0:00

You're not a problem. That is like my take-home message. You're not a problem. And there's nothing wrong with you.

0:06

You're a human who is on a very chaotic planet right now. And it is hard to be here. But the thing is, our challenges

0:14

that we go through on this earth plane, they're how we grow. They're how we learn about oursel. They're how

0:19

consciousness learns about consciousness. And so when we open ourselves up to the opportunities for

0:25

growth, for holding more love, for deepening our self-nowledge, for standing in greater strength, for being

0:32

being more willing to be honest, like all of these things are available for us every single time we get triggered. We

0:37

just have to know how to move through that and down into the feeling. When you clear the feeling behind the thing

0:43

that's difficult for you, when you stop making yourself a problem and you actually start to feel your feelings,

0:49

you get lighter. You feel relief on the other side of things. You don't carry things around. Resentment is not a thing

0:54

that lives in you.

1:05

Welcome to True Hope Cast, the official podcast of True Hope Canada. I am your host, Simon Brazer, and here on True

1:11

Hope Cast, we explore the many psychological and physiological dimensions of mental health. In a world

1:16

that's both beautiful and challenging, this is your place for motivation, inspiration, knowledge, and practical

1:21

solutions. Today's episode is one you won't want to miss. It's called Reclaiming the Body: Truth, Tears, and

1:27

Transformation. Our guest is Cla Garner. She is an intuitive emotional healing guide and the creator of Intuitive

1:34

Emotional Healing. Cla has dedicated her work to helping people heal their hearts, overcome their limitations of

1:40

the mind, and truly deepen their human experience. Her transformational approach doesn't just talk about healing. It delivers the how through

1:47

practical emotional healing tools, awareness building techniques, perspective shifts, and clear

1:52

step-by-step processes. CLA empowers people to take real daily steps towards becoming the emotionally free, thriving,

1:59

fulfilled humans they have always meant to be. If you've ever wondered how to move through your own emotional pain,

2:05

how to make sense of the tears, and how to truly reclaim your body as a safe and sacred place, this conversation is for

2:11

you. So get comfortable, open your heart, and join us for this transformational journey. Enjoy the show. Okay, Cla, hi. Welcome to True

2:19

Hope Cast, the official podcast with True Hope Canada. How are you? What is going well?

2:25

I'm great. I'm so happy to be here. This is my first time being on a podcast. So, thank you for having me.

2:30

Well, we're very excited to have that. And we just had a funny conversation off air about how one of us thought this was

2:36

just to be a nice little conversation before we actually record the podcast. But no, we are diving into this because

2:43

we can't our audience can't possibly wait any longer. We've got to hear about reclaiming the body, truth, tears, and

2:49

transformation. Love it. Let's do it. Cool. So, before we jump into that

2:54

exciting topic, can you just let us know a little bit more about who you are and what it is that you do, please, Cla?

3:01

Absolutely. I'm Claire. I live in Maine in the United States and I have a framework that's called intuitive

3:06

emotional healing. So, little bit of background about me. I for the last 10 years have been an oncology massage

3:12

therapist and my time working with people navigating a cancer diagnosis really opened me up to the spectrum of

3:19

human emotion. As you can imagine, when you're spending time with people who have just gotten a diagnosis of blood or

3:25

bone cancer, which was particularly what I was working with, I was working in a hospital out in Sacramento in

3:30

California. Um, when people get handed that diagnosis, it's almost like they've

3:36

been handed a ticking clock and it clarifies everything in your life. It makes you realize what's important. It

3:42

It brings up the things that you haven't said. And so, here I was, this massage therapist, walking into this brand new

3:48

patient's room and getting to sit with them in one of the most tender, terrifying moments of their life and

3:54

then spending lots of time with them over a period of a few months. And so

3:59

I've always been a deeply self-reflective person. I've always had emotional intelligence. I can

4:05

effortlessly walk in a room and read people. Uh that's been something that's just always been a part of who I am. But

4:11

that experience in the bone marrow unit really showed me um one, it showed me

4:17

the compassion fatigue that is inherent in a lot of the systems that we have, the health care system being one. But it

4:25

just showed me how hungry we are for meaning and how much is left unsaid. And

4:30

I just found myself um just holding space, like really learning to be

4:35

present with my own feelings and the feelings of other people. And it was through that process that I thought I

4:42

really want to hand more to folks. I really want to have more than just touch to help people feel better. And so I

4:48

actually went to the functional medicine coaching academy and I got a coaching certificate from them in 2019. and I

4:54

started doing um health coaching, I actually moved to Maine during that time to be closer to my nephews. And through

5:03

my health coaching, still focusing on oncology, uh people navigating a cancer diagnosis, I found that it really didn't

5:09

matter what lifestyle stuff we were looking at. It didn't matter um the goals that the person had. If the person

5:15

wasn't looking at the way they were thinking and feeling about themselves, none of the lifestyle modification that

5:21

we were looking at would actually stick. So, I went through a series of my own sort

5:27

of dark night of the soul, things melting down and my whole life getting pretty

5:33

loud um in 2020, which I think happened to a lot of us. And that during that

5:38

time um really caused me to arrive to my own emotional work and started giving me

5:45

the little nudges to start talking to people about their emotional work. And

5:52

I wish I could tell you that there was like a singular moment or some training that I went through or something that

5:58

pushed me to really develop this framework, but the truth is it's my lived experience. It's as I arrived and

6:04

started healing my own heart, I started getting clarity about the way we experience emotions, what we need to

6:09

clear them, and how we move forward without looping anymore. And so, the past five years have been me

6:16

living this framework that I bring to you uh taking a chance on myself and moving more out of massage and more into

6:23

emotional healing work and really sitting with people and helping them liberate themselves from the stuff

6:29

they've been swirling in for forever. So, my framework is really practical.

6:35

It's very much based in your body and your sensations, which is why your title is perfect for today, Simon. Um, and

6:43

it's really easy to apply. This this uh framework is really something that you

6:48

can bring with you in your everyday and practice in the tiny moments in between.

6:53

Um, so I have an unusual I think background. There's other parts of it that I didn't

7:00

share. I have a bachelor's in organic agriculture. I've done a lot of traveling. Um, I've been a baker. I've

7:06

been a nanny. I've had lots of various experiences which is have all contributed really to me having diverse

7:12

perspectives on the human experience which I think all just adds together. So,

7:18

all right. I have a few questions. Great. I'd love to just learn a little bit more

7:24

about what a like an oncology massage therapist. Yeah.

7:30

Can you explain a little bit more about that because I've never heard of that before and I'd like to know. I'd like to know. I'm just interested.

7:35

Totally. So, uh, I went to a little massage school out in California and

7:42

that massage school allowed you to choose your specialty from the very beginning and get focused in there. So,

7:48

oncology massage was one of the offerings that they had. I had never heard of it before I went to massage

7:53

school. But the idea is when you go through a cancer diagnosis, the main thing that happens is one often people

8:00

are surgically altered, right? We have mastctomies or people get parts of their organs removed or there's something that

8:05

happens, lymph nodes are biopsied. And so the physical structures in your body change and you also go through extensive

8:14

treatment, right? which changes the levels of um platelets, your white blood

8:20

cells. Um it just changes the way your your body reacts to touch. So what

8:25

oncology massage does is it goes depending on the platelets that a person has in their body, you're going to

8:31

adjust your pressure so you don't cause bruising on this person. Depending on

8:38

how many lymph nodes they've had biopsied or removed, you're going to change the way you touch them in that

8:43

quadrant of your body. So you may have heard of manual lymphatic drainage. That's a modality that helps to move

8:49

lymphatic uh fluid in our bodies. And when you go through oncology

8:56

treatment and your lymph system has been altered or biopsied in any way, it just

9:03

impairs it a little bit or it does in some people. So oncology massage goes

9:08

with all of these different factors with all of these different things that can cause issues for people. We're just

9:14

going to know exactly how to alter the massage so that we don't cause more inflammation. We help the body actually

9:21

move lymph instead of stagnating it and we can work safely with people regardless of what they've been going

9:27

through with their treatment. So it's just like extra protocol to help you add into your massage so you

9:32

keep people safe essentially. And you would get uh referred by do by doctors

9:38

of patients with cancer to come to come see you. You said you were working at the hospital. Is that right? So I had a private practice out in

9:44

California. I have a private practice now. But um part of the time for two years that I was in California, I worked

9:51

at Sutter Hospital in Sacramento. So I was working in their bone marrow unit. It was a very I don't even know if

9:57

they have the program anymore, but at the time uh they had this incredible um

10:03

board that cared about adding services. And so they just they hired me. They put

10:09

me in the bone marrow unit. So I was only on that unit and I could go into I

10:16

think I was doing 16 hours a week. 16 or 20 hours a week. Um, well, it was

10:22

16 in the inpatient and 4 hours in the outpatient clinic, like the infusion

10:28

center. Okay. Um, so basically, I wasn't getting referrals. I could literally just check in with the nurses about each of their

10:35

patients, and I could pop into whatever patient room I wanted, stay with them for as long as I wanted to, and I just

10:40

had to chart in their records after. So, it's a very unique position. I don't know of any hospitals on the east coast

10:46

that are doing this this way and like I said I don't know if Sedar has continued that program but it was such a rich

10:53

experience for me. I'm so grateful for that. Yeah. I mean, it sounds incredible and it sounds like it would it's a

10:58

no-brainer in regards to, you know, obviously somebody who's in a disease diseased state where they've been

11:04

diagnosed with cancer, how that massively changes and affects their their body and then post surgery or post

11:11

chemo or radiation when somebody is significantly weak and I guess most cancer patients are typically a little

11:18

bit older uh a little bit weaker. Lymphatic system maybe not working as well, arterial system, venus system

11:24

maybe not working as well. So having that manual manipulation uh is is sounds hugely beneficial and makes a whole lot

11:31

of sense. So it's very cool that that even existed. Um, this is not on my list

11:37

of questions I had kind of lined up for today, but what what do you think in regards to so

11:43

when somebody gets a cancer diagnosis and you you talked about the like the time frame that they're given like it

11:50

it's quite remarkable like almost to the day sometimes where people pass pass on

11:57

from that diagnosis and I don't know whether that's where doctors are incredibly good at predicting or People

12:05

basically they get that 6 months, 3 months, 1 month and they kind of have this internal clock goes off and it's a

12:10

very powerful thing that's said to them from from somebody of of like authority

12:17

and hearing that diagnosis I can only imagine would be incredibly traumatic to

12:26

hear and the energy of that traumatic experience has got to go somewhere and

12:32

that would get without question, trapped or locked or stuck in the body? And how

12:39

much of your massage therapy work when it came to these oncology patients do you think um was connected to that

12:46

actual diagnosis and the trauma of that event getting kind of trapped in the physical

12:51

body? Well, it's interesting because massage therapy only really people only release

12:58

if they're willing to. With massage, it's very different than doing emotional work. A person has to be present in

13:03

their body breathing and willing to release. And so for some people I think

13:09

the massage work did help them to release some of at least the anxious

13:15

energy. But I think when it comes to trauma and bigger experiences like that where I

13:20

love the way you said that the energy generated from receiving that kind of shocking news, it does need to go

13:27

somewhere and we don't know how to process it. But I would argue that massage and our more

13:35

physical modalities only go so far in helping us process those things, which is why I do what I do now.

13:42

Yeah, that's really cool. I just I just kind of imagine um what I've seen in let's just say movies

13:49

when somebody gets really shocking news. There's this subconscious action

13:56

to like hold something or hold somebody. Yeah. where it's hold a hand, hold an

14:01

arm or something like that. Um, that's, you know, it's I guess it's deep within

14:07

our subconscious that we need to do that type of behavior to connect to be touched. Yeah.

14:12

And I'm sure like that that massage piece just that that connection with

14:17

another human being is incredibly comforting. Well, and I think in the Western model,

14:22

you know, when you're a patient, that's like a label put to you. you're not a I think the the nurses and the doctors try

14:28

really hard to keep people feeling like people, but when you have that term patient applied to you, it does change the way we approach people. And so

14:36

having a human walk in, me, who goes, "Hi, whatever your name is, and is like

14:42

asking about how's your family doing? How have you been feeling? What's happening in your body?" and attending

14:49

to them as a human being, encouraging them to let themselves cry when they need to and really connecting in with

14:55

that humanity. I think just that connection when people are willing to

15:00

let down, they do. Y and I think that is so healing just that connection.

15:06

Yeah. And just I can only imagine those types of individuals what part of their brain they're using in that in that

15:13

particular time. You know, there's a lot of fear, a lot of anxiety. Yeah. And if you're able to have like a

15:18

let's just say a a more casual human conversation, it's actually going to engage a very different part of the

15:24

brain and give people a rest from that scareful scareful state. Yep.

15:30

So I can there's so many there's so many different levels to that. But that's really cool. Thanks for thanks for

15:36

sharing that. My uh my wife is a she's a sematic practitioner. So I've been learning off her and we've had

15:42

people on the show as well talk about their sematic work how working with not just you know traditional therapy you would you know

15:49

you imagine like the you know the therapist sat down with their legs crossed on a very weird bajgeoir chair

15:55

and then someone laid somewhere someone laid down on you know the

16:01

comfortable sofa thing. Yeah. And you talk and it's talk therapy and it's it's very psychological.

16:08

There's no there's no there's literal there's literal distance between you and that practitioner y for for for professional reasons for

16:14

sure. But there's a massive aspect missing there in regards to the physical

16:20

application of stress trauma and therapy. Yeah. And and this sematic work with the soma

16:26

working with the body. It makes a a whole lot of sense to me that that would be a much more effective way to help

16:34

people transition from a particular state to let's just say a state of healing or healed.

16:40

Yeah. To work with both the psychological aspects and the physiological aspects as well. So that this this this uh massage

16:48

piece during, you know, during these individuals who have got cancer,

16:53

it just it's just it's just awesome that they're able to actually have have that type of a a service to be able to to

16:59

support them through it, not just psychologically, but physically as well. Absolutely. Um, so for your for the

17:04

listeners here who might not be familiar with with your work in this intuitive uh emotional healing, can you explain maybe

17:11

like what intuitive emotional healing is and how it differs from other healing modalities?

17:18

Yes, absolutely. Actually, this ties in with what you were just talking about with somatic work versus talk therapy. I

17:24

actually feel like my work is the middle between the two of those things. So

17:29

intuitive emotional healing is a framework that looks at your mind and your heart and the relationship between

17:36

the two. So there are two branches to it. As you can imagine, the first branch

17:41

of my work is practical awareness building. It's going what is my brain saying to me all the time? Can I give

17:47

myself a layer of separation between myself and my thoughts? Can I start to look at my thoughts as data points that

17:54

are really leading me to emotional things that are happening under the surface? Like, can I really just start

18:00

to sort through all of the thoughts and things that are happening in my head on a day-to-day basis with discernment,

18:06

empowerment, and in a way that actually invests my energy where I can make change and away from things that I'm

18:13

just spinning my wheels about that I can't actually change. So, practical awareness is a huge piece of it. The

18:19

other aspect of my work is competent feeling. How do we actually have an

18:24

embodied emotional expression of emotions when they come up? Which literally means I teach people how to

18:30

cry. Again, that's a huge part of the work that I do is how do we let

18:36

ourselves cry, make the noise that we need to make. It's not saying you need to force it or you have to make noise

18:41

every time, but if your body needs to make a noise, how can you allow yourself to do that? What does your brain need to

18:47

be doing when you're feeling deeply so that you don't drown in it? So that you don't distract yourself from it, so that

18:54

you don't get lost in swirling. So it's like the literal like nuts and bolts of

19:00

what do we do when we cry? What is embodied emotional expression? And how do we invite all of that in as not a

19:08

problem? All part of healing, normal part of being a person. So, one last

19:14

thing I'll just add, I guess, to the emotional competence piece and the I guess it goes with both is if you need

19:21

to feel something through, if you have an emotion that's coming up, the number one thing that is going to keep you from

19:27

feeling that is your own judgment, which is happening in your brain. And so, a huge piece of this is just us pulling

19:34

apart our judgments. Sometimes laughing at them, sometimes grieving them. Yeah. But going like, where am I making this

19:40

process wrong? So this intuitive emotional healing process really when you take those two things and you put

19:45

them together, this practical awareness, this practical awareness and this competent feeling, what happens is you

19:51

reset the voice in your head so that it becomes a friend. So it's actually supportive to you. It actually allows

19:58

you to let down when you need to and your body knows how to feel emotion

20:04

through without getting overwhelmed, without getting freaked out, without panicking. And so it's like you just

20:10

create a nervous system that's easier to regulate and a brain that isn't causing as much dysregulation.

20:17

So it's about really more lasting peace actually clearing the energy that's causing the chaos in your life in the

20:23

first place. Beautifully said. I love it. What why uh

20:28

why do you think we need to or some people need to relearn how to cry? I'm

20:34

interested. Oh gosh. because we're so suppressed. We're so suppressed. All cultures push

20:41

feeling down in different ways. We have all decided that feeling is a problem. But when you look at babies,

20:48

universally, what's the very first thing that we look at in a newborn to know that they're healthy? They cry.

20:55

Yeah. We're looking for that big cry. It is the number one way that our bodies

21:00

re-eregulate. you know, it it releases oxytocin when you have a good cathartic cry. So, it's

21:07

a natural part of our body's ability to reset is crying. But as we grow up, when

21:14

we get to be about three or four, we start to notice that the people around us are reacting to the way we are. And

21:21

so, we start to go, we just start to notice like, oh, I'm making I'm making this person uncomfortable. They're

21:27

trying to make me feel better. I don't want them to feel that way. Oh, this person is making fun of me because of

21:33

how I'm feeling, so I need to hide that. Oh, I get harmed by this person. I get hit by this person. I feel this way or

21:39

do this thing. So, kids just start to suppress their feelings because they don't fit in with the people around

21:44

them. This happens to every person in different ways. Even if we have the most wonderful parents that provide a really

21:51

loving space for us, we're not with our parents 24/7. So there are moments out in society where we feel emotionally

21:59

unsafe with our feelings and we see that our peers have a different response maybe than we have at home. So every

22:05

human goes through many moments where they notice that their feelings are wrong to somebody else. Their feelings

22:11

are a problem or make other people uncomfortable. And we're wired to try to

22:16

fit into our community because when we're kids, we literally can't take care of ourselves. We literally need other

22:22

people to help protect us, to get food on our plates, to keep us safe, right?

22:27

Mhm. And provide for us. So, we're we're wired to watch everybody else and go,

22:33

"How can I fit in here?" And suppressing our emotions is just part of how humans

22:40

have evolved um to kind of get through. So, I think it's universal.

22:45

Interesting. Yeah. Um sometimes when my wife's having a tough time and I come in and she's and she explains to me she's

22:52

had a good cry, I'm like, "Oh, good. Great." Like, yeah, that's a good thing. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting.

22:58

Uh and then how would you begin to help someone to to teach them how to cry

23:03

again? Like give can you give me an example? I can let me say this

23:10

the very because I said earlier judgment is the number one thing that's going to keep you from crying the first thing

23:16

that we have to do is get our brains under control. So I tell everyone if you're going to do emotional work

23:22

meaning if you're going to cry and feel something through you need three things. You need the time to do it. Okay? You

23:28

need the willingness which means you need gas in your tank. You've got to have the focus the energy right to be

23:34

able to do it. So you've got to have the time. You've got to be willing and then you've got to have the safety. And we

23:39

don't think about this. You can think about it like, okay, yeah, I'd probably want to be in a room where like maybe no

23:45

one else can hear me. Maybe where I can have turn on a sound machine or close a door. We think about those things to

23:50

have like the privacy that we need to feel. But a huge part of emotional safety in order to actually feel

23:55

something through is having a a space within yourself where you're not wrong.

24:02

Think about it. If you're with somebody else and they're unkind to you on a regular basis, they're tearing you down,

24:09

they're criticizing you, they're looking at all the stuff that you need to fix, maybe they're self-conscious, like

24:14

they're not fully comfortable with their own emotions, right? You're with them all day. When you get to a point where

24:20

you need to let down, where you need to cry, are you going to feel comfortable to cry in front of that person? Like,

24:26

probably not. But that's the way our brains are. Our brains are constantly in the background critiquing. So many of us

24:33

have a deficit focus. Some of us are the opposite. Some people are like, I'm only looking at the good things. We're not

24:39

even going to acknowledge the bad things. Right? So it's like our brains sort of set up this environment where we

24:45

either feel safe to feel or we don't feel safe to feel.

24:50

So the very first thing before we even get to feeling our feelings is we have to become familiar with what our

24:55

internal environment is. What is my brain saying to me on a regular basis?

25:01

Is my brain celebratory of who I am? Does my brain hold me lovingly

25:06

accountable? Not is my is my brain mean to me? Because my brain is mean to me, it's going to be hard for me to feel my

25:12

feelings. If I feel like my feelings are wrong, it's going to be hard for me to feel my feelings. So, the very first thing is we've got to get your brain under

25:18

control. And then we've got to get you out of your brain and into your body.

25:26

And I'd love to know how we do that. Like have you got any like what's like a step-by-step process of like is it

25:31

different for everybody? Is there like a formula there? There is a formula there. This is something that I teach in my community.

25:37

I've got a community called the conscious heart academy and I lead workshops there and I've got a whole emotional resource library with

25:43

step-by-step processes and teaching videos and things like that. And I'll give you like a general summary of one

25:50

of my tools which is called the sensation triangle. And it's this idea that your brain is creating thoughts all

25:57

day that are generating an emotional response in you and sensations in your

26:03

body. Because emotions are just energies that create sensation in your body. You

26:09

think of the sensation of anxiety. It's a very buzzy, very charged kind of feeling in your body. When you think

26:16

about grief, grief is a very different set of sensations. Sometimes we collapse forward with

26:22

grief. There's a hollowess with grief. There's a heaviness with grief. You contrast that to joy. That's like an

26:29

uplifted feeling, right? There's expansion with joy. All of these things are sensations in our bodies. And so, we

26:36

have to be able to connect in with those sensations on a day-to-day basis to

26:41

notice what our emotional experience is. So the sensation triangle in general

26:46

takes you and goes at any time throughout your day when you're willing,

26:52

when you remember, you stop, you take a deep breath. I encourage people to close their eyes and then you literally come

26:59

down and you focus your entire attention inside of your body. And your first

27:05

question is, what are the sensations that are present?

27:10

Do I have tightness in my chest? Do I have a knot in my stomach? Do I have um

27:16

do I have a lump in my throat? Do I have tension in my shoulders? Like literal 3D. What are your sensations? We're

27:22

doing that again because your emotions create sensations in your body. So, you have to notice on a day-to-day basis

27:28

what your sensations are to even notice that you're having them in the first place. The second thing

27:35

that we do is we go, "What emotions are present in me?"

27:40

And then you ask yourself, yeah, like what are what are my emotions? Am I feeling diminished? Am I feeling

27:47

abandoned? Am I feeling anxious? Am I feeling happy? And then the third thing you're doing is you're going back up to

27:53

your brain and you're going, "What did I just think about? What have I been thinking about today?" So in this way, when you take your brain, you take the

28:00

literal sensations in your body and you take the emotions that you've been feeling and you correlate them all together, you start to create an

28:07

emotional landscape for yourself. to actually notice when you have

28:13

emotions coming in throughout the day. If you spend all day in your brain thinking, problem solving, planning, out

28:19

in the future, whatever it is that you're doing, there are so many of us that are numb from the neck down and we

28:25

don't know what our sensations are because we've gotten so good at paying no attention to them and just pushing

28:31

our bodies through whatever it is that is happening. Mhm. So the the very first thing is you got

28:37

to practice in moments where you're not pissed off, where you're not triggered, where you're not having a hard time. And

28:43

you got to practice in those moments noticing what's happening in your body so that when you are having a hard time, you're more able to notice what's going

28:50

on. Does that make sense? It makes a lot of sense. Yeah. I visualize that triangle. I visualize that pathway and being able to actually

28:58

look at it from the perspective of sensation first and kind of backpedaling to the initial thoughts that come up.

29:04

And I guess you can kind of go down like like a cognitive behavioral therapy route to actually like analyze those

29:10

initial thoughts to suggest is there actually any validity to these statements and then you can start I

29:16

guess like rewiring that that whole cascade. Well, can I offer an alternative lens to

29:21

it please? In this work, I always say to people, I don't care what's actually true. You're not responding to what's

29:28

true. What you're responding to is your belief about yourself or your reality that you don't like. So, it doesn't even

29:34

matter if it's true. It's just what's your belief system, even if it's off base. What emotion is that generating?

29:41

And then we learn to be there with that emotion with resilience. And that's how

29:46

it clears. So the tiniest part of this work, the least important part of this

29:52

work is analyzing anything. I always say if the why, if asking yourself why helps

29:58

you to arrive to deeper compassion for yourself, helps you to understand yourself at a

30:03

deeper level. So you make more space for yourself in your own humanity, in your own, you know, we all create friction in

30:10

our lives and our our own ways that we show up imperfectly, then your why is great. I love that. But if your why is

30:17

just trying to figure out where something came from and it's looking for blame or it's looking for the source and

30:24

it's not a compassion generating humanity relating generating kind of

30:30

experience, then the why isn't helping you. That's why cognitive behavioral therapy gets us to a place where we

30:37

understand what we're feeling, but we don't necessarily know how to move through it. So, this is like the next step.

30:42

I love that. Yeah, cuz you you initially said kind of it's that middle point, right? This this work is this middle point between that psychological and

30:49

physiological um pathway. Love it. Very cool. What role does um

30:56

self-awareness play in that in that healing journey? And how can people start building that up if they're, you know, feeling

31:03

disconnected? Absolutely. I mean, self-awareness is the I think it's the tool that we need

31:09

in order to be able to dive into this with ourselves. Um, but I would say paired with a lens where none of it is a

31:16

problem. You know, like when we use our self-awareness to then should on ourselves and decide that we need to be

31:22

different, we're not actually helping ourselves to heal. So, we want to be self-aware, but we also just want to

31:28

make room for the fact that we're a person. Everybody does stuff that hurts other people. Everybody has moments

31:34

where they say the thing that upsets somebody else or they show up in a way that they're not proud of. It's a part

31:40

of how we grow. It's a part of being a person. I always say like you get to be a person. Like this is one of the things

31:46

that I bring to everybody. It's like you there's not anything especially wrong with you. You're like the rest of us.

31:52

Yeah. All of us struggle in moments. So self-awareness, we want to use it, but we want to frame it in this like really

31:58

loving way where we go, the more of myself that I can see, the more things in me I can shine a light on, the more

32:05

compassion I can grow, and then the more willing I'm going to be to feel my feelings when they come up so I don't

32:10

hold on to stuff anymore. Me being hard on me doesn't help me. If I can use my

32:16

self-awareness and I can go human, you're enough as you are and

32:21

really love to stop doing this thing that is really hurting the people around me. Great. Can I grieve that I've been

32:27

doing that? Can I love the part of me that wants to be different? And can I just hold space for the emotion? So,

32:34

we're taking self-awareness, which I think can be a deficit focus for a lot of people, and we're just softening it.

32:41

We're making it so that it is this beautiful companion that helps us to excavate instead of beat on ourselves.

32:48

Excavate rather than beat on yourselves. I like that. That's cool. Um, is there like one common mindset or belief that,

32:57

you know, keeps people stuck? Do you see that? I think everything boils down to I'm not

33:03

worthy or I'm not enough. I mean, I think that's what it always like on some level, there's some level of

33:08

worthlessness in us. Because again, we look at ourselves and we go, I should be different than this. I should have

33:14

learned this already. I shouldn't be acting in this way. And it's it's looking at our own human experience and

33:20

making it wrong. But the truth is, there's nothing wrong with any of us except for that we think that we're not

33:26

enough. That's the only thing. And so it's like, well, and that's not even wrong. It's just an opportunity. So

33:34

every single thing in our life, this is my belief at this point, every single thing in our life that creates dissonant

33:41

emotion in us is just a moment that's trying to get our attention to go, "Hey,

33:47

human, there's there's deeper love here that's available for you. There's more connection that's available. There's

33:54

more humility that's available. There's something more here for you." Mhm. And so when I look at all of my

33:59

emotional experiences as being here to crack me open and connect me into more

34:05

love so that that worthlessness, that not enoughness shrinks little by little,

34:11

day by day, then all of it's an opportunity and it's all beautiful and none of it is a

34:16

problem. When we feel worthy, when we feel enough, it's very hard to offend

34:22

us. It's very hard to, and I'm not saying that anybody has this perfectly. I think

34:28

this is an ever deepening process for us. I don't think we arrive at a place where we're healed. I think healing is

34:34

this everexpanding awareness, everexpanding ability to hold more love. But when you arrive at a place where

34:40

your self-worth, where your level of connection to

34:45

yourself and your awareness of your own inherent beauty and endearment and the

34:51

lovely things about you in addition to the places where you want to grow when that's more in balance, I guess I can

34:56

say when your selfworth is more in balance. Yeah. Do we just have more to offer the people

35:02

around us? For sure. Oh, for sure we do. Absolutely. When we benefit ourselves in that way. Yeah.

35:08

Um, what do you think about do you think this this lack of worth that a lot of people experience, do you think that

35:15

that is brought about by our cultural circumstances? Because we obviously

35:20

we're we're in the same biological body as we would have done 10,000 plus years ago. Mh. Um and I just I I just I just love

35:28

to think about like what would you know is the psychological thought I am not worthy, I

35:36

am not enough. Is that a normal part of human existence? And is that and because

35:41

of our our culture, our environment is very different than it than it used to be. Would that lead us to want to do

35:50

do more things and be part of a community and feel that worth? or is it now a result of our kind of crappier

35:57

parts of our culture? Big question. It's a big question. It's a big question. But, you know, I love this question. So,

36:04

this is sort of how I look at the human experience at this point. Every single human comes in and you've got your own

36:10

set of gifts that you're arise arriving with like things that you're naturally good at. Everybody has them. You also

36:16

arrive to a family and a culture and a socioeconomic circumstance and a geographic location that all gives you

36:23

limitation. And so all of those things interplay to give you possibilities

36:30

along with the way that you learn to think, right? Like the way that those cultures and families and all of that

36:36

program you to think about yourself, you have a different potential for what your life can look like. But on a broader

36:44

spectrum, society goes, "Success looks like this. Being a good mother, a good father looks like this. Being a good

36:50

partner looks like this. This is what it is to be attractive." And so we have all of these boxes that we start to shove

36:57

ourselves in to go, even though I do things a little bit differently, this isn't how everyone else is doing them,

37:02

so I'm going to abandon myself because I want to fit in with everybody else. Yeah. Yeah. So, I think this worthlessness comes

37:07

from and this just this struggle that we have with ourselves where we feel like we're

37:13

not enough. I think it comes from not being able to express ourselves fully because we've decided that because we're

37:20

not doing things the way that society at large would have us do them that it's

37:25

wrong. And so, I think when we abandon ourselves like that, we move further away from what's in true alignment with

37:32

us. Which is why healing is this amazing process because healing goes, let's strip away the boxes. Let's shine a

37:38

light on them and let's figure out how we can untether ourselves from them so that we can step into more free

37:43

expression so that we can be a more fully embodied version of ourselves,

37:48

whatever that looks like. So I say to people, you're here to do things differently. You were never meant

37:54

to be put on the conveyor belt of society. None of us were. And I think that if the conveyor belt of society

38:00

didn't exist and we actually really embraced every individual human and the way they

38:07

wanted to do things, we wouldn't have the worthlessness. We wouldn't have the self-consciousness. We wouldn't have um

38:13

this not enoughness being so rampant in our culture. Yeah. I don't think there's any way our

38:20

biology will catch up with the with the cultural evolution that we experience. I

38:25

think that with the internet and with technology, life has become way more

38:32

complex and way more complicated and confusing. And I just imagine when we lived in small communities of maybe

38:38

several dozen people, you were literally born into a role. You had responsibility. You had worth within

38:45

that community. And because we've just expanded so much, that's now just very

38:50

confusing and messy. We see know so many young people now with with with no real

38:55

motivation or or drive to do something because it's very confusing where where is their place in all of this like know

39:02

back in the back in the day I feel so old just even saying that statement but let's just say thousands of years ago

39:09

you know you would have a role you be you'd be a fisherman you could be a hunter you'd be you know you'd be cooking food you'd be foraging food you

39:16

know these things were vital vital roles for the survival of that community and I

39:22

think as we've expanded our connectivity globally,

39:28

we can't keep we we we can't we can't we can't honor that I don't think because we think way too external rather than

39:36

thinking more of like the home and the community just like being a good being a better friend and being a better husband

39:42

and keeping that keeping that in close proximity to you as we would have done

39:47

in smaller communities. I think now it's very very tricky for people to be able to do that. Um, and it's just yeah, it's

39:54

something that we've kind of lost, I think. And I I I see I see here in this quite small town that I live in here in

40:01

the in the middle of British Columbia that the benefit of living in a small town of

40:06

like 100,000 people is like you you know so many people. You see people at the grocery store, you know, you see people

40:13

um at at soccer games, etc. you you you see people that you know there are friendly faces kind of all around rather

40:19

than kind of strangers. It's still on a massive scale, I guess, in the grand scheme of things, but it's

40:26

I can I can only imagine how challenging it is to try and find your place. Well, they say try try and find your place in

40:33

the world. Like, what does that mean? Try and find your place in your neighborhood or in your community and

40:38

start from there. And it only goes to show that know people are struggling to find a place in their own

40:44

heads, let alone in the world. Yeah. And if you think about it, as all

40:49

of that has grown, we have we used to just have the example of our communities

40:54

to compare ourselves to. And so it's easier to sort through what's acceptable and what's not. How do I how can I

41:00

connect with these people? But because of the interaction on the internet, because of the vast

41:07

um library of examples that we can look at out in the world, um it's harder for

41:14

us, I think, to go It is harder for us to find a place. And

41:20

we can compare ourselves a lot more than we would have before all of this technology. And so the amount of self-deinishment that is rampant is part

41:28

of this process. As you diminish yourself as you make your experience wrong, you actually lose your trust with

41:34

the little voice in you that knows what's right for you. Yeah. And so I think that's a part of why people are so lost because we are so

41:41

emotionally suppressed and because we do have this deficit focus where we have all of these shoods of the way we're

41:47

supposed to show up. I think that causes people to lose connection to that intuitive voice that

41:53

guides all of us. Yeah. And when you're comparing yourself to everyone else on the internet or on

41:59

social media around the world, we obviously have that um organically

42:05

within us to to compare compare yourself to other people. But imagine if you were to take away the the internet and the

42:11

social media side of things and we're all in smaller communities and you're comparing yourself to a handful of real

42:16

life people there that you could actually learn from and you could actually use it as a motivator to drive yourself forward to um become you know

42:24

more more part of the community and to evolve. Yeah. That's where that comparison piece

42:31

becomes, I want to say, like beneficial and becomes an actual driver rather than it becoming this like really draining

42:38

depressive practice, especially when most of it's all BS anyway, like online, right? Yeah.

42:44

Yeah. Wild. Um I'd love to talk to you about um nutrition specifically. I

42:50

wonder like through your you know your work with oncology massage and your work

42:57

now like you know here at True Hope we're very passionate about mind and body health through nutrition. It's it's

43:02

kind of what we do. We you know we want to get people we want to get people's bodies nutrated

43:07

their brain and bodies nutrated to a way where they're able to actually deal with long-term chronic nutritional deficiencies and actually allows people

43:14

to you know start doing all these other things that is very important for their mental health to start feeling better. So from your perspective, you know, how

43:21

important is that foundational nutritional piece when it comes to emotional um and mental healing?

43:28

Yeah, it's an interesting question. You know, where I am now, I'm not doing any lifestyle coaching at this point because

43:35

the emotional work I feel is so much it's a place where I can affect change

43:40

in a greater way within people. But the way that I look at things is that everything has a frequency. The emotions

43:47

that you have have a frequency. The food that you're eating has a frequency. There's frequency to every there's

43:52

frequency to the clothing that you're wearing depending on what fibers you've got on your body. And so for me at this

43:58

point when I look at overall health, it's doing an audit of all the frequencies that I'm taking in. So the

44:06

cleaner all of those are, the more health we have. So certainly,

44:11

I mean, in functional medicine coaching academy, they taught us like eat the colors of the rainbow. Like make sure

44:16

you're eating clean food. You know, there is a difference between organic and conventional produce. There just is

44:22

because of the chemical inputs that are involved. And so, eating as cleanly as you can helps to elevate your frequency.

44:29

If you're eating living foods, you're elevating your frequency. And that's helpful for your system just the same as

44:35

breathing in clean air, like having air filtration, drink making sure you're drinking clean water.

44:41

um you know all of these things all have a frequency and they're all um

44:48

intermingling in your body at all times. So for me it's looking I look at the whole always

44:54

if we're eating really cleanly and we are polluting our bodies with negative selft talk all day we're diminishing all

45:01

the beautiful work that we're doing to put beautiful inputs into our body so we've got to look at all of it. Yeah, I

45:07

absolutely love that. And and I'm I'm sure your experience of working with people with um intuitive emotional

45:13

healing and and all those practices that for a lot of people it's it's it's work.

45:19

It's hard work. It's you know it's it's changing it's changing neurological pathways which requires the right

45:26

ingredients to be able to do that effectively. You know what's interesting about this process and I'm sure there are other

45:33

people out there talking about this but I haven't found them yet. So if you find anyone, please send them to me. But the

45:38

way that I think about this and the my experience with this work is that it's effort to change our brains when we

45:44

haven't cleared the energy that's causing the thought in the first place. So your thoughts create energy that show

45:51

up in your body in the form of emotion. And when we don't know how to clear the emotion, our emotion gets put in storage

45:59

form. There's a really incredible bofield researcher named Eileene de Musk

46:05

and she for the last 30 years I think with tuning forks has been documenting

46:11

the human bofield which is a storage of our emotional energy within six feet of our bodies. And from Eileen's work, it's

46:18

been very clear to me that our emotions, when we don't feel them, when they're too overwhelming, they're too big, or we

46:25

don't feel safe to feel them, they get stored within our system. And so, the

46:30

more storage we have, the more likely we are to be depressed, to be easily

46:38

triggered and overreact. You can think of people that have really huge responses to really tiny stimulus. That

46:44

just means that you have a ton of emotion that you've just been shoving and you haven't been feeling. So from

46:49

this perspective, it's really important for us to get in there and actually feel

46:54

the emotion, feel the frequency underneath our thoughts so that we're not efforting to not think them anymore.

47:01

So we're not efforting to try to change our behavior. Your behavior is just showing you the emotion you haven't

47:07

felt. We are emotional beings. All of our decisions are emotionally motivated.

47:12

So when we learn to feel the feeling behind the thought that we're having, and that's what my process does is help

47:19

you do that, help you move from the thought into the feeling that can be cleared. When we actually do that, it it

47:26

isn't difficult. It becomes so much easier because you're not fighting the frequency in your body.

47:31

So it really does boil down to actually clearing that energy, not just coping with it or pushing it down.

47:38

Amazing. And I can only imagine how much of those emotions that get trapped

47:43

happen when we're young children and we don't really recognize what's going on. Yep. Because again, you need that safety in order to feel it. So it depends on

47:49

how safe you felt as a kid. as a as a as you guide people toward

47:57

emotional freedom and fulfillment through your process. What is one piece

48:02

of wisdom or encourage encouragement you most hope they carry with them through

48:07

your work? You're not a problem. That is like my take-home message. You're not a problem

48:13

and there's nothing wrong with you. You're a human who is on a very chaotic planet right now and it is hard to be

48:19

here. But the thing is, our challenges that we go through on this earth plane,

48:25

they're how we grow. They're how we learn about oursel. They're how consciousness learns about consciousness. And so, when we open

48:31

ourselves up to the opportunities for growth, for holding more love, for deepening our self-nowledge, for

48:38

standing in greater strength, for being being more willing to be honest, like all of these things are available for us

48:44

every single time we get triggered. We just have to know how to move through that and down into the feeling. When you

48:51

clear the feeling behind the thing that's difficult for you, when you stop making yourself a problem and you

48:56

actually start to feel your feelings, you get lighter. You feel relief on the other side of things. You don't carry

49:01

things around. Resentment is not a thing that lives in you. You know, you know how to help yourself fill your cup every

49:08

day. It isn't this exhausting experience. But again, our judgment is going to keep us from feeling our

49:14

feelings. So the number one thing is like you are not a problem and there is nothing wrong with you. Like stop making

49:19

yourself a problem. You're just a human in a difficult situation and you have opportunities to learn. That's all

49:26

that's ever happening. I love it and I can't wait to tell my wife that I am not a problem.

49:31

Yeah, you're not a problem. I'm not a problem. That's awesome. Cla, thank you so much

49:38

for sharing that with us. Can you just let us know where people can connect with you, please? Yeah, absolutely. You can find me on

49:44

pretty much all the apps, YouTube, um, Instagram,

49:49

Tik Tok at intuitive emotional healing, and then my website is intuitive

49:55

emotionalhealing.com. Perfect. Perfect. And I'm going to put

50:01

those links in our show notes. And I'd also, if you could um share with us that book one more time for people that you

50:07

were talking about by that the by that that lady, the biofield researcher. a biohill

50:12

researcher. Yeah. Yes. Her name is Eileen Dusk and Electric Body Electric Health is a

50:18

really great book to start with. Electric body electric health. Yep. Dynamite. Perfect. Well, I'm going to

50:23

find the link to that and get people there because I'm going to get that myself because that sounds very, very cool. Yeah. Awesome, CLA. Well, thanks again for

50:30

coming on to the show and sharing so much wonderful information with us. Um, you weren't quite prepared for a

50:37

50-minute podcast today, but this was so cool. Yeah, this has been really fun. Thank you so much for having me on.

50:43

An absolute pleasure. Well, that is it for this episode of True Hope Cast, the official podcast of True Hope Canada. I

50:49

will make sure all the information you need to connect with CLA will be in the show notes. You can subscribe if you

50:55

want. You can leave us a review if you want. But that is it for this week. We'll see you soon.