What the Heck is Spiritual Medicine?
Spirituality
Episode Transcript:
This podcast is brought to you by “Peaces of you Manitoulin” offering in person and online courses and healing sessions. If you're interested in learning how to connect with your higher self, check out Ashley's upcoming program called.
Your Guiding Light beginning Thursday, November 3rd. This is a five week program introducing students to muscle testing as a way of checking in with the higher self. In this way, you bypass your ego and go straight to what is truth. Students will also learn a technique called sway release, which is a waking hypnotic technique that works with the right and left hemisphere of the brain.
We use sway to release old programs which do not serve you, and to invite in new beliefs which will serve your highest. And greatest good. For more information, go to www.peacesofyoumanitoulin.com and that's pieces, P E A C E S.
Hey everyone. Thanks for joining for today's podcast today. I'm here with my very good friend and colleague, Ashley O'Connell.
We were just talking about when we met and started working together, and it feels like 400 years, but it's only been 10. So welcome Ashley. Thank you, Mel. Thanks for suggesting. Yeah, It's good fun. So Ashley and I are in Manitoulin well, we're not in the island, we're actually on Manitoulin Island.
And Ash does a lot of really interesting things, a lot of energy work and teachings, a lot of healing. But they also own this magnificent lodge on the island. Ash, do you want to talk about you just a little bit so everybody knows who you are and what you're all about? Sure. This is not my strong suit, talking about myself.
That's okay. We just actually moved up to the island about a year ago. We felt very connected to the land once we started visiting, back in 2017 here on Manitoulin. And we purchased this property really shortly after our first visit here. Which was like a risk. Yeah. And a wee bit stressful!
Yeah, it was a wee bit stressful and it was definitely out of our comfort zone. But definitely happy that we did it. We came from the Kawartha Lakes. I've been running Reiki classes for about 12 years now, so I'm a Reiki teacher and a hypnotist and a hypnosis instructor, and I run trips to Peru, for people to experience Andean medicine.
My guests can also experience Ayahuasca medicine if they choose and visit the sacred sites that Peru has to offer. I'm moving to, some more online classes, some intuitive classes online, learning how to tap into your intuition and tap into your inner knowing, your inner guide.
And doing some more continuing education with Reiki classes. A lot of people take, a reiki class on the weekend and then they don't really do much with it. Or if they're not sure where to go, so, And then what next? Yeah. What do you do with it? Yeah. So, yeah, so that's a me in a nutshell, I guess.
Okay. Tell us about your lodge, where we are this weekend. Let's just back up for a sec. So we are here this weekend because we're running a retreat, which we do, here spring and fall. So I feel really grateful that Ashley lets me come and hang out and we work really well together.
So, I offer the yoga portion of retreat, and Ashley does the meditation portion. And then we always come together and come up with a theme about what we want to focus on, whether it's a full moon or, I don't know. We've come up, we've had a lot of different, themes over the years, but for this retreat, we are focusing on helping people find their spiritual medicine. And honestly, I was sitting here this morning, maybe it was last night, and I was like thinking, what if Manitoulin is my medicine? So, Ash, tell us about this very beautiful lodge that you guys have purchased. So we're on the west end of, uh, Manitoulin Island.
It's very, very quiet out here. Lots of little lakes around. Our place is specifically on Silver Lake. We are about 20 minutes from the actual West end tip of the island surrounded by mixed hardwood forest. It's just beautiful. It's quiet. It's 40 minutes from any small town . It's so quiet.
It is just so beautiful. I'm going to put it in the show notes if you guys are interested in looking up Ashley's Lodge. They rent it out on Airbnb in the summer months and very soon in the winter months as well. I'll put the link in the show notes, it's called Serene Waterfront Property on Manitoulin Island,
It's absolutely beautiful. It is so peaceful, and it allows us to be able to do our work here, to do our own soul work and to invite others to do that work as well. So we thought that, because I am endeavoring to offer you guys a podcast every week and talk about something intelligent.
I thought we could talk about what it actually means to find your spiritual medicine. What does that actually mean? What is your spiritual medicine? What, lights you up? What makes you feel great? Ash, do you wanna add to that? Um, well we had such a good conversation earlier on it and I wish we were recording.
It's taking into account that everybody's medicine is different and what works for you isn't necessarily what's going to work for the next guy. Let's define, for everybody what is, what is your spiritual medicine?
So not to be confused, we're not up here doing drugs and we're not up here with narcotics or pharmaceuticals or anything like that. It's really about connecting with nature and finding yourself, connecting with yourself and your soul and kind of stepping out of, um, well, for me anyway, stepping out of the busy-ness of life.
But for some people, their medicine might be being in the busy, I'm not really sure. Right. Yeah. I, I guess it's kind of like what lights you up? What makes your soul sing? What makes your heart sing? Yeah. Is your medicine, your spiritual medicine up? Yeah. And you know it when you feel it. It's this feeling of peace and joy and just connection all at once.
It's one of those things that's hard to describe. But when you're in it, you know it. Right. Earlier we were talking about the different types of spiritual medicine, it could be trees and nature, it could be music, it could be crafts. If you're very creative, that could be your spiritual medicine that could fill your spiritual cup, right?
Yeah, it's for sure not for me. Or traveling. There's just so many different, types of medicine. And so we're here this weekend to try to help people find their spiritual medicine.
And so we have, a few different things planned for them, that we might be able to help them find theirs. We have some neat stuff planned yoga, of course, every day, which is beautiful medicine. Melanie runs a beautiful yoga class. Absolutely fantastic. Oh, thanks. I love your yoga classes, you know that, as does anyone I know who's ever taken a yoga class with you.
Awesome. And our meditations are absolutely beautiful and meditation itself is a medicine and just even sitting by the water is a medicine. Sleeping by the water is medicine. Mm-hmm. having a fire and having some laughs is medicine. Oh, I forgot about the fire. Yeah. There's a certain, magic to fire.
Just sitting and looking at a fire. It's almost like a meditation in itself, in a way that. Hmm. I know in meditation we're supposed to be present, but it does stop thought sometimes, like if you're gazing into a fire and almost takes you to an altered state, really?
Absolutely. Beautiful. And just even just sitting around and sharing a good conversation is medicine. For some people Tarot cards and Oracle cards can be their medicine. You said it's not so much for you. No. Yours is more reiki.
Can you talk to people about what reiki actually is? It's not in everybody's wheelhouse of understanding. I'm a reiki master reiki teacher and I'm still learning all the time about reiki, which is so cool, right?
I learn by doing. Right. The simplest way to explain reiki is it's a Japanese technique for stress reduction. If we really go down the rabbit hole with it, it is us channeling a, loving energy. It's like the purest form of love. So when you're giving Reiki to someone or giving reiki to yourself, it's focusing this pure love.
And allowing the body to kick in and and heal itself. Like physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. Yes. Right? Yes. And as the, the giver, as the practitioner of reiki, it's almost like, you are acting as a conduit. You are, In my mind, I try to imagine, God's energy ~ creator, source, whatever your comfort word is, the energy coming down through the crown of your head and out through your hands.
That you are gently placing on or just hovering above the person who's receiving the reiki. And, it's just so beautiful. Like, you literally feel so lovely after a Reiki session. It's probably medicine giving and receiving. It is, and it is for everyone, right?
If you're giving Reiki and you're not focused on any particular outcome, you're receiving it at the same time. You just get your ego out of the way. So that's Reiki definitely I would say that that could be one of my medicines too.
We talked about, Ashley’s retreats in Peru. , which hopefully will get going again soon now that Covid restrictions are easing.
Hopefully she will get her Peru Trips up and going again. And, as you know, I've already done a podcast on traveling. I like to spend a lot of time in Scotland and the Highlands are my happy place. We both decided that travel is very much one of our medicines. Ironically, we traveled to very different places, but it doesn't matter. It's wherever you land that makes your heart sing, that throws you into such presence and comfort. Um, and so traveling is definitely one of my spiritual medicines, I would say.
Yeah, mine too. And even over the last few years, like a road trip. Yeah. You don't even have to, I don't even have to go far or even have an end game really, just start driving. Just go somewhere different. Yeah. That's very. That's very true.
One of the other things that I thought about, so I was, I was sitting here trying to think about my list of my medicines and you mentioned, um, That our medicines can change, right.
Depending on how we are and if we change. Yeah. I'm very drawn to ANDEAN medicine. It has been huge in my life, and something that they practice regularly is reciprocity. That's very important in everything that they do and every ceremony that they do.
And was thinking about that, how at the time when I was learning it, how I was always much more of a giver than a taker. Mm-hmm. like to the point of imbalance. Mm-hmm. , we need to be balancing, right? Mm-hmm. always giving and taking, but never too much, one or the other. Yes. Like even thinking about sitting and having a talk with a friend.
Are you doing all the talking. , are you doing all the listening? There needs to be reciprocity. Yes. So just even that in itself, at that time in my life when I first, that would be 10 years ago when I was first starting to learn about it. Yes. How? But that's changed for me now. I don't find myself in this huge, like, unbalanced Yeah. Of giving. Right. So, yeah.
You know, one of the greatest things that I ever learned that has always stuck with me is, um, because it's sometimes it's hard to receive, right? Whatever it is ~ help, a gift, a compliment, advice. It might be easy to give, but it's hard to receive when you're a giver, right? If you're a giver, it's hard to receive. And someone said to me once, You know how you feel when you give? Give somebody else that gift? Give somebody else that gift of letting them feel that way. Let them give something to you and let them experience that.
And that always really stuck with me, I thought. Yeah, like in a way, I thought I was doing a kindness by not taking, but I was actually doing them a disservice by not letting them give me something. That's always really stuck with me. Yeah. And that's heart chakra medicine.
Like yes, give love, give love, but receive it too. Receive it too. Oh yes. You know that. Yeah. That balance. It's just in everything, eh? Oh, that's beautiful. And I remember too, being a part of a therapy group and on our birthdays we had to sit and I mean, it was a challenge for a lot of people to sit and receive compliments from everybody in the group.
That would be hard. But how ridiculous at the same time. Why can't we hear how great we might be? Or what's lovely about us? It's definitely a work in progress. Yeah. Yeah. Super interesting. But yeah. But then again, that's your medicine. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And ever changing, ever changing.
As we grow, as we peel back the onion layers and find out who we are and who we are the next time, Who we are tomorrow. Yeah. We're always growing and learning and changing and evolving, And I love the, you know, I love hearing something and thinking I've heard that 15 times, but it actually just landed for me.
Yeah, I got it today. I finally got it. So anyways, guys, this is what we have. This is what we're doing this weekend and we wanted to share it with you. We are all going to come together and try to find our medicine. Uh, Based on the people that we are today, based on the people that we are now, we're going to explore fire and water.
I will not be swimming, uh, just saying September 30th. We're recording this. I will not be swimming. Some other foolish people might be, Water is not my medicine. She's calling me. Foolish. Yeah. Cause I might be swimming a little bit. A little bit. LOL We'll do yoga. We'll practice meditation. We are in beautiful forests. So we will sit with nature, and watch all the little beasts running around. Getting ready for winter. We're just going to explore and, see what we come up with. Good conversation. We do have some Tarot and oracle cards and crystals. Oh, we haven't even talked about crystals.
We'll save that for next time. Yeah, crystals and we have runes. Oh, we have runes. Oh my gosh, that's gonna be such a great weekend. So anyways, guys, we just wanted to share with you, I wanted to introduce you to my very good friend, Ash. I'm sure she'll be back on many more podcasts in the show notes.
I'm going to hook you up with information about this beautiful lodge and some of the programs that Ashley has up and coming.
Ashley’s website:
Lodge info:
https://www.airbnb.ca/rooms/34310572?check_in=2023-06-12&check_out=2023-06-17&guests=1&adults=1&s=67&unique_share_id=dd79c34c-bf15-44c3-9700-8224b4316c87