Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast Before The Diagnosis

What if we're asking the wrong question about illness?

In this episode, we take a step back from the question at the heart of Before the Diagnosis: what happened before someone became ill?

Rather than searching backwards for a single cause - stress, grief, trauma, anger, relationships or something else - we explore a more complicated idea: context.

What was happening in someone's life? What were they experiencing? How were they coping? And how might the mind, body, nervous system and environment interact over time?

Drawing on her experience as a nurse, cancer patient and somatic coach, Kyna explores the important distinction between association and causation, and why acknowledging the mind-body connection should never become a way of blaming someone for their illness.

But the question doesn't stop there.

If our experiences can influence our physiology, what might that mean for recovery? What can we learn from placebo and nocebo research, meditation, expectation, belief and the stories of people who have experienced extraordinary or unexpected recoveries?

Kyna explores ideas around radical remission, the work of Kelly Turner, David Hamilton, HeartMath, Joe Dispenza and Helen Pilcher, as starting points for better questions.

Because a story isn't proof.

But a story can give us a question.

And sometimes, questions are where research begins.

This episode slightly re routes from episode 1 and sets out the philosophy that will shape the rest of Before the Diagnosis:

Curious enough to explore.
Grounded enough to question.
Hopeful without creating false certainty.

And perhaps the question isn't simply:

“What caused my illness?”

Perhaps we should also be asking:

“What was happening to me before I was diagnosed?”

In this first episode, Kyna introduces the core premise of Before the Diagnosis - that illness rarely arrives without a story preceding it. Drawing on her 17 years as an emergency nurse, her own breast cancer diagnosis, and the growing field of psychoneuroimmunology, Kyna explores the connections between chronic stress, emotional suppression, and physical health. This episode is for anyone who has ever suspected their body was trying to tell them something long before it got loud enough to hear.

Topics covered: Nervous system dysregulation, burnout, compassion fatigue, psychoneuroimmunology, adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), emotional suppression and immune function, the physiological sigh.

Before the Diagnosis is the podcast that starts where other health conversations don't.

Not with the scan. Not with the consultant's office. Not with the word that changes everything.

It starts earlier - with the years of holding it together. The grief you carried quietly. The stress you normalised. The emotions you didn't have time to feel because there were shifts to work, people to care for, and a life to keep moving.

Hosted by Kyna Richardson – somatic embodiment coach, NLP master practitioner, former emergency nurse of 17 years, yoga & breathwork practitioner, and previous breast cancer patient - this podcast explores the growing body of evidence connecting life stressors, emotional suppression, and a dysregulated nervous system to physical illness.

This isn't about blame. It isn't about saying you caused your illness.

It's about joining the dots that medicine rarely takes the time to join  and understanding that healing the whole story might be the most important thing you ever do.

For the people who held everyone else together. For the strong ones who kept going. For anyone who suspects their body was trying to tell them something long before it got loud enough to hear.

Because the story starts long before the diagnosis