Season 2: Episode 2: PART II with Susie Spell and her journey to a more holistic approach to health and healing (and more on the spirtual and paranormal parts of life)

Hello, and welcome to the Storied Human. This is Lynne Thompson. I'm back with Susie spell for the second part of our extensive interview about holistic healing, becoming more in tune with other quantum forms of healing, becoming more in tune with consciousness, we delve into the spirit world shamanism, the special role of nature in healing. There are so many things that Susie has to tell us that she needed to two parts. So I definitely talked to her for a good long time. And I divided the interview into two parts. So the second part, we delve more into animals and nature, and the importance of connecting with nature for healing. And Susie fills us in on her future, her plans for really offering like a total holistic approach to healing people. And I just love seeing and hearing about her transformation. And I love thinking about the good that she's doing and will continue to do in the world. So enjoy part two with Susie Spell. Thank you. I think we're going to have this is going to be a two parter, I think, Oh, okay. That's what good yeah, because we're on a roll. I wanted to say something about animals. When I did my first shamanic journey, my cat showed up, like your spirit animal supposed to show up. But it was my cat. And he was I had him for 16 years. He was like a major part of my life. From when I was eight till I was 24. He was this big, fat Tomcat. And my parents, like we almost lost him. He was such a wild thing. You know, he was like, probably impregnating like all the female cats in the vicinity. And he would get in fights and come home, like, half torn up, and I'd be like, a wreck, you know, because I loved him desperately to fix him up. And then finally, my parents were like, well, maybe we should, you know, maybe we should fix him. So they did. And then he was much more mellow. But one thing about him was he had such presence. Whenever he didn't like someone who came to our house, we would be a little more careful around that person. And when he liked someone, we were like, Yeah, we knew that person was good. But sometimes he would like someone who didn't like cats. And he would come up on the couch, and he would sit by them and look at them. And they would like, they would like, pet him and be a little unsure. But somehow they liked him. So he had like this presence. He wasn't, I haven't had a cat like and since and now I'm really allergic and I can't have cats. And it makes me very sad. But he came to me in the journey. In you know, journeying is just you know, you, you just go to a mortgage. It's like being hypnotized. You go to a more relaxed, right, right, please. And for me, it's really easy. Like, I'm hypnotized really easily. So I found journeying really easy. So he came to me. And I was, I know it sounds funny. Like, of course, I would want him to come. But I hadn't thought of him and like ages, and I was so happy to see him. I was so happy to see him in the way you would be if something happened that you didn't do yourself. Right. So that's what convinced me was. I was like, I didn't do that. I wouldn't have had that feeling. You know? And he was just, I was so happy to see him. I was so glad that he was with me on my journey. And I was cracking up because he was the kind of cat that would go with me outside. Like everybody cracked up. Yeah, like he wouldn't leave my son. We would go outside when I was a little girl, and he would stay with me. And my mother had said he was like my familiar. I was like a weird, yeah, really. But he was like a special soul to me. And so it was so I said to the woman leading the shaman class, I said, is it ever a household pet? And she said Not usually. But if he was special if he was like, supposed to be with you. And when I meditate. I see my mother in a Cotswold called Cottage. She always loved those cots Cotswold cottages, because you can sort of make whatever environment you want. Right, right. Yeah. So she made this beautiful thatched roof cottage, and I see her via fire. And she's holding my cat. Oh, yeah. And it's just such a. It reassures you so much. It makes you feel good. Anyway. So what was the point? Oh, animals. So animals are so important and you you love animals. And I wanted to say, we had a poodle, a big poodle, standard poodle, who also was like a not like a dog. She was like a soul. People just were so in love with her. She put all sorts of demands your attention, you know, and if you don't want to give a lot of attention, you're kind of in trouble because she really wants to interact with you all the time. And we were going to, we joined the Quaker church for a little while. And I really still love it very much. So in order to do that to become members, they come to your house. And there's like a little council and they, they talk to you, they asked you why you want to join. And so she was part of that. And at one point, we prayed, which is really, you know, in the quicker religion, we're just very quiet together in the Christian meditation. Nobody calls it that, but that's really what it is. Yeah. Being that and she came into the room. And she bowed down. She bowed down, like, and everybody was like, oh, isn't that cute? And I'm like, no, she frickin feels it. Yeah, she's part of it. Right? I just wonder if you have that feeling about animals like that? Oh, yes. That's a whole. That's a whole another rabbit hole. Right? That's a whole other episode. I recently just recently, because I kept thinking, I want to communicate with my animals, like, how can I communicate with them. And not only that, but I'm on as a whole side story, too, right? I'm on this mission. I feel like with the health, with our health, there are so many things. And we're so cruel to animals. And there's a grief around around what's happening with animals in the factory industry, and all of that maybe they have messages for us, too. And so I bought this little thing on Udemy. That is an animal communication course. Because I'm like, but I have a cat. And I was trying to look and show you a photo, but um, have a cat who became ours, he was a feral cat. But now he's just, we say every day he gives a report to God. However, whatever you want to say, gotta find every day. There's a patch of sunshine that comes in the kitchen. And he goes in the middle. And he just looks up. And we're like, it's his daily report to God. You know? I love that so much. Yeah. And then so as we're doing this whole parenting team has Wiley Wiley, and he now has an Instagram account. But as why we Cyrus wi? Fi why? Why Ray Cyrus, he has his own Instagram, which he is going to get better about posting. And I feel like he is he's just different. Like he Something's different about his spirit. Yeah. And and then I thought, I think it'd be really cool to like, get an animal communicator who actually really knows what they're doing right need to be the medium between us, right? But then I we got a dog. Her name is Sophie. And she's a bit of a maniac. But as we're doing this whole, like paranormal exploration, all this stuff, especially in the throes of it when it really first she would like growl, and she'd perk up and she watch like, like she was what, like tracking something in the room that wasn't there. And I was like, and even my daughter, and my kids would say, Look, she's looking at something. She sees something. Yeah, you know, and I was like she does, and so that I ended up buying this book called psychic animals, you know? Yeah. And I've heard this from a lot of people that yeah, they're cats. They run after something that's not there. Yeah, yeah, it gets spooked by something that's they don't see dogs, you know, are definitely looking at something. Right. And they definitely don't have all the crap that we have, right? All this like, culture and upbringing and all this stuff. They're just in the moment, you know, I mean, they're just the, you know, during the lovely, it's lovely. And yeah, so I just, they don't live long enough, though. That's the hard part. I know. I know. They're just in our, our lives for a moment. But um, which, you know, that's how it is, you know, you're just, there's just so many things that you're bringing up for me. But I remember, like, when you do journey, and you get a spirit animal, they bring usually a message or they symbolize something, but you can also communicate with an entire species. And I've read books that have messages from the whales, messages from the dolphins. It's incredibly powerful to read them because they embody, like, especially wills and but like I'm obsessed with dolphins. I never Oh, you are? Yeah, I never understood why. But now I know more about the brain waves that they they live in the playfulness and the love and but they have messages for us. And it just it it makes you hurt to see what people are doing to animals because you understand that they're so alive, and they're so aware of their species. I mean, you maybe can't, I mean, I know animal communicators talk to an individual, but you can also it's really sort of in the shamanic tradition and the Native American tradition that you talk to the species. Yeah, so yeah, you know, bear or you talk to deer. But um, well, I didn't even get to the most powerful shamanic thing I had, but I mean, it's hard to believe even As I say it, we took a we chose shamanism. It was a weekend course. And that's from Mexico. And it's a tradition in Mexico and their special animal is the deer. And so they do a lot of rituals talking to the deer and the deer looks after them, and they look after the deer. And the guy that taught it is from Brooklyn. Originally, he is from Brooklyn. And his story is amazing. It's amazing. When he was like, 18, you started having these dreams of Mexico. And this really old man was telling him to come there, that he was supposed to come there. And his name is Brent Secunda. And he's wonderful. If you ever want to look up the I forget what he called Dancing Deer Foundation anyway. So he he was like, This is crazy. You know, this is crazy. But the dreams didn't stop. So he decided to listen to them. And he got on a bus. And he went to Mexico to where he thought he was supposed to go this village. And he kept he just had a name. And he kept asking where it was. And they took him there. And it was like three days of hiking through the mountains. And he finally got there. And he's like, I must be out of my mind. But he met this really old, wizened guy. He was like 103 when he met him. And the guy said, I've been waiting for you. You took so long, you know. And he definitely trained. He said, You're supposed to you're supposed to do this. You're supposed to be my grandson. You're supposed to carry this on. And he he just I guess he was young enough to believe it, right? He trained in this tradition of we chole. It's Hu I ch o l we chose shamanism for the next three years. And the older man died. And Brandt has been teaching these courses ever since. And they're incredibly powerful. We took some just that one weekend. And it really impacted us. But the most amazing one was when he did. We did prayer sticks. So we took threads and we thought about something we wanted, like somebody wanted to help or something they wanted to heal in ourselves or just something, just a lot of intention as we wrapped the stick. So we all did that. We set a prayer and he did a lot of things with like candles and looking into the flame and thinking so we were all in kind of a meditative state with our sticks. And we filed out of this beautiful round room where we had our classes, and we filed down the stairs. Now you're not going to believe this, but I swear it happened. Waiting at the bottom of the stairs was a deer, a female deer. She was waiting for us now this is love woods, you know there are deer, she was literally waiting. And none of us freezing. None of us freak because we're all in like this meditative state. And so we she waited for all of us to pass her. And she joined the line. And she followed us into the woods. This is like one of the most amazing things. Because this was part of the you know, the ritual was to the deer and the deer would help us. She followed us into the woods. She stayed in a respectful distance. And we did our we planted our prayers. We said more prayers. And we came back. So the the thing for me is I don't I think things that hit people as Crazy, right? It's just science that we haven't discovered yet. And when I say science, I mean, you know like Taoism, the more they find out about Taoism, the more they realize it describes Yeah, the way the universe works, right? So there's just like a level of knowledge that we don't have yet. It's not crazy. So for me, you can communicate with a species and a species can hear you and send a representative. And that's just how we're connected. So for me, it's not so crazy, but at the time, I was a little bit whacked. Like I was like, how did this happen? So you know, what happens is when things like that happen, you know, for me, it's like I had this I feel like I kind of naturally respond with this, like childlike wonder and amazement and excitement. And but some people don't respond that way. But you know, like, if you can try to cultivate that a little bit you're Yeah, the beauty in this life you're living right now will get so much better, you know, such a great point. I have that so much now, and it's it kind of hurts when you crash into somebody who doesn't have that and there's a lot of Yeah, yeah, it's, we talk about that, too, is like being overly you know, quote unquote, overly sensitive. I've always been overly sensitive, which I think is BS. I think most people aren't sensitive enough, right? And my son is like that too. And so for me, my experience in the world is that and it took me a long time to identify this but my experience is that the world is very harsh and hurtful and I get hurt a lot by people. But I embrace it. Because this is the way people should be. What you just described is so beautiful. It's the way people should be. They should stay childlike. And that's why I love dolphins, because they're, they're childlike and playful. Yeah, this energy, and then the whale is more. I forget the brainwave, but it's, um, it's lower. It's like, not lower, it's deeper. So it's like the whale is in a dream state. The whale is much more like meditative. And I just want to say to people, have you ever wondered why no whale has ever attacked a human? Like, have you ever thought about how big these whales are? And humans go up to them? And the whale like looks at them? Yeah. Have you ever thought about what that means? And to they don't attack you ever? Have you ever thought about what that means about their consciousness? They're special. They're sentient, very aware. The and they go and they traveled by those Schumann resonances and whatever that is. But you know, how they do the wisdom? Yeah. And you know what I was? I was just reading. What was it? Or maybe it was something I was watching. There's so much that I'm like, constantly inundated my brain with that. It's hard to work with it. I can't. But Facebook group called the Schumann resonance. So really about they talk about the fluctuations? And does anybody feel it and watch out their solar flares? Oh, yeah. Yeah. One day charts? Wow. Yeah, not long ago, that was there was a solar flare. And all of us in the house were just like the blot. And I was like, maybe there's a solar flare or something. I mean, just off the cuff said it. As I said, there was a song on the news like, and I was like, Oh, my gosh, but the whales, there was a story. I just recently heard of somebody was doing some work, you know, in New Zealand or something. And they wanted to know about a flower. They had seen this flower all over. And they asked one of the elders like somebody who you know, is part of one of the indigenous tribes or whatever about this flower, what was the name? And I don't know the name. But they said we know that flower that when it opens the whales, oh, is the animal communication thing I was doing. The whale are migrating and the people, the indigenous people in that area go down the mountain, the women go down the mountain to the shore, and they sing as the whales are going by. So they know that when I get it, she'll say, but I know what they said. They know when that flower opens, it's time to go sing to the whales. I love other passing by. I love that so much. So and who figured that out? I don't know. And even the latest one that comes there's such wisdom. Oh, yeah. It's wonderful. We've closed herself off to all of that. And you know, one of the people that I love reading I have his book course I haven't read it all is Ted Andrews, he's passed away. Now. I don't know if you know him. But he has a whole book. It's called Animal speech. And it's all about the different messages that species and and different kinds of animals have for us. Wow, he does a lot with a sound healing and how to connect with your spirit guides and all that stuff. I love them. You know, I was gonna tell you, you're talking about Quaker and I just started reading. I'm gonna I guess I'm revealing just how crazy crazy I am. Like, I feel like I am too. But, um, there's a woman that when I got into, like, figured out elementals like, what was all that about? Oh, I totally am into Elementals. Yeah, there's, there's a woman named Attalla toy. And she has written a couple of books. And she was a Quaker. And she talks about meditation and how they like how she got into yoga and meditation and all this stuff. I don't know much about Quakers, but that was part of her story. But she is can communicate with wood trees and the natural world. You know, maybe not necessarily animals, but But nature. You know, the elements. Yeah. I just read about the different elementals I used to sit on a rock in the middle of the woods behind my house, and I would feel what I called the fairies. I didn't see them, but I could feel them. Nobody told me there were fairies. Nobody raised me that way. I just might feel I could feel them. And I would sing to them. I'm always singing in in nature. It's just like a thing. And what's interesting is in shamanism they teach you chants, you chant a lot, and that's also good for your health. Right? It vibrates your body. That whole connection. But what was I saying? Oh, but then I recently learned there's different kinds I, I have. I'm on the Facebook group for Dolores Cannon. Oh, there's this books about awakening. And I've really enjoyed it because I it's filled in pockets of my knowledge. She talks about the different elements souls about sprites and brownies and gnomes and the difference and Pixies. And it sounds a little crazy, but I read the descriptions and I was like, Yeah, I was seeing to the Pixies, that's what I'm seeing you do not fairies Pixies, because they hang out in the woods. And I definitely felt them. So if people, you just wonder what the world would be like, if we were raised to, from the moment, we were little, to trust these feelings and to cultivate these awarenesses and, and to live in a different way, like more in harmony. And so And there's something to be said about children until they're about six or seven have are much more open to all that even. You know, at University of Virginia, they have a pair of psychology department and there's someone there who studies past lives, like, yeah, research. They remember until a certain age, ya know, my, my niece did that one Christmas, she got all excited. She saw notre DOM on the TV, and she got really excited. She jumped up and down. And I've had, I've had material channeled for me that said, I was a monk, I was a French monk. And I used to spend a lot of time writing like copying manuscripts alone, it was a solitary life. And that just felt I don't even know how to explain how real that felt. Because I was obsessed with French. I always studied French. And I have beautiful like careful handwriting. I took calligraphy, right? And so they say you return you know, things that you did before come easily to you. Well, that just made sense. And I like to be alone. But then the message was, you shouldn't be alone as much as you are. That's an old habit. Try try this life to come out of it. So I preface all that by saying my little niece, who was like two and a half, almost three jumps up and down and says I was there. I was there with Nene. Nene is what she calls me. She remembered being in Notre DOM with me. And nobody took her seriously. They all laughed. I was the only one in the room that said, Yeah, I was there. You bet I was there. Yeah, it's a message to the adults to maybe didn't. It was amazing. There was like 10 or 12 people in the room. And they were like, Oh Ha, ha. And I'm like, where would your mind have to be to go? Oh, ha ha. This is a very smart, little girl. Very verbal. She knew she was all excited because she had been to that church. And she told me other stories, too. She goes, Well, that was when you were in my belly. When she was tiny. She told me Well, that was when you were in my belly. And when I used to hold her as a baby, she would rub my shoulder. Like a mom. Yeah, like it was so freaky. And she everyone talked about. It's like she knew me. When she was tiny in the crib, she knew me. And I knew her. Yeah. And then she told me, I knew her mother too. She said, your mother, you know my mother. And you mommy and you are my babies. So they do they have these memories. But you can't carry them forever. Right? You have to forget them because you have work to do in this life. But I was so amazed by her. And when I when I went to a psychic like many years ago, they said she's the most she's the oldest soul in your family. my niece's oldest soul? And I wasn't surprised at all. I'm like, yeah, she's way ahead of me. You know, she sounds like she's got it going on. Right? Right. And so wouldn't it be fun if the adults in that had young people could keep a journal or keep something so that those memories so that later you can look at it make connections? Or you know what I mean? That would be a message to the people who are adults now to be open minded to that kind of stuff. And really just that record of it, you know, and my daughter when she was born, my friend, the one that looked at me, like I'm so sorry for you, and the one that I know her mom was coming to join us during the ceremony. You know, when she came to visit my daughter when she was just born, she was like, not even 24 hours old. She was holding her and looking at her and she goes, she seems so much older than she is. And I said doesn't she like, and the nurses would say to me, she's an old soul. And I was like, they can tell? Yeah, yeah. And then even growing up when she was young. People would say she's an old soul, isn't she? I mean, Jessie had that too. I know exactly what you mean. She had it from that moment. We saw her. It was the way she looked. It was her gaze. She was so serious. Yeah. And she had such a, I don't know, I don't see auras, but she I feel things and one of the people I just feel everything. And she always felt so receptive and and aware. She just seemed different. She just seemed different and She's the connection that we had everybody saw it. And no, and they just said, Oh, isn't that nice? And I'm like, No, this is like, life's connection, you know? Right. And how old is she now? She's 33. Now. Yeah. Does she? Does she remember any of that, or she into any of this kind of past lives? I told her she would remember. And she wants to go to a medium because she really misses my mom so much. And, and she, she's getting messages and feeling like she wants to know more about that. So yeah, she's still, because she's so old. She's a sixth level old soul in the I don't know if you ever heard of the Michael, material, Michael stuff, the Michael teachings. I don't hear much about it anymore. But it really shaped my understanding of how we ascend as souls that there's different soul levels. And it just was so lovely to have like a system to think about things in and the way they explained it was, you would never judge somebody in who's in first grade, you would never judge them for not knowing what you knew what you know, in eighth grade, you know, they're just on, like, a whole other level. And so it just helps you understand people I just loved it. I loved it. And there's this it's the psychology like, what kind of soul are you like it read me read my husband. But the funny thing is, I forgot about this. When I did this reading, I hadn't had kids yet. And it said, Yeah, you're gonna have a little girl, when you're about 36. And she's going to be this, you know, this type, like they have sage scholar. It's similar. Other systems are similar sage, scholar, artisan, those kinds of things. And but they're really interesting. And they said, she'll be a scholar. No, she'll be an artisan. But she has a, I forget what they call it. It's almost like a twin soul, but she has a twin soul of scholars. So that will affect her. And she'll be you know, she'll be full of energy, and she'll be really artistic and, and then you'll have a son, like three years later. And that's exactly what happened. Interest. Like, I think they were off on the 36. I don't think I had, I don't think I had Katherine until I was 37, almost 38, they were a little bit off on that. And then I had Brendan at 40 and a half. And they're very much their personalities are very much what they said, My husband is extremely an artisan. I'm a scholar, big time. I mean, it's just kind of freaky. But we're an old soul family. But we're not as old soul as my niece. Right? There's levels, there's levels. There's, it's really important to understand what being an old soul is because being an old soul means you don't give a shit sometimes. Because you know, it doesn't matter. And if you don't know you're an old soul, you're just going to think you're lazy. But you're not lazy. It's like you've been there done that and you're like, you know what, I'm not even going to fight that fight. Because I know it doesn't matter. So you have to understand. Everybody's different, like younger souls have way more energy, way more righteous anger, way more activity in the world. Mature, it's so interesting to some mature souls are often psychologists, therapists, they're often mature souls, because they're trying to figure it out. And so me Not that that's real. It's just a fun way to write. Right? Like, I read a book called lightworker. That's similar to that, like looking at the different levels of lightworkers. You know, are you a light worker? If you are a level of light worker? Might you be cool? So and maybe it was based on that those the Michael teachings? I'm not sure what I liked about it, was it? I'll tell you, I don't even know if I really believe it all. But I find it interesting to think about the world that way. And the thing I carried away from it was I forgive people for how they act because I just say, well, they're just working it out. They're, you know, a young soul. Or, you know, they're doing this that I just see people on different paths. Yeah, in a way that I didn't like, I give people a break right away that I didn't before. So if that's all it did, for me, that's good. Yeah. And I think I, I'm still not sure about this stuff. I'm saying like that same yeah, I've had that same feeling. And I just think of it like this. And I've always had a little bit of a removal. Feeling similar is that we're, we each have our own soul journey. Our soul is here to learn whatever it is, and everybody has their own journey. And so I think of it that way a little bit, you know, and I even had I remember I, you know, this just reminded me that I, you know, back in the day when I was in public health, I was seeing a woman who had come from Mexico, I had a lot of Hispanic patients and she was literally about to give birth and she had all these open wounds on her legs and stuff. And I said to the interpreter, why does she have these wounds? Why, you know, why does she, my shell scraped up. And she looked at me short Susie, and I was like what she does, she literally just came across the border, like literally just came across the border, and North Carolina, like probably in the last 24 hours. And a lot of people in North Carolina, especially, it's a, you know, very conservative kind of place can be or, you know, look at immigrants in a certain way. But the way I immediately felt was, imagine that the shared human experience of having a baby, like wanting to birth your child, on ground that safer, has more opportunity, and you risked your life and their life to get to that place. Like what courage that must take, you know, we're all, we're all part of the human. You know, what if there weren't these arbitrary boundaries, you know, and let me in so much you start to touch that, you know, I have, well, I actually just closed it because I have too much going on. But I had a page where I tried to just put on Facebook, where I tried to just put inspiring things, the name of the page was we are not separate. People just, it's an illusion that we're separate illusion. And the more you can touch that connection, the happier you'll be, and the more you'll spread. Like every time you, like you said, make eye contact, have a pleasant interaction. Every time you do that. You spread this light and this connection that you know, will, will continue from person to person and you get it back. You feel good. It's just this craziness that we're like you said, We're inboxes. And we're, we're so overworked. And we're so thinking that this is really how the world is when we are not separate at all. It's just this terrible illusion. We're all connected. And I love that you had that. Because not everybody would think that Right? Right. And you know, I want to and then which is so not like me, I follow Anita Moorjani, which she wrote the book called Dying to be me. And then another one, which we touched on earlier about talking about being empathic, I think is what you're really talking about when you said you were sensitive. And she wrote a book, it's kind of new called sensitive as a new strong, but so last December, she was doing her first live in person event since like the pandemic and I went, it was in Sedona last December. Wow. Yeah, it was amazing. But she, um, she did she, she described as all connected in this kind of way, which I thought was really nice. Imagine a disco ball, right? And we're all all those little pieces of the disco ball are on there. And each shines his own light. And each has its own, like, you're the individual little tile. But all those little tiles make the, the the ball. I love that. So we're all part of the disco ball. You know, you can see it, you can see the light coming out. Right? Love that. But I thought well, that was a good way to think of that, you know, we're all we're all connected. We're all individual. We're all individual expressions of that larger thing. Whatever we want to call it, like drops, like we're all the ocean, right? Yeah. Give us the ocean is that analogy? Yep. And, you know, I think what, what you were saying before, this is how I've come to sort of think about it all these things, when you listen to, to whatever teacher it is learning about the Michael teachings or the lightworker the different levels, like our human brains need to be able to, like understand it, you know, understand whatever that larger concept is, you know, and some of these ways are just different ways that whatever resonate with you, you can understand it. Right. You know, I think that's kind of what's going on. And I love that you, you know, you're, you're seriously devoted to understanding this. I mean, you've read all these books, and you're treading this different path. And it's really that when you live that way, when you understand it, then you can have a more fulfilling life for yourself, but you can also as you are finding out, be a better healer, be a true healer, on on different levels. If my feeling is you're healing on different levels, then or you will be you know, than ever before. Yeah. And even, you know, so I'm drawn to reading all kinds of stuff, right but and I'm reading a book now written by cardiologist who went into integrative medicine and just talks about stress and all these different things that impact us, and how I was just reading the section on gratitude, and how just being grateful and even, even in your daily life, like walking on the ground looking I tell people to, even if you just take one mindful minute or moment to look at a leaf, and to look at all the veins in the leaf, turn it over. And just imagine all the beauty in that one piece of nature. Right that. I love that just take a second and because that is actually healing people who do those practices have less heart disease, less clogged arteries. So for me, it's bridging the two like, Okay, what does that mean, for our physical human body? You know, you know, you are killing me, you reminded me so much of my friend, Sandy Cohen, she's getting a master's in public health, she does a podcast you have got to listen to, you probably should be a guest on it. It's called inner peace to go. And what she loves the most, is backing things up with science, like what you've just described, like, it's so it's so illuminating to hear my talk and to hear you talk, when, when we back something up with science, people will listen to us, right? That's a beautiful thing. Yeah. And it makes people like, able to connect with it, because that's how our society is now, right? But there's a podcast upfront when I first started this, like taking pictures and everything, right? A friend of mine I worked with said, my dog always goes and barks at this tree. And I think something's going on in my backyard. She lives in the heart of St. Augustine. So I was like so I went, took pictures back there. And it is frickin amazing what's going on her backyard. So I thought it was so fascinating. And she's like, staging everything like, Everyone get out. You know, she sent me this, a link to a podcast, it was new at the time, and it's not so new. Now. She has been around a couple of years. And you should listen to her to set backing things up with science and sometimes not. But her name is Dr. Amy Robbins, and she has this podcast called life death in this space, but in between the space betrayal. So she has on all these people like Eden, Edom, Alexander, who had a near death experience a lot of near death experiencers people who have made communication devices to communicate with spirit. And she's a psychiatrist or psychologist. And so what happened to her one day is as she was sitting there with the client, she had messages come through like she she became, you know, a medium. So she was she was trying to figure out what this was all about. And she has this podcast, she has all these wonderful people on talking about the science of it, you know, and it's a it's a way to sounds like your friend Sandy. You know, I love it. I love it, because it really does reach more people that way. Yeah. And she likes to be able to tell people well, this is science backed. You know, this is yeah, these practices, what you just said is what she recommends all the time are these practices of gratitude and practices of being in nature more like ways to honor yourself. Give yourself that peacefulness, the inner peace to go like she Yes, she's actually a life coach. And she specializes in women and men who are burnt out and careers or everything, and she wants to get them back to a place where they can have that, that harmony and that which is more of a balance. And it's definitely like her thing. She used to be a celebrity interviewer and she worked for out in LA, she worked really hard for so many years. It was like a grind, you know, drank way too much wine. She said there was always wine. I was always now she's sober. She, you know, did it herself. And you know, she tells the story. It's her story. I'm not giving away anything. And now she has this whole different again, I love these transformations, where she said, you know, she did it. She got herself out of that rat race. She found some peace. She's backing it up with science, and now she's going to share it. So that's a wonderful way right now to heal other people. Right? And I love it. So even when you're talking about things like meditation, so in my, my coaching curriculum, introduced me to a woman who's a Harvard researcher, she had an injury had to do some stretching that will do yoga. She said this yoga lady was talking about all these benefits of meditation on the brain. And she thought, is that true? So then she went and did studies, you know, she did studies, CAT scans, and you can actually change the structure of your brain. Certainly, I heard that. Right. Amazing. That's amazing. So but that's the bridging the science and the practices that are ancient wisdom, right? I mean, just ancient wisdom. And your body has that wisdom too. So your body you know has and healing capabilities. And so, you know, that's one thing that looking at the science of that, you know, looking at the science of earthing and grounding, the work of the HeartMath Institute looking at blood pressure and blood viscosity, that which is stickiness, right? Right after you've been grounded for 20 or 30 minutes and your blood viscosity goes down, blood pressure goes down. So these are things that our physical body responds to. Yeah, she just did an article, She also writes articles for Shonda land, which is so cool. She did an article on the vagus nerve. And the five ways you can optimize Oh, you know, the stress relief that your vagus nerve can give you, you can relax it, you can, you can do breathing, like one of the simplest ones is the breathing, which I've heard a couple places, anyone can do it, like they can do it right now. Just take longer to exhale, you know, inhale deeply, take a moment and take longer to exhale. And it relaxes you. And I think that's so beautiful, and science backed, which, when I wanted to mention one thing, I did have breast cancer in 2018. And I was really fortunate because I had a very intuitive doctor, who even though my biopsies were negative, had a feeling. She was annoying at the time. But she had a feeling that something was in there. She didn't like the look of the edges of some of the cells. So she literally made me go under surgery to get a bigger sample, and it was still negative. And I was really not real pleased with her because I didn't understand. I didn't understand what she was doing now. I'm like, I love you. Thank you. So right, right. So she still didn't find anything, which because I just don't like this. And so we did another surgery, and she found the teeniest tiniest tumor I think anyone has ever found. Like everybody sings her praises in my area, because she has that extra sense that so she listens to it. Oh my god, I love her. So yeah. And I remember like, I'm pretty much like a lay person, but totally into, like, medical stuff. Yeah. And so I talked to doctors differently. And I, and I'm logical. I'm a tech writer. So I, I take information differently. So when she texted me that she found something, she sat me down and she was like, Well, we found something. And I was like, oh, yeah, yeah. Because like, that's what they were looking for. You know, I was like, that's cool. What do we do? And she was like, are you okay? Because usually I have to give people like an Ativan or something. And I'm like, Well, no, that's what all this was about. Like, right? Like, I'm really grateful. So I went through only radiation, which is such a gift. Not right. And the whole time I was doing it, I had this really positive attitude, which I just saw a great future. And I used to tile to my, I used to talk to myself, I did that. And I didn't really read that anywhere, I didn't have a lot of details about it. I just did it intuitively, because I understand the mind body connection. So I talked to them, I pictured them. I was like, we're all in this together, I sent love to them. And recently I do this like heart thing, where you put your hand on your heart, and you feel gratitude, but you also send love to yourself. Mm hmm. To every cell. And I'm not saying that. I don't really know definitively what it did. But even my radiologists said, I see people do better and bounce back better who have attitudes, like you, you know, like, they don't have a whole lot of data about it. But they know, they do know because they see it. And that was very powerful for me. Like that whole experience. Yeah. And it is healing and the sect of medicines called integrative medicine embraces that kind of thing. Much more like visualization, even visualization, I you know, you can, you can make whatever you want whatever kind of imagery, you know, to, people can't even like heal their bodies just by doing that kind of thing. You know, it's a shame that we don't, you know, teach that more, but like you said, in this environment, which is kind of toxic, pollution wise, and you know, what we're putting in our bodies, it's a little bit harder to do that. So, as you as you unpeel, the onion, there's so many things that you need to change, about how you eat and how you live and what you ingest. And where are you where you live. It's, it's overwhelming, because where we are right now as a society, and, you know, kind of like civilization. It's not real healthy. So it can be kind of overwhelming for people. I was going to tell you to that when when my husband got COVID and I knew I probably had it. I was visualizing big time. Big time. I was talking to myself big time and I was like, Look, this is going to come knocking we don't have to let it in. We don't have to let this in. We've had the booster, you know, and I pictured like the cell wall like saying, you know, no, thanks. We don't need this. Right. Oh, I was picturing like that modified RNA like doing its job. Right now. I still got sick. I got a positive test, but I never got very sick. All right, so did that work? I don't know. I know Maderna works a little better. He had Pfizer and I hadn't Maderna. Who knows? You know, and what I love about my doctor, my oncologist. I saw her a couple days ago. And she I said, Yeah, who knows? I said, I think maybe the Madonna made a difference. Who knows? And she goes, we don't know. Like, I love when she's like, one of the best doctors. I know. Just like, we don't know. We don't know. Yeah, she goes in 10 years when the research comes out? Well, no. Yeah. We don't know it. Like in retrospect. She said, I mean, somebody, somebody goes, I have COVID that, that that helped me get cancer? She goes, we don't know. Yeah, I just thought that was so refreshing. Yeah, it's true. I mean, we will know a lot more, you know, when we look back and can put together some connect some dots, you know, so I want to get back to you. I'm really intrigued by the future that you see for yourself, what's what's in your future? What do you see yourself doing? Okay, as you move along your path, right. So initially, when I, I stepped into lifestyle medicine, because again, a lot of information that we didn't know that I now know, for healing the body, and then in combination with what I know, holistically now, and want to grow that even more, but So my initial thing that I was going for, was to have an online business and online health coaching business that would include one to one, group coachings also included all the lifestyle medicine stuff, as well as the, the the pillars of lifestyle, medicine, things like nutrition, and exercise, and not smoking, and all that kind of stuff. But also, in addition to that I have in my signature program, religion and spirituality, and, you know, Mind Body practices, things like that, that just, I feel like enhance all of that. So my thought was, I really wanted to have some geographical freedom, because I wanted to travel, you know, and enrich my life that way, have abundance, but also to be able to provide good information for people. And what's happened in the meantime, also, is that I've met a number of other people on us, that are like minded, and also have said, why don't you do stuff for our community. And I'm like, you know, that's a great idea, too. So now my thought is maybe some kind of a hybrid of, I do some part time things in my community, right to have, you know, where we can be live and in person that I can work with some people. And like I said before, I'm going to be working at a Wellness Spa, doing a couple of days of health coaching, right, or health and holistic coaching, and trying to grow this online business. And I'm partnering, going to be partnering with a couple of people in that space. So that, you know, when I first went into this whole thing, I thought, I have to know all of it, I have to teach everybody all of it, the why, you know, finding your why all the mind body tools, how to cook like, I need to know all of it. But now I'm realizing I don't have to know all of it, I can kind of focus in on some things that are the best parts of what I know how I can reach people, how I can teach how I can help people transform, and then somebody else can maybe teach how to do it in the kitchen. You know, like, I love that. Yeah. And love that. And maybe when you do your local thing, maybe you'll find people that, you know, have those other pieces and you can write, perhaps do things together. And so right and bigger impact, right? Yep, we've discussed having a few of us have discussed having like a day long event or retreat. But you know, with COVID that's been hard. Of course, I'm in Florida, where we've been open for business for a while, but, you know, we kind of act like it's not going on. Yeah, I do know that. Yes. You know, still what we do is you know, as we've opened up more people are more comfortable coming together. So I think that will come to fruition in the near future. You know, maybe in the next six, eight months more of a Yeah. Well, we could do I see you're doing like a summit. Yeah, like summits? I can see you do I just see you. I just feel like you're on fire. I think you're gonna do great. Well, thank you because sometimes it doesn't feel that way. Sometimes it feels like you're in the, in the trenches, you know, trying to make a difference and am I even doing anything for anyone it's hard when you're alone. So you know, if you're alone with it, it's a little bit you know, the journey is lonely and it takes time takes time and you have to trust like you said, you just don't give up. Like I'm, I'm sort of pivoting my podcast, and I'll figure it out when I figure it out. But that's a lovely that this all happened because I took a course with Kathy Heller, who has a really successful podcast, and she gave us her her attention live like so much. It was just it was amazing. And she talked about mindset. A lot of it was not about having a podcast, although they did cover that and they had a tech person but it was more We're about success mindset and the mindset that you have to have, and believing in yourself and abundance and that whole, like the stuff I see everywhere now, but I wasn't really plugged in, I had just like, sort of danced around it before that, well, she just like, radically shifted my head. I'll never be the same again. And it's lovely. Because in the past, I would have started something perhaps, and then just said, it's not for me. And because I didn't tell anyone, I had no accountability. Yeah, nobody knew. And I would feel like a failure. I'd be like, Oh, I just can't make this work. I've learned such a different way now. And I think it's so great to hear more and more people saying, well, failure is like just, you know, little failures or stepping stones, it means you're moving along, and you just pivot. And you just the only secret to it is to not give up. Right? I think, I hear that over and over, I tend to have a lot of entrepreneurs on my podcasts, which I never intended. Again, it's you've got to follow where things go, you have the most interesting stories, and they can help people overcome not only their own entrepreneurial journeys, but just how to deal with when life throws you a curveball, you know, they have great examples of persistence, and not giving up. And what a simple thing that is just don't give up. Right? And so I think that that's maybe what I struggle with, or have struggled with. And I you know, I started my own podcast recently, I'm picking just one time know that one tile after the other one tile after the other and just see what unfolds and be open to whatever unfolds. You know, it's hard to live when you live your whole life the other way, but Right, it works better. So what is your podcast called? So it is called the return to vibrant health. I love that. And my original intention was to bring lifestyle medicine to the masses, but to also infuse the holistic perspective and have it be expansive as well. Because, you know, I will say that the American College of lifestyle medicine, I'm a part of really wants to bring evidence based interventions to people and I totally agree with that. And, and am board on board with that. I mean, that's very important, especially in our medical realm right now, and getting some of these things covered, like nutrition that might not have been before, you know, so those things are very important. But I also love the other parts of Mind, Body medicine, of compassion, of all these other, you know, maybe more esoteric, or things that maybe are science hasn't caught up with yet that you can't prove, I love those things, because they are very powerful as well. You know, so, so the podcast was meant to bring lifestyle medicine to the masses get because every day, I'm telling people, you can reverse your heart disease, and they're like, I've never heard that before. You know, so to bring that information to people, and also infuse what I call the woowoo stuff, because that's what I like, that's what I'm into. But it's also when you start, like you said, when you start talking to somebody about it, you realize that they have their own stories. You know, even if you only believe in yourself, you still believe in something. You know, but I don't know, I just wanted to bring this information to people and in the process, raise my own consciousness, like continue to expand that and in my world and help other people do the same thing. I love that. Well, I think you're going to be successful at it. Judging by everything I've learned from you and everything you reminded me of in my own life. This is a two parter, I think. Right? That's okay. I told you, I like to talk. I do. Thank you again, Susie spell for a spellbinding conversation, you got me talking about things I haven't shared with my audience, because you are just so full of interesting ideas and insights. You've read so many cool books. I'm going to try to remember them and put them in the show notes. But thank you so much for coming on and sharing so much of yourself. I think that people are really excited and ready to learn more. And that's so wonderful. I think the healing that you're going to do. Well, it's going to be pretty amazing. I see a future for you. And I just love to hear about your transformation. I think others will love it too. So thank you so much. And to the rest of you. I'll see you soon on the story of human Do