32 - Healing Beyond the Physical with Nicole Devaney

CHEK Practitioner and CHEK Faculty Instructor Nicole Devaney discusses how the body is a holistic system and how non physical aspects of ourselves affect our physical bodies.

We discussed:

3:30

Nicole's background

25:30

Do Non Physical Aspects Always Play a Role in Physical Injuries?

44:45

Getting to the root of and healing emotional and energetic disease and pain

57:30

Top 5 Modalities for Energetic Healing

1:09:10

The Layers Beyond Us

1:21:35

Plant Medicines

1:29:00

Top Two Tips for Your Own Healing

You can find Nicole @:
www.nicoledevaney.com
IG: Nicolethechekgoddess
FB: Nicole DeVaney the Chek goddess

Remember Retreats:
www.calledtoremember.com
10% Discount Code 'SACRED REBEL'  

Chapters

• 3:30 Nicole's background
• 25:30 Do Non Physical Aspects Always Play a Role in Physical Injuries?
• 44:45 Getting to the root of and healing emotional and energetic disease and pain
• 57:30 Top 5 Modalities for Energetic Healing
• 1:09:10 The Layers Beyond Us
• 1:21:35 Plant Medicines
• 1:29:00 Top Two Tips for Your Own Healing

Transcript

[00:00] Nicole Devaney: We can do all the, you know, shamanic work we want. But, you know, oftentimes when I go to work on a person, initially I ask my soul, is this physical? Is this emotional? Is this mental? Or is this spiritual? And then I ask, where do we need to start? Because I see a lot of people maybe only doing body tack or only doing rattles and drums, and they're £300 and they're not getting better. There's so much happening beyond the veil of what we see with our five senses. You have a whole lineage of ancestors that are rooting you on. You are the expression of their entire lives. You've got guides, and whether you believe in those or not, you have your higher self, this soul that is like wanting nothing but for you to experience the best. And so there is so much happening beyond the veil of what we see with our five senses. You have a whole lineage of ancestors that are rooting you on. You are the expression of their entire lives. You've got guides. And whether you believe in those or not, you have your higher self, this soul that is like wanting nothing but for you to experience the best.

[01:32] Announcer: And so welcome to the Radical Health Rebel podcast with your host, Leigh Brandon. If you enjoy the podcast, please leave a five star rating and the warm review. Your opinions are important and your ratings help grow the podcast and help educate people to lead a healthier, more productive, fulfilling and happy life. If video is your thing, please check out the Radical Health Rebel YouTube channel, where you'll find Fun bitesized clips from each episode. And now, here is Leigh, the Radical Health Rebel with this week's podcast.

[02:14] Leigh Brandon: Nicole Devaney. Welcome to the Radical Health Rebel podcast. Thanks for coming on the show.

[02:19] Nicole Devaney: Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to be here with you, Leigh.

[02:22] Leigh Brandon: Yeah, as I was saying earlier, it's really good to actually have a proper one to one chat with you. We meet once a month in a meeting with twelve other people, and we very rarely ever get the chance to speak one to one. So it's great to get that opportunity today.

[02:36] Nicole Devaney: Yeah, I'm excited. Thanks for just making this opportunity available.

[02:41] Leigh Brandon: My pleasure. So today's episode is entitled healing beyond the Physical with Nicole Devaney. And we live in an electromagnetic world of vibration, and we and everything in the universe is vibration. So when we're in pain or we have a disease, could it be that just the physical part of us that is causing the problem, or is it more complex than that? In my own practice, I found that some instances, an emotional release or a rewired behavioral pattern was all that was required to unlock the door to optimal health. In this episode, I'll be asking my colleague, Nicole Devaney, aka the Czech goddess, about the emotional, energetic, spiritual aspects of healing. So, Nicole, to kick things off. Would you share with the audience a little bit about you? Perhaps your upbringing, your educational background and your career to date?

[03:34] Nicole Devaney: Yeah, I'd love to. So I sometimes laugh. I tell a lot of my students, I'm not your typical instructor with my background. I was raised on a standard American diet, in poverty, with parents that were addicted to all sorts of things because they didn't have the opportunity to really heal traumas. And I'm really grateful for that experience because it was part of what pushed me to pursue healing. I really wanted to help my mom and my dad, and I was also a long lineage of what I consider witches in some ways. I was raised by guides. My mom's mother was very into astrology, and she was an author. And so even though there was a lot of unconscious behavior in my family, there was some roots of esoteric knowledge that I was raised on. So when we stubbed our toe in the house, it wasn't because we were clumsy, it was because Mercury was in retrograde. And when I began seeing different people that weren't there, instead of saying to me to make me feel better as a little girl, it's okay, there's nothing there, my mom would actually open up with questions like, well, what are you seeing? And what do they look like? And do they say anything to you? And eventually we identified two of them, which were my grandmothers in some family albums, which led me to really kind of getting raised by my guides and really developing my intuition. I was blessed to transition from what I considered like a poverty mindset through some of our biggest traumas, become some of our greatest triumphs. I went into exotic dancing, probably because of a background of sexual abuse. And for the first time, I oftentimes tell people I experienced safety and security, not so much because I was dancing, but because financially my needs were met. And with that, I was capable of paying for classes and workshops and teachers and what I consider elders. That helped guide me in ways that my parents couldn't, including Paul Check. And it was a beautiful opportunity to really grow myself. So I joke that I went through early retirement in my twenty s. I spent most of my time paragliding and modeling and traveling the world and just dancing occasionally when I needed money. And my daughter was born when I was about 26, and I became a single mother fairly early in her life. And all of that propelled me forward to having to ground, become grounded. And I also in that, let's see where I loved yoga, so my job was to have a beautiful body, and I did that through the ways that I thought would be healthy. I was vegan, I was yoga. At one point, I competed in the Yoga World Championships in training for that, I actually broke my spine, and it was really, really scary because I couldn't pick my daughter up and I was the person who was bringing home the bacon and cooking the bacon. And at that point I asked Great Spirit for help. I was never religious, but very spiritual, and that led me to my first Check practitioner, which, little did I know, as I was fixing my back, I would be fixing my gut and my brain and then ultimately stepping into the purpose that my soul came here to do. And so now I spend my days supporting others who have been told, oftentimes through all the different various ways of trying to heal and medical routes, that there's no hope for them, showing them that there's not only hope, but showing them what good feels like for the first time in their life. And what I've really, really loved about the Check Institute and I joke about this because I was actually teaching wellness. I had a pole dancing studio in Salt Lake for three years and I opened it not knowing a single pole trick. I really had the desire to teach women how to love themselves and how to step into healing and health. And I joked that I broke my back because I didn't really have the science right. And the first half of Czech is a lot of deep science, but unlike any other school out there, the second half is forgetting what you think you know and diving into the energy and the shamanism and that piece I already had. And it was so nice to get the science and balance that yin and yang of my knowledge.

[09:05] Leigh Brandon: Awesome. Were you still dancing when you started educating yourself?

[09:13] Nicole Devaney: Yeah, I actually danced for 15 years.

[09:17] Leigh Brandon: And how old were you when you started kind of going more into learning more from an educational kind of background?

[09:25] Nicole Devaney: Well, I started dancing when I was 19 and I also started kundalini Yoga at that age as well. And so I've always been a seeker of knowledge, maybe not certificates, but definitely of knowledge. And the dancing was something that wasn't like I was doing it because I needed money. I truly believe that the work that some of those women are doing should be done in temples, that it was some of the best years of my life. Unfortunately, we have such a societal view of sex and sexuality and eroticism that it turns at dark. And a lot of people are imbibing in certain addictions in order to be there, just to experience that beautiful erotic creation energy. And so I did it because I really enjoyed the ability to adorn myself and to express, through movement and medicine of music the beauty that I felt in my heart for life and for dance. It was kind of funny. You don't normally see standing ovations at strip clubs, but oftentimes I'd really feel the music energetically coming in and really want to bring that energy forth. And to this day, you know, in ceremonies that I do with different medicines. Oftentimes one of my healing pieces is dance. And many different energies of dancers and Sufis come through me and move that medicine. And I've seen medicine come through dancing.

[11:15] Leigh Brandon: Awesome. So what age were you when you started your education in terms of health, your kind of formal education, if you like?

[11:22] Nicole Devaney: Formal education. Okay, so check. I started at age 30. I'm 43 now. And before that I was going through all sorts of not eat right for your type, the blood type. I was always interested in food. Like I said, veganism was kind of the direction I was going, healing the planet, not eating the animals. Formal education through the science of Czech would be age 30. Prior to that, I was working with a lot of spiritual healers and teachers learning how to heal spiritually.

[12:05] Leigh Brandon: Awesome. So how many years did it take you to do your check training?

[12:10] Nicole Devaney: Almost eight. I went the slow route as a single mom. I could only really afford one or two classes a year and really wanted to kind of integrate it. And that worked out really well for me. Plus, we learned about all this stuff through check, like, oh, you got to get your metal feelings out and you got to change your pots and pans and you're sleeping attire and all of it's got to be organic. And so for me, I never went to check with the intention to be a check practitioner. In fact, I wanted to run away after my first class. I'm like, that was so hard. This is not my thing. So it was more about I. I realized after just a year of working with the Czech practitioner that the 30 years before that the way I'd been living had made me sick. And I'd had a taste of what feeling better felt like, and I just wanted to learn more again. And then I've kind of told this story before my first class. It was so deep in anatomy and it just wasn't my thing that I'm like, I'm out of here. But Paul walked in on that class and he picked me out of everybody and says, what's your dream? And I says, I want to be financially secure and pain free. He proceeded to fillet my soul in front of everybody and for 3 hours tell me that there's no such thing as security and that pain was the biggest gift I could ever receive. And I remember the instructor, Janet, coming in and saying, are you okay? He makes women cry. And I was like, more than okay. I knew right at that moment that that man in front of me had just cut through every piece of bullshit I'd ever told myself that was keeping me small and holding me back and whatever I was going to do, I knew I needed to get to him as a teacher. And so I committed right there to go through as many classes I needed to get to to get to the higher levels where he taught. And that meant not doing the IMS, which is kind of the integrated movement science, but more the HLC, which is my jam, the organs, the emotions. And it was the HLC path that really healed me, that made me go, oh, I can do the integrated movement science. My brain does work, but I just have to do all the healing first.

[14:34] Leigh Brandon: Yeah. So for you, during your first class, it kind of blew your brains out, all the anatomy, and you were like, oh, no, this isn't for me. But then when you saw the potential and the benefits to yourself, that was what motivated you to really kind of carry on.

[14:53] Nicole Devaney: Yeah. It wasn't so much learning the potential or benefits, but learning that the closest, the quickest way I could get to Paul was HLC2, and I took HLC1, and that was where I got the potential and the benefits, learning to eat right for my primal pattern type. You talk about acne and how you have that. I had lifelong acne myself. I would have done anything to heal it. I tried everything to heal it. And it was that week in HLC 1 where I learned that I needed more protein and more than I was, like, choosing to eat. And then just after seven days of eating the protein and taking out the four white devils, my acne was, like, gone. And, you know, vanity can be a great motivator in the beginning. Absolutely right. And so it was it was just the quickest way to Paul initially, like, something was, like, deep inside me saying, this is where you have to go. I had no idea, and to be honest with you, no inspirations to even apply to become an instructor, because I thought, who would ever hire a stripper, teach for an international holistic institute? Who? All of my instructors, who I've always looked up to, have these PhDs. So you could almost call it like a primal intuitive, knowing that I had to get to Paul.

[16:30] Leigh Brandon: So you felt that for you, Paul check was your meal ticket that's not the right word. But your path to healing yourself.

[16:41] Nicole Devaney: Yeah, he was my elder that I prayed for, and I was the healer. He just shined a light down the path. And the truth was that's the truth for all of us. We all know what path we need to walk. You have to be your own healer.

[17:05] Leigh Brandon: We're just guides, aren't we? As coaches, we're just guides. We're just showing people the way. So you did your check training over eight years. Any other kind of formal education that you've done since then?

[17:23] Nicole Devaney: A lot of what I've done, you couldn't formalize. I've spent 15 years training with ayahuasca and sacred plant medicines. These are things that you don't get certificates for.

[17:36] Leigh Brandon: You mean you don't have a PhD in Ayahuasca.

[17:41] Nicole Devaney: I don't think the doctors provide a certificate.

[17:45] Leigh Brandon: Don't normally, do they?

[17:47] Nicole Devaney: No.

[17:47] Leigh Brandon: And there's not a lot of funding in universities for that kind of course.

[17:51] Nicole Devaney: I would imagine, hopefully one day one day you're looking at the maps Institute and what they're bringing forth. It's really beautiful. This is your brain on plants. They're now showing the actual study data, what these medicines can do for us. I've done a lot of other courses that, again, you don't see certificates for. I study with a Celtic Irish shaman. I've done biofuel tuning, which is a form of, like, resonance healing.

[18:26] Leigh Brandon: Is that with Eileen McKusick?

[18:28] Nicole Devaney: Yeah, and just little tools along the way in my tool belt.

[18:35] Leigh Brandon: Awesome. So you finished your check training, and then obviously you became a member of the Czech faculty. What was the time gap between finishing your check training and becoming a member of the elite team, so to speak?

[18:51] Nicole Devaney: Well, I I got the opportunity to become part of the team prior to finishing my check training. Like I said, I finished Hlc three with Paul. And I got to tell you, hlc two and three was a lot of tears. At one point, Paul asks where we are at in our healing and what's keeping us from there, and just being really open and vulnerable and honest. I had addictions. I was addicted to marijuana. I was addicted to tobacco, and I wasn't fully stepping into my power. And I really still appreciate the plants of marijuana and tobacco and work with them, but there was a difference. So I remember crying, and then when Paul got done from the 40 people he had asked that question, he said, to the degree that you're not living your dream and you're not crying, then you're not telling the truth. There was about nine of us crying in the class and the process of hlc two and three, I was a wreck as I was healing, I was doing metal cleansing. Paul at one point hugged me. He's like, what's going on with you? You know? I'm like, I don't know when I was metal cleansing. And he's like, slow down. So I didn't see Paul, and I went to IMS two, IMS three, and I get to IMS four. And Paul, as you know, teaches one day in that, so he hasn't seen me in a few years. And he comes in, and I'm in the back of the class, and he goes, Vegas stripper. And I'm like, well, Utah, but yes. And he's like, my God, you've done it. You've helped. And at that point, I had done 300 days straight of chi gong. I did everything he said. He told me to go home and stop exercising for 100 days and do only qi gong. Whatever. He said, I'm like, okay, this is medicine. He pays you know, people pay him how much money an hour to tell him what to do? I'm going to do it. He continued to express how my aura had turned into this snowflake, and it was beyond filling the room. And it felt like I almost get teary eyed thinking about it, because my dad didn't have the wherewithal to acknowledge and validate my efforts. And not that I consider Paul a dad, but as an elder, for me, for him to recognize that was just so it just felt good because I had done a lot of work, and it wasn't about getting recognized. It was about loving myself. And that's what it was. It was a journey of consciousness and self love. And then later, I was teaching a course out here in Salt Lake, two of them in the weekend. I provide a Thanksgiving dinner for 40 people called caveman feast, and I teach everyone how to do Thanksgiving without bread or dairy and all the wonderful things. And then the next day, I was actually teaching a pelvic floor workshop, and we do weightlifting with our yonis. And I found a picture. And at that time, I was really trying to produce a lot of social media posts and build up my business. And I found this picture of a turkey in the store that had been wrapped by cellophane, and it looked a little bit like a shaved woman's yoni. And I'm like, I'm so nervous. Do I put this out on the Internet? And of course, I've got that humor, but you got to have to find that fine line between professional and not. And I'm like, you know what? This is me. So I put it up, and I'm like, this sums up my weekend. And then I posted my two courses, and Angie Check saw it and laughed at the post and said, Paul says he bets that you weren't raised religiously. And later that week, I got an email from Paul, which I'd never gotten an email from Paul. I was kind of ******** my pants a little bit. I'm sorry. Can we say those words?

[23:07] Leigh Brandon: You can.

[23:08] Nicole Devaney: And it basically shared with me how I had evolved from the dark side of the prostitute archetype to the light side. And that what I was doing with the money that I created through what I had done to what I'm doing now, was bringing it to heal the planet and that he would love for me to provide courses for the Institute. And then he also said, the other thing I'd like to offer you, and the journey is long and arduous, but if you'd like to become an instructor, we'd be honored to have you.

[23:43] Leigh Brandon: Fantastic.

[23:44] Nicole Devaney: I know. I remember doing the Happy Dance for about two weeks, and when I asked him, I'm like, Why me, Paul? I'm like, you have so many amazing, incredibly smart check practitioners across the world. And I just feel like my background isn't set up to really be a presenter and instructor. And he says, we have enough PhDs. It stands for piled higher and deeper you walk your talk, and you have that mothering energy, which we really need at the Institute. And so I just really appreciate being able to honor that. Sorry, it was a very long answer.

[24:26] Leigh Brandon: That's a good answer. It's a good answer. And I would just add to that that obviously Paul knew you a lot sooner than I did, but as soon as you came into the team, I could see that you were adding something that we didn't have. You were bringing in a completely different energy, and it just makes the team that much stronger, having you on the team, for sure.

[24:49] Nicole Devaney: Well, I plan on teaching a torque shop at the faculty meeting.

[24:54] Leigh Brandon: I'll be doing the music.

[24:56] Nicole Devaney: Okay. You can still twerk over a DJ table.

[25:00] Leigh Brandon: True. Awesome. So talking more a little bit deeper now in terms of getting into the health aspect of it, what do you think about physical ailments and disease? So do you think that all physical ailments of disease have some sort of emotional or energetic connection? Or can some injuries or diseases be purely physical? What's your view on that?

[25:29] Nicole Devaney: I don't think you can separate energy from physical. We are light and vibration slowed down enough to become matter. I oftentimes say there are no accidents. We don't just stub a certain toe, and the body is a map to what's happening energetically. I was thinking the other day, one of my beautiful friends who just had a baby in Hawaii, beautiful shaman, sent a message saying, bodi was up all night. I was drinking moringa tea, which was supposed to be this green tea that happened to have Urbanata in it, and I didn't know. And I'm like, of course, he's making his way to his plants. He's a little shaman. There are no accidents. You know, maybe he just wanted to have a little caffeination experience to add to his repertoire of early experiences as a young plant teacher. And so my back story, I wouldn't change it for the world. All of that pain. I oftentimes say that our disease and our pain is like the shepherd dog nipping at our heels, saying, you're not on a path that you chose to be on before you came into this world. And so we're going to stop your ways of distracting yourself with whatever it is you're distracting your relationship, your jobs, your phones. And we're going to get your attention. And through getting your attention, whatever it is that you've got to do to fix this, we're going to put you on the path. Yeah.

[27:14] Leigh Brandon: Yeah. And you can choose to go down that path, or you can choose to ignore it as well. Right.

[27:20] Nicole Devaney: Or medicate it.

[27:21] Leigh Brandon: Well, that's how you ignore it.

[27:23] Nicole Devaney: Yeah.

[27:24] Leigh Brandon: Right.

[27:24] Nicole Devaney: And unfortunately, a lot of people don't know that they're ignoring it. They just know that that's what mom did. And Mom's, mom, did you go to the cupboard and get an aspirin, go to the doctor and get a prescription. And another one. And another one.

[27:42] Leigh Brandon: Because we live in a society where the paradigm, if you like, is, well, if you've got pain, you've got to get rid of the pain.

[27:51] Nicole Devaney: Right.

[27:52] Leigh Brandon: Just numb the pain. But really what you're saying is when we have the gift of pain or the blessing of pain, it's trying to teach us something, and we need to listen and then try and work out, okay, so what's it trying to teach me rather than, well, let's get rid of the teacher. Right, right.

[28:12] Nicole Devaney: And also recognizing that it's like a volume button in the sense that if we keep the volume down, down, nature will try to balance itself by turning it up. And so we have this, like, comfort based society which in research is showing is leading to the depression and anxiety that we see overwhelmingly. And if we can take that volume button and say, well, I'm going to do a cleanse and just turn it up for a minute and allow some of that experience that doesn't feel very good to give us little increments yearly of not feeling very good. We don't get that big shift that balances itself out at the end, or, I'm going to do an ice bath, or I'm going to, you know, train and make my muscles hurt for a minute. So I like to think that pain can either, like, drive us towards something because it's been so significant, or we can utilize it as a form of teaching ourselves something, teaching ourselves focus. Even the passageway of death, even if you have that death in your sleep, moving towards death is not going to always be easy. And the question is, how do you train your mind around pain so that when your mind steps up to that door of death, where is it? I love how Paul says that they believe that when we die, we move at the speed of thought. And so I believe that once we get over pain being the teacher from accidental pain or the shepherd dog pain getting us on our path, pain being something of a dance partner so that we can prepare our mind to be on our intention and where it is that we want to be when we transition, when we no longer have a body and we can move at the speed of light.

[30:23] Leigh Brandon: For thought. Yeah, it's interesting. As you were talking, I was just thinking about some of my own experiences with pain and the lessons that I learned from them. And in 2013, I ruptured my L 45 and L five S one discs. I think you saw the aftermath of that, actually, in California. And my lesson was stopped working so hard because I've always been relentless in everything I've done, really. And it's something that Paul has always tried to point me in the right direction. You're too young, you're too young. You got to slow down, you've got to rest more. And the fact that I couldn't use my left leg and that I was in a lot of pain made me slow down. Right. And that was quite a wake up call. That even though I'm quite relentless still now. I'm just much better at resting. Much better at getting to sleep on time, much better at when I finish a project to give myself a bit of breathing space before I start the next one. Because I used to be someone that done that. What's next? Right. I'm starting that tomorrow. And there was no breather when I had acne. My lesson was to not eat junk and to get metal out of my body. Right?

[31:46] Nicole Devaney: Yeah.

[31:47] Leigh Brandon: Because if I hadn't had the acne, I probably would have kept on a poor diet, I would have had a mouthful of mercury. But by the age I am now, maybe I wouldn't have survived this long.

[32:02] Nicole Devaney: Right.

[32:03] Leigh Brandon: But I was relentless to get rid of the acne. Okay. It took me 18 years, but it only took me about two years after I first met Paul. Right. I had an experience more recently where I started to get an arthritic knee.

[32:21] Nicole Devaney: Which leg?

[32:23] Leigh Brandon: Left. But what was interesting was that I cut oats out of my diet and it disappeared within a couple of weeks.

[32:32] Nicole Devaney: Right. Those oats are sneaky. They're just gluten.

[32:37] Leigh Brandon: My knee went from being able to flex only to 90 degrees to 135 within two weeks. Pain went from sometimes seven or eight out of ten to zero.

[32:49] Nicole Devaney: Wow.

[32:54] Announcer: You're listening to the Radical Health Rebel podcast.

[32:59] Leigh Brandon: Are you regularly suffering from painful bloating of wind that could be smelly and embarrassing? Are your bowel movements not as they should be, either constipation or diarrhea or possibly alternating between the two? Do you find the pain is bad enough, but the bloating and cramps make you feel awful and are affecting your everyday life? Do you sometimes feel you can't eat properly because of the wind, bloating and pain? And has your doctor told you that you have IBS but unable to help find you a solution? Do you feel right now that you simply don't know what's causing your symptoms and whatever your doctor has suggested hasn't worked and you feel frustrated that you're still far from having a normal, flat, comfortable tummy? Have you invested a lot of time, energy and money into improving your symptoms and don't wish to waste any more? Do you feel frustrated and depressed and don't feel like you can take part in all the activities you enjoy and sometimes have to cancel attending events because of the way your tummy feels? Do you fear that if you don't get this sorted, you could end up with a much more serious gastrointestinal disease? Or if so, what would help you right now is to understand the root cause of your digestive condition rather than continuing to try to mask the. Symptoms with over the counter or prescribed medications. You need help understanding how factors such as nutrition, gut health, stress and toxicology affect the digestive system and how to optimize these factors. You need someone who can advise, motivate and support you every step of the way, someone who has walked the path before and taught many others to do the same. What you need is my overcome your digestive issues program. My Overcome Your Digestive Issues program can help you in the following ways I will help you understand the root causes of your digestive problems and teach you how to approach the condition holistically via expert advice on nutrition and lifestyle factors to overcome your digestive Issues program will start by ensuring you are on the right diet for you based on your genetics or metabolic type and one that avoids the foods that are known to exacerbate your condition will go on a journey step by step, learning all the necessary lifestyle changes required to achieve a flat, comfortable, pain free tummy. Each weekly 30 minutes coaching session will include advice, support and guidance specifically tailored to your needs and at a speed.

[35:33] Leigh Brandon: That is right for you.

[35:35] Leigh Brandon: Once you're eating right for your metabolic type, you will begin to see changes in how your tummy feels. And we will also uncover all the necessary blocking factors that you may have. And you'll be taught how to reduce, replace or eliminate all the factors that are causing your digestive problems. Ultimately, this program will enable you to achieve a flat, calm and comfortable tummy.

[35:57] Leigh Brandon: Every day for the rest of your life.

[35:59] Leigh Brandon: For more information about how to improve your gut health and to claim a complimentary no obligation gut health consultation, please go to www.BodyCHEK.Co.UK that's BodyChek and fill in the request form at the top of the home page and we'll be in contact to arrange a convenient time. Now back to the podcast.

[36:22] Nicole Devaney: Do you find with that teaching of the breaks? The left leg, we know, is the feminine, which is great mystery and spirit, that when you take those breaks, that the whatever you want to call it, the ancestors, the guides, the teachers, all the forces that are rooting for us beyond the veil. Do a lot of the work for you?

[36:50] Leigh Brandon: Yeah, I actually did two weeks, what I would call hibernation over Christmas. I worked really hard last year, but I took two weeks off and did nothing. purposely, I did nothing. I slept a lot, I rested a lot. I didn't work out as much. I wasn't working out hard. Even when I did work out, I was probably working out twice a week, quite gentle. The rest of the time I just rested. And then January came. I felt amazing, right? I felt the best. I'd felt probably in ten years.

[37:25] Nicole Devaney: And sometimes I find doors open, like people reach out to you and they're like, hey, I heard you're doing this. And then next thing you know, opportunities arise that you weren't even trying to make happen. That's what I find happens for me when I go into Rest is that's like going into trust that there's more working on my project, my life, than me, but they can't do it when I'm so diligent about doing it all. The rest is the trust piece for me.

[37:58] Leigh Brandon: Definitely. Do you have any examples of clients that you've worked with that have had a physical problem and you've helped them identify what the actual cause is and how that helped them overcome the physical problem?

[38:15] Nicole Devaney: Yeah, one of them that rings out for me right now, it was really interesting because this person, like my own Check practitioner who I came in to, I didn't know anything about Check, and I dreamed of him. I had a person reach out to me from overseas saying, you were in a dream last night. I just saw your picture on Facebook. I'm having some fertility issues, man. Having fertility issues. And I think I might have some digestive. Second chakra work. And I've studied Mark Wolynn's work and learned about family constellations. And instantly I was presented in his messaging with his great grandfather. And he's like, this isn't his. And so without him becoming a client, I just basically relayed, I think this is where we need to go, because he also is check and knows a lot about health. And that week, without becoming a client, his mom reached out to him and she's like, oh, your cousin was on the news. He's in South Africa. Did you know you have family in South Africa? And he's like, no. And this was like a step cousin. And she's like, yeah, your great great grandfather was a ******* son of a duke who didn't want to, you know, he got the maid pregnant. And so they sent his great great grandfather to live with some nuns in South Africa. And so that was in his loins that was in his lineage that said, you know, don't make love to women. It could lead to being separated from the masculine from your father's lineage. And so at that point, I hadn't done a family constellation session online. I had just done them in person. And I asked Spirit because I used some footprints oftentimes in person, I'm like, how do I do this? And they said, let's work with the toreau. Let's work with the toro. Because he reached out, he's like, okay, whatever you're on to. I've got a direct message that we should do this. And it was really powerful to have him stand in his room and pull the cards that represented his mom and his dads. And what we're doing is we're opening up the field to the ancestors and what they experienced so that I can go in and help heal them at that area of their lineage and then bring it down the family line. And bring it up the family line. And the erectile dysfunction stuff went away instantly, and there was no change of diet.

[41:17] Leigh Brandon: Yeah, it's amazing. I used to do body talk sessions. I don't know if you're familiar with body talk as energy medicine. So I studied that from, I think, 2005 to 2008. And I probably stopped practicing in about 2011, I think it would have been. But I've got so many stories like that. I remember one guy, I had a practice, I had a studio with it, but it was inside a health club. It was my studio, so I rented from the health club. And one day the club manager came in. He said this body talk, he said, could you give me a session? And I said, yeah, okay, fine. So I went through like the initial questionnaire and his main issue, he had ankle pain. Right. So we went through the session. I can't remember exactly what came up, but nothing physical came up at all. It was all emotional or might have been family constellations, I can't remember. And he got off the table and he said, I don't have any pain. And he looked really confused. He said, what did you just do to me? And I said, Well, I just did what your body asked me that he needed. He said that's really strange. He said, I actually thought that you were a bit of a charlatan and I was coming down here to make sure that you weren't a charlatan and in fact, I was going to cancel your contracts if I thought you was a charlatan. He said, I'm completely told he said my ankle was completely free of pain. But there was lots of stories like that when I was practicing body Talk. The only reason stopped was because I feel my head is only a certain size. And there's so much to remember. You got all the check stuff and you got all manual therapy stuff, you got the nutrition stuff. And I just thought, you know what, I'm going to let other people do body talk because there's some people that's all they do.

[43:08] Nicole Devaney: Yeah.

[43:09] Leigh Brandon: And sometimes I do still refer to body talk practitioners, but that really woke me up to how much non physical things affect physical things in the body.

[43:22] Nicole Devaney: Yeah. And I'd like to add, I call it front door, back door healing. Like you asked in the beginning. Is all physical elements energy? Yes and no. Like your body is the 18 wheeler of your spirit. And if it doesn't have the nutrients and the chemical building blocks it needs, we can do all the shamanic work we want. But you know, oftentimes when I go to work on a person, initially I ask my soul, is this physical? Is this emotional? Is this mental or is this spiritual? And then I ask, Where do we need to start? Because I see a lot of people maybe only doing body tack or only doing rattles and drums and they're £300 and they're not getting better. And so you can't separate them. You have to be holistic in the process. But sometimes it's the front door, and we're cleansing your colon, and next thing you know, you're pooping out the grief of your divorce ten years ago. Or it's the back door and we're talking about your divorce. And then next thing you know, you have a big **** a day later without taking any colon cleanse. It's so cool the way it's interconnected.

[44:33] Leigh Brandon: Absolutely.

[44:35] Leigh Brandon: So what's the best way for someone to get to the root of and heal emotional or energetic disease and pain?

[44:44] Nicole Devaney: I think that the first thing that you have to know is time and curiosity, and then the next piece is intention. So you don't have to know how to do it, you just have to first really put out to the universe. I would like to or I am intending to work with the people who know or get the information and the downloads, and then you have to invest time. I think a lot of people I've noticed sometimes people will pay me my contract amount and think that the 1 hour a week that we maybe talk is going to be what fixes them. And it's actually that they're going to need to invest four or five more hours doing and engaging with. And so one of the biggest factors I found in healing is that if you want something to work with health or holistic healing or energetic healing, plan on 100 days to commit to any one thing and don't get distracted by the next offering that's in your email box from the next shaman or the next healer. And you're going down there. One line, their program for $99, really turn off the distractions, choose one path, walk it intentionally with what it is that you want to bring in. You're putting in tension exactly what you want to bring, and that investment will pay you back tenfold. We have no attention span in this society. We want to scroll onto the next and scroll on the next and say, well, that naturopath didn't work and this person didn't work. But as you know, any fungal cleanse you want to go on is going to have to be a minimum of 100 days. parasite cleanse. I see things online saying three days and it's like, actually, you got some life cycles here that last at least six weeks. And so the same with energy. Your chi, your meridians that have blockages because of trauma, you're not going to unblock those in one or two sessions, but on day 90, you'll have a release and then the memory maybe you'll shake and that energy will flow. And so if it's breath work, great. If it's a teacher, great. I think all of these pathways have something for us, and commitment to the time it takes to really get out of it is the most important thing.

[47:31] Leigh Brandon: Yeah, I couldn't agree more with the time aspects. I mean, I won't work with someone unless they commit to a minimum of six months. I find that's an absolute minimum to teach most people. I mean, you might get the odd one that they might get there sooner, but most people, for me, it can be six months, it could be two years, depending on the issue. Right? I mean, it took me 22 months to heal my disks in my lumbar spine.

[47:59] Nicole Devaney: Yeah, right.

[48:01] Leigh Brandon: That's how long it takes.

[48:02] Nicole Devaney: Right.

[48:04] Leigh Brandon: You know, discs, as we know, for instance, they have very little blood supply, so they do take a long time to heal. And, you know, I completely relate to the other thing you were saying is, you know, you start going down one path and you're tempted by other things. Oh, have you heard about this? Oh, have you heard about that? And then you start spreading yourself rather than focusing on the one plan that you should be on. And then you might turn around and say, well, this isn't working. It's like, well, you didn't really stick to one plan. You were doing a bit over here and a bit over there. You weren't really sticking to the one plan. What I found interesting about what you said as well is about trying to seek the right person to help you as well. Almost asking for guidance to the right person. If someone's listening to this and thinking, how do I do that? What would be your advice?

[48:55] Nicole Devaney: There's so much happening beyond the veil of what we see with our five senses. You have a whole lineage of ancestors that are rooting you on. You are the expression of their entire lives. You've got guides, and whether you believe in those or not, you have your higher self, this soul that is like wanting nothing but for you to experience the best. And so I always start with prayer. And you can call it a prayer or an intention, but I like to turn anything over like, okay, Spirit, I really need help with this and I'm going to ask that you support me in finding that. Now, that doesn't mean that you don't look right. Pray and then tie your horse. But from there being open, I oftentimes ask Spirit for three really strong signs. And just be careful of automation emails, because you may get three really strong emails, but paying attention, those signs can come in dreams. nudges, a friend telling you about a book, books that open your path to, wow, maybe I want to take this course. Every major influential experience and teacher in my life has come through a dream and an ask. And so everyone has different ways of being intuitive. They call them the claire clairvoyance claire sentient and feeling into how you feel around a certain person or going into a certain gym, maybe you're trying to go the route of getting stronger and getting exercise. And so you start to explore gyms, and when you go in there, just feel in your gut like, does this feel like a place? Does this smell like a place I want to be at? And really not letting marketing be the deciding factor for you, because I've studied marketing, I know how to make a hard sell if I wanted to. And this is the same thing like the food manufacturers are doing. They're finding our bliss points. They're finding our pain points. And so I really try to turn my heart open to everything, including marketing, but being aware of that marketing. And so if there is a course or a teacher that you're interested in taking their information and placing it on, if you carry an altar in your house or some place that reminds you that you're thinking about this, person and you put their name there, you put their logo there and you keep walking by it and you find out if that feels aligned for you or yes, oftentimes you will dream about it and that's the biggest thing is just put the prayer out, the intention, and the teacher will come.

[52:11] Leigh Brandon: Interesting. The one thing that certainly works for me personally, and I use it a lot with clients, and it's slightly different, but on a similar vein of what we're talking about here. But something as simple as affirmation statements.

[52:24] Nicole Devaney: Right.

[52:25] Leigh Brandon: I just find that can be so powerful. Towards the end of last year, we're going through a difficult financial time across the world, and I had probably 50% of my clients within the space of two weeks all say, I've lost my job or my business is going under. I just can't continue on the program. And I was like, okay, fine. And so I was like, okay, this is interesting. This is an interesting situation. And I've got this affirmation that I use, but I'd stopped using it, so I started using it again, and all of a sudden, I'm overrun with clients.

[53:00] Nicole Devaney: Oh, I want to know it. You got to share it.

[53:03] Leigh Brandon: Well, it's a financial one.

[53:05] Nicole Devaney: Okay.

[53:06] Leigh Brandon: So I don't mind sharing it. I've got to remember it now. I try and say it 60 times a day, and now I'm live on my podcast. Can I remember it? Okay. Yeah. I'm happy and grateful now that I'm rich and wealthy and money flows easily to me.

[53:23] Nicole Devaney: Love it.

[53:26] Leigh Brandon: Yeah, I'm wealthy, I'm rich. Money flows easily and frequently to me.

[53:33] Nicole Devaney: I have an affirmation right here somewhat similar on my wall that says, I'm connected to the universal supply of money, which I give and receive with grace and ease. Yeah, it's the time and the repetition, right?

[53:51] Leigh Brandon: Yeah. And I would say to people, if you're listening to this, thinking, oh, that's a mode of nonsense, then I would have to agree with you if that's what you believe, because if that's what you believe, then it's true. But I would say, if you believe that things like that aren't true, try them and see. Because my experience is they do work. But like you said before, you've got to give it time, it's got to be repetitive because what you're basically doing is you're creating a vibration. So in that situation, you're creating the vibration of abundance of money, right? And money is energy, right? And you can do that for anything.

[54:32] Nicole Devaney: Anything, right?

[54:33] Leigh Brandon: If you're looking for a partner, if you want a better body, if you want more energy, if you want to be pain free. Although you got to be careful with your words. I wouldn't never use the word pain free in an affirmation, because if you're using the word pain, that's what you're going to get more of, right? So when I'm working with clients, I'm very careful to help coach them to select the right words. So when people say to me, well, I want to be pain free, and I say, so what's the opposite of pain? And whatever the word that they use is what we would use in the affirmation. So it might be, I want my tummy to feel at ease. Right, so say they got bloating and pain in their tummy. Okay, well, you don't want to put that in your affirmation because that's what you're going to get more of if you're creating the vibration of pain free, right, you get more pain.

[55:23] Nicole Devaney: Right.

[55:23] Leigh Brandon: So if you say, I'm happy and grateful now that my tummy feels at ease, and normally people often say flat tummy and at ease, or something along those lines. If that resonates with you, then use an affirmation like that, but definitely don't say not, I don't want something.

[55:46] Nicole Devaney: Right?

[55:46] Leigh Brandon: You should just get more of it.

[55:48] Nicole Devaney: Yeah. Just continuing on with the conversation. The concept that we are creators and we think 90,000 thoughts a day, but most of those thoughts are unconscious. The sciences is like if we start to repeat these things, they become part of our subconscious. There's only three ways to reprogram the subconscious mind, and that's our access to tapping into the vibrational field that's bringing us what we're talking about in our brains all day. And one is repetition. If you like that self help book, read it 100 times. So mantras, say that prayer 100 times, that intention 100 times, but a day for nine months, again, that time commitment. They also say that hypnosis can be a one and done thing and I've experienced and seen that. And then also subliminal messaging, which in the 80s they use that in supermarkets, in the movies, and it was so strong and powerful that they got sued and they could no longer use it like that to tell you to go buy a coke and popcorn. But now if you go online, YouTube and all sorts of places have free subliminal messaging that you can just listen to and it sounds like music, but lo and behold you're programming yourself for success or focus, and it really does work.

[57:09] Leigh Brandon: Yeah, it's amazing stuff.

[57:11] Nicole Devaney: Yeah.

[57:13] Leigh Brandon: So what would be your top five suggestions or modalities for people to explore if they wanted to seek out energetic healing?

[57:23] Nicole Devaney: Okay, so, top five. My number one that really, really helped me was qigong, and not so much learning it through someone else, like getting the gist of it and then going and doing it continually. Qi Gong, we could teach it right here. It's so simple. You just move with your breath. You have an inhalation and an exhalation. Long, slow, silky. And you can move your hands towards your chest as you inhale. And you can move your hands away from your chest, pointing out as you exhale. Now go do that with your feet on the earth for 20 minutes a day for 100 days. And then add a mantra of something that you want, like, I am receiving love. I am giving love. I'm receiving my soulmate. I'm loving my soulmate. And watch as your body's meridians. I always say, there's this general river that flows through us. It's called the microcosmic orbit, and we have 90,000 meridians that are connected to it, like little currents or rivers. These are the things that acupuncturists look at to find out if they need to put a needle in there, because you got a dam or a blockage. By connecting to the earth and your breath, you're creating a flood in that main channel of the microcosmic orbit. You don't have to pay for an acupuncture treatment. Eventually, if you get enough of that water flowing over into all the other naddies and meridians, you're going to become your own healer. I'm I'm all about free. I mean, I love working with somebody and learning something, but in the end, everything I teach is worthless if you can't go home and apply it. The second one is sound, music, vibrational medicine. And this may be something like a DJ, right? I mean, have you ever done ecstatic dance? So finding the form of sound that works for you. So, in elaine McKusic's work, we've learned that the oryx field is a bit like tree rings. And every year we get a new ring. And depending on if something occurred during that year that was traumatic, we might have a mar in that ring. Just like if a tree were to try to get cut down by an ax but not get cut down. And that mar holds a frequency or a tone that is like disharmonious. So somebody playing a flute or ringing a bell. If you allow yourself to let the music be healing and penetrate your field, it can remind that area that's holding that in harmonious energy to become frequent and coherent. And so I see this in ceremonies with ikaros. They seeing a certain ekaro, and it hits a certain area of somebody's field, and they're letting that energy in. They're intending it to heal and once that energy is healed, boom. Their right shoulder doesn't hurt anymore. And so finding your form of sound, even more importantly, let's go back to that free thing. Sing a song. Sing it all day long. If you don't know a song, hum, chant, make noise. Your body will guide you to where that noise needs to go and exactly what pitch and tone and just play with it. Play with it in the shower. Play with it in water. Of course, I'm going to say plants. I think that besides the louder plants like ayahuasca and psilocybin, that really tell us something. Even the quieter plants like ashwaganda, and one of my favorites is rishi, the funguses. These all have a consciousness. There is an entity behind them. Besides the chemical structures that are in there that are going to modify things in our body. There's a spirit. And that spirit if we again give it time. So if you're going to use Oshwaganda or any adaptogen, any of those adaptogens take about two to three months to really activate in our body and give us the goodness. So being consistent with one and seeing what happens over time and building a relationship with it. So any plant I'm going to ingest, whether it's a salad or a big cup of tea, I think about what it is that I'm grateful for, that it's bringing to me. And my gratitude is that reciprocity that the plant loves to receive for its medicine. Right? And then going beyond that. This is number four, nature. Nature and specifically the elements. Air is our inspiration. Water cleanses more than our bodies. Water is one of my favorite elements. But don't tell fire. Water cleanses our emotions. Going and hearing water flow can help. Let the emotions that are stuck flow sitting by. Flowing water, getting into flowing water. Fire is really, really helpful at teaching us boundaries and burning away what doesn't serve us anymore. Doing ritual work with fire and getting out into nature and starting a fire and telling yourself, these are the things I'm no longer going to carry or worry about. It could be judgments or fear or anger. And burning it and letting fire be your guide and teaching you how to transmute that anger. Like a phoenix rising like a butterfly coming out of a cocoon, these things can become some of our greatest blessings. Having that anger or having that really difficult relationship that we got out of that helped us identify the contrast of what we didn't want anymore. So that we can clearly state to the universe what it is that we're bringing in now. And then. My fifth one, the modalities for healing, is get a check practitioner. I've done a lot of school, a lot of research and a lot of work. And I would say that most of these opportunities provide you with education in the physical or educational and the emotional. You can have a psychologist over here and a physical trainer over there. But check is the only school that I've found that if you work with a high level practitioner, they're not going to leave a stone unturned. They can work with the spiritual, the emotional, the physical, and work with you instead of having like a copy paste program for your specific dream and your specific challenges. Maybe I should have put check at the top, but all those things that I labeled before were going to be part of a check practitioner's tool belt.

[01:04:21] Leigh Brandon: Yeah, it was interesting when you were talking about the elements there for many years. When I used to live in London, I used to dream of living on the edge of nature or having nature right on my doorstep. And I kept putting that vibration out there, but it took quite a few years to get there. And once I decided to sell my home, I started searching and I didn't know where I was going to go. I didn't have anywhere in mind. But I started looking on the Internet, and I kept saying, it's got to be on the edge of nature. It's got to be on the edge of nature. And I found actually where I live now. So I live in an apartment. And I came and looked at another apartment. I thought, yeah, I love it here. This is where I'm going to live. But I hadn't sold my property in London by the time I sold it. I'd looked at seven different apartments in this block and the one that I live in now is the best one that I found right well on my doorstep. I'm right on the edge of town. So one side is the town. So I live on an old Roman market town, which is really nice. The other side of where I live is fields, woodland, a canal, two rivers. I've got waterfalls and I can walk for miles along the canals or the rivers. And so as you were speaking about the elements, I was just thinking, wow, how lucky am I that I've got the woodland, I've got the rivers. I can hear the water when I wake up in the morning. I generally hear geese or swans or ducks. And that's just so much better than being in the concrete jungle that I used to live in.

[01:06:17] Announcer: You're listening to the Radical Health Rebel podcast.

[01:06:22] Leigh Brandon: Just a brief interruption to this podcast to talk about adult acne. Now, did you know that 40% to 54% of men and women older than 25 years will have some degree of facial acne? And that clinical facial acne persists into middle age in 12% of women and 3% of men? I know only too well the devastating effects that acne can have on your confidence and your self esteem and how it can easily destroy your social life, your career and your relationships. I know this only too well because.

[01:06:53] Leigh Brandon: I suffered from severe cystic acne.

[01:06:55] Leigh Brandon: From age 13 to 31 over an 18 year period. I visited my doctor on many occasions, and his only suggestions were acne creams, harsh cleansers, and antibiotics that weren't working and were actually making my skin worse. After 18 years of struggle and thousands of pounds invested in treatments that didn't work, through my professional education, I began.

[01:07:19] Leigh Brandon: To learn that what my doctor had.

[01:07:20] Leigh Brandon: Told me was untrue, and that diet was directly related to acne, plus other factors such as food sensitivities, toxicity, hormones, and balancing the body's microbiome. Putting what I had learned into practice. I managed to rib myself of acne.

[01:07:37] Leigh Brandon: Over 20 years ago and have been.

[01:07:40] Leigh Brandon: Helping others to do the same for well over a decade by teaching people what foods cause acne, what food sensitivities each individual has, how to optimize their detox pathways, how to reduce environmental stresses and toxins, and how to balance hormones, especially those related to the mTor pathway, a major causal factor with acne. I've been able to help many other adults overcome their acne nightmare, too. So if you would like more information on how to overcome your adult acne, please go to www.skinwebinar.com. That's www.skinwebinar.com, where you can also request an Acne Breakthrough call with me to.

[01:08:25] Leigh Brandon: See if you are suitable for my.

[01:08:27] Leigh Brandon: Eliminate Adult Acne Coaching program, where you can once and for all learn how.

[01:08:32] Leigh Brandon: To overcome your adult acne.

[01:08:34] Leigh Brandon: Now back to the podcast.

[01:08:36] Nicole Devaney: That's amazing.

[01:08:39] Leigh Brandon: But again, you got to put it out there, right? If you're in a place you don't want to live. I mean, I was getting depressed with where I used to live. I really didn't want to live there anymore. And if I'd have been there during lockdown, that would have been awful.

[01:08:51] Nicole Devaney: The letting it go. You put it out there, and then you're like, I don't know how, but the universe does. Absolutely.

[01:09:03] Leigh Brandon: Awesome.

[01:09:04] Leigh Brandon: So can you explain the layers that.

[01:09:07] Leigh Brandon: Are beyond us so our previous lifetimes or our DNA passed down from our ancestors? And how can this affect our healing journey?

[01:09:18] Nicole Devaney: Yeah, so I'm going to start with the DNA piece because I feel like that's a good place. And I have a dog. I spent a lot of money on him, and he was supposed to be a labradoodle, a poodle, and a Labrador. I have two other labradoodles. This dog did not act like them. He's so sweet, but he barks, and he's really needy and kind of Velcro. And upon DNA testing, I found out that he has more border collie in him than Lab. And I started learning about border collies, and I'm like, Holy ****, I got a border collie. Well, we're not much different. We're like giant labradoodles, and we carry the traumas that have been passed down from generation to generation. So they've shown that survivors of the Holocaust, their great grandchildren, are obese and in. Their DNA is that, I need food. I'm not going to survive. And so they eat and they eat and they eat, and they're playing out the experience of their grandparents. And something that I'd like to share, because I think a lot of us get caught on the trauma, is that we also carry the mastery. I had a ceremony once where I decided to ask the ancestors of my lineage who had some form of mastery that wanted to share it with me, to come forth. And all night I would go back to my intention and meditate. And then I would fill my hand, be pulled on to the left or the right. It was interesting. The left was my female ancestors, and my right was and I met deep, deep lineage. And they'd be like, this is how I'd carry my basket. This is why you like baskets. I raised children. That was my big mastery. And I taught you how to breastfeed. And I was the one who was behind your shoulder when you were struggling with how painful it was to be a new mother in breastfeeding. And I taught you that you're feeding more than food. You're feeding energy. And so if you could just feed her love. And as soon as you fed her love, she was a lot softer with you. And she began enjoying the milk a lot more. And she's like, I'm the reason why you love baths. baths were what I did to find my peace. And I'm like, wow, that's so cool. And this proceeded throughout so many ancestors. One was an archer. I have a tendency to be over erect in my posture. And they were showing me, well, that's because we did this for many years, and this is how we survived. Down to my more recent ancestors, where my grandmothers came in and talked about how they loved entrepreneurial Ship. I remember at one point finding one that was way far back, and I'm like, how far back are you? What line are you from? And they said, that doesn't matter. What matters is this is what I did and this is why you do what you do. And coming out of that, I realized that probably less than ten 5% of my thoughts and actions originate from me. And so that's my story for the DNA. I really like Mark Wolynn's work. It didn't start with you. If you are looking to explore an opportunity to learn more about that book, obviously the past life stuff is also we come through this veil, and they call it The Will of samsara, right? You're here to learn. And if you didn't do what it was that you were supposed to do or learn in that lifetime, that's okay, you'll get to do it again. And I had an experience once in meditation where I was ending one life and transitioned in the beginning of another life. And I was shown that depending on how that life was lived, you graduate to different levels, and at a certain level, you get off the will. And so I was curious how we level up. Like, what do we do? And I also, you know, my husband saw this at one point in one of his visions, and he's like, what level am I at? And again, they're like, that doesn't matter. What only matters is how you level up. And the three messages that came through was gratitude. So being in gratitude, and the more gratitude we have, the more the universe provides us with stuff to be grateful for. And so even the most difficult of times, those divorces and those job losses, oftentimes are exactly what you needed to grow and your soul came here to do. So finding the gratitude and that difficulty. The next one is service. So being of service for your fellow human beings, for the trees and the plants and the animals, like, helping one another up this ladder of life is how we level up out of samsara. And then the last one is cultivating chi, developing your energy body, working through the ways that you cultivate chi. And that's going to be like acquired chi, what we eat, what we drink, what we consume through our phones. And also the chi gong that you can do or that walk in nature and communing with nature, just developing and bringing up your life force energy.

[01:15:20] Leigh Brandon: Yeah. I find the subject of past lives absolutely fascinating. I mean, I've read all of Brian vice's books, which I absolutely love. They're some of my favorite books. There's an interesting story, I won't mention exactly who it is, but one of my family members, when he was three, was in the kitchen with his grandmother and said, nanny, what happened to your little yellow car? And she said, I've never had a little yellow car. He said yes. You did. You used to have a little yellow Honda. So he was only three, but I'd brainwashed him about cars so he knew which one it was. And she said, I've never had a little yellow car. And he said, yes, you did. You used to park it down there. Now, before he was born, his grandmother used to park the car. There was basically a row of garages. She used to park in the garage right at the end, and he pointed to where the garage was. And when he did that, she went, oh yeah, I used to have a little yellow Honda, and I used to park it down there. Who told you about it? And he said, no one told me. I used to watch you when I was up there. And it freaks him out even now when we remind him of that story. But I just find the whole subject absolutely fascinating.

[01:17:01] Nicole Devaney: Me too. Yeah. I actually just finished Many Lives, Many Masters by Brian weiss, and I think it's important to listen to people's past life regressions and their near death experiences. There's so much out there and evidence around this stuff that they say that when people start to learn about it, the fear of death dissipates because you realize you don't end. Which I think would do a lot of good for the world today.

[01:17:33] Leigh Brandon: Absolutely. Another great book. I know you've shared a lot of really good books already today, but one of my favorite books I've ever read is called Dying to Be Me by anita Morjani. And that's exactly what happened to her, wasn't it? No, she nearly died of cancer. She had a near death experience, she saw the other side, and when she came round, she went from being stage four cancer to no cancer at all.

[01:18:05] Nicole Devaney: Right. After being dead for 20 minutes, she comes back and there's no tumors in her body.

[01:18:09] Leigh Brandon: Yeah. Like, why doesn't medicine study that?

[01:18:14] Nicole Devaney: Right?

[01:18:15] Leigh Brandon: Well, we know why, right? Because he won't earn them any money. Yeah, but this stuff is real. And I think you're right, if people haven't looked at that stuff, or maybe they think it's a bit too cookie or a bit too woo woo, then I'm sure you'd agree that it's worth having a look into that kind of work. And again, the evidence of past lives is just I don't think if you've probably read as much as you or I have in terms of looking at things like past lives and near death experiences, you can't but believe that that's absolutely 100% true.

[01:18:56] Nicole Devaney: Right? Yeah. No, my own experience, I love trying to go and reach people who can do readings like that, but my experience on medicine, I was a Native American dying in a field of grass, and all of the people around me were loving me as I was passing. And then I remember going into that darkness and coming out of the womb and I was completely other end of the country. I was some Hindu family. I remember the bindies on the foreheads and seeing the love of this new father holding me and knowing that that's me. That's me. That's one of my sole paths. Yeah. For those who don't want to explore that, they've got a tylenol for you. You wake up or you live in pain. You wake up or you live in pain.

[01:19:59] Leigh Brandon: It's interesting because I completely relate to what you just said. I think I've shared this on the podcast before, but I did a Brian weiss past Life regression session.

[01:20:11] Nicole Devaney: Ooh.

[01:20:12] Leigh Brandon: And in in one of them I was a prince in a castle in England and I was on my deaf bed. I was young, I was probably, I'm guessing maybe twelve or 13 years old, and I was on my deathbed and all the staff from the castle were around my bed. But like you said, it was just full of love. And one of the servants from the castle was who my mother is now, but she wasn't my mother in that lifetime, but I knew it was her. I knew it was her.

[01:20:46] Nicole Devaney: So cool. Does he still do that? I would love to get a session.

[01:20:50] Leigh Brandon: He does cds. You can do it on cds. Well, I say cds. I don't know. cds still exist today. But audio, you can do audio recording.

[01:20:59] Nicole Devaney: You can just do it yourself.

[01:21:00] Leigh Brandon: Yeah.

[01:21:01] Nicole Devaney: Oh yes. Fun. I just love doing these things. I wish we weren't across the ocean. I have so much fun. Like learning from the other institute instructors when we get to teach together. I just love everything that's introduced from you.

[01:21:19] Leigh Brandon: Let's hope we all get together in September. Yeah, awesome. So I've got a couple more questions. The next one is really I'd love to know your perspective on plant medicines and how you utilize them in your work.

[01:21:35] Nicole Devaney: Well, I think first off, it's important psychedelics have gotten such a mainstay now like everyone's like this is your brain on plants and we know that kind of it erases those deeply ingrained neuropathways of all of our habits and so it makes habit changing a little bit easier. It's really important to know that all plants have healing modalities, that these are great, that we're working with that, but also not to overly rely on them. Kind of like western medicine. In other words, I'm going to go work with the shaman and take this plant or I'm going to eat this microdose and I'm supposed to get better. Right? So I love Paul’s analogy of the antiogens. There's the greater conjunction and the lesser conjunction. So when we work with psychedelics, it's like taking an elevator. You get to the top, the door is open and you see every perspective that you didn't know about your life and your possible, what's possible of you and maybe what's in the way. But eventually those plants wear off, the elevator goes down and you are back in your life. What are you going to do? I see a lot of people start to get to be elevator junkies, going to the next shaman, going to the next medicine, taking their next journey just to get that experience of the elevator doors opening without taking the stairs. So the stairs are the greater conjunction. I'm sorry, I might have said the lesser conjunction is the medicine, the greater conjunction is the stairs. The stairs are the steps that you take every single day. Am I doing my breathwork? Am I getting doctor quiet in and letting spirit have space in my life? Am I eating the right foods? Am I stopping toxic relationships? Am I making efforts of investing my money towards a career path that I do want to do that I find fulfilling? I've written on this extensively. I oftentimes find that people who have bad trips with psychedelics are oftentimes told by these entities, these consciousness beings behind these plants. Like here's what you're capable of, here's what you get to do. They give us to do lists and if you go back without making steps on that to do list. You get a psychedelic ***** slap, you get the bad trip because you didn't pack your bags and you're not taking the stairs. And so for me in my work, I don't necessarily use the loud plants initially. There's a vetting process. Eating right, breathing right, sleeping right, drinking right. Those things have to be in place and ultimately you have to have a dream and a dream allows you to form intentions towards that dream so we don't go into the medicine and have a nightmare. I also think that you don't necessarily have to have a full trip or journey to get the benefits. I'm a big fan of microdosing. Just a little dab will do you. Just a little dab with some intention consistently throughout some months, you're going to find that it's like I tell people, the path that you're walking, let's say to the coffee pot. You love coffee, your adrenals are shot, you got high blood pressure, you know you need to quit it. But for some reason you can't stop walking that path. Well, when you take a microdose, it's like a gentle snowfall over the ski tracks that you've taken every single day. And now you can choose to take a new track a lot easier. I've had people get micro dosing and say, it didn't do anything. I'm like, well, did you go home and just watch binge, watch Netflix again? So I think that they're incredible allies, but it's important to work with them and not use them like western medicine.

[01:25:28] Leigh Brandon: So it's almost like you take people through small steps if you like.

[01:25:34] Nicole Devaney: Yeah, you don't ever have to do psychedelics to wake up. You can get a DMT release through breath work, right? We have DMT inside of us. Some people will smoke it to get a DMT release and some people will help them puff and breathe and get into hypoxia and get a DMT release. So these ecstatic states, nature wanted us to experience them. They put it inside of us and they put it all around us. And for those of you who are looking to go on a journey or work with somebody, I like to talk about the five pillars of psychedelic work that I think are really important to have in place. Now, most of us have heard of the first two, which are set and setting, making sure that your environment is set up in the right way, that you can stay there at sound and that the setting is made. In other words, you've done your work leading up to it, you've done your journaling and you've got some space afterwards to do some integration, right? The next one is intention. You're putting into tension what it is that you want as an outcome for going on this journey. Right? It can be scary sometimes for people who've never worked with psychedelics. You don't know what you're going to get. I call them the stars. You're going to take them. And it might be a really good journey and you might get eaten by a black jaguar. But if you have a good intention, you can trust that that's your anchor. So whatever you're going through, you know you're going through it to get to this intention. Integration is key. So I don't work with anyone who doesn't set up, first off, the prior work to do before and then also the integration work after. This is what keeps you from going back from shaman to shaman to journey to journey. Like really squeezing and milking out all the bits and information that came from that can take months, sometimes years. Right? And I also find that sometimes my intentions, it's not like I come out of the journey and **** it's there. Things that I intend to heal show up five years later after really integrating what came up during that session. And the last one is grounding. I think that these things can skyrocket us completely ethereal, which is awesome because we're ethereal beings, but we're in a human body. And so I have seen people come out of these journeys very unimbodied and mess up their world, quit their jobs, leave their partners. They're like, I'm free. And next thing you know, they're free and broke and confused and lost and have no grounding. And so starting with the ground, the Earth, the element earth is here to teach us how to ground. So taking the time outside of coming off of the elevator to get your feet back on the ground floor before you step out and start telling people about your journey ground and integrate your information, it can be really important as far as working with plant medicines.

[01:28:55] Leigh Brandon: Awesome. So one more question for you. What would be your top two tips that people could take away from today and use in their own life to optimize their own healing?

[01:29:10] Nicole Devaney: One of my favorite lessons that jp. sears gave me, my hlc coach, was the free things. We have breath that nobody can take from us. We have water, right? And so those two things are pretty much free. I mean, clean water these days costs a little bit money. A lot of us are spending so much time and so much money on supplements and biohacking and ceremonies that the free things of nature and water and breath implemented daily, I believe, can take us so much further. And if we didn't have to invest so much money, we could probably work a little bit less. Right? And I think that it's actually that the time spent in the space between of our doing that we get these insights and that we can connect with the higher teacher of our soul or great spirit or however you want to see that. And so oftentimes it's like, oh, I want to do a cleanse. And you can look up all these cleanses online. There's one out there called zen cleanse. It's $1,999 to give me some enzymes. So I **** really good. But getting, you know, half my body weight and ounces of water in a space of gratitude and really taking that in and breathing and having that $2,000 in my bank account and working that less that few more hours like simplify simplify and get back to nature. That's our greatest way that I believe that we're going to not only heal ourselves, but reconnect to the spirit of this earth that deeply needs our healing too.

[01:31:07] Leigh Brandon: Yeah, absolutely. And there's a few politicians that could do with that right now, but that's another kind of one.

[01:31:16] Nicole Devaney: There's a few politicians I'd give a cup of tea to as well.

[01:31:19] Leigh Brandon: Yeah. So what's next to you, Nicole?

[01:31:22] Nicole Devaney: Well, I have recently started some retreats for women. I almost want to call them immersions. They're not retreats. We follow the medicine will, so not one is the same. They're quarterly. We have a spring, a summer, a fall, and then our winter is in Hawaii. These are on land that has beautiful mountains and rivers running through it. And they are small, a council of 13 women, and they are designed to fully immerse you into the lifestyle that is of our ancestors. They're called. Remember? Retreats? They're helping women to wake up and remember the ways that we lived before all of this flashy light show came to be. We serve all organic biodynamic food. We teach about the shamanic ways, and then we also dance and play. It's kind of my blending of all of my medicines. I get to bring in the wisdom of check, the playful, erotic spirit of the dancing, and then the shamanic plant work that I've been doing for a long time. And so I don't have any online digital offerings because I think we have enough of that in our society. But I wanted to bring more connection, physical connection to our bodies and to our sisters and to the Earth. And that's what has been my new brainchild and really having fun with that.

[01:33:03] Leigh Brandon: Awesome. So I think I'm going to shave my legs, put a skirt on and a wig, put a lipstick, and I'll be there. Apparently you can do that these days if you identify as something else that's allowed.

[01:33:17] Nicole Devaney: Well, nudity is allowed at these retreats, so there will be a certain point that it might be weird.

[01:33:27] Leigh Brandon: I'd hope you'd notice the difference. Awesome. And where can people find you online? Nicole.

[01:33:38] Nicole Devaney: My name is Nicole Devaney.com. I have a Facebook. I have an Instagram. I'm not super active on social media because I'm outside in my garden, but I do post once in a while. And the website for the retreats is called To Remember. And I'd like to offer any of your listeners who are interested in joining one of the council's 10% off if they use the code Sacred Rebel.

[01:34:09] Leigh Brandon: Awesome. I like that. Yeah, that sounds like a good wording to put on a t shirt.

[01:34:18] Nicole Devaney: Yeah.

[01:34:20] Leigh Brandon: Awesome. Nicole, thank you so much yet again for taking out your time today to share your wisdom with the Radical Health Rebel listeners and viewers. And to all the Radical Health Rebel tribe, if you know someone who would benefit from watching or hearing this episode, please make sure to share the love and forward it on to them. After all, the mission of this show is to help people lead a more fun filled, healthy, productive, fulfilling and happy life. And if you appreciate my amazing guests like Nicole and the wisdom they share with you each week, and you'd like to show your appreciation by supporting the podcast, you can become a subscriber to the brand new Radical Health Rebel podcast. Plus starting at just $3 a month. Or you can check out a seven day free trial at our Patreon channel@patreon.com/radicalhealthrebel, where you'll have access to lots of exclusive premium content and exclusive discount offers included in your membership. And full details can be found in the show notes. So that's all from me and Nicole for this week, but don't forget, you can join me same time, same place, next week on the Radical Health Rebel podcast.

[01:35:29] Announcer: Thanks for tuning in to the Radical Health Rebel podcast with Leigh Brandon. You can find Leigh at www. BodyCHEK. Co. UK. That's bodychek.Co.UK. Please hit the like button and share on your social media and with someone you feel will benefit from watching this episode. So together we can help them lead a healthier, more productive, fulfilling and happy life.