Why Fear Fuels Cancer — And How to Rewire Your Subconscious to Heal

Introduction to subconscious healing 0:00

So we start with the notion that the mind has these two different agencies for the sake of our conversation, conscious and subconscious, and they have different jobs to perform. And the subconscious mind is really the part that we want to focus on because that's the emotional mind. That's a part of a mind that governs many of are bodily functions. Right now we're breathing, digesting, eliminating, growing hair and nails and all of that breathing heart beating. Consciously do any of that. All of it happens subconsciously.

So if we understand that the subconscious mind influenced the functioning of our immune system and we want, we understood that a proper immune function is crucial for the body's ability to maintain balance and health, then we wanted to see what has changed because if a person was born healthy, It means everything works fine and then if someday something changed. What has changed and for the most part and i think you talked about it in one of your videos before there's an accumulation compounding effect it can be environmental components from my perspective it's psychological components mental components trauma life events and overtime we know that.

they start kind of impacting the way that our immune system functions. Welcome to the Belgiansky Cancer Talk Show where integrative science and holistic healing come together. I am Sylvie Belgiensky and in each episode we explore nutrition, lifestyle, mental health and research-backed approaches to support the whole person through cancer and chronic diseases. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the Belgiansky Cancer Talk Show. My guest today is Avinoham Lerner. AVINOHAM LERNER is a cancer and trauma recovery specialist, clinical hypnotherapist and TEDx speaker with over 25 years of experience working with people facing cancer, trauma.

drawing on the psycho-neuroimmunology. His mindful remission approach helps cancer patients reprogram the subconscious patterns driving stress and immune suppression, addressing not just the body, but the inner terrain in which healing happens. This forthcoming book, Mindful Remission, The Mental Health of Healing, will be published in May, 2026. Abhinoham, welcome to the show. Thank you very much. I will remark that the book is called Mindful Remission, but it's Mindfulness Remition, the Mental Science of Healing Cancer.

Guest background and psychoneuroimmunology 2:37

Very good. So, psychoneuroimmunology. I assume growing up, you did not as a little boy think, I want to become a psychodermal immunologist. Probably you didn't even know about the world. So how did you get there? Well, I wouldn't say that I'm a psycho neuro immunologist. I am a practitioner whose work, the premise of my work is grounded in psycho-neuro immunology, which is essentially a field of science that has been with us since the 1970s. And it's the holy grail of I would say mind-body medicine in general.

Essentially what it is, it the study of the communication between the mind, the brain, which is the three-pound gray organ in our skull, and the nervous and immune system of our body. Medicine has been fascinated with this notion. How does the non-physical part of us actually affect changes in the organic tissue? And for many years they didn't have the answer, but psychoneuroimmunology came about. We learned that the immune is responsive. It can be conditioned. So I just taken it a little further and developed a methodology so that we can actually do that and help patients navigate treatment with a lot less fear and a lots more agency so they can genuinely optimize their results, optimize outcome, improve their experience during treatment.

I assume this goes beyond cancer patients. Of course it can help cancer patient, but I mean the understanding the trauma, the origin is kind of universal approach to healing, right? Correct. Correct, so I have worked with cancer patients almost, you know, the majority of my clients are cancer patient just because I would say the need is greater in that community. But yes, this applies to any kind of ailment that the body is inflicted with that medicine cannot necessarily find an organic component or a very clear physical or physiological answer for why things the way they are when the reality is that we're 50% physical and 50 percent non-physical if you cut the body open there's no little person in there so what is this self and I mean that's a much bigger conversation but I would say that generally speaking, if we are 50% physical and 50%, non-physical, and we take the 50 percent that is nonphysically divided to mental and psychological, then, you know, even if, we just address the 25% of either the psychological or the mental wouldn't we want 25 more percent odds for healing and recovery of course we would anyone would and that's why it's really important to do this kind of work.

Yeah, I've always seen people who heal really recover from cancer as those who have a positive mind and try to understand why they became sick in the first place because conventional medicine never addresses that. They only look at the tumor and tried to destroy a tumor by every means they have, but they don't look as a person. They even dismiss the damage they are doing to the person while destroying the tumor. So at what was the moment when you realized that the mind was not just a supporting player of the healing, but was really central to this phenomenon of healing?

Sure. Well, again, I've been doing this for 25 years and you get to see some patterns over time. And I'm seeing people who have done everything right medically, right? They did what the doctor told them to do. They showed up to appointments and scans and they still struggled a great deal. and then there were those who thrived. Those who actually got better outcomes on every marker and it was quite I was very curious because it wasn't necessarily about a person's strength or size or genetics, or it was the internal environment in which they were healing in that made the difference.

And we know that through the Human Genome Project, we You know, at first we thought that there is a gene per a condition,

Mind-body connection in cancer recovery 7:18

then we realized, well, it's a combination of them. And then, we realize that some of the are turned on and then some are then turned off. So we had to ask the question, what turns certain genes on or off? And the answer is complex, but amongst the contributors are the mental and emotional environment that the person is operating in. If we're exposed to stress in a chronic level, we will consistently trigger the stress response, as you well know, and that will lead to inflammation, to suppressed immune function.

And that renders the body vulnerable to carcinogens and other disease agents. But if we learn, which would never really, that's kind of mind blowing, right? We were never taught how to live. We we were taught to survive. That's a whole different approach to life, but when we learn how to engage with this part of ourselves, we call the mind, mainly the part we called the subconscious mind because that's the emotional part and the product regulate most of our body functions, including the function.

Then we can get results. I would say the mine is not just a player in this constellation. It's actually the stage upon which healing happens. So you have developed this specific protocol called mindful remission. Can you walk us on what does it actually look like for a patient coming to your practice? Well, so we start with the notion that the mind has these two different agencies for the sake of our conversation, conscious and subconscious, and they have different jobs to perform. And the subconscious mind is really the part that we want to focus on because that's the emotional mind.

That's a part of a mind that governs many of are bodily functions. Right now we're breathing, digesting, eliminating, growing hair and nails and all of that breathing heart beating. We don't. Consciously do any of that. All of it happens subconsciously. So if we understand that the subconscious mind influenced the functioning of our immune system and we want, we understood that a proper immune function is crucial for the body's ability to maintain balance and health, then we wanted to see what has changed because if a person was born healthy, It means everything works fine and then if someday something changed.

What is changed and for the most part and i think you talked about it in one of your videos before there's an accumulation compounding effect it can be environmental components from my perspective it's psychological components mental components trauma life events and overtime we know that. they start kind of impacting the way that our immune system functions. So, mindful remission in a nutshell is a practical, goal-oriented, result-driven methodology to engage the subconscious mind so we can address the patterns that we know through this research called psychoneuroimmunology are suppressing our function so, we allow the immune systems to perk up and what it's designed to do, which is to eliminate any abnormalities in the blood.

So tell me more practically, how does it work? I mean, you are speaking to with a patient, to let the patient speak like a kind of psychoanalysis. Tell me Sure. So the therapeutic vehicle, if you will, is the subconscious mind. We want to access that part. And to do that, we need tools that are a bit different from traditional therapy. In talk therapy, We sit and talk about our problem, which is useful. But essentially we are talking to the conscious mind, Which is rational and logical. For example, it's the educated mind part of your mind that is listening to me right now.

And that part is important, but it's like a guard that's standing in front of the vault in a bank to check your credentials, your password, if you will. So in Mindful Remission, we use a tool called Hypnotherapy or clinical Hypnotherapy and a specific protocol to essentially bypass that guard so that we can get into the vault and affect change to certain patterns that the mind perceives as harmful, limiting in some ways. So, oftentimes trauma, often times things we have learned, a way we've been conditioned, And when we change the nature of these patterns for example you learned that you're not.

Worthy enough or good enough for smart enough something enough if we can change that diffuse that pattern from negative to even just neutral. It will no longer kind of pulse within us no long reclaimed some of this. energy that we need for healing and repair, that energy will be freed for the body to use for treating and repairing.

How Mindful Remission works 12:24

So essentially when a person comes into the office, well, we can do this either in the Office. That's a more intensive program. I'm happy to talk about that a little later. Those are three-day intensive programs. Then there's the online aspect of it, which is an eight-week long program, But essentially we use hypnotherapy as the therapeutic vehicle to access the subconscious mind. And unlike in talk therapy where, tell me what you think about it, we're trying to analyze you or fix you, here we don't do any of that.

Here we let your mind bring forth what it believes is at the root of this. Because of the nature of hypnosis work that we do, There is a level of immersion that happens. A person moves forward or inward and the inner story unfold in such a way that you're fully immersed in it. So in talk therapy, you post it participant, but you're also the observant because you think about what you say you feel. Here, you fully immersed in your own story. And that level of immersion creates a bridge between the past and the present, which is what allows us to change things that happened back then and there as if they're right here and right now.

Ultimately, we're changing the meaning of what we believe has happened. And when we change the meaning, which is the root cause, we changed the effect. So you change source, you changed effect When you are facing cancer, the choices can feel overwhelming, conflicting advices, endless options, and very little clarity. At Maison Belchanski, everything begins with science. For decades, molecular biologist Dr. Mirko Belzhansky studied how specific plant extracts interact with cancer cells, work that continues today through independent research and real-world use.

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Explore the products, the research and the resources at maisonbelchanski.com because when science leads, wellness follows. Absolutely. When it comes to cancer patients, I mean, there is very often a lot of fear and it's the first thing that they feel when they receive the diagnosis and sometimes a very overwhelming fear. How do you work with that fear, and transform that in a way that may help support the healing process? Sure. So fear is a very big component. I mean, it's just the most natural response that I would say we can have when we hear those three words, you have cancer.

Right. Fear is certainly there. And fear, is there because we perceive what we just heard, the news that nobody wants to hear. We perceive it as a threat. It's a thread because, we have prior knowledge, prior information. we heard about it, We read about, maybe someone in our family has gone through this. And so we immediately connect the dots and we're in the grip of fear and the stress response. So oftentimes what we have to do is, so there's two reasons why, mainly two reason why someone stepped into fear.

One is all about perception, the other is about belief. The perception is that what you're stepping into is going to be difficult, dangerous, painful, overwhelming, all of those things. That's the perception of what were going through or what was stepping in to. But the second component, the belief component is really where the heart of it is because we don't believe essentially when you feel fear is, because you don' believe you have the inner resources to cope. We do things in life that are very challenging and very demanding.

All of, we all have been doing these things and we faced all kinds of things, but we tend to give cancer, illness such as cancer this extra weight. If we have a flu or even when COVID went through, We dealt with it. We didn't think that we didn t give it the same amount of weight as we do with cancer. So, the point is we have to change either our perception of why we perceive this as a threat or cultivate better inner resources, right? So that, we can meet this moment with grace, with ease, certainty and Yeah, and there is nothing probably more powerful than finding that you have those inner resources and that, you don't need to be in fear.

Well, if you knew with absolute certainty that You will get through this, would You have the same response? No. So this is what we have to work around. Our mind is pulling so-called evidence from somewhere. Where does this evidence come from? Obviously, we had come a long way through medicine. Medicine can buy us time. It can give us an advantage. You can even take care of the physical aspect altogether. And we may step into remission, which hopefully is we're looking for. That doesn't mean that the fear went away, right?

Because the nervous system is still dysregulated. The mind is not fully settled into the notion that storm has passed. So, regardless of what goes on physically, we have to understand what each of our minds is doing so that we can address the root of it and change that.

Managing fear after a cancer diagnosis 18:38

When we change the meaning, that happens by itself. Absolutely. We have one, I mean, mind and body, and we have to take care of both. So for a patient, who is going to the hospital, with regular appointments at the hospitals, maybe going under chemotherapy, how do they incorporate your practice and the work they are doing with you? Is they're doing that at same time? How does it work? Sure, so most people engage this kind of work once they have received the diagnosis. You know, ideally, this approach addressing the seed patterns at the subconscious mind.

Ideally, it's something what we do that we will do in advance as a preventative approach. But most of us will only do this work when we have to. And so, yes, when people are either just started treatment, just received their diagnosis, Because, and people say, well, I'm in an advanced stage, how can this, what can these do for me? And I like to tell them that these subconscious patterns don't care what stage you are. And resolving them, addressing them at the root, will always bring about relief and improvement.

Yeah. But, unfortunately, people start looking at other means beyond what the hospital is saying only when they are very advanced stage when actually they should start really the research before the diagnosis or as the latest on the on day one of the diagnoses and try to understand what they kind of support and healing process they can get and start educating themselves as much as they as early as possible. Not when the official medicine is almost rejecting you because you have finished everything the insurance would pay for, I mean, this is not the way to go.

Still, there is hope and still, other modalities can give you some relief, but the better you start to educate yourself and take advantage of what's around you. And as you just said, learning how to live when you are still healthy and doing well, what better way that's kind of a way to make the most of what now has to offer to you rather than poisoning yours with having a negative narrative in your head that you are not able to solve by yourself. So I think that what you're doing is great and I love the idea of this approach.

Is it a work that people are doing one-on-one bio? Do you organize retreats or some group things? Tell me more. When cancer enters your life, the questions don't stop at treatment. You start asking why, what else, and what more can I do to support my body? At the Belzhansky Foundation, we believe cancer care deserves deeper answers, answers rooted in science, not in shortcuts. For decades, groundbreaking molecular research by Dr. Mirko Belzhansky explored how specific natural compounds selectively target cancer cells while spearing healthy ones.

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Working alongside conventional treatment 22:58

Visit belgianski.org to explore the research, attend upcoming events, and connect with the Belgiansky community. Because informed choices begin with credible science. I'm a one-on-one person. And I think this kind of work is very intimate. And so, you know, there's nothing wrong with retreats and then obviously there is tremendous value to group work and such. And I actually am inspired to do that in a retreat format because there are things that we can absolutely do as a group. But I have not, I find so much meaning and value in connection with people.

and holding them in this very tender place. It's just very, very intimate and personal and rewarding and transforming. I mean, it's life altering. To say that our mind is like our operating system. We all carry now phones in our pockets and every now and then we get this prompt, you know, update, security update is required. And we don't give it too much thought, we just press the button. An update needed is because there's more information, more stuff to consider that the operating system is to compute for.

But we've never really given ourselves this kind of upgrade or update of our operating systems. Not really. I mean, some of it happens naturally when we grow up. I'd like to say that, you know, today is 2026, most of us operating system mentally and emotionally is still Windows 93. And that's present us with a significant challenge. Think about it. Relationships, we'd liked to think that we're having relationships as adults, but we were really inner childs in an adult body, emotionally at least, trying to figure it out because no one taught us how to do maybe relationships.

How to go after what we want, how to be our full self, to feel good about ourselves, these things that we never really learned from the ground up. So the question is when? We're so busy living life. Most of us will never give ourselves this upgrade until life itself says that it's time and then. We're so stubborn that we will just push everything aside. We'll ignore, we'll plow and continue to work through and push and we all suppress. But we know that that which we resist persists. So eventually life finds a way.

Illness is a very powerful, it shuts us down. It forces us to look inside and to make these upgrades that we so desperately need. For the average person, how long does, I mean, for how do they have to work with you? How many sessions, or how many months is the averaged person working with? Yeah. So there's two ways to work. The in-person work is a three-day intensive. That's all it takes. It's 15 hours. But the way that these 15-hours are kind of segmented is that the first day is half of that time.

So the day I get to walk with one person for seven and a half hours straight, and we go very deep down the rabbit hole.

One-on-one practice and intensive sessions 26:18

And the reason this is necessary is because of how the mind works. A mind doesn't want to change. Even if the mind is holding on to stuff that isn't perhaps the most healthy for us, the mine prefers comfort over confrontation. So we have to kind of make use of the opportunity once we find how to access the might, make sure that we utilize this amount of time. to go as far as we can. So that's day one, seven and a half hours straight. The second and third days are half days, so a four hours day and three and half hour days.

And that gets us to about 15 hours. Uh, the change or the transformation, I want to make sure that people understand it. This is not some psychological practice. You feel it in the body, your nervous system feels regulated. finally, your body can finally exhale. You feel settled. you feel lighter.You feel that you have a new lease on life, a deeper connection with yourself because you no longer have to manage these inner conflicts that have tended to your entire life. And most people find all of a sudden that they've spent decades in guilt, decades in shame, decade in fear, Decades making themselves smalls, minimizing their pain, feeling disconnected.

And so when they finally, when something click back into place for them and they feel maybe for the first time in a very long time who they are, it's like, well, I'm going to get emotional, but it This is so much powerful than years and years of therapy that people sometimes are going through with very little results, actually. And we would not love to take three days off just for having such a transformational experience. That's amazing. So for people who want to reach out to you and sign up for this kind of a transformation experience, how do they do that?

or they just need to Google my name, Avino Amlono. There's two of them in the United States, only two us. One is me and the other happened to be a very big shot Hollywood producer that produced all the Rambo movies. I'm not that. And I do often get calls with people pitching writing and I saying, I am sorry, you got the wrong one. But if people just Google, my, name Avinom Lono, Tell us a little bit more about, for those people who want to have a three day with you, where are you located in the US?

I'm in Boston, Massachusetts. Yeah. So the in-person is one option. And then there is the online, which is an eight week long program, Which is more like a coaching program. But, but we are able to do some hypnosis or resume. It is, I originally created these two as one unit. The in person is like surgery and the on-line is rehab. I don't want to decide for people what they need to do. I want them to step into their agency and if they want do one and not the other, that's perfectly fine. The Mindful Remission program is a very big toolbox with tools and practices that have proven over the 25 years of doing this work as effective as promoting change in real time.

You talked about therapy and I'd like to say about that if you're driving a car, Conventional therapy is like wiping the windshield clean. You want to see the road better. And that's important. But if you have an issue with your engine, if your engineering is leaking, you really need to pull the car to the side. could into the engine block, find the faulty part and replace it. And that's what this kind of work does. So we can do it in person. We can it online, but it's really just, I want to make sure that people understand there's real therapeutic work to be done here.

Books, resources, and closing remarks 30:38

This is not some magic formula or, and also I wanna make that sure people understands this is, not here to replace medical treatment, essentially to do the one thing that medical cannot and that is address not the physical body, but the person living in this physical. Doctors are trained in treating the tumor or the. Physical aspect of cancer, they have no training. It's not their scope of practice. Rheumatology, even though it's been around for more than 50 years, most oncologists, if you ask them, Exactly.

And that's why I thank you so much for coming to speak to us about it. So tell us a little bit more about your book and what people should expect when buying your books. Sure. Thank you. The first book that I've written, it's called The New Cancer Paradigm, Mobilizing the Mind to Heal the Body. That came out, that was published in 2012, so 14 years ago. I'm not a writer. I didn't want to write another book, but this book which is called The Mindful Remission, The Mental Science of Healing Cancer, woke me up in the middle of the night.

and forced me to write it. I literally thought the idea, but it's an incredible resource for anyone facing illness such as cancer. It's a massive toolbox. Its essentially a workbook and a framework, if you will, all at the same place. So this is coming up in next month, in May, 2026. And it is very exciting because it If someone doesn't want to do the work with me personally, if they want try to work on their own until now, they didn't know how to that. There are many, many books to tell you what you need to do, but no books that shows you how.

The Mind for a Mission book is really that kind of a book. It's a workbook so you can, each and every one of us, can benefit and get amazing results and transformation in their healing and recovery. Thank you for giving us this wonderful tool. Thank You so much. Ladies and gentlemen, this was Abhinoam Lerner and it has been a privilege to listen to you and I'm very grateful for your knowledge and your willingness to share and to help us become better people, to make a better world around us. Because in the end, that's what it is about.

Yes. Yes, thank you so much Sylvia. I appreciate it. Thank you. So much.