Healing the Soul: An Integrative Approach to Anxiety

So that's where you have to look at the layers that are on those genes and that's kind of what epigenetics is about . It's looking at the trauma people have experienced in your lineage .

Hey , everybody , you know I've told my story many times before , but for those of you who are new , let me just tell you that almost 17 years ago well , more like about 20 years ago I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder and I really thought that I could manage it myself .

I guess you could say I was like kind of like in denial for about three years , and I just think it's apropos , on the start of a new month , 17 years and one day in business , that I have with me today my dear friend Dr Catherine Kelly . Now let me just tell you a little bit about Dr Catherine Kelly .

She is amazing and her latest book that is all about anxiety treating body , mind and soul . Had I read that 20 years ago , my journey to wellness , in terms of being delivered from anxiety , would have been so much more quick . And not only that , I would have gained so much more knowledge about the importance of the healing of the soul .

Dr Kelly is an expert in this . It has spent most of her professional life talking about the importance of healing our soul . She's a best-selling and award-winning author . She has written numerous nationally published academic and health-related magazine articles . She and her work have been featured in over 450 national and international radio podcasts .

She's been a guest on all my podcasts at least maybe five or six times , and her current book series , the Soul Health series , is amazing . In fact , today and today happens to be May 1st I don't know when you're going to be listening to this , but I'm going to go ahead and date this podcast . It's May 1st 2024 .

It is her official launch day for the first in a series of books that's all about the healing of the soul , and this is the first one , which will always be my personal favorite , because it really has helped me put into perspective what I went through for those 17 years and also even more work that I can do when it comes to dealing with maybe that 2% little

tickly dip that I have left for anxiety . But whether you are suffering from anxiety or not , this is a must-have for your library because there's so much information in regards to anxiety-related concerns and emphasizes the deeper aspects that may have created other emotional disturbances in your life , and it's just a fantastic book .

Dr Kelly , welcome back to the Vibe Living Podcast .

Both of them are important components in our wellness , but the soul is something that we really don't talk enough about because it seems so esoteric . So let's start there . How did you become so passionate about the soul ?

It's interesting because I , you know , I had 10 years of postgraduate education for to get my psychology degree . Never remember hearing the word soul as part of my education . I taught in two medical schools , never heard the word . So it was really . And I did a fellowship in family medicine never heard the word .

So it's really interesting for me even to try to figure out . You know , where did this word come in for me ? But I just know how important it is to talk about the essence of who we are , because we talk around who we are a lot of times we're not aligned with who we are . And that is where this all began .

And you know my very first interview with you for my first book . Well , let me say this differently the first interview I had for my first book with was with you .

Say this differently the first interview I had for my first book was with you and you know , I think it was just synchronistic because you on your journey , me on my journey and really just opening up this world to the soul I think has been so important . So again , I thank you for having me here .

. Now this particular book is focusing on anxiety and let me just say to my listeners , for those of you who don't know the story and I told you a little bit about the story , but just to give you an idea of what I went through for many years In fact , it was kind of like that's just what you do .

I would wake up in the morning and I would feel like I was going straight down the hill in a roller coaster with no restraints . Imagine that feeling . It was a terrifying feeling every single morning . It got so bad that I wouldn't want to go to sleep because I wouldn't want to experience getting up .

It got so bad that I would have anxiety all day long until the sun went down , because that meant that , you know , businesses were closed , the kids were home , I was home and I could control everything During the day . I couldn't control anything because I didn't know what was going on , and that's how bad the anxiety got to .

Finally , I decided I had to do something because I couldn't live like this . And after I started my business a couple about a year or two later is when I met Dr Kelly . So it's been about 15 years or more that we've been doing this dance of you know how to heal the soul .

But let's talk about anxiety , because I think anxiety means a lot of different things to a lot of different people . I never had a panic attack , never did .

The biggest thing I had was when I had my breakdown , when I couldn't stop crying when they finally took me to emergency , and that's when I began my journey really , because I had was when I had my breakdown , when I couldn't stop crying , when they finally took me to emergency , and that's when I began my journey really , because I had an intervention .

But up to that point I never , you know , had heart palpitations , a panic attack or any of that . So what is anxiety and how does it present ?

So it's an energetic sort of processing system that is in all of us , it's in every . There's no physical place in the body , but it resides because it's in every cell of who we are , and so it's basically that part of us that drives everything . So thoughts , behavior , emotions , everything .

So I think it's important to know that it's not necessarily a religious term , it is basically literally an individual term of who we are at that core level . When it comes to anxiety and to me anxiety is multifaceted , which is why I even wrote this book but anxiety is one of those things that shows that our soul is misaligned in one way or another .

Now , my soul health model that I you know , I wrote that first book about which you and I kind of have talked in different ways about for years . It's a depiction of a tree , and actually I'm going to show this just because I think it's going to help .

And when it comes to anxiety , it's almost like these branches are either misaligned or electrified , because that is the energy behind anxiety is that you feel like there's this , like buzzing , there's this constant discomfort , and most people don't know where it comes from , they just know it's there .

And you know , my heart goes out , especially with what you said is you just lived because you thought that's what was supposed to be , that's the way . You didn't know that that was not something that you had to endure . So anxiety to me is a combination of body factors , mind factors and soul factors .

And the body factors yes , we need medications , we need things . There's different forms of treatment , especially now there are some other kinds of treatment that are coming out that are really helping people , you know , really helping people with the physical aspects .

We can do the mind work , we can do the thought stopping , we can change those faulty beliefs , we can change those anxious thoughts . But what I have found and I'm sure you will probably agree to this is that you can do a lot of the body work . You can do a lot of the mind work , but it's like a record that skips .

It's almost like if your anxiety , if your stress gets to another heightened level again , you go through the same things over and over again . So , whether it is a panic attack , whether it's the worrisome thoughts , whether it's the physical symptoms , it's almost like there's something deeper going on .

And that's exactly why I wrote this book and I'm going to write about individual mental health concerns and really illuminate the soul aspects , because there are so many things that happen below the surface that science has not been able to identify , they're not even focusing on and we're missing a huge part of who we are in the treatment of all mental health

concerns .

But the interesting thing about your book is that it touches on things that no traditionally trained medical doctor talks about , and that is the epigenetic influence , ancestral suffering , past life trauma and other soul wounds that you cover and explain what that is . I know some people say epigenetic . That sounds like something a doctor should know about , but what ?

So it's like there's this energetic imprint on our gene structure and even though a person has not had trauma in their own lifetime , they can still feel the trauma of people from past line , from their generational line , because of the fact that it's already imprinted in their genetic system .

So it's fascinating how it works from a biological perspective , because there's there and there's something else I talked about in the the soul aspect , but the epigenetics is still part of the physical aspect because it's literally part of our gene system . Now what's fascinating ?

And I love , I do follow science science because I tell people I'm somewhere between science and woo , because you have to really look at all aspects of who we are .

But you know , I follow the research and scientists still cannot find a gene that signifies the experience of anxiety or depression or any other mental health concern , so they don't know where the gene is . So that's where you have to look at the layers that are on those genes and that's kind of what epigenetics is about .

It's looking at the trauma people have experienced in your lineage that you are actually experiencing now without having had any of your own trauma . So there are cultural aspects , there's other things that are passed down , but it's literally like that genetic component that is being isolated now .

This is the extended model showed the soul health model earlier . This is the extended model . And so you know I still use the soul health model up here . I've added all these little dots that are additional kinds of concerns , and cultural , you know , influences is one of them .

But this root system is what I added for this next level of the model and these are the things that are living below the surface , that scientists are not looking at right now , that are very much a part of who we are .

So ancestral trauma is different than epigenetics and ancestral trauma is literally how your soul carries the information about past lives , past life trauma and how your soul because your soul is infinite , your soul has been in every other past life you are going to .

It's not like you get a clean slate when you start a new lifetime , so you carry any trauma , any discomfort , anything from both yourself and ancestors into a current lifetime , and if a person doesn't know that that is what is activating your anxiety or your depression or whatever else , the mental health concern is you're only going to be treated from the body or

the mind and you're never going to feel like you heal from that anxiety .

So it's important in so many ways not only again from the epigenetics standpoint but from that lower kind of that whole spectrum of the soul , that if you're carrying those wounds , if you're carrying that ancestral energy from what has happened in your lineage , whether it's your own experiences or those around you you are not going to feel better , you're not going to

, you are not going to feel well . You might be able to feel a little bit better , but there's going to feel better . You're not going to . You are not going to feel well .

You might be able to feel a little bit better , but there's going to be an ongoing level of activation that will always be there until you learn how to clear that from a soul healing perspective , and I know I'm talking about stuff that people don't really understand right , and that's interesting too , because you're thinking ancestral .

that . So from a soul healing perspective , which is different than just plain old psychotherapy , there are ways that you can identify whether or not there is ancestral trauma , ancestral healing that needs to take place .

A lot of times you have to do either past life regression , you have to go to a soul healing professional who can really tune into the energetic imprint of your soul to be able to understand and see the images of what has happened for you . So that that is one layer .

You know , and there's so many different soul healing modalities and approaches , and I actually talk about them in this book .

One of the later chapters in the book lists out many different forms of soul healing that you can explore if something resonates with you , so that you are ready to kind of clean the slate or remove those kinds of wounds that are already there .

So that's one of the reasons I created this book is that people who are trained traditionally they really don't understand the deeper levels .

They don't understand that there are a lot of other modalities that could be tapped into , and so to me this is like scratching the surface of opening up the world to soul healing , which is likely to be far more sustainable as far as healing goes than managing the symptoms .

As far as healing goes than managing the symptoms and I think that's a really important delineation is that what is done right now is to manage symptoms .

There's all kinds of reasons why that happens , but the bottom line is the quest for anyone whether you've got a toenail infection or anxiety is to be able to peel back the layers to figure out why did this happen ? Where is it coming from ?

And it's very interesting because just this past year , when I was in Miami , I took a couple months off and I was traveling and everything and I spent some time with my daughter in Miami . That first night that we were there we were in a serious car accident . We were hit from behind and the car was totaled . We walked away from it no injuries at all .

My very first concern wasn't so much for my physical health as it was my mental health , because I was wondering how a past trauma was going to impact or influence or trigger my anxiety disorder , because my mother was killed in an accident that had to do with a fire truck hitting her on the way to work .

And what caused my anxiety was how I found out about it . It was trauma and , as we know , trauma , the body keeps a score with trauma and the soul does as well , and it was making sure that I was going to be all right from that level . So I immediately called my therapist and we had some sessions and stuff and I was okay .

But I really felt that a lot of times when these things happen with people , they're not they're thinking about their back , their neck , they're not thinking about the other trauma which has to do with our spiritual and soul trauma that could be related to other traumas that we're not even thinking about and , as a result , that particular impact and I not gotten the

right kind of help could have triggered and caused all kinds of other things later on that you know I hadn't really dealt with and I believe that's somewhat of the basis of your book is learning how to peel back those layers .

You might have done what a lot of people do , because when people go through trauma , a lot of times all they want to do is get back in control . They want things to go back to normal and they don't really want to deal with their discomfort .

But you immediately knew out of your own wisdom and experience that , OK , there are levels of something I need to take care of here . So I applaud you for calling your therapist right away and also applaud you for knowing , ok , there may be something that is triggered here .

I want to explain this from an energetic perspective because this is something I explained in the book and I think it's going to be helpful .

You know , you said the body keeps the score and I'm going to explain that a little bit , because when we have soul level trauma , what happens and I do explain this , but I want to explain it here as well what happens and I do explain this , but I want to explain it here as well .

What happens is there's an energetic imprint left on our soul , so it's like everything we experience seasons our soul . If there is an energetic imprint from a trauma that seasons our soul , it's kind of laying dormant there until something acts to trigger it .

And the challenge with that is is , unless you really know enough about well , we need to do soul informed care or we need to pay attention to what might be happening in the service you can have . You can have such a strong reaction and not know where it's coming from , that that it's .

It can debilitate you in some ways and it can be disproportionate to the actual , actual event . But then that's also another cue that there's something deeper going on . But that energetic imprint from any kind of trauma in this lifetime or previous lifetimes that has been unattended will come back in one way or another . And I want to .

I want to say how this ends up in our body because , like you said , the body keeps the score and I tell people that energetic imprint , that energetic wound that is there , will eventually land in the physical body if it is unattended .

And I can't tell you how many people have come to me for whether it's psychotherapy or soul healing modalities , who have come to me and said , oh gosh , I've got this pain here , I've got this ache here , wow , I had this injury and it's it's not healing , or I have this illness . I don't know where it came from .

And when I go in I kind of do that past life work or I scan the soul structure to find out what's going on . What ends up happening is almost always I can see where that energetic imprint is activated and it's it's coming out in the body . But the wound from the origin is really not physically based .

It can be from that energetic imprint from several lifetimes ago that's been carried along . And until a person knows to heal some of that stuff , either from the psychological or the physical level , that part of them is going to aggravate , be aggravated for like the rest of their life . So it's interesting how it all works together .

But it's all energy based and whether we manifest it in our physical body or our emotional body , we're going to exhibit some sort of discomfort in one way or another . So it's just really important to understand the layers of all this .

But I would like you to tell our listeners , from your perspective , what is energy and how does it work in our lives . What is energy ?

What's interesting is , you know , when you actually break it down from a scientific perspective , it has all to do with how tightly those little atoms that all of us are made up with are tucked together . So a rock has very tightly tucked energy molecules , humans , because we are made of what ? 95% water or something , I can't remember the actual percentage .

We have a more fluid energy , but what ? The more fluid and the more fluid energy we have , the more likely we are to have these kinds of soul wounds affect us in a different way .

So energy is this interesting thing where you know from again , way back in my high school years , when we when I took physics , I think about you , physics , I think about the teacher showing us what energy is and all of us , everything around us , is made of energy . It's just different frequencies or different levels of that .

Again , like I said , they're kind of tucked in really tight . It's like a rock , with some of us , some of the things that are more fluid , us animals , trees , plants , those energy , the things that are more fluid , us animals , trees , plants those energy molecules are spread out more .

But what happens with that is that the soul wounding , those energetic imprints actually get wedged into our energetic system , our energetic molecules , to the point where you know if something happens to a rock , it takes a lot to hurt a rock . It doesn't really take us that much to break us down . It just has to be the right kind of wound to pull us apart .

So metaphorically it's all about how those energy molecules work . But because we're so fluid and we're so impression impressionable as far as our how our energy systems are , are created , we can , we can hold those wounds . We can hold that . The challenge with it too is that , you know , we don't have to have a blunt force wound in order to sustain damage .

We can have really terrible words said to us . We can have betrayal of one way or of one , you know , aspect or another . We can have abuse that's beyond physical abuse , so emotional abuse or verbal abuse . You know everything , even the power behind words is energy .

I also had menopausal anxiety because my cortisol levels , especially in the morning , were out of control . That's another reason why I was getting that feeling of going straight downhill with the roller coaster without restraints . But you know , having that knowledge of the hormones and working with that is great , but there's this other part too .

That's why it's important to take an integral approach , of a integrative approach that's integral to healing your mind , your body and your and your soul . Now , when people read the first of your series , which is the Soul of Psychology series , and the first book is Anxiety Treating Body , mind and Soul , what is it you want them to walk away with ?

This first series book ?

We're not going deep enough to help people understand what could be the cause , original cause , of anxiety in the first place and I'm going to circle back and say something about what you just said with the menopausal kind of anxiety . The second thing I want people to do is realize that there's . So the first thing I'm going to go back .

The first thing that I want to do is help people realize there's much more to the picture than we're attending to , which is why people still struggle , even with beyond treatment . The second thing I want people to understand is that mental health concerns is that disruption of the essence of who we are . So mental health concerns are a direct .

Let me say it the other way Our soul is a direct . The state of our soul is a direct impact or a direct influence on what our mental health is . So to me , mental health and the soul go hand in hand , and way , way , way way back when the field of medicine was created .

Hippocrates , who is known to be the father of medicine , said the soul is present in every illness and in every organ of our body . That was the father of medicine . One of the founding fathers of psychology , carl Jung , which a lot of people know about , he said the same thing .

But what's interesting is when we are taught in either medical school or taught in psychology , you know , for mental health , they don't focus on the soul at all . They leave that part out .

So it's interesting to me that the biggest part of who we are has been ignored and dismissed , and so my number one is to get the soul back into mainstream in general , because we will never really cure mental health concerns if we don't go to that level , and I know that's a very powerful and bold statement , but it is the reality .

So the importance of a book like this is extremely significant , because it's beginning to open the door and hopefully people will have some aha moments and realizing that whatever they've been feeling or experiencing or their loved one has been feeling or experiencing , is something that can be cured , can be dealt with in a way where they don't have to live in

constant feelings of anxiousness . And that's a really uncomfortable feeling . And it's interesting too , because , you're right , it is something that's growing , but it's still something that people aren't really really talking about , because they're almost embarrassed by it , because it is kind of an esoteric experience .

It's kind of like when you explain it to people like , oh , stop worrying and it's not that .

But I can tell you from my own experience that it becomes mind numbing after a while and debilitating if you don't deal with it . And that's why I really encourage all of you who are listening in the Vibe Nation all of y'all listening I want you to pick up this book because I think we all have bouts of anxiety from time to time .

But there's other things in this book that helps you peel back the layers in terms of the overall wellness necessity of the body , the mind and the soul . It's integrative . It's not one entity until itself .

It's something , as I say all the time , is a continual journey and that's why I believe that along the way , tools are introduced to you like this book that can be helpful . And you know knowledge is really gives you a lot of power .

But acting on that knowledge , using the skills , the tools and things that you learn about through listening to people like Dr Kelly and reading her book that's when you get powerful is to actually begin to act on that Now . I know today is launch day and they can pick up the book on Amazon .

It's under the books tab and there is a contact form at the bottom that if you fill out , it's a very brief contact form , but if you fill that out and put your Amazon purchase number in , then you will not only receive an email back with information .

I have a tip sheet that I created treating anxiety through body , mind and soul tip sheet on there that you will get .

It's a PDF and then also for today , one of the launch day bonuses that I have on there is that you can also enter your name into a drawing for Soul Health Essentials Soul Care Kit , which Soul Health Essentials is , and Linus and I have talked about this before it's an essential oils company I created because I've been doing this work for so long .

I know what people need , and so the essential oil blends I've created are about healing and soul evolution . So you know that's another option in there . But you're also going to find lots of other information on my website about you know .

It's just wonderful talking with you today .

Make sure that you go ahead and take a look at the show page , because all of the information about Dr Kelly is right there and , to keep us in the top echelon of Apple Podcasts , from the top 10% , please make sure that you like , share and comment on this podcast and I would love it if you would subscribe . There's so many great interviews here .

This season has been wonderful , so check out all of the interviews in the seventh season . It has been absolutely unbelievable information from experts , just like Dr Catherine Kelly . Thanks so much for listening . It's been wonderful having you . Have a fantastic day and don't forget to vibe . Bye-bye everybody .

Thanks for listening to the vibe living podcast and don't forget to subscribe , like and comment and share this podcast . Have a fantastic day and don't forget the vibe . Bye bye everybody .