Your Health is in Your Hands with Kelly Noonan Gores

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Modern allopathic medicine is brilliant at treating acute trauma, but it’s a big problem when we try to treat chronic health issues with the same approach. Today on the show Jeff speaks to Kelly Noonan Gores, writer, producer and director of the documentary Heal. She explains how our medical system throws drugs at symptoms instead of understanding and treating the root cause of the disease. This is no small matter, as over half the American population is now afflicted by chronic issues such as diabetes, arthritis, asthma, and cardiovascular disease. Yet Kelly’s message is one of empowerment: We are not destined by our DNA. We have agency over our own well-being.

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Modern western allopathic medicine is brilliant at treating acute trauma. Clearly, there are times when surgery and drugs are absolutely necessary and modern medicine has saved lives.

However, as today’s guest on the show adeptly points out, our medical system is often treating chronic disease as if it were acute trauma. Too often, we are throwing drugs at a symptom instead of understanding and treating the root cause of disease. This is no small matter as over half the American population is now afflicted by chronic disease such as diabetes, arthritis, asthma and cardiovascular disease.

Today, on the show, I speak to Kelly Noonan Gores, writer, producer and director of the documentary Heal and author / curator of the new book of the same title. 

In Heal, Kelly gathers the top minds in functional & naturopathic medicine, alternative healing, and spiritual leaders to explore the mind-body connection, the interrelationship between our psychology and our biology, in essence, how our thoughts and beliefs can impact our physical health.

What you learn from Kelly is essentially empowerment. That we are not destined by our DNA, that we have agency over our well-being. To find about more about Kelly, go to healdocumentary.com. 

My name is Jeff Krasno & welcome to Commune.

 

Kelly N.G.: Oh, great. My name is Kelly Noonan Gores, and I am the writer, director, and producer of the Heal documentary. And, most recently, the author or putter-together of the Heal book.

Jeff: So, you've written this book, and for me, when I read the book, what I'm taking away from it, and I think what people really want to understand is this mind body connection associated with healing and well-being.

Can you talk about that a little bit?

Kelly N.G.: Sure. Yeah. I think the book and the film were driven by curiosity. I just really have a fascination with how much we can kind of co-create with life.

And so, once I started kind of learning about how our thoughts become things or you know, Wayne Dyer and looking at the book on your shelf up there, Change Your Thoughts - Change Your Life, and applying it to my life, I really saw that I could co-create with life more often than not.

So, as I started to research more and more, I've came across books like The Biology Of Belief by Bruce Lipton, learned about epigenetics and how, unlike we've been taught, we're not victims of our genes, and actually our lifestyle choices, our environment, and our perception of life is what determines what genes turn off and on or what genes express.

So, we could have the quote unquote cancer gene or history in our family. But, if we're making healthy choices and if we have a healthy perception of life based on our subconscious beliefs, those genes will never express, so we can remain healthy.

That really resonated with me and I was like, "Oh my gosh, everyone needs to know this." And so, I started thinking about doing this film. Basically, I ended up just putting all my teachers, some of them scientists. I'm very fascinated with quantum physics because it's the same, the field of energy, everything is energy, and that's why our thoughts become things, and our vibration sends out a signal and we kind of resonate and attract things to us based on that signal.

Jeff: Yes. This notion of an entanglement.

Kelly N.G.: Yes.

Jeff: That one is the hardest one for me. Like, I can get my head around a lot of essentially how our physiology interrelates with our psychology and vice-versa. It's not just a one-way street of mind over body, but it's a two-way street.

But the entanglement thing, that's like, you're going to have to get me there on that one.

Kelly N.G.: Okay.

Jeff: Oh, we'll get to that one.

Kelly N.G.: Okay.

Jeff: Because I think it is, I want to underscore something that you're saying, which I think is very, very important and central to the notion of what you're talking about, which is empowerment. That your health and well-being is not something that's happening to you, that you are the CEO of your own health care on some level.

And I read a lot of this guy, Dr. Steven Gundry, who talks about longevity a lot, and he's somewhat controversial in some ways, but he was saying exactly what you're saying, which is about 6% of our destiny is governed by essentially our inherited genome, our DNA. But we have this incredible ability to essentially alter and control the fate of our bodies and mind and our own health.

Like you say, through somewhat through choice and sometimes not through choice. I mean, we can make a lot of choices about our environment and our lifestyle. And then, a lot of that is also thrust upon us. Toxicity in our environment. Obviously, our food system, which you talk about, and the food options that are available to most people. But this is part of what you're bringing is education around that.

One of the things that I really like what you do in the book is that you frame illness may be chronic disease. You attribute it to what might, in the broadest definition of stress, and how can you sort of draw a line between stress, both physical stress and psychological stress, and our well-being.

Kelly N.G.: Yeah. You know, Dr. Joe Dispenza, he says there's three types of stress. And again, I'm putting together, I'm kind of the curator of all these experts' wisdom.

Jeff: Sure.

Kelly N.G.: So I'm not the expert, but I-

Jeff: Neither am I. I'm a sponge, I told you.

Kelly N.G.: Yes, we're sponges. So I'll try to recap as as well as possible.

But so, the three types of trusts, stresses are chemical, emotional and physical. And all of the experts in the book say that stress is what brings us to the doctor 95% of the time.

And I really find that today we have, like you said, in our food system and our environment, a lot of these visible and invisible toxins. So, the more awareness we have, the more we can make better choices.

But then, there's that factor that we we're not in control of, right? We know that they're spraying pesticides down the road. We're inhaling them, even if we choose to eat that organic apple.

So the point is just to be ... the more awareness that you have about how everything's connected and how stress, chemical or emotional or otherwise, has an effect on your physiology, then you can do preventative measures like meditation and yoga and different things that can reduce your stress, have spiritual practices so your perception of life is a little bit more trusting and in the flow, rather than resisting and feeling like a victim, that everything's happening to you.

Jeff: What I think is beautiful in the movie is that you're exploring a lot of these different modalities that essentially address this notion of stress in the broadest way. There is a segment of around sound healing, which I'm a musician so I'm very interested in that. And actually, recently talked to Mickey Hart who's the drummer for the Grateful Dead, and I was a Deadhead, which is, I'm dating myself a little bit,

But he's working with gamma waves, like really low gamma waves that have cell regenerative properties. And now, they're actually experimenting in clinical trials at UVA with ultrasound and essentially sound healing to address mental disorder and other sorts of cognitive disease, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. And this is like the big thing now that everybody's talking about, is there hasn't really been any kind of treatment for a lot of these mental disorders, like breakthroughs, in a generation or two.

And now, you know, Michael Pollan comes out with a book on plant medicine, and now it just seems like this world is kind of breaking wide open, and you're kind of on the front lines of that, being able to kind of harness all of these minds, but bring them into a mass media culture, which is brilliant, which is really what is needed to scale the message.

And is that what you see yourself as? As you do identify as a scaler, or like-

Kelly N.G.: I am Kelly. I am a scaler.

Jeff: I mean in the best way.

Kelly N.G.: Yeah.

Jeff: Yeah.

Kelly N.G.: No, I think that-

Jeff: Torch bearer.

Kelly N.G.: Thank you. The intention was to kind of bring awareness to a more mainstream audience or level, and it just ... but I don't know that I ever envisioned, obviously I'd hoped, I think, but I basically just like these people empowered me so much, and people would come to me for advice, and like, "How are you so happy, and why are you so healthy? And how do you have the energy to run marathons and manifest this whatever?"

And so, I was just like, well, I could either write down a list of all my teachers and all these books I've read over 20 years, or I can just put them in a film and then ... I don't know at what point I pivoted and really wanted to be about health. I don't know if I just kept seeing people around me getting sicker and sicker, or I witnessed my best friend, who lost her mother at five years old to breast cancer. And she had been, we've been friends since we were 10 years old, and best friends, and she was living in fear that she was going to get breast cancer. Her whole life, she's been living in fear, and I'm just like smacking her upside the head. Like stop, stop focusing on the worst case scenario.

Jeff: Yeah.

Kelly N.G.: So I just saw, just like I care and I wanted to empower people that were sick.

Jeff: Yeah. And I think this notion of fear is a very prevalent one in our modern society. Right? We have a number of folks that talk about this, that essentially we are living in the sort of fight or flight place almost on a consistent basis. Essentially, there's a biochemical reaction or sort of cortisol reaction or emission associated with that that keeps us kind of in this state of constant inflammation, which then leads to all these kinds of chronic diseases. And this is kind of the state of the modern human condition.

And so, I think what you do wonderful job at is beginning to kind of, A, first identify the problem, and then identify a number of solutions to the problem. Of whether allopathic medicine is wonderful when you've cut your leg off or something. Not that you would ever do that on purpose.

Kelly N.G.: [inaudible 00:12:16].

Jeff: But, no, for traumatic, acute injury.

But, as you say, this is one of my favorite lines in the book is, essentially we're treating chronic disease as if it were an acute trauma. And that's crazy.

Kelly N.G.: It's crazy, in that it's great for pharmaceutical companies, great for surgeons, but it's kind of developed or manifested this Western medical model that is, A, not sustainable and, B, forcing doctors that probably got into the field with very good intentions to ... it's now limiting them and the amount of time they have so that really their only option is to provide their patients with immediate relief, even though it's this chronic thing, is to mask or just treat the symptom and not get to the root cause with a pill or a surgery.

Jeff: So give me some, when you wrote this book and made the movie, what was your great hope and dream associated with it?

Kelly N.G.: Just to help people and wake people up to... I'm an empath, obviously. I think anyone in this field of wellness probably is. But I care a lot about people and I want to help them. I want to empower people and I want to kind of, so it was just to kind of offer up a platter of like, "Look, here's what's out there, here's how everything works. Tune in to what resonates with you and then dig deep around that." It's kind of a 101 version. I mean that's how I always looked at it. It's just like the foundation-

Jeff: The gateway drug sort of-

Kelly N.G.: It's a gateway drug to be in woke. So yeah, I think that's, and then I also have maybe an intolerance for victim hood.

Jeff: That's interesting.

Kelly N.G.: Yeah. I just like-

Jeff: Tell me about that.

Jeff: That's interesting because that speaks to what we were talking about earlier, about empowerment and people feeling like they're in charge, instead of prey to the whims of the world. Where does that come from?

Kelly N.G.: I don't know.

Jeff: Come on, there must be somewhere in your soul, some sort of thing that's happened to you.

Kelly N.G.: I know where it is that-

Jeff: I mean, have you always been like, "I'm in control, I can make this happen, I can manifest, I can assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled." Has that always been you?

Kelly N.G.: I don't know that it has, I mean I think so, yes and no. I didn't really learn about all of that stuff until I was in my late 20s. But I would say, my whole life, I was raised Catholic and when it came time to being confirmed, I was like, "Do I have to get confirmed mom and dad?" I've been going to CCD and my brothers and altar boy and both sets of grandparents are Catholic and I'm like, "But there's Buddhism and there's Hinduism and Judaism, there's other stuff out there. Before I confirm myself to do this, I want to learn everything and then make a choice." So that was at whatever, 12 years old and they were like-

Jeff: Individualism.

Kelly N.G.: You know, and my mom says, "I think you just didn't want to go through the confirmation classes is really what it was, that's it." So I always had this kind of like I want to know everything before I make the decision. Then I also just, I wanted to be an actor when I was younger. My mom got me into it when I was six or seven years old. I really took to it. I love making believe and so I had these lofty dreams of winning an Oscar and all these things that actors want to do and work through their childhood shit or whatever. But I always felt like I could achieve anything. So I don't know.

Jeff: Well, I mean, it's not easy to... I see, I'm over in the Netflix lobby on, not a regular basis, but enough to see all these little mice scurrying around for a deal. It's not easy to get that, let alone like I'm just going to call up Deepak Chopra and Marianne Williamson and Joe Dispenza and Bruce Lipton and Anita Moorjani, whatever and just like get them in my idea. So you must be some sort of epic manifestor on some level.

Kelly N.G.: I think I manifest pretty well and I-

Jeff: What's your key to manifesting?

Kelly N.G.: As Joe Dispenza talks about in the book really well, it's not just having the thought, it's not just having the intention, but combining it with an elevated emotion, which is, I have learned for myself, that's gratitude. But also, I just think that imagination is so powerful and digitalization and I talk about this as it relates to healing in the book as well. But it's that it really kind of locks in and juices up, it amplifies it when you really feel the feelings. So you're visualizing whatever you want and then you have to feel the feelings and activate as many senses as you can of that experience, of that outcome that you want. And I think that's my, so I would say gratitude is kind of my little secret sauce.

Jeff: I mean it is funny because you mentioned Wayne Dyer. He's my 'teacher', I met him once and he talks about manifesting I mean quite a bit and he talks about assuming the feeling of the wish fulfilled. And that has always been essentially my key to manifesting, is like, "Oh yeah, I'm going to get Kelly on the podcast. I mean, I don't even know her and I don't even know who knows her, but it's just going to happen." And then you know what I do? I say it publicly and then it's not really out of gratitude me, it's out of vanity.

It's because I risk the embarrassment of it not happening and then it's just like, "I'll just do anything to make it happen." No, but part of it is like you must've had a vision for making this movie and making the book, writing the book, and then you put the vision out there, as if on some level, it's already happened. Then, when you do that, life becomes a little bit easier. It's just sort of like chopping wood and carrying water in service of the vision that you've already made.

Kelly N.G.: Totally and I think I learned a lot of that from Michael Beckwith, going to Agape.

Jeff: Oh, were you an Agape person?

Kelly N.G.: I was and it was all around the same time I came back to LA, broke up with my mid 20s bad boy boyfriend-

Jeff: Sorry for him.

Kelly N.G.: Yeah, yeah, tattoos, long hair, Harley and drug dealer, all the taboos in one. It was great.

Jeff: Sounds like all my friends.

Kelly N.G.: It might've been one of your friends.

Jeff: Oh no, sorry.

Kelly N.G.: So after that I was, and he was spiritual and he taught me a lot of good things, but also just...

Jeff: Yeah.

Kelly N.G.: So came back to LA and I learned to meditate and started going to Agape around that time. And Mike always talks about how the feeling or the vision, catch the vision.. But it so resonated with me that I've started paying attention to how I was feeling when I would talk about something or when I thought about something. And so it just became this... and those were the signposts, those are the lampposts that guide you on the path that your purpose, what you're supposed to be here for, doing. And so I started paying attention to that because he made me aware of it and I kind of got less and less turned on by acting and more and more turned on by having conversations like this one. So it was just like a calling and at a certain point the calling became so loud that I was like, "All right God, universe, whatever. It's like you set it up because I have no idea what I'm doing, but I'm going to say yes."

Jeff: And wouldn't you know it, then you were the star of your own fucking film. You were like, "That's how I'm going to make it happen." No.

Kelly N.G.: Well no, trust me, I thought about that. I was like, "Oh my God, I'm that actress making her own film to put herself in there."

Jeff: No, you're very humble in it. I will say, you're very you know-

Kelly N.G.: I was on the fence, we hired the editor and she started editing and I was like, man, I told Adam, my producing partner, I was like, "Should we do a version where I'm not even in it? I shouldn't be in it because people are going to think," It was my ego. People are going to think that I inserted myself because it's my last chance to be on camera or whatever. And he's like, "No." He's like, "We need you to kind of connect to the audience." So they convinced me, but that was kind of an uncomfortable thing to get over as well.

Jeff: Neato, I want to ask you a question about social media and Instagram and stuff like that. So I have three daughters, as I've told you about. One who's 15, Phoebe, who's a bit of a influencer in some way, herself, has kind of gamed Instagram to both my awe and horrification or whatever at the same time. But here's the issue for me, is that we live in this world that essentially, like our religion is generally like the one we call capitalism and it offers, like Christianity, a certain form of paradise. And unlike Christianity, people are more than happy to adhere to its values, which is like, "I'm just going to keep buying things in search of happiness. I'm going to devour any good and service in the material world in order to feed some sort of sense of contentment that I have." And one of the issues is that we are sort of constantly bombarded with this notion that we're not enough and then marketed ways to compensate for that, right? And that this is very, very prevalent for teens, especially girls.

And then when I go back to the beginning of your book and I'm reading like, "Oh well, it's all about stress." Then I'm like, "Fuck capitalism." I mean, yeah, it's a great system for getting some people out of poverty, certainly worked better than communism. But at the same time I worry that if we live in this kind of societal structure that reinforces that idea that we're not enough. And then just endlessly markets things for us to compensate, are we basically fucked or the society, the way that we've created the structures just inevitably going to make us sick?

Kelly N.G.: Yeah, I mean, yes and yes. And then I have to say that my hope is that things like Instagram, where it's just causing so much anxiety and depression in younger and younger people because they're comparing themselves to other people and the likes, they're qualifying their popularity and their enoughness and worthiness by. There's a qualifier now and Instagram is trying to play with that and remove the likes and all that stuff. But again, it's just filters and comparing yourself to non-reality. But I just have to believe that at a certain point that's going to implode on itself and we're going to wake up to different kind of desires and values hopefully, disconnect.

Jeff: Well, and it's also like we're playing inside, I'm not some shaman with a Merlin's cap on top of the hill. Like kind of reckless. I'm inside the world, I use Instagram, I mean a bit for myself, but certainly for my company. You use it. Are you like, "Ah, how much engagement did that have?" And are you associated with the anxiety for it? Or are you like, "Okay, I kind of know what this does to me, so I can get some space."?

Kelly N.G.: I'm pretty aware of it and I mean I do question like, "Oh okay, if I average let's say 1,200 likes on something and then one post gets three, 53 or whatever. I'm like, "Wait a second. Do they like not like the person in the photo with or was it posted at the wrong time?" It's a waste of time to even think about. But I'm not obsessed with it. I'm almost like, "It's such a great tool. I mean, we barely built our grassroots audience and marketing basically for free, for Heal two years ago or three years ago. And it's a wonderful, people want inspiring content too, so that's cool. But I just, it's stressful for me to post. I'm not one of those people that are just like a natural tagger and hash tagger and swipe and swipe up and put the link. It takes a lot of energy for me to do that. I'm sure your daughter is probably like profoundly great at it-

Jeff: Oh, she's native, yeah.

Kelly N.G.: Yeah, so I'm just not that person. So that's what causes me stress, is this pressure to maintain this kind of influencer. They say, like I don't post every day and you're supposed to post twice a day or whatever. I'm just like, "Ugh." But I don't feel, I feel the pressure in the moment and then I'm just like, "This is, it's just not me. So if it's not that natural, I'm going to do what I can." And I let it go and go play with my baby.

Jeff: Yeah, do you believe in God?

Kelly N.G.: I do believe in God, but I don't know that God is how I was taught god is. I believe that... I mean, I could tell you what my beliefs are.

Jeff: Yeah.

Kelly N.G.: It's basically like a super intelligent energy, which is this field of unconditional love and intelligence that is so mind boggling and intelligent that it's got everything, transcending time and has this just divine plan, working with energy and it's our source and we go back to that source when we're not incarnated as humans, which is pure, unconditional love. But again, it's like a combination of love and intelligence that is indescribable to our human minds.

Jeff: And do you access the relationship with that force? How do you, I mean pray or meditate or it's just, you've...

Kelly N.G.: Both, I meditate, I meditate, I pray. It’s funny, I read, someone just gifted me a book, a children's book by Neale Donald Walsch. I don't know if you know that series.

Jeff: I know him a bit. But I don't know the theories.

Kelly N.G.: It's two books at this point. But it had like a profound shift in me yesterday. And it's actually the other book that I haven't read yet, but the person who gifted it to me told me about it. And it's about the soul, it talks about how the soul comes into the body and what you learn. And it's really funny how, before he comes, the child comes into the world, it's this little soul and God's like, "You're never going to forget about me," or "You're going to forget about me." And the little soul's like, "No, I'll never forget about you." It's very funny.

But it's also profound and so, in one of the books, the soul comes in to learn how to forgive. And they told the person that they need to forgive, this person that triggers you most in life or wrongs you in a big way is actually like your best friend's soul, back on the other side. You know what I mean? And you made this pact to come in together and yet you want to strangle this person or do awful things to this person in life. And so for me, it profoundly shifted because I have a person in my life that I want to do bad things too because she does bad things to me.

Jeff: Oh you do, currently?

Kelly N.G.: Currently and I'm constantly working through it. I'm like, I know spiritually and intellectually, I know she's my teacher and I know all these things. But I still just, and I blame her for a lot and then I'm like, "Wait, I'm mad at her for blaming me for things that I haven't done." But I read this children's book and I was like, "Holy shit." So I'm now picturing it in this way, where she and I are best friend souls back on the other side, in the same soul family, so loving and inseparable. And we made this pack and now I've just totally shifted how I look at her and it's crazy, just from a children's book yesterday and that is super cool.

Jeff: Wow and I'm sure you're not calling her for coffee yet.

Kelly N.G.: No, no, no, we'll do that back on the other side, yeah.b

Jeff: Here we're good.

Kelly N.G.: There's still boundaries.

Jeff: Yeah, okay, like I love that book, but come on.

Kelly N.G.: I wouldn't go so far.

Jeff: Oh God, yeah, you're screwing with me a little bit because I've had my own kind of like spiritual awakening, sort of like hard to say that with any humility. And it was based in some kind of like crisis-ish thing and I have my, I suppose the protagonist in that drama novel, telenovela, whose name is also Jeff and I'm like, "Oh fuck. It's just the worst version of me." That's who I've like, I've started to realize and I'm just like, "Oh yeah, that's that like bloated, super heavy drinker, irrational, mean spirited, egocentric, I don't hate to cut him down that way, but that's me. That's the worst version of myself." It's essentially my ego.

Kelly N.G.: Yeah, wow, personified.

Jeff: Yeah, right and then I'm like, "Whoa." And that person taps you on the shoulder and I mean, he's your little self, right?There's this Rabindranath Tagore poem. I'll send it to you. Maybe I'll post it along with this video. Essentially talking about how your little self, your ego knows no shame, but he is ashamed to go to God's doorstep in his presence. It's such a nice poem. I'll send it to you and this is the big deal and it's completely related to Heal because you talk about forgiveness and you can say like, "Oh forgive people and it will make you well." Eh, okay, yeah, whatever. But then if you actually really start to truly unpack that and be there, forgiveness is not just a gift you give to someone else, it's a gift that you give to yourself. And essentially it's like you can hold resentment and anger towards this woman or how I hold it and you can be plotting all night of like all sorts of treacherous revenge. I'm sure you've been there. The dark soul of the night. I've been there-

Kelly N.G.: 48 hours ago.

Jeff: Yup, but guess what, when you're holding that ember, waiting around, plotting to throw it at her, who's getting burned.

Kelly N.G.: Me.

Jeff: Old Kelly, yeah, Jeff's gotten burned enough to be like, "Holy shit, forgiveness is actually about detoxifying myself, getting rid of that anger." So I am not in that place where cortisol is flowing through my body endlessly. That I can be well and that basically, you do not have to forsake justice to forgive. You can still hold someone accountable.

Kelly N.G.: And that is like the drop the mic. I mean it's the hardest thing to learn and it's probably the key ingredient to really healing, in a lot of ways for the more kind of profound. I've just heard so many different versions of this story and it just comes down, like Joan Borysenkois is in the book. And she said she ran a mind body clinic and what they found when they sent people away and the ones who didn't heal, she said 99% of the time it always came back, they were holding onto some regret or resentment, to not forgive themselves or not forgiving someone else.

And another person with cancer, that was like doing everything right and pro athlete, vegan, all the 'healthy things' and there was no reason why he should have developed cancer. And someone that was very conscious sat down with him and she just got the call to ask them, "Who do you need to forgive?" And he just had this profound realization and did work around forgiving and he turned around and healed within weeks. And it's funny because I've been seeped in learning about forgiveness for three years and I still can't find how to forgive this woman and hopefully-

Jeff: Oh, maybe right here on the podcast. Yeah, forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.

Kelly N.G.: That was... Wayne Dyer said... Is that like half his or something?

Jeff: It's Mark Twain, but Wayne quotes that quite often, yeah. Last question and then you can go feed your baby or go to a Lakers game, whichever one you want to do. I'll go to a Lakers game. So it's the Commune Podcast, have to ask you a question about community. What is the interrelationship between community, friends, family, neighborhood, however you want to describe it, and healing?

Kelly N.G.: Also, a quintessential factor of healing is community. I think in this larger spiritual conversation, Gregg Braden talks about it. Marianne Williams talks about it, Williamson talks about it. And it's about how kind of our medical model is based on separation and we need to bring it back to connection and being aware that everything in our body is connected, every organ systems, microbes and human cells, we're all in community within the body.

And then in the human realm or the people realm studies upon studies upon studies that are showing that social support actually prolongs life by however many, 50% or more. And also, group healing like Joe Dispenza, Lynne McTaggart, they all talk about this research and science, where they're measuring the field when people get together and send an intention, get their brain and heart and coherence through meditation and then have an intention that they send through now their higher vibration, coherent vibration to this person. And it completely shifts their field and miraculous healings occur. So community-

Jeff: God, isn't it incredible?

Kelly N.G.: It's mind blowing.

Jeff: Yeah, I mean Mark Hyman said the same thing. He's doing trials at Cleveland Clinic where he's treating people with chronic disease. Some people one- on-one, some people in community and groups and the people in groups are healing at like three X and it's just, it's mind boggling. I mean, in some ways... capitalism, again, it's like the undermining of the family unit and community has, I think, been a big contributor to chronic disease. It'd be fascinating to look, are you familiar with the blue zones?

Kelly N.G.: Yeah.

Jeff: Yeah, so I've been kind of like poking at the blue zones lately and what makes them so different? Why are people cognitively and physiologically thriving into their hundreds? And you can check a lot of boxes there. Community obviously like huge one, but it's also like the value set underneath those societies are not like money, money, money, consume, consume, consume. It's actually, they're community oriented societies that just have a different value structure.

Kelly N.G.: Totally.

Jeff: And I think it's how can we re-instill that spirit of community in our own kind of like hectic, modern world. We're not going to undo some of that stuff, but really just build those networks of real person to person relationships, is so huge.

Kelly N.G.: Exactly and the false community that's through tech is not what we're talking about here. I mean, it could be, but most often the tech communities or social media for instance, might make you feel more isolated or lonely, which goes the opposite. So it's going on a retreat at the commune or other things like that where-

Jeff: I want to do one for Heal.

Kelly N.G.: Yeah, we should. But also just the final point on those group healings and how community, in the blue zones, it's not just the person who is the receiver of the healing and the intention, the person in the middle. They're actually measuring profound healing effects in the people that are sending the intention and giving the love and visualizing the other person's healing. They're healing as well. So that's cool.

Jeff: That's amazing.

Kelly N.G.: In giving, you receive.

Jeff: I'll try, I'll try.

Kelly N.G.: You selfish bastard.

Jeff: Yes, yes, I know. That's not the first time I've been called that today. Thank you for coming all the way up to our weird little retreat in Topanga.

Kelly N.G.: Love it.

Jeff: Congratulations on your book, your movie. Thank you for being the torchbearer for kind of the new frontier of wellness and healing and wellbeing.

Kelly N.G.: Thank you so much.

Jeff: Very grateful for that.

Kelly N.G.: Thank you, thank you for having me.

 

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Thanks for listening to today’s episode with Kelly Noonan Gores. To find about more about Kelly’s work, go to healdocumentary.com.

If you have any comments or questions on today’s episode or the show in general shoot me an email at [email protected]. 

That’s all from the Commune for this week. I am Jeff Krasno and I will see you next time.