In this episode, Dr. Jill is thrilled to have the charismatic Kelly Gores as our special guest. Together, they explore the fascinating world of the mind-body connection and how you can activate your healing potential through the power of manifestation.
Key Points
✅ The Power of Belief and Mind-Body Connection: We explore the profound impact of thoughts, emotions, and beliefs on physical health and healing. Kelly emphasizes how shifting mental patterns and fostering positive thinking can unlock the body’s innate ability to heal itself.
✅ Manifestation Through Prayer and Awareness : Kelly advocates for using the principles of manifestation to align intentions with actions, focusing on clarity, visualization, and emotional resonance to attract desired outcomes.
✅ Bridging Science and Spirituality: why powerful emotions such as peace, love, joy and gratitude are the most important drivers of living an authentic life.
Our Guest – 👩🏻⚕️ Kelly Gores
Kelly Gores is an entrepreneur, writer, director, and producer. She gained recognition for her award-winning documentary HEAL (2017) which explores the power of the mind-body connection and the body’s natural healing capabilities. In 2019, Kelly authored the follow-up book, HEAL: Discover Your Unlimited Potential and Awaken the Powerful Healer Within. She is also the host of HEAL with Kelly, a podcast that inspires, reveals tools, and shares personal stories of the body's ability to heal. Through the HEAL brand, she aims to empower people by sharing knowledge about the remarkable ability and intelligence of the human body to expand our belief of what’s possible and become conscious co-creators with our lives.
https://www.healwithkelly.co/
https://www.instagram.com/kellygores/
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/158270712X/
Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD
Dr. Jill Carnahan is Your Functional Medicine Expert® dually board certified in Family Medicine for ten years and in Integrative Holistic Medicine since 2015. She is the Medical Director of Flatiron Functional Medicine, a widely sought-after practice with a broad range of clinical services including functional medical protocols, nutritional consultations, chiropractic therapy, naturopathic medicine, acupuncture, and massage therapy.
As a survivor of breast cancer, Crohn’s disease, and toxic mold illness she brings a unique perspective to treating patients in the midst of complex and chronic illness. Her clinic specializes in searching for the underlying triggers that contribute to illness through cutting-edge lab testing and tailoring the intervention to specific needs.
A popular inspirational speaker and prolific writer, she shares her knowledge of hope, health, and healing live on stage and through newsletters, articles, books, and social media posts! People relate to Dr. Jill’s science-backed opinions delivered with authenticity, love and humor. She is known for inspiring her audience to thrive even in the midst of difficulties.
Featured in Shape Magazine, Parade, Forbes, MindBodyGreen, First for Women, Townsend Newsletter, and The Huffington Post as well as seen on NBC News and Health segments with Joan Lunden, Dr. Jill is a media must-have. Her YouTube channel and podcast features live interviews with the healthcare world’s most respected names.
The Podcast
The Video
The Transcript
242: Resiliency Radio with Dr. Jill: Activate Healing Potential Through Manifestation w/ Kelly Gores
Dr. Jill 00:00
Hey everybody, welcome to Resiliency Radio, your go-to podcast for the most cutting-edge insights in functional and integrative medicine. This is your go-to podcast, and I'm your host, Dr. Jill. In each episode, we dive into the heart of healing and interview amazing personal transformation experts and all kinds of people in the realm of holistic healing.
Dr. Jill 00:20
I get so excited when I talk to another manifestor, and today our topic is all on manifesting. The title is “Activate Your Healing Potential Through Manifestation.” I think as we were just talking here—I want to introduce my guest in just a moment—one of the most powerful things we can learn in this new year is how to show up as our truly authentic selves and what that means for our ability to show up in the world and see our dreams come true. What happens is [that] when we are in that space of true love and wanting that manifestation for the good of others, we see miracles. And today we're going to dive into that with Kelly.
Dr. Jill 00:55
My guest Kelly Gores is an entrepreneur, writer, director, and producer. She gained recognition for her award-winning documentary, HEAL. If you haven't seen that, it's been out since 2017 all over social media. [In] a lot of my circles, people have watched it. So check that out. This explores the power of the mind-body connection and the body's natural healing capabilities.
Dr. Jill 01:15
In 2019, Kelly authored the follow-up book, HEAL: Discover Your Unlimited Potential and Awaken the Powerful Healer Within. She also hosted HEAL with Kelly, a podcast that inspires, reveals tools, and shares personal stories of the body's ability to heal. We're going to talk about some of that today. Through the HEAL brand, she aims to empower people by sharing knowledge about the remarkable ability and intelligence of the human body to expand our belief about what's possible.
This is my language, Kelly! Welcome to the show!
Kelly Gores 01:45
Thank you! Thank you for having me. I love it.
Dr. Jill 01:47
Yeah. I'm so excited to have you here.
I always like to start with: How did you get into this world? Especially if you're a manifestor, there's always a story because sometimes things that we don't expect to take us in a direction do. But tell us, did you always, from a little girl, want to inspire people? Or how did it go growing up to where you're at now?
Kelly Gores 02:06
Yeah, it's a lifelong story. Everybody's like, “Why did you do HEAL?” and “Did you get a diagnosis or did you heal from something?” And I said: “Thankfully and ironically, no.” Nor did I lose anybody to something that made me go on this journey. It was just one of those things.
Kelly Gores 02:26
I've always been on a spiritual-seeking journey. I was raised Catholic and loved Jesus and the stories of Jesus. But then I was curious. I was like: “Okay, there's Buddhism, there's Judaism, there's Islam. There are all these other religions. Before I confirm to Catholicism, shouldn't I study all of them? Or do I just continue to do what every generation did before me?” So I've always been that curious seeker. And I had a sense that all religions were trying to accomplish the same thing and have the same universal principles, just dressed up in different cultural clothing and language. It's always been a journey of spirituality and where I can find true joy and happiness.
Kelly Gores 03:17
But I was an actor my whole life. I grew up in South LA in a little town called Long Beach. Somehow I got into film and modeling and stuff at five years old. I always had my foot in the spotlight, and then I'd always be very humbled and try to be a normal kid. In my 20s, I came back to acting after I went away to Berkeley and I was exploring other things. I thought I was too smart to be an actor, you know. Of course, all the best actors are really intelligent.
Dr. Jill 03:49
Really, really smart. Yeah.
Kelly Gores 03:51
Meryl—shout out to Meryl Streep.
I'm blonde hair, blue-eyed. I'm like a dime a dozen in this town. Every prom queen from every high school comes to LA to try to be discovered or whatever.
So I started trying to fortify my spirit in the face of so much rejection. I started reading self-help books and spirituality books and anything that could get my mind stronger. I started learning about the law of attraction and quantum physics and setting intentions. Like Wayne Dyer and Eckhart Tolle and Abraham Hicks. All of these people. I would flood my psyche so that I wouldn't be depressed every day that I didn't get the job because, more often than not, you don't. And you never hear anything. You don't know why. So you're just kind of in this [inaudible].
Dr. Jill 04:46
Right. You make up stories, right?
Kelly Gores 04:48
Yeah, exactly. Like, “I'm too fat. I'm too short. I'm too blonde. I'm too” this. It's a tough, tough business. But it sent me on this journey of trying to take more control of my life. So in seeking and reading and flooding my psyche with positivity, I learned that we are really co-creators with life. Of course, there's fate. God has a plan. Whatever words you want to say. But it's the energy we put out there—what we focus on, what we put our attention on—that continues to magnetize and show up in our lives. And it's all about healing too—to get into the subconscious beliefs that we adopted as a child because they kept us safe back then, but they no longer apply. And as an actor, you want to really excavate what drives human behavior. So I went in this whole exploration of it.
Kelly Gores 05:44
Ultimately, in my late 20s, I started realizing that I would light up more talking about manifestation, spirituality, and consciousness than I would about getting a job. And then I'd get a job or carry a whole movie and I'd be in the makeup chair every day with all these people in my space, and I'm like, “I just don't…” I loved the consciousness stuff and the manifestation stuff more.
Kelly Gores 06:10
People started coming up to me—this is many, many years ago—and they were like: “How are you so happy? How are you manifesting all this great stuff? What do you eat? What's your workout?” So for HEAL, I put all my teachers that empowered me into a film so that I could just send people to go watch the film because they wanted to know what empowered me. And I'm just so passionate about human potential and how best to harness this creative power that we have.
Dr. Jill 06:41
Wow, I love that. And so many questions come to mind. I want to hear about the process of going from acting to producing. I produced a movie a couple of years ago and I know what it takes. It's quite an ordeal and the money involved and everything. So on that list, I want to talk.
Dr. Jill 06:55
But before we do, it's fascinating because I do see so often—my patients, myself, you, and many people I know—you find what you really love and what your soul was meant to be on the earth to do as you hear the feedback from other people. I think we aren't so clear in ourselves. And then we get this reflection, and we're like: “Oh, wait. This thing that comes really easy to me might actually be a gift because that's what I love to do.” And I love how you compare it to being in the makeup chair, like, “This is okay,” but then when you talk about this manifesting…
Dr. Jill 07:26
So I'm sure with HEAL, you got to hear stories. What are some of the impactful lessons or stories that you feel came out of making that movie, like actually being in production through that? What did you learn most about people and behavior and healing?
Kelly Gores 07:45
I knew a lot going in. There wasn't a lot of discovery because I was putting my teachers that I had studied so much and so deeply for so long. And they all have their spiel because they've been doing this consciousness, healing, holistic healing work for 30 years. They're the early adopters, like the Bruce Lipton's of the world and the Gregg Bradens and the Joan Borysenkos and Joe Dispenzas. But there's, of course, always new discovery.
Kelly Gores 08:12
And I remember Bruce Lipton was a big one where we use our conscious mind—like when we're manifesting and we're journaling and we're getting into gratitude or whatever our technique is for manifestation—which is only like 5% powerful in the face of… The subconscious mind is really running the show. And these are programs that are subconscious. So we're not even aware that these programs are running the show and 75%, roughly—he just made up that number from his experience—are negative and disempowering beliefs.
Kelly Gores 08:51
So we could be really trying to manifest and say the affirmations and do whatever we do, but if there's 95% power underneath the surface and it's negative and disempowering and you don't believe you're worthy or you don't believe you're enough—your authentic self, like you mentioned before—then none of those affirmations are going to land into the field because your frequency that you're putting out in the field that eventually draws things back is running off that 95% subconscious. I just thought that was so eye-opening.
Kelly Gores 09:26
And then the question became, “Okay, so how do we get underneath the hood and reprogram ourselves so that we start to vibrate at a different frequency and switch those negative and disempowering beliefs into something more positive and worthy of receiving everything we want?” So that's the constant journey. I'm still on that journey. Things keep coming up, but I love it. There's no better journey for me. It's like life is a healing. You're always going to be healing until you go over the rainbow bridge and come back into a different iteration.
Dr. Jill 10:02
Gosh, I love that frame because I totally believe that.
I will share just a quick story and then I want to know, for you, what have been some of the journeys? The first point is that you said, “We're always in this journey.” I know some people might look at you or look at me and be like, “Oh, they've arrived.” No, right? I always want to be so clear that I am so on the journey with all of you out there listening, and I'm sure you feel the same way, Kelly. Every time I think, “Oh, I learned that lesson,” and I feel like I graduate and I see something happen and manifest, then there's another lesson and then there's another lesson. It never ends until, like you said, we pass.
Dr. Jill 10:38
So that's part of the encouragement to you out there listening: If you feel like you maybe have started to go on this journey and you're starting to see things happen in your life and change and shift, it's going to continue. And you know what? There's always going to be difficulties, problems, and things.
Dr. Jill 10:49
And the more we get comfortable with the uncertainty—for me, faith is really about embracing uncertainty. And it's: How do we deal with the uncertainty of life? We have all these control things, like insurance policies and whatever, heat in our homes. My friend's furnace just broke and it's like -10 degrees over the weekend. We think that heat is just something we assume is going to be there. And when it's not, we're like, “Oh, wait, that's not something to assume.” So this whole comfort with the inevitable uncertainty of life is really part of this.
Dr. Jill 11:19
The second thing—and I don't want to take over too much time because you've got so much to say, but I think it's relevant saying—I had my own journey with this whole subconscious. What it was for me was, I remember I had autoimmune, Crohn's, I had Hashimoto's thyroiditis, and I had cancer at 25-26 years old. I had overcome all that. But in that journey, my whole mantra, my subconscious, was: “I'm going to fight. I am so tough and so strong. I'm going to fight autoimmune. I'm going to fight cancer.” And you hear the rhetoric—anyone out there suffering from cancer—the whole industry is about fighting cancer. We even donate to fighting cancer. Fighting, fighting, fighting.
Dr. Jill 11:50
And I'll never forget one day—because that happened, I got through all of that—I was pretty healthy, and then I had a massive mold exposure and got really sick from mold. In that journey, I'm like: “I'm going to fight this. I'm going to do this.” One day I'm walking, meditating, and it hit me: “The fight in your body, your immune system fighting this mold, is actually what's creating illness in your body. And if you keep that subconscious program of fighting the mold, you're going to die. It will kill you.” I heard that so clear, and I was like: “Oh, my goodness, I have to change this!”
Dr. Jill 12:19
And I write in the book about: How do I think of my immune system differently? And I took the Invincible little Minions, the little yellow guys. I'm like: “They're my immune system. I'm going to start envisioning, imagining that these guys are whistling and they're happy. They're not fighting, but they're taking all the toxins out of my body. And I'm going to do all the things I know to do, like mind, body, spirit, the supplements, the IVs—all that clean living. But I've got to change my subconscious program.” And I literally started meditating on minions that day. And that's the day I started healing from mold toxicity.
Dr. Jill 12:50
So I just want to give an example of how powerful that is. And I had to change. And it wasn't just a one-time thing. Day after day after day, I envisioned this whole change in my inner body and how this helpful, harmonious getting out of the toxic load versus a fighting mentality. And I really believe that's what changed that course for me.
Kelly Gores 13:13
Totally. I love it. It brings to mind a story. One of the experts in HEAL is Dr. Kelly Turner. She did her research on cancer. She was starting to notice these spontaneous healings and remissions, and she's like: “Why aren't we studying them?” And all the doctors are like, “Well, they're just anomalies.” And she's like: “No, but there are thousands of them, and they're all different kinds of cancer in all different stages.” Literally, these people were sent home to die and they didn't die, and then the cancer healed. So she's like: “I want to study what they did.”
Kelly Gores 13:44
If you want to dive deeper, it's a book called Radical Remission. And one of the guys went home and started playing, I think, the violin or the cello. Something that he'd play that brought him joy. He would go out and be on his bare feet and watch the sunset every night. They were like: “We're going to die, so we might as well only do things that we love and bring us joy.” And all these people were starting to heal because they were increasing positive emotions, letting the small shit go, letting go of resentments and regrets, because “We just want to enjoy every last breath.” And they started to heal.
Kelly Gores 14:18
And this one fellow had the same insight and was like: “Cancer is my own human cell. It's a cell. It is part of me, and it's gone rogue. Something is fritzing, and it's gone rogue. But it's a me cell. It's from me. It's not different from me. It's not an intruder. It's not something that I want to create war [over].” So he just started to love on that cancer cell and all the cancer and the tumors in his body. And he was like: “They're just like members of society that have been outcasts. And of course, they're going to feel angry and isolated. So I'm just going to love my cells and bring them back into community.” And that's what he did, and he healed.
Kelly Gores 15:02
So I think there is something to be said about this fighting, this war, and this inflammation. That energy, that frequency is all the same thing. Healing has the same root of wholeness, and we want to really love and bring together and bring back into community and harmony and balance what's out of whack in our body.
Dr. Jill 15:27
I love that so much. And I did an interview with Jeffrey Rediger, who wrote a book called Cured. Very similar information. You probably know or heard of him.
Kelly Gores 15:35
Yeah, he's great.
Dr. Jill 15:36
I really love it because it wasn't just one diet or one… Some of them actually ate junk food, which I would be like, “Oh, how in the world could they heal?” Because you'd think, “Oh, you have to eat super clean or organic” or whatever kind of thing you do. But the truth was, what he found was [that] there was such a diverse array of health behaviors. And I'm not saying that a healthy diet isn't really important or sleep or all these things. But the thing is, when you go into the world of this other quantum level of consciousness and healing, those things pale in comparison to how we think, what our subconscious programming is, and all these things we're talking about.
Dr. Jill 16:11
What are some practical ways, Kelly, because so many people might be listening to this and be like, “Oh, that's great.” But how do we actually change that programming? Any practical tips or ways that we can harness what our programming is, because a lot of times, [in] the subconscious by nature, we don't even know what the program is. So number one, knowing what it is. But number two, how do we shift that?
Kelly Gores 16:33
So good. There are different therapies. EMDR is a good one. It's like eye movement.
Dr. Jill 16:43
Sensitization therapy?
Kelly Gores 16:45
Sensitization. Yeah. I know. And you could do it with the eyes. You could do it with paddles. But it's basically talk therapy and walking you through the moment of trauma that created this belief system or this trapped emotion in your body. It helps to reframe it, desensitize it, and then drop in a new program.
There's hypnosis, [which] I think is great. There are so many. I think meditation. I think breathwork.
Kelly Gores 17:23
Breathwork, to me, is some of the most powerful work you can do. What I've experienced [is that] when you're guided in the correct way with music and also flooding your body with oxygen, it breaks up stagnant energy and patterns. And once you release that energy, it makes space for intuitive downloads to come. Once you get those insights, you start to see the world in a different way. You reprogram just by changing your experience in relation to the world.
Kelly Gores 18:01
Anything that can create space and disrupt old patterns with your own instrument, I think, is great. Like meditation, breathwork, walking in nature, and putting your feet in the ground. Creating more space. We're on this crazy treadmill of go, go, go, do, do, do. And we need to go back to just creating space so that we get the guidance that we need.
Kelly Gores 18:25
We all have this internal guidance system that will never lead us astray. It's our connection to spirit and a higher intelligence. And like you said earlier, there's no one-size-fits-[all] model of healing. So really, the first step—beyond acceptance of what's going on in your life because we waste a lot of energy resisting what reality is—accept it, move through the emotions, and then start to tap into that intuitive guidance and reconnect with yourself.
Kelly Gores 19:03
And yes, I think that we need helpers and healers and people to reflect back to us and help us heal. But really, your intuition is your guide. And it's one of the 10 things that Kelly Turner found in her research. And her research is specific to cancer. In the film, there were nine things that all of these people who were sent home to die did to heal, some version of it. Then later, she looked back at her research and added movement/exercise because everybody did a version of it.
Kelly Gores 19:34
So if you want to pick up the book or you want to watch HEAL, you'll see those 9/10 things. Three of them are physical, and the rest are mental, emotional, and spiritual. And it applies to cancer, but intuitively, I know that it applies to any chronic illness. And it's really that journey. Strengthening your intuition is one of them, which means clearing out space with some of those modalities that I used.
Kelly Gores 20:00
I like to approach it… Rather than, “Okay, let's find the one therapy that's going to reprogram my mind,” it's almost like creating space and releasing and slowing down and tapping into your intuition and that divine connection. And you'll be guided to know: What's the next step? As you start to create that space, you relate to life in a different way. And the insights come and the reprogramming comes in a more feminine way rather than: “Okay, this is the program that I need to extract and move and then…” So that's been my experience.
Kelly Gores 20:38
I wish I had [something] like, “Okay, this is the therapy you need to go.” But I've tried everything, and I think different things work at different times when you're ready to receive that healing. So it's like layers. But the biggest thing is reconnecting to yourself in that intuitive guidance. And then you'll be guided on what you need, and you'll be reflected back to those things that no longer serve you.
Dr. Jill 21:03
So good. What I love there is creating the space and the spaciousness. I have found in my own life—I'm deeply spiritual and I believe in God and have a deep prayer life—I feel direction in that realm so often. And the best direction is always from the Divine, right? But if I'm so busy and so crazy and traveling all… In fact, this year was part of my… I don't do resolutions at all. It's just like, “How do I want to live?” I came into this year being [like], “I want more spaciousness.” Literally, that was the framework because I know that all good things in my life come from being in that space of prayer and meditation and hearing from God and the Divine and then following that.
Dr. Jill 21:43
Whether you did the movie or the book or whatever, I don't know if you had this experience, but for me, as I'm writing out the stories and putting things together, sometimes then I see the pattern of my life that I wasn't clear about before. By writing it down or teaching or telling it, all of a sudden I'm like: “Oh my goodness, this has happened over and over!”
Dr. Jill 22:02
One of the chapters that people have really resonated with is called “Believe, Act, Wait”. And it's basically [that] you believe in something amazing that you could accomplish, that you want to be part of, or [that] you put out there. “I believe I could go to medical school.” “I believe I want to produce a movie.” And then you act and you do what you can in your capability. You might call a director. You might make some contacts. You might do something there. But for me, all the beautiful things that have happened have always been outside of my ability. I needed resources. I needed God to show up. I needed the money. I needed whatever. Or I needed healing. So that ‘wait' is the part of trusting that the universe, God, will come with the people, the resources, and all the things that need to happen in order for you to accomplish that amazing goal. And if the goal is so accomplishable in your own will, it's probably not as big as you should be thinking.
Kelly Gores 22:49
Yes, totally. And I love the ‘wait.' Wait in faith. A lot of people wait and then they start to spiral in doubt and it takes away all the action that you did. So I think that having all of the research I've done and the teachers that I've had the incredible privilege to be exposed to, they all go back to this overarching philosophy that life is happening for you, not to you. So just that practice of “believe, act, wait” strengthens your manifestation muscle; it strengthens your faith. It also reprograms you because it's a practice. Even meditation is a practice.
Kelly Gores 23:41
I love these little Zen sayings or these Buddhist sayings. The monks were listening to the teacher up on the hill and they were out meditating hours and hours a day. The teaching was like: “Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.” Life is a practice. So as we're practicing “believe, act, wait,” you're playing in the realm of your dreams rather than playing in the realm of keeping up with the Joneses or doing the minimum of what society tells you you should be doing or whatever. It's like: “No, we're daydreaming. We're visualizing our dreams. We're fantasizing, and we start to believe that I can get there.” That's strengthening your belief in yourself and your programming. And then act. Let's take the small step in our skill set to move forward and then wait.
Kelly Gores 24:43
Just like the oak tree is in the acorn, whatever that desire, that passion that you have in your heart, God put it there because you also have everything you need—whether it's inside you as a skill you already have or in the ethers that God is going to present to you. You have everything in your ability with that dream to see it realized. You don't just get a dream and then it's impossible to do.
Kelly Gores 25:08
So how far can we stretch ourselves into believing what's possible for us? Well, God is infinite. I believe we have so much more potential to create an experienced life on a way more amazing level than we've been exposed to. So it's on us to keep stretching that belief and then act in faith and then wait in faith and go, “Okay, God, it's here,” which means I know that I can accomplish a version of this. So you wait and you expect that the answer and the next step forward will be revealed. It's such a cool way to live, and it's really the only way to live.
Dr. Jill 25:49
It so is. There's such a freedom in that. I feel like, as I've really embraced that, it's a practice because, as you were saying, there's always another level. I have such a peace about life. Off and on, I've been looking to maybe move out of my condo and buy a home, and when those offers happen or whatever, there's such a freedom in letting it go and knowing that the right thing will happen. And I will do my part, but there are no missed opportunities in that sense. And that's so freeing.
Dr. Jill 26:18
I think more than ever, especially in this new era of consciousness and how crazy life is speeding up, one of the most undervalued things is peace—peace of mind, peace of heart. And like you described in the cancer studies in all the people, there was so much commonality to just seeking joy and peace. Those things are so priceless.
Kelly Gores 26:42
Totally. Yes.
My challenge is I'm trying to figure out what that fine line [is] between perseverance and persistence and going after it and pushing—getting out of your comfort zone and pursuing what your dreams are—or full surrender and going: “Okay, what's meant for me will always find me, so I might let that go.”
Kelly Gores 27:03
And I can tell you [that] 10 days ago or however long it's been, my house burned down along with [the houses of] many of my friends and my whole community in Pacific Palisades. Part of me immediately spiritually knew that it was liberation. I had been feeling the weight of accumulation. I had been asking God if I'm staying in the Palisades or moving to Manhattan Beach because I just went through a separation and I was like: “I'm kind of feeling a fresh start.” So I was like, “Okay, I know that God's going to give me a clear sign. It's going to be about the house. And when I find the house, I'm going to know where I'm going to move.” Well, then the whole neighborhood burned down so that was as clear a sign as you can get. So I'm not staying in the Palisades.
Kelly Gores 27:43
But all of that to say, the day my house burned down, this house came up. And I had been looking in Manhattan Beach for months. And now all these people have been displaced and they are now looking in Manhattan Beach. So there's this bidding war on this perfect house. Nothing even remotely close had come up in my months [of] searching prior to buying this house. And I just knew in my bones, this was my house.
Kelly Gores 28:11
I missed it. Someone overbid me. I was almost more gutted about losing that house than I was [about losing] all my contents because of the previous house and everything I owned. But I'm also still in shock and denial because you really can't process [it]. Even now, it's still surreal. But I really struggled for a week, like letting go of that house. And I just have to trust—I felt in my bones [that] that was my house—that it's either going to come back to me at the right time or… We are so aligned in what we believe.
Kelly Gores 28:56
Being humans, for all of you listening, doesn't mean that it's easy. You still feel the human emotions as you're going through that struggle of figuring out: “When do I surrender and when do I fight hard for this?” We went back and offered them way more to try to get it. So I wasn't giving up, but I do value peace and faith in this higher benevolent intelligence over misery. So ultimately I got to a place that's like: “Okay, I can let that go. I can trust that if it's mine, it'll come back to me. And in the meantime, let's just find another landing place.”
Kelly Gores 29:33
But you had to go through those emotions. And that's the thing that I want to crack: When do we let go and when do we continue to pursue and knock down a door? And I think it comes into tuning into this incredible tuning fork of our bodies. Our bodies are very intricately connected to our intuition and energy and the field around us. So the more we can cultivate this deep connection to what our body signals are trying to tell us, and if we do want to get to peace and we do want to be an expansion, your body tells you. And it has this intelligence—the subconscious mind—as your body knows when to keep pursuing and when to let go. It's all about that tension, stress, and contraction. Anyway, I just thought I'd share that because it's a fine dance. But to be aware of it is half of the challenge anyway. That's why we're talking about it.
Dr. Jill 30:41
Exactly. And first of all, Kelly, I know right before we went on, you shared that. I was like, “Oh my goodness, I can't believe you're…” And like we were saying, you have to go on and live life and do your thing. So of course you're going to be doing your thing and recording and all of that. But still, my heart goes out to you so much. We can talk all day long about how hard [it is] and suffering and “How do we get through?” But the truth is you and I and everybody out there listening too in their own way—we're in it; we're in the muck.
Dr. Jill 31:08
And it's like this fine line. I feel the same way. If I could just live in the clouds in my unicorn land of beautiful manifestation, I'd love it. Life is so great. But then there's a place that it's almost irresponsible because I have to be on this earth and to love those people God's put in my life and to show up to the best of my ability. And then there are difficulties and there are hard things that come about.
Dr. Jill 31:26
And I can't even imagine because so far nothing I've experienced compares to even losing your home. But even hearing you talk is so powerful and encouraging. And I guarantee there's someone, if not many people listening, who are impacted by your grace. And again, I know there's shock and trauma, but there's still a grace about you in how you show up and how you talk about that. And even how you just surrendered.
Dr. Jill 31:51
I was telling you before we got on that three years ago, we had massive fires here in Superior and Louisville and there were huge communities that were completely wiped out. And it pales in comparison. I think it was one-tenth of the houses that were just lost in the Palisades. But I remember that. There's such an understanding of what really matters, so there is a peace. But it's still the practical thing of losing everything you own, [which] is so hard. So kudos to you. And what a beautiful thing of how you show up and share that because I know it's an encouragement to those who maybe are suffering. But in comparison: “Wow! If Kelly can do it, you know what? Maybe I can today too.” So I love that.
Kelly Gores 32:30
Thanks. Yeah, it's that peace thing.
And I've gone through days where I'm just crying all day. And I finally hit the anger phase a few days ago and I was like: “Oh, I'm really just hanging out in shock and denial. It feels kind of good.” And then boom, you drop into anger and it brings up all this anger about other things that you had dealt with in your life. So it's cathartic, and I feel like everything does happen for a reason. You get it in hindsight. If you value peace and joy and understand that life is happening for you, you start to look for the blessings and start to do everything it takes to keep your body and spirit as strong as possible so you don't get wiped out from the stress.
Dr. Jill 33:19
It's so true because that can take us down physically and with our health, probably more than anything else. One thing, as you were talking earlier too, that came to mind is [that] I love the work of Viktor Frankl because I always think of him and anyone who suffered like him: My life will never compare to that kind of suffering. So it's always that relevance of if someone like that can have that attitude… And he talks about that choice, that point where we have something happen that's really devastating or difficult—a divorce, a financial loss, a burned-down home where you lose everything in it, or whatever.
Dr. Jill 33:48
And a lot of my patients who listen to this have mold-related illness. And they, in some weird way—I don't mean weird, like it's weird… But because people don't understand the world, they can lose everything they own from the mold. It's not like a fire so no one knows what happened and it can be pretty traumatic too.
Dr. Jill 34:02
But all that to say, there's this point where something happens, and then we always have a choice. And sometimes it's very few seconds or minutes or hours or days. But in that moment, we have a choice of how we react and respond. And I think the more we're in touch with spirit and God and the more we're in the meditative practice in nature, the more we have spaciousness, the more that space becomes a place where we can show up differently.
Dr. Jill 34:30
For me, it's like, “How does God's love come through me into the world?” And it's those spaces of tragedy where maybe if I can connect to that, I can respond differently than what the world expects and somehow point people to a lighter, greater power. And I think that's really important because if you, as a listener, are facing some tragedy or something comes in your life and you have those few seconds or few minutes and you shift…
Dr. Jill 34:55
Kelly, any ideas? Because it's still hard even for me. I can consciously know what I need to do in the moment of tragedy, but there's still an impulse to maybe respond in anger, respond in frustration, and respond by falling apart in a puddle of tears. Have you learned any tips on how we change those moments in between the stimulus and the response to be in a way that exudes light and love and trust in the universe?
Kelly Gores 35:21
It's tough. I always encourage falling onto a puddle on the floor and crying. [laughs] I think that's good. I've done that hard. I just released this solo podcast the first week of the year, right before this all went down. And I was like, “I just came through the fire, the hardest year of my life,” and then [inaudible]. I went through another fire.
Dr. Jill 35:44
“I had no idea it was coming,” right?
Kelly Gores 35:46
No. People are like, “Do you hear what you said?” I'm like, “I do.” But all of that to say, I also just went to Tony Robbins. I'd never gone to one of his events and I was there early December. And I talk about this in the solo podcast, and I think it's worth sharing here because two things happened at that seminar. It was six days. So intense. The guy is so intense. He's amazing. But he's service-oriented. He's in his heart. My big thing and theme is—and I feel like in this next age of Aquarius, we're getting out of our heads and dropping into our hearts—anything that you can do to get into your heart.
Kelly Gores 36:33
So one real practical practice: If you're getting triggered or the world is literally or figuratively on fire around you, you breathe. You can shut your eyes, cut off the outside stimulus, and just breathe. Sometimes you need to put your hands on your heart, but breathe as if you're getting in and out of your heart. Through the belly so that your ribs can expand and start to breathe from your heart. So you get out of your head and you drop down and [take] however many breaths through your nose, out your mouth. But try to keep your attention on the heart space. That gets you out of your head and drops you into your heart. In that zone, you can have a little more spaciousness.
Kelly Gores 37:22
If you're really triggered, that's not going to work. You may have to scream, throw something, cry on the floor, and have your moment before you can get to this place. But better to do all that than fire off a text, yell at someone, or throw something at someone. So there's that.
Kelly Gores 37:40
And then when these challenges come or someone betrays you, someone wrongs you, Tony Robbins says all the best stories that we watch in Hollywood, all the best books, are all about this hero's journey. And we're all on our own hero's journey in life.
Kelly Gores 38:02
His childhood was horrific. His mom was so abusive and she was doing the best she could. But it drove him to become who he is today. And he's highly motivated and he's been doing this work and teaching for 46 years, which is wild. But now he's able to feed billions of lives. So it's driven him to a life of service and he's living from his heart.
Kelly Gores 38:22
So he looks back, and he doesn't dwell on his story. [With] all these challenges that come based on the frame of reference with his mom—her abuse made him into this phenom that he is today—looking back at everything, he's like: “Worthy opponents.” The hero is directly proportionate to the strength and quality of the opponent they overcome. He had a pretty gnarly opponent he overcame, so he became this massive hero or character in life.
Kelly Gores 38:54
So having that perspective, someone betrays you or the boss doesn't… You're not dwelling in victimhood. You're like, “Okay.” He's like, “Be excited about worthy opponents because you're being invited into this next growth and level up in your life.” The fire comes. We've got to go through the grieving process of losing everything that we valued and the curiosity of, “Well, what do I really value?” And I definitely oscillate between total liberation—because I'm like, “I'm light; I've got a couple of bags and can move around the country now”—and real self-reflection.
Kelly Gores 39:43
Even a diagnosis. Let's call it a cancer diagnosis. That's a worthy opponent that is going to give rise or [give] birth to the newest, better version of you. And everyone that I've talked to who has made it through a cancer journey, and it was absolute hell walking through, they all look back—assuming that they've healed—even though they wouldn't wish it on anybody, they wouldn't change a thing because every little challenge and suffering was the fire that created them into this new version. Better, stronger, wiser, more beautiful, a more aligned, authentic version of themselves. So all of that to say, that shift in perspective gets you…
Kelly Gores 40:28
Be a victim for a moment. Feel sorry for ourselves. We're human. Life sucks sometimes. But then move through it and go: “Okay, this is a worthy opponent. I'm being called onto the next adventure and the greatest version of myself.” It's a shift in perspective that I think is very powerful.
Dr. Jill 40:48
That's so beautiful and so relevant.
People listening—we have a lot of physicians and people dealing with suffering, but also a lot of patients and people who have chronic illness or cancer—have heard me say this before, but I remember my own journey with cancer at 25. Within two weeks of my diagnosis, I heard this preacher on the radio and it was: “This sickness will not end in death but for the glory of God.” I remember grabbing onto that. I didn't know at that time what that really meant, but I did have a hope with that. I was just like, “I'm going to live.” In that moment, I just knew somehow, “I'm going to survive.”
Dr. Jill 41:19
And looking back, Kelly—just like you just got done saying—that platform of having gone through cancer and Crohn's and overcome at 25, there's no way I would be able to, as a physician, do what I do in the world without that experience. That has given me my wings. And I'm sure you hear hundreds and thousands of stories like this. It's not just me. But I so understand. So if you're out there going through a difficult, worthy opponent—not to say it's easy and not to say I would wish that on anybody—it is so beautiful if you can look for the beauty in the ashes.
Kelly Gores 41:52
I just got chills.
Dr. Jill 41:53
Yeah, I know. I'm like: “Oh, my gosh!” I want to encourage you because, in the midst of it, it was horrible! I was racked with pain. I lost all my hair. I thought I was going to die. It was horrific! But also in that, I knew there was something greater if I could just keep looking like: “There's something here.” And it transformed me. And it's funny because it took me years to talk about my journey with cancer. But finally, someone's like, “You've got to start telling your story.” And then I realized that was the story that mattered to patients too.
Dr. Jill 42:23
Wow, Kelly, this has been so fun. I know we didn't talk about something that's very close to both of our hearts. And I want to end on gratitude because I think there's such a power. I'll just let you talk about: What does that mean to you? How does that fit into manifesting?—because we are amiss if we don't talk about how to really live a grateful life.
Kelly Gores 42:45
I think I learned about gratitude journaling and manifestation using gratitude from The Secret, originally. And I started gratitude journaling. I think Bob Proctor was the guy in The Secret. He would say: “Write down in your journal, ‘I'm so happy and grateful now that something that I want…' as if it's already happened.” And I was like, “Oh, that's kind of fun.” You feel silly doing it at first. And you're like, “Oh, I hope nobody reads this,” because you're like, “I'm so happy and grateful now that I have the yacht in Saint-Tropez” or whatever your crazy dream is.
Kelly Gores 43:24
But you start to do it, and then you start to realize: If we just let our minds that are programmed for survival and to scan the environment based on our belief systems in this lens that we're looking through for danger, that's our default mode network or whatever. So when you start to gratitude journal and fantasize and visualize things that you want as if you already had them and flood your system with those great positive chemicals and oxytocin and hormones and everything, you're playing the instrument of your body and your mind. And it's changing your frequency and state and sending out new information into the field, and then life starts to reorganize. Within three months of doing this practice, I manifested this job I didn't even know existed. I tripled my income and lowered my hours. I was like, “Wow, this stuff really works!” So I do a version of that now.
Kelly Gores 44:25
Also, Joe Dispenza is a great friend of mine and a great teacher. He healed his spine, which we talk about in HEAL. And he doesn't really talk about it anymore. But he was visualizing his spine healing. And then he realized his mind would get hijacked into fear and he'd visualize himself in a wheelchair, and then he'd have to start back from scratch. Then he discovered that the missing piece of the formula were these elevated emotions, which are love and gratitude. And he just started remembering all these things he took for granted, like taking a hot shower. He couldn't do that anymore. He couldn't stand. He was just lying face down in a bath. People had to bathe him. They told him he'd never walk again. So he's visualizing being able to run on the beach or watch a sunset or make love or all these things he had taken for granted. As he starts to just feel those feelings and picture himself there, that was the healing elixir that lit up his body and reenergized him and his cells.
Kelly Gores 45:23
So I totally believe in the power of gratitude. And now my practice is writing down things I'm grateful for. If I'm just in bed with my daughter reciting things I'm grateful for, then I'll pepper in—almost like tricking the mind so it doesn't know which one is real and which one is not—things that I desire and want as if they've already happened and I'm grateful for them. It's just a fun exercise. And like I said, it's taking the reins of your mind rather than letting your mind control you, which is usually not a very positive outcome.
Dr. Jill 46:00
Right. I love that because, [from] what we've learned, the subconscious doesn't know the difference between reality and fantasy. So for me—I mean all of us, right?—it's so powerful because we can imagine something. And if we truly believe and have elevated emotions, our subconscious does not know the difference. It's kind of stupid in that way. It's beautiful. I shouldn't even use that language. It's beautiful because it takes whatever we put there and says: Okay, that's real; let's make that happen.
Kelly Gores 46:27
Totally.
Dr. Jill 46:28
Oh, Kelly, this has been so fun. I knew it'd be great to interview, but I really, truly have enjoyed getting to know you. I already love you as a human and all the light you put into the world.
What are your next projects? How can people find you? Where can they find HEAL? Give us a little bit about you and what you're up to.
Kelly Gores 46:44
Yeah. I still do the weekly podcast called HEAL with Kelly. Anywhere podcasts are found: YouTube, Spotify, Apple, all those things. You could sign up for the newsletter on healwithkelly.co. And I am now embarking on starting to do the second film, which is exciting. The idea came in March. I was in New Zealand for my birthday. It's all going to be about emotions and our nervous system and how to release trauma and how to process, digest, and express emotions in a healthy way in real time so we don't store more trauma because we're never given that manual. So go on that deep exploration of emotional health and how it ties into our nervous system and everything.
Kelly Gores 47:29
And then, two months after I got the download for that next film, I've been on the most intense emotional journey of my life. I've cried more in the last six months than I have in the 44 years leading up to this moment. So I was like, “Okay, God.” So the download came for the next film, and then he's giving me the fodder that's all relatable because I've just been through hell, which is so funny.
Kelly Gores 47:56
And then simultaneously, I'm building a company, which is going to be this beautiful online holistic healing platform where we want to hold people on their journey and give them access to these tools and these teachings and education that we have. So we're building that. We're hoping to launch that in May. But it's really, really cool. We're really excited about it. It's going to be called ‘Held' because we want to hold you on your journey because you can't heal unless you feel safe and guided. So we're building that. If that resonates with anybody, I would encourage you to sign up for the newsletter so you don't miss out on any ways to get involved and have early access.
Dr. Jill 48:39
Awesome. And if you're driving or whatever, this will be in all the show notes—whatever, podcasts—wherever you listen or watch: YouTube, Spotify, whatever. But Kelly, give us the website one more time just in case someone wants to jot that down.
Kelly Gores 48:49
Sure. Healwithkelly.co.
Dr. Jill 48:53
Perfect. Awesome.
Kelly, what a joy and a privilege to talk to you today! Thanks again for your time.
Kelly Gores 48:58
Thank you for having me. You were awesome to hang with.
Dr. Jill 49:02
Hey, everybody. Thanks for joining me for another episode of Resiliency Radio. That was so awesome with Kelly. I hope you enjoyed her story and all that she's been through. It's just shocking that she can show up with light and bright[ness] and wisdom and gratitude with all that she's just been through. So send your love and prayers her way as well.
Dr. Jill 49:19
If you guys want to look at transcripts or download any more information on the podcast, you can find all the detailed information at JillCarnahan.com on the podcast tab. Also, I have some exciting news to share. If you haven't heard, my movie, Doctor/Patient, is now available on Amazon Prime. So if you have an account, you can watch it there. You can also watch it on YouTube and Tubi for free with ads. So I hope you'll check that out if you haven't yet. If you want all the information, just go to DoctorPatientMovie.com. Check it out. Download it. Listen to it. Watch it. Share it with friends if it impacts your life.
Dr. Jill 49:54
And then the other thing is if you are interested in a transformative experience this spring—and I'll probably be doing these multiple times per year—I am doing a retreat at SHA Mexico near Playa Mujeres this spring. We have two groups for four days, one on April 27th and one on May 1st. If you're interested in more information and want to look at the resort, check out the cost and look at the rooms, it's a spectacular resort. I've been looking for years to find the best luxury wellness retreat, and I found it. I'm so excited to invite you to join me. There are very limited spots. Both of these are very small, intimate groups. But if you want to be part of that, just go to JillCarnahan.com\wellness-retreats and check out the information there. If you're not sure, you just want to maybe be notified or just get information on cost, and you don't really want to commit, put in your email there, and we'll be in contact with you with the details.
Okay, take care, guys. I will see you next week on another episode of Resiliency Radio.
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