Liz Moody

And I don't think that you're saying this is your fault in any way.

And we'll get into that in a second.

But I just want to make this connection super clear for anybody listening.

Because again, it took me like a little bit of time to get my head around.

So you correct me if I'm wrong, Karen.

But I'm so curious about the microbiome because we know about the gut-brain connection.

And we already know that our microbiome in all parts of our bodies, all of our various microbiomes are impacting how we feel on a day-to-day basis.

So I'm like, is that being impacted?

Is that part of it?

We're not even... We don't know yet.

But...

From what we know, we have some pretty clear mechanisms at play.

You are given your DNA, you have your genes, but the environment that you're in throughout your life is turning on and off these genes.

So you might have had some sort of genetic predisposal to something like Hashimoto's, to something like melanoma or breast cancer, any of the other things that you've dealt with, but something in your environment turned those genes on epigenetically.

And one of the things that can impact our environment is this state of

this dysregulation within ourselves from what we want to say, who we want to be, who we feel like we really are, and what the world is telling us we can be.

That's creating this internal state of stress that is impacting our DNA, essentially turning on or turning off.

And what we feel the world needs us to be, who we are being told to show up as versus who we feel that we really are.

If we have friction between those two people, that friction is living internally as a state of stress that is epigenetically affecting us.

It is impacting our HPA access, which is having these downstream effects that is causing a chronic state of inflammation in our body, which might be a contributor to things like cancer or our bodies attacking themselves.