BECAUSE EVERYONE HAS A STORY "BEHAS"
BECAUSE EVERYONE HAS A STORY / PORQUE TODOS TENEMOS UNA HISTORIA QUE CONTAR. My podcast connects and relates through the sharing of regular peoples' stories of courage, transformation, adventure, love, overcoming life’s challenges and career changes. It is a platform to give ordinary people’s stories from all over the world the chance to be shared and preserved. You will listen to stories of captivating people, both young and elderly, that I, your host Daniela, meet on my life journey. Communicating wisdom, knowledge and personal experience, these stories will connect, motivate, inspire and relate to your own. Our stories become the language of connections. Let's ENJOY, CONNECT AND RELATE. COMPARTE, CONECTATE Y DISFRUTA. I have shared stories of people from Asia, Europe, North America and South America. If you want to share your story on my show, please get in touch because everyone has a story.
BECAUSE EVERYONE HAS A STORY "BEHAS"
Awaken Today - Transformative Stories of Survival and Faith - Catherine Duncan : 146
Catherine was diagnosed with a rare childhood cancer at the tender age of 10 while also enduring an abusive home environment. Catherine shares the harrowing details of her treatments in the 1970s, the emotional isolation she faced, and how her faith became her lifeline. Catherine's journey is detailed in her book "Everyday Awakening."
Catherine Duncan is an Integrative Spiritual Consultant, Author, Holistic Healer, Inspirational Speaker, and Resilience Trainer, committed to whole-person healing with a focus on emotional and spiritual health.
We dive into the transformative journey of trading a high-flying career in advertising for spiritual fulfillment after a near-death experience. This pivotal moment led to a complete life overhaul, from pursuing a degree in theology to becoming a spiritual director and chaplain. The conversation explores the challenges of breaking away from societal and familial expectations, the pursuit of deeper meaning, and the strength gained through spirituality.
Catherine shares her transition from being a hospice chaplain to focusing on helping people live fully, inspired by her husband's near-death experience. Through her personal narrative, she offers practical advice on how morning mindfulness can set a positive tone for the day. By emphasizing self-love and the transformative power of gratitude. She provides invaluable insights into fostering a sense of peace and connection and the importance of living in the present.
Let's enjoy her story.
https://www.catherineduncan.org/aboutcatherine
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Thank you for listening - Hasta Pronto!
Hi, I'm Daniela. Welcome to my podcast. Because Everyone has a Story, the place to give ordinary people's stories the chance to be shared and preserved. Our stories become the language of connections. Let's enjoy it, connect and relate because everyone has a story and relate because everyone has a story. Welcome, my guest is atherine Duncan.
Daniela SM:CKatherine is an integrity spiritual consultant, author, holistic healer, inspirational speaker and resilient trainer. She focuses on the whole person, healing emotionally and spiritually. Her journey began at age 10 when she turned to existential books, pleading with life as she battled a rare form of cancer. In our conversation, we explore her path from breaking social and family expectations to become the spiritual consultant and writer that she is today. atherine also shares how morning mindfulness helps her to set a positive tone of the day, highlighting the power of self-love, gratitude and living in the present, of peace and connection. But there is way more information that she's sharing with us in this episode. Her energy and enthusiasm, which you could hear in her voice, automatically lift my spirit.
Daniela SM:I was so sad that we didn't have more time to continue the conversation. I could have asked thousands more questions, but we have limited time and she's extremely busy. I have already ordered her book, the Everyday Awakening. I will let you know how it goes. Let's enjoy her story. Welcome, katrin, to the show. I'm excited that you're here today. Great to meet you. Thank you, yes, and you have a story, so why do you want to share your story?
Catherine Duncan :I now have a new book out nationwide called Everyday Awakening, and my book is about what does it mean to be alive right now, and that's what I want to share. How are we choosing to live every day to find peace and ease and aliveness? It's a choice we're making every moment of our day.
Daniela SM:Yes, beautiful, beautiful. I'm happy that you're here, and so when does this story start for you?
Catherine Duncan :My story started when I was 11 years old. I was suddenly actually 10, turning 11, gravely ill, taken to the hospital and this is in the 70s. I was diagnosed with extremely rare form of childhood cancer. Statistics were grim. I was given a 20% chance to live, my parents were told, and they I started intensive treatments and surgeries and back then they did have counselors and chaplains. No one talked to me and I could just feel like I was walking on a tightrope between life and death. It was. They had no anti nausea drugs. They did tons of amputation. They did nothing in the seventies at the major university hospital to really help comfort children, and that's out of nowhere. When I I just I started to pray and faith had meant nothing to me, but I just decided I want to live. I prayed could I please live? Not long after this feeling came through my whole body, that just like took my breath away and it was just annoying. I was going to live and it was annoying. I wasn't alone and that's when my journey started.
Daniela SM:Why do you want to leave? What is it that motivated you at 11 year old that wanted to continue living?
Catherine Duncan :You know it's interesting you ask that question as an adult. I look back and I had a pretty tough childhood. On the outside it looked nice and glamorous and father was successful, big family, but my father was verbally abusive to me and it was just a tough childhood and I have a memory of just feeling like I wanted to die, like I was just done, and after coming face to face with death, I just this feeling deep within my heart and soul, my soul, felt this nudging like I want to live. That's how it felt and that's what I followed.
Daniela SM:Wow. So you'd say you were not religious, but you kind of started to have some kind of trust in something because you really wanted to live.
Catherine Duncan :Yeah, you know, my family intermittently would go to church Lutheran church and it meant nothing to me, but I just felt this nudging like I want to live. I don't want to die right now. And that was my prayer. I just started like praying to the universe. I just want to live. And I actually was lived to be 20. I thought if I lived to be 20, I would see the world and I just I told no one and I prayed and prayed and prayed and prayed, and and that's when that feeling came through my being and it was just like you know, and it's been with me to this day.
Daniela SM:Wow, and so you have no siblings, nobody that you you can talk to, anybody you can trust it.
Catherine Duncan :Yeah, I have five older siblings. Actually one brother has died. Three of my older siblings are quite a bit older, I think, because my life it felt so extreme, going through and having really intensive chemotherapy, radiation surgeries, it was just so much. And back then they really like when I would have stays in the hospital they wouldn't even let parents hardly come in to see you.
Daniela SM:How long were you like that?
Catherine Duncan :A couple years, couple years of treatment, really intensive treatments.
Daniela SM:And you? You did you go to school or no?
Catherine Duncan :I did. I would have treatment every week and then like chemotherapy the next day. That was so, so sick through the night. And the next day, I remember, I would just lay on the couch, lethargic, and my mom bless her heart. I mean, she would just be busy doing stuff around the house and I'd be by myself all day just watching some TV, just laying on the couch. And then the next day I'd go back to school and pretend like nothing happened.
Daniela SM:Wow, definitely feels lonely and very difficult.
Catherine Duncan :Yep, yep, I didn't. I actually wasn't until my 30s that I did super hardcore therapy to process. I was finally was actually not until my middle 20s I started having nightmares that I was about. I started sitting up in bed thinking I was about to die and I thought, if I don't do therapy to process, my childhood is going to eat me up. So it wasn't until late twenties that I actually started to process what happened to me.
Daniela SM:So, when you were ill for two years, and then you got better, obviously, and then you turn to 20, which is what your goal was and what happened? So you, you, you did say that you went to therapy and you were having actually panic attacks. So what happened?
Catherine Duncan :Yeah, the year I got sick this drug came in from Turkey, this chemotherapy drug that was randomly being given because it could cause heart problems and my father demanded they give me that drug. That drug is now standard treatment for what I had. Survival rate was 20%. Now it's like over 80%. So I mean that was a piece of it also in prayer and I led a pretty normal teenage life, except for here. I was a teenager reading so many books on why am I alive? What am I? You know, I was reading all these existential books existentialism and who is man, and philosophy and theology. I was trying to understand why was I here? Why did I survive? It was how interesting, I know, not surprising. All these years later. What do I do? And write a book about what it means to be alive? I've been reading these books since a teenager what it means to be alive.
Daniela SM:I've been reading these books since a teenager. I'm jumping here, but do you really feel you found the answer, because I think it's such a difficult thing to find. I think we spent all our life trying to figure out why we're here and who we are. I thought that was the purpose of our life and you, however, started since you were 11, which usually we start later so you managed to really be clear on that.
Catherine Duncan :Yes, I believe that and I learned this at such a young age that we're here to live from our heart, from our soul.
Catherine Duncan :I mean, our journey is to live from the depth of our soul, and that means not living and this goes back to just basics of living in the present moment, tuning in. Are you living your life head up? Are you living your life in your mind, or are you living your life when you come into the moment, the preciousness of just now? Because when we're in our mind, we're in the past, we're in the future, we're not even here, but we can feel into our body through breath or just breathing mindful. I mean, there's so many exercises I could share and I have 42 in my book about how to come into the moment. When you come into the moment, it's just like oh, that peace, that ease, the spaciousness, the guidance, that deep inner guidance within every one of us and the guidance that we receive from the universe. It's all there and that's it, and that's how I think we're called to live our life from the inside out.
Daniela SM:This didn't make you holistic completely. You seem to be very balanced.
Catherine Duncan :You know, I led a pretty normal teenage life, Side note reading every weekend about life and purpose and all that. And I went through college and then I started out. Just this year I started out in advertising and I was with Time magazine selling regional ads, making lots of money, and it was really glamorous. Not quite 10 years into it and my heart was like this I was feeling this nudging, like this isn't it, this isn't what I'm called to do. I mean, I would go on business trips and bring stacks of book on life and meaning and why are we alive. And my colleagues would see this and they would just laugh like what are you doing? Why are you reading these books?
Catherine Duncan :I knew in my heart that I knew I'd make a change and, interestingly, my husband, who I met we went to high school didn't like each other. We met after college and he said, catherine, you're going to do something someday to help people. And I remember thinking, I know, but he was right. Actually, I had a near-death experience whitewater rafting on a timing corporate trip. That was finally like the turning point where I'm just like I'm done. I need to listen fully, where am I being called? And that's when, within a few weeks after that experience whitewater rafting I quit my job with Time Inc and started praying like please, guidance, listening. And that's what led me to the path I'm on to this day.
Daniela SM:Wow, wow. You read a lot of books in the 70s. I'm sure you keep reading. In the 70s, I'm sure you keep reading. Would you say that there's more wonderful books? That has come, or the basic idea really has always been there.
Catherine Duncan :I would say the basic idea has always been there, even from a spiritual, religious perspective, christian, or reading the Bhagavad or Buddhist texts. I mean, I'll tell you, there's a strong theme among all the world religions and spiritual traditions of you know how do you live fully in this moment and how do you live from your heart and soul? It's, I think, a strong theme, regardless of any spiritual or religious tradition.
Daniela SM:Yes, that's what I've been learning, maybe a little later than you, but I figured out that, yes, that's the truth. So you had this nearly death experience. Would you not have changed if this didn't happen?
Catherine Duncan :That's a really good question. You wonder. I have five older siblings. My father was this consummate businessman and entrepreneur and he's the rags to riches story super poor, to be very successful, to run several companies. So all my siblings went into business and so I went into business. And had that not happened, you wonder? What I can tell you is that after the near-death experience and it was crystal clear to me I'm done, I need to deeply listen where I'm being called and the synchronicity of, within a few months, a girlfriend.
Catherine Duncan :Late at night, my friend Connie, out of nowhere, said to me have you ever thought of saying theology and spiritual direction? And I never thought of it. No one in our family lineage, no one has that path. And but when she said it I was like, and when she mentioned one school here in the twin cities, st Catherine's I got materials and my body started physically shaking. It was just a knowing this is it. And so, going back to the family path, when I went out to tell my father that not only I quit time magazine but I was going to study theology, he started yelling at me, screaming at me, and at first he said you know geology and I'm like no theology. And he was just like. He couldn't take it, it was just like, but he ended up being my biggest supporter before he died. But it was leaving. The family paradigm is what it was.
Daniela SM:Yes, yes, wow. Theology Tell me more about that. It seems like you have a more holistic approach than religious approach. However, you wanted to know all about it.
Catherine Duncan :Yeah, I just started. I have a master's in theology and certified as a spiritual director. Then I got a master's in divinity and ordained and board certified chaplain, like I just got it all. It took many years, but studying theology, I just wanted a deeper dive into faith and spiritual traditions. And I'll tell you, the first class I had about Christian it was mystics, theologians. And when I started that class, when I was reading books, books at night we had to read a book or two every week. I was like, oh, I found my people really. Yeah, I was just like crying. I was like my gosh, this is what I've been looking for since a teenager oh wow.
Daniela SM:You people criticize a lot about religion because it separates communities at times, even though the message that is there is about togetherness and respect people. It doesn't happen, so didn't that affect anything for you?
Catherine Duncan :I wanted the academic training and the knowledge, and that's why I pursued all the degrees. And then it was clear to me I really wanted to become a chaplain and so I needed all the degrees. And then I it was clear to me I really wanted to become a chaplain, and so I needed all these degrees in the background to be able to companion people going through crisis. You know people. My message there is be careful what you pray for.
Catherine Duncan :I was like whatever you want me to do, but I really I'll share with you. I really feel drawn to the word spirituality, even though, yes, I'm an ordained minister of ecumenical, very inclusive and liberal. But I like the word spirituality for everyone, like what gives you meaning and helping people open into what is that and it could be. It could be a sense of something beyond God, all of Brahman. It could be energy, true nature, it just. I'm so inclusive in how I've worked with thousands of people to help them find what is that that gives them strength and life.
Daniela SM:But when you are going through these studies, are they open for holistic lessons?
Catherine Duncan :Absolutely yes, yep. And when you go through particularly a good training program as a chaplain I went through a year residency and then another couple of units this is standard to become a board certified chaplain. The training is really inclusive and ecumenical and open, because you can imagine a chaplain I worked at our level one trauma hospital and I also worked as a hospice chaplain. I worked with people that were not many atheists because they weren't one or a chaplain, but agnostic to a faith and just a broad breadth and of all faith backgrounds. So you really need steep training and how to meet someone on their path, and it's not about telling someone at end of life or in crisis in any way that this is the path. That is not the training. It's what can help them and give them comfort when they're going through some real upheaval and at end of life.
Daniela SM:And so when you say that you're a chaplain, what is that? I'm sorry for my ignorance. I don't know what it is.
Catherine Duncan :Yeah, so a chaplain is that's a more traditional term used when you're a spiritual advisor, guide in a medical setting, so in a hospital, in a hospice organization, or you're part of the medical team and you are the one providing steeped, deep, emotional spiritual support. And a chaplain like in hospice I was with people that were dying all day, every day. I mean, that's just the work you do and the family elects having a chaplain as part of the team and it's just trying to provide comfort, comfort and guidance to a patient, to family members, when the patient is again going through some big upheaval or crisis, end of life. And it looks a little different if you're a hospice chaplain or a trauma chaplain, just in how someone comes in in those instances. But again, it's just companionship, providing love and guidance and witness when people are going through really tough times.
Daniela SM:That sounds amazing. I didn't know about that. That's wonderful, but so when you're studying theology, there are people that go to different paths, and people will go to be minister in a church, and so there are a lot of different areas that you can take.
Catherine Duncan :Yes, you can take the path with a master's in theology and divinity. Many, many people take the path of becoming a pastor, minister of a church. The field that I'm in is called specialized ministry, where you can become a chaplain, a spiritual guide, in different settings. Some people go through their training just for their personal knowledge and education.
Daniela SM:And is there any atheist people studying this at all? No right.
Catherine Duncan :I would not say theology, divinity, they would maybe be agnostic, like having a wondering. They would maybe be agnostic like having a wondering, not sure Atheist, probably not. I would say atheists would probably lean towards more maybe Buddhism, where there isn't any kind of God sense or God figure, but more focused on present moment, alleviating suffering. So you might choose a different faith, background or path if that's the case.
Daniela SM:Wow, how interesting, how interesting. Having this episode here is also opened my eyes and other people. I'm sure that theology is not just about Catholicism and people are also like, oh, I don't want to hear about that. I actually find that you are learning more and the more that you know about all kinds of religions, religious broad spectrum that you have, and you're more open minded as well.
Catherine Duncan :A hundred percent and I'll share with you because I thought this was a helpful framework years ago when I studied this. There's an author out there. His name is Ken Wilber. He's known big national spiritual author. He talks about the four stages of spiritual development, which I think are helpful. The first is where someone is number one egocentric it's me, me, me, me, me. They just can't see beyond themselves. The second is ethnocentric, where people define and live their life by their tribe so you know, I am a Lutheran or I am Buddhist or I am, you know where the tribe defines how they live and practice their life. The third is world-centric, where you are attuned to the whole world and the movements. And the fourth is cosmocentric, where you're attuned to the world and beyond and energy and spirits, and I thought that was really helpful many years ago when I studied that.
Daniela SM:Yeah, I bet you have never met anybody who started to read all these when they were 11 years old.
Catherine Duncan :I actually have not, nope, nope. Many people, including Eckhart Tolle, who I love and his work is brilliant. Of course, it's in their 20s, their 30s, they have some incident or like an awakening, but this awakening for me started at 11 years old.
Daniela SM:Yes, yes, so you're very unique and it's amazing. So, okay, so you did all these studies and became, you know, changed from marketing to being a chaplain, and so what happened then?
Catherine Duncan :So I became a chaplain. I was at our level one trauma hospital and I then went to Fairview Hospice for a number of years. It was such a privilege, such sacred work to companion people, walk with people going through such upheaval. I could feel, honestly, a resonance just because I had walked that line, so it felt, in a way, almost comforting and natural to be able to walk with people going through so much trauma. You know going through such upheaval, because I had in my life it also. Following this path has just opened me up even further.
Catherine Duncan :I write about this in my book. I'm a mystic, I'm an intuitive. I see spirits and angels and that's just been even more defined in the work being with people in crisis and who died. Many, many people, for example, in hospice within after they died, I was with them. Within the days to a week would come back and see me and they would just be like I would open my eyes and there would be a shadow of their spirit and they would just look at me and just kind of nodding, thank you, and then they'd be gone. I mean it became so common actually I had to put up energy boundaries at night. I had to be like pray. You cannot come within 20 feet and wake me up. I like had to sleep.
Daniela SM:Yes, that's funny. I was actually going to ask you because I don't think that when you study these, you expect that you were going to be companion people until the end of their life. That is something really difficult because it is sad. Although you know that there is life after death, how do you work for yourself to don't let that affect you?
Catherine Duncan :A couple of things I'd share. First, I learned quickly and I believe this completely that death is not an end, that our spirit goes on. So because of the mystic abilities, I could see and sense spirits in the room. When someone was passing, when they actually were leaving their body, I could feel their spirit coming up and then out in the room. When someone was passing, when they actually were leaving their body, I could feel their spirit coming up and then out of the top of their head. So I felt like I was birthing people to the other side, which was sacred soul, sacred and magical really. I mean, it's not an end, so I share that.
Catherine Duncan :But then also one of the many, many practices I share in my book on finding peace and ease is how to work with energy. And for 20 plus years I've been working, I'm certified, trained in many energy modalities Reiki, healing, touch but every one of us, we are energy. We have an auric field around us and we can take in a certain amount of energy or not. I mean it's how do we work with energy? So I work with what's called energy boundaries Every day of my life.
Catherine Duncan :It's habit I have for 20 years and it's game changer. I just I feel breathing room, I feel like I'm all here, especially for the years I was around patients. You know high trauma would come in and I would see my doctor, colleague, nurses. I mean it's like so much trauma as an individual witnessing it that you can take in and I. That's when I really fine tuned how to work with energy boundaries. I'm like I want to be present and helpful to this patient and the family in the waiting room but I need to like not take in all this trauma because it's too much. Yes, I work with energy boundaries, which I do every single day of my life, and I just it's, it's life changing.
Daniela SM:Yes, I can imagine. How do you develop all these spiritual power? I hear so many people that, oh, that is natural for them. How do you develop that? Cause you did the divinity courses? Is that where you learned that? Or you did that on your own?
Catherine Duncan :I would say I learned this starting at 11 years old. I learned it through prayer, meditation, being in the moment, being present. These are skills and what I share in my book. The five practices. These are things I've lived organically for most of my life.
Catherine Duncan :I think it starts with each everyone hearing this right now what are you choosing? What are you wanting? Do you want to have more peace and ease and a sense of aliveness? It's a conscious choice, it's a practice, and that was really the impetus and nudging to write this book, which I feel like was a calling. I visually saw this book 10 years prior as a vision, and I'm like, and even told my family I'm going to write a book and they thought, great, great, it's a practice. It's a practice we're all choosing, and a message in my book is you know, what are you choosing?
Catherine Duncan :You don't have to wait until you're in crisis or end of life to choose, to feel and cultivate, living from your heart in that peace, that ease. It's a choice we're making and even just right in this moment, tuning in how much in the moment, today, this day, are you living in your mind, for example, when we're in our thinking mind? That's where all the suffering happens. Can you take a break? Notice, wow, I've been thinking for hours, I'm feeling unrest. Can I just put your hands on your chest and breathe for a minute or two to just like, oh, come into your body, feeling some spaciousness, so that peace, that ease, that aliveness on this whole spiritual path? It's not found in our mind, it's found in our body, our body's, in the present moment. It's found, taking some moments to feel it, to cultivate it, to practice it. These are practices breathing, meditating. I have many different ones I could talk about, but that are ways to experience coming in and feeling your essence, your soul moving in your body.
Daniela SM:Wow, wonderful. Let's talk about your book. You knew 10 years before that you wanted to have this book. How long did it take you to write it?
Catherine Duncan :It took about two years to write. I started in pandemic. Actually we had we really isolated. My husband has a rare heart condition. He's doing well. I write about that in my book. My whole practice, private practice, went online and so I had time at night and I just got this huge again nudging to sit down and every night I would pray and meditate and sit at the computer and I just it just flowed through me. It was I had to write, it was pushing like coming through me. So the whole process, writing my book to finding a publisher, all of that couple of years, it actually went pretty fast.
Daniela SM:And the book is about your story and also teaches people to do, as you say, different kind of meditations. What else was the purpose of this book for you?
Catherine Duncan :So my book. It's called Everyday Awakening and the subtitle Five Practices for Living Fully, feeling, deeply Coming into your Heart and Soul. So the five practices I'll share for just a minute come back to the present moment. The second is connect with something greater from you know, broad ecumenical view. The third is grow your trust, then embody love and hold openness. In that I share content around this subject, but then I weave in some of my experiences, client experiences, life experiences and practices. How do you feel into the present moment, how do you feel more love? How do you feel more flow? So you're not just in your mind, but I give people just short little exercises to experience this.
Daniela SM:Wonderful, and do you so? You're still working in the hospitals.
Catherine Duncan :I do not. I left my position as a hospice chaplain in 2018 to start my private practice Again, feeling this movement within me. It was such sacred work, but I was starting to feel like, oh, I'm ready to be with the living. I'm not just people at end of life dying every single day. So now my practice is with people that are living big, full lives, and many of them are like I want more, I want more peace, I want to feel more, I want to experience more. Everything from executives and doctors and lawyers to many women just searching for men, searching for more. So that is what my practice is about.
Daniela SM:Catherine, why the change? You know, when you said I want to be with the living, it sounds like, yeah, I mean I will have said that before. When you were telling me that you were doing that job, I'm like, oh, that's a really hard job, but you put it in a very positive way. So I wonder, why changing?
Catherine Duncan :I think doing work like hospice chaplaincy, working in like the emergency room, those kind of jobs that are high stress, high trauma, I think it's a calling and I think there's a period of time that you're called to that kind of work.
Catherine Duncan :For me it felt I felt so on purpose and on track and exactly where I was called to be doing the work as a hospice chaplain and also in our trauma hospital.
Catherine Duncan :But then I just started to feel like you know, I'm ready to do work with a broad range of people, not just people at end of life. And I imagine because my husband, eight years ago he was completely healthy, really athletic and he had a really tough experience where he ran or was running one of our downtown lakes in Minneapolis and then collapsed, was in the ICU. He flatlined, he 10 days later was diagnosed with a very rare heart condition. I'm so happy to say he is doing well. Hopefully he can live a long life. He's on very high level of immune suppressant drugs. But I think that was also a life-changing experience of you know here this is in my family, immediate family, and then I go to work every day and I'm with people dying every day and I just started to feel like oh, I think my message could be in a broader capacity. So I just think we're called to certain parts of our work and our career for periods of time, and it's about paying attention.
Daniela SM:Yes. What is the difference? You help people transcend and now you're helping people here, you know, with their life. Do you see this? The same reward?
Catherine Duncan :I used to help people and I still do once, while not often, but helping people leave their body and I experienced many people within a day, days before they died, where they would just be like, oh, this is it, this is life they got, they awakened into the preciousness of life and then they died. So I feel like it's the same kind of work, but it's with people that are fully living, where they can awaken into the moment, into their heart, into how their soul's guiding them into the oneness of life. Now, in the moment, in the work we do not just in a vertical capacity of when people are about to die.
Daniela SM:But it could be a bit harder than now, because you're so busy with work and you have to do this and that and so concentrating on the important things. Sometimes people get deviated from that.
Catherine Duncan :And again, it's a choice. It's a choice every one of us is making all day long. How are you choosing to live? Are you living from your head up? Are you living holistically, from your heart and soul? And I think we can live multidimensionally. What do I mean by that? I think we can live anchored. It's a lifelong practice. I work at living anchored in the moment, in the present moment, living from that deep spaciousness. Use our mind when we need to use our mind for work or planning and then open into all other layers of reality. I mean, right now I'm talking to you, I'm anchored in the moment, I'm using my mind to talk with you and I see spirits floating in the room. You know it's just like you can live on all these levels right now.
Daniela SM:So yes, this is amazing. You have such a wonderful story.
Catherine Duncan :I would invite you to check out my website, everydayawakeningcom. My book is on Amazon, barnes and Noble. It's all over If you like to read self-help. This book is geared for people that are starting on the path and wanting more.
Catherine Duncan :And can everyone listening, just tuning in, tuning into how is your life? Are you feeling a sense of peace and ease and breathing room? And I say that because life is messy, it's hard. There's right now, I do think, a lot of chaos in the world. There's a lot going on.
Catherine Duncan :So all the more reason of how can you if this is part of what you would like to have that peace, that ease, that joy, living in that sense of connection, that oneness? It's a daily choice and it's a daily practice and it's working with exercises to like how can I grow that? The more you practice, for example, experiencing the present moment, if it's through your breath, if it's through using your senses, if it's through, like right now I'm talking, feel what's your hands, your fingers, whatever's there drops you out of your thinking mind into the moment. So, these little exercises to like how does that feel and grow that? The more you do that, the more you crave that, the more like I want to feel that more and you practice it and it becomes. It can become over time, the anchor of how you live.
Catherine Duncan :And one takeaway also is I think we're here on this earth to learn to love. How do we love? It starts with loving ourselves. How do we love ourselves? The love we have is for ourselves, is the love we can give to another. I think that's what we take with us when we die our capacity to love.
Daniela SM:Yes, I believe that this is all at the end. Everything is all about love.
Catherine Duncan :Yes.
Catherine Duncan :And we just get busy with other things that are not important and the busyness like you talk about and it is people can be, and I get it too.
Catherine Duncan :My life is very full, but again it's like okay, being mindful of how am I going to live my life, but again it's like okay, being mindful of how am I going to live my life. Yes, I have appointments and I have this and this, but even small practices of starting your day. So, for example, in the morning, how do you start your day? Do you have some moments of just deep presence, thankfulness, gratitude, or do you grab your phone and start thinking of your day and you're in a stress response before you get out of bed. Phone and start thinking of your day and you're in a stress response before you get out of bed.
Catherine Duncan :In the morning, I wake up and I have some minutes of gratitude and I think about I'm here and I think about all the things I'm grateful for and I feel it. I feel that energy, love, gratitude, some of the highest vibrational energy our body can hold, and I feel it and I can feel my essence, my soul, and then I have a few minutes of prayer. I do this. It sets the tone for my day. It's a choice, it's a practice.
Daniela SM:Yes, and you know, everybody talks about that, but not everybody does it. It's the same as eating healthy or anything like that. There is the formula, everybody's talking about it, everybody knows what is the right thing and not everybody does it. Yes, and so I will put everything in the show notes, your book, your website, so that people can reach out, and so you are acting now as a coach in a way.
Catherine Duncan :I I call myself an integrative spiritual consultant and I have a full-time, robust practice. I also do a lot of public speaking and then I'm still doing a lot with my book and speaking and podcasts.
Daniela SM:Yes, great, great. So it has been wonderful and thank you so much for sharing this story and wish we had more time. I really appreciated your beautiful smile. Your beautiful energy is just completely different than anybody that I have met, and I want everybody to get your book. Thank you for what you're doing. You were strong and you were resilient, and here you are giving so much to the world.
Catherine Duncan :Yeah, thank you. You had great questions. There were some good ones. I'm like this is good, thank you. Thank you, a delight to talk to you.
Daniela SM:Lovely. Yes, it was lovely. Thank you so much. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. I am Daniela and you are listening to, because Everyone has a Story. Please take five seconds right now and think of somebody in your life that may enjoy what you just heard, or someone that has a story to be shared and preserved. When you think of that person, shoot them a text with the link of this podcast. This will allow the ordinary magic to go further. Join me next time for another story conversation. Thank you for listening. Hasta pronto.
