Healthy Living by Willow Creek Springs
A podcast about practices to promote healthy lives featuring experts, businesses, and clients: we gather to share our stories about success, failure, exploration, and so much more. Our subscription episodes feature some personal and vulnerable, real-life stories that are sensitive to some of the general public.
Healthy Living by Willow Creek Springs
Honest Priorities: The Path to Real Healing with Joe Grumbine
What happens when a life-threatening diagnosis forces you to completely reassess what matters? In this candid solo episode, Joe Grumbine shares powerful insights from his cancer journey that challenge conventional thinking about health, relationships, and healing.
After undergoing intensive chemotherapy for a tumor that was visibly protruding from his neck just nine weeks earlier, Joe reflects on the surprising discoveries he's made about cancer treatment that "most doctors don't know." He speaks frankly about the difficult dietary changes that became non-negotiable for survival—including completely eliminating beloved meat and dairy products—and how our true priorities reveal themselves when healing demands sacrifice.
Perhaps most poignantly, Joe discusses how serious illness unmasks the reality of relationships. "Family doesn't necessarily mean your blood," he observes, describing how some strangers provided more meaningful support than lifelong relatives. His experience reveals a profound truth: it's not about who talks about you, but who talks to you; not who sends a quick "love and light" text, but who consistently shows up when life gets hard.
The conversation shifts to the healing power of nature connection through Joe's work at Gardens of Hope, a botanical sanctuary offering therapeutic horticulture. Like the Japanese practice of "forest bathing," Joe emphasizes how sensory experiences in nature—the sounds of birds and rustling leaves, the sight of flowing water, the smell of soil—create space for reflection and spiritual connection that technology cannot replace. These moments in nature become not just pleasant diversions but essential components of healing.
Ready to reassess your own priorities? This episode challenges listeners to honestly examine where they spend their time, make space for nature connection, and determine what they're truly willing to change when health and wholeness are at stake.
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Well, hello and welcome back to the Healthy Living Podcast. I'm your host, joe Grumbine, and today I will be hosting the show. It's been the first time in a while that I've recorded a show without it being a subscriber episode, and so I'm kind of happy about that. For those of you who don't know, I've been going through some extensive treatments for this cancer that I'm overcoming, and really a lot of it has been the subscriber episodes and really detailing everything I've done. But we have showcased all the things I've been doing to solve this problem, and Dr Robert Hoffman has been joining me most weeks and we've been going through the various and sundry practices I've been doing and walking through the process of learning and solving this problem. I really want this experience that I've been going through and will probably continue to go through for the rest of my life now to help others, and I've learned some things about cancer that you're not going to read in most of the books. I've learned some things about cancer that most doctors don't know or recognize, and they've worked. I've gone from a giant tumor sticking out of my neck just nine weeks ago to people don't recognize me, and in a positive way. So I've learned some things. I'd love to share them and people want to reach out for a consultation or more. I'm available. Anyways, part of what I have had to do involved chemotherapy and not a low dose, a pretty major three drug cocktail that, in addition to all these other things I'm doing to cause it to work sort of a nuclear bomb. It was necessary. And again, you want to get all the gory details? Subscribe to the podcast and there are dozens of episodes. There's also a series called Overcoming Cancer and Other Obstacles where I do get into a lot of the things that I've done.
Speaker 1:If you have cancer or know somebody who has, I highly encourage you to check this out. There are lots of things that you may be familiar with and I guarantee you there will be some that you're not, and I'm learning every day. You there will be some that you're not, and I'm learning every day and I'm continuing to share what I know, and I want nothing more than to help even one person to solve their problem, and this doesn't just mean cancer, this is any medical problem. You're not going to probably find easy answers just by going to the doctor. I don't say that going to a doctor won't give you answers, but you're not going to find complete answers because doctors don't know them and you're the only one that can diagnose yourself, really, because you're the only one that has all the information, and that's a lot of what this show's about.
Speaker 1:So recently and that's a lot of what this show is about so recently we've had a lot of guests and that has made my job a lot easier, because clearly it's a lot more difficult to just record a show without a guest doing the talking than it is just to ask some guest questions and keep them on the line. So the chemotherapy that I've taken has taken a toll on my brain. I'm recovering and I will continue to recover, but it's made it difficult for me to keep my focus clear and on any given topic or even thinking of topics to talk about. But it's starting to go. It's starting to get clearer and I've got some thoughts and ideas I want to share with everybody today. I'm really grateful for all the guests that have come on. The show is continuing to grow. I'm grateful for the support.
Speaker 1:If you think this show is valuable, you can help in a lot of ways. You can talk about it, you can share a link, you can send a comment, you can come on as a guest. You know this is a healthy living podcast Mind, body, spirit, anything that we can connect to health I love to talk about. I don't believe answers come from gurus or just one source of information. I think we have a collective knowledge that we all gather and hopefully share, and I think that that's what this is about. The second piece of this is it's about community. Through this podcast and through my nonprofit Gardens of Hope and my other for-profit business, willow Creek Springs, we've been bringing together people that share this in common we want to be healthy, we want to live our best lives, we want to improve ourselves and the people around us, and people are coming together bit by bit, piece by piece, and I'm super excited. It's been a lifelong dream of mine to have a community that I can rely upon, and so today we're going to talk a little bit about priorities and I've talked about this many times before, but I think it's because it's so important and also talk about the truth.
Speaker 1:You know, the podcasts in general and social media and all the things we do to gather information and form opinions are basically full of shit most of the time, are basically full of shit most of the time, and people will make a statement and just whatever, say something and declare it as though it's a truth and people will buy it as though it's a truth. And if you say it loud enough and long enough or if you put some marketing behind it, people will buy it. And that's a big problem. We have a world of good natural medicines infiltrated by supplement companies that are unscrupulous, that will sell you a bag of shit and tell you it's a bag of medicine and there's bad labeling. There's bad practices and there's bad labeling. There's bad practices. There's just straight out deception that's out there and people just don't care. Then there's the bandwagons and somebody gets on a little hey, this worked for me, let me sell it to you. And you know, social media is just so full of everything you know. Whatever opinion you want to see, you can find it there, and you can find the people that say it absolutely works, and you'll find the people that say it absolutely doesn't work and they'll have generally AI based evidence to support it. So we really need to be careful where we're getting information from, and that's a lot of what this podcast is about.
Speaker 1:I don't have one point of view I want to share. I want to share as many points of view as I can. Most importantly, I want to share personal experiences. I believe that's where a lot of our truth comes from and it doesn't necessarily fit the scientific method because you can't necessarily test for it. Anecdotal evidence is flawed, we know that. But when you gather enough of it you can gather some truths from it. And frankly, most importantly, I think when people share what happened to them honestly and frankly, we can all learn from it. And I encourage people to participate in group meetings where people are sharing their common experience. So I've talked many times about dr hoffman's sunday at 4 pm, zoom call and I have gained a wealth of experience and information and tools for my healing through this. And I just have discovered or participated in Mark Simon's Nori call on Saturday mornings at 8 am and so far I mean I've joined one episode of that but seems like a good group with good information and I'm working on gathering the tools for my maintenance program once I'm determined to be cancer free and some of the protocol looks like it's going to come from that. Anyways, when we share our stories, there's generally something good going to come from that. Anyways, when we share our stories, there's generally something good going to come of it, and so I encourage you. If you're interested to becoming a guest on here, reach out either through a podcast link or I am easily found, joe Grumbine, and there's a multitude of ways to reach me.
Speaker 1:Anyways, today we're going to talk about priorities, and I think that it's like the elephant in the room. The most obvious answer to most of our problems require honesty, because our priorities will tell us really what's happening, and so you know people will say, oh, I want to be healthy, I have this problem and I want to solve it. And I'll say, okay, well, let's look at the problem. Most of the time, when somebody comes to consult with me, they'll tell me you know, I want to lose weight. I, you know, have cancer. I want to solve it. I've got some other major problem, I'm depressed, or whatever it is, and generally the first thing I'll say is well, we need to take an assessment and you need to look at yourself and make some determinations, and that requires some honesty and some just being frank with yourself. And when you start looking at, well, what do I eat, how do I sleep, how am I spending the time of my day.
Speaker 1:Frankly, most people more than half people for sure they walk away and I never hear from them again. And what does that say? Ever hear from him again. And what does that say? It says well, my priorities say that my practices, habits, the things that I'm doing are more important than me solving the problem I said I wanted to solve. Well, okay, that's a truth right there. So you're going to decide keep doing what you're doing and you'll keep getting what you got. And, frankly, I didn't have to spend any of my time trying to solve that because you weren't willing to do the work.
Speaker 1:I think that last statement I said, willing to do the work is maybe one of the most important keys to any success, whether it's a financial success, a spiritual success, a mental success, a physical success, a spiritual success, a mental success, a physical success, whatever it is, if you're not willing to do the work, you know all the affirmations and good love and light thoughts you might have are going to have some limited result unless you're. You know some ascended being that can really manifest things in a way that most of us can't. Most of us have to actually do the work. So we get these strong opinions about this and that and we just leave it at that. Mostly we just state our opinions and let them fly off into the ether and generally nothing comes of it. Most people generally don't care, and the ones that do, or really don't, generally have much else to do and they spend a lot of time caring and not doing so.
Speaker 1:For those of us that are serious and truly want to make change hopefully for yourself, but sometimes others change hopefully for yourself, but sometimes others you got to do the work, you got to be prepared to do the work, and sometimes that just means looking at things honestly and making some small changes. Sometimes it means making dramatic changes, like, for example, with cancer. The first thing I'm going to say to you, if you tell me you have cancer, I'm going to say well, what's your diet? What do you do? What do you eat? And whatever you tell me, I'm going to say well, you got to remove meat and dairy from your diet right now, immediately. That's the first thing you have to do. Now, you know me. Anybody knows me knows that's the last thing I want to tell anybody.
Speaker 1:I am not a vegan by nature. I love my meat and dairy, I love eggs, I love cheese. I love, you know, and you know, prior to this, fish especially I love it. And prior to my awareness of this, I thought I was being healthy, eating vegetables and meat, and fish primarily, and eggs, and wasn't eating fruit, no carbs, all of that keto thing, and for some people it's the healthiest thing in the world. For anybody that has cancer it's a death sentence. And there's so much bad information, misinformation, unfinished information out there that people do what I did and they say, well, cut the sugar out and you're okay. Well, it doesn't work that way, folks, and if you really want the truth, come and find me I will walk you through everything I've learned.
Speaker 1:But again, these priorities, that's a hard ass thing to do. If you are like me and gain a lot of joy from your diet, from food, thinking, you know again, exercising, sleeping, keeping the rest of the pillars strong, you know protein is important. Bodybuilders, you know, consume huge amounts of protein. But frankly, most of us don't require nearly the amount of protein we consume and it can become problematic. So, again, a priority If you really want to solve a problem, you got to do the work, and most I don't know about most of the time, some of the times, these are just simple shifts, you know, like, where do you spend your time? You say, well, I want to be more successful at business, I want to have a better relationship, I want to have, I want to lose some weight. Well then, what do you expect? You got to be honest.
Speaker 1:It's hard because a lot of our addictions and habits don't seem detrimental or deadly. You know, it's not a big deal. I'm just looking through my phone, it's not a big deal. I'm just having a conversation with somebody, chit, chat. It's not a big deal. I'm just, you know, insert whatever the thing you do that isn't valuable to you. And I think, being honest, you got to realize that if it's not helping you, it's holding you back. You know the world revolves, it's not sitting still. So anytime we're doing something, it's either helping us or causing us harm. There really isn't any inert actions and even if it's not doing anything, it's causing you harm because it's not doing you any good. So you know, this is important.
Speaker 1:I think, with relationships, a lot of times we hold on to toxic and bad relationships because we'd rather have them than not have any. Or you know, the family is key. Here's an example. So the other day my aunt comes over and she says did you go? You know you were missed your mom's 80th birthday party. And you know your, your family says, well, they've been reaching out to you but you didn't answer. And I thought to myself, wow, that's hardcore. Because you know my family, I've got this huge family and you know, for anybody who knows me, I've always been a family guy. Right, family is so important. But as I became to take stock of my own life, I realized that, you know, family doesn't necessarily mean your blood. Family is who you spend your time and energy with.
Speaker 1:And as my challenge became life-threatening, life-threatening, there were people that came to me and offered help and sometimes the help was, you know, just asking me what can I do? What do you need? You know how can I be there for you? Just that alone will put you in a whole different category than you know. My blood family. That, frankly, didn't give a shit, and that includes my kids, that includes my mom, that includes my sisters, brothers, brother, you know cousins, aunts, uncles, all of it. There was just literally this teeny little handful that actually cared enough to engage and sending me a little text saying I heard you had cancer, love and light. That's nothing. That's not engaging. That doesn't even entitle you to a response in my eyes, a response in my eyes when my whole life was dedicated to staying alive and all of that. Now there were other people who you know a year ago I didn't even know that were actively supporting and trying to help me, raise money and find answers and by to just see if I was okay calling, texting just to see how am I doing today. Those things carried the weight of a hundred. You have my DNA. I didn't ask for any of my relatives to be my relatives.
Speaker 1:It's great when you share a lot of experiences, you build relationships, you have a lot in common, you create bonds and relationships with these things. But there's no requirement, there's nothing that says just because this, then that, but we do that all the time. We prioritize and, to be frank, if you talk about me but don't talk to me, that doesn't entitle you to anything. And I've come to a place in my life where you know I'll be direct and I'd rather have one or two people that can handle that relationship than a hundred people who you know are my quote friends, like Facebook friends or whatever who you know will have an opinion, talk about me all day long, but will never engage on a on a deep level or put an effort in. So again, these priorities.
Speaker 1:Where do you spend your time? What are you willing to do? You're willing to talk about somebody, but not to them. You're willing to be offended because they didn't do the thing. Or you're willing to go out and make a visit. You're willing to go and put an effort in. Well, there we go. So I think the one thing that I want to talk about, as we're getting sort of to the end of this round for me, is prioritizing personal time to reflect and prioritizing time to be in nature.
Speaker 1:And so, for those of you who know or don't know, I have a botanical garden and a nonprofit called Gardens of Hope, and we offer what we call therapeutic horticulture and education. So we've got this little two and a half acre botanical garden in Paris, california, between LA and San Diego, and we've been my wife and I have been here for 30 years. We've been cultivating this land, stewarding the land. There's a little stream that runs through it that we've managed to keep with water for the last three years straight. It used to be seasonal, but now we've managed to cultivate it to keep some water at least on the surface all year long. So there's now some little fishes in there and the wildlife has increased as a result. And you know we live in a place that's really dry and arid generally, but we've created an oasis out here. There's a big canopy of trees and you know it's a small farm.
Speaker 1:We grow vegetables and herbs and things like that and we have groups that come out. We have special needs groups that come out. They learn life skills and get some training. We have what we call ecotherapy. We have a mental health clinic that comes and brings patients out here for therapy sessions and all sorts of different projects. We have workshops, we have retreats, we work with plant medicines, we have a homeschool garden that's developing right now and we work with veterans. We just received a grant to build a microgreens climate-controlled area so that we can we do grow microgreens, but we grow them kind of in a shade house and so as we're getting into summer right now, it's much more difficult to grow them and you know we cut back dramatically on our production. But as we're able to get this climate-controlled resource, we're going to be making these microgreens available for veterans, and you know, I believe a lot of good comes from being out in nature. I think in Japan they call it a nature bath or something like that, where it's actually recommended. You know a doctor will give you a prescription.
Speaker 1:Go out in nature for a while, and I think our priority is sometimes consumer time, and whether it's your work or your hobby or your kids or whatever it is, think about it. When was the last time you went out into nature, whether it was in your own backyard or going to the beach or the mountains or the desert or someplace where you could be quiet and just sit there and hear the sounds that the earth and its native inhabitants provide the sounds of the wind, the sounds of the leaves of the trees, the sounds of the birds, the sights, the beauty of a flower or water falling, or a sunrise or a sunset, the smells, even the smell of the soil, the smell of water, the smell of flowers, fruit, vegetables, animals. Anything. All of these sensory experiences are healing and they can provide insight. You can find yourself in a meditative, reflective space where maybe an answer comes into you. A good place to pray, connect with spirit and creator, a good place to maybe discover something about yourself, have a realization. Maybe it's a great place to deal with a thing.
Speaker 1:You know we have issues that we get obsessed over or we have a hard time overcoming grief, anxiety, you know, any issue that loops in our head and sometimes just getting to a space where you can just experience a thing looking up at the stars at night, staring at a campfire, whatever it is there are so many ways that just being in nature can heal. You can help you to find answers to help you to heal, and so today I just want to encourage you to consider your priorities. Take stock of your day. You know how are you spending it. Start journaling. You can really learn a lot from a journal. I've been remiss in the last several weeks because of chemotherapy. It's just been really hard for me to focus, and my daily journal has got a good six-week gap in it right now, but I'm getting ready to get back to it because it's good and it's important and I need to make it a priority. So I encourage you to think about your priorities and include some personal time, include a little bit of nature and, if you're interested, reach out.
Speaker 1:The Gardens of Hope thegardensofhopeorg is our website and we're on Instagram and YouTube Lots of good information. Come on out, visit us, take a tour, get involved in a program or more. So I thank everybody for your support and remember we've got subscriber episodes. You can send a comment through any of the platform links. If you want to become a guest, reach out. I'd love to interview you, talk about your experience, and I just am so grateful for the success of this show and looking forward to expanding it more and more. So, thank you and we will see you next time.
