From Illness to Strength: You Are More Powerful Than You Realize

Let's Meet Renee Excelbert, PhD

So many people are trained to dismiss fear, outrun pain, dismiss illness, and “stay strong” when life is asking them to listen. But the body keeps the score. It also holds the wisdom. 

I’m speaking with Dr. Renee Exelbert about what happens when adversity interrupts our identity, and how movement, mindset, and the mind-body connection can help us rise again, not as the old self, but as a more powerful and truthful one. 

The body as a source of truth. A conversation about adversity, illness, identity, movement, visualization, and how entrepreneurs can build resilience without simply “powering through.”

Renee is a licensed psychologist, certified elite personal trainer, body-building competitor, two-time breast cancer survivor, author of Chemo Muscles, founder of The Metamorphosis Center, and creator of Visual Emotional Kinetics, keynoter, and TEDx speaker, blending positive thought, visualization, and movement to reclaim strength and performance.

Timeline

7:10  The moment of diagnosis; being blamed by her doctor in the same breath as the news

11:00  The power of human touch; havening, self-massage, and the science of physical connection

15:20  Body betrayal & reconnection; trauma, assault, and reclaiming physical connectedness

17:00  Identity in crisis; perfectionism dismantled by mastectomy and cancer

18:20  Writing Chemo Muscles Book; a seven-year journey from shame to radical openness

20:50  Vulnerability as strength; how sharing her story became her greatest gift

23:19  Bodybuilding origin; using exercise and nutrition science to reclaim control

26:40  Getting on stage; the transformation process, not the competition day, is the point

 28:40  Current health; living with ongoing monitoring while maintaining strength and positivity

30:20  Family & marriage; how daughters and husband witnessed and were shaped by her resilience

33:10  Host's reflection on his own book and sharing vulnerability with his son

35:50  Evolving as a clinician; more body-attuned, present, and boundary-flexible since illness

37:10  Faith, prayer & gratitude; spiritual practice, presence, and what she prays for

CONTACT DR. RENEE EXCELBERT 

Website: https://drexelbert.com/

TEDx: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCP4e6UFRms

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/renee-exelbert-ph-d-59137b89/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr.renee.exelbert/

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

You're just unfinished, not depressed. This is a podcast for leaders, high achievers, and entrepreneurs who have built impressive lives on the outside, and yet sense something is dying on the inside. If you ever stared at everything you have accomplished and felt strangely empty, this show is for you. Why so many are trained to ignore the fear, outrun pain, dismiss illness, and stay strong when life is asking them to listen and to pivot. But our body keeps the score and it holds the wisdom. Our today's guest, Dr. Renee Exelbert, tells us about how our body is a source of our truth. And this is a conversation about adversity, illness, identity, movement, and visualization, and how entrepreneurs, leaders can build resilience without simply powering truth. Renee is a licensed psychologist, again, is New York-based. She's certified elite personal trainer. You should see her YouTube and her accomplishment and various trophies she has been on the stage. She's a bodybuilder competitor, two-time breast cancer survivor, author of a lovely book, Chemo Muscles, founder of the Metamorphist Center, creator of the visual emotional kinetics, keynoter, TEDx speaker. And she blends positive thoughts, visualization, and movement to reclaim strength and our performance. Let's begin our conversation with Renee.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

So right now I'm in my metamorphosis center for psychological and physical change, and it's a really eclectic space. It's a half a gym. And so when you walk in, it's I've got dumbbells and uh bench press and a TRX, and uh two interior decorators had this space prior to me. So the ceiling is hot pink and it's got little chandeliers, and the carpet is hunter green zebra, silk sunflowers all over and uh butterflies, and so people walk in expecting this very sterile therapy office, and they're like, What is going on here? So you walk in and it's half gym, and then it's half stodgy psychotherapy, and so I've got my little chairs and my diplomas, and so it's an eclectic space, but I think that it very much reflects the different parts of me, my two babies, so to speak, the personal training, uh the psychotherapy, and I see it as yielding your body and your mind and integrating them together for health.

SPEAKER_02 2:55

Wonderful. So, what do you want listeners to know you about? If you were going to say, hey, this is me, this is Dr. Rene, what do you want listeners to know you?

SPEAKER_00 3:10

Most importantly, as somebody who cares a lot and as someone who has lived the experience of emotional and physical struggle. And I think that enables me to help people better because I've been through a lot. I worked in a pediatric cancer center for six years. I found that work because I grew up with a sister who had juvenile diabetes, and so I was in that caregiving role much of my childhood. And I think I felt very comfortable with illness being around me. Um, and so I worked with these beautiful children, and I would regard that work that I did as God's work. It was beautiful, at the same time, extremely emotionally taxing. Uh childhood cancer has a really high cure rate, but I would form some really intense, beautiful relationships with children and their families. And every now and then, unfortunately, we would have a devastating loss. And when you work so closely, you really work with your heart. After six years, it's a lot. And so I left, and then I was diagnosed with my own breast cancer shortly thereafter. So yeah, it was a very interesting experience being on the side of uh doctor, and and then becoming the patient.

SPEAKER_02 4:27

Um, that's such a profound moment. People come to you for care, then I just listening to you, knowing a bit about you, that you bring your heart, your expertise, your soul to care for others, and suddenly you were the one needing develop attention, caring. What was the change? What did it mean to you when that the table changed?

SPEAKER_00 4:50

Yeah, I think the first word that comes to my mind is disempowerment. I think the one of the most salient memories I have about my diagnosis is the manner in which I was told. I was at the time trying to get pregnant. It was my third, going to be my third baby. And it was my initial mammogram. I had no family history of breast cancer. I was only 37. I didn't require a mammogram, but I was thinking in my head, if I'm 37 and I'm pregnant from nine months and then I'm breastfeeding for at least a year, that's eventually going to bring me up to age 40, which is the baseline for a mammogram. And so I asked my gynecologist for a prescription, just for no reason. Just, I don't know. And so when all of this happened, it was my baseline mammogram. And I was waiting for a call from the radiologist to let me know the results of my biopsy. And I was positive I did not have cancer. My mother always has cystic breasts. I knew, you know, I didn't feel it. Uh, my gynecologist was the one who called and he said to me, you know, you are what is this? You have cancer and you're pregnant. And I said, No, I'm waiting for the radiologist to call me. And he said, No, you do have cancer and you are pregnant. And then the very next breath, he said, and why didn't you get a mammogram sooner? And so that was my first orientation to a drastically changing world because not only was my world spinning and I was trying to grasp devastation, but I'm pregnant, I have cancer. But in that very breath, I was being blamed by my doctor that I didn't get a mammogram earlier than age 37, which was nonsensical. And so I think that thrust me into an environment in which I experienced lots of beauty from different healthcare providers. And unfortunately, still to this day, people who it's their vernacular and they're not emotionally connected. And it's so important for not only individuals going through psychotherapy, but people going through medical care to have a really strong connection that that obviously impacts our outcomes. And so that one of the first things that I learned about how important it is to ally yourself with caregivers who really they you matter to them. That's really important.

SPEAKER_02 7:18

Let me ask you somebody that has had multiple ill complex illnesses in my own family and in Caregiver, and I see some of them basically to pass on. That moment, 37, you're pregnant, you're just going for a routine exam, and the results come back, and was such a you were blamed and you were shot, you were overwhelmed. What the heck is going on? What would have been possible, a different scenario for you? Because what you mentioned, I suspect is common for so many people.

SPEAKER_00 7:55

What would have been a more I'm not sure even what's the word, a more great love for somebody to be like really supportive and hopeful. I'll speak about my plastic surgeon. My husband and I went to my plastic surgeon, and it was I was shell-shocked, and I was being told I had to have a mastectomy. And I sat in front of this very caring plastic surgeon, listened to me sob, and he said, I can't imagine what the two of you are going through. And he said, No matter what, I'm gonna make you whole again. And from that moment, I just felt very safe with him. Um he let me know that he cared. He told me that he would be treating his daughter or his wife the same way. Um, it was just a moment of humanity, person to person, heart to heart. And he continued to be that person throughout my treatment. Even things like when I had my surgery, I asked if he would play uh certain music for me during my surgery because I told him I believed that I could hear it. And he said, What do you want me to play?

SPEAKER_02 9:03

And what was it? I'm curious.

SPEAKER_00 9:05

Andrea Bocelli. And I wanted him to play it, and he said, Absolutely. And I just he was he became my friend. And here it is 20 something years later, I still go to see him, and I dread the day when he retires because he's he has given me such a sense of safety. And and so I think that it's about heart to heart, and I feel the same way about psychotherapy. I always tell my students that I teach it's not about your degrees, it's not about your accomplishments, it's about you sitting across from another human being and letting them know that their story matters and that you care and that you see them. And I think that is so important with all aspects of care. And like I said, I have been fortunate enough to have that with some healthcare providers and others.

SPEAKER_01 9:56

This is so.

SPEAKER_00 9:57

It's things like it's things like eye contact, and uh there's a poem that says, do not walk in front of me, I may not follow. Do not walk behind me, I may not lead, just walk beside me and be my friend. And I think that's the job of a healthcare professional to walk the journey with somebody.

SPEAKER_02 10:20

That's right. Rene, I'm so drawn to your story, I'm not even sure what where to go, but so very amazing. In your book, talk about the importance of human touch.

SPEAKER_00 10:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:35

Say more about that.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

I think that it's important for us to receive touch from people that we love. And it's also important for us just from regulating our own nervous system into do things like pavening or the butterfly, or throughout the day, for me, one of the practices that I do throughout the day is like I'll massage my head or I'll give myself a shoulder massage. I constantly do body scans throughout the day. But I the real experience of lacking touch was the first time when I was diagnosed with cancer, they had to do some sort of radioactive iodine in me. And I literally had to sleep in the basement because I was like radioactive. And so that's when it really resonated with me about how important touch is, especially, especially when you are so disconnected from your own body. And one of the things that you and I have spoken about is when, especially when you get something like cancer, you feel like your body's betrayed you. And so you're and even with trauma in general, people who have been assaulted, they are out of touch with their bodies. And so the notion of being able to regain a sense of physical connectedness is so critical. Um, whether we're detached or whether we have been forced to be detached, reclaiming a sense of the ability to feel the touch and feel care from other people and feel care for from yourself. And that's why when we pet our dogs, their blood pressure that we give off oxytocin, our blood pressure reduces, their blood pressure reduces. It's such a gift that we can give other people, they can give us, and we can give ourselves.

SPEAKER_02 12:15

Talking about dog, we have a family golden retriever.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

Lucy.

SPEAKER_02 12:18

And she's my therapist, she knows me. She knows when I feel happy and when I feel sad. She comes there and just lean against me, really push her body, and we start to feel each other's breath.

SPEAKER_00 12:31

It's such a parent thing, right? I remember little, my mother would pet my hair, or she would do this thing called ah baby, where if my stomach hurt, she would rub my belly. And there's actually scientific evidence that says that when we circle our stomachs, when we have any kind of gastrointestinal upset, it actually moves the gas down. So these things are they're not just metaphorical, they they actually impact our physiology.

SPEAKER_02 13:00

Beautiful. You talked about the what you wished, and the whole aspects of healing should be making you whole again. That when we get ill, is the story of the person that matters, is not the condition they had. You need to see the condition of the story of the person, like in my work with depression and anxiety and trauma, you can see it as a clinical, you see it almost like isolated event versus to me depression is a story of the person. Once you know the story, there's a way, always a way through that, and the same thing with body talk about body wants to be connected again. So here you practicing psychologists in New York City, you have your practice, then you have an uninvited guest arriving, cancer. How did you change the way you practice your approach to yourself, to your clients, to your life, to your family, to your children?

SPEAKER_00 14:06

I was 37, and I would definitely say that I was a perfectionist, fairly competitive. If you look at my pedigree, everything was top programs, extremely focused, extremely driven. And I think that it was a crashing down of my identity in so many ways because there's literally nothing perfect about cancer, and there's certainly nothing perfect about uh having a mastectomy, right? Like it's the antithesis of beauty or perfection. And so for me, it was such a dismantling of this identity that I had focused on for such a long time. So one of the things that I wrote in my book was that I don't know if it was the cancer itself, or if it was the therapeutic journey about cancer, or if it was a combination of the two, or if it was just about aging. But so much changed between the time I started my book and the time I finished it, which was seven years. I will definitely say that I am a recovered perfectionist. So much, and I truly mean that, so much of my initial experience was shameful. Uh I didn't, I only shared what I was going through with my family and closest friends. And if anybody shared details of my story, I was enraged. And that is one thing that happens with people with trauma. They feel disempowered and there needs to be permission seeking. But I think that's so much about my experience was that I had my identity or what I thought made me who I was dismantled. The most significant thing that's happened is that I've definitely learned that none of those external variables define me. I think that, and what's funny is that I tell everybody now about the fact that I've had cancer twice. I tell everybody I've had a double mastectomy. I tell everybody when I meet them as new clients, tell them that I've had my own trauma. And it's not about book stepping boundaries, it's to say this is who I am, and I can feel your trauma. This is I've had my trauma, and this is part of who I am now. Um and so I think that I've changed so dramatically because so much of who I am now is really about being extremely vulnerable. Um, and I've learned to uh to like an extreme. If as you said, you read some of my book and it's extremely raw and never was I like that. I was extremely uh perfectionistic, never revealing any sort of weakness. And I think the most important thing that I've learned is that those are the qualities that are so special about me. Those are the qualities that truly make me who I am, that I have the capacity to touch other people with my story. And by my sharing, I hope that other people know that they're not alone with whatever they experience and that they feel that we're all more connected, that we all go through our own, our own trials and tribulations, whether for the people with whom I work, it might be an emotional trauma or they may have had some physical assault or a loved one die. We all get scathed in life.

SPEAKER_01 17:25

It's just that's right, that's right, it's just a different way.

SPEAKER_00 17:28

And so I think the capacity to touch somebody with that experience is is really powerful. And I feel like that's my gift in the world now that I have so many that a lot of the things that I've been through showed me my own resilience and my own strength, but I can also help other people through my adversity, through my story of changing dramatically. And I would say that the biggest way is with vulnerability. I am like an open book now, and I use my story and all that I've been through. And I've been through a lot, a lot with illness. I use it to try and help other people, and I'm I no longer see myself as vulnerable or weak, which is how I I actually see myself as a really resilient person.

SPEAKER_02 18:18

That's right, that's right. And with that further context, you being more vulnerable or more alive, and then your you bring you and as an example to others, hey, look what I went through. How did I come out in a different way, richer, fuller? To bring hope to others, it's and also through that interaction, you become more resilient, become more faithful that hey, look what I did as a way to bring others to do their journey. So here you are, and then when I see your picture as bodybuilder, and again, I look at it and say, This moment, if I meet you, you can hurt me. It's amazing. How did that come up? Bodybuilding to such so you competed like with trophy, getting on the stage. Where'd that come from? And with that sense of you remember when we talked a while ago last week, you said that you're still competing. You bring a sense of, I'm gonna do this right, I'm gonna crush it. So, where that came from?

SPEAKER_00 19:23

When I was first diagnosed with cancer, I had worked at this pediatric cancer center for six years, and so I had learned a lot of the variables of about coping techniques. I would teach them to my the kids that would come to see me. We would go over a lot of things, I would write grants, like I was really vested in that world. And so then when it was my turn, I turned the research into everything that could help me. And one of the first things that came up was nutrition and exercise. And because I was a perfectionist, I was like, I'm gonna exercise it. And actually, my psychologist he said to me, I was first put on this medication, tamoxifen, and I said to him, I heard that one of the side effects was that it will make me gain weight. Is that true? And he said, Yes, and exercise the hell out of it. That's what he told me. And I appreciated that because it was it was his way of saying, empower yourself. You don't have to just decide effects lying down. And so I started exercising. And I've always been, if I wasn't a psychologist, I would have been a dancer. Like I've always been athletic, I love movement. But I started working out with a trainer who happened to be a professional bodybuilder. She was one of these women who stood on stage in stripper heels like I do now and flex muscles. And we started working together, and I became so inspired by the exercise, and it made me feel so strong and healthy that the more I exercised, the further and further I wait away I felt from being sick. And then I became a personal trainer because I was like, I was really into it. And then people started coming over to me while I was working with her and they would say, Are you gonna do a show? And I'm like, if you think that I am ever standing on it was anti-feminist, it was completely just not at all who I was. But when it was my five-year anniversary out from cancer, I had gained such a tremendous uh level of empowerment from exercise. I thought, what better way to show myself that I'm back in sync with my body than to do a competition. And why that was significant was because you're following a science. You literally enter the number of macro into it's like the number of fat and calories and and protein, and it's like a science where I can control it. And of course, we know in the psychology world when people's worlds are psychotic chaotic and feel out of exercise, gives me a tremendous sense of control in a healthy way, but it was like this is the science. Feed your body these nutrients, do this level of exercise, and your body's gonna respond. And the way it's gonna respond is it's gonna respond by developing muscles, and it's gonna respond by you eventually looking this certain way and getting on stage. And it was a very empowering experience for me. It wasn't the day getting on stage, and it's never been the day getting on stage that I like because I'm not actually not a big fan of the whole umpa dump state. Well, that's not really my thing. The thing that I love is the transformation. I'm all about transformation and my journey is all about transformation, but it's the transformation from the first day to rebuilding yourself. And I'm drawn to that experience because I feel like we can always transform, we can always continue to grow, and even from one competition to the next, it's like your body changes, your strain changes, you age, and there's something so phenomenal to me about the whole process. And I could do away with the day of competition. I just like the process of transformation. I love that. I love it, and so yeah, so I I do that. And but I also need to be careful because anything taken to the extreme can have the the adverse effect, and so I always want to be mindful of my health, and so I do have to watch that and I am mindful of that.

SPEAKER_02 23:22

Let me come back to it. I have more questions, but listeners hearing this. I want to ask a question about your health right now as a cancer survivor in that. Are you healthy? Are you 100% healthy? What is it just in terms of you being healthy right now?

SPEAKER_00 23:39

I feel very healthy because I because of my background, I have to be monitored very closely. And there are always things that come up because of medication that I've been on for a very long period of time, or that I'm going to unfortunately have more side effects than the average person because I was 37 years old and I was on such strong medication. And that's something that's very unfortunate about, in addition to being very unfortunate about the cancer journey, the medications that are used to help you often over time can make can cause some problems. So to answer your question, I see myself as an extremely strong and healthy person. I'm healthy. And at the same time, I have things that I have to always have watched. Um and that requires a different level of living with things because I'm such a mind-body person. I'm I am I'm visual and I have positive thoughts all the time. And so yeah, that's good.

SPEAKER_02 24:42

Thank you for sharing that. I want to ask you so you went through a significant set of changes: personal, emotional, physical, medical, and you are a married woman, professional, you have two daughters of your own. So as you changed, you know that they're saying that it takes a village, you have your own community. How were they showing up, relating to you? Did they change? What was that the family dynamics for you as you're coming out of this?

SPEAKER_00 25:20

I have many times worked with families who have said to me, I wish my husband wasn't an addict, or I wish we didn't get divorced because it negatively impacted my children, or I wish my kids didn't have to see this, right? And I think that we all in every family experience different things that will undoubtedly impact our children and our marriage. But I think in the event of my children, they're incredibly kind and compassionate. Um, and I think that it's my first cancer, they were very young. They were three and seven. Um, and so they probably didn't know much about what was going on, even though I had the vernacular to talk to them about it. But when they were older, they were teenagers and they understood it much better. And it's obviously very scary. And so I think that it teaches, I think that as I said, every family kids are going to experience something, but I think that the way that it impacted them was that they saw me rally, they saw how I handled illness, they saw that I would have chemo on Monday and I would be laying in bed all day Monday and Tuesday, and then Wednesday I'd go back to work, and then Thursday I'd be back in the gym and I would, and I have never been somebody to let adversity hold me back. I'm a very focused, determined, determined person, and I think that they saw that. And so I think that my children are resilient, and I think that they are extra sensitive and compassionate. And I think that it changed them probably in ways I'll probably never know. But seeing what kind of human beings they are, I think that I think that I did good. And my husband, my husband's a gem. My husband's had a lot of trauma with me because he's had to go through a lot with me. And it very much illness and trauma very much impacts everybody in the family. But my husband had to go through times where I'm sure he wondered if his wife would be around or if you know, and he's he's you I think that the caregivers often don't get enough support or attention because the attention goes to the to the patient. Um my husband's my biggest supporter, and you know it's uh he stood by me for everything.

SPEAKER_02 27:42

Is it so important that for the listeners that when my book came out, You're not depressed, you're unfinished, which is the story of my years, decades of family depression, going through that, numbing myself, coming out of it. And when my book came out, one of my a better reader was my son. He was at that point junior high school. And so my son will go to mom, says that to my wife says that what happened to that? I didn't know this about it. So later on, people ask me, so why did you share so much a story? And uh were you concerned about your son and your relatives know your personal story? What I told him is that I my son, he's just turned 24. I said that he has his whole life in front of him. Life, as Mike Tyson says, that you have all the plans, you go in the ring and you get punched in the face, and totally your planned, you forget your plan. Life will get all of us setback, challenges, opportunities, pain. I want my son to remember that struggled, but that came back. That's the story. That how you find yourself, condition you find yourself, people around you that life is about recreation, is about coming back. I want my son to know that, and what you share, Renee, that your daughters they see how mom showed differently. Mom decided to live versus to succumb. That's beautiful, my friend.

SPEAKER_00 29:16

That's that's what we have, right?

SPEAKER_02 29:17

I mean exactly. So now what do you do these days? I know you're busy. I see you're posting social media. So do you still practice? Do you do therapy? What is your I love the word practice?

SPEAKER_00 29:32

It's like we're gonna do this for 50 years until one day we could actually do it like a real grown-up, right? Sorry. Practice to become a real doctor. Yeah, so I still have a private practice and I still teach at NYU and I still do personal training, but mostly my center, I integrate psychotherapy and exercise. So people who come to me, they do regular old psychotherapy, but I also offer this integrated mind-body thing. And I've been speaking a lot more. And that the speaking part is my next chapter, and that's been very special to me. And as I said, it's so representative of my journey because when I speak, it's so vulnerable. And it it's sometimes funny to me how much I have changed because I have I had a friend who, a dear friend, who when I was going through my cancer the first time, I didn't want to talk about it much. I didn't like the fact that she told her whole family. And she spoke to me recently and she told me that I had been stoic. And I was like, Have you met me? That that didn't resonate at all because that's like that was like a lifetime ago for the past, I don't know how long I have been like, I have veered so far away from this covered up, you know, my my there's nothing wrong, all's good here, perfectionistic kind of yes. I veered so far away. And so it's comical to me how much somebody can I don't know if comical is the right word, but amazing to me how much somebody can change. And like I said, I'm not sure if it's because of cancer that happened, but all I know is that for me, I have changed very dramatically over the years through through just time or my journey or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 31:27

So as you've changed internally, uh spiritually, the your clinical practice on multiple them ways you do the work, uh when you see people uh or when your clients come to you from before your illness to now, what do you notice? What do you pay attention to?

SPEAKER_00 31:55

It's an interesting question. I think I'm much more in tune to the body now. I'm more in tune to like their their physical complaints and what maybe what they may be experiencing. I'm more in tune to just like I I think I'm much more, I do, I think I'm much more present. Yeah with and I think that my heart is completely aligned, and not to say that it wasn't before, but I care deeply about the people that I see. And I think that my boundaries have shifted. My boundaries started shifting when I worked at the Pediatric Cancer Center. I come from a very psychodynamic program where we were taught length sleep, and that just didn't work for working with kids with cancer. It just didn't work. I I would be sitting with them and they'd be playing video games in their little hospital gowns and turn around and vomit, or their sibling would walk in, or we would walk down the block and I would walk with their sibling, and that was like our therapy. We'd walk to go get chocolate milk and sit under an oak tree. And so the boundaries have shifted, and I think that has facilitated deeper relationships. I have people that I have known over 20 years. I'm actually gone to a wedding in two weeks for a young woman who I met when she was 16 and she's now 33. And I'm a very boundaried professional, but I make space for honoring these beautiful relationships that I have had the privilege to be a part of. And it is such a gift, such a gift to be part of someone's life and to share in their most intimate stories. It's like a gift, and so I really treasure that.

SPEAKER_02 33:43

So I I was trained, it's not my training as psychodynamic, very that the the notion was if you can understand an issue, if you can the understand the cause and effect. This happened with this relationship, parents, and so on, then you're you move towards healing. Now, what we know that's not the case, that it was all cerebral, logic-based, analysis-based. Now we learn that most of the healing happens body present too. How people show up, their quality of their breath, their gut, their posture, their hormones. That as you mentioned, this is about becoming whole again. You need to see and engage the whole person. Let me ask you another question. So I know you're a person of faith. So I know I was in pain since my high school days, and then I'm for the for the listener, I'm holding a notebook. I have, I don't know how many hundreds of these notebooks. I would take journals. Too bad they are not electronic, but um still have them. There are a lot of passages to God that helped me, save me. I'm struggling, and God, and then I would go all the down there, say, God, not listening, go to saints. Please, anybody out there help me. As I did my own healing work, my book came out. My prayer to God this day is not about saving me. So I'm curious, in your space of your heart, your prayer, your reflections, how are you showing up? What are you talking about or wishing for?

SPEAKER_00 35:26

That's a beautiful poignant question. I often wish for the health and healing of my kids just to make sure that they're okay and safe. My husband, okay. And every I my mother was not a religious person, but a very spiritual person. And to light candles all the time and pray all the time. And my kids tell me that I'm starting to become like my mother, um, which I take as a huge compliment. So I I think that my prayers for the people that I love about my prayers are also to be healthy and strong and to be present in my life and to really practice gratitude for every moment. I think that life is not promised to us, tomorrow's not promised. So as I'm getting older and I'm stepping into like a later chapter, really about being fully present and enjoying my time. And I think for a long period of time, I have been very good about doing the things that are meaningful to me. I veered away a very long time ago from doing things for other people or doing things that looked good or a very long time ago. And I think that my friendships have changed because of that. I am attracted now more to different people. I'm attracted to extremely kind, gentle, loving, authentic people. My friendships have changed. The more vulnerable I've become, the more I've attracted people who are on that same gentle.

SPEAKER_02 37:03

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 37:04

So I once again, I don't know if I answered your question, but you did, you did.

SPEAKER_02 37:07

This is beautiful. You mentioned you're still practice and the people come to you. I know there are many listeners there around the globe listening to the this our podcast. Who would you like to call you? People say that, hey, who do you want people to call you for? What types of uh challenges, questions, or healing opportunities?

SPEAKER_00 37:32

Well, I'm licensed only in New York as a psychologist and soon to be Florida. So I speak all over the world, and so I'm speaking, I'd like to do more speaking to people who are overcoming adversity or illness or are trying to accomplish goals. We're just trying to unlock their inner strength, their resilience, people who have experienced adversity because that's and so I've I have worked my own way through a lot of trying times, and I've used a lot of mind-body techniques, and so they've really helped me, and so I would like to share that with people who need that.

SPEAKER_02 38:22

Beautiful, and Rene, where do people find you in terms of your publications, website, anything just drxelbert.com is my website.

SPEAKER_00 38:32

My book is chemo muscles lessons learned from being a psychooncologist in cancer patients. Um Instagram, I'm on LinkedIn, and my center is called the Metamorphosis Center for Psychological and Physical Change.

SPEAKER_02 38:45

Beautiful. Renee, thank you so much. I love to invite you to come back at a later date.