Hello guys, welcome again to essential workers. I'm Mike brookski.
I'm here with Dr. Scott star McKinnon, Dr. Star
is a licensed clinical psychologist specializing in Mind Body
Spirit holistic Wellness
She has had a lifelong fascination with spirituality Consciousness and
everything esoteric and star was one of the first people to
join us on essential Works TV recording a teaching series,
which is turning out really great and I just uploaded the next
episode episode 5 last night and I made
I took out a little snippet ever which is the snippet.
He called the emotional expansion exercise that
they'd be pretty good for people having the convenient clip and also
will make that free for everyone to to look at because I feel
like it's this is some really great material. I've been really seeing and we're really
grateful for you for joining on the platform and helping people get
this information out.
So would you like to share anything to start out with about yourself
and how you how I got into this path? And
what interests you and what your goals are. Yeah. Thank
you Mike. I want to thank you for giving me the
opportunity to join today and it's definitely my
pleasure and my honor to be a part of
the series that we put out together any opportunity
for me to be able to
to read your broader audience. I'm just so grateful
for so in terms of myself. I'm
I grew up in just outside of Seattle
Washington in an unreligious non-spiritual family,
but I found myself very in
tune with the trees around me and found myself
doing very odd things for a little girl like
staring at a candle flame in my
room for hours and practicing. Basically what
I was doing was practicing focusing my attention and my Consciousness
and and I didn't know what I was doing back then
but
Yeah, it started very young for me. I was
kind of an odd duck. I didn't really fit in because
I thought about things and saw the
world very differently, which caused me to
really have a struggle with myself earlier in
life and feeling like there was something wrong with me or
you know that I was just kind of an oddball and
and I struggled through
a lot of
challenges in my upper teens with drug addiction and just
sort of tuning out tuning
out from my light because it was too much for other people and I
didn't understand it either.
And then I was able to bring myself
from that experience on my own which was
very powerful and throughout my whole
process. I had been exploring spirituality and anything
that I could get my hands on and following multiple different spiritual
teachers and practicing forms and
meditation. But once I entered recovery and
stop tuning out for myself, it might
mid 20s my spiritual journey really
accelerated.
And there's been a series of other events along the way
that have really catapulted me forward like the
sudden death of my only sibling and I also walked
through the experience of healing and
aggressive form of cancer what the
darkest would call spontaneously they didn't quite believe that
I couldn't do it with all of their tactics and
techniques. But yeah, so I've had a lot
of my own personal experiences along with
the use of psychedelics. I think that's helped me
to really enhance my experience of
Life on this planet and I became a
psychologist which was a dream of mine for a long time.
but as these events continue
to happen in my life, I decided to turn my
focus to serve the spiritual Community because there's
a lot of of counselors and psychologists that might
call you crazy or even
psychotic or you know delusional if you
come to them and you share some of the things that these Spiritual
Awakening Community is going through and so it's it's
my honor to hold a space
for anybody who's having odd or
unusual experiences or encountering other types of beings or
entering other types of Dimensions through different experiences
up right
there and ask. So are you able to offer remote sessions to
people? Is that what you do? I do offer remote sessions. Yes,
I am I can do with you
just about anywhere. You are sometimes the time zones get
a little bit turkey when I'm seeing people on the other side of the world, but usually
we can make it work out. Yeah so
I can I can see it just about anywhere that you
are.
And so how are people get connected then?
So you can connect with me through my website which
is flourish with star with two r's.com. And
I do want to
say that right now I because there's
been such an influx of people looking for these services
and so many more people Awakening on this planet. I do
have a fairly full case load at this time. And so
there is a little bit of a wait, you
know, if you felt like you were inspired to work together, it might
be at least a few weeks out, but that's
doesn't mean that I don't want
to work together or that, you know, there isn't a way that we could connect
and and learn from each other.
Feel free to reach out to me if you're feeling inspired after reading
my website or listening today.
That's really great. Yeah, I've noticed that the the
range of issues people are facing in. Our community
is is so big and there's so many
things that people can be going through that. You
know that you looked at as the crazy like he's
like you said and I I just started some meetup groups in town and
I've noticed it's like that's the practically the main thing that's
needed for a lot of people is therapy. They just need somebody to talk to and process
some of the information that they feel that they're
having a process that doesn't make any sense and
So do you see any patterns that?
Like our people going through shifts that
seem to be based on the times that we're in. Mm-hmm. Definitely.
I definitely think that there are certain
patterns and themes layout and
The Awakening Community oftentimes.
Oftentimes people on the spiritual path in my
opinion and what I've witnessed suffer a lot
more challenges and traumas and I think
that you know, it was designed that way to
sort of break US Open and challenge us to turn in
word more so than you know,
someone else who made out of chosen to walk
such a spiritual path in this
lifetime. So oftentimes they grew
up in families that were very dysfunctional.
Or traumatic or have suffered very
challenging life experiences and almost
always have felt alone in it
almost always have felt like their family or friends didn't really
understand them or couldn't support them and and then
they start doubting themselves, you know, they start doubting. Am
I crazy? You know what you know, what the
heck is actually going on here. Who am I and you
know, do I acquies to whatever else is doing
and saying or do I continue to walk my own path and
just try to figure it out?
But yeah, I think the you know, the covid academic
epidemic also created sort
of a mass contraction for
the planet for people who are forced to
go Inward and forced to be pushed closer
into relationships with each other with their Partners or
people that they were in isolation with and so
I think it actually created a larger Catalyst
for change in terms of people's inwards Reflections
and inner work and also their
relational work and really evaluating am I
living a life that I'm in alignment with or not?
Yeah, it seems like a lot of
stuff is kind of repeating patterns even from childhood too. And one of the things
I love in the raw material is that they say the books
called The Raw contact books. They say that people who
are positively oriented will often choose more challenging
life experiences. They won't pick the Easy
Life. They'll pick up the harder life because they know that there's
more potential benefit to get through those those blockages
that that maybe that existed from previous lives,
or maybe it's something that they just felt that they they wanted
to go through in this lifetime to open their
hearts more or give them the Catalyst to potentially open their hearts more and
break through a lot of walls. It feels like there's a lot of potential people
have when they when they really dig in and get through some of the
hardest things in there and they're I guess their history their childhood
traumas and the fears.
So do you feel like you
know, we're kind of just living our childhoods
over and over again until we work through it. Mm-hmm. Yeah,
I think that's part of the game that we're playing. I
think we come in as you know more of a
pure Essence with a framework of a personality
and then I think we're conditioned and a certain way by our
early childhood experiences and relationships and then we're
sort of playing out that wounding and
some of that patterning until we heal at
a deeper level and that healing process is what really helps us
to evolve and remember who we are beyond that
conditioning and Beyond those experiences and that's what's so
powerful. And that's really where the learning is
and the expansion of awareness occurs as well
as we start to remember. Oh, well, I'm not
these beliefs that I've developed or I'm not the choices that
my prior family members made and I'm something
more than that.
You think people have to make a connection to Childhood when they're
when they're processing their issues and that they seem
to be current issues. Do you think they have to go back there? Mm-hmm. That's
a really great question. You know, there are a lot
of therapists that will spend most of their time in childhood
and I'm someone who believes that
it's important to reflect on where you came from but not
to stay there. You know, I think I think it is worth
at least looking at together. Even if
it's just briefly what your initial
conditioning was, but but more so my focus is what's going
on. Now. You know, what? What is
your relationship with your mind? Like now, what are your relationships with
yourself and others like now and where
do you want them to be?
And what's getting in the way of that and how do we shift that but I
do think people could get lost kind of cycling around
and what was in the past and and I
don't know that it really serves the
healing process as much as just trying
to move forward differently from here. Yeah. I've
noticed it seems like like the roommates that
I've had the people that I've been close to they kind of
have aspects of my mother and father in them and sometimes
to aspects of my siblings and it seems as though
the you know, the mother and father Karma seem to be more
Directly connected to my my core personality distortions, but
at the same time seeing it played out in different people over
and over that it's kind of like different mirrors different angles
of the same mirror, I guess but different different.
Slightly different care personality characteristics allow
me to sort of explore. What is it about me
that I'm that I'm wanting to see I guess what doesn't want
me that's still triggered. And so yeah, I found a lot of value in
seeing how much is this person? Like my dad. How much is person like
my mom? Yes, there's like me. Yes. It's
so magic the way that that life works that
way that you know, all of these external characters
and circumstances are really
just shining a light on what needs to be healed within us
and I'm glad that you said that that's then what I'm
looking at. What is this bringing up in me? Because that's really
the only piece we have control over is you know,
what can I do with that to become a more
aligned version of the being that I want to be?
It also seems like there's a lot to do with people's like Ambitions and
driving life that is kind of like on a cyclical pattern.
Some people may be stuck in like wanting to
see a particular kind of success for themselves that maybe connected
to something that they felt their parents. Wanted to see
in them. That's the way I feel like I'm kind of processing that
right now it's like
You know understanding what what actually matters in life
is kind of like a question. I have to keep coming back to what's what is the true
abundance for me. It seems to keep coming back to the spiritual path.
Yeah, I love that question too. And I
had a feeling that that was going to come up today which is the idea
of purpose. Right? And and so many people
I think get caught up in what purpose really is
and what it means and what it looks like and I think that
a lot of the idea of what our purpose should like
is conditioned into us by our families and
our cultural norms and society and I
think especially those of us on the
spiritual path start questioning that
sooner rather than later of like gosh, even
though I have this degree or I have you know, this career
I sure don't
feel fulfilled. I sure don't feel like myself, you know, and even
if they move in the direction of something that
they do feel like is an alignment with them. You can still feel
like you're not quite fulfilled or living your purpose.
And so I personally think that our
our purpose is to become
the fullest expression of divinity.
That we uniquely are in this lifetime and
that is about doing this inner work.
And that was one of the whole purposes of this series of this inner Journey
series was to help you to more clearly
identify what your true Essence is and what the
pieces are that are sort of influencing that and moving around
it because we really feel
like we're living a purposeful life when we can step into each
moment each day as the brightest expression
that we came to be.
Yeah. Yeah, and I find that there's also value in like
if I feel like I'm not able to achieve my
ambitions to kind of step back and like re-center myself
in the fact that you know, I've already found peace
in my life I or peace at
least is always available and I don't have to always be and I
do wonder about like the connection between like our culture being
more one of narcissists and and that
there's always this this quest to see achievement connected
to something outside of ourselves. You know, it's just this
cold but I feel like you know making Making Peace
the goal you realize you know gratitude is always
available but always feels like there's walls to
to getting back to gratitude that that seem to
be part of this processing. That's so challenging sometimes. Yeah. Yeah and
some of those internal walls, I think are just
the expectations that we've subconsciously built up
for ourselves that equate to success right
and I think you're right that our culture does value
achievement and
money and status as you know
signification of Worth or value
and that's really, you know, I I
work with people who are multi-millionaire businessmen
and there have a
very successful looking at them, you know externally have
very successful lives and they're miserable
and they feel no meaning in their life
and they don't like themselves and they have zero peace in
their heart, you know, so those things certainly don't
equate to
fulfillment and I do think there's quite
a lot of distortion built around you know,
what that means and how to get there.
So what advice do you give people who are struggling like that?
Mm-hmm?
I think
I think that the most important thing is really getting an
alignment with yourself, you know, and one
of the things that I also offer to people is when
you look at end of life studies,
you know, when you look at people who are in hospice care,
and they're really reflecting on the meaning and
the value and did I succeed did I live a
fulfilling life that I can feel good about?
And they certain certainly are not saying I
wish I would have gotten another degree. I wish I
would have made another $50,000. I wish I would have
bought another house. I wish I would have had more Fame, you
know there almost always saying I
wish I would have slowed down to love more
those around me. I wish I would have
spent time enjoying the moments that
really gave my life meaning, you know, and that's
exactly what you're talking about is, you know experientially each
day or you getting the most
juice out of your life experience in
terms of that, you know, the feelings, you
know, the beauty that life has to offer in the
Simplicity of those little moments rather
than you know, thinking he's achievements or
gonna get us there.
Yeah.
Yeah, so it's interesting that you know, the you could
say the medical system even is trying to
say people need to find happiness as an
achievement through the Pharmaceuticals that they're giving. Yes, people
always place the the goal further
further along and and try to figure out how to how to
find drugs that'll do it. But of course
the most useful drugs that I I feel are the most useful
drugs. It's psychedelics seem to be off the table for most people around
this country, although fortunately Colorado and state of
Colorado. They just passed proposition 122, which is now legalized personal
use and sharing of many natural
plant medicines, which is really fantastic. It remains
to be seen how far that'll go that kind of
setting up a body Now official state
body to investigate how to actually begin administering these
things in a
In a very safe way, but I
know that you know, a lot of people are kind of stuck on Pharmaceuticals and
I don't know how common the problem is. I've heard statistics that
like most people in this country are taking Pharmaceuticals and
I don't know if in general those are actually like
deadening people's ability to actually go within and
meditate and find peace if you have any thoughts on that.
Mm-hmm. Yes, there's a couple I mean,
this is such a big conversation. There's several things. I want
to say about everything that you've brought up one that I
want to start with is the Assumption of
healthy happy normality
in this country that if they're if
you're feeling down or you're feeling fearful that
there's something wrong with you
and you need to get that fixed immediately and the
solution is to go and and take a pill
so that you can fit in with everyone
else and not you know, people are
so uncomfortable with emotions that
The easiest solution is just taking these
and and kind of numbing the symptoms
that that come forward from.
Life, you know life includes sadness and
life includes fear and struggle and and I
think that the true difference between the
pharmaceutical industry and approaches and something like
psychedelics is that Pharmaceuticals are essentially just
a Band-Aid for the symptoms. They're
not actually treating the root cause of what's
underneath or what's causing those symptoms
to be surfacing in the first place and sure they'll they'll
and and I don't give me wrong like I do think
that for some people that Pharmaceuticals has
served them to find a place of balance.
And Define a place where they can function a little bit better in their
lives to do the deeper work, you know, and they may choose
to come off of them at a later point. I'm not someone who's going
to say, you know, they're all bad because
I do think that life also created Pharmaceuticals for
a reason, but I do think that
that we have better and longer standing
and more more.
Healing interventions that are becoming available to
us. One of them being the second LX
which do seem to heal us
from the inside out. They do seem to change our brain
chemistry and the way that our brains wire
together the different sections
of our brains wired together.
To heal depression and Trauma and
anxiety and and a lot
of things in a very rapid period of
time compared to traditional therapy. So I'm
a very big proponent on
Of it. I have you know, I have to be careful because in the state that
I'm in it's it's not necessarily legal yet,
but it is something there's a lot
of us practitioners or sort of on the edges just paying very
close attention to the research which has been very promising
for the substances and I
do think it's gonna be a matter of time before it's legalized more
generally in a lot of different states. And
so those of us who see the power in it
are trying to figure out how to approach these substances
in a very safe and ethical and the most
effective way.
for True treatment because I
think one of the concerns we have is yes, they're going to be legalized and
people are going to be taking them, you know and kind of hoping to feel better
but
They are not something
to be, you know, messing with like, you
know, unconsciously like just taking in and saying like
Okay. Well now I'm gonna be happy, you know, there's in my opinion.
There's a lot of respect that you
need to have for the process and the medicines themselves and going
into it very intentionally and then integrating, you
know, the experience to really
get the True full healing.
We could possibly transition into talking a little
bit about this emotional expansion exercise concept.
I've noticed that like, you know,
as you're saying that people often want to just numb or
they want to sweep under the rug the bad feelings and
you know, I've noticed with like MDMA for example
Certainly, I've known that you know
the the best use and the you know,
the therapy sense of use of MDMA is
to actually have someone who's guiding the the person
who's on anybody through their their traumas.
You actually go visit each thing and somehow
the way that the MDMA is helping a person release serotonin
makes it so that all the negative almost like
a chemical thing that the body is doing when you have that when you have that
memory or that that pattern that you're going through that
seems very negative when you when you go visit that it seems
like the MDMA puts you in a space where it doesn't
feel it doesn't have the negative feeling that it once had even though
all the thoughts and beliefs around it are still there. Yes, so
when you can it's let's like when you can really approach those
from a different feeling and then this
also brings up the question of what what is this relationship between our feelings
and our thoughts and beliefs and do we have to recognize that these
are separate Concepts and just get to get to a
better state where we're physically in
Space before we do our processing and then and then really dive
deep intentionally with with the processing that makes sense.
Yes. Yeah. I do think
that compounds like MDMA are incredibly powerful
because they allow us to be in
the presence of very intense fear
and very intense sadness
without being affected by
it. And so we can just be there completely
present with the experience itself and
all the thoughts and the memories that are associated with it
without being overwhelmed by the emotional experience of
the fear itself. And so in that
place we can really gain a different perspective and
change the way that we are
able to process through what happened because I
think for a lot of people when they're going into
it in traditional therapy, they're very easily
get dysregulated and that's what you know, when
we're working with veterans and things like that.
Of what we're doing is trying to keep them regulated and trying
to teach them grounding and how to cope with the
symptoms of that fear that come up when
we're doing this deeper work and MDMA just eliminates all
of that. It just allows us to be completely with
the trauma and the memories and to
sit together with it. I think
there is something very powerful about doing it with a therapist
who can who knows the background and
knows your story and can say
So so what do we see now? And what do we
feel now? And
And really helping you to process and integrate that
experience so that it no longer has such an effect
on your psyche and you can let it go
and begin to truly heal and move forward from
there. I'm really excited about the MDMA
and I think that psilocybin is another
one. That's those two compounds I
think are going to be helping us to revolutionize mental
health and and healing as we
know it.
And do you think that if a person actually has a strong
enough will to actually like face their their traumas that
they don't really need any drugs. They can just they can just do it at any time. Yes.
I do think that there are people who can
do it without the substances. It's not easy but there
are people all the time that I'm working with who just feel
like I have to do this. I
have to heal I'm tired of living in fear, you
know, and they're willing to walk into
it. It's it's very challenging, you know,
because they're they're body responds, you
know, there's such a visceral response to the
memories and the process that it can
be very challenging and overwhelming.
But it certainly is possible to do these things without
you know, having to use substances to
help.
There's a great quote in the Raw contact about the subject
of anger. And it's basically says that there's two different ways to
use anger on the positive path. The person
will was trying to use anger to
benefit others. They will actually intensify the anger they'll
love the anger and of itself which is very strange thing to recognize
the anger is just like an energy that you can use you can
actually kind of expand your Consciousness because of that energy. That's
that's coming up in you and once you once you
intensify the energy you can actually learn to integrated better
without the intensification apparently it's much harder to the integration of
it and they sound the negative path. That's the path of control where
you're just kind of channeling the energy outwardly but
channel that energy towards the purpose of finding a
new way to forgive a new way to accept that which is that which
is perfect in the moment. That's the best way to actually like
expand and utilize the emotions that are present.
Yes, right any emotion. So
even Beyond anger you can use any
deep emotion to you if
Really willing to embrace it and invite it into your experience
and sort of Let It move through
you. It does increase your awareness.
It does help us to evolve and
I think that's part of the power of emotionals experiences,
which I know Corey has
talked about, you know that we're very emotional creatures
on this planet. And so I think that we have a very
high potential for using our
emotions as almost as a spiritual tool if
we're relating to them in an open
and loving way because they really do help to
expand our awareness and our Consciousness if we
allow them to but I think most people are
wrestling with them or distracting from
them or numbing and because it's not socially
appropriate, you know to feel these big
feelings and they're just trying to kind of get forward
through their day or get forward through their life or they're afraid
of what it might do to them.
Fully open up to them, but that's really the
key, you know to having more a stronger
relationship with yourself building more trust in yourself by
showing yourself, you're capable of holding any emotion. And
then once you let those really powerful emotions
move through you like anger or fear or sadness
you see that you're actually stronger and more
expanded in some ways.
So do you think meditation is essential for this?
That's a really good question. I think.
I
I have been meditating for so long and it's something
that I recommend to anyone that I'm
working with that.
I I won't say that it's not possible, you
know to do this work and to
continue to evolve without meditation being a
part of it at all, but I will say that meditation.
Is certainly something that helps to
facilitate and accelerate the process and I
can't imagine my life
without meditation.
And I and I have witnessed it helping so many
other people that I work with in terms of tuning in
to their truth and their Essence. I
think there's probably other ways, you
know of doing it as well, but I do think that it's
one of the most powerful tools that we have.
and another
subject that seems to be maybe connected that you
know, so it's it's some meditation is something
where it feels like, you know, we can just
Regardless of what's going on in our lives we can make it our priority to set
aside a few minutes to to work on.
Work on ourselves without even having any agenda for what it is. We're doing
during that time period of time but I also think it's possible like with diet
like if we if we're very focused on eating eating
a certain way that seems to be better we can
maybe break out of old patterns too that way but do you
feel the diet is essential that we have that we have to continuously focus on
changing the way we eat to hmm. I do
think it's something again an accelerates and supports
the process and very significantly. I do
think that you know, how we choose to
relate to food and what we choose to provide to our physical
vessel can certainly
increase our ability to be in tune
with higher levels of consciousness and War in tune
with our intuition but again recommendations
there.
On diet specifically. Yeah.
you know, I'm
I recommend that you are in tune with your
own vessel because I think that
Personally, I'm someone who does focus
on eating High vibrational
Foods living Foods organic foods, but
I do
know that there are some people who feel like denser Foods
actually help them ground, you know and like
things like meat and and dairy and
things like that actually help them to ground
or to feel like they have more energy. And so
I I really think it's an individual process but
the key is being conscious so
being conscious of what I'm
putting in my body and why and how that's affecting
my relationship with my body. How is my body responding to
what it is that I'm choosing to put into it because I
don't know that there is one specific diet
for all human beings bodies because
we're all slightly different chemically and so
some for some people they may benefit from eating
some clean.
Meets, you know that can help them
to have more energy or feel more grounded in their
skin.
Yeah, that's that's I've noticed that
too. But you know people are all different obviously supplements can
be that way too. I think I feel like there's some herbs people can take
and feel a bit more peace from from that. I don't
know if that's nutritional thing or if that's like a Prana
kind of thing where there's some kind of Life Force energy in
the plants that is helping people have just a little bit more energy to get
through get through what their process and yeah. Yeah,
but again, I think for some people they may
benefit from certain artists and plants and some people
may not have that same effect. So it really is about tuning
in to what you're drawn to
and then paying attention to how your body responds and
your mind how your mind functions as well
based on what you're putting in your body.
Yeah, it's very interesting that you know,
fasting teaches me a lot about why I'm eating too like
the energy that I have with food. It's like
there's almost like a subconscious.
Energy that I'm placing on the food when I'm eating it when I when I'm
eating it aggressively or when I'm eating it unconsciously that seems
to be different than what I'm constantly eating
and it seems like it's more a peaceful
experience after I've eaten it if I if I if I'm
aware of what I'm doing what I'm eating. Mm-hmm. Yes,
most definitely and I think there's a lot of people that
eat very unconsciously and they eat and sort of a
rapid wet, you know mindless way, but
I do think that food can
hold intention and can hold energy. I mean,
we you may be familiar with Dr. Emoto's
work with the Water Crystals. And
so even people who are preparing the food if
they're preparing the food with love and gratitude versus, you
know, someone who's slapping a
burger together in their irritated, they're working that job
and then you eat it and you don't feel so great. You know,
I do think that that, you know
energy and intention can be
used into just about everything and food as one of
those things that we can really be.
conscious about
So I was thinking we could also dive into some common issues
people have like if someone
is just completely depressed and they don't know how to pick themselves
up again and it seems like everything is just bringing them back
to the downward spiral. Do you do you have anything people can
do that? Just kind of stop that spiral. Hmm?
Yeah, so, you know if someone comes to me and they're
their main issue is that they're feeling depressed. They're
feeling lost they feel like they just can't get out of that cycle. You
know, it is going to be a very individualistic process of
kind of hearing what are some of the different components of
your life and what is some of your background but there
are you know, some main approaches that
we use to
address certain types of presentation like depression
or anxiety or relationship issues, you know
and for depression specifically actually for for
a lot of the issues that come in
I would say
probably 75% of it has a direct
relationship to your mind
and how you relate to your mind. And
so depression especially
is a tricky one because people are being really
bombarded by a lot
of negative heavy types of thoughts and beliefs.
And if they listen to a depressed mind a depressed
mind is not going to tell you to get outside and get some
fresh air and and have some sunshine or to call a
friend or to eat healthy food, you know, it's and
so if you're listening to that depressed mind
and you're making decisions based on you know, what it's
encouraging you to do you can stay in that
Loop or even worsen that depression.
You know, so some of the two of the key components for approaching depression are
having a healthier relationship with
the mind and one of the episodes in the
series is completely focused on mine techniques
and how you can have a healthier better relationship with your mind.
And then the other is what we
call behavioral activation in in the field of psychology, which
is essentially even though you don't feel like it
getting yourself engaged in life, you know, so getting your
body moving getting your skin out and into
natural light at some point during the day and trying
to be connected socially even
if you don't feel like it they're reinforcing even
if you really don't feel like going you're going to
feel uplifted after you do those things and it's
also going to change and reinforce the chemicals in your
brain that fight the depression.
Yeah, it seems like there's definitely something around being with other people that their energies
kind of contagious sometimes so finding the high Vibe
people to be with is a good idea and I always recommend people find other others
around them on meetup.com. That seems like a really great resource. Okay.
Meetup is really great resource. Yeah, and I
do think that part of being around other people is just about getting out
of ourselves, you know, because I think even with with
a lot of mental health issues we get
so caught up in in almost obsessed with ourselves and
caught in our own cycles of thinking and so
when we can be in the presence of others, it's sort of pulls
us out of that. It gives us a break it gives us some relief
from those patterns and then when we come
back into our own energy, you know, it feels a little
bit different.
Yeah, that's such a great point. And it feels like it's almost like a foundation of a
spiritual path to be a little bit more focused on service to
others than on service to self and I've noticed with with
myself using the word me and my and I and and
if my if my mind is continuously thinking about
me then it's almost just like I'm creating a
movie that has no purpose. It's just like an endless distraction. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, and you know others are all reflections
of us, you know, so there's something
to be learned something to be gained. You know,
I'm paying attention even to the guy at the
gas station. You know, who's saying good morning and sharing
some little thought with me. It's like, okay. Well, you know, these little
reflections of different aspects
of me have something to
teach me, you know, so when you live with that type
of awareness and even if you're not feeling great and
you enter into a space and I think like you
said Mike, it's it is important to be conscious when you're
when you're not feeling
You know like your best self to surround yourself with
people who are more conscious or you know
higher vibrational people because you certainly don't
want to surround yourself with people that are going to take you deeper Into the
Depths, but I do
think that you know connection with others even
people that you don't know can sometimes help teach you
or say something to you that you know
gives you just what you needed to see things
a little bit differently and and move into a different space. Yeah.
And do you think that there are
Different voices in people's heads all the time that are like entities. Do
you ever think of it in that way? Mm-hmm.
You know, I I don't you
know, I do know that there are people who do live
with things like the IDE dissociative
identity disorder where they have developed different forms
of identities based on traumatic experiences
that they had to endure at
a younger age. But I do think
that there are just naturally very different
aspects of ourselves of our own being that
lives within us and some of those are
very conscious and some of those are very unconscious, you
know, and so sometimes we get little glimpses of different
aspects of us and I think that's why it's important to
do the deeper work including Shadow work,
you know that really helps us to see some of
those parts of ourselves that might not feel familiar.
You know that that might feel like we don't completely understand
them or they feel different from us in
some way but oftentimes, it's just aspects of ourselves that
we've shut away intentionally because they're harder
to look at.
Yeah, I've often noticed that people have different beliefs around
it. But I feel like it almost doesn't matter what your beliefs are around non-physical entities
because if these entities are operating through your mind
and we're all one is one large conscious mind.
This is the infinite Creator's mind operating through these seemingly
physical outward temporary
forms on some
level. It's just a choice of of what what kind
of being we want to be and and so choosing
our thoughts seems to relate to the choice of the reality
that we that we've selected. Absolutely. I think that's dead
on that. No matter what it is and none of us really
now right like none of us can really be sure how it's actually
all playing out. But what we can do is be highly aware
of what our mind is giving us and be
paying attention to what we choose to engage with
based on what our mind is feeding us and what we choose
to, you know, choose in
terms of action as a result of those thoughts. So
that's that's the part.
Free will you know that that we get to consciously play
a part in?
Yeah, would you like to go into any more details about your your
journey? Have you gone through Dark Nights of the soul
that like
yeah, I mean, I think the
I've been through multiple very challenging experiences
in my life. I think that
one of the most challenging experiences for me was
my cancer healing journey
and I was 36 years
old when I was diagnosed with an aggressive form
of breast cancer and I had two young
children at the time and I had been
sort of sloughed off by doctors because
I was a very healthy and they didn't think anything really was
going on. And so they just kept delaying the testing
and then by the time I we actually
figured out what was going on, you know, it became a pretty
serious situation.
And of course my family
and friends were all wanting me to get
treatment immediately and do
everything the doctor said as soon as possible and and
because I had young children and
because I was frightened initially by the statistics. I
did start to follow the traditional protocol.
But after two weeks of being involved in
the traditional protocol, I just knew in
my spirit that it wasn't I just couldn't
do that to my body and not to say that that isn't
the best choice for other people,
you know some for some people, you know,
it may be you you're most in alignment with
just walking through the full traditional process and supporting yourself
spiritually or with alternative support practices,
but for me personally, it really
became a very
clear point of choice for me between following
my own inner guidance.
And following, you know, all these opinions and
expectations of others and you know, the social norms
of just kind of doing what the medical system says.
And so it was a very challenging time for me because I
felt really alone even in even at
that time. My partner who
I was married to decided to leave me during the
first week of treatment and my parents
were freaked out that I was even considering, you
know, dropping out of treatment and
I think some of the other colleagues that
I had other psychologists thought that I was pretty wacky,
you know for just trying to heal myself
with alternative methods but the
depths that I had to go into internal a
and connecting with that
sense of resilience Within Myself
was a very transformative process and
I was able to heal the
cancer within a matter of about three weeks completely
in my body through diet and
metaphysical practices and doing the deeper
emotional work.
And it really enhanced my
trust in myself and my trust in the fact
that you know, there's there's a lot
going on behind the scenes metaphysically, you
know in life that
I think people don't realize their own power and until
you have to walk through something like that where you're forced to
choose for yourself. Sometimes it's hard to believe.
But I've you know had the pleasure
I see my cancer as a gift in my life because it really
helped me to learn my own power and
learn that no matter what's going on in my reality or
in my body that I'm capable of Shifting my
Consciousness and and changing my reality.
and I also think it was pretty stunning for the
doctors, you know, and the people in my life and the doctors
even insisted on doing like an exploratory surgery
because they're like no no like this, you know this, you know,
this is impossible, you know, and so, you know, I allowed them
to do a small exploratory surgery and there was no evidence of
cancer found and
I think a lot of the people in my life were in awe.
but it was also a very scary lonely
experience where I did have moments of
deep fear and panic and Terror and am
I crazy and you know, which I
think is a part of a lot of Awakening experiences where
we're really pushed to the limits of our own beliefs and
ourselves and in life and once I
had walked through that to the other side though, I felt
like I could do anything, you know that really anything
could happen and
and that I can trust myself
and I can create the life that I want to
be living.
Yeah, that's that's very powerful. So it's almost
seems like maybe this is the case with a lot of people where so
you have you had the belief at the start of the three weeks.
You had the belief that this could be healed metaphysically or
maybe this could be held metaphysically, but it wasn't like a sure knowing
until you finally got through to the end. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
I mean, I think at the beginning when something
like that happens and I you know, and I was younger so
it was just it was a shock it was I was it was
totally unexpected. I think I didn't know what to think,
you know, and I had been living
a life where I use the medical system very
sparingly, you know, unless I needed to unless it
was like for emergency medicine type of stuff and
like to use a lot of holistic healing
but I had to take some time
to research, you know, and I was luckily I
was able to find other people who had also
felt inspired to try to heal in an alternative
way and and relying on
their faith and some of their practices. I really
committed to myself at a
certain point in time.
I'm gonna do this. I'm going to heal I'm going to heal myself
and that point of commitment. I
didn't really look back from but it did take
you know, moving from complete shock
and Terror and overwhelmed to okay, what
what are my choices here? And I just
can't keep doing this to my body. This isn't how
I'm going to heal my body and you know, and
then really committing to that practice and not looking back.
So I assume that that this is giving you
a stronger faith and the faith of others you mentioned is supportive. Do
you feel that the people who are your clients
need some of this faith imparted for them to be able
to find it their issues actually can be solved with
the deeper inner healing is supposed to just looking for an
outer solution. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I do. I
think that
one of the interesting paradoxes that most people are
looking outside of themselves or what they need and
part of my job is to
help them to realize that they really contain everything that
they need to find a sense of peace and balance
and purpose in their lives. But I have you know
shared at certain times, you know
pieces of my experience to help them to see that
that it is
possible, you know to give them some of that Faith or even
just to say I have faith in you and
until you do then just rely on mine.
And just take the next step, right? You know, like let's let's
not listen to what your mind is saying about whether you're going
to get better or not. Let's just take the next step and
see what your experience shows you and oftentimes of
people are willing to step into their fear and do something different. They
see like, oh my gosh, my life does get
better or I am capable of doing this and then they start to
realize that they can trust themselves and turn to
themselves for what they need.
I suppose it has a lot to do with people's belief systems
when they first come to see you and do
you feel like there's a difference between people who are like fundamentalist
Christian do they do they have an openness to
the to miraculous healing more? So or to have a closeness to
the potentials that everything is something that
needs to be worked on within first? Yeah. Yeah, it
varies from person to person, you know, because I have worked with
people who have a strong Christian background, but
they're very open, you know, and they're very willing and and
then I've worked with people who would identify
as more spiritual and they're more
close and avoidant and you know, so it really
it depends on the person and willingness
plays a big part, you know willingness to
just step into the unknown and get
comfortable with the unknown, you know, because that's where
true change happens.
But you know, I I just
to be totally transparent I have you know, a screening
process for when I take on new clientele because I
have such a wait list and because I have so many
people that want to work with me that I won't work
with people that don't have some idea
of Faith or openness in their
life. It's just not a match for me and we just
won't be speaking the same language because there are a lot
of people who come to me and say well I
need help with depression or anxiety or my mirror problems
or this or that but you know, I'm a staunch
atheist and you know that that's just it
and I don't want to talk about it and
So, you know for me to feel to hold the
space and help you to get to that Faith within yourself,
you have to have even just a little bit within yourself
to begin with you have to have that opening.
That's very fascinating. Yeah, I I don't know
how people can be close to Faith and
how that how that takes hold how people want that to be the truth
of the universe is as something that feels more distant and
it's almost like a belief in separation is almost like
the foundation from I guess the philosophy that I'm
I've considered with the law of one, you know opening to
love opening to the positive nature of
the source of creation seems to be
A part of this process that that has inspiring faith
and inspiring that the greater potentials.
So do you feel like
Gosh, I I always I always wonder
how to help everyone, you know, it's like what what are the what are
the real blockages with people as do
you think this a lack of faith would something be
something from childhood to people just haven't addressed yet?
Yeah, I do think some sometimes it
could come from a childhood with
parents that were very close-minded and just
said this is the way life is and and then
they never really questioned it but also I've seen
people who come from religious or spiritual backgrounds
and they just feel like well until
I have the proof, you know until I know for sure then really
there's nothing and any belief
in something beyond that is you know is is crazy
or outside of my, you know, world worldview. So,
you know, people are
interesting creatures and they come from all different backgrounds and
they really decide themselves and
you know for some people I think that they came here
intentionally to you know struggle with an idea
of faith and I do have some clients like that who really
want to believe or want to have some sense
of connection or faith in their lives and that you
know, that was the path that they are choosing
to walk is gonna coming from that place of complete
doubt or complete separation and then finding
their way to you know, feeling more connected or
having some sense of a faith
But yeah, it's it's hard to generalize. I think that yes,
if you come from this background that this is gonna how
you're how you're going to turn out and because I've seen it play out
in so many different ways.
Are there any books you recommend for people?
Or developing a sense of Faith. Well anything
on the spiritual healing path? Mm-hmm. Oh
my goodness. That's such a question. I mean,
there's a lot of books. Yeah that I mean, obviously the
raw series are great. I think that introductory books
on spirituality like Michael singer's
books the end tethered Soul
Eckhart tolly's books on the power of now
just really starting to connect with this idea
of a presence beyond the mind and beyond
your conditioning.
I think Joe dispends his work can be really powerful in
terms of looking at how to be more
aware of the Consciousness that you're emitting and
and being in control of writing a new
story and creating a new outcome.
But yeah it
It really depends on the person that's in front of me. I
think the other book that's been really helpful for
a lot of people is the book
self compassion by Kristen Neff. And
I think that the field of self-compassion has
just been growing and growing and growing because for such a critical
Society, that's so overcome
by the judgments
of others and ourselves. And so
I think that that book and I think she also has a
workbook now that is very helpful in
terms of looking at how you relate to yourself
and your own mind and how you can be more loving
and forgiving of yourself and others as
a whole.
Yeah, it seems like
Forgiveness seems Central. I I kind
of equate forgiveness and acceptance. Also, it's almost
like also a word that seems to mean freedom from attachments.
You know, we're just letting go of the things we're holding on to with
All of our beliefs and ideas around, you know
why the world has to be in this negative light that we're that we're
holding it in.
Yeah, I think forgiveness is a really key spiritual
practice and it really isn't
about condoning anything, you know,
but it's about releasing its Hold On
Us in the present and so that we're not no longer caring
the density or the weight of those experiences or
what it brings up in us so that we are free of
it.
You feel like you had to forgive something in order
to be healed of cancer.
I did I
did forget
myself, you know for living in
in shame of who I was and not allowing
myself to really step out and do
the woman that I want to be. But yeah, I
do think that
You know forgiveness is a process. It's never
a one-time thing where it's like,
okay. Well, I forgive my mom or I forgive my partner. It's it's
a continual process of living in
forgiveness for the fact
that we're all humans and we're all playing very
specific roles in each other's lives and there's gifts
in all of it. Even if it's very challenging but but
no longer allowing that to bring down
our frequency or bring, you know, create density
and our field by holding those things. I think
that's the importance of forgiveness because then it
allows us to live in a lighter clearer or
more loving way if we can practice living and forgiveness.
And it seems like it takes us more into the present too A lot of times it seems like
when we're focused on the future or the past. It's because of
something that we're holding on to or feeling that
there has to be something different than the current present moment.
And it's like everything is just a distraction from finding the
piece in the present. Yes. Yeah, I would
agree with you that I think if if we don't consciously
practice forgiveness, then we sort of wear that lens
in our present and it affects
our ability to really take in and new
experience or to create a new reality if we're
walking around with that lens.
Well, it looks like we've reached about an hour. I know
you have to get going soon. I I think we could we could
wrap this up. However, you'd like if you'd like to share anything else about your journey anything
that you think people also also I'm
kind of curious, you know, it's like what are the things you see people dealing with
and what what do you think our audience is dealing with it? Maybe they could
use some pointers on. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, I think that most people
who come to me that are looking for support around
Spiritual Awakening are looking to heal
back these layers of conditioning and
beliefs and old behaviors to reveal.
you know the truth of who they are and more aligned
version of who they are so that they
can then step out into the world and have a
bigger impact, you know, and and ripple in
the fabric of Consciousness so to speak and so
that's what
a lot of people come to me and they feel like when they're going
to other therapists that they're getting tips and tricks for
how to be less stressed or you know how to be stop
being so negative or things like that, but
They're not looking at the bigger picture of
you know, how do you really release some
of these patterns of conditioning and
patterns of thinking and patterns of behavior and patterns
of choosing specific relationships, you know
that can help you step into the
version of you that you're really wanting to be and then
how do you also attune to
that broader version of you? So that's really, you know,
the later part of our work together is not only kind
of peeling back these layers of what prevent us
from being fully who we are but then how do we really embody
that essence? You
know, how do we really embody that light in a
way that serves us to our fullest Highest
Potential and then also serves the world in
turn.
Do you think that?
We all share a common purpose.
That's that's a big question. You know,
that's the ultimate question. I do think that we are here
all playing a part in the evolution of
life, you know, and I do think that the one
gets to
know itself and understand itself more
deeply through these individual expressions and that
you know, we come here to experience Challenge and
pain and this and mortality and this feeling
of Separation because we can't experience these things outside
of embodiment, you know, so I do think that
we're helping Life as a whole to evolve by coming
in here and having these very different and dynamic
experiences.
So that's and that's you know, when I was speaking about
purpose earlier. I think that that's how we can all do
our part right is by doing our own internal
work and being the brightest expression
that we can possibly be which also
inspires others to do the same and it
also releases a lot of ancestral and
generational patterning that the people
that came before us in our lineage didn't have the
tools or resources or the awareness,
you know, or the willingness to
do this work and I think a lot of us on
this planet at this time are willing we're tired
enough, you know, and we're really wanting to do it
now to free our lineage of
these types of patterns too and to
not pass it forward to Future generations, and that's
really how we're going to create a different Humanity.
Yeah.
It's great that it feels like you know,
we have enough guidance. Maybe our higher selves are we're
being guided on paths that we kind of can't
go wrong because we keep getting the lessons. We keep getting the opportunities
and it's like, you know, everything is working
out one way or the other. Right? Right? Yes, everything's
here to serve us. There isn't really anything wrong.
Even our deepest darkest moments or some
of the biggest gifts, you know, so it's all about how you're approaching
and how you're staying aware with it how you're opening up
to whatever life is bringing you whoever life
is bringing you so that you can learn and grow
from it.
Absolutely.
Yeah, so finding finding the reasons to be grateful in
the moment seems to be continuously the you know, the the trick for
me. Mm-hmm gratitude. Yeah, there's
gratitude is so powerful. It's it's certainly
something that I practice personally in my
life throughout the day multiple times a day. I think
it is something that really helps us to attune to our true
Essence. No matter who we are I think that you
know living in a state of gratitude gets us closer to
our truth and and it's
contagious, you know, when we're walking around in gratitude,
then people feel that and people are more inspired
to do that as well.
I'm very grateful for this conversation today. Do you have anything else you'd like
to get into or share?
Um, I think we I think we covered a lot of ground. Yeah. I'm
excited to release the rest of the series the rest
of the series. I know that the video that is
just being released is more. So on
the topic of emotions and how to have a healthy relationship with
your emotions. Next. We're going to be talking about our relationship
with our body. We're gonna go more deeply
into relationships and how relationships help
to support our Evolution and
then we're going to be talking a little bit more about you know,
how more specifically to live as Essence how to
live more in tune with our higher self so to speak
And then putting all of these pieces together to hopefully
be the best possible versions of
ourselves. So I am really excited to continue putting those
out for the community and I welcome any questions even if
you you know, don't feel inspired to work
together directly. I'm always open to connecting with
people from the community. If you feel inspired to reach
out to me or you have a question or something to share I would
love to hear from you. We're all in this together. So
I'm really grateful to be a part of all
of it as well.
And I'll make sure to hook it up so that the comments that
people leave on the videos on essential Works TV should go to your email address so
you can great right through there, too. Yes. Yes,
please feel free to ask questions or if there's anything you
need clarified. I would be happy to elaborate
or you know to connect with
you more. So feel free to reach out.
All right. Thank you again star. This is really wonderful and
thank you again for this awesome series. I know people
are loving it and and I hope people continue to tune
in essentialworkstv and check out your next episodes. Yeah.
Thank you so much Mike for the opportunity. It
really is a pleasure. Thank you.
No problem. Thank you. All right. Take care
everybody. Yep. Next time.
Take care. I