April 17, 2025 • 60 mins
In this deeply personal episode, Devi opens her heart to reflect on the ever-evolving journey of healing, authenticity, and what it means to truly live in alignment. As she prepares to share her upcoming book Living in Wisdom with the world, she takes a moment to honor the path that brought her here, one filled with lessons from chronic pain, the power of self-expression, and the beauty of community support.
She expounds on the complexities of healing — how it’s not linear, not always graceful, but always sacred. Devi speaks to the importance of honoring our humanity, our physical bodies, and the tenderness it takes to keep showing up for ourselves day after day. We also explore how meditation is a portal to deeper knowing, the spiritual expansion that comes with self-compassion, and what it really means to share your truth out loud.
As Devi prepares for her book tour, she reflects on the courage it takes to put your story into the world — and how healing becomes even more powerful when it’s done in community. This is a conversation for anyone learning to trust their process, lean into their softness, and live from a place of embodied truth.
Connect @DeviBrown @DeeplyWellPod
Mentioned in this Episode Leading Women Defined, curating sacred spaces for impact and connection. Founded by @iamdebralee
Recommended Reading Maria Shriver – I Am Maria
Listen Cleo Sol
Pre-Order Devi's New Book, "Living in Wisdom," Available Worldwide April 22nd! DeviBrown.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Take a deep breath in through your nose. Holds it.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Now, release slowly again deep in haale hold release, repeating
(00:47):
internally to yourself as you connect to my voice. I
am deeply well. I am deeply well.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
I am deeply wow. I'm Debbie Brown and this is
the Deeply Well podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Welcome to another episode. Welcome back to the show. Of course,
I'm Debbie Brown. Shout out to everybody watching on YouTube
and listening in their cars and your phones however you
listen to podcasts.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Oh, y'all, it has been a month.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
It has been a crazy last few weeks. This episode,
I want to check in with everyone and kind of
talk about some of the thoughts and the themes and
the things that are expanding and growing in my life
and the world hopefully in your life and in your hearts.
One thing, and this is just very random, but the
last few years really, since the pandemic, I want to say,
(02:07):
so like five years ago, I kind of like stopped
wearing makeup and doing my hair and I've just yeah,
I've been very happily in my like you know, just
like normal ordinary self. But I'm on a press run
that has officially kicked off from my book, and so
(02:27):
like I'm getting my makeup done and like getting my
hair done and things like that, and it is just funny.
It's it's I don't know if this makes sense for anyone,
but it's been an interesting experience for me, having come
from previously being in an industry that kind of demanded
that from me every day to then being able to
experience my life not connected to that whatsoever. And that's
(02:49):
more who I am. I never really kind of like Saten,
did my makeup, though I wish growing up I knew
how to. And I never really sat and did my
hair a bunch, though I wish I had known how to.
And so it's just funny, like right now, I feel
like I am fully embodying two kind of different sides
(03:11):
of like who I am and how I move and
how I feel. And it's been really interesting after spending
so many years disconnecting myself intentionally and purposefully kind of
from the world or from you know, certain aspects of
being seen, and to now because I have a book
(03:32):
out that I really want you to read that I
think you'll love, and I think it'll be meaningful for you.
You know, you kind of got to like turn those
things on. So it's been interesting. My background, as I'm
sure you know if you listen to this show, was
spending many, many, many, many many years in broadcasting, and
so I honed a lot of great technical ability to
(03:52):
like speak and project my voice and host. And then
when I moved into this evolution of my purpose years ago,
I had to spend time coming down from my training
to be able to talk like myself again, because you
get so used to kind of whatever the performance is
(04:13):
with your work, right, Like you know how sometimes you
have to answer the phone a certain way at work
or speak to people in a certain way. When you're
in broadcasting, it's all about not having even a second
of silence, and then like yeah, just being like very up,
very fast, very succinct, you know, like word economy, saying
(04:33):
as much as you can with as few words and
doing it quickly. And so I had to really come
down from that style of speaking after doing it for
so many years and be in kind of practice with
like how can I continue to do this work like
(04:53):
with a microphone in front of me, but do it
as the private version of myself that's not on display.
So that was a really kind of interesting part of
my journey, and it's just kind of funny, how, you know,
every I've noticed every few years, the cyclical nature of
our lives is that you know, things become full circle
(05:16):
and are brought back in front of you, and you know,
you kind of get to get to notice them and
see them, be them, taste them, do them, but now
from kind of an expanded view and as like a
different version. So that has been interesting and fun. This week,
I officially kicked off a lot of my press.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
For the book Living.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
In Wisdom, A Path to Embodying your Authentic Self and
Breathing grief and developing self mastery. I cannot wait for
y'all to get this book. It's out April twenty second,
so very very soon from right now, and I want
to share a little bit about what this process has
been in case there's anyone listening that is also birthing something,
(05:58):
feels a desired to create, something to be birthed, or
has recently birthed something. This creative process is just so fascinating.
And I think even though writing a book is something
I've done before, and kind of speaking about a book
or speaking about myself is something I've done before, these
(06:21):
last few years, I have just really, really really enjoyed
not forming a lot of opinions about things, and I
have really enjoyed like surrendering to even though I you know,
I've been doing my work and doing this podcast and
(06:45):
all the things, just like really surrendering to my personal
life more and being in harmony with that life and
really feeling the value of that life so much more.
And then it's like when you do something that you
know you feel called to do and create, and you
also have to give it the honor and respect it
(07:06):
deserves by like marketing it, you know, or like talking
about it or being with it. I'm having this like
very interesting experience right now. But it's been really fun.
It's been really fun to talk about the book. It's
it's also been to be quite honest, like very emotional
to talk about the book. I don't know when you'll
(07:27):
hear this episode, but for me right now, in this moment,
I am still a week and a half out from
anybody reading it, and almost no one in my life
has read it so far. I think maybe I let
two friends read it, and a couple people in regards
to work have read it. But yeah, I am at
(07:47):
this moment, a week and a half out of having
something really close to me and really tender to me
and really personal to me. In this book, I share
a lot about my life and my process, and you know,
speaking to the work in a very personal way, not
as abstract. Right. What you may kind of notice is
(08:09):
a lot of the guests I choose to have on
this show are people that have done work or whose
work represents work that I've already done on myself. So,
for instance, if I have someone on this show who
specializes in inner child healing, my desire to have them
on this show really stems from the fact that I
(08:30):
spent many, many years, and actually did a program that
lasted three years in healing my own inner child, and
in getting really intimate and close with my original wounds
and understanding how generational trauma moves and how it moved
in my life, and how it moved in my body,
(08:52):
and how you know, so much of my chronic pain
was because of my experiences, and so I share those
stories in this book. Or you know, if I've had
someone on this show to share about psychedelics, I don't
necessarily center myself in the conversation because I want everyone
listening to glean the wisdom and hear the life experiences
(09:14):
of the person I'm in conversation with. But I spent
several years doing a lot of different kinds of psychedelics
and found them to be really powerful for my healing
and especially for some of those deeper layers of my
subconscious work that I needed to do on myself as
someone that experienced childhood trauma and also many different forms
(09:39):
of trauma, you know, all the way through many decades
of my life. And so you know, when I have
astrologers on the show, it's because I'm obsessed. When I
have a numerologist on the show, it's because I, you know,
started working with my own numerology years ago, or shamans
or healers.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
You know.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
My desire is to amplify the work of people who
do and work in these different modalities at an incredibly
integrious level, and to amplify what they do and their expertise.
But I usually feature them because I am years removed
from having done a lot of those processes and work
(10:19):
on myself. And so what is going to be different
about this book is whereas on this deeply wall show,
I do give glimpses into my own life, and I
do give you know, reflections about my lived experience. But
my desire on this show is not to have a
podcast about myself, to be quite honest, It's not to
have a podcast about all the things that I'm trying
(10:41):
and doing. And so many of those shows exist, and
that's one of the reasons I don't do that, because
I think, if that is how you best learn and receive,
I think a lot of shows do that really beautifully.
But I'm someone that likes to you know, I believe
in keeping your personal mystery. I believe in keeping the
(11:01):
magic of your life kind of to yourself so that
it further informs and enhances and grows the work you're
able to do and your connection to God. But in
this book, I really explore a lot of that personal
side of what are some of the specific themes of
(11:24):
pain I've been through, what are some of the challenges
I've been through as a child, as a young person,
as a woman, as a mother, And what are some
of the ways that I look to heal those things
within myself? You know, And I believe personally I meant
to teach in a path of wisdom which means I
(11:45):
may not share immediately something that has happened or something
I've done. I usually will share it many years removed,
after I've let myself settle into the learning and the healing,
open to the continued work, because we're going to continue
to do work our whole lives and have ideally really
(12:05):
been able to kind of integrate and embody the other
side of the healing, come into the wisdom of it.
And so yeah, when I do this show, you know,
my desire when I have some of these just beautiful
guests on who all have powerful work and beautiful life
stories and usually a lot of challenges like myself and
(12:27):
like many of the people who listen and learn on
this show, my desire is to deeply empathize with their experience.
I may not be necessarily hearing anything new, right because
I am a teacher, and I am a lifelong learner,
and I am my own open and divine, sovereign channel
to the divine, and so you know, my desire is
(12:48):
to really just ask important questions that are useful. It's
to have deep empathy for whoever is in front of me.
You know, I'm a deep fealer, as I know many
of you are. But part of the way God uses
me and uses me as a healer is to also
(13:09):
reflect and mirror, you know, the truth of pain and
also the beauty and pain. I'm a wounded healer. I'm
someone that has had hard things happen and God has
allowed me to keep my heart open anyways and then
use those experiences and use the presence that I've honed
(13:30):
to be near darkness in service to others and ideally
in service to everyone listening to this show. So it's
you know, one thing that I think is really special
about this book is in this book, I share my
stories in this book, I share my overcomings. In this book,
I let you know some just to pequk right, just
(13:53):
a taste, because, as I say on this show often
and a lot and in a lot of the positioning
of the show, I design this show to be specifically
for people that have had complex lived experiences, that have
had a lot of different run ins with so many
different kinds of traumas or so many just different kinds
(14:16):
of challenges, whether that is a big tea or little
t trauma. Because that is exactly what my life path
has been and what I have been allowed to learn
through and grow through and heal through and continue to
heal through because the work is never done. But my
life's path has taken me all over and I have
studied so much. I have done many certifications and so
(14:39):
many different hosts of healing modalities, and have had the
pleasure to be in practice with my learning and with
my expertise and with the modalities that I use and
do for many many years with clients, with myself. And
that's what this book is about. It's my stories, it's
(14:59):
observation stories of working with clients. It's things that I
have experienced and seen and learned from as a healer,
working in the world like an actual healer, doing some
of the deeper work with people in some more challenging ways,
(15:21):
and from having you know, hosted many, many, many retreats
with thousands of people all over the world. And I'm
not an Instagram girly, so to be quite honest, I
don't post every event I do. For every ten events
that I go to, I might post one thing. For
every ten retreats that I host or five companies that
(15:45):
I've worked with, I might post one thing, and it
might even be a year later. That's just my cadence.
That's just how I flow with social media. But you know,
that is the foundation of who I am and the
work that I do and the work that I share,
and my style of teaching is really about leaning into
(16:05):
knowledge and less about kind of my personal, individualized experience
with things I never want to come in this space
and trauma dump. I had a very vulnerable episode recently
where I opened up and I shared that part of
my journey was for many years suffering from chronic pain
(16:28):
and autoimmune and part of my connection to God and
my connection to my own healing was learning the ways
to heal myself from the pain and doing many, many,
many years of studying research around what creates chronic conditions
in the human body. And so though I haven't done
(16:50):
this on this show yet, some of the work that
I do, and actually a workshop that I taught this
week over the last several years, is a lot of
my in person and workshops and in person retreats are
actually about inner child healing, and they're actually centered and
rooted in understanding what chronic pain is. Because out of
(17:12):
the stats of chronic pain and it affects hundreds of
millions of people, alive eighty percent or women and seventy
percent or Black women. A lot of that has to
do with epigenetics. A lot of that has to do
with what we now know and say is the issues
being and the tissues or the body keeping the score.
But these are things that sometimes end up in your
(17:34):
body and your activated genes because of things that happen
to you, because of work you've been avoiding, because of
trapped energy and emotions, and some of it is just
things we inherited within our DNA because our mothers, our grandmothers,
our ancestors were traumatized people, and a lot of that
(17:55):
becomes compounded into our own physical, lived experience. That is
really the crux of what my day to day work is.
When I'm not doing this podcast. That is the work
that I do with one on one clients wellness and
well being and teaching some of the deeper complex layers
of how to get into the crevices of our healing
(18:16):
and how to do it consistently. Is the work that
I do in the workshops that I teach and the
retreats that I lead. So it's always a pleasure to
be in service to people in that way. Deeply well,
(18:36):
when I host this show, I really love speaking to
it from a community standpoint where I invite other people
in to share their work and to share their process.
And there are so many of us, so many of us,
hundreds of thousands on this planet right now doing the
work of the soul. And I think when you are
(19:00):
fortunate enough to be diligent in your own healing so
that you're actually able to get on the other side
of it. You know something that I may have forgotten
to mention in the last episode because I was really
shout out to my sling if you're watching on YouTube,
I was really inspired to talk about pain last week
(19:22):
and to share some of my journey, but to talk
about the new things I was learning having had this surgery.
And I was really excited to have this surgery because
this was an injury that I first came into five
years ago, when I was in some of the deeper
throes of the work that I was called to do
on myself. I spent many years in all kinds of therapies,
(19:43):
from cognitive therapy to somatic therapy. I have worked with
some of the most incredible healers on the planet to
do some of my deeper work, and then I've just
been in deep co creation with God on the work
that I need to do, you know, spending hours meditating
(20:03):
a day, spending hours in reflection and personal process, and
then also working within community environments, working with groups, doing
some group therapy again, working with psychedelics, doing pleasure work
within myself and within my path. And you know, this
work of higher consciousness, it is a never ending work.
(20:26):
You are never you know, unless perhaps your path is
to become Buddha like or the Buddha, you know, you're
never not going to be oscillating between it. And if
you're a highly sensitive person, even if you have cleared
a lot of your own personal story and pain out
of your body. And that is my hope for everyone,
(20:47):
because when I look back to the kind of pain
I carried physically ten years ago versus what I experience now,
oh my god, it's just night and day. You know,
I may have a flara a couple times a year,
because that's the biology of the human experience, and it
usually comes after I have kind of over exhausted myself
(21:08):
in the work. Either I led too many retreats back
to back to too many speaking engagements, were around too
many large bodies of people. Sometimes with my work, I
find myself kind of in groups that can be up
to five hundred, sometimes up to one thousand. The nature
of that, as a highly sensitive, energetic person means that
(21:29):
even when I do all the protection rituals on myself,
even when I cover myself in healing, I may pick
up some stray energy. I may pick up, you know,
some other things that can you know, make my body
tired and wipe my body out. It's the nature of energy,
and so a few times a year that does happen
to me. But truly I have found for me personally,
(21:55):
the more healing work I have allowed myself to do
on myself, and the deeper I'm able to go with
that work, It's changed my relationship with my body. I
used to have ninety percent inflammation. So it's like if
I had stress, or if I had an experience of
having a reaction to my complex trauma. Sometimes it felt
(22:19):
like I could put on twenty thirty pounds in a
day and it would just be inflammation. And so that
part of my life has changed dramatically. The fog in
my brain has changed, the tension and the pain in
my back and my body. It's just it's just changed
in such a revolutionary way that I am so grateful for.
(22:40):
But when I share certain parts of my story, you know,
it's really to be in community with those I know
may have a similar path and didn't always have the
language for it, or didn't always have someone in front
of them that was able to speak to the complexity
or the new wants of what that experience is. So
(23:03):
I just, first I want to say thank you to
everybody that was present. I know I'm kind of going
all over the place, but everybody that was really present
with that episode last week, because I received so many
messages from people that they've had a similar path, or
this gave them the language, or this gave them a
starting point within which to begin their journey to understand
(23:26):
why their bodies may or may not feel the way
that they do. And so I'm just really grateful for
the presence for last week's episode, even if it was
triggering for some of you. But the work is never done,
and if your work did include chronic pain, also have
a lot of grace for yourself because there will be
some kinds of people in the wellness world or in
(23:48):
the healing space that will want to shame you because
you have pain and try to tell you that you
haven't done enough work, and they don't know the truth
of what your karma is, what your destiny is, why
you need to understand things about your path the way
that you do. And usually it's always to be in service.
(24:11):
It's so you can teach it. It's so you can
hold space in front of other people and show them
the grace in it. You know, I feel proud of
the fact that, even though I am in a little
bit of shoulder pain, I'm healing really well though. I'm
so grateful, Like it's kind of wild to me how
quickly and fully this shoulder is healing. Like I just
(24:34):
feel like I have so much of my life force
back in now being three weeks removed from surgery. But
you know, like having this surgery, as I shared last week,
it really gave me the chance to now get a
glimpse of understanding and cultivate a lot of compassion for
what surgical pain is. Like. I haven't had surgeries. I
(24:55):
didn't know, you know, being a mama that hat a
C section, it's like being able to speak to that
experience with other people like, that's what being alive is.
It's having our experiences and sometimes the challenging ones and
sometimes the unescapable ones, right, because not everything means, you know,
(25:18):
like this kind of shiny healing that allows you to
quote unquote be perfect. None of us are ever will be.
It's just we heal what we can heal and what
we have access to, and then we recover, and then
we heal more and then we recover. But we stay
on this path. And really the point of being on
(25:40):
this path is our own healing, and it is our
lineage healing and our cross generational healing. And then it's
also so others can bear witness to us, either while
we're on the path or as we've come off the path,
you know, having healed certain things. But it should always
be in service and it's never ending. And you know,
as beings that are having a spiritual experience and a
(26:03):
human experience, I think it is so important to honor
the limitations of our humanity and our physical body too.
So you may have healed a lot of your root
original wounds. You may have got back to the root
of the root and been able to heal the childhood trauma.
(26:24):
Maybe heal some of the experiences that hurt, or the
neglect or things that didn't get your consent, or process
all of the vast emotions that perhaps you weren't allowed
to process in real time as things happened. You may
be doing all of that beautiful work, and you may
still have physical limitations in your body. And it's not
(26:47):
because necessarily there is work undone or something you're not
doing enough of or doing right. It's also the honoring
of what your physical experience in this life is right.
So like this is just like a kind of a
wide example. But if hard things happen to you and
(27:08):
then you also found that you got a certain diagnosis
of a really challenging disease, or maybe something happened and
maybe you found yourself, you know, disabled in a certain
capacity because of the limitations of age and physicality and
what it is to be biologically engineered as human. You
(27:30):
may not come into perfect health where everything works like
you're an elite athlete or works perfectly, or you have
a complete healing or restoration in something, and it doesn't
mean that you haven't done your work, and it doesn't
mean that you're not enough, and it doesn't mean you're
not doing enough. It simply means you're here embodying the
(27:51):
totality of what it is to be a spiritual being
and what it is to be human. And some of
us have karma with certain physical issues that we are
working out in this lifetime or we are meant to
use in service to helping other people in this lifetime.
Something I thought that was really interesting when I first started,
(28:13):
probably well over ten years ago, understanding that my path
was kind of the wounded healer path and beginning to
slowly dismantle the chronic pain that enveloped my life and
understand my body's reactions to my experiences. I was exploring
my chronic pain from the lens of spirituality, spiritual curriculum, therapy,
(28:39):
cognitive therapy, somatic therapy, and also a lot of different viewpoints.
I started to find it kind of fascinating, as I
tend to do, and I started studying my astrology chart.
And for those of you that know, I think astrology
is a really beautiful tool and companion for being a love.
(29:00):
It can be a really special sacred science. But in astrology,
and especially in some of the older astrology like Vedic
astrology or what is referred to as Yodish astrology, which
is very very very very old, and a lot of
people that practiced astrology were also medical doctors for their
(29:22):
time or on a past episode, I had doctor Suhas
who is a master astrologer and an emty medical doctor,
and he utilizes both in his practices to understand people.
Something I found in my astrology chart was that certain
placements I have lent themselves to saying that some of
the experiences I would have in this life would be
(29:44):
centered around bone pain and specifically pain in the spine,
and that some of my work was to understand some
of the things that had happened to me or that
I had witnessed, so that I could be in co
creation with releasing that pain from my body. So that's
part of what this work is too, and it's not overnight.
(30:06):
It's an ongoing process, and I talk about a lot
of that in my book, and I'm really excited to
share that. But it's also been fascinating kind of noticing
as I'm a week and a half out from launching
this how it feels to talk about.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
It with people.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
So so far, I've recorded i want to say, three
or four podcasts in the last two days where I've
had a chance to talk about my book and share
about my book, and it's been deep, you know, because
I am not self focused on this show and always
speaking from I guess what I might be saying with
some judgment is like a trauma dumping perspective. I'm not
(30:45):
saying I went through this, and this is how I
did it, and this is how you do it do it.
I'm more I'm interested in providing pathways for everyone listening
to see what resonates with your spirit uniquely, and then
how do you begin to approach that work and then
deepen in that work based on your own intuition. It's
(31:08):
been really interesting talking about myself so much and kind
of opening to that space to talk from my first
person perspective and not more from what I believe is
a wisdom perspective, which is more so through storytelling and
through analogy and through kind of archetypes and wider concepts
(31:31):
of understanding. I found that to be more powerful for
me in my learning as a student, to learn in
that way than from learning from someone's first hand experience,
because we're all so different, layered and nuanced, and so
that is how I prefer to teach, that is how
God has called me to teach. But now just kind
(31:53):
of speaking so much about myself from a first person standpoint,
it's interesting. Yeah, I do it happily, and it's been
really fun kind of exploring these stories, but it's also
not how I teach. So it's just been interesting to
experience and to look at it from that standpoint. So
(32:14):
y'all will be getting the book sewn. I'm very excited
about that, and very excited for you to kind of
utilize this book and open with it through my own experiences,
but definitely through some of my observations of clients and
people that I have been with and teachers that I've
learned from, and then also just real technical practice. This
(32:36):
book is filled with practices of higher consciousness. Inquiries, questions
to ask your inner child, questions to ask who you
are now, questions to ask your soul about your purpose.
There are so many prompts in this book. One of
the certification programs that I did for over three years
(32:56):
was this master's program in spiritual psychology, and it was
three years and every time we met for class, it
would be for three days in a row for twelve
hours each day, and it was gnarly. You had to
do so much self processing, so much self processing around
things that you don't even want to say out loud,
(33:18):
let alone in front of a classroom or in front
of a partner. But it was the path to freedom
for me to deep into understanding in addition to so
many other things I had done and been doing. But
a lot of what I gleaned in that program I
share in this book as well, especially the practices and
processes to meet those younger, tender, beautiful versions of who
(33:42):
we are and maybe who there wasn't space to become
because of life experiences. But how do you integrate and
reconnect and come into acceptance with all the layers of
who you are and who have you been? So there's
practices for that, and then there's also practice to really
deepen into advance meditation, which opens your higher awareness, which
(34:04):
hopefully helps to cultivate your intuition and really bring online
perhaps some of your deeper gifts and some of your
intuitive gifts, some of your ability to be in direct
communication with Source and with the divine, and ways in
which to hopefully activate and turn on some of your
(34:24):
energy centers so that you can experience your body and
your life differently. One of the practices I lean into
the book that I love so much is leaning into maudras,
which are really a way to advance in your meditation practice,
but a way to really open to some of the
downloads that may want to come into you and your
(34:46):
life miraculously and instantaneously. That's one of the beautiful things
I think about building a meditation practice. You know, at first,
you think, as you're starting to study meditation that it's
just about peace, or it's just about getting quiet or
getting still. But the more you practice meditation, the more
you're able to access all the different layers and realms
(35:09):
of higher awareness. So when you first start your practice,
the baseline may be just learning how to get still
and how to get quiet. Once you've done that and
not be irritated by it or not to seek stimulation
because of it, the next layer would be when some
of those pain points start coming up, and you might
find yourself in meditation crying or getting angry or even
(35:33):
getting like, you know, like laughing, getting really happy. But
you're able to tap into maybe all the emotions that
you've been suppressing for a lifetime and so as you
sit with that and learn to release that and witness
it and be present with it and observe it and
release it, then you're able to go a little higher
(35:54):
into what your meditation practice is and what it feels like.
And then you're kind of getting a ground and you're
opening to meditation as a tool for higher consciousness, as
a tool for purpose, as a tool for really fuel
and pleasure and rebuilding and recircuiting your brain, and you know,
(36:15):
kind of leaning into growing the neuroplasticity which is within
your brain and kind of recarving out some neural pathways
and healing older calcified ones so that you can be
who you really are and so that some of the
pain in your life can leave. And I think that
(36:37):
for me and doing the work has been the greatest blessing.
I've been able to open my compassion and my understanding
and really open to a profound ability to empathize with
anyone in.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Front of me deeply. Well, some of.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
This ecology programs that I did when I was getting certification,
sometimes you'd have to bear witness to really hard confessions
from other people, things that may make you want to
judge them, things they've done to other people things they've
done to themselves. But meditation and compassion and empathy allow
(37:20):
you to kind of open to see the deeper struggle
that is within and behind people that do cause pain
to other people, and to really see how we're all
kind of some of our experiences and we choose to paths,
and some people who were harmed you know there really
(37:42):
is no other choice but to choose a path to
harm until you know otherwise. And others who were harmed
choose a path first, often of pleasing and even self
righteousness or self denial and over empathy without boundary. And
then as you become empowered, you turn that empathy and
(38:04):
that compassion outward and inward, and you know you're able
to really recognize that your role is to serve. It's
not to please, it's not to fix anyone else's problems.
It's not to become whoever other people think you should be,
or behave how they think you should behave, or do
things how they think you should do them. But it
(38:25):
is to anchor down into the truth of who God
told you to be, the truth of who you are,
the truth of the work that you've done, and then
hold space for others and both there sometimes perceivedly good
and bad behavior. You know, I think strength comes in
so many forms, and for some of us, strength there's
(38:47):
really like you know, holding people up. For other strength
is and witnessing brothers. Their strength is kind of holding
a quiet power, a mysterio power about who and what
they are. But we're all here to focus on our
spiritual curriculum and then to use it as a way
(39:09):
to serve others. And that's really that's really what it is.
It really is.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
That simple.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
When you do your work, you then serve, and your
work is never done. We're always continue to refine it.
There's always deeper to go in your own path of
healing and your own path of self mastery. We will
be doing the work till the day that we're gone.
But hopefully, you know, you get to a place, and
that's my intention with this book where you're able to
(39:39):
get a lot of the gunk out of the way
and then some of the work of your life is
really just about continuing to refine and continuing to ask
God how you're meant to be used and how you're
going to show up in that work for others. But
we're all meant to do that differently once you get
to a healing. For some people, it is being powerful
motivators and maybe really inspiring people through their own life
(40:02):
stories and you know, kind of bringing a deep level
of motivation to others. For some it's like, you know,
kind of disappearing and maybe you live a monk life
and you know, do something that is off the radar
of even being seen, but you're holding this powerful healing
space and enlightened space for others that don't even know
you exist. For some people, it's it's really holding up
(40:28):
some of the deeper themes in the work that others
are doing, or you know, speaking to things and kind
of bigger way that creates space for more people to
hear it. But you'll know what your work is as
long as you stay devoted to your practices and devoted
to the divine and devoted to your personal spiritual curriculum,
(40:49):
which a lot of people can have projections on and
ideas of, but only you and God really know what
that is. So find strength in that. Find solace in
that you know your healing journey does not have to
make sense to anyone else. You don't have to quantify it.
For anyone else. You don't have to trauma dump it
(41:10):
for anyone else so that you are believed or seen
as accurate. You know, you just have to do the
work you're called to with integrity, with diligence, with devotion,
and then find ways to serve others, Find ways to
(41:30):
love others and to embody love for others. Find ways
to embody your learning and your work and your wisdom
so that you can actually live who you say you are,
a lot of people can get up and say who
they are in front of people. A lot of people
can get up and proclaim what they are on the internet,
(41:53):
But the truth of your life always tells the story.
Are you in conflict with who you are? Are you
in conflict with other people? Are you looking at others
through a lens of lack or judgment? Are you feeling
peace and wholeness and worthiness at the core of who
(42:14):
you are? Or are you just telling people that's how
you feel. There's no judgment in it, But there's always
work to be done, you know. And I think when
it comes to even the discernment of who you should
listen to on your path, who you should believe, whose
work you should be connecting to really take a long,
hard look at the person and what is the truth
(42:35):
of their life. You know, I don't always bring all
my personal stuff to the table here because I also think, well,
why should I I'm working? Is that necessary and actually
useful for people? Or is the work I'm providing the
most useful and nourishing thing for others? You know, I
don't want to live a SIMS reality. I think the
Internet is the only place where people think they have
(42:58):
to engage twenty four seven. Nothing else about life is
that way.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
You know.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
I personally love the privacy of my life. I love
the specialness of my life at this moment in my life.
Though the world is always changing, and I accept that
about being alive, that it's not always going to be easy,
It's not always going to be graceful. It's not for
no one. And I have met with some of the
(43:24):
most enlightened minds on the planet in the last ten years.
I have had access to some of the absolute great
spiritual leaders of our time in the last few years,
and not just hearing them speak, having years and years
to build relationships with them, having long, deep conversations with
(43:46):
them over time, and I've come to know that not
a single person is perfect, and we are all always
strengthening and refining in our paths on this journey of
healing and then on this journey of teaching and serving,
and so you know, to just deeply understand and accept
(44:06):
that that is the case. You know, we are always
here really for all of it. Yeah, but I've really
learned that, you know, nothing shows the truth of how
much work someone has done or not on themselves, like
(44:27):
the actual quality of their day to day life. And
I think that's where I came into a deep understanding
about how grateful I am for where I've at least
momentarily arrived on my path. And I feel really proud
to say this because this was not my God, my god,
my god, this was not always the case in my life.
(44:49):
But I live a really beautiful life right now. I
live a really beautiful life, a life that to such
a large extent is conflict free, a life that has beautiful,
healthy boundaries everywhere where. The deep close community on my
life that you will likely never see shared on Instagram
(45:14):
are people I have deep respect, love, admiration for, and
harmony with, and people who have deep love, respect, admiration
harmony and support of me, and we do special things
to we get together. We do ordinary things together, like
spend time and fill each other with love and support
(45:34):
and friendship. I spend a lot of time in my garden.
I spend a lot of time focused on being a
good mother to my son. My motherhood means a lot
to me. And that's why I don't really share it
on social media. Why I don't really share photos of
myself and my son and all the fun things that
we do together, the good moments, the hard moments, because
(45:56):
that's our business, you know. And I think as as
I pull out a camera or try to come to
a quick understanding of who he is or who I
am in a moment, I rob both of us of
the magic of the relationship that.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
We have right now.
Speaker 2 (46:13):
You know, I don't want to be so focused on
documenting him at six years old and what I know
about being a mom of a six year old right now,
because I'm living it and I want to feel all
of it, and I don't want to distort it by
making it consumable. As soon as you make certain private
parts of your life consumable to strangers or to other people,
(46:37):
it changes the authenticity of it. It changes how it
feels inside of your body, It changes how you interact
with it. You know, as soon as you start taking
a picture based on how it will perform, it changes
the relationship of what you're taking a picture of, right Like,
think about if you see your kid making a funny,
(46:58):
silly face and you just want to capture it. But
then if you're so used to capturing the perfect picture
of them, you're going to do it another five to
ten times to make it perfect so that it can
then be shared, and then you lose the truth and
the beauty of that original, maybe perceivedly, you know, ordinary
(47:20):
or nonesthetic image, and the moment that was being created
in that image. And then you're doing it for performance.
You're doing it for perception. And I think our kids
feel that, right Like, if I take a picture of
my son and then I ask him to take it
five more times and then I'm finally happy with it,
and I'm giving him that feedback, and then I'm staring
(47:40):
at my phone and sharing at it. Whether I think
so or not, and whether he has a language for
it or not. He's learning how to perform, He's learning
that a very specific smile is what I'm after that
a very specific response or way of positioning his body
is what will please me, and that's what I want
to void in my relationship with my son. I want
(48:02):
him to be himself. So I guess I'm sharing some
of this nuance and I hope it's relevant for people
because I think it's something we should all be kind
of considering and exploring as we renegotiate our agreements with
social media moving forward. I'll be forty this year, which
I'm really excited about, so just in general, I think,
(48:25):
not just because the work that I've done, but just
because generationally, this is the time I'm coming into, you know,
you start to really renegotiate and look at a lot
of the agreements you have. So it's been kind of
cool in the last couple of weeks. Again, I'm three
weeks removed from having this rotator cuff surgery, and I'm
a week and a half out from dropping my book.
(48:46):
So I'm kind of noticing this moment in my path
and in my time of healing and of coming into
a new biological age of who I am and how
I present and how I live. It's kind of interesting
experiencing you know, an aging body with an injury and
(49:07):
experiencing talking about some of those deeper, darker chapters of
my life that I'm many years removed from. You know, nothing,
no experience I share in this book is younger than
five to six years old, and a lot of them
are ten and twenty years old. So I've had a
lot of time to reflect and glean the wisdom of
(49:31):
the things that I share with you in this book
and the space to having been able been allowed to
come into a multitude of perspectives of what these experiences
crafted within me and in my life and in other people.
And so yeah, it's really interesting to share this at
(49:53):
this moment of life, almost turning forty and birthing this
kind of baby that feels really intimate for me and
really vulnerable for me. Again, I'm yeah, I like to
work and I like to be in my life, and
I kind of, you know, hold both sacredly but separately
in a lot of regards, and they're coming together here,
and so I'm making peace with that and making peace
(50:13):
with you know, the fact that strangers get to know
things about me that they didn't come to know from
actually knowing me as a person. It's it's a really
interesting feeling in space. And I've talked to a few
other author friends who have had their own revealing books
and memoirs, and you know, they've all assured me that, like, yeah,
(50:35):
this is a part of the process. Waking up at
three am, like oh God, am I sure about this?
You know that that's a part of the process, and
questioning everything and having a little bit of you know,
discomfort at the new vulnerability that you're kind of being
called to share. And I know that doesn't always seem
like it because we are in a culture and a
(50:55):
time of oversharing where you know, people are people are
going live, they're getting like a Brazilian wax, people are
going live with their families in the midst of conflict,
or you know, just telling really private things to people,
Like I know that has become the norm, but that's
(51:15):
actually not the norm, and it's not necessarily safe for
you or your wellbeing to operate in that way unless
you're sure that you're called that that's how God is
asking you to be used. But yeah, it's been interesting
exploring the context and the nuance of all of that.
So that is what I have been thinking about and
moving through this week, and since you know, the last
(51:38):
layer of the conversation that I've had with you, and
I've also had some really special experiences, so quickly before
we head out of this episode, I want to share
a very dear friend of mine, Maria Shriver, has an
incredible book out called I Am Maria. It is profound,
it is beautiful.
Speaker 1 (51:58):
It is a book of.
Speaker 2 (52:00):
Her vast and unique and really astounding and inspiring life
experiences and life tragedies that she's moved through and some
incredible poetry that has really inspired me to write more
and to share more and to kind of be in
(52:21):
the romance of myself more. And so that book is
available everywhere now. And I had the opportunity to join
her in New York, which also was crazy because I
traveled two weeks after having had surgery by myself and
like got on stage and shared and you know, I
had a wild like thirty hours in New York while
I was healing from surgery. But it all went beautifully
(52:43):
and it all went well. I had the chance to
open her book tour with her at the Immanuel Center
in New York, which is this stunning synagogue with just
the most gorgeous dan glass windows everywhere, and there was
candles everywhere, and Maria and Hoda had a beautiful conversation,
and another dear friend and mentor of mine, Elizabeth Lesser,
(53:05):
shared an incredible poem the founder of the Omega Institute,
and I got to share an opening meditation and intention
setting with the audience and it's really special and really beautiful.
So that was something that really moved me in my
life in the last couple of weeks. And I'll be
doing it with her again here in La and Santa
Monica for her leg of the book tour this week,
(53:27):
and I just can't wait. I love her so much.
I have so much reverence and respect for who and
what she is and what she represents and just all
that she has accomplished as a woman, as a soul
in this life. And then I also had the beautiful
opportunity to be with the incredible group of women from
(53:48):
Leading Women to Find, which is an incredible yearly kind
of pilgrimage that happens with some of the most beautiful
and powerful and intentional Black women all over the world
that are just you know, doing some incredibly ceiling shattering,
(54:09):
bar lifting things for many years, and the visionary work
is the brainchild of the incredible Misstep or Lee, and
so I've had the chance to be with them a
few years in a row. And this year I led
a workshop on grief and a workshop on processing emotion
and working with pain in the body, and it was
(54:30):
just really special. I led some meditations there and I
just got a shout out all of just the magnificent,
magnificent women that were in attendance, and it did so
much for my heart to be there. Yeah, made some
really special connections, so much love to everybody that was there.
And then I also did something, Oh my god, And
(54:51):
I think I'll end with this. For those that have
listened to this show or have done anything, have been
on a retreat with me, you know that for many
years I am a huge fan admirer of the astounding,
phenomenal Cleo Soul. Wow, what a woman, what a work,
(55:13):
what a gift, what a voice she is. I really
relate with her because at least my perception of her,
not knowing her, is that she is kind of a
natural recluse like myself in the best way, and someone
that is just kind of really surrendered to the beauty
(55:33):
of their in real life life and doing the work
that they're called to do, but then likes to kind
of just back up a little bit and rest and
be with their world. And so I really identify with that,
and I love that about her. You know, she drops
projects that can change your life and just are so beautiful,
and then she disappears and goes back into her creativity,
(55:55):
and I think that's really special. So she embarked on
a two city tour where she hit up New York
and had I think four sold out shows back to back,
and then she sold out the Hollywood Bowl here in
LA which I think holds more than twenty thousand people.
And I went with a group of my girlfriends. I
went with my girl April, with Layla Delia and with
(56:19):
my dear friend Lauren Lauren London, and we all just
had a girl's night at the Bowl and sang and
swayed and just felt like the beauty of this special,
special work. One of my girlfriends, Brittany Pacnett Cunningham, she
was describing Cleo Soul while trying to understand like who
(56:42):
she was, because people have been like losing their mind
since these concerts about her work were being introduced to it,
she called her a holy Shadah. I thought that was
so funny. I was like, yeah, no, that's that, that's it,
that's it. You know, she does a healing work, a
healing service to the world, and her voice was even
better in person. It's just it's something that's going to
(57:06):
be ingrained in my heart for a really long time.
And it was so special when I'm so grateful that
I got to go and I got to go there
with three women that I love so much and just
be in friendship and community with, and yeah, it was amazing.
So I'm I would say, I'm pretty sure most of
y'all all listen to Cleosul like I do.
Speaker 1 (57:27):
But if you don't, do.
Speaker 2 (57:29):
Yourself a favor and maybe lock into a playlist and
see how it makes you feel and how you connect
to it. All right, y'all. I will be announcing my
book tour very soon this week, hopefully on Instagram and
also on my website and on my newsletter Debbi Brown
dot com, Forward slash book at Debbie Brown on ig
sign up for my newsletter on my website. The first
(57:51):
three stops I'm making Atlanta, LA and Huston, h Town.
I'm so excited. In La, I'll be in conversation with
Layla Delia, and Atlanta I will be in conversation with
Carrie Champion. And in Houston, I will be in conversation
with Bunbe And I cannot wait. And also a little
(58:13):
bit later in the summer, after I'm healed up a
little bit more, I will be hitting New York.
Speaker 1 (58:18):
I'll be hitting d C.
Speaker 2 (58:19):
Philly, Detroit, and Chicago. So I can't wait to be
in all these cities and to be with you. If
you haven't yet, please take a moment and pre ordered
the book. I know, like whenever I used to hear
about pre orders, I'd be like, yeah, I'm gona buy
the book when it's out. I don't need to pre
order it. But you know this, this matters to the
publisher as it matters to the people. So you know,
I just hope you get it whenever you feel called.
(58:41):
But if you would pre order it, tell a friend
and I'll be announcing those tour dates in just a
few days. And I cannot wait to see you and
to be with you. And yeah, my heart is really
open and really grateful in this season and just very
ready to be in and do whatever God has.
Speaker 1 (59:02):
Called me to.
Speaker 2 (59:03):
So thank you for listening. Back next week, and if
you get a chance, please rate and review on iTunes
and go ahead and leave a comment. Not The content
presented on Deeply Well serves solely for educational and informational purposes.
(59:25):
It should not be considered a replacement for personalized medical
or mental health guidance, and does not constitute a provider
patient relationship. As always, it is advisable to consult with
your healthcare provider or health team for any specific concerns
or questions that you may have. Connect with me on
(59:45):
social at Debbie Brown. That's Twitter and Instagram, or you
can go to my website Debbie Brown dot com. And
if you're listening to the show on Apple Podcasts, don't forget,
Please rate, review, and subscribe and send this episode to
a friend. Deeply Well is a production of iHeartRadio and
The Black Effect Network. It's produced by Jacquess Thomas, Samantha
(01:00:07):
Timmins and me Debbie Brown. The Beautiful Soundbath You Heard
That's by Jarrelyn Glass from Crystal Cadence. For more podcasts
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows
Take a deep breath in through your nose. Holds it.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Now, release slowly again deep in haale hold release, repeating
(00:47):
internally to yourself as you connect to my voice. I
am deeply well. I am deeply well.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
I am deeply wow. I'm Debbie Brown and this is
the Deeply Well podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Welcome to another episode. Welcome back to the show. Of course,
I'm Debbie Brown. Shout out to everybody watching on YouTube
and listening in their cars and your phones however you
listen to podcasts.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Oh, y'all, it has been a month.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
It has been a crazy last few weeks. This episode,
I want to check in with everyone and kind of
talk about some of the thoughts and the themes and
the things that are expanding and growing in my life
and the world hopefully in your life and in your hearts.
One thing, and this is just very random, but the
last few years really, since the pandemic, I want to say,
(02:07):
so like five years ago, I kind of like stopped
wearing makeup and doing my hair and I've just yeah,
I've been very happily in my like you know, just
like normal ordinary self. But I'm on a press run
that has officially kicked off from my book, and so
(02:27):
like I'm getting my makeup done and like getting my
hair done and things like that, and it is just funny.
It's it's I don't know if this makes sense for anyone,
but it's been an interesting experience for me, having come
from previously being in an industry that kind of demanded
that from me every day to then being able to
experience my life not connected to that whatsoever. And that's
(02:49):
more who I am. I never really kind of like Saten,
did my makeup, though I wish growing up I knew
how to. And I never really sat and did my
hair a bunch, though I wish I had known how to.
And so it's just funny, like right now, I feel
like I am fully embodying two kind of different sides
(03:11):
of like who I am and how I move and
how I feel. And it's been really interesting after spending
so many years disconnecting myself intentionally and purposefully kind of
from the world or from you know, certain aspects of
being seen, and to now because I have a book
(03:32):
out that I really want you to read that I
think you'll love, and I think it'll be meaningful for you.
You know, you kind of got to like turn those
things on. So it's been interesting. My background, as I'm
sure you know if you listen to this show, was
spending many, many, many, many many years in broadcasting, and
so I honed a lot of great technical ability to
(03:52):
like speak and project my voice and host. And then
when I moved into this evolution of my purpose years ago,
I had to spend time coming down from my training
to be able to talk like myself again, because you
get so used to kind of whatever the performance is
(04:13):
with your work, right, Like you know how sometimes you
have to answer the phone a certain way at work
or speak to people in a certain way. When you're
in broadcasting, it's all about not having even a second
of silence, and then like yeah, just being like very up,
very fast, very succinct, you know, like word economy, saying
(04:33):
as much as you can with as few words and
doing it quickly. And so I had to really come
down from that style of speaking after doing it for
so many years and be in kind of practice with
like how can I continue to do this work like
(04:53):
with a microphone in front of me, but do it
as the private version of myself that's not on display.
So that was a really kind of interesting part of
my journey, and it's just kind of funny, how, you know,
every I've noticed every few years, the cyclical nature of
our lives is that you know, things become full circle
(05:16):
and are brought back in front of you, and you know,
you kind of get to get to notice them and
see them, be them, taste them, do them, but now
from kind of an expanded view and as like a
different version. So that has been interesting and fun. This week,
I officially kicked off a lot of my press.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
For the book Living.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
In Wisdom, A Path to Embodying your Authentic Self and
Breathing grief and developing self mastery. I cannot wait for
y'all to get this book. It's out April twenty second,
so very very soon from right now, and I want
to share a little bit about what this process has
been in case there's anyone listening that is also birthing something,
(05:58):
feels a desired to create, something to be birthed, or
has recently birthed something. This creative process is just so fascinating.
And I think even though writing a book is something
I've done before, and kind of speaking about a book
or speaking about myself is something I've done before, these
(06:21):
last few years, I have just really, really really enjoyed
not forming a lot of opinions about things, and I
have really enjoyed like surrendering to even though I you know,
I've been doing my work and doing this podcast and
(06:45):
all the things, just like really surrendering to my personal
life more and being in harmony with that life and
really feeling the value of that life so much more.
And then it's like when you do something that you
know you feel called to do and create, and you
also have to give it the honor and respect it
(07:06):
deserves by like marketing it, you know, or like talking
about it or being with it. I'm having this like
very interesting experience right now. But it's been really fun.
It's been really fun to talk about the book. It's
it's also been to be quite honest, like very emotional
to talk about the book. I don't know when you'll
(07:27):
hear this episode, but for me right now, in this moment,
I am still a week and a half out from
anybody reading it, and almost no one in my life
has read it so far. I think maybe I let
two friends read it, and a couple people in regards
to work have read it. But yeah, I am at
(07:47):
this moment, a week and a half out of having
something really close to me and really tender to me
and really personal to me. In this book, I share
a lot about my life and my process, and you know,
speaking to the work in a very personal way, not
as abstract. Right. What you may kind of notice is
(08:09):
a lot of the guests I choose to have on
this show are people that have done work or whose
work represents work that I've already done on myself. So,
for instance, if I have someone on this show who
specializes in inner child healing, my desire to have them
on this show really stems from the fact that I
(08:30):
spent many, many years, and actually did a program that
lasted three years in healing my own inner child, and
in getting really intimate and close with my original wounds
and understanding how generational trauma moves and how it moved
in my life, and how it moved in my body,
(08:52):
and how you know, so much of my chronic pain
was because of my experiences, and so I share those
stories in this book. Or you know, if I've had
someone on this show to share about psychedelics, I don't
necessarily center myself in the conversation because I want everyone
listening to glean the wisdom and hear the life experiences
(09:14):
of the person I'm in conversation with. But I spent
several years doing a lot of different kinds of psychedelics
and found them to be really powerful for my healing
and especially for some of those deeper layers of my
subconscious work that I needed to do on myself as
someone that experienced childhood trauma and also many different forms
(09:39):
of trauma, you know, all the way through many decades
of my life. And so you know, when I have
astrologers on the show, it's because I'm obsessed. When I
have a numerologist on the show, it's because I, you know,
started working with my own numerology years ago, or shamans
or healers.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
You know.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
My desire is to amplify the work of people who
do and work in these different modalities at an incredibly
integrious level, and to amplify what they do and their expertise.
But I usually feature them because I am years removed
from having done a lot of those processes and work
(10:19):
on myself. And so what is going to be different
about this book is whereas on this deeply wall show,
I do give glimpses into my own life, and I
do give you know, reflections about my lived experience. But
my desire on this show is not to have a
podcast about myself, to be quite honest, It's not to
have a podcast about all the things that I'm trying
(10:41):
and doing. And so many of those shows exist, and
that's one of the reasons I don't do that, because
I think, if that is how you best learn and receive,
I think a lot of shows do that really beautifully.
But I'm someone that likes to you know, I believe
in keeping your personal mystery. I believe in keeping the
(11:01):
magic of your life kind of to yourself so that
it further informs and enhances and grows the work you're
able to do and your connection to God. But in
this book, I really explore a lot of that personal
side of what are some of the specific themes of
(11:24):
pain I've been through, what are some of the challenges
I've been through as a child, as a young person,
as a woman, as a mother, And what are some
of the ways that I look to heal those things
within myself? You know, And I believe personally I meant
to teach in a path of wisdom which means I
(11:45):
may not share immediately something that has happened or something
I've done. I usually will share it many years removed,
after I've let myself settle into the learning and the healing,
open to the continued work, because we're going to continue
to do work our whole lives and have ideally really
(12:05):
been able to kind of integrate and embody the other
side of the healing, come into the wisdom of it.
And so yeah, when I do this show, you know,
my desire when I have some of these just beautiful
guests on who all have powerful work and beautiful life
stories and usually a lot of challenges like myself and
(12:27):
like many of the people who listen and learn on
this show, my desire is to deeply empathize with their experience.
I may not be necessarily hearing anything new, right because
I am a teacher, and I am a lifelong learner,
and I am my own open and divine, sovereign channel
to the divine, and so you know, my desire is
(12:48):
to really just ask important questions that are useful. It's
to have deep empathy for whoever is in front of me.
You know, I'm a deep fealer, as I know many
of you are. But part of the way God uses
me and uses me as a healer is to also
(13:09):
reflect and mirror, you know, the truth of pain and
also the beauty and pain. I'm a wounded healer. I'm
someone that has had hard things happen and God has
allowed me to keep my heart open anyways and then
use those experiences and use the presence that I've honed
(13:30):
to be near darkness in service to others and ideally
in service to everyone listening to this show. So it's
you know, one thing that I think is really special
about this book is in this book, I share my
stories in this book, I share my overcomings. In this book,
I let you know some just to pequk right, just
(13:53):
a taste, because, as I say on this show often
and a lot and in a lot of the positioning
of the show, I design this show to be specifically
for people that have had complex lived experiences, that have
had a lot of different run ins with so many
different kinds of traumas or so many just different kinds
(14:16):
of challenges, whether that is a big tea or little
t trauma. Because that is exactly what my life path
has been and what I have been allowed to learn
through and grow through and heal through and continue to
heal through because the work is never done. But my
life's path has taken me all over and I have
studied so much. I have done many certifications and so
(14:39):
many different hosts of healing modalities, and have had the
pleasure to be in practice with my learning and with
my expertise and with the modalities that I use and
do for many many years with clients, with myself. And
that's what this book is about. It's my stories, it's
(14:59):
observation stories of working with clients. It's things that I
have experienced and seen and learned from as a healer,
working in the world like an actual healer, doing some
of the deeper work with people in some more challenging ways,
(15:21):
and from having you know, hosted many, many, many retreats
with thousands of people all over the world. And I'm
not an Instagram girly, so to be quite honest, I
don't post every event I do. For every ten events
that I go to, I might post one thing. For
every ten retreats that I host or five companies that
(15:45):
I've worked with, I might post one thing, and it
might even be a year later. That's just my cadence.
That's just how I flow with social media. But you know,
that is the foundation of who I am and the
work that I do and the work that I share,
and my style of teaching is really about leaning into
(16:05):
knowledge and less about kind of my personal, individualized experience
with things I never want to come in this space
and trauma dump. I had a very vulnerable episode recently
where I opened up and I shared that part of
my journey was for many years suffering from chronic pain
(16:28):
and autoimmune and part of my connection to God and
my connection to my own healing was learning the ways
to heal myself from the pain and doing many, many,
many years of studying research around what creates chronic conditions
in the human body. And so though I haven't done
(16:50):
this on this show yet, some of the work that
I do, and actually a workshop that I taught this
week over the last several years, is a lot of
my in person and workshops and in person retreats are
actually about inner child healing, and they're actually centered and
rooted in understanding what chronic pain is. Because out of
(17:12):
the stats of chronic pain and it affects hundreds of
millions of people, alive eighty percent or women and seventy
percent or Black women. A lot of that has to
do with epigenetics. A lot of that has to do
with what we now know and say is the issues
being and the tissues or the body keeping the score.
But these are things that sometimes end up in your
(17:34):
body and your activated genes because of things that happen
to you, because of work you've been avoiding, because of
trapped energy and emotions, and some of it is just
things we inherited within our DNA because our mothers, our grandmothers,
our ancestors were traumatized people, and a lot of that
(17:55):
becomes compounded into our own physical, lived experience. That is
really the crux of what my day to day work is.
When I'm not doing this podcast. That is the work
that I do with one on one clients wellness and
well being and teaching some of the deeper complex layers
of how to get into the crevices of our healing
(18:16):
and how to do it consistently. Is the work that
I do in the workshops that I teach and the
retreats that I lead. So it's always a pleasure to
be in service to people in that way. Deeply well,
(18:36):
when I host this show, I really love speaking to
it from a community standpoint where I invite other people
in to share their work and to share their process.
And there are so many of us, so many of us,
hundreds of thousands on this planet right now doing the
work of the soul. And I think when you are
(19:00):
fortunate enough to be diligent in your own healing so
that you're actually able to get on the other side
of it. You know something that I may have forgotten
to mention in the last episode because I was really
shout out to my sling if you're watching on YouTube,
I was really inspired to talk about pain last week
(19:22):
and to share some of my journey, but to talk
about the new things I was learning having had this surgery.
And I was really excited to have this surgery because
this was an injury that I first came into five
years ago, when I was in some of the deeper
throes of the work that I was called to do
on myself. I spent many years in all kinds of therapies,
(19:43):
from cognitive therapy to somatic therapy. I have worked with
some of the most incredible healers on the planet to
do some of my deeper work, and then I've just
been in deep co creation with God on the work
that I need to do, you know, spending hours meditating
(20:03):
a day, spending hours in reflection and personal process, and
then also working within community environments, working with groups, doing
some group therapy again, working with psychedelics, doing pleasure work
within myself and within my path. And you know, this
work of higher consciousness, it is a never ending work.
(20:26):
You are never you know, unless perhaps your path is
to become Buddha like or the Buddha, you know, you're
never not going to be oscillating between it. And if
you're a highly sensitive person, even if you have cleared
a lot of your own personal story and pain out
of your body. And that is my hope for everyone,
(20:47):
because when I look back to the kind of pain
I carried physically ten years ago versus what I experience now,
oh my god, it's just night and day. You know,
I may have a flara a couple times a year,
because that's the biology of the human experience, and it
usually comes after I have kind of over exhausted myself
(21:08):
in the work. Either I led too many retreats back
to back to too many speaking engagements, were around too
many large bodies of people. Sometimes with my work, I
find myself kind of in groups that can be up
to five hundred, sometimes up to one thousand. The nature
of that, as a highly sensitive, energetic person means that
(21:29):
even when I do all the protection rituals on myself,
even when I cover myself in healing, I may pick
up some stray energy. I may pick up, you know,
some other things that can you know, make my body
tired and wipe my body out. It's the nature of energy,
and so a few times a year that does happen
to me. But truly I have found for me personally,
(21:55):
the more healing work I have allowed myself to do
on myself, and the deeper I'm able to go with
that work, It's changed my relationship with my body. I
used to have ninety percent inflammation. So it's like if
I had stress, or if I had an experience of
having a reaction to my complex trauma. Sometimes it felt
(22:19):
like I could put on twenty thirty pounds in a
day and it would just be inflammation. And so that
part of my life has changed dramatically. The fog in
my brain has changed, the tension and the pain in
my back and my body. It's just it's just changed
in such a revolutionary way that I am so grateful for.
(22:40):
But when I share certain parts of my story, you know,
it's really to be in community with those I know
may have a similar path and didn't always have the
language for it, or didn't always have someone in front
of them that was able to speak to the complexity
or the new wants of what that experience is. So
(23:03):
I just, first I want to say thank you to
everybody that was present. I know I'm kind of going
all over the place, but everybody that was really present
with that episode last week, because I received so many
messages from people that they've had a similar path, or
this gave them the language, or this gave them a
starting point within which to begin their journey to understand
(23:26):
why their bodies may or may not feel the way
that they do. And so I'm just really grateful for
the presence for last week's episode, even if it was
triggering for some of you. But the work is never done,
and if your work did include chronic pain, also have
a lot of grace for yourself because there will be
some kinds of people in the wellness world or in
(23:48):
the healing space that will want to shame you because
you have pain and try to tell you that you
haven't done enough work, and they don't know the truth
of what your karma is, what your destiny is, why
you need to understand things about your path the way
that you do. And usually it's always to be in service.
(24:11):
It's so you can teach it. It's so you can
hold space in front of other people and show them
the grace in it. You know, I feel proud of
the fact that, even though I am in a little
bit of shoulder pain, I'm healing really well though. I'm
so grateful, Like it's kind of wild to me how
quickly and fully this shoulder is healing. Like I just
(24:34):
feel like I have so much of my life force
back in now being three weeks removed from surgery. But
you know, like having this surgery, as I shared last week,
it really gave me the chance to now get a
glimpse of understanding and cultivate a lot of compassion for
what surgical pain is. Like. I haven't had surgeries. I
(24:55):
didn't know, you know, being a mama that hat a
C section, it's like being able to speak to that
experience with other people like, that's what being alive is.
It's having our experiences and sometimes the challenging ones and
sometimes the unescapable ones, right, because not everything means, you know,
(25:18):
like this kind of shiny healing that allows you to
quote unquote be perfect. None of us are ever will be.
It's just we heal what we can heal and what
we have access to, and then we recover, and then
we heal more and then we recover. But we stay
on this path. And really the point of being on
(25:40):
this path is our own healing, and it is our
lineage healing and our cross generational healing. And then it's
also so others can bear witness to us, either while
we're on the path or as we've come off the path,
you know, having healed certain things. But it should always
be in service and it's never ending. And you know,
as beings that are having a spiritual experience and a
(26:03):
human experience, I think it is so important to honor
the limitations of our humanity and our physical body too.
So you may have healed a lot of your root
original wounds. You may have got back to the root
of the root and been able to heal the childhood trauma.
(26:24):
Maybe heal some of the experiences that hurt, or the
neglect or things that didn't get your consent, or process
all of the vast emotions that perhaps you weren't allowed
to process in real time as things happened. You may
be doing all of that beautiful work, and you may
still have physical limitations in your body. And it's not
(26:47):
because necessarily there is work undone or something you're not
doing enough of or doing right. It's also the honoring
of what your physical experience in this life is right.
So like this is just like a kind of a
wide example. But if hard things happen to you and
(27:08):
then you also found that you got a certain diagnosis
of a really challenging disease, or maybe something happened and
maybe you found yourself, you know, disabled in a certain
capacity because of the limitations of age and physicality and
what it is to be biologically engineered as human. You
(27:30):
may not come into perfect health where everything works like
you're an elite athlete or works perfectly, or you have
a complete healing or restoration in something, and it doesn't
mean that you haven't done your work, and it doesn't
mean that you're not enough, and it doesn't mean you're
not doing enough. It simply means you're here embodying the
(27:51):
totality of what it is to be a spiritual being
and what it is to be human. And some of
us have karma with certain physical issues that we are
working out in this lifetime or we are meant to
use in service to helping other people in this lifetime.
Something I thought that was really interesting when I first started,
(28:13):
probably well over ten years ago, understanding that my path
was kind of the wounded healer path and beginning to
slowly dismantle the chronic pain that enveloped my life and
understand my body's reactions to my experiences. I was exploring
my chronic pain from the lens of spirituality, spiritual curriculum, therapy,
(28:39):
cognitive therapy, somatic therapy, and also a lot of different viewpoints.
I started to find it kind of fascinating, as I
tend to do, and I started studying my astrology chart.
And for those of you that know, I think astrology
is a really beautiful tool and companion for being a love.
(29:00):
It can be a really special sacred science. But in astrology,
and especially in some of the older astrology like Vedic
astrology or what is referred to as Yodish astrology, which
is very very very very old, and a lot of
people that practiced astrology were also medical doctors for their
(29:22):
time or on a past episode, I had doctor Suhas
who is a master astrologer and an emty medical doctor,
and he utilizes both in his practices to understand people.
Something I found in my astrology chart was that certain
placements I have lent themselves to saying that some of
the experiences I would have in this life would be
(29:44):
centered around bone pain and specifically pain in the spine,
and that some of my work was to understand some
of the things that had happened to me or that
I had witnessed, so that I could be in co
creation with releasing that pain from my body. So that's
part of what this work is too, and it's not overnight.
(30:06):
It's an ongoing process, and I talk about a lot
of that in my book, and I'm really excited to
share that. But it's also been fascinating kind of noticing
as I'm a week and a half out from launching
this how it feels to talk about.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
It with people.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
So so far, I've recorded i want to say, three
or four podcasts in the last two days where I've
had a chance to talk about my book and share
about my book, and it's been deep, you know, because
I am not self focused on this show and always
speaking from I guess what I might be saying with
some judgment is like a trauma dumping perspective. I'm not
(30:45):
saying I went through this, and this is how I
did it, and this is how you do it do it.
I'm more I'm interested in providing pathways for everyone listening
to see what resonates with your spirit uniquely, and then
how do you begin to approach that work and then
deepen in that work based on your own intuition. It's
(31:08):
been really interesting talking about myself so much and kind
of opening to that space to talk from my first
person perspective and not more from what I believe is
a wisdom perspective, which is more so through storytelling and
through analogy and through kind of archetypes and wider concepts
(31:31):
of understanding. I found that to be more powerful for
me in my learning as a student, to learn in
that way than from learning from someone's first hand experience,
because we're all so different, layered and nuanced, and so
that is how I prefer to teach, that is how
God has called me to teach. But now just kind
(31:53):
of speaking so much about myself from a first person standpoint,
it's interesting. Yeah, I do it happily, and it's been
really fun kind of exploring these stories, but it's also
not how I teach. So it's just been interesting to
experience and to look at it from that standpoint. So
(32:14):
y'all will be getting the book sewn. I'm very excited
about that, and very excited for you to kind of
utilize this book and open with it through my own experiences,
but definitely through some of my observations of clients and
people that I have been with and teachers that I've
learned from, and then also just real technical practice. This
(32:36):
book is filled with practices of higher consciousness. Inquiries, questions
to ask your inner child, questions to ask who you
are now, questions to ask your soul about your purpose.
There are so many prompts in this book. One of
the certification programs that I did for over three years
(32:56):
was this master's program in spiritual psychology, and it was
three years and every time we met for class, it
would be for three days in a row for twelve
hours each day, and it was gnarly. You had to
do so much self processing, so much self processing around
things that you don't even want to say out loud,
(33:18):
let alone in front of a classroom or in front
of a partner. But it was the path to freedom
for me to deep into understanding in addition to so
many other things I had done and been doing. But
a lot of what I gleaned in that program I
share in this book as well, especially the practices and
processes to meet those younger, tender, beautiful versions of who
(33:42):
we are and maybe who there wasn't space to become
because of life experiences. But how do you integrate and
reconnect and come into acceptance with all the layers of
who you are and who have you been? So there's
practices for that, and then there's also practice to really
deepen into advance meditation, which opens your higher awareness, which
(34:04):
hopefully helps to cultivate your intuition and really bring online
perhaps some of your deeper gifts and some of your
intuitive gifts, some of your ability to be in direct
communication with Source and with the divine, and ways in
which to hopefully activate and turn on some of your
(34:24):
energy centers so that you can experience your body and
your life differently. One of the practices I lean into
the book that I love so much is leaning into maudras,
which are really a way to advance in your meditation practice,
but a way to really open to some of the
downloads that may want to come into you and your
(34:46):
life miraculously and instantaneously. That's one of the beautiful things
I think about building a meditation practice. You know, at first,
you think, as you're starting to study meditation that it's
just about peace, or it's just about getting quiet or
getting still. But the more you practice meditation, the more
you're able to access all the different layers and realms
(35:09):
of higher awareness. So when you first start your practice,
the baseline may be just learning how to get still
and how to get quiet. Once you've done that and
not be irritated by it or not to seek stimulation
because of it, the next layer would be when some
of those pain points start coming up, and you might
find yourself in meditation crying or getting angry or even
(35:33):
getting like, you know, like laughing, getting really happy. But
you're able to tap into maybe all the emotions that
you've been suppressing for a lifetime and so as you
sit with that and learn to release that and witness
it and be present with it and observe it and
release it, then you're able to go a little higher
(35:54):
into what your meditation practice is and what it feels like.
And then you're kind of getting a ground and you're
opening to meditation as a tool for higher consciousness, as
a tool for purpose, as a tool for really fuel
and pleasure and rebuilding and recircuiting your brain, and you know,
(36:15):
kind of leaning into growing the neuroplasticity which is within
your brain and kind of recarving out some neural pathways
and healing older calcified ones so that you can be
who you really are and so that some of the
pain in your life can leave. And I think that
(36:37):
for me and doing the work has been the greatest blessing.
I've been able to open my compassion and my understanding
and really open to a profound ability to empathize with
anyone in.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Front of me deeply. Well, some of.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
This ecology programs that I did when I was getting certification,
sometimes you'd have to bear witness to really hard confessions
from other people, things that may make you want to
judge them, things they've done to other people things they've
done to themselves. But meditation and compassion and empathy allow
(37:20):
you to kind of open to see the deeper struggle
that is within and behind people that do cause pain
to other people, and to really see how we're all
kind of some of our experiences and we choose to paths,
and some people who were harmed you know there really
(37:42):
is no other choice but to choose a path to
harm until you know otherwise. And others who were harmed
choose a path first, often of pleasing and even self
righteousness or self denial and over empathy without boundary. And
then as you become empowered, you turn that empathy and
(38:04):
that compassion outward and inward, and you know you're able
to really recognize that your role is to serve. It's
not to please, it's not to fix anyone else's problems.
It's not to become whoever other people think you should be,
or behave how they think you should behave, or do
things how they think you should do them. But it
(38:25):
is to anchor down into the truth of who God
told you to be, the truth of who you are,
the truth of the work that you've done, and then
hold space for others and both there sometimes perceivedly good
and bad behavior. You know, I think strength comes in
so many forms, and for some of us, strength there's
(38:47):
really like you know, holding people up. For other strength
is and witnessing brothers. Their strength is kind of holding
a quiet power, a mysterio power about who and what
they are. But we're all here to focus on our
spiritual curriculum and then to use it as a way
(39:09):
to serve others. And that's really that's really what it is.
It really is.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
That simple.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
When you do your work, you then serve, and your
work is never done. We're always continue to refine it.
There's always deeper to go in your own path of
healing and your own path of self mastery. We will
be doing the work till the day that we're gone.
But hopefully, you know, you get to a place, and
that's my intention with this book where you're able to
(39:39):
get a lot of the gunk out of the way
and then some of the work of your life is
really just about continuing to refine and continuing to ask
God how you're meant to be used and how you're
going to show up in that work for others. But
we're all meant to do that differently once you get
to a healing. For some people, it is being powerful
motivators and maybe really inspiring people through their own life
(40:02):
stories and you know, kind of bringing a deep level
of motivation to others. For some it's like, you know,
kind of disappearing and maybe you live a monk life
and you know, do something that is off the radar
of even being seen, but you're holding this powerful healing
space and enlightened space for others that don't even know
you exist. For some people, it's it's really holding up
(40:28):
some of the deeper themes in the work that others
are doing, or you know, speaking to things and kind
of bigger way that creates space for more people to
hear it. But you'll know what your work is as
long as you stay devoted to your practices and devoted
to the divine and devoted to your personal spiritual curriculum,
(40:49):
which a lot of people can have projections on and
ideas of, but only you and God really know what
that is. So find strength in that. Find solace in
that you know your healing journey does not have to
make sense to anyone else. You don't have to quantify it.
For anyone else. You don't have to trauma dump it
(41:10):
for anyone else so that you are believed or seen
as accurate. You know, you just have to do the
work you're called to with integrity, with diligence, with devotion,
and then find ways to serve others, Find ways to
(41:30):
love others and to embody love for others. Find ways
to embody your learning and your work and your wisdom
so that you can actually live who you say you are,
a lot of people can get up and say who
they are in front of people. A lot of people
can get up and proclaim what they are on the internet,
(41:53):
But the truth of your life always tells the story.
Are you in conflict with who you are? Are you
in conflict with other people? Are you looking at others
through a lens of lack or judgment? Are you feeling
peace and wholeness and worthiness at the core of who
(42:14):
you are? Or are you just telling people that's how
you feel. There's no judgment in it, But there's always
work to be done, you know. And I think when
it comes to even the discernment of who you should
listen to on your path, who you should believe, whose
work you should be connecting to really take a long,
hard look at the person and what is the truth
(42:35):
of their life. You know, I don't always bring all
my personal stuff to the table here because I also think, well,
why should I I'm working? Is that necessary and actually
useful for people? Or is the work I'm providing the
most useful and nourishing thing for others? You know, I
don't want to live a SIMS reality. I think the
Internet is the only place where people think they have
(42:58):
to engage twenty four seven. Nothing else about life is
that way.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
You know.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
I personally love the privacy of my life. I love
the specialness of my life at this moment in my life.
Though the world is always changing, and I accept that
about being alive, that it's not always going to be easy,
It's not always going to be graceful. It's not for
no one. And I have met with some of the
(43:24):
most enlightened minds on the planet in the last ten years.
I have had access to some of the absolute great
spiritual leaders of our time in the last few years,
and not just hearing them speak, having years and years
to build relationships with them, having long, deep conversations with
(43:46):
them over time, and I've come to know that not
a single person is perfect, and we are all always
strengthening and refining in our paths on this journey of
healing and then on this journey of teaching and serving,
and so you know, to just deeply understand and accept
(44:06):
that that is the case. You know, we are always
here really for all of it. Yeah, but I've really
learned that, you know, nothing shows the truth of how
much work someone has done or not on themselves, like
(44:27):
the actual quality of their day to day life. And
I think that's where I came into a deep understanding
about how grateful I am for where I've at least
momentarily arrived on my path. And I feel really proud
to say this because this was not my God, my god,
my god, this was not always the case in my life.
(44:49):
But I live a really beautiful life right now. I
live a really beautiful life, a life that to such
a large extent is conflict free, a life that has beautiful,
healthy boundaries everywhere where. The deep close community on my
life that you will likely never see shared on Instagram
(45:14):
are people I have deep respect, love, admiration for, and
harmony with, and people who have deep love, respect, admiration
harmony and support of me, and we do special things
to we get together. We do ordinary things together, like
spend time and fill each other with love and support
(45:34):
and friendship. I spend a lot of time in my garden.
I spend a lot of time focused on being a
good mother to my son. My motherhood means a lot
to me. And that's why I don't really share it
on social media. Why I don't really share photos of
myself and my son and all the fun things that
we do together, the good moments, the hard moments, because
(45:56):
that's our business, you know. And I think as as
I pull out a camera or try to come to
a quick understanding of who he is or who I
am in a moment, I rob both of us of
the magic of the relationship that.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
We have right now.
Speaker 2 (46:13):
You know, I don't want to be so focused on
documenting him at six years old and what I know
about being a mom of a six year old right now,
because I'm living it and I want to feel all
of it, and I don't want to distort it by
making it consumable. As soon as you make certain private
parts of your life consumable to strangers or to other people,
(46:37):
it changes the authenticity of it. It changes how it
feels inside of your body, It changes how you interact
with it. You know, as soon as you start taking
a picture based on how it will perform, it changes
the relationship of what you're taking a picture of, right Like,
think about if you see your kid making a funny,
(46:58):
silly face and you just want to capture it. But
then if you're so used to capturing the perfect picture
of them, you're going to do it another five to
ten times to make it perfect so that it can
then be shared, and then you lose the truth and
the beauty of that original, maybe perceivedly, you know, ordinary
(47:20):
or nonesthetic image, and the moment that was being created
in that image. And then you're doing it for performance.
You're doing it for perception. And I think our kids
feel that, right Like, if I take a picture of
my son and then I ask him to take it
five more times and then I'm finally happy with it,
and I'm giving him that feedback, and then I'm staring
(47:40):
at my phone and sharing at it. Whether I think
so or not, and whether he has a language for
it or not. He's learning how to perform, He's learning
that a very specific smile is what I'm after that
a very specific response or way of positioning his body
is what will please me, and that's what I want
to void in my relationship with my son. I want
(48:02):
him to be himself. So I guess I'm sharing some
of this nuance and I hope it's relevant for people
because I think it's something we should all be kind
of considering and exploring as we renegotiate our agreements with
social media moving forward. I'll be forty this year, which
I'm really excited about, so just in general, I think,
(48:25):
not just because the work that I've done, but just
because generationally, this is the time I'm coming into, you know,
you start to really renegotiate and look at a lot
of the agreements you have. So it's been kind of
cool in the last couple of weeks. Again, I'm three
weeks removed from having this rotator cuff surgery, and I'm
a week and a half out from dropping my book.
(48:46):
So I'm kind of noticing this moment in my path
and in my time of healing and of coming into
a new biological age of who I am and how
I present and how I live. It's kind of interesting
experiencing you know, an aging body with an injury and
(49:07):
experiencing talking about some of those deeper, darker chapters of
my life that I'm many years removed from. You know, nothing,
no experience I share in this book is younger than
five to six years old, and a lot of them
are ten and twenty years old. So I've had a
lot of time to reflect and glean the wisdom of
(49:31):
the things that I share with you in this book
and the space to having been able been allowed to
come into a multitude of perspectives of what these experiences
crafted within me and in my life and in other people.
And so yeah, it's really interesting to share this at
(49:53):
this moment of life, almost turning forty and birthing this
kind of baby that feels really intimate for me and
really vulnerable for me. Again, I'm yeah, I like to
work and I like to be in my life, and
I kind of, you know, hold both sacredly but separately
in a lot of regards, and they're coming together here,
and so I'm making peace with that and making peace
(50:13):
with you know, the fact that strangers get to know
things about me that they didn't come to know from
actually knowing me as a person. It's it's a really
interesting feeling in space. And I've talked to a few
other author friends who have had their own revealing books
and memoirs, and you know, they've all assured me that, like, yeah,
(50:35):
this is a part of the process. Waking up at
three am, like oh God, am I sure about this?
You know that that's a part of the process, and
questioning everything and having a little bit of you know,
discomfort at the new vulnerability that you're kind of being
called to share. And I know that doesn't always seem
like it because we are in a culture and a
(50:55):
time of oversharing where you know, people are people are
going live, they're getting like a Brazilian wax, people are
going live with their families in the midst of conflict,
or you know, just telling really private things to people,
Like I know that has become the norm, but that's
(51:15):
actually not the norm, and it's not necessarily safe for
you or your wellbeing to operate in that way unless
you're sure that you're called that that's how God is
asking you to be used. But yeah, it's been interesting
exploring the context and the nuance of all of that.
So that is what I have been thinking about and
moving through this week, and since you know, the last
(51:38):
layer of the conversation that I've had with you, and
I've also had some really special experiences, so quickly before
we head out of this episode, I want to share
a very dear friend of mine, Maria Shriver, has an
incredible book out called I Am Maria. It is profound,
it is beautiful.
Speaker 1 (51:58):
It is a book of.
Speaker 2 (52:00):
Her vast and unique and really astounding and inspiring life
experiences and life tragedies that she's moved through and some
incredible poetry that has really inspired me to write more
and to share more and to kind of be in
(52:21):
the romance of myself more. And so that book is
available everywhere now. And I had the opportunity to join
her in New York, which also was crazy because I
traveled two weeks after having had surgery by myself and
like got on stage and shared and you know, I
had a wild like thirty hours in New York while
I was healing from surgery. But it all went beautifully
(52:43):
and it all went well. I had the chance to
open her book tour with her at the Immanuel Center
in New York, which is this stunning synagogue with just
the most gorgeous dan glass windows everywhere, and there was
candles everywhere, and Maria and Hoda had a beautiful conversation,
and another dear friend and mentor of mine, Elizabeth Lesser,
(53:05):
shared an incredible poem the founder of the Omega Institute,
and I got to share an opening meditation and intention
setting with the audience and it's really special and really beautiful.
So that was something that really moved me in my
life in the last couple of weeks. And I'll be
doing it with her again here in La and Santa
Monica for her leg of the book tour this week,
(53:27):
and I just can't wait. I love her so much.
I have so much reverence and respect for who and
what she is and what she represents and just all
that she has accomplished as a woman, as a soul
in this life. And then I also had the beautiful
opportunity to be with the incredible group of women from
(53:48):
Leading Women to Find, which is an incredible yearly kind
of pilgrimage that happens with some of the most beautiful
and powerful and intentional Black women all over the world
that are just you know, doing some incredibly ceiling shattering,
(54:09):
bar lifting things for many years, and the visionary work
is the brainchild of the incredible Misstep or Lee, and
so I've had the chance to be with them a
few years in a row. And this year I led
a workshop on grief and a workshop on processing emotion
and working with pain in the body, and it was
(54:30):
just really special. I led some meditations there and I
just got a shout out all of just the magnificent,
magnificent women that were in attendance, and it did so
much for my heart to be there. Yeah, made some
really special connections, so much love to everybody that was there.
And then I also did something, Oh my god, And
(54:51):
I think I'll end with this. For those that have
listened to this show or have done anything, have been
on a retreat with me, you know that for many
years I am a huge fan admirer of the astounding,
phenomenal Cleo Soul. Wow, what a woman, what a work,
(55:13):
what a gift, what a voice she is. I really
relate with her because at least my perception of her,
not knowing her, is that she is kind of a
natural recluse like myself in the best way, and someone
that is just kind of really surrendered to the beauty
(55:33):
of their in real life life and doing the work
that they're called to do, but then likes to kind
of just back up a little bit and rest and
be with their world. And so I really identify with that,
and I love that about her. You know, she drops
projects that can change your life and just are so beautiful,
and then she disappears and goes back into her creativity,
(55:55):
and I think that's really special. So she embarked on
a two city tour where she hit up New York
and had I think four sold out shows back to back,
and then she sold out the Hollywood Bowl here in
LA which I think holds more than twenty thousand people.
And I went with a group of my girlfriends. I
went with my girl April, with Layla Delia and with
(56:19):
my dear friend Lauren Lauren London, and we all just
had a girl's night at the Bowl and sang and
swayed and just felt like the beauty of this special,
special work. One of my girlfriends, Brittany Pacnett Cunningham, she
was describing Cleo Soul while trying to understand like who
(56:42):
she was, because people have been like losing their mind
since these concerts about her work were being introduced to it,
she called her a holy Shadah. I thought that was
so funny. I was like, yeah, no, that's that, that's it,
that's it. You know, she does a healing work, a
healing service to the world, and her voice was even
better in person. It's just it's something that's going to
(57:06):
be ingrained in my heart for a really long time.
And it was so special when I'm so grateful that
I got to go and I got to go there
with three women that I love so much and just
be in friendship and community with, and yeah, it was amazing.
So I'm I would say, I'm pretty sure most of
y'all all listen to Cleosul like I do.
Speaker 1 (57:27):
But if you don't, do.
Speaker 2 (57:29):
Yourself a favor and maybe lock into a playlist and
see how it makes you feel and how you connect
to it. All right, y'all. I will be announcing my
book tour very soon this week, hopefully on Instagram and
also on my website and on my newsletter Debbi Brown
dot com, Forward slash book at Debbie Brown on ig
sign up for my newsletter on my website. The first
(57:51):
three stops I'm making Atlanta, LA and Huston, h Town.
I'm so excited. In La, I'll be in conversation with
Layla Delia, and Atlanta I will be in conversation with
Carrie Champion. And in Houston, I will be in conversation
with Bunbe And I cannot wait. And also a little
(58:13):
bit later in the summer, after I'm healed up a
little bit more, I will be hitting New York.
Speaker 1 (58:18):
I'll be hitting d C.
Speaker 2 (58:19):
Philly, Detroit, and Chicago. So I can't wait to be
in all these cities and to be with you. If
you haven't yet, please take a moment and pre ordered
the book. I know, like whenever I used to hear
about pre orders, I'd be like, yeah, I'm gona buy
the book when it's out. I don't need to pre
order it. But you know this, this matters to the
publisher as it matters to the people. So you know,
I just hope you get it whenever you feel called.
(58:41):
But if you would pre order it, tell a friend
and I'll be announcing those tour dates in just a
few days. And I cannot wait to see you and
to be with you. And yeah, my heart is really
open and really grateful in this season and just very
ready to be in and do whatever God has.
Speaker 1 (59:02):
Called me to.
Speaker 2 (59:03):
So thank you for listening. Back next week, and if
you get a chance, please rate and review on iTunes
and go ahead and leave a comment. Not The content
presented on Deeply Well serves solely for educational and informational purposes.
(59:25):
It should not be considered a replacement for personalized medical
or mental health guidance, and does not constitute a provider
patient relationship. As always, it is advisable to consult with
your healthcare provider or health team for any specific concerns
or questions that you may have. Connect with me on
(59:45):
social at Debbie Brown. That's Twitter and Instagram, or you
can go to my website Debbie Brown dot com. And
if you're listening to the show on Apple Podcasts, don't forget,
Please rate, review, and subscribe and send this episode to
a friend. Deeply Well is a production of iHeartRadio and
The Black Effect Network. It's produced by Jacquess Thomas, Samantha
(01:00:07):
Timmins and me Debbie Brown. The Beautiful Soundbath You Heard
That's by Jarrelyn Glass from Crystal Cadence. For more podcasts
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows
Host
Devi Brown
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