Surviving Trauma: Stories of Hope

From Corporate Advertising to Spiritual Integrative Consultancy: Reverend Catherine Duncan's journey to Heart-Centered Living

July 24, 2024 Marlene McConnell Episode 80
From Corporate Advertising to Spiritual Integrative Consultancy: Reverend Catherine Duncan's journey to Heart-Centered Living
Surviving Trauma: Stories of Hope
More Info
Surviving Trauma: Stories of Hope
From Corporate Advertising to Spiritual Integrative Consultancy: Reverend Catherine Duncan's journey to Heart-Centered Living
Jul 24, 2024 Episode 80
Marlene McConnell

Send us a Text Message.

Ever wondered how a career in corporate advertising could pivot to a calling in spiritual consultancy? Reverend Catherine Duncan shares her soul-stirring journey from battling childhood cancer and surviving a near-death experience to becoming a beacon of hope in whole person healing. Catherine’s story highlights the transformative power of meditation, journaling, and stillness, guiding her through significant life transitions. Be inspired by her courage to leave a cushy corporate job, motivated by early influences like Carolyn Mace and Deepak Chopra, to serve as a board-certified chaplain and integrative spiritual consultant.

Join us as Catherine recounts her profound experiences in providing comfort to individuals at the threshold of life and death, emphasizing the importance of heart-centered living. Her newly released book, endorsed by Mel Robbins, outlines five practices for connecting with the heart and soul—practical steps toward living a life filled with love and meaningful engagement. Whether you are navigating chronic illness, life transitions, or grief, Catherine’s insights offer a profound roadmap for embracing life’s challenges and finding true purpose. Don't miss this compelling episode that underscores the power of living authentically and courageously.

It has been my pleasure to have Catherine join me, and I know, my listeners, that you will enjoy the episode. 

If you wish to connect with Catherine, check out his website and social media links below. 

Website: https://www.learningtolive.org/

YouTube: YouTube Link

Instagram: Instagram Link

LinkedIn: LinkedIn Link

Book: Everyday Awakening

Connect with me by checking out mycenteredlife on social media, and leave me a comment to let me know what you think of the episode. Also please, head to Amazon, Takealot or Audible at the link and get your copy of my E-book, paperback book or audiobook edition, of Ray of Light, and please leave me a rating and review. It would mean the world to me.

Facebook: My Centered Life Facebook

Instagram: My Centered Life Instagram 

YouTube: Marlene McConnell MCL YouTube Channel

Patreon: MCL Infinite Progress Society

LinkedIn: Marlene McConnell LinkedIn

Amazon.com Link:

Support the Show.

Please support the show on Paypal: PayPal.Me/marlenegmcconnell

Surviving Trauma: Stories of Hope
Become a supporter of the show!
Starting at $3/month
Support
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

Send us a Text Message.

Ever wondered how a career in corporate advertising could pivot to a calling in spiritual consultancy? Reverend Catherine Duncan shares her soul-stirring journey from battling childhood cancer and surviving a near-death experience to becoming a beacon of hope in whole person healing. Catherine’s story highlights the transformative power of meditation, journaling, and stillness, guiding her through significant life transitions. Be inspired by her courage to leave a cushy corporate job, motivated by early influences like Carolyn Mace and Deepak Chopra, to serve as a board-certified chaplain and integrative spiritual consultant.

Join us as Catherine recounts her profound experiences in providing comfort to individuals at the threshold of life and death, emphasizing the importance of heart-centered living. Her newly released book, endorsed by Mel Robbins, outlines five practices for connecting with the heart and soul—practical steps toward living a life filled with love and meaningful engagement. Whether you are navigating chronic illness, life transitions, or grief, Catherine’s insights offer a profound roadmap for embracing life’s challenges and finding true purpose. Don't miss this compelling episode that underscores the power of living authentically and courageously.

It has been my pleasure to have Catherine join me, and I know, my listeners, that you will enjoy the episode. 

If you wish to connect with Catherine, check out his website and social media links below. 

Website: https://www.learningtolive.org/

YouTube: YouTube Link

Instagram: Instagram Link

LinkedIn: LinkedIn Link

Book: Everyday Awakening

Connect with me by checking out mycenteredlife on social media, and leave me a comment to let me know what you think of the episode. Also please, head to Amazon, Takealot or Audible at the link and get your copy of my E-book, paperback book or audiobook edition, of Ray of Light, and please leave me a rating and review. It would mean the world to me.

Facebook: My Centered Life Facebook

Instagram: My Centered Life Instagram 

YouTube: Marlene McConnell MCL YouTube Channel

Patreon: MCL Infinite Progress Society

LinkedIn: Marlene McConnell LinkedIn

Amazon.com Link:

Support the Show.

Please support the show on Paypal: PayPal.Me/marlenegmcconnell

Speaker 1:

Hi there, I'm your host, marlene McConnell, and welcome to the Surviving Trauma Stories of Hope podcast. Today I am delighted to welcome Reverend Catherine Duncan to the podcast and she joins me from Minnesota in the United States. Catherine is a board certified chaplain and an integrative spiritual consultant. She's passionate about whole person healing and, in her private practice, learning to Live. She companions individuals who are struggling with chronic illness, life transitions, grief and loss, and those searching for more meaning and purpose. Five practices for living fully, feeling deeply and coming into your heart and soul Integrates the best of spirituality, neuroscience, psychology and therapy, so you can change how you embrace every day, every moment and every choice. Mel Robbins endorsed her newly released book and this is what she had to say Everyday awakening is your roadmap to living a fully engaged life. Catherine's story and her five practices are refreshingly accessible. She doesn't just talk about awakening, she's lived it and teaches you how to stop sleepwalking through your life and start living it.

Speaker 1:

I loved having Catherine join me and I know you will be inspired by this episode my listeners. I recently launched my YouTube channel. My videos will include relevant inspirational personal awareness, self-improvement content, positive affirmations, meditations and visualizations and, of course, the podcast. So please check out Marlene McConnell on YouTube If you wish to support the podcast to keep going, please join the Infant Progress Society on Patreon and take advantage of the great benefits. You can find the Patreon link on my website, mycenteredlifecom.

Speaker 1:

Thank you to my listeners for joining me on this journey. Comment on my post on Instagram, facebook, linkedin and YouTube and let me know what you think of this episode. Also head to amazoncom, facebook, linkedin and YouTube and let me know what you think of this episode. Also head to amazoncom, audible or takealotcom and get your copy of my book Ray of Light, and please leave me a rating and review. It would mean the world to me. As always, stay tuned and keep listening. Hi everyone, and welcome to today's podcast. Today we have Reverend Catherine Duncan joining us and I am very excited to have you here today, catherine, welcome.

Speaker 2:

Great to meet you. Thanks for having me on today.

Speaker 1:

So I'm so happy that you're joining us for this transformative and really invaluable conversation that we have planned for today. So, catherine, if we can start with some background and just sort of the past, can you share sort of with the listeners and I some of your background, a bit about your journey, just on how you became an integrative spiritual consultant and a holistic healer?

Speaker 2:

Well, I have faced my death twice when I was a child, 10, turning 11, really going through a very grave childhood, having childhood cancer, and then I had a near-death experience in my 30s. So both of these were really transformative, soul shaping to who I am today. But starting with when I was 10 years old, turning 11, I was suddenly very ill and my parents took me to the hospital and they did all these tests and I was diagnosed with a very rare, kind kind form of childhood cancer. Um, they told my parents I had a 20% chance to live. Uh, this wasn't told to me cause I was so little. Um, and I immediately started going through really intensive treatments chemotherapy, radiation surgery and, interestingly, in the seventies they had chaplains, they had therapists. No one talked to me. My mother would say you're going to be fine. But everything I witnessed back in the 70s, they did a lot of amputation. They had no anti nausea drugs.

Speaker 2:

It was really grim and pretty quickly I it just I could feel that I was between life and death. I could feel that I was walking on a tightrope and that's when my journey started. Out of nowhere, I started to pray. I started to pray, I really decided I want to live and I started to pray and pray. My prayer was could I live to be 20 years old? And I never told anyone. I kept praying and faith at that point had meant nothing to me. My family, intermittently, would go to church, but not long after this feeling of like peace just poured through my body and took my breath away and it was just like a feeling of like, oh, I'm not alone and I'm going to be okay and I'm going to live. And that feeling has been with me to this day and just opened me up to life and what it means to be alive, starting at 11, 12 years old.

Speaker 1:

Wow. And then in your 30s, you mentioned that you had another near-death experience, but this time it would shape your life differently, and I think that is an interesting conversation, because there are so many people in their lives that feel stuck, that don't know how to change or how to make a change. So this is actually a very crucial turning point. But before we talk about that, give us some background as to your career prior to the one that I've described in the introduction.

Speaker 2:

Well, after, thankfully, I got through all the treatments. In fact, there was this random treatment being given and my father demanded the doctors give me this treatment and actually what the drug was. They gave me a standard treatment now for what I had, I mean what I had. Now the survival rate is like 80%. So I got through all the treatments and as a teenager, I started voraciously reading like why am I alive and what does it mean to be here?

Speaker 2:

Spiritual, philosophical books like existentialism and human emotions, and I was reading all these kinds of books and I went through high school, college, but I started out in the business world because that was I have a lot of siblings, my father being a businessman. It was like I'm going to be in business. So I was in advertising. I helped start two local city magazines here in Minneapolis, st Paul, and then I had this amazing job with Time Magazine, regionally here out of the Twin Cities magazine, regionally here out of the twin cities, wow yeah, and it was fun and I love meeting people and it was, as you can only imagine, pressure. I mean we were given in january like here's your number, you have to reach this or you're fired. So and I even realized back then I was manifesting, because they're like if you hit, you know a million dollars selling sales, we're going to take you to Africa, we're going to take you to London, we're going to take you to Hawaii, and I was always seeing myself on every trip and I won.

Speaker 1:

Wow.

Speaker 2:

That's awesome, I know. So it was really glamorous and fun and I made a lot of money and I was with them 10 years and year six, seven. I started to feel kind of this rumbling like, oh, is this it? Is this really where I'm being called? And I wanted to be a manager. They gave me actually a management position for the Midwest in the United States and I couldn't say the words yes, they wouldn't come out of my mouth and I ended up saying no. And I mean, you say no in a corporate career like that, you're done. And I just was like why you know? And so I was. Definitely even before this Time Inc corporate trip, whitewater rafting in Costa Rica. I was starting to feel this unease, Like who am I? What am I doing? Where am I being called? And then this experience happened, whitewater rafting, where I had this near-death experience, survived it, and it was really a turning point of like that's it. Within a month I gave my notice with time ink. They were shocked and wow, where am I being called?

Speaker 1:

I mean, it's not a choice when it's a calling, when, because callings have a way of shaping it for you. You were saying that probably I'm thinking Catherine. In your mind, you were saying, yes, I want the job, but your body was saying no, you're not going to do it, and callings have a funny way of doing that. It shows us that there is a distinct difference between what we have in our mind and what we have in our body, and the two can actually work well together or they can be in complete conflict. What was that experience like?

Speaker 2:

Oh, absolutely. I mean my mind. You know I was drawn to everything that job supported because it was not hard, it was easy, I did really well, I met so many amazing people but my heart was like, oh, like, really, this is how I'm spending my days and I would go on many corporate trips and I would bring books. I would bring stacks of books. I'd you know Carolyn Mace early, deepak Chopra early stuff about life and spirituality and mystics and my colleagues would see these books and be like, what are you doing?

Speaker 1:

This is not very corporate.

Speaker 2:

Like, wow, what are you reading? Yeah, but it was just like those are the signs of like, wow, what are you reading? Yeah, but it was just like those are the signs of like. I was being drawn since a child studying, thinking like what does it mean to be alive and why am I here? And you know I I did after the near death experience was like that's it. It gave me the courage, like I am done, and I gave my notice. Luckily, my husband completely supported me. A lot of partners would be like right, you're going to leave this career and everything because of our lifestyle. And, interestingly, my husband, when our first date in our 20s we were in our mid-20s he said to me because he knew my history and he's like you're going to do something that helps people. And I thought I know.

Speaker 1:

Little did you know? Yeah.

Speaker 2:

So it just was clear, completely clear, this isn't it. And I gave my notice and my husband at the time had a startup, small internet company 1015 guys and so I went from the glamour of Time Magazine to a warehouse with like 10 guys and I was like, yikes, this is bad. And the head of Time Inc of our division, mark, called me and he's like you want to come back? Well, how are you doing? I'm like I don't know what to think.

Speaker 1:

And I mean that is sometimes such a shock to your system. But I think what what we don't realize is that that's exactly what you need If you're about to embark on a major transformation, or even a rebirth, which it seems to be what was lying ahead for you absolutely.

Speaker 2:

And the synchronicity of I had the courage to quit. I told my family. All my siblings were like what? Like, what do you mean? And then it came to me, the synchronicity of a girlfriend late at night. Have you ever thought of saying theology and spiritual direction? I had never thought of it and I was like, wow. And when I got materials and she had said St Catherine and university and here's one of the places when I got the materials in the mail, my body started physically shaking Like it was a knowing this was it.

Speaker 2:

And I applied, I got in, I went out and told my my consummate father, businessman, executive, and he started screaming at me like why would I leave time warner to study theology? I mean, he was like or he actually at first he said geology and I'm like, no, it's theology. But it was like a coming of age and letting go, knowing, knowing in my heart, this is it. I got to somehow trust it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I think you know life has, like you say, the synchronicities that pushes us into right, and so, yeah, yeah, and so I mean you talk about really unlocking that emotional and that spiritual depth. How would you say, if you think about your life, and being able to unlock that within yourself are some of the teachings that you found once you've moved through that transformative period in your life to now embrace this new life?

Speaker 2:

I would say I learned really deeply after that near-death experience in particular. I mean I'd already had this strong faith and guidance and sense of this universal divine energy. I'm really liberal in how I name that sense of energy guiding me every moment. But in my 30s I really started a devout practice of meditating and journaling and stillness to hear, to hear that guidance that was not in your thinking mind and that's coming to me about graduate school and then every step along the way, becoming a spiritual director and then a chaplain. Even my new book, out Everyday, awakening, it came to me.

Speaker 2:

I'm a mystic, I'm intuitive, I get a lot and I saw a vision of it 10 plus years ago. I'm like I'm going to write a book. So it's just like paying attention and listening. But we can experience that when we're not in our thinking mind, when we're in the moment, when our mind is always the past, the future, the rumination, all the suffering, all of that happens in our thinking mind. But in the present moment, when there's just like, oh, some breathing room, that's where that big spaciousness, that stillness, that ease, where we can sense and feel that intuitive guidance, our inner guidance, the guidance from the universe. It's there and I get a lot of guidance every day the universe.

Speaker 1:

it's there and I get a lot of guidance every day. So I would imagine that when you were working as a professional board certified chaplain, I'd love to know how this intuitive spiritual connection really helped you in that role.

Speaker 2:

So I was a chaplain at a long-term care center. Then I was a chaplain at Hennepin County Medical Center, which is our level one trauma hospital. We're in the Midwest. This is the hospital everyone gets flown into for extreme accidents and really dire health situations. And then I was a chaplain for years, a hospice chaplain called Fairview Hospice.

Speaker 1:

So hospice yeah.

Speaker 2:

So I've been with hundreds and hundreds thousands of people in trauma and crisis at end of life and I, by being present in the moment, I, I just I felt comfort within me to be able to companion someone in that place and I think part of it was because I've lived on that edge between life and death. So I felt a comfort being with people in that space, that very thin space, and facing death and being with people and just being able to be deeply present, feeling and holding deep love in my being, to be with people. And you know, at the end of the day, it was such a privilege to be with people in such a sacred time, to be present, to witness, to companion, to just have a witnessing presence. You know, it's like words aren't even important but just that deep love. And I witnessed. It's like words aren't even important but just that deep love.

Speaker 2:

And I witnessed just taking hospice. I witnessed so many people before they died. There was a piece it was rare in hospice where there wasn't a piece before people died. You know, in a trauma hospital it's a little different, but in hospice a piece about people and letting go and a sense of like deep embodiment of love where it's just like there's a glow around them. It's just profound and many people said, oh, like they got the preciousness of life when they're about to die, and then they died. It was just like this is it, and and that was a big piece of what really nudged me of writing this book of like, we can choose right now to feel the preciousness of life, and we don't have to wait to we're in crisis or end of life. We can choose it right now. So I you know it was a privilege and I learned so much and it was such sacred work, do you?

Speaker 1:

engage in any way intuitively or physically, with any of the people that you've helped.

Speaker 2:

I have and I did and I still do, when I was with people on their deathbed, actively dying. One thing that naturally came to me is because I see a lot, I see spirits, I see angels, and if someone was having any kind of unrest, I could see light around them, I could see, even see light going through them to help them find a calmness, to help them let go. And many people that I was with who died, I would witness, and they would, even before maybe they were unconscious many would say, oh my grandma is over in the corner, or I see an angel over here or a spirit. I heard so many stories and I could witness and see, because I see spirits, spirits in the room, light flowing in and out, and even when people let go, many people came their energy all the way up their body and then out of the top of their head and then they would be, you know, even hovering above their body as they died. And many people, within days to a week after they died, would actually come and see me In the middle of the night. I would wake up and there's like an outline of that person, the spirit, and even like nodding, kind of thanking me, and then they'd be gone and it was very sacred and annoying a really deepening and annoying that death is in an end.

Speaker 2:

We go on, our spirit goes on. I don't get into any detail like, well, where do we go, how does that work? But we go on and it actually happened so many times that I had to consciously put up energy boundaries. Like you can't come within, I'd go to bed at night. You cannot come within 20 feet of me and wake me up. It was too, it was too much and I would. If I was with a patient who was deeply spiritual and it really felt right. I might say you know, come and see me when you've passed on. And so it was magical and it was a gift to see this.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and was this a gift that you sort of only developed at a later stage, once you started to really harness your intuitive nature? Or was this something that existed even from the time that you experienced your cancer diagnosis at the age of 11, or as a teenager afterward?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, really good question. Really, my vision opened up after that near-death experience experience 24 years ago in 2000, when I left Time Magazine and then I started with my husband's internet company. I was actually in a room with a bunch of men talking about consulting in a project and all of a sudden the whole room filled with eyes and spirits and I was like Whoa, this is. You know. At first it was a bit shocking.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And then it moved to a place of comfort, of like just a knowing there's so many layers of reality that most of us don't see that, and it was just like knowing there's so many, so much more beyond being a spirit and a physical body right now. So that's when it started, and then I just kept opening into it and then it really I saw a lot more when I was a chaplain yes, in the hospital, mm-hmm.

Speaker 1:

So I mean, there's so many fascinating aspects about what you do and who you are and who you've become, and everything that in life just sort of moved and brought everything into one place for you to be able to access your gift and to be able to bring it to the world and, at the same time, understand it, because you have such a good understanding of what your purpose is now and what you're meant to do. Having discovered all of this and settling into the new way of being, can you perhaps shed some light on the practice that you have now, because now you work in private practice and you're now established, you've now settled into your transformative life, and how do you now, through your practice, life and how do you now, through your practice, provide services for people in need out there?

Speaker 2:

I you know, helping people, helping people open into that. First practice of my book, coming into the present moment, helping people tune in to it. Do they have some unresolved and so my work is kind of a hybrid of therapy, teaching skills, practices. My book has 42 exercises of how do you come and live from your heart and soul and people might have unresolved family of origin issues or early childhood attachment issues that are preventing them from accessing you know, their heart, preventing them, and they're shut down emotionally. So it starts there and then helping, teach people and talk with people. How can you open into your essence, your calling, who you are and I also I want to share. You're right, I feel like I am on purpose, I'm exactly where I'm called to be.

Speaker 2:

But this hasn't been a completely like easy peasy path. I'll tell you when I got the nudging to going through graduate school, graduate theology school, I was a spiritual director and then my mother-in-law was suddenly ill at 65 and pretty quickly after died of pancreatic cancer and I was with her through the journey and again, that was another example of so sacred I mean. She was just like this glowing light before she died. And a teacher. And it came to me chaplaincy. But I had vowed as a child I will never step foot again in a hospital. So then the chaplaincy I'm like really, are you kidding? And then when I applied to all the CPE clinical pastoral education programs to be a chaplain, I'm like okay, I'm going to trust this, even though it's like, oh, and I got into all of them and I kept getting University of Minnesota, which is where I was a patient, and again I was like wow, Pointed in a direction. It's like it can be uncomfortable, it can. And I went through chaplaincy training.

Speaker 2:

My first job as a chaplain was at a long-term care center that had really complex patients, chronic health, pretty intensive place, and I just have a vivid memory of going up to the eighth floor to have lunch by myself. It overlooked the city of Minneapolis and then I would see across the river where my office with Time Inc was. I had a secretary car, all this money, and I'm like who am I? And I would cry Like what's happening. So there's a piece I think of. Okay, you feel nudgings, can you be open? Some of it really takes courage to do the work and to keep listening and take it a step at a time.

Speaker 1:

Answering callings are never easy. It's like you say, it's one step at a time.

Speaker 2:

I had even I'll share, just because this is interesting. One more experience, and I write about this in my book eight years ago. So here I'm working as a chaplain, a hospice chaplain. My husband completely healthy, really athletic, never anything he had this extremely serious health condition after running around one of the lakes, he collapsed. He was in the hospital, he flatlined. It just was like crazy. I'm happy to say. He was diagnosed with a very rare heart condition, but he's doing really well and hopefully can live a long life. He has a pacemaker defibrillator, all that. But it was a lot. It was a lot to live through.

Speaker 2:

And then here I am, a chaplain, being with people at the end of life, and I took some time off. I remember the day I tried to go back to work, driving to someone's house who was dying. I had to pull the car over, like I am not ready yet, and so I took a little more time off. And then I was working again with people at the end of life and I had a knowing one afternoon driving where I pulled the car over and I had a memory of being in my 20s saying bring it on, I don't want to come back, I believe in reincarnation. I'm like bring it on, I'm not coming back another lifetime, and I remember that and I'm like I'm just kidding, ha ha, I can come back another life, yeah. So my message is be careful what you pray for.

Speaker 1:

Oh for sure. So I actually want to dive into your book. I mean, we've touched on it throughout the episode, but is there anything specific that you feel called to share today with the listeners?

Speaker 2:

specific that you feel called to share today with the listeners. So in my book I have five practices about coming into your heart and soul. I'll just for a moment the five practices are. Come back to the present moment, connect with something greater, and that's, you know, in a really broad, inclusive way, grow your trust, embody love and hold openness. And these are practices that I've lived organically much of my life, and that's the distillation of what these five practices are and the exercises that.

Speaker 2:

So it's not just theory but it's you know. How do you feel more love, how do you feel flow, how do you come into the moment? And so I offer many angles of how to do it, but I would say, you know, a biggest takeaway is yes, how are you choosing to live? What are you choosing? We can choose, you know we can choose. Are we living in our mind, where our mind is running us, or are we choosing to open and grow and feel into that preciousness of life, the wonderment of life that's here and it's not found in our mind.

Speaker 2:

And even one other practice the practice of embodying love. I think that's why we're here on this earth to learn to love. I think what we take with us is our ability to love, and life can be hard and messy, I get it. I've lost five family members, I've experienced a lot in my life and it just what are you choosing? How can you choose to keep loving yourself and growing love and learning how to keep loving one another, especially in this world right now? There's a lot of chaos, a lot of contention, you know. So I think the message of love and how we're choosing to live is really key.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, the heart-centered living that you're talking. If you come from that place of love, then it's possible also for you to awaken to living that heart-centered life, which is a meaningful life, and it's also a more meaningful way of engaging with your life. A meaningful life and it's also a more meaningful way of engaging with your life. And I guess you know in many ways, because I often I hear people you know they'll make a comment like you know, I wish I could do something else, or I don't know what else to do. I don't want to be in corporate anymore, but I also don't know what to do.

Speaker 1:

You know what is the answer. What do you actually say to someone that know that this is not where I belong, but I also don't know what to do? You know what? What is the answer? What do you actually say to someone that know that this is not where I belong, but I also don't know where I need to go? And I think that you have articulated that so well today, because it's it's. It is about connecting to that heart centered space and intuitively listening to what is calling you, what is driving where you have to be, and then paying attention to that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, oh, I agree. Paying attention and what you just shared right on, yes, and even just paying attention, what is life-giving? You know, what gives you some sense of joy, peace, and what depletes you? There's an exercise I learned this in graduate school 24 years ago from a. It was a theologian, but you know is also. This is relates to about every faith tradition I've studied and that is assessing your day at the end of the day. Two questions you know what today was life-giving, what gave you some joy, some peace, some ease, and what depleted you? And if you pay attention, we're given so much guidance we are, and it's starting to tune in and pay attention every day of what's coming across your radar. Can you create more moments and anchoring into the present moment? And the guidance is there.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's fantastic. I think if we are in corporate and we're all living in our heads, it's very difficult to tune in and to listen and to find those peaceful, quiet moments. But I think, like you say, we have guidance all the time and I think it's best if we do it ourselves rather than have life come along and say let me give you some peace, Let me give you a quiet space where you can now pay attention. So it's always better to be proactive when it comes to the guidance that we have available to us. As we wrap up today's session, Catherine, was there any last words of wisdom that you wanted to share with us?

Speaker 2:

I want to share that. Every one of us, everyone hearing this right now, we all have gifts. We do. Is it a sense of seeing, sensing, feeling, hearing? That's not in our mind, it's in the moment, and there's words like clairvoyance, clairaudience, clairsentience. Every one of us has a gift. Some of us may see more, or sense or hear or feel. And inviting everyone to just tune in. How are you living? Do you want more joy, more peace, that sense of awe, that sense of wonderment that every one of us has experienced, if it's even at night, seeing the sun setting or the wind in the trees or where there's like a time stops, we can grow that and feel that and open into that, and I think that's why we're here on this earth to learn how to live from our soul.

Speaker 1:

Wow, the world needs it at the moment. Yeah, definitely so. Listeners, it's come to the end of our episode and I want to thank Reverend Catherine Duncan for just sharing your profound insights with us and your personal stories. Thank you so much, and your compassionate approach and, again, this deep understanding of just the emotional part of life that you brought to us today. I want to thank you for that and also just again reminding us that spiritual healing has a place in our lives and to open ourselves up to the possibilities and, even though some of the concepts that we addressed here today for some may be scary or daunting, giving us that assurance that there is peace and love in the unknown. And so, yeah, I want to thank you for that.

Speaker 1:

And then, for all of you listeners, I want to let you know that Reverend Katherine Duncan's book Everyday Awakening is out at the moment. You can find it on amazoncom, as well as on Barnes and Noble and also on her website. I'm going to link the website for you in the show notes. And, yeah, so, thank you, reverend Duncan. I am so happy that we got to share this time together and thank you for the incredible work that you do. Thank you for accepting this calling and sharing it so wonderfully through your practice with the world.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for having me. Really lovely to talk to you, really fun.

Speaker 1:

To everyone else who tuned in today, thank you so much. Stay inspired and keep your hearts open and embrace the fullness of life every day. So until next time, take care Bye. That wraps up this podcast episode. Thank you for listening. If you enjoy my podcast, please take a minute to give me a rating and review in Apple Podcasts. Please subscribe in your favorite podcast directory so you don't miss an episode. Please consider following my Scented Life on Facebook and Instagram for daily inspiration. Thank you so much for spending this time with me. You can catch me again in the next episode Same time, same place, sending you lots of love and light. Bye.

Surviving Trauma Stories of Hope
Journey From Corporate to Spiritual Transformation
Awakening to Heart-Centered Living