Val Selby  0:06  
Hey, it's time to crank up the truth! I'm Val Selby. And over the decades of working online, I've learned a most important lesson. Mindset owns your business. It procrastination, imposter syndrome and a lack of focus have been blocking your biz. And I'm here with powerful volume ready to help you see choices that you're making. Get ready to own your personality, and use your expertise to create the business of your dreams. Now is the time to make changes and live your best life. So let's get to it!

Val Selby  0:42  
Hello, everyone, I'm so happy that you are here listening again today. And I'm looking forward to this conversation. It might be a little bit different than our norm. However, I know for me right now, at this point in my life, this is a really important conversation and, and I love the fact that the right people are always brought to me at the right time. So I will be getting information today and advice and all of that stuff, as well. Today, I have Yan here as a guest, and we're going to talk about healing. And I'm not going to narrow it down to any kind of healing because we're just going to have a conversation and see where it leads. Thanks for being here, Yan.

Yan  1:30  
Thank you. Thank you so much, Val for inviting me on the show. I'm so excited and honored and grateful to be to be here today.

Val Selby  1:38  
Yes. There's, there's just so many different conversations we can have today. So that's the thing that I think we're gonna have to work on narrowing down.

Yan  1:47  
Yes, yes. With all this. Let's just see where the universe takes us today for you know, just for today, and just for this moment. I'm sure it's gonna be so valuable. And so yeah, relatable for so many people out there. So let's just really get going.

Val Selby  2:06  
Yeah. So yeah, if you want to tell my listeners about yourself and what you what you do, and we'll go from there.

Yan  2:13  
Yeah, sure. All right. So, listeners. My name is Yan. I'm known as the pivotal healer here in Singapore. I'm actually born and raised in Singapore. I'm a longtime young adult cancer survivor, living cancer-free for the last 15 or actually 16 years because it's been it's 2023 right now. And what I do, I'm a certified women's integrative health coach. I'm also a movement teacher, right now also moving into Qigong or energy healing practitioner. So I empower female cancer survivors, particularly female cancer survivors above 30. To cultivate their own health, resiliency, immunity and self love to flow more in what I call into her Rest-Digest-Manifest state as they transit into the peri menopausal years. That's what I essentially do.

Val Selby  3:05  
Yes, yeah. I'm so looking forward to this now. I am postmenopausal already. So from that, why it's surgical reasons is why so so totally into that, but I know so many women listening right now are in those years. And, and I really don't know where to go from there. And for one, let me back up. Just I'm super sorry for not pronouncing your name correctly. Yeah. I like

Yan  3:34  
those those perfect, yes. Yes.

Val Selby  3:38  
Backup on that one, just for a second. But I know that when you wrote down in your information that you sent me you were talking a lot about? Was it resiliency?

Yan  3:49  
Yes. Health resiliency?

Val Selby  3:52  
Yes. And, and I, I'm sure that you get a lot of questions about it, because you would even written it out a question about it. So I know that those are always frequently asked questions. And it did pop into my head first thing was just like, what exactly does that mean? What does health resiliency mean?

Yan  4:11  
Right. So health resiliency, it's, I mean, in a nutshell, health resiliency, it's really about what I call immunity is really your immunity response. Okay, so I'm not trying to reinvent anything, it's really just raising awareness, re educating people about what you know, biologically, what their body is. So health resiliency, it's really about the sensitivity, the function, the sensitivity, the function of your immune response. So I like to look at Health Resilience, I like to use analogy, just to make this a bit easier for people to understand what health resiliency really means. So you know, like like really you know, if you're always having chronic to call OCD to a chronic yet, let's say we're always having persistent molasses or are, quote unquote, in illnesses, right, and you never get to recover from it well, so there's something it tells us that there's something, something that's not syncing well, with your immunity response or with your health resiliency, a robust health resiliency in action. All right, we'll definitely be someone whereby, you know, if, for whatever reason, let's say you caught a bug, okay, within a couple of to three days, or maybe four or five days, right, with the right protocols, or the right sequence of steps, you're able to bounce back, your immune response will kick in, and then you know, you recover from it, and you don't just recover from it, but you even get better and better and better. So health residency is that it's, it's very insidious, it's very, it's not incidence, it's very invisible. You don't see it immediately. But it's a long term thing.

Val Selby  5:48  
Right. And I love when something basic when we use different words, because we never know what word it's going to be. I mean, immunity. Yeah, you know, whatever. You know, it doesn't hit me. Like the word immunity just doesn't hit me. But health resiliency, for some reason is just like, Hmm, I feel like that. I feel like taking that important.

Yan  6:15  
Yes, yes. Because, yeah, this is I mean, I'm just, like, I always say, you know, like, I've been in this industry for like, what 15 Actually, ever since I got cancer. I mean, that episode really change changed my life, like how I look at Yeah, how I look at live, I will look at health. I mean, I go around observing entrepreneurs, corporate leaders, corporate executives, even people on the ground, you know, and I was like, wow, you know, health to me health resiliency, you know, all all about that, like, like, Why do people fall sick? Why do people? Why do some people don't fall sick so easily? Why is it that you know, despite me being okay, I might be jumping a gun a little bit here, depending on how the conversations

Val Selby  6:54  
Oh, no, go for it. There's no like this.

Yan  6:58  
Like, like how I found cancer, I was at the age of 23. And I found cancer. And during the time, I just, I just sort of broke up from a very toxic and abusive relationship. But the thing is that after that relationship, I was so called a role model of a young of a healthy young adult female. I was preparing for Asia's first women's triathlon, I was eating so called clean by, you know, societal standards or by healthcare model sense, or whatever you call it. I was exercising relatively well, I think I was in a, I think I was in a relatively good emotional, state, emotional mental state. Okay, but then, you know, 10 months after my breakup, I found out I had cancer, and it was stage three. So I think that made me realize that, wow, you know, health is way more than just what you eat, and what you what you do or what you move, you know, and that really, you know, started my trajectory, my life into, you know, looking into this whole thing about health, you know, about just health in general health resiliency, and that's where I started, you know, $1 to another and the dependents personal training industry, blah, blah, blah, and and, you know, for all, all about women's health, women's Integrative Health. Oh, yeah. Another thing. One thing about health resiliency, I like to also touch on, or other raised this point is that, so early on, I talked about what it is. But what's more important is the how, and so to put in a nutshell, health residency, it's really about cultivation. What I mean by cultivation, you're cultivating the capacity, that tenacity, the ability through us through practices for entire being our mind, body, spirit, and soul if you if you believe in all of that stuff, so that the body can bounce back faster, perhaps even stronger, and better. With what with more inner peace, alignment, vitality, when expected or unexpected events occur in our lives. Yeah, so that's really what health resiliency is. It's like that. What is that toy that slinky that, you know, like something like an accordion? That's thinking, Uh huh, yes. Linky? Correct. Thank you, thanks. I don't have a lot of stuff. They're a bit of my my story. And then you know, going back to like, what health resiliency is.

Val Selby  9:23  
Now there used to be packing a lot of stuff and so they both following along. Okay, I know they are. And all of this is really what led me to last year going and finding a holistic doctor. Because I needed more than just the pill given to me like, you know, this, I'm having this issue. So okay, well, here's your prescription. I was like, no, no, I want to figure it out. You know, it's like, I want to get down to it and try and fix it. Not just cover it up, because of things that you're talking about, you know, Like, okay, well, if we take this well then when we stick with this, or, you know, we're just breaking our immune system down, even the homepage supposed to be helping us, but it's technically not. And, and I know one of the tough things that I've had an issue with is, it's, even though I know it's a process. The Waiting is so hard as you're like, oh, test this out, try this out, see how this works? Right? So, do you have any do you possibly have any tips or help?

Yan  10:33  
I love to, I love to share my experiences. And my, you know, my perspective as well. I think it's great that number one, you are taking charge of your own healing process. Okay, I want to also like, make a clear distinction, right? I'm not a doctor. So whatever I'm saying is based on, you know, what I've observed what I've went through as far as my training, being an integrative health coach, the program that I do, it's with a doctor who's she's integrative health training as well. So we, you know, I'm not saying this out from woowoo world, you know, I blend both science as well as so called Kononenko. The spiritual wall, is another topic for another day. Yeah. But yeah, you know, like, just based on what you just shared with me. So yeah, first of all, I want to comment that you are taking charge you want to take charge, you realize that you don't want to just be popping pills and suppressing I think that's the most important thing. Yes, is that because that awareness is there. Now the next thing is what I noticed, what I hear from you is that you sit that you know that it is a process, but it's the waiting, right. That's one thing that you said, and then the next thing that you say is that you want to fix it. So just this two phrases that you say, I'm sensing, so this is me very intuitively, and energetically speaking, picking up that there's a lot of there's this whole, like, you want it fast. But my dear, alright, it does take time, you have to be very patient, I will say you have to be patient, but more like, what is the rush there? Because when you are in a constant rush, right, it actually is actually counter intuitive to your healing process. I'm sure by now, I don't know if your listeners know about this whole sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system, this whole core theory around how our nervous system generally works, fight or flight. Yeah, exactly. The whole fight or flight versus the rest, digest state, blah, blah, blah, you know that stuff. And by now we all know that, you know, you know, women in particular, right, we thrive, our body's designed to be more in the Rest Digest state a little bit more, now that we can't be in the, you know, fight flight. Sometimes the body needs to be in a fight flight state. Danger, right? Yep. Or when it needs to cultivate that immunity response, sometimes the body needs to go into the better mode, just to you know, strengthen the little soldiers I call it. But then after a while, you need to let the body go into the Rest Digest state. So tip number one is really enter, I will say, imagine yourself entering into a space of Rest Digest, don't place so much emphasis of Oh, my gosh, I need to fix this, I need to fix this. The whole need to add additional stresses undue stresses to the whole brain already, you know, if that makes sense,

Val Selby  13:27  
it really does. And, again, it's dawning on me that our feminine state is Rest Digest manifests is what we're best in. And yet so many of us, especially moms, entrepreneurs, all of that, how often are we in that? We're not?

Yan  13:46  
Yeah, I mean? Yes, I mean, that could be the way I look at it is there are definitely, like two factors. I will probably say two factors. One is I get it, you know, I've worked with moms before. And I get it, there's a lot of seems like there's a lot of things on plate, right? Especially if your kids are still between that formative years, you know, like, under 18 years old, oh my gosh, no, their food, their homework, you know, you're also worrying about money, because you want to put, you know, you want to buy food and other stuff, I get it. And then you if you have, you know, if you have a husband here or

Val Selby  14:20  
you have to take the fall, there's a lot going on.

Yan  14:23  
Yeah, there's a lot going on. That's why women thrives best, you know, with other women, we call it the tenant befriend state, there's a lot to do. But you see, that's the thing. You're right, you know, because of the way how society has been designed, right? There's a lot of performance driven. It's a very performance driven culture. In fact, the you know, like, I'm going on a macro level things. Alright. And the systemic level, you know, in the cultural speaking, it's still very designed for males. Yeah, that's why there's a lot of that, you know, like, achieve achieve achieve do produce produce. Why can we look at things from you know, from the other perspective whereby, hey, rest is actually a form of productivity as well. Yeah, you know, I just recently have a chat with other fellow entrepreneurs. Like, I was like, Hey, do you? Do you realize that when you're resting, you're actually still producing something? It's just that you don't realize it? And there's like, how is that? So because I'm not doing it? That's the thing. When you're resting, right, externally, you look like you're not doing things because we're so conditioned to look at, you know, our to do lists. We're

Val Selby  15:29  
not crossing Yeah, we're not exactly, yeah.

Yan  15:33  
But when you're resting due to what is happening, there's still something happening, just so you can see what is happening. Just try to close your eyes and imagine your cells, your cells are perpetually working all the time. Even when you are resting, when you are sleeping, you're not dead, you know, your cells, right, your cells, your organs, your tissues, they're all working, working, I'm gonna use the word work here, intentionally. You're still working, there's still something that's being produced inside. When I know I just want to wish to spotlight on this, as well, as you know, for you well, is that when you shift that lens, and you think about this, all of a sudden, you look at rest as a product. If you're so used to productive work, right? You certainly look at rest as oh my gosh, yeah, it is my to do list

Val Selby  16:18  
to rest. Yes.

Yan  16:21  
And I hope that that probably brings some kind of Solares some kind of inner peace that yeah, I'm still producing something, it just I don't see yet in the traditional so called the traditional sense, because why we're in an environment where, oh, my gosh, we need to produce something, we need to hit our KPIs. We need to get our metrics. We need to be our you know, we didn't lose five pounds, you know what I mean? Yeah, but we don't see on the inside. And that's the reason why chronic illnesses become chronic, because, you know, we are so focusing, we focus so much on the external, we don't allow the internal to take place. All right. So this is probably the second tip, I can tell I can share with listeners, you know, that we look at how rare it is. And like I know, it takes all I mean, look at me, I am I self confessed, used to be a type A driven, you know, productive, like super driven, you name it, you know, I'm a serial entrepreneur. So I used to be in that rush, rush, rush mode, you know, hustle, hustle, hustle, couldn't produce, you know, I was also an athlete, so I get it. But that took me a long time. In fact, for me to say long, it's for the listeners to to understand about the timeframe, but when I look back, I'm like, It's not that long.

Val Selby  17:33  
Right? When you're in it, it's so long, right?

Yan  17:36  
Right, exactly. When I look back, I'm like, It's not that long. I'm actually in it as well. So yeah, so that's, so that's like, tip number two, I can I can share.

Val Selby  17:46  
And I know one of the amazing things is there's so many of us get into entrepreneurship, to take control of our life, right? Because we're in control. And then all we do is work. Right? It's like, okay, well, we're in control, but we're not in life. That's right, exactly.

Yan  18:05  
Yeah, I think that's a fantastic point. Because definitely, during the pandemic, I was inspired. I mean, during the pandemic, I actually started my newsletter. So halfway through, at some point, one of my posts, I felt inspired and I say it's so funny. Many of us leave the corporate world or the nine to five will. And therefore we started our own side hustle or started doing old freelance work, only to realize that, hey, in the freelance world, it's to a dog eat dog world is your competitive world. I was like something is not right, something is amiss. You know. So we focus so much on the externals, and we forgot to look at our internals, we're looking at how to, you know, do the cultivation of the practices. And a lot of times tip number three, this comes to tip number three, a lot of times I realized that it's really how we, again, we focus so much on our minds, you know, we let our mind lead the way instead of our heart, instead of what are inside of our body, especially the feminine intuition, I call it. Let our mind lead the way. Like for example, you know, like, for example, you were saying, I need to fix it, do you really need to fix it? Or do you allow yourself to just rest and heal? Do you really need to fix it? Or are you allowed? Or would you just allow yourself to enter into a space of healing by what you don't have to do? That's the thing sometimes our mind thing that oh my gosh, the research says when you clock $10 that oh, my gosh, the lab reports shows this is again, I'm not saying that all these things are not great. I think those are great way to get started. But then sometimes, when we go too much into the whole testing stage, it becomes counterintuitive, because we get so obsessed with about the numbers again, we get so upset about oh my gosh, I don't want to be in this range. I want to be in this range. You go on. I don't know if that makes sense to you because this is what I went through. When I was going down there. I call In the rabbit hole of testing and testing and hitting all the numbers of steps, initially, I like to use that as a way to kickstart into a habit. Okay, but after a while, it's nice to sort of like, take a step back from all the measuring, and just intuitively tap in. Yep. All right, and cultivate what I called cultivate practices, because there's always seasonal changes or things, there's always things that happen to our lives, like for me as well. Okay, so you're the lone listener boy, like, alright, you know, like this season, I could clock in, let's say, 60 minutes of whatever practices that brings you into your state of alignment, inner peace and vitality. Maybe things happen. For example, like I said, the biggest unexpected event, because in our lives, is COVID, right? lock downs, and stuff like that. And notice how so many of us struggle to actually adjust. So that's actually telling us about our resiliency, you know, our health resiliency practices. So instead of thinking about 60 minutes, can we actually break it down into three minutes? Or five minutes? And that's where it all, you know, really like, like, began, it's a lifelong thing. And yeah, so this tip number three about this whole mindset about all or nothing thing is like, oh, my gosh, do a 60 minute thing or don't do it all. And then you know, and then we don't do it, we start to enter into the whole self sabotage cycle. Yeah. Oh, silly. And the whole guilt, shame, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Val Selby  21:25  
My husband and I were just talking about that last night, because he's just found a new doctor that he likes, you know, I'm working with my new doctor, and we come from an athletic background. So I mean, I know you totally understand that. It's like, okay, here I am, I'm gonna go hit it hard for 60 minutes instead of like you said, how about I just get my shoes on? And I go for a five minute walk? How, what's wrong with that? There's nothing wrong with that. You know, exactly. There's, it's the opposite of anything wrong. It's like, yeah, is perfect. And I don't think, well, type a, I'm that type A, but I think the whole Old athlete mentality with exercise does come to play with that. It's like, it's that to do list that you're talking about?

Yan  22:13  
Yeah. I mean, and by the way, I want to say this again, and again. All right, listeners, well, whoever is out there listening in any way, this is no fault of yours. Okay, if you're in that To Do List mode, there's nothing wrong with it. I think there are merits to having to do lists, sometimes we do need to get some things so called done, right. Because procrastination is also not a very, you know, all right. If it was just progress, you need to pay the bills, right? Yes. Who was just procrastinate and nothing gets done, done. So there's merits to it. But you know, it's all about finding that sweet spot of balance, right? Yeah, I call it that flow, especially for women when we need to, we want to go into that flow, not need, we want to go enter into that flow state. And, you know, that's really true cultivation of practices. Alright, so that mindset is important. So that leads me perhaps to tip number, I think I'm not yet number four. All right, yes. So jumping right into, you know, the program that I'm currently creating called the resilience for cancer survivors, although I recognize that is probably a great program for even non cancer survivors, because, essentially, it's all about cultivating health resiliency, right? Yeah. And one of the pillars is definitely about so we covered the mindset briefly a bit All right, because there I call it there like five pillars, one is the mind the mindset stuff, you know, to deal with nervous system as well. And then the other one is the physical which we sort of touch and go a little bit on the movement as physical also covers the nourishment, like what you eat and what you drink, okay. And then we also move into toolkits such as breathing breath work, this is a breathing practices, so many was forgot. I used to work for God. Okay, for God, how to breathe. Yeah. Very simple practice of breathing. And like I was sharing earlier on, I just, you know, am going through deeper into energy healing. Practice through through Teagle. I'm learning medical Teagle through oriental medical medical doctor, and oh, my gosh, I'm telling you, it's amazing because it's like, this is what the doctor said. Something so simple, and yet so profound. Something so simple, and yet so profound. In terms of the healing medicine that it produced in our body, no drugs needed. No Tylenol over here in Singapore, we could and at all, no, whatever shit, sorry, no, what am I reading breathwork intent, not just the intentional breath work. So so so And Paul is so healing so profound. And yeah, when he meant by profound he meant it as it's not complicated. But the effects of it is like all you need to do one, practice, I can even actually let us just do this right now. Because I believe that we don't need to do any more research because I think there's so much research already done especially on this ancient, occult, ancient because it's been, you know, like, as long as human has survived, we have always been breathing, right? How much more research do we actually need to, we need to do more

Val Selby  25:35  
about how important it is.

Yan  25:38  
So, I would like to invite you just a guess for the next 60 seconds, just do a very simple breath work. This breath is what I call it, the 470 begin is not invented by knees. It's invented by this doctor called Dr. Andrew Well, and I particularly like to introduce this breathwork This is not part of the Qigong practice, though, but I like to introduce this practice into people who are very new to breathing. And typically for very high strong or entrepreneur, kind of like women I find is this will be particularly effective, just based on the feedback. Okay, so you ready? This? Yes. 60 seconds this how simple it is. All right, I want you to actually please your hands on the side of the ribcage if you can, if you can sort of like wrap your hands like as if you're hugging yourself. So just the palms on the side of the ribcage, you know, as a rib cage, right? Okay, great. All right. All right. You can close your eyes if you want to. I like to close my eyes because that allows all my awareness to just stay focus with the breath. Yep. All right, just take simple breakfast. Okay, I just flew where your hands how your hands are moving. All right. Now, right now next, I want you to actually focus or other bring your awareness as you inhale. Can you try to bring your palms expanding sideways? So as you inhale, think about the air going into the side of the ribcage. And then as you exhale, can you imagine your fingers sort of like closing each other so your ribcage is actually on tracting and then inhale sideways and then exhale, you can give a loud sigh This thing about your fingers, like touching each other shoulders, bring it down. I think you're tensing up your shoulders. I can see you but I haven't feeling you are so just relax the shoulders.

Val Selby  27:51  
Let them always

Yan  27:53  
Yeah, I mean I've done this for many years. So it's it's kind of like what I'm sensing. All right, so just inhale first into the side of the ribcage. So you actually feel the air sort of like pushing the ribcage sideways into the palms or into your thumbs. And then as you exhale, just give a sigh of relief

Yan  28:20  
and again, inhale first we have not stopped the counter just wanting to get used to this lateral breathing first. And exhale and sigh. Now we'll begin just four rounds or 478. So in 478, we inhale for four counts, we hold for seven and then we exhale for eight counts. All right, still using the literal breathing. When you're ready, let's begin. Inhale four counts for full inhalation, three, two, and hold. 754 hold three to exhale completely. 876543 exhale, exhale and inhale four counts 432076543 and exhale completely. 8765432 inhale 443 to call 765432. Exhale. Last one, Let's inhale for all hold

Yan  29:55  
and exhalation eight Slowly open your eyes, release your hands onto the side of your chair if you're sitting or standing beside your legs. And just, you know, just breathe normally. How do you feel?

Transcribed by https://otter.ai