Awakening Divine Wildness Podcast

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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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.

Subscribe & Review Awakening Divine Wildness

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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.

Subscribe to Awakening Divine Wildness

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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 20^th.

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.

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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”.