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Sept. 4, 2024

Everyday Awakening

Everyday Awakening
Everyday Awakening
Inspire Vision Podcast
Everyday Awakening

The question is “why are we here”? What are we meant to accomplish while experiencing this life? I think we all experience that question at some point in our lives but don’t necessarily have the answer come to us.
Catherine Duncan is a spiritual...

The question is “why are we here”? What are we meant to accomplish while experiencing this life? I think we all experience that question at some point in our lives but don’t necessarily have the answer come to us.
Catherine Duncan is a spiritual consultant, among many other things and she explains her own near death experiences and how that brought her to a point of peace and understanding as to what life is really all about, and how we can experience healing in our lives.
www.learingtolive.org

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0:01 This program is designed to provide general information with regards to the subject matters covered. This information is given with the understanding that neither the hosts, guests, sponsors, or station are engaged in rendering any specific and personal medical, financial, legal counseling, professional service, or any advice. You should seek the services. Of competent professionals before applying or trying any suggested ideas. At the end of the day, it's not about what you have or even what you've accomplished. It's about what you've done with those accomplishments. It's about who you've lifted up, who you've made better. It's about what you've given back.

0:44 Denzel Washington, Welcome to Inspire Vision. Our sole purpose is to elevate the lives of others and to inspire you to do the same. Catherine Duncan, Welcome to the show. Great to meet you today. It is great to see you. You were just telling me before we started recording that you were on TV this morning. Yeah, I was on Good Morning Arizona talking about energy boundaries. Very fun. Energy boundaries. Yep, energy boundaries. We are energy. We have an energy field around us, an electromagnetic field, and we can actually work with this energy field to not take in energy from loved ones a chaos of the world, and it's something I practiced for twenty years. Wow.

1:36 Okay, so we're going to talk about that, and just what I'd love for you to do is share with the audience who you are. And I know you have an extremely varied background and it's amazing as I look at your bio. I want you to share that with your audience and help them to understand how you. Got to this point in your life. I am an integrative spiritual consult and I have a private practice where I work with people one on one providing emotional and spiritual support. I do QULD, have been of public speaking, and then this last year launching my first book, Every Day Awakening nationwide, which is so exciting. I'm actually I'm an or day minister, board certified chaplain, spiritual director and just passionate about whole person healing, studying it for the last twenty five years and I'm certified in a range of healing modalities. And so my background it was listening, listening, coming within, listening to the guidance that really started. How did I get here? I started when I was eleven years old, facing into dying as a very young child. I'm a survivor of having a very rare childhood cancer and my parents were told I had a twenty percent chance to live. This is in the seventies. It was quite grim back then. They had no anti nausea drugs. They did a lot of amputation.

3:08 It just it was a lot, and surprisingly no one talked to me, and I just felt quickly that I was walking a tightrope. I could feel that I was between life and death. And that is when my life cracked open on my own. I started out of nowhere to pray, even though prayer meant nothing to me, but just praying to live. I wanted. I realized I wanted to live. I didn't want to die, and I was pleading, and not long after, this feeling of peace poured through my body. And it's just annoying. I was going to live and I never I didn't tell anyone, but it just has been comforting to me to this day.

3:50 So you did not have a near death experience then, but you were on the border of dying according to the doctors, and obviously that did not happen. And fast forward in my thirties. I did have a near death experience. I was whitewater rafting in Costa Rica on a corporate Time Inc. Company trip, and I had what you call a near death experience that was really rough and it was a turning point actually for me after many years of being an advertising executive, making lots of money, time ink and having a wonderful career. Though but just like that's it, I'm done. This isn't who I want to be. I need to listen where am I being called in my life? And I, after that experience, within a few weeks, gave my notice to leave Time Warner to listen to where am I being called in my life?

4:42 And with that, you know, as I've read different near death experiences from people, they all have a slightly different experience, it seems like, and so it would be interesting, I think for the audience to understand what yours was like. And yeah, I think that would Do you mind sharing that? No, absolutely. We went on this Timing corporate trip for their top sales executives. We were in Costa Rica. We decided to go whitewater rafting. We were in rivers that were torrential. It was like level four, pretty rough from rains. We shouldn't have gone out, so there are many boats.

5:23 We were in a boat and I was in the very corner and I had a life elsa helmet, and if you can believe it, the head of our raft was head of they had like this Olympic team. He was crazy. All the other rafts were going around these rough rapids. Our guy was taking us straight down the middle. And next thing you know, I was thrown off the raft and I was deep underwater, and I mean here, I had this life best helmet, deep underwater, pitch black, and all of a sudden, like this is it, I'm gonna die. I just had flashbacks of being a child in the hospital. I had young kids. Then I saw them, and all of a sudden, this white light came around my body and this voice said to me, out of nowhere, really clearly, living or dying is fine, And this peace poured through me, similar in a way to when I was a child. But I didn't know if I was gonna live or die. And I just I let go.

6:25 I just I think I let go of my body. I think that's how I came out from under a rapid. They grabbed me, got me on a boat. I was in shock. I couldn't talk. We had to finish getting down the river because it was such a remote area, and got through that whole experience. A day later, I flew home, and I'm in Minneapolis in a taxi driving to my home, and I happened to call my mom just to tell her I was home. My mother never shared a dream in her life and never has since. And she said to me, without me even telling or what had happened, She's like, Catherine, I dreamed that I slipped into a river and I almost drowned, and then I woke up. It was like the day that that happened.

7:10 But I share this because it was a significant turning point. I just thought I need to listen where I was being called. I was already feeling restless about what I was doing, and like, is this really what I'm called to do? And so it gave me the courage to just walk away and start to listen to where I was being called, which led me then to studying theology and divinity and chaplaincy. And here I am all right. So you know, it's interesting as you talk about a spiritual consultant, because we're going to talk about mysticism. We're going to talk about all sorts of issues that may or may not have anything to do with quote spiritual.

7:52 And yet you are a spiritual consultant and you approach things that way. Can you explain to the audience what it means to you to be a spiritual casultant. I would say, ever since eleven years old, when I was praying to live and all of a sudden that feeling came through my being of deep peace and comfort and knowing I wasn't going to die, and knowing I wasn't alone. That feeling of that just that oneness with the universe has been with me to this day. And I started, as I'll share with you, a teenager, voraciously reading life meaning purpose kind of books like why am I here to this day? And I'm just steeped, steeped spiritually and that I decided getting I got a master's in theology, a master's in divinity of all the degrees, But just what does it mean to tune in to that oneness of the universe? And I'll share with you as a spiritual consultant. And for years I worked as a chaplain. I was a chaplain at a Level one trauma hospital had oft been County Medical Center. I was a chaplain at Fear of You Hospice for years. I've worked with thousands of people, and I believe in being ecumenical inclusive. I think languages limiting. What is it for each of us? Everyone hearing this right now? That sense of is it a sense of flow of energy? True nature?

9:18 God? Allah? I mean I just, I just what is it for everyone? And this has been my life path almost most of my life. I have contemplated and tuned into that force that life was, that universal energy that has guided my life well. And you're being politically correct by saying universal energy. So being a chaplain and you know, doing all the theology part is there As you talk about universal energy in your mind, are you speaking of God or are you speaking of something else? Yep. So in my book every Day Awakening, I do use the language God. I mean, for me, the word God is actually very comforting. But I also will use universe, higher power. I'll use some different words. It's all okay.

10:07 I think I don't know. The more the more spiritually conscious, spiritually where mature you are, I think there's more of an openness and I've just witnessed how those kind of words. People get hung up on words for the good the bad, and I just what is again that feeling tone? And I'm just really open, even within myself, of how I use that language well. And it's interesting, you know, I got back from Thailand just last month and spent a number of months there, and it fascinated. Me to see how they are so open. In fact, I went to one I went to one temple, you know, because I love to take pictures. I went to one temple and off to the side was a smaller temple, and I asked, I asked the guy, what is that. He says, oh, that's a that's that's a Muslim temple. As they built that so that everyone would have a place to worship and be comfortable. And so I find that, you know, most people who have any kind of sense of deity or universal whatever, they really have that sense of openness and kindness and accepting of everyone.

11:24 Regardless of their beliefs. But you made one comment, and I want to go back to that and ask the question. You may or may not have an answer for that. Why are we here? I think we're here to learn to love. I do. I think our essence are being as love. I think we're here to learn how to be fully alive and embody that sense of love which is our true nature, how to love one another. I think that's how we differentiate ourselves. I think when we die, I think death is not an end. I've seen we too much as a chaplain, which we can talk about. But I think what we take with us when we die is our ability to love. That's why I think we're here.

12:06 Well, and as you talk about, you know, you've seen so many things. I think. I think there's a great fear among many people about death and wondering what's going to happen after I die? Or is anything going to happen? And of course you have all the various thoughts and religions about all right, you know, multiple lives, So you've got the reincarnation people. You've got people that says there's just nothing. You have people that have the heaven and hell concept, you have many other concepts. What why so much fear and how do we help people to understand? As you said when you heard that voice, that life or death it's okay? Well, I think starting with I think a lot of people in the US. A lot of people in the world live in their mind. They live head up their mind, their fast chattering ego mind runs their life. And when that happens, and like people like Akar Toll brilliant love e Car Tol, I do too, oh great. But when we're in our mind, you know, you're in the past, you're in the future, you're not even here. So cultivating moments of presence, just basic presence of if it's your breath, if it's using your senses, if it's putting your hands on your chest and just breathing to just bring you down into your body. Our bodies always in the present moment.

13:28 So can you feel into just this moment? And it's in the moment, that sense of great peace and aliveness, it's there, it's not in our mind. So it's just starting people on the path of where are you all day long? And how can you feel into just the preciousness of life right now? Well, and as you you know, I'm sure you've observed being a chaplain and so forth that as we get into the religious community, in my mind, there are only a few that really understand what we're here to accomplish. And there's so much.

14:08 Do this, do that. If you do this, you're sitting. If you do that, you're sitting. You're going to help blah blah blah blah blah. What have you found in your process, in your adventure that you're on. How do you help people to understand that those types of thoughts that have been embedded within us are not actually fruitful to our overall happiness and joy and perhaps even the intent of our lives here on the earth. Great question. My training, which was a couple of years as a chaplain doing what's called clinical pastoral education and my residency, you really learn how to walk alongside someone to meet the person on their path. My role was never, and to this day is not to convert someone or this is the path, you know, That's not my role. However, if someone has a faith that's causing them undue suffering, then I can be directive and like, well, that's not the belief I hold. I mean, there's a fine line in the form of direction if it's in fact even spiritual direction our chaplaincy work. And you know what, I've met people of all kinds, in all faiths and all backgrounds, and I guess one takeaway as it were, relating to what your other question was, It's just death. And I will say, and I'll share if there's an opening and a flow that I think death is not an end.

15:39 I just I have seen and witnessed thousands of people leave their body and our spirit goes on. I can't get into details like where does it go? How does this happen? But physically, I mean I see spirits, I see angels. I've seen people's energy like leave their body. I've seen people come back and see me with days after they've died. So I do not have one doubt that death, death. Is not in it. We transform. We transform, so helping people open into what's their truth and how can there be an openness in understanding all of life? Okay, and as you talk about you're seeing these people who have passed away, or you're seeing people who have had their death experiences and actually come back or both all the above, all of the above, So that tends to get a little bit into mysticism. Yeah, and how do you know there's so many people who are so deeply quote religious, and so they think about mysticism as something that it's just kind of out there and really they don't want to get involved. And you know, they'll read things in the Bible, maybe the Old Testament about mysticism, and they label that a particular way. How do you equite mysticism and what is your definition of mysticism relative to what you have personally experienced, and how does that

17:10 relate to this overall sense of divinity within us, divinity outside of us? How does that work? I think mysticism is just an opening to get guidance, inner guidance, guidance from beyond every one of us right now, everyone hearing this right now, every one of us can receive guidance if there's words clairvoyance, clare, audience, cleresension, but it's cultivating present moment, being in the moment, and one of us might get more hearing or sensing or feeling, but it's really we can open into these gifts when we're in the present moment. One quick comment that might be helpful, That really helped me years ago. Uh. It was a short excerpt from Ken Wilbur, who's incredible as a spiritual author, written many books, and he talked about four levels of spiritual maturation. It's just coming to me to share in the moment about where you meet people on the path. And the first level quickly to share is when someone is it's just their egocentric it's me, me, me, me, me, They can't see anything but me. The second level is ethnal centric, so like I'm I am of this particular religious tradition or you know, I'm Catholic or I'm Jewish or I'm this sect I mean where they you're just defined almost by their tribe, like they can't see beyond what their identity is with their community. The third level is world centric, where you're attuned to the world, and

18:43 the fourth is cosmo centric the world and beyond. So as you can imagine my role as a chaplain, I met so many people, some that were you know, fundamentals evangelical to really liberal, to agnostic to atheists. It's like, so you learn a sense I think of acceptance and openness and helping. Ever someone is on their path, how can they find and tap into that peace in their heart and soul? Where how does that start? Well? And you know you talked about suffering, and you know that that rings a bell for me because I know that, for instance, in Buddhism, which I became familiar with while I was over there. He talks about getting to a point where you have eliminated.

19:32 Suffering in your life. So there's a whole process of self development there where people are seeking to accomplish that. In Christianity we don't hear that quite so much. And yet if you really get into some of the things. That are in the New Testament, you know. Man is that he might have joy, you know, be therefore perfect, which in Hebrew really means be therefore complete, even as your the news completely. So you have all of these different religious aspects to help us to how do we overcome the suffering? Because quite frankly, I really believe. That men are and women are there to have joy and experience life in a sense of peace and happiness.

20:18 And yet, as you say, so many people are suffering. And as zach cart Totley talks about that consciousness, if we allow the ego. To get in there and create all. Of those desires and so forth that are not really meaningful, that creates the suffering. With the work that you do, is your main. Goal really to help people to overcome that suffering and to reach a point of joy and happiness and love in their lives. Yes, And I would phrase it as awaken into the hurt and soul, Awaken into the preciousness of what it means to be alive right now. And as I say that, everyone listens right now has had a moment of an experience of it. You know, even when you think of you're out at night and the sun is setting over the mountains, over an ocean or lake, you know, and there's that glistening or there's that glow and it kind of like takes your breath away, and there's a moment where like, oh ah, wonder, I'm just precious. It's like, wow, I'm here. We can all experience that. But it's a conscious choice and it's a practice. Going back to your earlier comment, it is a practice, a mindfulness practice, like where am I all day long? Am I living in my mind all day? Or do I have moments of feeling into just here and now just starting there? I call it building that awareness muscle of just where am I all day long? And how do I want to live?

21:43 And how can I grow more peace and joy and a liveness. It takes some consciousness and daily choice and practice. Well, and I know you talk about five essential practices to. Really get to the point where you open your heart, you open. Your soul, and you start a sense that can you share with the audience what those practices are? Yep, So the first practice sets the stage for all of it. Come back to the present moment, cultivating here and now, which I was just talking about. The second is connect with something greater and there I'm really open and how I language that. The third is grow your trust, the fourth is embodied love, and the fifth is holding openness.

22:27 Do you care to elaborate? Yeah, So the first one we started to talk about building awareness, like where am I in my mind all day? When your mind's running you You're just you can't feel that peaceful, that joy, that precious us, that deep life. It's not in your mind, it's in the moment. So starting cultivating moments of presence. And then when you're cultivating moments of presence, can you then tune in to the sense of energy within you, that vibration within us? And you know, even I experience here's a simple way to look at I experience that vibrational energy every morning when I wake up, I have a gratitude practice and I think about for a few minutes I wake up. What am I grateful for? I'm alive? Oh wow, you know, I have a bed, I have family, friends, So I think it, But then I feel that energy vibrating in my body, you know, just starting there. Can you feel when you breathe into the moment that vibrational energy? And what is that for everyone on this call? You know, what is that in growing that sense of that energy, that inner guidance, and then that moves us into grow your trust. There's so many self help books out there that say trust trust, Well, how do you do it?

23:47 You know? They just say trust? So I really push to what is trust me? And I think it's about coming into the present moment. I think it's accepting the moment. So much easier said than done. It can be hard with life being so messy to accept life, so accepting the moment fully here now, the good that is right now. And when we can accept the moment, we can hear listening, listening with the ear of our heart. You hear that phrase in all faith traditions across the world. But that's where that clairvoyance their Claire audience, Claire sension we can hear, and that's how we trust. Trust is a verb. It's coming into it and like you get like, oh I am on the right path. That's how I experience trust.

24:30 And then the fourth and body love. I think again, love is the reason we're here on this earth, and it starts with loving ourselves. And I invite people to like, how do you love yourself? Here's way to grow love in your heart, Here's how to embody more love in your being. The more love we have, the more love we can share with one another. And then last hold openness. Can we go with the flow amidst life being so challenging for all of us at times? You know, how do we go with the flow? How do we find that EQ and him in a spaciousness? It's there and it's a practice. Well, and there are external things, or at least we may consider them external things that we can allow them become internal self for instance, meditation and you talk about energy.

25:16 You know, I know that you talk about sound healing, and I'm curious about that for a moment, when you talk about sound healing, what are you talking about there? Well, I'm certified in sound healing Level one with this amazing teacher here in the Midwest. Her name's Kay. So sound healing I work with, there's some different things you can utilize. I work with crystal singing bowls and even with a client sitting with them playing a variety of bulls. Mine are all tuned to different chakra frequencies, and playing the sound can come into your being, into a cellular level for healing that you know words can't even reach.

25:58 So it just of course, sound healing is one way, one modality that's a powerful healing modality. I use myself all the time. I just am really attuned to sound and I find that they're very healing to work with. With clients well, and I know it can be very effective. I actually have a personal example of that. My my son lost a child just prior to birth, and when he got back into the States, you know, he's just really struggled with that and struggled with that. And one day a friend of mine that was in a networking group does the bulls right, and she said, you know what, why don't you Why don't you come up and I'm going to do a session. And it was in it's kind of like a cave with water a pool there, so you get into the water and then you just listen to that. And I thought, okay, you know, I'm always open to try that. But I called my son.

26:54 I said, well you come with me. He says, okay, Dad, and so he did, and after was done, he looked at me and he said, it's gone. That deep grief. And obviously he's still grieves, but that deep sense of loss and grief was gone because of those singing bowls and powerful and it's like, you know, it's. So amazing to me that that can happen. Do you have any stories that you can share where someone went through a process like that where the singing buls literally help them in their emotional situation.

27:34 Absolutely, yeah, many many stories. And here's here's a takeaway about working I think with sound healing bulls, you always want to start out working with him on a more minimal scale because they're so powerful. You know, for maybe fifteen twenty minutes. How does it feel? Does it feel calming? Are you finding some agitation? Certain bulls maybe can agitate you, but working with the sounds them, just sink in and feel that tone and the energy of them, because it actually once you play with the singing bowls, it stays with you. For a period of time. That vibrational energy because we're vibrational energy. The bulls are vibrational energy. And I mean I find yes, I've had many stories with clients and also myself playing them. I will feel like my heart center just vibrating. I can feel it moving up and down, all the way up to my crown shock or to my base is vibrating. It's powerful, and I can feel my energy center's open even more.

28:36 That's amazing. And then you get into meditation. How does meditation work for people? It's just absolutely incredible breathing meditating, and this is this stems back to the seventies doctor Herbert Benson, Harvard professor and doctor who coined the word relaxation response. We know when you sit doing breathing for five minutes, when you do a meditation, it physiologically changes our body. We can self regulate. It lowers our blood pressure, our heart rate, our cortisol level, it soothes our body. So meditation, there's a lot of research out on this. It's really a wonderful healing modality.

29:19 Well, they're all you know, there's so many types of meditation. I would say in the last couple of months I've probably interviewed four to five people that talk about meditation in a different way. You know, this works, that doesn't work, and you know, it's just like it's crazy. But as you talk about singing bowls and the frequencies you know that they can affect. And we talk about meditation. I know that there's one type of meditation called solfeggio where you tap into the different frequencies. Are you familiar with that? Maybe a little now? I mean I also between meditation. You can do meditation with singing bowls. You can do meditation with using your voice what's called toning. I mean, there's just a lot different ways. And I would say I invite people like what speaks to you? You know, is it breathing, is it meditating? Is it cha gonge body movement? Yeah, but so tell me for a moment what that is exactly.

30:13 Well, so it's literally going in and talking about the frequencies that affect different parts of the body, of the chakras and so forth. So it's very similar to singing booths, only you listen to them and they have developed all these meditations that allow you to do that. So it just gets to be very fascinating. So as you talk about that, let's talk about without revealing you know, names and so forth, share with the audience and experience you had where you've literally helped someone that's just facing a really challenge in their lives and what was the process that you did and how did you help them and what was the end result for them? Well?

30:58 Have it many experiences? One yeah, one that comes to mind was a corporate executive man very successful, done really well, but feeling pretty numb, feeling like just. A numbness to life to his family. And yes, we started out talking like talk therapy, but then I led him in five minutes of a breath exercise, just breathing in, breathing in peace, breathing out stress. And there was at the end just like oh, kind of a feeling like here I am I just because the numbness dropped and he opened into a sense of feeling his heart, his essence.

31:43 It almost took his breath away and he had tears. It was just like wow, dropping out of his mind. That was just clenching. And I've had that happen with a number of executive a number of doctors of lee. I think I'm in a particular, if it's a breath, if it's a meditation where there was just a notable dramatic shift in the moment. So do you do you focus on those imprints that we got as we were children, or even the generational imprints through DNA, the generational memory, all of those type of things. Is that one of your focuses. You find that that's really the focus of what if it's traumatic or unkind or whatever, that that's literally what's affecting our experience in life.

32:34 Yes, with people I work with, if even just going back to what's called attachment theory, how they attached as an infant a child with their parents directly implicates how they attach in their relationships to this day. So, yes, if there's some unfinished, unresolved trauma blockages, themes of which is so common. You know, I'm not enough, I never heard, I was enough. I was you know, I was told, you know, seen but not heard. You have to unearth that to some extent, to move through it, to process it, to integrate it, to get in the front of your brain for what's called New York cortical integration, the thoughts, the feelings, processing it to heal and the pathway to healing is feeling of feelings. It is even just little bits at a time. And I have found with many people i've worked with that there can be something from childhood, an experience that just stuck within them that they've just blocked, they pushed down, and the tremendous healing happens when it can be unearthed and named and slowly processed. If it's processed verbally, then through body movements, then through breath, then through feeling, that's how healing and the integration happens.

33:55 And does the processing actually remove it or does it just help someone to become mindful enough that when it comes up, they recognize it's no longer going to affect them. I'd say a lot of it can be released, released so love like peace can come in. Can there be still a very thin thread that can carry on through some of the lifetime. Yeah, but I think we can. I do fully believe we can all heal. It's a choice and it takes some real courage and strength to decide I want to heal. I want to feel more. I want to feel love and joy in my life. Well, let's talk a little bit scientifically, because as you're talking about that that literally, as we talk about the brain, the brain has developed neural pathways based on those subconscious beliefs.

34:46 I mean bottom line is that is the main controlling factor in our lives. The conscious is very minimal, as I understand it. So as we talk about that, how do we get to the point where and scientifically do we literally find that we can take those neural pathways that have been with us our whole life and start to modify those or move them away and create new ones. What's what's your vision on that and thoughts about that? Well, two pathsway we can go. One. I'm trained and certified in neural plasticity and that is what we think and feel in our environment shaping our brain all day long till the day we die. So we can rewire all negative thinking patterns, worry, anxious patterns by just bringing it into and creating positive new neural pathways, by bringing it number one into awareness. When we can name with that loop, that worry loop, that fear loop, that anxious loop, when we can name it calms our nervous system. Number two, when we can name the feeling not always easy, it calms our nervous system. Number three when we can feel it, it will start to dissipate.

36:00 And then number four, growing the good, marinating in the positive, a positive image. That truly is what's creating those positive new neural pathways. This is I write about this in my book. This is a This is all the neural models I've studied so far, they all have these four steps. So that's one path. One other path, though, is with awareness. So for example, if you're aware, gosh, I have a hard time loving myself, or I never grew up hearing I love you, and I have a hard time feeling love, we can do practices to grow the love in our hearts. So even what's called this comes way back from mirror work with Louise Hay looking in the mirror and saying I love you, I really love you, I really love you.

36:45 Put your name in there. You say that ten times every day for a month. I can guarantee you that will start to open your heart and shift you. And when you're doing that and you're telling your subconscious words they've never heard. So there's literally ways that yes, we can rewire our negative thinking mind, but also how to grow our heart and soul and shift from that subconscious pattern of just being blocked. Well, you know, I hear so often that you know, I am who I am, I'm never going to change. That's not true, is it? No way, that's a mindset, that's a fixed mindset. Yep.

37:30 So you know in all of like every one of us, it's like, how, And that's a big takeaway from my book. How are you choosing to live? Are you choosing to live on an autopilot where your life's living you, your mind's living you, or are you choosing like I want to open more, I want to grow, I want to feel more love in my life. That's a choice and it's a practice every day. Well, and as you talk about your book, what are the main themes you talk about, So you talk about neuroplastis, you talk about I would assume spirituality. What are the things that you talked about in your book that would be intriguing for people. Yeah, So the five practices we just talked about are the core of my book. But I also have forty two exercises in my book. So my book is not just in your mind theory. But let's try this, Let's try all these different angles to come at feeling into just this moment, So exercises of breath or meditation, or how to work with body, or how your body movement, how to work with energy, how to work with your voice.

38:39 I just so I have many different angles to come at these five practices for the reader to actually experience it, to really like, how is this for you? Let's try this and be open to what speaks to you when you're reading the book. Well, and I'm curious you talked about energy boundaries that you were talking about this morning. What what exactly is that? And how does someone develop enough of an energy boundary that they are really protected from all the negativity of the outside world. So we're energy. Everything is energy. We have an energy field around us as far as our arms extend, called our aura. It's electromagnetic field. So we actually can work with our field not to take in energy of those closest to us, the chaos of the of the world.

39:30 And I'll share with you so exciting. The medical community is finally acknowledging this in the recent edition of the number one medical textbook in the United States called Integrative Medicine by David Rachel for integrative doctors, they have a snippet on this. So I'm just sharing this is finally being seen in the medical community. So here's some ways. I'll just give you a few you can visualize, and I write these in my book. You can visualize like a white light around your buoy forming into as far as your arms extend, and eggshell a bubble. I always have a hole at the top for light and love to come through, so that any negative, heavy, harmful, tough, rough energy can just hits the eggshell and drops away.

40:15 Same analogy, eggshell hole at the top with mirrors on the outside, So just visualizing mirrors where that energy hits the mirrors and drops away. One more way. This is what I do every day and have for twenty some years. I set through words and intentions for a minute in the morning every morning of my life for the last twenty years, where I want to send love or peace out so that I choose love. So I'm gonna send I say I'm going to send seventy percent love and only take in thirty or eighty twenty ninety ten. I do ninety ten because I'm really empathic and I get a lot, So I just say I'm going to send ninety percent love to everyone and anything that I encountered today and I'm only going to take in ten percent.

41:02 And I say that a few times, and I can feel my energy boundaries just set up and it's like, oh here I am. I just have breathing room. It's life changing. Wow. So as you as you think about and you've said so. Many fascinating good things, but as we close, what would be a message that you'd like to share with the audience. I would just invite people listening to this, you know, what do you want in your life? And I think life is deeply precious. It's a gift to be alive. And I witnessed so many people as a hospice chaplain that I was with as they died understand this, understand like, oh I'm here, and then they died, And I just I think everyone hearing this you can cultivate and grow that sense a preciousness of life. Right now, just starting with tuning in, how are you living your day? You know, are you living your day where you're in your mind all day? Or are there some moments of just here, I am presence with your breath, using your senses, go for a walk, use your senses. Just here, I am in nature, walking to just feel that sense of wow, wonderment, all this life, the preciousness of being alive. And that's the big takeaway. I want to share with people that it's here now, you don't have to wait. Yeah.

42:30 I love that. So how do people find you? And how do people find your book? My book, Everyday Awakening, It is on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and it's all over. My website is every Day Awakening dot com. My I'm on social media, Catherine with the c Katherine Dungan. MABCC is my Instagram, my LinkedIn, my TikTok and Facebook. It's my company name, Learning to Live. So a lot. There's a lot out there. And the outcome for people is. Peace, joy, love, Oh.

43:10 Wonderful, wonderful. Catherine, thanks so much for being on the show. This has been amazing. Yeah, great to meet you. Thank you. I really appreciate it. Folks, thanks for listening. I hope you enjoyed it and it's really a good book. Take a look at it and see if it can be of some value to you. This is doctor Doug saying, have a wonderful week. And now Mistay