Ep. 42 Navigating Cancer: The Power of Exercise and Emotional Healing with Melissa Grosboll
[00:00:00] Transformed by trauma. It seems like an oxymoron. Trauma, a deep distressing or disturbing experience. And transformation, a dramatic change in form signifying positive growth. How do we get from trauma to transformation? In this episode, I introduce you to Dr. Melissa Grasbaugh, and among other things, she is the creator and host of the Many Faces of Cancer podcast.
We talk about how these dark nights of the soul have potential to wake up our consciousness, bringing us face to face with the processes that we never paid attention to, or if we did, we often felt we had little control over. In these broken openings, our awareness blossoms. We get in touch with our own basic needs, and sometimes, for the first time, we tap into how we really [00:01:00] want to feel emotionally, physically, and we even get to understand our need of receiving love and help from those around us.
From a woman whose arc has taken her from being a chiropractor to owning an edible cookie dough company to a personal trainer. With cancer, grief, and lots of loss sprinkled throughout, we learn of the different ways to take back our own personal health. May this podcast be a catalyst for you to become a better version of you, just bursting to step forward.
[00:02:00]
Kathy Washburn: Hello, Melissa Grothvall. I am so excited to have you. You have so many beautiful things that you have going that I can't wait to introduce our audience to. I usually start sharing with people how I know you and I'm beginning to absolutely love the magic of the universe where this person introduces me to this person and we had Cindy Trice here on the podcast who I believe you guys went to High school together.
We went to high
Melissa Grosboll: school together. Yes. way, way, way too many years ago.
Kathy Washburn: Right. So she connected us. I was so honored to be interviewed by you on your podcast called The Many Faces of Cancer. And you also are a retired [00:03:00] chiropractor. I have so much mad respect for chiropractors. They have helped me in a myriad of ways, having been a gymnast when I was young and thought that being a Gumby doll actually worked for me for the rest of my life, which is not the case.
And you also have this sports specific focus as a personal trainer and you work with cancer. People, you're a cancer exercise specialist, which I am so excited to dive more into, but I want to open it up for you. If there's anything I'm missing, anything you want to add about yourself, people you serve, things that you're really on fire about right now.
Melissa Grosboll: Well, part of it is, and I guess this probably goes into some of our conversations.
Melissa Grosboll: So I retired from chiropractic after practicing for 20 years. I just, I didn't want to do it anymore. It just wasn't serving me anymore. And I went 180 degrees in the opposite direction and I opened [00:04:00] up an edible cookie dough shop.
So I sold safe to eat raw cookie dough for five years. And then we just kind of couldn't recover after COVID. And I was starting to just not feel good anymore. The stress and eating all that junk all the time was just really affecting my health. And I, you know, we closed the business.
Melissa Grosboll: And then a few months after we closed the business, I was diagnosed with breast cancer.
So it was all kismet in the way that it was supposed to be. And Going through my breast cancer journey led me to personal training and this cancer exercise specialty. So, I like to joke that I help people be healthy, then I help them get fat, and now I'm helping them get healthy again.
Kathy Washburn: Wow. What a beautiful arc.
I, I think that um, You [00:05:00] just made me think about this. There is a silver lining to having cancer and I, I believe it's It's kind of like a waking up, and this, this doesn't have to be, you don't have to get cancer to be, to wake up. It can be from a loss or any dark night of the soul, but this waking up of consciousness or self awareness, it's pretty magical once you get to the other side for you to be sitting here and saying, yeah, I'd like to say that.
You know, I used to get, make people fat. Now I help them. It is. Do you feel like that? It's that waking up?
Melissa Grosboll: Oh, cancer was an enormous wake up call for me. It was, it truly, in some ways, I feel like it saved my life because I was just on this path of, of being very unhealthy. And the way I was taking care of myself, the mentally, physically, everything was [00:06:00] just not in a good place.
And I feel like God was telling me, hey, I've got big things for you to do, and you need to be healthy to do them. So here's a little blip to make you stop and and look at your life. And maybe make some changes. So for me, it was a true blessing and a wake up call for me to change almost everything about my health.
And, and I'm so, so grateful for that.
Kathy Washburn: Wow. Again, this kind of awareness that happens when We we do go through something like that.
Kathy Washburn: There's a big element of physical awareness like body awareness where we're just kind of going through the motions of the day and Without consciousness, maybe we're drinking that fourth cup of coffee, or, you know, consuming the bottle of wine, or realize I haven't [00:07:00] moved from this desk for six straight hours, whatever that is, like, there's this All of a sudden there's this being in touch with our body at the same time, I don't know about you, but there is a big betrayal element, like, how could this body do this to me?
Do you, I'm sure what, I'm going to ask the question straight up. Do you help, So how do you help your clients become more body aware while also teaching them to love their body again or go through that, deception or betrayal process? Do you work with that? A little bit,
Melissa Grosboll: I think a lot of. People, when you're going through cancer, that that's probably part of it.
I mean, I think for, for a lot of people that I've talked to that going through that whole process of cancer is kind of a, a body wake up call in and of itself. [00:08:00] And really helps people to pay more attention to what's going on in their body. Like, unfortunately, I feel like, and I don't know if you feel this way that for me.
Like every time I get, you know, a pain in my hip or a headache or something like that first thought in my head is, oh my gosh, is my cancer back, you know, and then like, no, no, it's just a headache. Like, it's not, I don't, I don't have brain cancer kind of thing, but there's always that. I don't know that little piece of could it, could it be back?
And so I think that, you know, and the people that I work with have kind of developed some sense of that as far as paying attention to when things are going on in their bodies and being a little bit more mindful of that in, in some ways, because there's always that chance that it could come back and then come back in a different location.
Kathy Washburn: [00:09:00] Mmm, that just gave me this complete redirect to the waiting for the other shoe to drop. That's what I, I usually refer to that, that you just described is that waiting for the other shoe to drop. You just changed the perspective to, Oh, this could be a good thing because now I'm really aware of my body and I'm going to pay attention to it in a way that might not have been possible before because.
I wasn't paying attention at all. It helps you to pay more attention to what's going on in your body, right? So you were diagnosed kind of out of the blue, you didn't have any family history.
Kathy Washburn: You had and when we spoke on your podcast, you had shared that you went through a about of depression, not to do with cancer.
But another point was that before your cancer after it.
Melissa Grosboll: So for me, 2021. was a very [00:10:00] traumatic year for me. I, in the span of one year, I lost a 16 year old cat. I lost my 14 year old dog. I broke my knee. I had to go through two surgeries and about eight months of rehab. And then I lost my mom. And then I lost a very dear friend to brain cancer, all in the midst of trying to run a business.
And then I lost my mom in October. I lost my friend in November. And then we went right into the holidays and we were doing sugar cookie decorating kits. So we made sugar cookies and then had the frosting and the sprinkles and stuff. And we were selling them on Etsy. And in the span of six weeks, we made over 800 dozen.
sugar cookies. So I never had any time to process all of that grief because we [00:11:00] just, we were so busy for the holidays. And then once the holidays were over, Oh, it's a new year. And, and everything is hunky Dory. And I really feel like all of that unprocessed trauma. So I was diagnosed in February of 23. So I really feel like all of that undie unprocessed trauma That happened in 21 really contributed to, to my, you know, I mean the cancer, they say that.
Cancer can be festering in your body for up to 20 years, but I really feel like that year was probably what helped it to take roots and start growing and all of that. So, yeah, that was, so I feel like that was part of what led to. To my cancer diagnosis was going through all of that or not going through all of that,
Kathy Washburn: right?
And that that is that's a big lever that [00:12:00] is often ignored in the cancer prevention world. You know, they talk a lot about changing your diet. exercising, don't smoke, stay out of the sun, but there's this emotional element. And I went through a holistic cancer coaching program a couple of years ago.
And there were two things that still really just stick out to me. One was this crazy statistic and I'll have to find it about how many people get cancer after a loss. A loss of somebody very dear, a loss they also talked about a loss that there's unresolved conflict with. So that that they can't process
Melissa Grosboll: this.
Kathy Washburn: And then the other thing that happened in that training was the teacher, Susan, I can't remember her last name. But she said, you need to ask every client. What do you think gave you cancer? How do you think you got cancer? And I was like. [00:13:00] No effing way. I would never ask a cancer survivor that question.
That's horrible. And I sat there and she said, so I'm asking you, what gave you cancer? And we're all in the room kind of looking at each other like this woman is batshit crazy. This is, she clearly has never had cancer and she hasn't herself, but her spouse did, which is how she came to this work. But we all sat there and she just sat there, pregnant silence for, I don't, I felt like it went on for eight minutes.
And then she just started calling on people one by one and everybody had an answer. Wow. And I would say 80 percent of it was emotional. was unresolved emotions or that loss, that unresolved conflict, the inability to speak up, the kind of bubbling up inside that you can't do [00:14:00] anything with it anymore.
And I just found it so stunning and hearing your story. I can just see, you know, you can just see the, That is the arc of it where we get so swirled in the being, in the doing, in the having to you know, fill in the blank that we kind of lose ourselves in the process.
Melissa Grosboll: Well, if you want to go even a step further.
So my my cancer was in my left breast. And the left side of the body is the feminine side of the body and breasts are nurturing. They're this mother child relationship because that's the first relationship of mother and child once they're outside the womb. So, you know, losing my mom and she and I had a, we had a very interesting relationship and there were a lot of things that I felt like I didn't get a chance to resolve and to say [00:15:00] to her before she passed and The fact that it ended up happening in my left breast with my unresolved issues and an unresolved trauma with my mom, you know, just adds another layer to the whole thing.
Kathy Washburn: Right. It's like I can't remember whose book that is. The body keeps the score.
Melissa Grosboll: Or Louise Hayes. You can heal, you can heal your life.
Kathy Washburn: Yes. Yes.
Melissa Grosboll: Yes. Yes. Yes.
Kathy Washburn: So this awareness, and I know in your podcast, you have lots of different people that you're interviewing, and it does, it's not just survivors, it's not just thrivers, it's caretakers and other people.
What do you, what's the kind of a theme that you see with your, the people that you interview?
Melissa Grosboll: Um, there are a couple I, I usually like to ask if it's not brought up through the episode. Like, what's 1 piece of advice that you [00:16:00] would give to somebody who's just starting on this journey, or who's in the midst of this journey?
And everybody has different answers, but a lot of them follow a very similar theme. And it's, really having a support structure around you having family and friends and people to help you. Don't try and go through it alone. That's one piece. Another is, you know, be your own advocate, like, speak up for yourself.
Don't let. The medical doctors railroad you and, you know, get you to do things without asking questions, without knowing what's going on and be your own advocate or have someone advocate for you so that your needs are being met and your questions are being answered and you're not being Pushed into doing something that may not be right for you.
So those are kind of two pieces that I get a lot. And then the third one is, [00:17:00] especially if you're going through cancer to give yourself grace and to know that. You're not, you're not always going to be a hundred percent. You're not always going to be miserable, but let the emotions come and go and don't try and push them down.
Feel free to express them and give yourself grace that you're might not be able to do everything that you can normally do, but you're fighting for your life. And you, you know, you may have these drugs going through you that are killing off cells and things and, and just give yourself the grace to go through this and not try and be super woman or the people pleaser or take care of everybody else.
Take care of yourself and let other people take care of you.
Kathy Washburn: I love that message. And we don't have to be going through cancer to hear that.
Melissa Grosboll: Right.
Kathy Washburn: Take care of [00:18:00] yourself is a really it's, it's the most important thing that you can do. It's, it's stunning to me how many people don't allow themselves to receive, to receive help.
And I remember I was running this workshop once and this woman, we were talking about self care and she said, I have seven children. I, my, my first child was born when I was 15. And by the time my my youngest child was 20, I already had five grandchildren. I think that was the, that she was then taking care of and she said, when I got cancer, It was such a gift.
It was the first time I learned how to say no, and I thought, wow, that's a big lesson. And then she said, but the harder thing [00:19:00] was receiving help from all these people, they wanted to drive me, they wanted to make dinner for me. And I just wanted to go in a closet with a book and a cup of tea and shut the door.
And so that, that balance of that grace for yourself, like this is what I'm going through and being in a supportive community that you allow to help you without any anything on the other side. I don't, this is not a chart where we're keeping score and you have to do something for that person, but I find a lot of people that I work with.
are so uncomfortable with the receiving of help or support
Melissa Grosboll: or guidance. Especially women and moms who are always doing for others and giving to others and putting themselves last. I think that we lose the, [00:20:00] we lose not the ability to receive, but it becomes uncomfortable because we've. We're just the givers and supporting everybody else.
And when it comes to ourselves, you know, we put ourselves last and learning that I learned. I don't know. I was at a seminar or something a long time ago. And 1 of the things we worked on learning how to receive. Is that when somebody says, like, have a nice day or something like that to just say, thank you.
Instead of you to or something to just say, thank you and actually receive it or say, thank you. And you too, or something like that, but to actually receive it. And they said that if you just deflect back, like, oh, you too, you're also robbing the other person of that. Emotion of giving because you're deflecting it [00:21:00] back and so they don't get that joy of giving to you if you can't receive it and you just deflect it back to them.
So you're out, you know, you're robbing yourself of receiving and you're also robbing the other person of truly being able to give.
Kathy Washburn: So simple and powerful. I am going to take that one and use it with clients because there's often there's the receiving is, well, I can't handle all of this stuff coming at me, but to say, have a nice to, to accept the well wishes of somebody that's wishing you a nice day,
Melissa Grosboll: it's so simple,
Kathy Washburn: simple, thank you for that gift.
Now you, how did you actually.
Kathy Washburn: physical fitness. Like I know that it kind of found you through the through your cancer experience, but is what was the thing that [00:22:00] just pointed you there and said, and, and how did you get it going and maintain it? Cause I, I know a lot of people start things after and they kind of go back to their old way of being, but.
You've, you've not only started it, you've sustained it and you teach it. And I'm just wondering what was that path like for you?
Melissa Grosboll: So I've always had a love hate relationship with, with exercise as I think so many of us do. And when I was younger, I looked at exercise as, 10 pounds to lose. I'm going to go to the gym.
I'm going to work out really hard, lose that weight. And then I would, and then I would stop and go back. And then it was just this yo yo up and down. And probably about maybe 12 years ago or so, I discovered orange theory fitness. But, and, [00:23:00] and I fell in love with their program because I love to run. I like to lift weights, but I loved kind of the, the, you know, the combination of the two and then how I felt afterwards and the changes that were happening in my body.
And, you know, I was in my early forties. I had run a couple half marathons. I had done a couple triathlons, like I'd done things off and on, but there was something about orange theory and I stuck with for probably two years. Then it got a little expensive and I just joined a gym after that point, but there was something in there that just made it a habit for me, just getting up and I, and I like to joke that I work out first thing in the morning before my brain wakes up and realizes what I'm doing.
I'm going to write that one down also. And, you know, [00:24:00] I started like I would put my workout clothes in the bathroom. So when I got up in the morning to go to the bathroom, they were right there. I just put them on and it became a habit and I went every day. And for many years, it was more of a, it was more of a mental therapy than a physical therapy.
Like, I just, I was not a great person to be around if I didn't get in my exercise in the morning. It just helped me have a better day. And when I was, when I was diagnosed with cancer, you know, I was in this habit. I went to the gym every single day during COVID when the gyms were shut down. I still had the routine.
I got up and I had, you know, a room in my house that I would get up, go to the bathroom, put my clothes on, go into that room. And, and exercise or go outside for a run. It was very hard because I like to go to the gym versus work out at home and going [00:25:00] through cancer and the treatments and everything, it was back to that mental therapy for me, it was a way to just forget what was going on for an hour, a day, and after my surgery and during my radiation.
You know, fatigue is a big, it's a big side effect of treatment and as crazy as it sounds movement and exercise is actually the best remedy for fatigue. And if you're active before you start this Before you start your treatments, the fatigue is less likely to be as much of a factor because you're, you're moving your body and you're exercising and it combats that fatigue.
And so I loved so much how I felt, how it, you know, the, all of the movement and stuff that helped keep [00:26:00] all of this moving so it didn't, you know, tighten up with the scarring and everything and how good that I felt. And I just thought like, Hey, and this is kind of what I've done through so much of my life.
Hey, this really helped me. How can I find a way to use what I've learned to help others? And I discovered this program that that was a certification to work with cancer patients, cancer survivors from an exercise standpoint. And for me, like, hey, I get to work out with people every day. So it keeps me in shape too.
Kathy Washburn: That's amazing. And the research around the exercise during or just any kind of movement is so powerful. It's still frustrating that there's not a lot of offerings within a hospital to do that. I interviewed.
Kathy Washburn: he calls himself a [00:27:00] prehab, he's a prehab specialist. So he's a rehabilitation specialist, but he's a cancer prehab.
So in like the knee world. They have prehab is a thing where people that are going to get their knee operated on, they understand before or a knee replacement, somebody comes and looks at their house, they understand they're going to do their, they need to do these exercises. So it's like they, the brain kind of gets warmed up for what's coming.
And. There's been this push to do it in the cancer world. He was one of the first groups he was in the first cohort that got certified for prehabilitation and cancer, and I thought what a phenomenal thing it would be if when you got diagnosed, Somebody kind of, instead of handing you a hundred pamphlets and telling you to get on your [00:28:00] way, somebody actually, and this podcast, I think it's one of my first five, he's the most calming human, even just to interview you, your heart rate just goes down because he's very kind and you can just imagine how he is with patients and he gets them ready for what's coming.
And I spoke about on that podcast, how. There was one little tiny thing I thought I had control over and that was lymphedema because my oncologist just in, in passing said, well, you know, the long term side effects of lymphedema and I said, what is that? And he said the word elephantitis and I was like, what, what does that mean?
And I, she showed me a picture and I was like, you can do anything to me. But please do tell me what I need to do that. I'm not gonna have tree trunk legs like that is terrifying to me And he said, well, we, I'll send [00:29:00] you the lymphedema clinic after I was like, no, I want to go now. I want to go now. So I went to this lymphedema clinic before surgery and the, the specialists were like, who are you?
Who sent you? Because we've been trying to get doctors to send people before surgery for years. So they actually taught me how to redirect my lymph flow, the lymph flow through skin brushing. And then after my surgeries, I went there every day for two weeks. They would wrap my legs or I'd go there, they'd do this lymph massage.
Then they would wrap my legs. I would keep them wrapped like a mummy. There were, I think there were 14 ACE bandages on each leg. They're trying to move the lymph out of my legs. And I did that every day for two weeks. And then I kept going to the clinic for the lymph massage. I have no lymphedema in my legs, [00:30:00] which apparently is kind of astonishing having all of your lymph nodes removed and the groin.
But it was the one thing. That I actually felt like I could control and had I also had somebody say Going for a walk every day, even when you're feeling like you can't move, actually will reduce your fatigue, or lifting weights will reduce, I did have that because I was in the middle of a yoga teacher training program, so my yoga teacher came and we did these stretches to make sure that the scar tissue like you didn't stay, but I interviewed him two years ago.
I can't tell you, whenever I say prehab and cancer, people are like, what? I've still never heard of it.
Melissa Grosboll: It's still not a thing.
Kathy Washburn: It's still not a thing, and it makes me so sad because there's so much self efficacy. That comes from that. And I even hear that in your [00:31:00] story for you to be able to get your body to the gym.
And, you know, even if it's just to ignore what's happening in your life for 1 hour, but to have that mental clarity or focus for 1 hour in a day. It's, it's like bathing the nervous system with yummy, warm honey that will last throughout the day. So good for you. And I love this idea of and I hear this with so many survivors is, okay, I learned this thing.
I now want to share it with other people so they don't have to go through. What I went through, or if they are going through what I went through, they don't have to fall so deep and stay so long, you know, that there's a process that I've learned that can help people move through it more empowered.
Melissa Grosboll: I interviewed a woman for my podcast and now I use this all the time and she said that [00:32:00] cancer is the worst club with the best members. Like, nobody wants to be in the club, but. You know, I have met just such amazing people who will be lifelong friends because we have shared this experience and people are just absolutely amazing.
Like I was at my support group this week and everybody went around and said, you know, one thing that you learned from You know, from your experience and several people said empathy and just being more empathetic with others having gone through what they went through. And just that gift of empathy from others has helped them to be more empathetic in their lives.
And I was like,
Kathy Washburn: it's just so beautiful. Yeah, I think that is that's also, I've, I've heard that a lot also. And I think it's that waking up. [00:33:00] It's everybody's, you know, you're on this, this train going forward, all of a sudden it stops and you can see the world around you and you realize, oh, oh, you're another human hurting where I probably didn't even see you before because, not because I'm unempathetic, I just was going at 90 miles an hour and didn't take a moment to notice that you're hurting.
Yeah, that's another that's another gift. Definitely.
Kathy Washburn: So there are so many and there's this when I was going through my positive psychology training, there is this concept of post traumatic growth. Which again, never ever have I heard of that and to find out that post traumatic growth was identified in the 70s when post traumatic stress disorder was also coined and The researchers [00:34:00] did research on the same Population which was the military and they were just trying to figure out Why does some people come back from tours of duty and they not only bounce back, they actually bounce forward.
They have better lives than they had before. And other people just can't quite get their feet underneath them and live fully again. And these researchers came up with five elements and I think you've pretty much mentioned all five of them. The first one is. support, having the people around you that are that you can access and lift you up.
There's this idea of personal strength, like, wow. Okay. I, I got through that. I can, I can get through anything. I can move forward. There's an idea, and we talked about this on your [00:35:00] podcast. There's a gratitude element to it. Being grateful for. The experience and and everything else in your life. It just, everything glows a little more or brighter after that kind of experience.
And then there's this life possibilities that we might not have seen before. And I see that in you and this kind of re redoing of life. You went from chiropractor to cookie Maven. And then now you're. physical fitness and sharing that with others. So it's this different possibility in life.
And then there was like
Melissa Grosboll: adaptability too, right? Just being able to adapt to your surroundings and, and change if you need to.
Kathy Washburn: Right. And so, so many people get frozen and stuck. But that, that. Seismic shifts sometimes helps. You can't, you can't help but not [00:36:00] move. hard.
Melissa Grosboll: What's the fifth one?
Oh,
Kathy Washburn: the fifth one is spirituality and not in the, not in the religious sense, although many people go back to earlier religions, it's more of I'm part of something bigger. So I, I see that empathy in that, that fifth one, because it does kind of open your eyes to, I'm, I'm part of, I belong to something much bigger than myself and there's more humanity around me, that spirituality.
Then you would be interested in this. Then in like 2012, this young woman, her name's Kate Heffernan. She was like, okay. That's great, those five elements, but what about the corporeal elements of post traumatic growth, like our body? What about reconnecting to our body after cancer or after trauma? And then, so she added that sixth one.
[00:37:00] And then the seventh one she added was changing habits to support the body. And she uses, she uses the description of, No cardiologist is going to say to somebody that they just did a transplant of their heart that they can go back and eat cheeseburgers. There is a need to change your habits and you need help with that.
That can't really be done in a silo. It's not that easy, especially if you're. in a change environment where everybody's eating cheeseburgers every day. So she added those two. And then I've added two since then. And one is permission to feel like learning how to feel, which is I think epidemic. People don't understand you were, you were referring to expressing and getting it out of your body.
A lot of people don't understand that emotions as need motion. And they're not meant to be stuffed and stuffed and [00:38:00] stuffed, so that element of, I think that's an evolution of the post traumatic model to add emotions in there. And then the last one I added is sexuality, or positive sexuality. Because I found that especially in the cancer, There's this urgency now to live in a different way, and that often means to create.
And if there's a total disconnection to your sexuality, then, which is very linked to creativity, then it's almost like trying to do something with your hands tied behind your back. So, We go through this call it into me. I see. So this intimacy model where they learn how to feel pleasure, not just sexual pleasure, but any pleasure, because often people that are not emotionally [00:39:00] expressive have kind of shut off their ability to feel, and that means.
Good feelings as well as bad feelings. So they're trying to stifle the pain of feeling so they don't express themselves because they don't want somebody not to like them or they don't express themselves because they don't want to disappoint or be seen as difficult or loud or big or, you know, fill in the blank.
But by suppressing the negative, you're also suppressing the positive, which is kind of remarkable. You go through that transformation and start feeling all the feelings. It's like, I saw a video on Instagram once where the little boy hadn't seen color because he had some something that he was born with.
So he had an operation and they took him home and he took off his glasses and it was the first time he saw color. It is the cutest video. I love those videos. Don't you? [00:40:00] It's so sweet, but that's kind of how it feels once people get more acclimated to their own needs. And I, I do believe. That it's often through the body, through that body awareness, that you're inviting people to when they're starting to get back.
Do you work with people during cancer or after cancer?
Melissa Grosboll: the majority of people that I work with are coming to me after cancer. I'm still, I'm still working on getting that to be like, it's okay. And you should be moving and doing things during treatment as well.
Melissa Grosboll: But it's still, it's kind of a paradigm shift that I'm still working on, but just going back real quick to what you were talking about with the sexuality.
in cancer. You add that extra piece of especially reproductive cancers where every treatment and this, I [00:41:00] understand it, but it still makes me angry that every treatment is almost designed to take away. Your sexuality, you know, with breast cancer, boom, they take away your breasts. Then they, you know, fill you up with hormones that make you want to do absolutely nothing.
You know, any reproductive cancers, like they just, just take it out. Irradiate it, flood it with chemo, and then give you all these anti hormone drugs, where you don't want to or have any desire or anything to, to feel any of that. And it's, it, yeah, it makes me really angry. And I have a friend and I interviewed her.
She's a sex therapist. And we had a really long conversation about rediscovering pleasure and not, you know, from an intercourse standpoint or a climax standpoint, but just things that bring you pleasure to help you to start feeling [00:42:00] that again, because so many of us, like, I got nothing and I don't want to do nothing and stay away from me and it takes away just a vital piece of who we are and those positive emotions.
When you do that,
Kathy Washburn: it really does. I was on a panel once and they kept referring to it as sexual dysfunction. And finally, I couldn't, I couldn't hear the word 1 more time. It must have been spoken about 20 times and I said, no, it's not. Can we just agree to say that we function differently and that that's what we're after to discover how we are functioning differently instead of calling it dysfunction?
Because it's really unfair. It's we're not broken.
Melissa Grosboll: Right?
Kathy Washburn: And, and this constant and it happens with a lot of, even, even women after after they've delivered babies, you know, this, your body's [00:43:00] different and there's, it's not broken. It's accepting that it's different and things work differently. And I think our medical world could really take a page from.
Some of this just to voice it differently. I love that. I'm going to have to go listen to that podcast that you have.
Kathy Washburn: Speaking of that, how can people get in touch with you? We'll have it all in the show notes.
Melissa Grosboll: so I'm, I'm on all the socials. I'm on Facebook, Instagram, Melissa Grosbel. I have a website, melissagrosbel.
com and you can find. If the information about my podcast on there, or, you know, it's the Many Faces of Cancer, it's on all the podcast apps and yeah, I am, I am. Everything for me is public. So you can just reach out to me if you have any, you know, questions or you wanna chat about anything. You know, information on how to get ahold of me.
If you want to talk to me about training, I do do virtual training as [00:44:00] well as in person. But yeah, I just, you know, I love to talk about health. I love to talk about movement. I love to talk about that pretty much anything.
Kathy Washburn: Well, this leads us to our last question. And I ask this to every person I interview, if I were to crush you up and just get your essence into a pill form, what effect would somebody have if they didn't somebody, if they took that pill,
Melissa Grosboll: You know, I feel like my place in life is just to help bring light to people, to help people. To help lift people's spirits, lift people's moods, give them a smile, you know, have them leave, just feeling a little bit better about themselves, about life in general. I gentleman I interviewed yesterday for my podcast and he's like, you know, my glass isn't half full, my glass is overflowing.
And I love that. And I love to just. You know, in part, a little bit of [00:45:00] joy and help, you know, hopefully help people feel a little bit better about themselves and about life.
Kathy Washburn: I, I, while you were talking, all I could think of is you to song elevate, like, you just elevate people. And I felt that even being. An interviewee on your podcast, you're really, really have a, have a innate ability to lift people up.
So thank you for all that you do.
Melissa Grosboll: Yeah. My challenge is actually that I'm still working on is being able to just be with people in the muck. Sometimes people don't. want to feel better at that moment. They just want somebody to sit with them in the muck and I'm learning. I'm getting a little bit better, but it's, it's innately, it's not who I am.
I always want to make people, you know, help people feel better. So there, there [00:46:00] is a balance and there's, there's space for both. I'm just still learning how to do that.
Kathy Washburn: You know what? This might help you. Somebody recently inspired me to not say I'm sick, but to say I'm cleansing. So if you view them as, wow, they're in the muck, but they're actually cleansing, which feels a little more empowering.
I don't know. Does that shift your view of the muck?
Melissa Grosboll: Well, it's not so much that. It's Like I want to help people get through it, but sometimes people don't want that. They just want somebody to meet them where they're at and be with them. in that space. They don't want somebody to help them feel better.
And it's a matter of learning to just sit with someone. There's a, there's a great poem. I think it's called the invitation and it's a really long poem, but it's, it's something [00:47:00] along the lines of, you know, I don't care if you can help me do this and help me do this. I want to know that you can be with me in the trenches and just sit and not try and change it.
And that's just one of the pieces of it. And I can't remember who wrote it, but it's called the invitation and it's kind of a long poem, but that piece has always stuck with me that I'm still, I'm still working on. As we all are always working on it ourselves.
Kathy Washburn: Yes. Well, that I think that's a beautiful other side to your joy elevation coin, you know?
Melissa Grosboll: Yes.
Kathy Washburn: Okay. And grace. I give you so much grace.
Melissa Grosboll: I got to give myself the grace to.
Kathy Washburn: Exactly. It has been a pleasure, Melissa. I am looking forward to when our paths cross again. until then,
Melissa Grosboll: thank you so much for this. It has been absolutely my pleasure to to talk with you again.
Thank you. Be well. You too.
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