December 11, 2024 • 57 mins
Athena Desai, a visionary holistic trauma specialist, takes us on an enlightening journey through the integration of Eastern medicine, life coaching, and creative expression to facilitate healing. From her personal transition from broadcast journalism to holistic healing, inspired by her own health challenges and Eastern philosophical roots, Athena shares transformative insights. Listen as she reveals the profound impact of trauma on both mental and physical health and the compelling role of practices like yoga and mindfulness, especially for veterans and first responders. Athena’s story is one of resilience and innovation, offering nontraditional healing through acupuncture and trauma-informed yoga.
Spirituality and self-awareness emerge as powerful allies in the journey from trauma to healing. Athena describes how cultural influences shape our sense of agency and how finding a spiritual connection can offer peace and perspective. Her work underscores the importance of listening to our bodies and seeking balance, particularly for those in trauma-exposed professions. Athena's dedication to integrating ancient wisdom with modern practices highlights breathing as a universal tool for managing stress and making sound decisions, offering veterans and first responders a path to clarity and self-discovery.
We explore the unique challenges faced by veterans and the compounded traumas they endure. Athena emphasizes the need for societal support and understanding, advocating for creative and nontraditional healing strategies. She also highlights the journey of authenticity and overcoming imposter syndrome, encouraging individuals to embrace their true selves. Experience Athena’s passion and commitment to fostering a safe space for healing and growth, inviting listeners to reconsider their approach to trauma recovery and the potential of holistic practices.
Athena’s IG: https://www.instagram.com/soulfulhealingandcouncil?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==
Athena’s Website: https://www.soulfulhealingandcouncil.com
Check out our website
Please Support & Donate to the Podcast: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/themorningform
USA Made socks with a Purpose. 20% off with code: TMF
https://www.solediersocks.com/tmf
Episode Powered By Act Now Education
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Warriors fall in.
It's time for formation.
Today I decided to scale itback to a little bit more of a
relaxing conversation.
The last episode that I had waswith a firefighter first
(00:27):
responder existence when itcomes to staying in the game and
keeping your mind focused.
So today I have Athena Desai.
She's a multifaceted healer andpractitioner.
She integrates Eastern medicine, life coaching and creative
expression to guide individualsthrough transformative healing
processes.
Athena, thank you for joiningme on the Morning Formation
(00:48):
today.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
You know, when I ran across your content I was very
much impressed, mainly because Irecently got back into yoga and
for most masculine dudes, um,that wouldn't really necessarily
(01:14):
be a thing.
But I really believe thatgetting into something like that
is great for the human body andthe human mind, mainly because
it forces us to turn our phonesoff and to turn the world off
for at least one hour out ofyour entire week, or a couple of
times a week if you go morethan once, and it also helps us
(01:35):
with our breathing and focusingon ourselves.
So I just want to give you anopportunity to kind of talk
about yourself a little bit andwhere you're from and what
you're about.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Sure, Well, I am a holistic trauma specialist, so I
specialize in trauma through abunch of different methods
acupuncture, herbal and plantmedicine, shamanic medicine,
Reiki, trauma-informed yoga andcoaching.
And yeah, I grew up in upstateNew York, not so far from here.
(02:16):
I'm in Massachusetts now andI'm a first-generation American.
So my parents and I havetraveled the world quite a bit,
and my dad's from India quite abit, and my dad's from India, my
mom's from the Philippines andI was never really 100% all one
thing, except for American,oddly.
So I think that opened my mindto studying lots of different
(02:39):
things and just why people dowhat they do.
I've always been so fascinatedby that and I was actually in
broadcast journalism before this.
I was a radio journalist at NPRand I got pretty sick and had
(02:59):
that wake-up call.
I had to kind of be listeningto my body in a way that I never
had before and make somechanges, and Chinese medicine
helped me out so much in that.
So that's what I kind of turnedtowards.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Now, prior to that, were you involved in any Eastern
medicine?
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Oh, let's see.
So I started doing acupunctureas a patient in 2000.
Both my parents are doctors.
I come from a family of doctors, so I don't think I had really
explored Eastern medicine assuch.
Eastern philosophy for sure,always really important to my
dad, who's a Hindu.
And, yeah, my parents lovebooks and learning and
(03:43):
definitely imparted that to meas I was growing up.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Do you think some people need to go through a
difficult time in their livesand are kind of forced to choose
, sort of like a crossroad or aY intersection on which
direction to go.
Either you go down the, thepain medication route, or you go
(04:10):
more towards the med, themeditative route.
And the reason I say that isbecause, uh, from personal
experience, I was diagnosed at ayoung age with ulcerative
colitis and uh, which is a, Iguess, a digestive issue that
folks can have, and a lot offolks, a lot of young folks,
suffer from it today and doctorsreally can't pinpoint where it
(04:32):
comes from or why it happens.
And I know for me mine was morestress-induced than anything
else, so it sounds like you kindof went through that as well
sounds like you kind of wentthrough that as well.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Yeah, I think it's impossible to overstate the
connection between our minds,our emotional states, um, and
our trauma and the health of ourbody, our physicality, um, I
hear you about that um-inducingthat for you, and it was one of
(05:09):
the things I fell in love withwith Chinese medicine and
actually have found it quitehelpful in treating veterans.
I started treating veterans inthe beginning of my practice 12
years ago and kind of fell inlove with it 12 years ago.
I'm kind of fell in love withit.
So you can always addressmultiple levels and layers of
(05:29):
what's going on right.
People can come in with pain ordysfunction and whether you talk
about it or not, you can,because it's working with the
energy and the whole person andall of their systems.
It's always a way to be able tofigure out why do you have this
(05:52):
thing at this time?
What is it trying to tell you?
Usually our bodies are tryingto have us live differently and
sometimes we can have a lot ofagency around that and choose as
you um proposed, and sometimeswhen you're a kid, that's not
really clear what the choicesare or what to do, um, so
(06:17):
there's a lot of sort of pullingback the layers on that when we
work on that stuff as adults.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
I always tell people all the time that if you don't
listen to your body, your mindand your body has a way of
stopping you from doing whatever.
And that's what happened to me.
Like it, like everything, mybusy schedule, my busy life came
to a complete halt, um, and Ihad to figure it out.
And the one thing that Ilearned that sometimes medicine
can be nothing more than abandaid, and it it's really up
(06:45):
here and in here, uh, that thatneeds to be taken care of and
nourished.
Um, but as I was lookingthrough your materials, I you
know, I saw that your career hadspanned, uh, different roles,
as far as a musician, writer andan anthropologist we talked
about before this right, um anda journalist.
So how have all those differentexperiences that you've gone
(07:06):
through influenced your approachto healing and your creation of
soulful healing and counseling?
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Yeah, many different ways.
Great question.
I think one thing anthropologycame in college, so one of the
reasons I chose that differentglasses, different lenses to
look at people's motivations,inspirations, values, needs,
(07:55):
desires, mores it just struck meas both kind of funny and
perfect common sense that,according to where we are on
this planet, at what time, we'regoing to be different and I am
someone who's swum against thestream quite a bit in my time.
(08:17):
That's kind of my MO, and itwasn't the easiest thing to own
in the beginning.
Um, so it was helpful to belike.
You know, culture is the airthat we breathe and if you can
gain a certain level ofawareness and consciousness
around it, you can actually haveso much more agency and so much
(08:40):
more choice with it.
And that's really importantwith trauma healing, because
usually trauma involves ourchoice being taken away from us
in some way.
So returning to agency aroundit is paramount.
(09:01):
It is paramount andspirituality definitely helps me
have sort of the widest anglelens, like the biggest context
for everything that's happening,because I can always connect
(09:23):
back to something that's so muchlarger than me and that I am
part and parcel of and that'spart of how everything weaves
together.
It's all about connection,really.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
That's the thing that's the thread that is woven
through all of my interests.
I think your level ofspirituality is something that I
hope to achieve at some pointin time in my life.
It's one of those things where Iwas literally on the brink of.
I have a lot of lower backissues, a lot of tight hip
(09:58):
issues, like I mentioned, theulcerative colitis thing, which
I haven't had problems with in avery long time, and a lot of it
is, I realized, coming from thechildhood and growing up, going
into the military, going to war, all these different things
that I did throughout my wholelife, I realized that my
(10:19):
emotional cup was nearly full bythe time I went into the
military, and then going to war,going to combat, actually
overfilled that cup.
So when I came back, I wasn'tthe same person as when I left
and I had gotten that feedbackfrom people.
I guess a few years after Icame back, that I turned into
(10:43):
somebody else, somebodydifferent, yeah, and I've been
trying to seek this spiritualjourney, in a sense, and through
yoga, through meditation andthings like that, to try to get
myself back to where I used tobe, back to who I was before you
(11:05):
say would be your pivotalmoments that led you to
transition from your broadcastjournalism career to Eastern
medicine and holistic uhholistic healing practices.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Yeah, uh, I will definitely answer that.
I want to acknowledge that.
Um, it just makes perfect senseto me what you said and I have
questions about whether or notwe get back to who we were.
Do we cultivate who we'rebecoming Right?
It's not always so entirelyseparate, but I mean I asked
(11:36):
myself that, with all mydifferent threads in my
background in broadcast news, Imean I totally ate it up.
I just absolutely adored it.
Um, I loved the adrenaline rushof it.
I loved the mission, I love thepeople that I was working with,
I loved working with sound andradio.
(11:57):
Um, but I got really sick.
Uh, yeah, my body just startedbreaking down.
It turns out when you work thatmuch and that hard and you're
absorbing that much traumawithout discharging any of it, I
mean I was not aware enough todo that and I think about this
(12:18):
parallel a lot with veteransactually, because I actually do
think that trauma igniteswarriorship, so it makes us
prepared to be warriors shouldwe choose that in many different
forms?
And it doesn't mean that we canoccupy the same wavelength at
(12:43):
the same speed, the same forceall the time.
I mean there's still naturalrhythms to that right, and when
we're super mission-driven, wetend not to listen, I think.
Right, I mean, I just overrodeeverything that my body was
saying for quite a while andthen it just got to the point
where I was like I'm notactually enjoying my life
(13:04):
outside of work.
I don't have a life outside ofwork.
I had no balance whatsoever,and I tried to look 10 years
down the line and ask myself howI would be doing, how my health
would be doing, how my bodywould be doing, and I mean, the
(13:24):
inevitable, obvious answer wasum, you need a change.
So, yeah, the body is such anincredible honest messenger.
Um, so I hear that you've beenlistening to your body too, and
that's so commendable, reallyawesome.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
Yeah, well, I was forced to, yeah, and I really,
and I you know it's really weirdbecause, especially for
veterans and first respondersthat go through and witness a
lot of trauma, sometimes folkswill, I guess, make excuses for
(14:09):
behaviors and things like that,but I think it takes a higher.
If you're going to take ahigher level of responsibility
in a higher position careerthat's going to deal with trauma
, you also have to accept thehigher level of accountability
and responsibility when it comesto taking care of your mind and
your body.
Um, and unfortunately inwestern culture, things like
(14:32):
meditation, um, I go back toyoga because I mean it's the
most surface thing out there,but it's, it's there, and I
think a lot of people don't takeadvantage of it, right?
Um, you know, and and I, what Ifind really unique is how you
combine ancient and contemporarypractices from both Eastern and
Western traditions.
So would you mind sharing howthe integrative approach
(14:55):
benefits the folks that youserve?
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Not at all.
Yeah, I think in some ways,when you're rooted in shamanism
and spirituality, it'simpossible to not reach back
towards ancient wisdom and Ithink the benefit of that is you
can see actually over time whathas survived and even thrived
(15:20):
and had a rebirth over and overagain and you can start to pay
attention.
Yoga is a perfect example.
Right, I taught trauma-informedyoga at Homebase, which is a
clinic for invisible wounds ofwar in New England MGH and Red
Sox Foundation Joint Clinic, andoh man, I loved it so much.
(15:42):
It was a lot of mostly dudes.
And oh man, I loved it so muchit was a lot of mostly dudes and
mostly dudes who had not reallytried yoga before.
But in terms of the integrationof ancient thousands of years
right of wisdom and practice ofyoga as the root, yoga as the
(16:07):
root and then modern, I actuallythink a lot of the
trauma-informed perspective thatwe talk more about these days
is new sort of cutting edge,just another form or another
level of consciousness thattrauma lives in the body, right,
it lives in our nervous systems.
We can have very severe, veryhigh level risk events happen to
(16:35):
us.
We can also have smaller thingsthat are connected to things in
our own past happen to us andeither way, the nervous system
responds as it does because ofwho you are and where you are
and how your overall health isand where you are and how your
(16:56):
overall health is.
So I really love pulling thethreads of just sort of again
the steadiest drumbeats overtime, like breathing, and if we
can regulate our breathing, wecan regulate our mind, pulling
that into the present moment anddoing it in a trauma-informed
way.
I tried to help people even beaware of what their breath was
(17:17):
doing at first.
Right, I mean, before youstarted doing yoga, did you have
a sense of oh man, okay, Ireally need to catch my breath,
I need to pause here.
I'm using too much energy.
This is like, too, I'm notgetting done what I want to get
done because I feel restless.
Let me try grounding for asecond.
(17:37):
Like did you have an awarenessof that?
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Um.
no, no, I did not Um it didn'tdawn on me until I became an
instructor.
Uh, so I'm a lot of you know,but I'm a firearms instructor.
I also have instructed tacticsbefore.
Back when I was in the military, I worked as the S3 training
officer, and it wasn't untilthen I realized the importance
(18:03):
of breathing and how breathinghas everything to do from I was
just talking to my niece aboutthis earlier has a lot to do
with the max effort.
When it comes to running, whenit comes to shooting, when it
comes to decision-making understress and anxiety, breathing is
the key factor for folks tostay in the fight and also make
(18:28):
sound decisions.
So it wasn't until that.
That's when I realized theimportance of breathing.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Totally get that.
Yeah, totally get that.
And how universal?
Is it right that you'reshooting a gun?
You're on a yoga mat, breathingis still there, right?
It's the thread that goesthrough both of those things.
Goes through both of thosethings, and something that my
(18:56):
shamanic study has helped merealize is that the universe is
constantly contracting andexpanding, right, and that is
what we are doing in microcosm,in breathing in and breathing
out.
So we have the opportunity,when we become conscious about
that, to align with the ultimateexpansion and contraction,
(19:19):
right.
There's sort of no end to howmuch we can align with that.
Sometimes you only have acouple seconds.
Sometimes maybe you take anhour out of your day and you're
really training yourself to bein that dance, but either way,
it's available to you and it'sbeen true for millennia.
So it's a pretty good bet,right.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Yeah, specifically for veterans, have you worked
with a lot of combat veterans?
Yeah, you have.
Yeah, you have.
Yeah, have you seen any type oflink or relationship between
the veterans' past upbringing,childhood and also what they did
(20:06):
in the military or perhaps justeven being in the military?
Have you seen any chain linkbetween that, or perhaps just
even being in the military have?
Speaker 2 (20:11):
you seen any chain link between that?
I think that's what taught meso much about how trauma ignites
warriors.
I think I have yet to meetsomeone who's in the service who
didn't have trauma before theyenlisted Right and so yeah, I
(20:34):
can say I personally have my ownthoughts on that.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Um, I think a lot of people that choose to join the
military a lot of people notsaying every and all, but a lot
of people that choose to jointhe military come from a
situation where, uh, therewasn't a whole lot of choice.
It was either join the militaryor stay home and get involved
in things that probably were notpositive.
They're not coming from thewell-off families.
(21:00):
They're coming from middle tolower class families, and that's
just the truth.
That's why recruiting stationsare set up where they are, that
leading to a lot of folksjoining, having that, like I
mentioned earlier, about yourcup or your emotional cup
already being completely full bythe time you join, and then
you're put in this situationwhere you're doing things that
(21:22):
most others aren't doing,whether it's moving far away
from home or it's deploying andthings like that 100%.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Yeah, I have also worked with a number of
operators over the years and,yeah, I think part of your
system that haven't healed.
And then you go through combatand there are more wounds and
(22:01):
the other wounds get openedright, because all trauma
delivers a shock to the system.
So you can kind of think aboutit as sort of hitting what was
maybe like a pond with fewripples in it and then causing a
whole bunch of ripples anddistorted patterns that if you
(22:25):
don't do the work of bringingthem back together, they're just
going to keep hurting you andother people.
That's typically how it goes.
So many people take on the brave, very, very brave work of
slowing down and looking at thatstuff, and I would say that's
(22:48):
our job on the civilian side,and this is something
traditional and indigenoussocieties did without question.
Right, people choose the roleof warrior.
They have to be welcomed backinto the tribe, they have to
have time with elders to be ableto debrief.
(23:09):
They need time with healers tobe able to cleanse.
They need witnessing from thecommunity, and that is how we
can actually integrate what hashappened and it doesn't matter
from what point any of thetrauma into our whole self with
unconditional love.
(23:29):
That's kind of the bottom linethat I see and it's a lot of
work but it takes a lot ofsupport and there's a lot of
support out there.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
It is, and one of the things that I think make it
most difficult.
Sometimes it's not about whatyou necessarily deal with
overseas, it's about coming backhere, and the reason I say that
is because I think it'sestimated to be less than 5% 6%
of the US population ever servein the military, and then it's
less than 3% that actually evergo to war or go to combat.
(23:59):
I think there's something to besaid about looking back in
history during World War II,when you had the majority of
America involved in some way,shape or form.
When it was all over andeveryone came back here, it was
much easier to stand in the roomor sit in a room and be
surrounded by folks that had acommon wall with experience, and
(24:25):
I think that's one of the mostdifficult things for folks to
understand that are civilians issometimes it's not necessarily
what you deal with over there,it's coming back here and having
to deal with the 95 pluspercent um that didn't
experience that and watched iton the news and it was a
spectator, uh event for them.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
So, um, yeah, I mean it's again.
Have we integrated people intothe entire process or are we
starting to get more and moreseparate from the fact that
people are still fighting ourwars out there?
Right, I absolutely agree withyou, and I do think we need to
(25:05):
do better as a whole, as asociety, and I do think this is
a lot of why you see so muchsuicide.
Um, we, we are not holdingtogether, uh, and there's no
reason for that.
That is to our detriment.
So I'm a huge proponent ofbuilding the bridges, um, as we
(25:30):
need to, to make sure we'reclear that we're all in this
together.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
Right.
What is your overall motivation?
Inspiration with helping firstresponders and military veterans
service members.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Good question.
I actually think it sort ofstarted in news At least that's
where I became conscious of itand 9-11 was a really
influential point in my life.
I was at NPR and it became avery deep wound for me that I
wasn't aware that I wouldexperience.
(26:10):
I wasn't aware that I wouldexperience, and so my own growth
of my awareness of my warriornature sort of grew in parallel
to learning more about warriorshere, and it just never made
(26:34):
sense to me that we were askingso much of people when we hadn't
really taken care or good careof people who had already been
at war on our behalf.
That never sat right with me,so I started to feel like I
needed to give back in some way.
So, yeah, when I got out ofschool, I had a little bit of
seed money and I started a lowto no cost acupuncture program
(26:54):
for veterans, which was a hardsell, trust me.
I worked really hard, um to tryto tell people how awesome it
was and not being part of themilitary community it was.
Yeah, it's been really hard tosort of break down the necessary
doors, but I am stubborn to afault, so I keep trying.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
It's just so.
Nontraditional Reiki, shamanic,shamanic practices is that,
what is that you pronounce thatare most appropriate for an
individual's healing journey?
Speaker 2 (27:38):
it's a great question .
It really depends on what theycome in with.
Some people know what I do andthey ask right up front.
With other people it's a bitmore of an exploration.
They know that something needsto shift and it needs to be on
more than a physical level.
Um, but yeah, it sort ofdepends on what I have at my
(28:00):
disposal.
I don't have a physical officeanymore, so at the time then I
could sort of choose from all mylike needles.
My Reiki comes through my handsand my body and my field, so I
don't need to have anythingother than that.
If I'm coaching, I can do itlike this or on the phone.
The modality is what is at theheart of this inquiry, this
(28:39):
conflict, this issue or problemfor this person, right being
able to learn to listen to painas a messenger, and that can be
any kind of pain.
Um, yeah, I, I figure it outperson to person to person.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Yeah, it's a very individualistic basis, right,
and it's also what they're opento.
Like you talk about stickingneedles in someone.
They're not, uh, into needles.
That you're not.
You're not gonna be doing thatto them.
But, um, overall, you know withyour work and supporting
veterans, leaders and creativesout there, what unique
challenges and healing needs dothese different groups present
(29:15):
and how do you think you bestaddress them?
Speaker 2 (29:20):
That's great Leaders, warriors and creatives.
Let me try and break it down.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
I mean, do they have anything in common, or is it
very much different.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Definitely I mean with leaders and anything in
common, or is it very muchdifferent?
Definitely I mean with leadersand warriors.
One of the biggest things thatI tend to see is that it's
really hard to believe, as awarrior or a leader, that you
need to take care of yourselfand put your oxygen mask on
first.
That is something that I get alot of resistance around until
(29:54):
we actually kind of walk throughthe process and people can have
the experience of their owndifferent level of
self-regulation and how muchbetter they feel, how much more
openly they can show up, howmuch more they can drop out of
their mind and lead from theirheart, how much more openly they
can show up, how much more theycan drop out of their mind and
(30:14):
lead from their heart, how muchmore they're willing to be
vulnerable in those spaces, andall of that allows us to hear
what's going on for other peoplemuch better.
And what you mentioned about thetransitions coming back home
again, that always made perfectsense to me.
I mean, how are we askingpeople to go from Z to A with no
(30:38):
process in between or littleprocess?
That's not how we work, that'snot how nature works and we are
part and parcel of nature.
So with creatives there's a lotof people might come forward
with feeling stuck and feelinglike they can't really get to
(31:01):
their authentic voice, and Iwould say that is an absolute
thread between all of thosethree groups.
That's kind of my jam right Tobe able to help people really
hear their authenticity.
We're always going to workbetter out of that place.
I've spent a lifetime trying tonot work from that place and to
(31:22):
be more normal and accepted,and it's just not going to work.
When your soul is knocking atthe door, it's not something
that goes away or that you canignore.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
I would imagine, if they come to you, their, their,
their, their soul is knocking atthe door, because getting them
to even come to the table tobegin with is the first
challenge in itself, and it canbe very frustrating when people
are their own worst enemy.
Now, how do you, how do youdeal with imposter syndrome?
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
I have so much of it.
I had a good friend help meprep for doing my podcasting and
everybody's a victim of itright, Everybody.
And this guy's a veteran too,and he was like I was like, oh,
can I actually get onto veteranpodcasts and say anything that's
worthwhile?
And he was like well, what wouldyou do if you were just sitting
(32:10):
in front of an actual veteranand I said I would double down
on my authenticity?
Because if you're feeling likeyou're out of reach and there's
just something really vulnerableor exposing to say, try saying
that.
I often counsel people to dothat and it works really well,
right?
Because I mean, I get it.
(32:33):
I think it's the ego that hasus try to impress other people,
but at the end of the day andover time, it's not very
satisfying, right?
So if I feel like I am not anexpert in a thing, my new
(32:55):
tendency is actually to just sayI am not an expert in this
thing.
I have this experience.
Take it or leave it, Right?
I mean, something I love aboutEastern philosophy is it really
says up front turn this over inyour own mind.
You don't have to just believeit, Experience it, embody it,
(33:18):
practice it, see how it landsfor you.
If it doesn't resonate with you, fine, leave it where it is.
But if it does, you have theability to gain mastery in a way
that you didn't have before,Right?
That's pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
So doubling down on just what is confronting to me
and actually saying it out loud,that's my Believing in yourself
, right yeah, doubling down andbelieving in yourself, yeah yeah
, it can be a challenge for sureto break through that threshold
, especially if you've neverbeen in the military or first
(33:55):
responder career field to tospeak to that audience.
Now, your overall involvementwith the Veterans Yoga Project
let's talk about that how andoverall, like I guess how
mindfulness, resiliency, uhworks with that in trauma
recovery.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
Yeah.
So I was very happy to get mytraining in trauma informed yoga
from them.
Um, it was.
I really did want to teachveterans.
It's absolutely my favoritespace of teaching for yoga,
(34:46):
mentals of yoga, and weavethrough again sort of modern
research about what works forveterans in those spaces.
I have modified that over theyears because of my Indian
background.
I also do throw a little bitmore of the spirituality and the
(35:08):
Eastern flavor in there, moreof the spirituality and the
Eastern flavor in there.
But I think it was reallyhelpful to teach me how to slow
down with people, with veterans,with first responders, and how
to meet everyone where they are.
(35:35):
So people are going to come intoa class with very different
things and at a place likeHomebase.
Some people needed assistancedevices, some people had limbs
missing, some people needed tosit in a chair, some people were
way more flexible than I wasright, were way more flexible
(35:56):
than I was right.
I mean, it's the whole gamut ofstudents that you see.
So it really actuallychallenges you to be in a
trauma-informed space, which isto say, first and foremost,
you're driving this thing.
I'm going to be up here andI'll show you the shapes and
I'll tell you what they're about, but you are the only person
(36:16):
inhabiting your body and you getto say this is too much for me
right now, or this isn't enoughfor me right now.
I feel like doing this, I don'tfeel like doing this.
So you can come into thoseclasses and if you want to take
child's pose for 10 minutes, ifyou want to be in Shavasana the
whole time, great, you're doingit perfectly, right, um, and
(36:38):
that's.
That's a pretty strong value, Ithink, with veterans, younger
project.
So but, how do you?
Speaker 1 (36:44):
challenge people, Like how do you challenge people
?
Cause the one thing that I've.
I always kind of look at itLike if, if you and I go for a
run, for example, how do I pushthe person next to me to break
through that glass ceiling, Iguess, and to try new things?
Have you figured that out yet?
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Yes and no?
Right, it's like a constantexperiment.
No, not at all.
I mean, it's a great question.
What I've noticed is that thereare different ways to
experience challenge and,honestly, it's less of a
challenge to be in a room ofmale veterans and first
responders and be like, okay,let's do this right, like that's
(37:25):
not actually a challenge inthat space If I'm asking them to
turn the volume up to 11 and gosuper hard.
Most people are pretty used tothat.
Depending on injury, right andillness, you may not be, but
there's a quieter, subtler levelof challenge that choose to not
override your pain.
(37:45):
Yes, it sucks that you can't dowhat everyone else is doing
right now.
Can you try to breathe intothat and be with that?
That's a different kind ofchallenge, right, but it's still
(38:07):
a challenge, sometimes evengreater, right.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
That's almost like a disclaimer Before you start
something, you got to tellpeople that to really, hey,
really push yourselves, don'tstay, uh, where you're
comfortable, necessarily, butlet's try to achieve and
progress each time and don'tjust lay in child pose the whole
time.
Don't just run at your own pace, but let's try to break through
some different thresholds tojust see some, I guess, overall
(38:34):
progress in what you're tryingto achieve right.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
Totally depends on the person, absolutely.
For some people, being inchild's pose at all is a total
mark of progress because they'venever let themselves rest.
And this took me a while to.
You know, I have the same thingright.
I'm very mission driven and ifI'm not doing it right, I'm not
doing it at all, kind of thing.
But that's where you have toreally create the space.
(39:01):
As a teacher, you actually haveto embody that.
However people show up, andwhatever they do is okay, and
there's a lot of wisdom likeshamanic indigenous eastern
wisdom about that.
There's always something towork on and it doesn't have to
(39:22):
look any particular way.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
It's kind of what is showing up for you.
You know Right, yeah, yeah, no,it makes total sense.
So overall, you've specializedin treating trauma, ptsd and
emotional disorders.
What would you say are someeffective strategies that you
found for transforming traumainto clarity and peace to take?
that fog away from, because Iknow for me for a lot of years,
(39:48):
um my, my deployment.
I describe it as a sleep, likea sleepwalk, and the most
frustrating part for me for manyyears was the difficulty of
explaining myself.
Everything felt very foggy.
So what would you say would besome effective strategies,
(40:13):
besides coming to the table, um,that you found for transforming
trauma into clarity and peace,would you say?
Speaker 2 (40:21):
Yeah, I, I hear that, and that's actually a great
example, cause I think a lot ofpeople experience that fogginess
and explaining yourself,telling your story.
One thing I find very, veryhelpful is to bookend your day
(40:41):
with practice.
So, spiritual practice, mindfulpractice, however it is, you
want to contextualize it.
You're actually taking realtime and intention, um, to sit
down and focus on another thingBreathing.
(41:03):
We have it right.
If we're here and we're walkingaround, um, fantastic.
For some people it's a yogapractice, it's some kind of
ritual, um, and you do it at thetimes of day when there is
still a little bit of quietnessor return to quietness in the
(41:24):
world, um, and that again helpsyou line up with a bigger energy
of it, and that again helps youline up with a bigger energy of
it.
I would definitely recommendmeditation and yogic breathing
practices.
You know being able to resetwith breathing and meditation.
(41:45):
Something else just popped intomy head, so I have to say that
too, there are definitely superhelpful plant medicines to
support us with rewiring what'sgoing on in there, part of
(42:09):
unraveling the knots of traumaand being able to pull out the
threads and say you know what,okay, I'm actually done with
this behavior that doesn't serveme anymore, but I I'm really
going to keep this part of methat um has something to say and
(42:29):
I'm going to to put intowriting or painting or sculpture
or some kind of art.
Um, often you know a certainlevel of physical activity
moving your body, um, and beingconscious with your breath.
A lot of people are doing thatalready.
Um, so a tweak there could beintentionality, um, if you're
(42:55):
running and you are maybelistening to something around
visualization, or you're doingmantras or whatever it is,
you're trying something totallynew.
You're going surfing for thefirst time, or Right, yeah,
there's a lot that.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
I think one of the biggest things that you're
fighting against is the concept,especially here in America,
where everybody wants to takethe wonder pill.
So I have lower back issues.
Well, easy Painkillers, takepainkillers.
Take painkillers right.
Versus the long-term becausethere's always a teeter and a
(43:35):
totter to those things versusthe long-term, I guess, more
natural way of handling thingsby breathing, relaxing, learning
how to let go.
I think in Western culture wehave a tendency to just simply
take that pill or press thatbutton and it's fixed right.
Do you see?
A lot of people a lot of timestry to go about a spiritual
(43:59):
journey or try to find a morenatural way to solve their
issues and then they just simplygive up because it's taking too
long, and then it's out offrustration.
What do you do for that?
Speaker 2 (44:09):
Great question.
I don't see so much wholesalegiving up.
I definitely see the very humandance of one step forward, two
steps back, and you know thesethings can work together.
There's no shame in taking anaspirin or a painkiller on a day
when you really need somesupport and everything else just
(44:32):
isn't working.
I definitely have patients andclients who take SSRIs and all
of that stuff.
It can all work together.
I think the thing to remember isare you addressing the root of
the tree or the branches, right?
Because on those days whenNSAIDs and painkillers help us,
(44:54):
that's great.
Sometimes you just need thatsupport.
But over time and at a deeplevel, is that actually getting
to why you have this pain?
All right, what's the root ofthat pain?
When does it come up?
What is it saying to you?
I ask that question a lot topeople and people who have never
done it before.
(45:14):
If you just slow down enoughand are quiet and mindful enough
and willing enough, you canhear it.
So that is part of how Icounter that.
Yeah, you're very right.
I think even you know, havingbeen on this path for three
(45:38):
decades or more at this point.
There are definitely times whenit gets so hard, and I am on my
knees that I would like to havesome cosmic version of that
Phil Right Um, but the chance ofit happening over again and of
us missing the lesson and notactually transforming it um are
(45:59):
pretty huge.
So if you get a nudge that'srepetitive um, I think it's
usually an invitation to to dosomething radically different.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
Yeah, I think for me a lot of times, when it comes to
veterans, I try to warn them tobe self-aware.
A lot of times you'll hear apattern.
So, for example, you go througha divorce, you'll hear your ex
say this.
You have friends that say thesame thing Over the years, you
hear the same common theme.
(46:33):
And I think for some veteransand first responders out there,
it's time to kind of look in themirror and ask yourself like
why do I have these problemsover and over again in different
situations and differentscenarios?
And I'm the common denominatorhere.
And it's not that you're wrongor that you're bad or anything
like that, but you got to becritical, um, about yourself and
(46:54):
how you're behaving and whatyou're doing, and stop putting
it on other people.
And that's the one thing that Ithink over the years and me
being a veteran, I can talk toveterans.
That way, I can talk to them ina way like where it's a little
bit more rougher, I think, thanfolks who are not a part of the,
I guess, of that career family.
And I want to mention this toois I've given people the advice
(47:20):
over the years to not wait untilyou are at your brink.
I gave advice to a niece of minewho grew up with a lot of
childhood trauma.
She's in her early 20s.
I gave her advice.
I said, mine, who grew up witha lot of childhood trauma, she's
in her early 20s.
I gave her advice.
I said you need to go seektherapy now.
Don't wait until you're 30years old and all those things
(47:41):
that you've internalized andyou've kept inside just come out
again, because it'll be likevomit, it'll just come right out
.
It's better that you startdealing with this, with the
issues that you've had growingup, instead of putting them away
, versus just letting everythingjust explode inside of you.
(48:01):
A lot of times we need to givepeople that type of advice.
We're not doing enoughmentoring, enough coaching each
other.
We're too afraid to have thoseconversations.
I have so many more questionsfor you, but I know that we're
we're getting up to an hour andI, before we get off here, I
want to make sure that I coversome of your upcoming projects
(48:22):
and initiatives that you have,um, from my understanding, um,
you have some some things comingup with soulful healing and
counselinging, as well asEdgewalkers Healing Cooperative.
Is that right.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
True and sort of all TBD.
One thing that is going to bean offshoot, I think, of Soulful
healing and counsel is thissacred outlaws approach, um,
which is really me stepping into, swimming against the stream
(48:59):
and doing it on behalf ofdisrupting the status quo for
the highest and best Right.
So, um, that is sort of anapproach, a lens, um, and maybe
a thing with a name.
Uh, that's coming.
Uh, there's more.
I support people with prep andintegration coaching who are uh
stepping into medicine journeys.
(49:20):
So more of that.
I am taking an exam to get, uh,the first level of
certification with theinternational coaching
federation next week.
So, yeah, there's a lot downthe pike, a lot of working with
men in various groups to learnmindfulness and grounding and
(49:45):
spirituality.
So I will keep everyone posted,mostly, mostly on Instagram,
about that stuff.
Speaker 1 (49:53):
Got to fight that imposter syndrome right.
You belong where you belong and, at the end of the day, I
really appreciate all the workthat you've done for our veteran
and first responder communityand, recognizing the importance
enough to face some of yourenergy in that direction to help
(50:13):
us out, I really appreciatethat.
And over the next few years,how do you envision the
evolution of integrative healingpractices?
Speaker 2 (50:24):
For society, for all of us.
Speaker 1 (50:26):
For society yes.
Speaker 2 (50:39):
I think we're going to keep turning more to them,
yes, and we are, I think, goingto be called to knowing
ourselves more deeply and, again, it's very hard to do that if
you're always working at thebranch level of the tree right,
(51:00):
like to get to the root.
We're going to have to actually, like, inhabit our bodies.
We don't do that all the time.
We are going to have to embodythe principles and the values
that we are studying.
We're going to have to learnhow to talk to each other and be
(51:24):
intimate with each other inways that really work and are
healing.
I think we've probably had ourfull, hopefully, of so, so much
conflict and what you mentionedbefore actually about not
standing in responsibility foryourself and your life.
That's a pretty big part of itas far as I can see.
(51:47):
So my hope and my sense is thatwe will.
There will be more and morepeople starting to turn into it.
Be curious about it, yeah.
Speaker 1 (52:01):
And I think over the years we've we've slowly crept
in that direction.
We people are more mindful nowof the dangers, of the teeter
and totter of prescriptionmedication, illegal drugs, what
that can do to you, I mean, it'sstill a lot of victims still.
And I don't mean to putprescription drugs they have a
(52:23):
place right, but we all knowthat they're the number one most
abused drugs.
Between them and legal drugs isthe prescription drugs that
people do.
But I'm also hopeful, like you,that we start creeping towards
a more positive way to take careof our minds and our bodies.
Just through the different, Iguess, events that we've been
through whether it's 9-11 orIraq or Afghanistan in my
(52:46):
lifetime anyways that we'vedealt with, we're a little more
open to these new things, newideas.
Now I have so many morequestions for you and I hope
this is the last time I see you.
I hope that you're willing tocome back on the podcast again
because I have some morequestions for you.
I do find your work veryfascinating and I highly
appreciate it, but was thereanything that I didn't mention
during this podcast that youwould like to talk about or
(53:08):
mention?
Speaker 2 (53:10):
Oh.
So I mean, yeah, I feel like wecould keep going, um, and I
think I might resist the urgeright now to analyze whether or
not I've said everything.
Um, yeah, I think the thingthat we always talk around um is
(53:33):
love.
It really actually does comedown to loving yourself
unconditionally and knowingyourself as love.
Um, and that's a whole othershow, or 10, right, um, but I
get shy about saying thatbecause I know that it can be
seen as weak or woo or out there, um, but I am 100% confident
(54:01):
that, whatever path you traveldown, you will find that most of
the answers, if not all, arethere.
So that's the only thing I'dadd.
Speaker 1 (54:13):
Yeah, that sounds like a whole nother episode in
itself, right?
So no, I really appreciate you.
And what's the best way?
What's your, what's your poison?
As far as social media?
What's your, what's the bestway that folks can follow you
and find out what's the latestum on all of it is Athena.
Speaker 2 (54:30):
So I do mostly Instagram.
I have a work Instagram that'ssoulful healing and counsel.
That's C O U N C I L.
On Insta, I do also have amusic one that's just my full
name, and I have a music website.
That's like that too.
I'm also on LinkedIn.
I'm so happy to connect withanyone on either of those places
(54:53):
.
My contact info is there.
If anyone was intrigued byanything that we brought up and
wants to talk more, I'm alwayshere for it.
Speaker 1 (55:03):
I didn't even touch on your musical background,
which I had questions on that aswell, but I will save that for
another time and I'll make surethat in the show.
But I will say that for anothertime and I'll make sure that in
the show notes I put all yourdifferent social medias down
there for folks out therelistening.
If you're interested infollowing Athena, go down to the
show notes.
If this is a podcast, if it'son YouTube, you can find it
(55:24):
right there in the notes below.
I'll make sure I put it in thedescription of the video.
But, thank you so much.
Below I'll make sure I put itin the description of the video.
Um, but thank you so much,athena.
It's been a very spiritualconversation and, uh, the last
interview I had was with thefirst responder and we were
talking about, uh, you know,showing up to the scenes of
accidents and having like an armover here, a leg over there,
(55:44):
and things like that, and uh,it's been a tremendous
opportunity to talk to you today.
Speaker 2 (55:51):
Same here.
Thank you so so much for yourgenerosity and your curiosity
and your trust.
It is an honor.
Speaker 1 (55:59):
I love these conversations I truly do and um
and it's uh, it's something thatI hope that this was just a
conversation and, uh, you wereable to feel comfortable during
this entire episode, because Iknow it can be a very, very
tricky thing because sometimesdifferent experiences with the
veteran community, firstresponder community it can be a
(56:22):
sensitive topic at times.
So thank you for tackling thiswith me and for everyone else
out there.
I hope you enjoyed the show.
As always, I want you to staytuned, stay focused and stay
motivated.
Warriors fall out.
Warriors fall in.
It's time for formation.
Today I decided to scale itback to a little bit more of a
relaxing conversation.
The last episode that I had waswith a firefighter first
(00:27):
responder existence when itcomes to staying in the game and
keeping your mind focused.
So today I have Athena Desai.
She's a multifaceted healer andpractitioner.
She integrates Eastern medicine, life coaching and creative
expression to guide individualsthrough transformative healing
processes.
Athena, thank you for joiningme on the Morning Formation
(00:48):
today.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
You know, when I ran across your content I was very
much impressed, mainly because Irecently got back into yoga and
for most masculine dudes, um,that wouldn't really necessarily
(01:14):
be a thing.
But I really believe thatgetting into something like that
is great for the human body andthe human mind, mainly because
it forces us to turn our phonesoff and to turn the world off
for at least one hour out ofyour entire week, or a couple of
times a week if you go morethan once, and it also helps us
(01:35):
with our breathing and focusingon ourselves.
So I just want to give you anopportunity to kind of talk
about yourself a little bit andwhere you're from and what
you're about.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Sure, Well, I am a holistic trauma specialist, so I
specialize in trauma through abunch of different methods
acupuncture, herbal and plantmedicine, shamanic medicine,
Reiki, trauma-informed yoga andcoaching.
And yeah, I grew up in upstateNew York, not so far from here.
(02:16):
I'm in Massachusetts now andI'm a first-generation American.
So my parents and I havetraveled the world quite a bit,
and my dad's from India quite abit, and my dad's from India, my
mom's from the Philippines andI was never really 100% all one
thing, except for American,oddly.
So I think that opened my mindto studying lots of different
(02:39):
things and just why people dowhat they do.
I've always been so fascinatedby that and I was actually in
broadcast journalism before this.
I was a radio journalist at NPRand I got pretty sick and had
(02:59):
that wake-up call.
I had to kind of be listeningto my body in a way that I never
had before and make somechanges, and Chinese medicine
helped me out so much in that.
So that's what I kind of turnedtowards.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Now, prior to that, were you involved in any Eastern
medicine?
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Oh, let's see.
So I started doing acupunctureas a patient in 2000.
Both my parents are doctors.
I come from a family of doctors, so I don't think I had really
explored Eastern medicine assuch.
Eastern philosophy for sure,always really important to my
dad, who's a Hindu.
And, yeah, my parents lovebooks and learning and
(03:43):
definitely imparted that to meas I was growing up.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Do you think some people need to go through a
difficult time in their livesand are kind of forced to choose
, sort of like a crossroad or aY intersection on which
direction to go.
Either you go down the, thepain medication route, or you go
(04:10):
more towards the med, themeditative route.
And the reason I say that isbecause, uh, from personal
experience, I was diagnosed at ayoung age with ulcerative
colitis and uh, which is a, Iguess, a digestive issue that
folks can have, and a lot offolks, a lot of young folks,
suffer from it today and doctorsreally can't pinpoint where it
(04:32):
comes from or why it happens.
And I know for me mine was morestress-induced than anything
else, so it sounds like you kindof went through that as well
sounds like you kind of wentthrough that as well.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Yeah, I think it's impossible to overstate the
connection between our minds,our emotional states, um, and
our trauma and the health of ourbody, our physicality, um, I
hear you about that um-inducingthat for you, and it was one of
(05:09):
the things I fell in love withwith Chinese medicine and
actually have found it quitehelpful in treating veterans.
I started treating veterans inthe beginning of my practice 12
years ago and kind of fell inlove with it 12 years ago.
I'm kind of fell in love withit.
So you can always addressmultiple levels and layers of
(05:29):
what's going on right.
People can come in with pain ordysfunction and whether you talk
about it or not, you can,because it's working with the
energy and the whole person andall of their systems.
It's always a way to be able tofigure out why do you have this
(05:52):
thing at this time?
What is it trying to tell you?
Usually our bodies are tryingto have us live differently and
sometimes we can have a lot ofagency around that and choose as
you um proposed, and sometimeswhen you're a kid, that's not
really clear what the choicesare or what to do, um, so
(06:17):
there's a lot of sort of pullingback the layers on that when we
work on that stuff as adults.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
I always tell people all the time that if you don't
listen to your body, your mindand your body has a way of
stopping you from doing whatever.
And that's what happened to me.
Like it, like everything, mybusy schedule, my busy life came
to a complete halt, um, and Ihad to figure it out.
And the one thing that Ilearned that sometimes medicine
can be nothing more than abandaid, and it it's really up
(06:45):
here and in here, uh, that thatneeds to be taken care of and
nourished.
Um, but as I was lookingthrough your materials, I you
know, I saw that your career hadspanned, uh, different roles,
as far as a musician, writer andan anthropologist we talked
about before this right, um anda journalist.
So how have all those differentexperiences that you've gone
(07:06):
through influenced your approachto healing and your creation of
soulful healing and counseling?
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Yeah, many different ways.
Great question.
I think one thing anthropologycame in college, so one of the
reasons I chose that differentglasses, different lenses to
look at people's motivations,inspirations, values, needs,
(07:55):
desires, mores it just struck meas both kind of funny and
perfect common sense that,according to where we are on
this planet, at what time, we'regoing to be different and I am
someone who's swum against thestream quite a bit in my time.
(08:17):
That's kind of my MO, and itwasn't the easiest thing to own
in the beginning.
Um, so it was helpful to belike.
You know, culture is the airthat we breathe and if you can
gain a certain level ofawareness and consciousness
around it, you can actually haveso much more agency and so much
(08:40):
more choice with it.
And that's really importantwith trauma healing, because
usually trauma involves ourchoice being taken away from us
in some way.
So returning to agency aroundit is paramount.
(09:01):
It is paramount andspirituality definitely helps me
have sort of the widest anglelens, like the biggest context
for everything that's happening,because I can always connect
(09:23):
back to something that's so muchlarger than me and that I am
part and parcel of and that'spart of how everything weaves
together.
It's all about connection,really.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
That's the thing that's the thread that is woven
through all of my interests.
I think your level ofspirituality is something that I
hope to achieve at some pointin time in my life.
It's one of those things where Iwas literally on the brink of.
I have a lot of lower backissues, a lot of tight hip
(09:58):
issues, like I mentioned, theulcerative colitis thing, which
I haven't had problems with in avery long time, and a lot of it
is, I realized, coming from thechildhood and growing up, going
into the military, going to war, all these different things
that I did throughout my wholelife, I realized that my
(10:19):
emotional cup was nearly full bythe time I went into the
military, and then going to war,going to combat, actually
overfilled that cup.
So when I came back, I wasn'tthe same person as when I left
and I had gotten that feedbackfrom people.
I guess a few years after Icame back, that I turned into
(10:43):
somebody else, somebodydifferent, yeah, and I've been
trying to seek this spiritualjourney, in a sense, and through
yoga, through meditation andthings like that, to try to get
myself back to where I used tobe, back to who I was before you
(11:05):
say would be your pivotalmoments that led you to
transition from your broadcastjournalism career to Eastern
medicine and holistic uhholistic healing practices.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Yeah, uh, I will definitely answer that.
I want to acknowledge that.
Um, it just makes perfect senseto me what you said and I have
questions about whether or notwe get back to who we were.
Do we cultivate who we'rebecoming Right?
It's not always so entirelyseparate, but I mean I asked
(11:36):
myself that, with all mydifferent threads in my
background in broadcast news, Imean I totally ate it up.
I just absolutely adored it.
Um, I loved the adrenaline rushof it.
I loved the mission, I love thepeople that I was working with,
I loved working with sound andradio.
(11:57):
Um, but I got really sick.
Uh, yeah, my body just startedbreaking down.
It turns out when you work thatmuch and that hard and you're
absorbing that much traumawithout discharging any of it, I
mean I was not aware enough todo that and I think about this
(12:18):
parallel a lot with veteransactually, because I actually do
think that trauma igniteswarriorship, so it makes us
prepared to be warriors shouldwe choose that in many different
forms?
And it doesn't mean that we canoccupy the same wavelength at
(12:43):
the same speed, the same forceall the time.
I mean there's still naturalrhythms to that right, and when
we're super mission-driven, wetend not to listen, I think.
Right, I mean, I just overrodeeverything that my body was
saying for quite a while andthen it just got to the point
where I was like I'm notactually enjoying my life
(13:04):
outside of work.
I don't have a life outside ofwork.
I had no balance whatsoever,and I tried to look 10 years
down the line and ask myself howI would be doing, how my health
would be doing, how my bodywould be doing, and I mean, the
(13:24):
inevitable, obvious answer wasum, you need a change.
So, yeah, the body is such anincredible honest messenger.
Um, so I hear that you've beenlistening to your body too, and
that's so commendable, reallyawesome.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
Yeah, well, I was forced to, yeah, and I really,
and I you know it's really weirdbecause, especially for
veterans and first respondersthat go through and witness a
lot of trauma, sometimes folkswill, I guess, make excuses for
(14:09):
behaviors and things like that,but I think it takes a higher.
If you're going to take ahigher level of responsibility
in a higher position careerthat's going to deal with trauma
, you also have to accept thehigher level of accountability
and responsibility when it comesto taking care of your mind and
your body.
Um, and unfortunately inwestern culture, things like
(14:32):
meditation, um, I go back toyoga because I mean it's the
most surface thing out there,but it's, it's there, and I
think a lot of people don't takeadvantage of it, right?
Um, you know, and and I, what Ifind really unique is how you
combine ancient and contemporarypractices from both Eastern and
Western traditions.
So would you mind sharing howthe integrative approach
(14:55):
benefits the folks that youserve?
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Not at all.
Yeah, I think in some ways,when you're rooted in shamanism
and spirituality, it'simpossible to not reach back
towards ancient wisdom and Ithink the benefit of that is you
can see actually over time whathas survived and even thrived
(15:20):
and had a rebirth over and overagain and you can start to pay
attention.
Yoga is a perfect example.
Right, I taught trauma-informedyoga at Homebase, which is a
clinic for invisible wounds ofwar in New England MGH and Red
Sox Foundation Joint Clinic, andoh man, I loved it so much.
(15:42):
It was a lot of mostly dudes.
And oh man, I loved it so muchit was a lot of mostly dudes and
mostly dudes who had not reallytried yoga before.
But in terms of the integrationof ancient thousands of years
right of wisdom and practice ofyoga as the root, yoga as the
(16:07):
root and then modern, I actuallythink a lot of the
trauma-informed perspective thatwe talk more about these days
is new sort of cutting edge,just another form or another
level of consciousness thattrauma lives in the body, right,
it lives in our nervous systems.
We can have very severe, veryhigh level risk events happen to
(16:35):
us.
We can also have smaller thingsthat are connected to things in
our own past happen to us andeither way, the nervous system
responds as it does because ofwho you are and where you are
and how your overall health isand where you are and how your
(16:56):
overall health is.
So I really love pulling thethreads of just sort of again
the steadiest drumbeats overtime, like breathing, and if we
can regulate our breathing, wecan regulate our mind, pulling
that into the present moment anddoing it in a trauma-informed
way.
I tried to help people even beaware of what their breath was
(17:17):
doing at first.
Right, I mean, before youstarted doing yoga, did you have
a sense of oh man, okay, Ireally need to catch my breath,
I need to pause here.
I'm using too much energy.
This is like, too, I'm notgetting done what I want to get
done because I feel restless.
Let me try grounding for asecond.
(17:37):
Like did you have an awarenessof that?
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Um.
no, no, I did not Um it didn'tdawn on me until I became an
instructor.
Uh, so I'm a lot of you know,but I'm a firearms instructor.
I also have instructed tacticsbefore.
Back when I was in the military, I worked as the S3 training
officer, and it wasn't untilthen I realized the importance
(18:03):
of breathing and how breathinghas everything to do from I was
just talking to my niece aboutthis earlier has a lot to do
with the max effort.
When it comes to running, whenit comes to shooting, when it
comes to decision-making understress and anxiety, breathing is
the key factor for folks tostay in the fight and also make
(18:28):
sound decisions.
So it wasn't until that.
That's when I realized theimportance of breathing.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Totally get that.
Yeah, totally get that.
And how universal?
Is it right that you'reshooting a gun?
You're on a yoga mat, breathingis still there, right?
It's the thread that goesthrough both of those things.
Goes through both of thosethings, and something that my
(18:56):
shamanic study has helped merealize is that the universe is
constantly contracting andexpanding, right, and that is
what we are doing in microcosm,in breathing in and breathing
out.
So we have the opportunity,when we become conscious about
that, to align with the ultimateexpansion and contraction,
(19:19):
right.
There's sort of no end to howmuch we can align with that.
Sometimes you only have acouple seconds.
Sometimes maybe you take anhour out of your day and you're
really training yourself to bein that dance, but either way,
it's available to you and it'sbeen true for millennia.
So it's a pretty good bet,right.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Yeah, specifically for veterans, have you worked
with a lot of combat veterans?
Yeah, you have.
Yeah, you have.
Yeah, have you seen any type oflink or relationship between
the veterans' past upbringing,childhood and also what they did
(20:06):
in the military or perhaps justeven being in the military?
Have you seen any chain linkbetween that, or perhaps just
even being in the military have?
Speaker 2 (20:11):
you seen any chain link between that?
I think that's what taught meso much about how trauma ignites
warriors.
I think I have yet to meetsomeone who's in the service who
didn't have trauma before theyenlisted Right and so yeah, I
(20:34):
can say I personally have my ownthoughts on that.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Um, I think a lot of people that choose to join the
military a lot of people notsaying every and all, but a lot
of people that choose to jointhe military come from a
situation where, uh, therewasn't a whole lot of choice.
It was either join the militaryor stay home and get involved
in things that probably were notpositive.
They're not coming from thewell-off families.
(21:00):
They're coming from middle tolower class families, and that's
just the truth.
That's why recruiting stationsare set up where they are, that
leading to a lot of folksjoining, having that, like I
mentioned earlier, about yourcup or your emotional cup
already being completely full bythe time you join, and then
you're put in this situationwhere you're doing things that
(21:22):
most others aren't doing,whether it's moving far away
from home or it's deploying andthings like that 100%.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Yeah, I have also worked with a number of
operators over the years and,yeah, I think part of your
system that haven't healed.
And then you go through combatand there are more wounds and
(22:01):
the other wounds get openedright, because all trauma
delivers a shock to the system.
So you can kind of think aboutit as sort of hitting what was
maybe like a pond with fewripples in it and then causing a
whole bunch of ripples anddistorted patterns that if you
(22:25):
don't do the work of bringingthem back together, they're just
going to keep hurting you andother people.
That's typically how it goes.
So many people take on the brave, very, very brave work of
slowing down and looking at thatstuff, and I would say that's
(22:48):
our job on the civilian side,and this is something
traditional and indigenoussocieties did without question.
Right, people choose the roleof warrior.
They have to be welcomed backinto the tribe, they have to
have time with elders to be ableto debrief.
(23:09):
They need time with healers tobe able to cleanse.
They need witnessing from thecommunity, and that is how we
can actually integrate what hashappened and it doesn't matter
from what point any of thetrauma into our whole self with
unconditional love.
(23:29):
That's kind of the bottom linethat I see and it's a lot of
work but it takes a lot ofsupport and there's a lot of
support out there.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
It is, and one of the things that I think make it
most difficult.
Sometimes it's not about whatyou necessarily deal with
overseas, it's about coming backhere, and the reason I say that
is because I think it'sestimated to be less than 5% 6%
of the US population ever servein the military, and then it's
less than 3% that actually evergo to war or go to combat.
(23:59):
I think there's something to besaid about looking back in
history during World War II,when you had the majority of
America involved in some way,shape or form.
When it was all over andeveryone came back here, it was
much easier to stand in the roomor sit in a room and be
surrounded by folks that had acommon wall with experience, and
(24:25):
I think that's one of the mostdifficult things for folks to
understand that are civilians issometimes it's not necessarily
what you deal with over there,it's coming back here and having
to deal with the 95 pluspercent um that didn't
experience that and watched iton the news and it was a
spectator, uh event for them.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
So, um, yeah, I mean it's again.
Have we integrated people intothe entire process or are we
starting to get more and moreseparate from the fact that
people are still fighting ourwars out there?
Right, I absolutely agree withyou, and I do think we need to
(25:05):
do better as a whole, as asociety, and I do think this is
a lot of why you see so muchsuicide.
Um, we, we are not holdingtogether, uh, and there's no
reason for that.
That is to our detriment.
So I'm a huge proponent ofbuilding the bridges, um, as we
(25:30):
need to, to make sure we'reclear that we're all in this
together.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
Right.
What is your overall motivation?
Inspiration with helping firstresponders and military veterans
service members.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Good question.
I actually think it sort ofstarted in news At least that's
where I became conscious of itand 9-11 was a really
influential point in my life.
I was at NPR and it became avery deep wound for me that I
wasn't aware that I wouldexperience.
(26:10):
I wasn't aware that I wouldexperience, and so my own growth
of my awareness of my warriornature sort of grew in parallel
to learning more about warriorshere, and it just never made
(26:34):
sense to me that we were askingso much of people when we hadn't
really taken care or good careof people who had already been
at war on our behalf.
That never sat right with me,so I started to feel like I
needed to give back in some way.
So, yeah, when I got out ofschool, I had a little bit of
seed money and I started a lowto no cost acupuncture program
(26:54):
for veterans, which was a hardsell, trust me.
I worked really hard, um to tryto tell people how awesome it
was and not being part of themilitary community it was.
Yeah, it's been really hard tosort of break down the necessary
doors, but I am stubborn to afault, so I keep trying.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
It's just so.
Nontraditional Reiki, shamanic,shamanic practices is that,
what is that you pronounce thatare most appropriate for an
individual's healing journey?
Speaker 2 (27:38):
it's a great question .
It really depends on what theycome in with.
Some people know what I do andthey ask right up front.
With other people it's a bitmore of an exploration.
They know that something needsto shift and it needs to be on
more than a physical level.
Um, but yeah, it sort ofdepends on what I have at my
(28:00):
disposal.
I don't have a physical officeanymore, so at the time then I
could sort of choose from all mylike needles.
My Reiki comes through my handsand my body and my field, so I
don't need to have anythingother than that.
If I'm coaching, I can do itlike this or on the phone.
The modality is what is at theheart of this inquiry, this
(28:39):
conflict, this issue or problemfor this person, right being
able to learn to listen to painas a messenger, and that can be
any kind of pain.
Um, yeah, I, I figure it outperson to person to person.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Yeah, it's a very individualistic basis, right,
and it's also what they're opento.
Like you talk about stickingneedles in someone.
They're not, uh, into needles.
That you're not.
You're not gonna be doing thatto them.
But, um, overall, you know withyour work and supporting
veterans, leaders and creativesout there, what unique
challenges and healing needs dothese different groups present
(29:15):
and how do you think you bestaddress them?
Speaker 2 (29:20):
That's great Leaders, warriors and creatives.
Let me try and break it down.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
I mean, do they have anything in common, or is it
very much different.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Definitely I mean with leaders and anything in
common, or is it very muchdifferent?
Definitely I mean with leadersand warriors.
One of the biggest things thatI tend to see is that it's
really hard to believe, as awarrior or a leader, that you
need to take care of yourselfand put your oxygen mask on
first.
That is something that I get alot of resistance around until
(29:54):
we actually kind of walk throughthe process and people can have
the experience of their owndifferent level of
self-regulation and how muchbetter they feel, how much more
openly they can show up, howmuch more they can drop out of
their mind and lead from theirheart, how much more openly they
can show up, how much more theycan drop out of their mind and
(30:14):
lead from their heart, how muchmore they're willing to be
vulnerable in those spaces, andall of that allows us to hear
what's going on for other peoplemuch better.
And what you mentioned about thetransitions coming back home
again, that always made perfectsense to me.
I mean, how are we askingpeople to go from Z to A with no
(30:38):
process in between or littleprocess?
That's not how we work, that'snot how nature works and we are
part and parcel of nature.
So with creatives there's a lotof people might come forward
with feeling stuck and feelinglike they can't really get to
(31:01):
their authentic voice, and Iwould say that is an absolute
thread between all of thosethree groups.
That's kind of my jam right Tobe able to help people really
hear their authenticity.
We're always going to workbetter out of that place.
I've spent a lifetime trying tonot work from that place and to
(31:22):
be more normal and accepted,and it's just not going to work.
When your soul is knocking atthe door, it's not something
that goes away or that you canignore.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
I would imagine, if they come to you, their, their,
their, their soul is knocking atthe door, because getting them
to even come to the table tobegin with is the first
challenge in itself, and it canbe very frustrating when people
are their own worst enemy.
Now, how do you, how do youdeal with imposter syndrome?
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
I have so much of it.
I had a good friend help meprep for doing my podcasting and
everybody's a victim of itright, Everybody.
And this guy's a veteran too,and he was like I was like, oh,
can I actually get onto veteranpodcasts and say anything that's
worthwhile?
And he was like well, what wouldyou do if you were just sitting
(32:10):
in front of an actual veteranand I said I would double down
on my authenticity?
Because if you're feeling likeyou're out of reach and there's
just something really vulnerableor exposing to say, try saying
that.
I often counsel people to dothat and it works really well,
right?
Because I mean, I get it.
(32:33):
I think it's the ego that hasus try to impress other people,
but at the end of the day andover time, it's not very
satisfying, right?
So if I feel like I am not anexpert in a thing, my new
(32:55):
tendency is actually to just sayI am not an expert in this
thing.
I have this experience.
Take it or leave it, Right?
I mean, something I love aboutEastern philosophy is it really
says up front turn this over inyour own mind.
You don't have to just believeit, Experience it, embody it,
(33:18):
practice it, see how it landsfor you.
If it doesn't resonate with you, fine, leave it where it is.
But if it does, you have theability to gain mastery in a way
that you didn't have before,Right?
That's pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
So doubling down on just what is confronting to me
and actually saying it out loud,that's my Believing in yourself
, right yeah, doubling down andbelieving in yourself, yeah yeah
, it can be a challenge for sureto break through that threshold
, especially if you've neverbeen in the military or first
(33:55):
responder career field to tospeak to that audience.
Now, your overall involvementwith the Veterans Yoga Project
let's talk about that how andoverall, like I guess how
mindfulness, resiliency, uhworks with that in trauma
recovery.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
Yeah.
So I was very happy to get mytraining in trauma informed yoga
from them.
Um, it was.
I really did want to teachveterans.
It's absolutely my favoritespace of teaching for yoga,
(34:46):
mentals of yoga, and weavethrough again sort of modern
research about what works forveterans in those spaces.
I have modified that over theyears because of my Indian
background.
I also do throw a little bitmore of the spirituality and the
(35:08):
Eastern flavor in there, moreof the spirituality and the
Eastern flavor in there.
But I think it was reallyhelpful to teach me how to slow
down with people, with veterans,with first responders, and how
to meet everyone where they are.
(35:35):
So people are going to come intoa class with very different
things and at a place likeHomebase.
Some people needed assistancedevices, some people had limbs
missing, some people needed tosit in a chair, some people were
way more flexible than I wasright, were way more flexible
(35:56):
than I was right.
I mean, it's the whole gamut ofstudents that you see.
So it really actuallychallenges you to be in a
trauma-informed space, which isto say, first and foremost,
you're driving this thing.
I'm going to be up here andI'll show you the shapes and
I'll tell you what they're about, but you are the only person
(36:16):
inhabiting your body and you getto say this is too much for me
right now, or this isn't enoughfor me right now.
I feel like doing this, I don'tfeel like doing this.
So you can come into thoseclasses and if you want to take
child's pose for 10 minutes, ifyou want to be in Shavasana the
whole time, great, you're doingit perfectly, right, um, and
(36:38):
that's.
That's a pretty strong value, Ithink, with veterans, younger
project.
So but, how do you?
Speaker 1 (36:44):
challenge people, Like how do you challenge people
?
Cause the one thing that I've.
I always kind of look at itLike if, if you and I go for a
run, for example, how do I pushthe person next to me to break
through that glass ceiling, Iguess, and to try new things?
Have you figured that out yet?
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Yes and no?
Right, it's like a constantexperiment.
No, not at all.
I mean, it's a great question.
What I've noticed is that thereare different ways to
experience challenge and,honestly, it's less of a
challenge to be in a room ofmale veterans and first
responders and be like, okay,let's do this right, like that's
(37:25):
not actually a challenge inthat space If I'm asking them to
turn the volume up to 11 and gosuper hard.
Most people are pretty used tothat.
Depending on injury, right andillness, you may not be, but
there's a quieter, subtler levelof challenge that choose to not
override your pain.
(37:45):
Yes, it sucks that you can't dowhat everyone else is doing
right now.
Can you try to breathe intothat and be with that?
That's a different kind ofchallenge, right, but it's still
(38:07):
a challenge, sometimes evengreater, right.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
That's almost like a disclaimer Before you start
something, you got to tellpeople that to really, hey,
really push yourselves, don'tstay, uh, where you're
comfortable, necessarily, butlet's try to achieve and
progress each time and don'tjust lay in child pose the whole
time.
Don't just run at your own pace, but let's try to break through
some different thresholds tojust see some, I guess, overall
(38:34):
progress in what you're tryingto achieve right.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
Totally depends on the person, absolutely.
For some people, being inchild's pose at all is a total
mark of progress because they'venever let themselves rest.
And this took me a while to.
You know, I have the same thingright.
I'm very mission driven and ifI'm not doing it right, I'm not
doing it at all, kind of thing.
But that's where you have toreally create the space.
(39:01):
As a teacher, you actually haveto embody that.
However people show up, andwhatever they do is okay, and
there's a lot of wisdom likeshamanic indigenous eastern
wisdom about that.
There's always something towork on and it doesn't have to
(39:22):
look any particular way.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
It's kind of what is showing up for you.
You know Right, yeah, yeah, no,it makes total sense.
So overall, you've specializedin treating trauma, ptsd and
emotional disorders.
What would you say are someeffective strategies that you
found for transforming traumainto clarity and peace to take?
that fog away from, because Iknow for me for a lot of years,
(39:48):
um my, my deployment.
I describe it as a sleep, likea sleepwalk, and the most
frustrating part for me for manyyears was the difficulty of
explaining myself.
Everything felt very foggy.
So what would you say would besome effective strategies,
(40:13):
besides coming to the table, um,that you found for transforming
trauma into clarity and peace,would you say?
Speaker 2 (40:21):
Yeah, I, I hear that, and that's actually a great
example, cause I think a lot ofpeople experience that fogginess
and explaining yourself,telling your story.
One thing I find very, veryhelpful is to bookend your day
(40:41):
with practice.
So, spiritual practice, mindfulpractice, however it is, you
want to contextualize it.
You're actually taking realtime and intention, um, to sit
down and focus on another thingBreathing.
(41:03):
We have it right.
If we're here and we're walkingaround, um, fantastic.
For some people it's a yogapractice, it's some kind of
ritual, um, and you do it at thetimes of day when there is
still a little bit of quietnessor return to quietness in the
(41:24):
world, um, and that again helpsyou line up with a bigger energy
of it, and that again helps youline up with a bigger energy of
it.
I would definitely recommendmeditation and yogic breathing
practices.
You know being able to resetwith breathing and meditation.
(41:45):
Something else just popped intomy head, so I have to say that
too, there are definitely superhelpful plant medicines to
support us with rewiring what'sgoing on in there, part of
(42:09):
unraveling the knots of traumaand being able to pull out the
threads and say you know what,okay, I'm actually done with
this behavior that doesn't serveme anymore, but I I'm really
going to keep this part of methat um has something to say and
(42:29):
I'm going to to put intowriting or painting or sculpture
or some kind of art.
Um, often you know a certainlevel of physical activity
moving your body, um, and beingconscious with your breath.
A lot of people are doing thatalready.
Um, so a tweak there could beintentionality, um, if you're
(42:55):
running and you are maybelistening to something around
visualization, or you're doingmantras or whatever it is,
you're trying something totallynew.
You're going surfing for thefirst time, or Right, yeah,
there's a lot that.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
I think one of the biggest things that you're
fighting against is the concept,especially here in America,
where everybody wants to takethe wonder pill.
So I have lower back issues.
Well, easy Painkillers, takepainkillers.
Take painkillers right.
Versus the long-term becausethere's always a teeter and a
(43:35):
totter to those things versusthe long-term, I guess, more
natural way of handling thingsby breathing, relaxing, learning
how to let go.
I think in Western culture wehave a tendency to just simply
take that pill or press thatbutton and it's fixed right.
Do you see?
A lot of people a lot of timestry to go about a spiritual
(43:59):
journey or try to find a morenatural way to solve their
issues and then they just simplygive up because it's taking too
long, and then it's out offrustration.
What do you do for that?
Speaker 2 (44:09):
Great question.
I don't see so much wholesalegiving up.
I definitely see the very humandance of one step forward, two
steps back, and you know thesethings can work together.
There's no shame in taking anaspirin or a painkiller on a day
when you really need somesupport and everything else just
(44:32):
isn't working.
I definitely have patients andclients who take SSRIs and all
of that stuff.
It can all work together.
I think the thing to remember isare you addressing the root of
the tree or the branches, right?
Because on those days whenNSAIDs and painkillers help us,
(44:54):
that's great.
Sometimes you just need thatsupport.
But over time and at a deeplevel, is that actually getting
to why you have this pain?
All right, what's the root ofthat pain?
When does it come up?
What is it saying to you?
I ask that question a lot topeople and people who have never
done it before.
(45:14):
If you just slow down enoughand are quiet and mindful enough
and willing enough, you canhear it.
So that is part of how Icounter that.
Yeah, you're very right.
I think even you know, havingbeen on this path for three
(45:38):
decades or more at this point.
There are definitely times whenit gets so hard, and I am on my
knees that I would like to havesome cosmic version of that
Phil Right Um, but the chance ofit happening over again and of
us missing the lesson and notactually transforming it um are
(45:59):
pretty huge.
So if you get a nudge that'srepetitive um, I think it's
usually an invitation to to dosomething radically different.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
Yeah, I think for me a lot of times, when it comes to
veterans, I try to warn them tobe self-aware.
A lot of times you'll hear apattern.
So, for example, you go througha divorce, you'll hear your ex
say this.
You have friends that say thesame thing Over the years, you
hear the same common theme.
(46:33):
And I think for some veteransand first responders out there,
it's time to kind of look in themirror and ask yourself like
why do I have these problemsover and over again in different
situations and differentscenarios?
And I'm the common denominatorhere.
And it's not that you're wrongor that you're bad or anything
like that, but you got to becritical, um, about yourself and
(46:54):
how you're behaving and whatyou're doing, and stop putting
it on other people.
And that's the one thing that Ithink over the years and me
being a veteran, I can talk toveterans.
That way, I can talk to them ina way like where it's a little
bit more rougher, I think, thanfolks who are not a part of the,
I guess, of that career family.
And I want to mention this toois I've given people the advice
(47:20):
over the years to not wait untilyou are at your brink.
I gave advice to a niece of minewho grew up with a lot of
childhood trauma.
She's in her early 20s.
I gave her advice.
I said, mine, who grew up witha lot of childhood trauma, she's
in her early 20s.
I gave her advice.
I said you need to go seektherapy now.
Don't wait until you're 30years old and all those things
(47:41):
that you've internalized andyou've kept inside just come out
again, because it'll be likevomit, it'll just come right out
.
It's better that you startdealing with this, with the
issues that you've had growingup, instead of putting them away
, versus just letting everythingjust explode inside of you.
(48:01):
A lot of times we need to givepeople that type of advice.
We're not doing enoughmentoring, enough coaching each
other.
We're too afraid to have thoseconversations.
I have so many more questionsfor you, but I know that we're
we're getting up to an hour andI, before we get off here, I
want to make sure that I coversome of your upcoming projects
(48:22):
and initiatives that you have,um, from my understanding, um,
you have some some things comingup with soulful healing and
counselinging, as well asEdgewalkers Healing Cooperative.
Is that right.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
True and sort of all TBD.
One thing that is going to bean offshoot, I think, of Soulful
healing and counsel is thissacred outlaws approach, um,
which is really me stepping into, swimming against the stream
(48:59):
and doing it on behalf ofdisrupting the status quo for
the highest and best Right.
So, um, that is sort of anapproach, a lens, um, and maybe
a thing with a name.
Uh, that's coming.
Uh, there's more.
I support people with prep andintegration coaching who are uh
stepping into medicine journeys.
(49:20):
So more of that.
I am taking an exam to get, uh,the first level of
certification with theinternational coaching
federation next week.
So, yeah, there's a lot downthe pike, a lot of working with
men in various groups to learnmindfulness and grounding and
(49:45):
spirituality.
So I will keep everyone posted,mostly, mostly on Instagram,
about that stuff.
Speaker 1 (49:53):
Got to fight that imposter syndrome right.
You belong where you belong and, at the end of the day, I
really appreciate all the workthat you've done for our veteran
and first responder communityand, recognizing the importance
enough to face some of yourenergy in that direction to help
(50:13):
us out, I really appreciatethat.
And over the next few years,how do you envision the
evolution of integrative healingpractices?
Speaker 2 (50:24):
For society, for all of us.
Speaker 1 (50:26):
For society yes.
Speaker 2 (50:39):
I think we're going to keep turning more to them,
yes, and we are, I think, goingto be called to knowing
ourselves more deeply and, again, it's very hard to do that if
you're always working at thebranch level of the tree right,
(51:00):
like to get to the root.
We're going to have to actually, like, inhabit our bodies.
We don't do that all the time.
We are going to have to embodythe principles and the values
that we are studying.
We're going to have to learnhow to talk to each other and be
(51:24):
intimate with each other inways that really work and are
healing.
I think we've probably had ourfull, hopefully, of so, so much
conflict and what you mentionedbefore actually about not
standing in responsibility foryourself and your life.
That's a pretty big part of itas far as I can see.
(51:47):
So my hope and my sense is thatwe will.
There will be more and morepeople starting to turn into it.
Be curious about it, yeah.
Speaker 1 (52:01):
And I think over the years we've we've slowly crept
in that direction.
We people are more mindful nowof the dangers, of the teeter
and totter of prescriptionmedication, illegal drugs, what
that can do to you, I mean, it'sstill a lot of victims still.
And I don't mean to putprescription drugs they have a
(52:23):
place right, but we all knowthat they're the number one most
abused drugs.
Between them and legal drugs isthe prescription drugs that
people do.
But I'm also hopeful, like you,that we start creeping towards
a more positive way to take careof our minds and our bodies.
Just through the different, Iguess, events that we've been
through whether it's 9-11 orIraq or Afghanistan in my
(52:46):
lifetime anyways that we'vedealt with, we're a little more
open to these new things, newideas.
Now I have so many morequestions for you and I hope
this is the last time I see you.
I hope that you're willing tocome back on the podcast again
because I have some morequestions for you.
I do find your work veryfascinating and I highly
appreciate it, but was thereanything that I didn't mention
during this podcast that youwould like to talk about or
(53:08):
mention?
Speaker 2 (53:10):
Oh.
So I mean, yeah, I feel like wecould keep going, um, and I
think I might resist the urgeright now to analyze whether or
not I've said everything.
Um, yeah, I think the thingthat we always talk around um is
(53:33):
love.
It really actually does comedown to loving yourself
unconditionally and knowingyourself as love.
Um, and that's a whole othershow, or 10, right, um, but I
get shy about saying thatbecause I know that it can be
seen as weak or woo or out there, um, but I am 100% confident
(54:01):
that, whatever path you traveldown, you will find that most of
the answers, if not all, arethere.
So that's the only thing I'dadd.
Speaker 1 (54:13):
Yeah, that sounds like a whole nother episode in
itself, right?
So no, I really appreciate you.
And what's the best way?
What's your, what's your poison?
As far as social media?
What's your, what's the bestway that folks can follow you
and find out what's the latestum on all of it is Athena.
Speaker 2 (54:30):
So I do mostly Instagram.
I have a work Instagram that'ssoulful healing and counsel.
That's C O U N C I L.
On Insta, I do also have amusic one that's just my full
name, and I have a music website.
That's like that too.
I'm also on LinkedIn.
I'm so happy to connect withanyone on either of those places
(54:53):
.
My contact info is there.
If anyone was intrigued byanything that we brought up and
wants to talk more, I'm alwayshere for it.
Speaker 1 (55:03):
I didn't even touch on your musical background,
which I had questions on that aswell, but I will save that for
another time and I'll make surethat in the show.
But I will say that for anothertime and I'll make sure that in
the show notes I put all yourdifferent social medias down
there for folks out therelistening.
If you're interested infollowing Athena, go down to the
show notes.
If this is a podcast, if it'son YouTube, you can find it
(55:24):
right there in the notes below.
I'll make sure I put it in thedescription of the video.
But, thank you so much.
Below I'll make sure I put itin the description of the video.
Um, but thank you so much,athena.
It's been a very spiritualconversation and, uh, the last
interview I had was with thefirst responder and we were
talking about, uh, you know,showing up to the scenes of
accidents and having like an armover here, a leg over there,
(55:44):
and things like that, and uh,it's been a tremendous
opportunity to talk to you today.
Speaker 2 (55:51):
Same here.
Thank you so so much for yourgenerosity and your curiosity
and your trust.
It is an honor.
Speaker 1 (55:59):
I love these conversations I truly do and um
and it's uh, it's something thatI hope that this was just a
conversation and, uh, you wereable to feel comfortable during
this entire episode, because Iknow it can be a very, very
tricky thing because sometimesdifferent experiences with the
veteran community, firstresponder community it can be a
(56:22):
sensitive topic at times.
So thank you for tackling thiswith me and for everyone else
out there.
I hope you enjoyed the show.
As always, I want you to staytuned, stay focused and stay
motivated.
Warriors fall out.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.