The Importance of Community in Moving through Fear and Trusting Your Intuition - ElizaBeth’s Story

Introduction to Podcast

0:00Welcome to the Exploring Healing Arts podcast, your go-to source for learning about different healing techniques and meeting exceptional healing arts practitioners from around the globe. Together we explore where the physical meets the subtle, the possibilities that exist for healing, and a diverse array of methods to try from acupuncture to gyn yoga and Reiki to family constellation therapy. My name is Elizabeth Alexander. I am the creator and curator behind

0:32this podcast, a Reiki master and energy healing practitioner. This podcast is something I have dreamed of for many, many moons, and my intention is to birth the resource I wish I had had at the start of my own healing arts journey over a decade ago. Whether you are just getting started on your own journey, or you are intentionally diving deeper into a healing arts practice, this podcast is the place for you. You will hear inspiring stories, get real life practical tips, and connect with

1:04exceptional practitioners and teachers from around the world. No two paths in healing are the same, but that does not mean you need to be alone. Join us to explore and experience healing together.

Elizabeth's Story Begins

1:22Welcome to today's episode of the Exploring Healing Arts podcast. It's Elizabeth, and I'm here today with my very first solo episode. We're going to do something a little bit different. It's just you and me, and I'm going to share my story and how I got into the healing arts with you. My name is Elizabeth Alexander. My pronouns are she and her, and we'll start with some of the basics. I am currently in

1:55the San Francisco Bay Area on Ohlone lands. I've also spent a fair amount of time in the Santa Barbara, California area on Chumash lands, and I come from mixed European ancestry, so those are my roots. I've got some Scottish ancestors, Polish ancestors, English, Welsh, and then also some Germanic roots, and I've been born and raised and spent the majority of my life here in California. I've been studying the

2:25healing arts now for over a decade. I hold over eight certifications and apprenticeships in Reiki and energy medicine. I am a Reiki master, and I also have a successful career in physical fitness that complements my healing arts practices. I have degrees from UC Santa Barbara, over 13 health and fitness certifications. I've trained celebrities. I've been featured on national media, and I have online fitness programs that have sold over a hundred thousand copies, and my specialty and passion is exploring where the

2:58physical meets the subtle, bringing together my knowledge of physical anatomy and kinesiology and how the body works on a physical level with subtle energy practices to help the subtle body. I love guiding clients from across the globe to better health and well-being through integrated practices, and a lot of times people say that they really enjoy my sessions because they experience immediate and long-lasting changes, and they feel at ease, comfortable, and enjoy the playfulness and lightheartedness I bring to

3:30sessions and to group experiences and the courses I do. And I love doing it. So that's where I'm kind of at right now. I've had this successful career over the last 10 years in fitness, and meanwhile, I've been

Discovering Healing Arts

3:45studying the healing arts, and we'll dive into a little bit how that got started. And now I'm at this really cool inflection point where I really want to see the integration of both, and I want to have more conversations about our subtle body, our physical body, the way that they interact, how they affect each other, and how we can use both physical practices to create subtle changes and subtle energy practices to create physical changes because these are interrelated and integrated systems. And I have

4:16experienced and seen firsthand in people I work with the impact that approaching healing from both sides can have. It can be really impactful and create some exciting changes in people's lives. So what was my path to working in the healing arts? So I've always been somebody who's been into the helping professions. My first job, actually, I was like 13 or 14, was tutoring and babysitting. And then

4:47around the same age, I got into teaching dance classes, and that was really my introduction into movement practices. I always felt so connected to myself and to my body, and I learned to express myself through movement. And so dance was definitely a big part of it. And I would say that even at a young age, I was always curious about and sensitive to subtle energy, but I didn't really know what to do with it. I was born and raised in the Silicon Valley area to an engineer and a software salesperson. And the kind of energy that I

5:24felt attuned to, even at a young age, I didn't really have anywhere to ask questions about it or to go to. It just wasn't something that was talked about, like necessarily in my home or in the communities that I was a part of. I do remember I was raised going to mass to Catholic church. My mom's side of the family was Catholic. And I do remember there's this point of mass, which is the church service you go to, where everybody would like put their hands up in prayer, and you would put your hands facing the altar. And I

6:00could always feel, even at a young age, the energy moving through my palms. I could feel the heat. I could feel tingliness. And that was really fun and cool for me. I didn't really talk about it. And it wasn't until a decade or two later, when I got my first Reiki training that I realized that that was energy that's moving through me. And different traditions call it different things. But that really was my first experience with any sort of like hands-on energy moving. So when I got to college, I decided

6:37to study communication. I fell in love with it at UC Santa Barbara. And I also studied exercise and sports studies, which was so cool. I loved learning about anatomy and exercise physiology and kinesiology and musculoskeletal injuries. And it was just so fun for me. Because I was like, this is so applicable. Everybody has a body. I want everybody to be able to learn to know how to take care of

7:08their bodies. I always thought it was kind of weird or kind of backwards. Growing up in Silicon Valley,

College and Fitness Career

7:13we had typing classes in first and second grade at my elementary school, which was amazing. This was in the early 90s. But yet I remember being like, I can't even point to like, you know, where my organs are, if you named an organ, or I couldn't name the muscles of my legs. And I was like, why am I being taught to use this device that's outside of me when I don't even know how to use this amazing device that is my body? No one is teaching me that. And so when I got to college, I got the opportunity to really dive deeper into studying it. And I absolutely loved it. And teaching group fitness classes,

7:49was a natural transition for me from teaching dance classes. And it was also a place where I got to build friends and build community, and really get to know myself on a deeper level. And it was also around the time in college where I started giving myself permission to explore things that I had always been curious about, but felt kind of like we were out there, like yoga classes, meditation, meditation, astrology. I've got some funny stories about that. Maybe I'll save for another time.

Introduction to Energy Healing

8:25But the first time I really came across the concept of energy healing or energy medicine was at a Barnes and Nobles bookstore in Goleta, which was right by the UC Santa Barbara campus with a friend. And we used to go there and just cruise through the book stacks. And we were really into body related topics. I remember we were also reading, I think it was like a Daniel Amen book on like, how the brain works and

8:56the brain and love. We're just really interested in topics that were relevant to how our bodies work and human potential. And my friend stumbled across this book that was called The Subtle Body, An Encyclopedia of Your Energetic Anatomy. And I was hooked. She ended up gifting it to me. I think it was either for my birthday or for graduation. And that book is really what changed my life. That book was written by Cindy Dale. She's one of my teachers. We have an amazing episode together. If you haven't listened to it yet, I highly recommend going and giving that a listen. And this book was the

9:34book that I wish I had gotten to study in college. It had anatomy of your acupuncture meridians. It had overview of the chakra system. And what I thought was so cool about it was that it distilled both information from ancient and indigenous cultures around the globe. So it gave you kind of a little overview on different systems and how they worked and what the framework for thinking about them was. And it distilled that also with peer-reviewed scientific articles. So this was the first

10:08time I had seen a book on this topic, like talking about chakras, meridians, things like acupuncture, reflexology, ley lines, all of these topics that I wanted to learn so much about. And it had this amazing bibliography in the back where you could go through and see all of the sources. And as someone who was at a major research institution here in the United States and had done my own senior honors thesis in college, I just really appreciated that there were citations like that and that I could go

10:42and look at these articles or I could find the places that were showing this information. That was something that I needed to really feel like this was valid at that time because it was something that I was always curious about. But I was also kind of like, is this really real? Like, I don't know. And here was this book that could have easily been like a college textbook giving you an overview on all of these different topics. And I got super into it. I had some other friends that were into

11:13similar topics and we would talk about it. We would practice different things on each other. And I remember even, gosh, I must have been like 21 or 22. I would go on Cindy's website and I saw that she was teaching at a community college in Minnesota. And I was like, this is awesome because here is a certification program that is accredited on some level. It's not just somebody offering a certification in their home or in a space they've rented. This is through an institution, through a community

11:45college. And I was like, wow, that was something that I needed to, to feel comfortable investing and deepening into my studies. So I kind of bookmarked that. I didn't end up going out to Normandale, spoiler alert, for like eight more years. But that book did plant a lot of seeds. And Cindy actually has published over 30 books. And so I started reading some of her other books. I really loved the book Energetic Boundaries. I remember at like 24, 25, that was super impactful. And in Santa

12:16Barbara, I'd started to build a community of people. They were either personal training clients or people that would come to the winery that I was working at, or just friends or people that I would meet at coffee shops. And these were people that talked to this energy talk. And so we started having more conversations. And a lot of people encouraged me to just try Reiki. They were like, Reiki is a great starting point. If you're curious about this at all, you should do Reiki. And I was for sure curious.

12:48Honestly, I would have just dropped everything that I was doing and gone into healing arts work if I didn't feel like financially I needed the fitness career that I was building and the part-time jobs to keep me doing well on a money level. I just didn't think at the time that I was going to be able to have a career in this energy work. And I honestly, I didn't know that much about it, you know, in terms of like formal education, like I had my intuition and I was reading books and I was talking about it

13:22with friends. So even though I really wanted to, I was super hesitant because I didn't think that there would be a market or a need or really even other people to talk to about it. Like I had my friends, but I didn't see it as something that I could necessarily build a business in. And so I was always torn during my twenties. I was like doing the fitness thing, but really wanting to do the healing arts thing, but doing the fitness thing, but really wanting to do the healing arts thing. So anyways, eventually I signed up for my

13:53Reiki one certification. And I did that over three days on a weekend in Santa Barbara and I was hooked. It was so cool. I could feel the energy moving through my hands. So in Reiki level one, you learn how to do hands-on healing and it just affirmed and confirmed so much of what I had felt years earlier going to church as a kid, when I had put my hands up into the air and I could feel the warmth and the tingliness going through my palms. It had given me a vocabulary and a structure for how to use that.

14:26So I kept doing my fitness thing. I started offering Reiki to friends that would let me practice on them and just doing it on myself a lot of the time as well. And a year went by and I signed up for Reiki two and Reiki two rocked my world and Reiki two. We learned how to do distance Reiki, which is where you can do it with somebody who's not physically in the same space that you are. And it really amazed

14:57me because I knew what the hands-on healing, I could feel the energy moving through my palms. I was having conversations with people I was practicing on and with about these sensations that they were experiencing with the hands-on and in the Reiki two weekend again, it was three days we practiced on each other and we practiced on everybody brought a loved one like the name photo of a loved one to practice on remotely, but we were randomly assigned someone else's loved one and it was so cool

15:29because there was like 20 or 25 of us. It was a bigger class and the stories that were coming through like I practiced Reiki distance Reiki on someone that I didn't know and I was getting these images and these phrases and songs that I wrote down and you know, I shared with the loved one that was present in the certification. And I remember one of the things that came through very strongly was Tigger, like T-I-double-G-G-R. And the person was like, oh my gosh, that is their nickname.

16:04How could you possibly know that? And so once again, I was hooked. I was like, I don't totally understand how this works, but I understand that it's working. There's no, I don't have any other explanation for how I can get this kind of information and how the people that are being practiced on even remotely are experiencing and sensing and noticing shifts in their lives from wherever they are. So I did that Reiki too. And then that kind of, for anybody that's ever done

16:37a Reiki training, you do a 21 day Reiki cleanse afterwards where you practice Reiki on yourself every day for 21 days, and it can be a big catalyst for growth. So in the next 21 days, I ended up, I mean, my life changed dramatically. A relationship that I was in ended. I was struggling to come to terms with the fact that Trump had been elected as president of the United States. This was 2016. I was really feeling like, man, I want to do Reiki. I want to do this as my career. I want to use this

17:12to help people. And yet I don't know how to make this a feasible business to support me. And so still having this back and forth between, I have this fitness career, I'm good at it. I'm able to support myself. And yet I really am feeling pulled and drawn to work in this other direction. My grandpa ended up passing. So much happened in that period. And it was a beautiful and transformational period of my life. And I actually finally signed up for my first class with Cindy Dale.

17:45And so about a month after the Reiki 2 training, I flew out to Minnesota, where my childhood best friend lives. And I went to Normandale. And you guys, I was so proud of myself. I was on such a frugal and modest budget at the time. And it just felt like the stars had aligned to get me out there. I had some money left over in a education savings account that actually covered the tuition for the course

18:19because it was an educational expense. And I found a flight round trip from LA to Minnesota for $100.

18:31And I got there. My friend picked me up. They had a coat. They had a hat. They had mittens for me. This California girl going out to Minnesota in December needed a lot of help. They let me use their car to drive around. And I just remember getting to Cindy's class that day and just being so proud of myself. I was like, I have made it. I have been through some challenges. I have been through some struggles. I have questioned whether this was a good decision for my career. I knew in

Overcoming Fears and Doubts

19:02my heart. I knew in my beingness that this was what I wanted to do. And then my mind had a lot of questions and wasn't always on board. But I made it. I made it there that day. I was lit up. We had like a seven or eight hour class that day. And I was hooked. And I went back to California. And I actually ended up just really focusing on my fitness career. And I got myself to a point with fitness where my career had really started to take off. I had online programs that were breaking

19:35sales records. And in those programs, I had infused so much of my knowledge of the body and physical fitness. And it had really been born out of something that I felt like I had needed in my life and wanted to give to other people. And then I every day, along with the workout video you got for that day, I would give you some other more holistic practices, invite you to do affirmations or to do a gratitude practice or share a thought provoking question or quotation from somebody that I loved or

20:08a little story or passage to inspire some reflection or growth in you. And it was just such a beautiful way where I was for the first time, really starting to allow that more healing arts focus part of me to come through with the fitness as well. It was this nice integration. I also started training some celebrity clients that year. And long story short, I got really focused on the fitness stuff and kind of put the healing arts stuff to the side. But about a year later, I was like, you know what, that

20:42Normandale class, Cindy Dale's class is still calling me. So I made the commitment and I flew out to Minnesota six times over the next year to take the class in person and finish her entire energy medicine series. I also signed up for her apprenticeship program that was just offered remotely. And there was a cohort of I think somewhere between 25 and 35 of us that would hop on a call every other week for two hours. And we would go through just against such cool stuff. We were talking

21:16about chakras, we were talking about meridians, we were talking about different ways to practice remote energy work. We were practicing on each other, Cindy would do demonstrations in front of the group. And it was such a great experiential learning experience for me and also was super expansive because here we are not in person. Everyone's calling in on Zoom back in like 2017, 2018. And I am picking up

21:48on information that people in other parts of the world are picking up on. It's like we're all looking at the same thing just through different lenses. Like if you think about it like a kaleidoscope, we're all looking at the same thing through different ways. And when I would get practice on, I could feel the physical shifts in my body, even though we weren't together in person. And it again, affirmed and confirmed that there was something to this for me. And it was giving me this felt sense experience of

22:19like, Beth, Elizabeth, this is like, it's not woo woo, it's not out there. This is really working. And you are experiencing shifts in your life. And you are witnessing shifts and changes in other people. And I had, you know, in fitness, I had seen, if we create physical changes, right, we support someone into a different sort of alignment or a different sort of posture, it can help them to feel more confident. So a physical change is supporting a more subtle change in them, right? They're feeling

22:53more confident, they might be feeling more comfortable interacting with people, they start to hold themselves up, right? They're more open hearted as a result of building their physical strength and their physical capacities. And these courses were showing me that we could approach things from a subtle issue, and also get physical changes. Like there was one person I remember, we worked on, and I think it was in person in class. And she stood in the front of the classroom. And she had kind of

23:23like a slouched posture, she looked a little like white or gray in the face. And anyway, Cindy led us through a practice. And we were all, you know, giving input and just focusing on it. And by the end, I mean, this whole process maybe took eight minutes by the end, like her cheeks had turned like a flush color, it was like the blood was coming back into her face and skin, her eyes lit up, her posture completely changed as a result of what we had been practicing together. And I, again,

23:56I was just hooked. I still had a lot of questions. I remember, I remember asking Cindy one of those days at Normandale, I was like, how do you find the sources that are in your book? And she was just like, I'm just guided to them. And I was like, wow, that's so easy, you know, that you are just guided to them. And then you read them. And then the information that you need is there. And she's finding these articles that were, you know, sometimes on PubMed, other times it was like blog posts, but it was just so cool. And around the same time that I'm going through these courses

Studying with Cindy Dale

24:32with Cindy, both at Normandale, and then through her apprenticeship programs in line, I had been seeing other sorts of healing arts practitioners for sessions myself. So I got to give a lot of credit to a dear loved one, Jada Delaney. She actually passed in 2021. She was a Chine Song practitioner. And she had full hour sessions that you could go and do. And when I had saved up enough money to afford one, I would go do that. And she also had this amazing offering called Tune Up

25:05Tuesdays. And every Tuesday you could go, you get a 15 minute, like a little Chine Song tune-up for $20, I think was how it started. And her intention was to provide an offering that was accessible for a lot of people. And it definitely made this work a lot more accessible. And so I would show up every Tuesday, my $20 to get my Chine Song. And Chine Song is abdominal massage. And Jada is was an exceptional practitioner. And it was through practices like that, where I got to see

25:41just how her energy work and her hands on on the body, the shifting of energy through my gut could create changes in my entire being. And she planted seeds in me to do a Vipassana, which is a 10 day silent meditation that I did end up doing. So shout out to Jada for that. And she planted other seeds and nurtured them as well. And really was an amazing friend, but also in a lot of ways, a great mentor

26:13and a guide in my healing arts journey. A couple other dear friends did that for me and in their own ways as well. Joy Balsam, who is exceptional in so many ways, but especially with aromatherapy, with flower essences and essential oils and getting to learn about how she intuits her own blends and how she brings together the science of aromatherapy and oils and flower essences onto the body and

26:46experiencing aroma acupuncture. It was really cool. A friend Andrea Perry was also pivotal in feeling how the body and the mind and the spirit are integrated and just attuning to and laughing about synchronicities and so many amazing people in Santa Barbara. I know that there are more names to be named. Elisa Fawn is another big, big source of support and guidance. She's an amazing acupuncturist in the

27:18Santa Barbara area. And it was through these different modalities that I would go and try and these amazing practitioners who had developed their own way of doing things that really helped affirm and confirm that this energy that I was sensing and feeling was real and there was something to it. I just remember in sessions with Elisa, the acupuncturist, that I would feel things and I could tell her about them. It was a space where I felt comfortable talking about what I was sensing or noticing.

27:50And she would affirm and confirm and it really just helped to build my confidence. And so those pieces were pivotal. Community has been integral in me stepping more into my own healing arts practice and also in just embodying that the subtle energy is real and it is impactful and it can make a difference in our physical body. And I've had so many aha moments with these amazing women and I'm just so

28:30grateful for them and the other people who are not named here. The community has also been a big reason that I have been able to overcome some of the fears that I was holding. One of my biggest fears was like, is this real? Are people going to think I'm wonky? Like, am I going to be able to support myself financially doing this? Like, how do I make a business out of

29:00this? I know this is what I want to do and yet it seems really out there and not everybody's nice when you talk about it. And I have sat with those fears over and over and over and over again over the last 10 plus years, you know? And it's something that I continue to work through and I wouldn't say that I've ever overcome them, but I've just come to trust myself and trust the people around me

29:30and trust in the energy. And I, I've just experienced that it works too many times to question it more. Like I don't, it's not always going to work a hundred percent of the time and it's not always going to work maybe the way that I think it's going to, but I do know that subtle energy work can create physical shifts. And I do know that physical shifts can create subtle shift and I just want to keep exploring and experiencing and learning about it. I think that there's so

30:07much that we don't know and I would love, love to learn and explore more about that. Let's take a deep breath. A couple other people that I do want to name and thank. I have a friend Deidre who we went through our Reiki trainings together, but we weren't really that close of friends. And then we randomly ended up at acupuncture on the same day, just the two of us in this clinic room. And her friendship

30:39has been so supportive for me and trusting my process and trusting my path and just getting to walk together a long life has been awesome. And then also my, one of my best friends, Jessica, who walks this walk in her own beautiful way. And we've gotten to actually do some trainings together, which was really fun. So I was doing my fitness thing. I was studying with Cindy. I had gotten my Reiki one and my

31:09Reiki two trainings and finished my classes at Normandale at the end of 2019. And come 2020, I was on a roll. I was doing one-on-one energy medicine sessions. A friend of mine, Amina, was allowing me to host a guided meditation class that was donation-based. We started that in February of 2020. And then lo and behold, COVID enters the chat. As we all know, March 2020. And 2020 was supposed to be my year

COVID and Career Pivot

31:43for stepping out into the healing arts. I was doing my thing. This was going to be the year that my fitness business was still going well. I was still doing that, but I was able to build my healing arts business more. And then COVID happened and I freaked out. My fear of like, is this healing arts business? Is this going to be able to support me? Or are people going to invest in Reiki? All of the fears were coming up and I just pivoted hardcore back into fitness. And at the beginning of the

32:15pandemic, I was offering like six or seven free workout classes every week just as an offering. I knew I was in a good place with my career and I was set up to be able to support people through working out. And financially, I was going to be fine. So that's what I did as my offering. And I also started offering a guided meditation class there. And usually only like two to four people would show up. We did it remotely via Zoom. I had people from Europe and New York coming, different parts of Canada

32:46and the United States. We did that for about six weeks. And then I transitioned out of that. And I started offering 30 minute workouts that finished with a 15 minute guided meditation. And I just thought that was brilliant. A friend Todd had actually been always doing meditations after his workouts. And that really got me thinking about like, wow, we could move our bodies physically, really get connected, get embodied. And then we could spend a little bit of time after that centering into our subtle bodies

33:20and being in stillness with our being. So for 2020, that was kind of what I did. And I met this amazing Reiki teacher at a friend's barbecue. It was a full moon 4th of July barbecue. And I met her and I told Jess, my friend about her. And Jess was like, oh yeah, I want to do a Reiki training. And then I was like, oh, I kind of want to check this out too. Her name is Amber Lee. She's an Esalen trained body worker and has just a very rich array of experiences and certifications. And her way of being is absolutely

33:59beautiful. And I was drawn to it. So in the fall of 2020, I ended up doing a Reiki one, another three day weekend training with Amber Lee in Ojai. And then I did a Reiki two training. And once again, a Reiki two training rocked my world. We had the 21 day cleanse after that and found out that I was going to have to move because the house I was living in was being sold. And my entire life just felt like uprooted. And so the healing arts stuff got put on the back burner. I was just fitness focused,

34:33just trying to keep my businesses going amidst COVID and all of the challenges that came with that. And then on top of it, moving and still sitting with all the fears I have about like, I felt like I was like coming out of the spiritual closet. You know, like I had a lot of fears about like not belonging. Like if I started talking more openly about the things that I sensed and I felt and I experienced and the ways that I see and move through the world and what feels like my inner

35:03wisdom, I was really afraid of people's judgment around it. It still comes up. I don't know that it will ever go away. But I do think I've gotten to a point where I trust myself and I trust the people around me and I trust my knowingness so much that I'm able to continue to choose myself and to choose what feels right to my heart and to my body and to my beingness. And funny story, I actually wanted to start this podcast in February of 2020. I had gotten like a little ping. It was like start a

35:38healing arts podcast. And I was like, I've never podcasted before. I'm scared in a lot of ways to even talk about this with like friends or just people like in my day-to-day life who don't know me that well because I'm afraid of their judgments. Like I want to start this podcast. And yet also like, is that really the right thing to do? But I had started tapping different community members to like gauge their level of interest. And if it's something that they would be interested in participating in. And then with COVID and the shutdown and the pandemic come March, 2020, that

Continuing Education and Growth

36:11project just got put totally on the back burner. And so I spent the next two years, that was 2020. This is now end of 2022. Doing a lot of different courses. I signed up for coursework with Minachi, which has been amazing. She's the author of Decolonizing Nonviolent Communication. She's also a family constellations practitioner. We have a great episode on that. And another shout out to the late Jada Delaney, a beloved, beloved being who planted the seeds for me to explore both nonviolent

36:48communication and family constellation work because those modalities have been pivotal in my beingness and me stepping into this. We also took and participated in a really great course that Dr. Frantonia Pollins had curated called The Evil Behind Your Love and Light. And this had been born out of the racial reckoning of May 2020. And it was for white women that were in the spiritual and healing arts fields. And it was this amazing panel, the sacred council of BIPOC women sharing their stories,

37:23their perspectives, their experiences, and really calling out some of the ways that, many of the ways that whiteness has been harmful, you know, particularly in spiritual communities. And that was a real eye-opening experience. And I'm incredibly grateful for that container for learning. I also started working with a somatic practitioner, which has been really helpful. And continuing to work with

37:53energy medicine colleagues like Jill, who's on the podcast, Joe, who's on the podcast, and Heather, who's on the podcast. This podcast is really interviewing people who have been pivotal in my own journey and inviting you to learn from them and come and relate with them as well. Because they have just been so impactful in me being more me and me being confident in doing this podcast and sharing my

38:25voice and speaking my truth and being who I am. And that's really what I would love and what I want for everyone is to be able to be yourself. I think that's how I define healing is like being connected to and being able to be yourself, especially like sometimes it's easy to be yourself when it's just you in your space at home doing your thing, but continuing to anchor into and ground into your

38:56authenticity, your essence, your beingness while relating to others or in the context of a community or containers that are bigger than just you or your loved ones. Another person I definitely need to give a shout out to is Heather McCall. We have an amazing episode together as well. And she has been another pivotal person that has helped affirm and confirm my inner knowings and just helped boost and build my confidence, help me and really listening to my intuition. And that is something that I would say

39:30is like a green flag when you're looking for practitioners to work with or people to learn from. And so many of the people that I have named here do this. It's this beautiful art of like saying what needs to be said to affirm or confirm the other person's intuition and also really encouraging me or whoever is being, you know, worked on or worked with to find their own inner sense of knowing. In 2021, I moved out of the Santa Barbara area, not by choice. The house I was living in

40:08was sold. So I was renting and it was sold. It was put on the market and a series of events led to me moving back to the San Francisco Bay Area, moving back with family. And I was grateful to be up here, grateful to be in proximity to family and some of the community up here. And also at the same time devastated for a lot of reasons. My friend Jada had died and I never thought I was going to leave Santa Barbara. And in a lot of ways have been trying to work my way back down there for the past couple

40:40years. I did get back down to the Santa Barbara area in 2021 when I completed my Reiki master with Amberlee. So I was in Ojai. We did an eight day training. It was an intimate group and a beautiful experience. And it really was big for me. I was like, okay, I'm a master. What does that mean? I still have so much to learn. And yet it was a big point for me where I was like, I've showed up,

41:12I'm committed, I'm doing this. I also completed an advanced energy medicine apprenticeship with Cindy Dale the year prior. And so that set me up by the end of 2021 to feel a lot more confident about using my voice and sharing my gifts and being more open about what I was doing. So fast forward to 2022 where we are now at the time of this recording and the birthing of this podcast. And it is

Birthing the Podcast

41:41something that I truly have dreamed of for many, many moons. And one of my big motivating factors in creating this podcast was to curate a community of exceptional practitioners. As you've heard in my story, you know, community and relationships have been such a big part of affirming and confirming what I've known inside and how I've felt about energy. It's helped to build my confidence in my own skill sets and to

42:15build my confidence that this is real and it works. And yes, sometimes we may not completely understand the mechanisms, how it happens or we may not know the results we're going to get or how it's going to turn out. But energy healing taps into something that's powerful and it can create shifts the same way that physical practices can. And I've learned some hard lessons along the way working with people who it just didn't feel good or it wasn't a good fit between the two of us. There's maybe some practices

42:50that were out of integrity. And so I really wanted to share the people on my path who have been impactful, who I've found to be exceptional practitioners. They are very skilled at what they do and they work with a lot of integrity. And my hope is that in hearing their stories, you'll learn about the ups and downs that they've gone through. And if you experience resonance either with their offerings or their stories that you have someone that you can reach out to. So if you're energy

43:22curious and you want to learn more, come and talk to me, come and talk to the people on the other podcast episodes and come and learn with us. I think that on our own path to healing, everybody's path is different and different modalities work for people at different points in time. And sometimes it can really feel like you are alone. And I really want this podcast to help you feel well resourced and to help you realize that yes, you may be walking in your own way and on your own path,

43:57but there are other people that are walking alongside of you. And there are people who work with a tremendous amount of integrity. And there are people who are here to support you and to help you build relationships so that you can be more you and you can step into the world and shine your own unique and bright light. So that's where we're going to come to a close on my story. I would love to hear from you. So if you want to, you can find me at energyhealingelizabeth.com. I'm on Instagram right

44:33now at Beth Alexander Fitness. If you want to come and do workouts with me, that's at Smiling Soul Fitness, and I'll be dropping all of these links into our show notes. So always appreciate if you liked my story, if you liked the episodes with other guests, please leave us a five-star review. And I've got a free course that you can come and check out. It's Intro to Energy Hygiene. It's just three simple practices that you can do anywhere, anytime for better energy hygiene to feel like you've got

45:06better energetic boundaries to help you feel more like yourself, more connected to yourself so that you can experience more ease in connecting with others too. I'm going to finish out with a couple rapid fire questions that I ask all of the guests on the podcast. So I will be asking myself these questions. So please bear with me. I think they're fun. So these are my short and sweet answers. What is my human design? I am a manifester with emotional authority. Where is my favorite place

45:40in nature to be in? I love anywhere with trees, with rocks, and with water. Forests with rivers, lakes, or a beautiful beach are some of my favorite spots. What is your beverage of choice right now? I'm always a sucker for water. I love it. And I'm also, it's winter right now when I'm recording this, I am really into steamed almond milk with cinnamon spun into it. Very nourishing and comforting. What is my top tip

46:12for good energy hygiene? Water? Drink water, shower in water, dip in water, bathe in water. Water is so good for clearing yourself energetically and physically. Water, water, water. And how would you define healing? Healing to me is being yourself. It's shining your light. And I would say it's experiencing your wholeness. And I think that there's different parts to healing. There's being able to do that

46:46on your own and when you're by yourself. And there's also being able to stay anchored and grounded and connected to your authenticity and who you are, your beingness in relationship to others. Yeah, to me, that's healing. Again, thank you so much for listening to this episode. This is our last episode for season one. Thank you to all of you who have been listening along to all of our journeys and to learning about different modalities like family constellation therapy, energy healing,

47:21feng shui, moon cycles, yoga, all of these wonderful modalities that can help you in different parts of your life. I hope that you've experienced resonance with some of the stories that have been shared. I hope that you know that you are not alone ever on any part of your healing journey. And I really hope that if you're curious about some of these modalities or if you experience a resonance with any of the practitioners that you reach out to them and give it a go. And if you do, I would love,

47:54love, love, love to hear from you. You can find me at my website, which is energyhealingelizabeth.com. You can also find me on Instagram. I'm at Beth Alexander Fitness right now. And if you're interested in coming and joining me for workouts and guided meditations, head over to Smiling Soul Fitness on Instagram or SmilingSoulFitness.com. And you can join me for a holistically focused fitness program.

48:24I've got one-on-one sessions with both energy healing and fitness. I also offer group experiences and courses, and I would love to connect with you. So thank you again for being here. Thank you for showing up. And I look forward to seeing more of you next year in 2023. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Exploring Healing Arts podcast. I hope that our words, our stories,

48:56and the wisdom shared on today's episode inspire you and support you in feeling connected. If you loved this episode, please leave us a five-star review so we can reach more people. And as a thank you for listening, join me for a mini course on energy hygiene. You get three simple practices you can do anywhere, anytime to support you in feeling more grounded, connected to yourself, and confident in your energetic boundaries. Sign up at energyhealingelizabeth.com slash energy hygiene.

49:30Thanks for being here today. And I look forward to being with you again soon.

49:39The primary purpose of the Exploring Healing Arts podcast is to inspire and educate. As a reminder, the information and opinions shared on this podcast are not intended to be a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment. We encourage you to speak with your doctor for professional medical advice, or treatment. Opinions offered on this podcast are just that, opinions.