Episodes

  • Presence, Processing, and Healing with Ben Oofana

    Presence, Processing, and Healing with Ben Oofana
    Jun 25 2026

    What if the fear and grief you've been carrying is stored in your body right now and learning to feel it, rather than push it away, is one of the most powerful things you can do for your healing?

    In this episode, Bron sits down with Ben Oofana, a meditation teacher and practitioner withover 35 years of experience working with people navigating serious illness, including cancer. Trained as a teenager by Horace Daukei, one of the last of the Kiowa Tribe's traditional Native American doctors, and later in the internal arts of Tai Chi, Chi Gong, and Xin Yi Quan under a Chinese master, Ben has spent decades helping people do the emotional work that most people don't know is available to them.

    We talk about what it means to 'digest' lived experience, why suppressing emotion increases inflammation in the body, the simple practice anyone can start today, and what healing looks like when a cure isn't the destination.

    Not everyone gets a cure. But everyone can heal.

    In This Episode

    • Ben's path - training with a Kiowa Native American doctor at 17, vision quests, and 35 years of learning
    • What 'digesting' lived experience actually means and why it's different from thinking your way through something
    • How unprocessed emotion is held in the body and what that means for serious illness
    • The connection between suppressed emotion, inflammation, and cancer
    • A simple practice: name it, feel it, locate it, breathe through it
    • Healing versus curing and why presence matters more than outcome
    • Working with people at the very end of life and what peaceful transition can look like
    • Diet, lifestyle, and emotional processing as one integrated approach

    The Practice - Step by Step

    Ben shared a practice anyone can begin today:

    • Name the reality - acknowledge what you're actually facing
    • Feel your response - notice the emotion without analysing it
    • Locate it in your body - throat, chest, abdomen?
    • Breathe with it - slow, full breaths all the way to the abdomen, hold briefly, slow exhale
    • Follow it as it moves - emotions progress; let them without forcing a destination
    • If it feels overwhelming, go outside - walk with it; the earth helps ground what's tooheavy to hold still

    Connect With Ben

    Website: https://benoofana.com

    Blog: https://benoofana.com/blog

    Meditation & training: https://teachmetomeditate.com

    Relationship support: https://breakupfirstaid.com | https://healmyheartache.com

    YouTube: https://youtube.com / @benoofana

    Instagram: https://instagram.com/benoofana

    Contact: https://benoofana.com/contact - Ben responds personally. If you don't hear back, assume the message didn't arrive and try again via Instagram.

    Ben works remotely with people in any country and is also willing to travel for in-person sessions.

    JOIN THE COMMUNITY

    Website: https://serenityproject.com.au/

    Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bronwatsonme

    Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bron_watson/

    LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/bronwatson

    Have a question or feedback? You can leave a message here: https://fanlist.com/serenityproject

    Your healing matters every day. And so does your peace.

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    55 mins
  • What Nobody Tells You About Being Both the Carer and the Patient with Sally Milliss

    What Nobody Tells You About Being Both the Carer and the Patient with Sally Milliss
    Jun 10 2026

    Sally Milliss has lived two of the hardest seasons a person can face and she has faced them in opposite seats. As a young woman she nursed her husband Steve through eight years of motor neurone disease, raising their son James, then just a toddler, while the life they had planned was quietly dismantled. Years later, cancer came for her. And she handled it in a way that surprised even herself.

    In this conversation, Bron and Sally talk about what it actually means to be both the carer and the patient, why peace, not positivity is what gets you through, the moment Sally's gut told her something was wrong before a single symptom appeared, and the things people said that nearly broke her and what she wished they had said instead.

    Sally is 61, unapologetically herself, and still chasing the next great adventure. She is livingproof that life keeps going and that sometimes, it gets better than you could have planned.

    In This Episode

    • What it means to be both the carer and the patient and how the relationship shifts when your husband becomes your ward
    • Surviving eight years of motor neurone disease while raising a toddler and choosingto live in the moment not by philosophy but by necessity
    • The gut instinct that saved her life: how Sally knew she had cancer before a single test, and refused to wait for a January appointment
    • Why she told only three people about her diagnosis and what she learned from watching people cope with Steve's illness about the noise others bring
    • 'I know how you feel' and 'everything happens for a reason' - the two things you mustnever say, and what to say instead
    • Giving over control for the first time in her life and finding it strangely peaceful
    • How she kept building Road Trip Roasters during treatment and why staying in motion wasn't avoidance; it was proof life wasn't over
    • The moment that changed everything: one sentence from her son James that made her realise how far they'd both come
    • Sally's word for serenity, her view on resilience, and why 'don't be the victim' is the most important thing she knows

    Connect With Sally

    Road Trip Roasters: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100088129334557

    Instagram / Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sally.milliss/

    Connect with The Serenity Project

    Website: https://serenityproject.com.au

    Instagram: @bron_watson

    Facebook: https://facebook.com/bronwatsonme

    LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/bronwatson

    YouTube: @BronWatson

    Your healing matters every day. And so does your peace.

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    42 mins
  • Living with Intention, Protecting What You Have Built

    Living with Intention, Protecting What You Have Built
    Jun 1 2026
    There is a kind of stress that does not announce itself. It just hums beneath the surface of an otherwise good life, slowly draining the energy you were saving for the things that matter most. In this episode of Serenity Rising, Bron explores the two layers of healing that have to work together if either one of them is going to last. The inner work of living with intention, and the outer work of protecting what that intention has built. Drawing on her own experience of two cancer diagnoses, peer-reviewed research translated into accessible language, and the everyday wisdom of the Serenity community, this conversation offers a permission-giving, grounded look at what it really takes to build a life that holds together when you are living through something hard. SHOW NOTES In this solo episode of Serenity Rising, Bron sits with one of the questions that does not get asked often enough. Once you have built a life from intention, how do you protect your peace? Drawing on a recent reflection from Jay Shetty, this episode names something many of us have been carrying without quite having the words for, that low-level uneasiness humming beneath the surface of an otherwise good life, the sense that something could go wrong at any moment without warning, slowly draining the energy we were saving for what matters most. Bron shares the contrast between her two cancer diagnoses, the first in 2017 and the second in February 2023, and the difference between performing through illness and finally listening to what the body has been trying to say all along. From there, the episode opens out into a wider conversation about the science of allostatic load, the research on intention and psychological flexibility, and the emerging body of evidence around boundaries, decision fatigue, and energy conservation in cancer care. All of it translated into the warm, human language we use here at Serenity. The conversation moves through both layers, the inner work of living with intention and the outer work of safeguarding what that intention has built, with practical reflections drawn from Bron's own ongoing practice. The episode closes with a Serenity Now Moment, three honest questions to sit with this week, and a gentle invitation back into the body of the work. In this episode, Bron explores: The hum of low-level stress that runs beneath an otherwise good life, and why naming it is the first step to lifting it The science of allostatic load, the cumulative wear and tear of chronic stress, and what it means for people living with cancer or chronic illness The contrast between her two diagnoses and what changed in her relationship with her own body in February 2023 The research on intention, purpose, and psychological flexibility from acceptance and commitment therapy Why living with intention is the inner work, and safeguarding your peace is the outer work, and why one without the other is not enough The role of boundaries, decision fatigue, and energy conservation as clinically supported strategies, not luxuries A specific reflection for carers, and why the protective work matters even more in the carer role Three honest questions to sit with as a Serenity Now Moment for the week ahead Research and references mentioned in this episode Guidi et al. (2020), Allostatic Load and Its Impact on Health, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics Liang and Booker (2024), Allostatic Load and Chronic Pain, BMC Public Health Kim et al. (2021), Sense of Purpose in Life and Subsequent Health Outcomes, American Journal of Health Promotion Snaterse et al. (2024), What Matters to Cardiac Patients, European Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing Garcia-Torres et al. (2024), Internet-delivered ACT for Cancer Patients, SAGE Open Jiang et al. (2024), ACT Reduces Psychological Distress in Patients with Cancer, Frontiers in Psychology Bernyk and Senyk (2024), Personal Boundaries: Definition, Role, and Impact on Mental Health, Personality and Environmental Issues Brasington et al. (2025), The Effect of Decision Fatigue on Food Choices, Nutrients Kelly et al. (2024), Self-management Support Practice Framework for Cancer-Related Fatigue, Journal of Cancer Survivorship Fabi et al. (2020), ESMO Clinical Practice Guidelines for Cancer-Related Fatigue, Annals of Oncology Connect with The Serenity Project Website: https://serenityproject.com.au Instagram: @bron_watson Facebook: https://facebook.com/bronwatsonme LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/bronwatson YouTube: @BronWatson Your healing matters every day. And so does your peace.
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    22 mins
  • Who Am I Now? Trauma, Identity, and the Path to Post - Traumatic Growth with Dr Nat Green

    Who Am I Now? Trauma, Identity, and the Path to Post - Traumatic Growth with Dr Nat Green
    May 25 2026
    What if the question "who am I now?" wasn't a sign that something had gone wrong, but the doorway to the most important work of your life? In this guest episode of Serenity Rising, Bron sits down with her long-time friend and colleague, Dr Nat Green, transformational breakthrough coach, retired psychologist, and creator of the ABS Method and Archetypes of Transformation frameworks. With over 35 years in the trauma and psychology field, Nat brings both professional expertise and profound lived experience to a conversation about identity, post-traumatic growth, and what becomes possible when we stop trying to return to whowe used to be. This is a warm, deeply human episode for anyone navigating cancer, chronic illness, or any life experience that has changed them, and wondering what comes next. SHOW NOTES In this guest episode of Serenity Rising, Bron is joined by Dr Nat Green, transformational breakthrough coach, retired psychologist, and creator of the ABS Method and Archetypes of Transformation frameworks. With more than 35 years working in trauma and psychology, including being on site after the Port Arthur Massacre for 13 months and the North Parkes mine collapse, Nat has spent her career in the hardest human spaces imaginable. And then, as so often happens, life brought its hardest lessons home. What began as a surgical complication became systemic sepsis, eight months in and out of hospital, multiple surgeries, and a PTSD journey Nat now openly shares to help others. Her story is a powerful reminder that even the most experienced experts in trauma must eventually learn to receive care, and to stop. In this conversation, Bron and Nat explore the question that sits quietly at the heart of the cancer experience: who am I now? Nat introduces the concept of post-traumatic growth, not as a destination, but as adirection. Moving from what she describes as "minus five to zero", the deep clinical work of surviving, toward a "zero to five" territory of meaning, identity, and becoming. This is the ground where Serenity Rising lives. In this episode, Bron and Nat explore: Why trying to return to "the old you" keeps people stuck and what to reach for insteadHow trauma reshapes identity, relationships, and priorities and why that can be a giftThe three brains (head, heart, and gut) and a simple 5-minute reconnection practice anyone can start todayWhat it means to be "at cause" rather than "at effect", moving beyond the victim narrative without dismissing painWhy labels like "survivor" or "victim" can limit our sense of who we're becomingThe Archetypes of Transformation, seven identity patterns that emerge through adversity, including the Phoenix RiserHow identity fractures form and how to begin putting the fragments back togetherNat's word for serenity: stillness Nat also shares a free archetype quiz, linked in the show notes, that helps people identify their own pattern and move toward post-traumatic growth more intentionally. This conversation weaves together decades of clinical experience, lived wisdom, and the kind of warmth that only comes from two people who have genuinely walked each other through the hardest chapters of life. It's not about pretending you haven't been through what you've been through. It's about owning it fully—and discovering who you're becoming on the other side. Your healing matters every day. Links mentioned: Dr Nat Green's free Archetype Quiz: https://quiz.drnataliegreen.com.au/ Dr Nat Green on Instagram: @DrNatGreenDr Nat Green on Facebook: @DrNatalieGreenGrowing Tall Poppies Podcast: https://drnataliegreen.innovorise.com/podcast JOIN THE COMMUNITY Website: https://serenityproject.com.au/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bronwatsonme Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bron_watson/ LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/bronwatson Have a question or feedback? You can leave a message here: https://fanlist.com/serenityproject
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    41 mins
  • How Are You? The Loaded Question, the Cost of Fine, and the Permission to Be Real

    How Are You? The Loaded Question, the Cost of Fine, and the Permission to Be Real
    May 17 2026
    Three small words that carry the weight of the world when you are living with cancer. How are you? It sounds like the most ordinary question in the world, and before a diagnosis, it was. Somewhere along the way, those three words became loaded, and answering them honestly became one of the hardest parts of moving through your day. In this solo episode of Serenity Rising, Bron unpacks what is really happening in that tiny pause before you answer. She names the emotional labour of managing what you show the world, shares the research on what it costs us when we suppress what is genuinely true, and offers a gentle, practical way of finding answers that sit somewhere between fine and the full story. This is a conversation about honesty, isolation, the people who can hold the real version of us, and the quiet permission to feel what is actually here. SHOW NOTES In this solo episode of Serenity Rising, Bron sits with a question she has been turning over for a long time. How are you? Three small words that used to mean nothing, and that now carry an entire internal calculation in the half-second before you answer. How much time do we have, how much do I want to give away, what will happen if I tell the truth, and will it make this person uncomfortable? Bron walks gently through what is really happening in that moment, drawing on the research that names this work as emotional labour. She shares why so many people living with cancer default to fine, and why that choice, while completely understandable, comes with areal and measurable cost. Studies have consistently found that people who routinely suppress how they are feeling report significantly higher levels of psychological distress than those who allow themselves to express even partially what is true. Forty percent of cancer patients report worsening mental health, and only half ever receive appropriate psychological support. This episode is also deeply personal. Bron shares a story about her two younger boys, Tommy and Ollie, who came to her years after her first diagnosis and told her they used to go to school terrified that their mum would not be there when they got home. She had been wearing her favourite saying at the time, you don't know how strong you are until you have no choice, like a badge of honour. After her second diagnosis, the badge of honour came off, vulnerability and truth came in, and her boys grew into the resilient and grounded young men they are becoming. Bron also names what she calls positive toxicity, the well-meaning but inadvertently isolating insistence on staying positive, keeping your chin up, and being the brave fighter version of yourself, when what you actually need is somewhere safe to land with the version of you that cried in the shower and cancelled everything. In this episode, Bron explores: The internal calculation that happens in the half-second before you answer how areyouWhy fine is not weakness or dishonesty, and why it is also not the whole storyThe research on emotional labour, suppression, and the measurable cost of holdingit all inThe story of Tommy and Ollie, and what changed for Bron's family after the second diagnosisWhy positive toxicity, even when offered with love, can leave us more alone than beforeHow to build a small range of honest answers that sit between fine and the full debriefThe importance of identifying one or two people who get the real answerBron's simple process of naming the emotion, controlling the controllables, pausing,and respondingThe role of the Serenity Cards, and the connection to Bron's upcoming book BeWhere Your Feet AreWhy being honest about how you are is what real resilience actually looks like This episode is for anyone who has ever stood in the supermarket aisle, calculating how to answer a kind question without breaking open in front of the freezer section. It is for anyonewho has worn fine as a badge of honour and is starting to wonder what it has cost them. And it is a gentle reminder that the real answer deserves somewhere and someone to land. Your healing matters every day. JOIN THE COMMUNITY Website https://serenityproject.com.au/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/bronwatsonme Instagram https://www.instagram.com/bron_watson/ LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/in/bronwatson Have a question or feedback? You can leave a message here: https://fanlist.com/serenityproject
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    15 mins
  • N = One: Science, Soul, and Self - Advocacy with Kate Caine

    N = One: Science, Soul, and Self - Advocacy with Kate Caine
    Apr 22 2026
    What happens when a medical scientist becomes the patient? And what does "N = one" really mean when the one is you? Kate's story spans forensic pathology, integrative oncology, and a breast cancer diagnosis received alone, mid-pandemic, in locked-down Melbourne. This episode weaves science and soul into a conversation that will stay with you. SHOW NOTES In this guest interview episode of Serenity Rising, Bron is joined by Kate Caine: medical scientist, tissue pathologist, health practitioner, and breast cancer survivor. What unfolds is a remarkable conversation about what it means to be a deeply knowledgeable health professional and then become the patient. Kate's journey is extraordinary. Raised in a family of 13 children with a GP father and nurse mother, she grew up with medicine woven through daily life. Her career took her from routine tissue pathology to forensic autopsies, paediatric pathology overseas, and eventually into remedial massage and osteopathy. Then came her breast cancer diagnosis in late 2019, received alone, in a surgeon's office, just before the world shutdown with COVID. Kate walked through chemotherapy, radiation, and the brutal side effects of peripheral neuropathy, largely in isolation during Melbourne's extended COVID lockdowns, driving herself to treatment, navigating a changed body, and drawing on every ounce of her scientific training to advocate for herself when the system wasn't listening. Central to this conversation is Kate's concept of N = one. In research, large sample sizes create validity. But in a cancer diagnosis, every person's experience is their own. Their response to treatment, their side effects, their healing, all N equals one. Kate and Bron explore what it means to hold both the data and the deeply personal, to use science as a framework without letting it override your lived experience and intuition. In this episode, Kate and Bron explore: Growing up in medicine and how it shaped Kate's resilience and curiosityReceiving a breast cancer diagnosis alone, mid-pandemic, in locked-down MelbourneThe shock of going from health professional to patient and the strange dissociation that followedN equals one: why your cancer journey is uniquely yours, regardless of what the data saysSelf-advocacy in medical settings: asking questions, interviewing oncologists, and refusing to be dismissedIntegrative oncology and the both/and approach, science and soul, not science or soulRe-embodiment: accepting a changed body and building a new relationship with healthThe late ADHD diagnosis and what it illuminated about Kate's life, treatment experience, and what's nextContemplating death as an invitation, not a morbid exercise, but a clarifying oneHow to live and die without regret: legacy, presence, and the marbles of time This episode also carries a powerful thread about women's health advocacy, through Kate's own experience of dismissed symptoms and her sister's story of being a 40-year veteran of intensive care nursing who still didn't want to be seen as a difficult patient. Science is not the enemy of intuition. Data does not replace the wisdom of your own body. This conversation is a reminder that you are not just a statistic, you are N = one. And that matters. Make Every day count, my friends. JOIN THE COMMUNITY Website https://serenityproject.com.au/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/bronwatsonme Instagram https://www.instagram.com/bron_watson/ LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/in/bronwatson Have a question or feedback? You can leave a message here: https://fanlist.com/serenityproject
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    43 mins
  • The Three Questions No One Prepares You For

    The Three Questions No One Prepares You For
    Apr 15 2026
    Am I going to die? Did I cause this? And who am I now? In this deeply personal episode of Serenity Rising, Bron sits with the three questions that arrive after a cancer diagnosis and rarely get the time and space they deserve. Drawing on lived experience, psychological research, and hard-won wisdom, Bron explores how to stop carrying these questions alone, and how to learn to live alongside them with grace. SHOW NOTES In this solo episode of Serenity Rising, Bron Watson explores the three questions that almost every person touched by cancer carries but rarely says out loud. These aren't medical questions. They're human ones. And they deserve more than a clinical answer. The first question, "Am I going to die?" is really about control, meaning, and the terror of uncertainty. Drawing on research into death anxiety and the role of meaning-making in oncology, Bron reframes this question as something to breathe inside, rather than solve. She shares what her own second diagnosis, an incurable cancer in February 2023, taught her about living with uncertainty, and how the Serenity Prayer offers a practical framework for finding the one thing you can do today. The second question "Why me? Did I cause this?" is the one that does the most quiet damage when it's left unexamined. Bron explores the neuroscience behind self-blame, the research linking it to poor mental health outcomes, and the crucial difference between understanding a contributing factor and holding yourself responsible for your own suffering. The path forward, she argues, is not self-deception, it's self-forgiveness. The third question, "Who am I now?", tends to linger the longest. Bron reflects on the grief of identity loss that accompanies a life-changing diagnosis, the research on post-traumatic growth, and why community—not just content—is essential for identity reconstruction. This is not a question with a quick answer. It is an invitation to discover who you're becoming. In this episode, Bron explores: The three unspoken questions that almost everyone with cancer is carryingWhy "Am I going to die?" is really a question about control and meaningThe research on death anxiety and the role of meaninglessness in amplifying fearHow self-blame develops and why it predicts poor mental health outcomesThe difference between understanding and blame and the power of self-forgivenessThe grief of identity loss and what post-traumatic growth research actually tells usWhy community is a clinical prerequisite for identity reconstructionAcceptance and Commitment Therapy and what the evidence says about processing difficult emotionsHow to hold these questions with grace instead of fear This episode weaves together research on death anxiety, self-blame, post-traumaticgrowth, and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, all translated into honest, human language. This is an episode for anyone who has asked one of these questions in the dark and wondered if it was safe to say it out loud. It is. And you are not alone in any of it. Make every day count my friends JOIN THE COMMUNITY Website https://serenityproject.com.au/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/bronwatsonme Instagram https://www.instagram.com/bron_watson/ LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/in/bronwatson Have a question or feedback? You can leave a message here: https://fanlist.com/serenityproject
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    21 mins