What a Psychologist Told Me That Ended 17 Years of Anxiety

What if the thing you fear most… never actually happens?

This week I go deep and share a very personal story — the moment my husband was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia and my whole world collapsed in an instant. I was pregnant, caring for a toddler, and suddenly facing the unthinkable. My mind went straight into worst-case scenarios. I had a complete change in perspective… and ended 17 years of anxiety.

I walk you through the mindset shift that stopped me from “dress rehearsing tragedy” and brought me back into presence, gratitude, and spiritual trust. This one insight has guided my healing work for years, and I share it today in the hope that it brings comfort and clarity to you, if you’re navigating something hard.

If your mind often jumps to “What if?”, this episode is a gentle reminder that you don’t have to live there.

🌟 In this episode, I share:

• What happened the day we got the diagnosis
• How quickly catastrophic thinking can take over
• Brené Brown’s concept of “dress rehearsing tragedy”
• The Reiki principle that instantly interrupts fear
• How to bring your energy back into the present
• The exact words my psychologist said that changed everything
• The ending to my husband’s cancer journey
• A compelling spiritual perspective for anyone facing uncertainty

A closing message thanking listeners and inviting them to discover their psychic gifts through the free 'What's your Intuitive Power Assessment at https://intuitivereiki.online/

Transcript

Lisa Brandis: 0:00

I'm so grateful that we, we took that monkey off our back. 17 years ago, and to this day, hand on heart, I can absolutely say I didn't live every day worried that cancer was gonna come back Welcome to Connecting to Spirit. I am your host, Lisa Brandis, and I'm here to help you unlock your intuition channel with clarity and deep dive into self-discovery, all while navigating the ups and downs of personal and spiritual growth. If you're ready to say goodbye to self-doubt, embrace your unique gifts and connect with a supportive community on the same journey, then you're in the right place. Whether you're just starting out or you've been walking this path for years, this podcast is here to guide you, support you, and inspire you every step of the way. So grab a cozy spot, settle in, and let's dive into some empowering insights together. In this episode, I just wanted to revisit a experience that I had many, many years ago, and I was just telling this story to, a brand new. Reiki client that I was seeing, this client of mine's actually going through cancer treatment at the moment, and, uh, I was telling her about when my husband was diagnosed with leukemia. I began to feel completely stressed out at the time. I remember thinking, oh my gosh, what if my husband dies and what if he, you know, I don't think I can do this without him at the time. I, we are going back 17 years now, so at the time I was pregnant with our second child, had a young toddler and. Our world was tipped upside down when my husband was diagnosed with acute myeloid myeloid leukemia um, short word AML. And I had also, many of you know this story, but I'd also worked at Starlight Children's Foundation for many years, and that meant that I had a history of, you know, holding. You know, many kids' hands when they walked through their cancer journey. And so the reality of it being terminal as a possibility was very real. So kind of went straight into what Brene Brown calls dress rehearsing tragedy. So. If anyone's ever had a child and loves their child and kissing them goodnight, you know, she talks about how we can suddenly go, oh my God, what if they were kidnapped? Or what if they died? Or we suddenly go, worst case scenario and imagine, because we feel so much joy and so much love in that moment. Something might happen to take it away from us, and it's kind of a devastating thought to have and something we all do. I know Brene Brown shared a story about. Being invited to speak with Oprah. And so she's on the plane ready to go and be interviewed by Oprah about her book. And um, she rang her husband saying, oh my God, because I'm finally here gonna be interviewed by Oprah. Something's gonna happen and the plane's gonna crash. And then he's like, remember, you're dress rehearsing. Tragedy, nothing's gonna happen. You'll be fine. And what she did at the time was she started going back to a mantra of. Um, focusing on gratitude, what she's grateful for, brought herself back into the present moment, which is actually what we teach in the Reiki system of healing. It's about just for today, do not worry, do not anger. And then the antidote for worry and anger is coming back into the present and, um, focusing on what you're grateful for. So gratitude as an active process can help switch off anxiety and worry. So back to my story. I ended up seeing a psychologist because I was starting to fall apart when my husband was first diagnosed. And when I was sitting in Zoe's office, she said to me, where is your husband now? And I'm like,'cause I was, you know, in a flood of tears at the time and, and it kind of shocked me. It was a bit of a pattern interrupt. And I said, oh, he's in the hospital, which he knew and. She goes, can you pick up the phone and call him? I'm like, yeah, of course I can. And she goes, okay. So she said, can we agree that there's no amount of preparation that would make him passing any easier if he passed away or if he, if he was to die? Is there anything that. We that you could do that would make that feel any lighter or any easier. And when I thought about it logically, I kind of went, well, no, probably not. And she said, is it okay that we move to deal with that? If it becomes a problem, we work through that then. And I'm like, okay.'cause she said right now he's very much alive and would probably benefit from, you know, speaking to you and chatting and you know, being present with him each day rather than me going to him worried about him not. Gonna make, you know, whether he was gonna make it or not. So it, it actually made rational sense at the time, logical sense. And so I remember in that day making a decision with my psychologist, just, well, I'm just not gonna worry about that. Now I'm gonna take that worry of what if he dies totally out of my mind's. Um, you know, kind of just gonna take it out of my mind completely. And started focusing on the fact that he's here. So my story has a very happy ending. So my husband. Recovered fully from a ML. He did a round of chemotherapy, three rounds, actually called the Big Ice back 17 years ago. So he is, he's literally just received a letter, which I'll show you from his gp. Not many of these get handed out. We did, um, we did, I know you can't read it'cause it's kind of backwards'cause it's on a camera, but there it is. You can see the evidence of an actual letter from his specialist. Consultant hematologist telling him that he's cured of cancer, so he's a ML survivor. What we found out later was that there was a very small percentage of people that survive, and his doctor kind of, he asked him a question and the doctor was like, I don't know how to answer that mate. And he is like, why not? And he said, because there's not many people that are in your position. So. We are so blessed. But the point I'm wanting to make here is that I could have, or we could have spent the last 17 years in that fight flight anxiety of what if he dies, dress, rehearsing tragedy, focusing on worst case scenarios, trying to preplan what would happen and what life would be like with Gerald without Gerald. And I'm so blessed that I never had to. Journey down that path with him. We've had other issues that we've had to deal with, and that's just life. Right? But I'm so grateful that we, we took that monkey off our back. 17 years ago, and to this day, hand on heart, I can absolutely say I didn't live every day worried that cancer was gonna come back or that he'd end up not being in remission. Initially, and as I said to my client today, I was, we were very realistic about it. If he got a really bad flu or a bad cold virus, we. We, you know, we knew that he had a history of leukemia, so we'd send him down the doctor, they'd order a blood test and give us the akay. So then again, we worried temporarily when his body gave us signals that something's wrong and we just double checked that it wasn't cancer. But we didn't live every day thinking that it could be his last or that. What if it comes back? Now I've, I tell you this story because it helped me so much and it's helped many of my students that I share. I'm pretty sure I wrote about it in my book, but for my beautiful new podcast listeners that might not have heard me or might not have come into my world, um, yet it is just one of those life changing stories that has saved me years and years and bucket loads of anxiety and given me a easy, logical shift in perspective that. If you are going through a similar situation, my desire is that it helped me and it could help you too. So I hope you enjoyed this episode. I haven't been on the podcast for the last few weeks because I did promise that I'd just start showing up as myself not scripted on video. And to be totally honest, it made me a little nervous. So if you've liked this episode, you wanna see more, send me some kind of message and let me know. Share it with a friend, which is even better because I'll see that it's resonating because you guys are starting to share it with a friend who might find this tip helpful. And yeah, give it, give it a rating and I can't wait to see you in the next episode. I release them every Friday. That's my plan. And occasionally I will. Do it early. So I am gonna release this one today. So I hope you, wherever you are, I hope you are trusting your intuition. I hope you're connected to the divine magic and mystery that exists in this world. And if you are not and you wanna learn how to reach out, and I will get you started. I've got a free quiz that actually gives you for a short time only. A free copy of my book, not the hard copy this you have to buy, but if you want a free PDF version of this book that is small but mighty in the information it shares with you all about. Reiki psychic mediumship healing. If you wanna know more about that, that's my jam. Check it out. I'll drop the link in the show notes for the quiz. And I've also got a free reiki masterclass, so if you wanna learn more about psychic or intuitive reiki and the difference between learning my style of reiki, jump in there and, take a look. I will see you on the flip side. Thanks guys.