The Brain It On! Podcast
Your brain is the powerhouse behind your life, your relationships, and your ability to overcome challenges. On The Brain It On! Podcast, we explore practical ways to nurture your brain for optimal health and happiness. We delve into strategies to strengthen your connections with loved ones, build resilience, and navigate life's ups and downs with a focus on brain health. This podcast offers actionable tips, emotional regulation techniques, and a trauma-informed approach to help you thrive in all areas of life. Discover how understanding and caring for your brain can transform your relationships and empower you to face any challenge with confidence.
The Brain It On! Podcast
Bringing on Life’s Challenges With the Power of Gratitude
Join us, Lindsey and Thomas Kealey, as we share our personal journey through tough life challenges on the inaugural episode of The Brain it On! Podcast. We open up about our experience following Thomas's rare leukemia diagnosis and his mother's terminal pancreatic cancer. Despite these adversities, we have found solace in resilience and the strength of human connection, thanks to our loving support team and the incredible individuals we've met at Oregon Health Science University. Our mission is to equip you with brain health strategies to navigate your own life challenges, whether they are medical, emotional, or relational.
Reflecting on moments of joy and gratitude, we recount the emotional impact of coming to terms with Thomas' cancer diagnosis, which reinforced our appreciation for the present. Even during calm periods, cultivating emotional resilience has prepared us to face future challenges. As we embark on this journey of nurturing and loving our brains, we invite you to celebrate the resilience and strength of the human spirit with us. Let's explore how understanding and caring for your brain cannot only offer hope but also transform your life. Thank you for joining us on this path, and we look forward to continuing this conversation, focusing on brain health and well-being.
You can learn more gratitude research by reading this Harvard Health Article and listening to our past podcast episode about gratitude practices. Learn more about foreboding joy in Brené Brown's Atlas of The Heart and watch Susan Cain's TED Talk about the hidden power of sad songs and rainy days.
Check out our other podcast, The PAWsitive Choices Podcast.
Listen to The PAWsitive Choices' podcast episode that we reference, Embracing Joy and Uncertainty: How to Lean Into Gratitude When Experiencing Joy Feels Vulnerable.
Your brain is the powerhouse behind your life. On this podcast, we explore strategies to strengthen your connections, build resilience and navigate life's ups and downs, with a focus on brain health.
Thomas:Discover how understanding and caring for your brain can transform your relationships and empower you to face any challenge with confidence.
Lindsey :Get ready to brain it on. Empower you to face any challenge with confidence. Get ready to Brain it On. Hi, I'm Lindsay Kealey, a university instructor of human development and education.
Thomas:And I'm Thomas Keeley, a registered nurse.
Lindsey :And welcome to Brain it On our brand new podcast that explores ways that we can face life challenges, all with having a focus on loving and caring for your brain. And this podcast this is our first episode and it was born out of a personal journey that has dramatically changed both of our lives. Thomas and I are married and we actually have another podcast called the Positive Cho podcast, and thomas comes on the show, you know, periodically as a co-host, and now this one really is the two of us. We're going to be on all the episodes together and we're taking it in a new direction.
Lindsey :Um, new bold direction, a new, bold direction, one that is gets really personal. We're going to be talking about what we're learning in this season of life, as it pertains to thomas's cancer journey and the fact that his mother was diagnosed with cancer as well yeah, so, uh, in april of this year, my mom was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer and that just was devastating to all of us.
Thomas:So we were, you know, going through you know the grieving process with that and learning how to cope and trying to hold on to everything we've learned over the last couple of years of you know strategies we've learned from the Positive Choices podcast and everything Choices podcast and everything.
Thomas:And, lo and behold, I was diagnosed with cancer just a few months later, in July, with a rare form of aggressive leukemia called MPAL, which is multiple phenotype acute leukemia. And so all the more so we're like, wow, this is about as gnarly as it can get. This is about as gnarly as it can get right, of course, as soon as you say that in life things get even gnarlier, but knock on wood somewhere. But we realized, wow, like this is really testing all that we've known and learned as far as coping strategies and interpersonal neurobiology and brain health. And so we thought, you know, why not take this time as an opportunity to learn and really document our journey going through this time? Because we're really still in the thick of it right now. We're sitting in a hospital room, actually right now as we're recording this at OHSU.
Lindsey :Yeah, we're at Oregon Health Science University. Amazing medical team is taking care of us and they even have a little sign on our hospital door that says please ask the nurse before entering. Oh, it's so supportive. Yeah, they're all very excited that we're doing this podcast, as we've navigated this journey and we're still on it, as Thomas mentioned we've learned some really valuable lessons already that relate to resilience, gratitude, just the power of human connection. We've met so many incredible doctors and nurses CNAs that we just love the radiology techs here on the fourth floor. They're amazing. Other cancer patients who we pass in the hallways who are just like getting their steps in around the floor, which is really cool, and some really cool volunteers who have inspired us, and we've really witnessed the unwavering love and support of our friends and family and coworkers as well. So we're just witnessing the best parts of humanity in this journey.
Thomas:That's true. We really have witnessed the best parts of humanity while experiencing the pain and sorrow For me more so having to do with my mom and her diagnosis, which I'm so happy to be able to just say right now she's doing really, really well. She's on a targeted medication which has shrunk her tumor size by like 33%. She has more energy than I do right now and she's rocking it and doing great. So, love you, mom, keep rocking and rolling and we'll. We'll definitely see if we can pull another Disney trip out and go go do something fun once I'm out of here.
Lindsey :Once we've recovered for a little bit and get the okay of course, but yeah, I think, one of the things that we've experienced. So we have the both and we have the pain that we've witnessed and that you've experienced. I mean, you just got done with three days of intense radiation, twice a day. You are on the strongest chemo meds that can cause a lot of pain. So we have that and we also have joy that we find every day. So we've learned the importance of holding both of these things compassionately.
Lindsey :And this podcast is a way for us to share our experience and hopefully offer hope and encouragement to others who might be facing similar challenges, whether you or someone you love is on a cancer journey, or maybe you have other challenges in life that relate to medical or emotional and personal relationship challenges. Hopefully, the strategies that we offer will be comprehensive and lend themselves to wherever you're at in life.
Thomas:Ye ah, it's probably not, you know, too much different than going through a depression or, you know, dealing with anxiety. Just, I think these things that we all go through are um so shared between us as humanity. You know one, one person's journey can surely translate to another's as far as just, uh, what you're up against, especially when it comes to brain health and the mental game of it all and um. So I think, yeah, it's huge.
Lindsey :Certainly, and before we dive more into our medical journey, we want to share a little bit about kind of where this began in terms of this podcast. So our other podcast, the Positive Choices podcast. We started in 2020. And then in 2022, we moved. So I think we took a pause. We had to pack up our belongings, shift to a new place. We moved to an apartment on the third floor and we said, okay, we'll, we'll pick it up after we're done unpacking.
Thomas:And then life got busy again we'll figure out a place to put a podcast studio somewhere in this one bedroom apartment we had the kitchen set up Like part of the kitchen.
Lindsey :It was part kitchen, part dining room, so we had like everything scooted over to the side so that way if we had to record, we could move things over. We were trying to get very creative, yeah, but we did not record any more episodes there, alas, and so it's crazy. I looked at our show and it was actually two years ago as of yesterday at the time of this recording. It was two years ago that we did our final episode of the Positive Choices podcast. If you are a listener of the Positive Choices podcast, we're so sorry.
Thomas:We're so sorry.
Lindsey :And we thank you for your patience, thanks for sticking around. But yeah, two years later, we are at Oregon Health Science University and we're starting a new show, because there truly is not. There's never the perfect time.
Thomas:No, I think I came to the realization there is no good time to start another season of a podcast, like you, just we're just jumping in and doing it. We're jumping in. We're just jumping in and doing it.
Lindsey :We're jumping in. We actually talked about this morning. I said well, should we just start recording this once you've been discharged? Thomas is here at the hospital for 30 days for a bone marrow transplant. I'm actually looking out the window of our hospital room and I can see the place we'll be staying at. It's like a Ronald McDonald house and I said well, should we just wait till we're down there where we can record once you're outpatient?
Thomas:Surely it'll be more opportune, right.
Lindsey :We'll be doing so much better then.
Thomas:It'll be way easier at that point.
Lindsey :We decided let's do this today. And today is a very special day it's the night before Christmas.
Thomas:The night before transplant.
Lindsey :The night before Christmas, the night before transplant, and all through the hospital, all through the halls.
Thomas:Look for the kid's book on this coming up next.
Lindsey :Yes, that'll be my next book.
Thomas:Pop up Twas the night before transplant.
Lindsey :Definitely scratch and sniff, but yeah, it's. Tomorrow is Thomas's big bone marrow transplant day. He is feeling well enough. He's been doing radiation and chemo for the last week and you, your nausea finally went away and you're like, hey, let's do it. So you are my. Thomas is my all-time hero. I'm just. Every day I wake up and I look over at him because I'm sleeping in the hospital and I just see my hero laying in bed going.
Thomas:No, it's been. You've been the best team player with all this, and I mean you're living in my room with me at the hospital. I mean I have the best cheerleader ever, so I really appreciate you and that just the little things that you brought. You can't see in here right now, or if you are watching the YouTube video of this, you can see a little bit of it. She's made this hospital room totally homey feeling, where we're sitting at a table with a tablecloth. It's very civilized.
Thomas:We have pillows and throw pillows and probably about 10 times more pillows than you would like all the unnecessary pillows, but they bring a touch of home, you know, and so I feel like so much of what you've brought to help support me has been huge too and given me strength We'll probably get into that at some point too just all the little things that can be done, you know, like right now I'm wearing my own clothes, I'm not wearing a hospital gown because I don't want to wear a hospital gown and just even that can boost your morale a little bit, you know, and all these things kind of contribute to overall mental health, I think. But we'll dive into more of those specificities, I'm sure, at some point. But anyways, I want to give credit where credit's due Linz, to you for doing all the awesome things to make it feel like a little home in here.
Lindsey :Oh, thank you. I'm especially proud of our IKEA table that we got.
Thomas:But of course.
Lindsey :I'm very proud of it.
Thomas:IKEA every time.
Lindsey :Yes, and Thomas just got this port placed in his chest before we were admitted to the hospital and one of the I think discharged nurses was telling him now don't lift anything heavy. And so I told you, I said, okay, the nurse said don't lift anything heavy. I recognize we have a big table and chairs in the back of our car. Please let me be the one to bring that up into the hospital.
Thomas:Did I listen?
Lindsey :No, but in your defense, we were trying to get out of, we were staying at the Ronald McDonald house and we were in a time crunch. Your badges expire and then you're trapped in the garage once the clock strikes noon.
Thomas:There were a lot of other factors.
Lindsey :you're right, there were many factors, but we're both very happy that your port is intact and our table made it up to our room, yep, so it's the little things, the little wins.
Lindsey :Little wins. So I think every time we're able to, we're going to hop on here, record an episode, count that as a little win and hopefully provide some comfort to folks who might be going through a bone marrow transplant or might be going through some kind of cancer journey. And you know, even on the days when Thomas isn't feeling great and he's just had chemo, if he feels well enough to it, he's going to bring his whole self. He's going to be transparent and you know he doesn't have to be. I don't know you don't have to be Be zippity on and I don't know.
Thomas:you don't have to be Be zippity-on and you know, on my A-game there we go. The irony is not lost on me that this is a podcast about brain health but at the same time, my body's being microwaved and I'm getting chemotherapy put in my veins, and all of which, they've told me, yeah, this will probably affect you cognitively. So I'm definitely not jumping into this feeling like, yep, I'm going to be totally my sharpest or whatever, but I feel like that's kind of the point.
Lindsey :That's the point, because when you think about challenges when you're facing a really hard life circumstance. It would be wonderful if we could learn these strategies and apply them in the best of times, when we have no cares in the world and we're completely healthy. Running marathons, oh sure, that's a great time to learn about some helpful tips. But when you're in the thick of it, when you're in the throes and going through something really hard in your life, this is about showing up and loving your brain to the best of your ability, no matter what your circumstances are.
Thomas:Yeah.
Lindsey :So our last podcast? Um, we realized that the last episode was October 2022, october 19th, and um, yeah, it was all about foreboding joy, and foreboding joy is a concept that Brene Brown highlights in her book Atlas of the Heart, and when I read about foreboding joy, I saw it in the book. She describes it as an emotion in which you are experiencing joy, but then you have this realization that whatever is bringing you joy could be taken from you.
Lindsey :You could lose it all, you could lose it all, and that can strike fear into your heart. She gives the example of a parent tucking their child into bed and then realizing oh my gosh, what if something happened to my child? How horrible that would be and how that can steal your joy in the moment. And so I had read about that. And then Thomas and I sat down one day to watch one of my favorite movies that I literally go through an entire box of Kleenex each time I watch it, which is PS.
Thomas:Name brand, name brand, the good stuff.
Lindsey :Yep, the good stuff. It was PS I Love you. So we had just watched PS I Love you and that talk about foreboding joy. I mean, that just completely gave me that experience. Here I am sitting on the couch with my awesome husband who was willingly watching a chick flick with me.
Thomas:It took me a couple of years to come around to watching PS. I Love you with you. I probably just had you watch Lord of the Rings or something. There was some kind of trade-off that happened.
Lindsey :Something happened that led him to the couch with me watching PSI. Love you.
Thomas:I did it willingly.
Lindsey :Yes, and afterward, after watching that, I was just sitting there like I think you made me scrambled eggs or something that was like your signature scrambled eggs, hash browns that was your meal that you would make me. At the time I was like in an egg phase, because I hadn't had eggs in like a decade, because of the food allergy.
Lindsey :Went way too hard on the eggs, but you had made me dinner and I just looked across the table and started crying and I just had that foreboding joy. Here is my healthy, wonderful husband, who I love dearly. And what if something were to happen to me? Like Holly in the movie, holly loses her husband, who's played by Gerard Butler, to an illness, and so the movie is basically chronicling her grief as she learns how to live her life without the love of her, life with her. And so I looked across the table at Thomas, over our eggs, and I started crying and I said I couldn't do it.
Lindsey :And you're like what You're like you don't want you've had finally had enough eggs. Like you can't like, no, no, I, I, no, I'll eat this, but I don't. I couldn't do it, I couldn't be like Holly, I couldn't be, you know, without you or seeing you get sick, or that would just be. And you're like hey, babe, you don't have to worry about that, I'm right here, I'm healthy. Let's lean into that gratitude, because gratitude is really the antidote to foreboding joy.
Thomas:Right, and I think I remember up until the day where all these cancer diagnoses started happening. If we ever were feeling bummed or foreboding joy or whatever, about, about anything, we'd be at a place where we'd say to each other at least we have our health at least we don't have cancer of us have cancer literally like neither of us are dying.
Thomas:our life is pretty darn good. You know like it might be tough in this regard that, that regard whatever we have, our health that we can be thankful for, and so when everything started flipping on its head like that, like wow, we had to start changing up our vernacular a bit and start changing up our focus again into what we can be thankful for in this season as well.
Lindsey :Exactly. So two years later, here we are. I'm turning on the microphone again doing another episode, and I am in the position that Holly was when having a husband who is diagnosed with an illness. That's really hard and we're navigating it together and I think whenever there's moments where I feel afraid or I feel anxious, I mean our faith is a really important thing. That grounds both of us. And another piece, I mean now we're walking the walk right, like now we're saying, yes, gratitude works. Gratitude is an antidote to foreboding joy, because I just look over at Thomas and I say I love you so much and we just kind of share a gratitude. Isn't this view amazing? Isn't this an awesome episode of the Office? Or, you know, we kind of ground ourselves and just really take in the moment, because we don't know what tomorrow will bring, but we do know in this moment we have each other.
Thomas:Yeah, even now, as we're talking, I see you know the little decorations you put in this room. There's a little thing with pumpkins on it says thankful for every moment. Um, I think sometimes that's all you have and that's all you can have. It's just we have right now and just being able to anchor ourselves here and now, in the present, and say, hey, right now we're with each other and we can be thankful for that and that's going to be enough. This has definitely stretched the limits of our being able to use the tools that we've got in our tool belts over the last decade being together.
Lindsey :I think it's really important being able to the fact that we were able to start to build those tools and put those in our toolbox when we were in a good space.
Thomas:Oh yeah, so lucky that we had that opportunity.
Lindsey :Yeah, so I think it is really helpful if you are in a season of your life where it's like I'm healthy, there aren't any major things happening. This is the time to start to put into practice your gratitude practices, your brain health habits, getting good sleep, having a positive mindset around things, because then, when you're in the thick of it, when the storm comes, when you have the cancer diagnosis, you have some of these skills that you can fall back on and that you can put back into practice. So, no matter what season of life you're in, these things are certainly helpful.
Thomas:Yeah, I think that was one of your podcasts back in the day was just, you know, practicing versus game day. Exactly you know it comes to mind and just remembering, if you have the opportunity, little opportunities to use these little tools to exercise these little muscles, you know, before this stuff really hits the fan. And it's going to be that much more advantageous when life really does just crumble around you in one way or another. And I think now you know we're getting to experience game day For sure. We're in game day right now.
Lindsey :And I think, if we were to highlight one strategy from just this, welcome to Brain it On our first episode I think the strategy that we highlight, that's brain-based, is the power of gratitude, kind of taking it back to our last episode that we did. There are a wealth of, you know, scientific research, articles and papers I'll put them in the show notes that highlight the importance of gratitude, how it can have health benefits, it can affect longevity, and so something that we do in those moments where foreboding joy starts to creep in, we just kind of name it so thankful for you, so thankful for this decorative pillow behind me, even though it's not necessary, whatever it is. Another thing we do is I have a journal and I'll write down gratitudes in the morning.
Lindsey :And then at night I take the little sticker off my shirt. Every day at OHSU, even though I live here, I have to go to the front and sign in and get a visitor sticker and it the day on. And it's actually really nice because living in a hospital can be disorienting, but I can always look down on my shirt and be like, well, I know it's Tuesday, because that's what my sticker says.
Thomas:That's how I know what day it is, too. Some days I have no idea.
Lindsey :So if I take my jacket off and that had the sticker on it, Thomas is like I do not know what day it is, but I take my sticker off my shirt and I put it in the back of my journal and I write the date on the top and I write like one or two sentences that capture what was like one good thing that happened and maybe one hard thing that happened, but just kind of capturing one line for that day. So gratitude is amazing and let that be the antidote to you If you're listening to this and you're like, oh my gosh, what if someone in my family got cancer, holy smokes.
Lindsey :now I'm having like a PS I love you, holly moment. That's okay, lean into it, accept it and then just be grateful for what you have in this moment. So gratitude is certainly an important concept that we've touched on today. In following episodes, we're going to talk about one of our really important mantras right now, which is faith over fear, explore the concept of fear. We're going to talk about anxiety and how we can actually befriend anxiety, understand it, see how we can partner with it and see how it's actually there to protect us. And we're going to be talking about other ways to thrive and cope during challenging times in life and how we can do it together.
Thomas:Yeah, and all of that versus you know the difference between these strategies and things like toxic positivity, which is another little key word I've heard thrown around in culture lately. I think, like you mentioned earlier, we need to be able to have this space to compassionately hold the joy and the sorrow and to feel genuinely what we're feeling, when we're feeling it, without judgment, and to be able to just befriend your brain and say, okay, like this is okay, this is what we're feeling, it's all right to feel sad, it's all right to mourn, it's all right to feel pain and not pushing that away, but while also being able to employ some of these strategies to help us move through it in a way that's going to grow us.
Lindsey :Beautiful Mic drop. We'll end it with that.
Thomas:It's hard to drop a mic when it's on a stand like this.
Lindsey :That's correct. We have really fancy, fancy microphone. Stands for this season but not too fancy.
Thomas:We try to keep it reasonable.
Lindsey :Yeah.
Thomas:Yeah.
Lindsey :Well, we'll end it there. Thank you so much for joining us on this first episode of brain it on. We are so glad to have you with us along this journey, as we look at ways to bring on life's challenges while simultaneously loving your brain. We'll talk with you soon.
Thomas:Take care.
