Aging with Purpose and Passion

Dr. Neja Zupun: How to Heal Energy & Beat the 5% Cancer Odds

• Beverley Glazer MA, ICF | Reinvention & Empowerment Coach for Women Over 50 • Episode 164

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What if the hardest label you ever received became the catalyst for your freedom?

In this episode, Dr. Neja Zupun, a PhD and Global Energy Master, shares her journey from a “special needs” childhood in socialist Slovenia to surviving an aggressive breast cancer diagnosis with only a 5% chance of survival.

Neja reveals why she chose to love her disease rather than fight it, and how she used energy work, spiritual alignment, and laughter to become cancer-free for 13 years.

Key Topics Discussed:

  • Overcoming Limiting Labels: From special needs to a PhD.
  • The BRCA Gene: Breaking generational health patterns.
  • Energy Mastery: Using lymphatic release and breathwork for physical healing.
  • The Sovereignty Choice: Rejecting chemo and radiation for an intuitive path.

  • Frequency Medicine: Why 1 hour of daily laughter resets the nervous system.

Take Action Right Now:

  1. Audit Your Labels: Identify one word used to describe you that isn't yours to keep.
  2. The 2-Minute Listen: Ask your biggest struggle: "What are you here to teach me?"
  3. Choose Joy: Commit to 10 minutes of "inappropriate" laughter today to shift your chemistry.

For similar episodes on empowering your health, check out episodes 141 and 157 of Aging with Purpose and Passion

Please Support the Show: If this story offered you hope, please Subscribe and leave a 5-star review. It helps us reach more people who need to hear that healing is possible.

Resources: If you love podcasts for older women, Award-winning author Jane Leder and guests take a deep dive into the joys and challenges of being an older woman. visit: www.JaneLeder.net

Dr. Neja Zupan – Founder, Dr. Neja Zupan Institute

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Beverley Glazer, MA, ICF – Reinvention Strategist & Empowerment Coach📧 Bev@reinventImpossible.com
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Announcer:

Welcome to Aging with Purpose and Passion, the podcast designed to inspire your greatness and thrive through life. Get ready to conquer your fears. Here's your host, psychotherapist, coach, and empowerment expert, Beverley Glazer.

Beverley Glazer:

What happens when you're labeled special needs at 6 and terminally ill at 38? Well, you completely rewrite the rules. Welcome to Aging with Purpose and Passion. I'm Beverley Glazer, a transition coach and catalyst for women who are bold enough to discover what's next. And you can find me on reInventimpossible.com. Dr. Nea Zupan is a global energy master, a speaker, and the founder of the Energy Masters Academy. In 2013, she was diagnosed with cancer and given only 5% chance to live. But she chose to reject traditional cures. And 13 years later, she's cancer-free, she's radiant, she's alive and guiding others to rise to their highest potential. If you've ever felt like an imposter or trapped by a diagnosis, this conversation will show you how to reclaim your sovereignty, all the sovereignty over your life. Welcome, Nea. Welcome.

Dr Neja Zupun:

Thank you. Thank you, Beverly, for this kind invitation to your podcast.

Beverley Glazer:

Neja, you grew up in socialist Slovenia back in the day. What was it like for you as a child back there?

Dr Neja Zupun:

What I actually felt in my childhood was that we have had limited access to many things. I remember, you know, being in um in a line to get, for example, bananas or some uh some type of bread, you know, so still waiting for something or oranges, you know. We have been waiting for oranges. Something completely normal for Westerners. But uh fortunately or unfortunately, I grew up in the country with a lot of potentials, you know. Right, right. So here I am now.

Beverley Glazer:

So, yes, I mean, I read all about that, and we did that as well, but we cannot really experience what that is, you know, and you grew up with that, and then all of a sudden, oh, we get oranges, you know, life is open to us, it's it's a whole new experience. You were also, though, labeled with special needs, and you were just a child, you were only six. How did that label affect you? All of a sudden, you're put in a box.

Dr Neja Zupun:

For me, I didn't feel at that time, you know. I was too small, so I didn't know what was going on. But later, my mother told me that I was labeled as a child with special needs. What I perceived, I was taken from the school very often for some tests or some special programs, and I didn't know why until the grade uh three. So when I was in the third grade, I came home and I'd explained that I again went to a special program, and then my mother was strong enough to go there. No, my child is not a child with special needs. Without my permission, you don't take her anywhere. And from that time on I was completely normal in the normal school.

Beverley Glazer:

Good for your mom. Because often we're labeled very young and we carry that label for life, you know, and you didn't.

Dr Neja Zupun:

But yeah, it yeah, at that point, my mother said, yeah, something for me, but I was enrolled in a school just because my kindergarten teacher said that let's try if Naya can cope with a normal school. Because my mother was just crying, crying, crying, and crying. She was told you have a child with special needs. Uh satisfy not satisfy. Um confirm this that you have this sort of child, and my mother was just crying, crying, crying. And then, you know, I was doing somehow good in this school with all these special programs and support, and and then she was capable to say no. But you know, when I went to the secondary school, to the middle school, we start middle school, secondary school at the age of 14, 15. Because of these labels, I was not allowed to enter the school I wanted. So it was still going on, and my mother didn't say anything, you know.

Beverley Glazer:

Right, and you went to technical school.

Dr Neja Zupun:

Yeah, I went to the technical school, yes. Yes, and this was actually a good plan, God's plan, you know.

Beverley Glazer:

Sure, sure. But there you were in technical school, and how did you make that leap to university?

Dr Neja Zupun:

Um I was so brilliant in this school. I was actually the best student in the class, and it was for teachers then normal that I go studying.

Speaker 2:

Okay, and when I started to study the university, you know, all these labels just fall down off the uh of me, so it was right, I was completely normal as all other students, right?

Beverley Glazer:

And so that must have been quite a shift for you. All of a sudden, now you're studying natural healing psychology in university, and the whole world now is open to you. How did you feel about that?

Dr Neja Zupun:

Yeah, it was, you know, it was feeling that finally I'm liberated. And besides, I was studying at the university normal program, like a states program. I started to study six subjects, six different modalities in natural healing area. So, you know, it was like mind-blowing.

Speaker 2:

Finally, nobody controls me anymore, so I can do whatever I want, and I can study whatever I want.

Beverley Glazer:

And and you were doing all that, and you went all the way up to a PhD. And did you feel at all that you were ever an imposter? Here you were from special needs, now I have a PhD. Like, how did you feel about that?

Dr Neja Zupun:

Imposter syndrome, I felt not in my education, but in my personality. So I was although I I really studied many things and I was really enthusiastic about everything and curious about everything, but still I and very successful, of course, yeah, but inside myself I I felt that I'm nothing, that I'm really I had really low self-esteem. I valued myself really low.

Speaker 4:

So this was actually like leading into cancer.

Beverley Glazer:

Really?

Dr Neja Zupun:

Yes. I was very quiet person, I didn't speak much, you know, holding everything for myself, I didn't tell people anything, although many times they were you know quite mean towards myself, but um I felt uh really like being a zero. It didn't help any of this success, anything, uh what of this diploma certifications, nothing helped. Nothing. And I already started my own business. This was my around thir yeah, around thirty. It was around thirty. And in two thousand ten I had an employee in my own company, can you imagine in my own company and she was bullying me? My goodness, and I was I was I had so low self-value that I just didn't have like uh balls, you know, to fire her away, you know. Um and this was actually like the starting point of the cancer. Cancer was actually a resolution, solution for her thinking what I was doing, you know. Because it pushed me so strongly to to the wall, you know. You don't have any any place, any space, any, any, any hole to run away but face who you really are.

Beverley Glazer:

Right. But but let me ask you also, Nea, cancer was running in your family. Yeah, every woman died of cancer. So that had to be on your mind as well.

Dr Neja Zupun:

I actually was not in my mind because um uh because I already, you know, looking, my mother, my aunts, my grandmothers, they were they were living unfulfilled life. And for me, from the outer percept perspective, of course, you know, I studied things what I wanted, I was doing things that I wanted, I had success, I had results, I was eating well, I was doing sports, you know, everything was on my side, so I was not aware of my psychological side enough, what was going on until I had this particular co-worker, I employed her, and I I I didn't have uh you know courage uh to fire her. That was me, right?

Beverley Glazer:

Right. So you were diagnosed free, nothing, and then you were diagnosed with cancer in 2013.

Dr Neja Zupun:

Yes.

Beverley Glazer:

How did you take that that diagnosis?

Dr Neja Zupun:

You know, already looking back at my mother, that that was you know, being so close by somebody who is dying for cancer, but also looking at and being beside my aunts, my grandmothers, I said, no way that I go the same way than they went. So I decided at the age of 23, if I get cancer, no chemo, no radiation, and no hormonal treatment for myself. So this was really a strong, strong, grounded decision already at that time. So when I was diagnosed, it was actually no not something that came out of the blue, but I was sitting, I meditated already a lot, you know. I meditated and I'm very much connected with the spiritual world. So I have eight spiritual masters, spiritual teachers not incarnated on this plane, but they are guiding me. And in one of meditations, they told, Naya, you have cancer, and I just want you know irradiate everything, you know, just just clear out the this what I heard, and in a few minutes again, nay, pay attention, pay attention, naya, you have cancer. Right, right, and that was actually the only time that I really uh felt sadness. I said to my partner at that time, I was told I have cancer, and he also started to cry, and we both cried, and then I said, Okay, why why we are crying?

Speaker 2:

Because this will not bring any solution.

Dr Neja Zupun:

So I will go to the doctors to to see to confirm if there is cancer. Yes, they confirmed, and I said, Okay, now let's go on. Next step. So, first step, yes, confirmation. The second step, yes, was already steps in natural healing. I accepted only a surgery, they removed centers of the cancer, so it was one about two centimeters and another one for about one centimeter, but they couldn't remove lesion that was um over my uh breastbone. So um, so sternum. So we left this, but it was another step detoxifying my body and working on my spiritual level, what was going on in the past, and working also on my imprints in my body. And I remember one of the first very successful treatments were lymphatic energy release, and with this treatment, I felt it was quite a long treatment, it took about three hours, and I was just crying, crying, crying, crying, and I couldn't stop even after the uh the lady finished, and I cried for four days, and this was what I felt, not crying for myself, but it was all the sadness that was uh like imprisoned, imprinted into our energetic fields already generations back. So finally, this sadness was liberated from our family, um, family field. So this was one of the very important healings.

Beverley Glazer:

Right, and you also spoke to your dad. Now, your dad lost his wife, he lost his daughter, and now you. And how did the two of you work this out? Because he must have been devastated when you chose not to go the medical route.

Dr Neja Zupun:

Yeah, this was a very funny way, you know, how I presented everything to him. Of course, I didn't say to him that this was an aggressive form of ductal hormonal-dependent cancer, and it was burqa gene positive. I didn't tell him because, of course, I would frighten him. And I wanted that he's by my side, that he helps me. So I was already on the way to the hospital um to for a surgery, and I just called him and I said, Oh, they found uh a little lump in my breasts, so they will remove, and in three days I'm already at home, and everything is okay. Wow. So I really didn't didn't want to frighten anyone. So for my diagnosis, only seven people knew, besides, of course, uh, medical stuff. Only seven people, and these were only people that were hundred percent sure, confident that I'm going to heal, cure myself. And this is really important, you know, also for people uh who who get certain diagnoses, usually they start to tell others, and others uh others start to oh to. To them, oh poor you, and with these words, actually, they take from them healing energy. So you need to build around yourself a good um community that supports you, that believes in you, that really gives you the best possible the circumstances around you, not not a misery.

Beverley Glazer:

Yes, go positive, exactly. And you also told me about laughing at cancer, accepting cancer. Tell us about that.

Dr Neja Zupun:

Yeah, you know, uh one of first steps when I was diagnosed with a cancer was also I didn't know because I had only 5% chances to survive. Yes. So I didn't know. I I told uh medical doctors, oncologists, you know, I don't know whether I have one day, five days, one month, one year. I don't know how much time I still have here. But what I really know for myself, that I can create for myself a good circumstances that the healing will be um more probable. So I said to myself, it it at least in Slovenian, I but I think also in English, there is one quote: laughter is half of health. Do you have this one?

Beverley Glazer:

Similar. Laughter is the best medicine.

Dr Neja Zupun:

Okay, laughter is the best medicine. So I said to myself, one hour per per day, per day, and it's this was measurable. One hour per day, laughing, dancing, and singing. So I didn't skip. And people even now they say you are so happy person. Yes, and happiness, it's not something that just comes. Happiness comes by deciding, by decision that you want to live a good life, not a miserable life. So it was measurable, it was usually more than one hour, but laughing, dancing, and singing every single day, at least one hour.

Beverley Glazer:

Sounds good to me.

Dr Neja Zupun:

Yeah.

Beverley Glazer:

For someone who feels devastated by a diagnosis, what would you tell them, Neja?

Dr Neja Zupun:

Exactly what what you just you just reminded me what we spoke and what we spoke in uh Discovery call, you know. Yeah, start laugh, sing, and dance. And usually, yeah, people say, Oh, it's nothing funny. Yeah, start to move your belly muscles. Yesterday, um now I'm conducting a very special uh workshop, 12 holy nights. We started at on the 25th of December, and we will finish on the 6th of January. And yesterday was the day dedicated for all the organs because each day has its own uh energy for to stimulate to support to heal a certain part of your body, and yesterday was to heal your intestine, and how you can heal intestine, yeah, by uh really massaging it on the inside, and this is moving muscles, belly muscles like this. I will show this, so in and out, breathing, and uh when you breathe like this, you start to laugh. So you can bring yourself, you can call into yourself energies of laughter, it's just a decision.

Beverley Glazer:

Absolutely. As I'm listening to you, I'm thinking of laughter yoga, which is out there, and there's also yogic breathing that people can follow through. What you're doing is you're moving from the inside out instead of from the outside in. Nea, uh, let me ask you what's one thing that you'd like to tell the audience for people who are just listening and don't quite understand what you're talking about, if you know what I mean, because they're following the medical model and they're saying, you know, that's just luck.

Dr Neja Zupun:

Yeah, some people yes, say that I had luck, but I know that behind was quite a good work.

unknown:

Right.

Dr Neja Zupun:

So I don't want to convince anyone because each one has its own way of walking this uh this life, its own life.

Speaker 4:

But just think I I will tell two to two things.

Dr Neja Zupun:

First we yes, we know that we have the body and we can touch the body, we know that we have emotions, already emotions you cannot progress, but you know that you have you have also thoughts, and thoughts are even more you know um intangible, and we know that we have them, and sometimes probably you have said oh today I'm without energy, and if you would go to the um to make tests, usually medical tests are quite normal because you're just without energy, because we are energy beings and not physical beings. Yes, we have this body, but energy who that sustains this body, we also eat to get energy. Oh, I need to have to eat something to get energy, yeah. To get energy to sustain also in mitochondria, in these small particles in the cells, they they produce ATP in this is energy. So we our body functions on energy. And what I was doing during my process of healing was taking care of the quality of the energy, so that this energy is was constantly running the really healthy one, not the something that was diseased or yeah, this is so you you see in English it's a very good word. This is so it's not easy when it's somebody is uh ill, it's not easy, and I was taking care of these energies, so I I was breathing, uh receiving different treatments, cleaning my body, connecting with the god, and here comes the second story, and is connected with with the gods. Some some people, of course, they don't believe God forget about the name. Could be in different uh religions, could be could be um Allah, could be uh great spirit, could be Brahma, could be I don't know, just hyperpower, something greater than you. Yes, something really greater than than us. And when person doesn't believe in something greater, um I usually tell this story. You know, when one building, for example, one historic building was built, let's say hundred two hundred years back, we all know that there behind it was an architect, it was somebody who built this. And if we look all these uh pictures uh of really great painters like Michelangelo or Van Gogh or I don't know, we know, you know, although if um we know now that this uh painter was behind, and also nature here and person here, people here, human here, humans here, and animals, and even though we don't know that um who created everything, somebody needed to be behind to create everything because from nothing just the create create nothing creates nothing, so something bigger, and I connected with this bigger all the time. That's why I also told this story and helped me really, really much, very much, because I knew that the true healing was coming to me from Divine Mother and Divine Father.

Beverley Glazer:

Yeah, so what I'm hearing really is belief. You had hope, you had belief. Yeah, you didn't reject, you didn't go from fear, it was this is going to be positive. I'm going to learn from this regardless what it is. And I want to thank you, Nea. Dr. Nea Zupan is a global energy master, a speaker, and the founder of the Energy Masters Academy. In 2013, she was diagnosed with an aggressive hormone-dependent ductal cancer and given only 5% chance to live. But she rejected traditional medicine, and today she's cancer-free and guiding others worldwide to reclaim their vitality and rise to their highest potential. Here's some takeaways from this episode. Labels are not your final destination. Don't make them limitations. You're not a prisoner of your genetics. And even in a crisis, laughter and joy can be physically and energetically changing your life. If you've been relating to this episode, here are a few actions to take right now. Take a look at your internal labels. Those are just placemakers, they're not your destiny. Learn to accept a crisis or illness and allow it to be a teacher. And play and laughter is a biological reset for your immune system. Take an hour, as Neya said, take an hour today to play, to find some laughter, and try that every single day. For similar episodes on empowering your health, check out episodes 141 and 157 of Aging with Purpose and Passion. And so, Neja, where can people find you? Find all about your services. Where are you online? What are your links?

Dr Neja Zupun:

First, you know, uh, I really admire how you captured all these main uh main messages that I was bringing. And I was thinking, yes, I want to gift, I want to give a present for your audience that your audience can also start to practice different energy practices to raise your energy for expressing your highest potentials and really faster healing. And you can find this gift, free gift, on the um on the website high frequency energy formula. So high frequency energy formula dot com. And there you can find seven steps: energetic alignment in action. These are seven practices that I still do every single morning to really lift my energy or initiate my uh my day into my highest potential so that all negativity that I'm facing during the day just uh run away and I really stay with this high frequency energy. So, this is really one gift that I want to give to you to practice, and I would be really happy if I get some uh feedback of you when you are doing how this affects you, what results you already notice throughout your day when you practice these practices every single morning. And you yeah, and you can get me also on Instagram, on uh my web pages, on Instagram, my pages dr.nea n e-j a dot z-upan.institute. So dr nea zupan institute. And on Instagram you have plenty of different suggestions how to transform your way of thinking. Terrific being.

Beverley Glazer:

Terrific. Thank you so much, and those links are also in the show notes, and they're on my site too. That's reinventimpossible.com. And so, my friends, what's next for you? Are you just going through the motions or are you living a life that you truly love? Get my free guide to keep lifting your life to the next level, and that's also in the show notes. You can connect with me, Beverly Glazer, on all social media platforms and in my positive group of women on Facebook. That's Women Over 50 Rock. And thank you for listening. Have you enjoyed this conversation? Please subscribe and help us spread the word by dropping a review and sending it off to a friend. And remember, you only have one life, so live it with purpose and passion.

Announcer:

Thank you for joining us. You can connect with Bev on her website, reinventimpossible.com. And while you're there, join our newsletter. Subscribe so you don't miss an episode. Until next time, keep aging with purpose and passion. And celebrate life.

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