When Kat Finnerty experienced her first multiple sclerosis relapse in more than twelve years, she had to decide whether to panic or take control. In this episode of The Hope & Health Podcast, Mathew Embry talks with Kat about the first steps she took, the mindset that kept her steady, and the nutrition and movement strategies that helped her move forward. She also shares what nearly thirty years of living with MS has taught her and why community, clarity, and consistency matter.
Welcome to Hope and Health. Today we're joined by Kat Finnerty, a yoga teacher, author, and MS warrior who has inspired thousands of people around the world. Kat returns to share her incredible recovery journey after experiencing a relapse following 12 years of being symptom free.
When Kat last appeared on Hope and Health over a year ago, she was going through a relapse just two days before the interview. Her body was completely numb, a frightening return of symptoms after more than a decade of living relapse free. She had written a book about overcoming MS, and suddenly found herself needing to test everything she believed in.
Now, 12 months later, Kat is not just back to where she was. She's stronger than ever. She recently completed a 40 kilometer, two day trek up a live volcano in Vanuatu, the furthest distance she's ever done. She's running again and living fully, proving that recovery is possible even after a significant setback.
When the relapse first hit, Kat's initial response was denial. Day one was denial. Day two was denial. She knew exactly what was happening but didn't want to face it. While she considers this reaction important in some ways, preventing herself from becoming completely consumed by fear, she eventually had to radically accept reality.
The acceptance was crucial but difficult. Kat had spent nearly 10 years hardly being able to walk earlier in her MS journey. She knew how bad things could get, and she had worked so hard to get where she was. The fear was real, but she made a conscious choice not to let it control her.
Kat identified three areas where she had complete control, and she focused all her energy there.
Kat firmly believes that thoughts become things, and while it might sound cliché, she sees real power in this principle. Instead of spiraling into worry about the future, she asked herself what she wanted to happen and kept her focus there. She didn't allow herself to live in fear of what might be, choosing instead to stay hyper focused on what she could control in the present moment.
Kat admitted that she had let her diet lapse somewhat before the relapse. When symptoms returned, she tightened up significantly, going back to what she describes as pretty much a Best Bet Diet. Her protocol included:
This strict nutritional approach became one of her primary tools for recovery.
Despite her legs being numb and experiencing weird nerve pain throughout her body, Kat made a conscious choice. She could focus on the pain, or she could focus on pushing through. She subscribes to the belief that every day presents a choice to become stronger or weaker, with no in between.
She took rest when needed, but her default was action. If she could run, she went for a run. She even went to parkrun with her daughter during the relapse, refusing to let the symptoms completely stop her movement.
While Kat is passionate about mindset, nutrition, and fitness, she's also pragmatic about medical intervention. She took steroids during her relapse, acknowledging that while she loves natural approaches, sometimes nothing works as quickly as a powerful drug. She's fully aware of what she calls "the karmic law of pharmaceuticals," the reality that every drug comes with consequences and reactions.
Within three weeks of combining steroids with her lifestyle interventions, Kat was back to normal, back to where she was pre attack.
Kat believes she knows what triggered her relapse. She got really angry and upset about something, experiencing high stress during her wedding planning. Stress is something she has always worked on controlling, recognizing it as one of the most significant enemies for anyone with MS. Part of her recovery involved working on letting that anger go, a process she considers essential to her healing.
Kat points out that we have approximately 70,000 thoughts every single day. We can't stop our thoughts from coming, but we can choose which thoughts to believe and we can choose the quality of our thoughts.
About 20 years ago, Kat got severely depressed. She was driving past trees and wanted to drive into them. At that moment, she decided she had to find a way to heal not just her body but also her mind. That's when she discovered Buddhism.
She would travel 8 hours a day just to attend classes, learning that meditation isn't about looking zen while sitting still. It's about learning that we are the ones talking in our heads. It's only us, and we have control over that internal dialogue.
Her practice includes:
She listens to Buddhist podcasts throughout the day, constantly reinforcing positive thinking patterns.
When Kat shared her relapse story publicly on the podcast and social media, the response was mixed. Many people found it helpful, especially hearing how she dealt with MS while raising children. However, she was surprised by the anger and vitriol from some quarters.
People got angry when she suggested that individuals have agency in their health journey. The concept of having "the ability to respond" to what happens to us seemed to upset certain groups. Some accused her of being "just like Mat Embry," which she took as a compliment, though it wasn't intended that way.
The controversy intensified when discussing the role of diet, mindset, and exercise alongside or instead of disease modifying therapies. Kat has done both, having undergone an autologous stem cell transplant nearly 18 years ago and also taking Lemtrada. She doesn't believe any single approach works for everyone all the time, which is precisely why she advocates for a multifaceted approach combining diet, mindset, and movement.
Kat raises an important question that frustrates many in the MS community: why isn't stem cell transplant offered more widely as a treatment option? She finds it confusing that when she mentions having had the procedure, some people get angry that she could afford it, rather than questioning why it's not being offered to more patients.
The medical ecosystem around MS is complex, involving billions of dollars in drug money and healthcare services. MS is a disease that plays out over 30 years, making it, in some ways, a convenient condition for pharmaceutical companies. By the time long term outcomes become clear, patents have expired and the industry has moved on to the next breakthrough.
Having been in this community for 30 years, both Kat and Mat have lived through multiple cycles of MS "breakthroughs" that ultimately showed no effect on long term progression. Yet few people advocate for the patient population to question these cycles.
Kat moderates Multiple Sclerosis Resources and Education, one of the largest MS Facebook groups in the world with over 100,000 members. She sees the online space as crucial for the MS community, especially for sharing knowledge that isn't being formally studied.
When she was first diagnosed nearly 30 years ago, before widespread computer access, research and knowledge were incredibly hard to come by. Her first neurologist told her diet wouldn't help, which put her off from exploring nutrition for the first six years. If she'd had access to a community or more information, it would have helped enormously.
Now, with 100,000 people in her group, she can ask who's doing what and how they're finding it. That collective wisdom provides information that nobody is funding formal studies to investigate. When thousands of people say diet has really helped them, that's valuable data.
However, the online space comes with dangers. It can be filled with negative energy and can even immobilize or paralyze people who become too lost in it. The negativity can be contagious.
Kat uses a powerful metaphor: people can throw something at you, but it's your choice to catch it. She doesn't catch any of the negativity. People can say things, but it's her choice whether she catches it and wears it or not.
She practices self reflection, asking herself if she's showing up in the world in a way that might upset others and how she can be kinder and more loving. When she sees negativity online, she realizes people are coming from a place of extreme pain. She used to be that person, angry and frustrated, so how can she judge them without having compassion?
As a moderator, she allows people to have their voice, even when they're critical of her. She has the power to delete comments but chooses not to, believing it's important to let people express themselves. She's trying to encourage the community to be more loving and kind, more proactive in recognizing they have a responsibility about how they show up in the world and what they spread.
Every day we can choose to be happy or feel crappy. The problem is when people get on forums and rant about how much life and MS suck, they spread that negativity. It's contagious.
Kat recently received an MRI report from last year that she'd been avoiding reading. She practices what she calls "ignorant bliss" and has only had one MRI in the last 12 years. The report said her brain is full of MS lesions, but the symptoms she experiences are so negligible that she doesn't really notice them.
Her foot cramps every now and then. Her balance isn't always great. As a yoga teacher, she watches her students hold balances better than she can. But these are small things.
Just recently, she climbed from sea to summit to sea on a live volcano, a 40 kilometer trek that was the biggest hike she's ever done. Her feet were bloodied and blistered, and she wanted to stop. But she could focus on her damaged feet or focus on the tremendous feat of overcoming so much. She tells herself constantly: you can do hard things.
While goals are important, Kat believes habits are even more crucial. We're not motivated every day to do difficult things. It might be rainy or we might just not feel like it. But if something is a habit, it becomes non negotiable.
Every morning at 6:00 a.m., Kat gets up to walk, either finding someone to join her or going alone. She actively seeks accountability, describing herself as an "exercise seeking missile" when she travels. She'll post on local Facebook groups asking who wants to go to the gym, walk, or mountain bike.
She sets small goals, sometimes just thinking about getting to lunch without incident. But the daily habits of how she eats and how she moves provide the foundation for her success.
For people who have just received an MS diagnosis, Kat offers powerful guidance: Nobody knows the future. The future is not yours to see at all. You only have control over this moment and this day.
Your thoughts become things, so what thoughts you hold in your head could potentially cause your future. It's important to keep your thoughts focused on today and not worry. You could be hit by a bus tomorrow, so there's no point worrying about what might happen. You need to focus on what you do today.
She practices "joyful effort," focusing on the effort rather than the outcome. MS is a long game. Thirty years is a long time. You don't always see the results immediately, but you need to do the effort in the moment and not worry about the outcome.
She asks herself constantly: Given that it's like this right now in my life, what is the best thing for me to do and think for my present and future happiness?
When Kat recently visited an MS clinic, they told her to be careful, not to get too hot, and to really moderate what she does. Her response? That's a huge mistake.
She believes people wrap themselves up in cotton wool and think they can't do things now that they have MS. But whatever you stop doing, you will never get that back unless you keep pushing towards it. Yes, take a break when you need to. Then get up and fight back like hell.
When she was first diagnosed, she thought she was fighting MS. She wasn't going to let it beat her. But then she realized she wasn't fighting at all. She was just surviving. She was taking her disease modifying therapy, she had three kids in three years, and every single day she was just surviving.
It wasn't until that moment when she wanted to drive into a tree that she realized she needed to find another way. She needed to take control of her illness and her life, actually doing things that were going to help her rather than just trying to get through every single day.
Kat's message extends far beyond MS. Her book, "Never Let a Good Disaster Go to Waste," is both her memoir and her war cry. It originally focused on how she overcame her husband's betrayal in 12 hours, but it's really about overcoming suffering as quickly as possible in life.
She believes suffering is inevitable, as Buddha said, but there is a path out of it. She teaches people how to overcome suffering from divorce, disease, depression, and irritating people using her 12 principles. Suffering is a choice.
She's clear that she's not here to profit from anyone's pain. She offers her book for free to anyone who wants it. Any extra money goes to a project in Vanuatu called A Thousand Days of Life, helping babies born with stunted brain growth due to lack of protein.
Interestingly, Selma Blair saw her last podcast interview and posted on her story that she was reading Kat's book, a validation of how the message resonates beyond just the MS community.
Kat acknowledges she's not naturally a happy go lucky person. She has to work at being positive exceedingly hard. She's inherently selfish, she admits, wanting what she wants when she wants it.
But she learned an important lesson as a child. As the eldest of five children, she once complained to her father that her brother always got two donuts from the weekly six pack while she only got one. Her father took her donut and gave it to her brother. When her brother laughed, her father took all three of his brother's donuts and gave them to her sisters.
The lesson: "Don't you ever be unhappy about someone else's happiness. And don't you ever be happy about another person's unhappiness."
Now, when people challenge her, especially online, she looks at them and thinks: I just wish you happiness and love. I wish happiness for me and I wish it for you. It's their journey. Everyone's got to go on their own journey.
Kat Finnerty's story demonstrates that recovery from MS relapses is possible through a comprehensive approach combining medical intervention when necessary, strict dietary discipline, consistent physical activity, and perhaps most importantly, rigorous mental discipline.
Her journey from being nearly unable to walk for 10 years to climbing volcanoes and running regularly shows that the trajectory of MS isn't fixed. It took her 15 years to run again, but she never gave up hope.
Her message is clear: we are the masters of our disasters and the creators of our detonators. When more people realize they should never let a good disaster go to waste, the world will change, one person at a time.
For those facing MS or any chronic illness, Kat's approach offers a roadmap: accept your reality, control what you can control (thoughts, diet, movement), build supportive habits, seek accountability, focus on the present moment, and above all, don't wrap yourself in cotton wool. Keep pushing. Keep fighting. You can do hard things.
Disclaimer: This article shares one individual's personal journey and is not medical advice. Anyone considering changes to their MS treatment should consult with qualified healthcare professionals.
