Mal Duane Coach

Stepping over my fear to go where my heart is calling me


Wow! It’s been a rollercoaster ride we are all going through in these unprecedented times and it can feel really scary. Fear is okay as long as it doesn’t become the foundation from which you operate.

I’ve been following all the recommendations we have been given to eliminate potential exposure to Coronavirus including social distancing, extra household cleaning, sanitizing and continuous hand washing. I’ve added wearing a mask when I go outside.  At first, these things may seem like an inconvenience. Please play by the rules. Your well being and those you love, depend on it.

I’m still committed to my next chapter and fear is not going to hold me back from moving to California.

My home will be going on the market soon so I can move. It’s been delayed by a month already. This is not an easy time to coordinate such a huge move, but my heart is telling me it’s where I belong. Nothing is going to stop me.

I have a lot ahead of me which requires my full attention. I anticipate there may be a few speed bumps along the way. Navigating the logistics is not going to be easy. Also, my heart is telling me that people are preoccupied with staying safe and juggling unforeseen life changes due to all of the disruption from the Covid-19 Pandemic. Let’s face it, life as we knew it is gone.

Therefore, this will be my last blog post & podcast until late Fall when I am settled in my new home. I can’t effectively produce this show and move across the country at the same time. I pray that by then we all may have this insidious threat behind us.

Your support means the world to me. I love bringing you informative shows and topics from varied guests that can help you on your journey.

I’m eager to get this move done so I can open up a new Fall season of Awakening Divine Wildness from sunny California.

Please jump on to Facebook and connect and follow my journey west.

My profile page is >>> https://www.facebook.com/mal.duane

My business coaching page is >>> https://www.facebook.com/malduanecoach/

Oprah, I’m coming…

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Meet Margaret Ann Lembo, Renowned Crystal and Aromatherapy Specialist


Do You Need Some Extra Goodies in Your Spiritual Toolbox?

I don’t know about you but I’m feeling energetically overwhelmed by all the press and social media that is creating so much fear in all of us. I question if some of this is politically motivated?

We do have a serious outbreak of a new virus, however, becoming gripped by fear isn’t going to help you or those around you.

How do you stay centered, maintain balance and relative positivity in the whirlwind of negative energy and being housebound?

My meditation practice is my foundation for balance when I’m caught in the throes of unmetabolized fear. However, I’m using some other tools to strengthen my resolve and help my immune system.

I’ve been doing daily applications of doTerra OnGuard oil as well as an immunity blend, I got at a holistic market. I’m also utilizing red jasper and black tourmaline for grounding my energy as well as amethyst and smokey quartz for protection. I put them out in the sun or under a full moon to charge them up again.

Most importantly, I am limiting my online time and TV time, so I don’t become buried underneath all the negative energy being projected at us.

Some suggestions for you on steps you can utilize to stabilize your emotions right now:

  • Make No Judgements: Most people including the government are doing the best they can.
  • Challenges are a form of spiritual direction. Is this virus a huge wakeup call for the planet?
  • Make conscious choices-do what will help you and those you love.
  • Surrender to what you cannot change! Resistance only delays getting on the other side.
  • Now might be the perfect time for you to dabble in some crystals and oils. Having a few goodies in your toolbox couldn’t do any harm.

This week’s I have the most perfect guest on Awakening Divine Wildness, Margaret Ann Lembo to help you clear your energy and care for yourself.

I think of her as the Queen of Crystals. She has written eight bestselling books on the topic, including my favorite Chakra Awakening: Transform Your Reality Using Crystals, Color, and Aromatherapy.
You may want to order this book ASAP. Margaret Ann has some great ideas on how to get started and what to look for in picking crystals.

Sending you blessings and healthy vibes!

 

Listen to the Awakening Divine Wildness podcast by clicking the play button on the audio player below.

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Read the Full Transcript

Mal Duane Interviews Margaret Ann Lembo, Crystal, Aromatherapy and Angels Communication Expert

Mal: Well, it’s not every week that I get to interview an expert, but I got to tell you, this week’s guest, whew, man does she know a lot. I am so happy to introduce you to Margaret Ann Lembo. [00:28] She’s the owner of the Crystal Garden in Florida, the Conscious Living Store and Center, which is located in Palm Beach, in the Southeast section of Florida, and she opened that store in 1988. For over 30 years, she’s led workshops and classes around the country and Canada. Margaret Ann is a highly renowned expert for her dedication to helping people focus on mindfulness and positive thought. She’s written eight books, five affirmation Oracle decks and nine spoken audio programs, you can visit her on her website margaretannlembo.com. She’s the creator of a line of award-winning aroma, energetic sprays, including smudges spray, which I love. I bought the Palo Santo, I love it. And the seven chakra sprays. She’s an author, a spiritual entrepreneur, a practitioner, and an aromatherapist. And her store is the crystalgarden.com, we can go in and shop online. I’ve ordered lots of crystals from this lady and they are wonderful. Margaret Ann, thank you girl, you are so busy and I so appreciate you taking time to get on the show.

Margaret Ann Lembo: Well, I appreciate you having me on the show. It’s an honor and a privilege, thank you.

Mal: Well, I have to be honest, you have written one of my favorite books and I use it as like a reference Bible. I love it so much, I picked it up and already shipped it to California. So I know it would be their safe and sound with my reference books. And that book is ‘Chakra Awakening: Transform your reality using crystals, color, aromatherapy, and the power of positive thinking.’ And ladies, if you don’t have a copy of this, you’ve got to go get it. It has everything in it that you would want to know.

Margaret Ann Lembo: Wow! Thank you. That’s awfully nice of you. Let’s see, I have a demo deck, I should say demo copyright here, since 2011.

Mal: Wonderful.

Margaret Ann Lembo: So I’m happy. This is my first book.

Mal: Well, you’ve got, I know more books coming this year, another Oracle deck. I don’t know how you have time to do all this. And that book for someone like myself who loves Chakra work, it’s like a Bible. I mean, it just had so much content in it. I was like over the moon reading it.

Margaret Ann Lembo: Wow.

Mal: So I need to know how did you get started on this path of crystals and oils and angels and positive thinking. I mean, it’s vast what you do.

Margaret Ann Lembo: [03:18] Well, I love to tell this story and I was blessed as a young girl to have this information shared with me as really young. I would say six to eight years old was the beginning of the power of positive thought teachings. My family, in general, are all positive thinkers. They’re happy people and so that’s a very good thing. But I also had a mentor in my life and introduced me to the world of the magic of believing through a book called ‘The Magic of Believing’ by Claude Bristol. Plus, he also introduced me to the idea of metaphysics. So, that started at a very young age and even earlier than that, I was introduced to the angelic realm. Because I grew up with angels, I would believe that my own brother was an angel because he had passed away before I was born. And so for me, I was related to an angel and plus I was brought up in Catholicism and so it was very normal to make room on your chair, to let your guardian angel sit on your side and be with you all the time. And so, as life moved on, life changed and I still kept all those belief systems. I continue to use the power of positive thought. Even when I was a mortgage banker, I would share the information with my own staff members.

[04:53] And then the crystal part, I can share quickly which is about 1985, around there, I had some, I was still a mortgage banker then, I had some friends of mine that were going to start getting rocks in Arkansas. And they asked me if I wanted to be a silent partner. Well, if you know anything about me, there’s nothing silent about Margaret and, right? And so I was blessed to start a, you know, be part of this very small business. And we started getting rocks from Arkansas going on crystal trips and such, started almost like, you know, remember Tupperware parties where you’d go to people’s homes with the goods? We did it that way in people’s living rooms. Isn’t that wild?

Mal: Love it. Why don’t people do it now? I would go to a crystal party in a heartbeat.

Margaret Ann Lembo: It’s actually a fun idea, it really is. And then it evolved, you know, like the stock market crashed in 1987 and I was in senior management and banking at that time. And so I had to recreate myself at that point. I didn’t know, you know, I had to do something other than be a banker. I could have gone back into the industry, but it would have taken a long time. So, I opened my store, The Crystal Garden. In the meantime, I’m sitting here in my angel room at The Crystal Garden and from that it just continued to evolve and this is what I’m meant to be, I’m supposed to be doing this.

Mal: So, you started with angels and then you got into the crystals and then you incorporated oils into all of this.

Margaret Ann Lembo: [06:33] Yeah. I forgot to mention the oil part. Yes. So when I was a mortgage banker, there was a little kiosk in the center, you know, like a mall in the Buyin Boca, and that company is still around, they still exist. But I learned from them early on, that was early eighties. And I started purchasing essential oils and reading and getting familiar. And then I started carrying essential oils at my store. And you know, you get to know essential oils, kind of like I got to know plants. I have a very strong affinity for gardening which is also why the name of my store is The Crystal Garden named after, in a way, the secret garden, which is the gardening of your soul, you know. And so, as time went on, I got to know my essential oils. I trained with a naturopathic physician to be certified as an enrollment therapist. And I started, you know, getting divinely inspired with our blends, some onto, my first blend really was a euphoria, I think it was? No, it was Aunty M’s Anti Disinfecting Oil, which I made for a friends of mine who couldn’t kick a respiratory challenge. And so I put together, I concocted something and that one I did based on, you know, aromatherapy knowledge. But future blends, I really just got so lucky. And angels, I feel like it’s the angels who knows, but I the angelic realm or the guides of the aromatherapy world, give me ideas on what blends to create. And I retain, write it down right away. I’d go into my office, put them together and before you know it, I have such a very large, pretty large line of aromatherapy products that are sold worldwide now.

Mal: Wonderful. So how did you connect the chakras to the crystals with the oils, with color and everything to create this incredible book and the work that you do and the workshops that you do and for the audience? Margaret’s on Facebook, she’s got a book club that goes live every week. She’s got crystal shows going on, all kinds of activities. I’m always in and out watching, I love it. How did you connect all of that and put it all together to do the teachings you do?

Margaret Ann Lembo: [09:07] You know, as I was writing ‘Chakra Awakening’, more and more information was being revealed to me and it became clear that a gemstone has the vibration. It has a color first, it has a color that’s associated with the chakra system. So let’s say a gemstone, here’s an easy one, so amethyst or even rose quartz, any of the quartz family. So they have a color associated and that color has a meaning because  I also worked with color therapy while I was a banker too. We used to draw, I used to teach that to my staff too back then because color has a vibration. So if you understand the vibration of colors and relation to the chakras as well, then it makes sense then what gemstone matches. So if you’d working with the color purple, then amethyst, pink rose quartz, and you don’t always have to know the rock, but more the vibration of the color and potentially the information about the chakra.

So if you were saying a amethyst, which has to do with intuition and higher knowledge and connecting with the divine, then you got some information, right? Yep, the third eye center, the crown center, you know, and then there’s also the idea of that it’s very good. Amethyst is great for transforming and transmuting challenges. And so that also vibrates similar to Saint Germaine and the violent flame and so that has to do with alchemy. And so then you keep going and then you say, “Okay, well what essential oil blends might work for helping to shift people’s consciousness?” And then from there create a formula that would help. And I do have a Saint Germaine spray. I have, you know, things that I actually created sprays because of the realization that have gemstone tinctures inside of them as well.

Mal: Amazing. I mean, I was just so impressed

Margaret Ann Lembo: Aww.

Mal: By the amount of information in that book, I was like, how did this lady connect all of this? And the way you teach it in the book and lay it out, it’s so organized and `, and so informative.

Margaret Ann Lembo: Thank you.

Mal: So for someone starting out, who’s pretty clueless about chakras, oils, crystals, how would you get them started? What would be the best way to get started?

Margaret Ann Lembo: Well, if you are talking about like if you wanted to start like a collection of stones, or are you just talking…?

Mal: Collections and some oils and maybe doing some energy work for themselves and just understanding. How would you get them started in that process? There’s got to be a beginner point for everyone.

Margaret Ann Lembo: [12:00] There is, you know, like I find a lot of value in meditation and people go, “Oh, meditation, I can’t meditate.” You know, a lot of people have that reaction and so that’s why I offer the meditations often on Facebook. But even to be quiet and contemplative, that’s a start, you know, it’s just to just to stop, let everything get integrated into your consciousness because so much happens in one given day. Then if you want, I recommend maybe just one stone for each chakra, that’s a nice way to start. You know, you could get up, let’s say a red jasper at the root chakra or a black tourmaline, you could do, so that’s red energy. And then your orange, you could get the at the naval or sacred chakra cornelian. A solar plexus, you could get a citrine, which is a yellow quartz. At the heart center, green, [Inaudible 12:56] or pink tourmaline because that’s a green or pink vibration. The throat center turquoise, like the color behind me and the shirt I’m wearing, so even a turquoise stone or a turquoise colored stone. And at the third eye, maybe a lapis lazuli or an amethyst that I already mentioned. And that the crown center, you could use clear quartz. And clear quartz, if you wanted to get just one rock, maybe just get a clear quartz because that carries the full spectrum of light as well, so that’s battery beneficial to do it that way.

Mal: On the clear quartz, there’s different shapes for quartz and there’s a single pointed end, double pointed end, so it does that make a huge difference for someone starting out what they pick?

Margaret Ann Lembo: [13:45] I don’t think so. I think they can just get a quartz point or if they find a cluster, but it could be a good start r just a crystal point is fine. And they could, you can find them very inexpensively too. You don’t have to spend a lot of money, and that does carry the full spectrum of light, and they’re very easily programmable with love and wellbeing, you know? That’s why if you want programming something, I would suggest love and wellbeing.

Mal: So now, you’ve brought up another topic, how do you program a stone?

Margaret Ann Lembo: [14:16] Well you know, I was fortunate enough to meet with Marcel Vogel many years ago, who was, have you heard of him?

Mal: Oh yes.

Margaret Ann Lembo: Senior research scientist with IBM for many years, and he’s well known for a liquid crystal display and phosphorus and paint and so much more, so much more. But to go on, he’s the one that brought to my awareness that one of the easiest ways to clear and program your crystals is with your breath and your intention. So if you form an intention of clearing and hold the gemstone on the inhalation, you form the intent and then when you exhale forcefully through your nose, you can like pulse breath is what he calls it, pulse the real breath and  insert that energy and tend that energy into the gemstone, which it’s very important for me to bring up the intention. [15:16] Because people are like, “well, how does this crystal work? Why does the crystal do this?” Its like, “No, the crystal is not some magical creature.” I mean, it’s a lovely thing, it’s a beautiful thing, I love gemstones, obviously. But it’s our intention that’s really creating our reality. And then it’s the gemstone that is helping us to stay mindful and put our attention on what we do want, not what we don’t want. And that’s the key to almost anything is to be able to imagine and visualize our reality as we want it to be.

Mal: And can we use crystals and oils to help with that manifestation process? Because everything is law of attraction and so can you use the stones and oils for that process?

Margaret Ann Lembo: [16:08] Yes, and I’ve written multiple books. The pile is right next to me right here, but so if you wanted to look it up, you could go to like ‘The Essential Guide to Aroma Therapy and Vibrational Healing’, which is another title of mine. And or even ‘The Essential Guide to Crystals, Minerals, and Stones’. I’m not sure if I put the aroma therapy in that one, but there is always a list of matching gemstones available in almost all of my books to help you, ‘Gemstones and Aroma Therapy’, use them in conjunction with each other. So you’re using your olfactory senses as well as your visual, the sight, as well as your mind. The intention may be adding the emotion that goes with it to imagine and therefore create your reality. It is all those things combined together keep you focused on what it is that you’re trying to create. Because if you don’t stay focused on what you want and you’re using up all your energy on all these other things, then no, it’s not going to happen.

Mal: Do you recommend like a daily practice of maybe working with oils and crystals as a part of somebody’s spiritual practice? I mean, I’ve been meditating for 30 years, it’s really the foundation of my morning and my spiritual practice, and I’m not 100% disciplined. There are days where  I don’t get to it, but most of the time I do because it just puts me in the right place.

Margaret Ann Lembo: Right.

Mal: Yeah. It’s just so soothing and I get so much clarity and wisdom when I meditate. I get downloads of information that’s just so helpful. I have crystals all around me and oils. I’m always using rollers. I love several of your sprays that I have. So what would be a good way to incorporate some stones and some oils into, say a morning practice?

Margaret Ann Lembo: [18:10] Okay. So let’s say you have a collection of stones or just a few, but if you want and you have an essential oil or two or spray. So you just, like you mentioned, it sounds like you’re doing exactly what I’m going to recommend, which is, you know, you can establish an intention, “Okay, I’m going to pause. I’m going to get contemplative. I’m going to meditate for a few moments here.” Even five to 10 minutes is as amazingly productive for a refocusing and bringing balance into our lives, you know. Sometimes people can consider, “Oh, I have to sit in meditation for 20 minutes, half an hour, an hour.”  Well, if you can do that, and if you have the time and blast, well do it. But maybe five or 10 minutes is all that’s available to you or anybody who’s watching this. So take that few moments,  I would probably grab like my smudge and spray and give myself a little one, two.

Mal: And you use that for like clearing your space, a smudge and spray?

Margaret Ann Lembo: [19:11] To clear your space.

Mal: A lot of people don’t know what smudging is but it’s to clear your space. Yep.

Margaret Ann Lembo: But like this way, you’re not having to burn anything. You could do this in a hotel room.

Mal: Yes.

Margaret Ann Lembo: But the idea behind that is, is that so now you’ve incorporated the olfactory senses and you take an action to clear the energy. I’m clearing away what is no longer for my highest good and this particular spray is to replace that energy with love and wellbeing because there’s Holy water in there too. And so, and then from there, you know, taking some deep breaths following, I find it extremely effective as you probably well know, it’s just start by observing the breath, the inhalation and the exhalation. And just keep focusing on observing your body, breathing in and breathing out. And that helps tremendously to shift your energy. Now, I’d probably, because of the way I do things, I would probably use like one of my decks of cards and pull a card for the day.

Mal: Yup. I’m glad you mentioned your cards because you’ve got several decks and I wanted to talk about those as well.

Margaret Ann Lembo: Yeah, [20:18] So, let’s say here, I just pulled the soda light, so maybe life hasn’t been that great,  I’m just making this up and so the one side of the card shows the gemstone, so that will help me, give me something to focus on. I can put it in front of me and lean it there. And while I’m doing meditation and when I opened my eyes, I could look at that and it’s like, “No, all is well.” And I can read the affirmation. I sail through life on calm, nurturing waters. I’m at peace with myself and the world around me. So even establishing a statement, you can even take this and bring it with you for the day. Or if you have soda light, put it in your pocket, put it in your bra, you know, put it in your pillow case when you’re going to sleep at night. Right? And then the other side. Because all my decks are two sided, I figure more information is better. And so the other side is intention; release, anger, increase harmony, reduce inflammation, improve inner knowing and calm. And you can breathe on each one of these and focus on each one of these and increase mental clarity and emotional balance. So with these statements, you can just pause and think about each one of these and how that relates to your life. And usually when you pull a card, at least from my decks, I’m sure it happens with everybody stacks, I believe, it’s just so right on in the moment.

It’s like, you know, so I’ve been having some physical inflammation lately and so this applies to me, you know. And even though I’m doing an interview in this moment, it’s still applies to what I need right now in my life. Not so much, thank goodness I’m not angry.

Mal: That Jack deck of cards, so you have the crystal and the affirmation on one side. And it sounds like you have all the things that that crystal can do, the benefits of working with that crystal on the other side.

Margaret Ann Lembo: Essentially, yes. A short version of that because it goes in much greater detail and ‘The Essential Guide to Crystals, Minerals, and Stones but its ‘The Crystal Intention Oracle’. But I have others that are based on angels and jump and archangels and masters, mystics and saints and animals.

Mal: How did you learn about, say, animals and the mystics and the saint? How did you pull all this in?

Margaret Ann Lembo: [22:35] Okay, so I’ll answer the mystics and saints first. So, I grew up Catholic, so I…

Mal: I did too.

Margaret Ann Lembo: Did you?

Mal: I didn’t get that knowledge curl, I’m going to be right up front.

Margaret Ann Lembo: [22:47] Well, you know, I don’t have it memorized, I look things up, you know, and I love Google. But I had a lot of experiences of sitting in church on many days where I contemplate the picture is on the walls and the stations of the cross and the murals in my particular church was fantastic, they were beautiful. And I remember they even had a mural of Saint Margaret that I’m named after, because of her affinity with the sacred heart. She started the devotion to the sacred heart. So it shows her having an apparition of Jesus, the Christ, you know, it’s just beautiful. So it impacted me in a very spiritual way. Some people didn’t have a great Catholic experience, I was blessed that I did, you know, thank you very much. And so the bits and pieces of the different saints, I captured during the days that I was growing up. I had 12 years of Catholic school, so that’s a long time in Catholic school.

[24:01] And then the animal part, now that was because when I got into creating the crystal garden, I was so interested in and still am in native American spirituality. And I did a lot of studying and I enjoy immensely the medicine cards by Jamie Sams and the sacred path cards by her. And even, so blessed to have met Ted Andrews, and I don’t know if you noticed, but I dedicated my first book to Ted.

Mal: Well, I have a little book about animal totems.

Margaret Ann Lembo: Yes.

Mal: The pocket guide.

Margaret Ann Lembo: The pocket guide. Yes. And so over the years, but he came here in person to The Crystal Garden, and I also met with him right before I was getting my book published and he introduced me to my first publisher, Llewellyn Worldwide. So anyway, he taught me a lot about animals through his books, animals speak, animal wise, and so then I realized everything has and I always say this, when I teach a class, I almost always bring it up during interviews like this, “Everything is energy. Everything has a vibration.” And if everything has energy and everything has a vibration, then there’s going to be matching vibrations. So pick a card, any card. Dolphin, perfect, we’ll pick this one. So dolphin, blue side, it looks like the ocean. You know, sometimes it looks like, let’s do another one just for the fun of it. Stromatolite that’s pretty wild, right? I see that gemstone, earthworm.

Mal: Ooh. Almost the same color.

Margaret Ann Lembo: And also that stromatolite, it does look like there are earthworm is creating, you know, pathways, right? But those also has to do about unearthing, and there’s some ancient fossils included within stromatalite which helps us to go underground into our subconscious to understanding ourselves, co there’s always a correlation in that regard. Until, you know, when I wrote my book, ‘The Essential Guide, Your Crystals, Minerals, and Stones’, I didn’t want to copy what other authors had written about crystals. So I stopped reading a long time ago, other people’s work, because I don’t want to accidentally plagiarize something, you know, I want it to be coming through me. But I did research on a geology, from a geological level, it’s like, well, if this has calcium in it, then this could potentially be beneficial for the bone structure of the human being. Or, you know, or if this has a combination of all these different minerals, then I’d look up with the minerals were good for, and then see how that gemstone relates to the chakra system physically, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally. It’s just makes sense, it takes a little research, I mean, I did research things. It’s not like I just, everything didn’t just, I wasn’t blessed to have all the things downloaded, especially with the animals. The animals took a lot of research and while right before we connected, I was actually sitting here reading my own book going, “wow, I wrote this so fast, I don’t remember of some of the stuff that I wrote.

Mal: I think you have more products; books, store, cards, oils out there than anybody else I think I’ve ever interviewed. It’s just massive and you’re…

Margaret Ann Lembo: Oh really?

Mal: Wonderful and to do business with you is a sheer pleasure.

Margaret Ann Lembo: Oh good, thank you.

Mal: I’m ordering my crystals, I had some special ones I wanted after reading your book and made a little list and I ordered them. And I got the Palo Santo spray and it was, oh it’s heavenly.

Margaret Ann Lembo: That is good stuff that Palo Santo, it’s really high quality.

Mal: You can’t burn something sometimes where you are.

Margaret Ann Lembo: Yeah.

Mal: You’re on the move, you’re traveling. You don’t want to be burning something in a hotel or somebody’s house, so that’s spray I love, it;s just, oh, it’s wonderful.

Margaret Ann Lembo: Good.

Mal: Margaret, you have, Margaret and excuse me, you have a lovely free offer on your website for the audience. Why don’t you tell them about it?

Margaret Ann Lembo: [28:20] Well, you know, I’ve been contemplating which of my meditation CDs do I want to gift everyone. And I think the one that is going to be applicable is the color of meditation; Align your chakras. And so it’s my very first CD that I created, and it’s an MP3 format, so that you can just download it right into your computer or your phone. And what it is, is about 20 minutes worth of meditation to balance and align your chakras using the colors of the rainbow. And it’s very helpful. A lot of people have gotten great benefit from it.

Mal: Wonderful. I am so happy that we finally got to do this because you were busy then caught up with some things and so this is just been a sheer joy to have you on today.

Margaret Ann Lembo: Well, thank you.

Mal: I can’t thank you enough.

Margaret Ann Lembo: Thank you so much.

Mal: And I look forward to, was it week days that you’re normally on with your book club? Is it Mondays?

Margaret Ann Lembo: Every, yes. Lately I’ve been doing it every other Monday, so at 12 noon Eastern time. We’re doing the meditation. So when you moved to California, that’s 9:00 AM right? With the time change. And then I do a gemstone Oracle, that’s what I’ve been doing, which is so much fun at 1:00PM  Eastern time where I do use all five decks and pull the cards.

Mal: I know, I’ve watched that a couple of times. It’s been terrific.

Margaret Ann Lembo: Good.

Mal: Thank you again, Margaret Ann, I have thoroughly enjoyed this, and you’re just such a talented, talented woman.

Margaret Ann Lembo: Well, you’re very complimentary. Thank you so much.

Mal: Thank you. Bye

Margaret Ann Lembo: Bye. .

NOTES

[00:28] Introduction of the Guest Speaker Margaret Ann Lembo

[03:18] Margaret spoke about how she started on the path of crystals, angels, oils and positive thinking. First she spoke about the angels, being a Catholic and growing up with the teachings of Catholism. And secondly her mentor who introduced her to the book, ‘The Magic of Believing.’

[04:53] Margaret spoke about her experiences with crystals and positive thinking. She was asked by a group of friends to be a silent partner in a business in Arkansas where they would collect trips and she was invited to go on a crystal trip with them. From there she became interested in crystals and their meanings.

[06:33] Margaret also spoke about how her interested was peaks in oils and being divinely inspired with their blends. She researched and became familiar with their blends even creating her own. She incorporated all 3 together with the chakras and mediating and what it all means.

[09:07] Margaret spoke about how she connects the crystals, with the oils and she mentioned that as she was writing ‘Chakra Awakening’, more and more information was being revealed to her and it became clear that a gemstone has the vibration. It has a color first, it has a color that’s associated with the chakra system.

[12:00] Margaret spoke about how you would get someone started in the process. She stated that first you have to find value in meditation. And then depending on your mood, there would be a stone that is integrated into your consciousness because so much happens in one given day. Then she recommends maybe just one stone for each chakra. For example, a red jasper at the root chakra or a black tourmaline, that’s red energy.

[13:45] Margaret explains that a crystal point doesn’t really matter, as long as it’s programmable with love and wellbeing.

[14:16] Margaret explains how the crystals are programmed. It was Marcel Vogel who brought the awareness and the easiest way to program a gem/crystals. This can be done by forming an intention of clearing and hold the gemstone on the inhalation, you form the intent and then when you exhale forcefully through your nose, you can like pulse breath is what he calls it, pulse the real breathe and insert that energy and tend that energy into the gemstone.

[15:16]  Margaret explains that it’s our intention that’s really creates our reality and then it’s the gemstone that is helping us to stay mindful and put our attention on what we do want, not what we don’t want. And that’s the key to almost anything is to be able to imagine and visualize our reality as we want it to be.

[16:08] Margaret uses the stones and oils for that intent process by making reference to a few of her books like ‘The Essential Guide to Aroma Therapy and Vibrational Healing’ list matching gemstones are used in conjunction with aroma therapy. She mentions olfactory senses as well as your visual, the sight, as well as your mind by adding the emotion that goes with it to imagine and therefore create your reality.

[18:10] Margaret explains how to incorporate oils and crystal in your morning practice or meditation.

[09:11] Margaret further plains the incorporation by mentioning smudging as a way of clearing the air around you instead of burning incense and other fragrances that may cause attention or may not be allowed in external environment such as hotel rooms or family dwellings.

[20:18] Margaret speaks about her many deck of cards

[22:35] Margaret explains how she incorporated the mystics, saint and animals in the chakra system.

[22:47] Margaret highlights how the saints and mystic are incorporated by researching and through experiences of sitting in church on many days where she would contemplate the picture is on the walls and the stations of the cross and the murals in my particular church was fantastic, they were beautiful.

[24:01] She continued to by explaining the animal part and her interest in native American spirituality. And I did a lot of studying and I enjoy immensely the medicine cards by Jamie Sams and the sacred path cards by her. She continued to say that the animals took a lot of research but she had to do it a she wanted to know so much more.

[28:20] Margaret invited every one of her free offer on her website

[29:15] Margaret informed the listeners of her date and time of her book club and her oracle and meditation.

Meet Linda Ugelow, Host of the TV Show Woman Inspired


When I was a kid, I didn’t have a shy bone in my body. I used to go to my Grandparents Hickey’s house, play the piano with my grandpa and sing “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling”.  I would also pretend to tap dance wearing my Mary Jane patent leather shoes. Sometimes the neighbors would come to see me.  The thought of making a mistake or looking foolish never entered my mind.

Do you think I could do that today? Hell no! I’m so much more conscious of making an ass of myself.

Truth be told, I’d love to recapture that free spirit and not care about what others think.

I was also a real ham and never feared standing up in class or getting on stage until…you guessed it, someone pointed, snickered and laughed at me. All of a sudden, I was gripped with insecurity and feeling completely self-conscious.

The fear of public speaking can be a huge stumbling block and is at the top of the fear list for most people. They are terrified of being rejected or looking foolish. The fear is so pervasive that many people I’ve spoken to about it have allowed huge opportunities to pass them by because they couldn’t speak up.

Honestly, I get so nervous every time I have to get up and speak live. Funny thing, I’m completely at home behind a camera. It feels so different for me than live eyes watching every move I make.

This week’s guest on Awakening Divine Wildness is Linda Ugelow. Linda is a real crackerjack at public speaking. She runs sought after teaching programs that show women how to release the fear and reclaim their voice. Linda knows how to recapture confidence when speaking publicly. She shares some of her favorite strategies to overcome fear with us.

I know you will love our conversation!

 

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Mal Duane Interviews Linda Ugelow, Producer of the TV Show Women Inspired

Mal: I am thrilled about this week’s topic because it’s something that’s so many women suffer from, and I’m one of them. I’ve got to be honest, people say, “Oh, Mal, you know, you record videos and you do workshops and you do listing presentations in people’s houses. You mean to tell me that you get scared when you get up on a stage to speak?” Yup, I do. I mean, you know that expression, don’t let them see you sweat? Well, honestly, I sweat. So that’s why I’m thrilled to have Linda Ugelow with me today.
[00:38] She’s an expert on public speaking and the roots of why we get so scared when we have to get up and use our voice. She’s helped hundreds of newly and seasoned professionals drop their stress and anxiety to feel comfortable and confident in front of a crowd and the camera. She’s a sought after coach for overcoming your fear of speaking and imposter syndrome. An international speaker herself, she has presented at the Positive Psychology Conference in France and recently emcee at the TEDx to Debrecen in Hungary. Linda is also an accomplished musician and dancer having performed in more than 500 shows around the world. She produces and hosts the TV, show Women Inspired and is the author of the upcoming book, ‘Delight in the Limelight’, which will be out in 2021. She also offers regular retreats for women, helping them to build confidence in their public speaking and we’ll get into more of that. I am so excited, girl, to see you and how are you today?
Linda Ugelow: I’m really happy to be on Mal. This is great.
Mal: Well, I’ve been interviewed by you and you’re masterful at being a host and interviewing people. I was completely relaxed with you and I love shooting video and things like that but, you know, very honest, if I have to get up on a stage, wow, everything changes very quickly. So let’s get into maybe some of those fears, some of those insecurities that we have as women about getting up and using our voice.
Linda Ugelow: Yeah. [02:32] The first thing I want to respond to, with what you just said, is that we’re all speakers, we speak from morning to night, but the thing is we’re comfortable in some situations and not others. And it’s different for every single person. So you described how you are really comfortable on video and you are, you are so poised and elegant and fluent and yet you feel very differently when you get up on stage. There are people who feel just the opposite. They can speak in front of a crowd, but put them in front of a camera and they freak out. And then there are people who want to do neither or like both of them but then if they’re in a networking circle and it’s their turn to speak, that’s when they feel terrified. So everybody has their own unique pattern. [03:21] And where it comes from are the experiences and the messages we have absorbed and experienced in our lives that gave us the sense that it wasn’t safe to be seen and or heard. And it could be any number of things, for each of us, it’s different.
Mal: Do you think that those fears, those insecurities start when we’re very small and it’s something we continue to carry with us?
Linda Ugelow: I think in most cases, that’s true. [03:59] You know, children, when we come into the world, we were not afraid to be seen and heard. In fact, we thrive on it and depend on it. You know, you picture the infant or the toddler who gets up for the first time and everyone’s delighted and laughing and clapping, she looks around and it just feels delight to be the center of attention. Or, you know, the four or five year old at the playground saying, “look at me, look at me, look at me, and look at me.” You know, constantly asking for that attention and then 10, 15 years later, afraid to stand in front of a group and speak for two minutes without breaking into a sweat. So in many cases, something has happened between that time of free self-expression and feeling okay to be you and then the eroding away as we learn to fit in, get along and follow the rules and be a good girl, and plus all the experiences or messages we might’ve gotten in our family at school or just in our culture.
Mal: I know for me, I was ridiculed as a kid.
Linda Ugelow: Yeah.
Mal: I was made fun of and so that started to create the insecurity in me that I was like, “Oh no, I better not raise my hand. I better not get up and speak.” And then it became more of a fear of rejection and that they don’t like me, so, I don’t want to get up and speak, they don’t like me, which always created in my own mind.
Linda Ugelow: Yeah.
Mal: And so you can see, that’s such a beautiful example and you’re so self-aware. So thank you for sharing that. [05:52] So you can see how being ridiculed would make it feel unsafe to express yourself or feeling that you’re not liked, so you don’t fit in, which most if not, you know, many and most, probably teenagers go through that because that’s part of the developmental stage of wanting to fit in. And most of us feel like we don’t. I even heard, I have a friend who teaches at Harvard and she said that they have a question for newly incoming freshmen, “How many of you feel like you are the odd person out and you really don’t belong here and it’s just kind of a fluke?” And half the people raise their hands. And those are people going to Harvard, who got into Harvard. I mean, we have an impression or a projection of what people going to Harvard must be like or feel like, but no, they’re not immune to this either.
Mal: Wow. So are there certain practices, steps we can take that will help us build confidence with getting up and speaking publicly?
Linda Ugelow: [06:55] Yes. Well, I believe that fear is not something to be pushed through or ignored. It’s actually a message. And it’s a message of these deeper things. So whether or not you had an experience of being ridiculed or bullied or you were ignored by your parents or you’re hovered over by your parents or you were pushed to perform, or you had, you know, some kind of experience in school, those experiences are needing to be looked at and honored, so that they can be healed and put away. Because the fear is really our body telling us that it remembers something that we should pay attention to. It’s like that’s what fear is. [07:45] Fear is saying you’re not safe. And so if you’re feeling fear that means that something’s getting triggered from a past experience, which in many cases is very protected, it’s protective. So by ignoring it, you’re kind of telling your body, “I don’t care. I’m not going to listen to you.” And what ends up happening is people, they say, “I just need more courage. I need to step outside my comfort zone. I’ve got to push through this and ignore it and don’t let it hold me back or keep me from living my life.” And what happens is that for some people, they may eventually get over it because they gain more evidence that in fact it is safe. But for many people, they end up carrying their fear with them. They get better at presenting, they get better at performing but inside they suffer. Kind of like you are expressing, cause you’ve learned to be very poised and express yourself so beautifully but inside you may be having a different kind of experience. [08:54] So, the tip that I have, it’s not a tip, it’s actually I lead people through a four step process, which I call the four Rs. The letter R of releasing fear and that Review, Resolve, Repattern and Restore.
Mal: Can you give us a little brief description of each?
Linda Ugelow: Yes. [09:15] So review is looking at the things that we’re talking about. It’s what I called, kind of like decluttering the psychic closet. It’s all the feelings and experiences that we have that maybe we haven’t looked at for a while, or we think, “Oh, that’s from long ago, and that doesn’t count anymore. I was a child, or I was younger.” And so it’s these experiences that we had, but it’s also messages. So for instance, how many of us have been taught, don’t stand out or don’t talk back to your elders or don’t question authority or if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say it at all or children should be seen and not heard. Any of these messages that we get, we may think or we may not have even thought about them since we heard them. And so they become embedded in our understanding of the world. And if you have a message like this, it’s going to hit up against your desire to do just the opposite, to stand out, to take up people’s time and attention and to trust that what you have to say is of importance.
Even though all your life you are taught in school that you had to get somebody’s approval and grade in order to know that you were okay. So that though, so it’s the experiences, it’s the messages and it’s also our inner thoughts because our inner dialogue which I believe, the negative inner dialogue that we have, I believe emanates from these other two things, from the messages and the experiences. And when you review these and take care of them, a lot of those inner thoughts will shift, but some of them are kind of hardwired and then they take a little more attention. But we’ll hold onto that until later because that that comes into the last R. So that’s the review is like, let’s have a look at what were the rules that you followed by? Where did you feel diminished or put down or rejected or unseen? What are the things that you were told? You’ve got to like dig around for the treasures. I love what something Luis Hay once said, which was if you want to clean the house, he got to see the dirt.
Mal: Absolutely. I was just going to say that.
Linda Ugelow: Right, oh my gosh.
Mal: I was going to say, “If you want to clean something, you got to find the dirt.”
Linda Ugelow: I love that.
Mal: It’s the same thing with us. We’ve got to find what our weaknesses are, our challenges, and our fears, acknowledge them and work with them. You’re absolutely spot on. You can’t dismiss this stuff.
Linda Ugelow: Yeah.
Mal: It has to be worked with and embraced. It’s all part of you. So awesome. Step two.
Linda Ugelow: [12:02] Step two is to resolve what you find there. So it’s not enough to know that you were terrified by Sister Mary in Catholic school and you couldn’t think of what seven times eight was when she was knocking her ruler against her hand, threateningly. You have to find a way to kind of like close the book on it, in a conscious way. And there are lots of different modalities out there that you can use. I have my favorites that I like to use, but basically what you want is to find a way to acknowledge, first of all, that it happened, acknowledge the feelings that you had. Maybe even from your standpoint now, envision what might’ve happened in the best of circumstances, but clearly weren’t available to you at the time. Finding a way of seeing what may have been going on in the other person’s shoes. So expanding your sense of self compassionate to others. And then thinking about what it is that you need, you would need to let go, so that your body trusts that this is no longer a big story for you anymore. So there’s going to be some forgiveness and release involved, maybe cutting the cords. But you want to get to a place where your body trusts that it’s safe, now. That those things are no longer like active volcanoes ready to erupt.
Mal: I love that. Yeah.
Linda Ugelow: So that’s step number two.
Mal: Great.
Linda Ugelow: [13:46] So step three, if you want to get into it, is repattern. When you want to replace out your old ways of responding and reacting with new ways. So one of the things that I like to ask people at my talks or at the retreats that I do, is what is the desired feeling that you want as a speaker? And if you get into it well, like, “Mal, what are some of the things you would like to feel?”
Mal: I like to feel that I’m making a difference. That I’m bringing something that touches the women that I work with deeply, that they’re getting value insight. They’re getting woken up a little bit, getting a little bit of a shakeup.
Linda Ugelow: Yeah.
Mal: And feeling inspired that, “Oh, if she can do that, then I can do it too. If she’s gone through that and look how she’s living today, maybe I can do that too.” So it’s about leaving them inspired, inspired to take action, inspired to make changes in their lives.
Linda Ugelow: Yeah. That’s beautiful. That’s beautiful. And you know what? You can do that without feeling comfortable yourself. I’m sure you do that already, even if you’re on stage. And what I would like to challenge you to think about is what do you want for yourself? How do you want to feel for you? How do you want to feel ideally up on stage?
Mal: That’s a good question because I think more about what I’m delivering. I guess I want to leave knowing that I was a presence of love, unconditional love for those that I was speaking with.
Linda Ugelow: That’s beautiful. I love that. So one of the, when you tell me about a presence. So presence is something obviously that one can practice. [15:59] I once read a book called ‘The Perfect Wrong Note’ and the biggest takeaway I had from it was that there’s nothing too small to practice. So if you want to practice, if you want to be a presence of love, you practice being a presence of love. And when you practice that, you will find that your body will become relaxed and open and you’ll shift into a place of openheartedness.
Mal: Beautiful.
Linda Ugelow: And then you can take that feeling of openheartedness and expand that out to include the whole audience, the whole bringing your energy to fill the whole room. So that’s, that’s beautiful and thank you for that example. So things that other people may bring up is, I want to feel relaxed or I want to feel confident or I want to feel playful. I want to feel like I’m fully myself, you know, expressive or I want to feel like I bring my humorful part out, which I would do with my kids. So each of these you can practice. And what that does is it re patterns your way of expressing yourself. And you can practice these things in your imagination, through mental rehearsal. Just kind of what we just did was a kind of mental imagination, right? And you can do the same thing with a sense of playfulness or relaxation in your body or calm and centeredness or a feeling of clarity. You just imagine that quality inside yourself and you can also practice that quality in your day. So for instance, you can get out of your car and walk to the grocery store with a sense of ease and elegance or playful and jauntiness. Do you hear what I do? Or you can have a conversation on the phone with a friend of yours and if you have a list, let’s say on a piece of paper and you say, “Hmm, today I want to practice loving presence. So as I speak to my friend, I’m going to be in this place of loving presence. I’m going to feel it in my body and I’m going to allow that energy to come out of me.” I have a feeling Mal that you do this all the time because that’s what I see in you, is loving presence.
Mal: Oh, thank you. Thank you.
Linda Ugelow: You’re welcome.
Mal: I love the idea, you say, practice this. It’s funny, when I know I’m going to have a difficult conversation with somebody, I rehearse it. In other words, I write it out what my intention is, what I want to communicate in that conversation, I make notes and then I go over it a few times. So that when I go into a situation where I’m having an important conversation or a difficult one, I’ve got something going on in my head that kind of guides me because I’ve rehearsed it, because I’ve practice it a little bit, have an idea of what I want to communicate rather than just going in cold. I think practice is very important when we’re speaking.
Linda Ugelow: I totally agree and I love that example and it’s not just in your head that you’re doing it, you’re doing it in your whole body.
Mal: Yes.
Linda Ugelow: [19:31] You are creating that neural pathway that has already have like a groove and it, so that when you go to speak, it’s already, it’s already part of you. It’s already, it’s not brand new.
Mal: Right.
Linda Ugelow: And I think that’s the importance of mental rehearsal as well. It does the same kind of thing. And you know, it’s interesting because this is the same place where I first began using this technique was in difficult conversations. And I would, you could name that or rename that as a high stake conversation. And speaking from a stage or speaking on a video is a high stake conversation, really. It’s one where you are asking people to give you their attention for a period of time.
Mal: No, no, that’s true.
Linda Ugelow: Right.
Mal: You mentioned that you have some favorite modalities that you like to use. Would you share one of them?
Linda Ugelow: Yeah, I’d be happy to. [20:37] So mental rehearsal is one. I sometimes call it creative visualization or which is very akin to hypnosis or self-hypnosis. Another one I use is EFT, emotional freedom technique.
Mal: Oh, wonderful.
Linda Ugelow: And I’ve been playing around with my own kind of version of it. I’ve been calling it emotional freedom journey because I feel like I teach people a script, a way of using a script in order to bring themselves through a process of healing these particular experiences that keep them from feeling safe, being seen.
Mal: I like that. I like that. The other thing I use too is, and I will and it’s probably similar to what you’re talking about with the visualization. Sometimes I will just get very quiet, do like a meditation, get myself in that just very calm, emptied, so that, you know, the monkey mind isn’t going. A quiet, meditative state before doing something that requires an important conversation, is just to ease into it from a place of peace and calm and being centered really, really helps me. If I try to get into an important conversation and I’ve got a thousand things going on and there’s, you know, millions of ideas racing through my head, I can’t converse.
Linda Ugelow: Because you’re not present.
Mal: Right.
Linda Ugelow: And so you put yourself into a state of place of presence.  I agree with you. [22:26] I think that finding and having a way to prepare yourself before speaking is really important. I call them pre-speaking rituals. And there are a whole number of things that you can do to shift you in the kind of state that you would like to be in. Some people, I used to actually, before I discovered this process, I used to like do a lot of vigorous exercise because I had so many jitters in my body. I just needed a place to put them out. But then afterward I needed to center myself to bring myself to, as you say, that place of clarity and focus and there’s a chakra meditation that I like to do now in order to bring myself, I feel like I bring all my capacities together in doing that. It’s fun. I mean, you can choose and play with all kinds of pre-speaking rituals to get you to the place you want. You might see, oh, I know what I was thinking of like Tony Robbins, they have a shot of him backstage before he goes on and he does this twirl and just kind of like in the vortex and his energy and he comes up with his energy. And so it depends like what you’re trying to bring to that experience. Like if you want to bring a lot of dynamism and energy, then you’re going to want to put that in your body. You need to embody, that’s where the neuropathway comes in. [23:56] You need to embody the energy that you want to bring.
Mal: Love it. You have a very generous offer from your website, for the listeners, would you tell us about it?
Linda Ugelow: [24:06] It is a guided visualization for speaking confidence. So just kind of along the lines that we’re speaking about. It guides you into relaxing your body and from that place of deep relaxation, envisioning how you want to feel and seeing yourself on the stage the way you ideally would like to see yourself. And so again, it’s a way of patterning in that experience so that when you were there, you’re already, it’s already been rehearsed in your body. And what I love about this is knowing that Olympic athletes use this technique and peak performers use this technique. It’s very, very effective and I’ve had people who have come back and who haven’t even worked with me, but by just using that guided visualization and listening to it several times before a talk had huge success in staying calm and focused and feeling like they performed at the best of their ability.
Mal: Wonderful. How can people get a hold of you, Linda, the audience? What’s the best way to reach you?
Linda Ugelow: I would suggest, you can go to download that guided visualization at lindayugelow.com/speakingconfidence. But if you just go to my website, lindaugelow.com you’ll find the same download right there on my homepage.
Mal: Wonderful. And I will put your domain address, everything in the show notes, so they’ll, there’ll be a link there for them.
Linda Ugelow: Thank you so much.
Mal: Oh, it’s a pleasure to see you today and connect with you. Wonderful and I’m really looking forward to your book.
Linda Ugelow: I am too.
Mal: Delight in the limelight.
Linda Ugelow: Yeah.
Mal: I’ve seen the cover, so I’m definitely looking forward to seeing the book released.
Linda Ugelow: Thanks so much Mal.
Mal: A wonderful, thank you.

SHOWNOTES
[00:33] Mal’s introduction of Linda Ueglow
[02:32] Linda highlights that even though we speak 24/7s we are still uncomfortable when speaking. Each individual is different and shares different fears. She talks about the different fears that exist and we all have our fears when speaking be it in front of a video, on stage, networking circles.
[03:21] Linda states that our insecurities come from past experiences in our lives.
[03:59] Linda agrees with Mal that insecurities start at a small age. She stated that individual experience, family messages, and culture affects why we have fear.
[05:52] Linda states that being ridicule while growing up can make it unsafe to express your fears and insecurities.
[06:55] Linda believes that there are steps and practices that can help to build confidence. Fear must not be ignored but be looked at, honored and put away.
[07:45] Linda states that fear is something that is triggered by the past.
[08:54] There is a 4 step process that Linda uses and it’s called the four Rs. The R is for Releasing the Fear by Review, Resolve, Repattern and Restore.
[09:15] Step 1 is Review, this is to look at those past experiences that may have caused fear while growing up.
[12:02] Step 2 – Resolve. What did you find while looking at those past experiences? Think about what was happening then, even with the other person. In doing so you will expand your sense of self-compassion to others.
[13:46] Step 3 – Repattern. Replacing old ways of responding and reacting with new ways. Linda stated that she read a book called ‘The Perfect Wrong Note’ and she highlighted that there is nothing too small to practice. Practicing repatterns your way of expressing yourself.
[19:31] Step 4 – Restore. Linda talks about creating a neural pathway when you release what you are going through by rehearsal or practicing.
[20:37] Modalities that Linda uses are Mental rehearsal or creative visualization which is similar to hypnosis or self-hypnosis. She also uses EFT – Emotional Freedom Technique and her personal one EFJ – Emotional Freedom Journey.
[22:26] Linda talks about finding ways to prepare yourself before speaking is very important. She talks about Pre-speaking Rituals.
[23:56] She concludes by saying that we should embody the energy that we want to bring in.
[24:06] Linda has a special offer on her website, it’s a Guided Visualization for Speaking Confidence. This can be downloaded from lindaugelo.com/speakingconfidence.

Meet Rev. Dr. Sandy Range, Therapeutic Coach, Shaman and Medicine Woman


Do you ever wake up wondering who you really are or what is your life purpose?

Honestly, I have many times over the years which has inspired my spiritual path and nudged me to take a deeper look within.

Much of my life was controlled by external events, material things and other people’s opinions of me. Then I woke up to the fact that none of these things defined who I really was or my purpose.

The last thirty years of study have been an arduous task to understand how we all have a divine birthright. Each one of us is created in the likeness of Jesus or the Divine Mother Sophia. It doesn’t matter what religion you believe; you are all from the same source.

This past weekend at The Rhys Thomas Institute where I go to school was the heart chakra weekend. I had no idea what to expect. Over three days I watched a roomful of people uncover parts of themselves that had been buried for years. Student’s hearts broke wide open, shining love on one another.

I personally experienced a sobbing, shaking transformation myself.

I realized I isolate from the world behind a spiritual mask. That people must prove to me that they are trustworthy first.  It’s part of my defense behavior for being a “charismatic leader” profile. I always feel I am better doing it alone.

Since I have been a child, I’ve thought I can do it alone. Only allowing a select few to get close to me.

However, my soul’s purpose is to be a light, an illuminator for women and share the wisdom I have learned from profound life challenges.  So, I need to be vulnerable, more trusting and more of my authentic self.

This week’s guest on the Awakening Divine Wildness Podcast is Rev. Dr. Sandy Range. Dr. Sandy helps us learn how to uncover our true selves. She shares how each of us has an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other. Who do you listen to? Surprisingly, most of us are driven by our thoughts and not our hearts.

In this powerful conversation, Dr. Sandy will show you how to get back on the path to living from your higher self.

So Dear One…

BE Love, BE LIGHT and most importantly BE YOU.

 

Listen to the Awakening Divine Wildness podcast by clicking the play button on the audio player below.

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Mal: Well, I am very, very honored to have today’s guest because I’ve met her personally and I don’t often get to do that with many of these women that appear on this show because they’re from all over the globe. But I went to the most magical woman’s retreat and this divine soul, was a sponsor of that retreat. And it was a day I will not forget. [00:33] Our guest today is Reverend Dr. Sandy Range. She’s a therapeutic coach, a spiritual counselor and advisor, a hypnotherapist, a Shaman, a medicine woman, a wellness practitioner, group facilitator, author and public speaker, and she’s magical. Dr. Reverend Sandy has over 22 years in clinical practice, 55 years of spiritual training and practice, and over 30 years in human services.
After managing her own private practice, which she has now retired from, she was for five years, a full service mental health, spiritual wellness and personal spiritual, professional development organization. She holds a BA degree in human services planning and management and a master’s in mental health counseling. Reverend Dr. Sandy whole certifications as a trauma specialist, clinical hypnotherapy – wow, I’m having trouble today – hypnotherapist, past life regression hypnotherapist and neuro linguistic programming coach and practitioner. She’s a facilitator of groups and workshops that promote awakened intent, inner growth, holistic wellness, higher consciousness, and the evolution of mind, emotions, and spirit.
And we’re going to talk about this wonderful book today, but I want to read a beautiful quote from the book to kind of get our conversation going. [02:20] “When a deep heartfelt forgiveness is realized and it must be realized, a great burden is lifted from us.
“We experience true freedom. What happens next? The light is already within us. It’s in our consciousness, our minds and our hearts. Once the burden of our transgressions is lifted and released, and as long as we choose life and light for our lives, looking upward from within. We engage the light of enlightenment.”
And Reverend Sandy, I am honored today to have you and to have this conversation today.
Reverend Dr. Sandy Range: Well, thank you very much for having me. I too am very honored by you, to be interviewed by you and I’m very grateful for it. Thank you.
Mal: The title of this, “You’ve Lost Your Mind Now Find Your Soul. I understand that because I’ve spent 30 years getting out of my head and my negative thinking and my self-condemnation. And it’s in that process, I’ve been able to uncover who I really am. And that helped me get sober and get into recovery, once I realized my thinking was the cause of my own suffering. So tell us a little bit about your understanding and your process of losing your mind and finding your soul.
Reverend Dr. Sandy Range: [04:02] Yes. Well, that title came to me actually, and I was like, you know, you really do have to kind of get out of your head in order to find that place inside you that white inside you. And you know, it was strange because I said, “okay, I have to look this up and make sure I’m not, you know, misquoting somebody or taking plagiarizing someone.” And there was a gentleman, I can’t remember his name right now off the top of my head, but he was an environmentalist and he loved being in the woods in the forest, and he wrote journals, his own journals. They will never publish, nothing ever happened with them, there were no copyrights. But he said, “Into the forest I go to lose my mind and find my soul”, and I was like, “Oh my gosh, he’s like reading my mind,” you know, because way before me.
However, to lose your mind in, and I think he also was touching on this because he was an environmentalist, you know. And I’m a tree person. I love the words, I love going in there and yes, I do lose my mind every single time I go to the woods. [05:07] But losing your mind is, well, first of all, we have to understand that we’re not just a brain mind. We’re not this big gray Delco battery up here inside our skulls. We’re more than that, we’re more than the brain mind. We have a consciousness that is not housed in the brain mind, okay? It is part of our soul self, our spirit self. So when we think about losing your mind, brain mind is attached to ego. And I like to think of it as the devil and angel sitting on your shoulder, okay? And the little angel on your shoulder is your soul mind, your soul consciousness and the devil on your shoulder is the ego mind, the brain mind.
[05:50] And it is the ego consciousness, ego mind that gets offended, that gets angry, that gets POed, you know. That you know, doesn’t like anything as judgmental, if that’s the one, that’s the mind that takes offense at everything and wants things its own way. Wants total control over everything in your environment and yourself and it should not ever be in control.
Now we need the ego. People think, ”Oh, I’m going to do enlightenment and I’m going to meditate and I have to get rid of my ego.” You cannot get rid of your ego. It is a necessary part of our humanity. Ego serves a purpose of protecting us. It keeps us from walking out and crossing the street in front of a convoy of Mack trucks. It keeps us from walking off the edge of a cliff. It keeps us safe, it protects the body. That’s where we need ego.
[06:49] But from birth to adulthood, nobody is teaching us how to control and reign in ego when it starts veering off into other areas of our lives. Nobody knew that, nobody tells us that. So unless you’re born in a monastery or you know, somewhere in the Himalayas or some deeply spiritual place where they can train you, yeah. But for the rest of us, we don’t get that training. So ego ends up taking over. And it gets offended and it gets hurt and it gets mad and angry and defensive and frustrated and all those negative, what’s considered negative emotions. [07:29] So, in order for us to find our soul, we have to really step out of the mind, the ego mind, lose it completely. Okay? Just let it do its job to protect us. That’s all it needs to do. And then we can find our soul.
Mal: I love the way you call it the angel mind, the devil mind. I named my ego, I wrote about this in my first book and I named my ego, Louise. Louise had a very different voice then the angel mind.  Louise had a voice that kept telling me, “What do you think you are? You’re not good enough. What do you think you’re trying to do?” And it was so condemning. But I realized I couldn’t get rid of it because it was part of me. So I had to work with Louise and I had to be able to, when that voice came up, say, “you know what, I’m not listening to this right now. Nope! Nope! I’m not going there. I’m not buying into that conversation.” And I would, you know, I have little triggers that I would use to stop that negative chatter in my head. Over the years now, that doesn’t flare up as much as it used to. Thank goodness, but that’s what ran my life. It was the tail wagging the dog. It was the way that you describe…
Reverend Dr. Sandy Range: what the other one’s life.
Mal: I mean, really it is what gets us out of control, except we need it because it does keep us from harm it. It does keep us from stepping off the curb in front of a bus. So what are some practices that you like to teach Reverend Sandy, that help people to get away from that chatter, from that, from that ego mind?
Reverend Dr. Sandy Range: Yes. [09:15] First and foremost, mindfulness, sitting in the silence, meditation, that is a necessity. We have to be able to turn inside, go within, and just sit in silence because that’s where we get the insights, the inspirations, the intuitions, all of the knowledge that’s available to us from a divine source, you know? And by that I don’t mean it in a “woo woo” kind of way. [09:51] I mean it in a cosmologically balanced universe that we live in, this cosmology of – what’s the word I want to use? A cosmology of being in balance with nature, being in balance with self, being in balance with the divine intelligence or the universal intelligence, we might want to use that word. Where when we’re within, we can hear those messages, you know. People sit in prayer and they’re talking all the time in prayer. You know, they talk, they’re speaking, they asking for help, they’re asking for, you know, favors and they’re asking for to get us out of trouble and make sure that my loved one is safe and well, we’re always asking. But when we sit in the silence in meditation, in mindfulness, helps you get to meditation, that’s when we start receiving the answers. That’s when we start getting the information. If we’re always chatting, you’re not going to get it.
Mal: You know, young people today, I think really have a huge challenge ahead of them because they are constantly on their phones.
Reverend Dr. Sandy Range: Yeah.
Mal: They’re tweeting, they’re texting, they’re messaging, and it’s nonstop. I don’t think the younger generation today, the millennials know what silence is. They don’t know what to do in silence. To me, my favorite part of the day, is silence.
Reverend Dr. Sandy Range: Yes.
Mal: I cherish it. I could spend three hours in the morning with complete quiet, doing a little spiritual reading, some meditation, some journaling, and some prayer. I love it. It is the best part of my day. Young people today don’t know what that is.
Reverend Dr. Sandy Range: Yeah.
Mal: They are hooked on technology and constant mental stimulation. I don’t know what we’re going to do with them.
Reverend Dr. Sandy Range: Well, we have to find a way to wake them up yup.
Mal: Yup.
Reverend Dr. Sandy Range: And I’m not so sure, maybe a lot of them do. Yes, absolutely. They’re into technology and being on their phones and looking down, walking out in front of that bus, looking down on their phones, their devices, you know. And that’s, again, is really the ego. The ego says, “I’m in control. I do what I want. I’m going to rule this person, you know, this is my domain.” And it’s not its domain, but we have allowed it, we have given it. [12:36] It’s like giving an abuser the power to control us. And yes, sometimes we don’t know initially what’s happening, you know. Initially, if you’re being abused or you’re in an abusive relationship, we don’t really know what’s happening in the beginning. But then we stayed in it so long and that’s as it goes with those devices and looking down and giving that ego the control over us and power. When we stay in it for so long, we kind of don’t recognize until it’s too late and now we’re stuck. Now we’re in this relationship, whether it’s with ego or whether it’s with a human abuser. That we have to understand, okay, what do I do now? How do I get out of this? [13:21] Hopefully. And eventually they do look up. But someone or something needs to be there for them to see, “okay, yes, there is a way up. Yes, I can get out of this stuff with my ego. I can move forward. I can, yes, I can still have my technology.” We’re using it right now. It’s a beautiful thing, if it’s used within its limits, its boundaries and not possessing us.
Mal: Yeah.
Reverend Dr. Sandy Range: So, yes.
Mal: I look around restaurants, look at people when they’re out to dinner. Everybody’s looking at their phone. I can’t stand that! If I go out to dinner with friends, I don’t want them looking at their phone. So I’m there, let’s engage, let’s communicate with one another.
Reverend Dr. Sandy Range: Yes.
Mal: Put the damn phone down. Now you do these magical retreats, and I know you have more of them coming up this year. But I mean, I spent a glorious day with you, the way you put your heart and soul into that day and we dabbled in several different practices. Not only meditation but just talking about so many juicy, beautiful things. What are, this is going to be a tough question, what is yours, because you have so many gifts, you’re a Shaman and medicine woman. What are some of your favorite practices that you like to teach women?
Reverend Dr. Sandy Range: [14:55] Wow. Well, I don’t know if there’s any one specific or particular practice. I try to give them enough of a toolkit where they can pick and choose or use them in combination or whatever to assist them. You know, I think maybe meditation and mindfulness, absolutely, number one.
Mal: Yep.
Reverend Dr. Sandy Range: You cannot move forward in your spiritual life without it, so that’s absolutely number one. And you know, it depends on what the person needs or seeking for themselves as well. You know, their spiritual coaching and counseling, there’s, you know, actually hypnotherapy. There’s past life regressions where, okay, so what is keeping you stuck in this life? Okay? Or what is keeping you from moving forward in the work that you want to do, your spiritual work? And we can go back into the past and see what your soul did in another life that you may be paying for in this life. Karma! That’s really simple.
Mal: Which brings up a fascinating point. I don’t think people really understand what the soul is all about. I think most of us, if we were raised in a religion, I was raised Catholic, so my concept of soul, you know, really all based on the religion of Catholicism and that is not my concept today. I understand that my soul chose, my parents chose when I would come here and also chose the lessons that I need to learn while I’m here so that I don’t keep repeating. And boy, that has been an education. So tell us a little bit about the soul and how people can work with it and understand it.
Reverend Dr. Sandy Range: [16:48] Okay. Again, everything boils down to going within, going inside, who’s sitting in the silence, listening to your own soul. That angel mind on your shoulder is the soul speaking to you. But it whispers, it’s soft, it’s you know, it’s very gentle. It’s not that breath, brash, you know abrasive ego that says, “Oh, I’m going to take over. Just don’t listen to that thing over there on the other shoulder, you listen to me, only me.”  Make lots of noise. The soul says, “Okay, I’m really here and I’m talking to you, but you need to quiet down so you can hear me.” And so this is why we go into the silence, you know, it’s why we go into the silence.
[17:33] The soul, I just briefly, you mentioned about going into a past life regression to see what the soul may have done and karma and all of that good stuff. Now there’s good karma, there’s bad karma, you know, and it’s not really bad. It’s what we have chosen to experience for our soul growth in each lifetime. And yes, when we get here, we have that veil of forgetfulness. We don’t remember that we chose this. And so it may take us until we’re 40, 50, 60, 70, 90 years old before we’d say, “Ah, I get it now. I get it now. Now, I’m remembering. I know why I was here, why I came here, you know?” So hopefully, the more we evolve each time, it doesn’t take us that long.
Sometimes there are spiritual teachers that can help you to recall why you were here, or help you to look at the lessons that have their challenges. I call them challenges that have presented themselves in your lifetime. And due to those challenges, what were the lessons that we needed to learn from those challenges, you know? [18:48] And so each time we get the lesson, each time we understand it, you know, we can elevate, we can move forward. Now we can understand it and we can also not like it and argue about it and be, you know, angry about it, “well, it didn’t have to happen to me,” blah, blah, blah. But then when we do that, that’s ego again, trying to knock soul out of the way. Okay. So we can’t be angry over the challenge that presents itself. And when we do that, again, we revert right back again to square one. So we use mindfulness again. That’s where we want to be mindful all the time and it’s a 24/7 and even when we’re sleeping. Really, our consciousness, our soul, when we’re doing our thing, we need to be mindful of the fact that, okay, what actions, what behaviors, what thoughts am I emulating that are going to cause more discomfort, more challenges to the present themselves to me?
Mal: And I love that you say challenges because lots of times women interpret painful experiences. It’s like, what did I do to deserve this? Why me? They become a victim to their pain and in fact, it’s about a lesson. I always say that there is wisdom in the wound. It is up for us to find it.
Reverend Dr. Sandy Range: Yes. Yes.
Mal: What is then, in your lifetime so far is one of your biggest soul lessons?
Reverend Dr. Sandy Range: Oh boy. [Cross talking 20:21 – 20: 20:24]. Lots and lots and lots.
Mal: Yep.
Reverend Dr. Sandy Range: Oh gosh. I don’t, I couldn’t, I don’t even think I can narrow it down. I can think of a recent one in the last few years and that had to do with some spinal surgery that I had. And before the spinal surgery, I was suffering from a sciatica, and the sciatica became so severe that I could barely walk. I couldn’t sit, I couldn’t stand, I couldn’t lay down. I couldn’t, it was just painful.
Mal: Like nothing worked.
Reverend Dr. Sandy Range: Nothing worked at all. And it took nine months for me to figure out, “okay, leave the doctors that you’re talking to because they’re not helping you and go somewhere else.”  I ended up, it took another year, I would say, two years with sciatica, really, really bad, painfully. And decided to have the surgery, spoke with this wonderful surgeon. Well, that’s another story.  And then after the surgery and I was like, ” Why did this happen? Why?”  I was losing my business, I couldn’t work. I couldn’t, you know, pay the bills, all this stuff was going on. So it wasn’t just the sciatica of the physical pain, it was affecting the rest of my life. It was affecting my work life, my home life, my friendships. I couldn’t do anything.
So I said, “Okay, I have to really stop and see and try to understand what it was that caused this, what was the lesson in it for me?” And after a lot of work, a lot, a lot, a lot of work, I understood that, the spine really supports the entire body, right? Your spinal column, it holds you up, right? It keeps you good, you can move left, you can move right. The spine is doing all the work, right? And the more research that I did,  I understood that and where mine was in the lower  spine, the L-4, L-5 area, which sits probably around the sacral chakra and the kind of just sitting just about at your waist, so just above. So, the energy of the lower spine, when it’s in pain, any kind of back pain, okay. Our back is our support. I wasn’t getting support from anywhere, from anyone. And I started realizing this, I’m like, okay. So I had all these plans. I was trying to open up a retreat center and everything was falling apart.
And I’m like, “why is it falling? Maybe it’s not meant to be.” And I started doubting myself, but when I found out was that ego, again, also played a part in it. Okay. So, not having the supports in place, not having, you know, human support, financial support, any kinds of supports towards this goal that I was working toward of expanding my practice and actually building a retreat center. And when I realized, I said, “You know what? I really didn’t have any support.” And I was really concerned about it. I was really struggling trying to get this to work and then, and being forceful, being forceful about it. [23:49] So, that’s ego, again. Being forceful in controlling and I have to do this and force gets us nothing, nothing but pain, nothing but pain. So, when I came to realize that, I was like, “Ah, ah. This is, you almost really lost everything because you were trying, and you were so in it.” It doesn’t mean I had to change the goal. It just means I had to change how I was trying to get there.
Mal: Yeah.
Reverend Dr. Sandy Range: And whether I had a support system or not, you know, I had to still change my tactic, change how I was working through things and the support system that I wasn’t working with that I had the whole time, the spirit, the soul. You know, it was the divine kingdom with working with me and I was like, “Oh, they’re not there. I got to do things from down here on the earth level.” And when I realized that, things started changing, you know, things really started changing.
Mal: It’s interesting how we’re taught to set goals and then we’re taught to go out and to work and to push to try to make those goals happen and that’s not always the best strategy. We have to have some faith.
Reverend Dr. Sandy Range: That’s right.
Mal: That the universe is working with us. We need to know that what we want is in alignment with who we are with our soul.
Reverend Dr. Sandy Range: Yeah.
Male: If it’s not, it’s not going to happen. But we don’t look at these things in a deeper, more meaningful way. We just look at the goal and say, “Oh yeah, that’s what I’m going to do in business and I’m going to go out and do it.” It’s like pushing a boulder up a hill and when that weight becomes so overwhelming and it’s ready to just fall back on us, I think is one, it’s an eye opener like, “you know what? This isn’t working. This isn’t the way this is meant to be. We’re not put here to struggle and beat ourselves up and you know, put ourselves up against such incredibly painful experiences that we don’t need.” That’s not what we’re here for. We’re here to have good lives and experience joy and abundance, but we have to trust that we’re deserving.
Reverend Dr. Sandy Range: Yes.
Mal: The universe has got our back and then take mindful, spirit led, heart inspired action.
Reverend Dr. Sandy Range: Absolutely.
Mal: Yeah. Yeah. Tell us when’s your next retreat? Because I want, anybody can go to one of your retreats. It’s got to go. I’ve got my gold dust. I’ve got my feathers, girl. I mean, I came out of there with so many beautiful little gifts and meditations. I mean, it was wonderful. T
Reverend Dr. Sandy Range: Oh, thank you. I’m glad you can [Inaudible 26:38]. I don’t have a date yet, but I’m planning two retreats and an online class. One of the retreats I’ll be doing with one of our, wisdom fire elders. And that is going to be on ceremony. How ceremony should be a part of every aspect of your life and how to perform ceremony, how to be in ceremony with everything that you do. So that’s going to be one retreat coming up.  [27:12] The other online class though I’m going to be doing is ancestral connections. So teaching us how to, and we’ve lost that skill, we’ve lost that connection. And our ancestors, I would say are probably our great grandparents and you and I were kind of, we’re there.
We’re readily in the same realm. But our grandparents and great grandparents always connected with their ancestors. And we have lost that maybe, maybe a little older, maybe a little further back. But we have lost that connection. And we don’t even think of even the generations younger than us that come after us, they have no clue. They look at old people and say, “Eek, they’re old. They don’t need to be here.” You know, they just want to get rid of the old folks. But the old folks and which I like to call the elders because they’ve earned, you’ve earned that title as an elder. This is where all of the healing can take place.
Now we don’t, when we do work in with the ancestors, we do not want to contact the recently diseased. Because there’s still just the way they left here, they took all of that with them, all of this baggage. So they’re still working on healing themselves. They have to do their thing to be able to be healed. So we reached back to very, very distant, far distant ancestors who are healed in whole already, okay. So we call out to those healed and holed, loving and kind ancestors. And those are the ones we want to work with because once we connect with them and we don’t want to start asking them to stop right away, either. We do would want somebody, you meet someone for the first time, right? And whether they’re a relative or not, and they’re like, “Hey, can you do this for me? Hey, can you take me here? Can you do that? Can you do the other?” Like, who are you? I just met you. So we still want to have that respect and honor our ancestors and get to know them. Say, I’m your relative. I’m your descendant. I want to know who you are. I also want to know who you were when you on the planet.
Mal: I love it, I love it.
Reverend Dr. Sandy Range: And connect with them and find it. There’s such rich cultural histories and stories, you know. And if we think about our ancestors going back 10 generations, we have like 1024 ancestors and only 10 generations. So if we go back 50, 100 generations, imagine how many relatives we have. This is why I say we are all connected. Every last one of us on this planet, we are connected somehow, ancestrally.
Mal: And I know that we don’t have time today for it but you have fascinating stories in your own lineage of samples of that. I mean, it was just wonderful. I want the audience to be able to reach out to you personally. You have a very generous offer on your website about a complimentary consultation, chat, whatever. And your website is intentionalself.com.
Reverend Dr. Sandy Range: Yes.
Mal: And so anything that they should know about this consul. I mean, I just think that is so wonderful that people can get in touch with you and get a little flavor of the kind of work that you do, anything special that you’d like them to know.
Reverend Dr. Sandy Range: [30:44] You can call, you can email, you can visit the website, you can actually sign up on the website. So you can get, I have a newsletter that comes out monthly. This shows all the programs and things that we have to offer. And a little icon, my intentional blogging but intentional self, not international. A lot of people make that mistake and they never get to me. So intentionalself.com, solutions@intentionalself.com is the email address.
Mal: Wonderful.
Reverend Dr. Sandy Range: And you can reach me through them.
Mal: Perfect. And I’ll put those in the show notes as well.
Reverend Dr. Sandy Range: Right.
Mal: So that they’re there. Oh, Reverend Sandy, this has been so much fun. It’s so good to see you. Really, you touched me the day we met and I said, I’ve got to bring this woman on because you’re just such a gift, you are.
Reverend Dr. Sandy Range:   Thank you very much and I appreciate you too, Mel, very much.
Mal: Thank you so much and I hope to see you soon.
Reverend Dr. Sandy Range: Yes, that would be wonderful.
Mal: Thank you again.
Reverend Dr. Sandy Range: Okay. Thank you and many blessings.
Mal: You too

Interview Timing Notes
[00:33] Mal’s introduction of the guest, Reverend Dr. Sandy Range
[02:20] Reading an excerpt from Reverend Sandy’s book, “You’ve Lost Your Mind Now Find Your Soul”
[04:02] Reverend Sandy explaining the title of the book.
[05:07] Reverend Sandy talked about the brain-mind, understanding it and ego. The ego is being compared to the angel and devil sitting on both sides of your shoulder.
[05:50] Reverend Sandy talked about the ego-mind and why we need it
[06:49] She emphasized that we have to learn to control ego
[07:29] Reverend Sandy stated that to find our soul, we have to step out of ego-mind.
[09:15] Practices that Reverend Sandy uses to control ego-mind, such as mindfulness, sitting in silence, meditations.
[09:51] She talked about the cosmological balance in the universe, being balance with the divine intelligence and universal intelligence.
[12:11] She talked about young people and their stimulation by technology
[12:36] Comparing how technology controls us like an abuser with power over us.
[13:21] Hope that they look up from the controlled ego.
[14:55] Reverend Sandy talked about practices that you teach women. There is no one practice but meditation and mindfulness is the very first one. Other include spiritual coaching, hypnotherapy and past life regression.
[16:48] Reverend Sandy talks about the soul and how people understand it and listening to the angel on the shoulder.
[17:33] Reverend Sandy talks about the soul, regression and karma.
[18:50] Reverend Sandy says that when we get the lesion, we are to learn from it, elevate, move forward and understand it.
[20:39] Reverend Sandy talked about one example of her biggest soul lesson and that is while she was experiencing severe back pain. She thought she had no support from no one, nothing worked. She donated and questioned why this was happening to her.
[23:08] Reverend Sandy realized that ego played a part in doubting herself.
[23:49] Reverend Sandy emphasized that ego was in control and making you want to be forceful but realizing that force gets us nowhere.
[24:25] Reverend Sandy decided to change her tactic and working with what she had the whole time – The Spirit, The Soul.
[26:38] Reverend Sandy is planning two retreats and an online class.
[27:12] Reverend Sandy’s online class will be Ancestral Connections.
[30:44] Reverend Sandy giving her contact information and website details

Meet Laura Joseph, Spiritual Medium, Trauma Specialist and Healer


I’m wishing you a happy belated Valentine’s Day. I was traveling last week in CA, touring potential communities for a new home. Honestly, I’m a little in sticker shock. My extensive Real Estate background didn’t prepare me for this. California is unimaginably expensive. I guess I am going to pay dearly for great weather. 

Thing is, I really want to live there. So, I’m going to have to hold the vision and not let unfounded fear derail me.

I celebrated Valentine’s with my granddaughter in LA, who was dressed in pink of course and wore her angel wings. She told me she was a flower fairy. We were outside waving her magic wand at the full moon making wishes.

Oh my god, be still my heart. Her free spirit and exuberant imagination are powerful examples of the self-confidence she has as a young girl. She has been raised in a healthy, loving environment and encouraged to express her creativity in a multitude of ways.

There is a flip side to this. One that is becoming more common. I’m referencing the young girls that have had their innocence, their free spirit ripped from them and have been silenced by the atrocities of domestic abuse. They have witnessed their mother’s being abused or have been victims themselves. It’s really a big problem that doesn’t get talked about enough.

Sometimes a conventional medical approach is just another bandaid over a gaping wound.

If you have been following me for a while you know by now, I am always looking for alternative ways to heal. I am a huge believer in holistic remedies. I’ve also witnessed firsthand what can happen to these young girls and their mothers when they are processed through our legal and medical systems. They can be lost in the shuffle of paperwork and end up being victims again.

This week’s conversation on Awakening Divine Wildness is a much-needed one. My guest, Laura Joseph is a super knowledgeable expert on dealing with and healing trauma. She learned the hard way, by being a victim of domestic abuse and rape herself. She knows the pain of C-PTSD personally and the poisonous grip it holds on your life.

Laura uses a spiritually based integrative holistic and health program through her “Healing Trauma Through Spirit” for women.

Trust me, this show is an eye-opener, revealing ways for women to reclaim their power from the shadows of abuse and trauma.

If I could wave a magic wand, I would want all women to live loving, prosperous lives that are free from abuse and trauma. A life where a woman wakes up every day and know she’s valued. A day where she can wear her wings.

We can do this…working together and supporting one another. Women are the future!

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Mal: I am excited today because I get to talk to someone I know personally. Many of my guests are from around the globe, but this lady, I know, I’ve been nose to nose and toes to toes with her. And I even did one of her magical full day retreats and I came out feeling so uplifted and so whole and connected to my heart at the end of the day with Laura Joseph. She’s magical and I’m thrilled to have her on today. But Laura’s journey has not come without challenge. When she was trying to heal that broken feeling that she had within herself for so many decades after suffering abuse, including domestic violence and rape, resulting in complex CPTSD. Laura delved into traditional American health care system, hoping she could returned to her unbroken self. She wasn’t getting better and band-aids were increasingly applied to her mental, emotional, and physical symptoms that began to spiral out of control.

[00:01:21] Laura began to heal herself when she began looking into the spiritual aspects of her issues that the healthcare system couldn’t figure out. She systematically implemented a spiritually based holistic approach to her healing, which saved her life in ways to defy a logic. Since then, Laura’s been a sought after spoke person. Laura has experience as a trauma specialist, a domestic abuse advocate, college educator, end of life transition specialist with over health advocacy and college educator with over 15 years’ experience working in the healthcare system. She’s a healer, an educator, a natural born intuitive, a manifested physician and a trauma survivor, a health advocate, a mentor, an artist, a writer, and an overall spiritual bad-ass and I can attest that. She is sought after for speaking all over and she has a fabulous website that is called ‘Healing with Spirit’ and her business is Healing with Spirit in Hingham, MA. Laura, I am over the moon girl that you’re with me today on 1212 this is like a super high energy day. And look what I’ve got, the cosmic queen of resolving trauma from abuse. How are you dear?

Laura Joseph: I’m doing good. These energies are sure shit kicker, that’s all I know because it’s really in trauma, it’s interesting I was chuckling over the fact that we picked this day. And I did a live video this morning on 1212 and how much trauma peace is developed in the whole 1212 full moon, on a 1212 AM, you know. Today, three years and I’m going, “holy shit, this is like major, [Inaudible 03: 28 – 03:29] like the generational, it’s the personal, it’s the karmic. It’s all surfacing all at the same time.”

Mal: Powerful, powerful energies. I love it. I love moving energy and I have many rituals I use for new moons and full moons. And I had all my crystals laid out last night, had the singing bowl going and I had them all in the moonlight. It was wonderful. Came down with the morning and they were all like sparkling in charge.

Laura Joseph: [00:03:59] Well that’s good because sometimes, I’m a Pisces, this is actually a Pisces number as well. So,   I’m so sensitive that I didn’t sleep until after one, two o’clock in the morning. And then I had a hard time getting up this morning and I was like, “Oh my gosh.” You know, but I guess this is where I bless my junk because as I like to say is “you’ve got to learn to bless that and learn to go and master the flow, not the outcome,” you know. And you kind of chuckle at these little hiccups that we get, you know.

Mal: Wonderful. So I am just so taken back by your transparency, your vulnerability in sharing that you personally went through decades of violence and trauma. So give the listeners just a little history. I don’t want to, you know, drag the suffering of, but just a recap of kind of what has inspired you to step up and do what you do today?

Laura Joseph: [00:05:06] Well, growing up, I didn’t know what a normal household was like. I grew up in an abusive household and I have no resentment towards either one of my parents. They, I think at that time did the best that they thought they could. But it also didn’t make it easy for me to go to my parents for the subsequent events that had happened, where I was actually even molested as a child by some neighborhood kids that we just thought things were just normal, you know because I didn’t know what normal looked like.  I was sexually abducted at 12, in a town that was deemed to be safe, even though nothing happened, “so-called happened.”  I was still groped. I still blamed myself and didn’t talk to anybody about it because you know, “Hey, go help me find my puppy” and next thing you know am behind this abandoned building and told to pull my pants down. To being raped at 15, losing my virginity through rape. To being sexually abducted, ruffyed at 22 and my best friend had to pull me out of a car of four strange men and figure out how to drive a stick shift in the middle of Philadelphia, in the hills. So all by herself.

[00:06:16] So, and then I met my ex-husband and got married at 26 and then the rest is history of “Oh, this systemic abuse” that I didn’t realize existed in our, even in our system, you know. That, you know, in the family courts and how 58,000 children are illegally trafficked by way of family courts. You’ve seen a lot in the media this year, what’s going on at the border, but nobody talks about 58,000 children being legally trafficked by way of family courts to abuser and rapists every year.

Mal: It’s awful and you see in the news, several times a year locally for me, children who have died in foster care. And that breaks my heart because that could have been prevented.

Laura Joseph: Yeah. [00:07:05] This is like, you know, I spent 10 years researching and advocating for families in Massachusetts and the punishment or I should say the reward I got for doing so, I actually had 20 families against one judge. My mission was to remove him from the bench. And I grew up in an environment that the truth always prevails, right? That you tell the truth and you know, it always wins, right?  You can’t, you know, abuser can’t get away with things. And so I thought that that was on my side. And I ended up at Framingham State Penitentiary to be silenced.  That was the system’s way of silencing me on advocating for these 20 families, which compromise over 80 children, and protective mothers against one judge who was knowingly giving custody and visitation to rapist and documented abusers.

Mal: Well, oh my god. What? So many women get violated the way that you have, even in childhood, their teens and yet they seem to minimize what happened to them. They are afraid to step up and really say what happened. Why do you think that is Laura?

Laura Joseph: [00:08:34] I think its multi-fold, one, I know in my situation it was retaliation. Not only retaliation from your abuser but actually retaliation from the system that says on one level, “we’re going to protect you,” but really what they’re doing is the system is a colonized system. Let’s get real. We think as women we have rights. I didn’t realize how many rights because I had just grown up very independent that I’m able to a man in every way until I faced the system that is very white man dominated. And it’s not to say white men are evil, but this is the system that we’ve created.

[00:09:11] So women are, don’t have the power that we think we do when it comes to law, legislation, when it comes to being believed. Because when we have a colonized mind-set, you know, it is conquer and enslave. That’s the mentality of a colonizer’s mind-set. And until we as a society can wake up and realize that’s the society we have been bred into, we can’t change that. I had somebody asked me recently, “why do we normalize violence and all these things?” I said, “Because we’re colonized.” We don’t realize we’ve normalized it. It’s so in our veins. We don’t even realize that what we’re thinking and what we’re believing is wrong, you know. And women blame women. You can see her coming out of a bar with her clothes, rip, bloody, bruised and beaten. And the first thing might be, “what did you do to deserve this?” Instead of, “who did this to you?” Right?

Mal: Yeah.

Laura Joseph:   And I’ve seen people that claim to be healers and spiritual leaders, even in churches that call out and say, “Women lie about rape.” And I just go, “Oh my god, do you realize what you’re doing? Do you actually realize….” Because, I know my advocacy years, how many girls, I didn’t know how bad this was when I was doing advocacy of how prevalent ruffying girls on college campuses are. That it’s the gateway drug, not the gateway drug, but it’s the gateway to keep yourself from getting prosecuted. And that girls wake up on college campuses normalizing saying “as long as they don’t remember, it’s okay.” There’s something wrong with this when we start normalizing this behavior, this violation that we don’t realize later on may end up as fibroids, endometriosis, uterine cancer, you know, breast cancer, all these things that we know are linked to abuse and sexual violence. Just because you say you don’t remember, doesn’t mean your body doesn’t remember.

Mal: And you hold that trauma and what happens is, it changes the cellular structure.

Laura Joseph: Yes, it does.

Mal: But you always say if you can heal trauma, you can heal anything.

Laura Joseph: [00:11:39] That is a firm belief. That’s been my mission. I mean, when I first left my marriage in 2005, they gave me a cocktail of a lot of medications, of all kinds of things. I had all kinds of mental health as well as physical symptoms from a haemorrhagic uterine bleeding, too severe PTSD, Insomnia, Anxiety, Panic to chronic, left side pain. I had a lot of these, I would choke just on water. It was insane, the subtleties of what my body was responding. And when I started realizing the cocktail wasn’t making me better, but making me worse, that’s what led me into, “okay, there’s got to be something else.” And I grew up in the healthcare field and it’s in a field filled with holistic doctors to boot. So I already had one foot in there a little bit, but when I started really going into the spiritual path and all of a sudden my body was kicking medications to the curb, I’m going and I was actually getting better, I was like, “okay, what’s wrong with this picture?” Because why not go to a therapists, or a doctor and a pill’s going to fix you or therapy is going to fix you. And I’m finding “no, that didn’t help me.” That actually made me feel more broken, okay? So it doesn’t mean that in some cases, for other people that might be what they need. And I never persuade somebody to not seek those things, you know. What I say is when you’ve tried that and nothing is working, then you got to look at another component.

[00:13:21] And with my Japanese teachers, I really got to understand that trauma seeds itself, not just what we think, like, “Oh, in the mind”, you know, or in “the physical body.” Well, no, but they’re also, they are separate bodies. There’s the mental body, the physical body, the emotional body, and the spiritual body. Where was the trauma seated? Yeah, it was grabbed by the throat and thrown up against the wall. Is it seeding in me physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually or combination? And how was that manifesting?

Mal:  How do you, how do you decipher that?

Laura Joseph: [00:13:54] Listening to the body.  So I teach people how to listen to their, see our bodies are designed to heal themselves. We have been, again, from a colonized culture, we have been conditioned to turn our power over to a pill, to a corporation, to a doctor, to a politician, to an advocate, right? And what I do is I say, “Let me help you become your own superhero,” okay. Because when you can do that and help your own body know how to heal itself, just by learning how to reconnect and re-educate yourself on what does that look like. And I like, this week I had clients that said to me, “Geez, I didn’t realize how far I’ve come. My mother said this to me today. I had somebody came up to me and said this to me today that so, you know, when you had this conflict last year, this is how you reacted?” And they were very frustrated with how their mother was behaving, they couldn’t handle. And I said, “But watch, you live together. What you’re doing it’s going to rub off, right? So they said, “the law,” they were saying, “look at this battery, you created how healthy it is.” And I go, “are you paying attention to how your parents responding? Because you were saying that you didn’t know how to get through to them at all.” And to be mindful of how you’re letting things go and you’re going, “but how did I do that?” Then I go, “because you created this innate system within yourself and my goal is help create that.” We all create that differently. Because what does that look like for that individual person? That’s where it gets maybe a little complex. It’s a little time consuming because everybody has a different way of communicating and what that looks like for them.

Mal: Do you have certain modalities that you really favour or recommend for women to heal trauma?

Laura Joseph: [00:15:46] I am a big ad from everything that I’ve done.  I’ve done everything from massage to acupuncture, Tai Chi. I think it’s, what works for you. For what has worked for me isn’t just Reiki, because I got to be careful with that because I can see Reiki as equally as harmful with the wrong practitioner who’s unskilled and untrained, but Jikiden Reiki. I couldn’t understand how different it was when I was doing more Western Reiki. I had so many other things I had to add to what I was doing to make sure that what they were releasing was in a safe environment. And when I started learning Jikiden Reiki, which is the direct teachings out of Japan that are non-colonized, non-westernized, as it was done in Japan, before it came to the West. And I was like going, I was just looking at the results and I’m going, ‘holy shit.”  It was like night and day. And then I started experimenting it with people, with wound care and getting people’s wounds that weren’t closing for three months. All of a sudden one or two sessions, closed. So, now I’m on a mission, obviously using myself as the poster board because if I’m not walking it, then how do I expect somebody else to do it? It’s not as easy, it depends on what’s, there’s so much involved as in the rituals of Jikiden Reiki that’s hard to do in a podcast.

Mal: Can you maybe in a very simple way, what’s the difference between the Reiki that you’re using and the Western Reiki that we’re all kind of familiar with? Is there some ingredient or something that you can kind of pinpoint for us to understand?

Laura Joseph: [00:17:43] I think, you know, from my experience and coming from both worlds, I always knew there was something missing in the westernized Reiki, I didn’t know what. Because if it cured every known illness and disease, why wasn’t I seeing this in a medical environment? So I felt like there was something, again, I come from a very intuitive, background. So like something in me just didn’t sound right, I didn’t know why. And to be honest with you, just the word Jikiden, I was drawn to, I didn’t know why. And then when I learned that the word Jikiden translated into English means direct teaching. I was like, “Oh, okay.” So what I want to say like between Western Reiki and Jikiden Reiki, Western Reiki, some people say, “All they talk about is shock horizon, ore horizon, crystals” and “Oh, let me talk to your dead uncle.” None of that is Reiki. Let’s just get that clear, okay. And I’m hoping I’m not offending anybody, but this is how we’ve westernized it. It doesn’t mean that what they’re doing is wrong because I did it, I taught it. I didn’t understand either. And it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have a value. When I went to the direct teachings, it was really all about removing toxicity and restoring wholeness. It’s about ego destruction. 

Mal: Ego destruction.

Laura Joseph: Yes.

Mal: Yes.

Laura Joseph: [00:19:10] Reiki, it’s about, “Hey, put your hands on everybody and let’s make magic. I’m a healer. I’m going to fix you, but I’m not going to do my work.” Something simple, like the Go Chi with, I had my first little pending talking about the go Chi, which are five simple sentences and in English, it’s something as simple as learning in English, minimizes the importance of saying in Japanese [inaudible 19:34] is “Just for today, do not [Inaudible 19:36], do not worry, be grateful. Do your duties fully, be kind to others? And in Japanese it’s Okoru-n., Sinpai suna, Kansha shite Goo hage me. Hito ni shinsetsu ni. So when you say it, it does a resonance because of a frequency and vibration, these are the subtleties that can make magic. And I have a pending book on this. I couldn’t believe I wrote a book on five sentences [inaudible 19:59] healing trauma and chronic illness and it made me realize like why the victims stay victims?

[Inaudible 20:08] is conditioned to believe that we’re victim, right? The power of the mind-set. Who’s going to believe me, you know? Or I just got a cowboy it up and just move. I got to keep moving because I’m told I don’t, you know, me grieving over this or need crying or having an emotional breakdown over what happened to me. I shouldn’t be entitled to that. [00:20:30] So we are entitled. I teach my clients, that you have to honour that wound. You have to honour that pain.

Mal: Yes.

Laura Joseph: [00:21:00] The magic to become whole again isn’t avoiding the shadows. Actually having the courage to go into the shadows and to know about the triggers, I call them triggers. Triggers are nothing more than a clue to the treasure on the treasure map. And we can switch our mind-set to see them as close to the treasure and not as, “oh my God, why am I feeling this? Oh my God, I’m going to have a breakdown. Oh my God, I didn’t want this, he did this again.” No, get out of that. I want my mind-set to tell my brain to “shut the fuck up. Am already done with those games. They are not going to mess with me anymore. What happened to me, happened to me?” But my brain, I do not want my brain to kind of bring me back and constantly re-traumatize me. So it’s clean, those new neurosynopsis, there’s new neuropathways and belief systems. So, all these angles and all this kind of came down to learning Jikiden Reiki.

Because when you go into the ego destruction, you see all these things very clearly. [Inaudible 21:44] has a shifted, since learning that because there’s so many piles of Jikiden Reiki that can’t necessarily be shared, that’s not taught in Westernised Reiki because it’s a cultural difference. That’s like a mental thing. I know so many wonderful Reiki practitioners in the West that don’t even say it’s Japanese anymore. It doesn’t mean that what they’re doing is wrong or that what they’re doing doesn’t have value. I want to be clear on that. We’re talking about trauma, it’s everything. It’s everything and it takes experience. It takes knowing when to put your hands on one, when to not put your hands on, when to hold space. Okay? When to help somebody just practice the breathing and you know and to know that they’re in a safe environment, right? So this is where I’m not putting myself first, I’m putting them first. But in order to put them first, I have to deal with my own junk. If cant’ deal with my own junk, then how can I be effective for them?

Mal: Right. I’ve always said to women, “you need to feel the pain in order to heal it.” There’s no way to circumvent that because it’s going to come back. It’s going to bite you in the tail, harder the second time around.

Laura Joseph: Yes.

Mal: You deal with it and feel it and process it. Allow yourself that, you owe it to yourself. If you’ve been through something horrific and you’ve been traumatized to feel the pain so that you know that once you’re there that you can, there are modalities, there are ways to heal it. But if you deny it, you’re not going to get to the healing.

Laura Joseph: [00:23:30] That’s exactly right. I mean, almost every person I have seen with either terminal cancer, cancer, autoimmune disorders, mental health issues from anxiety, PTSD,  suicidal ideations to, you know, all kinds of things, have all been linked to [inaudible 23:49]. We have an epidemic of unresolved trauma in this country. And recently, a lot of the opiate epidemic is also a way of numbing traumatic events. So, you know, and it’s not just personal events, by the way, let’s just be clear, some of the trauma that’s surfacing right now isn’t even our own. It’s generational…

Mal: It’s selective and generational, yeah.

Laura Joseph: [00:24:16] Selective and generational is surfacing really hard right now. So for those of us who have been spiritually bypassing even our own traumas are especially feeling the weight of this, tremendously. And then there’s the old saying, “when you surrender to what is, it no longer has power.” There’s a paradox of that. Like, people don’t realize that when you surrender, you actually have more power. Well we don’t see it as that. We see it as turning more power over. But yet, the women that I see, they get re-victimized because I [inaudible 24:43] spoken in the [Inaudible 24:45] community on sexual predators that have been infiltrating our communities. And the one thing I see with these women that make them targets, is that they are looking for the knight in shining armour. They’re looking for that guy that’s going to rescue them. That’s going to, “Oh my God, I’m so exhausted. I’m so broken.” I’ve been there. I get it but you don’t want somebody to do it for you because when you have somebody that’s going to do it for you, under the guise of, “let me be charitable”, under the guise of “I want to be your knight, let me help you,” right? That is an invitation of “I’m taking your power away and you don’t even know it.”

Mal: Yes. And it’s control.

Laura Joseph:   By the time you cop on, that’s when the abuse starts. Every single woman that I’ve helped in these situations, it’s been that scenario over and over. Okay. One of them ended up being sexually trafficked by their partner.  And she was worried about her whole losing custody and everything. And this is what happens. [00:25:50] And like we have to become whole. We can’t [inaudible 25:52] this is what they do. They beat us now so much that we get so exhausted, we feel so broken, all we want is somebody to help us, you know. And I’ve been there and I would never want anybody, I would never want anybody to live through some of the things that I went through. You know, I mean, I was borderline homeless, you know. I went from living in a beautiful home, mid six figure income, BMW, two acres of land, indoor ground pool,  whole works to [Inaudible 26:19] a month I was living on. Now, and having everything stripped away from me, including my children that I haven’t seen in over 10 years, you know?

Mal: Because of the system,

Laura Joseph: Hmm?

Mal: Because the system,

Laura Joseph: [00:26:35] Because of the system. Yes. I was punished, with my own children. They used my children to punish me for advocating for the other families. And I had

Mal:   You had a voice that threaten the shit out of them, you got it?

Laura Joseph: I know. You know, I knew I was onto something because I think it was 2006 maybe or 2007, I can’t remember. [00:27:03] I was actually contacted by a 2020 reporter, and I forget how they got my information, but I knew I had to been on to something if they were contacting me saying, “Why? And at the time I only had 11 cases and they go, “why 11?” Or “why only 11?” And sometimes, you don’t always have the answers for those things, right? What it said to me was the fact that they’re contacted me on 11 cases with one judge and they don’t really give a rat’s rear end about my case, is telling me that I was on to something. I didn’t know what, I didn’t know what at the time.

[00:27:42] And it’s the collective [Inaudible 27:43], the collective corruption and the colonization that affects society and it’s so infectious that we don’t even know, and this is the last year that I’m seeing, in order to heal trauma, we have to decolonize. Because this is the piece that I see that people, they go, “why can’t I just get over this? Why can’t I just do this?” Because the belief systems that they have are coming from a colonized mind-set. It’s that parameter that women are less than, nobody’s going to believe you that you deserved it, right, while you were complicit in it, you asked for it, right? All these things are coming from a colonized mind-set. It’s not from well, “I’m a woman and I’m a human being and I didn’t deserve to be abused, raped or beaten. Thank you very much.”

Mal:   Laura, you have got resources on your website for our listeners.

Laura Joseph: Yes.

Mal: Tell them where they can find you, your web address, how they can get in touch with you because I know there are a lot of people out there that need this kind of help, healing and you know, with trauma.

Laura Joseph: [00:28:56] So I do a lot of events too.  I speak at a lot of conferences, structures, organizations.  So sometimes there’s a posted on my event page and the many of them are free. And  I also have a blog on my website with links to like my YouTube videos and everything else, including one that is called “Today I bless my junk”, which is like a four part series, which is like, “look, yes, I was raped, I was abused as a child0”. I can sit there and go be [inaudible 29:27 – 29:28] for the rest of my life. Or I can sit there and say, “You know what, because of what happened to me, I’m more empathetic. Because of what happened to me, it has made me who I am today. Because of what happened to me, I am the loud mouth and spiritual bad-ass, I am, right?” More of a woman’s champion than I was then because my look at my mind-set then, I was raised as a boy, not a woman. So all these things, so I do have a series called “Today I Bless my Junk.” It’s a four part series in a blog section.

Mal: I love it.

Laura Joseph: [00:30:01] It is www.laurahealingwithspirit.

Mal: Wonderful. Thank you my friend. It’s always a joy to see you.

Laura Joseph: You too.

Mal: I’m going to be seeing you on the solstice, honey.

Laura Joseph: Yay. I know I can’t wait. Another powerful day. Talk about some shit kickers. Time, like has a 2020 by the way, for the 2020 and the next women’s retreat on January 12th, we’re going to [Inaudible 30:26] numerology for 2020.

Mal: Oh, awesome.

Laura Joseph: So for those of us with trauma, it’s a big deal to get the stuff rolling now, to set up the legwork, the platform for 2020 on how to take our power back. It’s a very self-empowering year for those of us with trauma. If you’ve already started the work now,

Mal: Awesome. Bless you, my friend.

Laura Joseph:   Thank you.

Mal: Great to be with you.

Laura Joseph: You too.

 NOTES

[00:01:21] Laura began healing herself using spiritual means because the health care system could not come up with a cure.

[00:03:59] Laura rules under the Pisces sign

[00:05:06] Laura’s history of the path she has chosen, being abused, raped, abducted and rufied.

[00:06:16] Spoke about her ex-husband and being married at age 26.

[00:07:05] Spent 10 years researching and advocating for families, resulting in the removal of a corrupt judge.

[00:08:34] Laura explained by girls/women are afraid to come forward, but she implores them to retaliate.

[00:09:11] Laura speaks about the power that women don’t think they have and it’s bad when they start to normalize and accept the abusive behavior.

[00:11:39] Laura believes that if she can heal from trauma, you can heal from anything.

[00:13:21] Laura speaks about her Japanese teachings, having separate bodies; mental, physical, emotional and spiritual.

[00:13:54] Laura teaches people how to listen to their bodies to heal themselves.

[00:15:46] Laura recommends certain modalities such as Jikiden Reiki.

[00:17:43] Laura explains the difference between Western Reiki and Jikiden Reiki.

[00:20:30] Laura teaches to honor the wound, honor the pain.

[00:21:00] Laura explains that the magic to becoming whole is to go into the shadows and know the triggers.

[00:23:30] Laura agrees that you have to accept your situation to get healing.

[00:24:16] Laura speaks about selective and generational trauma.

[00:26:35] Because Laura is an advocate and because if the system she is punished by not being able to see her children.

[00:27:03] Laura is contacted by a 2020 Reporter about her 11 cases.

[00:28:56] Laura’s work, seminars, conferences, etc.

[00:30:01] Laura’s website www.laurahealingwithspirit.

Meet Clare Chater, The Rainbow Shaman


My Cancer Scare Taught Me So Much.

I love learning healing modalities and all the various ways you can take care of your body!

I am definitely super woo-woo. The more cosmic and angelic, the happier I am.

Back in 2009, I learned about alternative medicine and healing when I was staring at a potential cancer diagnosis.

I would not allow myself to buy into not being well and having a life-threatening illness. I committed to daily practices of meditation, prayer and breathing as well as three weekly acupuncture treatments.

Robert, my acupuncturist said all my organs in my belly were enlarged most likely from the infection I had due to an appendectomy gone bad.

I was so sick; I could hardly eat and would have violent attacks of projectile vomiting. And yet, I did not believe I was deathly ill.

Meanwhile, the medical community kept doing more tests and scans. They were not getting the answers they were looking for. It’s not fun living with a dark cloud hanging over you. After six months they ordered another contrast MRI.

Guess what?

The duct to the pancreas was normal in size again. My doctors were speechless. There is no medical explanation for this they told me. They have never seen this happen before. I didn’t need theirs; I had my own answer “BELIEF”!!!

The entire experience inspired the path I am committed to today, finding alternative ways for you to heal your body.

Just to be clear, I take really good care of myself. I have been taking daily vitamins and herbs for eighteen years. I don’t smoke or drink. I do not sit in the sun.

For the past year, I have been expanding my knowledge base and learning energy healing, understanding the basics of Ayurveda and powerful practices from different shamans.

I want to know as much as I can and so I am able to share it with all of you Dear Ones.

This week’s guest on Awakening Divine Wildness is from across the pond. Clare Chater is a highly recognized healer and is known as the Rainbow Shaman. She is a MESA carrier and has received sacred MESA rights, which have been installed and strengthened. Clare is going to teach you the importance of the four directions, your mind power, and understanding animal symbols.

The entire show is captivating.

Listen to the Awakening Divine Wildness podcast by clicking the play button on the audio player below.

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Read the Full Transcript

Mal: Oh, today is going to be a really exciting show because I have a guest that has agreed to come on and she’s over right now outside of London in Essex, England. And this is such a treat for Awakening Divine Wildness because this lady is the rainbow Sharman, Clare Chater is from Essex and her shamanic training is in the Peruvian lineage. [00:00:39] She’s a Mesa Carrier and has received sacred, am I saying that right? Mesa?

Clare Chater: Uh-uh.

Mal: Right, which had been installed and strengthened. Her training, she’s done extensive training, which is also known as the Medicine Wheel. And it’s common to spend at least a year in each direction, building a relationship with power. And when we talk about directions, we are referring to the South, the West, the North and the East. You know, we all have that energy within us. She’s had a lifelong initiation process in Shamanism, which she feels chose her rather than her choosing it, which will be very interesting to hear about. She’s been able to have a dialogue and a language with formless energy, which is worth more than all the things in reality. It’s her belief that as a species we will be awakened to disability of communicating more and more. Science calls it metaphysics, but Clare likes to call it Mind Power. You could say it’s a conversation with God and she’s going to open up this show with a special prayer for all of the listeners today. Clare, welcome.

Clare Chater: Thanks Mal. It is an absolute honor to be here, so thank you.

Mal: You look wonderful in your headdress. I just love it. I just know that there’s going to be so much fun. So take it away, girl, with your beautiful prayer.

Clare Chater: Okay, so let me invite everyone just to come into a place of presence. Bring all your energy into yourself right now. Take a nice deep breath in, hold it at the top and out. Just be with yourself for this invocation. Beautiful mother earth. Thank you father sky.  

Mal:  Oh, beautiful. I cannot think of a better day to do this because last night we had a full moon at 12/12 on 12/12. So this show will be appearing later but it’s such a high energy day, such a powerful day to talk about shamanism. You know, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, when I started my spiritual path, I never heard that word. But in the last 10 years, it keeps coming up and I keep meeting different shamans and I’ve been reading books. So I want to introduce the audience to Shamanism and have them understand it and start to embrace the beauty and the power of what a shaman has.

Clare Chater: [00:04:16] Yes, it is. It’s an honorable lineage and part of the Kairos prophecy was to come down to the mountain and to share this wisdom, with the rest of us species so that it has got to people like me. And, they’ve written permission to certain people to teach their lineage. They don’t write books or anything so that it doesn’t become misconstrued or taken out of context or learnt in the wrong way. It’s very specific, so that we hold the sacredness and the honor of the energy. And it does, it works with the four directions. For me, another way of saying that is that you could have an entirely highly evolved being in one direction that you work with and find a relationship with. It’s almost the different personalities of oneness, the different personalities of God. I mean for me everything is all one, but when you get into the metaphysical realms, there’s three part beings there as well. That makes sense. But their understanding is that we’re all connected to the one.

Mal: Yes.

Clare Chater: The same as us. We are three part beings in the physical realm as well.

Mal: Now, I mentioned that I had read a book once called ‘The Four Ways’ about the directions and that each direction had specific personality traits, had certain powers and gifts that we are meant to bring to this to civilization. Can you explain what you mean by the four directions?

Clare Chater: [00:06:12] So in the South we have Sashamama and she comes in and shows herself to me as a snake. So we often use animals and if I journey I will find, different animals coming in and different metaphors and symbols. And that’s almost me having a dialogue with the metaphysical. So that’s how I would understand it rather than in words in stories and in symbols using animals so, that they can relate to my human understanding. And it helps during a healing because depending on which animal comes in, you know what specific theme you’re working on. So the South for instance is all about shedding, shedding the past, shedding old patterns and behaviors. So if snake comes in, you know, you’ve got some unraveling to do.

Mal: Wow.

Clare Chater: In the West, we have a Jaguar and this is fear based. So that if Jaguar comes in, you know that you’re working on a fear based issue. The North is a hummingbird and she represents magic and joy. And I guess in the coaching way you would say finding your life purpose or you know, your meaning, what brings you life force. And the East is all about perspective and bigger picture. Those eagle eyes that can see, eagle and condor that can see from, from far, far away.

Mal:  Oh, I love it. So when you’re doing a session with a client, you’re obviously working with the four directions. And one of those animals, one of those animals will come in and as a symbol for you to help that client?

Clare Chater: Yes, exactly. So I would work with a Mesa. This is the Mesa.

Mal:  Oh, I’m glad you showed that. That’s fascinating. Tell us about the Mesa and what it means.

Clare Chater: [00:08:19] It literally translates as table. So if this is the bundle, so you fold up to contain the power and contain the energy. But if somebody came for a session, you open it in this very special particular way and it becomes a table. And inside are what we call khuya, which are stones and khuya means carrier. So this carries the wisdom and the story and depending on which khuya is picked, that will also represent one of the directions and a lot of the healing. So it would represent that person’s block. If they came with say, relationship issue, they might pick, past life. Kuya. So that will tell me that it’s probably fair based and they’ve got past life threads attached to this issue.

Mal: How many stones are inside there?

Clare Chater: [00:09:15] Twelve.

Mal:  In the Mesa.

Clare Chater: Inside a mesa, so you have three for each direction. You can put other ones in that represent other things as well. You would have an extraction stone for instance. But yes, 12 to be picked from.

Mal: So when you start the session, you open up the Mesa and lay it out?

Clare Chater: Yes.

Mal: And the fabric of the Mesa, is it sacred fabric? Has it been blessed? Is it from a particular place?

Clare Chater: Yes. You start with a Mesa cloth on your very first training and you can never wash it.

Mal: Whoa. Why?

Clare Chater: [00:09:58] Because if you washed it, you would take out all the energy.

Mal: Okay.

Clare Chater: It can change your Mesa cloth, but it takes, you would need to wrap it in the other one. It takes a whole process for really lasting for about two weeks before you can exchange them over. But usually, yes, your Mesa cloth, wouldn’t be washed. It contains all the energy and you feed it. So I would put sugar and blessings and offerings inside the Mesa as well. It’s like an energetic extension of me, so it needs to be fed and nourished and looked after and prayed on.

Mal:  How did you pick your cloth?

Clare Chater:  My original one is inside actually, and that’s a baby blanket and that was my daughter’s baby blanket. So that was very special and had a lot of energy for me as well about birth and creation and new life. And the fluffy on the outside is really cuddly. It’s light, it’s fluffy. I don’t know if you can see it.

Mal: Beautiful. Oh, I love the idea of your daughter’s baby blanket. What beautiful energy to have contained. And as you said, it’s about birthing. Oh my, wonderful. You lay it all out and then does your client get on top of that?

Clare Chater: You would have it on a table there. The couch where they lay to have the healing is a separate couch.

Mal: Okay.

Clare Chater: Laid it out somewhere else and they would pick one of the stones.

Mal: Wonderful. Tell us a little bit more about some of the stones and how they connect to the different directions.

Clare Chater: [00:11:44] So you can have illuminations, which I work with illumination in the South and they were tagged different themes and different stories in the stones as well. So that might be for instance that punishment stone or relationship stone relating to a specific issue. And then in the West you have past life stones. In the North you have soul retrieval and in the East is contract cutting.

Mal: Oh, I just love the sound of all of this. I mean, I’m mesmerized by it. It’s, just beautiful. You’ve been training, how long do you do all of this?

Clare Chater: [00:12:26] So, it’s at least four years. And I have, I’ve had practitioner insurance for about three and I feel my training is forever continuing. I don’t know whether my role ever see myself with sort of done so much exploration. And you kind of, you learn on the job because you make these connections with the metaphysical and then make and teach you other things or show you, I guess it’s like learning a language. A little bit of it, then you can start to speak a little bit more in a little bit more and yeah, there are so many layers.

Mal: Was there a reason why you pursued this? Something specific that inspired you. Were you always very spiritual and this was just the next step in that journey?

Clare Chater: Yes. [00:13:30] I got Ulcerative colitis which is an autoimmune disease when I was nine. And that provoked the spiritual journey for me personally because we did medication for a certain amount of time and then decided, actually this isn’t for me, there’s another way. So I had to, yes, a healing journey or my life and I did Indian spiritual practice for a little bit. I did Reiki Masters and suddenly found myself in Shamanism. And it was, yes, I was suddenly there and I’m working and I thought, “Well, look, look around, how did I get here again? And yes.

Mal: Okay, you say shaman. And I said Sharman, which is the correct way?

Clare Chater: It’s potato, potato.

Mal: Oh, okay. Based on accents or whatever. I don’t know if I was mispronouncing it all this time. Okay. Now you also talk about three parts of beings that connecting our thought patterns or energy for our body to connect to our soul. Can you elaborate a little bit about how you work with those three components and what it does for someone?

Clare Chater: [00:15:01] Yes. So the three part being understanding is that we are mind, body, spirit. Let’s say and this means that the healing is really interactive. So the client on the couch really becomes a part of their own healing and really understands it. I don’t know everything about all other spiritual modalities, but most of the time, if you went for a spiritual healing, you just lay there and receive. There’s not really any participation from the client. Whereas in shamanic healing, and certainly what I do is we very much work with the mind to get the cognitive shifts. So that the energy doesn’t return, so that your block doesn’t return. Because if you didn’t tweak the mind as well, you just take the heavy energy off, you’re just going to recreate that block again because you’ve still got the belief installed in the mind. So, for me, hitter the whole fruit that you get. It’s like counseling and psychotherapy as well as energy healing for the body. So that the client really understands, “Oh, that was the belief that wasn’t serving me. That was the thing that was the problem.” And they get the “aha” shift and they can really move into a new frequency in it. So people say you can really feel that because there’s a relationship to what’s going on and it’s understood in the mind, then felt in the body and the soul part is where we would come in and journey to the other worlds. So I would journey to the metaphysical and have a conversation with their soul or that kind of sound for whatever that is and get any insight that needs to be passed down from. Then that third part, to reveal any revelations that’s coming through that way. So for me, it’s really important to have all of those three things because we are three part beings. Why wouldn’t you make it thorough and make sure that you’re locked in on each section?

Mal: Now I know the listeners that someone’s going to want to know the answer to this question.

Clare Chater: Yeah.

Mal: Can this be done remotely or must the client always be in your physical presence and in the presence of the Mesa and the stones?

Clare Chater: [00:17:30] When I first started, I would only do it in person but since I have been doing online sessions. And I worked in a particular way where I give my khuyus a number, so that the person then picks a number rather than a stone. And if it’s a soul retrieval, I would send an integration journey that they then would have to listen to afterwards. So you take, you have to then lie down and you would take yourself through the journey, so that it can be installed. But feedback from distance clients is yes, they can totally be let, what I say with their experience matches up. So in from my experience, yes it is totally energy knows no time and space and you can do each one remotely. Yes.

Mal: Oh, that’s wonderful. Because I know people who probably going to say, “I want to do this and then can it be done this way?” That’s fascinating. What do you think is the most important aspect of Shamanism? If you could sum it up, what would be the number one benefit that someone could get from a session with you?

Clare Chater: [00:18:59] For me, it’s that knowing and understanding because it’s like a self-development session as well. Because you have the mind power and the cognitive shifts for the brain. It’s like, the idea of understanding proceeds forgiveness. So, if you’re holding onto something, you don’t need forgiveness, if you have that layer of understanding. And you then awakened the person or heightened their awareness, evolve their soul because the mind is understood and been opened. So for me that’s the key on what somebody is going to get out of it.

Mal: It’s really almost a self-realization that comes out of the session.

Clare Chater: Yes. Or like a self-remembering. It’s like, “Oh yeah. Oh yeah.”

Mal:  “Oh yeah. Oh yeah.” I’ve got a lot of “Oh yeah,” in here, let me tell you. Most of them I have faced head on now and dealt with, thank God. But there were many that were suppressed for many years, I’ll tell you, too. This has been a 30 year journey for me, of clearing all the, “Oh yes”. Claire, you have on your beautiful website a lovely free resource for the audience. I would love for you to describe it, tell them about it and how they can get it.

Clare Chater: [00:20:38] Okay. So on the website I have a three part video series and it explains for me two major secrets that are powerful shame and we’ll know that society has forgotten. And if you go to the front page of the website, you’ll see you, would put in your name, where to send it, and then I would send you your three part video series revealing those secrets and insights.

Mal: Can you share one secret with us now? Just a little kind of a tidbit so they understand what you’re talking about. Without revealing too much, what would you consider a secret?

Clare Chater: [00:21:21] Certainly one thing that society has forgotten or when we remember then we soon forget again, is the interconnectedness of everybody. That oneness.

Mal: Yes.

Clare Chater:  That we are all at the whole because we come into life and suddenly we’re in our bodies again and we’re just so identified with this, with the flesh, with the body, we are right here. And it takes moments of being present or moments of the work to realize the one missing and go, “Oh yes!” What’s going on with them? Is it also a mirror for me? And every time we meet up in groups, it’s like you’re a mirror of everybody. That’s certainly why I love shadow work and doing shadow work alchemy because you see your brothers and sisters doing the same things as you and alchemizing the same problems just in a different experience. And it makes it all so divinely beautiful and interlock. But that’s certainly one of the things that even if you do know, it’s too often forgotten and it just takes a conscious mind to keep, keep remembering that piece

Mal: And that is such an important lesson, especially in these times. We’re seeing such separation here in the States and there’s so much violence daily, you know people with guns and whatnot. And you’ve experienced it in England as well where people are fearful and threatened by one another. They’ve attached themselves to dangerous ideology that is teaching them hatred. So it is so important that we come back to that fact that we are all one. That is so important.

Clare Chater: Yes.

Mal: Well you are just a shared joy. I love your head dress. I asked you if you’d wear it. You did. It probably is heavy and I’m a little uncomfortable but bless you for doing that because when I first saw you in your head dress I said, “Oh God, I have got to connect with this lady.” There was something energetic about the photograph that just caught me and I said, “I know she is going to be a wise soul and you are my girl, you are. So thank you again. Would you give your website address so that everybody knows exactly how to get you and I’ll also put it in the show notes.

Clare Chater: Yes, thank you. I will spell it out for you because it might sound like a bit of a mouthful. At pash ceremony so that a www.pashceremony.com.

Mal:  And will you tell the listeners what PASH means because it is an acronym for something.

Clare Chater:  Peruvian Archetype Shamanic Healing.

Mal: Yes. Look at you my dear goddess. You are fabulous. Thank you so much for your time today and for your wisdom. This has really been just such a sheer treat for me. I just love it.

Clare Chater: Thank you so much.

Mal:  Oh my pleasure. Thank you.

Clare Chater: Blessings to you and everybody listening.

Mal:  Thank you, dear.

NOTES

[00:00:39]       Introduction of Clare Chater and her accolades.

[00:04:16]       Clare explaining what is Sharman and shamanism.

[00:06:12] Clare explain explains the four directions. So in the South we have Sashamama and she comes in and shows herself to me as a snake. So we often use animals and if I journey I will find, different animals coming in and different metaphors and symbols. In the West, we have a Jaguar and this is fear based. So that if Jaguar comes in, you know that you’re working on a fear based issue. The North is a hummingbird and she represents magic and joy. And the East is all about perspective and bigger picture.

[00:08:19] Clare explains the Mesa and its 12 stones.

[00:09:58] Clare explain the reason for not washing the Mesa cloth and how it is carefully chose.

[00:11:44]       Clare highlights how the stones are connected to the four directions.

[00:12:26]         Clare explains the length of the Shamanism training.

[00:13:30]         Clare highlights the reason she pursued Shamanism She has Ulcerative Colitis

                          and scientific methods would not work.

[00:15:01]         Claire explains what is Shamanism and why it’s a three-part being, understanding mind, body and spirit.

[00:17:30]         The Shamanic technique can also be one remotely.

[00:18:59]         Clare emphasized that the most important part of Shamanism is knowing and

                          understanding.

[00:20:38]         Clare tells of the resources on her webpage www.pashceremony.com

[00:21:21]         Clare shares a secret of the interconnectedness of everybody and the oneness.

Meet Rachel Foy, Author and Founder of Soul Fed Woman


Why is Compulsive Eating So Challenging to Heal?

One of the biggest challenges women can experience is obsessive eating. Eating to feel good, to take away the pain or in some cases to add weight as a protective layer.

If I had struggled with food instead of alcohol, I’m not sure I would have experienced thirty-one years of recovery.

Simple fact, food is tricky. You need food to survive and being mindful of your intake is not easy.

So why do women eat too much? I believe it is to take away the pain they feel. Food can be a band-aid for low self-esteem, feeling unlovable and unworthy.

Eating too much is more about emotional wounds and less about physiological needs. Sadly, most methodologies or programs work on minimizing intake and not addressing the pain that fuels the desire to eat.

Eating too much is equal to drinking too much. Both are used to self- medicate your painful feelings. In full transparency, I drank excessively because of my own negative thinking.  Thoughts of not being good enough and unlovable kept me in the throes of alcoholism.

Once I discovered I needed to change the way I thought about myself, I was able to embrace the necessary tools such as a supportive community and multiple spiritual practices to support me in my recovery.

I did do therapy; however, the conversation was never about how I felt. It was always about what I was doing.

I’ve learned that very few people really understand the motivation behind the abuse of alcohol and food.

I am over the moon this week to introduce you to Rachel Foy, a pioneer in eating psychology.

She resides in the UK and is highly regarded for her Food Addiction Recovery Method.

This girl knows the struggle with food intimately and it has inspired her to find transforming solutions.

This show is such a powerful conversation on the pain of food addiction and has numerous tips on how to heal from obsessive eating.

I am dedicated to supporting all of you in healing old wounds and releasing those behaviors that are robbing you from experiencing true joy in your lives.

I spend hours researching and reading books to find powerful guests like Rachel Foy to come on the show.

I would greatly appreciate it if you could jump over to Awakening Divine Wildness on Apple Podcasts and give the show a great rating.  HINT: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ It only takes a minute and really helps me reach more women and attract more powerful guests.

Listen to the Awakening Divine Wildness podcast by clicking the play button on the audio player below.

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Read the Full Transcript

Mal:  Well, today’s guest is a household name across the pond and she’s all over social media. And I’m so excited to have her on Awakening Divine Wildness today because she’s a leading authority on food addiction and I know addiction. Thirty-one years of recovery, I know addiction and I had alcoholism. If were food, I don’t know if I would’ve had the same success.

[00:00:36] So I’m thrilled to have this conversation today with our amazing guests, Rachel Foy, who’s an internationally acclaimed expert in eating dysfunction. She’s an author and a podcaster and an advocate for health at every size. With over 12 years of experience, both in the UK and Dubai, she’s a clinical and cognitive hypnotherapists, nutritional therapist, homeopath and NLP and EFT Practitioner, along with being a pioneer in eating psychology and the creator of the food addiction, ‘We Comfrey Method’. Rachel is the author of ‘The Hungry Soul’, I love the name of that. And a passionate speaker on all topics related to food dysfunction, diet culture, body image, female empowerment and addiction recovery. She founded soul fed women in 2017 to help professional women overcome addictive eating and food obsession through free workshops, resources, and her group program, which opens several times a year. Soul Fed Woman has gone on to become a training Academy where professional coaches can become certified in the food addiction recovery method. Rachel, thank you girl for being here today.

Rachel Foy:  Thank you for reading. Can you just walk around and friends me mile and just announced that to the world wherever I go?

Mal:  We’re going to lady, we’re going to.

Rachel Foy:  Yea. Thank you.

Mal:  This is such an important conversation because women struggle with food. Some, it’s a full-blown addiction. Others, it’s a sense of comfort when they become challenged and upset. I have many friends that battle food.

Rachel Foy:  Yeah.

Mal:  I mean I feel blessed when I hear about food. I say, “thank God I had alcohol” because I don’t know if I would’ve been able to manage food. So, let’s get right into understanding food addiction and how we can resolve it.

Rachel Foy:  Yeah, it’s like one big, big conversation. It’s like where do we start. But just to kind of carry on to something that you mentioned, and I think it’s really important for everyone kind of listening. 

[00:03:01] This is actually really common, and this is not something that, you know, we kind of used the word addiction and naturally there’s an, immediate association to it. And we do tend to think of alcohol. We do tend to think of like drugs and gambling. But actually, food addiction, from my experience, I perceive it to be the biggest issue when we talk about addictive and compulsive behaviour. Because it’s something that’s so socially acceptable. It’s something that we don’t kind of see as being as serious as of the kind of addictions in many ways, “oh, it’s just food”. And actually, it’s a very, very common issue particularly, and I do particularly work with women. Well, I would say this, it’s more common than what we realize and I just kind of want to mention that before we kind of delve into it.

Mal:  I agree with you totally. I think it is so commonplace that women struggle with food.

Rachel Foy:  Yeah, absolutely.

Mal:  Emotionally we look to food for comfort.

Rachel Foy:  [00:04:00] We do indeed and there were many aspects and like addictive eating and like why we do it and why it happens and therefore how come you overcome it? And from my, I mean from my experience I actually was a food addict in many ways, particularly around sugar and I was your very typical like yoyo dieter. I tried to lose weight in my teens and twenties and that was like a 14-year journey, I guess into the slippery slope of eating dysfunction, eating disorders and addictive eating. It’s only rarely true that person experience. I fully understand in many ways what a lot of my clients and my audience are actually struggling with because there is a lot of them, there’s a lot of secrecy around this as well. You know, what you’re getting is something that I’m so grateful for you inviting me on this show because the more that we can almost normalize it, that’s also going to help people because there were so many people right now that do struggle with food and they think that they’re somehow fundamentally like broken. That they’re the only person that’s doing it. That there’s something wrong with them. And I just, again, I want to reassure everybody that that isn’t the case. And certainly around the kind of the addictive eating part, which obviously we’re talking about, there are many, many, many reasons why somebody can become emotionally attached to food. I often use the expression more than addiction that we become emotionally attached to that particular thing. And I’m sure we’re going to delve into it now, but the emotional attachment is one of the biggest things that I work with, with my clients and with my origins. Because when we can understand that there is an actual positive reason there, I say this, there’s a positive reason why we can feel addicted to something and in this capacity, it’s food. We can start to take our power back, because we do often judge perceived negative behaviour as being somehow wrong and we shouldn’t be doing it. And it’s the mindset shift of realizing there’s some positive in that behaviour, although you might not like it at the time.

Mal:  I agree with you 150% because it’s the same way with my alcohol.

Rachel Foy:  Yeah, absolutely.

Mal:  I was really addicted to it. I needed it to kill the pain.

Rachel Foy:  Yeah.

Mal:  I needed it to feel better about myself. And once I understood that my own thinking was what was causing all my suffering, I didn’t need alcohol any longer.

Rachel Foy:  Yeah. And I would say that’s true with food. I do talk about food addiction and addictive eating. And it’s very controversial for me to say what I’m about to say, but I truly don’t believe that food is addictive.  What is addictive is the emotional dependency to food because we can take a thousand people and feed them all donuts and feed them all the same kind of food and everybody will end up feeling addicted to that particular food. It’s the emotional aspect that we become addicted to. And something that you just said then, which is really important is particularly around any kind of addictive behaviour. But if we focus specifically on food, that can be quite clear reasons why somebody would use food in that capacity. 

[00:07:10] And it can often kind of come down to two categories where we are either using it as a way of escaping and numbing out, which is really common. You know, we’ve had a bad day, we’ve had an argument, I’m just going to reach for the candy and the chocolate and that kind of thing. Or it’s the opposite. We’re actually running towards pleasure because particularly with food as well, there is an element of pleasure where we’re eating candy bars and we’re eating ice cream or eating like you know, things that we don’t often allow ourselves to eat. So those two reasons behind addictive eating again is something that anybody that feels that they’re struggling with this, that’s where they need to start looking. Now we saw they actually using it as escapism and numbing out. So moving away from something or are they choosing to use it as a way of moving towards something. And the pleasure aspect is actually one of the big things that I love to work within this field because, we often do have hungry cells syndrome, which is the name of my book and kind of the hungry soul aspect of and where food is actually filling that void, is actually quite fascinating in many cases.

Mal:  Do you think that sugar is a almost like a drug when it comes to women in eating and wanting to feel good? I know even after giving up alcohol, I still had a very high need for sugar. And to this day if I get really bummed out about something or I have a really crappy day, I’ll say, “Oh, you know, I’ll have a little fudge Sunday” or “I’ll have a little piece of key lime pie”. Those are my two favorites. So sugar to me is as addictive as any drug out there.

Rachel Foy: [00:08:57] There’s a lot of difference schools of thought with this. And you know, there’s often the conversation about sugar is as addictive as like cocaine. And you know, there’s a lot of like class A drugs that get connected to sugar. My personal experience with this is still around the emotional triggers. So if we look at somebody who kind of is in a situation where you said you’ve had a bad day or you’re feeling stressed or you’re feeling annoyed or whatever it might be, our brain is actually wired to try and change that emotional state as quickly as possible because it’s about survival. And if we’re in a heightened state of stress, so our cortisol levels are going up and our nervous system is wired and we all know what that feels like. Our mind is trying to protect us by moving us out of that state as quickly as possible. And we do know that eating certain types of foods, sugar be one of them, so carbohydrates in particular. There was a momentary release off the happy hormone, it increases serotonin in the brain. Now that’s not to say that the sugar is therefore addictive, but what you can become addictive is actually needing to feel different. So the changing of emotional state is a big part of food addiction. It doesn’t happen in the same way as other kind of addictive behaviours. But certainly around like eating, because there’s a physiology, there’s a physiological aspect to food obviously when we’re conceiving it. This is something that we can’t ignore. So often in that situation, if I were working with you or working with someone that’s has a very sort of similar story, we’d be looking beyond the fact that you need to eat sugar and actually starting to get deeper down into the reasons behind why you need to sugar. It’s not about the sugar, it’s not wrong. There’s nothing wrong with it. 

[00:10:40] But why is it that you are craving that serotonin hit. So therefore, we’re talking stress, we’re talking stress management, we’re talking triggers, we’re looking at maybe patterns of thoughts. We’re looking at maybe certain things within your world right now that may be are creating like anxiety or panic or fear. They’re the things that need addressing. It’s not about resisting the key lime pie. Does that make sense?

Mal:  Absolutely. So walk us through how you work with one of your clients, helping them to identify that they’re in a situation now that’s gotten out of control. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about and I’m all about removing the stigma from addiction, from eating. There is nothing wrong with somebody who is overusing a substance because they’re doing it for emotional relief. That’s my feeling and they need help. They don’t need to be scorned and criticized. So I love that you point that out that we’ve got to get rid of this stigma. How you get someone to get comfortable, open up, admit how much they’re consuming and then what kind of path do you take them down?

Rachel Foy: [00:12:01] So obviously everyone’s very different. So one person to the next can be a completely different approach. But generally, one of the first things that we always kind of start looking at is actually the shame that can be attached to this behaviour. And certainly moving forward in any kind of transformational process, that client has got to be able to let the shame go because there is a lot of shame attached to sneaker eating and overeating and binging and kind of feeling guilty for it. And there’s just so much emotion, anyway. So we addressed the shame to start with and in terms of addressing it, that’s where my tool kit has been very useful. So it can be hypnotherapy, it can be therapeutic coaching, can be NLP, it could be EFT, it depends on what I feel is appropriate for that individual. 

[00:12:46] But then moving forward, one of the other aspects, which again is not the same when it comes to other addictive behaviours is we actually start exploring food rules because the one thing that we can’t avoid being a human being is we can’t avoid food. Like food is part of who we are like. We have to eat it. It’s always going to be there. We can’t completely abstain from it and that would not be my suggestion either. We actually really delve into the food rules that an individual has because 99.9% of the time, a lot of addictive eaters and compulsive eaters, they have a lot of diet coacher into woven into their mindsets. So therefore they perceive some foods as being good, some foods are bad, therefore they are already categorizing food. And when anybody starts to bend your overeat, they never do it with the perceived good food. They always binge on the perceived bad foods. So we have to understand why, you know? And that comes from diet culture. It comes from the plans that we’ve been told we should be following. It comes from the food rules that we’d be conditioned to believe as being the truth. And a big part of my work with my clients is really starting them to start recognizing that many of their food rules that they’re trying to follow are actually creating the circumstances for food addiction to develop. It’s creating the circumstances of food obsession to really start to grow. And therefore they are in control of that because they can choose to let those rules go. 

[00:14:14] So we acknowledged the rules and then following on from that, it’s about connection, which is kind of, you know, I know that you’re familiar with, you know, connecting to ourselves and all of this magical stuff that we often just don’t do. So connecting to our body through what I call body wisdom. It sounds very kind of abstract, it’s all about there. But it’s really, really fundamental in overcoming addictive eating. Like women need to learn to listen to themselves. They need to learn to be able to trust what they’re hearing. They need to create a relationship with their body, which is coming from a place of if it’s not acceptance and love, then at least neutrality, where it’s not complete like judgment and hatred. So that kind of the three major steps with obviously are the things in interwoven and trauma work can also come up quite a lot for my clients.

Mal:  Do you encourage women to get into a program like an Overeaters? I mean I went to AA, I did 12 steps. Here in the States we have over eaters, do you encourage that or do you think its necessary? I think like a group setting, you like minded souls.

Rachel Foy:  [00:15:29] Yeah. I think the group support is actually quite crucial I would say. And certainly from my experience, it’s quite interesting that you mentioned this. I’ve always worked one-to-one with people for like many, many years. I’ve also done group programs for many, many years and I’m slowly starting to move predominantly over to fully group work because there’s so much magic when women come together in that space of healing, you know. And actually having that kind of camaraderie of where the women going. I get that. I understand that. That’s how I feel. And also having that space to be vulnerable. You know, not everybody wants to open up immediately, but this so much magic in hearing another woman share her story for someone else to then recognize an aspect of themselves that they hadn’t acknowledged. So certainly the support aspect I think is very important. Not everybody wants that and that’s totally fine. But that’s obviously something that I do facilitate in the program that I offer, for sure.

Mal:  I think when women get together, we create a sacred container.

Rachel Foy:  Oh, absolutely.

Mal:  Where we can honest. We can be vulnerable. We can talk about our fears. Talk about that shame, that guilt in places where, you know, you can’t do that anywhere else. Except in a place where we’re being held.

Rachel Foy:  [00:16:51] And it’s so, I was going to say it’s so important. It’s beyond nice, so necessary, you now. That ability to be able to speak completely free with no judgment, with no nothing, it’s a completely safe container, as you said. This, I keep saying the same with much magic in it, but there really is. There’s so much magic in that, in that kind of ability to do so. And if we bring like the addictive eating back into the conversation, it’s amazing how those kind of support networks of just being able to share what’s going on or share our deepest fears or share kind of my day is and come up for me. That in itself can start to help that person move away from addictive eating because as we’ve said already, addictive eating serves a purpose. It’s numbing out the pain. It’s pushing things down. It’s not actually acknowledging the truth of what’s really going on. So if you’ve got another outlet in order to express that, you might not turn to the candy bars and the ice cream as much. It might not disappear overnight, granted, but that ability to just speak so freely is just, it’s really powerful.

Mal:  I know when I went to my first AA meetings, the only way to describe it was I felt I was home. I felt I was with people that truly knew me, understood me, and did not judge me. I felt completely safe.

Rachel Foy:  Yes.

Mal: And I never felt that way anywhere else.

Rachel Foy:  [00:18:19] Yeah. And it’s so incredible to me, you know, even after all this time to hear women who will say like, “I’ve never told anyone this before. You know, I’ve been a secret eater. I’ve been a binging too. I’ve been an over eater for like a decade, two decades, three decades even and nobody knows. Like my husband doesn’t know. My partner doesn’t know. My kids don’t know.” And for someone to actually feel safe enough to open up and say that, that already is like they’re on that path now to overcoming it. Because they’ve actually acknowledged some of the thing that they’ve not perhaps wanted to. And I totally understand that concept of people get it, you know, and that’s why I will share my story a thousand times a day if I have to, for another woman to go, “Oh my God, she gets it. That’s what I’ve been doing as well.” You know, there’s, power in our story

Mal:  And when we can say, “I have a problem, this is what it is.” That is, that’s the beginning of real recovery. When we no longer are denying, hiding. I mean, can you imagine hiding overeating or binge eating or purging, whatever for years and years from a partner or a loved one? The stress, the strain that that causes emotionally. I just can’t even imagine. I mean, my drinking was very public. I didn’t hide it.

Rachel Foy:  Yeah. And as we said food is just so socially acceptable. So it’s not often something that people might be suspicious of or think, “Oh, I think maybe she’s got an issue with it” because it’s so easy to hide it. Like it is so easy to hide it. But you’re right, like the emotional, the emotional bandwidth that it takes up for anybody to maintain that is huge, you know? And in terms of the passion I guess that I have for helping women overcome it is because when you get to that place where food is just food and it doesn’t really have that attachment anymore, you’re free to live the life that you desire, where food doesn’t fill you up, like you’re filling yourself upon a different level. And yet there’s that. Yeah, absolutely.

Mal:  With food, correct me on this if I’m wrong, that the difference that it may have with say an addictive substances, with food, it may not be so much quantity as the patterns that you use in the consumption, the negative patterns, that make it uncontrollable.

Rachel Foy: [00:20:51] It can be, it can be both to be fair. Like some people can obviously, a significant large amount of food in one setting. So if we’re going to use labels, which I’m not a fan of, so kind of binge behaviour is very much that it’s like a big amount of food and won’t go. But yeah, I mean patterns are very common as they are for a lot of compulsive behaviour to be fair. But you tend to see that pattern with the, either the emotional connection, so people eating as we’ve already said, to numb things out or to seek more pleasure because they’re not getting it from other areas. But also like, that diet mentality that I mentioned earlier, you know, that diet mindset of “I’m trying to be good. You need that that I’m trying to eat perfectly.” That can also be a very big part of this conversation because that can trigger the binge behaviour. It can trigger the addictive tendencies. If anyone listening that is perhaps they chronic diet to which I used to be, I’m sure that they understand that you can try and be good all week long and then weekends hit and then there’s a party and then there’s a celebration and then you feel like you failed. And if that pattern keeps repeating itself, which it will do because we know that diets long-term don’t work. That starts to erode on our self-belief. It starts to detach us from our body wisdom. We start to believe that we’re at fault. We then start to stigmatize and turn food into a moral issue. So there’s all this stuff that’s feeding into food addiction. And that’s why it’s a big part of the conversation. Like we have to have it.

Mal:  Another big question for you. What do you think the success rate is in recovering from food addiction?

Rachel Foy:  [00:22:27] I believe it’s possible for anyone and I openly say this in my workshops and podcasts and et cetera because I was that person. You know somebody had said to me when I was at the peak of my dysfunction, that at some point in the near future you will not be obsessed, you will not feel addictive, food will be very neutral, you’ll enjoy it, but it no longer takes up headspace. I probably would not have believed them if I’m honest. But now being where I am, I know that it’s possible and I know that if people want to overcome it, it is possible with the right kind of help and support. And I would suggest anybody that is curious about this, obviously there are many different ways that anything can be changed and overcome, but really start to get into the depths of the behaviour. It’s not about staying on the surface. It’s not about trying to abstain from it or limit it or self-control it because long-term, that’s not going to work with food because it’s all around us.

[00:23:26]   It’s about understanding the depth and the triggers and the reasons why somebody eats the way they do. Because when you understand why you can start to change that, heal that, rewrite that, work through that, whatever it might be. But I believe that anybody that truly desires to waiver, commit with the right help and support and they can do.

Mal:  I love that. And you know what? I love the fact that you have walked this path and you have figured it out. You’re totally transparent that, “Hey lady, I’ve been there, I know your pain and now I know a way how to get out of it.” Rachel, you have a fabulous free gift for the audience and I’d love you to describe it to them and tell them how they can get it.

Rachel Foy: [00:24:09] I would love to, thank you. So I run every couple of months or so alive, five day program. It’s completely free. I don’t charge for it. And it’s called ‘How to Overcome Addictive Eating and Make Peace with Food’. And this five days, if anyone’s really new to this kind of conversation and I would highly invite you to start there. So you can register over soulfedwoman.com, forward slash freedom. I believe the next one is starting end of January, beginning of February, but it’s really powerful five days. All about eating psychology and mindset. We delve into food rules. I give you some really practical things and it’s absolutely worth your time in giving me the five days because it’s powerful.

Mal:  And it’s all lodged. Is there anything recorded? So if somebody should sign up afterwards, they could listen to a replay or anything?

Rachel Foy:  It’s all done live because I like to be live in my community, then I can engage and answer questions, but there are loads of extra bits on the website anyway, over at soulfedwoman.com. So there’s loads of bits and pieces that you can get access to immediately, but the five day program is definitely worth keeping your eye unregistering for.

Mal:  Oh, it sounds wonderful. I’d love to close the show with a nugget of wisdom that you love to share with women.

Rachel Foy:  As soon as you said, that the first thing that comes into my head is does it matter about your past? It doesn’t matter what you’ve done. Doesn’t matter what you’ve tried. It doesn’t matter what you’ve tried to, you know, do to fix yourself. We know we don’t fix ourselves anyway. But none of that, none of that has got any influence over your future. Okay? This is all about recognizing that the past is the past. So understanding that you can make decisions and you can make choices every single moment of every single day that will completely change the path that you’re walking on. But that lies in your power. That’s got nothing to do with anyone else. And just realizing that the past has gotten no resemblance to who you can be in the future.

Mal:  I love that. I often say to women when we release all that old suitcase that we’ve been dragging around with us for years, just let that sucker go.

Rachel Foy:  Absolutely!

Mal:  Free ourselves up. I mean, God bless us. We’re such divine beings and at the same time, we can be so hard on ourselves. One of those things is judging ourselves and holding onto the past. And I can’t think of a better way for women to kick off 2020 then to free themselves from an unhealthy attraction to eating.

Rachel Foy:  Absolutely. I couldn’t agree more and change can happen really quickly. That would also be my other nugget of wisdom. Is it doesn’t have to take a decade to overcome decades worth of food dysfunction. It can happen really fast and I’ve seen it happen really fast. So yeah, change can happen as quickly as it as it can happen.

Mal:  Rachel, bless you for this. This has been really powerful. I know women are going to love this and I can’t thank you enough for taking time and sharing this with me today and our audience.

Rachel Foy:  Thank you very much for having me.

Mal:  You are doing beautiful work. It’s just wonderful. It’s, so needed.

Rachel Foy:  Thank you. Thank you for having me. And thank you for inviting this conversation as well, because it’s a very important one to have.

Mal:  My honour. Thank you.

NOTES

[00:00:35] Introduction of Rachel Foy.

[00:03:01] Rachel emphasized that eating addiction is very common.

[00:04:00] Rachel tells of her experience with her eating addiction and uses the word expression instead of addition.

[00:06:38] Rachel highlights that the problem is not being addicted to food but the emotional dependency on food.

[00:07:10] Rachel highlights the two categories of why women have eating disorders; a way to escape and numbing a feeling.

[00:08:57] Rachel explains the different schools of thought and changing of emotional state is a big part of food addiction.

[00:10:40] Rachel highlights why women are addicted to food; stress, stress management and triggers.

[00:12:01] Rachel lists the path to overcome foot addiction. First step is let the shame go.
Because there is a lot of shame attached to sneaker eating and overeating and binging and kind of feeling guilty for it. And there’s just so much emotion, anyway. So we addressed the shame to start with and in terms of addressing it, that’s where my tool kit has been very useful. So it can be hypnotherapy, it can be therapeutic coaching, can be NLP, it could be EFT, it depends on what I feel is appropriate for that individual.

[00:12:46] Second step is exploring food rules.

[00:14:11] Third step is connecting. Creating a relationship with their body.

[00:15:29] Rachel agrees that group support is very important.

[00:16:51] Rachel states that you can overcome food addiction too by speaking freely with no judgement.

[00:18:19] Rachel admits that women who have eating disorders are very secretive and will hide their problems from their families and close friends.

[00:20:51] Rachel talks about stigmatizing of the victims and the effect of dieting.

[00:22:27] Rachel explains her success rates.

[00:23:26]   Rachel talks about understanding the depth and the triggers and the reasons why somebody eats the way they do.

[00:24:09] Rcahel talks about her upcoming event ‘How to Overcome Addictive Eating and Make Peace with Food’.

Meet Janet Conner, prayer artist, deep soul explorer, and field guide in The Mystic.

Do You Know About the Amazing Power of Prayer?

Here we are at the beginning of 2020, a year that is guaranteed to bring about a lot of change. This coming year is a time to experience all you have been working on for the past several years.

I think you know by now that I’m always looking for new practices and modalities that help women manifest their heart’s desires. Well, I’ve come across something really fascinating!

The incredible vibration of prayer.

I’m not talking about the prayer you learned in Sunday school when you were a kid. I’m talking about open, flowing prayer. Actually, it’s more like a love song. My glorious teacher Janet Conner has introduced me to a whole new concept of prayer. It’s not predicated on religion, it’s love, it’s a dance and it’s a powerful vibration.

Do you want to manifest something? Then pray and ask for it.  Do you want to be more creative? Then pray and allow your creativity to ooze out of you. Prayer opens the portal to universal powers.

I always thought prayer was about trying to make things right, to forgive us for sin. My Catholic upbringing made it feel like a mandatory practice. The prayer I do now is spontaneous because I am inspired. I want to feel that divine connection to source.

By tweaking your prayer practice, you can unleash your desires!

My guest on Awakening Divine Wildness this week, Janet Conner, teaches you how to access theta brain waves in the brain so you can experience more meaningful prayer and deeper soul journaling. This episode of the podcast is so jammed packed with information that we ran about ten minutes over!


Listen to the Awakening Divine Wildness podcast by clicking the play button on the audio player below.

 

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Read the Full Transcript

Mal: Well today I am honored because I’m going to get to share with you someone who’s been a tremendous influence in my life. She’s my beautiful sacred teacher that I do so many classes with. I’ve learned so much from this woman. I feel like I’m walking down a spiritual path and she’s holding my hand and it’s time that I share her with all of you. 

[00:00:33] Janet Conner is a Prayer Artist. She’s a deep soul explorer and a Field Guide in the Mystic. Her first book ‘Writing Down Your Soul’ became a best-seller opening a path to six more including ‘The Lotus and the Lily’ which is my favorite, ‘Soul Vows’ and ‘Find Your Soul’s Purpose’. When Prayer Artists came calling, Janet found herself writing a whole new genre of post-patriarchal prayers, redefining prayer altogether and leading radically different Prayer Intensives. She completed the six-year run of her highly successful radio show, ‘The Soul Directed Life’ to create a new kind of podcast, ‘Praying at the Speed of Love’. Inviting famous people to share intimate stories about their prayer lives. To make all this possible, Janet lives a quiet life filled with silence, solitude, and joy in the tiny town of Horizon, Florida on the Gulf of Mexico.

Oh my beautiful teacher, I’m so happy you’re with me today. And beautiful books of yours that I love, love, love and so vows, yes wonderful books but this is my favorite. And I’m doing the course for the third time this year and gearing up to do my beautiful sacred mandala for 2020 and I’m so excited about doing that. I’m going to start on the 31st and finish my project on the first.

[00:02:22] But Janet, you have touched my life in a way that very few people have. You have left a lasting imprint on my soul and very few people do that. And so, it’s just, you had to be here, I just had to have you on. And I know how busy you are with prayer intensive and you’ve got a new course coming out in January, I may have been the first person to sign up if not, I was the second. And you know On Theta, getting into deep Theta and so we’re going to talk about that today. But what inspired your journey? I mean, girl, all of this came about because you were on a crash and burn path from a violent terrific divorce. So share a little of what inspired all of this and then we’ll get into the good stuff.

Janet Conner: [00:03:19] Well and maybe that’s why you and I are such sisters is, that the worst thing that ever happened to you and at the time it’s happening and for you and I, it was a divorce. But somebody else, it could be a cancer diagnosis, it could be a bankruptcy, it could be a death in the family, and it could be an addicted child or love of your life, yeah, right? That truck is going to hit us, especially women in some way and of course while you’re going through it you’re fit to be tied, can’t see through the weeds but at the same time, even though you’re not aware of it, it’s the best thing that ever happened to you.  [00:04:02]: It’s the Divine Feminine giving you a little kiss on the cheek and saying, “right this way honey, right this way. The way you’ve been living, what you’ve been doing, you’re pretty miserable right? Okay, come on I’m clearing the decks, so that you can have the life you’re here to live.” And that’s what happened in my divorce. Everything disappeared, all my clients, the house, the money, I mean everything in the [Inaudible 04:25 – 04:26].

[00:04:26] And out of just desperation, I picked up one of these plain black journals, picked up a pen and started a conversation not knowing what I was doing at all. I get no credit for inventing deep soul writing. I just picked up a pen and for reasons known only to the Divine, instead of just starting to write, I addressed someone. And in those days I wrote “Dear God comma (,).” So, right away I was starting this different way of journaling, not talking to myself but having a conversation was some kind of divine presence which is kind of step one and deep soul writing, addressed this voice that is within you by name. And after about a week of bitching and moaning and yelling and screaming and basically vomiting onto the page, I guess I got sick of hearing my story. And I know once again, no book, no training, no nobody telling me what to do, I simply asked a question.

And I guess in the first week, I hadn’t bothered to ask any questions, I was just letting “Dear God” whoever that fool was, know how bad things were and excuse me, you should be paying a little more attention here, I was just complaining. And one day I asked a question, now I’m upset, I’m emotionally upset and so I’m writing very, very quickly which I now know and teach is a fabulous way to get a head of conscious mind. Because if you’re writing very slowly then you’re well trained mental processes will kind of look at what you’re writing and start giving you advice and you’ll start going back over the same old and the same old in the same old. But if you’re writing really, really fast, then you give kind of ahead of your ability and your brain kind of gets left behind and pow! Something popped onto the page and I dropped the pen because I knew, no filter, right? You’re, you’re out of your way. 

So I slowly, it took me three years of arguing with this voice on the page but I began to trust and I showed up every day. Every day, “Dear God comma (,), and I’d do some complaining and then I’d ask a question and without fail, the question were to listen something that, I didn’t write it. I know I didn’t write it because it was rich and beautiful and loving and kind and it was about forgiveness. How it, oh no, no, no, no, there will be no forgiveness here. I want you to punish that jerk!

[00:07:14] Well, so like I said, three years of arguing, the second I wrote a prayer forgiveness, POW! Everything changed! It changed so dramatically that my ex-husband, and I found out later the timing, this is all in writing down your soul. Immediately upon my writing this prayer of forgiveness which he couldn’t have known anything about, he contacted his life insurance company, reinstated his life insurance, named me the beneficiary and died. So all I can say it’s the worst thing that ever happened to me it was the best thing that ever happened to me and it gave birth to me.

[00:07:57] But prior to that I was a headhunter. It gave birth to somebody who writes these books, teaches these courses, it prepared the way for Lotus and Lily. It prepared the way for waking up last year and clearly hearing in my left ear, Prayer Artist. Prayer Artist? Even in the middle of the night, I, my stomach when, [giggling]. I didn’t know what a Prayer Artist was but I had never heard of it and I was pretty sure that whatever this was it was about to change everything.

[00:08:27] So the next morning I came downstairs, I picked up a pen, I now write to the Divine Feminine under the name, “Beloved Vibration of Sophia.” And now I was crying and I said “I don’t know what this Prayer Artist mean but I’m pretty sure that it changes everything.” So I’m crying but I’m in communion, I’m in this deep state which I now know is in the Mystical Theta brainwave state. And I just wrote, “But if you want me to be your Prayer Artist, I will be your Prayer Artist.” 

[00:09:03] Immediately the first prayer came through. And they just came and they just come. They come in the middle of the night, they come when I’m writing, they just come. This is not my planning anything but I am obedient and it did change everything. It changed, now I offer Prayer Intensives, I did have to end this old directed life. I love that show, you love that show, everybody loved that show. But, oh praying at the speed of love! Having famous authors talk to you about their prayer lives, their intimate lives, you cannot have more fun than this. So I said, “Yes! You want me to be your Prayer Artist? I’m your Prayer Artist.” But then you know what Mal?  I went online one day and I went, you know, “wonder if there’s a Prayer Artist?” right? And I googled Prayer Artist. How many billions of searches on Google right?

 Mal: Zero

Janet Conner:  [00:10:01] Not one. Okay. So you not only want me to be your Prayer Artist, I’m your only Prayer Artist? I’m having the time of my life.

Mal: I’m watching you and you are so excited, passionate about all of this. And what I think is so amazing from all of this is, there are two things here that have absolutely exploded your life; the power of prayer and the power of forgiveness. Has absolutely changed the course of your life, the way you do business, the books that you’re going to write, the Intensive that you teach, everything has changed because of those two things.

Janet Conner: Yeah. And they’re really one in the same. I’m not sure I can separate, because if you’re in a state of prayer, real prayer. Okay. Now, if you open the OED, you can kind of see it hiding back there. And that happened because one day in a Prayer Intensive, a woman who had been raised a strict Muslim and had left that practice, I was raised to strict Catholic and I had left that practice, but I was offering these things called Prayer Intensives and the first few I offered were with a Caju in Hawaii, Ka’ala hella and they were on [Inaudible 11:27 – 11:29], talk about a forgiveness prayer.

[00:11:35] And this woman said out of the blue, “I hate that word” and I startled and I said, “Oh, you hate the word prayer?” And she said “I hate that word” and it’s because I’m so grateful that she said it. Because that got me to get up and open the Oxford English Dictionary and look at the definition of prayer. We all hate prayer if prayer is what it says in there, but what it says in there is what patriarchy, whether you call that Judaism, Christianity, Islam, any of the patriarchal religions.

[00:12:13]: They have dictated as they have for so many things what prayer means. You know what it says in there? That prayer is number one supplication. So you’re begging; you are supplicating and begging an external God. They don’t even have to say male God that’s just taken for granted, right? That cranky guy with long white hair, that we all as children; it’s like okay that’s God…

Mal: Will send us to hell.

Janet Conner: Yeah, and then, you know, yeah, so why are you supplicating that cranky guy? Because you’re in deep shit with him and if you’re not a good girl, bad things are going to, you know. And so, we swallowed these horrible stories. So the third part of the definition is, you do your supplication of this external male God [Inaudible 13:05 – 13:06]. I sat here and cried when I got out the OED, and then, I mean how the OED could be wrong, right? But I went in my son’s room and I got out Miriam’s, I got out, found every dictionary I can find in the house. I went online, they all say the same thing. And I think this is when I understood, “oh, this is what you mean about being a Prayer Artist? I have to redefine prayer.”

Mal: And you do it.

Janet Conner: Redefine prayer.

Mal: You are doing it .

Janet Conner:  [00:13:33] And I am doing it. So this is how I started though in deep soul writing after reading those definitions, I said, “okay Sofia, you want me to be your Prayer Artist? What patriarchy says in the dictionary is absolutely not true. Every word of that is a lie, it’s not just supplication, and it’s not external. The divine is not external, the divine is right there and she’s not male. And we don’t have to look at the formula and a ritual and a time and words. The patriarchal religions have created the entire thing is a lie. So I said, “So, what’s prayer? Give me a little help here.” And in over about two or three month’s period, I was given four new definitions of Prayer. And there might be more to come but this is where I am at the moment.

[00:14:31] Number one, prayer is a love song. This is a love song, the divine is caressing you, kissing you. It’s just like the most magnificent human relationship you can have.  These are love songs. And indeed, the prayers that come through me, I didn’t get this right away, but I would say them out loud because all writers do that. When you’re writing something or at least that’s what I teach that if you’re kind of trying to get the feel for it, you’re not sure if this is really what you want to say, you say it out loud. And then you hear the root of the rhythm. Rhythm for me in writing is a big, big, big deal. So I said my own prayers out loud and I found myself kind of going, “What, wait a second, these are lyrics. Wait, wait these are lyrics, show.” So they really are love songs.

[00:15:30] Number two prayer is medicine, sacred medicine. This is the divine feeding you like a mother hen feeding her babies. Sacred, sacred medicine. So that means real prayer, not the prayer in there, not the prayer I learned as a kid. But real prayer caresses your body, your whole body, it cherishes your body. Well right away, with that definition there go all the patriarchal prayers. Tell me patriarchal prayers to cherish the feminine body? I never heard them.

Mal: Condemn it.

Janet Conner: [Inaudible 16:07] them. So it cherishes your body it embraces your heart, you can feel it, you can feel the divine just muah (kiss) holding male, loving her completely and it blows your mind, it just rearranges your mind. So if you think you can kind of follow along [Inaudible 16:24 – 16:26] that’s words in order that’s not prayer.

[00:16:29] So the third definition, it came as a big surprise to me, it’s a relationship. When you pray, you are in a relationship; (a) with prayer itself, because prayers alive, it’s alive.  But you are in a relationship just looks sort of like you’re in a river with everyone who has never prayed. Yeah oh, oh, you’re not alone in your living room saying a prayer, you are in a living relationship with prayer itself. And prayer because it is a human, it is everyone, it’s everywhere.

[00:17:12] Okay and then the fourth definition, I got a little help with. I called my friend Margo Master Marky, who’s the voice of the angels because, you know, if you’re awakened in the middle of night and told you’re a Prayer Artist, you just might like to have a little divine help and so I always have a conversation with the Angels with Margo and with the masters and teachers of the Akashic Record through Laurlyn Bunn. I contacted both of them and said, “we could use a little help with this Prayer Artist thing.” So I asked the Angels for help with prayer. I mean, come on, they’re angels, “couldn’t you tell me what prayer is? Don’t you know?” And they weren’t forthcoming right away which drove me crazy. “Come on, can’t you just tell me?” But finally they took pity on me. Now listen to what they said, they said this over a year ago and I’m just beginning to digest it. They said, it’s the Angels, “prayer is the vibration of love that goes beyond all universes.” Got that? Okay it’s a vibration, okay.

Mal: I can get that.

Janet Conner: I can get that. Okay, everything is vibration, the universe is vibration, color is vibration, light in vibration, numbers are vibration. It’s a vibration of love, only of love. Okay, I can even kind, but now wait a second, because beyond all universes, what universes are we talking about here? In other words can’t you just sort of see it? It’s be, so here you are one little person expressing a prayer out of your heart, out of your mouth, out of your life and somehow that is a vibration of love, even if you don’t feel like you’re coming and it goes and it goes. Now, that has to mean because vibration touches and impacts, so the prayers, I say here are… where are they? What are they doing? See what I mean? This is, anyway those are my definitions of prayer; love songs, sacred medicine, relationship and the vibration of love. That’s not in the OED and in my lifetime it won’t be in the OED but if I do my work, if we all do our work, you know what? In a couple more lifetimes I expect to come back and find the real definitions of prayer.

Mal: Janet, you use a process when you’re doing your soul writing, you talk about getting into Theta which takes you into this place of being in communion with this vibration, in communion with your soul with this writing that you do. Share what you mean by getting into Theta because you have a program opening up in January you know that teaches this but explain a little bit to the audience what you mean by dropping down into Theta.

Janet Conner: [00:20:38]…into Theta because it’s magical. Which at (a) it’s unbelievably magical and I knew nothing about it. So there I am going through this divorce during my daily deep soul writing, following the guidance that I received. My life was completely transformed and that finally did get the attention of a publisher. And they contacted me and at one point gave me a contract to write this book about writing down your soul. 

So I’m sitting right here and I go, “Well Houston, what are we going to do here because I can’t write a book about Janet’s story? This is what happened to Janet. Who cares, right? It has to be that here is Janet’s story to simply illustrate a practice that will change your life too.” Well in order to say it’s going to change your life, I needed some sort of, I felt that I needed some sort of scientific explanation. So I started out with Psychology because there is today, over 30 years of research started by Dr. James Pennebaker, the chair of the Psych Department at the University of Texas in Austin. So, it’s not Janet making this up there is 30 years of psychological research on the efficacy of writing, it can change your life. And he wrote a wonderful book that’s quoted in mine, ‘Writing Down Your Soul’. His is called I’m drawing a blank…

Mal: ‘Journaling Workshop’? It’s right over there.  I have one of his books, it’s called the ‘Journaling Workshop’.

Janet Conner: Well, he’s written like ten, so in his book, in his research, I found absolute confirmation that the physical practice of journaling, never mind deep soul writing, but journaling has the power to lower your heart rate, reduce depression and even increase the activity and the presence of T-lymphocytes in your body. Now you might not know where the T-lymphocyte is but it’s a big, big, big deal because those are the agents in your body that literally kill cancer cells. This is a good thing. So I read his book and other books by him and I contacted him and we had some email exchanges and okay, psychology can absolutely prove that writing has power.

[00:23:04] But then, you know, I thought there’s something missing here and the next thing that came to me was Candace Pert Molecules of Emotion. She’s the one, she’s one of the talking heads on What the Bleep. She’s the one who discovered that your emotions, positive emotions, negative emotions, anger, jealousy, it doesn’t matter, are not in your head. They’re not in your heart where we have a tendency to think of emotions, they are in every single cell of your body as neuropeptides. And if you can remember that movie? There’s like these funny little cartoon globs of purple globs and green globs and black globs, that’s how the movie Illustrated these neuropeptides in every cell of the body. And then the person would do some pretty stupid things based on the crazy purple neuropeptides. It’s an adorable way to illustrate these, this very profound Nobel quality discovery that she made.

And in her book which is not easy reading, in her book there was just one paragraph, it meant so much to me, I quoted it in ‘Writing Down Your Soul.’ In it she says, when you have a negative experience, a story that you’re holding inside, like our divorces, like cancer, like anything, you are literally squeezing the neuropeptides. Squeeze the carotid artery, who knew right? So what happens is you now don’t have enough food going up to your brain and your frontal cortex becomes useless. You cannot make a new decision, you just keep repeating and repeating and repeating, “yeah well, I’ve lived that,” but who knew that it’s actually because your carotid artery is being squeezed by these negative neuropeptides when you write. Now, I’ve got Psychology and the Biology to support it and I think, you know, I can actually write a book but my gut said, “There’s a third and I had not a clue what the third was. 

So you know what I did? Picked up my pen and I said, “DG,” I was still writing to Dear God back then, “DG, DG thank you for the Psychology, thank you for the Neurobiology, I know there’s something else. I don’t know what it is, but you do and I would just like to point out that we’re working under deadlines here.”  I have a very intimate, I mean this is not, this is intimate. Anyway, the next day because the Divine works fast, I heard an interview with some consciousness coaches in New York City, who train people to change their lives by changing their brains.

Now I didn’t understand what I was listening to but my stomach went, “you go get them girl.” So, I said [inaudible 00:26:10], can we please have our conversation? And we had this lovely conversation and they said, “Writing is the most effective spiritual practice period.” I mean, “Whoa you’re my people. You are so my big ball.” And so, I somehow, that gave me the courage to open my mouth and say something I had never said to anyone. And I said, “so what does it mean when you are writing, so deeply, so fast, the pen sort of, has an energy all its own and you couldn’t lift it if you wanted to and then something comes to your under the page that you know that you didn’t write?” There’s silence and I think, “Oh God, what have you done Janet? Now these people think you’re crazy.” Because that does sound pretty crazy.

And I was sitting here in panic thinking, “oh do I, like pretend I never said that?” To get the conversation to come back otherwise these people are going to refuse to let me quote them and I wanted that sentence. Writing is the most powerful, spiritual practice on the planet. Well, Robert just needed a minute to take a breath and then out of his mouth, this is one of the most profound moments in my life but I didn’t know it at the time. He said, “Janet, I do not know how you’ve done it, but you have trained yourself to enter Mystical Theta.” Now, I had no idea what that Theta was, never mind Mystical Theta, but I sort of screamed because, “Ah, yeah” And then he realized that I didn’t know anything and that got me started with his help learning about the brain waves.

[00:28:22] So the short kindergarten version is that we spend our days in a very high speed beta, beta, beta with a B. And in our patriarchal systems, education, I mean, we have first graders that have to take in essence because they’re so freaked out about whether or not they’re going to pass some bloody test, right?   So this is the beta brain wave state and then you finally get through all of school and you get a job and the corporations are, “get it done, where your goal? [Inaudible 28:47 – 28:48]  This is all patriarchy, this is all judgment, judgment, judgment, judgment. Well, that keeps you in the beta brainwaves state and eventually, because I did a lot of research on this, I learned that the brain scientists say, not Janet, the brain scientists say that when you are worried, the second you’re worried, you’re in one brain wave and one brain wave only. That’s proof that you’re in the beta brainwaves state. Well guess what you can do in the beta brainwaves state aside from worry?

Mal: Zero. 

Janet Conner: You cannot solve a problem, you can’t think your way to anything, you’re frozen and yet our education systems, corporate systems, religious systems, while you’re supplicating that external God, you’re worried, right? Everything in the first world forces us to constantly stay in beta. Now, if your brainwaves slow down a little bit, you can actually get some work done.

[00:29:48] That’s great and you remember that famous book, I think it was in the 80s called ‘The Zone’. Some Russian scientist I think wrote it but it’s about the Alpha. If you slow your brainwaves down a little bit and there are levels and levels of this, you can actually get some work done. And you can have that experience of looking at the clock and going “where the time go? What it’s eight o’clock, have I eaten yet today?”  But in Alpha, you are rearranging so to speak. You’re collating information you already have which is great. You can write a book outline, you can design a course, you can set up a project, it’s all great work but you’re not accessing brand new ideas.

[00:30:48] There was only one brainwave in which would you have access to, call it divine mind, call it creative blueprint, call whatever you want. There’s only one brainwave and it’s called Theta starts with a th, Theta, so it’s not quite as slow as Delta which is sleeping. It’s between 4 & 8 sine wave, 4 & 8 Hertz. This is the juice of being a human being. This is the magic, these are the ideas that shock you. This is being awakened in the middle of night and hearing Prayer Artist. This is being in the shower and downloading the entire outline of a book which happens to me all the time. This is waking up in the morning and seeing, seeing the cover, the title. This is waking up and hearing music. I am not a musician. I mean, not even slightly. They threw me out of choir and because I couldn’t carry a tune and even the piano teacher told my mother, you know, she doesn’t really have to come back anymore. And yet, I’m awakened and given music for the events that I’m creating. Excuse me, that’s only the Theta brainwave stage. So thank you to James Pennebaker for proving that writing is effective, Candace Pert for proving that until you release the negativity that you’re holding in your body, your brain is useless anyway. And then, oh, to the gods that brought me the information. So now, everything I do is about how can we drop into Theta and from there those moments of Mystical Theta. And yeah you mentioned and you’re going to be there for the live…

Mal: It opens up, I forget the date, it opens up

Janet Conner:  [00:32:24] January 20th.

Mal: Great

Janet Conner: And it’s called, I love this so much, and mind you, I saw it, I saw the title and the logo for the title in the middle of the night. This is once again Theta, so the title is Theta – The Radical Path of Love Hidden in your Brainwaves. This is who we are, this is how we are wired but patriarchy has not focused on love, patriarchy has focused on performance and winning and me, me, me. You know, set your goal [Inaudible 33:04] and kept you here. Theta is already in your body, it’s already, it’s who you are and how you’re wired. You are this radiant creature of love and love here is a big word. Love is divine love, love is human love, love his family love, love is enduring the work that you’re given to do, love is loving mother earth, love is looking at water and lettuce and love is life. And when we know how to see through Theta eyes, hear through Theta ear, life just gets outrageously delicious. But it’s funny now that I had that interview with the Colts, the name of the couple in New York in 2007, because I turned in the manuscript, yeah at the end of 2007. So it’s only 12 years later, that I really am coming into the, I shouldn’t say the full bloom because there’s always more, but now I’m really on fire to give everybody. But it does seem like women come first. Women get this. Come with me and play in the Mystical Theta brainwave state, it’s like the juiciest sandbox on the planet and this is how we’re going to embed love in the world. This is how we change the world.

Mal: So, I know that the Intensive is up on your site, so people could go up there and sign up. Also you have some resources on your site and you were going to give us a brief description on one of those and how they can get it. I mean you have so much up there but you kind of picked a special one.

Janet Conner: [00:34:57] Yeah and more to come, more to come. Yeah I had, that’s the other thing had to change. When you become a Prayer Artist, I contacted my web designer and she said, “you need all the entire new webpage, sorry.” So we had to start over with, it’s still Janet Conner my name, Janet Conner.com but I, because it’s not all about prayer, if you click on across the main navigation bar, Prayer Resources, that’s kind of a taste. And there are various little videos including there’s one on Ho’oponopono and Ho’oponopono you want an outrageous prayer, you want a prayer that will change you.

Mal: Beautiful.

Janet Conner: And it’s ancient, you know, these great…That’s patriarchal prayer that’s just what we’ve had for 5,000 years. If we go pre patriarchy which means getting into the indigenous prayer practices, you discover first of all, that the divine has always been feminine, and the prayer practices are so, they’re just radiant with love and forgiveness and inclusion. And Ho’oponopono is so ancient that it wasn’t even written, you know, it comes from an ancient Hawaiian indigenous oral tradition. And aren’t we blessed that Kahuleihela is our guide and she is a Shaman in Hawaii. And so there’s several places that you can explore.

[00:36:25] Let’s just start with Ho’oponopono, go to Janet Conner.com, click on Prayer Resources and you can scroll down and find a video on Ho’oponopono with the [Inaudible 36:37]. But then if you really want to experience it, when I saw earlier this year, Zette in America, we have created an entire prison system, we call it the immigration detention centers but excuse me these are American concentration camps based on racism. And I was actually awakened in the middle of the night and yelled at “Prayer Artist, Prayer Artist, you call yourself a Prayer Artist, do something.” And there was a swear word in there too, “do something.” I’m like, “okay” and I’m obedient and I went to work and created and my web designer and my magnificent virtual assistant, everybody stopped what they were doing including Lahela and she made four videos with me. [Inaudible 37:28] And the prayer practice is called “They are all our children.”

Mal: And it’s Beautiful, it’s really beautiful

Janet Conner: So if you go to my main home page Janet Connor there’s like these little buttons, you just press the button that says “They are all our children” and that’s a deep dive into Ho’oponopono. And join us please because we are cutting these negative patriarchal Hakka Cords on the people who put the immigrants in these prisons and that’s the only way this is going to end. Now this seems like paradoxical. You are actually praying for the oppressor but that’s why you have to look at Ho’oponopono. This is very, very, very deep prayer that actually frees people from their racism, from their anger, from their, and that’s how we will finally end this concentration camp system in the United States – They are all our children. So and now, you can play around and you can subscribe to the Sunday notes from the field, so you always know there’s a lot.

Mal: There’s a lot

Janet Conner: There’s a lot.

Mal: There’s a lot there.  I know there’s a lot there. My beautiful friend, thank you so much for this. And for not being afraid to step into those shoes of being a Prayer Artist. If you had said, “no” what would we all be doing?

Janet Conner: Well I’ll leave you with, let me see if I can find it quickly, there is a short, because some of my prayers are not so short. But one day I was sitting outside, let me see if I can find it, because I don’t have this one, some of them I have memorized but not all of them. I was sitting outside doing my deep soul writing and I looked up and the strangest thing was happening. I’m in Florida, so the palm fronds were kind of wafting in the breeze, and they were, they look like they were clamping. It’s like how was that possible? How does this wind do that?  And I was just noticing, I wasn’t doing anything but I then put my hand back down on the page and this short sweet prayer called “Yes” which I’m still, you see I’ve got prayers. I got prayers, what can I say. Here it is, it’s short and this is not, all my prayers it’s important to understand. Yeah they come through me but they’re not for me. So listeners, listen to this and see if this isn’t something awakening in you.

[00:40:10] It’s called “Yes”.

Something is being awakened in me.  I hear silent love songs and know they are mine.

I see whole performances in the hour before dawn, and know this is what I am to do.

I hear these prayers. The words wash right through me and I am moved. 

The palm fronds applaud, the osprey scream, “Encore”

The squirrels relish my distraction. I sit in the garden and whisper, “Yes, yes beloved yes. I am willing to become your prayer.”

Mal: Thank you so much for that. Thank you. Bless you. It’s wonderful. Wow! What a way to end a show. I just, I’m speechless. Yeah

Janet Conner: It is perfect to end with a “Yes” because that’s really it. The Divine is kissing you on the cheek, she’s speaking to you right now. All we have to do, all we have to do is say yes.

Mal: I hope that everyone listening will Yes to…

Janet Conner: to love. Say yes to love.

Mal: Say yes to love. Thank you Janet. Bless you.

NOTES

[00:00:33] Introduction about Janet Conner and her Radio Show.

[00:02:22] How Janet touched and inspired Mal’s life.

[00:03:19] Janet Conner explaining what inspired her and the Divine Feminine.

[00:04:26] Janet starting her journal.

[00:07:14] Janet writing the Prayer of Forgiveness.

[00:07:57] Birth of becoming and Author and the call to become a Prayer Artist.

[00:08:27] The name change from Dear God to Beloved Vibration of Sophia.

[00:09:03] Firs prayer written as a Prayer Artist.

[00:10:01] Trying to find the definition of a Prayer Artist and realizing there was no definition.

[00:11:30] An experience with a woman who hated the word prayer.

[00:12:13] Patriarchal definition of the word prayer in the Oxford English Dictionary.

[00:13:33] Redefining the word prayer as a Prayer Artist.

[00:14:31] First definition of the word prayer – Prayer is a Love Song.

[00:15:30] Second definition of the word prayer – Prayer is medicine, sacred medicine.

[00:16:29] Third definition of the word prayer – Prayer is a relationship.

[00:17:12] Fourth definition of the word prayer – Prayer is a vibration of love that goes beyond all universes.

[00:20:38] What it is to get in Theta? And sharing an experience of Mystical Theta.

[00:23:04] Explanation of Candace Pert Molecules of Emotion.

[00:28:22] When you worry you are in one state of brainwaves and that is all you can do in that state – worry.

[00:29:48] The Zone book explaining Alpha.

[00:30:48] The brainwaves called Theta.

[00:32:24] The date for Mystical Thea seminar is January 20. It’s called Theta – Radical Path of Love Hidden in your Brainwaves.

[00:34:57] Change of webpage to janetconner.com and addition of Prayer Resources – Ho’oponopono.

[00:40:10] Performing the “Yes” Prayer.

 

Meet Mari McCarthy, Chief Empowerment office of CreateWriteNow.com


I want to let you know how much I value our friendship and what a gift you are in my life.  It fills my heart to bring you information and resources that you can use to create magic in your life. Almost all of my offerings are free or have a minimal cost associated with it. I believe you don’t have to spend a fortune to have amazing support tools on your journey of personal transformation.

Well if you haven’t heard yet, 2020 is supposed to be an incredibly powerful year as you kick off not only a new decade but a new astrological era.  I love astrology and follow several people online who uniformly say the past decade was a bit tumultuous. However, it was all about building a foundation for what is to come. This year is a threshold for you to leave the old stuff behind so you can create room for the new.

2020 means perfect vision, knowing what you want and taking the action steps necessary to make it happen. You can’t just sit back, it’s now all about personal implementation.

How do you get that clarity and know exactly what you need to do?

The most powerful tool I know of is journaling. You can cut through the mental chatter and clutter to become laser-focused on what really matters to you.

I’ve been journaling for about twenty years. Every time I do it consistently, life feels a whole lot easier because I develop a sacred conversation with my soul. I’m excavating what is really important and discarding the meaningless distractions that pull me off my path. I buy these wonderful journals for under $10 at Michael’s crafts. They are great to travel with and hold up all year.

This week’s guest on Awakening Divine Wildness is Mari McCarthy, the founder of CreateWriteNow.com. You will love what she has to say about the power of journaling and how you can use it for healing your body and creating the life you want.

In 2020, I’m going to have another star-studded lineup of guests on the podcast giving you their best spiritual practices, life hacks and strategies for ultimate success.

I feel blessed to serve you, support you and hold you in sacred space throughout the year.
 
Wishing You an Abundance of Joy this Holiday Season!


Listen to the Awakening Divine Wildness podcast by clicking the play button on the audio player below.

 

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Read the Full Transcript

Mal Duane Interviews Mari McCarthy

Mal: [00:00:04] Well, I am thrilled about this week’s guest. Mari McCarthy is the Founder and Chief Empowerment Officer of Create Write Now, and that’s a W-R-I-T-E. She shows health-conscious women how to use the ultimate self-empowerment tool, journaling, for the health of it, to heal the issue in their tissues and to embody and express their true self.

She’s the multi-award-winning author of “Journaling Power: How to Create the Happy, Healthy Life You Want to Live” and “Heal Yourself With Journaling Power”, which I just read and it was fabulous.

She’s also the creator of 20+ life-changing journaling power ebooks such as “Start Changing Your Life”, “Take Control of Your Health”, and “Love Your Body”.

Mari, it’s so great to be with you today!

Mari: Oh, it’s so great to be here. Thank you for inviting me, Mal.

Mal: I love what you write about because I’m a journaler. I’ve included this topic in two of my books. How women can use the simple practice of journaling for clarity, for healing issues, for finding their inner truth – that voice that’s within them. You know, we have so much going on in our heads and that constant nonstop chatter about what’s going on and what we’re doing. And the only way to get to that place of quiet is through sitting down and writing.

So, tell me, what inspired your work? Because you have a very powerful story on how you came about writing.

Mari: [00:02:00] Well, yes, thank you. It is, basically, for me, my story started out—I got to journaling based on a physical therapy need. I had had an MS experience where I lost feeling and function on the right side of my body and I needed a way to teach myself how to write with my left hand. And at that point, I was a high-powered A, a type A business woman that needed a procedure. I felt really, really good about doing it.

So someone introduced me to Julia Cameron’s “Morning Pages” and so I got into journaling via the Morning Pages. The Morning Pages just sit down and just write three pages of whatever, it’s your stream of consciousness. Things, all of a sudden, very shortly, started coming up.

Memories from my childhood. Lots of feeling that I thought I had long forgotten about. All kinds of very interesting things so I was like, “Wow, this is more than physical therapy!” and one of the things I’ve realized in doing the Morning Pages was I always was left-handed and that the nuns changed me. So then, I thought, “Oh my god! This is beyond…” you know, I became left-handed very quickly.

But just being able to get into the childhood and the memories and things like that. I mean, as you know, we all know we had childhood, but it was about because we were taught that stuff, our emotions and feelings, just to move forward with… it was stuck in our subconscious and our issues in our tissues but we just never dealt with it.

But [durably?] provided a therapeutic way to get into me – my emotions, my feelings, my spirituality, my soul and I thought, “Wow!” Since I had to sell my business and I was home living life on my… I just purchased my beachfront home and I thought, “Oh, this is great! So I’m going to set up an Internet business and share my findings with the world.” And that’s what I’ve done and Create Write Now has been an evolution of something that was, you know, the Universe works in mysterious ways! It’s like I needed some physical therapy and got way more than I bargained for.

Mal: [00:04:42] I love it! You really had a very powerful physical feeling from this process as wow?

Mari: Oh, definitely, yes. And it’s continuing today and I’m really now dealing with my cellular level and dealing with issues—spiritual issues—all the things that make up the cellular issue because I’m way past what’s ever going on in my being, my personhood, my body, is way past. It’s never going to show up on an MRI or an XYZ or whatever so it’s something that I have to do myself so journaling is helping me way, way deep down into all my aspects of me and it shows me that we have the power to heal ourselves.

Mal: Yes, yes. And that’s what I think is so wonderful about your book that I read that examples—the people that you included in the stories are amazing! Just absolutely amazing; the physical healings, the mental healings. I was deeply touched by the young man that you included whose mother had committed suicide and that inspired his path and now he has created a journal from then, which was just magnificent.

[00:06:18] So tell me a little bit about how you proceeded from starting this practice for yourself and now finding all these people that are using it, getting all the benefits from it and writing these books. It’s really been your purpose; it’s your passion.

Mari: Indeed! And I attribute it all to my journal because my journal has been my guide, my conduit, my message center. So I get, as I call, messages from the universe. One day, journaling for the health of it just showed up.

I think it gets back to being very clear. It’s like, “Okay, I want to start a successful Internet company from my beachfront home”, and I think you have to be very clear on what you want. And it’s like Ralph Waldo Emerson says, “Once you make a decision, then the universe conspires to make it happen.” So I think that and having the tool of journaling, I just did a lot of Morning Pages—a lot of journaling—and that somehow declutters the energy, whatever, and helps gets clear and one day, the words “Create Write Now” showed up. I was like, “Wow! That’s the name of my company!”

And again, I just go back to my journal is the answer to a woman. Just going through the phase of whenever I feel just writing, just the whole writing process. Don’t have to have an agenda. Don’t have to have a problem. Whatever it is, like I feel just writing a page or whatever it takes and I just trust the process and that’s how I came to write the books, you know, my ebooks as well as my real books.

[00:08:30] I’m a very practical person. I want to have something to share so I didn’t want to get into the whole thing about… I didn’t want to create an Angela’s Ashes, a typical memoir. I came up with the genre, self-help memoirs, to include my story. This is in my first book, “Journaling Power”. My story as well as exercises and practical things that the people can get onboard and join the revolution.

And then for my second book, I thought since more people were coming to me, I was hosting them as guest blogger, I thought, “Wow, I think it’s time to share other people’s stories so the rest of the world knows”. I think people have the perception that it’s “oh, how I spent my day or a diary”. No, this is how people are using the fantastic tool to help them in all aspects of themselves; be it physical; be it emotional; be it mental; be it spiritual; all of the above.

Mal: [00:09:46] Why do people struggle with it? Because it’s a simple process, the benefits of journaling are recognized. You discussed it deeply. I recommend it. I know several other empowerment coaches, transformational coaches, would highly recommend it, yet people—there’s so much resistance and struggle journaling. “Well, I don’t have the time”, you know, that’s nonsense. So how do you get people started?

Mari: Well, first of all, I let people know. It’s that we’re all in the same boat. We came into this world as children with all our talents, creativities, then we got socialized, parentisized, and all that type of thing, and our true self got pushed way, way down.

So we’ve been so much trained or taught and reinforced socially, “Go out there”, “Get this car”, “Go to college”, all that types. So journaling is a huge behavior change. It’s about putting the focus on our “self” and goodness gracious! We were never ever taught to focus on our self. It’s about, “Take care of your brother and sister”. “Make sure your neighbor’s okay”. All that type of thing so everything’s external.

This is brand new behavior change that gets to our core, our spirit—all of us. So that is what it is and we’re so used to living in fear and being controlled by whatsoever or thinking that our life is like, “Okay, it’s genes and I can’t do anything about it so hold on to the thing”, plus the fact we have all, after childhood, we all went into our heads and we’ve been living in our heads. We’re disconnected from our body, Mal!

Mal: I love this!

Mari: [00:11:54] And what journaling does is help us get back into our body.

Mal: Love it! I love it. You know, for me, it’s getting out of my head and getting back into my heart.

Mari: Yes.

Mal: Getting into, not only my heart, my soul where I reconnect with that higher guidance. Call it universe, call it God, call it soul, the Divine Mother, whatever. But there’s another level of communication that we all have that’s available to all of us if we just get quiet and allow it, and journaling is the most beautiful pathway to that consciousness—to that stream of knowledge—that we otherwise don’t access.

When I look back, Mari, at some of the things that I have written in my journals, I go, “Where did that come from? I don’t remember writing that!” And both of the books that I’ve written were like downloads at times. When I went back and read them, it was like, “Oh my gosh! I don’t really remember writing that!” and I used to write in the morning. That would be my creativity time, early in the day. And then I’d review sometimes in the afternoon, I’d be like, “Wow, I don’t really remember that!”

Amazing what just putting… and for me it’s pen to paper, can’t be electronic, can’t be computer. That’s what I want to be clear about. No electronics involved. The old-fashioned way, pen to paper. What are your thoughts on that? Some people, you know…

Mari: [00:13:42] Oh, that’s why I don’t even talk anything… there’s two important thing. There’s only one right way to journal and it’s your way and it needs to be pen to page every day. That’s all I have to say about the guidelines or “what am I supposed to do about journaling?” But that’s it, you’re absolutely right.

I don’t even need to mention that. You’re right. The only right way to journal is pen to page every day. You have to have that consistency. That routine. That discipline because we have to continually be giving to ourselves our self-love. I mean, journaling is self-love, it’s giving back to ourselves because we’ve had a whole lifetime of self-sabotage and self-criticism. We just have to get into a routine that we’re number one 24/7.

Mal: I love the way you’re saying that this is a practice of self-love for women, because, boy, do we need that!

Mari: True.

Mal: We put ourselves at the bottom of the list. We do for everybody else and we do for ourselves last. But when we are depleted emotionally, mentally, spiritually, physically, we can’t contribute to life. We cannot really love and support those around us because we have nothing to give. We have depleted ourselves. So if we really want to be there for others, we need to be there for ourselves first.

Mari: Definitely. My favorite hashtag is #mefirst.

Mal: Yes.

Mari: And now having been a journaler for many years, it now makes sense, because, you know how we hear things about “oh yes, you have to take care of yourself before you take care…” or I was thinking about the airplane, put your…

Mal: Put your mask on first.

Mari: We hear all this thing but now I know that’s true because we have to take care of ourselves and we have to always be continually connected and stay connected to, as you said earlier, to our soul and our core because that’s where it’s happening. When you do that, boy, you can save the world like that.

It’s right. What it is, is a big behavior change and it’s just like changing your whole inner thought process. The way you talk to yourself. The way you treat yourself. I heard a quote, something like, “If someone treated you the way you treat yourself, you would have left them a long time ago”. Isn’t that the truth?

We’re all masters of self-sabotage. That’s why, as you said, it must be pen to page and it must be daily in a routine fashion, just like brushing your teeth, taking a shower, as part of your self-health routine and self-love routine.

Mal: [00:17:09] Do you have any thoughts on how long it takes to really establish that practice? Now, ideally, you want to do it every day. But we know that discipline, people are going to waffle on that. So if someone puts the effort in daily, how long do you think it takes, Mari, for it to really become habitual, easy to get up and do, that they really get into the momentum? Is there a timeframe that you recommend?

Mari: It really depends on the person. But I would very much, based on my own experience, venture that if people are open to new experience, if they are curious, if they have an attitude of “let’s see what this is about” as opposed to “Oh…” even considering new thoughts or “okay let’s give this a shot and see where it goes”. I think that that depends.

I would say, some people, as quickly as a month, but for other people it will be a struggle based on their past—their childhood, their upbringing, their life experience. So it’s not inconceivable that if you do it consistently on a daily basis that you will start seeing some changes or some, “Aha!” or “Ooh, where did that come from?” Within a month, you’ll see that, you know…

But also I won’t underestimate the fact that what’s supposed to be happening when you get into that is the fears, the critics, all the old stuff is going to come up and I think that’s why people are going to go, “Oh, I don’t want to go there!” and that’s why people use the excuse, “Oh, I don’t have time.” Yes, all that’s true but the big issue is a “self” thing and that’s something totally different and people are so afraid based on the fact we have been living in our heads and we have thoughts about who we think we are. And who we think we are and who we truly are, are two totally different people.

Mal: Oh, absolutely! Do you have a preferred time a day for journaling? I do it in the morning because I know if I don’t, it’s probably not going to happen later in the day. Sometimes I write some things down at night, quick little ideas or gratitude—things like that that happened during the day, my thoughts on or something I’m grateful for. But what are your thoughts on that?

Mari: [00:20:03] It goes back to what I said earlier. There’s only one right way to journal and it’s your way and I think that’s part of the process. It’s exploring and accepting. “Yeah, I really feel better if I go to a coffee shop and do this” or what works best for me is the train into work or, as you said, with you, if I don’t do it first thing in the morning, it ain’t going to get done, or whatever.

Some people think, or night people, it’s like “oh, it’s much easier for me to do my journaling before I go to bed. Again, it is totally up to whatever… using my favorite four-letter “F” word, “feel”. Whatever you feel like. And again, that’s something new, “Oh, I feel what I wanted. Oh, that’s selfish.” So we go through all those machinations but it’s like that’s what the bottom line is.

With me, it changes. Now, I’m into doing a page in the morning before I do my morning meditation because, like you, if I don’t do it then, either the journaling and/or the meditation will not get done. And then I’ve just gotten into doing a page of what I call night notes before I go to bed just recapping the day of all the lessons, the learnings, the gratitude, whatever, and I find I’m sleeping routinely through the night, 10-6.

Mal: You’re emptying out all that stuff that you’ve been carrying around all day so it’s very therapeutic.

Mari: Yes.

Mal: You’ve had so many guest bloggers tell powerful, powerful stories. Do you have a favorite one?

Mari: I have to say yes and her name is Deb. She’s a lady that has a journaling for probably about 10 years now. She’s been clean and sober for 10 years and she owes that to her journal. Her journal absolutely, positively changed her life and she said that’s her lifeblood, her lifeline. So that’s why I said it shows it can be done. She’s, like I said, clean and sober, 10 years, and the fact that she… and she’s doing it every day, just helped her understand who she was and it’s like, “Damn! I’m good!”

Mal: I totally understand that because I have 30 years of recovery.

Mari: Oh, congratulations!

Mal: And I started, but not consistently, way back when with journaling and what I’ve uncovered early on in my sobriety was that my own thinking is what caused all my suffering. And my suffering, that pain, that’s why I used alcohol to just stop the pain, to stop the craziness, to just feel better about myself and once I understood that, it was like the wound, I didn’t need the band aid anymore. It was easier to write about what I was thinking about and understanding it than drowning myself in vodka trying to kill it. It was huge! So I totally get that! Anybody in recovery, journaling is a powerful, powerful, powerful healing tool that works!

You have a wonderful free offer on your website for the listeners of the show. Would you be so kind as to tell them where to go and what it is.

Mari: Certainly. Go to CreateWriteNow, as Mal said, it’s W-R-I-T-E, .com and on my homepage, there’ll be a dropdown for a free book entitled, “Overcoming Life’s Stresses and Strains with Journaling Power.” And you can sign up and get that and it will introduce you to this wonderful, fantastic world of journaling for the health of it.

Mal: Oh, I love it! Mari, this is great. I’m so thrilled that we connected. I loved your book. I can’t recommend it enough. It should be required reading for the recovery community. Maybe you should write a book about journaling to support recovery or journaling the path to recovery, something like that, because it is so needed.

Mari: Given me some ideas. Thank you.

Mal: Yes, it’s because it works. You know, you have that blogger and now you’ve got Mal, 30 years, and I know that it’s been one of my best tools and when I teach in recovery facilities, two things I tell the women that have absolutely supported me on this path—meditation and journaling.

Meditation, getting that mind quiet. Getting back into myself, really back into my heart and then writing about it.

Mari: Oh, definitely, and I’ve been a consistent meditator now for almost a year and I’m with you. It’s the one-two punch—journaling and meditation—nothing like it in the world and that’s free!

Mal: Yes. That’s the best part. Yeah, I know. People go out and spend all this money on medications and “oh, well if I get the right dress, I’m going to feel better” or the right shoes, or the right handbag. I see women has been worked on picking out a pair of shoes than nurturing themselves.

This is about self-nurture, self-care. And I love the way that you say that it’s a practice of self-love. That is beautiful. I’m going to tweet that after this. I’m going to go and make a Facebook post: “Journaling is a self-love practice” with your name.

Mari: Thank you. It truly is, it’s like constant, continual, ongoing nirvana.

Mal: Well, thank you again so much for coming on today and I hope that we do this again and I love your books. Again, “Journaling Power: How to Create a Happy, Healthy Life You Want to Live” and “Heal Yourself With Journaling Power”. Thank you, Mari McCarthy.

Mari: Oh, thank you, Mal. Have a great day!

Mal: You too!

Mari: Bye.

SHOW NOTES

[00:00:04] Mal introduces guest, Mari McCarthy, Founder and Chief Empowerment Officer of Create Write Now, and an award-winning author of “Journaling Power: How to Create a Happy, Healthy Life You Want to Live” and “Heal Yourself With Journaling Power.”

[00:02:00] Mari talks about how she got into the business of journaling.

[00:09:46] Mari answers why people struggle with journaling.

[00:11:54] Mari shares about the purpose of journaling—getting back to your body out from living in your head.

[00:17:09] The process of journaling—there’s only one right way to do it.

 

Meet Sherianna Boyle – Author of Emotional Detox for Anxiety

Well, I hope you had a blessed Thanksgiving wherever you were. I traveled to California to sniff out the real estate market for my future home and then went on to Palm Springs to see the grands (grandkids). It is so much fun being with them. However, they are growing up way too fast which is making me feel older. Grandma Mal knows how to get their attention. I always do an ice cream sundae night for them. It’s one of their favorite things.

I realize how blessed I am to have them in my life. I was having a conversation with my granddaughter Lydia that absolutely left me speechless. She told me she was very happy, and I asked her why. She replied, “Grandma Mal it’s because of all the love I have in my heart”. I almost fell of my chair. I said to her “where did you learn that”? She told me she didn’t learn it. It was just the way she felt. I almost cried. The pure joy that they all show, without any inhibition is a gift. 

This time of year is not always a happy one for many people. They can battle deep depression or anxiety about family gatherings. For those that suffer from addiction, this time of year can be really tempestuous.  The constant consumption of food and alcohol happening around them can rattle their sobriety.

The next four weeks are going to be crazy with Christmas and New Year’s for most of you. I start to hibernate in my Zen den, while I’m reading and writing. I love making my sacred mandala for the New Year on the 1st. This year I’m getting ready to move, so there is so much packing and sorting to do. Remember, I AM HERE FOR YOU! If you start to slide emotionally or feel overwhelmed just shoot me an email or PM me on Facebook. I’ll get right back to you. All private sessions are 50% off this month.

This week’s guest on Awakening Divine Wildness is Sherianna Boyle, MED CAGS and she is a real smarty pants!  She is a professor, does workshops at Kripalu and 1440 Multiversity as well as being the author of several bestselling books. Her latest one is “Emotional Detox For Anxiety: 7 Steps to Release Anxiety and Energize Joy”. Honestly, it is one of the best books I have read on this topic. Each chapter has fabulous charts and exercises to do to help you work through your anxiety. Sherianna uses a process called CLEANSE. You’ve gotta jump on the podcast and hear what she has to say.

Listen to the Awakening Divine Wildness podcast by clicking the play button on the audio player below.

 

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Read the Full Transcript

Mal Duane Interviews Sherianna Boyle

Mal: [00:05:00] Well, folks, it’s that time of year – Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s all coming up. Now some people call this the holidays. I used to call it hurricane season because it’s not always everything that it’s cut up to be. Some people go through this with grace and ease and others are holding their breath.

Well, today’s guest, Sherianna Boyle, is the author of several books. Really hot topic – anxiety. And her new book, Emotional Detox for Anxiety, will be out in December. We’re going to talk about this. She also has Emotional Detox: 7 Steps for Releasing Toxicity and Energizing Joy. Her book, The Four Gifts of Anxiety, was endorsed by the National Association for Mental Health and Sherianna has been featured as an expert in over 80 articles.

She’s an adjunct professor – Psychology Professor – and founder of Emotional Detox Coaching, the C.L.E.A.N.S.E. Method, which you’re going to learn about today. She’s leading two Emotional Detox retreats this year, one at Kripalu in 2020 in January and the other at the 1440 Multiversity in California.

That’s awesome, girl! Those are huge, wow! She even had a retreat in Portugal earlier this year… oh, excuse me! It’s in Portugal, May 2020. You’re rockin’ and rollin’! And you can find all her books and resources on SheriannaBoyle.com.

Girl, it is wonderful to be here with you!

Sherianna: Thank you! Thanks for having me.

Mal: Wow, you’re going to Kripalu and 1440 then to Portugal. That is spectacular!

I have to tell you, I read this and this is maybe the greatest toolbox I’ve ever seen for how someone can deal with anxiety. And the process that you take people through, it is fabulous. So I want to jump right in and have you tell the audience all about C.L.E.A.N.S.E.

Sherianna: [00:02:26] Oh, boy! So, C.L.E.A.N.S.E. is the acronym that I use for the seven steps of an emotional detox and each step goes in order, and there’s a reason for that, and they build upon each other, and the purpose of the C.L.E.A.N.S.E. is not about getting rid of your emotions. It’s about getting rid of the reactions—I should say, releasing the reactions so that you can actually feel and transform the emotions that are being pressed down, suppressed, repressed by the ways that we have learned to react and that shows up in many ways.
It shows up in our thought patterns; it shows up in our beliefs; it shows up in our actions.

It can be so subtle that it can be sometimes difficult to pick up on your own, but once you clear the reactions, then what I find is that the emotions have the freedom to move.
As that occurs, they begin to become transformed into higher vibrational energy.

And then what happens is people can see patterns that perhaps they’ve had their entire life, and sometimes it’s a pattern that’s passed on through the family. So, in a nutshell, that is the intention behind the C.L.E.A.N.S.E. I just want to be clear—we’re not getting rid of emotions. In the Emotional Detox perspective, your emotions are extremely valuable.
In fact, I believe, they’re one of the most valuable parts of who we are.

The challenge is we’ve been trained to withhold them. We’ve been trained to confine them or to judge them.
We’ve even been trained to label them and when we’re busy labeling, they can’t be processed fully.

It’s like food. When we don’t digest our food, we’re not going to get the nutrients from the food. It’s the same thing when it comes to our emotions and this is proven on a scientific level. This isn’t just a random idea. You read the book. There’s some real Science behind this.

 

Mal: [00:04:58] So, first step, C.

 

Sherianna: What is it? So the first step is called “Clearing Reactivity”. So when I was researching the emotions, I really got interested in what’s called the vagus nerve, which has been out there.

 

I’ve seen a lot of different research on the importance of that nerve in the body, and it’s one of the longest-running nerves and it’s also a nerve that has a couple of chambers to it and so, one side of it can keep you in that fight or flight response while the other side can bring more ease in.

So the first step is actually learning how to tone that nerve and the reason being is when you do, you bring yourself into a state of processing. When someone feels that state—it’s a feeling, not a thought, ‘right? And it’s something that you learn how to do. Then you can move into the second step. And it’s an exploration.

I just worked with someone today. They didn’t even know they were going to do a C.L.E.A.N.S.E. with me. We actually were having a meeting, like kind of like this, but we were talking about something that we’re going to be doing some work together, and I said, “Well, you know, I think you ought to experience the C.L.E.A.N.S.E. before we move forward so that you get it”, because it’s one thing to read about it, it’s a whole another ballgame to actually go through it.

So we went through and he had no idea that was going to happen and he was like, “Whoa! That was… you’re right!” And so it’s… we’re so used to the talking model, right? That we have to process, like figuring it out or explaining or analyzing or trying to understand, and that first step is all about, “No, that’s not how we begin to process our feelings. It’s actually we have to learn to go to the body first”, and I use the toning the vagus nerve to do that, bringing reactivity down.

 

Mal: [00:07:25] Fabulous! So once we have tapped into what we’re feeling in our body and we know what’s in there and we’re not suppressing it, we’re feeling it, we’re allowing it… what do we do next?

 

Sherianna: So it’s really like, the first step, I call it like “preheating your oven”. So it’s just like you’re not going to bake something until that oven’s preheated. So you’re just going to think of it as preheating the body and it’s really a non-effort practice.

 

Once you get the feeling of what that is like, “Okay, I know when my body is ready to now bring something up”, because I think a lot of times, while having conversations with ourselves or with other people when they’re in reactivity. And when we have those conversations with them in reactivity, it’s like you get exhausted because, guess what, they don’t really take it all in, you know?

 

It’s no different than a child learning in school. If they don’t process the information, they’re not going to be able to recall it later and they’re not going to be able to take it out of that room and use it in everyday life. So it’s the same thing.

 

So that step two, then, begins to bring up what’s happening, but the way that we do that is a little different than in a normal dialogue. So then we bring up what is most present on your mind. What is happening closest to the here and the now that is coming up for me? And that’s the thing, it’s always happening for you, right? Like I know you are just not feeling well right now?

 

Mal: I had a bad cold, yeah.

 

Sherianna: I saw that. Well, it’s been a little bit now. You’ve been okay for a few days?

 

Mal: Yeah, I’m turning the corner.

 

Sherianna: You’re turning the corner. So that’s something that came up in your life that probably threw you off a little bit and so that might be something… you could either say, “Okay, I’m better and it’s time to move on now” or you can say, “Well, something came up in me to be healed.” To be processed, right?

 

And so, we’re so used to in our world of just, “Okay, I just got to cram and get better and move on to the next thing”, and I really believe that that’s what anxiety is all about and so I redefine it in this book that anxiety is an emotion that’s attempting to be processed but can’t because we won’t let it.

 

Mal: [00:10:40] And I love that definition because I think when we step over our emotions, it’s what causes us to be so anxious—comes up, bites us in the ass, makes it worst. Yes, it’s like a little dog nipping at your butt. Yup.

 

Sherianna: I mean, yeah, you get slammed with a cold or you have a sudden, you know, something happened in the family. We can’t control a lot of things that happen, right? But what we can do is say, “Okay, something is happening for me right here.”

 

Some emotions are looking to be processed that happen to be surfacing through this, you know, being sick or being in the situation or having this thing to deal with in my life. Let me take a moment and actually feel and process what’s happening and the go from there. And then you’ll discover, “Oh my gosh! That was exactly what I needed to move to the next thing.”

 

So that’s what the “Looking Inward” statement’s about. It’s about, “Okay, being sick this week,” and then taking that statement and doing it away with the C.L.E.A.N.S.E. and taking a moment to process that allows all of the reactions to come up. Very often, the reactions are the ways that you coped, right?

 

Sometimes we cope by running to the doctor, you know. Or we cope by popping pills, you know, medication. Or who knows? I mean, we have all ways that we cope when our life goes off-kilter but very often, the ways that we cope are actually the same thing that’s keeping the emotions from being processed.

 

Mal: [00:12:53] I used alcohol and you’re absolutely spot on! Yup. And the more I drink, the less I felt. I didn’t have to process anything. So I get it.

 

Okay, so now, we’ve done that looking in and figuring out what’s going on, we’re very present with what we’re feeling. Let’s talk about “Emit”.

 

Sherianna: Okay, so Emit is the third step. The Emit is…so how the Emit came to be is I wrote a book on mantras so I studied mantras for a long time. I had very solid mantra practice while I was writing Mantras Made Easy. I also had been teaching yoga for 18 years, so I’ve been very just around the whole energy of mantra.

 

I absolutely knew, after Mantras Made Easy, when I wrote the first Emotional Detox and then the Anxiety book, there’s no question in my mind that there would be sound integrated.

 

So a mantra is a sound or a syllable or word that’s vocalized and repeated. And so, in the Emit, I selected a mantra that we all do and we did when we were born and that is we hum, right? And it’s such innate, it crosses cultures and so that producing sound is the next step once you pull up the Looking Inward and then you go into the Emit, and then you move in to step 4.

 

[00:14:43] Yeah, which is, so then step 4 is the Activate step and that is when now you’re sort of turning the corner at this point because… and this is why at some part in this process is in order because what I’ve found in working with clients over the years—you’ve probably found this, Mal—is you work with someone, they feel better, and then all of a sudden they’re like, “Oh, yeah, but I want to tell you about my sister and what she did to me last week”, right? And you’re like, there’s five minutes left to the session here, and you want to go back? Right?

 

So I knew it had to be more than three steps. It has to be all seven steps and once you get to know them and you get familiar, it becomes a 5-minute practice. And so, when you turn that corner, it’s like you got to hold that road; if your car’s on the road, you want to stay focused in this process because that visualization piece is about… Activate is about really starting to see how your like, what it is that you’re creating in your life as you release this.

 

And then naturally moves into the nourishing phase, which is the “N”, and that is really cultivating this new higher vibrations in your life and there’s also tools for that. There are specific tools in your daily practice and then there’s ways to expand that in your daily life. So it’s a little bit of both.

 

And then the surrender step is the “S”.

 

Mal: My favorite.

 

Sherianna: Which is, yeah, and that’s really like you have to choose it. You know you’ve been through recovery. You have to want it. You have to claim it. It’s there for everybody. And everybody, it’s there, but you’re the one who has to have that say, “yes I am choosing this.” There’s a statement for that and then that transforms into the final step, which is E, which is really the becoming. So that is when you are it. It’s no longer separate from you and that’s the process.

 

Mal: [00:17:08] Every single one of these steps had such wonderful exercises, applications, and I love all the charts. This one on the surrender about, you know, writing and allowing statement, I just thought was brilliant. Matter of fact, I’ve photocopied it. I’ve kind of keep it in my planner so if I find myself in fixing mode, which, you know, I’m famous for, I allow peacemaking, I allow content, I allow calm, okay?

 

I mean, just wonderful, wonderful exercises and beautiful process and direction on how to deal with something. But hey, let’s face it, how many people suffer from anxiety?

 

Sherianna: Yeah.

 

Mal: Most of us, at one time or another.

 

Sherianna: [00:18:06] Right and I think what it is it really gets its definition from, if you find yourself waking up with it. So, I mean, we have stress, which we all have. Stress typically, there’s a reason, right? I have a deadline or I’ve missed an appointment or even I don’t feel well, you know. There’s a reason.

 

With anxiety, there doesn’t have to be a reason and I think that’s what we’re seeing more and more. Never before do we have so much. Everybody has so much, right? But yeah, we’re more anxious than ever before and we just keep upgrading, like, to the next thing and the next cellphone and so that’s true anxiety. When you wake up in the morning and you’re like, “I know I have a pretty good life but why am I so worried? Why do I dread stuff? Why do I not feel like myself? Why am I nervous?”

 

And then there’s a lot of relationship things that happen. So I think anxiety is pretty pervasive and if you don’t have it, then you’re probably living with someone that does or you’re around someone that has anxiety or just being in the world.

 

So what I love about the C.L.E.A.N.S.E. is it’s not just about us because I really believe that true healing means… true healing is when it benefits me and it benefits other people, ‘right? So I believe when we process our emotions, and that’s the second half of the book, it’s about manifesting. It’s that it really is the creative vibration; it works the laws of the universe for manifesting in the space of non-effort.

 

And I didn’t set out to write a book about manifesting. I just was teaching the tools and then watching things shift for people. It’s amazing and they’ve shifted for me and they’ve shifted for… I’m having conversations with clients. They’re like having career changes and their relationships are straightening out. They didn’t even come to me for that, but amazing really.

 

I mean, one of my clients just got picked up by Hay House the other for a book. She didn’t set out to write a book.

 

Mal: Wow!

 

Sherianna: Yeah. We’ve been working together. I’m like, are you freakin’ kidding me? I’m so excited, like, she didn’t even write a proposal.

 

Mal: So, in this time of working, all of a sudden she just writes a book?

 

Sherianna: She said, “Guess what? I have some news!” She’s at the right place at the right time with the right person, and it just surfaced and they just said, “You know a lot!” And it comes out for you really easily and, how would you like to write a book?

 

Mal: Wow!

 

Sherianna: Oh, yeah, this is… I’m like, you’ve got to be kidding me! This is the stuff… it’s funny, people show up usually in my world with anxiety but I know, I know that this is only the beginning for them. They’re thinking they just want to feel better and I’m excited to see where this could go because it really is the way that we manifest if we use all seven steps.

 

Mal: [00:22:07] Love it! Love it! Now, this isn’t out yet. It’s coming out in December. So, tell the audience how they can pre-order and then the yummies that you have that go with it.

 

Sherianna: So, Mal’s going to post the pre-order link for you and that is a link that is actually from the publisher, it’s not from me, and that will give you a download.

 

So we created a video download of me going over the five best practices for beginning an anxiety detox and so, what’s nice about it is, you know, so often, like, you get a book or you want to start something new, but then it’s like, “Okay, I have it. Now where do I begin?” Well, the download is going to tell you. This is where you need to begin. So when you get the book, and you get it instantly, you don’t have to wait until December. And then you can watch it as many times as you need to, but it really share a little bit about how I do this in a daily practice. So that’s the prize.

 

Mal: Wow, that’s wonderful! Wonderful! And again, you’re going to be in Kripalu in January.

 

Sherianna: Yeah, January 30th, which is a weekend. Yeah.

 

Mal: Nice. And you’ll be doing a 3-day event?

 

Sherianna: I’m doing three days which is… so I’ve been to Kripalu before and I decided because I wanted to make it so that people could come back so we’re doing three days of just getting to know the basic plans. I also put the C.L.E.A.N.S.E. into the yoga practice so we will C.L.E.A.N.S.E. while we’re practicing yoga and we will C.L.E.A.N.S.E. the steps and you’ll get, by the end of those… really 2 ½ days by the time.

 

You will know, inside and out, the formula and how to apply it in your daily life. If you want to continue to the 5-day retreat, which is I’m just staying—everyone can stay for a couple more days—we’re going to get into other uses of the plans because I use it as a healing modality and also other things that come up.

 

I just, like for example, I have the C.L.E.A.N.S.E. for grief, specifically for grief that I’ve written out that works for people who are really in deep grief. And that’s… it’s the same steps but I add a little twist to it, that’s all.

 

And there’s lots of variations and ways that you can explore the C.L.E.A.N.S.E. So that’s the 5-dayer.

 

Mal: Nice. I’d love to maybe have you back on to talk about grief because more and more women in my age bracket are losing husbands to illness and I did a speaking event this past Wednesday at a senior center and at least one-third of the women that were there were widowed. They were angry that their partner had died and left them. They were feeling heartbroken and they were having a very difficult time on processing their feelings and dealing with the loss. So it’s a much needed topic.

 

Sherianna: It is and it’s also natural. I mean, these are all natural things that happen in our lives and I think our emotions are just a natural way for us to explore that and yeah, I’d be happy to talk about grief and that is something I find where people really need some support.

 

Mal: Well, it’s been wonderful to see you again and to do this. And again, here it is, Emotional Detox for Anxiety, ready for the holidays! I’m so glad I’ve read my copy early. I feel like I’m armored and ready to go out there.

 

Sherianna: I got to get you the final. You have the advanced version, but I’m going to give you the final because some of the quotes are new.

 

Mal: Oh, thank you.

 

Sherianna: I changed some things around so I will make sure you get the brand new one.

 

Mal: Thank you so much! And again, your website, just give the domain name.

 

Sherianna: Oh, it’s Sherianna, my full name, it’s S-H-E-R-I-A-N-N-A, Boyle, B-O-Y-L-E, (dot)com (SheriannaBoyle.com), and yeah, they can go to my website, subscribe and you’ll see all the retreats there and the Portugal retreats and everything. If you want to come, Mal, to Portugal.

 

Mal: Oh, I’d love to. You know, I’m going to be moving so my house goes on the market in April and I hope to be in California in new digs by July 1st. Talk about anxiety and I’m sure they’ll be like, “Whoa!” But, yeah, so I’m going to be a little bit on overload. But that sounds so wonderful!

 

Sherianna: Yeah.

 

Mal: Whenever I travel, I’m always doing a class.

 

Sherianna: So, we’re going to be cleansing the whole time. We’re just like, “Alright, come us, guys. Stop and C.L.E.A.N.S.E.”

 

Mal: Awesome, awesome!

 

Sherianna: “Okay, here we are!” It’ll be great.

 

Mal: Awesome! It sounds wonderful, so thank you!

 

Sherianna: You’re welcome! Thank you. Thanks for all your support.

 

Mal: Oh, happy to do it. You’re very talented—author, coach, psychologist. You got it going on, girl! Keep it up.

 

Sherianna: Thank you. Bye.

 

Mal: Bye.

SHOW NOTES:

 

[00:05:00] Introduction of guest, Sherianna Boyle, author of Emotional Detox for Anxiety.

 

[00:02:26] Introduction to the book and the C.L.E.A.N.S.E. program.

 

[00:04:58] The first step to the C.L.E.A.N.S.E. Method—C for Clearing Reactivity.

 

[00:07:25] The second step to the C.L.E.A.N.S.E. Method—L for Looking Inward.

 

[00:12:53] The third step to the C.L.E.A.N.S.E. Method—E for Emit.

 

[00:14:43] The rest of the CLEANSE Method—A, N, S, E.

 

[00:18:06] Differentiating “Stress” versus “Anxiety”.