This is an unedited transcript.

healing begins with awareness, understanding, and action, Diane Metcalf. Hi, and welcome to today’s episode of grounding journey. I’m Cris Greer, and I thought I would do something a little different today, I thought I would do a solo episode and share with you my own healing journey. And what inspired me to do the healing modality series on the grounding Journey podcast. So my own personal healing journey has been a long and winding road. And if you wherever you are on your journey, I’m sure it feels long and winding. So it inspired me to start the healing modality series because I’ve got lots of friends who do different things, whether they share them professionally or one of my girlfriends, and I just do Reiki together. We all have those different modalities that resonate with us. But I always find I’m curious to know why it resonates with somebody and what else is out there. So if you haven’t checked out the healing modalities series, the previous episodes I’ve released we’ve done animal communication, done human design, astrology, hypnotherapy. We have some really great ones coming up with a dear friend of mine, Dinah Weiss, who does EFT tapping, I’m recording one on Reiki soon, essential oils are there’s different things out there that are tools in your toolbox, and some may be larger tools. And some may just be accessories for you. So I hope that you’re enjoying the series. But it’s given you some new modalities and new things to experience. They’ve answered some questions for you. I know it’s been really interesting for me, I have another one coming up color therapy that I haven’t released yet. And it has sparked a whole new avenue for me. I’ve always been interested in the chakras. And now, learning color therapy, in the same vein of astrology based on your birth date, it’s been really interesting. So that one’s coming up in the future. So I wanted to share with you a little bit about my own personal healing journey. It’s been long and winding, it’s been really intense. Sometimes it’s been non existent other times. And that’s one of the beautiful things is giving myself grace, when I’m just being a human and a body and a mom, and I’m doing my best to get by, because that’s part of the journey, too, is finding that distance, so you can find that connection again, and crave that connection. least that’s what works for me. So my healing journey, I can see where it started 20 to 23 years ago. But definitely probably started way before that I just wasn’t as aware of it. So I’m going to talk more about the physical and this spiritual journey of healing that I’ve been through. And there’s definitely the trauma and the scars and the emotional healing. And I’ve got some neat guests coming soon that we’re going to talk more about inner child and some deeper work. And I’m excited to go deeper than we have on the podcast before. But my journey is more health related and spiritual related. So I, at the age of 2122, I found my first lump in my breast, and my aunt died in her early 30s of cancer. So I had my first breast surgery at 21. I had my second breast surgery at 23. And six months later, I was facing my third breast surgery. And the doctor was talking about doing them effectively because it was only six months. And my cells were growing too fast that she was concerned about what they would become. And I was 23 who was newly married, was trying to get pregnant. And obviously did not want to have in the SEC to me and didn’t know how to heal my own self. Because I was 23 I hadn’t done a whole lot of that. So I asked her if I could have a little more time because we found that was a lot earlier because I was checking my breast a lot. So she said she’d give me six weeks. I dug into every bit of herbs, every bit of essential oil, every natural remedy that I could find. And I went back in six weeks after having used some herbs and supplements, cleaned up my diet and started using essential oils topically and that six week mark the tumor had shrunk. I am 45 now and have not had to have another surgery and don’t have the lumps that I had. And three incidences within two years pseudo have gone this long, really made a difference. When I was 23, I was also trying to get pregnant with Kevin. Except I didn’t know his name was Kevin. So I was dealing with breast surgeries, I was dealing with trying to get pregnant, and not being successful at any avenue of that. So I found a lump in February, about six weeks. So that put me in middle of March, I got pregnant with Kevin, mid April. So really got my body back, I balanced my hormones, I figured things out. By accident, I mean, I didn’t really know what I was doing. I was just reading and trying lots of different avenues and trying to see what I could find to make it work. And Kevin only 21 and two months. So that for me was the physical of have to take better care of my body. I also found out at that point, I was allergic to caffeine, I got caffeine out, I cut frozen TV dinners out because remember, so that was like 2122 23. living on my own, there was a lot of frozen TV dinners. So just bringing my body back into balance and using things like evening primrose oil, essential oils, stuff like that to support my body and balancing it. So that was my first experience of not really knowing anything. And when I’m talking about essential oils, I have some amazing friends who represent amazing essential oil companies. But for me, I found a book because this was 20 some years ago, so it wasn’t mainstream, essential oils that you find now, I found a book at my local health food Co Op, I bought some of their essential oils off the shelf that they had, and I started doing stuff. So it’s not a matter of you have to be fully educated, you have to do this, you have to do that. You just have to start researching. And that’s what the healing modalities. Podcast Series has been. It’s research for you. I’m bringing the books, and I’m highlighting the section so you know what to read. So fast forward a few months, I’m pregnant, I am starting to see and feel things I’m starting to meditate and starting to find that peace. In meditation. I took my first meditation class. And that was crazy because it was at our local community college. And there were only two of us in the class. So it was really interesting. But I knew there was something more to it. So I really started dabbling. And you know, my parents weren’t alternative. They weren’t hippies, and my dad was a Jesuit, Jesuit brother. So I didn’t have that upbringing. So I was having to do it all and find it all on my own. Kevin was two, I had two dogs, Mary and Abby. And they were my heart and soul. They showed up when I was 19. We’re fast forward. Now. I’m 27. And Mary sick with cancer. I remember when I was pregnant with Kevin and I’ve made this joke before on the podcast. But I remember when I was pregnant with Kevin thinking, God, I hope I like this child as much as I love my dogs. So looking at Liza Mary from cancer, I was trying everything I possibly could. I had started making essential oil products. I was doing a little bit of workshops here and there that I was offering at a local health and wellness center nearby. But I was just playing with essential oils. Because I’d been doing a lot of research. I had been learning a lot. And so one of the girls who did massage there came to me and said I hear your dog sick. I’d love to send her some Reiki. And I remember thinking, what’s that? I don’t know what you’re doing. And she said, well, let’s just set a time tonight that you’ll go sit by her and meditate, hold your hands out and just send her lots of love and I’ll be sending her distance Reiki at the same time. And she explained to me that Reiki was just channeling God’s loving light and, and that it was just a healing energy. So I thought, Okay, we’ll try that. So that night at eight o’clock, I went to Mary’s bed, and she was laying there she was pretty close to being gone. And I close my eyes and I said a little prayer of protection and a little prayer of love. And I held my hands wide open around her. And I looked at the clock. It was like eight and so I didn’t know how long I was supposed to sit there. I think my friend maybe told me 1520 minutes I don’t know. And about five minutes into it. I just started feeling the deepest, intense love that there could be. And I just thought, wow, I don’t know what’s going on. But there’s something beautiful happening right now. And then a couple more minutes later, I started seeing colors swirling around Mary. And they were really faint, but I could just see it. And it was so amazing to see this love and light flowing around her and swirling and just being beautiful. So that moment, I was like, Okay, I need to know more about this, I need to know what Reiki is, I need to find out more about this. And that set me on probably a two to three year journey of discovering Reiki, I was reading books at that time, and I don’t want to knock anybody because finding Reiki and finding energy whatever way you find it is important that you find it. But at that time, the area of the community I was in Reiki was becoming a really popular thing. massage schools were offering level one and level two and one weekend, they were offering master really quick, and it was a class of 20 all the massage therapist or something in the class could do it for the weekend. And that just didn’t feel authentic from my journey. I needed to know the real story, the whole backstory to it, I needed to know why and what, where it came from, and the just like the heart and soul of it. So I started learning, I started asking people who did Reiki I had several people offer to master me. But I never felt right. So I just kept looking and kept going. And and as I mentioned, I was offering classes at a couple of different health and wellness centers just about essential oils, because remember, this is 18 years ago, so you weren’t finding the network marketing parties and stuff like that you had to go find an aroma therapist to teach it. And so I was in Raleigh, which is a couple hours away teaching a class, it was a weekend workshop. And so it was a two day class. And I think there were eight or 10 people registered for the class. And so I’m sitting at the front of the room as people are coming in, I’m walking with them. And this woman walks in. And I immediately feel my soul stand up, step sideways of my body and bow to her and then come back into my body. And I was kind of like what just happened? I don’t know. And, and so I just kind of, you know, looked around, was really confused. I knew what I had just felt and uncertain of what it meant. And so at lunch break, a woman came up to me and said, Let’s just what happened when I walked in the room today, we saw each other and something happened. And all I could think was like thank God, she felt it too. I’m not losing my mind. And so her name was Carrie Hyde. She was an amazing woman is an amazing woman. And she became my master. She did all of my Reiki attunements I did them Reiki level one over multiple attainments. I fasted for three days before each attunement. I remember one attunement, I had fasted for three days I was so hungry, I left her house and went straight to Chick fil A. But she really taught me the origin of she Reiki and the meaning behind it and the experience of it all. And we did you know several months in between before I did level two and and just really so that my body had the full time to absorb the channel to absorb the energy to clear out the stuff that was causing blocks so that I could really fully accept it. It took me I mean, I would say six or eight months to do my level one and level two. I really don’t remember exactly. Through that. Had some really amazing experiences some really amazing meditations. My best friend that I talk about often that we’ve been friends since we were two, her grandmother was passing in the process. And so I got to go to hospice with calf several times to see grandmother and it was so beautiful. because she was obviously passing, she had an amazing life, her husband and passed she was ready to go. And so being a part of that through my Reiki training, and being able to massage her feet while she was unconscious, and put that Reiki energy into her body was so amazing. And I remember just seeing the energy and seeing the light and seeing things move around her. It was so beautiful and so amazing and such a gift to get to be a part of that. And that was one of the amazing gifts that Reiki gave me. So my journey through Reiki was just really magical for me, and it has remained special. I don’t do Reiki. For people I’m really particular about who I receive Reiki from my nearest dearest girlfriend. And I trade Reiki periodically, pre COVID Because I’m comfortable with her being in my energy and her being in my space. So for me, Reiki, the journey to Reiki and the actual process of Reiki, such a intimate sacred space. If you’ve never had Reiki, like find the person who talks to your soul, and allow them into your energy, because it is a magical thing. And I’ve got so many coming up. In a couple of weeks that I’m recording for that we’re going to talk about Reiki. And so all of that really sparked something in me of opening up this channel, opening up this portal where I needed to learn more. And since then, I spent years learning more about essential oils, learning about crepe crystal healing. And, you know, I’ve shared pictures on past podcast. And if you’re looking at the YouTube video, you can see the crystals in my room, the amount of crystals I have on my desk in every corner of my space. And crystals to me are a tool. There’s something that enhances the energy, the vibration, the experience, Rose Quartz, because I’ve been on a huge heart expanding journey for the last two years. That’s been my real focus. And Rose Quartz has been what supports me through that. And what’s really beautiful about Rose Quartz is it’s such a soft, gentle stone. But it’s so powerful that it can just like bust through stuff. It’s so so crystal energy and Crystal work has been another part of it for me have tried looking at Fung Shui. It’s too complicated. It’s not for me, but I experienced it and I looked into it. I’ve played with hypnotherapy. Hypnotherapy was an amazing resource for me. Many years ago, the hypnotherapist who I worked with I really adored and somehow we just lost touch. And I think healing modalities are kind of like that poem, a season a reason or a lifetime, that you have friends for a season, you have them for a reason, or you have them for a lifetime. And for me, that’s what different healing modalities have been Reiki of a lifetime for me. meditations, then a lifetime friend to me. Essential oils and Crystal are kind of more of a seasonal thing. Like they come and go for me. They’re always there. But sometimes I need them more than other things. Hypnotherapy was a reason through some interesting, limiting beliefs that I was working on. And so I through the healing modalities series through my own personal experience, I encourage you to learn more, to explore it to see what resonates for you to really see what connects for you. And remember, it can be a season a reason or a lifetime of if it works for you how long it needs to stay around. I am still on my journey and I’m still digging deeper into the chakras and learning about color therapy and how much that relates for me. I am excited to keep digging into yoga. And it you know, it was really prevalent in my life. Before I was pregnant with Kevin, it showed back up five or six years ago and it has been a driving force for me. So just because something is really prevalent for you and then it’s not doesn’t mean you’re done with it. Don’t throw away all the books. Don’t give it up. Just know it may or may not come back. Explore. Read the books, listen to the podcast. Just check out new mailing list. You know, we’re in a beautiful time now of, you can see so many videos on YouTube, you can sign up for people’s email list, you can learn more about them and really explore so that you find your healing you find what resonates for you. I know that I am still definitely working through that myself. And so like I said, a lot of what we’re talking about in the healing modalities is more working on the spiritual side, it’s working on the physical ailments like my episode, invisible illness with Emily Shahs that we just released last week. There’s so much out there, and there’s so many avenues, and we’re so blessed to have the experience to explore them all now. Keep exploring, and I welcome you if you have a healing modality that we haven’t explored yet, I would love to hear from you reach out to me, you can email me at greatful at grounding journey.com You can message me on Instagram grounding underscore journey. And I would love for you to come on and just talk about your healing modality and your journey to find that modality because what you have to share can really resonate with somebody else. Starfish have been showing up a lot in my my world lately. And so I’ll end today with my hope of this podcast series to you and my hope for you that you can also offer. And it’s the starfish poem and I’m not reading it. So I’m going to basically kind of add live it but depending on the version, you read a boy, a girl a child, a man, a woman is on the beach and the beaches covered in Starfish. And they’re picking up one at a time and throwing each one back into the ocean. And another person walks by and says What are you doing? And the we’re gonna say, girl, the girl who’s throwing the starfish back and says the tide came in and all these starfish are here and they’re not going to make it back. They’re going to die. So I’m throwing them back in. And the person who walked up says there’s so many starfish, there’s miles and miles of them, you’ll never make a difference. You’ll never be able to get them all back in the ocean. And the girl picks up one more and those are in the ocean and says but I just made a difference for that one. So I hope that I’m making a difference for you. I hope that you will join me in making a difference for someone else. Thank you for being a part of my journey, and I hope to be part of yours.