Death/Dying, Energy, Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, Podcast, Spirituality |
Dr. Amirah Hall Part II | Quantum Energy Tools to Discover Your Divine Design
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
In this Part II episode with the previous guest, Dr. Amirah Hall, we dig deeper into the energetics of our life experience.
A near-death experience catapulted Amirah into a realm of energy work she had not anticipated finding herself doing. However, it’s also probably what saved her from herself. As she states in this episode, we tend to stand in our way.
Through a set of what she calls quantum energy tools, she developed a daily practice that is grounding and that initiates herself into the present moment. From a place of awareness, she shares a way that all of us can shed the parts of ourselves we’ve identified with that are not ourselves but an experience in our lives.
Amirah believes learning to manage our energy field is part of our purpose. She added that we need to remember the truth of who we are: we are light and energy.
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CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
Victoria Volk: Thank you for tuning in to grieving voices. I am excited that you’ve hit play on this episode because this is part two with Dr. Amirah Hall. If you have not listened to episode one, it was episode one fifty-five and it went live and was published on August fifteenth twenty twenty-three, in that episode she talks about her experience of having an end of I’m an End life Doula, I had death on my mind I guess, a near-death experience while in Egypt and what that experience was like for her. But in this episode, I kind of wanted to dig into a little bit more about how the gift presented itself in her life and what that experience was like. And the skeptics that probably came along with that and probably the grief too of realizing yet you have this gift and what do you do with it? How do you use it for the good of humanity? And the impact it probably had on her life as well. Also, we’re gonna talk about some spiritual practices that all of us can do to sharpen our tool of intuition and maybe some advice too for empaths are highly sensitive people who are really sensitive to their environment or subtle energies and things like that. So I’m really excited to dig in. We’re gonna also talk about something that happened on the previous episode. So if you haven’t listened you’ll want to go back to a specific part of that first episode with Dr. Amirah Hall, and we’ll dig into that too a little bit. But Here we go. Thank you for joining me, Dr. Amirah Hall. Welcome back.
Victoria Volk: Thank you so much. It’s a real pleasure.
Victoria Volk: Okay. Well, let’s just start off by saying in the last episode around thirty-seven minutes and fifty-five seconds in around that time, you started talking about your experience of coming across Deepak Chopra, who was very helpful on your journey as you talked about in the last episode. But when I was editing that episode, there was an audible male, very distinct male voice that said yes. And I want you to go back to that first episode. I left it in intentionally. I had a little teaser in the show notes, so I don’t know if you caught it, if you did listen to it, but now go back and check it out. And this really ties into the skepticism that there might be out in the world because I had my entire family listened to it. I think I listened to it a dozen times myself. I am a natural skeptic. It takes a lot to I want the proof. Right? I’m always looking for the truth and the proof I want evidence. And as I’ve been working on myself more and more over the years, more understanding of energy and subtle energies and how I mean, I went from believing that when you died, you went in the ground and that was it, as a child like that was my understanding of death to becoming an end of life doula, understanding that death can be this beautiful transition, that it can be something that you can choose how it happens and plays out with dignity. If you are blessed with giving that choice, not a lot not everybody is. Right? With terminal illness. You have a you have a say in that. My perspective of death is greatly changed. Put it that way. So when you started to realize that this was your gift around where were you in your life? And how did you respond to that first knowing or inkling?
Dr. Amirah Hall: Well, I don’t know that it was look, I’m very much like you, very skeptical and discerning. And even though I had been a seeker of truth and light or spirituality for a good part of my life, I was still extremely skeptical. And because there were so many far out ideas, I think being somewhat dis being discerning period is a good thing. I think it’s sort of a protective and a guide to help us. But there’s a certain point when what literally happened was I was a six figure income earner back in nineteen ninety eight. I was doing extremely well. I was in sales for a high-tech industry, selling a service contracts for backup emergency power equipment. And I was doing really, really well. But when I came back after my near-death experience, my whole world fell apart. I was depressed again. I was lost. I was losing friends. I was explaining some of the situations and experiences I had in Egypt. We’re very metaphysical, very mysterious like watching going by these granite statues and then seeing one of them wink at you or watching a hand raise, their arms are straight by their side. And I literally saw like the hand lifted as if to wave at me while I was going that by. And I wasn’t the only one that saw it like, I would my mouth would drop and I would just literally go, like my eyes wide open. Did I just see that? Yes. And look to my left or my right and other people saw it too. And you’re like, well, that was our validation in the moment that we weren’t losing our minds. And so many mysterious things happened to us in that journey. When I came back home, and I tried to explain some of these things. I mean, it just goes off deaf ears. Right? It’s just people like, yeah. Right. What were you guys smoking something over there? Or why do you think that was so? Or maybe you were dehydrated? So So all these we had prepared ourselves. We’ve been meditating. We had we’re so immersed into letting go, letting go of our perception of what we think we know is true or not. I had no preconceived ideas of a granite statute waving at me. It was beyond my scope of possibilities. And so that that started everything. But then when I would interview, okay, so my life fell apart, lost my friends, quit my hobbies, I just wasn’t the same. I knew something was diaphragmatically different after my NDE. But when I started feeling somewhat better, I started interviewing. And going to a company and I’d get to the third interview thinking, okay, I got this it’s a slam dunk. Right? They didn’t hire me. And it happened three times where I get to the third interview, and then they didn’t take me on. So that was a critical moment for me and I remember the thought. Okay. I surrender. Now what? Now what? And I had been starting a process of learning how to release energy blocks that was my form of healing. When I found a healer that said to me, oh, you’ve got stuck energy. I went, great. Give me a path, give me a solution, give me the ABCs, one, two, three, whatever, I will do it. And that where I started. So I started feeling really good and started going back on my track, but universe shut me down. And like I said, I had no intention of doing this work professionally. And so I started to, I think it would I don’t even know if it was a realization that it was a gift. I didn’t think of it as a gift. I just knew it was now my purpose because what I’ve come to believe in training thousands of people over the last two decades is that everybody has the abilities. I don’t know that they’re gifts. I think it’s just a matter of us developing like, we can all learn to speak English. We can go learn French too. We can learn to write. We can some people learn to write poetry, and they start immediately, they’re good at it. But as they develop, it gets better and better and better. Same thing with a sculpture. We could all go learn the club take the class, but you might be exceptional at it. I might suck. Right? Or mine are pretty rugged. So we could all develop these abilities because they’re deep within us they like a statue, literally, we have to start carving and shedding the outer layers to reveal the inner beauty. It’s all there. I believe that our creator so magnificent has input us with this, let’s call it a software, let’s call it a divine design, and it’s there for us to discover. And so all of our journey is here to explore and to reveal that inner light, that power, that ability to shine or redirect in whatever capacity we’re ready or want to discover.
Victoria Volk: I mean, there’s a lot of people listening who can resonate and relate to their life falling apart and who have not had a near-death experience.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Right?
Victoria Volk: And so when you are in that lowest of lows, what are some suggestions for people to start to maybe open themselves up spiritually? Because I think what happens is, especially with grief, trauma, things like that, like we become spiritually thirsty. It Yes. Our spiritual life greatly suffers because we start to shut down, we start to, we don’t see ourselves clearly. We don’t see other people clearly. It’s almost like we’re zombies in our own life experience. You just going with emotions and on autopilot.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Yeah. I refer to that as walking in the land of paper dolls, sleepwalking. I was just going through the motions. And, yeah, life is bitter, ugly, flat, two dimensional and we become apathetic. We become detached. We are angry. We are angry and well depressed is sort of a broad extension or description of all the feelings, but lackluster unmotivated, just not given a shit how about anything or anybody? And it’s a deep-rooted anger and fear. So for me when I lost interest in my hobbies and my artwork, I was creating jewelry at the time. And I had built a business in selling internationally. And I just didn’t care anymore. Those were my signs. And I think when you’re that low for me, it got to a point where I didn’t have any family nearby. My family didn’t really get it what I was going through they were really detached also, they were in Canada. So I didn’t have a big support group at all. And so it came down to, I guess, a switch in my head like, if I’m gonna survive, I’m gonna have to do whatever it takes. And none of the other possibilities or what was presented to me, maybe it was I wasn’t suppose, remember this was back in nineteen ninety-eight.
Dr. Amirah Hall: So now we’ve got this plethora of resources. And that can also be overwhelming. I think it’s to the opposite extreme. Right? But I sort of plunked around until something resonated and that for me was energy work. Now when people say energy work today, it’s not the same. I know there’s a lot of energy workers listening to this, but hardening being sort of the old krona on the block here, I would say that a lot of people really haven’t done their work. That’s what I’m witnessing. They haven’t done the true deep work because they didn’t have a system that they could rely on consistently and or having a mentor that would stretch them, reach them beyond what that limit or that ceiling that they can’t see their subconscious mind.
Dr. Amirah Hall: So the tools that I learned were really about me surviving. It was just about me doing something different because I couldn’t take the pain anymore. And sometimes we just have to get to that breaking point of just going, I can’t effint take this anymore. I’m just done. So it’s either die, completely let yourself sink into that deepest abyss possible or okay, I’m gonna kick like if you’re being pulled in a current riptide, you just all of a sudden go, I’m gonna kick bloody hell. I am gonna kick so hard I’m gonna move out of this. And the tools that I teach, I call them quantum energy tools. They’re simple guided visualizations. And quite honestly, I didn’t believe in them when I started. But I’m just like, what the hell I got through? Yeah. I got nothing else here, so I’m gonna go for it. And I created these tools that I used to this day, myself, every single day, and all my students and all my trainings and all of the profound transformations that I’ve witnessed have been based on these basic principles. And the number one thing, whether you mentioned empaths, you mentioned sensitive people, you mentioned depressed people, you mentioned anybody that’s sick, we don’t know how to ground. Nobody taught us how to ground. Every device you buy now has three prongs on it. Right? The electrical appliances. The third prong is a grounding wire. Why? Because if there’s a surge of energy, if there’s a surge of something, it will not mow up your device. But we get served or bombarded all day long and we have no way to discharge. It gets stuck in what we don’t even understand is what I call the energy field, the aura. And some people think they know what it is. They say they wanna see it. Well, what? Why? If you see it, the reason is not to see, oh, you’ve got a happy life learning how to manage our energy field I believe is part of our purpose. All of us is as we remember the truth of who we are, it’s that you’re light, you are energy, and this energy is continually moving for anybody that says put up that white light around your or I’m gonna say. You know, to that, it because it’s almost like hitting the pause button on your remote control. It freezes everything. It slows everything down so nothing can move. The idea here is that we want to keep our energy moving. We want to release the block so back to grounding. So that’s the very first thing I teach based on so there’s all these devices now. I call them shiny objects you can go and you can, why the grounding mat and you put it under you while you’re working and you go or go out urthing as they say walking in the grass. Okay there may be some validity to that because I know I sure feel good when I go in nature and just let go. What do we do? Right? We just let go. Why? What is it about that energy that just helps us?
Dr. Amirah Hall: So I visualize from the base of my spine, I attach a cord. I like to imagine a laser beam or even a USB cord or a wire, and I have a magnet at the base of my spine, and I have a magnet at the center of the earth. And that line just invisibly is drawn to the center of the earth. And then boom. So you can ground right here and now and so can I? And we can be more present. What that almost does is it almost brings in our energy field. So the problem with empaths, I call them out of control healers because their energy field is so far and so wide It’s filling up the whole house or the whole building or the whole world, and everybody else’s energy field steps into theirs.
Dr. Amirah Hall: So we’ve not been taught how to bring that energy field into, let’s say, arms length around us. And when it’s arms length around us, it’s much easier to manage. Right? I teach a symbol on the edge of my aura so that people think where Amirah is out there in that symbol. So anybody looking for me or their energy or they don’t like something I say or they do Either way, that energy goes into that symbol, not into my energy field. So it’s a decoy not a protective field because you’re an idiot if you think you can protect yourself from energy moving, idiotic belief system.
Victoria Volk: I’m so glad you mentioned that, and I have never heard that perspective, but it it absolutely clicks with me because what I’m learning just as of late because that is the message. Right? Like, especially in my reiki training that was the message I received was imagine this ball of golden light wrapped around you and protecting you and it’s partly intention. Right? If the intention makes you feel good, but it’s still not going to stop your energy field from rubbing up, bumping up against your environment because everything is energy. And we’re always communicating with our little antennas. Right?
Dr. Amirah Hall: Well, it’s naive at. Right? And as we’re growing up as humans and learning about the quantum field, science is expanding. Right? And it merging with spirituality. There’s something to be said about the golden light, and I use that too. However, it’s not gonna protect you. And it is it is a high when you can bring it into the physical body gold is the highest frequency that we can hold in the physical body for an extended amount of time. It’s probably not going to stay there forever. But even if it’s for a few minutes or even if you realign with that high frequency, it changes the dynamics of everything within. Right? So, but there’s no absolutes to any of this. And anybody that’s talks about, oh, bring in red light for the first chakra and orange, but that’s BS too.
Dr. Amirah Hall. And here’s why I can say that is because I’ve got to how I really develop sense, a clairvoyant sense, but my third eye. So when I look at the energy of the second chakra, let’s say, our emotional center are empathic. We’re sucking it all up. Right? From everybody and everything. The news from I look at I’m picking up feelings and thoughts from people that are look there was a friend of mine in California, and I reached out to her I said, hey, is everything going okay with you? And she goes, oh, yeah. I’ve been thinking about you for the last couple weeks. Should we set up a. So I was feeling it. Right? So I reach out to her because her energy at some level was creeping in and finding a plug in to me because she wanted to communicate with me. So I hate people like that. I just wish they’d pick up the phone or I wish they’d send a text. Right?
Dr. Amirah Hall: But then I do that with my students too. I’m like, okay, I’m not sure who this is, so I start reaching out to everybody. Back to the second chakra, when when I look at any of the energy fields, I see wheels within wheels of spinning light. And the best way I can describe that is it looks to me like a kaleidoscope. Have you ever seen a kaleidoscope? Mhmm. So they’re moving. The patterns are always changing. The colors are always changing. Right? So how in god’s name can orange be the color to bring that into harmony? You, Victoria, might be needing to work on something that’s, let’s say, I don’t know. I mean, you’re looking for a recipe from your grandmother. There’s something with your grandmother that you’ve been feeling like you wanted to connect with or or demonstrate or resurrect. Right? Maybe a tradition. Well, it might be for you to bring that shocker into harmony might be a soft blue. Is blue to one of your favorite colors by the way?
Victoria Volk: It is my favorite color.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Because I see that. Yeah. So I just see that that’s more for you right now. Next week, it could be turquoise. It could be agreed. It could be a yellow. So as we evolve, as we resolve, and grow, and change, there’s other aspects to us that want some healing or looking for attention. And so those would be different colors that we might bring into that space to bring it into balance. Does that make sense how it works?
Victoria Volk: Absolutely. I mean, because you’re speaking my language of biofield tuning, which is using tuning forks in your energy field to, like, basically bring harmony through sound, to the energy field. And when you brought up the nature piece, I think what happens is our bodies become in sync. You know, it’s like those
Dr. Amirah Hall: We reverberate Yes. Up the vibes and they they help us they’re literally grounded.
Victoria Volk: Calibrating us.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Yes. They’ve got roots. What do they do? They’re grounded.
Victoria Volk: Yeah?
Dr. Amirah Hall: So we’re trying to remember that part of us, I think, when we go to nature, because we are interconnected to everything. And so we need help with that as humans because we’re so much in our intellect. We’re so busy our mind is just and so we don’t know how to have that balance. The trees are great teachers to us. So grounding is the number one thing.
Dr. Amirah Hall: The biggest problem I find empaths have. Highly sensitive individuals is they’re not grounded. And so then we work through the process of one, second most important thing is clearing energy that’s not you. Because the simple truth is when you start releasing what you’re not, your mother’s beliefs, your dad’s beliefs, the family patterns, your your unconscious biases, or thoughts that you had that, let’s say, that white light could protect you. Right? All of those belief systems, when we start reducing those, minimizing those, all of a sudden, the true you, the true essence, and the true gifts can just shine bright.
Victoria Volk: I resonate with that because the opposite of releasing who you’re not is getting to know who you are. Is getting to know of yourself,
Dr. Amirah Hall: But it happens gently in the process of releasing what you’re not.
Victoria Volk: Right? And that’s why too, like, every session in biofuel tuning is so different. Like, this session is the same just like you said. It’s like, right, you know, this analogy of peeling back the onion, but let’s say the artichoke you know, it’s like yeah, pulling back an artichoke. It’s the same. Like, once you get to the heart.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Yeah. I’m chiseling away at a piece of wood to create a sculpture or concrete. Yeah. And so I think tuning forks are awesome I know in ancient history, ancient mystery schools, they used sound walls, they used bells, they used rattles, to help us, that energy. It sends like a ripple. What I use is a tool that I explode things in my mind. So it’s like a stick of dynamite in my mind. Let’s say, I feel like some pain in in my left leg. And gee, I never felt that pain before. What is that? All pain is stuck energy. Whether it’s mental pain, emotional, spiritual, or physical, stuck energy. And so to release that block, I just didn’t visualize. Blowing up a stick of dynamite or another simple. And that gently releases it out of my field. So in a very short amount of time, so what I’m doing in and so the beauty of your tuning forks is it’s taking away stuff we don’t know about. The beauty of getting conscious to knowing what we’re clearing I find is a step in raising our conscious awareness because it is about being conscious. Conscious healers. And the and the other thing is tuning forks aren’t always available. Singing bowels or bells and those things aren’t always available. So for me, I the work I do is teaching independence. And self reliance.
Victoria Volk: I love that. So aside from the stick of dynamite, besides rounding and things like that like, these mental it’s all it’s really just using your imagination that can help
Dr. Amirah Hall: And that is clearvoyance. Most people don’t realize that. They say to me, I wanna open up my third eye. You know, this is like the big buzz. Right? The truth of it is is you’re doing it all. But you’re not conscious to what you’re doing. And so all those thoughts that you’re creating your experience with. So when we start using visualization, which is using your inner eye, using your inner abilities to connect with what you might call imagination, that’s really the same thing. And so when we direct the energy, then we are empowering ourselves for healing.
Victoria Volk: Is meditation a piece of your work as well?
Dr. Amirah Hall: Again, there’s thousands and thousands of different types of meditation. All the work I realized my efforts ended up directing me to and the NDE showed me proved to me is that I’m an energy being. However, I’m being a human right now. And in this human experience in the three d lace, we need practical experiences. Our job is to stay present. We are not present. We are not grounded and are consciously aware of what we’re doing from minute to minute. Have you ever been driving down the road and missed your exit?
Victoria Volk: Just happened the other day I was driving. I had to go somewhere and just totally just kept on driving.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Yeah. Have you opened an Amazon package and threw the thing that you bought in the garbage and held the package in your hand?
Victoria Volk: No, but I have looked for my cell phone when it’s been in my back pocket.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Have you ever cleaned off your dinner plate and thrown the fork right in the garbage with all the food, you know, stuff like that.
Victoria Volk: The mindless. Yep.
Dr. Amirah Hall: So that’s a moment where your spirit wasn’t present. You were to wear. You snapped out for just a nanosecond. In some cases driving past years and it was longer than that until you got back in your body and you realized, oh my god I’ve got now another five minutes because I gotta go back and forth. It’s learning how to be aware. Learning how to be present is the power of actual manifestation.
Victoria Volk: And I’m glad you mentioned that too, not just the manifestation piece, but because I can tie this to I can tie this to grief, I feel like I’m being called to in that when we are so emotionally wound up, and our energy is just bound up within us, it’s almost impossible to be present in that moment. And we can’t focus. You can’t concentrate. And so accidents more are more likely to happen. You’re more likely to get hurt or trip or fall or call the wrong person or weird stuff like that, but you don’t tie it to grief. You don’t tie it. Yeah.
Dr. Amirah Hall : And then the poor empath or a person that’s grieving, and then and the trauma is just building, and building and building and then you do, like, I did, you withdraw. Mhmm. And you stop really living and you stop we become a victim and blaming the big ugly world. But the truth is, it’s all us. It’s all us. Our creations.
Victoria Volk: And you know what? That’s empowering to know for anyone listening because you have the power to change it. That’s it.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Might not feel like it. Right? Believe me. It may it may not feel like it. I’ve been there where I’m like, oh, god. I just don’t and I for a whole year, I just barely dragged my butt to the class. And I sat there thinking, I’m seeing black. I’m not doing anything. And then all of a sudden, it was like the lights turned on. I was my own biggest enemy, and I was resistant in a lot of different ways. In ways that I didn’t even know I was, I wasn’t intentionally trying to be resistant. But that, you know, family programming and anger and fear and doubt were layer and layer and layer that just kept me living small. And it really was only just the last couple of years that I I mean, because of, I guess, so many things have changed in technology, and I guess I got sick and tired of seeing these charlatans and fraudsters out there professing lies to people and nontruth about this work and the truth behind being an impact that you don’t have to be use that as your crutch. I am an empath. I’m probably the biggest out of control healer. Right? It’s not something that you can unlearn and I don’t mean not to be compassionate. I mean learning how your energy is interfering in somebody else’s healing and you don’t even know it. You know, we, as empaths, we’re typically healers, wanna help people, wanna see everybody do better. Right? And feel good. But what makes me think that my energies actually gonna heal them. It’s a lie because that person’s energy needs to be their energy in their body and that needs to be refined so it can heal itself. It’s different than Amira’s energy. In fact, my energy and many of my students we always do an exercise of separating energies when we finish the class. Because energy between you and I is exchanging, even if you’re thousands of miles away. Anybody listening is probably feeling my energy.
Dr. Amirah Hall: So after this, I will be bringing my energy back. And so the same is true with all my clients is I give them their energy back as there’s an exchange. So the idea as we progress is we build a more condensed sphere of our own frequency. Within the body and outside the body when it becomes more condensed and more higher percentage of uniquely you and your spirit, I mean, the world of possibilities just becomes infinite.
Victoria Volk: So what does that look like? Is it another visualization of almost like this bringing in of, like well, again, myself?
Dr. Amirah Hall: A healthy aura is about arms length around. So it is part of that process, but it’s a process of that I take people through is clearing the chakras as well as clearing the layers of the aura and all so just a continual amount of clearing becoming more aware. Clearing becoming more aware. We become more brighter. Look at our body. When we’re feeling good, We smile at people. We give gifts. We just are more generous and more creative and more flexible and more you know, letting the guy get out of, you know, of the parking lot before you and sit, we’re just more patient than laughing. So I don’t think after we do that, there’s much to do. It’s just enjoying what things light us up.
Victoria Volk: I’m curious if you’re familiar at all with human design.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Somewhat. Yes. I haven’t explored it extensively. I’ve got some friends that have done it. Yeah.
Victoria Volk: I’ve been recently diving a little deep. And I dabbled in the rabbit hole over a year ago, and I’ve recently, I don’t know, timing I suppose and it’s really connecting with me. But what I’m learning though I’m a manifestor energy type for human design. And we have this repelling manifestors have this repelling closed aura and when I first learned about that, it was kinda like, oh, well, people just don’t like me, you know, and the thing is, I don’t see like, I’m within my closed my own aura. I’m within my own closed aura. But it’s not that I’m repelling people. It’s that my energy, either you’re ready to receive it or you’re not, and then there’s something there’s a this energetic exchange. Right? Like, it’s too big or too much for you at this time, but maybe in the future it won’t be. And I’m trying to find how this connects to the energy work that I already do, the energy work that I do, and just really starting to explore that. And I was just curious if you had any insight into that or if that’s.
Dr. Amirah Hall: What I find is I really appreciate your intellect, and I really think it’s a great skill. However, I feel like most of us and I find I get sucked down rabbit holes too, and I like to think I’m intellectual, but I’m not. I don’t know. By the way, meditation, I think, sharpens our intellect, and our sharpen our just ability to know things. They resonate. But I feel like the problem that in the west is that we are over-intellectual. And the problem with energy once you define it and quantum physics has explained this. Right? Mhmm. If you if you define something, it becomes that. So I don’t like to define and say you’re a manifestor. What manifestation to me is everybody is a manifestor, first of all.
Victoria Volk: Oh, yeah. We’re always manifesting.
Dr. Amirah Hall: When somebody locks in a description and says that you’re this, oh, really? I mean, I can prove that different. I can prove that by clearing certain aspects within your space, all of a sudden you redefine yourself, then what? How does their theory or their protocol hold up with that? I don’t believe that we can lock ourselves into an absolute box. I reject those. A repulsive to me because that’s not the nature of energy. As his energetic beings were continually evolving. And so for right now, you might be that. That’s fine. However, if you find that your energy field is repelling people or opportunities or insights or inspiration, then it’s time to shift that, so that it’s not. And that’s all. So I don’t wanna define you that way. Does that make sense to you? Mhmm. Are you a Virgo?
Victoria Volk: I’m a Pisces.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Okay. So then your very nature of Pisces is you’re just swimming in and swimming out and trying to explore and Pisces has a very difficult time with boundaries. They don’t wanna be pinned in. Right? And so I just Yeah I think defining it is actually limiting us. Because I see and know that there’s just such infinite possibilities. I mean, we could really go down some rabbit holes, Victoria. But, I mean, imagine if that was just one dimension and one aspects to you and then other lives, you’re completely different. So how about if we merge all of those aspects together and be the most resourceful, integrated, aligned, present, incredible, abundant, beautiful soul in the present.
Victoria Volk: That’s what I’m working on.
Dr. Amirah Hall: That’s awesome. That’s really awesome. But it’s not in your head. This is the mistake that everybody makes. This is not in your head. The work does not occur there.
Victoria Volk: Oh, absolutely. I totally agree. I actually had a client be like after she worked with me through her grief stuff, in the grief work that I do, she was like people always say, you have to do the work. You have to do the work. And she was like, what’s the work?
She’s like, now I know what the work is.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Yeah.
Victoria Volk: It’s the real
Dr. Amirah Hall: You’re in the crowd.
Victoria Volk: Difficult stuff. Yeah.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Well, it doesn’t have to be difficult.
Victoria Volk: That’s the but the most difficult times in your life, like really looking at them.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Well, and there’s a difference between looking at them or going to talk therapy and you talk till your face is blue about something. I don’t like that. I like honestly, I’m a quick down and dirty kind of girl. I like, you know, give it to me bottom line. Give it to me simple. And let’s get the results fast. That’s kinda how I operate. And that’s why I created these tools that I use is because they do the job. Now let’s get on to having the good stuff. You know? It’s like, hurry up. I don’t wanna I don’t wanna keep living it. I don’t wanna keep rehearsing it. Because the more we talk about it, the more we anchor it, and we’re just connecting with a memory from a plastic experience that’s got an emotional charge to it.
Dr. Amirah Hall: So what if we could just have a magic wand or a stick a dynamite blow that crap up? And then start living the space that we really are. And honestly, I think that’s the biggest adjustment is when we start realizing all the baggage that we’re hauling around isn’t us. We’ve identified with it, but it’s not really who you are. Who who? Now we’re on to it.
Victoria Volk: Well, and then we take on the emotions and then that adjusts our behavior and then those behaviors. Yeah. The heat and then it’s just more grief and more
Dr. Amirah Hall: Well, that’s just how I am and this is who I am, so you have to accept me. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. None of that is true. It’s all a lie. And so, some people are probably rolling their eyes right now and some people are going, I get it. And so we get to we are creating our destiny. We are creating in this moment your present time energy field, whatever it’s consisting I’m holding on to known and unknown that’s conscious and unconscious beliefs and memories and experiences. All of that is creating your future.
Dr. Amirah Hall: So if we create a simple way to start releasing what you are not, because you’re just memories, you will still have the thought of an experience sometimes. Sometimes even some of the memories kind of fade away. And then you have more freedom, more energetic space to focus on what you do want to create. That’s what’s coming into the work. That’s becoming conscious creators, which I believe humanity is being primed for. When we talk about waking up, that’s coming to the awakening moment that we are creating our reality.
Victoria Volk: So what do you see coming up for all of us as a collective in the next year?
Dr. Amirah Hall: So that’s interesting that you would say that. I tuned into a couple guys on YouTube and, honestly, recently, I haven’t tuned into anybody because I don’t want to hear. There’s a lot of doom and gloom. Okay? And I do believe there’s I think there’s a lot of people that wanna suffer. And there’s a lot of people that wanna create more scarcity. I’m on the other end of the spectrum and you can call me idealistic or pollyanna or whatever you want. But, hey, when the economy went to shit in California the worldwide. Right? California was so depressed. And people were losing their houses and their jobs, and I just couldn’t take it. I bailed and I went to Dubai for five years. Now, I say, bailed. Listen. I sold my house. I sold everything and put what was left in a five by five foot storage unit. I went with one way ticket. I didn’t even research Dubai because it was well, it was in twenty ten, but I didn’t research it. I knew one person, and I ended up working with members of the royal family. I ended up working in five-star spas because I didn’t know anybody so I needed to make and build a following. And, honestly, there were times that I would crawl, you know, curl up in a ball and cry at night thinking I was an absolute fool. Because I didn’t know where my next client was gonna come from. And I depended completely on the work I do.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Yes, I was afraid at times. But I also knew that was my point where I needed to be, and it turned out incredible. I learned so much. I explored so much. It was in a grand adventure. I learned so much from the Muslim people and their true beliefs and religion. Know they believe in this energy work. They talk about the gin, these unseen beings in their in their religion. They don’t talk openly too much about it because they don’t wanna call them up or conjure them in. Right? And so I just look, you know, I just have an adventurous part to my spirit. So for me to be around that culture and just to let go and be around incredible wealth, to just drink it, just like going to the forest. Right? You feel and plug into the trees. That’s what Dubai was for me is plugging into that. So when I look at scarcity versus sufficiency, I remember that, right, experience. I’ve just threw myself out there. I put every part of myself out there. And I more than survived. I thrived.
Victoria Volk: It’s interesting. Oh, I’m sorry.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Go ahead.
Victoria Volk: Yeah. It’s interesting you bring that up too because this human design rabbit hole I’ve been going down the aspect of environment really is an important piece of it because when you aren’t aligned with the environment that is conducive to you thriving, you can struggle. And so Yeah. Our environment plays a huge role. I mean, if we’re surrounded by stuff and just piles and junk and I mean, what does that I mean, I’ve always believed that the quarters, you know, it’s a reflection of what’s going on internally. I’ve always believed that, you know, change your environment
Dr. Amirah Hall: Yep.
Victoria Volk: Change your environment, things like that
Dr. Amirah Hall: And change the people you hang out with.
Victoria Volk: That includes the people that you surround yourself with.
Dr. Amirah Hall: If you can’t change the people you’re with, then change the people you’re with. You know, certain resistances that people have, and they’re just not good for us as we grow and thrive. And there’s a lot of people that don’t wanna see somebody thrive. They’re more comfortable being in lack. And then they compare, I came from a family like that. They didn’t celebrate wins. They didn’t cheer me on. They’d rather drag me down. And there’s sometimes we have friends, sometimes it’s somebody that you thought was your best friend, but you start to wake up to the fact that they don’t really celebrate the things you do, then it’s time to find new friends. And the other thing is once we step into coming into our alignment, our true divine design, then we attract people that really effortlessly and very quickly to support us, get a giving us our answers or a new direction.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Dubai was never on my radar. And it was only a client that I had worked with in her life completely changed. She was a doctor in Chicago and everything completely radically changed and she went back to where she was born and which was Dubai. She said, the mirror you need to come to Dubai. And I said, why? Great. Find me somebody to help promote me and I’ll go in. See, I had an open mind. Mhmm. And through caution, I set up some steps that would be reasonable, practical. I went for two weeks. Came back with the two pockets full of cash. And when I love this, say who doesn’t. Right? And so I went, okay. I’m gone with no plan. And I’m a business major. Right? I had a business degree and I knew how to set things up practically, but it it just didn’t work like that for me. And so I think my whole life back to one of your earlier questions that I’ve been trusting my intuition, but it wasn’t validated. Like, I didn’t have an environment or family that would talk about any of these things. And I didn’t have a family that was risk takers. So but even trusting our intuition, like, I would need to go to the grocery store now for this. I don’t know why I could wait later, but no, I need now. Well, I might run into somebody that or or a situation, or maybe I’ve avoided an accident, or maybe I just picked up something and then somebody drops in and so I had it. So whatever those intuitive managers are, I learned to trust mine. They’ve always been with me. But I did close them down for a good part of my life. And depression, grief, trauma, all of those situations, we’ll shut that down. And all the work I do now is to help people thrive in whatever all capacities of their life and to be aligned with who they truly are because that’s that’s the true abundance. That’s the true gift of a lot. That’s our purpose to know who we are.
Victoria Volk: That’s a fantastic way to end this episode because I, one thousand percent agree, we are on the same mission of that, helping people understand themselves, get to know themselves. And lose all these aspects of ourselves that were put on us. Yeah. Whether through expectations or lack of boundaries as kids or these beliefs and patterns and all of those. So how can people work with you?
Dr. Amirah Hall: They can go to my website amirahhall.com and that’s Amirah A M I R A H and Hall H A L L. And I’ve got some free gifts on the website. You can chat with me and we can talk about your next step. I have a reset program that’s a great place to start. It’s a video training. And I also have a master class that’s available on my website that about energy. It’s called manifestation mastery. And, yeah, so there’s a number of things I’ve got a YouTube channel. I’m out and about. And so
Victoria Volk: Anything exciting new coming up or that you’re
Dr. Amirah Hall: I have a class coming up. It’s called intuitive superpowers. It’s a masterclass that’s coming up. But that’s Wednesday. That’s tomorrow.
Victoria Volk: Oh, shoot.
Dr. Amirah Hall: So that won’t work but goal to get on my newsletter and to get on to my list so that you can keep updated for any upcoming events other than that. Yeah, that’s the most current that I’ve got. I will be launching a six-month training, which is an in-depth development of not only your intuitive abilities, but your abilities to manifest. It involves the shock or healing. It involves the mastery it learn and developing the third eye, developing your corevoyant abilities and all your other spiritual abilities. So it’s a robust and mentoring program of six months. So that will be launched in October. So if you’re interested, reach out to me and we can see if that’s appropriate for you.
Victoria Volk: Awesome. Thank you so much for coming back and for doing this part two with me. I’m glad we got to dig into this the practical things that can help people move forward and anything energy stuff I love I love talking about all of this juicy stuff that really was not an aspect of my life up until maybe four years ago. So I’m still very much a newbie.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Well, congratulations. You’re doing amazing. You’re doing awesome work. And it’s such a delight to witness your you look to me like this beautiful flower that’s blooming right under the sun. It’s lovely.
Victoria Volk: Thank you so much. And thank you for being you and for doing the work that you do.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Thank you.
Victoria Volk: And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.
Childhood Grief, Divorce, Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, Growth, Healing, Mind/Body Wellness, Podcast, Spirituality, Where Are They Now? |
Phoebe Leona: Where Are They Now? | Magic in the Mess
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
This week, we catch up with previous Grieving Voices guest Phoebe Leona.
I had received a newsletter from Phoebe providing some updates that, I felt, would be a great episode to talk about the potential/impending loss of something she had built with love, sweat, tears, and probably plenty of finances, too.
Sometimes to grow and evolve, we need to close one door so another may open. Little did I expect that as this episode goes live, I feel we could record a third episode – stay tuned…
Back to this episode; this is for you if you are feeling stuck in a mess and having difficulty feeling the magic of the situation and your experience. As Phoebe shares in this episode: “When it is meant for you, you cannot mess it up.”
Be a fly on the wall of this conversation about growth, hard transitions, finding love again, and perhaps more importantly…finding yourself and the magic while in the mess. Or, as I like to say: the thick of the ick.
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Are you enjoying the podcast? Check out my bi-weekly newsletter, The Unleashed Letters.
CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
Victoria Volk: Thank you for tuning in to grieving voices. I’m so happy that you’ve pushed play on this episode. And today is a where are they now episode. And I’m following up with my previous guest Phoebe Leona, where we originally had our episode. The first episode were recorded, went live on March twenty-ninth twenty twenty-two. It’s episode ninety two. And it’s titled, I’m only grieving Fridays. And it was all about her experience of losing her father and how that was the catalyst for all of the change that she described in that episode. And now we’re back for Phoebe 3.0 because there’s been a lot of change in transition and a new evolution to Phoebe’s life that I came across because of her newsletter. If you don’t know, when people become guests on my podcast, I often tried to keep up with them and whether that’s on social media or their newsletter or I think a lot of my guests become friends. And so And I’ve always been the person that, like, loves to, where are they now? Right? Like, the eighties pop stars of the one-hit wonders. I’ve always looking up, like, wonder what happened to them, you know. So today is the I wonder what happened with Phoebe. So here she is ladies and gentlemen. TV, what brings you to the podcast? Actually, I asked you to come back on the podcast. So let’s get that great. But I would love to have you share with me what has transpired since we last recorded.
Phoebe Leona: Oh, yeah. Well, first of all, thank you so much for inviting me back, Victoria. It’s such a joy to be with you, and I was before we press record, we were thinking about when was it that we sat together. And I think also, since then, you came on my podcast, so that’s where I was getting my dates confused. Where are they now? Where is Phoebe Leona now? Before, I think you said March twenty twenty-two. So my book did come out. We did talk a bit about that and how is about to be burzed out into the world. So the book was launched April fourth, twenty twenty two. So it’s been officially out for more than a year now. And it’s my little baby. It’s out in the world doing its thing. I did a bit of a book tour. It was on many podcasts. I also created this live experience called the rating experience where I brought together because when I and I don’t know if I talked about this that day, but when I was called to write the book, I knew it wasn’t just going to be a book, I knew it was something that was multidimensional.
Phoebe Leona: So with the medium of having dance being a primary part of my life and also was part of the book too because I talk about how dance really saved me and was a huge healing modality for me as I was going through all of the trauma and all of the grief throughout my childhood and my adulthood when I was dealing with the loss of my father and my divorce. So I wanted to bring that element to life. So I created this thing called Radian Experience, where it was a book reading essentially, but I was also dancing and I also had a friend who’s palette who brought some of the letters that I write to the emotions. She wrote she read them. Out as a poem as I danced, and we had a painter painting live behind me on a beautiful canvas and a sound healer. Creating a soundscape for everybody to be in that space with me those moments of my childhood, those moments of grief, and my adulthood. So that was a really powerful experience and we’re playing around with what more we can do with that. What else has happened with dear radiant one, my little baby, was nominated for best spiritual memoir by own times. Just recently, which I’m very excited about. Yeah. Very excited about.
Phoebe Leona: Thank you. And like I said, I’m just letting it do its thing. And I did talk a bit about my company, NoMad, which was birth from all of that grief of twenty thirteen when I went through everything. I always let NoMad guide me and I follow the breadcrumbs to where what it wanted to do next. And that’s how I feel with all of my creations, including Dear Radian one of, okay, I gave birth it. I put up my heart and soul into it. And now what does it want to become now that it’s out into this world? So I’m sure there’s going to be maybe another 4.0 version.
Victoria Volk: Guaranteed.
Phoebe Leona: That I have no idea. I have absolutely no idea what that will look like, but I’m that’s why I love what I do because I just lean into that mystery of what it wants to it’s a true co-creation. And I love having that space and that deep trust for the creation to just whisper to me or maybe shout at me if I’m not really listening. To say, okay, this is what needs to happen now. And yeah.
Victoria Volk: Okay. So because you brought up co creation and I hear a lot of intuitive vibes in what you’re talking about. Can you share with people how you tapped into that personally and any advice that you would give to others to who may not be getting the message. And then what is that not getting the message play out like in real life. Right?
Phoebe Leona: Oh, I’m getting massive chills in my body. So this is a very good question, and I think we could dig deep into this. So intuition, everybody’s born with us, this idea of intuition. We have these clear abilities. And clairvoyance is one that I think a lot of people know to be, you know, the mediums or the psychics and they have visions. And we don’t necessarily need to tap into it and identify as a medium or a psychic. But we have these clear abilities, which means that we are able to sense the unseen world and have communication with our souls, desire, our guides, our angels, whatever you wanna identify with. I’m not going to label them for you. You can choose if you align with that or not. But there is some sort of sense. So when you just spoke to me, I got chills in my body. So this is a clearability of clear sentence.
Phoebe Leona: So my physical body is giving me or an emotional body as well was giving me signs like, oh, yes, lean into this. When you do meditations and you and you visualize, right, when somebody guides you through a visualization and you can actually see what your future could look like or where that scenario that person is guiding you to or maybe you just do it on your own. That is you tapping into that clairvoyance. So you can dive in deeper and do some research if this is a new idea too. But when we have these abilities to tapping to the unseen world. This is the tapping on the shoulder. Listen, this might be something here you. This is your yes. This is your no. This is that gut instinct. Right? We have even in our vocabulary of I just knew it in my gut. Right? Or you know
Victoria Volk: Spidey sense.
Phoebe Leona: Spidey sense. Right? We have this nomenclature for it in our worlds. And this is really us tapping into our intuition. Now my personal story with intuition was and I might have spoken about this when we sat down the last time I was super intuitive. I had this ability to sense the energy in my space changing that made me afraid to really use my intuition because what I thought was I was creating the scenarios. So my father being, you know, dealing with his PTSD, he would go into flashbacks, and I would actually sense the energy change when he was triggered. So before he physically acted it out in our worlds, in our reality that we were sharing, I felt it. And so when I felt that energy and then I saw it play out in my physical world, I thought, oh my god, I’m crazy, and this is a curse. So I share that because some people might not have had that dramatic story, but they might have had a conditioning. Right? A lot of times as children, we’re being conditioned to not feel these intuitive spider senses, as you said.
Phoebe Leona: We might feel very emotional because we’re in a situation that is unsafe, but our parents said, oh, that you shouldn’t be acting out right now. You can’t act your fears out or your anxiety out right now, so we had to clamp down on these emotions that are part of our intuition as well as children. So there is that looking at it as possibly that it was a curse or maybe it was just programmed out of you.
Phoebe Leona: And so I think it’s really important to know that it’s not a bad thing if you don’t know how to tap into your intuition. This might just be part of your story. And so if you’re curious to be more intuitive and lean into it, there are ways of getting there. And a lot of the work that I do with the somatic work, if that’s a word that nobody knows out there, it’s really just being in the body, it’s being embodied. Being able to tap into your physical body, the sensations that I said, the emotions that are coming through, not just getting lost in your head because a lot of times in our head. It’s, you know, not really truly in our reality. That’s not really our intuition. The messages that come through intuition are usually down in our heart space. And these messages come through as a very like, whenever I feel them come through, it’s just one word or a short phrase, and it’s usually like a heartbeat or like a metronome, like, yes, yes, you got this, might feel like a mantra to me. It is that gut sense. Right? It is that just you feel it in your body. If it’s all up in your head and it’s, oh, like, the squirrel cut, like, the dog and the squirrel. Like, the dog is just, oh, scroll there. Scroll there. Right? If that’s what your mind is doing or you’re getting on cancer, we’ll have all of these different thoughts. That’s not usually your intuition. Right? That’s you just kind of up there letting,
Victoria Volk: Anxiety.
Phoebe Leona: Anxiety. Yeah. Anxiety.
Victoria Volk: Stress,
Phoebe Leona: Ego, Fear, all of it run the show. So I feel that when we can start to really drop down into just listening not needing to know the answer, and that’s what I think happens a lot is something feels uncomfortable. How do we fix it? Right? Let me look at all the things and let me write out the to do list and let me take a class or look at YouTube or Google it and find, go outside of myself. To find the answer. But when we really can just drop down, take a few breaths, understand again, maybe tap into your clear abilities if you know what they are or work on focusing on how to strengthen those. And listen to what’s coming through, whether it is that visualization or whether it is that feeling in your body or whether it is maybe a sound, maybe there is an audio message that you receive or a sound, like sometimes I have ringing in my ears. So there are a lot of ways to listen to your intuition.
Victoria Volk: Repetitive numbers, signs, those two.
Phoebe Leona: Yeah. Yeah. The Angel numbers I see Angel numbers all the time, like, the seven sevens are always in my world.
Victoria Volk: Actually, I had two podcast episodes, recent ones back to back that were the exact same time. Oh, both episodes. And I’m like, oh my gosh. Did I upload the wrong episode? Yeah.
Phoebe Leona: At the end on that today? Oh,
Victoria Volk: Oh,
Victoria Volk: So how did all of this play into the version of yourself that you’re stepping into now?
Phoene Leona: Yeah.
Victoria Volk: I’ve closed a business. I know I know what that process is like and it’s heart wrenching. Yeah. It’s painfully. It’s a painful awareness because you know how much blood sweat and tears you poured into something.
Phoebe Leona: Yeah.
Victoria Volk: And I’ll just say, from my own perspective, what I’ve come to know is that everything is just a stepping stone.
Phoebe Leona: Yeah.
Victoria Volk: And I didn’t fail in that business. You know, when I closed it, people I know people thought people even asked me, oh, we couldn’t make it or whatever because where I live and what I was charging or what have you and a lot of ego thoughts I had and myself too, but really it was I had to close that door for something else to come in.
Phoebe Leona: Yeah.
Victoria Volk: And I wrote my book, and then I started another business that wasn’t the right business. And I had a one chance off conversation with friend who I was working with, and she’s like, you know, for this one business, for my website. And she’s like, you wrote a book, didn’t you, about grief? I’m like, yeah, why aren’t you helping people in their grief? And I was like, Okay. Captain obvious. Good question. And so it was a question. You know, we can’t see the label from inside the jar, and so that one conversation has landed me talking to you again for a second time. It’s you know, so we have these moments in our lives that are truly transformative. Are what do they call those moments? What do they call it? A moment that changes everything.
Phoebe Leona: Like a pivotal.
Victoria Volk: Like a pivotal
Victoria Volk: Yeah. — pivotal point.
Phoebe Leona: Yeah.
Victoria Volk: So what happened? It’s changed. And how did that come to be?
Phoebe Leona: Yeah. Okay. I feel like I wanna go back again because I didn’t fully answer your other question. So I wanna finish that, which will feed into that. And I also wanna bring other people up to speed because they didn’t talk too much about that part of what shifted for me in terms of nomad. So in terms of the intuition, what you had asked me is, what would it look like if you don’t listen to it? And that leads us into this question really.
Victoria Volk: Right.
Phoebe Leona: It’s basically I like to think of it as this child Right? You’re the mom or the father of a child saying, hey, like, just tapping on your shoulder. Like, hey, I need a little attention here. That’s your intuition going, hey, this might not be the best thing to do or go for it or whatever. And if you’re not listening to it, it gets louder and louder and louder until it’s like full on temper tantrum. So in the external world, that looks like, oh, there’s a challenge. Now we don’t sometimes we go, okay, I’m ready to step into this challenge or I’m going to ignore the challenge. Right? We make our choices there. But if it’s I don’t wanna call it the wrong choice. But if it’s the choice that our intuition is guiding us because it knows. Right? It’s our higher self. It’s our soul. It can see your life from a bird’s eye view, and it kinda comes back down into this reality. And it’s like, oh, that’s a good move. Oh, that’s not a good move. Right? So it’s understanding, learning how to trust it. And so that little child that’s tugging on you is going, go this direction. Go that direction. Right? Because you can see that bird’s eye view. But if you don’t listen to it, yes, more challenges, more obstacles come up, and it turns into that temper tantrum.
Phoebe Leona: So where I am with NoMad, that’s the company that I started because of the year of grief. I wanted to have power back because in that year, January, my father died. March, my husband of fifteen years, said, I wanna end our marriage. That started the domino effect of losing my home, my dog, my physical health was at stake because of all the stress. And then the one thing that was still there that I had was my job that wasn’t filling my soul at all. And it was a choice that I had made because of these other two people that were no longer in my life And so that was the one thing that I said, I wanna have control over this. I want to live in alignment with my soul’s purpose, which was to really create a space for people to have a sense of belonging and purpose. And what are the two things that I did at the time while I hot yoga, that was the modality, and I wanted to travel more. So we started NoMad from this place of wanting to feel empowered in my life again and have these other aspects of myself be, you know, fueled again. So I started a retreat-based business. That’s what NoMad was.
Phoebe Leona: And as I said at the very beginning with Dear Radiant, why don’t I just kind of when I create something, I follow the breadcrumbs. So Nomad has been not just a retreat based business where I taught yoga was the modality, but it’s evolved into another modality that I created, a somatic practice called Movement one o nine, that was one of the bread crumbs. It turned into local community events where we had two hundred people at the summer solstice bring coming together in my Hudson Valley community here in New York, it turned into me leading yoga teacher trainings. It also turned into having to go online when we’ve all went into lockdown and figuring that part of the world out. So it evbed and flowed and morphed and shape-shifted in so many different ways. And I just leaned in and they said, okay, what do you wanna do now, baby? Now when I started it, the other aspect that I wanted in that part was I just had this vision that it was going to be with my partner. Like, didn’t have a partner. But I said, if you build it, he will come.
Phoebe Leona: And he did it. I mean, I had a couple of relationships that it could have potentially turned into that, but they all fell apart. Because I was still going through my own grief am I, you know, recovering from my trauma. So a lot of those relationships as beautiful as they were, they triggered a lot, and they got me to evolve further by leaving them and then doing the inner work.
Phoebe Leona: So here I am almost ten years, I guess it’s we’ll be celebrating nine years this year of NoMad, still no partner, letting it kind of morph into things, but I’ve also taken all these other branches, like Movement one o nine, like my book, Dear Radiant One, which can fit under the umbrella of NoMad, but I was noticing that my community was under the umbrella of just NoMad was getting smaller and smaller. And I just could’ve, like, you know, like, square peg triangle or whatever that scene is, a square peg, round hole, whatever. I was just like, oh, no. Just oh, this is all, NoMad. But now I think that there’s something within what I’ve created there and I don’t quite know what it is yet. I don’t know if it’s a book.
I don’t know if it’s Movement one o nine. It might be a combination of both. It might be something completely new. I said in the I think I said in the email that you read. I’m sort of mushy. I’m in the chrysalis. So I’m just letting it morph into what it wants to become right now. But I am also grieving. Right? Here we are talking about our grieving hearts. I’m grieving because it is my baby. I put my hot blood, sweat, love, heart, soul, tears into it. And I’m kind of like, was that a waste of time? And it isn’t. Yeah. Absolutely not. And I really resonate with what you were saying about other people saying, you didn’t make it or you failed. And I don’t feel that. I feel I feel frustrated because I want Nomad to I want I see no I always see my creations as little babies. I’m like, I want my baby to see this world and really be the vision that we had together. So I’m letting go of that idea of NoMad might not get to do the things that we had envisioned together. So yeah. I’m hearing I’m getting a little teary. I didn’t show up. But I do have a deep sense of trust that something else is being born, and I just I have absolutely no idea what it is. And I have a feeling just sitting here talking to you right now, Victoria, that magic is happening.
Victoria Volk: I got full body goosebumps like I if you could see my chicken zips right now.
Phoebe Leona: You’re chicken. I love it. Yeah. I mean, it might just be and I invite this for anybody out there listening. It might just be that you would you just spark something within me hearing your words. That an idea will come out whether it’s just I walk away from that and go, oh, actually, there’s some insight that I hadn’t seen yet. You’re a mirror for me. It might be that you and I are gonna get off of this and go, oh, wait, what about this and this and this and we collaborate or you connect me with somebody or there might be somebody listening here and go don’t let Nomad, go to bed. I love what you’re doing. Did they reach out to me or somebody else, you know, is inspired by our conversation and they go make a big life shift? Right? It doesn’t have to be related directly to me. It might be that somebody out there listening is going, oh, I’m going to listen to my intuition and yes, I need to leave that romantic relationship or that job or maybe it’s time for me to take the leap and make that new step into what I most desire. So who knows what universe is doing right now as you and I are speaking.
Victori Volk: We’re cocreating magic.
Phoebe Leona: Yeah. We’re cocreating magic right now, and the magic happens within the grief. Mhmm. It has to,
Victoria Volk: and I think because of it.
Phoebe Leona: Yeah. Yeah. I just got chills again.
Victoria Volk: Let’s just talk this out then.
Phoebe Leona: Yeah.
Victoria Volk: So what was the dream or is the dream that you had for so long? When you started NoMad?
Phoebe Leona: It was it was providing a space for people who were making transitions in their life. Because I had just gone through and was still going through it. Right? That year of grief, that year of great loss, that year of stepping into the unknown. And as I was doing it, a lot of people were applauding me saying, wow, you made a huge leap.
Phoebe Leona: And I didn’t see it as that. I saw it as, wow, I just got jot down. And I’m taking this one little thing where I might have some power and I was claiming it back. And I didn’t see myself as any sort of hero and that I was just trying to survive, but people were applauding me in that sense of wow, I wish I could do something like that. And I thought, you can, why not? You know, it came sick in nature to me, but I also know that that came from a lot of, you know, I know you had a similar childhood like having to deal with so much chaos. Chaos. Exactly that you don’t know that you didn’t know you don’t realize you had a choice. Right? It’s just like, yeah. This is just what my phase. You just keep going and roll with the punches. So when I started to see that something that came somewhat second nature to me doesn’t come for other people, I thought, well, what if I provide a space what if I take them out of their ordinary life, bring them to a retreats, yes, they get to see somewhere beautiful and you know, have beautiful food and make connections and see parts of the world that maybe they never had seen before, but also see parts of themselves that they had never seen before and tap into this new not a new version I shouldn’t say that, but this version of themselves that they hadn’t really tapped into in this reality or maybe this time and space. Right? Maybe they knew that was a part of them and they lost it along the way. But tap back into that and say you do have the power. If you’re in a toxic relationship, you have the power to leave it. If you are not living in alignment with your soul’s purse purpose. You can leave the job or you can make a big move, you know, physically across the world or whatever it is. It might also be really small and subtle but it changes your whole internal landscape. So that was the vision. And like I said, when you and I say this a lot of my teaching when you know your why, when you’re so aligned with your purpose. The Whats? Doesn’t matter. So, yeah, use the what of the retreats, but the “why” that creating space for people to have that greater sense of belonging so that they could make those transitions in their life was my why and has it has been my heartbeat these whole years since then. And so, yeah, the what is wants to be something new right now, and don’t know what that is.
Victoria Volk: You missed a question though.
Phoebe Leona: How how how how in terms of what how what
Victoria Volk: How do you envision it looking?
Phoebe Leona: Well, I think that’s where maybe that’s a good thing or maybe it’s a bad thing. I don’t have, like, specific visions of how I want it to look. I envision it as this is why I’m showing up in the world. And I trust that universal provide the how and the what. And maybe that is my downfall. And maybe you’re giving me some insight as to get clear focus, baby?
Victoria Volk: Because this is the thing. It’s like we’re always co-creating or always manifesting, but the universe doesn’t know what to manifest or co-create or bring to you. Yes. You’re not clear on the how.
Phoebe Leona: Yeah. Yeah. Story of my life, I think, Victoria.
Victoria Volk: Well, here’s the thing. So, like, I mean, I’m not intending to turn this into, like, some sort of, like, coaching session or anything.
Phoebe Leona: No. I love I get pre therapy today?
Victoria Volk: Here’s the things. When I think of you and when I think about everything that you’ve talked about and shared with me, in the audience, I feel like you’re a very grounding presence for people. Right? So, like, when people are around you and you have these retreats, feel like you are very grounding for them.
Phoebe Leona: Yeah.
Victoria Volk: But Phoebe grounded, how do you fly? Who encourages you and who is the person or what is it, what elements in your life are not, some people need accountability Some people just need a cheerleader. Some people need someone to challenge them. So I think so often too, like, especially helpers they have a hard time asking for help. Mhmm. And so am I am I nailing
Phoebe Leona: Oh, for sure.
Phoebe Leona: Oh, yeah. We got this. Yeah. And I mean, I know you want there was an aspect that you and I talked before, we press record that we’re gonna go to right now is this idea of love in my life. And That has been a huge game changer for me because, yes, going through so much chaos in my childhood alone, I did not know how to ask for help. And going through it again in twenty thirteen, it was the universe going, you need to ask for help Phoebe. And I did. I had to lean in to my family. I had to lean in to some people even strangers because I went to live in Costa Rica for a period of time and didn’t fluently speak Spanish, so I had to rely on strangers to help me. So it’s been a lesson the last nine years of ass asking for help, but still what you just saw, what you just reflected back of the ground in this, that was me going, I need to survive. I need to be really grounded here and not only because I’m a helper, like you said, and on hold space for other people, but I need to provide that for myself. And it was a little bit of survival mode. Right? Or a lot of survival mode. It was just holding on for dear life of okay. Gotta get my shit together.
Victoria Volk: Sols. Can I ask you? Yeah. They don’t mean to interject, but I just because so, like, it feels like because I know for me too, like, I had this grip or this hold. Right? On something, like, this is my identity. Right? Like, this is my identity. This is who I am. This is, you know, what who am I without this?
Phoebe Leona: Yes.
Victoria Volk: Do you feel like the only way to find out if that is where you want to continue to go as if just letting it go, like, backing away for a time.
Phoebe Leona: Yeah. I’m I think I’m in that, that’s why I’m in the chrysalis because it’s the that’s that mushy part. Right? When you’re in the crystal, well, from the little caterpillars in the chrysalis. Maybe we’re in the chrysalis too right now, who knows? But when we’re physically in that idea of the chrysalis, you become mushy. Right? You so you have to have that deep surrender, but at some point, right, when it’s making that shift to become the butterfly, there is the resistance. Mhmm. Like, it has to press out to create the wings. So there is this play between the deep surrender and that resistance of becoming the something new. And that’s really where I’m at right now of letting go of that identity. No man was my identity. For, you know, almost nine years now. And it is letting that go but there’s a there has to be a bit of resistance of like, okay. Well, how do you wanna see the next vision, right, and create that? And so that is, I’m not taking it as a cop out, but I am they I’m figuring out what the how is
Victoria Volk: The “How” that’s where we came back to is the “how”.
Phoebe Leona: Is the how because I’m kind of like, well, I was this for, you know, nine years. That’s all I knew to a certain extent because I was so had the death grip. Like, of Nomad and even though it’s letting it up and flow, but there was this has to survive because it was me proving to the world that I can do this I survived that horrible year and look what came from it, and I’m gonna use it. And you universe is telling me, like, you’re good. You’re so alive. You got this. You don’t have to just be in survival note mode now. You can actually thrive and spread your wings and fly. But I’m not quite there yet because I’m thinking, well, what is that gonna look like? And I guess maybe I’ll find out because the butterfly is not looking, maybe it is, and the, like, wings, like, oh, look at those colors. I’m not sure. Bright and then it just flies and it’s like, oh, okay. I’m crying. So I’m in that exploring process and there’s a little bit of playing with ideas, but also not being attached to them right now and seeing what what comes out of it. But I do wanna answer a little bit more, go a little deeper into this idea of the partner because I did have this vision of my partner is going to come in. But I had somewhat rules and regulation of what he was going to look like and be like because he was going to play a large role in my business, in my vision of them. And it’s really interesting because I’ve been completely single for six years now. Here I am doing my thing. I’m writing a book. I’m doing no mood or a pandemic. I’m still standing. And there were just all these challenges that came. Right? Everybody, I’m not saying I’m not doing a woe’s knee. Everybody has been gone through letting go of the old normal, right, going into that lockdown. There was a deep sense of grief during that period and letting go of your old identities, get letting go of old relationships, jobs, whatever. So I was in that at that time too and trying to figure out what NoMad wanted to be. And like I said, though, that was really when I was doing the square peg round hole and figuring out, well, let’s try to do online. You know, programs or membership or, you know, one on ones. And I was just, like, figuring out what it wasn’t. It just didn’t translate in the way of really being in person with people. And so, you know, the finances were not coming in, I was not receiving the abundance that made it not only thriving but not sustainable. I invested a lot in my book. You know, I did a hybrid publishing, which I am grateful for. I have really love the team of Grace Point, but it was a huge investment that I probably didn’t have, but I just going, it’s gonna pay off. It’s gonna pay off. And because I believe in myself and I even this morning, I was crying about that, my eyes are probably still a little puffy. And here I am about the the brink of letting go of my business and possibly declaring bankruptcy from putting my heart and soul in finances into it and steps in literally out of nowhere this man who just I met him and he’s my person. Like, there’s no doubt about it. And it’s it’s really quite beautiful how it happened because it somebody matched us up who I’ve known for twenty years and she’s known him his entire life since she was five years old. And just out of the blue said, hey, you two should meet. And it’s really quite beautiful.
Phoebe Leona: So I think that I did manifest the how of Nomad, but it also wants to become something completely new and different. And so maybe he’s stepping in because he does have a lot of similarities in terms of strengths that I don’t have that could really be a beautiful combination of what I envisioned originally. He even came to me with this vision that I didn’t put into his head. He said, I think we should do retreats together down the line. We need to do this. So it might turn into Nomad 2.0 after we reestablish our personal relationship and build that business or it might be that we need to co-create something completely new together. I’m not sure yet. And this is the first time I’m, like, publicly talking about this.
Victoria Volk: Well, I got my chicken zits again when you were talking about it. So it feels like truth to me.
Phoebe Leona: Yeah. Yeah. It’s kind of wild. So
Victoria Volk: Is that crazy? I mean, just sit just for a moment. Like, just I mean, we don’t do this enough. Like, just really reflect back. Like, life is crazy. Like, you just cannot anticipate the amazingness that can happen. Right? We don’t It’s like you will you think when you’re in the thick of the icky? The thick of the neck. And you’re in the thick of the neck. You can’t even fathom that there can be brighter days ahead. Yeah. You know, I had a client, one of my first clients, actually, after they became certified as a grief specialist, his life has just exploded. I worked with him for a time. He went through grief recovery with me and stuff. And, you know, at the time, like, his he was struggling in relationships and trying to get his business going and he’s a designer. He does — Mhmm.
Victoria Volk: Now he’s into purses. He designs purses. Ended up on the red carpet. He’s, like, on the own network, the Detroit oh, love in Detroit or something like that? Remember the show. It’s a reality show. Like, it’s just crazy. How his life has just exploded. And he said in a post, he said something to the effect of, imagine living each day. You think today is the best day. But imagine if even tomorrow is better. Like, you have no idea. Yeah. Like live like tomorrow is gonna be even better.
Phoebe Leona: I love that. I’m I think this episode is called full-bodied chills.
Victoria Volk: Oh, yeah. That’s good.
Phoebe Leona: Because I just kept getting chills as you’re speaking about this.
Victoria Volk: Okay. Well, there is a true crime podcast called Full Body Chills.
Phoebe Leona: Okay.
Phoebe Leona: You might have to call you know what? Yeah.
Phoebe Leona: Play around with that because you and I just keep balancing our what did you call chicken zips? Chicken zips.
Victoria Volk Yeah. Chicken zips of truth.
Phoebe Leona: Oh, sure.
Victoria Volk: People would be like, chicken zips of truth. Why? I gotta listen to that one. Yeah. Maybe that’s a go.
Phoebe Leona: There we go. That’ll stop them in their tracks.
Victoria Volk: So what I hear is that you are very curious and excited about not knowing what’s to come in a way. Yeah. And yet surrendering to the how and just letting it unfold. But yet, at the same time, this is where I think, you know, you are a very grown in presence and maybe this gentleman that it’s come into your life, like who’s kind of been under your nose. Right? Like, because he was with the he was he’s a friend of a friend. Mhmm. Had you met him before?
Phoebe Leona: No. Never lived with me. We have so she was a Pilates client of mine here twenty years ago, and I knew her socially too. She even came to my wedding. So I had been to a couple of her parties, and so we have looked back and said, were you at that party? Were you at the upper end? We don’t quite know yet because of this so long ago. But, yes, very much under under each other’s nose. But we weren’t ready yet. And that’s something that I wanna speak into too is
Victoria Volk: Yes. Please.
Phoebe Leona: When when you are ready, the universe makes it so clear and says, get this is it. This is you’re ready now. Right? Here you go. Like, your client. Your client had to go through all of that grief and he was trying, he was showing up and doing his work. Like, ugh. And then all of a sudden, it just clicked. And now his purses on red carpets. And I swear I truly believe in that. And I’ve I have seen that in my own personal life. I’ve seen that evidence in the external world and everybody else in other people’s lives that when it’s meant to be for you, you cannot mess it up. It is just there. And that’s how I felt for this relationship. It was just we were not ready for each other and we’ve had many conversations because he’s done a lot of work on himself if he’s done, you know, he’s a life coaches while he wrote a book too. And it’s even funny when we see that our books, our covers, our same coloring, like, same kind of branding, very similar format. He shares a lot of his own childhood trauma and, yeah, maybe a guest for you, by the way. But yeah.
Phoebe Leona: So it’s just so funny because we’re laughing at each other. Like, we’ve been walking side by side but just weren’t we weren’t ready for each other yet. We weren’t ready for the relationship that we both want wanted for so many years, but we weren’t emotionally ready for it yet. We had to recover through the trauma to a certain extent and our own grief so that we could be ready. Right? He if I had met him six years ago when I had my last relationship, he would have been triggering all my traumas right and left, and I would have said goodbye, just like I did to the other two, man. And so I had to do this in our work for it to show up. And I say that because it doesn’t have to be a romantic relationship. It’s whatever you desire right now. It will show up when you have to do the work, though. That kinda like, it’s that balance of the doing and the being. Right? Because I think that in our world, we get too much in one direction. It’s the very western world of just do do do and have the strategy and check the things off the list. And, yeah, if you hustle and hustle, I played that game for so long and so many things didn’t happen in that world for me because I wasn’t allowing there that to be that surrender into that being. But on the flip side of that, if we’re just, you know, love attraction, I believe in it. I truly believe in it. But if you just do that and kinda lean back and not do any of the work, the thing isn’t really going to be truly yours. I mean, you might see it but if you’re not actually showing up and doing the inner work, going through your grief, going through recovering from your trauma, whatever it is that’s your karma and your dharma. Right? Karma is the lessons we enter into this world and the dharma as you shifted into your purpose. If you’re not actually playing with those two, yeah, those things might come on your radar and you might not see really truly see them or they might just float on by because they’re not you’re not aligned with them yet. So it is that play of the doing and the being?
Victoria Volk: You said something, and I’m gonna say, I’m I had a client, she asked me, Everyone else says you have to do the work. I’d get so annoyed when I’d hear that. Do the work. You gotta do the work. Well, what’s the work? And after she went through a group recovery with me, she’s like, I get it now. This is the work. Like, this is the work. So in your mind, what is the work?
Phoebe Leona: That’s a good question. For me, it’s awareness. I really truly believe awareness is the transformation. Now awareness can look different for people. So awareness might be that you need to be aware of your three d reality? Like, what is actually physically happening in your relationship? Or what is happening in your bank account? Or what is happening in this toxic situation at your job? Right? But also, it’s awareness of what’s happening in your mind, what’s happening in your physical body. How can you listen again to the spidey sense. Right? When you’re in those external relationships with the world and your body’s going, uh-uh, right, you have to bring your awareness to that so that you tap into that intuition. That’s really what I see the work is just being able to listen So it’s kind of funny that to do the work is actually sitting back and listening. That’s step one is that listening and the awareness, but then there is the, okay, now I need to take action from that place. Right? So maybe I do need to get a job that’s going to help you pay the bills or maybe I do need to leave that relationship or maybe we need to go see a relationship therapist. Or whatever it is, it’s actually taking the action and doing the work physically doing the work. And then there is the surrender., of okay, letting go and saying this isn’t working or I deeply trust that it is working, but I don’t see that. Evidence yet. Right? So that’s level three, step three of the work. I’m sure there are others, but those are the three that I feel are necessary in everything as I just talking off the cuff.
Victoria Volk: I love it.
Phoebe Leona: Yeah.
Victoria Volk: I love it. I love this conversation. And I wanna give you an opportunity. To share anything else that you would like to share?
Phoebe Leona: Let me think. I feel we should yeah. Let’s talk a little bit more about grief because that is your podcast. Mhmm. And to know if somebody is out there right now who is grieving a relationship or grieving possibly the loss of their own business or whoever they are right now to allow yourself to simply be in that chrysalis. Allow yourself to get mushy. Allow yourself to I love what you at you pressed me to do is imagine the how or the what or the whatever it is that drives you. Right? It could be the how, it could be the why, it could be the what. But whatever it is that’s gonna just be your heartbeat for a little while. Right? If you’re in that grief space and you don’t know what is to come, find some sort of heartbeat for you that’s gonna get you up every morning and really build a relationship with physical support in your life Right? It might be one person, it might be a community, but then also what has really been a huge piece for me is trusting the divine, the universe, God, guides, angels. Whatever it is that you resonate with whatever word resonates with you and energy that resonates with you in that end unseen world because there is and energy. There are many energies around us that we don’t see and maybe not feel, but they are here and they are on our side and they are flying high above us, seeing a bird’s eye view. And I was in a session, if I don’t mind if you don’t mind me sharing really quickly I was in a, like, a call with some a group yesterday, and you probably have heard this. And I feel like, actually, now I’m saying that you might have even spoken about it, but the idea of the two footprints, two sets of footprints talking to God and saying God, why weren’t you there for me? There were times that I only saw one footprint and I was walking in a long loan, and God said that was because I was carrying you.
Victoria Volk: It’s a footprints in the sand. It’s actually
Phoebe Leona: Footprints in the sand. Yeah. And I just wanna remind everybody because that’s something that I needed to remember for myself is when we’re going through those moments of grief. There is someone carrying us even in those deepest darkest moments, in those mushy moments, in those messy moments. There is something here for us and to just deeply trust and find a way to build that relationship to trust again.
Victoria Volk: And someone is caring. Mhmm. And I think that’s what a lot of people forget. It’s like there are people that care you just have to allow yourself to be cared for.
Phoebe Leona: Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Oh, that’s a hard one for us, helpers.
Victoria Volk: True. Yeah. It is. What a beautiful way to tie up this episode, I think. Where can people find you now if they’d like to reach out to you and connect with you?
Phoebe leona: That is an interesting question, Victoria. I’m not sure where I’m going. Social media, I’ll just say first of all, social media I’m on Instagram it’s my name @phoebeleona.love and Facebook. And then I do have my website, so I would say right now, they could go to phoebeleona.com that’s where you can generally see what I’m physically doing in the world. Then I have my thenomadcollective.org and Movement 109. Those are also websites, but they’re all linked together. Who knows if they’ll be there in a couple of months? Maybe they got, you know, floated away. Maybe they’re coming back in a bigger way. We don’t know yet. But if you find my name Phoebe Leona, you’ll find what’s happening now. And I think that’s a great way to, like, What is that girl doing? Let’s see.
Victoria Volk: We might have a Where are they now? Three. Yeah. Maybe in a year.
Phoebe Leona: Yeah. Yeah. And I just wanna acknowledge you too because, you know, what you just said of being cared for is you did respond to that it was, you know, somewhat desperate email of, like, I don’t know what’s happening guys. Let’s see. And you were one of, you know, a few that responded immediately and I saw that you cared, and I know that you care so deeply for the people that you help. And the listeners that you show up for. So I just I wanna take a moment to acknowledge that. So thank you.
Victoria Volk: Thank you. Sometimes I need that reminder too, and I’m looking at her clothes. Yeah. Yeah. Since this is my labor of love, For sure.
Phoebe Leona: Yeah.
Victoria Volk: But it’s been a great joy. And that’s why I continue doing it. You know, it doesn’t put food on my table, but it fills my heart. It’s my soul food.
Phoebe Leona: Mhmm. Exactly.
Victoria Volk: Yeah. Find your soul food people. Find your soul food.
Phoebe Leona: Yes.
Victoria Volk: Alright. Well, thank you so much for joining me again. On kind of short notice, like, this was like, hey, wanna come back? Yeah. Let’s do it. Alright. I love that.
Phoebe Leona: You know, we had to do it while it was still mushy because, yeah, it wouldn’t have been that exciting if I was. Everything’s fine now. You know, hindsight.
Victoria Volk: I mean, that’s the beautiful thing behind you. Right? But when you’re in the thick of the ick. Right? The thick of the ick. And it’s not it it doesn’t have to be it doesn’t have to be this negative bad energy. Right? That we like, this drudge of it certainly, it doesn’t feel good. Yeah. But with for all the reasons that you said, it’s like lean into the awareness. How is this making me feel? What do I wanna see for myself in the future? What do I want for my life? Yeah. You know, these deeper questions that we are so afraid to ask ourselves Yeah. You know, one of my favorite segments on Saturday Night Live was deep thoughts by Jack Handy.
Phoebe Leona: Oh, yeah.
Victoria Volk: I mean, I was, like, ten, eleven, twelve, you know. Oh, wow. Because I’m aging myself now. This is when Saturday nightlife was, like, really good. But Yeah. But yeah.
Will Ferrell, deep thoughts by Jack Handy.
Phoebe Leona: Was it I don’t think it was Will Ferrell. It was before Will Ferrell’s time. It was because I actually met him in a certain week already. No. It was before Will Farrell.
It was oh my god. I know who it is, but he’s not in my brain right now.
Victoria Volk: I thought it was the same guy that was played Bob Ross.
Phoebe Leona: It was Al Franklin.
Victoria Volk: Oh, yeah. Are you sure?
Phoebe Leona: Now that I said, and I’m afraid I am wrong, but hold on, Okay. We’re good we’re gonna fact-check.
Victoria Volk: I’m you know, I have a saying, like, with my friends. I’m like, I’m gonna get a t-shirt that says, Google that shit.
Phoebe Leona: Yeah. I think it was before Will Ferrell’s time. And I do feel I see his face. And Al Franklin was on Saturday Night Live? Yes.
Victoria Volk: Phil Hartman.
Phoebe Leona: Phil Hartman. What’s? Okay we both we both lost
Victoria Volk: Wait. No. Deep okay. Well, Jack Handy was an actual person. Learn something new today.
Phoebe Leona: That makes sense.
Phoebe Leona: Yeah. Yeah.
Phoebe Leona: So they made affirmations before is, like, a big thing in our world at which I thought those.
Victoria Volk: Okay. It looks like I have to do some writing.
Phoebe Leona: You’re gonna have to fact-check and do a follow-up for the listeners here.
Victoria Volk: I see a connection between Phil Hartman and that’s segment, but I can’t like, I would have to do some reading. Yeah. Anyway, I will find it. Anyway, I digress. Have a beautiful rest of your day, and listeners, thank you for tuning in. And I hope this episode was helpful. And if it was, I hope you share it or leave a review, five stars if you feel so inclined. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life, much love.
Death/Dying, Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, Podcast, Spirituality |
Dr. Amirah Hall | The Aftermath and Awakening of a Near-Death Experience
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
This week’s guest is no stranger to death. By the age of 20, she had attended 20 funerals. As an adult, she buried her father while, at the same time, her marriage was ending and her health was deteriorating. Little did Amirah know at the time that all of that loss would lead her on a path of self-discovery, understanding, and acceptance of the gifts she had been given.
Dr. Amirah Hall had always believed she came from a typical, ordinary, normal family, where love and support were the cornerstones of their interactions. But she didn’t realize she grew up in a dysfunctional family. Dysfunction runs deep in families. However, in the midst of Amirah’s life unraveling, she felt a spiritual pull that set her on a path of seeking and understanding.
Like many of us, we experience death as a child, are around it, and are exposed to it, but most don’t become communicators with the dearly departed. What set the ball rolling for Amirah was a trip to Egypt she felt a calling to take. On that trip, she would be surrounded by people she didn’t know in a foreign land who were on a mission to save her life. She would later understand that she was transported far away from her body and back again.
This is Amirah’s story of her near-death experience.
If you or someone you know is struggling with the darkness of life or has experienced the grief of death and want to find the answers, I encourage you to listen to this inspiring episode.
Subscribe to Grieving Voices to hear a Part 2 conversation with Dr. Amirah! She will be back for another episode where we will dive deeper into spiritual practices, sharpening our tool of intuition, all things energy + more!
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CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
Victoria Volk: Thank you for tuning in to grieving voices. Today, my guest is Dr. Amirah. She is the founder of Seoul Mystic School, a modern mystery school for psychic development and energy mastery. She’s the author of five books including manifesting miracles one on one and love up your life and was featured in the documentaries to death and back again and angels among us. She’s been practicing psychic medium, spiritual mentorship, and quantum healing after having a life changing near death experience while traveling in Egypt. She’s the past host of lessons from the Light Radio podcast. Thank you so much for joining me today. I’m excited to have this conversation with you.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Thank you. It’s my pleasure. I’m super excited to be here.
Victoria Volk: We were talking a little bit before we started to record, and I had to stop us because there’s so much I wanna get into. But where I usually start interviews with guests is your story and how you’ve become, come to be Dr. Amirah.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Well, thank you. It’s been quite a journey. I’m gonna give you the reader’s digest version. Okay? So don’t even know if reader’s digests around anymore. But I grew up in Canada. I grew up to a in the conservative family. I was raised Catholic. Went to Catholic school for twelve years. I never got in trouble all the way through school. I was an honor student and a hard worker. And I was always very, very sensitive. I had a father that his brother committed suicide. I believe I was eight.
Dr. Amirah Hall: And I’ll never forget that was my first experience of watching or seeing my dad cry. And I remember just standing there just feeling so painful and not being able to help him. My mother was holding him as he was grieving because he found his brother who had shot himself basically in the head.
Dr. Amirah Hall: So then my dad was an alcoholic. I thought I had a normal family, which I guess at the time it was a normal, dysfunctional family. My mom was an enabler and I was one of those people as a young sensitive, I was always trying to keep the peace. And yet, I was so sensitive I would often be said, stop crying. Stop crying. I’ll give you something to cry about. Or why are you crying now? I mean, I would be upset if you know, kid at school played a trick on me and threw a water bomb on me. Well, that any kid would probably be upset with that.
Dr. Amirah Hall: But I was the kid that my mom knew when I walked in that it wasn’t a good day. Right? I was always looking for friends I was always curious. I always found myself going out and building relationships and building friendships. So what happened was I think at least a little of ten, my mother had a brother and sister that died two days apart. Now my aunt was a nun in the Catholic church. And my uncle, well, he was only thirty years old. My aunt was twenty-four. That was pretty significant because it was sudden for my aunt. Well, we knew about a month before my uncle was sudden he was died of cirrhosis of the liver, but he was a non drinker. So it was a a real a moment in time where I remember the chaos and I remember people coming over with with casseroles. And again, I was sort of numb. Like, what is this? I didn’t know what it meant. She went to heaven.
Dr. Amirah Hall: And my and then the nuns or the hot the convent all descended on our home. And it’s funny because they told us that my aunt wasn’t part of our family. So they only informed the family a month before she passed. And so there was a lot of discussion about family being upset with this. Right? We didn’t know. And their comment was she was part of their family. At God’s family, she wasn’t part of our family. So we didn’t need to know.
Dr. Amirah Hall: And so that was pretty significant in terms of me even trying to understand one of the nuns befriended me because I was so sensitive and I was crying. She would write me letters for years. And she was so graceful and peaceful and supportive. She was the first really mentor that I had, that reminded me that I was pretty or this, that I was smart. And so that was my first experience with religion shutting us down. My mom stopped going to church. And by the time I got to high school, I would go with friends to their churches. I was curious.
Dr. Amirah Hall: I remember the first time I thought if I go in that church, I might not come out. I’m like, die. Like, what’s gonna happen? It was so ingrained in me that this was a really bad thing to do, a bad idea. But I went and I lived and so enough about that because that was I think my quest that began for finding out who is God who is Jesus and wanting a connection.
Dr. Amirha Hall: My grandfather died. I was having connections and visions with my aunt but I didn’t know what to do with it. My grandfather passed from the same family, and grandpa gave me a dream before he passed. And then he showed me on the path. We were both walking along. We were holding hands. And grandpa just dropped my hand and he didn’t speak. He spoke to me telepathically. It’s like, I’m going this way. I’m taking this fork in the road. You’re going this way. And I just knew. That his journey on earth was gonna end.
Dr. Amirah Hall: I went camping with some friends that weekend, and we were sitting around the campfire, and I just blurred it out. Am I going to wear to the funeral? They’re like, what funeral? What are you talking about? Got home and my mom met me at the gate and mentioned that my grandfather passed. I knew in the moment. And so that was my, I guess, you could say, curiosity was death that continued to build and I continued to By the time I was twenty, I had been to twenty funerals. And Catholic funerals were not anything I mean, everybody just cried. And so, but I was starting to feel like there was something more. There was something beyond this, and so I held on to that fascination. Until well, no. I guess it was really a pivot point of my dad’s death.
Dr. Amirah Hall: And when I went home, I was living in San Diego at the time and I went home to Canada for my dad’s funeral. And well, he was in the process of making his transition. And it was gruesome. It was painful. And he was in ICU for two weeks. So that was back in nineteen ninety. So you can just imagine we didn’t have Internet, we didn’t really have anything to communicate, but or to understand what was going on. They had hooked them up with life support but it was just pushing his body up and down. The forcing air into the lungs to make it look like he was alive. Meanwhile, his whole body was shrinking. And we were waiting talk about crazy.
Dr. Amirah Hall: We’re waiting for my ants to arrive from Florida. California, respectively. And so the rest of us just kind of suffered watching this. It was just incredibly painful. Like, gold moment just cry and sob and it was torment for me. The doctors kept saying any minute, any minute, now it went on for two weeks. So I empathize with people that with families that send to Alzheimer’s or a long-delayed death and is it feels like torture. So at the same time, I was going through divorce.
Dr. Amirah Hall: I had just started my divorce. In fact, Yeah. It was I don’t wanna go down that road, but it was something that was in process. So after dad’s death, I was at a real low. And I was going home. I was flying back. I picked up this book. I think it was in the Vancouver airport. “Many lives, many masters.” And that was a first glimmer into yes we do go on. Because that my internal question is, what happens when we die? Where do we go? What where what is all this? So it was really driven home with my dad’s death, and it was like my wake-up call.
Dr. Amirah Hall: And by the time I got back to my job, my health was failing. I was not going to work. And back in those days, they could candy for that. So they did. They fired me. So I was going through a divorce, my dad died, and now I have no money and no job. And at the time, I was making a very high six fees. Not six figures. I was high-five figures. And back in the nineties, that was significant. Right? But then nothing and no support from anybody.
Dr. Amirah Hall: So I was in a real talk about dark night of the soul and then having no energy. The doctor told me, yeah, well, you look like you’re dying. You go on or prepare your affairs. You’re either gonna die or you’ll end up in a wheelchair for the rest of your life. Well, that’s not good news for anybody. That’s the worst thing possible that I could have heard at the time.
Dr. Amirah Hall: And so I went home and I to use your word grieve. At the time, I would call that a holy hell. I was just miserable. I was falling apart at the seams from every angle, didn’t know who to talk to. I had no I was new in the states. I was only here about three years by then. And so I didn’t have strong relationships. I didn’t have a good support system.
Dr. Amirah Hall: So when everything hit the fan, after crying for two weeks, and a friend said, you need acupuncture. Try this, Amirah, that’ll help your health. So, God bless her. I had no other options. The doctor threw me to the curb. Right? It was just like, Okay. Well, this is some hope. Let’s try this out. So that’s when I started down the avenue of alternative care.
Dr. Amirah Hall: So again, back in the early nineties, there was it was almost like you were doing back office an abortion or something when you talk about acupuncture, like, mama was the word, no way, oh, that was horrible. But I had no other options. I went in for it. And so that progressed and I got better and a little bit better and a little bit better. And I built some businesses, some entrepreneurial endeavors, and I started working with gemstones and making custom jewelry. I started expanding that to an international market.
Dr. Amirah Hall: So I was doing really, really well. But not making enough money. But my health was restoring and I started feeling and stronger and I felt like there was something missing in my life. Like, I had the money now, business was in my well, I got hired in the tech industry. My health was getting better. The divorce was finished. I had more money coming in and I’m like, fine. Okay. I’m good. But something’s missing.
Dr. Amirah Hall: So I told a friend that I was feeling a sense to go to Egypt. And she gave me a brochure. And I found myself a few months later with soon as I said, well, I’ll go if I get my tax return. And I got to pay for this. Sure enough, it manifested this tax return refund.
Dr. Amirah Hall: And so I go to Egypt, which was an incredible spiritual journey. We meditated in temples. When I landed in Egypt, it was the strangest feeling. I know this sounds weird, but I felt like I was home. And it was a sense of being so familiar yet I had never you know, I didn’t study Egypt. It wasn’t on my bucket list. I wasn’t somebody that was fascinated. I did it maybe science report in school or something, but that was it. Book reporter, what did they call that social studies project? This was an amazing experience of learning about the ancient teachings, learning about the mystery schools, and I gravitated towards that. It just made sense to me.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Well, I met someone there and I extended my stay after the trip was over, went down to Luxor from Cairo, where the tour ended, went down to Luxor, and hung out for a week and I said, I’d really like to get some antiquities for the jewelry that I make. Some beads. Well, this was a very very primitive village right outside the valley of the kings where all the ancient pharaohs twos are buried. And so this little village, people their homes are perched up right at the backside of this mountain where all the tombs are. And so people would be digging through their back wall, so these houses are literally built on the mountain. Right? They’re digging at night and they’re trying to find tools or antiquities or any kind of treasure. So they’re trying to work ahead of the you know, the ministry of antiquities, digging. And so they would have these, Arabic carpets hanging on the back wall cover off the tunnel. So I knew from that that there’s a high likelihood some of these people would have beads. We’re just talking some small beads. Nobody’s gonna notice this ant colony leaving the country. Right? That was my logic.
Dr. Amirah Hall: And so anyway, we found a guy. And he showed me the beads, and I think there was a handful. And he’s one in three hundred bucks, and I didn’t have that much cash at the time. So I went, I said, come back tomorrow with the cash, go to the ATM, come back. Now that was the day I was leaving. So it was about noontime, minus heck. And we go back to pay, we’ll have it his money. And when you visit when you have a transaction like that or your friend, especially I was a special guest because my friend, Jude, who was brought me there. They bring out cocacola or a tea, coffee, water, you sit and visit. You it’s very polite.
It’s not just a slam-bam. Thank you, ma’am. Pay and run. It’s not like that at all.
Dr. Amirah Hall: So here I am, the only female, and they bring out this green garden lawn chair. Right? I’m sitting on this plastic chair. And all of a sudden, they bring out this joint. And Mohammed says, you know, it’s the best. It’s the best. And he’s screaming and I’m coming from this dysfunctional family, I’m feeling agitated myself, and I’ve disturbed the peace, so to speak. He is shouting. And Arabic’s Egyptians are very vocal and loud and expressive. Let’s call it that way. And I said, I don’t smoke. And I had tried a few times. It didn’t really do anything for me. And I just was like, No. No. Thank you. And then the shouting continued. So I’m thinking, oh, god. I’ve insulted the man. I’ve gone against their protocol. And now I’m the only woman here. I should mind, do something here because this could escalate.
Dr. Amirah Hall: So I thought, okay, it’s not done anything for me in the past. Maybe I’ll just acquiesce, be a graceful guest, and I’ll be on my way. Nothing will happen. Right? Okay. Didn’t happen that way. The joint went around twice. And all of a sudden, they have these workers that are chiseling Alibaster outside the factory entrance. And so they all of a sudden showed up in this showroom. And so there’s like eight or ten of us in this room. So one joint goes around, the circle, twice. And everybody bounces up. They’re ready to walk out the door except for me. I can’t get out of the chair. I’m sitting there. Only I find myself standing behind myself and I’m witnessing all the people that are in the room and it’s like they have an individual television and I’m why watching this video play out on their on your screen. And I’m just horrified and I’m like, what the heck is this? I need to stay in my body. I need to get back. I need to come back. And so I thought to myself, I so I was coming and going coming out in and out, it was sort of a subtle phase. I must have said something. I don’t recall hearing myself verbalized, but I definitely had my hands out in front of me. And I just thought I need water. If I could splash my face with this water, I’ll stay here. I won’t leave. I just knew I needed to stay. And so obviously, they’re laughing, and everything’s in slow motion at this time for me.
Dr. Amirah Hall: And my friend Juju must have either sense that I need water or they also were aware that a lot of westerners get dehydrated. So that was a part of the front and center for their awareness. So he comes towards me with the water bottle and he pours water in my hands and I remember getting it right about, you know, six inches from my face thinking, oh, shit, my mascara is gonna run. That was the last spot. And I blacked out.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Now, what they informed me and filled in the points at this point, my body stiffened. And according to my friend, juju, my breathing stopped, my heart stopped, and he was pounding my chest with all his might to get my heart going, call that jokingly, Egyptian CPR. And he was just going to be, beat the drum so to speak. They drag me out under the arms, drag me out into a pickup truck. So the pickup trucks there are the taxis. They’ve got benches along the back of the box, but they stuck me in the cab so my there’s the driver and juju’s in the middle, and I’m on the outer edge. They’ve got my head propped up outside the window. Trying to give me air, some oxygen. And they’re barreling down this dusty, sandy road to nowhere as far as I know. So I’m out of it.
Dr. Amirah Hall: The next thing I remember is coming through the night sky and curling through the sky like I was a comet. And towards a familiar blue ball way off in the distance. And I’m like, oh, that’s where I’m going. And that little ball got bigger and bigger and bigger and it was like so massive. And I’m like, oh, how am I gonna find myself? And then the next thought was, well, I heard this talking language, but I had no clue. And I’m like, I don’t know that language. I don’t know where that is. And then it went, that’s Arabic. I’m in Egypt. There was like a GPS beacon that was just directing me to where my body was. And then it felt like I was trying to put on wet clothes. Have you ever put on wet clothes after going swimming or getting thrown in the lot. It’s miserable. It’s cold and yucky in. It’s just awful. So I felt like I was struggling to get in my body, like putting on my clothes for about twenty minutes. It wasn’t that long, but felt like that. At the same time, the bright light was incredibly painful to my eyes, and it hurt almost to coming into my body. At the same time, I felt this incredible overwhelming bliss and love and peace. And so it was a peculiar experience and Juju stayed with me. Basically, what happened, this then I realized I’m in my body and I’m hearing these voices and I can’t open my eyes and I reach over and I touched his arm. Well, he just law like the dead man coming alive or the mummy or so he was very animated. And I’m thinking, I don’t know what the problem here. Well, I said, where are you taking me? And he blurted out something in Arabic, which then he realized she doesn’t speak Arabic. I have to speak English. So they were highly excited. You know, this was extremely difficult. I said, well, I need a bathroom.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Now, here’s another problem, Victoria. Back in those days, there were no western-sized type toilets in the Valley and the Kings in that primitive village. There were holes in the ground. Okay? And there’s these little porcelain markers where you put your feet. I couldn’t stand, and I didn’t know that. And I didn’t even realize there was something problem with toilets. Okay. So I’m saying, they said, well, we’re taking you to the hospital, and I’m thinking, Oh, shit. A hospital, I mean, primitive country here. That’ll kill me. If I go to some gerund lights in the bone docs, so that was where I was at. I’m like, oh, I just need a toilet, please. I’m fine. And so there was some they can Arabic, and so they finally figured it out, oh, their brother, his brother, had a flat that was europeanized. Okay? And so the facilities were appropriate for a woman. That’s another issue because in that culture back at that time, that a man cannot go into a private space like that with a woman. This is the worst. This is like the worst crime known to man. I mean, they were it would stone a woman probably for doing that openly. So here I am in their flat their apartment. And I won’t let him leave me in the bathroom. They carry me up the stairs. He’s on this edge of this bathtub sitting next to me and his tiers are just streaming down his face. And I’m blissed out. I’m thinking I’m so proper. I’m modestly covered my legs, so nothing’s exposed. And I’m thinking everything’s cool. The sister-in-law’s beaten down the door. She’s frantic because a man and a woman are in the bathroom. She’s thinking they’re having sex. That’s their primitive mindset. That’s time. Well, nothing I could say or do, and I didn’t realize what all was going on. I’m completely blissed. And then he just said, you die. You don’t understand. He said, you died.
Dr. Amirah Hall: So fast forward, I was on the bed. I’m they brought me into the bedroom. I’m laying their recovery. They brought me water and yogurt and an orange. And it was the strangest experience because the orange it was cut orange. They also knew as a westerner, I couldn’t have any other type of food. It needs to be peeled or it needs to be boiled or something like that. So the yogurt was safe. And they suspected I was dehydrated or something was a miss with my electrolytes. Right? Because they’ve seen it. And westerners are just not. Oh, and I failed to mention, I had done a thirty day detox prior to going to Egypt. So I was primed plus I had this two-week spiritual journey prior to that. So I was primed and hypersensitive to all of these types of things. Right? But I was oblivious to it.
Dr. Amirah Hall: So what happens is I start seeing this being, this entity. Her name is Sekhmet. She’s a lion’s face with a female body. She was just a statue to me going through Egypt I didn’t relate to all the Egyptology and all the beams and the deities. It was overwhelming. Right? When you first go and you just okay, it’s a nice story or that’s their religion and it just didn’t resonate, but I’m seeing her in the wood grain of the arm war and I’m thinking I’m losing my mind.
Dr. Amirah Hall: And there’s a window with Nile Valley there and there’s these sheared draperies fluttering inside the room, the wind was or the breeze was coming into the room, and I see the bright blue sky and this brilliant evergreen Nile valley. I’m looking out there. That’s real. I can’t look at this. This is not real. And from that moment on, I have been seeing beings and entities. At first, it felt like I stepped into a scene in the Star Wars movie, the Cantina. You know, or all these strange beings and deities and actually it was overwhelming But so the first part of it, I was still blissing out and denying I was seeing that. I was trying to focus on something that was tangible. And Juju escorted me to Cairo. I got my tour guide was there waiting in line, and I remember I asked girl, who’s that lion goddess with female, you know, body? And she said, oh, that’s Sekhmet. Sekhmet is the healer of healers. She was the patron saint in Egypt. She was known by all the doctors. They would pray to her. Okay. That’s nice information.
Dr. Amirah Hall: I get on the plane, I sleep all the way back to JFK. It’s like an it was an eight-hour flight, but it probably had been fifteen hours to this point by the time I get to JFK. And I get there, I get off the Jet Way, and all the people look like black and white paper dolls. And I’m freaking out. I’m all by myself. And I’m like, this is horrible. I’m horrified what I’m seeing. And I don’t wanna come back here. This place America is horrible. It’s angry. It’s depressed. It’s grief-stricken. It was just it was very low vibration. It’s like literally I stepped off a JetWay into another dimension and I went, and I kept looking at my book. I know it was I realized at one point it was upside down. I couldn’t read it. But I wanted to focus on something that was real and none of that out there was real.
Dr. Amirah Hall: That continued until I got to San Diego. I got off the plane, so it had probably been about a twenty four hour journey, the whole thing. Get off the plane and that moist air hit me, and it was like, Okay, I’m back. And and and and that noise stopped. However, for about nine months, I was stuck in a very deep depression. One, I didn’t wanna be here. Two, I didn’t know what the f happened. I was confused in ninety, so this was in nineteen ninety-eight. There was no internet. There was no resources. There was no.
Dr. Amirah Hall: So I started going to psychics and healers or anybody. I definitely didn’t wanna go see a psychologist because I’m like, they’re gonna lock me up and throw away the key. There is no freaking way I’m going to those people. I know something happened. I am different. However, I haven’t lost my mind. I was that hardworking student. I was that type a personality responsible and honest. And so I went to all these healers and you know what? I got really ticked off because they told me something different every single one because they didn’t know. And then I finally got the message, okay. I gotta figure it out myself. I get it. I get it. Okay.
Dr. Amirah Hall: I found a friend brought me to Mexico. I found this healer. She reads cards, but she wasn’t a healer. She was a card reader. And she’s saying in Spanish to my French I don’t understand the cards. It says she died. This card should be over here in the future of this death card, but it says she died. So we kinda looked at each other, like, yep. Okay. That thanks a lot. That validates something like that happens.
Dr. Amirah Hall: I went back to Egypt the following year and my friend Jude brought me to see a holy man in the far south of Egypt in s one. And he was just a guy that would hang out in the in the market in this little cube, not a kiosk, but they have these little shops, right, with all these shawls or whatever it was. We brought him a very luxurious gift. And I said, what happened? Of course, to do is explain or translating to this holy man. And he said, She didn’t die in in in Arabic, you know, in their mind, their level of understanding. He said, but she went very, very, very far away. So, technically, my body wasn’t buried and I wasn’t, you know, tuned, but I went very, very far away. So that helped me understand.
Dr. Amirah Hall: And then when I came back, I continued asking a friend of mine that was on the trip referred me to another healer. And this healer, he he was looking at my energy, and he said, oh, he said, you’ve got some stuck energy. And I’m like, okay, that’s something to do. I get to undo that stuck energy then. Right? It seemed pretty simple to me. And I did. I began starting to understand the nuances of my energy. And what that all meant. And within about six months, I well, I started feeling happier I started feeling sleeping better. I was more inspired. My creativity was coming back. I wasn’t a bitch on wheels. You know, I because that when though I first came back, I fired all my friends. I stopped all my hobbies. I got fired from my job again because I was just miserable. It wasn’t fun to be around. It wasn’t fun to be anywhere. I wanted to go home. I didn’t want to be here at all.
Dr. Amirah Hall: So I figured I gotta write about this story. So I go to the book expo. And I’m trying to think I can hook up with an agent or a publisher. I didn’t know how this whole thing worked. And only to be rejected. But, you know, people looked at me like, you gotta be crazy. You know, this you were just hallucinating girl. You know, you’re just this is cuckoo crazy. And they give away all these books. And so I’m I guess I was a glutton and I fill these two linen bags with these big heavy, hard bound books. And so I was my back was breaking.
Dr. Amirah Hall: And I said, I need a massage desperately. So I found this Chinese massage place. I go to the massage and this guy’s walking on my back and it hurt like hell. And I had a spontaneous out of body experience. So, those whole year was less than a year, maybe about nine months. I had been asking, where did I go? What happened? I’m different. I’m different. And I’ve been searching. Where did I go? I know I’m different, but what? You know, now what? So that’s when I had this out of body experience and I was transported, teleported, I was greeted by this being. It was almost like my body appeared with this being that was just like an egg-shaped, fuzzy, white energy, a presence. And my body literally melted, and I created this life form, light form, and the guide said to me, I’m gonna take you on a tour of the hall, but you can’t stay. And so there I was escorted into this place. It was this grand, incredible building. I struggled to this day to describe it. It was ultimate perfection and beauty. The precision was beyond anything that Earthwards can describe. And I was merged into a conference room. And my sense is there were twelve people. I didn’t count them, but it felt like there was a board or a committee of twelve. And they were all dressed identical. Very three d like and like suits and proper and formal. And then their heads were glowing And at the top of their head, it was like a lid open, like a teapot. And there was this glowing ball of light that just streamed into my head, right into my third eye, I guess, I could say. And it’s and they said to me, you you can know anything you need to know, whatever you need to know it.
Dr. Amirah Hall: And instantly, I was teleported out of there and I was standing with my guide. It was, like, not visible. There’s a presence with the guide communicating. And there I was standing in front of this corridor that went on for infinity.
And there were doors on either side of the corridor that sat at east my guide said, you can enter any door that you choose. You can’t stay. So I went to the easiest route. I took the first door of my right. It was a gold door. And I stepped through it. It was like I merged through it. And I stepped into what felt like a kaleidoscope of color. And it was moving patterns. And it was incredibly rich, warm, comforting embracing in ways that the only way I can describe it was, like, going back into momma’s room and feeling the love and the support and the safety. And I said, what is this? And the voice said to me, This is the fabric of all creation. This is love. And I was just so immersed into it and so still and so full. And then I was full of gout. And I’m like, I don’t know, rude. I was liking this. I wanted to stay there. And then I went across the corridor. I entered this the store across the way. It was pink. And I merged through that door and it was a solid green Emerald Green Energy. I said, well, what’s this? And they told what I then saw was my life review.
Dr. Amirah Hall: And I saw a timeline of my own life, all the places where my emotions had gotten stuck or interfered with what I was creating or my flow. I could see that I created my I created the dysfunction and the decease in my life with my emotions. And being highly emotional, that’s how I did it. And those emotions weren’t flowing and I was very attached to them and that way of being. I knew in an instant I needed to go home well, at home. I needed to detox. And the detox was not only the physical body, It was mental, emotional, spiritual. And I realized in that moment that that was my purpose. And to understand who I am and that everything was energy. I had stepped into the quantum field. I understood it at a level. That was beyond my words or my vocabulary at the time. I think, finally, when I came across Doopak Chopra, I’m like, oh, I get it. This is where I went. This is what it is. And this is the explanation that and my guide told me that meditation was crucial. For all of it, for all of our disease, all of our dysfunction. And that there is tools to practice, but it was a it was a journey. And so for twenty three years now, I’ve been doing this work. And yes, I still see beings. I connect with loved ones on the other side because they are just changed forms, and I’m able to access that and receive information. I’m also have the ability to heal them. If there are a sense of being stuck. So Victoria, I feel like I’ve just firehosed you here with the story and didn’t take happen. I apologize.
Victoria VolK: That’s okay. And I don’t do you have to go soon?
Dr. Amirah Hall: No. No. I’m good. I just I feel like when it starts coming the stream of information, you know, it’s like I get so excited to get it out and to share that often don’t take a breath myself. So
Victoria Volk: Well, I felt like I was listening to an audiobook. Like, it was just I was envisioning it as you were talking and just felt like I was kind of experiencing it with you in a sense. There was a couple of questions that I thought of on the way as you’re speaking. Can you speak to a little bit what when you were feeling it in your darkest place? Physically when your body was starting to break down, what did that actually look like?
Like, what were you struggling with physically?
Dr. Amirah Hall: I can remember driving to work after my dad died and having to pull over to the side of the road and just overwhelming tears and sobbing. And I had healed my I had already started personal development work, and I had been healing my relationship with my dad. So I thought we were good. And when he died, I was so freaking mad. I was he was a dirty rotten bastard for dying and leaving me. You know, that we just got going in terms of healing what we had. And I just felt so jipped, you know, losing both men in my life and that that were significant and my the divorce and my dad. And, yeah, I’ve become I became completely dysfunctional. Like I said, miserable. I was I was heavy. I was negative. I was so over time, that built up. And then, well, the doctor told me I had chronic fatigue syndrome. So, you know, they don’t know how to diagnose that. They lump that in with everything.
Dr. Amirah Hall: And it’s my belief system that fibromyalgia you name it, you name it. In fact, I can see the beginnings of cancer. In fact, before the show, we were talking about a client that had recently lost one client lost her son to suicide a year ago. Another client her friend wasn’t my client yet. She lost her son seventeen years ago. Now that woman seventeen years is hanging on to that energy of the loss. And her fear of letting that go is that she’ll lose connection with her son and perhaps, you know, be a bad mom as a result of that. You know, you just have to Whereas the other lady who has been healing those energies of loss and pain and just incredible separation, that feeling of separation. She’s thriving.
She’s doing things that she hasn’t done in years. She’s having a great connection with her son now. She can actually feel him come and give her a hug. And so there’s I find the contrast so fascinating, not not as a judgment, but as an as I think as hope or as an as a lesson, as a possibility that there are other ways that we can still have that connection with our I talk to my dad all the time and when I pull out his hunting knife and I’m cutting something, I always feel him coming like, watch your fingers young lady. It’s like every single time he comes in for that. Yeah.
Victoria Volk: I think that’s a great I’m glad this came up because I think people tend to focus on that separation, like you said. Like, the focus is just the separation. Like, I’m never gonna see them again. I’m never gonna speak to them again. Never gonna hug them or touch them or pick up the phone and call them again. It’s that the focus is so much on the separation. That you can’t even fathom the idea that the relationship is continuing. Right? That’s still a relationship that’s continuing, but it’s so unhealthy and dysfunctional and — Right. — and not self-serving at all.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Yeah. And only turning other people too because
Victoria Volk: Exactly —
Dr. Amirah Hall: You’re affecting the entire family or friends and your all your other relationships suffer. So you have to, you know, if we can have a moment and just think in terms of I know when we’re grieving, we’re not thinking of anybody else. We’re really self absorbed. Most of the time, I was. And it was all me and my pain, and I didn’t have the bandwidth for anybody else. But I can honestly say I’ve been divorced over thirty years now. My ex-husband committed suicide in COVID. And I know there’s a growing number of suicides and depression that people are experiencing. And what I’d like to say to that is I couldn’t connect with him for a very long time. And as a medium, as somebody that does talk to the dead, I thought, well, this is interesting.
Dr. Amirah Hall: When a client comes to me, for instance, my client, whose son had committed suicide a year ago, I couldn’t connect with him at first. And what I the first impression I got was his energy let’s call it a package of energy. And he was stuck in an elevator, and he wasn’t going up or down, and it was confined And I could see that there was drug-induced and so there was a question of was it accidental or was it intentional? But I also saw the depression. So, you know, it all sort of came together. It wasn’t it wasn’t a place of blaming one thing. You know what I think is those of us grieving or left behind, we wanna have a reason. We wanna pinpoint what exactly it was that I don’t know as if it’s gonna help ease our pain or maybe your guilt? That we should have known something. So when we connected with him, I’m trying to remember. See, because I’m in a slight trance when I look and connect. So I don’t remember my story’s crystal clear unless we talk about it.
Dr. Amirah Hall: And so my client and I, we’ve talked about it many, many times as it comes up. But So we I I can see the energy where they’re stuck, and I can move the energy. So, like, I understand in religions, they talk about limbo. Or purgatory. Mhmm. And I would say that’s probably the zone. It’s like a zone. Like when I came back from my near death, I think I was stuck in a limbo that was freaking depressing. It was horrible that zone. And so just like when we leave the body, it’s my understanding that we can that can happen also. Now I’ve also connected with loved ones on the other side who committed suicide, who weren’t stuck. Okay? So it’s not a it’s not a blanket statement. It’s not It’s so in my own husband, I did some clearing and I did all the work and connect tried to connect because this was a man. The reason we got divorced is I couldn’t be me. I couldn’t I couldn’t express my need to connect with spirituality. He wasn’t having anything about it. So that was the sort of the breaking point for us. Well, he was just a whole life atheist, and he didn’t believe in anything. So that’s why I think I’m such a advocate for, you know, increasing our self awareness and and awakening our consciousness to all that we are because guess what? That’s the only freaking thing we take with us. Is our consciousness. And I’ve been witnessing that and communicating with that. And yes, we can affect those loved ones that seem to be stuck. Okay? For some reason, it’s like our energy is a soul in this human body has seniority. At some for for, I don’t know, the heirarchy, but it’s my understanding and from my experience.
Dr. Amirah Hall: So in doing the work for my ex-husband, Dave, I cleared the energy, then one day I was walking on my path where all the cardinals come to say hello to me. And this one day, all of a sudden, I felt Dave. And I’m like, wow. I wasn’t looking for it or expecting you know, and he just he had the attitude of, you know, your first love like, when you’re a puppy love and you’re so sweet on somebody and you’re kind of embarrassed or shy and that’s how he was. He was like a young soul that didn’t really know how this worked and that he was just beginning at his level of comprehension of what love was. And he was reflecting to me some of the things he did for me. Like, I didn’t think it was very funny or nice for a vacuum for Christmas. And he thought that was loving. Okay. And so back in those days, I was, you know, that was meant to be done. And, you know, so I was getting to laugh at some of these ridiculous things that I got spun up over, but he was showing me that he really, really did love me. And that was incredibly healing for me, spent all these years and a surprise. And it’s been it was two years after he passed that I was finally able to connect with him. I didn’t I didn’t work on it and intend on it, you know, and make it like I had to. But that’s what happens when we heal. It’s us that needs to heal, then the communication. They’re right there.
Victoria Volk: Oh, is that your tip? Is that people work on healing themselves? If —
Dr. Amirah Hall: Absolutely. —
Victoria Volk: so that they can connect?
Dr. Amirah Hall: Absolutely. We are we’re always like you and I are telepathically connected. And, you know, it’s just because they’ve left changed forms doesn’t mean they’re not communicating or they’re not able to communicate. It’s us. It’s the receiver. That’s been dumb down or doled out. And, you know, just a little the frequency, we have to raise our frequency to have that connection. It’s just like sometimes you can call somebody and add all the static on the line or it’s intermittent and you go, you know what? Let’s just hang up. You call again and boom, it’s good. Right? And that’s like that with communicating with spirit. So you don’t need a medium, but you need to get clear. And I find one of the very basic tools that I teach people because people don’t know how to be presence. Because if they’re stuck thinking about how their loved one died or some things they didn’t say, or they wish it could be different. They wish Johnny was with us at Christmas or it’s his birthday today, then you’re stuck in the past. Your energy is literally in that past experience that moment in time. And what that does overall is it reduces your frequency and you’re stuck in what I call depression. And so in the work I do is we learn to really accumulate, reaccumulate our own energies, our lives, and raise that so that we can be happier. So we are more inspired. So we are more motivated and fluid. And then, it’s like when opportunities open up, set new situations, you present yourself in ways that you couldn’t have expected. You know, my client that I was sharing when we cleared her energy and she was able to have that communication with her son, she started wearing shorts for the first time in thirty years. Right? And she would she said, I’m cutting up and I’m goofing off and I’m just she goes, my daughter doesn’t even know me like this. So parts of herself that she’d shut off, maybe when she decided when she became a mom. That’s the moment to come. Okay. Now I gotta be serious. I gotta grow up. And those aspects to our personality or what’s in our heart kinda get lost? Yeah. So it is work. It’s being a raising our awareness to being present. Having the appropriate tools, how can I do this? You know, if it’s I’m not a subscriber to talk therapy because in my own moments of grief, I just I got sick and tired of just talking about it. Like, I’m a bottom line girl. Give me some freaking way to get rid of it because I like this feeling to be caught in this loop.
Victoria Volk: Exactly. And so, like, even for what the work that I do with grievers, it’s action based. You’re always taking action. There’s steps. There’s it’s a process. Right. It’s evidence-based. Yes. I’m totally and it’s Transforms my transform my life and my grief too.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Yes. Yes. And, you know, like, we were talking. I mean, you can be sacked from your job, and that’s grief.
Victoria Volk: Mhmm.
Dr. Amirah Hall: You know, you can, yes, losing a loved one is is probably the ultimate, but losing a relationship, that’s a heavy grief. And
Victoria Volk: Loss of health.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Yes.
Victoria Volk: And all of it
Dr. Amirah Hall: I had all
Victoria Volk: of you. Yeah.
Dr. Amirah Hall: And I’m not alone. I know there’s millions of people doing the same shit that I did. And because we’ve not been taught, we’ve not been taught the nuances of our energy. How our thoughts are creating?
Victoria Volk: Can I ask you a question? Because something came up when I because in my in my own personal experience with my own energy. Right?
Dr. Amirah Hall: Uh-huh.
Dr. Amirah Hall: So I think, you know, as time, we can go through periods where, you know, like, for my for me personally, like, I’ve been on and off the health wagon for many years on and off on and off. What I have discovered just in the last month is nutrition and how food is fuel. And food is cheap. Right? Energy?
Dr. Amirah Hall: Yes.
Victoria Volk: Everything you eat is energy. The plants animals like it, this is energy. And if you are consistently and especially in grief or if you’re depressed, stress, can be a big one? Like, what are you reaching for? The sugary cake? or
Dr. Amirah Hall: of course.
Victoria Volk: Probably not the salad. Right? So so what she do you want? If you are ready or low vibe and you’re already down and out and you’re feeling in the dumps, that sugary cake is not gonna bring you up. Right? It’s not gonna bring up your tea. So when you are going through like that deep depressive period in your life, I imagine you are probably terribly under eating and not caring for wrongly eating, I actually heard something not that long ago about vegetarians. About how vegetarians can actually come off as very angry people, because they don’t they don’t eat protein. But what they don’t realize is that they’re still eating they’re still eating living things. Right? So it’s like they don’t wanna eat meat. Like, because it’s because it’s animal.
Victoria Volk: But a plant is a living thing too. Right?
Dr. Amirah Hall: I know. They have no problem killing that.
Victoria Volk: Right. So let’s bring it with poison. Yes.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Well, here’s you know, we could that’s a whole another podcast because back in those days in the nineties, and when I’ve discovered with chronic fatigue, I started colon cleansing. I started doing detoxes. Like I said before, one year before I went to Egypt, I started doing thirty day detoxes twice a year. And I was into juicing, and I was into enemas, and a coffee enemas, and you name it. Well, at one point, I was vegan then I went to a mix. Right? So I’ve seen the journey across the board. Now, because things were so compromised as a young girl with my emotions and eating all the carbs growing up and sandwiches every day to go to school. And I believe while my immune system is still compromised. So now we understand about leaky gut. We understand, hey, I’ve been in the process of healing. It’s a big it’s a long journey. And I’ve recently switched the carnivore, which I have to say, I don’t tell many people and I don’t admit but I am absolutely loving it and I’m shocked at my own self because there was one time, I would say to you, if you’re eating animal, you’re, you know, going to the hell or the you know. But I as a vegetarian, complete vegetarian for a number of years, I got very sick. I got anemic. Right? And so all of these you know, broad range and scope swings that I’ve done to do desperate to heal myself. I think the biggest most important thing I’ve done is my energy. And when we have energy that’s stuck, that will make us crave carbs because today, even though I’m now carnivore in like six or nine months, I know people that have been a carnivore for fourteen years. And the thing of it is is their that cow is eating all the nutrients and pre-digesting it is going into the meat. So that’s the argument. So my health has improved. Inflammation has been reduced and cravings have pretty much stopped. Yeah. So it’s a shock to me and I’m delighted. However, I’m as I said, I’m working on it and I’m actually gaining weight. Now is it because my body still you know, a lot of things, adrenals, etcetera. But one thing I notice is I when I’m teaching a class or working with clients, two days before I’m like, shit. And I find myself driving to the store and getting that butter pecan ice cream. I’m like, what the I don’t I don’t need this. What is it’s somebody’s energy, literally, plugging into me. I get on the call, I said, you know, like, buttered pecan ice cream by any chance, do you? That’s my favorite. No. Unknowingly, I’ve been affected by this person’s energy that was seeking me and looking for their answers or their healing. And so it does affect us, especially ultra-sensitive people. So if all of a sudden, like the other night, I was craving chocolate, That’s not normally on my list, but I’m like, okay, somebody’s energies permeated my space. We can’t completely stop energy. You can’t stop energy from moving. It’s just the nature of it. So we have to learn tools. We have to learn how to be grounded, how to protect, not protect because that’s a sense that you can actually control energy. You can’t, you can manage it. So learning all of that is key.
Victoria Volk: It can only be transformed, moved, or transformed.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Yes. Yes. And so whether it’s grief, whether it’s, you know, gaining around your waistline, whether it’s a new job, whether it’s a relationship, we’re creating all of that with our energy, with our thoughts, with our consciousness. And so we start, we gotta start somewhere. Right? So let’s start with being aware. Grounding, being present.
Victoria Volk: Gosh. We could talk so much. I mean,
Dr. Amirah Hall: I know I know it’s so exciting because I’m
Victoria Volk: so glad you like, that that the conversation went with the with the carnivore and because I beat I’m eating more protein than I had in years. I — Right. — I spent years trashing my metabolism.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Right.
Victoria Volk: But and it’s a vicious cycle, you know, and then you have the cortisol and the middle section where they can
Dr. Amirah Hall: And you believe all the doctors. Well, listen, I’m there is a lot of cardiologists now and other mainstream doctors that are starting to go this route. So I’m just open. I’m just open to exploring. And I didn’t tell anybody for the longest time because I’m my own labrat. Like, I’m gonna try it. And then if it works for me, then I’ll share it with other clients. But, hey, I’m shocked. And I’m just like,
Victoria Volk: But I think one of the key things you said was when the pendulum swings so far one way, you know, where you’re just a vegetarian and that’s all you’re doing. Any one way isn’t balanced.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Well, and the thing of it is I’ve met so many vegetarians. They’re completely ungrounded. They don’t. They can’t get their life together. They struggle. In in most cases, not all. But they struggle in some ways and that is being present or you can just see the, like, the life force energy isn’t strong or bright, usually with them. Oh, again, I’m not talking about the, you know, the monk or the guru from India. I’m talking about Western and live in this lifestyle. So Yeah.
Victoria Volk: I definitely wanna have you back because there’s so much more I want to talk about with you if that’s okay?
Dr. Amirah Hall: Oh, I’d love that. Thank you
Victoria Volk: too. Okay. Yeah. And I do wanna give you an opportunity to share what you have coming up or where people can find you or reach out to you if they wanna learn more about you?
Dr. Amirah Hall: Great. Yes. I’m hosting a twenty-one-speaker series with incredibly brilliant and amazing experts. And so you can go to intuitivesuperpowerssummit.com Intuitive superpowers with an s summit dot com. And, yeah, go to my website. I’ve got a free gift It’s called stress buster. And you go to my website, amirahhall.com forward slash stress buster dot com.
Victoria Volk: And I’ll get those links in the show notes as well.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Yeah. The yeah. So stress buster, and that’s agood energy shower, and you can start clearing your energy and moving in the direction of coming into alignment and connecting with your loved one.
Victoria Volk: And where can people find you just your website? Are there social media?
Dr. Amirah Hall: Yes. Amira, A M I R A H H A L L. COM. You can read all about me there.
Victoria Volk: Sounds wonderful. Thank you so much for this great conversation.
Dr. Amirah Hall: I just want to invite people if something triggered something within you reach out to me on my website. There’s a link and you can book a twenty-minute consultation. And we’ll just talk about maybe what your next step is or where you feel that maybe you need help. Okay?
Victoria Volk: Sounds great.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Thank you so much. It’s been such an honor. Thank you for opening your heart and doing the work you’re doing. It’s truly amazing and I’m I feel very blessed to be connected with you.
Victoria Volk: Same. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.
Grieving Voices Podcast, Growth, Mental Health, Mind/Body Wellness, Podcast, Q&A, Spirituality |
Q&A | The Grief of a Midlife Crisis
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
Did you know that the term “midlife crisis” was coined by Elliot Jacques, a psychoanalyst who came up with the term in 1965 after noticing significant changes in one of his middle-aged clients?
A lot has changed since 1965; the way we eat, how we eat, what we drive, societal views about marriage and children, etc. It’s as if Mr. Jacques saw the writing on the wall back then. Fast-forward fifty-eight years, and the “midlife crisis” has become, in some respects, a societal joke. Hit forty, and you might have an affair, buy a sports car, or make some other radical, life-altering change due to aging panic…or is it due to something else?
In this episode, I explore the idea of a midlife crisis, or rather, a midlife unraveling, and the accompanying grief. Which comes first? Grief or the midlife unraveling?
I believe that we all experience a midlife crisis to some degree. The question is: what do you do about it? Well, you’ll find that there’s more to a midlife crisis than meets the eye.
Listen, reflect, and connect with me on social media – I’d love to continue this conversation!
🎙 Do you have a question you would like addressed on the podcast? Message me on social media or email me at victoria [at] theunleashedheart [dot] com with “Grieving Voices Q&A” in the subject line.
RESOURCES:
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CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
Victoria Volk: Hello. Hello. Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, no matter what time you’re listening. Thank you for being here. And tuning in to grieving voices. I am your host, Victoria Volk. And today’s episode is number 147 and it’s a Q&A episode talking about a topic that I think hits a lot of people. And it’s the grief of a midlife crisis. This topic came up, I believe it was during a podcast interview I was guesting on. And I want to bring up a article that I came across and I’ll put the link to it in the show notes. It was on HealthLine. And I’m just gonna I mean really this article kind of talks about midlife crisis as as we age. As being like this issue that you have when you’re aging. And there’s a part in here that says a period of soul searching is relatively common but only about 10 to 20 percent of people actually face some kind of crisis in middle age. Experts mostly consider the midlife crisis, in air quotes, a cultural phenomenon, a western myth fueled by tired media tropes. I don’t know about you but I think I personally believe that we all experience a mid life crisis or a midlife unraveling, whatever you want to call it, to some degree in our lives at some point. Their phase in our lives.
Victoria Volk: And so let’s define a midlife crisis. Typically, it is around ages forty and sixty with ten years of wiggle room according to this article. New roles and responsibilities not to mention changes in your career, family life, and health can create a perception of middle age before you reach the momentous, big four or birthday. Maybe you’ve had children at a young age, so you’re still in your thirties, when they leave home or perhaps early success prompts you to retire early, leaving you financially secure but somewhat dissatisfied at loose ends. In short, midlife can begin at a different point for everyone.
Victoria Volk: And actually the term midlife was developed by Elliott Jaques, a psychoanalyst who came up with the term in 1965 after noticing significant changes in one of his middle aged clients. According to Jacques, this crisis prompts feelings of depression, anguish, and loss related to the approaching end of life. He also noted that it often involved a loss of creativity and confidence along with the first inklings of mortality, the transition of middle age is often suggested to involve other emotional turmoil. Such as declining happiness and life satisfaction, aimlessness or loss of life purpose, self-doubt, frustration with changing life roles and responsibilities, boredom and dissatisfaction with your relationship career or life in general, concerns about your appearance and how others perceive you, thoughts about death, the meaning of life, and other existential, that’s a hard word to say. Existential concepts, changes in energy levels from increased restlessness to unusual fatigue, less motivation or interest in pursuing goals and activities you use to enjoy. Mood changes, including anger, irritability, and sadness, and changes in sexual desire.
Victoria Volk: Well, I don’t know about you, but I think all of us experience some of this to some degree. So the fact that experts air quotes believe that this is that a midlife crisis is a cultural phenomenon and a western myth ought to wake up and smell the coffee because why do we see people resorting to behaviors to feel better if they were so satisfied with their lives. If they did not feel self-doubt, if they didn’t lack purpose, if they didn’t have thoughts of death in the meaning of life and purpose, or if they’re bored, not dissatisfied with the relationship career life in general. Like, are these surprising reasons? Like, are we surprised that most people that we know, maybe even new or ourselves, like, I know I have experience this sense of a midlife crisis or midlife unraveling, which I like to call it. Because I think, especially like turning 40. It is like this midphase. Like, you’re you’re looking to the past you’re thinking you’re reflecting on the past, you’re thinking about all the life that came before you, all the experiences, maybe there’s been a lot of hurt and a lot of pain and a lot of sorrow and grief and loss. And you’re thinking ahead, well, what do I have to look forward to? What do I want my last however many years to look? What do I want to produce in the world? How do I wanna show up for myself or my loved ones or my family and friends? What legacy do I want to leave? Like, it’s overwhelming when we think about having maybe thirty years left to live or twenty years left to live in the fact is that we don’t know how many years we have left to live.
Victoria Volk: And so especially as we get into the 40s, what happens when we start to get into the 40s? We’re almost we become like this sandwich generation. We’re still raising kids and yet we have aging parents, so we’re taking care of the young and the old. We’re having to transition from being the child, to being the caregiver and the caretaker, and the responsible one for the care of our parent, an aging parent maybe. We’re having to make big decisions, big changes possibly in our lives. This is a huge transitional period. And for anyone that says that the midlife crisis is a myth I do wholeheartedly wholeheartedly wholeheartedly absolutely disagree. I think it’s something that we need to talk about more. I think it’s something that we need to less stigmatized as being something that this period of time, or you have an affair, or you spend all your money, or you buy the race car or the fancy car or you go have liposuction or BOTOX and it’s not just an aging. It’s not just about aging. Yes, that has a lot to do with that, I think. But at the same time, like, what is the bigger picture? What has happened to you in your past that makes you reflect and bring into your future. Like, what has happened in the past that you’re bringing into your present moment that you will take into your future. That is affecting you right now.
Victoria Volk: Because I guarantee you you’ve had experiences in the past that are coming up again, especially if you have become the caregiver to your parent. I can bring up a lot for someone. It can be a very difficult position to be in. When maybe it was a less than loving relationship. Maybe you’re struggling with your child. Maybe your child is struggling. So your relationship is struggling. Maybe your marriage is struggling. Like, there’s so many things. This is the period too where you know, the friendships might change. As your kids get older and maybe move off to college and things, like the things that connected you with your friend group, the children. Right? You connected with these people because of your kids and now your kids are gone or now your kids are older and leave the house and go to college and what have you, those friendships can change. You can lose friendships because now there is not that commonality, that common ground that brought you together in the first place.
Victoria Volk: And so it’s a really huge time of transition. And in all of these signs and symptoms of a midlife crisis that I mentioned earlier, decline in happiness, self-doubt, frustration with changing life roles, responsibilities, mood changes, changes in sexual desire, etcetera, etcetera. It is par for the course. Like, these are things that we will experience in our lives, all of us, no matter what your gender is or how you identify or what have you. Like, we all go through these things. Not all of them may be necessarily, but many of them. Right? Like, we can have boredom and dissatisfaction with a relationship career or life in general because maybe we’re looking back and the things that we used to love to do we haven’t had the time or made the time because maybe we are that sandwich generation of now caring for small children or getting children that are growing and a parent at the same time. So it’s we’re put in these different roles as we get older and our roles change. And with change, can comes grief. Because grief is a change in familiar pattern of behavior. And so during this huge time of change, in midlife, we’re going to experience grief. No doubt about it.
Victoria Volk: They say that this that happiness is a you. Research has found some evidence this article says to suggest that happiness or general satisfaction with life takes the shape of a you. It begins to decline by early adulthood, eventually reaching its lowest point in the mid to late 40s. But then it begins to rise once more. This finding is pretty much universal. It holds true for people in a hundred and thirty two countries around the world independent of any outside factors that might affect life satisfaction and happiness. Experts don’t yet understand why this dip happens, but some believe it could represent an evolutionary stage. In any case, it may help explain some of the distress you experience in midlife. And offers some reassurance that these feelings aren’t permanent.
Victoria Volk: I would agree with that too. They don’t have to be permanent. But I think that a lot of these things that people experience self-doubt, aimlessness or a loss of life purpose or declined in happiness or life satisfaction. These things can take root. They can take hold and they can impact the remaining years of your life. If you allow it because I think too, coming back to reflecting on the first half of your life, maybe a lot of loss and grief. And all these things can resurface with life experience and midlife. Again, with aging parents, it can bring up a lot of stuff. Even having kids can bring up a lot of stuff, especially getting when they get into the teenagers, kids bring up all of our insecurities. Maybe you’re venturing into entrepreneurship and that can bring up a lot of insecurities and things from your past, belief systems. Again, I’m going to say that I believe all of us experience a midlife unraveling to some degree or another. And I do believe that it can be something that can help you evolve and grow if you’re willing to embrace the change. Embrace the transition because it really is a phase of transition and transformation. It can be. And it can really knock you on your ass at the same time.
Victoria Volk: This article goes on to say, well, how long does it last? Well, there’s no set timeline for supposed midlife crisis. There’s no timeline for grief either is there. Everyone experiences it differently, processes it, differently. But at the same time, everyone has different stressors. Everyone is experiencing a different trigger, I guess in their lives that catapults them into this midlife unraveling. And So I think everyone’s situation is very unique to them. But again, I will say that how you respond to that midlife unraveling, definitely I think plays a role in how quickly you rebound from it as well. And that’s the same for loss. If you’ve experienced a lot of loss in your life and you’ve never really looked at it and never allowed yourself to feel everything that you’ve experienced, processed it emotionally and with your body, you’re probably holding on to some junk. In there, and it’s probably manifesting as some physical symptoms, fibromyalgia, or hypertension, or migraines, things like that.
Victoria Volk: But a midlife unraveling can also lead you to behaviors that kind of exasperate those things that are already existing. Those behaviors that you already are participating in, a midlife unraveling can exasperate that. You can, like, go deeper into the alcohol. You can dive deeper into prescription drugs or promiscuous behavior or risk ski behavior or gambling or shopping, it comes back to the grief. Again, the grief of a midlife crisis, the grief of a midlife unraveling. It’s all tied together. And so, like this article says, how do you handle it? Well, how do you handle grief? Right? You gotta acknowledge it and acknowledge your feelings. I like how this article says to remember that your life is expanding and not shrinking. And I think it can be really easy to look at our age or if we’re looking at a midlife crisis as an age-related issue, which I don’t necessarily fully believe it is. I think we can have a midlife unraveling kind of at any point. I mean, you can be 30 years old and have had a really traumatic life up to that point where it feels like you’ve lived five lifetimes. Where you’ve experienced more in your life than most people experience in a lifetime. And so I think it is unique to you. I don’t know that I don’t fully believe that it has to be that it would be in your 40s necessarily. But again, it comes back to that societal just how society looks at midlife and the midlife crisis and the getting the fancy the midlife crisis car or things like that. But I like how this article says how you recognize that your life is expanding and not shrinking. And I think that’s where gratitude comes in. It’s really looking at the past for what it is and looking ahead with hope. And not like that with this idea or this belief that the best years are behind you.
Victoria Volk: And it reminds me of a guest who said Quandell. He was a recent where are they now episode and he had shared. What if everybody lived their lives as if the best years are yet to come? And I think that’s where this whole idea of when we think about the midlife crisis or midlife unraveling is thinking about our lives in that way, that the best years are yet to come. It’s not in the past, it’s and not necessarily the past was may be good to you either, you know. So I think it’s giving gratitude for the lessons of the past. And looking ahead to the future of asking yourself those big questions, the deeper questions, getting more curious about what you want your life to be like at the end of life. There’s an opportunity there to expand rather than look at your life as if it’s shrinking.
Victoria Volk: And I think this is where too as the article shares, to take stock of your relationships, how important relationships are, friendships are. I’m gonna mention in this episode again, I’ve ahead and episode. My guest shared this and I’m gonna share it again about the four people to have in your corner. This refers to women women friendships, but men can apply this to their lives as well. But you always want that wise person. You want the wise friend. You want the emotional support who only listens. And you want the go-getter. And four, you want the late-night talker. So those are the four types of friends or four people to have in your corner. The wise person, emotional support, the go-getter, and the late-night talker. And I think that’s an important aspect to have in relationships as a part of your life especially when you’re going through a challenging time such as grief or loss or midlife unraveling, right, which can be triggered by many many number of different things. And the importance of your taking care of your mental health. And I think if we’re addressing the relationships and we’re addressing gratitude in looking at our past with thanks and appreciation for what it was and what it gave us. And what we experienced and looking ahead to the future with opportunity, with opportunistic eyes and potential, seeing the potential that we yet have to bring joy and light and love into the world. I think the mental health will follow suit. I think that life becomes more like. So be the light, be the love, and you’ll get more of that in return. And maybe that’s the cure for a midlife unraveling is making those things a priority. And seeking support wherever you need it.
Victoria Volk: And I’m gonna have an episode coming up or I’m gonna talk about more about life satisfaction as it relates to grief. I’m finishing up with a Do Grief Differently client and we had our second to last session recently, and she was sharing all of these amazing basically testimonials of what she’s experienced the past eleven sessions with me and through the program itself and the importance of having Youmap as a part of the program. It’s not just about working through your grief. It’s looking ahead to the future, which she does now, which she does now. And it’s such an important topic to talk about because what I do, it’s not talk therapy. It’s taking action. And action is where it’s at. Action is where transformation happens. And so I’m gonna be talking about that in a future episode coming up real soon.
Victoria Volk: And in the meantime, I want to leave you with something that I’ve never brought to the podcast before or shared, but I kinda like Oracle cards. And I don’t read them, you know, like, it’s not a session I offer. Like, I don’t, like, pull a card for people as an offering or anything like that. But when you work with me, it is something that if I feel called to, I will ask if you know, at the end of a session, energy healing session or end of a, you know, Grief Recovery, Do Grief Differently session. I’ll ask if the client wants me to pull a card. And generally speaking, I don’t choose the deck that I pulled the card from. I let my pendulum decide. But today, just for funsies, I decided to pull a card for you, my audience, and it’s from postcards, from Spirit. It’s a 52 Card Oracle Deck by Colette Baron-Reid. She’s the bestselling author of the map and Uncharted. I have not read the books, but I absolutely love this Oracle deck. And so I’m gonna read this card. I’m gonna leave this with you today because this is it’s absolutely perfect for what I’ve just shared, which I pulled the card, and then I recorded, so this is interesting. But perfect for the topic today.
Victoria Volk: And the card is reads. Dear you, There are times in life when taking a risk is better left for another day. Other times are perfect for taking that leap. No matter how dangerous it might seem. Well, hold on to your parachute strings for today is leap time. Realize that no matter what, we will not let you fall, drown, get lost, or hurt yourself in any way on this one. Even if it may feel like you are in a free fall, we are here for you, and you can stop freaking out about getting hurt and relax into this transition to something new. All the elements are in place and your soul is ready for a new experience. No matter what you’re asking about, it’s time to take the risk and do that thing that scares you. No matter what happens, you will land softly right on target. Don’t worry about the outcome. Spirits got that covered. It’s taking the leap itself. That’s the point. We love your courage, embrace it.
Victoria Volk: And thank you so much for listening to today’s episode. If you loved it, I would love to hear about it. And if you would like more cards, shared with you at the end of these episodes. Let me know. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.
Emotions, Grieving Voices Podcast, Podcast, Spirituality, Takeaways and Reflections |
Takeaways & Reflections | Spiritually Challenged: Releasing Anger & the Story
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
There are two camps of grievers; those who talk about their grief and share their stories and those who keep their grief and stories hidden.
Regardless of the camp, you find yourself in, there is one common denominator that is often present with most, if not all, grievers – anger.
There is a caveat to sharing your story, though. As we look for meaning in our experiences, including those that cause us grief, we can find ourselves repeating the story without ever getting into how the experience made us feel.
Depending on the grief experience, we may disassociate ourselves from those experiences, never feeling the feelings, and recite what happened when speaking our stories to others as if it were a recipe card. Repeating only the story does nothing to help us move forward in our lives — to move beyond the story.
Anger adds to the feeling of powerlessness over something that cannot be changed or undone. It can impact our spirituality, too. And, if we pay attention to when anger shows up for us, it informs us where our attention to the pain needs to be.
Over time, anger resulting from grief can chip away at our souls, our spirituality, and the essence of who we are. However, through Kim, Scott, and Christian’s stories, we learn how sitting in the emotional pain (and the anger) can be the fuel and the catalyst for change and growth.
If you are struggling with your grief, listen to this episode and then take a moment to reflect on your spirituality, anger, and the story you have lived.
What has your grief (and anger) been trying to tell you?
________
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CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
A Little Update About My Son
I do just want to give a little update as to what’s been happening in my neck of the woods. If you’ve been listening for a while, you know that my son had an accident back in November of 2021. And it’s still an ongoing process, he’s still somewhat healing I was I say somewhat because technically, his pancreas is still necrotizing, which really means it’s dying. But in the process of the pancreas dying, he experiences vomiting from time to time still. And so we’re just watching it, and he will be having another CT or MRI coming up here in a few months. And so we will see where things stand at that time. So I just wanted to thank you for any good wishes that you’ve sent his way. And I will continue to keep you updated on that front.
Launching Another Program This Year
I have another piece of news for you if you follow me on Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn, you may have seen a couple of hints here and there or if you follow my newsletter if you have signed up for my newsletter, The unleashed letters, which is a bi-weekly newsletter I send every other Wednesday. If you follow there, too, you may have seen some rumblings of a launch that’s coming up. I will be starting a group program on November 30, 2022, and if you would like to stay in the know when of all the happenings with that and be the first to know when you can register. Sign up for my newsletter. That’s the easiest way to keep up to date.
The Imprint of Fear and Feeling Unwanted To Finding My Voice
Going back to Kimberly Bell’s episode, one of the things that I jotted down as I was that if we believe our stories and our experiences are so unique, that no one could possibly understand, we are setting ourselves up for more suffering and disappointment.
And what I mean by that is anyone truly going to understand what you’ve been through? Absolutely not. Because you are in your own story, you have lived that story, you have lived that experience, and no one else has. And so if we focus on that aspect of no one knowing what it was like because they weren’t there, that is true.
But at the same time, if that is our reason for not sharing with others, if that is what we are using as a way to shut ourselves down from connecting with others, or if we’re using that thought process or that belief, of say, belief, if we’re using that belief, and really believing that is to be true, then we are only becoming more disconnected from those around us. And we are only isolating ourselves more in our grief.
And I say this several times, throughout other podcasts or in my writings that we can get so stuck on the story that we will repeat our story of what happened, this happened to me, and then this happened. And then that happened. And then this happened as if we were almost just reciting a recipe or reading something someone else gave us. And it’s this.
And I think we do that because we’ve assigned certain meanings to what happened. And our minds just want to understand it, our minds want to logically understand what happened. And so this process of repeating the story, really only keeps us in the story. If we feel like we have to share the story with anyone who will listen, any chance we get, there’s a clue there, that there’s probably something unresolved. There is a difference between speaking your story to inspire, to connect, to help someone else maybe connect the dots of their story, or to highlight a turning point.
But if it’s reciting just what happened, this happened. And that happened, and this happened. And that happened. What good is that doing? Anybody, you relive it in your body? If you haven’t processed that story. If you haven’t fully processed the story, every time you repeat it, you’re living it in your body. Again, as you’re speaking your story you might feel might have a flashback, or you might have a feeling in your body, your heart rate might go up your blood pressure might increase you. You might have these physical responses to what you are speaking out loud. And how is that serving you? How is that helping you move forward?
And this is what we can see oftentimes in support groups, especially in-person support groups, which could be online to where there is no outlined action
or purpose for the group. If it’s just this open sharing of the story. You might leave feeling worse about yourself. Actually. You might feel worse leaving because you are taking in that other person’s story. You’re feeling something so heavy of someone else shared.
There is no hierarchy of grief. There is no loss or experience that anyone can say is worse than this or worse than that.
There are certain losses we can’t even fathom experiencing. But there is no hierarchy of grief because we all grieve at 100% regardless of what the loss was. I just want to encourage you that to challenge that belief that no one could ever possibly understand. Because to receive compassion and empathy from another griever, or from another person who’s experienced loss, can do so much for the soul, can do so much for the griever’s heart.
And so if we come into the conversation, or to the room, or to the group, or wherever you’re going into, and you’re sharing your story, or you’re afraid to share your story, just remember that your grief is worthy of being honored and heard. But if you’re repeating the story, and it’s not moving you forward, you haven’t been moving forward, there’s something to dig into there.
Facing The Challenges in Our Life
Let’s skip the surface-level recipe card of all the crap that you’ve experienced. Let’s get deeper than that. Let’s go beyond that. How did that change you? How did that shape your life today? How is that changing you now? Talk about that stuff, the meat, and the juice, that is the experience of life, that is life. Because this stuff will constantly be popping up in and out of our lives we’ll always be experiencing loss and will always be having these experiences that shape us and challenge us. Some might be deeply wounding and others might just sting a little. But regardless, let’s go deep into these conversations we’re having or get the recipe card conversation, forget the repeat, and repeat. We’re in a boat conversation, right? Let’s talk about the deeper emotional side of grief when we’re sharing our stories. That’s where the connection is.
Anger After a Loss And The Anger Within Ourselves
Let’s go back to Scott Deluzio’s episode, he lost his brother while they were both on a deployment to Afghanistan, and he spoke a lot about his experience with anger after that loss.
Scott shares this “I put grief down and I picked up anger” I think that is so common with so many grievers and grievers of all kinds. Because you can lose a brother in that way on a deployment, but you can also be sexually assaulted or you can experience the death of a complicated relationship with a parent. And you might have a lot of anger towards that parent, and then they pass away and you still might be angry. There are a lot of things in life that can stir up anger within us. And a lot of relationships that can too. And so I think anger is one of these emotions that from a young childhood that is stuffed away, pushed down, told us badly, you can’t be angry, don’t show your anger at me type of thing.
I had a lot of misplaced anger within me. And I’ve actually seen glimpses of it every now and again, you know, if I’m working on something very intently, and I’m super hyper-focused. And then something comes to disrupt that flow or something malfunctions and doesn’t want to work, or he’ll be at software or the kid needs something, or the phone keeps ringing, or some distraction of some sort. Any kind of distraction that takes me off that hyperfocus train. Then I’ve been quick to anger. Because it’s so hard for me to get back. It’s really difficult for me to, get back on track when I’ve been derailed. I’ll say it that way when I feel like I’ve been derailed. Because I do personally know that my energy, I work in bursts. And I can knock out a lot of things in a short amount of time.
So when I’m in these productive mental bursts of energy, and things aren’t going right, then the ugly comes out. And so I’ve recently seen this, and I’ve caught myself in those moments of anger. Now granted, that’s very different anger versus grief anger. But at the same time, I can recognize that those moments of those, those anger bursts, when something isn’t going right or going my way or isn’t working or what have you. Those are far wide and in between, like those aren’t a common thing for me. Whereas when I was experiencing my anger from my grief, I was just angry all the time.
If something isn’t going right in your life and you’re angry about it, there’s your sign if there is something you are angry about, there is your sign that something needs to change. If you are not pissed about something, kudos to you. But if you are listening to the Grieving Voices Podcast it’s about grief, I guarantee you, you probably are pissed about something. So what is that anger guiding you to that you are not getting the message? You are not listening to that intuitive knowing within you. And that anger is either seething inside of you and you’re misplacing it and you’re projecting it elsewhere. Or it’s physically making you sick, there’s a clue. Look to your anger. And that’s what needs to change. And use it for fuel to do so. And your life can change.
Religion Versus Spirituality
Talking back to Christian’s episode last week, which was about religion versus spirituality. It is something that I’ve personally struggled with over the years, from childhood into well into adulthood. One thing Christian shared, and I wholeheartedly agree with this, is that spirituality is a part of us, it’s inherently a part of us. It is the essence of who we are. It is like, it is us like it is the core of our being. We are spiritual beings.
But what happens is, is grief happens and trauma happens. And it puts these layers against our spiritual selves, our inner physical selves, our emotional selves, like there are all these layers, then it’s almost like I imagined it looking like when you walk into like those mirror mazes. And you don’t know which way like you see your reflection and you think that’s the way to go. But it’s really not that, your reflections, you’re looking back at yourself but it’s an illusion. And I feel like, that’s what happens with grief and our spirituality is we can’t see the forest through the trees.
And so we may even cut ourselves off from our own spiritual essence of who we are. So then we might cut ourselves off from even God and religion, and walk away completely, which I had for several years. I wrote off God, I was angry with God. Why is there so much suffering in my life and the whole victim story I had down pat. But that was what was happening since my childhood and on, and I had never felt this connection to myself. Because so much was taken from me at such a young age that I didn’t even know my spiritual self existed. And so, it’s been a process of coming back to and rediscovering who I was.
The glimpses, like recognizing, again, those glimpses of my essence that I got when I was a teenager, and I was into like astrology and palm reading and all this mystical stuff. I was into that. And I loved collecting stickers because it was a form of play in it, it was childlike to me. And I didn’t have much of a childhood. It was a traumatic childhood. I don’t even remember a lot of it. And so I loved stickers as a teenager. And so I do today, too. I play with stickers today as an adult. It’s because I’ve learned how to reconnect to those parts of myself. I’m an energy healer. I’ve learned energy and healing. The mystical stuff. The stuff we can’t explain that I was into as a teenager but hadn’t allowed myself to really lean into that part of myself.
Grief is just really the impact it has on our spiritual souls. And how that ripples into the rest of our lives and what we do and what we become and what we do for play and how we show up in the world and all these things, right? But we don’t get that from religion. I don’t feel we do. Religion didn’t give me that. Its religion is an external thing. And spirituality is within. And so religion can be a pillar of growth and evolution and a foundation to start a spiritual journey. But I really feel like they are two separate things. That you can be spiritual, and have a religion, that there are many religious people who are not spiritual. The book says this, and this, and this, and this, and that’s it, right? But they’re not connecting with it. They’re not connecting with the words, they’re not connecting with what that means in their life. They’re not connected to themselves. They’re reading these words, but they’re disconnected from themselves. Because so many believe that you just gotta pray about it. All you got to do is pray about it. We got to pray and move our feet. The shortest line in the Bible is Jesus cried, he wept. And so many of us we’ve been private, we cry in private. And that’s so isolating.
And I even talked about how in the newsletter I even talked about how religion can be used against people. And so we have to be very careful about the advice that we give to people because we may be religious, or you might be a religious person, but not everybody is. And what if that person had religion used against them as a means to control as a means to manipulate? That person is religiously scarred. And we don’t want to inflict any more pain on that person who has experienced that type of grief.
In someone who has experienced that type of grief, and if you’re one of them, and you’re listening to this, I would recommend can start doing practices that help you connect to yourself spiritually, look into spiritual practice, and start connecting to the self. And if you find religion again, great, and if you don’t, that’s okay, too. In that episode, I mentioned that the soul is in the gut, and grief is in the lungs. And grief can actually be anywhere in the body. And generally speaking, to like, as far as pain, we might feel it in the left shoulder. And biofield tuning, which is energy sound healing that I conduct either online or in person. If you have a lot going on energetically in the left shoulder. That is where grief and sadness often are.
In Chinese medicine, they say grief is in the lungs, asthma, and different lung conditions. I believe that could be true. You can’t take a deep breath right? You can’t breathe, it’s like you’re suffocating in your own grief. And that makes sense to me, and that resonates with me, too. And as a teenager, I was dealing with a lot of gut issues. My soul was literally being chipped away. Spiritually, I have chipped away. And it makes sense to me to have that my gut was just screaming at me as a teenager.
How Powerful Breathwork Is
And so through breathwork, Christian talked about how connecting to the breath. We understand this powerful resource that we have within us in the breath. And I’ve personally experienced this with a friend of mine and I mentioned it during the episode too. I learned the power of the breath and how we can channel it to create so much energy within our bodies. It’s you can’t even imagine, I can’t even bring it into words, what that experience was like for me, but my hands are just vibrating, just talking about it. I feel the vibration in my hands. So we can’t destroy energy, but we can move energy and we can also create it within ourselves. So again, if you are low energy, you’re low vibe, you’re not living life in the full vibrant way that you wish to, look at where you’re at spiritually.
He also mentioned these two hurdles, that most people that he’s worked with or over the years have to personal freedom and empowerment. And one is being the victim. The poor be this relation to this poor me relationship to life, he said. And then also a struggle with forgiveness. And, he shared to give space to others is to be human. And get off of this self-righteous ego that we so often have, when it comes to forgiveness. I could have just an episode on victimhood and forgiveness, and actually have a chapter in my book about the victim mindset because I was stuck there for so many years. And I also coincidentally, and not coincidentally, had a real challenge with forgiveness. And so both of these things are actually addressed in the grief, evidence-based grief programs that I facilitate, and what I personally experienced myself that transformed my grief.
P.S. I highly encourage you to think about what I share today. Let it settle in your heart and reflect on it. Just take a moment to journal your thoughts after listening to this episode. What are your takeaways and reflections? I would love to hear your takeaways and reflections from this takeaways and reflections episode and I encourage you and I hope you share because I would love to know your thoughts on this episode. And I hope it was helpful. And also be sure you signed up on The Unleash Letters to get updated about the new program that I am launching this November.
Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, LGBTQ+, Mental Health, Mind/Body Wellness, Podcast, Spirituality |
Christian de la Huerta | Awakening the Soul of Power
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
Christian is one of nine children born and raised in Cuba during turbulent times and in the Catholic faith.
His parents instilled in him the importance of excelling and reading. These early lessons laid a foundation. However, those lessons also set the stage for a desire to escape and not be seen.
Introversion and depression plagued his adolescence, as was his knowledge of being gay. With courage, he came out to his family. Christian speaks about this challenging time in his life and the ones that came to be in the future, including the recent (and unexpected) decline of his mother’s cognitive health.
Through his breath and deep, internal work, Christian paved a path to personal empowerment and now leads others in doing the same. Through the lens of 30+ years of experience, he shares two of the biggest hurdles others have to personal freedom and empowerment.
RESOURCES:
CONNECT:
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If you are struggling with grief due to any of the 40+ losses, free resources are available HERE.
Are you enjoying the podcast? Check out my bi-weekly newsletter, The Unleashed Letters.
CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
Victoria Volk 0:00
Thank you for tuning in to grieving voices. Today my guest is Christian de la Huerta. He has 30 years experience and is a sought after spiritual teacher, personal transformation coach and leading voice in the breathwork community. He has traveled the world offering inspiring and transformational retreats combining psychological and spiritual teachings with lasting and life changing effects, and award winning critically acclaimed author he has spoken at numerous universities and conferences and on the TEDx stage. His new book, awakening the soul of power has described by multiple Grammy Award winner Gloria Estefan as a balm for the soul of anyone searching for truth and answers to life’s difficult questions, and has received a novelist Book Award and a nonfiction book award. So thank you so much for being here. And we are gonna go deep today.
Christian de la Huerta 0:52
Thank you so much, Victoria. I’m so happy to be here with you.
Victoria Volk 0:56
I actually really want to start, because I know you’ve done a lot of these podcast episodes, interviews, and then on the stage and things like that. But I really want to get to know you as a child, because I think our childhood really shapes our adulthood because adulthood is childhood reenactments. I say a lot. So I’m interested in learning about you as a child. So would you describe yourself as a child and your life? What it was like, for you?
Christian de la Huerta 1:24
Yeah, that’s, that’s interesting. I was I was born in Cuba. And so lived in a communist regime for the first 10 years of my life. And I’m one part of a large family of one of nine kids and only 12 years between the oldest and the youngest, and my mom was pretty much pregnant the whole time. Which I can’t even imagine having any kids, I’m happy if I don’t kill my plants when I travel. The scene so it was it was a beautiful and challenging in different ways. Childhood, I’m really appreciative of the fact that we grew up without watching TV, we had a TV, but there was nothing worth watching, really. So we grew up reading and I’m really grateful for that. We grew up creating, inventing our games and our pastimes and spending a lot of time out outside. So you know, when I see some of my kids in my life, you know, just like with their nose to the to the screen, just lost in there’s, it’s, it saddens me a bit. To see that. I was, you know, it was interesting, because my parents were involved in counter revolutionary activity. So they were conspiring against the revolution, or the Communist revolution, there was this kind of interesting push pull between, like an implicit, wanting to be seen and wanting to excel, like there was sort of sort of a family message like most of us were, like, really good students. I think we all were, and then because of their cattle revolute with the right kind of revolutionary activities, there was an innate, another message not to be seen too much. So So I see that, that, you know, I’m basically introverted, which, which means that you know, that I that I process internally that I need time off, if I don’t have time alone, that’s when I’m liable to lose my center. And so this was an interesting childhood me surrounded by kids and then having this also introverted streak like looking fighting for I was looking for my own space. And what I think your your, your audience might relate to also is that my adolescence, if you don’t, going forward a little bit, was one long depression with suicidal fantasies, like, I don’t think I know, I wouldn’t have done anything about it. But I did have thoughts about not not being alive and sort of like that escape fantasy, and and what’s important for your audience, because another another depth of the work that you do is that flash forward now, no matter what the details, or the circumstances are in my life, whether a relationship works out where it doesn’t, whether a project succeeds or it fails in quotes. I never, ever, ever questioned my sense of self, my level of self love self acceptance, are established, and unshakable and so that I know that that we can all break out of that stuff, the traumatic the difficult stuff, the self esteem, stuff from from childhood that all that stuff can be healed and transcended.
Victoria Volk 4:47
In your TED talk, you spoke a lot about this fight, flight or freeze and would you express that that was your adolescence, like was it like a, like a lack of stupid ability or security, like what was the? What was the grief? Of of your experience, then?
Christian de la Huerta 5:07
Yeah, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t say that I was in that. Maybe No, I didn’t know that I would say that it was in the fight flight or freeze mode. I think it was just numbed out. And for me, it was an existential struggle. You know, I knew at a young age that I was gay. And I was raised in a very Catholic, very Catholic environment. So trying to reconcile, you know, those two parts of who I am, there was a part of me that that’s always had a spiritual sense, sense of mission sets of helping humanity making a difference in other people’s lives, with serving the sacred that’s interpreted that in different points in my life. So there was a huge part of me, and this other part of me that was told by the religion in which I was raised, that I was, you know, another I’m an abomination in the eyes of God, that I was gonna burn in hell for eternity. So that was the struggle, which, you know, looking back on it, I’m grateful for that now, for several reasons. But one of the reasons is that it forced me to struggle with those tough, existential questions of, you know, who am I? What am I here for? What’s life about? What, why do we do the things we do at a younger age that most of us have to struggle with. And so, for that, I’m grateful. And it also gives me an ability and an ability to deeply empathize with another person’s pain or their grief, you know, the details might be different, but the experience is similar, for most of us, so so I’m grateful for all of that.
Victoria Volk 6:43
Where you accepted your loved ones?
Christian de la Huerta 6:48
Eventually, yes, I mean, my siblings immediately, my parents, you know, it took a little bit longer for it to, you know, for my mom to get to the place of, I just want my kids to be happy, which, you know, which that foundation was always there, so that I know that I’m blessed in that area that many other people don’t have, which was that I knew that the love was there. And no matter what, even though I spent years, you know, with with that deep, dark secret, not telling them, but once I finally did come out to them, you know, it’s it took some navigating for sure. And my father was a psychiatrist. So there were other layers around that of, you know, his philosophy about that, but but I knew that deep down inside the love, was there always.
Victoria Volk 7:43
Can I ask for those listening? Who might get a sense that their child may be gay? Or be struggling with their sexual identity? What is one piece of advice that you would give them? Is it to confront it, and just start the conversation or allow the child to express it in their own time?
Christian de la Huerta 8:11
You know, it’s hard to make a blanket choice about that, or suggestion about that? I think it depends. My inclination, my initial inclination would be to let it let it come out in the child, but I’ve also heard stories where the father, the father, or the mother, just opening up the space and, you know, creating an environment which, in which the kid feel safe, and you know, kind of setting them up, to be able to come out to them, but that’s also very helpful. Here’s the thing that I think will be helpful, because I know that the reason that all of us you know, but especially parents, you know, struggle with that, how can I accept this in my child, when my religion may be telling you that this is wrong, or that it’s sinful, or whatever. So it’s going to take work, right? It’s gonna, it’s, for me, it was it took years to get to that point of self accepting and reconciling my sexuality and my spirituality. But But here’s what’s really key is that a lot, there’s about six, and I’m going to go immediately to the majority religion and in this country, and the West, which is Christianity. There are basically six biblical texts that are interpreted, and I would say misinterpreted, to condemn homosexuality. And the thing to remember about about this is that they’ve been taken out of their cultural and historical context, and they’re very selectively interpreted. What allowed me to get through this into healers and myself is that I started doing a lot of research and discovered and realized that before the patriarchal times and cultures and religions, people that we today would call gay or lesbian or LGBT, or Q or whatever. We’re not only spiritually inclined, but wherever actually honored, respected, in some cases revered for the roles of spiritual service and spiritual leadership that they played all over the world. So my first book was called coming out spiritually, and dives deeply into that, because there are examples of that all over the world and all inhabited continent. And so that begins, like, once we’re able to reconcile that for ourselves as parents, then it becomes easier to arrive at that point is like, you know what, all right, well, I don’t know about this stuff, and where these teachings come from, but I know the love I have for my child, no matter what, and I help them to arrive to a place of inner peace with that.
Victoria Volk 10:43
Isn’t that the goal? Just to find inner peace with it on both sides? Right? Yes, yes. It’s better than creating, destroying the bridge between that relationship, there’s ripple effects in that for sure.
Christian de la Huerta 10:57
Oh, my God, and it’s so unnecessary. And so unnecessary. By the way, it’s important to remember to that because the more I think about this, the more that I realized that homophobia and misogyny are two sides of the same coin. And the more that I think about it, I think misogyny is really the deeper one. Because if you look at any culture, any religion, that persecute homosexuality, or you know, LGBTQ people, 100% correlation, they are the same ones, where women do not have equal status. And so, you know, taking one of those, you know, what are called the holy text of terrorists, those six biblical injunction injunctions that are used to condemn same sex behavior. One of them is like, you know, you should not lie with a man as you do with a woman. But what about two women together? You know, that, that doesn’t even come up? And why is that? Because at that time, in that culture, you know, women weren’t even human. Women were property. And so am I going to base my my choices about what’s right, and what’s wrong on stuff that was written, you know, 1000s of years ago, that was translated and re translated and mistranslated, stuff was taken out stuff was put into those those those, you know, sacred texts that were written by humans. And so I’m personally not, you know, and even if we, if we flash forward to today, you know, for, you know, like, the many examples of homophobic, straight men, you tell him, Oh, two women, or you show him a movie with two women, it’s like, Ooh, I want some of that. But how different two men together, it’s like, wow, you know, either either, you got to shoot them, you got to kill them, get rid of them, or the yuck factor comes out. So why is that? And I think is because of two women together. We’re not a threat to the status quo. Right? Because again, they weren’t seemed to hold the same kind of amount of power in the world and still don’t, which connects to the book that, you know, that I just published last year, whereas two men in their mind, I think they believe that one of them is willingly forfeiting giving up their superior male status, and that is a threat to the status quo.
Victoria Volk 13:19
Do you think that if men, just straight men in general got more in touch with their femininity, their feminine side? You know, the yin and yang, equally balanced? Do you think that would change things?
Christian de la Huerta 13:39
Of course it would. And, and, you know, because we’re part of the cosmos, the cosmos is equally balanced between masculine and feminine energies. So that means that those masculine and feminine energies course through every one of us, no matter what kind of body we’re in, and for some reason, you know, at the rise of the patriarchy, the feminine was made, was turned us into weakness into something less than, and whereas, whereas, you know, from my perspective, if you want to talk, strength and power and resilience and courage, let’s talk about the power of creation that lies in a female body and to lighten things up a little bit, you know, read about an interview of Betty White Pass to not long ago, the one and only inimitable Betty White, but apparently she was in one of those group interviews and somebody said something about having balls and she goes, Wait a minute, I don’t know where we got this connection between having balls and encouraging strength and strength you thumped those little things in the guy collapses bends over in pain. You want to talk courage and strength, let’s talk vaginas. Those things take a pounding.
Victoria Volk 14:56
You know, just yesterday, my soul i you actually mentioned her in your TED Talk Joan of Arc. And so my daughter, she’s going to be confirmed. I’m actually a convert to Catholicism. But I, you know, I struggled spiritually and religiously for many years because my dad died when I was a child, and I was sexually assaulted and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I wrote off God, I was angry at God, and I didn’t, you know, that relationship, I cut it off. And so I struggled for a long time, but I found something I could set a foundation of faith in. And it’s still evolving, it’s always going to evolve. And I think that’s where we kind of get stuck in our thought process. And then in our, we get stuck in our ways. Like, this is how it is, this is how it’s always gonna be. But I feel like I’m more spiritual now than I would say, I’m religious, you know, and that took a long time to get there. Anyway. Sure. My daughter, my daughter chose Joan of Arc, though as her patron saint. So anyway, I just said to her, I said to her yesterday, she has to do this paper on her and I just said, you know, well, you know, she was she’s like, she’s a badass. She, I don’t know how, how I will describe her. But I did say she has lady ball. That she had lady balls, you know, when you mentioned that, it’s like, oh, my gosh, my language, right. Like it is. It is in so this is my question, because I wasn’t gonna go here. But I feel like it’s, it’s just coming up. So currently, there’s this all this talk about gender neutral clothing, and I haven’t even seen the story I it was just shared with me and, and my thought is let the kids wear what they want to wear. Just let them wear what they want to wear. Let them express themselves. You know, here it’s us as parents and society, that places these places, children in a box, well, let’s just give them gender neutral, because they look male, and they they see male, so let’s just put blue clothes on him. But as adults, we were all kinds of colors. I’m wearing blue today. That make me male. You know what I mean? Like, it’s not a big deal as adults. It’s ridiculous. Why do we make it a big deal? I think we as a society, we make mountains out of molehills, where there doesn’t need to be just compassion, and kindness and free freedom of expression. Right? I have a picture of my child sheet my youngest girl, she, I don’t know, one time, it’s one of my favorite pictures. But she was dressed literally like a clown. Like just mismatched, and stripes and solids and all kinds of it. And she looked silly, ridiculous. And she had like a wellness check that day, I let her dress like that. I don’t care. Like what, you know, people get so afraid of what it what it says about them. You know? So I think that’s yeah, anyway, that’s my schpeel. What are your thoughts on that?
Christian de la Huerta 18:01
I think you’re absolutely right. It’s ridiculous and tragic. How much power we give away to others, and how much weight we give to what other people think how many choices we make, based on what we think they think. Right? So it’s all made up in our minds, and based on whether other people are gonna like it or not. And to me, it goes back to self esteem, right, the stronger our sense of self, the deeper that our level of self acceptance, the less and less and less that we care what anybody else thinks. And, and we get to that place of freedom, which I think is what we all have, we’re all longing for freedom just to be who we are, wherever we are. Because we spent so much time like with, you know, with masks, and being this way at work, and this other way, with, with our friends this other way with our family this other way with, with our lovers, it’s exhausting. It’s right, what if we were just able to, to be who we are, right, of course, selectively, unconsciously and intelligently. We don’t have to share every part of who we are with everybody in our lives. But it’s such a relief, we spend so much energy, worried about what other people think and then presenting ourselves in a way that we think they’re going to like exhausting.
Victoria Volk 19:21
Exactly. You mentioned in your TED Talk, too, which I’ll put that in the show notes link to that. But you mentioned you’re speaking the language of Grief Recovery. When you were talking about are you familiar with grief recovery method at all?
Christian de la Huerta 19:36
Not the method method specifically my degrees in psychology so and from personal experience I’ve also dealt with you know with grief, but I don’t know that particular methodology Grief Recovery, recover.
Victoria Volk 19:46
Okay. It Well, it’s based on the Grief Recovery handbook. But you were talking about particularly there was a spot where you’re talking about drugs and alcohol and shopping and gambling like all these ways that we call opened to distract ourselves from what we’re feeling. And I’m like, Oh my gosh, she’s speaking the language of Grief Recovery. Because in Grief Recovery, we call those stirpes short term energy relieving behaviors. And so as a teenager, when you are going through all of this struggle with self self acceptance, and you know, this tog, and what were some of the ways you were coping with that.
Christian de la Huerta 20:24
Yeah, you know, that’s, that’s a good, great conversation too, because we all do that, right? We, like most of us, I’m gonna say most of us, like, have become really adept at running away from numbing out or emotions. So and there’s so many creative ways in which we do that, right, that we numb out and not to not feel to not remember whether it’s substances, drugs, alcohol, food, whether it’s behaviors, exercise, social media, shopping, work, workaholism. Yeah, yeah, and not that there’s anything intrinsically wrong with any of those. It’s how we do it, how we a relationship to all those things, TV, and, you know, all of them have potential to be have good or negative effects not so good effect. I think for me, I definitely hit at my books. And I love you know, the fantasies science fiction, it was it was easy for me just get lost in these worlds, whether it was Lord of the Rings are the foundation series are so many other series like that, that I could just go get lost in book after book after book after book for your Pisces, no, I’m a Gemini.
Victoria Volk 21:42
Oh my son’s a Gemini, but just how you’re describing getting lost in the fantasy. I’m like, okay, that’s, that’s like me.
Christian de la Huerta 21:48
And you know, and it’s understandable, it’s easier to go through it with, you know, to not want to feel stuff that wasn’t pleasant, or to remember stuff that, you know, may not have been great experience. So it’s understandable that we want to run away from that stuff, but the price we pay, the reason that it’s not an effective strategy, as you know, is that that stuff doesn’t go away, just because we don’t want to deal with it. So we stuffed it in we stuff our emotions, and you know, what used to be spiritual teaching that everything is energy. Now we know from quantum physics, that everything is energy. And we know that energy cannot be destroyed. And by everything, I mean everything like this cherub sitting on the table, or the computer, the body, the emotion, even though it might feel solid, it’s just energy, just vibration. And so whenever we stuff those emotions, whenever we numb out and run away from them, it doesn’t go away. It gets it gets lodged in the tissues of the body. And after years, and decades of doing that, we walk around with layers upon layers upon even more layers of repressed emotional crap, and unhealed past situations. And here we are trying to have a relationship in the present moment. And all of it is getting filtered through that lifetime of unhealed trauma, and repressed emotions like Yikes, how any relationship can work is it boggles my mind, because we haven’t been taught how to hold on how to approach them. And we certainly haven’t been taught how to clear ourselves of that cauldron of repressed emotion, because what happens is we suppress, suppress, suppress, and then the next unfortunate one just says something to us the wrong the wrong way and boom, volcanic eruption. And because our, to our relationships, sometimes irreparably, or suppress, suppress, suppress, suppress, that energy has to come out, and it begins to start seeping out of the body and showing up as physical symptoms, like cancer, heart attacks, ulcers, so we’ve got to get this we’ve got to get a relationship to our emotions and accept that they’re not weakness. Emotions are not good. They’re not bad. They’re not strength, they’re not weakness. They’re just energies coursing through our bodies, we get into trouble with them when we when we suffer, because what happens when we stuff sadness, as you know, it congeals it turns into grief. And when we stuff anger, it turns into rage and we walk around like a raging cauldrons. So better to nip it in the bud and learn how to first identify what we’re feeling because most of us are clueless about our emotions, including my psychiatrist, that including myself up until I started doing this conscious work 20 years 30 years ago, I had no idea no clue as to what I was feeling. I couldn’t tell you what I was feeling because I had no idea and so we can talk about processes, you know, like simple techniques to become more emotionally intelligent to increase our EQ and then learn how to communicate them responsibly like owning their our emotions, so that nobody can make us feel any anything, unless there’s some little button there that they’re triggering. But it’s here, right? So we’ve got to own that stuff. And then learning how to communicate them responsibly not not courageously, because it takes courage for sure, responsibly just not having a tantrum like a two year old and in a way that they can be heard that they can be received. And so, so level of mastery, so it’s the opposite of weakness, it’s a level of mastery.
Victoria Volk 25:27
I love that. You said so much that we talk about in Grief Recovery to just you know, the implode or explode, that’s we either implode or we explode. We either suffer from disease and illness and you know, all these symptoms, these physical symptoms, or we explode and have these dherbs Right, these behaviors and angers in anger can be a sturb I was very angry as a child and I grew up. I was very angry as an adult too. And if solidly I yeah, I would argue that at the root of grief and sadness and, and fear and anxiety is grief, like all of those emotions. It just is the embodiment of grief. And I always say to like grief was our pandemic long before COVID-19, long before your teenage years. And growing up, that was just the start of your experience with grief. But there’s more to your story. And I would like to get there. So you had shared in your information with me that your brother, you had lost your brother when he was 26? you mind sharing that story with us?
Christian de la Huerta 26:31
Yeah, of course. And I want to say to that there’s that it’s important for us to realize that there is there is an end to suffering. Right? Like there is an end to that. Not so much for sadness, like there’s always going to be stuff in life, that’s going to be sad, that’s going to evoke those emotions in US people are gonna come people are gonna go crazy traumatic stuff, crisis level stuff is going to happen in the world, as we’re witnessing right now. And global pandemic wars, the things that humans do to other humans, it’s just like boggle the mind. So what once we get to the level where we can feel our emotions, we are no longer running away from them, or numbing them out or stuffing them? Well, we can just let them course through us, then we can get to that place of freedom, where we just allow those energies to course through us and we don’t get stuck in and and so yes, you know that what happened with my brother and my nephew? Later, it’s just stuff that shouldn’t happen. You know, my brother was 26. And he drowned in a kind of freaky boat accident, riverboat accident and attempts in London. And I can’t even imagine, of course, we’re all impacted. But I can’t even begin to imagine what it’s like for a parent to lose a child. I don’t have any kids myself, have many kids in my life. But no, none that are mine, so to speak, because and then I witnessed that again with my sister, my nephew was also around 2627. He was 27 incredible. I mean, both of them really creative and smart. My my nephew shown because he had these amazing leadership qualities. He his passion was being a DMT. He was a firefighter DMT gave up a scholarship to Harvard because of his grades, because that was what he really wanted to do. And at 27, he, his wife was seven months pregnant with their first child, which they never met. He got this really aggressive form of brain cancer. And within weeks, like four or five weeks, it was gone to everybody’s Chuck. And again, like how do what does one do with that, of course, it’s sad, of course, takes the parents years degree that stuff, some of that lingering grief doesn’t ever really leave you we heal it for sure. But there are layers of the sadness and the missing somebody like that. And I guess I guess what I’m saying is that the more work that I did on myself, the more that I was able to get to that place of feeling these incredibly sad emotions and not be stuck with them. Either we can we can weave it into the fabric of our lives and realize that one thing we know for sure, is that life is going to continue throwing curveballs our way, whether it’s a global pandemic or a 26 year old getting brain cancer or an an unexpected drowning like there is not one thing that any of us can do about that. So we can that can help us add you know the to the feeling of grievous grief and sadness, it can add a layer of feeling helpless, and even some people feel victimized by life. Like I got such a horrible deck of cards this lifetime. And if only this hadn’t happened or that had happened if I had only been born in a different place a different time, a different culture. You finally You know, the system was set up differently. As long as we’re doing that, if only and feeling victimized by life, we’re giving our power away. And sometimes even to the perpetrators, as you know, as long as we’re holding them responsible for our emotions for our state of being. And it’s not to minimize any of that, or to excuse anything. If we want to be free, we’ve got to get to that place of healing and acceptance. And one thing that helps to reframe that is knowing that no matter what happens going forward, no matter what new curveballs come our way, no matter what happened in the past, we always, always get to choose how we show up in response and that element of choice, just remembering that and knowing that it’s liberating, and it’s empowering.
Victoria Volk 30:49
And I just had a thought to it when you are someone who isn’t there yet, in their heart and their mind, because forgiveness, too, can be very, very difficult for people. Again, like you said, it always comes down to choice you can you can have grief in the back seat, you can, because it’s going to follow you, right? You take you everywhere you go. But you have a choice, if you’re going to continue to look in the rearview mirror at it. That’s where you can look forward to but what if what if you’re stuck looking at the rearview mirror, I think that’s where finding support in someone who is a little further along than you, who maybe is an example of of where you’d like to be in your life. So when you were going through these losses, had you already been at this place in your life with the breath work and on your spiritual journey and things like that, like had you because we never fully arrived? Right? But had you already started.
Christian de la Huerta 31:46
In this in the case of my brother’s death, it was synchronous, it’s right around that time, is when I did breathwork for the first time and were in when I started to, to reclaim my spirituality, right, because like many people and like you were referring to, I threw the baby out with a baptismal water, I didn’t know that there was a difference between religion and spirituality. And I didn’t know that spirituality is just an inherent part of who we are. That is just as ludicrous for you to for me to have tried to repress and reject and run away from my sexuality, as it was to ignore it and repress it in in with my spirituality. It’s just part of who we are as humans. So yeah, I did have much better tools in those situations. And I want to go back to something I want to highlight something you just said, which I think is really important, because we just hit on the two biggest hurdles on the on the on the journey to freedom and personal empowerment. One is that victimization, you know, poor me, woe is me relationship to life. The other one that you mentioned is forgiveness. Because we know we’ve heard this, we’ve heard that forgiveness is really for us. But how do we forgive? You know, the what feels unforgivable? How do we do that, because if we think about it, as long as we’re holding someone, right, looking in that rearview mirror, where we’re holding somebody over the fire for what they did, or failed to do, our hand is also getting burned or hand is in the fire. So, so it helps us to understand the necessity for forgiveness. Another way to convey that visual, if you think of the heart center, not the organ or the chakra, the energy center, it opens and closes in the same way that like the shutter of a camera, or the iris of the eye. If I shut my heart to my sexual abuser, or to my father who left or to mom who did who was emotionally abusive, or to the teacher, or the minister, or society, or sexism or misogyny or racism, or homophobia, I can’t close it selectively just to that, or to the boss who fired me or the ex who cheated on me, right? We I can’t close it just to them. If I close it, I close it. So it’s not even about them. Because in closing it we’re giving our power away again. So this is between me and my heart. This is a bit in my heart and love between my heart and life. And so how do we do that? How do we even begin to forgive the unforgivable and this is something that I picked up along the way from a teacher that begins to open the door to the possibility of forgiveness. And it’s forgive two syllables, flip them around, give for what we do, when we forgive, we’re giving others and ourselves which is often even more difficult to do. We’re giving them the space to be human, to make mistakes, to fall short of the mark to to make a royal mess of things like to really if things up.
Christian de la Huerta 34:50
And it’s it getting off the self righteous stance of the ego. Like we don’t have time to dive into what the ego construct is here. But it’s really important To understand what the ego is, I spent the first quarter of the book, maybe even the third talking about the ego mind, and and how it keeps us in a self made prison of fear and lack and limitation and self doubt, and reactivity and the victim and defended victim mindset and defensiveness. So really, really important. If we want to be free, if we want to step into our power, if we want to have relationships that have a chance of working, that we understand that how the ego is and how it works, so that we can get ourselves out of it out of its self made prison because nobody else can. So the ego one of the aspects of it is it’s very self righteous, again, knows, it went to law school and appoints itself a judge, jury prosecutor, it knows exactly what the other person did that was wrong, what the punishment should be and delivers the punishment. So forgiving means getting off, like stepping off that self righteous stance, I know I’m right, I would never do anything like right, because that closes the heart. And again, a highlight it again, it’s not about making it okay about denying what happened about rationalizing. It is not about any of that. It’s not about minimizing, or making Okay, whatever they did or didn’t do, but it’s not about them. This is about us, and how do we free ourselves from that. And so when we forgive we make we give the other and ourselves the room to make all those mistakes, to to forgive to get off that self righteous stance, and say maybe right, all it takes is that question mark MIDI, I can’t see it, I cannot even begin to imagine that I would ever do that. But maybe if they had been raised in their situation with their parents, their culture, their time, in whatever way their parents raised them and their parents before them, raise them. Who knows what was going on in their brain cut biochemistry? Who know what, who knows what happened in their own past? Who know what traumas they had, because we know trauma is the gift that keeps on giving, especially in sexual abuse and that kind of stuff. And right and again, not minimizing it not making it okay. We don’t have to hang out with them. We don’t have to be friends with them. We don’t have to ever see them again. But that question marks like maybe, maybe I might have done that. I might have I might have done that. And here’s like an extreme way to be able to do that a terrorist like it’s really hard for us to otherwise them we because we can’t imagine like anybody listening to this for sure. Watching this cannot have Woods is not about to wrap their bodies in explosives of walk into a crowded mall and detonate ourselves. So it’s really difficult for us to understand that standard is easy to say I would never do that. And have we ever terrorized others emotionally? Have we ever terrorized ourselves emotionally and that I know every single one of us has done. So we have an inner terrorist inside me that inside of each one of us, the details are different. But we have that potential. So it’s again not to make it okay not to minimize it. It just begins to soften that harsh separation of I wouldn’t ever do that, because that’s what makes forgiveness difficult. Like when we soften that then it begins to to free ourselves from carrying that weight and being stuck in the past.
Victoria Volk 38:19
I can bring a visual to this that can lighten things up. Because when you were talking about emotions, and how like what came up for me is like yeah, we’re just all walking around a little bit emotionally constipated some more than others. Right? And I when you were saying how we terrorized others emotionally. It’s like if we think of that emotional constipation, right? It’s gotta go somewhere. So either it’s gonna, we’re just gonna have, we’re gonna let it come out of us, or we’re going to just throw it at people, right?
Christian de la Huerta 38:50
Yes. You know, it’s so funny because I called breathwork. Virtual Drano. Oh, cool. Yeah, emotional and spiritual drain, and we get rid of all that crap that we’ve been carrying inside of us. Quickly, and it works fast. Well, that’s so profoundly at so many levels. It’s just a really amazing and for lack of another word, miraculous.
Victoria Volk 39:12
That’s a great segue. So I do want to talk about that. What is I had a personal experience, a friend of mine, she does Kundalini yoga, and she’s in a training right now to become a practitioner in that. But she does breath work. She does breath work practice every day, and she walked me through this breathwork practice was about 30 minutes, but I tell you what, I learned the power of our breath. In that one session that blew my mind. I felt I’m a Reiki Master, but I had my hands were vibrating to the extent of nothing a comparison like my hands are starting to tingle just thinking about it. I felt so alive. Like the Most alive that I had felt in a long time after experiencing that it was so powerful for me, can you give our listeners something that they can do today, if they are in a moment of panic, fight flight or freeze, grief, whatever they’re experiencing right now can you share some a technique with them.
Christian de la Huerta 40:20
Of course, and you know, breathwork is a, it’s a really broad umbrella, there’s a lot of breathing practices, a lot of breathing techniques, yoga, practice yogic practices, pranayama, it’s called in that yoga tradition, you know, whether it’s Kundalini yoga, or any other kind of yoga. And so the breath is at the core of all those practices, and at the core of every meditation practice at the core of every spiritual tradition. And so the particular breathwork that I do, it’s longer, it’s about an hour, an hour and a half, there’s different modalities, it’s you. So you can use breathing techniques. for different purposes. If you’re if you’re stressed out, if you’re stuck in traffic, if you’re, like, stressed out or nervous about right before a difficult conversation, or an important meeting, you can do take slow, deep breaths, to calm yourself down and the body has to slow down. Like there’s Swamis in India have that much control over their body, they can tell their hearts to slow down. And they do you know, they can, some of them can mimic states that are really, really hard to distinguish from death, they can slow down the body that much, most of us are not gonna be able to aren’t there. And I’m probably not going to learn how to do that kind of stuff. But anybody can slow down the breath, anyone can slow down the breath. When we do that, the heart has no choice, the heart has to slow down. And and when the heart slows down, the nervous system begins to quiet down, the body begins to relax. Right? So it’s, it’s slowly and under breath. It’s like it’s your best friend, your most effective practice. There are also breathing techniques that you can use, like in place or the afternoon slump, you know, a cup of coffee, you know, there’s the faster, more energizing more focusing practices, the type of breathwork that I do, it’s a different model, it’s more of a, to me, it’s part of my psycho spiritual therapy, you know, approach to healing. I was on a trip my father was a psychiatrist. As I said, my my degrees in psychology, I was on a track to get a PhD. When I discovered breathwork, this modality that I that I practice, I jumped tracks, I never went for the PhD because it works so fast and heal so profoundly at so many levels, including, by the way, I don’t know anything more effective that healing past traumas, including sexual abuse, including, you know, just violent stuff that people have have experienced, that I’ve worked with over the years, and it gets healed. And so not only that, which will be hard enough to believe, but it heals spiritually, mentally, even physically. And yes, you know, even like more than 30 years saying this or talking about this, I know to my mind, it still sounds hard to believe, to my logical, more scientific, more skeptical mind. But I can’t argue with the result. It works with permanent effects. And you know, they haven’t studied it yet. They’re starting to do more research now about what’s happening in the body scientifically. But even that, it doesn’t explain it to me, like, like the stuff that happens. Because you can also have incredibly ecstatic moments like moments of oneness, moments of feeling connectedness to to everyone and everything to all of creation. And so just from breathing, but here’s what ultimately helps me understand that the way that I can understand if you look at any religion, any culture, some even languages, in many of them the same word, one word, can mean breath, or spirit, depending on the context. So for example, from Numa, from that Greek word Numa, from which we get pneumonia, that word meant or it meant soul, and lung, from the Latin root speed at A, we get both respiration and inspiration or exploration. So that breath spirit connection is is available, like I said, most spiritual traditions and even several sets of regular languages. And that’s what ultimately helps me understand that is when we breathe in this conscious, intentional way, that the effects of which are undeniable like you felt your body was you will beginning to notice your body more as vibration. So you popped out of that limited perspective of separateness as like I’m just over here, this is this description as Victoria which is what the ego is that artificials you know, sense of of separate separateness, and you began to experience yourself beyond the confines of your body as a physical thing, and that that’s what that vibration was, and that we can access Not only profound healing, but ecstatic states, which by the word, that’s what the word ecstasy means means out of ourselves. And that’s what that breathing practices and breathing practices help us to do. So that we can pop behind the illusion of separation of the ego, and reconnect with our, no our ultimate nature.
Victoria Volk 45:20
There was a conversation one time about psychedelics, and she’s like, you don’t need to take a psychedelic to have that experience, you can find that through your breath. And I totally, totally agree. I actually had written down just before you said it, I wrote the soul is in the gut and grief is in the lungs. So isn’t that just really ironic in a way that the breath connects us to? Both right is part of both, essentially. So I’m curious. Is it was it just breathwork? Because, you know, I’ve dabbled in different healing modalities. I’m currently actually learning biofield tuning, which addresses the energy field that’s around us the stuck energy that’s outside of us, you know that, because our bodies are a mirror of what’s out here, stuck in this energy field, and that extends five to six feet beyond us. So was it just breathwork? Or have? Were you kind of dabbling in a lot of different things? And breathwork? Is what stuck? Or was it always breathwork. And that’s just kind of been your thing?
Christian de la Huerta 46:28
I think the combination I mean, there’s so many tools to help us heal and help free. The ones that I include in every single retreat for over 30 years. No matter whether the retreat is on conscious relationships, and having relationships that can actually work, whether it’s stepping into our personal power, and reconciling the conflicted, ambivalent relationship we have to power? And how do we step into power in a way that’s not about hierarchy and control, and fear and force and domination? How do we do it in a way that’s a match for who we are? Whether it’s about life purpose, and what are we really, really doing here? And how do we stop selling out for that illusion of security of a biweekly paycheck, because we sell ourselves so cheaply for that illusion, as many have had to discover the hard way during this pandemic, but no matter what the theme of the retreat the to constant, or the breath work, because I’ve yet to come across any tool that heals as quickly and as profoundly. And in many ways, the other one is understanding that you go, because it’s to me, there’s that’s step one, understanding the mind and why we do the things we do and our patterns, why do we get triggered what? Well, the same behavior would have could have a completely different response in you. And yet, it’s got me just out of control and got my goat. So why is that? Understanding our patterns? Like, why do we do the things we do? Why do we attract certain people into our lives? Why do we have certain what are we recreate patterns and situations? What? Why do we keep creating patterns of relationships that sometimes feel like it’s the same boring movie, different actor different co lead, but the same crap? Same argument, same patterns? Why is that? Right? So it’s so again, a lot easier to go through life numbing out and running away from these questions. But then we get stuck in a there’s no way to this, we’re just going to recreate and recreating, and keep creating the same stuff. What we’re talking about is like having the courage to face our grief, to face our memories to do whatever it is that we need to do to heal ourselves and declare ourselves that is nothing less than heroic. That’s why there’s no book awakening this whole power is the first of a series of three, which is the tide the series is titled Calling All Heroes, what does it mean to live heroically in the 21st century? And so yes, you know, I honor you for the work that you’ve done to not only heal your past trauma, but to now use that to make a difference in other people’s lives. And I honor anybody who has stuck with this conversation thus far. It’s, you know, this stuff is not easy. It’s not for the faint of heart. This is And speaking of heart, you know, that’s courage comes from that root, the same root core which a Latin means heart, courage, courage, and in French, the big heart, take this word takes big heart, big courage. Nothing short of heroic. incredibly rewarding, like freedom, empowerment.
Victoria Volk 49:40
Empowerment. Yes. That’s huge. Yes, absolutely.
Christian de la Huerta 49:44
Like you were telling me when we were connecting right before we started recording like this podcast is like, the best thing you ever did. Like wow, and you using your own? Like that’s what he lives there, right. We use our own stuff to bring healing to others for On lived experience, not just stuff that we read in a book, and we all have access to that.
Victoria Volk 50:05
You actually mentioned that your mother’s presence is diminishing slowly is is that did you? Do you mean cognitively? Yes. Okay. And I asked that because a friend of mine mentioned this, you can have cancer and you can have disease and things like that, which is really difficult for the person going through it. Right? They have to reconcile their life right when you’re faced with this is what’s happening to me, whether it’s, you know, MS, or muscular dystrophy, or, or any kind of debilitating progressive disease, cancer, anything like that. It’s really difficult on the person experiencing, and of course, the family and people watching it happen. But when it’s someone that’s going through a cognitive decline, they aren’t necessarily aware of it. And so that’s really more impactful on the family and the loved ones. And that struck me because I hadn’t really thought about that. But what do you say? How is that different? for loved ones? In your, in your experience? You’ve had both experiences, right? You’re your nephew, and now your mother.
Christian de la Huerta 51:12
Yeah I think this one’s even more difficult. Because what I’ve realized is that I’ve been preparing I’ve been preparing for the for the inevitable, which is my mother’s passing for years, she’s not in good health, physical, like she, you know, nine kids is take a toll on my body, She’s diabetic, she’s overweight, from that generation that never took care of her bodies of her body. And, and that dealt with everything. Like from the perspective of Western medicine, my dad being addicted to it just medicated it, rather than addressing the symptom, I mean, the addressing the symptom rather than addressing the source. And so I never thought for a moment that my mom, my mom’s body would outlive her mind. And so I didn’t see that coming. That one I was not prepared for it. caught me off guard. And, and it’s, it’s, it’s difficult to experience not only to see her and this beautiful, vibrant, brilliant, loving woman to be like a shell of who she was, to be caught in, in fear, which, which it’s heartbreaking. And there’s nothing, nothing that as a family we can do except no lover and create, you know, like, try to improve the quality of our life as best we can. And, and be one thing to connect to everything else. We’ve been talking about the importance of doing the heroic work of, of self discovery and, and healing ourselves. What I’m beginning to see is that is her undone work. Like sometimes when she goes into these places of fear that, you know, she’s living or reliving something that we can’t see. And beginning to feel that as she’s recreating, like, there’s this one kind of actor that keeps coming back into her her her moment. And it’s, it’s beginning to realize it’s a young woman, like a teenage girl, and my mom calls her all sorts of names, like stuff that she would never say in real life. Like now it’s like, unleashed. And so what I’ve what I’m beginning to put together is that when she was in high school, there was a moment where they were put into they were taken to boarding school and Cuba, my aunt and my sister and her aunt Amy. And her sister, my aunt, and I think she had to, you know, just piecing together stories, there was a there was a group of girls, you know, I mean, girls that were kind of bullies and they were rich, the rich girls in the school. And I think because she never really worked with with her feeling, I’m projecting I’m making it up in my own mind that a feeling rejected or feeling unloved because she was put away were taken away to a boarding school and then having to deal with this bullying, that she never really worked through that and so now when the filters are off, it’s coming back up. And so important for us than to do this kind of work whether we’re using traditional therapy whether we’re using breathwork you know, it’s really important to do or your your energy work, whatever whatever it is that were guided to do. To to have that courage to to clear to face and clear or inner demons.
Victoria Volk 54:23
I just got chills as I heard you talking about that, because it’s like the same. It’s almost like reliving a nightmare over and over and over that you can’t just push stop on.
Christian de la Huerta 54:34
I know it’s it to me, that’s hell, she’s still going to Hell yeah, weaving it back to the religion and it’s, you know, that it gets tragic to me, that in her end, the end of her life, that the religion to which she devoted her entire life is not a source of love and support and support and inner peace, that because of the teachings about hell, which, you know, I personally don’t believe like there’s a physical place that you go to When you die, I don’t believe in a punitive micromanaging didi. But don’t take away my mother effer to, to fear that she might go to hell, like why? It’s nothing that she could have ever done. And it to me, I found that tragic that that fear was put into her head, which to me is not even real.
Victoria Volk 55:19
I had a medium expressed to me once, it was a teenager experience, spirit that had come through and she just her experience was that what she’s learned through her work was that it’s even someone who’s done not great things are good things, you know, good deeds, who have maybe done some bad things, right? It’s, they’re going through school. They’re just they’re going through school, and they’re having to learn these lessons. And they’re kind of in school until they can graduate, I suppose in a way to, to be with the good spirits. I don’t know how to explain that, you know, but that’s kind of how she said it. How, you know, because the mother was so worried that he because he died by suicide, she was so worried that he was in hell. And that brought so much peace to her. But you know, how the Son explained, he’s like, No, I’m in school. I’m having to learn these lessons that I never was open to learning on the physical plane. Yeah, I just thought that was beautiful.
Christian de la Huerta 56:23
I think it is beautiful, and very, very liberating. And to me, you know, from my current perspective, heaven, and hell are not places that we go to after we that I think their states of being heaven, and hell can be right here right now. It’s not your truth. Yeah. And, and it’s a state of mind. And I think that even if we’re going to, you know, stick with a Christian frame of belief, philosophy, mythology, whatever you want to call it, teachings, Jesus said, You know, these greater things you will do. And so, that comes from that state of mind, which he had access to, and to which he never claimed exclusivity. He never had never really did.
Victoria Volk 57:08
And I think there’s just so much we don’t know, that we’ll never know. And even when it comes to healing to the forgiveness piece that we talked about earlier, and, you know, trauma and stuff, it’s, or we feel like we were a victim in our own stories, we just we don’t know what we don’t know. Yeah, if I want to learn this method of breathwork, especially as a Griever, where do I go to learn that.
Christian de la Huerta 57:31
I mean, if anybody’s interested, they can email me, or, you know, just go to my website, soulfulpower.com. And I can either try to help them find somebody local, where they can do it, there’s some people that do it virtually now, I do it virtually very selectively, because it’s really powerful, that the modality that I teach is very powerful. And you never know what’s underneath the surface of somebody’s psyche, what’s going to what’s going to come up. And as you know, so many of us have memories that we suppressed. So like in person in live, I have no hesitation, like, I know that I can handle anything that comes up. And I’ve had some really traumatic stuff come up for people virtually, not so much, right? There’s because there’s my what I’m able to do to support intervene, to, to hold space for them is limited by and all they have to do is click, and then there’s nothing I can do to help. So I do it only with people that you know who have come to my retreats, people I know, people that that are part of my year long coaching program, and that I don’t even start with breathwork that’s only like halfway through once I get a sense of who’s in the group and what kind of stuff they’re dealing with. Or if it’s somebody maybe who has a support system. So sometimes therapists refer people to maybe therapists, you know, where they’ve been with a client for some time, and they’re plateaued, they’re stuck, they’re stagnant. Even one breathwork session can can change your life it did for me, my first session, I knew that I’d never be the same. And I wasn’t. And I knew that I had to do it again, I didn’t care where I had to go what it cost, and I knew that I had to make it available to others. It was just the most amazing thing that I’ve ever experienced. And by the way, you mentioned psychedelics in a different, like branch of breathwork, which is called Holotropic. To more, it’s longer you do for like three, four hours, kind of very similar technique, but longer. And there are other differences, but the founder of that modality. Stan Grof, was a psychiatrist from the Czech Republic. When he was over there, he was researching LSD. And what he realized, you know, once he came to the States, he couldn’t, you know, continue that research. But somewhere along the way, he discovered because when once people attain certain levels of pain, through the chemical substances are the sacred plant medicines that so many people are working with these days. The breath that kind of breathing pattern sometimes gets triggered automatically. spontaneously. And so he realized, by just using the breath, you can access the same levels of non ordinary beings or states of being. So yeah, and I hear that constantly from people who come to breathe with me, it’s like, yeah, I got to the same place that I did with on an Ayahuasca journey or, or whatever, mushrooms, whatever they were doing, it got to that same place, that same ability to perceive myself from from a different perspectives. And that sense of oneness of connecting with all of it. Because here’s a great metaphor for that for the ego goes back to the ego, right? If, if you think of the ego as a baseball, it’s a part of who we are, that’s a very limited experience of who we are. It’s like a tiny, tiny, tiny part of who we are. Yet we think it’s all who we are. And we make really important consequential choices in our lives from its very limited small and always fear based perspective, once who we are. So imagine the ego in a center of a stadium, that’s the the baseball in the center of a stadium, that’s the ego, who we are, is actually the stadium. And we’ve allowed this tiny, tiny part of us to think and then to make choices from its from its small perspective. So part of what happens in breathwork. And with sacred plant medicine work is, you know, we experience ourselves, we pop out of the, the false limitation of the ego, that false sense of separation. And we reconnect with our essence with our interconnectedness with everything with all of it.
Victoria Volk 1:01:32
Is just hanging on your every word there.
Christian de la Huerta 1:01:34
And it’s accessible to all of us like it’s our breath, it’s just in the beginning, we and you can be taught how to do it yourself in the beginning, that’s the first 510 sessions, it’s important to do it, somebody who knows what they’re doing somebody who has been trained that can hold space, and so that the ego can feel safe enough to release a lot of stuff that’s been suppressing and allow it to come up to consciousness and call you and by the way, the psychologist said that the process of enlightenment is making the unconscious conscious, and breathwork is really speeds up that process.
Victoria Volk 1:02:07
Love it, love this conversation. And we could go so many other directions, too. I want to be respectful of your time. But is there is there anything else that you would like to share that you didn’t get a chance to address?
Christian de la Huerta 1:02:21
Well, I just give a brief overview about the book on empowerment, because as I started to say, most of us have an ambivalent conflict, the relationship to power, we part of us wants it part of us is afraid of it. And I think what we fear the more that I work with people around this issue, what we fear is that if we really stepped into our power, if we really stepped into all of who we are, that other people wouldn’t be able to handle it and that we might end up rejected that alone, and who wants that? We also fear that we might abuse it. And no wonder like how many abuses of power have you on I experience and have all of us experience? Like all we got to do is turn on the news any day, any given day to witness at least one abuse of power. So and then on top of that we’ve been in court, it’s been ingrained in us that power is bad, that power is negative, you know, with quotes, like power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Who wants to be corrupted. But what they didn’t tell us is that Lord Acton who said those words, were speaking specifically about political power, not personal power. And so, add to that mix, what we were talking about the emotions, we’ve turned the emotions into weakness, you know, we hate conflict, we avoid confrontation. And so what happens when you put all that together, we we end up giving our power away our power that nobody can give to us, nobody can take away. We are the only ones who can give it away. And the sad part, the tragic part is that we give it away for the lamest of reasons. Like we say yes, when inside we really feel no inside, it’s really not okay with us. But in order to maintain that illusion of peace do not rock the boat too much. We override our desires or preferences or dreams. And we say yes, when inside we feel no we stuffed ourselves into tiny little packages that the you know that not gonna rock anybody’s boat. So we limit ourselves we play small for an illusion of security for a false sense of acceptance. And for crumbs, we settle for morsels of pseudo love. So it’s not a good strategy. It’s a really good strategy in life. And so what the this book walks the reader through in a very doable way I know how crazy busy and overscheduled everybody is. So designed the book and with very readable, doable short chapters with power practices. Do you have to rush through the book one chapter a week Do the practices because those practices are designed to integrate and apply the teachings to our lives. So they don’t stay at the level of information, we don’t need more information. We’ve got information overload, what we need is transformation. And that only comes from taking on the stuff and really living it. And so so the, if they will do that, it’ll begin to transform the relationship to power and began to discover ways that we can step into and express our power. And we’re in the in the wet in the world in a way that’s not about fear, hierarchy, force, control, domination, that kind of power that that requires that we step on, somebody push them down. In order for us to feel powerful. There’s a different way to do this.
Victoria Volk 1:05:48
I recently, there’s so much so many synchronicities. And what you say is because just the other day, I shared a quote on my social media about it was in a podcasting email of all things, and it just it hit me it’s, it’s stuck out. So I created a quote, for knowledge isn’t power. It’s the application of knowledge. That gives you power. Exactly. Right. So it’s the application of the knowledge. And that’s just what came to my mind as I was hearing you sharing that? Yeah, that’s a great quote, for sure. So where can people reach you, I know you have your website, just share all the things.
Christian de la Huerta 1:06:25
Yeah, I think the best way to reach me, well, the book is available anywhere where books are sold, you can get it at your local bookstore, you can order it there, if you want to support them. You can also get it on Amazon. In terms of reaching me probably the best way is my my website soulfulpower.com, and by any for anybody who of your audience who signs up goes to soulfulpower.com, and get to my email list. And we all know how easy it is to click unsubscribe down the road if it doesn’t work for you. And I’m not going to take it personally. That’s one of the benefits of doing this kind of self love and self acceptance work is like you don’t take stuff personally anymore. And so anybody who signs up for my email list will send them a sample chapter from the book, and it’s one that talks about what it means to live heroically. In the 21st century, we’ll share some of the power practices we were talking about, and a guided meditation. And it’s on trust that I created last year, with a year before in the midst of the pandemic. And so how do we find a place of inner peace and trust? How do we become that eye of the storm? In a world in a time of chaos and fear and uncertainty? How do we move into trust?
Victoria Volk 1:07:42
It’s a big word. Trust, right?
Christian de la Huerta 1:07:44
It’s a big word.
Victoria Volk 1:07:46
Thank you so much for this conversation today. I could talk even longer about energy and all of that more about the ego. Maybe around two,
Christian de la Huerta 1:07:56
Maybe around two. Yeah, it’s clear that you and I would not run out of stuff to talk about.
Victoria Volk 1:08:01
Never. No, I don’t think so either. Maybe after I get a chance to read your book. Okay, well, thank you so much for being here today.
Christian de la Huerta 1:08:11
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me on the show and for having the show.
Victoria Volk 1:08:15
And remember, when you unleash your heart you unleash your life. Much love.
