THE ACCRESCENT™ PODCAST EPISODE 177

Hello, welcome back to the Accrescent podcast, or welcome if it’s your first time listening. I’m your host, Leigh Ann Lindsay. Okay, today’s conversation is one of the ones I have been most excited for this year. Dr. Erica Matluck is on the podcast. And to give a quick intro to Dr. Matluck, she is a modern medicine woman and the creator of Seven Senses, a holistic framework for healing and transformation.

She is trained as a naturopathic doctor, family nurse practitioner, Reiki master and multidisciplinary yoga instructor. Combining over two decades of experience working in conventional and alternative medicine, she brings a truly holistic lens to well being, addressing the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects of health.

Ancient wisdom and Eastern philosophy thread through all of her work, which has been featured in Harper’s Bazaar, Mind Body Green, Well and Good, Vogue, and Women’s Health. [00:01:00] This conversation was so profound because yes, we’re talking about some specifics and practical things, but really this was more of a mindset conversation and in some ways, even a philosophical, spiritual conversation about what is the mindset?

How do we want to look at healing? We even, we even get into the semantics of what, what is this word healing and are some of us. stuck in this perpetual state of healing that brings with it its own set of limiting beliefs and blocks and barriers. And I just feel like this is such a phenomenal conversation to tune into to get this Larger bird’s eye view on healing and some of the different facets that when we’re too zoomed in and talking about all of these nitty gritty things, we’re missing some of these bigger perceptions or patterns that we might also be caught in.

So this was such a thrill, such a joy. These are the conversations that I could [00:02:00] just get lost in and go on for hours and hours. In fact, at the end, we were like, Oh my gosh, we didn’t even cover half of what we wanted to talk about. And it was. Still so phenomenal. So hopefully we will be able to have Dr.

Matluck back on the podcast for a part two, but with that, please enjoy this conversation with Dr. Matluck.

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So check the show notes [00:04:00] below for a link to the It Just Works deodorant capsules, as well as a discount code. Well, Dr. Matluck, welcome to the Accrescent podcast, the Accrescent community. Thanks for having me. So I’ve followed you on social media. I just was telling you off air, so many of your posts I get so excited about of just.

Yes, yes, this is what we need to be talking about. And with that said, I don’t know a ton of your, your backstory, your personal story kind of into this work. So as much as you’re comfortable, I would love to hear just a little bit of even what led you to where you are today. Absolutely. I mean, it’s the answering this question is always so challenging for me because it’s been a lifelong journey for me.

I don’t have a simple story where, you know, I had a little awakening from a health issue or something, but I do have like a strong sort of like personal and professional line [00:05:00] or thread that has followed me my whole life. I think the, um, The first real like event was my mom had cancer when I was a kid and she passed when I was 11.

And being like a very sort of emotionally sensitive kid, that experience shaped a lot. I mean, it basically set me on a quest to explore how people in the world heal other ways of doing it, you know, outside of this sort of hospital experience that my mother. Went through and of course she passed so they the experience did what it didn’t result in the outcome that I as As a child wanted and so it really got me thinking about are there other ways to heal at a very young age?

Yeah, it also really opened the door to The world of you know, the unseen or the mystery History [00:06:00] or even, you know, just this idea of having a relationship with someone who is so important to me that was no longer in a body. And I couldn’t have spoken about it like this at that time, but it is one of my clearest memories, uh, the morning after she had passed and my father telling me and like, Really feeling that she was still there or this idea that we would be together again.

Yeah. Um, you know, so there was this deep knowing that there was something that we couldn’t see, touch, feel, hear. That was very real for me at a very young age. Um, and then, you know, I went on to. I, I was, I was pretty young, but then when I went to college, I, I studied pre med, but I also, I majored in anthropology [00:07:00] and I was interested in the intersection of health and culture and how, you know, indigenous populations or other cultures around the world heal and, uh.

I think I always sort of knew I would be a practitioner of some sort, but getting an MD didn’t really feel like the right fit. And it was just a matter of living and exploring and searching until I found the things that were the right fit. But along the way, there were a lot of trainings and courses and certifications, you know, herbal medicine expeditions and.

doula trainings and birth attendances. Uh, but you know, by, by training and, and I guess licensure, I’m a naturopathic doctor and a nurse practitioner. And, um, I guess prior to that, I was a massage [00:08:00] therapist and also a yoga instructor of, of a few different approaches to yoga or disciplines, I guess you could say.

And so. Those sort of serve as the foundation through which I weave other things through my lens. Mm hmm. I love this and I’m so excited, you know, we’re going to talk about the seven senses and the four quadrants of health and the seven core wounds, or at least these are some of the things I’m excited to hopefully get to, but it’s just so powerful because as we talked before, I, I work in the.

the realm of emotional root cause to ailments, illness, disease, limiting patterns. But I love what you’re doing with seven senses because we really do need to be addressing all of those. And I think there’s people like myself who maybe address one of those quadrants and then are encouraging my clients to say, and also these are very important.

And then there’s people like yourself who [00:09:00] are within your practice trying to address all of them together. And I just, think that is so powerful. Yeah, I agree with you. I mean, I, I practiced medicine in a conventional setting for a decade, so I definitely have spent my fair share of time in my career not addressing all four quadrants and, um, you know, kind of relying on this.

Idea. Well, we will, you know, you can do that one part of the care with me, and then you can do another part of the care with the therapist or an energy worker or somewhere, someone else. And maybe in under great circumstances I might communicate with those other practitioners. Mm-hmm . Um, you know, but the truth of the matter is when you’re working in the conventional healthcare system.

You really don’t have time to do that. It’s, uh, the, the volume is high and the time is really limited and [00:10:00] that happens mostly through getting a consult note from a specialist that you glance over briefly, you know, in someone’s chart, you don’t really get a lot of time to, to really work with other people on someone’s care team.

And I think it’s, it’s a flaw of the system and, and I’m not here to really just like complain about the system because I understand why it is the way it is. And honestly, if someday I need a hand surgery, I want a hand surgeon. I don’t want someone who’s thinking about my, you know, connection to. spirit or what emotion was present during the injury.

There’s definitely a, you know, a time and a place for specialization that, uh, I feel really grateful for, but I do think it’s, there’s a real failure in the system when it comes to addressing chronic and persistent health complaints, [00:11:00] because. It’s a, it is a holistic beast and what happened was eventually I felt like with patients that, that had been with me for a long time, I would, even though they might be working with a number of different practitioners addressing different quadrants and different aspects of the health, you know, and um, For, for listeners that may not know what we’re talking about.

When we say the quadrants, we’re talking about physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects of oneself. And I started to see these patterns where like I could help them, let’s say on the physical plane, and then they might be doing something with their therapists in the mental or emotional space, but eventually they’d be in my office.

Complaining about something going on in their life or another area of their health that I could see was the same thing. It was the same theme, the [00:12:00] same roots, just expressing differently in a different part of themself. And so I got to a place. In that job where I felt like I was starting to feel too held back by the structure and the system to actually help people.

And now in my practice, I do work with all four quadrants. I also spend a lot of time with people and that means I don’t have a lot of space to, you know, work with thousands of people a year, like I used. do. So there’s, you know, tradeoffs and benefits and advantages and disadvantages to everything. But yeah, now I sort of keep it all in house.

Yes. I mean, and just what a testament to you though, because I know I can only. Meet clients and take them to a depth that I have myself have gone with myself. And so I do really think it speaks to your [00:13:00] dedication to growth and discovery that you even feel comfortable covering those four quadrants yourself.

That really speaks to the work you’ve done, I think. Yeah, I, I mostly agree with you. I get into this conversation with myself a lot with just this idea of embodiment, right? And I stand by that, you know, to some degree, I can really only take someone in an embodied place to somewhere that I’ve been. And yet you find yourself in conventional medicine, often prescribing a medication that you’ve never taken or you wouldn’t take yourself.

Um, you find yourself advising on something that you really have no embodied experience with. And somehow there can it can still be effective. So I like zoom in and out of this a lot. This question of, can I work with people [00:14:00] that are that I really can’t empathize with deep in a deeply embodied way, right?

I can empathize in the sense that, like, I know what it feels like to feel unwell. I know what it feels like to to grieve, right? I can. I can feel the feelings and connect that way, but I may not have experienced the circumstances that you’re going through. And I think that there’s a time and a place for both, right?

And I think it’s always about balance, right? Like sometimes we’re going through a process where we really want to look someone in the eye and know that they’ve been there and they’ve like covered that ground before. And sometimes it can be really helpful to have someone, you know, guiding you that actually doesn’t know what it feels like personally, and perhaps maybe they have some sort of oversight [00:15:00] and they can see the landscape in a way that We can’t imagine, so I think there’s a time and a place, but I, I want to honor that about you and just say that I really appreciate that because I think there aren’t enough people out there today that really take responsibility and say, um, I can really only take someone to the depths that I’ve gone myself.

Totally. I think we’re actually in a total agreement here in that. What I mean is. You are covering these four quadrants, spiritual, mental, emotional, physical, which I think means, on some level, you yourself are pursuing things in each of those areas. That way you’re comfortable even going there, and it’s not that you have to have been or done something, or the exact tool that your patient or client is using.

I work with people who’ve experienced traumas I’ve never experienced, and I still think I can take them to the depths. Just because I go to the depths myself in that kind of [00:16:00] broader way. So yeah. Yes. Thank you for clarifying. I totally agree With that said I I think what I’m interested in is Having this conversation around this more Truly holistic, right?

I think sometimes even still in the world holistic medicine. It’s it’s still Only on that physical element, holistic, physical health, non toxic physical health. And there are some of these other areas that just aren’t. As equally prioritized, I find. And so I’m really interested in just having this conversation and dialogue around that lens of looking at healing through all four of these must.

Not like, yeah, maybe if you want to dabble here, like must be a part of this journey in one way or another at some point or another, um, and just getting into that a little bit more. And I’m interested in talking about that kind of in a, in a broad [00:17:00] sense, but then also a little bit more practically of what that looks like for you with a client when you’re helping them with that spiritual quadrant.

What does that actually look like tangibly? So we can also kind of wrap our heads around that a little bit. Yeah, definitely. I mean, first I, I love having this conversation of just what does it mean to be holistic, right? And I think you point to something that’s really important, which is that the boundaries of the whole are not static, right?

They’re dynamic. And if I’m trained as a primary care doctor and I want to practice what I do holistically, that means, working with all the organ systems of the body, right? That is the whole, the body is the whole from that lens, right? So we can’t really knock the primary care doctor when they’re like, I’m holistic and you know, I’m, I’m [00:18:00] looking at everything.

But then, you know, if As a mental health professional, obviously it has to go beyond the body, right? The, the thoughts, beliefs, the emotional field that has to be part of the whole. And I always like to kind of walk people through this with the, the map of the chakra system, because it’s like, if I’m sitting in my root chakra or my pursuit, Back taking the perspective of the root chakra, then the whole is the whole of the body.

And if I’m in the sacral, then it’s the body and the emotional field. And if I’m up at the solar plexus, it’s the body, the emotional field, the thoughts and the beliefs. If I move up into the heart, it’s where the boundaries of the individual self start to dissolve. Right. So now it’s also like, we’re talking about my presence.

We’re talking about, you know, the electromagnetic field of the heartbeat and how. Our heartbeats can [00:19:00] sink if we’re close enough to each other. And then we move up into the throat chakra and it’s sound, right? Anywhere my words can be heard, anywhere my vibration can be felt, that’s all part of the whole.

And then it starts to get weirder and weirder, right? You get up to the third eye and now we’re like beyond time and space. But from a, from, you know, just. And in the, from the perspective of my practice, this is important because this is why I think, you know, seasons matter. This is why, you know, we, I might want to know what, when someone was born and what’s going on astrologically when they’re going through a difficult time.

Because from this perspective, the whole is so much bigger than, you know, our immediate And then there’s the crown where there are no boundaries of the whole, right? It’s all one. So I think for me, whenever we get into this like zoom out [00:20:00] discussion of holistic, I always think it’s important to just be like, well, what, what whole are we talking about?

What are the boundaries? That’s so good. Yeah, because even as you’re saying that the hole that I see to someone else might be missing some other important pieces like this, whatever it might be, you know, the astrological part of it, the yes, any number of different things. I love that. What a great point.

And, you know, like a lot of the time when you’re working with someone, you can’t get them to their goal without involving their relationships, right? And that’s like, now we’re at that level of the heart chakra, right? Where the, the boundaries of the whole that we’re working with are bigger than the individual self.

And so I think for me, when I’m working with someone, I’m always kind of like doing a check in with myself, like, where do we need to be? What perspective do I need here to be true [00:21:00] to the practice of holism? But, you know, then, okay, so that’s my zoom out, right? And I think it’s important to zoom out because Because of the wellness industry and because I see so many people out there saying, you know, holistic medicine, holistic doctor, and it’s like you go and see them and they do a few additional labs and prescribe vitamin D or vitamin B12 or tell you to change your diet.

And, you know, there might be a world in which that’s holistic, but for me, that’s, that’s usually just marketing. Mm hmm. So I think it’s helpful for anyone who’s seeking holistic care to kind of pause first and say, what is the whole and what does holistic mean to me? And then let me find a practitioner that can meet me and has, you know, that, that broad of a scope.

Mm hmm. That’s such a beautiful question to send us off to [00:22:00] reflect on a hundred percent. But so then to get practical, so the way that I think about it, you know, when I’m working with an individual is I see the whole as having these four quadrants, the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. And a few kind of highlights of that, I think it’s important to differentiate those quadrants, even though they’re all connected, because it helps me know how and when to meet people in each quadrant.

Right? So I think about the physical quadrant, I almost think about each one having a different language or a different way that it relates. To self and reality. And so the physical quadrant is sensation, right? Mm-hmm . And so we’re dealing with pain in the body or you know, loose bowel movements or chronic fatigue, right?

I’m looking to that physical quadrant. [00:23:00] If we’re in. You know, and this is like probably an important distinction because I think in our conventional medical system, there’s a tendency to lump mental and emotional health into one thing. And I’m sure you have an opinion about that too. For me, I really like to tease those two out because for me, emotion needs to be felt and moved.

My three year old son is the greatest teacher of emotion that I’ve ever encountered when he feels something big, he screams or he cries or he shakes his body or he just like, you know, has some dramatic eruption and then he’s in a different emotional state and that’s it. But you know, when I’m in session with a client and a big emotion comes up and they well up with tears, 90 percent of the time, they start to talk over it.

They [00:24:00] say, Oh, I’m sorry. I don’t know what just came over me and they try and talk about it. And that’s when the emotion gets trapped. And so I really differentiate these two things. To me, emotional health is our feelings, and they need to be felt. And mental health is our thoughts and beliefs, or our mental attention.

Mm hmm. I also feel like there’s an important distinction because I think about the emotional quadrant as slightly more like receptive dominant. In other words, we’re getting feedback, very strong feedback about the world around us or what of what we’ve created through our emotional experience. And our physical sensations as well.

But I consider the mental quadrant slightly more like projection dominant. In other words, we’re really creating the reality [00:25:00] around us by where we put our attention with our thoughts and our beliefs. And so, you know, when we mix those two things, the mental and the emotional, we end up talking over the emotions.

You know this better than me, the emotions get trapped in the body and because our attention is on generally the thing that’s causing the emotion we don’t like feeling, we create this feedback loop. And for me, this is often where like a very healthy grief process becomes, you know, a diagnosis of major depressive disorder, right?

Or something else. In the DSM, so I tease those two apart, emotional health, we feel mental health, we are is more mindset oriented. And then there’s the spiritual piece, which, you know, in conventional medicine, no one even really likes to [00:26:00] consider that there may be a spiritual component to our health that’s reserved for, you know, religion or energy work.

But This spiritual component is integral, it’s integral, partially because even though our healthcare system would like us to think that we know a lot, and maybe even that we know everything, the truth is what we know, what we’ve classified by diagnosis, What we know how to treat is pretty small. There’s a lot we don’t know.

And you know, this is why I love that you spoke earlier about just sort of like the embodiment of the depth. Because for me, When sort of judging a provider practitioner, I care a lot more about how they’re going to guide me when they don’t know what’s going on or [00:27:00] where I am or what to do, then I care about what they’re going to do when they do know, because sooner or later, we will all have an experience in our health where No one knows what it is, or no one knows exactly how long it’s going to last.

I mean, there are so many syndromes out there these days. Irritable bowel syndrome, PCOS, right? And this is basically just medicine saying, We don’t. exactly know what this is, but if you’re experiencing, you know, a certain amount of this number of symptoms, we’re going to call it this, and this is how we’re going to treat it.

But we don’t really know what that is. And so that spiritual quadrant of health is sort of like, this is where faith is more powerful than science, right? It’s like, how do I trust? That there is an [00:28:00] intelligence to it all that there’s meaning in my suffering when I don’t have the safety of a doctor telling me they know exactly what’s going on and what I need and how to move through it.

So I think spirituality. Provides that. And I also see the spiritual quadrant as the part of us that’s quantum, right? And in the quantum field, all possibilities, all potentials exist. But the one that we put our attention on is the one that becomes more likely than the others. So this is where intention comes in.

Because for me, One of the most important parts of the process is really defining the direction of healing. What does the patient or the client want? What is the goal? And um, if they don’t define that for themselves, someone else is going to. And in my [00:29:00] experience, clinician of any sort, it usually sort of limits what’s possible.

Mm hmm. And if the patient or the client or the individual, the one healing themselves, limits themselves from the get go, there’s no way we can ever get them to what they want because in the quantum field, if they put their focus on that limited goal, then that’s where we’re going to end up. So, that’s sort of like the role of the four quadrants.

And then I think it’s important to note that the nervous system and the endocrine system do such a brilliant job of keeping them connected because, you know, The nervous system works in those extra [00:30:00] sensory realms, right? We’ve all had a vibe. We’ve all been walking down, you know, a city street at one point in our lives and felt something just doesn’t feel safe.

And it’s not because I’m seeing something or hearing something or smelling something. There’s just a sense. And the nervous system is that sensitive, right? So then the nervous system translates to every organ system of the body. Either we’re safe and we can prepare to rest and digest and enjoy the finer things in life, or we’re under threat and we prepare to fight or flight or freeze.

And, you know, the body kind of goes into survival mode. And people love talking about that these days. I know. I have thoughts on nervous system work. Then you laugh about that. I think we probably are in agreement about it. [00:31:00] But the next piece that I think, right, and so, but we can agree that like the nervous system can sense something that Is sort of beyond our perceptual range and it can impact our physiology, right?

We’ve all, you know, felt fight or flight and we shrug our shoulders up to our ears to protect our carotid arteries and we get this muscle tension and the pupil dilation and our breath shallows. And then our mind goes into like, what do I need to do to protect myself? The fear and anxiety are instant.

And then just kind of spiritually. Speaking, we’re focused on survival, right? We’re not focused on what is my life purpose and how do I fulfill my mission? It’s just like, how do I keep this body alive? So the nervous system has an independent relationship with the four quadrants, but then the nervous system.

Also communicates [00:32:00] with the endocrine system, and then the endocrine system translates the signal through chemistry. So we get another layer, right? Where if we’re under threat, the endocrine system will put us in a state of, um, you know, adrenaline and cortisol, epinephrine and norepinephrine, and that Binds to receptors on multiple organ systems.

So once again, our physiology is impact impacted, um, you know, hormonally, like that is our emotional state. So our emotional state is impacted. Then the emotions impact are both physical and emotional impact our thoughts. And we. Yeah. And then again, you know, it feeds back into the spiritual and it’s sort of like, okay, it’s just about staying in the body.

And so I think it’s helpful to just name those two systems because no matter how much our system tries to [00:33:00] compartmentalize our health and separate these four quadrants, the nervous system and the endocrine system will never fully allow it. They will always just be impacting each other. And so if I’m with a client, you know, the big question I’m always trying to answer first is, which quadrant do we need to start in to move the needle the most?

And, um, when I say which quadrant do we need to start in, that sort of influences what types of tools I use. So a brand that I just discovered this year and have been absolutely obsessed with it is the fullest Saffron latte. I actually had Nikki Bostwick the founder of the fullest on the podcast that episode is 156 for any who want to go back and listen to it and I’ll make sure it’s linked in the show notes below as well the episode but after I had this conversation with her I immediately ran [00:34:00] out and bought The saffron latte powder and it is so delicious I drink it every single evening and it’s become such a beautiful ritual for me because I’m such a beverage girlie I love having different beverages to drink throughout the day, but to also have something in the evening that has no caffeine Such clean ingredients, but what you’ll guys hear if you haven’t listened to that podcast episode yet is that the studies have found recently that Saffron at a certain dose at a certain dose is just as effective as Prozac for helping Anxiety, depression, ADHD, and so it’s something that I have absolutely loved myself.

I feel like I’ve noticed a difference in my general countenance being even more uplifted, calm, grounded, especially for me in this time of a lot of change. And it’s something I have been recommending so much lately to clients, to some of my cancer patients, because of how clean it [00:35:00] is. And there’s so many other benefits outside of the mood support, the anxiety, the depression, it’s super anti inflammatory, anti cancerous.

But it’s become kind of my product of the year that I’m just like, oh my god, how can I get everyone to try this? So they have the latte powder, which I absolutely love and the dosage of saffron in the latte powder is the highest But they also have capsules that you can take that still meet that minimum dosage that has been studied And the capsules are a little bit, a little bit less expensive as well.

So really encourage you guys check out the link below in the show notes for discount codes, holiday sales, and give the fullest to try. I love this so much. Yes. And how, how do you determine which quadrant? Is it really the one where you’re just like, I’m seeing the most impact here or, well, I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you kind of how I approach it with clients, right?

Sometimes the metaphor I use is we all often, I see, we all have one [00:36:00] big like mental, emotional boulder, a big boulder that needs to be moved. And maybe that boulder is Having the most impact and the biggest ripple effect on your life, and yet you’re in such a state that trying to move that boulder first is going to be counterproductive.

So we actually need to move some of these smaller stones first, even though that’s really the one causing the most impact. We can’t actually start there. That’s an interesting way of putting it. And um, I think that my answer is harmonious, but it’s a little bit, but I, it’s like, There are two possibilities for me.

One is, because a lot of the time, by the time people get to me, they’ve worked with tons of other people and they’ve done a lot. So they’ve moved a lot of things, but they’re not actually getting the results that they want yet. So I think for me, it always comes down to safety [00:37:00] and trust. I’d say the majority of the people that I work with have tried so many things and what they really need to really trust me and know that they’re in the right place on the first session is to know that I want to take them somewhere they have not been yet.

And so. So, it kind of becomes irrelevant which one I think is where the real block is, but it’s about where are they least comfortable, right? Oh, okay. They haven’t had anyone really take them into, you know, the emotional realms or the spiritual realms. So, I’m going to go there because like, they need to know that I’m not going to do the same thing that the last seven people did.

And then once we. really get the trust, then I can take them where I think the work really needs to be done. And then less often, but [00:38:00] still very common, is the situation where, um, Someone coming to me has had a lot of really bad experiences with practitioners, and they really don’t feel safe. They feel, uh, afraid to go into new territory.

And if that’s the case, I start where they feel most comfortable to make sure that we really establish some safety. And then once that is the case, then I will probably take them toward that bigger boulder. It’s such a beautiful, I’m learning so much, even for me as a practitioner, I’m excited to just reflect more on this and go, there’s, there’s a lot here and maybe kind of unconsciously and intuitively I do that a little bit where it’s, I know we, I know we need to go here.

We can’t just yet, or to your point, exactly. I know they’ve never been taken here before and I feel comfortable that [00:39:00] they’re comfortable diving right in there. I think we all kind of just do it intuitively. We know that there’s like, there’s a certain archetype of person that like really needs the breakthrough, and they really need that like sort of young push.

And then there’s an archetype of person that like, that is really not. Therapeutic, right? And you really need to like, slow down and be gentle and make sure that there is like, so much safety before you start to move big things. Yeah, bringing it back to as we were talking about going through the four quadrants, something that I think is just worth saying is, I was thinking about how You know, I actually see people overindexing on each of those, right, where sometimes, sometimes often it’s a lot of overindexing on the physical quadrant and the other ones get neglected, but I will say even working at, um, I contract with this holistic integrative cancer center, [00:40:00] you know, we’ll have people come in who.

have stage four cancer, their body, their physical body is in a very poor state. And I would say they’re probably over indexing on the spirituality component and just saying. No, no, no, I don’t need to do anything for this body, God or spirit or other is just going to heal this and, and vice versa over indexing on the mental component, I just need to get my mindset in a good place and then everything else will fall into place.

And so it was interesting as you were saying that that that piece clicked for me a little bit of we’re not just saying you can over index in the physical, which I do see the most of, but we also can over index and some of these other ones. And to your point, I just say all the time, the body, mind, and spirit demand to be heard.

And so when we’re over indexing somewhere else, it’s gonna, it’s gonna start to show through. Yeah. You know, and I think the other piece of that that’s really important to mention is when we’re [00:41:00] over indexing somewhere, there’s always two pathways. To change, for example, if we’re over indexing in the physical, right?

We’re like noticing so much attention is there. We’re doing so much work there. One path toward health might be to start putting more attention toward the spiritual, mental, or emotional, or all three. Another pathway to health might be finding balance in the physical, right? So in my, you know, competitive athletes.

A lot of the time the work is not even necessarily taking them out of the physical quadrant, but it’s incorporating more rest. It’s incorporating more downtime. It’s you know, starting to work with the physical body in kind of more gentle and nourishing capacities. Well, right. I think to your point, it’s not necessarily that we’re saying, and so now do less in the [00:42:00] physical.

So that you can do more over here. It’s maybe everything you’re doing in the physical is necessary and needed. And also these other areas need to be a part of that, you know, in some way. And I also think we’re saying what that looks like balance doesn’t necessarily mean like. 25, 25, 25 percent all the way through.

Balance is so nuanced and fluid and meeting ourself that like I might be in a time right now where I feel my spiritual self needing a little more emphasis and six months from now it could be different. It could be that physical self. Yes. 100%. And, you know, and that’s as we were talking about the boundaries of the whole, right?

Like when you take into account seasons and people and, you know, all of the world around you, that what balance looks like needs to keep changing. So I think that’s a, it’s a really. really [00:43:00] important thing to name. You know, I, this is a question that’s been mulling in the back of my psyche for a couple months now.

And I, I actually would really love your input on it of even just this word healing. I’m healing. I’m trying to heal. I would just love to have a little discussion on this for a second, because there’s a part of me that. Finds that could be a bit limiting in the sense of if there is one specific point, what I think we all need to know.

What does that mean to me? We’re throwing this word around. What does it actually mean to me? But what I see, right, working on that mental emotional side is oftentimes there are limiting beliefs beneath that, that they’re not even aware of, of, and I can’t have peace until I’m healed. I can’t have freedom until I’m healed.

And I do think those can be big blocks, but I’d love to hear maybe just some thoughts on that. Well, for me, [00:44:00] healing is a process. It’s like saying I’m living, right? We never stop living. Um, your cells never stop. Dividing replicating healing never ends. Um, it’s happening unconsciously, right? The body is designed to heal.

Uh, you don’t ever want to not be healing because if I’m not healing and then I scrape my arm, I’m going to have an open wound for the rest of my life, right? So to me, healing is a part of the human journey. And I think if there’s weight for someone around what that means, it is possible that we want to use different language, but for me, what’s important Within the language of healing, or this word, I guess, is that we are holding [00:45:00] the awareness that we are always healing and we are always healed at the same time, because at any given moment, you and I could be Point to things on our body that have healed.

They’ve completely healed, you know, maybe there’s a little bit of scar tissue left over, but you know, for all living purposes, we’re like, this is healed. I can run again, um, and there’s always something to heal. So I think what I would rather do, if possible, with someone who feels like self judgment or, you know, it’s emotionally complex to identify with healing is I would rather reframe what healing means and make sure that they.

Can sort of embrace that part of humanity, right? The body is [00:46:00] degenerating and regenerating, and for better or for worse, once we pass our thirties, it’s degenerating faster than it’s regenerating, right? So, so healing is not a superpower that I would want anyone to want to divorce, you know, or separate from.

Yeah, I love that perspective. I think that’s exactly how I view it as well, because when it’s when it’s a specific destination, I find that that can sometimes trip people up either one, if they don’t, if they’ve been at it for years and feel like they haven’t gotten to that destination, they can feel like a failure, or again, when they have these unconscious beliefs of, and because I’m not healed, I can’t have access to blank, whatever that is, peace, joy, freedom, et cetera.

But also I think sometimes I see it in the reverse where once they feel they are healed, it’s, Now I go back to [00:47:00] everything. Once I’m healed, I can eat this way again. And once I’m healed, I can spend my time doing these things again. And I also think there’s a part of the journey that’s lost in that of yes, if we get to the destination, which that’s also not to say that it’s not helpful and impactful to have goals and to have something you’re aiming towards that does give us guidance and motivation, but.

I, I love that where it’s more of a part of living. And I really loved what you said about we are always simultaneously healing and healed. That was really powerful. You know, I also think you brought up a really interesting point about the destination. And one thing I say to everyone I work with during the first session is, It’s important to have a goal or an intention, a destination that you want to get to.

And part of my job is to keep us accountable to getting there. But part of my job is to be open enough to that [00:48:00] goal or that destination changing. And quite frankly, if we approach that goal. And you don’t want something new for yourself. I’m doing something wrong because if we look at this like a journey and I think about it as like we’re climbing a mountain, when you get closer and closer to that vista point and you see the landscape on the other side, I hope what you want for yourself changes.

I hope that you see new things for yourself. And one of the ways that I Kind of honor this. And my practice is I work with people in three month increments, right? So there’s never a commitment of more or less than that. It’s like, we’re going to get to this destination. And then when we get to that destination, let’s actually pose the question.

Is there a new destination now? And the most of the time there is. Yes, I love that so much because that’s almost exactly [00:49:00] how I work. It tends to be, you know, maybe anywhere from like two to four months of this is the thing we’re focusing on. And maybe once we’ve achieved that, we take a little break, you reset.

But yes, for me, it’s more of, yeah, I don’t want to just be aimlessly meeting with people. I practice very, very differently than I think most conventional psychology is practicing in that way. Where it’s, I’m almost kind of like, don’t come back until you’ve got the next destination. Or of course, I can be a part of helping us find that next destination.

But we’re not here to just kind of wander aimlessly. Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. I would love, I know we don’t have a ton of time left, but I would love to see if we could touch in with the seven core wounds because this is just so in line with what I do and what I see. And if you, you know, if we can talk about that a little bit.

So this idea of the core wounds, it’s somewhat borrowed from when, um, [00:50:00] influenced by Richard Rudd’s work with the gene keys, if you’re familiar with that. He, he speaks about six core wounds, and I very much see these core wounds, uh, coming through. Clinically, in relationship to the chakras. I’ll talk about that in just a second.

Um, I will say I’m in a place with these wounds where I think some of the language needs to change for it to really fit what I’m seeing in my practice. And I haven’t quite honed in on my own words yet. I have more like a string of words for each one. So I’m a little bit in process with this, but the idea that in, in the way that I work with it is the fact that, you know, you spoke about root cause of, of disease or illness or suffering.

And for [00:51:00] me, from a holistic perspective, the root cause is always like, it’s a theme. It’s a deep rooted theme of dysfunction or pattern that can be sort of distilled to what Richard Rudd refers to as a core wound. Um, we can look at that through the lens of the seven chakras. And for example, let’s just take the root.

The language he uses is repression. And I say that because if you read a lot of my writing, I use that language too. And, and repression is. It’s about repressing parts of ourselves that we perceive as unlovable, um, repressing aspects of our authenticity to secure attachment and acceptance. And so, um, you know, repression is one word we could talk about it.

I [00:52:00] could also use like insecure attachment, right? This is like this theme at the level of the root chakra. And so I would love if I could like really simplify each core wound into one word, but I actually think it’s a little more complex than that. And, or it’s not more complex than that, but I think for people to understand it, we need to throw more like a sentence describing the wound.

And it’s. So, you know, at the root chakra, what we’re talking about is like, we didn’t securely attach and we’re going through our lives, you know, afraid to be who we really are. And that shows up physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, right? So when we’re confused about what is safe and what is not in the body, we have allergies or we have skin issues.

We can have autoimmune conditions, [00:53:00] we can have all kinds of immune dysregulation, um, we might be carrying extra weight and be unable to lose the weight because we’re protecting our vulnerable internal organs, right? And in the, in the mental, if we don’t believe it’s safe to be who we really are, um, you know, sometimes we’re ruminating on the worst case scenario, we’re always kind of keeping ourselves safe.

small. We’re always thinking about who does this person want me to show up as and not, you know, who am I? Um, what will they do? What will they say if I show them who I really am, right? So we get these thought patterns associated with that. It’s, it, it’s like the imprint of fear is everywhere, you know, emotionally.

I mean, I see anxiety. Fear. I’m afraid to make this change in my life. And then spiritually, I mean, this can take on [00:54:00] a lot of different looks in our lives, but the classic one I see in my practice is like, you know, someone’s checked all the boxes. They did all the things they were supposed to do to have like a successful, happy, fulfilling life, but they don’t like their life and they don’t really know why and they don’t really know what they want or who they even are, um, you know, because they’ve been.

They’ve built a whole life based on fear and wearing masks, being the person that they thought someone else wanted them to be. And, you know, so that’s sort of like this core wound of the root chakra. Uh, As you can see, it’s going to take me a while to go through all of them, but I’ll try and be brief.

Well, you know what I’m thinking is we’ll have to do a part two where we really can give it the time it warrants to, to digest it. But yeah, if you want to just give us the seven and then yeah, as soon as I asked it [00:55:00] and you started going, I was like, Oh man, we don’t have time to get into this, but it’s so powerful and I think expansive and insightful to be able to hear.

And already, I think you’ve given enough for us to start to wrap our minds around the yeah, the idea behind this seven core wounds and then how those start to ripple onto all the quadrants of health. And then, you know, it sort of becomes almost like a different system of, of diagnostics, right? Because in a, in a holistic intake and you’re learning about.

Someone’s life and their relationships and what’s going on in their body. And you’re assessing their, you know, thoughts and beliefs as they’re speaking to you, the way that they talk about themselves and, um, Sooner or later, usually sooner, it becomes very clear what the driving thing is that threads through all four of the quadrants.

And then once I know [00:56:00] what that is, it becomes the path forward becomes very clear. And. We can meet that, you know, fear that lack of safety, we can meet it in so many ways, whether it’s, you know, doing an elimination rechallenge diet, whether it’s, you know, um, coming back to our natural bio rhythms, whether it’s working in our relationships or, um, you know, doing inner child work and going back to those early days.

Recovering our birth stories. I mean, there’s just the, once you know what the thing is, the well of tools is endless, really. Mm hmm. Well, and to your point, it’s, it gives you that guidance of, okay, if there is this theme of, a lack of safety or fear. How do we address [00:57:00] that in all four quadrants? How do we address fear from a physiological perspective, from a mental, from an emotional, from a spiritual?

Yes. I love that. Yeah. And I think with a lot of this work, it’s an inside job and it’s an outside job, you know? So we’re sort of going back and forth between like, let’s work on this, you know, In the body in the mindset in the emotional space, but like, let’s also work on it out here, right? Like, let’s say, rather than showing up as your most authentic self in a relationship that doesn’t feel safe, right?

Let’s like, choose this one person where you’re going to practice this new way of being with, you know, or whatever. is not working, right? Like what is one simple change we can make so that you feel a little closer to what you want for yourself authentically. And that doesn’t [00:58:00] always mean that someone needs to quit their job.

And I think that this is like a real sort of I’m pleased that sometimes the coaching industry goes wrong and I’ll see people who are working with coaches who are like, you know, you want this thing, life is short, you know, take this big jump up level here, you know, but the thing is a lot of the time, particularly with this like root chakra wounding.

We’re not working with our adult selves. We’re working with a part of ourselves that like actually knew that if they were unloved that their survival was threatened because this is actually the case when we’re babies. And so, you know, when your two year old is afraid to walk away from their parent because they think when they can’t.

see you anymore, that you’re gone forever. You don’t tell them to like man up and like, you know, you know, face their fear. You pick them up and you [00:59:00] hold them and you wait until they’re ready to, to be, you know, distanced from you and, and out of sight. And so I think a lot of the time this work is like, it’s way simpler.

Then people think it’s going to be, yes, eventually they quit the job. Eventually they leave the relationship that, you know, where they know they’re with the wrong partner, but not right away. And we can heal and start to feel better long before we take that big jump or as you say, then move the big boulder.

The little stones actually create big results. A hundred percent. Yes. And to that end, I love what you’re saying because so much of the work I do, I’m getting my PhD in depth psychology, which is all about the unconscious. And in fact, it’s very mystical and spiritual as well. And yes, I, this is what I see so often as well, where [01:00:00] it’s like, yeah, but you’re just talking to them on a conscious intellectual plane.

And this pattern is being influenced by so much more than just their intellectual mind. And so we need to look at all those pieces. Yes, and you know, because you said that I’ll bring up also just like the power of bringing like divinatory tools into this work, right? It’s like the difference between showing someone a tarot card or them picking it and you saying, what do you see?

What does this mean to you? What is the symbolism that catches your eye versus saying, read this book and tell me what the card means, right? There’s two very, very different ways of working. And I think a huge part of healing. is becoming conscious of the unconscious, right? We can’t heal it until we bring it into the light.

And so I, I actually work with a lot of tools [01:01:00] like that in my practice and, um, discourage people from like reading all up on it, but just like what comes up for you when you see this image. Yes. Oh my gosh. I could go. all day with you. This is so fun. I will say, just so we don’t leave the audience hanging, because we did say we would cover the seven core wounds.

Um, maybe we’ll just have you list them with a little bit of like, okay, this is the prelude to maybe a part two. Yeah. So then we move up to the sacral and the wound is denial. And, uh, I’ll just say like a snippet about each one that denial of the emotional experience, right? Of the fact that our discomfort is often driving us to do things.

And we’re highly reactive to things that feel good or don’t feel good, right? Pleasure and pain or what Buddhism might call the craving and aversion cycle. And so this is really about becoming [01:02:00] aware of that cycle. And. Really becoming emotionally sovereign, stepping off of the hamster wheel of you did this, therefore, I’ll never love again and remembering that, like, no, that dopamine, that oxytocin, that’s mine, and I’m in control of it.

Um, the solar plexus is shame and, uh, this one pretty much speaks for itself, but I think, you know, we’re thinking a lot. Here about overachieving accolades success, you know, when we’re starting to get a lot of feedback from the world, this is what you’re good at. This is what you’re not. And the parts of ourselves that don’t make us feel confident and powerful.

We put into hiding. Shame might be a little harsh for a version of this wound. Um, but The frequency is the same, right? It’s sort [01:03:00] of like I put parts of myself into hiding because they don’t make me feel confident and successful, different from the root where it’s like I repress parts of myself so I can be loved and worthy of this life, right?

They sound similar, but they’re very different. Um, then there’s the heart, the wound of rejection, right? And this idea that, um, rejection, right? Cause the heart now, this is like the bridge between the lower chakras and the upper chakras. So rejection is actual, actually sort of like spiritual protection.

And so this is the, the real like work of the, the rejection wound is. Learning to depersonalize it, learning that like it’s not personal and that I can turn up toward the upper chakras up to God’s source, the great intelligence, whatever you want to call it and know that there’s just there’s a [01:04:00] bigger plan for me and the rejection might be painful, but it’s opening my heart to more love.

It’s opening me to the divine guidance that is here for me. Mm hmm. And then the throat chakra, that one’s guilt. And, um, I like to throw the word resentment in here too, because I think it, it comes up a lot. Uh, my like group of words at the throat chakra is guilt, resentment, privilege, and responsibility, right?

It’s sort of like the weight of the privilege of the creator. Now you’re up in the upper chakras. You create with your word and that’s an incredible gift. It’s an incredible power. So use it very carefully with integrity. And if you have too much guilt around that gift or that power, it can kind of weigh you down, right?

Weigh you down into the lower chakras. [01:05:00] Um, so it’s very much about like, you know, owning that privilege, taking responsibility for it, creating with integrity. And then at the third eye, the wound is separation. We could almost say this is the original wound. It’s like separation from mother, separation from the whole separation from each other.

Um, and this one. You know, it’s, it comes with duality, right? When we, when there’s dualism, we separate. And, uh, a lot of the work here is about reclaiming that you’re not just your sun sign in astrology. You’re not just the tarot card you drew. You’re all the archetypes in the deck. You’re every sign of the Zodiac.

Healing this wound is sort of like reconnecting [01:06:00] to this idea of as above, so below, uh, the same archetypes or this we’re all fractals of, you know, fractals of fractals of the macrocosm and, and connecting back into the patterns through that. And then, uh, Richard Rudd doesn’t have a word for the, there is no 7th core wound in his work.

And he would probably say and even I would say on some days that there you can’t have a wound of the crown chakra. It can’t be wounded because it’s the whole but the crown chakra is the paradox. So it can and it can’t be wounded. It’s like me saying we’re always healing and we’re always healed at the same time.

Um, so I do think there is a wound of the crown chakra and in past writing. I’ve called it disconnection, but that’s not totally right. It’s really [01:07:00] about like distrust of the unknown. It’s about lack of faith in the mystery. Um, It’s about the absence of the miracle or the opposite of wonder. So I’m still like trying to boil this down to one word, but when I’m working with people on the crown, I’m looking for wonder.

I’m looking to reconnect them to like the miracle of childbirth or pregnancy or the overview of fact, right? There’s these videos of astronauts going into space. base and looking back and seeing the earth and being forever transformed because all of a sudden, like their scale of, you know, not just how big it all is, but the beauty of existence.

That’s what that. Wound is about and so my [01:08:00] language is a little bit in process with it. But if you want to see me stumble and use a lot of words, I’ve written a lot of longer articles. I don’t know why the word that’s coming into my mind is something about forgetting where it’s like, I do believe. on a deep, deep level, there is an all, there’s a knowing of all of this and a knowing of where we come from and that interconnectedness and the collective unconscious.

But a part of me has forgotten it, or it is so deeply buried or repressed or something that That that knowing isn’t coming through. I know that’s what’s coming up for me with that. Yeah, it’s, I mean, you definitely get, get the point. Yeah. Oh my goodness. Okay. I, I want to be respectful of both of our times.

This was like soul food for me. This was so fun and beautiful to be able to just. commune on some of these topics that [01:09:00] are sometimes hard to talk about and I don’t think are talked about very often in this really deep kind of prolonged way. So I’m super, super grateful. That was so fun. Thank you so much for having me and for the great conversation.

It’s such a joy. Now, I wanted to, we’ll make sure, Your, you know, your website, your Instagram, which, by the way, I really encourage people following your Instagram. There’s, it’s always so fun. Everything you post is so good and nourishing for me. But I also know you’ve got a retreat coming up, and I wanted to give you some space to talk about that for a second.

So, um, With my partner, I do one retreat a year where we basically take people on this journey through these seven different core wounds. Um, and the experience integrates the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects of the self. And so it’s sort of like my My masterpiece this, this week is, is my favorite thing I do in all of my work.

So, um, we still [01:10:00] have some space June 7th to 14th in Mallorca, Spain. Oh my gosh. And, uh, yeah, that’s on my website and, uh, it’s coming up this summer. I’m telling you, I’m going to seriously look into that. First of all, my birthday is June 11th, but this is also, I’m turning 30 this year. So it’s, it’s a big one.

I think astrologically even just like a lot of kind of processing and shedding and shadow work. And so I’m going to look into that. Oh, wow. That would be amazing. And Spain is a very, very special, special place for me. So that’s beautiful. Yay. I’ll make sure that, is that on your main website? Because I can make sure the link to that retreat is linked in the show notes too.

It is. It’s under, like, you can click on retreats and it’s there. Beautiful. I won’t take any more of your time. Thank you so, so much for coming on. This was so special. Thank you for having [01:11:00] me.