Embracing Authenticity and Overcoming Trauma for Wellness

Valerie Holbert, an intuitive energy healer and Reiki master, joins us on this transformative episode of Everyday Shaman. Once a graphic artist, Valerie's life took a radical turn after a fibromyalgia diagnosis and numerous unexplained health issues. Discover how her deep dive into yoga, naturopathy, and energy healing not only alleviated her symptoms but also unveiled the profound connection between physical ailments and unresolved trauma. Valerie emphasizes the crucial role of addressing internal struggles for holistic healing and growth, shedding light on the power of trusted guides, sacred spaces, and community support.

Transitioning from graphic design to holistic health was no easy feat for Valerie, especially after experiencing the betrayal that shook her trust. This episode uncovers her journey through yoga and trauma-informed care, highlighting the transformative effects of these practices on her own healing. We explore the "dark night of the soul," a pivotal period pushing individuals towards greater self-awareness and healing. Valerie’s story underscores that anyone can become a healer by embracing authenticity and helping others navigate their paths to wellness.

Valerie dives into diverse holistic healing methods, explaining the journey to becoming a Reiki master and the importance of gradual learning and personal growth. We discuss the unpredictable nature of energy healing sessions and the involvement of guides or ancestors. Valerie also touches on the significance of frequency and vibration in our well-being, the concept of "good selfishness," and essential self-care boundaries. Whether in-person or remote, Valerie’s insights into the nuanced world of energy work and the profound effects of ancestral healing are bound to inspire and enlighten. Tune in to learn how sacred reciprocity with Earth and navigating personal energy amidst a sea of external influences can catalyze holistic healing.

Transcript

Jeffrey Brunk: 1:22

Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Everyday Shaman. I'm your host, jeffrey Brunk, and I'm very pleased today to have a very special guest with me. His name is Valerie Holbert. Valerie is an intuitive energy healer, a Reiki master, ryt 500 health and wellness coach and inner presence coach. Like many other healers, her deepest traumas and wounds led to her discovering her gifts and calling as a healer. She believes we are living in a time where the call to move through old patterns and reconnect ourselves to each other and the planet is getting stronger, louder and more intense Now. So more than ever, we need trusted guides, sacred spaces and community to support our transformation as individuals and as a collective.

Jeffrey Brunk: 2:09

Valerie believes transforming our struggles and our strengths is where we all have opportunity to find inner healing and expansion and extend that healing to the world around us. Her experiences have led her to knowing that our internal world is directly connected to the world around us. Valerie says it may feel selfish to do deep inner work when it seems the world is on fire, but it's actually the medicine. It's easy to feel stuck, sad, angry, overwhelmed, constricted and even afraid. For many of us, we're finding we are no longer willing or able to stay stuck in that place and the old ways aren't working anymore.

Jeffrey Brunk: 2:47

In Valerie's own journey, as well as in work with her clients, she's found that integrating multiple modalities like intuitive energy healing, breath work, guided meditation, movement parts work and other mind-body practices provide the safety and space to cultivate extraordinary growth, healing and spiritual connection. When she's not with clients, you will likely find her thrifting, kayaking on a local river, ocean or lake, snuggling with her crazy dogs and family, staring at the moon in clouds or planning her next adventure. So welcome, valerie, it's great to have you here.

Valerie Holbert: 3:23

Yeah, I'm excited to be here.

Jeffrey Brunk: 3:25

Looking at your background, it seems like you seems like we have a whole lot in common. We do For those that don't know, valerie and I worked together. What was it more than 20 years ago?

Valerie Holbert: 3:37

Yeah, in the 90s, right Late 90s yeah, okay.

Jeffrey Brunk: 3:41

And both of us at that time at least for myself I didn't know that we would end up doing what we're doing now.

Valerie Holbert: 3:49

No, definitely not.

Jeffrey Brunk: 3:51

You know, working in the graphic arts field for a national baseball publication is a far cry from energy healing. So what led you, or what happened in your life, to kind of flip the switch, so to speak, and to take you down this road of wanting to better yourself and help others?

Valerie Holbert: 4:14

Yeah, well, you know, on the one hand I wouldn't have thought back in those days that I would be doing the type of healing I am now. But I was always torn between art and healing, but in a more traditional sense. I thought maybe I wanted to be a physical therapist or do art therapy or even massage therapy. So it was always torn between the two worlds. But my experience initially it was around health crisis. So I in my early 20s had a fibromyalgia diagnosis. That stemmed from a laundry list of symptoms. You know, I had vertigo, I had pretty much chronic pain, some of that stuff. When. You know, when we were working together I didn't really share it a lot with people and traditional medicine basically said we don't know what's wrong with you. Here's a prescription for antidepressants or pain medicine.

Valerie Holbert: 5:15

You know, those things didn't help.

Jeffrey Brunk: 5:17

That seems to be the go-to.

Valerie Holbert: 5:19

Yes, even now, for a lot of people really. And you know, like we said, this was late nineties and the triangle area of North Carolina, and so I began to seek out alternative healing methods. You know I found yoga. This was in a church basement. This was before yoga studios were around, especially in the South. You know, I started seeing like naturopaths and other types of healers, massage and even some energy workers, and you know things that for the time were pretty out there.

Jeffrey Brunk: 5:51

Well, did you find that when you were going to energy healers and I know yoga can be very beneficial I tried yoga as well, and I don't have the body for it. You know I'm too compact to really bend over that way. Right. I can do the sunrise easily, but when it comes to bending and touching my toes, that was different. But did you find that it made a difference doing alternative methods or going to alternative healers?

Valerie Holbert: 6:21

Yeah, it did. Even back then it was a beginning for me.

Valerie Holbert: 6:26

Yeah, it did. Even back then it was a beginning for me. And I'll fast forward a little bit to say that what I was beginning to find in that journey and that I found later as a healer was that for me those symptoms were showing up because of trauma in my life, some childhood trauma, some of which I was just starting to remember and things that I had been through. And you know we hold that in our bodies like the body keeps the score, the issues in the tissues, these sort of things and that was showing up for me in these physical ways. And so, yes, I was beginning to find some relief in those and some moments of relief. And also, you know, all of those things are designed from a physical perspective to help us become more comfortable in our bodies, also an energetic perspective. So it was helping, but it was. You know it was a slow process. I didn't have like an instant moment in that particular awakening. I had more of that with some later things, but it was you know a beginning.

Jeffrey Brunk: 7:29

I like the issues in the tissue, saying I gravitate towards dis-ease causing disease and stress causing ulcers comparison. And so many people stuff those things down, whether it's childhood traumas or any type of traumas. Right. They tend to hold on to them and that will manifest in many ways, both emotionally and physically, whether it's feeling sorry for oneself or anger, something happening to them that's causing them not to be able to function correctly.

Jeffrey Brunk: 8:03

Now, with fibromyalgia, I also had a bit of an experience not personally with fibromyalgia but, during my upheaval, dark night of the soul, shaman sickness, whatever you want to call it boot up the butt. I was going to court ordered therapy and did this for 10 years and it got to be. It got to the point where my therapist and I it was more of a friendship visit for an hour once a month. But at one point one of her colleagues came into our meeting, into her office, and asked me. She said you know, I have a. I have a have a young girl that I've been working with and she has fibromyalgia.

Jeffrey Brunk: 8:43

Doctors can't find a cure or can't find a reason why she has it. Is there anything you can do? And at the point at that point I was, I think, at my level three in my Reiki training and I found it very one it blew my mind that I'm in with a psychologist who's coming to ask for my help. But there's a lot of say autoimmune disorders as well that doctors can't explain and the go-to for not necessarily the psychologist but the psychiatrist is to prescribe a medication. And that just further dulls that inner voice or the ability to let things go that people have stuffed down inside. If you don't mind me asking what type of traumas were they that you know of that started causing some of these issues for you?

Valerie Holbert: 9:35

Yeah, yeah, I don't mind sharing. I'll say quickly that, in terms of fibromyalgia and autoimmune conditions, we know now, like science shows, that something like 80% of people with fibromyalgia autoimmune conditions have had would score high on a adverse childhood experiences test or ACE test. It's much higher in women. But science is starting to support kind of what you know, we've experienced and know intuitively about that connection. So for me, when I was almost three, my dad died in a gun accident and I actually witnessed it happen, and so that in and of itself was a traumatic experience.

Valerie Holbert: 10:20

And part of the time after that was spending a lot of time with extended family, including an uncle that I stayed with. That wasn't safe. There was some abuse from that uncle that continued on and off for several years and it wasn't really until, of course, the part with my dad we talked about. But I had made some accusations against this uncle and like, all of a sudden, memories and things started making sense to me that you know, you hear these kinds of stories and you think, well, how can someone not know, how can they not remember or like know that they have these traumatic experiences? Well, you know, our mind and our parts want to protect us, right, and we also contextualize these things as children want to protect us, right, and we also contextualize these things as children. But so I started remembering things and realizing that I had been abused by this relative as well.

Valerie Holbert: 11:38

But it took me some time to, you know, have conversations, like with my mom about it or with other people. And I even had a friend recently that I shared about and she was like I didn't know that you had this experience, you know. So I think oftentimes, like you know, we might not know on a conscious level, even initially. Sometimes we might be really super aware of what it is. But so for me, it was largely around those things and I had a lot of figuring out to do, you know, and I'd done a lot of disassociation over the years, right, so, as a, as a way of coping, and really I found out later, like I thought, you know, sometimes it comes in waves, like I thought I'd like done the work and then in my forties again, you know, then it was like, oh well, here's another layer for you with some other things.

Jeffrey Brunk: 12:21

Yeah, that's. That's sort of the way it goes. You think you're on one path that you're meant to be on and all of a sudden it's, it's. It can come out of the blue that, oh, this is not where I'm meant to be and you're taken in another direction. And if you listen and you go in that direction when you're listening is a hard part. Also, letting go or being being able to have someone to tell these things to is extremely important. I've personally worked with so many people that did not.

Jeffrey Brunk: 12:51

And again, you and I have discussed and I've discussed before men are the toughest ones to work with because they don't want to admit things, and traditional therapy I don't believe is the most advantageous way for someone to go, because you can still pick and choose what you you know, what you want to share, and not really the things that are darker and deeper that you, that you know about.

Jeffrey Brunk: 13:14

You don't want to put them out there for fear of men especially, appearing weak or appearing as a victim. Be a victim and I'm just curious when did you, did you ever reach a point where it was like I need to work on myself, and how did you do that? Because I think so many people need to know how to address these things with themselves, of just being given. Oh well, you're depressed, or you're because these types of traumas like you're discussing. They're, they're, they're dark, they're, they're difficult things to get over and they weren't repressed.

Jeffrey Brunk: 13:54

Didn't you remember them, even from that early age, right? Yeah. How did you go about addressing those things on a personal level, having discussing them to get to where you would be able to help others within similar circumstances?

Valerie Holbert: 14:13

Yeah, I mean, I think the answer is kind of a both and of what you're asking about doing it for myself versus a traditional way, because in one of your earlier podcasts you were sharing the piece of how oftentimes, probably especially for our generation, that we're, you know, traditional way, because in one of your earlier podcasts you were sharing you know the piece of how oftentimes, probably especially for our generation, that we're expected to do things a certain way. Right, you're kind of expected make good grades, you get a good college, you get a good job, a traditional type of job. And so while I did very early on, you know, do some pretty unconventional things that I took initiative on myself because the traditional medical system wasn't helping at all, I also still parts of me felt like I had to stay within that traditional framework. You know I could only go so far out of it, both in my career or even in the healing methods I was choosing for myself. The healing methods I was choosing for myself, although some of them, like I said to a lot of people, were pretty out there.

Valerie Holbert: 15:09

So I was sort of slowly, like you know, I moved from graphic design to yoga, right. So at a time where yoga was becoming more accepted and kind of focusing on trauma, informed yoga and how psychology overlaps with that and yoga therapy. That was like the program I did. And then I did a health coaching training that was holistic, where I could, you know, go down that more traditional avenue of like diet and movement but bring in these other pieces of what health means. And then I brought in the energy training part means, and then I brought in the energy training part, so when you were doing yoga and movement exercises.

Jeffrey Brunk: 15:50

it's a way of quieting your mind, which is extremely important, but it also puts you in a flow and this is going to sound crazy to listeners and deep but, it's a flow of a form of physics.

Jeffrey Brunk: 16:03

You're being one with, say, the wind, or you're one with yourself, but also in flow with everything around you. It's a connection. So I've learned, and I'm sure you have too, that when you begin this journey into becoming a healer or becoming yourself and I think anyone can be a healer, and I don't say that lightly, I think anyone can has within them not necessarily an energy healer, but if they are at a place where they are their authentic selves, they're able to help others. So when you're doing these things in the beginning it's like taking steps to getting to different levels. There's different tiers With me. I found that it seemed funny at the time. I actually didn't seem funny, but everyone was coming to me. Can you tell me what my spirit animal is? And it started with that type thing.

Jeffrey Brunk: 16:56

And now being to a point where I'm working with so much dark trauma within people, abuse and suicide attempts and just all kinds of things, and it's going from hey, here's a cute little animal to working with darkness and things, and I found that it was like taking baby steps and then you reach a point and there's a break and nothing happens. And I've learned that. It was a time for me to both rest and be ready for what comes next and you know, the next download, which is going to be more intense.

Jeffrey Brunk: 17:32

Right Not necessarily going from zero to 60, but zero to 20.

Valerie Holbert: 17:37

And yeah, yeah, I mean, you know, initially I was drawn to yoga because I had this moment in a yoga class where I was aware it was the first time I had not been in physical pain, and I didn't know how long. And this was in my 20s. You're not supposed to be having pain in your entire body all the time when you're 24 years old or whatever. And so I was like, wow, it just gave me a lot of hope that if I can have a moment, you know, a minute without pain, then I can have more than that. And you know, as I continued with yoga and you know my training as a teacher, unfortunately, I think a lot of yoga culture focuses on the asana, the movement and the practice and, you know, getting into a certain pose.

Valerie Holbert: 18:20

But you know, the other parts of yoga there's a lot of other parts to yoga are about like being comfortable in our body, right, like creating internal space. And for people who have been through trauma, you know that's what autoimmune conditions are. We're fighting our own body, so it can be scary to be in our own body. So I think that for me, especially looking back, that's why I was so drawn to yoga. It was like these baby steps, like you said, to being able to be in our body, because oftentimes not, pain has a message, right, and it's just going to get louder if we don't get still and quiet and really take a look at it, and it can be dark and painful, but so you have to take a step two in recognizing that you have to let go of things which can be frightening because it can lead to change.

Jeffrey Brunk: 19:12

And I found change for anyone can be a frightening thing, whether it's changing a job or moving to a new town, or having a child or whatever it may be. So did you feel, as you moved along and became more cognizant of what was causing the pain and the thing? Was it frightening for you to let go of certain things and move ahead? Because I think that's what really holds people back, a lot of people back, from taking those steps to better themselves, because fear is a great motivator, in a way that it's a negative motivator, but motivator in keeping you where you are.

Valerie Holbert: 19:48

Yeah, I think fear definitely was a factor that held me back or maybe slowed me down, because I felt so this feeling like I had to stay within these traditional ish you know roles and you know, and being married and being a parent and being someone who was doing a lot of care for others and not realizing I wasn't doing that for myself. And it really took a second more like impactful dark night of the soul experience, when I was already kind of in the world of yoga and coaching and just pretty early on in my energy healing experience, to really like. I mean, you know, like if we're not getting the message when it's gentle, we're going to get it more intense. And you know, it really took that to like knock me on my you know what and just really be forced into like the next level and just really be forced into, like the next level?

Jeffrey Brunk: 20:48

Yeah, so when that happens because it's not that a dark night of the soul or shaman sickness, it's not a one-time thing, right, and life still goes on, even for healers. And when we don't listen, we're caught up in the throes of life and everything it throws at you and you don't hear it. It's not necessarily refusing to hear it at this point Early on. For me it was refusing to hear it because of the fear. And you refuse it long enough, you do get the boot up the butt and it is more intense. So you got to that point. Did you get to a point where you got it like? It's like, if you're not gonna listen, here's the slap yeah, yeah, I did.

Valerie Holbert: 21:33

I um, I mean, and I can share what that one was if, or be more general about it. I don't know what's more helpful in the, however, context as much as you want to share, feel comfortable sharing.

Valerie Holbert: 21:44

You know it's up to you yeah, I mean I'll share it because it's something that I thought about sharing for a while and before I was actually separated and on the way to divorce, I had reasons to kind of not share it so much. But so we my partner at the time and I were looking for some support in our marriage and not really resonating with traditional therapy, and so we found someone who was a coach and had presented themselves as being trauma-informed and spoke this really spiritual language and these things that just sounded like things that I resonated with. The short version is that this person, who was a woman and my husband at the time, developed what started as an emotional affair and then turned into more than that, and my partner at the time lied to me. This woman lied to me. This was a healer in our community. So it was months before I found out and she posted on her social media.

Jeffrey Brunk: 22:44

Healer in name only.

Valerie Holbert: 22:46

Right, right, yeah, and it was just so. There was, like this triangulation of like there was a betrayal with my partner. There was a betrayal with her. There was I had all this fear in our community where we had overlapping spiritual groups. I felt like I couldn't speak out, you know. But I wanted justice and later my partner and I did reconcile and try to work things out and then separated again a year ago.

Valerie Holbert: 23:12

But when that all happened, when that hit the fan, I was just devastated. I never thought that that could happen in my marriage. I had a lot of shame because I had found this woman. I was the one that took us there. It was truly that dark night of the soul where, like you know, you have these moments where you're just like in the grocery store, crying, staring at the you know whatever's in front of you. But it was also such a gift. I mean I realized I was still disassociated, I'd still been disassociating about so many things and, like when you're knocked down, like that, you just you can't disassociate anymore, like you're cracked open to the point that you have to rebuild yourself, you know.

Jeffrey Brunk: 23:54

And so your your issues, I mean stemming from your childhood experiences and then this happening trust was something you struggled with. Yeah, absolutely Trust was something you struggled with.

Valerie Holbert: 24:05

Yeah, absolutely.

Jeffrey Brunk: 24:06

That's something I believe that people that are more open and aware they're so sensitive, but when it comes to family and those closest to us, that's where we're most vulnerable. Yeah. Because we don't expect it. Then it leads to can I trust my friends? And then, eventually, if people don't recognize it within themselves that that is a shadow element of themselves, it can lead down the rabbit holes of YouTube. And then, all of a sudden, the conspiracy theories and you're living on the planet as a lizard person, or lizard people are all around you.

Jeffrey Brunk: 24:47

you know, because you don't trust the government, you don't trust anyone, and I'm not saying you specifically. So, yeah, those, those issues of trust. It's kind of like the disease thing or the stress causing ulcers. Issues of trust can also manifest themselves emotionally, but you would also repress these things. It takes people a while to recognize things, and sometimes it's days and sometimes it's years. Uh-huh. Now, after the body and the yoga exercises, and you still practice. Yeah, where did that lead you to? What was next?

Valerie Holbert: 25:29

still practice. Yeah, where did that lead you to? What was next? So after that I had started a program for the health coaching because because there were things about changes in diet and stress management and that sort of thing that were helpful for me at the time and I wanted to. I wanted my work to help other people and we touched on this before but oftentimes for people who are experiencing these autoimmune conditions and sort of mystery symptoms, they don't get help from the traditional medical system and feel very, you know, not heard or seen or sometimes even told. It's all in their head and you know. So I wanted to be able to support people moving through that and I had always been curious about energy healing and Reiki and found someone to do like a one-on-one training with for my Reiki over an extended period of time.

Jeffrey Brunk: 26:17

How long? How long was the period of time?

Valerie Holbert: 26:21

For that Reiki one was probably maybe six to eight months, and then another six to eight months for Reiki two. So a couple of years for one and two with this one person. She'd stopped doing classes and was doing it one on one, and then I had like another year before I went and did Reiki three. So you took time, which I think is important.

Jeffrey Brunk: 26:42

Yeah, I totally agree with you. I went. It took four years for me because I didn't get it. It's just took taking time between the different levels of myself. And it's funny because last night my wife was on Facebook and saw one of those ads become a Reiki master online and over the weekend.

Jeffrey Brunk: 27:07

Oh, those things just really ripped me. And she replied. She put a post on there and I was so proud of her for doing this about. She kind of ripped them, but she does it in a nice way you know about. You can't learn Reiki online. You can't become a. Reiki master in a month or two months, because they're money-making things. And.

Jeffrey Brunk: 27:30

I've run into Reiki masters or Reiki practitioners in the past that look at it as just a business. They don't approach it with a sense of actually wanting to provide betterment to people. It's a way to have a business and make money. And I've been turned back. I was once turned away from a reggae master and she said I'm sorry, I'm not taking new customers, new clients, and I'm like how do you turn people away? And so for to hear that you took the time to actually take these things in and make them part of who you are and use them properly. That also gave you time to, I guess, further discover where you're to go next.

Valerie Holbert: 28:14

Yeah, and I think that piece is so important because I know a lot. For some people, reiki is a tool that they use for themselves and it might not be a part of their work. And for me that know this that second wave of the dark night of the soul came kind of in the early stage of that, after I'd started it, but pretty early on, and that was also a powerful part of really opening me up. You know, I I learned quite a few things during that time, including that I was, I was not a good receiver. I wanted to help other people, but I was terrible at letting other people help me and realizing how important that is, how vital that is, that I can't, couldn't really be fully present for other people, you know, if I wasn't letting other people do that for me and doing it for myself. The reason why that the timing was like that for me?

Valerie Holbert: 29:13

because then when I started doing um, practicing reiki on others, it was just like all of these things started coming through and happening in ways that were well, I mean, I guess, to my like thinking mind unexpected, but also parts of me always knew and had experiences with um, but the back to the time piece I do. I personally think that is really valuable and my teacher said, like you had, there were certain things that we had to do before she was even willing to move on to the next level. You know, a certain number of days on a personal practice, a certain amount of time doing this, a certain number of distance sessions on other people.

Jeffrey Brunk: 29:51

Now, when you have worked with others, do you find that the ones that may have more traumatic things in their lives are more open, and have you seen, within anyone that you've seen them go on to, to also help people?

Valerie Holbert: 30:11

Have I seen others go on? I guess I'm having trouble thinking of a specific example of that, but but I think that's very common, you know, because for people who have been through those kinds of experiences intensely, you know I think there is a real desire to help experiences intensely, you know, I think there is a real desire to help other people. You know that we know and see are struggling.

Jeffrey Brunk: 30:38

Yeah, I know. For me I from a very young age. I always knew I wanted to help people, but I didn't know how. I was supposed to or what I was supposed to do. So I think that kind of led in a way to having six page resume worth of jobs and looking for where I was supposed to be, and then probably an eight page resume that would include all of my religious searching. And I can name a couple of specific examples, but of people that I'll use Dan as an example.

Valerie Holbert: 31:10

Right.

Jeffrey Brunk: 31:11

He didn't go through. I mean, he's had his traumas in his life but he didn't get the boot up to Key Street. He came fairly quickly through it.

Jeffrey Brunk: 31:20

But I've also seen people that did go through things that they were in a hole that seemed to them impossible to climb out of and now they're doing very well, and others that really weren't in a hole that I worked with but they didn't do anything to help better themselves and now they just you know they'll be better for a little while and go back to the same place because they it's not like taking penicillin for an infection.

Jeffrey Brunk: 31:49

When you receive any type of healing. It's a two-way street and you have to do things for yourself. So it makes it frustrating for us, because we know what's happening and we know what can happen, but we can't do anything to help the person change their mind or to see things until it's time for them to see it, whether it's in a good, peaceful, transition type way, like it was for us, with the slap across the face from the divine that's going to listen. Especially if you're meant to be and I think we're all meant to help others, right, I think some of us are meant to help others in a greater way, and not individually, but collectively as well.

Valerie Holbert: 32:32

Right.

Jeffrey Brunk: 32:33

Which leads me to something. And I have I'm just going to read this this was in things you sent because I want you to explain this, because I'm not exactly.

Valerie Holbert: 32:42

Okay, I hope I can.

Jeffrey Brunk: 32:45

One of the downloads that I've gotten and also come up in sessions as a client, around sacred reciprocity with Pachamama and how she wants us to release to her for composting and to clear heavy energies. I think a lot of us feel guilty about that because of what humans have done to the earth and that actually disconnects us even more. So what exactly are you saying there? Maybe? I'm too much on the word composting.

Valerie Holbert: 33:16

Well, I'll see, I'll see if I can explain myself. So, yeah, well, it's come up in quite a few different ways over the last few years repeatedly and for me, when I hit, when things come up repeatedly, you know I'm definitely like okay, like I'm paying attention to that. And for me, when things come up repeatedly, I'm definitely like okay, I'm paying attention to that. And it has shown up both for myself and hearing other people say things. So I have a friend who's a shaman that I see regularly. I still see other healers as an important part of what I'm doing for myself to show up for other people.

Valerie Holbert: 33:47

And a lot of the sessions that we've done have been where we're calling in the spirit of the earth, pachamama, to help release and clear heavy energy, or Hoochah right, and you know, and part of the sacred reciprocity in those sessions is, you know, giving thanks and breath back.

Valerie Holbert: 34:07

And then, but outside of sessions, I find myself running into a lot of people, especially healers or people who are really conscious about the earth and wanting to treat the earth better, but they have so much guilt that it's like, instead of wanting to interact with the earth in a way of ritual or feeling okay about giving to the earth.

Valerie Holbert: 34:32

They feel guilty about that because of the damage we've done as humans to the earth and it's actually blocking them from being able to connect to the earth. Right, it's Mother Earth. She wants to nurture us and she wants to take what's no longer serving us and, you know, release it into the earth. That's what I mean by the composting right, like I've even had some guided meditations where it's like you know, visualize that what you're releasing, going to the earth and things growing up from that. So I think this like guilt and shame around, oh, like humans have destroyed the planet, which in a lot of ways, we have right. But but you know, like that doesn't mean that we can't still interact with the earth and with Pachamama in these ways that are still reciprocal.

Jeffrey Brunk: 35:20

Yeah, we have to. I mean, I think it's the earth is healing and the earth is going to be here long after humankind is gone. It's regenerated itself many times, you know. Giving back to the earth, I do a thing here. We live way down in the woods and I like taking night walks, and whether it's during those walks or it's during times that I'm outside during the day, I thank the earth for what it's given us and for allowing us to be here. And.

Jeffrey Brunk: 35:54

I also apologize for what we have done with intention.

Jeffrey Brunk: 35:59

I think everything's important to do with intention, and I have also gone around not just the 10 acres we're on, but the 10 empty acres beside us. I tend to incorporate, for some reason and it's not that I studied it, but Native American or indigenous traditions and methods, and so I'll give offerings and blessings to the land but also ask for not forgiveness. But I apologize for what people have done in the past past, what people have done currently or what they're doing currently. What we're we're not aware. People are not aware of the connectedness of, say, an example, so much as like a dead tree falling and how it feeds life in other ways. The tree may be dead, but it's feeding the soil, which is feeding insects within the soil, which is then feeding the birds, and it comes around in such a big circle and people aren't aware of how nature takes care of itself, but it also takes care of us. Right, we've gotten away from those traditional, really ancient ways of thinking that we call them ancient ways, but they're the right ways.

Valerie Holbert: 37:07

Right.

Jeffrey Brunk: 37:08

Because everything is given to us and everything right. You know, order something from Amazon, you got it the next day. You want information. You know it keeps us even from getting outdoors and appreciating the earth, or appreciating the beauty of a single bloom on a flower, or the sound of a bee. Yeah. You know the small things that can help us awaken to other things within us that we need to address.

Valerie Holbert: 37:34

Yeah, yeah, and I think you're absolutely right and it goes back to that kind of both and piece, that it is important to go out into nature and to apologize and to do things that we do have control over in terms of how we're treating the earth. And it's also important to receive from the earth in the ways of releasing but also just receiving the beauty. I was just running into so many people that were like the guilt of that was keeping them from being able to connect with the earth and, interestingly, it's kind of a parallel to what I was saying before about receiving, like being able to receive from other people in order to more fully give. So, yeah, I just think that it's important to not let that sort of guilt or fear or like the world's on fire and the earth is mad at us or mad at me to be in the way of finding the ways to connect, you know, with nature.

Jeffrey Brunk: 38:36

Yeah, I don't believe the earth is mad at us. I believe the earth is reacting to our own actions that we, whether we're aware of them or not, have affected it. It's not that it's purposely going to come back and bite us on purpose.

Valerie Holbert: 38:53

Right.

Jeffrey Brunk: 38:54

We're we're creating that for ourselves.

Valerie Holbert: 38:57

Right, and so if we change what we're creating right, that's where that internal work comes in. Like it's just also connected. So, um, I don't know if that makes it any clearer or not, but I think that that's kind of where that was coming from as above so below, as within, without a quote that a lot of us have heard, and I think that's it's a divine connection, like the yin and the yang.

Jeffrey Brunk: 39:25

There's a balance between the two, the divine and the earth, and everything outside of outside of it more vast than just our universe or just our. God.

Jeffrey Brunk: 39:35

And everything being energy, our thoughts, our words, our actions, everything we do. I was very conscious, when I was writing my memoir, about every word that I wrote. And there's a funny story about that with me is I remember staying up one night. It was 6 am when I finished writing this chapter and I had saved it on my hard drive. I'd saved it on a thumb drive. I'd saved it in the cloud and.

Jeffrey Brunk: 40:02

I got up to go get something to drink and go to the restroom and I came back to work on it some more and it was gone, not just from one place, all of them. And I'm like, ok, that was not meant to be here. But I was very conscious of the words, because even a keystroke and the words you put have. There's energy behind letters, and for thousands of years people have understood that the letters themselves, the way they're shaped, the way they were designed, they hold significant energetic properties to them. Right, I mean, it gets down to such a minute size. It doesn't matter how small the intention or the action or the word is, it's, it still has an effect, it has a ripple effect on everything.

Valerie Holbert: 40:52

Right.

Jeffrey Brunk: 40:54

Everything in this realm, everything we can see, but also in the realms that you know the unseen yes. And it's the unseen that really that's where it ripples the most. It affects us like with the auto autoimmune disorders, the disease you don't see these things, but we pick up on them. Yeah. I'm curious when you work with people in your practice now, what is the way? How do you go about doing a session? I know it varies because I know it does for me from person to person. So how do?

Jeffrey Brunk: 41:31

you go about your practice and working for a specific individual.

Valerie Holbert: 41:35

Yeah, it can vary a lot by person and sometimes if I have the luxury of being able to see clients, and I know we're going to have multiple sessions, we may do some sessions where we're doing more somatic tools or some parts work, and then another session that's more focused around energy work, but it's not always like that and so if it's a one session or will, you know, people will fill out a little intake, but I like to have a good amount of time before we start. You know, moving into the energy healing part to check in. You know, moving into the energy healing part to check in, you know, like, what's most alive, physically, spiritually, emotionally. I like to ask people if they have guides that they know of ancestors or other types of guides, and you know, just really talk a little bit before we move into the session. Now, that said, I also share with people. You know we might have an intention that we've created together of where things are going to go and it might go somewhere totally different.

Jeffrey Brunk: 42:35

Yeah, yeah, I do that too, and I I do sort of the same thing, because I have a phone or video consultation with someone who contacts me yeah. I've never had one that lasted under two hours. It says on my website one hour. No, because I don't have limitations on that. But, when I work with someone and have an intention, it starts with that intention, but what leads to? Who knows?

Jeffrey Brunk: 43:02

And I tell them and I also let them know before I will do a shamanic journey. Have no expectations, because I can tell you if I had expectations of what I a shamanic journey. Have no expectations, cause I can tell you if I had expectations of what I would encounter on the journey, I would be wrong a hundred percent of the time.

Valerie Holbert: 43:16

Right, yeah, yeah, absolutely, and so I've shared that piece as well. I also let people know I've come to let people know. You know, I, I I'm still dabbling a little bit with what exactly to call what I do. Um, and I use the word reiki because I think it's more accessible for people. Yeah, it's for a big reason, but the intuitive piece, you know, I do let people know there may be things that come through spirit, guides, ancestors, all kind words, all kinds of different things, but I, I don't ever know what those are because that's not me, and so you know, I just want to like help set people's expectations with that. But we'll usually start with a guided meditation on the table and then I also let people know, you know, we, I may move around your body and sort of that traditional reiki format, but if, but more than likely, we'll be called to a specific place and then kind of follow where that goes Like when you go through the classes it's sort of like a step-by-step formula that you're taught.

Valerie Holbert: 44:22

Yeah, which I think was helpful initially just as a structure, but for me personally that was just more of a gateway to opening up a lot of things for me and I honored the practice and the. You know the history of it deeply, but how I use it, you know it's more intertwined. And then after the session, if it's in person, we'll sit down afterwards. I'll let them, you know, as they are ready to come back, and I'll share what came up. I don't usually share during the session because often people are having an experience, you know, and if it's called to you I will share and I'll share in person. We'll often draw a card in distance sessions.

Valerie Holbert: 45:03

Now, I'm curious. It sounds like you do mostly distance, but I've, you know, I was really surprised how powerfully things came through in distance sessions. I've even for myself, like I didn't. There's something about not having the density of the physical body in front of me and in our space, since we're working out in the quantum field anyway, that, um, I mean I don't want to say it's more powerful, but oh, it is, it is. Yeah, I mean, I guess.

Jeffrey Brunk: 45:31

And I say it this way and it's not a, I don't mean it as a slam, but I tell people I think Reiki is kind of like a bandaid but shamanic journeying or doing it distance wise. I would prefer, because it's I've been on a cellular level, within individuals to be, able to heal someone, no matter whether it's trauma or physical pain, is it's more? It's down in the dirt.

Jeffrey Brunk: 45:57

Right you know, instead of just temporarily, I think raking in a way for a lot of practitioners and I'm probably get a lot of flack for this is it's almost like a spa-like experience that doesn't last. But there are things you can do distance-wise that can release people from certain things ancestrally and science has shown that traumas that happened to ancestors of ours hundreds of years ago. They changed.

Jeffrey Brunk: 46:31

It changes DNA and it continues to change DNA and that's how it passes forward, and it can affect us physically in a lot of ways that we don't understand, and I'll use an example of, say, not being able to conceive or whatever it may be.

Jeffrey Brunk: 46:49

It's from something that possibly happened many years ago, that traumatically changed someone and it passed forward through a family line and you can't see that during a hands-on session, because it's not I have done hands-on sessions where it's almost the same as being in a trance-like state and leaving like it is during a distance session, but most of the time you're aware of walking around the table.

Valerie Holbert: 47:21

You're aware of your eyes, where your hands are or whatever the case may be, so you're not 100% committed to that intention and that focus is yours in a distance yeah, I, I think that is a good way of explaining that and I, although I will say I do have a lot of clients that come to me and afterwards they're like wow, that's really different from my other reiki experiences because, like I said, I'm using that word because I'm still trying to figure out, like, how do you put a, how do we put a word to this Exactly?

Jeffrey Brunk: 47:53

Yeah, gosh, I hate titles.

Jeffrey Brunk: 47:59

But I agree with what you said. It's like people are searching for someone to help and they Google. They'll Google Reiki. Or I did not want the word shaman to be on my book. I told my editor because I do not title I mean, it's a very revered title and the book is the everyday shaman and everything I've had, you know but I did not want to use it and I still don't like, I don't call myself that and I don't call myself a Reiki. I don't like titles because that's ego.

Valerie Holbert: 48:29

Yeah.

Jeffrey Brunk: 48:30

That's an ego thing, but at the same time, that's how people find you.

Valerie Holbert: 48:34

Right. So, yeah, I'm still navigating that a little and I, you know, I call my sessions, I've been calling them like soul alchemy or soul alignment, and seeing kind of what, how those words land. But the ancestral piece that you mentioned and past lives, I did do some training with ancestral work. That also really took things to another level, both personally and professionally, and a part of my session usually at the end is, you know, naming, of course, inviting healthy and healed ancestors in the beginning, but naming that the work that we've done is, you know, is for the true and highest good and for healing of this person in all planes and in all directions, backwards and forwards.

Valerie Holbert: 49:21

Because I think not only can we be infected, be infected, be affected by the you know the traumas of our ancestors, we're also affected by the. You know the traumas of our ancestors, we're also affected by the gifts. So the burdens and the gifts of our ancestors and the work that we're doing now because, like you said, we're it's not just this planet in this dimension, right. So, like what we're doing, it is the healing work that we're doing, changing our frequency, is healing in all directions, right, like it's serving our future generations as well as backwards as well as in all these other directions, and so I think that's that piece, too, that we touched on that in my bio about people oftentimes just feel like, oh, I, just I can't. It's so selfish to spend money on this or to, you know, work on self-care. But if we can reframe it a little and science shows that, you know, we see science now that supports this right Changes, water composition and prayers that affect people.

Jeffrey Brunk: 50:21

Part of my thing was when I was probably close to the peak. Now my my wife's going to be a guest on the show at some point and she's going to give her rendition of what I went through, because a lot of it I don't remember. It was really from.

Jeffrey Brunk: 50:37

It was not pretty, but at one point. Here's a guy who myself barely graduated from high school because I was never good in math and I'd failed my geometry exam my senior year and I had to pass it to graduate. But I worked so hard the teacher so he passed me because I failed by one point. But at the peak of all of this that was happening with me, I gained an understanding of quantum mechanics and quantum physics. Now it's not that I could stand at a board and write equations, Right.

Jeffrey Brunk: 51:08

But I understand how understood how frequency and connection were. I saw the trees composed of numbers. It was just bizarre. I saw the days in colors, so I'd wake up and see a day. It would be a tint of red or green or blue or yellow, and I knew red was a day it's like day it would be a tint of red or green or blue or yellow, and I was a day it's like be on guard.

Jeffrey Brunk: 51:30

But I had that understanding and I had never studied that before. But the frequency and vibration are everything. For people to understand that, even when you're around them, if they're having a an off day, a bad day, they're angry, they're frustrated and there's a lot of anger in the world now.

Jeffrey Brunk: 51:50

Part of that. It transfers over, even being aware of how you are as a person and the people you're closest to. When you pick up with the ones you're closest to, you pick it up really quickly. It's like what's wrong with you and what's going on, but it transfers over. It's like what's wrong with you and you know what's going on, but it transfers over. It has that ripple effect. Part of what you're saying about the self-care was it exactly the selfish part? It may seem selfish. I call one thing that's very important good selfishness and that's taking yourself out of a situation, be it a social situation or a conversation, and just getting away from it. That doesn't mean just not speaking. Sometimes not speaking speaks more than words. Taking yourself out of a place, no matter what the other people think, is part of self-care. It's really best for yourself, because how can you help other people in any way if you're not taking care of yourself, and that's just one way to do it.

Valerie Holbert: 52:52

Yeah, 100%, and I'm glad you brought that piece up because it relates to boundaries, which was another big thing for me that I had to learn in some hard ways, that I realized that I probably couldn't have been fully able to move into energy work at earlier points in my life because I didn't have, I wasn't really boundaried enough and to be able to move myself fully out of the way and distinguish. You know you're talking to Dan about the highly sensitive person and I grew up that way, like I call myself spongy or the canary in the coal mine and you know a lot of people like that. We have a hard time differentiating other people's energy in our own. So I like an impact.

Valerie Holbert: 53:35

Yeah, yeah, I mean, I've called myself that before too, and so, but it was important, essential to be able to discern that before I could move into these other realms and be able to move my own self out of the way and discern.

Jeffrey Brunk: 53:47

Sometimes it's the people that have gone through some of the more difficult traumas. If they're like the ones you described earlier, as a child or anything that happens physically, those are the people that seem to be able to have a gift for helping others the most, because they are able to relate to others in ways that most others can't.

Valerie Holbert: 54:10

Yeah, and it was a survival method for a lot of people, because if you, especially as a child, been through deep trauma like that, what we learn is that, oh, I have to really understand what other people are experiencing and thinking in order to react in ways where I get, you know, taken care of, where I'm safe, and so I think part of that comes from having to be hyper aware of energies of other people, you know, and so some nurture, some nature.

Jeffrey Brunk: 54:42

And that's a double-edged sword.

Valerie Holbert: 54:43

Yeah.

Jeffrey Brunk: 54:44

My worst nightmare would be like to be in Times Square at New Year's Eve, right, so you want to sort of seclude yourself but at the same time have to be out there. Right. And so when people are searching, they may not totally understand what's going on, but it's the strangest thing and they just need someone to talk to. Yeah. Emanating from us is this acceptance?

Valerie Holbert: 55:07

Right yeah. Emanating from us is this acceptance, Right yeah, and that's a real different way than I think most of us operate, even with the best intentions, and that comes from that internal work, right Of like being comfortable with ourselves. That interesting that you say that has actually been a part of the inner presence training, of these exercises where we have to sit in silence with our partner and or sit in silence and you know, practice sessions, and it is so valuable because that space it does allow for so much and you know so much of our pain and discomfort or anxiety comes when we don't feel like we have space or spaciousness right.

Jeffrey Brunk: 55:44

It's like constriction and yeah, I think that's a real gift. Like you were saying. The prescribed described it pretty closely.

Jeffrey Brunk: 55:52

As I say, you know, you graduate from high school, you get you know, you go to college, you hopefully get a good degree and a good job, and then you find the right person, and then the house, and then the kids and all the sack and then you die Right. So after we moved here it was up at the top of the driveway and I looked and I'm like, oh my God, it's a call to sack. So I came back and told my wife. I said we've got to move.

Valerie Holbert: 56:15

You did.

Jeffrey Brunk: 56:16

Oh, no he met a neighbor and he doesn't like them and I said, no, call it a sack Following that path. A lot of people are still on that. The younger generation is not.

Valerie Holbert: 56:28

Right.

Jeffrey Brunk: 56:29

There's two good things about that. There are a lot of younger people that are a lot more aware. Most that I've encountered or worked with are in their early 20s between 20 and 30, that are old souls and very aware they are the ones that are needed now, but they're going to be needed later as well.

Valerie Holbert: 56:47

Right, yeah, absolutely I am. My daughter is 19 and she definitely came in that way and listening to dance podcast that you guys did recently. She was highly sensitive, empathic child, you know, and she's chosen not to go to her. She made great grades in high school but she was just like mom, I need a break from school, like, and the four-year school is just not for me, and you know we fully supported her in that. But even in this day and age, there's a lot of people that they just assume she's going to college or that she's taking a gap year and will be going and doing those like right steps of things.

Jeffrey Brunk: 57:26

They don't know. Trades pay a lot better. And then you go to college and that's a whole lot of money a lot of times, but it's what's expected. I was lucky to have parents like yourself that just said you can do anything you want to do, and they gave me that freedom and for a long time I kind of resented how much freedom they gave me because I made a lot of mistakes.

Jeffrey Brunk: 57:51

Right but you can't grow without making mistakes and failing, so it's really good that you allow that with your daughter. I know my mom and dad. Later in life I realized they struggled with a lot of that, but they knew they had to have that to grow. What is your daughter doing now?

Valerie Holbert: 58:08

Yes, she's been working since she graduated a year ago. She's been working two jobs, you know, and one of them is a barista, and you know, and she works with people that have gone to college and you know, and she's actually making good money, like she's. She just opened up her own money market account and she's working to build her credit, but she doesn't know what she wants to do. She's thought about so many different things and you know. So this is just her time to like experience that and ask those questions for herself and her own.

Jeffrey Brunk: 58:37

You know, she just moved into her own apartment with her boyfriend and her bestie and just finding herself yeah, that's a whole other thing is being okay with not knowing what you're supposed to do or what you want to do, being allowed to try to have time to figure that out and find it on their own, whether it comes in their twenties or their forties or fifties.

Valerie Holbert: 58:57

Right.

Jeffrey Brunk: 58:58

If you're not growing, then it's time to move on. At least keep looking.

Valerie Holbert: 59:03

Yeah, it's true, I mean I kept trying to.

Valerie Holbert: 59:05

There were things I enjoyed about being a graphic designer, because I did like the creative aspect of that, but I kept trying to be like, oh, maybe if I'm a graphic designer for a nonprofit, like in that way I'm helping, you know, cause that call to help was always there, and so I kept putting it into the traditional, accepted ways of doing things.

Valerie Holbert: 59:25

And you know, then I'll be a yoga teacher and a coach and I think most people would say that when they're doing this type of activities, whatever it is for them, whether it's artistic or something else that they're in, you know, a flow state, right, and where you're not almost like a meditative state, right, or you're not thinking about things, it's just you're almost channeling and yeah, and so I do think it's super important. And one thing I work with with clients of, like you know, because often we're kind of told what those things should be, what we should be doing, what type of exercise we should be doing, what type of activities, and we don't even allow ourselves to ask or imagine like, well, what are the things that like that that bring me joy? What would I be doing if I didn't try to put it within the framework of what is acceptable.

Jeffrey Brunk: 1:00:07

And if you try to put it in the framework of what is acceptable, you may not do it, because it's not that it be something necessarily that's illegal or whatever, but it's still something that's for you. It's for you individually, not for them. We end up being pleasers and wanting to make everyone happy them.

Valerie Holbert: 1:00:26

We end up being pleasers and wanting to make everyone happy. Yeah, and that goes back to the boundaries piece, you know, and I, I mean, I realized, even just in the last few years, I realized about myself that, like I would sometimes say, yeah, I'd been a people pleaser, I would say yes to things, literally before I even pause to see if that was like my real answer and like parts of me, you know, might even have a physical reaction than saying no, oh my gosh, yeah.

Jeffrey Brunk: 1:00:50

When I, when I've read your bio and your resume, it's like you've got a lot of same shamanic traits and the same sounds like a lot of the practices, both hands on and via distance, are shamanic with the connection to the earth. Both hands-on and via distance, are shamanic with the connection to the earth, the understanding of the quantum field and the vibrations and frequencies and using those in a positive way for betterment. Those are shamanic things you're doing.

Valerie Holbert: 1:01:16

Part of that has come from. I have the friend that I mentioned, who's a shaman, who I've worked with over the years and I even have done a couple of trainings or workshops with her, and I also, similarly to you, will record and send a recap of the experience to people. And I asked my friend once because you know, there's not necessarily a lot, but definitely sometimes things come up about appropriation, right With integrating things from shamanism or from yogic traditions or different places, because I do find myself integrating a lot of different things, some of which I have really specific training in and some of which are more intuitive. Yes, yeah. And she said, yeah, I don't, you know when, when she talks to her guides, both in the unseen and you know, seen, that they would say you know, it's not, it's not ours to give permission to people to you know, seen, that they would say you know it's not, it's not ours to give permission to people to you know, use or not use, it's not like a, we're hiding these things away.

Valerie Holbert: 1:02:13

So you know, and people resonate with different things. So I I think it's really valuable to give clients different tools and and also just follow. Like I was saying before, I don't always know where things are going to go in a session or what's going to come out of my mouth or what kind of weird sounds I might make, or I don't know.

Jeffrey Brunk: 1:02:33

So you know, it just kind of comes yeah, and it's very important what you just said, the way things resonate with people because, some are way ahead, some are way behind, to be able to come across to people wherever they may be. Because it may be you're using a singing bowl and it's whatever frequency that you're using of that bowl that causes someone to open up a little.

Valerie Holbert: 1:02:56

Right.

Jeffrey Brunk: 1:02:57

But before we go, if you have other things that you want to say, like where you are and your practice, and how people can reach you.

Valerie Holbert: 1:03:05

Yeah, well, to that piece in terms of where I am physically. Most of the time I'm in Asheville, north Carolina, in the mountains, and I do have an office space where I can see people in person. But, like you, I can see people anywhere and, have you know, I've done sessions with people in comas and all over the country, and so distance is not a barrier.

Jeffrey Brunk: 1:03:28

Yeah, Can I ask you about that? Yeah, no problem. How do you explain that? Because people, you know I get asked a lot. So how do you explain to people how to do a distance session? Because it doesn't make a lot of sense to a lot of people. So how do you explain it?

Valerie Holbert: 1:03:44

Yeah, well, I mean, that is a tough one because it does require a certain amount of faith in the unseen and the unknown. And oftentimes, if I feel like, especially it's someone who doesn't have a like intuitive understanding with working in the quantum field or that sort of thing, because I'm like you, I'm not a scientist, I can't explain it really in the scientific way. But I'll say well, have you ever had an experience with prayer Because most people have, or a lot of people have where you're either praying for someone else or someone praying for you, where you really were able to feel that and you named this earlier or in one of your previous podcasts where you're thinking about someone and they call, or you pick up the phone literally before it even rings, and it's that person. You a synchronicity, something that you can't explain, but you know, you have a very distinct knowing that you are connected to that person, or something that you have thought has affected them, you know, far away, and so most people can grab to little.

Valerie Holbert: 1:04:48

It's kind of like what I was saying earlier about the you know one minute experience in the yoga class. If someone can grab to like, oh yeah, I had one tiny experience like that, I can be at least somewhat open to the possibility of these larger things happening. Sometimes people have to experience it for themselves. But you know, it's a hard thing to explain, to say, oh, I had a session with this person who was in a coma and the names of their nurses came through and all this other information that me human, me had no way to know. But that goes back to that piece that we were talking before about just getting out of the way and trusting what's coming through.

Valerie Holbert: 1:05:30

Being a vessel, yeah, I mean, I appreciate the people that want to understand it from a scientific standpoint and I like that there is more information coming through, like with um so lynn mctaggart, where she does these big scientific because she's a science. A scientist experiments on, like getting a certain number of people to meditate on, like making it rain in the Sahara or you know, whatever the event is, and being able to track these things scientifically, or seeing it in water crystals, and you know things like that. So I'm glad there is science to support it.

Jeffrey Brunk: 1:05:59

It's getting better, but it's still, unfortunately, a field that we're in that's kind of looked at as pseudoscience, but explaining that's difficult. So thanks for sharing that, because you actually gave me some insights on how to share a little bit better.

Valerie Holbert: 1:06:12

Yeah, it's a tough one and I do think, you know, kind of going back to that piece about things speeding up and becoming more intense, at least I'm finding that because, like the squeeze is more intense, I think, for a lot of people. I think people are a little more open maybe than they used to be, and more people are having their own experiences that they don't have a way to explain, and so when somebody gives them a window for that, it's sort of like the light bulb going off of, like oh okay, I have had some experiences like that. I just didn't know what to call it or what it was. So I think that's encouraging. I find that, you know, I'm just finding that people who I wouldn't have thought would be open to certain things, you know, I'm having to like check my own judgment more often, you know about that for lots of different reasons, and being really pleasantly and encouragingly surprised.

Jeffrey Brunk: 1:07:11

Sometimes the ones you would least expect to be open are the ones that are most open.

Valerie Holbert: 1:07:17

Yes, yeah, truly yeah.

Jeffrey Brunk: 1:07:20

But we've ventured way off, so you're in Asheville.

Valerie Holbert: 1:07:25

Yeah, like you said, I know we could go. We could probably talk for easily another two hours. But yeah, so I'm in Asheville, uh, the mountains of North Carolina, so I'm in the process of changing, kind of I was touching on that before I'm changing some wording on things, but currently my website is www. nourishcenterasheville. com and people can book through there. They could also find me on www. be well black mountain. com website. That's where my office base is, black mountains, a little town just outside of Asheville. It's really where a lot of my community is by mountain. It's very, very close by. And yeah, like we talked about a couple of different times, distance sessions. You know, location is not an obstacle, maybe even a benefit.

Jeffrey Brunk: 1:08:10

And you're in a great place up in Asheville the mountains and the nature. You're in a great place, yeah.

Valerie Holbert: 1:08:16

I'm really fortunate beauty and nature that's within really close distance and proximity and also surrounded by so many other healers and healing centers and Sedona of the East. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So come, come see me in Asheville, or, or? Or reach out from wherever you are in the world. Yeah, or reach out from wherever you are in the world. Yeah, we'd love to connect with folks.

Jeffrey Brunk: 1:08:48

So right now it's nourishcenterashvillecom.

Valerie Holbert: 1:08:51

Yeah so everyone.

Jeffrey Brunk: 1:08:52

Please go to the website, check that out. And the other was Be Well, Black Mountains.

Valerie Holbert: 1:08:58

Be Well, black Mountain, yeah, black Mountains. Singular.

Jeffrey Brunk: 1:09:02

And I want to thank you for being a guest.

Valerie Holbert: 1:09:04

Appreciate the opportunity to be here and I I feel the same way about you. Know what you're putting out there with your book and the things that I've heard on your podcast so far that you're sharing about your journey to just it's really important right now.

Jeffrey Brunk: 1:09:16

Well, thank you.

Valerie Holbert: 1:09:18

So many people going through this that don't understand, that are just overwhelmed with what's happening internally and externally.

Jeffrey Brunk: 1:09:26

Appreciate you saying that and I really appreciate you being here.

Valerie Holbert: 1:09:29

Yeah, yeah, it's been great. I'll look forward to next time.

Jeffrey Brunk: 1:09:32

Okay, thanks, valerie. I want to thank everyone for joining us and we'll be back in the near future. See you then.