A Paradigm Shift in Healing: Brittany Gordine's Holistic Approach to Recovery from Eating Disorders

Brittany Gordine shares her powerful journey through body dysmorphia and eating disorders, revealing how her struggles began and the factors that contributed to her disordered eating. She discusses her experiences in treatment centers and the limitations of traditional methods, emphasizing the need for a paradigm shift in mental health and eating disorder treatment. Brittany advocates for addressing underlying emotional and energetic issues, highlighting the transformative power of natural healing modalities such as trauma healing, energy work, sound healing, joyous movement, and healthy community. She underscores the importance of embracing anger and setting boundaries as part of the healing process.

Join us as we delve into Brittany's story of resilience and self-discovery. As a quantum energy healer and wellness coach, she reveals the urgent need for a holistic approach to healing—one that treats the individual as a whole. Her insights on trauma recovery, understanding addiction, and spiritual wellness inspire us to break the stigma, share our stories, and light the way for each other. Brittany's journey is a testament to the power of self-discovery and finding one's true purpose.

About Brittany
Brittany Gordien is a Quantum Healing + Holographic Sound Healing practitioner and coach. Her programs empower individuals, couples and corporate wellness teams to activate their innate healing abilities, so they can experience a life of vitality and wholeness. This work includes elements of BodyTalk, BodyIntuitive, LifeStyle Design + Mindset Coaching, Reiki, Shamanic Rituals, and Holographic Sound Healing. 

Her 1:1 Embodied Alchemy Well-Being 3-month journey of transformation will invite you into a deep process of unravelling limiting belief systems, daily rituals + practices, trapped memories, trauma and subconscious energetic blocks … to heal the body, elevate the mind and connect deeper spiritually. To learn more about her offerings for 1:1 work - email her at brittanygordien@gmail.com.

Follow her on instagram @brittanygordien and @thelionessleague.

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CREDITS:
Introduction script:  Jessica Tardy
Introduction mix and master:  Ed Arnold
Theme Song: "Heart Light" by Jenee Halstead and Dave Brophy

Transcript

Jenee : 0:06

Welcome to the Heartlight Sessions, a podcast about light working your way through dark times. I'm Janae Halstead. I'm a singer-songwriter, holistic vocal coach, intuitive guide and plant medicine facilitator. I'm also a survivor of childhood abuse, autoimmune issues and my 30s. I'm also a survivor of childhood abuse, autoimmune issues and my 30s. I'm on a lifelong healing journey and, along the way, I want to share the ideas and teachings that rock my world. Every week on Heartlight Sessions, I call in artists, healers and thinkers to explore what's helped them live and thrive from a heart-centered place, because the heart, it's where the best things happen. If you've ever wondered how to unlock your biggest breakthroughs or how to come back from that stuff that tried to kill you, you know the stuff I'm talking about, the stuff that's supposed to make you stronger. Or if you've ever wondered how to just do you straight from the heart, you're in the right place. So join me, won't you? Let's turn on that heart light. Hi Hi, welcome to Heart Light.

Brittany: 1:22

Thank you.

Jenee : 1:22

Yeah, heartlight Sessions. So I have Brittany Gordine with me and she's super inspiration in my life. She's a healer, I would say like a quantum healer, a mermaid. She does corporate wellness and what else. Oh, oh where to begin.

Brittany: 1:47

So I am a quantum energy healing and holographic sound healing practitioner. I do a lot of one-on-one work with both men, women, couples, and then also a lot of corporate wellness um events and workshops and ways to kind of bring in more holistic lifestyle practices and energetic hygiene practices for optimizing all things within the corporate world.

Brittany: 2:15

And then with you, I'm a part of this amazing group called the Sonoran Sound Journey, which is a sound healing collective of many different practitioners who all have different talents, coming together around different energetic seasonal shifts Usually we do the equinoxes, the solstices, to bring together the ceremony of cacao and sound.

Jenee : 2:41

Yeah, I like to say we're in a band together, we're in a band I haven't been in a band since college and this is awesome. We're in a band together. So, yeah, it's been amazing and um for for me, like the, I think, seeing you on instagram and I, of course, like I would joke around that I I watch your, your workouts, uh, because I find them incredibly inspiring and it's like that's like my goal in 2024.

Jenee : 3:13

I'm like, I'm gonna be like I'm living through you right now. Um, but also you started talking on Instagram about your story with body dysmorphia and I was like blown away by your story and just the vulnerability that it took to share that. I'd never seen anyone share their story like that and I just wanted to kind of hand it over to you to talk about like. And I just wanted to kind of hand it over to you to talk about like, how did this start? When did it start? And we can sort of flow the conversation and yeah.

Jenee : 3:53

Thank you, thank you for witnessing me through the Instagram portal.

Brittany: 3:59

It's actually a very new thing for me to be super intimate with my life and sharing on Instagram. I actually went the last two years prior to this year, not on Instagram at all, you'll see a big gap.

Brittany: 4:13

If you look at my page, I was completely, completely off social media and a part of that was because I was for a year in an eating disorder treatment journey and it was horrific. So the story you know it's kind of long and complex of how it came to be. I think that you know as a kid just having different experiences where people make comments about your body or you, you know, develop different belief systems and go on diets and have different standards of beauty or ways in which you give yourself love or nourish yourself, based on some concept of how your body needs to be. I definitely struggled with that at different points throughout my life. But I wouldn't call it an eating disorder, I would call it just being a fucking girl and thinking about you know, oh, I want to weigh this amount or I want to work out in this way or eat this diet or whatever, and I think that that's just a very pervasive collective conversation. Um, that we grew up as just normal.

Jenee : 5:17

You know I.

Brittany: 5:18

I grew up seeing that on TV, I heard it within my family, I had it within my friend groups, right. So I would say for the majority of my life, like I was pretty healthy when I was 14, I got really, really, really depressed. My family basketball team, president of the volunteer club, like all the things you know straight A student kind of person to not wanting to get out of bed and go to high school and I just like shut down emotionally and physically.

Brittany: 5:54

And after going to like a number of different doctors, there was nothing physically wrong with me. So then it started going into the psychiatrist, psychologist route, like why, is, why is she not wanting to get out of bed?

Brittany: 6:06

Why is she so tired? Why is she, you know, just not feeling happy? She has everything going for her. And so when I was 14, I started getting um, diagnosed with depression and anxiety and medicated for it. And that's where I think, a distorted connection to my body and to its signals, to its emotions, to how to cope, of energy and a empath of energy and to be working with energy. So I was overwhelmed by my sensitivity and by my gifts and by my visions and by my dreams, and I just didn't know how to process that. Wow, so, yeah.

Brittany: 6:58

So through that medication journey, I ended up getting prescribed a medication for ADHD called Vyvanse, and not a lot of people that I've talked to know about it, the more like street drug, it's like the Adderall, and one of the main side effects of those types of drugs in the methamphetamine category is suppressed appetite. And so, all of a sudden, I was like taking this drug that made me feel happy, made me feel high, and it made me not want to eat and I liked that feeling, I liked that high and I became very addicted to it, um, disconnected because this other substance was dictating my behaviors right Around food and around nourishment and around my concept of like, feeling okay. It's like you know, I'm not feeling okay today. I'm not feeling energized, I'm not feeling happy. Oh, just pop that pill and everything's fine Right. And that lasted for you know, a few years until my spirit and my soul started to take over. I had one of my first experiences with a really intense mental, emotional, spiritual breakdown where I was just crying and didn't know why I was feeling so overwhelmed and I just got this download, which I didn't even know what a download was at the time I was like I need to go somewhere spiritual and I need

Brittany: 8:27

to get off this medication. Like immediately, how old were you? I was 21, okay, this was right after I graduated college, wow, and I, um, I found this place in Sedona, arizona, which I'd never heard of Sed, which I'd never heard of Sedona, I'd never heard of energy vortexes. I was very not in that realm at that time and I immediately booked a trip. I'm like I'm going there tomorrow and I skipped a trip to Vegas to go to Sedona. Wow, perfect, yeah, and I started to um get myself off of that medication. Then, um, it took a few years. Those medications are extremely they're extremely addictive and it can be very debilitating process to go through that detox.

Brittany: 9:14

But I was able to do it and I started studying energy healing and sound healing and fitness and just got into a really healthy lifestyle. My body and everything felt really aligned. I was in a relationship at the time that I thought was like my most dream relationship, that I could ever imagine.

Brittany: 9:34

And I launched my energy healing business, my sound healing business. I was completely booked out, like everything was flowing. My program at the time was called Bliss Body Goddess and I just felt like I was on top of the world. And so when this eating disorder started to come into my experience, it was about three years after, like first launching my business, and I was dating this person at the time who was a personal trainer, and when I met him I was probably like 120 pounds and I'm 5'4", so it was like, you know, kind of a normal weight for me and felt like pretty healthy and I, um I started working out with him a lot. Um, I noticed his um sort of attraction to women with more of a bodybuilder type of physique.

Brittany: 10:26

And um, you know, he would just make comments about certain things with my body.

Brittany: 10:30

That would plant seeds around my concept of what beautiful was and I slowly, just over time, over about two years of like getting really into weightlifting, um got super disconnected from like feminine movement and dance and singing and like playing and I was just like militant, like wake up 6 am, two hours in the gym, wow. And you know I lost a lot of weight and it wasn't so much like intentional, I think it just happened over time. Time and then as I started to get down to like a lower body weight, I um I was doing really intense shamanic energy work and my mentor at the time.

Brittany: 11:14

You know he had warned me he's like. You know, if you, if you go into these realms of these higher levels of consciousness, like as much light and angels and like blissful things, there's also a lot of shadows. There's also a lot of people's parasitic, you know forces or unconscious things and you need to protect yourself.

Jenee : 11:34

And so part of that protection was like well, not only energetic, but having more body weight. Was that one of his concerns, or yeah?

Brittany: 11:43

Well, I think that you know. So I went from 120 pounds down to about 105 pounds and and it wasn't through like changing, like my, my food didn't really change. It was that, I think, just like weightlifting. So much. Um, I would say I was on the borderline of like orthorexia, where I had a concept of what was healthy and organic and high vibe and like eating a certain kind of way, but I had many foods that I would not eat.

Jenee : 12:10

Um, can you? Can you define what ortho? I don't know what that is.

Brittany: 12:14

So, okay so um, in the eating disorder kind of lexicon of um, you know different categories of disorders. There's like anorexia, which is like starving yourself, not eating. Um binge eating, where you eat to the point of making yourself sick. Um. There's bulimia, where you force yourself to throw up or purge after eating. And then orthorexia is like you're so restrictive of what it is that you eat but you have a concept of it being healthy, so it doesn't seem as though it's a disorder. So it's very complex because I've heard a lot of other women in you know the wellness space who you know have like organic cookbooks and like all these things of a lens through which seeing something as being super good for your body. But if you cannot like take a bite of birthday cake at your birthday party without like having a freak out about it, then it's a little, maybe too extreme. So I think I was kind of on that level.

Jenee : 13:15

Yeah, I feel like I had probably five years of that kind of behavior. That was really like I didn't know the name for it. It's really interesting, you know, but I definitely myself questioned that like, wow, this is a there's something not right about this. So the pictures of you that I've seen, that you've posted there, they're pretty shocking, to be honest. And so was that around that time that you were, you know, doing the heavy weightlifting, you were about 105?

Brittany: 13:48

Yeah, so the pictures you've probably seen are when I got down to 87 pounds.

Jenee : 13:53

Wow, which is my lowest weight, wow, so I went from 105 in the end of 2020.

Brittany: 14:01

Then I took a 20-day trip to Tulum and everything in my body right before that trip was like this is not going to be a good trip for me.

Brittany: 14:09

Like I just feel like it's going to end my relationship. I'm, everything in my body is just not wanting to go, but like something was calling us to go, and during that trip I um started to feel what felt like a parasite in my stomach. It was a sensation that had kind of been lingering for a little while. I know now much more about what energetic parasites are, even more than physical.

Brittany: 14:37

So you know, within the work that I was doing, I would feel at times with certain clients, during certain sessions, that there was such a cord of energy that was being sucked into my field because I did not have an awareness of strong boundaries. I was so overwhelmed with the amount of work that I was doing that my spiritual hygiene got messy and I was just vulnerable and susceptible to a lot of parasitic energetic feelings that felt as though I was being drained. So during that trip to Tulum for 20 days, I think I probably lost another like seven or eight pounds during that trip. I lost my menstrual cycle during that trip. The whole trip itself was like extremely stressful. It was not a vacation on any level.

Brittany: 15:22

For anyone who's called to or has been to Tulum, it's definitely a portal and can stir up a lot of things, and for me it ended up being kind of like an awakening of a dark night of the soul. Um. So when I got back I felt something like almost like a I don't I describe it as like a curse, like I felt like something so strongly shifted in my frequency, in my mind, in my thought patterns, like I I literally had kind of like a breakdown at the um Chichen Itza pyramid and like I just felt, like I came back from that trip like different, like something was different in my vibe that was like not me and I started having these episodes of binge eating.

Brittany: 16:06

So I would wake up in the middle of the night and like have this insatiable desire to eat a ton of food and then obviously wake up in the morning feeling really not good, because eating in the middle of the night's not ideal for your sleep or for your digestion. And this binge eating then would trigger me to want to get that food out of my body. So I would take laxatives or I would drink a lot of coffee, like something to like purge not throw up, but like get it out of my body.

Brittany: 16:38

And so that sort of binge purge cycle started to be a daily pattern that literally like took over every aspect of my mind, because when you're consuming large amounts of food and I was also binging on foods that were not healthy I went from, like orthorexia, super healthy to being in these binge disorder episodes where I would be literally like at Wendy's, eating four Frosties at 7 am no.

Brittany: 17:07

Yeah. So I went from bliss body goddess, like holistic queen, blah, blah, blah to like literally like a depressive episode, eating Wendy's Frosties at 7 am, which, for someone who has detoxed their body and done so much work like I've been doing different kinds of energy healing, shamanic work, therapy, like fitness. I've done so much work Like I've been doing different kinds of energy healing, shamanic work, therapy, like fitness I've been doing all these things for like 20 years so for my body to go from that to fast food at 7am in a binging episode was overwhelming to every part of my system. And so that's kind of how I I started like going into these like stressful cycles where I would binge eat early in the morning and then I wouldn't eat the rest of the day because I felt so sick and I felt so disoriented and like if you eat, you know, 500 grams of sugar from Wendy's late, you're going to feel a little fucked up. Yeah, so, um, I ended up having multiple episodes.

Brittany: 18:00

I ended up having multiple episodes where I felt so out of control of my behavior, I felt so out of control of my body, I felt so out of hope of like how could this be happening to me? How can I go from like this life that I had to this that I would have not like suicidal ideation, but I would make comments like I don't want to fucking live anymore, like I cannot live like this, and that really scared people who love me, especially my parents, and I had multiple episodes where they called the police and forced me to go to a mental hospital for the night. When you make those sorts of comments like they can bring in the authorities. That in itself was a devastating experience, you know, for me to be within that matrix and see what treatment looks like for people with mental health disorders and that then put me on a journey of kind of surrendering to an intervention for my family around going into eating disorder treatment.

Jenee : 19:09

Wow, how old were you at this?

Brittany: 19:10

point I was 33. Okay, so this was in 2021. Okay, wow, so the binging started. The binging started at the like beginning of 2021, after I got back from Tulum, and then it just crept all throughout that year and then by November, I was going into treatment. Wow, and were you still with this guy at that point? We were, and he was really confused as to what was happening and I think that he did the best that he knew how to do, like it, but I also feel that he could have done more to support my journey and be there in different ways that he wasn't there.

Brittany: 20:14

And you know, something I want to talk about during this episode is the relationship between codependency and addiction, and eating disorders, so I didn't know it at the time, but like we had a very codependent relationship on many levels that was super draining and ways in which I allowed boundaries within myself to be crossed within that partnership. That led to me losing more weight and like succumbing to certain perspectives or energy drains. Like I you know, every time he said oh, your thigh gap's so sexy or your muscles in your veins are so beautiful, or you're you know, like that planted seeds of dysmorphia.

Brittany: 20:56

And then there was like a financial drain component in ways in which he wanted me to be a sugar mama. That, you know, wasn't necessarily a very helpful energy for someone who was struggling at that time. And, yeah, so when I went to treatment it was pretty much like the end of our relationship and he kind of bowed out at that point which says a lot, and did you go voluntarily?

Brittany: 21:23

I went voluntarily but it was almost like I felt so cornered into doing it. I have all of this awareness about how true healing happens because of the work that I've done and the work that I do with other people, and I could see what the lens of consciousness at these treatment centers just based on having phone calls with them prior to going in, was and I'm like I'm not going to heal here.

Brittany: 21:50

I'm absolutely like not going to heal here, but I didn't have another option. I didn't know where else to go. I now know and I could kind of feel it when I was there, but like I now see, it was some major like shamanist initiation to go deeply, deeply, deeply deeply into that world like embody the hell of that world.

Jenee : 22:14

Wow.

Brittany: 22:14

Because there is a major paradigm shift that needs to happen within the realm of mental health and eating disorder treatment Usually things that are covered by insurance, because it is not a place where healing is happening. I met so many women and men who have been in a merry-go-round of treatment centers for years, years and years and years, and I have friends who have passed away in treatment. So it's not working. It's not working the way that treatment in a more Western model is addressed, and I know that a big part of my mission is to create a change in that with my voice, my story, my transformation, my knowledge that I embody with more healing principles. And so when I was in treatment, I like shipped in sound bowls and taught yoga and like we're doing classes on, you know, on energy healing and body talk and like all of the things that I know that so many people within that world and you know a lot of people that I met that I probably never would have met otherwise.

Brittany: 23:22

Um, I my first three treatment centers. I went to four. Wow, my first three were eating disorder specific. So everyone in there was working on an eating disorder. It was extremely unsuccessful for me. I did not gain any weight. I did not get anything but traumatized in there to be, honest as much as there were beautiful people with beautiful intentions.

Brittany: 23:44

If my therapist is at 8 am and this is no judgment towards her or towards that facility but if she's eating Taco Bell at 8 am, trying to talk to me about nutrition and say, hey, we just want to get you on this medication. That's going to make you gain weight really fast and then you'll be better.

Jenee : 24:03

And.

Brittany: 24:03

I'm like this has nothing to do with the weight. It has nothing to do with weight, like this is a consciousness, energetic, like drain, that is happening within my system and going back to kind of like the lack of boundaries and parasites and things. I literally felt like I had two voices in my head, like a voice of, like this dark thing, like wanting to do these behaviors. That was not me, and then the higher self, me, that like knows what's good for me, right? So like why would I be choosing these things? And you know, within the shamanic world there's this concept of entities, yes, and I felt and had a confirmation from many people who are very in tune with that ability to see that that's what I had. So me trying to explain that, of course, within these type of treatment centers, they just give you a new diagnosis with a new antipsychotic and a new way of numbing that thought away, when I know that that wasn't the truth of what I was experiencing.

Jenee : 25:01

So interesting, you know um, to do the energy work and to be a practitioner, and then you know not, it's.

Jenee : 25:11

It's hard often, like as practitioners of energy work, to be able to see our own um, be able to see our own um, you know, need and our own health and um.

Jenee : 25:26

And especially if, like some of those like structures of energetic hygiene and boundaries are not in place and a lot, of, a lot of um healers and empaths get into the work because they just want to help the world, they're so empathic and especially when you're starting out, and so, of course, like you know, it's this twofold thing where I feel like it pushed you into your initiation path. You know, and also just the, you know the, you know the, the big unspoken thing that can happen with healers um is this, this drain of the parasitic drain. And I, for me, like when I was starting out on the path and I was actually going to a lot of healers to heal and um, a lot of the healers I met were extremely overweight, so it's also like that sort of caregiver thing. And one of my teachers that I ended up training with I was like she was just very outward about it and she was like I put on this weight to protect myself energetically.

Brittany: 26:39

Yeah, I've seen that a lot too. It can you know the weight thing. It's like it can go both ways. Right there, you're drained and you lose a bunch of weight, which is, um, what my experience was. Or a lot of people who you know, don't know how to protect themselves otherwise, like create that physical barrier Yep.

Jenee : 26:56

Yeah, so you're in and out, so you're like you're in your fourth.

Brittany: 27:01

I got kicked out of a lot of centers, because uh, you know it's such an insurance game. Okay so you know there's. There's all these treatment centers that are kind of like the standard um within the industry, that are covered by most insurance. Then there's the like $50,000 a month, you know, go to Sedona on a private like private, like epic retreat, I wasn't in the space to make that investment.

Brittany: 27:24

I almost did and like just blew my savings on, you know, saving my life. But I went the insurance route and within these spaces you have a protocol from a dietician dietician very different than a nutritionist by the way dietician, a therapist, a psychiatrist, and whatever plan they make for what they identify is recovery for you, you must follow, and if you do not follow that plan you get a ding and too many dings, you get kicked out.

Brittany: 28:01

Too many kicks out, you don't get any treatment. Wow. So I was in a war with my team. Okay, who was trying to? You know my dietician. She was like, okay, we're just going to put you on a protocol of 5,000 calories a day and you're going to eat these shakes that have a ton of sugar and seed oils and like things that are literally. She didn't say this, but I was like, literally, if I drink one of those shakes, because I tried it, I was like you're gonna be dead.

Brittany: 28:25

I'm going to have a panic attack because of the sugar and the inflammation and like my body doesn't do well with certain. You know ingredients because I've detoxed enough to know what works for my system and what doesn't. She's like, well, you either drink the shake or, you know, get the ding. And so then you know. And the food in these treatment centers there was different levels for different treatment centers that I was in, but I mean some of them. They would literally like have you sit in your room with Pizza Hut or McDonald's and like you would have to eat it no, yeah, no. Room with Pizza Hut or McDonald's and like you would have to eat it no, yeah, no. And like they called it like a fear food challenge and like if you didn't do it then you would have to sit and like write a report. Or they call these like they have these like meal replacement shakes and you would have to drink those if you didn't do the thing.

Brittany: 29:19

Like there was just crazy level things that you know on their lens of what they're addressing. It's like oh for someone who's super on a diet. And like McDonald's hamburgers and French fries like scares them into gaining weight. We're going to get you through that fear. We're going to get you through your fear food and just sit in your room and eat that, and so it's just the, the, the level of ways in which healing was approached. Um, on the food level, and then, like the daily food to food, it was like honey nut Cheerios for breakfast with soy milk and I'm like, um, I can't eat either one of those things without like having major inflammation in my stomach Cause I don't do gluten, I don't do sugar, I don't like processed food and I can't do soy milk. So can we try something else? And like, there was no budge most days.

Brittany: 30:07

And then there's the, the whole psychiatry route, right. So if you're super energetically sensitive, you can see shit that other people can't see. You can see auras, you can see past lives, you can have these prophetic dreams like very mystical, you know kind of ways of being able to see energy and beyond this realm. In that world. You are crazy, right, right. So they have pills for that, right. And so that got forced onto me multiple times, where it's like antidepressant, anti-anxiety, and then the antipsychotic, because one of the side effects of antipsychotics is that it makes you gain a lot of weight, and to the point where people are overweight, right, and if you're 87 pounds. Their whole concept of what recovery means for you is getting you to 115 pounds, like that, to them, was what equaled healing. I could have been 150 pounds and not dealt with the true issue beyond the weight, which is how healing really happens right.

Brittany: 31:13

So I, you know, because of my history with the Vyvanse and being on medication and being off medication for almost 10 years, when this all happened I was like I'm not taking your medication so you can write a report to my insurance and kick me the fuck out, cause I'm not going to do that to my body, like I'm not going to numb my superpowers of being able to see things that you can't see, and obviously like I was kind of a black sheep in that realm, because not everyone you know outside of that realm I'm around mystics and energy healers and priestesses and goddesses who are like yeah, of course, duh like we do that all the time.

Brittany: 31:52

Right, exactly, and shamans. But in that realm I was Looney Tunes, so I got kicked out of one. They sent me. I went from California, I came to Arizona, to Wickenburg, which I say is where they send the wicked people. If you've never been to Wickenburg, it's a vibe there, wow, wow.

Brittany: 32:16

So that was. I call it like a combination between jail, rehab and a hospital. That's kind of what it felt like. Wow. So that was. I call it like a combination between jail, rehab and a hospital. That's kind of what it felt like, wow. So I'm sleeping, you know, in a room with four girls on feeding tubes. Everyone's on medication. No, you get woken up at six in the morning to immediately get on a scale, have your finger pricked, stand in a medication line, just like I mean. It was crazy.

Brittany: 32:41

I felt like I was in a movie. I went from literally living in this like fancy beautiful home in what I call like the Beverly Hills of Portland, called Lake Oswego.

Brittany: 32:51

So yeah, I was in this like fancy whole life, to being like in a gown, like a hospital gown, having someone like poke at my body every day and having to eat whatever bullshit they were giving me, having them want to force medication on me every single moment, and you know, I? I want to say that I met so many beautiful souls within that experience. I think that there is a genuine um, not everyone, but there's a genuine community of therapists and doctors and people who were such support to me during a time where I was so disconnected from myself, and I met so many angels within that path who just would give me a spark of hope and a spark of love and a spark of love and a spark of prayer and a spark of genuine um just heart, um and I met people within there who've become like lifelong friends, so I am so grateful for um the community that was in there and things that we went through together.

Brittany: 33:54

But, on a lens of what the treatment model is, it is not at the level of consciousness of where we are on this planet, for what it means to heal.

Brittany: 34:03

And that's where I feel like I need to bring light to an issue that is really important, especially in the relationship between eating disorders and mental health. Mental health is a little bit broad of a spectrum and I think that at different points in our lives, most people have some mental health um you know, thing that they need to work through, whether it's super severe or super. Um you know more mild. But mental health and the relationship to diagnosis and medication is, in my opinion, not um. There's so much more to this story, and the thing with most you know SSRIs and, um ADHD medications is that the dependency that your body on a chemical and cellular level gets to with those medications makes it very difficult to get off of them. So it's it's like you're signing yourself up for a completely different life plan If you succumb to the recommendation of medication as your only mode of treatment.

Jenee : 35:06

Yeah, and the pathology that goes along with that you know, and having therapists say that you know this is maybe it for you, right, you know? And how damaged, how damaging that is in and of itself.

Brittany: 35:20

Yeah, and I want to say that to anyone who's listening, who maybe has struggled with depression, anxiety, ADHD, anything with eating disorder, body image, anything in the realm of feeling like you're crazy because you're having a lot of psychic things come through that you don't know how to understand yet, or maybe have a community around you that understands them and makes you feel like you're kind of like losing it, Like there's so much hope and there's so much hope for a natural way of elevating yourself out of those frequencies.

Brittany: 35:52

I think there's a very complex reason why they happen. You know depression and anxiety especially. You know we live in a very stressed out culture, especially in this country, where we are disconnected from our organic nature. We're disconnected, you know, through the lens of being so available to everyone all the time, digitally, virtually, being on our devices all the time, like not connecting with the elements in a way that is more natural to our ancestors and to parts of our nervous system that feel extremely calmed by that. So this pandemic of depression and anxiety, it's kind of like a rebellion against the way that the artificial intelligence and technological revolution has disconnected us from more of our organic nature. So, you know, I think depression and anxiety are signals of like hey, something's wrong.

Jenee : 36:52

If you have a pain in your back.

Brittany: 36:54

It's like hey something's wrong. It doesn't mean take a medication to numb it and ignore it. A band-aid on it right so there are so many tools and ways in which um transformation out of those energies, because all of those are just levels of consciousness, levels of frequency, and you have infinite, infinite power to transcend out of them yeah, so your fourth.

Jenee : 37:16

After your fourth visit into the hospital, what were you finally? Just like so fuck it, I'm going to do it my way. I'm out, yeah.

Brittany: 37:26

So what was interesting? So the first three were eating disorder specific and everything there was focused on weight and food. How much food did you eat today? How much weight did you gain today? They did go into like you know things about body image and what are you looking at on social media? That's creating the story about your beauty and like that kind of thing. But all day, every day, it was just like food, food, food, food, food. To me, the consciousness of my personal struggle had to do more with the energy of addiction and codependency.

Jenee : 37:58

And I knew that.

Brittany: 37:59

I could it. I could feel it as like a very clear energy, because in my 20s, when I was addicted to the Vyvanse, I was also drinking heavily. So I would like Vyvanse and Starbucks in the morning and wine it at night right, wow, because it was just like the high and the low Yep.

Brittany: 38:17

So when I got off the Vyvanse I also stopped drinking alcohol. That's when I was 27. So I, at this point, had been sober from substances for like seven years. So you know, my addiction thing whatever part of my body that has an addiction tendency now in this layer of my life was getting played out through food and through sex with my partner in this layer of my life was getting played out through food and through sex with my partner.

Brittany: 38:42

We were very, very addicted to sex with each other in a way that created a distorted concept of what love was Um, and was also very depleting to my body because I overrode its signals in that area Totally wanting to like satisfy whatever I thought was what he wanted, kind of thing.

Jenee : 39:01

It's so interesting that you talk about that too, because when I was in my 20s, I had a similar issue where I lost a lot of weight and I was, I kind of had my moment, like you, where I I sort of was like it was my entrance into my black night of the soul and and my, it really took me into my, my shamanic healing path. But I was at that point where I was like, am I going to check out or not? Is this my time to go? And what happened with this particular partner? Was we, um, the sexual? Something about the sexual connection was so toxic and so addictive and when we would hook up, he, I, I really felt like he was vampiric and he would literally drain the life force, energy out of my body. Oh, sister.

Brittany: 40:01

Okay, so I resonate so deeply. So if you think about the sexual energy centers, the sacral, the sacral is also where our stomach is, where we receive nourishment right.

Brittany: 40:11

Where we receive pleasure. Food is also very related to pleasure, so it's like all sacral vibes happening. So I it's wild. So when I first started like really awakening to my work within the energy healing realm, it was multiple Kundalini awakenings, different visions, different you know, just wild experiences, not through ayahuasca or like any psychedelic, like all through meditation, through a modality that I do called body talk. I just had these like spontaneous awakenings and I was celibate for almost four years, just in, like deep meditation, working on myself, getting sober off the Vyvanse, getting sober off the alcohol. I was just like doing me. And in this whole other vortex was just like doing me. And in this whole other vortex.

Jenee : 41:02

So when I met my partner I hadn't had sex in four years.

Brittany: 41:03

Like wow, I you know it was. It was a new thing.

Brittany: 41:06

So my relationship and I never had sober sex, which is also very interesting yeah, um, and so when I met, I started learning about this past within the Egyptian lineage and him and I bonded a lot on Egyptian culture, egyptian philosophy of levels of healing and consciousness, and we did our sound healing through an Egyptian mystery school. So we had this Egyptian lifetime energy together and there's this story that in the time of, like, the priests and the priestesses like in you know, a really high state of power, the priestesses were actually like very magnetic and able to manifest and create and vision and birth things just through their sexual energy practices, through sex magic, totally, totally. And that there became this like distortion of the priests feeling as though they were intimidated by that level of power of the feminine and during sexual magic practices that they would do in that culture there became an intention to siphon the energy from the priestess through the sex Wow. And so I started learning about this us through the sex Wow. And so I started learning about this.

Brittany: 42:20

In literally within the first week of him and I dating, he kissed my third eye and I saw this whole vision of that happening and obviously like he wasn't consciously doing that or like it wasn't an intention. But I think when there's codependent frequencies within any partnership during sexual energy exchange. There can be cords that happen unconsciously, where you are siphoning and taking energy from each other in ways that can be addictive and it can be draining and it can be very toxic and it can be very debilitating to your health and to your energy.

Brittany: 42:56

So that definitely happens to me as well, and it's very confusing, because usually with those people the sex is like another fucking level. So you're like what is happening, right, but it's like a drug like yeah, you can get super high, but the low is a killer, completely so at the.

Jenee : 43:16

At what point do you, kind of like, make this connection? Do you make the connection that, like the parasitic um energy that is siphoning, whether it's something you picked up when you were, you know, as a practitioner or in the relationship? Do you make this connection at some point after like?

Brittany: 43:37

I always knew, yeah, but you know, when you just like lie to yourself, yeah, because you love someone so much or you love the people you're working with so much, and like I had major nice girl, unrecovered vibes, yeah, where my people pleasing, lack of awareness of the ways in which I overrode my body signals or my intuition, I was so in just like the good girl, nice girl, era of like just being the sweetest little thing who never got angry and didn't know how to be angry in a safe way, didn't know how to listen to when she wasn't feeling well, so she just like put on a happy face. I did that even though I knew that these parasitic feelings were true in my body.

Brittany: 44:21

And so I kind of always knew. I always knew, but I lied to myself and it's crazy how long you can lie to yourself and like make yourself really sick into your body and your mind has just had enough. And then you end up in a fucking mental institution saying that you want to kill yourself. Like it can get to that level if you don't listen. It's like those whispers and the whispers, and the whispers and then it gets loud. Your body just like freaks out.

Brittany: 44:45

So I really feel that the eating disorder and the binge eating episodes and the craziness that I was experiencing it was a gift to like shake me out of my nice girl era, like in a way that I could integrate parts of these more difficult emotions of anger or having strong boundaries or being in your like dark feminine power. I did not know how to be that girl. Like I was so afraid of anger, like so uncomfortable with it. I grew up in a household where there was a lot of unexpected anger often, and so to me that was like never a safe emotion and I didn't know how powerful and important anger is to respect as a natural emotion within your system, and so mine started to bottle up into these like crazy episodes of binge eating, because I would feel all the sensation. It's almost like the binge eating was a way to like numb myself for an hour and then feel the aftermath.

Brittany: 45:55

So, yeah, I, you know. So the fourth eating doesn't. It's funny. You say like what transition cause the fourth one was very different. So the fourth one, I decided I was like you know what I'm done with the eating disorder treatment world Cause it's not working.

Brittany: 46:11

Yeah, I want to go to an addiction recovery center. So I found an addiction recovery center called Evolutions in Florida and I went there and so in there, yeah, they deal with some people have eating disorders, but the majority of people that are in that treatment center they are coming off of fentanyl, heroin, alcohol, cocaine. It's crazy Like it's literally like an environment that I never expected that I would willingly put myself in. I thought I was in a movie.

Brittany: 46:43

However, that's where I actually had a breakthrough was in that center, because the energy of addiction and the energy of codependency was what was focused on and had nothing to do with food.

Brittany: 46:55

So I ate what I would want to eat, normally very healthy things I ordered in all of my own food. They didn't care. So I ate what I would want to eat, normally very healthy things. I ordered in all of my own food. I they didn't care what I ate. They didn't care if I gained weight. They just wanted to see whatever I identified as healing and creating a plan around that and helping me make a breakthrough in that way. So it actually was.

Brittany: 47:17

You know, although the the level of the environment was not the highest energy, right, these are a lot of people who grew up in very difficult lives, with parents on drugs and you know, I I had one of, like my very good friends in there who worked there. He overdosed while he was in there, like that type of energy. I never thought that I would be around, yeah, but I brought sound healing there. I taught yoga every morning, I did workout classes and like got everyone into working out, and it ended up being a place where I healed through getting back to my work in being of service where.

Brittany: 48:02

I had purpose again like people wanted to learn about sound healing. They wanted to learn about my essential oils. They like wanted to come to my room and like do a body talk session. They're like please, can you like teach yoga tomorrow morning? Can you play sound bowl every lunch break, like we'll, instead of like doing the lunch activity, like we want to like come to your sound class.

Brittany: 48:23

So I created, like this community of um education in a place like that that did not have some of these more holistic um shamanic tools or energy healing tools, because that wasn't a part of the protocol, it wasn't a part of the recovery, it wasn't a part of the recovery plan, and I had many people in there tell me that some of their biggest breakthroughs or states of peace or hope came from my sound healing sessions. And so that's where I started to feel a sense of myself again, because so much of my identity and mission on this planet is to facilitate that work and to feel as though I have purpose in helping others. Um, and I could get back to that purpose with more um energy to do it.

Jenee : 49:09

Wow, and and I'm so curious, now that you're you're you are exercising a lot. I don't sense that you're in the like workout craze where I feel like working out can be a cult in and of itself and it can be so you know, kind of like how you started. Yeah.

Brittany: 49:32

It's. It's a very interesting culture because, you know, coming from my background where my partner was a trainer, all a lot of my friends were trainers. I worked at gyms, I was just in that realm. And fitness is healthy, it's necessary.

Brittany: 49:47

It's a very foundational part of our um, you know, evolution into becoming our best self is to have a really strong fitness practice. I think where it can be a tricky mental and emotional and spiritual place is where there's this little signal in your body and if you're in touch enough with yourself to know how to navigate that voice or that sensation, I think that, um, you know, you can be more balanced in a way that your masculine and feminine energies within yourself are both having equal say Right. So, like for me, I went from doing a lot of bar and yoga and, like a lot of you know, dance and like being very fluid and feminine, to very rigid in weightlifting a certain type of way for many hours and with a very clear intention of having a very specific body type that I could control, right, and so I think that finding dynamic movement that is varied Right.

Brittany: 50:53

So like you're not weightlifting super heavy seven days a week, and only doing that Right.

Brittany: 50:59

It's like having those strength days, having more mobility, flexibility, kind of yoga days, swimming days, running days, having dancing days, having twerking days, having pole dance class days, having ice skating days, right, and like just finding a more, just a fun approach to movement where you're honoring a desire to elevate your body into different, you know, challenges or potential for its growth or evolution, or strength or beauty, but not from a place of creating an identity around your worth based on that, absolutely, absolutely.

Jenee : 51:40

I feel like we could talk for another half an hour.

Brittany: 51:42

I know there's so much, oh my gosh, there's so much to go into.

Jenee : 51:45

I want to have you back on.

Brittany: 51:49

Yeah, so I will say too. So just to like close the story yeah, After I checked out of that treatment center, I ended up moving back to Portland. I like tried to get back with the ex wasn't flowing, obviously wasn't going to work out and I found on Instagram this doctor named Dr Brett Jones.

Jenee : 52:10

Yes, and I saw that he was doing. I'm so glad you're bringing this back. Thank you.

Brittany: 52:14

Well, like how I got here and I started mentoring with him through a coaching group that he has called the Healing Way, and I bought this program called the Healing Codes and even when I got out of that treatment center I didn't feel better, like I got a little bit of myself back, but I was still having binge episodes. The thing wasn't healed. Whatever the thing was, it was not better. The thing wasn't healed, whatever the.

Jenee : 52:38

Thing was.

Brittany: 52:38

it was not better and I, in the three months after I got out of treatment in Florida, I had multiple, multiple binge disorder episodes again. So there was not healing, Even though there was shift there was not healing.

Brittany: 52:51

Yeah, so I meet Dr Brett and I start doing in January of this year, this online coaching group with him, called the healing way, where we meet weekly.

Brittany: 53:00

This is a group that still exists that we're going to be launching in 2024 that you can message me or reach out to learn more about.

Brittany: 53:08

But as soon as I started connecting with him, he took me through on our second call, one of the most potent, transformational coaching experiences just over zoom, 40 minute, like interaction. Where I'm in Portland, he's in Tucson, and he created a vision for a potential for my next chapter, like on the other side of really having this eating disorder completely gone from my mind and from my body in a way that like it's hard to put into words because it was so shamanic the level of energy that moved. And with that, like three days after that, I had a dream that I was in Tucson, like meeting him and meeting his whole team and like being here. And the next morning he texted me and he's like hey, would you ever come to Tucson, cause I had a dream that you being here. And the next morning he texted me and he's like hey, would you ever come to Tucson? Cause I had a dream that you were here? No way.

Jenee : 54:02

And I'm like.

Brittany: 54:02

I had the same dream. That's amazing.

Brittany: 54:05

I come to Tucson and my breakthrough and truly healing the eating disorder has been through this community here, has been through doing work with you through our different ceremonies and Ricky, and through this healing way coaching group, and also there's something very potent about the energy and the medicine of the desert for me, right Like I first got off the medication when I came to Sedona, like Arizona, something for me, Um and so, through my work with um, the source chiropractic, through my work with the healing way, that's where I've been able to let go of this eating disorder this year, to where those thoughts, those behaviors since I moved to Tucson has not even been a part of my reality anymore.

Jenee : 54:49

Amazing.

Brittany: 54:50

I just wanted to give praise to Tucson for saving my soul and just opening up a whole different life, and I'm really honored and excited to be able to share this story. So thank you for having me.

Brittany: 55:03

Thank, you so much I'm going to be in 2024, opening up my books again, to be doing quantum energy and sound healing work, specifically with people who are struggling with eating disorders, because I think one of the most potent aspects of having a mentor, a coach, counselor, like someone who's holding space for your transformation with that particular issue, is actually that they embody the codes of being on the other side of it from having been in it, so I'm really grateful to be on that other side and be able to open that, and then you also have a cookbook coming out, or do you have a?

Brittany: 55:40

cookbook already it's building.

Brittany: 55:43

it's called mermaid magic cookbook and I actually love creating just like the most delicious organic wild recipes of like all varieties, like, if you follow my Instagram stories, you'll see something most days, and so I I feel like a big way that I'm going to serve kind of the higher realm of eating disorder recovery and bringing a voice is to get this cookbook and this book into different treatment centers, different support groups. But it's going to be a cookbook, but it's also going to talk a lot about my journey with eating disorder body image um, body dysmorphia and how recovery um through nourishment and unconditional love, through nourishment and through food um has been a support in my transformation. Wow.

Jenee : 56:30

Oh my gosh, I've learned so much from you, just like being, you know, part of your cleanse group, and just oh, I love it. I cannot wait to see what blossoms from your work.

Brittany: 56:42

I'm so so proud of you, I'm so inspired by you. I'm also taking singing lessons right now. With who? With Shiloh.

Jenee : 56:49

Why aren't you taking them with me? I should be taking them with you. Oh, shiloh Ray, yeah, oh, she's amazing.

Brittany: 56:54

Yeah, okay, I want to do it with everyone, that's okay.

Jenee : 56:57

Shiloh is the best.

Brittany: 56:58

Oh my gosh, but I'm so inspired by you and actually at our last ceremony, on Dia de los Muertos, I got to sing alongside you for the first time, and I want to also say like singing and dancing has been such a potent medicine in my recovery. It's something that I was so disconnected from when I was in the disorder. I couldn't sing, I couldn't listen to music, I couldn't dance, I couldn't do any of those feminine things.

Brittany: 57:26

So I just want to thank you for bringing such a beautiful gift to this world through your music and through your teaching of sound and voice, because I think that vocal toning and using your voice has such a power for attuning your frequency into a different vibration in a way that, um, everyone, deserves to know more.

Jenee : 58:12

You, thank you. Love Got questions about a certain healing modality or about heart-centered healing, or maybe you just need some advice on life, love or creativity. Send it my way. Email me at letters at heartlightpodcastcom. Until next time, I'm Janae Halstead, and thanks for listening to Heartlight Sessions. My heart like a thousand volts of sunshine. Thank you.