 4:52

Yeah, and um ever since then I've been living with it, and uh, it's been crazy because you know, to live alone with epilepsy, all the doctors and all my loved ones advised me not to live alone because anything could happen at any time, right? I mean, it could be in the in the shower, in bed, uh walking down the street, anything, right? Yeah, I mean, I could be standing right in front of the metro and yeah, I didn't realize the danger of it all. I kept on living life, yeah. And then those I went, obviously, I had to take medication for it to, you know, um try to suppress it. Yeah, but what it did was it suppressed me. Ah, of course, it suppressed my brain, and I was at such a high dose that I was drugged. I mean, you go to a doctor, or not all doctors, but the doctor I went to, um, and his response was uh oh, you still get seizures, let's increase the dose. Oh, you still get them, let's increase the dose, and and you know, so on and so forth.

SPEAKER_02 5:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:50

And so I was drugged. I was living drugged for maybe seven years of my life.

SPEAKER_02 5:55

That is cru that and uh so I take um Selexa, right? Which is like a S what they call SSRI or something that's uh anxiety and depression. And so it it's similarly, it kind of like dampens the misfiring brain cells where you're having a panic attack or uh you're over anxious or overthinking. And there's been times where I've had such bad anxiety, they've upped the dose and probably nothing close to what you were on, but I completely get where you're coming from, where you just feel like a zombie. You're like, well, now I don't have anxiety, but also not too sure I can feel any anything at all, right?

SPEAKER_03 6:36

Yeah, I mean, I I for those that I don't know if you know or for those out there listening that know I used to take um a thousand five hundred and fifty milligrams of lyrica. Oh shit. That is the max, yeah. That's crazy. I mean, the doctor said that's that's not so the max on the on the box on the what they recommend is is uh 200. So I was just yeah, I was flying. But the funny thing is, I didn't know I was drugged. I I was so used to this numbness my whole life because I just made myself numb so I don't feel because it's easier that way, and I went on living. Yeah, um, but because I was numb, other than the fact that I'm already an adventure seeker, yeah, and a risk taker, I used to do crazy things, right? I used to, I mean, bungee jumping, uh, skydiving, uh, diving with whales, uh, paragliding, parasailing, everything, right? Just so that I could feel, yeah, you know, I needed that uh rush. But it I mean, so I I don't want to say that it fucked up my life, but it it epilepsy showed me life.

SPEAKER_00 7:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:48

Because I once went to a doctor, so the seizures started coming back. There was a time where I didn't get seizures, I won't they started coming back. I went to a doctor, and the doctor um he looked me in the eyes, and and then he looked at my mom, and he's like, You know, your daughter's drugged, right?

SPEAKER_01 8:04

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_03 8:05

At first instinct, I was like, No, no, I don't do drugs. You know, it's just how I would respond. But yeah, he meant no, that my eyes I'm not there. My brain's not there in my eyes. Yeah, yeah. Uh and it was crazy. The crazy thing is I didn't even know it.

SPEAKER_02 8:21

Had your mom had your mom spotted that too? Or did you oh wow, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_03 8:27

Um, but it was they always knew something was wrong because I was living. I'd um wake up, I'd work out, have breakfast, take a nap, and then go to work on the way to work on the commute. I'd I'd sleep in the car, and then when I went to work, during the working hours, I had to take another nap. And then on the way back, on the commute back home, I would nap, yeah, and you know, I'd eat, and then I'd do something for two hours and then go back to sleep. So I mean, but it became so normal, and I we use I used it as an excuse, like, oh, it's just because I'm tired. Oh, it's just oh, it's just I never thought it could be the medicine.

SPEAKER_02 9:02

You never connected it to that.

SPEAKER_03 9:04

No, but uh yeah, wow. Until thankfully, that doctor uh took me off that medication, put me on another medication, and things were getting better. I started, you know, feeling a bit again, right? But then came COVID when I realized that I was I was happier being at home than going to work, and I was like, something's wrong. Yeah, there are days where I would wake up like, oh, yeah, I hear you, yeah. And I was like, there has to be more to life than this. There just has to be.

SPEAKER_02 9:37

I've felt that way before. Yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 9:40

Yeah, so um, I was working in the family business at the time, and I took one of the hardest decisions I've ever had to make where I quit the family business.

SPEAKER_01 9:50

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 9:51

Yeah, I mean, the guilt was eating, eating me alive, right? Yeah, but no regrets. Um, and so I started what I'm doing now, um, inner healing, you know, and and that brings me joy, that brings me life. But I I think if I could say that one of the things that really shifted me, and and throughout this whole journey, right? I'm I'm waiting for this aha moment, you know, the one I see on TVs, you know, the one we see in movies, like life-changing moments. What I realized it wasn't just one moment, it was a series of moments that led to this change, that led to me living again, right? I mean, I was living, but I wasn't alive. Yeah, and then there was this one time in 2023, June of 2023, I was in Mauritius. And I was one of on one of my wild adventures, you know, doing crazy stuff. And I went swimming with sperm whales. And as I was swimming one time, I came face to face with this, and and that whale was less than an arm's length away. Okay, and I came face to face with it.

SPEAKER_00 11:08

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 11:09

And then all of a sudden, it opens its mouth and I was like, that's it, you know, I'm I'm going to die. Like, that's it. And my body froze, right? And and just like you see the movies, I saw I thought my body was lifted out of me, and I was watching the scene from up above. I'm like, okay, that's that's what happens when you die, right? You you see it, and and then ever so calmly, it just drift, closed its mouth, and started drifting away. And I swept, I didn't swim, I sprinted back to the boat, okay. And yeah, so angry, I went to the guide. I'm like, did you not see what was happening? Like, how could you? And then and then he's like, Calm down. He's like, Did you see what happened? I was like, Yeah, and he said, if I had approached you, the whale would have sensed fear, yeah. I see, but it's it sensed you, it's it knew you were no harm. And and the interesting thing about sperm whales, if you don't know, is their eyes are on their sides, it's not even in front of them, right? And and when the guy told me that, I just uh I was like, Yeah, uh of course, you know, because of my ego, I said, No, but you should have come, and I couldn't let him admit he was right, yeah, yeah. And then I walk away and tears start falling down my face, like balling, balling. And I didn't know why, but all of a sudden I think to myself, and and the the old me wouldn't let anyone see me cry.

SPEAKER_02 12:50

Yeah, and you were feeling feelings, yeah, and and and then I just stopped and I was like, oh my god, this 50-ton creature could feel me, yeah, and I couldn't even feel myself.

SPEAKER_01 13:07

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 13:08

It saw me, who I actually was, yeah, in less than 30 seconds, yeah. And I couldn't see who I was in, I don't know, the past 30 years.

SPEAKER_02 13:19

Yeah. That sounds like like the like the one of, if not the moment, of like epiphany of like a wave of emotion. And like when you're on all that medication, you don't you don't have emotions. Like you don't have anything, you don't have happiness, you don't have sadness, you're just like a flat line, like boom.

SPEAKER_03 13:40

Yeah, exactly, right? You don't know what the emotions were.

SPEAKER_02 13:42

That feel amazing. Was it feel scary or did it feel amazing when you felt those?

SPEAKER_03 13:46

I mean, I at the time I wasn't feeling I still I didn't feel anything. I was in shock and I was just crying and releasing everything.

SPEAKER_02 13:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:56

After, as I was processing, I was like, that is beautiful. Yeah, like this is life-changing.

SPEAKER_02 14:04

Yeah, it really is.

SPEAKER_03 14:05

Yeah, and and it's like, why why am I not scared to face this this whale, this creature, right? This beautiful creature, yeah. But I'm too scared to to to see myself to go within.

SPEAKER_00 14:20

Yeah, it's amazing.

SPEAKER_03 14:22

What how?

SPEAKER_02 14:23

Yeah, how long when how long ago was that?

SPEAKER_03 14:28

2003, so three years ago. Oh, June 2003, so exactly three years ago.

SPEAKER_02 14:32

Oh yeah, yeah. That's that's it, that's an epiphany. And how long have you been on the new meds that sort of leveled you out a bit?

SPEAKER_03 14:42

So since since I stopped the the really high dose and yeah, changed meds, I've been changing, you know. I I haven't found something that is really working for me, right? Um so I guess I'm yo-young between medication, but I think that it I could say it's been seven years now that maybe eight with 2026 that I I have been off that medication.

SPEAKER_02 15:12

Right. Yeah, and how are the seizures?

SPEAKER_03 15:15

Uh I still get them. They're being managed. Um often do they happen, the seizures? Uh for the past two or three years, uh, it's been monthly, sometimes bi-monthly.

SPEAKER_02 15:30

Wow. And do you feel them coming on? And like you have to give them a.

SPEAKER_03 15:34

Absolutely not.

SPEAKER_02 15:35

So you you just wait, you just come to and you're lying on the floor somewhere.

SPEAKER_03 15:39

Yeah, uh it's it's like I wake up or I mean I wake up from the seizure, and I'm like, okay, where am I? And then someone would tell me, like, you know, you had a seizure.

SPEAKER_01 15:54

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 15:55

Um and I mean that's and they happen at different times, different places. Um, I usually know if no one was around me, I'd know because my uh tongue would be bleeding.

SPEAKER_02 16:07

Oh wow, because you bite your tongue.

SPEAKER_03 16:09

Yeah. Um so yeah, I mean I think epilepsy uh taught me that we can't control everything in life.

SPEAKER_00 16:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:23

And we also need to be a bit more. I mean, was was I taking risks? Absolutely. Was it worth it? Definitely. Yeah, but we also need to be a bit more cautious because there are loved ones around us that care that we might, you know, unconsciously, you know, hurt them, right? They see it. I don't see the seizure, they see the effect, and if anything happened, they will deal with it. Yeah, um, so it taught me, it taught me a lot. It taught me to acceptance, right? For long period, I didn't accept that I have epilepsy. You know, I also thought it was just another medical condition, you know. Oh yeah, it's just epilepsy. But now I I I know what it is, and I know that what it's trying to tell my body when it's when it's happening, when it's speaking to me. So, and it taught me to that there are things in my control and there are things that we can't control. And that's just not in health, that's in everything in life.

SPEAKER_02 17:22

Yeah, that's really amazing. It's quite daunting, isn't it, knowing you have something like that, and I think the dangers associated with it. I guess you live with it, so you just you you accept it. But the not knowing, and also the not knowing when the seizure's coming. And I've witnessed someone having a grandma's seizure before, and you're right, you don't know because you're it's you and you you're not witnessing it, but it's it's very harrowing to see to look at somebody going through that, you know.

SPEAKER_03 17:52

Yeah, I'm sure. Like honestly, I can't imagine um how the others feel, right? But here's the thing for the longest time, I used to only think of the others. I never thought of how I felt. So I put on this shield and I'm okay, I'm not hurt, it's okay, I'm good. Oh, yeah, it's a seizure, no worries, I'm okay. I never really embraced it, I never really sat with it, right? I'm not hurt, I'm okay, I'm good.

SPEAKER_01 18:21

Yeah, yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_03 18:23

Um, this other time uh earlier this year, I I got a seizure um as I was walking down the stairs. And um my um well, my sister's son, um, I don't know, not my nephew. My nephew, yeah, my nephew. My nephew, my nephew was there, and all I could think of as soon as I woke up, I mean I had a concussion, I was it was bad, right? The only thing I thought of was, did he see me? Please don't tell me he saw me.

SPEAKER_00 18:57

Interesting.

SPEAKER_03 18:59

And and and this is just one example of so many times that it's happened to me, right? Because all I care about is what others think, how others feel. I didn't stop for a second to pause and say, Oh my god, I just fell through down a flight of stairs.

SPEAKER_02 19:15

Exactly. Yeah, that's the real that's the real thing you should be questioning. Yeah, like did someone see me, or how embarrassing, or something like that.

SPEAKER_03 19:22

Yeah, like oh my god, I'm so weak. I have, you know, I have other lips, oh my god, it's a weakness. Yeah, and and uh no, no, that's that's not how we're meant to be, right? It's there for a reason. Yeah, and and I learned to listen to it, I learned to speak to it and listen and understand what it's trying to tell me.

SPEAKER_02 19:40

Yeah. Let's talk about now. Um, you you left the family business and you pivoted. And what's life for you now and what's your business now? And what do you do with yourself?

SPEAKER_03 19:55

So I left a family business of manufacturing plastics, something so rigid, right?

SPEAKER_02 20:02

Yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_03 20:03

Planned plastic, melt, mold uh into this inner healing guide, inner child healing guide. So complete opposites.

SPEAKER_02 20:15

Yeah, I'll say.

SPEAKER_03 20:17

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know, it just felt so right. So I um during COVID, it was a great opportunity to learn, take courses, do things. So I became a health coach, certified health coach. And as I was doing that, I realized that it all starts from mental, like mental problems. Like, why and then whenever I'd get a client, um, they'd be like, Are you gonna make me lose weight? I'm like, I can't guarantee it. It's it's health, but like, why do you want to? Why, why? And it was always it came from from within. Like I was being bullied, I'm bullied. Um, I'm always compared to this, I'm always compared to that, or I don't know how I look, I have body dysmorphia. It's it all started from within. So I was like, okay, I want to know more about this, you know, the mind. And and you see, the thing with talk therapy, and I'm all pro-therapy, I go to therapy as well. Same but um yeah, with therapy, you control what you say with energy healing. True, I can see what's happening within, and therefore lead you to it if you don't want to say it. Sometimes people are embarrassed. I mean, I mean, if they've been abused, they don't want to say they've been abused. Or maybe they forgot that they've been abused.

SPEAKER_01 21:41

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_03 21:42

Your body does that, so it's a way of adapting. So I take you there, like even either through talk or through energy or like trying to remember the memory and going there, and then releasing it. I also integrate astrology, tarot, um life coaching, and I integrate it all together into you know a very, very personalized journey.

SPEAKER_02 22:09

Wow. So you're helping people who know that they have unresolved trauma most of the time, or more specific? It's interesting to me because what you're saying, it's funny, just that you're one example of like memories that maybe you've blocked or things that maybe happened that you hadn't thought about. And I like what you said about talk therapy, you can control what you say. I mean, unless unless you're ready to be honest, there's no point in spending money on a therapist because I mean, I did that for years, and I would just tell the therapist what I thought they wanted to hear. It's not doing me any good. It's not a test. The only way you can really get through stuff that's stuck inside your whole soul is to get it out from the deepest roots of how it's ingrained in your body, you know?

SPEAKER_03 23:03

Yes, a hundred percent, right? We're not we're not covering the wound with the band-aid.

SPEAKER_01 23:08

No.

SPEAKER_03 23:10

That's not the point. We want to go in and fix the wound so that we don't need the band aid. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 23:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:16

Um, but I mean, mostly it I mean, I I'd love to help anyone and everyone, right? But it's mostly because you said people who know they have unresolved traumas. Yeah. I mean, actually, no, it's people who don't know they have trauma.

SPEAKER_02 23:30

Got it. Very good.

SPEAKER_03 23:32

It's it's uh I'm uh I'm burnt out or I'm tired or I'm just tired all the time. I don't know why. And it's because your body just is is giving up, right? Why am I so angry all the time? I and it's they don't know what's happening.

SPEAKER_02 23:46

Yes, they don't know why. They don't know the reason. And there's always a reason. There always is.

SPEAKER_03 23:52

Always. Nothing happens from out of nowhere, right? It had to start somewhere. And and that's why I chose inner child, right? Because the inner child, it always starts from when we're younger, and then we start we were parented that way, right? And not just from our parents, but from the environment, from the society, from everyone. And their influence just influences our life, and that's just how things are.

SPEAKER_02 24:19

Totally 100%. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:22

And a child's good for me. That's where I have the most success because my worries and anxiety and fear of death and loneliness comes from my childhood and what I witnessed as a child and what I experienced through my parents not having a great marriage and not necessarily feeling like I was supported. And when I go back to my childhood or my inner child, it's always the same vision of me sitting on the bottom of the stairs at home on my own, not knowing where my parents are, and being absolutely fucking terrified, and thinking everyone around me was gonna die. That's like my resounding feeling of childhood, and that's not how your childhood is meant to make you feel. Your childhood is meant to make you feel magical, and this time when I learned how to ride the bike, or this time when we went to the water park, or this time where I don't that's not that's not my childhood memories, right?

SPEAKER_03 25:20

I'm gonna I'm I'm gonna disagree with you on that, right? Because there isn't one way childhood is meant to make you feel interesting, of course.

SPEAKER_02 25:30

Yeah, fair enough.

SPEAKER_03 25:32

Right? So so yes, you're meant to have the time of your life and you're happy and you're but you see, because we've been programmed, and that's what I mean by going back to your child, we've been programmed that this is what childhood is meant to be. And of course, being a child, this is the happiest, the most carefree time of your life. I'm not disagreeing, but everyone's experience is different, of course, right? If if some people have to work as a child, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:01

Um I guess I just w I just I guess I just wish my childhood memories were the with the things that I said. Do you know what I mean? Because that then it may then it makes me feel more disappointed. And I know that those things happen, I just don't have them as my memory.

SPEAKER_03 26:15

So so so what I would do is I would take you back to that memory, yeah, and I'd have you talk to Little Luke and discuss it and see why. Why, what what are you still holding on to in this memory? And I mean, I think it's you're holding on to the dream.

SPEAKER_02 26:32

Yeah, and you can't, you know what I mean? You just have to what you have to accept life is life, it is what it is. You can't you're you're right, you can't hold on to the past, but my my psyche, like my entire being, is holding on to sadness.

SPEAKER_03 26:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:52

And that's something I've been working through for years and years and years, and it's going well. It's better. I was drinking I was drinking and drugging for 20 20 years, and I got sober seven years ago, and maybe my seven seven-year sobriety anniversary next week. And that was my that was my that was my medication. That was my way of not feeling. And imagine that on top of the anti-anxiety and the anti-depression, that's not a good cocktail, let me tell you. So it's you know, now I'm now I do this this podcast as one of those main reasons because there's so many of us out there, there's so many like-minded humans from no matter how bad your childhood was, or how good it was, or something that happened later in life, or someone who made you feel like you were worthless, someone who we all we all carry these things, and you to your point, a lot of people don't even know they're carrying them.

SPEAKER_03 27:53

No, and and and the easiest thing for us to do is compare, right? And I always say comparison is the color of joy, yeah. Whether for the good or the bad, right? So, for example, I don't know, I'll take epilepsy, for example. I'll say, okay, but I mean, at least I'm alive. Yeah, I just compared myself to a dead person, or at least at some stage four cancer, right? Yeah, I just compare, you know what I mean? So it's not just always comparing, oh, he has a better life, or look at him, he's running, and you know. We're we compare the good and the and the bad, yeah, but we need to know that everybody's different and everybody is different, and we react in different ways. And and I mean, just to go back to the whole why you do the podcast, and and I think it's beautiful because we need to know we're not alone. Yes, everyone's going through something of their own, whether it's big T or little T, everyone. And we need to share it, we need to speak up and know that you're not alone, yeah, completely. They're not alone, yeah. And your experience with like sobriety could be my experience with uh, I don't know, epilepsy. We could find the similarity, you'll always find that thing that connects with you.

SPEAKER_02 29:00

I almost always find similarities with all my my guests on this podcast because it is about adversity and it's about coming through, and it's about self-discovery, and that's what I love about my kind of second run at life, you know, with my kids in my life and me being here and present and not drowning my sorrows in in drink and finding excuses to not be around. And it's just my whole life is a different life now. Where can we find you? Do you have Instagram? Do you have a website?

SPEAKER_03 29:34

Yeah, so I'm on Instagram, it's at B B E dot H L T H B Health. And the website is www.behealth.com. I'm also on LinkedIn, uh Hanya Zanona.

SPEAKER_02 29:50

And we're gonna have links to only where we can find you on the show notes. So if you're listening, go to the show notes. You can find Hanya. And Hanya, thank you for dialing it all the way from Cairo. Thank you. And thank you for spending half an hour with us on this wonderful, having a wonderful conversation. It's been thrilling. Thank you again.

SPEAKER_03 30:08

No, thank you so much, Duke, for having me and have a wonderful, wonderful day.