Cover of Serenity Rising: Healing with Cancer

Serenity Rising: Healing with Cancer

Serenity Rising: Healing with Cancer

By: Bron Watson the Serenity Project
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What does it mean to heal when a cure isn't guaranteed? Serenity Rising is the podcast for people living with cancer, chronic illness, and those walking alongside someone they love. Created in the third space between science and soul, evidence and experience. Hosted by Bron Watson, a registered nurse, educator, and two-time cancer survivor living with incurable Multiple Myeloma, each episode blends research-backed insight with honest, lived wisdom. No toxic positivity. No hustle. Just real conversation about the human experience of navigating illness with courage, clarity, and compassion. From expert interviews to fireside Q&As, Serenity Rising explores the emotional, psychological, and deeply personal side of living with cancer. The parts your medical team rarely has time to address. Because healing isn't about reaching a finish line. It's about finding peace in the journey itself. Where moments make memories, and memories are how we make every day count. Brought to you by the team at The Serenity Project Learn more at http://www.serenityproject.com.au/2025 Alternative & Complementary Medicine Hygiene & Healthy Living Personal Development Personal Success
Episodes
  • Breast Cancer, Grief and the Next Small Step with Lisa Espinoza

    Breast Cancer, Grief and the Next Small Step with Lisa Espinoza
    26 Oct 2026
    Some mornings the only thing you can manage is to get up and brush your teeth, and Lisa Espinoza believes that might be enough for today. It is the heart of her book, First, Brush Your Teeth: Grief and Hope in Real Time, written every single day in the year after her youngest son Chandler died, and it became the thread she followed when breast cancer arrived in January 2022. Lisa is an author and speaker who knows hard seasons from every side. She lost her mother to lung cancer on the 4th of July 1983, when she was just 18, and has spent decades coming alongside people in grief. In this conversation she walks Bron through a routine mammogram that turned into biopsies on both sides, a long wait over Christmas, and a frightening decision between a lumpectomy with radiation or a double mastectomy. Bron and Lisa talk about how to make impossible decisions when you are already overwhelmed, why the anticipation of wires, tracers and scans was far worse than the reality, and what it felt like to cry over a bottle of hormone blocker tablets before taking the first one. There is plenty of laughter too, including a bidet that Lisa's husband Chip installed just in case and now loves far more than she does. Serenity Rising is an interest only podcast. Nothing in this episode is medical advice, so please talk with your own treating team before making any change to your care. In This Episode Losing her mother to lung cancer at 18, and the legacy of loving motherhood she carried into raising her own children The routine mammogram in December 2021, biopsies on both sides, and why her mammograms now happen in January The patient advocate's phone call: this is a blip on your radar, not the end of the game Lumpectomy and radiation or a double mastectomy, and the friend whose calm voice of reason helped her choose The bidet her husband Chip installed just in case, and who ended up loving it most Making impossible decisions when you are frightened: the next right decision, not the one ten steps down the track Why the anticipation of biopsies, wires and scans was worse than the real thing, and being where your feet are Crying over the hormone blocker bottle, and what actually happened once she started taking it Taking your research to people who can interpret it, and asking for help when you are at capacity Bron's field of dots, and why the path only joins up behind you Being a professional at creating stories in her head, and learning not to borrow that trouble Where First, Brush Your Teeth came from, and the sacred small step that connects every hard season of her life What serenity means to Lisa: trust and peace, and the two buckets she doesn't carry alone Make every day count my friend. Bron xx Resources Mentioned First, Brush Your Teeth: Grief and Hope in Real Time by Lisa Espinoza do we have a link for this Ann? Lisa's Substack, where she writes about grief, resilience and hard seasons Kerri Chinner on A equals A, Serenity Rising Series 2: https://push.fm/fl/x4qge6fe Connect With Lisa Website: https://lisaespinoza.com Substack: https://blog.lisaespinoza.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lisa.espinoza Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lisachandlersmom
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    42 min
  • A Map, Not a Treatment with Dr. Katherine Willow ND

    A Map, Not a Treatment with Dr. Katherine Willow ND
    19 Oct 2026
    Dr. Katherine Willow ND has buried her mother, all three of her grandparents, her younger sister and her husband, all to cancer. For 43 years she has kept showing up for other families as a naturopathic doctor, and when Bron asks how she keeps choosing this work after so much loss, her answer is simple: the work chose her. In this episode Katherine shares her own framework and her patients' experiences. German New Medicine isn't supported by medical research. At The Serenity Project we believe complementary approaches sit alongside medical treatment, never instead of it, so please talk to your treating team before stopping or delaying any treatment. Katherine is a fourth generation naturopathic doctor and the founder of Carp Ridge EcoWellness Centre, a 190 acre healing centre near Ottawa in Canada. When her husband Mickey was diagnosed with brain tumours, she came across German New Medicine, developed by Dr Ryke Geerd Hamer, and after Mickey died in 2002 she spent a year researching it with seven pages of questions before bringing it into her practice. The framework connects emotional shocks with specific changes in the brain and the body, and reads symptoms as belonging to either a stress phase or a healing phase. In this conversation Katherine explains the principles as she applies them, why she describes German New Medicine as a map rather than a treatment, and why she is careful not to apply it to everything. She is also honest about its limits: she was losing people to fear, and she now tells frightened patients to do their conventional treatment and let her support them alongside it. Bron shares her own path from passive bystander to CEO of her own ecosystem, and together they talk about carers, death, choosing your sources wisely, and why stillness is where our wisdom lives. Serenity Rising is an interest only podcast. Nothing in this episode is medical advice, so please talk with your own treating team before making any change to your care. In This Episode Losing five family members to cancer, and why Katherine says the healing work chose her Reading about German New Medicine on a flight at 1am, and sending Mickey's brain scans to its founder Katherine's account of what Mickey's autopsy showed, and the year of research that followed The basic principles: emotional shock, the brain, and the body's response Why she calls German New Medicine a map, not a treatment, and why not every condition has an emotional cause Stress phase and healing phase, and why she sees inflammation as the body trying to heal Two cases from her practice, and why she stresses they are not typical The hardest lesson of her career: losing people to fear, and why she now says do your treatment first Bron's vortex of fear, and becoming the CEO of her own ecosystem The basketball time out, and why the next play matters more than the whole season For carers: the ten minute power nap, and why Katherine treats a partner as seriously as the patient Death, fear and the experiences that changed Katherine's view of what comes after What serenity means to Katherine: connectedness, found in stillness Her book, German New Medicine: Experiences in Practice, and her final message to slow down Make every day count my friend. Bron -- Resources Mentioned The Tapping Solution, free EFT tapping resources: https://www.thetappingsolution.com/new-home/ Kerri Chinner on Serenity Rising: https://push.fm/fl/x4qge6fe -- Connect With Katherine Carp Ridge EcoWellness Centre: https://ecowellness.com My book: German New Medicine, Experiences in Practice by Katherine Willow N.D., available through Amazon The Free Website: http://www.learninggnm.com/ -- Connect With The Serenity Project Website: https://serenityproject.com.au Instagram: https://instagram.com/bron_watson Facebook: https://facebook.com/bronwatsonme LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/bronwatson YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@BronWatson Have a question or feedback? You can leave a message here: https://fanlist.com/serenityproject
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    45 min
  • Unsolicited Cancer Advice: How to Sort What Helps

    Unsolicited Cancer Advice: How to Sort What Helps
    13 Oct 2026

    Advice starts arriving the moment you are diagnosed with cancer, and it rarely stops. In the final episode of Season 2, Bron goes solo to talk about the advice nobody asks for, from the email linking to a cure made from ground apricot kernels, to the text blaming her lifestyle choices, to the coach who told her that her second diagnosis came because she had not done enough of the work after the first.

    Bron builds the episode around a single image. Someone standing at your front door with their eye to the keyhole sees a sliver of hallway, and none of the kitchen bench covered in medications and appointment letters, the three o'clock wakefulness, the energy calculations before every commitment, or the grief that sits quietly in a room of its own.

    She names the five familiar shapes unsolicited advice takes, cure, attitude, comparison, minimising and timeline advice, and explains why the timeline kind lands hardest for people living with a cancer that does not end.

    Nine years into treatment across two diagnoses, now on maintenance for multiple myeloma, she shares her specialist's description of it as a marathon without a finish line, and why she thanks science every day for the gift of time.

    Bron also turns the keyhole on herself. Drawing on a moment from her early years as a nurse, when she was so firmly in the disease lane that she missed the grief of a patient's wife, she reflects on why this conversation is not about good people and bad people, but about where you are standing.

    Every one of us has looked through someone else's keyhole and felt far more certain than we had any right to be.

    In this episode, Bron explores

    • The five shapes unsolicited advice usually takes, and why so much of it arrives wrapped in love

    • Why timeline advice lands hardest when you are living with a cancer that has no finish line

    • Why the people closest to us are sometimes looking through the keyhole too

    • What Bron learned as a nurse about carers living through cancer as much as the patient

    • Where cancer treatment misinformation really comes from, according to recent research

    • Name the keyhole, and the simple question Bron comes back to: is it real?

    • Sort it, don't swallow it, using three doors: keep, check with your senior leadership team, and return to sender with love

    • Hand them a key, and how to redirect someone's love to where it can actually land

    As always, Bron does the research to what it tells us about unsolicited advice, positivity and personal choice.

    If you have ever felt your whole experience quietly written out of the story, this one is for you, and for the people who love you.

    Share it with someone who is trying to help and come and join The Serenity Project through the newsletter with our community opening soon.

    Make every day count my friends.

    Connect With The Serenity Project

    Website: https://serenityproject.com.au

    Instagram: https://instagram.com/bron_watson

    Facebook: https://facebook.com/bronwatsonme

    LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/bronwatson

    YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@BronWatson

    Have a question or feedback? You can leave a message here: https://fanlist.com/serenityproject

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    23 min
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