The Terrain Theory Approach To Healing Cancer Naturally

Introduction to Cancer as Terrain 0:00

We've been taught to fear cancer. To see it as an enemy that strikes at random. Something to fight with. Surgery, radiation and drugs. But what if there's more to the story? What if healing requires more than just attacking a tumor? What if the real answer lies in addressing the terrain, the emotional, spiritual, and biological soil where cancer takes root? Doctor Sharon Stills is a natural path medical doctor and host of the science of Self-healing podcast. For over 20 years, she's helped patients all over the world reimagine what true healing looks like.

She blends science, ancient wisdom, and natural medicine to treat the whole person, not just the disease. In today's conversation, we dive deep into the emotional component of cancer the power of somatic therapy, faith, color, puncture, and the importance of healing the inner terrain. Doctor stills shares her insights on what conventional medicine often misses and how we could support lasting soul leveling healing. She's not just a doctor. She's a guide, a teacher, and a living example of what it means to walk in truth, wisdom, and purpose.

You can learn more about Doctor Stills and her work at Doctors stills.com. And get ready. You're going to love this interview. All right, dear friend, thanks so much for being here, Doctor Sharon. Thank you for having me. Always exciting to chat with you. And I love to be this this just sweet little relationship that we're developing. I was just interviewed by you. You're interviewed by me. Like, this is really what I love about our community. And I'm just so blessed to be part of it. And to get to know you personally.

Just deep respect, truly deep respect for you and how you're helping so many people and you're just I wouldn't say common sense, viewpoint of how to handle all this stuff. And so for those people who aren't familiar with you and your work, especially in context of how you're helping cancer patients would love for you, just, to share that short story. Sure. Yeah. And thank you. I feel the same way. So very grateful and very grateful. Yes. So I actually went to perfect medical school to be a pediatrician.

And when I opened up my clinic back in 2002, the seventh patient in my door was a gentleman. I used to say he was an elderly gentleman, but he is in his late 60s. And now that I'm 57, I don't call him a gentleman. You met a young lad, you know, came walking in with his wife, and he said, we saw your sign. You know, my sign on the street says Naturopathic Solutions. Place for balanced living. He said I was just diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. They told me, you know, go home and get my affairs in order.

I've got a couple of months to, you know, till the end. And he said, sir, we want you to help us. And I was like, you know, I had never seen a patient dealing

First Cancer Patient and Early Lessons 2:51

with cancer in all of my medical rotations and everything. It just wasn't what I was focused on. But here I had this lovely man and his wife in front of me, like scared and needing help. And I said to them, look, I've never worked with anyone dealing with cancer, especially such a, you know, severe diagnosis. But I have philosophy and principles of how the body heals and how the body works, and I'm really happy to apply that to you. But I make no promises. Not that I make promises anyway, because, you know, we we just facilitate things.

And so they said, okay. And, you know, I barely even charge them. I felt like, oh my God, who am I to be, like in charge of him? You know, whether he lives or dies? And so I remember our first appointment, we spent like an hour talking about why margarine was bad and butter was better. And I, I thought, you know, the they are really not in our world of natural healing. This is going to be a real swim upstream. But when you are faced with death, you are willing to make changes. And so they did. They made all the changes, I said, and started doing coffee animals and coming in for IV's and drinking the period.

They would come and fill their water jugs from my water filter and doing all the things, taking high doses of enzymes and all the things that I kind of had piece together on how I could help him. And so, long story short, he ended up being cured and he went on to live another ten years. He got to walk his daughter down the aisle and he died of unrelated causes. He died from a cardiac issue that he was born with a problem with his valve. He didn't die because of the cancer. But when he got his report that he was, you know, free of cancer, they invited me to their church to pray for me, that I had helped him.

And it was this big Christian church that had a lot of people going there. And so they brought me there. And the next thing I know knew, because there were a lot of people there. And so a lot of people, a lot of people had someone they knew with cancer dealing with themselves. So the next thing I knew, my office was being flooded with patients saying, well, now I want help. So that's kind of how I became a natural, empathic oncologist. And I every morning I pray and I say, you know, God, send me who I can help, send me who I can be of service to.

And so that was the plan for me. It wasn't what I had gone. Like I said, I'd never seen a cancer, case. My whole time in med school. And then very shortly after, I had another patient come in who was diagnosed with stage four stomach cancer, and he was from an Orthodox Jewish community. And same thing. He he was actually he went to see Doctor Gonzalez. I you know, I was pulling pieces for the other patient, I was doing the high dose pancreatic enzymes. And Doctor Gonzalez, I'm not really sure what happened, but he told him he couldn't help them and he turned them away.

And so he showed up on my doorstep. And I don't believe in turning anyone away because miracles are always waiting around the corner. So I said come in. And same thing helped him. His cancer was cured and then he told his whole community. So then we had. So we had a very fun waiting room. It was very, spirited and lots of lots of people there, from different, you know, different beliefs, but all getting along together and healing and that, you know, and so that just really flooded me with patients who were dealing with cancer and needed help.

And so one of the things I just want to point out is that the second patient, he also lived a very long time, but he got lazy and he felt like he had beat his cancer, and he stopped coming in for treatments and kind of fell off the bandwagon. And his cancer ended up coming back years later. It was, gosh, maybe 12, 13 years later. I mean, he lived a long time, but it ended up coming back and it was throughout his spine. And so the message I want to give here is, I think where I differ very much from mainstream, where in mainstream oncology they cut it out, they chemo it or they radiate it, and I'd like to, but we didn't do any of that.

Emotional Healing and Somatic Therapies 7:48

We did not use chemo or radiation. I find better results when we don't use those things, for the most part. Now, I'm not saying anyone listening. You should stop your treatments. I I'm a doctor, but I'm probably not your doctor, so you have to check with your doctor. What's best for you. But, in mainstream, that's what they do. And when it's cured, when the tumor is gone, they say you're cured, and then they just either put you on a pharmaceutical, or they monitor you with a lot of radiation and testing and that they say, you know, we're done.

We've done our job. There is I'm like, no, our job is just beginning because we're looking at this from a terrain based perspective. And what what kind of circumstances were happening within your body that a tumor was like, oh, this looks like a comfy place. I think I'm going to set up shop here and grow and live and thrive. And so the take home message is, if you have had a cancer diagnosis, if you're dealing with one, if you're past it, there's still work to be done. There's still healing that has to happen.

And it's not like you just get to say, okay, now I can go back to unhealthy ways. And so I think that's really important because that second patient really illustrated that where he was doing great. But you know, it's a human thing, right? We get lazy. We think, oh, we're good. And we start to fall off the bandwagon. And the bandwagon really needs to be stayed on, is what I'm trying to, say here. Well, that five year gold standard of survival rate, that's that's very myopic. I mean, that's really what you're saying, right?

It's like that seems to be once you've gotten through that five year, you're a survivor. And that doesn't mean you could go back to living in the way that potentially caused or contributed to the cancer. So that's brilliant. By the way. And that's a really very sobering. Thank you so much for sharing that. And because that's very sobering. Yet what would have happened if they didn't come to you or had gotten similar treatments? We can only imagine that their life would have been taken much, much sooner.

So there's this whole quality of life aspect, too. I mean, you mentioned a couple things I want to mention. I want to talk about the your moment, though, the first thing before we go into the train based perspective, which is very different. I think most people haven't heard about that, at least for me. I know that's something relatively new in my world last year or two. I'm hearing people talk that language. I want you to flush terrain based what that means. But before just curious, your first patient, go back to the first patient like what was your if you remember, 1 or 2, maybe three things like I never thought about this or wow, this is going to change how I practice.

Like what? Moments or two did you have? Because you are literally practicing medicine in the way you should have, and you did it the right way. Yeah. I mean, one of the moments was that this patient didn't have an emotional component. And that's and that's really rare. And so I think that made it you know, it's definitely an a good thing for him. But it made my job easier too because he truly he was a man of faith. He had a great marriage. He had great kids. He was happy. There wasn't anything really that needed.

There was no trauma. You know, this is rare because usually, I mean, cancer is always multifactorial. There's always it's a bucket that gets filled up with various different things. But typically I find and I'm sure most people find that the emotional component is a big piece filling the bucket, whether it is trauma from childhood or anger at a current situation. I see a lot of women who get diagnosed with breast cancer right after or within a year of being betrayed, of getting divorced, or of having problems with a male family member or male boss.

It's very common. There's a lot of themes that go from sort of from a traditional Chinese medicine perspective and an energetic, but there are themes that go with different cancers, and so usually the emotions play a big part, and something pretty much during the patient journey with me, I always hear is, you know, doctor stills, this may sound crazy. I get these two things I hear a lot. So one in context with this is, you know, doctor, does this may sound crazy, but I'm really glad I got the cancer because it enabled me to.

And you can fill in the blank with any, you know, heal my relationship. Take care of myself, walk away from something that was unhealthy, whether it was a job or a community or a relationship. It really puts things into perspective. And so the other thing I hear all the time is, and this is usually in the first appointment, I don't understand why I got diagnosed with cancer, doctor still, because I never get sick. And so those are two common statements that I hear. So but back to your question, and I can dig into those deeper if you'd like.

But back to your question. So that was a big moment. Like, wow, I he's kind of done half the work for me. We just have to really focus on the physical body and turning things around and working on his diet and making sure he's getting oxidative therapies and all the things. And that for me, it was the first time I had worked with someone who was facing death, and it really made me see how motivated we can be when we are facing our own death. And so it it really made me think, gosh, like, how can we learn to live where we are motivated even if we don't have a sentence of death looming over our heads because one, this life is so precious and such a gift, and I think we we take it for granted and we forget to live in a way where we are just, you know, every morning when I wake up, I say a prayer and it's like, oh my God, thank you, God.

Like, I've got another day in front of me. How am I going to co-create with you? How am I going to use it? I'm so grateful. Like I got to wake up. And I think if we can learn to live in that mindset rather than waiting till we have a severe diagnosis, it just would make our whole lives in the world a much better place. Well, that story just underscores the importance of faith, the importance of emotional well-being, emotional health. And you're not the first. And for those listening who this might be the first time you've heard that cancer at its root for many people is an emotional disorder.

I've heard this multiple times over multiple times from integrative oncologist and friends of mine like Doctor Tony Jimenez and others. Like, this is real. And there's always typically. That's why Doctor Tony always brings people through emotional recall, healing as part of his protocol. With that said, do you have a couple notes about that, or do you have any tidbits that you could share to tighten to wrap up the emotional context of the discussion? I'm thinking, what what emotional detoxification strategies do you recommend, or any sort of therapies that you think people can even start to investigate now?

Regardless if they have cancer? Because we all should be living a cancer preventative lifestyle anyway, so can you go down a little bit of, things that you've seen over the years, how people. Yeah. And I it's funny, when my son, Doctor Ben decided he was going to go become an empathetic physician like me, one of the first things I did was take him over to Doctor Tony's. Because he's a good friend of mine, too. Yeah, yeah, he went over to Tijuana to, shadow and watch patients, and that's what stood out to my son.

The emotional recall healing were like, wow, that's that. That, like, really stood out to him as a first time, like, not even a medical student yet. And so, yeah, I think it's different strokes for different folks. I don't I don't have anything against talk therapy. I think it can be very beneficial. But I think we need to go deeper than just mocking, because then we're just kind of like recycling. So I like somatic therapies. I love, Family Constellation Therapies, which is the work of Burt Hellinger from Germany, which really ties in the whole constellation of your ancestors, because I think of it like our families were a web.

And what happened with an ancestor pulls on the web and affects us. So it's really good to clear any generational trauma.

Terrain-Based Medicine Explained 17:00

So I'm a really big fan of that. I really love if you can find someone who does young in the sandbox therapy is phenomenal. EMDR of course, can be very helpful in reprocessing move. Been doing somatic body work is really important. And I love color puncture which is something that I practice and again is from Germany. So a lot of what I do comes from Europe, which is how I got taught about terrain based and European biological medicine and what I credit with enabling me to help people when they can't get help anywhere else because of the different philosophy and how I see things.

And so color puncture is the work of Peterman and Dell from a small town in Brooksville, Germany. And this is work using different colors and lights into different acupuncture points and meridians on the body. And it's rebalancing. So it's working on bio photons, which now is becoming more popular because people are talking about energy. And Doctor Joe dispenser, and the quantum biology and quantum medicine. And so this is working on he developed it with Fritz Pops, who won the Nobel Prize about bio photon.

And basically light is a way that you can have these cells communicate to each other. So when we put light into a point on the body, it goes in deeper beneath the biochemistry, beneath the physiology, and talks to the cells and makes changes. And so we can unravel whether you have trauma from the prenatal period when you were in utero, or whether it's an issue with your mother or your father, which often a lot of the trauma and emotional stuff, because our worldviews get formed by the time there's different thoughts, some say by five, some they say by seven.

But our inner child, our inner voice, how we speak to ourselves is formed in those early formative years. And so a lot of times we have to go back and kind of unravel and repair it ourselves and relive on ourselves and realize that some of the beliefs we're carrying around are not really true, are not really serving us. And a lot of times we've just fallen out of alignment with why we're here and what really brings us joy. And so I have found a cancer diagnosis. You know, it's messy in the face and it really makes you think about things.

But I have patients which it might sound a little eerie, but I like patients. And anyone who's listening can do this to do a eulogy exercise where you write your eulogy and then you reverse engineer. Are you living into your eulogy? Right? Like, how do you want to be remembered? How what is the legacy? How do you want people to talk about you when you're gone? Like, oh my God. She was always supporting in her community, or you would always see her on the dance floor, or she was so connected to her passions or traveling or whatever it is.

And so when you let yourself dream in that way, then you get to go, well, am I actually are they going to be able to say that about me? Is that actually what's happening, or am I not really living my best life? And so it gives you this opportunity to go like, I, I did it for myself and I want to be remembered for many things, but for, you know, for volunteering. And when I did it, I was like, oh, right. I, I'm not really volunteering. I want to be remembered for that. So I better change that so that I can actually be remembered and live into what I think my important values.

And so it really comes to us because no one's going to do that for you, not even a therapist. Right? We have to really take a hold of our lives and decide what we're going to do. And when it comes to cancer, I think we all I had a patient say to me, and I almost fell off my chair, but we were talking about like eating, and she was being very resistant to eating a healthy diet. And this was someone who's in remission, who we had gotten through breast cancer. And now was doing that kind of, well, I'm cured that thing.

And I was like, we still have to take care of you. We don't want to set up the stage where this could potentially return. And there's a fine balance between living in fear and just living proactively that I'm very conscious of. We don't want to live in fear. And she said, well, if the cancer comes back, then I'll give up the gluten in the dairy. And I thought, that is not a productive attitude, and I know that, you know, so we when it comes to doing healthy choices, I, learned this myself. Right?

So I don't eat dairy because dairy doesn't like me. And I was very sick as a child and it turned out gluten and dairy were like at the root of most of my problems. And but there was a time and I'm talking 30, you know, long time ago. But there was a time where I really loved creme brulee, and I was like, well, I'm just going to cheat and eat creme brulee because I'm a creme brulee connoisseur and I have to try it anywhere we go when we're traveling. But I would eat the creme brulee and then my nose would get stuffed and I'd get bloated and I'd feel miserable.

And at some point I just said, you know, what is good is that creme brulee taste. It's not worth taking away how good I normally feel. And I just became a big girl. And now when I look at creme brulee, I don't feel like I'm missing out. I feel like, ooh, I'm doing something that's not what I want. That's not good for me. So I think a lot of times it's just changing our mindset into how we heal or not feeling like we're being deprived, but actually feeling empowered that we're making good choices for ourselves.

And go one step further. I gotta praise my mama Z. She has a gluten free, dairy free version of creme brulee that is to live for because we don't define food and that's what we do. It's like we don't sacrifice. We have all the pizzas and the cakes and the cookies very moderately though, but it's all swapped and that's a fun little adventure. That took a minute. Wow, there's so much we have time for. One more question, because I know you have a patient coming in the office because you are a practicing physician.

And that's one thing I really love about you and your work. I'm a researcher. I'm an armchair doctor at best. Right. So I don't see patients. And so when I speak to someone who does, you're on the front line. So a there's deep respect. But also, you know, it's working and you know it's not. And so thank you for that. You know, as a Christian, I want to highlight one thing. And when we look at the Torah, when we look at the book of Genesis, the first words in the Bible that we hear God say is, let there be light.

And when you go through and when I see Yeshua Jesus being spoken of as the light of the world, the word light is mentioned in the entire Bible 371 times their significance. So I just want to put out there, for those of you listening right now who share my faith, this isn't whoa, whoa, this is real back science. But there's also a huge spiritual component to light. And I want to just caution us from throwing out the baby with the bathwater, because whenever we hear things like, bioenergetics or metaphysical whatever things, it's like, we just automatically like, oh, it's snake oil, but it's not.

And there's a lot to think about when it comes to color therapy and other things. Color puncture. Last question for you. Because I wish we had at least another hour, but we don't just just kind of clarify what you meant by terrain based perspective, because, again, I think that's still is a novel term for most people. And then any other parting words and then you go when you got to because I know you got a patient waiting for you in this. So terrain based. So again in mainstream we view the tumor as something we need to seek and destroy and kill.

And we don't really. So a good example of this is a woman has a tumor in her breast and they give her a mastectomy and they think that's the cure. And then two years later, she has a tumor grow in her chest wall because it had nothing to do with cutting it out. It had to do with the environment. And so I'm looking very deeply. And this is whether it's a tumor or a bacteria or a virus. I'm not looking to seek and kill. I'm looking to balance and support the terrain so that whatever her the invader is goes out.

I'm going to move out. This is not a very comfortable hotel anymore. And so what affects the terrain? Well, definitely our emotions. Definitely our diet, definitely our mouth. So most of my patients, especially if they're dealing with cancer there, they come in for their initial consult and they are off to the biological dentist because oh wow. So much of disease and blockage. And so I'm looking for what's blocking the body, what's blocking the terrain. And whether it be amalgams or mercury or periodontal disease or root canals or cavitation that are infections in the bones, where teeth were pulled.

Every tooth is connected to an organ system through traditional Chinese medicine. So, for example, a big thing that we see and I run thermography scans not like a picture, but actual temperature readings. And we are checking the teeth. This is another technique from Germany. And so I see constantly the upper molars which sit on the stomach meridian and the stomach meridian goes through the breast. So there's a big connection. We'll see a root canal in that tooth on the side of where the tumor is.

And so because root canals are creating micro underlying infections in these tubules that nothing can get into, you can't get oxygen in there, you can't get flow in there. And it sucks the immune system, it undermines the immune system. And so we start to get a problem on where the meridian is going through. So I do a lot of work. I'm not a dentist, I just be I mean, so I went to medical school here in the States, but I have extensive training in Europe, in Germany and Switzerland, because very early on in my infancy, when I was a student, I realized, oh, the doctors who really are getting people better are trained in Europe, and they know a lot more than we do.

And so it was drilled into my head literally. And so I think now it's become more popular and people talk about biological dentistry, but I think they like put it at the backburner if they're going to get to it. And to me, it's like first and foremost, because 70% of what's wrong could be right here in our mouths. And so we want to get that cleaned up and cleared out. And finding a good biological dentist can be a little bit of a journey. Because, you know, not all not all biological dentists are created equal,

Hormones, Supplements, and Supportive Care 28:30

but that's a really important part of the terrain. Then I'm clearing with neural therapy and clearing any scars that are blocking the energetics of the body, the nervous system of the body, the polarization of the body. If you have a scar, you can have nerve endings trapped in that scar, and that can be firing your ganglion, which can be causing all sorts of trauma in your body. So we're clearing the body. We're looking at the pH of the body. We're looking at the mineral content of the body, the fatty acid content of the body.

We're looking at the toxic load of the body. We're looking at the gut microbiome. We're looking at any mold that's an issue underlying infections. And so we're digging really deep lifestyle of course circadian rhythm. What is your relationship with the sun and nature. And so there's a lot that goes into it. And it's it's like there's all these things. And so my job is to help figure out what are the ones that are the biggest piece that are affecting you, that we need to clear first, because otherwise you'll go insane.

If you're like, trying to figure out all these things on your own, which is why it's so important to work with a doctor to help guide you. There's so much food for thought here, folks. First I want encourage you all to go to doctor stills.com. Check out Doctor Sharon's work. Check out the things and the education that she offers. Consider, working with her and doc. I just really appreciate it. I know you got to go in just a minute here. So any last minute words of advice or encouragement that you want to leave people with?

Yeah. I one thing is, if you notice, I never say cancer patient. And so if you are dealing with cancer, that doesn't have to be your entire identity. That's something you're dealing with but doesn't have to overtake your whole life. And you can use it for growth to eat healthier, be healthier, move healthier, think healthier there. There is always hope. So don't let a doctor tell you you have three months. You have six months like they don't know and they have no right saying that to you. We didn't talk about, hormones, which is a big piece of my work and what a lot of people know me for.

And I would just say, don't let anyone tell you that hormones, are not okay. I see a lot of women who suffer because they have family history or personal history of, say, breast cancer or uterine cancer, and they're told hormones are never for you. And we could do a whole nother hour on that. But basically that's a very blanket statement without any real medical backing behind it. And if you actually dig in to estrogen, we'll say, because estrogen has been very vilified, there are different types of estrogen, and there are estrogens that I actually compound and use to treat active cancer, such as tumor fox, estradiol and estrogen, testosterone and DHEA and progesterone.

And so you your quality of life can really suffer if you're deprived of hormones. And if someone is depriving you of hormones and they're not really up on the latest and the greatest science. And so probably good to look for someone else. The other thing I would say, if you are choosing to do chemo, if that's the path for you, don't listen to an oncologist who says you can't take any supplements because there are plenty of supplements out there, depending upon what chemo you're taking, that can actually help the chemo work better can help protect your healthy cells.

Using ozone can be a very powerful thing. Vitamin C, melatonin there's lots of them. So that's also like very lazy old school medicine. So find someone who understands and can support you properly because yes, there are certain supplements or things that can interfere. And if you're choosing to do chemo, then you want to make it work as good as you can and you want to protect your healthy cells. So there's a lot of misinformation out there. There's a lot of good information out there, and you just have to do your research.

And that's part of why we're opening our new clinic, the Lasting Wellness Center in Arizona, because I wanted to have a place in the states that patients could come and heal and not have to go to Europe. So, that's why, you know, I'm on the ground and helping because people do need a place to heal. And there are things, especially when you're dealing with a diagnosis like cancer, you do need to be sitting in oxygen baths. You do need to be getting IVs. You do need mistletoe. You do need ozone. You do need red light and all the things hydrogen.

And so we have a whole I called my playground because we have just a whole 7000ft² of all the tools you need. So that's exciting. And that's coming very soon. That's awesome. Gratulations. By the way, when we're, it's it's an Arizona, Scottsdale area. Correct, or. I'm sorry. Yeah, right. All right. That's Dale. Remember, we're gonna see each other in a couple months at the conference we go to. Hopefully you'll be there. If not, I want to, I wanted to maybe we'll do, like, an Instagram Live or something.

Well, I just we'll have fun. All right. Well, you keep, you follow doctor stills. What's your Instagram handle, by the way? Doctor Sharon Stills is my Instagram. That's it. Doctor Sharon Stills Instagram. Go to doctor stills.com for website. Get plugged in. And doc thank you so much. Many blessings on you. And as always folks this is Doctor Eric Zelensky. My hope and prayers that you and your family truly experience the abundant life. We'll talk soon. God bless