Dr. Molly Evans, PhD, The Journey into Ourselves
This week on Heal, our inaugural guest of season one, Molly Evans, returns to us one year later to give us a report from the wilderness. Seven years into her healing journey from topical steroid withdrawal, she asks the big question, who am I? And even bigger: does it even matter?
Referenced in the Show
Molly’s Bio
Going from Expectations to Inspiration and Aspirations, Molly Evans, Ed.D loves nothing more than to share her story of career, health, healing, and beyond to help others on their ultimate quest to find life's greatest purpose and peace. After obtaining three college degrees and serving eighteen years as a public school administrator, Molly found herself in the midst of a health upheaval and took a deep dive into the depths of discovery and recovery from Topical Steroid Withdrawal Syndrome (TSWS). Through this hard part of life, Molly discovered parts of the world and mostly of herself that opened her eyes to another way of living. Her favorite places to be are near the ocean, on long walks in the woods near her home in Indiana, reading a plethora of books, daily yoga, dreaming of writing her own book, or simply being with her three kids, Goldendoodle, and husband of 24 years. She serves on the Board of Directors for the nonprofit ITSAN (International Topical Steroid Awareness Network), bringing greater awareness to the adverse side effects of topical steroids used commonly to treat skin conditions such as eczema. Molly's greatest hope is that curiosity and oneness will unite to unbox old ways of doing things and instead connect people and nature with the sweet intention of harmony and healing for all.
Full Transcript
Sarah Marshall, ND: This week on Heal, our inaugural guest of season one, Molly Evans returns to us one year later to give us a report from the wilderness. Seven years into her healing journey from topical steroid withdrawal, she asks the big question, who am I? And even bigger: does it even matter? I'm your host, Dr. Sarah Marshall.
(music)
Sarah Marshall, ND: Molly Evans, welcome back to Heal. You were our very first guest. First season, first episode last year. And while it came out in may, we recorded it about a year ago this time. So it's, we've a whole nother year now and you and I have been talking, you know, regularly, and there's just been some incredible things that you have shared about your perspective of still being on the hero's journey. And you know, one of the quotes I have here is about feeling like you're still wandering around in the woods and in fact, going deeper and deeper into the wilderness. And so I just think, you know, we'll get into it, but I think your perspective of now seven years into this journey is a really powerful and unique one for many people to recognize, you know, what it can be like. So thanks for being here.
Molly Evans: Yeah. Happy anniversary! Thanks for, thanks for a seeing my, my journey as worthy of coming back. I, I honestly, the first time you asked me to be on your podcast I was like, heck yeah, I can tell my story. I had this big thing happened and I went out into the wilderness and I figured it all out.
And I came back and, and you're right, seven and a half years later and I'll be 45 years old next month. And I realized that yes, there was this like initial, like kick my butt out into the wilderness that like, I had no choice as I talked about last year to ignore. But what I've what I just, and I don't know why just, but like, literally in the last few months I realized like this middle space has been ongoing and I'm more confused maybe now the hero's journey and realize like, wait a minute, I don't think I came back out of the woods just yet. I thought, you know, like originally I was like, Oh, I, I went out, I learned the thing. I came back in. I'm ready to teach. I'm ready to move forward. I did the thing.
And like, no, I think once you track through that process It's like never ending and finding like why that's, where there's peace in that is actually the real goal and also the most hilarious part of all...
Sarah Marshall, ND: Yeah, totally. Like this is, this is both a comedy and a tragedy and it doesn't really have to be a tragedy at all.
But like, you know, I mean, I can imagine, you know, even when I look at myself with chronic fatigue syndrome, Having worked with hundreds and hundreds of people over my career and knowing being with them in the long haul. Right. And some of this is actually one of the impetuses of this particular conversation is to create there are people with post COVID syndrome. We don't quite know what to call it yet. That are kind of being deemed the long haulers. And there's all these questions like what does long mean? You know, in my own experience with chronic fatigue syndrome was like, I got diagnosed last summer and I'm like, Oh, I've treated this.
Okay. I got it. Oh. And actually I was grateful for the diagnosis because I was exhausted and I wanted to slow down and having permission from the outside world telling me, you have to cut all of your work hours down by two thirds. You have to cut your life down by two thirds was like, actually this blessing.
And for the first three or four months, I also was in such, but an extreme state physically that I just couldn't really do anything other than do that. And so that was great. And then the holidays hit and I kind of got through the holidays and I got to January and I was like, Oh God, this is still happening.
And I've been now in this new like what if this is my new normal? Wwhat if this isn't gonna go away? What does that mean for my life? What does that not mean for my life? What can I actually do? What can, I mean, it's just, you know, all that stuff. And so your six years ahead of me in that sense, you know, cause I just didn't have this perspective when I went through healing chronic illness, the first time from my childhood, you know, it was just this evolution of asthma, allergies, mononucleosis, strep throat, antibiotic resistant strep throat, took my tonsils out when I was 18, went to college, seasonal depression and anxiety disorder, constipation, migraine headaches, like it was just sort of this progression. I didn't think of it like I was on a hero's journey at that point. And then my healing process was synonymous with going to med school and there was so much new information. That was coming at me, you know, I can really see, there was a breaking point in 2013 when it was like, all of that was behind me and I was in this new space and from 2013 to 2020, I got to be in that space for about seven years, interestingly enough. And then now I'm like in a new cycle. And does that mean I've failed? Does that mean I've, you know, screwed something up or is it like, this is just what's next?
Molly Evans: Yeah. And, and the, you know, I, I can relate to that in some ways. And in, in some ways I feel like I made it too blissfully. I wouldn't say, well, I would say not blissfully ignorant, but blissfully totally unaware.
You know, I made it to 38 years old in that mode and, you know, having to like wake up into chronic health and begin something that I didn't have; I had never not had control of something where I could say, you know, 12 months is going to be done, or this is what you do. You do point A to point B and you get done and you're out, you know, you're out the door.
I hadn't, I had never endured anything like that, even. The only thing I can compare it to is when my brother passed away, I was 28 years old and I remember about a month after he died, like one day I was folding laundry and it hit me, like all of a sudden I had this moment of, I want this to be done. Like I want to, I want it to be over, come back.
Like I've had enough, I'm good with this. I can't do this anymore. And it was like four weeks in and I was like, I knew in that moment there was, that was not an option. Like I had to shift in my grief and my processing, in my faith, something had to shift, like I couldn't fix this. I couldn't make it go away.
And it wasn't, it was like that happened at age 28 for me and then 38 when I went into topical steroid withdrawals. And I was like, I think after about a year of it I felt like I should have conquered it. I realized it dawned on me, this wasn't just going to, you know, I wasn't gonna go out and fix this right away.
But I remember thinking like, Oh yeah, I remember what forever feels like, but maybe I have options here. And it shifted at that moment too. I remember saying to my husband, I know I told you this before Sarah, where I, I said that girl is not coming back. Like she's gone. So I, I had come to terms that who I was and the way I was living my life before I had gone through, you know, just too much whether just through the illness or through reading or through growing and learning and exploring like all of these doors and insights had been opened up, but I was at this place of like, I can't, I can't go back to being that, that, you know, blissfully unaware anymore.
But at the same time, I, I have to keep on this path of like, where am I going? And what can I do? And I started to learn so much. I took it into like such a positive way. Just like I shifted the grief. It was like, okay, how do I live with this new normal? And I shifted to this, this new idea of who Molly could be and I was okay with it for awhile, but seven years into it and I realized maybe I was still trying to... I was learning, but I was going back into the mode of like, Hey, I learned something and I need to teach you all, you all need to learn this too. And everybody should wake up and understand this. And then I realized that I didn't get to just turn it off and go right back, like I thought I could. So there's this balance of, and I write about it's so funny as I was getting ready to talk to you. I'm like looking through my journal and the, the repetitive word in like every page. I'm just laughing as I'm going through. It's like the middle, the middle, somewhere in the middle, be okay in the middle.
And it's the middle of a lot of things, because what started as a chronic health diagnosis has become an awakening of so many other things that I don't know if it's about being in the middle of the health crisis, or if it's more about being in the middle of, I feel torn a lot, like which way do I go now?
Because I know too much to go back there. It's easier to go back out into the wilderness and just stay out there because I , I'm in and I, I would literally do that. You know, it's like Molly, there goes Molly off on her walk because for me, it's like, when I'm out in the woods, I really truly feel like that's the only space where things make sense.
And so this, like, re-engagement, how do I get back in? I know I'm not who I was. I'm still dealing with my illness, but I don't really know what's the next part. So to me, that's when the hero's journey became like this like laughable thing where I was like, ha touching on here. It wasn't a one trip. It wasn't a round trip ticket and you come back down like, Hey tribe, I'm back!
Sarah Marshall, ND: I’m back and I’m done and that's complete and that's behind me.
Molly Evans: I got the sword it's conquered. I know what I need to do. And let me tell you the rest of you and, and all those things aren't, aren't bad or wrong, but I am kind of looking back and laughing at some of them. Like I wasn't, I wasn't really back with the tribe.
I was still circling out there and sending newsletters in paper airplanes are flying back into the tribe to be like, Hey, I got a nugget I got work to do still. So, you know, and it's, it's challenged every single because I don't know, you know, it's like coming to terms with something that's chronic means you just like, you can't ignore it and so it, it kept opening up other things, other ideas, other systems that I was like, Whoa, I had no idea for 38 years that, you know, maybe pharmaceuticals were not healing me. I had no idea. I had no idea that I thought 30 entitled didn't really mean experts. And that I had an intuition, I was supposed to be like, Hey, check in with yourself here. Like, there were so many systems that I just went along with because it was just effortless to do so.
Sarah Marshall, ND: Oh, man. I want to create a little bit of context cause not everybody, if you haven't, you should go back and listen to our first episode because it's phenomenal and we get into a lot of the details of what Molly's been through and what the hero's journey is all about.
But to just kind of like create some context immediately is topical steroid withdraw, it was your choice to stop using topical steroids as a treatment for what at the time seemed like chronic eczema that you'd had your whole life. And that was after you know it, you stopped at 38 and it had been about 33 or 35 years of topical steroid use. And what results from that is that there's actually been massive immune system suppression among other things. And then the body goes through in this pretty intense crisis process that can last years of the skin shedding, literal dry skin itchiness, fungal infections, there was commensal bacterial infections. There was a whole process cause the immune system has been so suppressed. The skin doesn't even know how to function anymore on its own. And a very common conversation is, well, yeah, that means you just need to go back on the medication. And so that was a big chunk of the first process for you was wrestling through that and trusting this.
What was at one point, maybe a small, quiet voice that now is a much booming or louder, more front voice of like, no, this goes against what my gut, my heart, my soul is telling me is my journey. And then we brought in the analogy of the hero's journey from Joseph Campbell's work, who's an amazing, was an amazing academic and, and one of the premier experts in mythology, where he talks about, you know, that, the hero's journey of, of the call to something bigger than yourself, refusing the call. Nope. Not going to do that, not listening, eventually having to succumb to this call, isn't going anywhere and then leaving the comfort of our own tribe, our own home, our own community to go out into the wilderness by ourselves.
And there's a transformational process. Usually some dismembering, some taking apart of ourselves and there's theoretically a return. After this new transformation has happened, new wisdom and we returned back and bring the wisdom of our journey to our tribe to give back and, and the question is, are we back yet? Have we come back? Have we been back multiple times? Like, what is that you know about? And that's what I just love about how authentically you speak your heart of like, I dunno, maybe I came back for a while. Maybe I didn't have all the information. Then I had to go back out there or maybe I never really came all the way back. And I like love that I was sending newsletters.
Molly Evans: Yeah and maybe, you know, maybe the, the real gift has been, I was brought to a level of awareness to know I was even on a journey, you know, because I mean really for 38 years and I don't know if that sounds ridiculous, but I was really pretty much charting out my life very precisely, you know, like I knew exactly what my career was doing. I knew what my next step was, you know, I was, I was, I was climbing the ladder exactly as I, as I knew you should, or I could. And so this was like a major interruption and, you know, and like eye opener, but it really did take me completely out of who I was in so many things. Like there were things to this day that if I say I have to be careful what I say, because my new convictions, like passion's never been a problem for me, but when I, when I become passionate, I go all in. You know, I read everything I can. I mean, I'm like, I love to learn and dig in and, and wonder and use my intuition to think deeper about it.
And so there are things now that. I say that I have friends that, you know, are like, would totally dismiss me. Like, what happened to you? Who are you? And I had a yoga teacher, a mentor a couple of weeks ago, said, you know, we started yoga and she said, you know, the question today is who am I? And the answer is, I don't know, I was like, I don't even know if I'm going to get into one pose right now because it's like, oh my God, that’s brilliant!
Who am I? I spent so long knowing exactly who I was. Everybody knew exactly who Molly was, how Molly thinks, what Molly's going to do, what Molly acts like, what Molly believes in. And like once the, the, the main journey had to happen, like I just kept going, you know, you go in and you maybe it's the rabbit hole.
I'm still not sure if it's a good thing or, or I've just gotten so far into it, but you know, it's like you step on one thing and you start looking into it. And like you said, you know, when I went into topical steroid withdrawals, I went to seven doctors who all told me that I was completely inflicting this upon myself until I found one doctor who said, you absolutely need to get off of this or you were not going to live a long life. Like you have to do this. And it wasn't until I found you and started working with you. That it was like, I was relying on intuition. I knew something wasn't right. I knew the medicines weren't healing me or helping me, but I didn't know what to do about it. And the minute I heard, I heard you could be addicted to the steroids, your skin could actually be addicted and you could have steroid induced eczema. It literally was like a light bulb just snapped and cracked right in my head. I was like, Oh my God, that's it. And you know, and so I kept, in my true nature, I still, I dug into that and kept going with it until I found you about four months into my journey.
And then it was like, okay, I got this, I can do this now. I got a doctor, I got naturopathic doctor, let's go. And so, you know, it's like those little things, but, but that was taking on like kind of healthcare and, and a lot of experts, a lot of authority telling me that I was wrong and that's still continuing to happen advocating in Washington, DC.
I still had people years into it telling me, you know, we don't quite think this is the right thing, but you just come to these convictions. And then all of a sudden I found myself in whole new circles, you know, new journeys constantly. So who am I? I don't know. And I don't know if that's a gift or if that's the problem, but, you know, I was so nervous to talk to you today in the sense of, I was like, you know, last year I knew exactly where we were going with this conversation. I could tell you all day long. I love telling my story. This is what happened. This is what I knew. This is how I did look at me now. But I'm like today, you know, that's why I text you today, do you have any questions or anything? Because this is the vulnerable scary part that I think we, we find ourselves in whether it's the middle or, or just a new beginning. I'm not really sure, but it's the scary part because for a long time I had people asking me like, so what are you going to do now? Why don't you just go back to work? What, what do you do now? You know, what's your, what's your purpose in life now? And it's, it's a lonely, scary, brutaful place is one of the brutaful, one of Glenn and Doyle's word is brutaful. You know, it's brutal and it's beautiful. Well, because while you're learning at the same time, you are struggling. And I can't answer questions that I always thought for 38 years were going to be so easy for me, you know, to answer success was measured in, in such a way that it was so easy. And now I'm still not sure.
Sarah Marshall, ND: I mean you have a PhD.
Molly Evans: Yeah. Yeah. I have the degrees.
Sarah Marshall, ND: It's not like there's, you know, but that’s what’s so remarkable about, and I just, yeah. Yes. And I think whether it's a chronic illness or it's a divorce or it's loss of a business, or it's a house fire or it's, you know, a hurricane, many of us have outside events that kind of smack us in the face and say, I know you maybe didn't think you were about to make a massive self-transformation and evaluate every single thing about your life, but you're gonna. And then there's some of us who are crazy enough to not have those circumstances. And we go looking for it in the form of transformational programs, shamonic healing, you know, I mean, like there are, there's also that too, and this transformation of self, like part of me, you know, you and I are only a few years apart in age. And I think some of it is like what I'm going through with the chronic fatigue syndrome, which actually I now re-evaluate it, technically I don't even qualify for that diagnosis. It's the closest thing I can hang my hat on, but you know, it's six months or more of prolonged fatigue unrelieved by rest. And my fatigue is relieved by rest s long as I sleep nine and a half hours. That is my minimum, which is a little a bit of an interruption, the way I was running my life as a workaholic before, you know, when I'm in bed at 7:30, getting ready to wind down my, the rest of my day and, and asleep last night, I was asleep by 9:15 and even still though, like I've been looking at it from the lens of like, An old conversation of a midlife crisis. Now I don't actually think of it like a midlife crisis, but is it a midlife transformation? Am I going into this period of time of cocooning up Caterpillar to butterfly where everything's got to kind of dissolve and get into goop and fall apart as I reevaluate everything and like, I've been looking from the lens of, okay on one hand I could say there's a breakdown in my immune system function and blah blah. And okay, great. I'm I'm at work on that, but I just have a sense of, this is far more of a spiritual illness than it is a physical one for me. And it really is like, God goddess, Gaia, something greater than myself going well, Sarah, did you mean it?
Did you mean it about who you really wanted to be? Did you mean it about what you are and are not willing to do? And this conversation about the middle is really powerful because you know, it's a big conversation in Eastern philosophy in particular, I'm familiar with it through Buddhist teachings is my family, my, my parents are both Buddhist, is like walking the middle path and being willing to be in the ineffableness of life, but not have that become depression and not taking any action. To be willing to be in the recognition that out in the wilderness, literally out in the world, it's all empty. There's no inherent meaning to any of it.
The tree is just tree. And actually, if we didn't say the word tree, it just is this thing, this molecules that exist in space and the grass and everything they just are. And it's like, My maturation process is having a foot in two canoes where one part of me is getting more and more aware of what I will use the word spiritual understanding of none of it matters.
Like, I mean, I'm about to say something that's probably going to tick a whole bunch of people off, but I've been thinking a lot about the pandemic. And this moment in time and how severe it is and how impactful it is. And then growing up, even bigger to climate change and that like we're on this brink of the next 20 years, the decisions we make are literally going to make it or break it for the human race.
Like we're not talking about, we have 200 years to make these decisions. We have like 20, maybe 50 years to make some really big decisions about how we're going to live. How much garbage we're going to produce, how much fuel we're going to use, how many trees we're going to plant, what we're going to eat and how we're going to travel.
And it's going to determine whether we are here to find out what happens to the earth in a couple thousand years or not. And it might be way sooner than that. And like, at that level, I'm like, Oh my God, that seems so significant, so important, such a big deal, so much pressure, so much depression, so much that.
And then I live by these mountains that are like millions of years old. And I sometimes kind of like personify them and they're like, Oh honey, this is just like a pimple. Like I've had blemishes that lasted longer than you human race. You know, like, I mean, it's like this whole perspective of that. And to be able to hold that and then get up every day and be like, I'm going to produce podcasts and I'm going to write a book and I'm going to make this difference in this one tiny little moment in time.
Molly Evans: Yeah, that's and that's, that is the, that is where I'm at this place of what's my purpose. What actually matters. What's what am I willing to engage in?
And for what sake of engaging. And, and just, you know, how do I fit in? That's kind of where it's come to. And I think that's, that's where I get stuck. Like what can I do now that feels like more than just going through the motions or, you know, and a lot of it is it's funny cause my, my doctorate degree is in organizational structures and systems and I love organizational structures. Like they, they just like light me up and yet here I am evaluating so many systems that I.. as I look into them as I read more about them, I think, what the heck were we doing? Why did I contribute to that? What was that about? And so it's figuring out where do I like step back into engage in it to be productive, but also, should I just hug trees, just stay in yoga...
Sarah Marshall, ND: lay in Shavasana.
Molly Evans: Yeah. You know, and, and like you said about, you know, about the pandemic, you know, there's so many things where I'm like, it's just all there's,I feel like I literally cut into two people. There was like the hot passionate Molly. Who's like, Oh, I could talk politics, I can talk public education, I can talk medicine, I can talk all these things. And then there's the Molly over here that's like I spend about two and a half hours a day in yoga and meditation, there is so much peace. There is, so everything is okay. You know, really it's okay. And if we truly just love ourself, love our community, love our world, love nature. Everything's okay. We can let so much of it go, but. But I'm torn because that's, that's my middle spot right now where I just keep laughing because every time I go out and think about, you know, or I start to write something and then I'm like, Ooh, Or I do say something or I do see somebody from the old version and they're like, wait, what your son's in private school? Like saying that to you makes me nervous. It was like your son's in private school. We always advocated against private school. That's terrible. That's such a privilege thing. And I'm like, well, my son is in a progressive outdoor education school because in my… once I stepped out of being a public school administrator who, you know, I could cheer on public education to anybody without a, without a problem. It became picking my, I stepped into this mom role and I'd pick him up from school every day, you know? And he would say, how was your school day? “kind of boring”, What'd you do? “nothing”, I'm like, this is sad. I know who was teaching you, they're incredible. I know what you're learning, it's really good stuff. You're going to do great on your standardized tests coming up this year. Like all of these things are great. And all of a sudden, I started looking at schools like why maybe boys are different than girls. I don't know that doesn't make sense. Children are children like this doesn't make sense. And now I pick him up from school every day he comes, gets in the car and I am blown away after 18 years as a school administrator, I am blown away by what this child is doing. And how excited he is to get to school because of what he is doing, because he's outside, he's in nature, he's creating, he's creating, you know, he's playing, he's, he's doing these things that are so developmentally appropriate.
And so then when I go back to the conversation with, you know, fellow educators and former colleagues, they're like, well, we don't have time for that. You know what the curriculum I'm like, but that's where we mess this up. You guys, we got to pull some of this away. We got to, you know, take some of this down and, and so what do I do? I stay right somewhere in the middle of, I don't really know what to do. You know, I don't really know which, which way to go on this. And that's just one example. But would it have been an easier life to just be oblivious and just kind of stay on the track? I mean, I do still, you know, without judgment, but just see people just going through, you know, their life.
And I'm like, let's just look so easy. I know that it's not, I believe everybody has a, has a journey, the struggle, the challenge, whatever it is. But some are more obviously extreme than others that really do, you know, paralyze you in your, in your traps. But yeah, it's just, you know, it's a, it's a vulnerable place to be because I still have a hard time admitting, like, am I sick? I don't know. I'm healing. You know I'm on the journey to healing, but there's no, come back to the start line. You know, you don't come right back to the same. spot that you were at when you left.
Sarah Marshall, ND: when you, anything, we say hero's journey as if it's a circle, it's a bit more like a spiral that's going in one direction. So like, you might revisit a familiar landscape, but you're like, now there's a vertical access, not just a horizontal access that has, you know, another, and I don't always know whether I'm going up or down, that's also a judgment call. So what do you still deal with physically? Like. Like in the world of I'm still healing, like what's life like for you?
Molly Evans: So I mean, physically and it, you know, I always say my, I always laugh when people are like, you know, on a scale of one to 10, what do you, what's your health like? Because I would say that my barometer is probably extremely different and I think I tolerate, you know, a lot more. My husband showed me a little paper cut the other day on his finger and he was like, this is driving me crazy.
Do you have anything for this? And I, I, you know, I, it was very compassionate. I got him band aide, I got him some heli crystal. And when we rolled that on there and I sent him off to work, but I'm like, Oh my goodness. So what I still deal with is You know, my, my face is the only part of me that's still impacted. I don't say it's topical steroid withdrawals anymore.
I feel like my body, like the constitution of my body and mind are really, really far along in my healing journey, but I still deal with what I would say is more like typical tipping to the more extreme eczema on my face. So on a daily basis, you know, it's, it's what I wake up with. I wake up once a night to, I say, it's like a little itch fit.
I itch my neck. It's my face. I had to take a bath once a day, like a salt bath, and just kind of relax, get the, if there's any dry skin and get that to kind of shed and come off. My skin is a, it's probably between 70 and 80% of my thoughts, whether they're like Really conscious thoughts that I'm having, or it's just movement, you know, of what I'm doing.
It's constantly there. And so it's not really a chronic condition that I'm able to put away for six months at a time. It doesn't like go into remission forever. You know, it's always there. I've learned to cope with it and I probably tolerate a lot more than most people would as far as itch. And some of the heat, but you know, so every day I decide, what am I going to eat?
Is this going to do well for me or not? Well, for me, and, and I went through, you know, I've gone through periods where I'm like, just F it, I don't care. I'm going to do whatever I want. I'm tired. I'm done with this. And it always comes back to bite me, you know, like it doesn't actually work. So right now I'm on day 31, no sugar, no gluten, no alcohol, yoga every single day, working out twice a day, drinking tons of water. I just started traditional Chinese medicine, herbs. So I take tons of supplements. I, you know, so my health is it's a job in its own in its own. Right. It's you know, it, it takes a lot of time.
It's relationships, you know, it, it affects and impacts all of those things. And so part of being in the middle is like, I don't get to set this to the side and, and make it separate. I also am one of the journeys and challenges I have is like, how do I make it a part of I am here, this is what I am, you know?
That's been a big struggle. And part of that struggle is like, I want to be healed. I want to be done. I want to be done with it, but also it's, you know, can I, what can I commit to, when can I commit to it? What if I commit to something and then I, my skin has a bad flare, you know? So it's still always there, but again, it's like if I step back in and into something, which I'm catching myself in my own words. Cause I'm like, step in Molly, you're in your living, you know? And then there's just gratitude. It's like, I, I take care of my son. I take him to school, pick him up every day and you know, I make really good meals and we're very intentional about, you know, our health and our lifestyle, but like that's such a far extreme from who I was seven years ago. And so you go through all that emotion of like it's embarrassing or is it, or is that exciting? You know, it's all that perspective. But it's a constant wrestle, you know, in my, in my mind, it's like, it's this or it's that, you know...
Sarah Marshall, ND: So why your face do you think is what's left? Like, you know, like you've said that you have perfect skin that has no problems from like, pretty much the neck level down...
Molly Evans: just to piss me off. Yeah. You don't know how many times I have been like, dear God, stick it on my butt cheeks because I will be fine with an itchy butt, but like you know, I think that's one of the funny parts of this whole, I think that's one of the things, like funniest, universal parts that has happened is because I am such a, I love to be in front of people to talk to people. I love speaking. I love like all of those things.
Sarah Marshall, ND: When you advocated in Washington, DC, you get in front of big crowds of people love her. You're a trainer. Right. I love it. It's right there.
Molly Evans: Your face. Yeah. Yeah. And so I think that's like the universe saying Hey girl, here's your thing. Show up with it and, you know, like this is you, Molly, this is you and I am still, well, I'm still gonna heal it. I'm still gonna move forward. And you know, I did a lot of work in, I leaned into like, you know what, I'll just become a TSW advocate. I'm still a board member with it's an and I'm just going to be, this'll be like, I'll be a spokesperson for this.
But then I was like, I don't want to do skin the rest of my life. I don't want to do skin at 8:00 AM. You know, like I don't want, but yeah. I wear it on my face and you know, it's like, you never want to trade illness or compare because there's, you know, you never know what somebody else is going through, but it's like, I have friends who have gone through major, you know, diagnoses and come out of them.
And I'm like, look at that. You were able to go in, come out, done. It's boom, it's out of your life. Or, you know, you say chronic fatigue. I'm like, all right, Sarah, you're tired, sleep your nine hours and get up. Totally. Right? You can fake it.
Sarah Marshall, ND: Unless I tell somebody they'll have no idea I'm dealing with it, you know, whereas you might even not be dealing with it, but it's still written all over your face, you know?
And, and there's been times when you and I have gotten on video calls and, you know, Just to see, and I'm not trying to dramatize anything, but I, I didn't as a physician, I didn't understand. Like, if you guys are really curious about what I mean, just go Google topical steroid withdrawal, and look at some photographs and you'll see some pretty, I mean, literally strawberry red beet red skin that is so itchy, so painful, so irritated with incredibly dry white flaking skin off of, I mean, it can be, it's remarkable, what you know, that, and, and again, this isn't about a comparison of one's worse than another, but just to get the scope of what that is, and even still, you know, you'll have hormonal fluctuations, that'll kick things off more and even though periods of time in the month where it's better in times when it's worse.
But like you said, there's never a day that goes by where it's not like still there, a part of your life. And, and so what, what of that, like, I mean, I'm kind of actually now I'm leading the witness. This is literally me poking the bear, is a conversation we've talked a lot about that you still wrestle with is like, do I, do I let my skin stop me? Do I cancel if I'm having a flare or do I just live anyways, you know, like what can you tell us a bit more about like wrestling with that?
Molly Evans: Yeah, that is the, that's the biggest struggle because I still, you know, it's like, when you feel good, you perform better. You, your energy is different. And it's not just an itchy scratchy face that doesn't look good, it's also like an energy zapper, you know? So I'm still, I don't know the answer to that, you know, I don't, I don't know. I know that like last night my husband was downloading all the pictures off of his phone from the past eight years. And so we were sitting down going through them and I was like, you know, I haven't looked back at some of those pictures before I went through TSW, but I was like, God, I was a hot. Like gorgeous. I said, did you literally used to just tell your friends, like, this is my, you know, like I'm like, I looked so good and healthy and I never gave myself credit for that. I'm like, I didn’t know I was that fricking gorgeous. I was gorgeous because, you know, you're right TSW is something that it's, it's transformative physically, and the way you look, you go into being like a, a burn victim, you know, and your body does things.
Your skin does things that I had no idea what's possible. And so there's a lot of mental, emotional trauma with watching your body become totally disfigured. And then, and then it does it, you know, it has come through. I mean, now I can compare this picture of me today to a picture a month ago and be like, wow, I look really good today.
So there's this, this level of like, what's good enough. And, and what's worthy of showing up and I'm shocked a lot of times when I'm out, like we moved, you know, almost two years ago, but like moving into a new neighborhood, not one neighbor ever said, like, what's wrong with your skin because this is the only Molly they've known.
So I'm like, do they notice that my skin is kind of red? Do they not care? Do they, you know, I'm always like, but it's always out front. And so that's a big, you know, like, could I interview for a job like this? Could I show up like this? Is this you know, is this somebody you want to sit across the table from, and to have a discussion with a professional conversation with.
And that's a whole nother part of, you know, the process to healing is like working through what's that, you know, is the way I look okay now. And so that's, you know, that's, that's a whole nother challenge and it's a daily, a daily conversation, but I, you know, and I think people could listen to this and go, Oh my gosh.
If they saw me, they'd say you need to like, get over yourself. You look fine. And so there's that where I'm like, okay compared to some people, I mean, I, I can move my body, my legs work, my eyes work, my hands work, you know? But there's, there's this imperfection, you know, that's just not it's, it's not what I, what I knew it could be, or as comfortable as I would like it to be. And for me, that has kind of been the, the biggest thing, you know, I was just talking to a friend going through TSW, who her feet and her hands are worked, her awful, her face looks amazing. And I'm like, who cares? Look at your face, girl, just show up. You're gorgeous. Look at your face. You know? And, and I'm like, I could care less what my feet look like that, you know, we're always wanting to trade off and you know, something else is better, but yeah, I'm a, I am a, or I was a very out, you know, person who liked to be out front. And so being out in the trees in the woods, talking to the trees, they don't care. And I know that I trust that. So when I'm out in the trees, I feel just fine. But being, yeah, I haven't stepped into that. I don't know. I don't know.
Sarah Marshall, ND: So then there's the other half of the conversation, which is what if you were done? What if it went away? What if your skin was no longer a factor in the life that you're living, like what, what would be out there for you to confront?
Molly Evans: You've asked me that before, too. That's also funny because then I'm like, Oh God, then I got to do something, you know, like what would I, so, so there's a lot of you know, journaling that I do.
And so I draw up these like ideas of, if, if skin was not there at all anymore, Molly, let's lay.. Let's just let this journey be over and it wasn't there, what do you want to do with your life? You know, what do you want to be? What do you want to do? Where, where do you wanna put your time? And that's probably logically where I should be investing my energy because I also believe very much like you, you weren't prepared for what's coming if you don't see it coming for yourself, you know? And you know, so I've. I've drawn up a few different vision boards, but there's, there's something. And I think I tell you this every month, like I know what I want to do. And I told a good mentor of mine once I was like, you know, it's like this I want to be talking, I want to be speaking.
I want to be advocating on behalf of something that I really super care about and I'm passionate about. And so it's finding the thing and then getting into it and doing it. And, you know, with that, with the, the first, you know, these evolutions of different systems that I look into and dive a little deeper into and get a little more curious about, you know, it's like losing yourself and coming out as this new person, but then also letting your community or your tribe know that. I might think a little bit differently than I thought before, you know? And so that's, that's probably where I'm most interested now. Like what's a topic and there's so many this past year that have been given to us right front and center that I'm like, I just want to dig into that. Like, I want to take that topic and unbox it. And I want people to come together, not in, in, you know, a hateful spirit, but in the spirit of like, Well, I think this passionately and I think this passionately, and so, you know, there's so many topics, so it'll be something in that.
Sarah Marshall, ND: Yeah, and I, you know, I bring up that question cause it's, it's one that we all can look at. It's, it's a little reverse psychology for each of us of like, okay, there are these, these problems in our life. And most I'm going to say from my own perspective, but from a, hundreds, I don't even know how many people I've coached over the last, you know, cause both in the transformational education work I did and also in my practice, I'm pushing thousands of people that I've had coaching conversations with. And there's always a handful. Usually not that many of these very familiar, you could almost call them a wubby or a very comfortable problem that we repetitively… and I, my two that I wrestle with the most around being in a long-term committed relationship and having a partner and the success in my business now, what's interesting is the success of my business today would have been my dream life of eight years ago, but I'm still in the same conversation of, and more and more and more, and then this and then this, and then this.
So like, Even the circumstances have changed and I'm in a relationship with Justin and we've been together for most of this year. And I'm actually like in one of the most founded, I mean, the fact that I'm telling you guys on the podcast, I'm in a relationship that means I'm really comfortable. And I'm really like, cause that's a big deal for me.
I, I, what I see about it is it's like I had a coach once say to me, you wouldn't even know how to live your life. If you had the husband of your dreams and your financial conversation was handled. Like you wouldn't know what to do with yourself. And, and, you know, at that point I was like, I want to make sure a hundred thousand dollars a year, I have to make $200,000 a year. I've got to pay back my student loans. I got to handle these things. And he just flat out, looked at me and he said, you couldn't handle yourself, if you made $200,000, you would have to confront. And I, and he thinks he, you know, there was some something that I think he knew and, and it... I, I'm still at work on this total disclaimer. Right. But what, what I can see from here, the things that hit me is it's a lot about the conversation of my own self-worth my own self love. Being truly loving and accepting myself all the way down to my toenails and interior of everything. Like those are the things that I'm left with because I can push myself to be driven, to make a result happen in my life and then even the having of that result being accomplished, didn't solve, like my wubbie just came with me in it, you know, and this is not a that I think I know this about other people and it's really tricky with chronic illnesses because there's so much of it that's just a fact.
I have this thing, like my hair color is Brown. My eyes are Brown, my I'm five foot eight, and I have chronic fatigue syndrome or whatever iteration of that I have. So at one level, there's nothing to be said about it at all, but then there's also this like, well, what would it take? And I just, I just today, yesterday, I don't know, in the last 24 hours had this thought, this realization that it's going to actually take effort. This is going to sound ridiculous, but it's going to actually take effort on my part to heal from and have chronic fatigue syndrome no longer be an issue for me. And what I mean by effort is distinct from hard work cause I'm good at hard work. I know hard work. I know 16 hour days. I know how to put my head down and not look up for long periods of time. And I'm not talking about that, but something about effort like I have actually always wanted to spend two and a half hours of my day in yoga and meditation. And, and I am, I am well aware from all the coaching work I've done that it is a lie to say, I don't have time for that. No, it's literally, I'm just not making time for that. Cause I can reorganize my life anyway I need to, I am not a victim of my circumstances and like I can see that there are these places in my life up till 40 years now that I have not yet been willing to put in the literal commitment, discipline and effort to just have that be a way of life and discover what that would make available for me.
And I think that's actually now, when I look like what needs to be healed, it's digging into some of those nooks and crannies and seeing what starts to show up why I have resistance to that where, I mean, I've been doing yoga since I was four. I have this long history with it, but a daily practice. Are you kidding me?
A daily practice? If anything goes against my freedom centered, I do what I want life. That's just my personality and Holy moly, like, I can feel it right, just telling you right now, my body's getting squeamish, Out loud. And so, you know, I think for each of us is being willing to look at, like, what are these wubbies, these problems, these things that we just know are true about ourselves, that we actually hold on to a bit like a security blanket, because they justify, they justify the things I don't have. They justify where I haven't gone. They justify why I don't have to go hang my neck out there and really go for it and be seen and potentially be totally invalidated and have my colleagues, critic, critique what I do. They justify so so much, you know, and that's me. So I'll let people map that on to their own world.
Molly Evans: Yeah. Well, I, I definitely believe whatever you resist the most is probably where you need to push yourself. Right. It's funny though. I, I make, you know, you said I can do hard work. I definitely make rules for myself.
So like I just started my chart and wrote down all these things this year. Like, these are the things I'm going to do. I'm on day 31. Now I'm going to day 60. And it's so funny cause you know, my husband's like, well, what happens at day 60? And I'm like, I don't know, but you know, I need to create the rule for myself.
That's just part of my personality. Once I, once I say it, it's like, you know, today I got on the mat. I'm like, I really don't really do any yoga today. I'm doing yoga today and an hour and a half later, I felt amazing for doing it, you know? So I know those things also, I feel like right now in the middle, there's this place where, what I've been kind of meditating on and focusing on is like it keeps coming up for me is, is my challenge that Molly has to step out and recreate because, and, you know, having a daughter who's 23 and one who's 20, I also am always telling them. You know, the path isn't always linear and the path isn't always totally clear, but for so long for me, it was, I went to college, got the job, got my master's, you know, I did all of the things you were supposed to do.
And I knew exactly what the map looked like. And so there's this scary open space right now. And whether it's like I'm out in the wilderness again, and I just haven't found my purpose yet, or if it's really just the scary part for me right now is like this open space of like, what can I even do? Because if I don't just go back to the school district and, you know, become an administrator again or a teacher again, then I don't know where, I don't know where I fit out here.
There's a whole world of space and opportunity. And so, you know, I'll say these things, like I'm really interested in this and this, and I keep writing down the things that I'm interested in. But then I'm like, what keeps coming up is like, hire me, you know, I need somebody to hire me. And so, and yet I want total freedom, you know? I be in charge. So you know, I feel like there's this, there's also this middle space of, I was at this. I'm still interested in this, but I don't know how to connect this to this, to figure out how I get into the next part. And so that's one of the things, you know, that I'm, I'm definitely searching, you know, that's, that's one of my middle spots where I know what I love to do, I know how I like to show up and if the opportunity popped, would the skin just be. You know, would it just go to the back background, right? Yeah, the background because I am, you know, I do have the energy of course feeling good, makes a big difference. But I also think that for me, it's always been, you know, purpose-driven and I love to teach people to work with people, you know?
And, and I know what my gifts are, I guess I can say and I'm competent in those, it's just a matter of where do I place them now and how do I, how do I attach the… I'm not using all those degrees to go back to what I was in. How do I get into the next, the next thing with that still allows. So here's the excuses; It still allows me to have all of this freedom and flexibility and autonomy and independence and two and a half hours of yoga and walking into woods. You know? So there's, there's a little bit of that too, but you know, I don't, you know, I go back to like, who am I? I don't know, because I was given kind of a script. I adopted a script for a long time. Then I went with it and I was okay with that. And then when TSW took me out of that script, like literally knocked me out of my desk chair and put me in the hospital and, you know, I never returned, I mean, I don't think you could get a more visual, you know, ejection than that.
And that's exactly how I went out, you know? And so I don't have a script that I'm living by right now. I'm just kind of following the intuition of like, This feels good. This is funny. This still hurts. This is my challenge. And perspective as an every day battle, like it's quiet in here. It's quiet in here.
It's a good thing, you know, so So, yeah. I don't know if I'm stuck in the middle. I wonder. Do other people wonder these same kinds of things or am I really, you know, like when I'm out in the wilderness, in the woods, like anybody back and looser
Sarah Marshall, ND: or no, like, am I going. For am I in way out there? Like, am I starting to detach or am I actually way closer to the, you know,
Molly Evans: I don't know if somebody will have an echo back, is that my own echo or somebody's out here, you know, so it's funny we have to laugh about it. I mean, I, I guess I just look at like, you know, connection has been the most important thing and, and, you know, working with somebody or having somebody that you can say these things to, and, you know, I… not for the purpose of your podcast or your business, but like, I cannot tell you how many times every month that I say, I, thank God I can say these things to you, Dr. Marshall, because there is, I don't know if I could say that to anybody else. And so, you know, I appreciate being able to get it out in my way, but there's something coming and there's, you know, there's going to be the next part of Molly and right now it's just figuring out what that. Where that's going to be or how that's going to land. I'm not sure. I'm not sure.
Sarah Marshall, ND: Yep. Perfect. That's right where we're going to leave it, in open question in the unknown cause that's one of the most honest places to get to.
Molly Evans: Yeah. Well, thank you…
Sarah Marshall, ND: Thank you Molly Evans, thank you for yet again, bringing light to a conversation that isn't often talked about and just appreciate your courage and your authenticity to share yourself. It's really rad.
Molly Evans: Thank you
Sarah Marshall, ND: Until we get to do it again.
Molly Evans: Yeah. So next year.
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Sarah Marshall, ND: Inspired by the success of Heal, we are now a community of over 2000 incredible listeners. We will be launching some courses and workshops in 2021. Be the first to know about them by joining our mailing list at SarahMarshallND.com. Thank you to today's guest, Molly Evans for her vulnerability and courage. For a full transcript and all the resources from today's show, visit SarahMarshallND.com/Podcast. Special thanks to our music composer, Roddy Nikpour, and our editor, Kendra Vicken. As always thank you for being here. We'll see you next time.