Healthy Living by Willow Creek Springs
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Healthy Living by Willow Creek Springs
From Shock To Strength wirh Ravi Kathuria. part 1
A single sentence can split a life in two. When Joe got the call confirming squamous cell carcinoma, everything he’d been building—his nonprofit healing garden, a growing podcast, a community of practitioners—had to be measured against one urgent reality: protect energy and choose what truly heals. We open the door to the whole journey, from the first “it’s probably nothing” exam to the blunt specialist, the tough biopsy, and the searing clarity that comes with facing mortality at 58 while planning to live to 120.
What follows is not a rejection of medicine, but a parallel track. Joe schedules oncology visits while activating decades of plant knowledge: cannabis oil, no-sugar nutrition, soursop tea, and other low-risk, high-upside supports. A combo ceremony becomes a turning point, forcing a hard audit of his life and the relationships that drain or restore. The garden he tends becomes a sanctuary for healers who often need healing themselves, as we explore what it means to conserve and circulate energy when you’re fighting for your future.
We go deep into preparation and integration with a Navajo medicine woman and her partner, restoring ceremony to the land: ayahuasca for insight, peyote for prayer, and fire as a teacher that quiets a racing mind. Joe shares the simple rule that guided every decision—help more than harm—and the way better questions drew the right people and tools into reach. Along the way, we talk about agency, humility, and the practical steps anyone can take to set boundaries, seek aligned care, and build a circle that gives back what you give away.
If you’re navigating illness, burnout, or a season of radical change, this conversation offers clear takeaways: protect your energy, choose deliberately, and let science and spirit walk side by side. If this resonates, follow the show, share it with someone who needs strength today, and leave a review to help more listeners find their way here.
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Well, hello, and welcome back to the Healthy Living Podcast. I'm your host, Joe Grumbine, and today we have back with us a very special guest, Ravi Kathuria. And um, every once in a while a guest comes along where our conversation just starts going deep. And I'm like, you know what, we gotta just keep this going. And so last week we were talking, we finished the episode, and then we just started talking. And about a half an hour into it, I'm like, wait a minute, you know, we gotta we gotta do this live. So Ruby, welcome back. It's so great to have you uh back on the show with us.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, absolutely, Joe. My my pleasure. Thank you for uh having me back. I enjoyed our conversation last time, and and especially our our our conversation post um the podcast, right? When we were just talking. And um I was um I was amazed to hear about your journey of overcoming cancer. And I think so many people need to listen to that and benefit from it. Uh I would love for you to share that journey, what you went through, how you have managed uh to replace those cancer cells with healthy cells, make them healthier back again, right? And and how have you redirected, retargeted, um you know, rechanneled uh cancer to becoming healthy again. I think that's a beautiful story. Uh, it needs to be told, it needs to be heard, and everybody who is um you know is dealing with either cancer or or another disease, uh needs to be practical, really.
SPEAKER_01:You know, it it's all the same stuff. You know, when you get to the world of the soul, you get to the world of the spirit, it's all energy, it's all like there's things that are helping you and things in your way. And it doesn't really matter. It could be cancer, it could be an addiction, it could be a bad habit, it could be a bad attitude, it could be a bad relationship. It's it's really it's all the same.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, it really is. So uh tell us, Joe, tell us, tell us uh from the very beginning, yeah. Uh about about what what you know how you discovered it and and uh what was your reaction to it? How did you respond to it? Sure, sure. The challenge comes up in your life, how do you respond to it?
SPEAKER_01:Well, and this has been a crazy story. Like, you know, when when I was sharing it with you, I was really sharing from the perspective of yours and my journey were not that different. And that, you know, you came to it from a little easier road than I did in just simply discovering something you enjoyed and being able to pursue that. Mine came at me with a wake-up call that said, you cannot ignore me, and uh you have choices to make. And and you know, a preface to all this, and I'll probably add some pieces that we didn't talk about, is and I think I mentioned I have a nonprofit where we have a two and a half acre botanical garden here, and we use it for healing. And um, my wife and I have been working this property for 30 years, and um we started the nonprofit about three years ago, and about a year and a half into it, everything's going well. Like we're we got these programs working with mental health patients, special needs patients, healers are coming in, and we're doing retreats and all this wonderful stuff. And the next thing I know, I'm realizing as I'm going along, I got this lump on my neck. And I've always been a guy who works on, I mean, I formulate natural products for a living to help people heal. This is what I do. So I've worked with plants and natural healing all my life, and I've just like the body knows how to fix itself. So I just said, you know, I got some kind of a stress thing or uh uh a lymph swollen gland, or you know, my body will fix it. Well, going along, it's not getting fixed. Finally, you know, I haven't been to a doctor in years, but I finally like I I gotta get this looked at, it's not going away. So I go to this doctor, brand new, never met him before. And you know, by that time I've got you know, it's prominent. You can't you can't deny it. Like everybody, you know a girl with big breasts, everybody looks well. I had the lump on my neck, everybody was looking at my neck instead of my eyes, and so I was like, okay, uh, it's time to get this thing, you know, corrected. It's becoming a distraction. So I go to this doctor, and he's like, Well, you're so healthy, you know, it can't be cancer. So he says, It's probably some fatty tissue or something. And they did a ultrasound and they determined it wasn't like a liquid, but it was a solid mass. That didn't tell him much, but it it rules some things out. And he said, Well, we should we should do some further scans, but I don't want to worry you. He goes, 'I'm 95% sure it's not cancer.' I can't tell you it's not, but I'm I'm pretty sure it's not. So I'm like, okay, whatever, I'll put it on hold. I'm not a vain person. And so for me, I'm like, I don't care. You know, you want to look at my neck, look at my neck. I got work to do. And so I put it off. Another nine months goes by, and it's not not going away. It's getting a little bigger, a little bigger, a little bigger. Finally, I'm like, all right, I gotta go back. He's like, Well, we need to get you another scan. So I get another scan, and I I they send me the results, and I look at it and it said, possible squamous cell carcinoma. And I'm like, oh crap, that's cancer. And I said, Well, if it says possible, I gotta go and you know, we gotta rule that out. So I go back again, and he says, Again, I'm I'm I can't stress, you're so healthy. Like, if this was cancerous, you would be shriveled up by now. Like it would be consuming you. It would, you wouldn't be able to swallow, you wouldn't be able to eat, you'd be a fraction of what you were. And I'm like, all right, but I'm not gonna quit now. When they say it might be something, I'm like, I gotta rule it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, let's investigate.
SPEAKER_01:So he goes, Well, you need to go to this ENT specialist and he'll he'll check you out. So I go over there, and this is uh an Eastern European guy. I don't know who's from, but he's you know, they're very straightforward, you know, uh cultural. And he was, in my opinion, very direct, like he had no bedside manner. He says, I'm pretty sure this is cancer. And I'm like, Well, screw you, you know, I don't want to get like and and and and so now all of a sudden my world's starting to get, you know, I'm like, whoa, wait a minute, that's a whole different point of view.
SPEAKER_00:That's right. All this while I thought it was, and and now it suddenly it's in my face.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. And he says, the only way we're gonna know for sure is a biopsy. And I'm like, I don't want anybody cutting into me, you know. So I have all these ideas about natural health, and I hear all these stories about somebody gets a biopsy, next thing you know, it spreads. And I'm like, and I tell the guy, I go, Well, I got you know intrepidation about this. I don't really want you cutting into me, plus I don't like you, you know, and so yes, yes, I I I I want to like and trust the you were as direct to him as he was to you, yeah, yeah. But I don't have time to go and go find another doctor, and and you know, it's not really about who I like, it's about are you qualified? And I did some research, and this guy had had, you know, he had the experience and it's what he did for a living. And so he says, Well, there's three kinds of biopsies. You can get a little punch, needle punch, or you can get a larger needle punch, or you can get a piece taken out. He says, if we do a little needle punch and we don't get the right piece, it won't tell us what we need to know, or it might give us false results. If we do a larger piece, the same thing's possible. If I cut a piece out, we'll be sure that we'll be able to identify this problem and possibly do future genetic testing. I'm like, well, if you're gonna cut me, just cut me. You know, do the do the one that'll do the most good, even if it might do the most harm. At this point, I'm like, I gotta take some chances here. I gotta, I gotta have some faith. And I've always had a very strong faith. And so I've always said, well, I believe I'm here for a purpose. I know I'm working towards this purpose, and I don't believe that I'm gonna just get like thrown to the wolves over something. So I says, go ahead. So I go in there, he gets the thing cut out, and and then he was shocked because I didn't want any pin medication. I'm like, no, I'll just suffer through this. I'm not gonna go put drugs in my body, too, you know. So a little put off by that. I'm like, yeah, f you, you know, you don't like me, I don't fuck you either. And I don't want you and so that was kind of my way to you know put a little stab back at him. And and you know, I I'm like, look, if I'm going through this, I want to feel it. I want to know what's happening, I want to know my body. If my body's not telling me the truth, well, great, you're gonna, you know, tell me the truth about the pain. So I suffered through that, and and um two weeks later, almost exactly October 4th, 2024, I get a phone call from him, and he said, Um, your pathology came back, and you have squamous cell carcinoma, and I need to refer you to an oncologist. And that was an experience I'll remember forever, that moment. Yeah, you know, like in your life, you get a handful of snapshots, and like people remember the day when Kennedy got assassinated, or they remember 11, or they remember some big uh you know, life-changing incident. Like it just like goes and sears, like you get branded almost.
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:Well, that one was that for me, and and um, so I got hit with this. I go from I'm a healthy guy on my path, master of my own destiny, uh to you have cancer and it's gonna kill you if you don't do something about it.
SPEAKER_00:Right, right. Sorry, yeah. Sorry, I apologize for that.
SPEAKER_01:No, no, no, it's okay. So this is a wake-up call to me that is like uh it took me a minute. Like I'm I'm a pretty adjusting guy. I've been through a lot of my life and a lot of losses and a lot of risk taking. You know, I'm an entrepreneur, but man, this one was like somebody took a big two by four and just knocked me out cold, and I'm yeah.
SPEAKER_00:What did you feel, Joe? Did you feel uh uh you always you know you always you you were for sure scared, but what did you feel? Did you feel a betrayal? What what was the feeling that went through my do you felt that oh my body I have taken care of it so well? I've been in nature, done this. Why so what is it? What was your what was it was a shock?
SPEAKER_01:It was really just a shock, like like walking around the corner and seeing something you've never seen before, and you're and and and it's it's not a good thing, like it's unfamiliar territory, but it was there fear?
SPEAKER_00:Were you afraid for yourself or afraid of the pain? What is it? What is it that was troubling you?
SPEAKER_01:It was a an immediate reminder of my mortality that said, Okay, you know, you go through life like a kid, like I have this little kid salad, like I'm just gonna go forever, and one day I'll die, and whatever, but you don't think about that, and then all of a sudden it's like, wait a minute, no, this is for real.
SPEAKER_00:Like now, I'm looking at this, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I'm seeing like the end of my life. Like, if if I go and don't do something about it, I see a road that takes me right to the end of my life, and it's not a very long road, and yeah, and not so Joe, do your listeners know how old you are?
SPEAKER_00:I'm 50 years old, yeah. You're 59, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So I was uh 58 when I got diagnosed, and in my opinion, I have plans to live 120.
SPEAKER_00:So like so you're only midpoint, you're not even midpoint, exactly.
SPEAKER_01:I'm I'm not I'm I'm just coming into midlife right now, so yes, yes, a lot of living to do, and I'm not like in any way, shape, or form thinking about you know my my end of life right now. And you know, I feel like I'm just coming into my own. Like some people, some of the masters really came into their own in their 60s. That was like the time when they developed their um their philosophy or their understanding of life, and they began their work. And I feel me, that's that's where I'm at. I'm like I spent my whole life sort of training to learn to do the things I'm learning to do now, and then now I'm able to begin teaching.
SPEAKER_00:Now now it's everything has come into focus. Right. It has it has converged, and now you are you can be the most uh emphatic, the most create the biggest impact, right?
SPEAKER_01:Right, I I I and I was right there, like with my nonprofit, and I was building a community. This podcast was starting to go. I was already about a year and a half into this podcast, so it was starting to guests were coming to me instead of me going out trying to find guests, and and I'm like, uh, I was starting to attract um medicine people and healers to the garden, and I'm like excited, like everything's happening. I'm working with different plant medicines and sweat lodge, and and I'm I I feel like okay, it's all happening. Like my life's dream is starting to blossom, and then all of a sudden, wham.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, it's it's a party pooper has arrived. Yeah, well, and and then don't don't yeah, don't stop my dance, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and and and but I realized very quickly that I had to change my priorities, and I did a medicine called combo, and it's uh derived from a frog. And what you do is, you know, it's an indigenous medicine from South America, and you sit and you you meditate and you pray and you do this little ritual, and then the medicine person um burns little dots in your arm and then puts this medicine in these little dots, and what it does, it's what it's the weirdest thing in the world, but you feel it, and it literally goes through your body and it like looks for the problem, whatever the problem is in your life, and it goes and it goes here and here and here. And I felt it go into my neck, it went into these other places, and what it does is it makes you purge and you throw up, and then all of a sudden you feel hot, you feel cold, it like does all these things to your senses, and then you throw up, and then you integrate it for the next several days, then they take it off, and then you go back and it comes back, it doesn't last very long, maybe a half an hour or so, and then you go back and you you come back to your regular life. But what happened to me? I became aware of all these things in my life that had to go. And I had a business that I had, an office, and a warehouse, and all these employees, and I had all these relationships that I made excuses for and spent a lot of time with, and I had all these things in my life, and all of a sudden in my mind, I'm like, all this stuff has to go, and they were not co to you, yeah, yeah. They didn't serve me, and and not only did they not serve me, but I became aware that if something doesn't serve you, it's taking you so like if you have a relationship, like you and I have a relationship now, and and when we talk, I feel like you're giving me just as much energy as I'm giving you, and so we just share. It's it's it's I don't walk away tired, I don't walk away. And and that's a healthy relationship, even though we've only known each other for a few hours.
SPEAKER_00:That's right. That's right. No, how beautiful it is because energy has to flow back and forth, right? Yes, there are there are places, there are people and places where you go, but they drain your energy, right? They don't fill you with energy, but energy has to flow back because you may be an energy giver, but nobody is an infinite energy giver. You have to, they need to pick energy back up in order to be able to give, right? It it only gets recycled. Energy is only going in in from one place to another, right?
SPEAKER_01:It has to be well, and you know it's interesting because with the gardens of hope, I'm working with a number of different, I don't know, we can call them healers, medicine people, shamans, whatever you want to call them. Yeah, most of them are very humble people, they don't want to give themselves a title, but they're just people like you trying to help. And and but what they do a lot of times is they give themselves away too much. And yes, I watch them after they do a ceremony, and and then they're you just tell they're exhausted. I'm like, well, come back here and heal.
SPEAKER_00:So for you need to replenish the healers, need to replenish themselves. And this is important.
SPEAKER_01:I recognize that, so I said, Well, my garden is to help heal the healers so that they can continue to heal, you know.
SPEAKER_00:And um, but meanwhile, in in my mind, I'm like, how did you find this uh this drug, this frog drug? How did you find it?
SPEAKER_01:I mean, now you know somebody was um this is a crazy story, and you know, we're only gonna probably get through part of this conversation, we'll just keep going and the next time we'll continue it. But um, I've been trying to build a community of healers for the longest time, and we did this event um with a uh uh my next door neighbor in the business, and he um was a guy who made um the medium that they grow mushrooms from, and so he was working with medicine. I was working with medicine. I didn't really want to do the event, but something told me do the event because it's a lot of work to host an event on your property. You know, have all these people come in and all it's chaos. Anyways, we had a little a little issues with the event in the beginning, and I said, you know what, keep going, let's just do it. It's gonna bring us what we need. And one of the speakers, uh, we had a number of speakers from around the world. People came and give presentations, and one of the speakers um came and did a little podcast interview, and she was talking about she's a Navajo medicine woman, and she was talking about preparation um for medicine and and integration afterwards. So it's like, you know, people do a lot of you know, ayahuasca and peyote and all these different medicines, but they just go in and do it like a you know, bull in a china shop, and they don't think about preparing your body, preparing your mind, treating with with uh. And and when she talked about that, I said, Wow, I like what you're saying. I want you to come over and see the garden. And uh she had a partner uh who does ceremony with her named Salvador, and they're not romantically involved, they just work together spiritually. And I said, you know, come on out, we can record a podcast episode, share a meal, and you can at least see the gardens. I think maybe we could be a good fit. So they come right away. She's like, Okay, I'll clear my my calendar. And she is like almost two hours away. It's not like she didn't live right around the corner. And about a week later, she comes out with her partner and one of the other members of her tribe, and we were planning on taking a bunch of pictures and recording a bunch of stuff, and I was gonna give her a little tour, we're gonna share a meal and be done with it. We never took a picture, we never recorded a word, we just talked and talked and shared a beautiful meal. And before I knew it, it was nine o'clock at night. And I was like, wow, there's something here. And shortly after that, um, she called me back and she said, I'd like to do an ayahuasca ceremony just for a handful of people and try the gardens out, and you can we can just get to know each other. And I said, Perfect. So the next weekend she came out and I was already looking to do this medicine, and I had another practitioner that was planning to do it, but we hadn't scheduled yet. And I told her about that. She says, Well, I can serve you, combo. And I said, Beautiful. I'd rather you do it since we're getting to know each other. So we sat down by the side of my stream and we made a beautiful little space, a little beach on the side of my stream, and we created a sacred place, and we did it. And that was our first interaction as a healer, um, you know, and myself, and all three of them were there, and it was just beautiful, like they were so connected to the medicine, and they cared, like they genuinely cared about helping me. And and you could tell it wasn't just you know going through a mumbo jumbo and saying some words and throwing some incense. It was like yeah, you I felt the connection of their energy.
SPEAKER_00:You felt the energy. What gave you the confidence to not try regular medicine, conventional medicine, or not depend on it as much?
SPEAKER_01:And initially, I mean, how do you you know you I began I began the walk, we're making appointments. So when the doctor diagnosed me, I had to start making appointments with the oncologist. So I did. I was going down both roads parallel, so I had a I it, but it took me three weeks to get an appointment with the with the first oncologist, and so I wasn't gonna wait. Yeah, so I already worked with cannabis medicine and I make oil, and I was gonna go, okay, well, I've seen that help a lot of people's cancer. I was doing my own research, I was already on a no-sugar diet, and so I knew that that was gonna be helpful. Um, I started taking sour sap tea. I started going and using some um natural therapies that seemed to be pretty commonplace. A lot of people were talking about doing these things, so and they didn't have a negative side effect. So I said, well, my um scale that I put everything on is is it likely to help me and can it hurt me? And and so if the answer is it's likely to help me, but it really can't hurt me, then I'll probably try it, no matter what, and give it a shot. If it is likely to help me, and it probably won't hurt me, but it might, then I'll be a little more cautious, but I'll still probably try it. And as the risk starts to get higher and the reward starts to get less, I'm gonna be less likely to want to try it. So I'm trying to be practical. Yes, I'm also I I have an intuition, I have a connection with spirit, and I believe that I have answers inside of me that I can unlock. And so I try to leave those doors open. Now, mind you, through this time, my whole life I've tried to meditate, and I've always struggled. I have a very active brain, I'm a Gemini, I'm always got ideas, and and so I'll sit down, I'll even go in my sauna and I'll sit down and I do box breathing, and I'll breathe in, count to four, hold it, count to four, breathe out, count to four, hold it, count to four, and do that over and over again. Or I'll sit with a candle or a fire, and for moments, brief moments, I'll go into a beautiful place and then I'll get distracted again. And all my life I've struggled with this, and I've gone to church, I've gone to temples, I've gone to the mountains, I've you know, really like always trying to access that because I know there's beauty in that, and I've always struggled. So I said, Well, I started working with peyote about eight years ago, working with a um uh northern Cheyenne medicine man, and that medicine speaks to me um in a good way, and it helps me with that. You sit with the fire and you find your connection to creator and your own spirit in the fire, and you just spend your time looking at the fire, and it's I I with the medicine, you get a it kind of I think helps you to open the doorway in your mind and your spirit, and it quiets those little monkeys that want to talk, and um it helps. And so I found a connection to that, but during COVID, I lost my connection to that. The the people that were working with, they both died. And um, so I went a couple of years and I didn't have access to this, I didn't know anybody. Like, you can't put an ad in the newspaper going looking for a medicine man to to put up a teepee in my backyard, you know.
SPEAKER_00:It's uh it has to just come. But your your story is is so fascinating because you have uh you have recovered from cancer and you have built your own treatment pack, right? Which uh which is centered on things that people are not familiar with, but people who are suffering from cancer, uh I do not know how it will apply to them, but they need to investigate, they need to they need to understand that nature is here to help us. Absolutely. Nature is here to help us, and whatever I I say this often is that whatever problem we find, you know, of course, with our minds, but even with our bodies, whatever goes wrong, nature has a solution for it. Yes, nature has a solution. You say, Okay, this is wrong with my body, nature has a solution. It's a matter of finding out what is that solution and how effective it is in helping deal with that. When you find that, the body responds. And and your story when you shared it with me, I was I was struck on how God bless you for being so successful in healing yourself.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I wanna I wanna what I'm trying to do is is deliver the preface to this because we didn't really talk about a lot of this stuff, and then I'm gonna do a little fast forward and then we'll continue the conversation the next time and we'll continue into it. But through this, this was the beginning. And I found out that Florina Threehawk, who's the medicine woman I was telling you about, she also served peyote. And I says, Wow, we should we should sit with this. And so she brought that medicine back to my property. And the first ceremony we did, it's a prayer. You pray and you sing and you drum and you and you sit with this medicine and the fire, and it's literally you're up all night and it's intense, it's not easy. Um, and sometimes you throw up, sometimes you just you're okay. But when I did it, my prayer, and and you know, when I say prayer, it can be an intention, it can be a thought, it, you know, it it's it's it's it's how it's a thing you're you're seeking. And I said, I need to understand this because I'm still puzzled, you know. You tell me cancer, but then everybody has a different understanding. Medicine doesn't even know what cancer is, and and so I said, I need to understand my problem. That was my first prayer, and then over weeks we did it again, and I did a total of about six or seven sessions, and the first prayer was to seek understanding, and then all of a sudden, that next several weeks, I I was approached by many people that were like, Oh, I I heard you have this problem. Here, I I have some answers. Here, read this book, here this. And people were just coming to me from all places. And I start looking at all this information and I'm like, whoa, that's it, doesn't all agree with each other. And I'm like, okay, I'm getting
