Podcast Summary: Living Your Legacy

Host: Rudy Mawer
Guest: Brooke Anderson
Episode: "Curing Chronic Illness is 80% Mindset!"
Date: August 25, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode of Living Your Legacy dives deep into the transformative journey of Brooke Anderson—author, life coach, medium, and maternal mental health advocate. Brooke shares her near-death experience, recovery from severe postpartum psychosis and paralysis, and how these shaped her conviction that healing from chronic illness is 80% mindset and 20% physical intervention. Through candid storytelling, she illustrates how she turned her pain into purpose, helping others reclaim hope and agency in their own healing journeys.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Brooke’s Backstory: Trauma to Transformation

• Postpartum Psychosis & Medical Dismissal ([02:27]–[04:02])
  • After her fourth child, Brooke suffered 18 months of postpartum psychosis undiagnosed, then experienced full body paralysis. Doctors dismissed her symptoms as “just depression.”
  • “I was unable to speak. I couldn’t move my body, couldn’t feel my body...I just started this process of advocating for myself, searching for the answers.” —Brooke Anderson [02:27]
• Finding the Real Diagnosis & Life-Altering Choices ([04:03]–[05:28])
  • Discovered instability of her skull and neck combined with a genetic disorder. Only a few surgeons worldwide could perform the necessary surgery—she traveled to Barcelona after selling her house to fund it.
  • “My husband looked at me and he just said, we’ll sell the house. Because what is a house without a mother?” —Brooke Anderson [04:45]

Navigating Uncertainty and the Edge of Life

• COVID Delays and Living with Debilitating Symptoms ([05:29]–[09:24])
  • Surgery delayed due to the pandemic; family in a cramped basement apartment, funds in escrow, Brooke in constant pain and wearing a neck brace around the clock.
  • “We’re living in a one-bedroom basement apartment with four boys...and now in limbo.” —Brooke Anderson [05:29]
• Near-Death Experience Shifts Purpose ([07:39]–[09:24])
  • A near-fatal episode at physical therapy led to an out-of-body encounter:
    • “I heard a voice and it just said, it’s not your time yet. You need to go back...you haven’t fulfilled your purpose.” —Brooke Anderson [07:49]
  • This prompted her to redefine her mission: “I was going to be on a mission to show my boys that you can find joy in every circumstance.” [07:49]
• Surgery and Recovery ([09:24]–[10:52])
  • Received surgery in June 2020, spent six weeks in Barcelona during the pandemic, enduring a difficult physical and emotional recovery.

Mindset as the Critical Pillar of Healing

• Challenging Prognoses and Redefining Identity ([11:17]–[13:42])
  • Doctors expected her to be disabled for life, but Brooke began questioning those limits.
  • “Who said I couldn’t heal? Who decided that this is my life? Because I didn’t.” —Brooke Anderson [11:53]
  • “I realized that I had made chronic illness slowly an identity, and that as long as that was my identity, I would never experience health.” [12:21]
• Flipping the Script on Healing ([13:04]–[13:18])
  • “The first step is flipping that question from like, I can’t heal to ‘who said I can’t?’...As long as you’re saying I can’t heal, your body, your mind will not create a solution.” [13:04]

Building a Business & Legacy from Experience

• Developing a Healing Program ([14:58]–[16:40])
  • Analyzed her own recovery to create a step-by-step methodology for clients—where mindset changes triggered the greatest transformation.
  • Further diagnosed with chronic Lyme disease; noted that biological improvements didn’t match symptoms until she addressed her mindset: “My mind was keeping me sick. Because staying the same is safe.” [16:17]
• Mindset Before Method ([16:57]–[18:01])
  • Acknowledge skepticism from clients attached to a medical narrative, but emphasized that most clients come to her after exhausting conventional options: “They’re at the ultimate low and they’re willing to try something different.” [17:56]

Practical Application: Getting Started

• First Steps for Listeners ([19:05]–[20:20])
  • Advocacy, community, and daily mindset practice.
  • “The first thing you do is start repeating every single day, ‘Why can’t I?’...As soon as you start questioning it and you repeat the question, your mind is going to start looking for solutions.” [19:44]
• Applicable Beyond Major Illness ([19:49]–[20:09])
  • Brooke asserts the same tactic works for small or everyday complaints—joint pain, headaches, etc.
  • “Who said I have to live with this?” [20:05]

Expanding Impact: Legacy and Resources

• Analyzing Identity and Self-Limiting Patterns ([21:55]–[23:33])
  • Brooke’s book documents her real-time mindset shifts with prompts to analyze the “benefit” and cost of holding onto unhealthy identities.
  • “I wasn’t owning my voice for what I needed...My body was creating crashes because I wouldn’t take life at a healthy pace for me.” [23:25]
• Mission Statement ([23:57]–[24:47])
  • “My legacy is getting this out there, returning people to their self because that’s where they find the power for healing.” [24:34]

Memorable Quotes & Moments

• “I was just grateful to be alive. But then I realized...who said I couldn’t heal? Because I didn’t.” —Brooke Anderson [11:53]
• “As long as you’re saying ‘I can’t heal,’ your body, your mind will not create a solution.” —Brooke Anderson [13:18]
• “People that are stuck in chronic illness who have lost hope...they give up. And I think it’s once you lose the hope, it’s not the pain side, it’s the fact that you don’t believe it’s ever going to go away.” —Rudy Mawer [24:25]

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Brooke’s medical and personal crisis: [00:00]–[07:39]
• Near-death experience and its impact: [07:39]–[09:24]
• Surgery in Barcelona and recovery: [09:24]–[10:52]
• Mindset as key to healing: [11:17]–[13:18]
• Transition to helping others, founding her business: [14:58]–[16:40]
• Addressing skepticism and building community: [16:57]–[19:15]
• Practical advice for listeners: [19:44]–[20:09]
• Book and self-examination process: [21:55]–[23:33]
• Vision for legacy and impact: [23:57]–[24:47]

Resources & How to Connect

• Instagram: @live_even_with ([25:18])
• Website: brooke-anderson.com ([25:18])
• Book: Available on Amazon ([25:35])

Closing Thoughts

Brooke’s journey from misdiagnosis and despair to empowerment and advocacy is a powerful testament to the mind-body connection in healing. Her integrative program and book offer actionable steps for anyone—whether battling chronic illness or lesser maladies—to question medical narratives, reclaim hope, and build their own path to wellness.

“Once your mind, soul and spirit, mind, body, spirit align, you will find healing.” —Brooke Anderson [24:48]

For listeners seeking hope, inspiration, and practical help for themselves or loved ones enduring chronic illness, Brooke’s story is living proof that mindset can be the catalyst for transformation.