150: Unlocking Inner Joy: A Modern Mystical Approach to Awakening with Holly Erin Copeland

Have you “done all the right things” and still felt deeply unhappy? Built the life that should feel like a dream… yet your mind won’t stop spinning?

In this episode of Together We Seek, JJ DiGeronimo sits down with former ecologist-turned-spiritual guide Holly Erin Copeland to explore what it really means to move from an ordinary, ego-driven mind into an awakened state of being.

Holly shares how she went from a “dream job,” beautiful home, and loving family—yet feeling miserable inside—to committing to “rewire her brain,” discovering non-dual teachings, and developing her Inner Rewilding framework.

Together they explore:

• What an awakened self actually is (beyond jobs, roles, and labels)
• Why chasing external success can’t deliver real happiness
• The four pillars of Inner Rewilding: Awaken, Attune, Allow & Align
• How to build a simple, consistent morning practice to “get your instructions for the day”
• Working with ancestors, guides, and the living universe as sacred partners

If you’re tired of your own monkey mind, standing at a crossroads, or feeling the tug for “something more,” this conversation will help you remember: your awakened self is already here.

Holly Erin Copeland is a former ecologist turned guide to the wild within. Through her work in Inner Rewilding, she helps spiritual seekers, visionaries, and earth-conscious leaders return to the wild intelligence of their being.

Rooted in modern non-dual awareness and the wisdom of the body, Holly creates sacred containers for deep healing and remembrance—where frequency, ceremony, somatic attunement, and presence converge.

With a background in conservation biology and decades of spiritual practice, Holly blends science and mysticism into a truly integrative path. She is trained in Human Potential Coaching, Neuromeditation, Subtle Energy Meditation, Biofield Tuning, breathwork, Reiki, and ceremonial plant medicine guidance.

She lives among the oaks in Nevada City, California, where she sings to the land, listens to the trees, and celebrates the beauty of this wild, precious life.

 Website: https://www.hollycopeland.co/ 

IG: https://www.instagram.com/rewildingholly/ 

YT: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvp70F24kTTn-k09t3fcKAw 

JJ DiGeronimo is an award-winning author, speaker, and intuitive guide dedicated to helping people trust their inner wisdom and align with their gifts. As the host of the Together WE Seek Podcast, JJ creates sacred spaces to explore light, energy practices, and ancient wisdom with healers, mystics, and spiritual leaders. Through her authentic conversations, she empowers listeners to remember their intuition, embrace their unique gifts, and elevate their frequency for a more enjoyable journey.

SEEKING - JJ's 3rd Book: Seeking: 74 Key Findings to Raise Your Energy, Sidestep Your Self-Doubts, and Align with Your Life’s Work

Website:  https://jjdigeronimo.com         
IG: https://www.instagram.com/jjdigeronimo/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jjdigeronimo/
Together We Seek: https://www.togetherweseek.online/                                                               

Transcript

Unlocking Inner Joy: A Modern Mystical Approach to Awakening with Holly Erin Copeland

00:00 - JJ DiGeronimo (Host)

Hello, hello, jj DeGeronimo, here with Together we Seek. We are so excited for you to join us. We always bring together such amazing souls that have not only done their own work but now are guiding others, illuminating their path and helping them resurrect some of their gifts that they came down on the planet with that maybe they may or may not be using, so today Holly Copeland is with me. Hello. 

00:26 - Holly Erin Copeland (Guest)

Holly. Hi JJ, thanks for having me on oh. 

00:29 - JJ DiGeronimo (Host)

I love this and I love our title Ordinary to Awaken Mind. So what does that mean to you? 

00:37 - Holly Erin Copeland (Guest)

Oh well, I don't know everything about spirituality in one sentence, and I guess waking up is a big topic, right, and it's something that people throw around a lot, and I love to maybe just demystify it a little bit to recognize that enlightenment isn't something that we have to go sit in a cave for 10 years in order to achieve that. Your awakened self is here now and available to you right now, and I feel that is a message that the world needs to hear, because I certainly know when I started on my path, there was a feeling of there's chaos in my head. How do I get out of this? And also, does this mean I need to sit and meditate for hours each day in order to have real peace and know peace as my true nature and my awakened state. 

01:31

And so the good news is that you don't need to go meditate in a cave for a long time, or even hours a day, and that this awakened self is something we can access at any moment. 

01:43 - JJ DiGeronimo (Host)

So beautiful. So what is an awakened self? 

01:47 - Holly Erin Copeland (Guest)

Well, most of us have this sort of perspective, this everyday mind that we live from, and it can feel kind of an ego manager that lives behind our eyes, that kind of is barking at us, having very many opinions about all the things that happen in our lives and is kind of directing our life, that we have this kind of pretty entrenched sense of an identity, of who we are, so that if somebody asks you, who am I, who are you, most people will answer that well, I'm a mother and I'm, this is my job, and list all of the qualities of kind of their person, and so an awakened state is, is to access and to know the self that you are. 

02:34

That is not any of those things, but that was here before you were anything and before you took on any roles and responsibilities, and to recognize that as your true nature and who you are, and to begin to learn to live from that self and that awakened self. That is beyond any roles and responsibilities. The beautiful thing is that there's nothing to fix at that space, in that space, from that space, there's no, there's no measure of success that you have to achieve. 

03:08

There's, in fact who you are is whole, perfect and complete already, and so it really relaxes and unburdens us from the personality of life that can feel such a burden honestly. 

03:22 - JJ DiGeronimo (Host)

Yes, I know this so well. I know this so well and I feel many have to hit a crossroads. Something has to happen before they realize this monkey mind, this ego driven, this identity based living is not working for me. So how did this come through you? Yeah? 

03:42 - Holly Erin Copeland (Guest)

So our, our, our paths and our stories are where. Where this came through, it was 2018 and I was working as an ecologist for the nature conservancy, so this is actually my second career. I thought that I would be a research scientist for the rest of my life and but but spirit had had other plans and it started with just a kind of confluence of a number of things, but I guess what feels relevant in this moment was a sense of one, knowing that I wasn't happy. 

04:17

And that arrived at a time when, if I looked around objectively at my life, I should have been, by all rights, been incredibly happy because I had a dream job around. Objectively in my life, I should have been out by all rights, been incredibly happy because I had a dream job. I had two beautiful children, I had a loving husband, I had a beautiful home in the mountains. I had all the things and I'd done all the things and I still wasn't happy and so I was okay, wait what I've done all the things society told me to do that should make me happy, and I'm not. 

04:48

And if that's not happiness, what is happiness and how do I find it? And there was this kind of monkey mind in my head that kind of wouldn't stop. And I tried meditation a number of times throughout my life. I mean when I was 14, my mom was into metaphysics and I remember setting up a candle in my bedroom and trying to meditate and it was really hard and I couldn't do it and I was what's the point and is this really even working and why am I doing this? 

05:12

And then after that, I read a lot of spiritual books throughout my life and I tried to get spirituality, spent a lot of time kind of in that spiritual space, but not really actually tackling the kind of monkey mind in my head and any real, no real breakthroughs. 

05:32

And so I decided to go to a meditation retreat and I basically committed myself to rewiring my brain. I actually wrote that in my journal, at the top of my journal in 2018. And I started to meditate, I started to track my brainwaves, I actually joined a kind of meditation community and a course and I really started to learn about how to befriend my inner self and my inner space through meditation and in that I discovered the non dual teachings and practices of Mahamudra Dzogchen from Tibet and I started to study those and I met non dual teachers like Kelly and Rupert Spira and through them I started to really question this. I and yeah, and then, and that was utterly life changing all of that work and and I also had a health crisis and through all, and I started working with frequency and was but that none of that is a measure of success and none of those external things have anything to do with happiness and started to work with plant medicine and all of that landed me here. 

07:00 - JJ DiGeronimo (Host)

I can so resonate with what you're saying. I, too, left a STEM based career in 2016. I was visiting a therapist and I ended up in mindfulness and then meditation. I now teach that, oftentimes in corporate, because I feel I can give you all the steps to get where you want to go. But if you don't change the inside, the outside will just be a reflection of the inside. And it's a lot of work, but I think you have to get sick and tired of being sick and tired of your current state, and so it sounds. You just plunged in because you were. I have to go somewhere other than here. 

07:35 - Holly Erin Copeland (Guest)

Correct. I was, I think you said it so well. I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. I mean, even before the illness hit. I was just tired of my own mind. I was like what is this crazy monkey mind thing and how do I get out of it? And how do what is that again? What is happiness? How do we? How do we find happiness? And I just became absolutely determined to, to, to know. 

08:01 - JJ DiGeronimo (Host)

Yeah, that's really beautiful and I know there's steps that you're working on that incorporate ordinary to awaken mind. I think people don't realize that it's a step-by-step process and sometimes you go back and sometimes you go forward and sometimes you do the cycle over and over again with different aspects. So I know that you're into light therapy and energy attunement and breath work and all different types of meditation, and each of those has a cycle of its own how you move through it. So how do you guide people through steps so that they can work through or work around I should say you work around the voice in your head to a place that you can actually find some inner peace. 

08:43 - Holly Erin Copeland (Guest)

So I have a book coming out called Inner Rewilding and that process of inner rewilding is my answer to the question you just asked. So, through through, inner rewilding, in the way that it came to me, was really four pillars, and those four pillars to me are the essence of the spiritual path. And I I did this because in writing my book I was okay, I okay, I'm going to tell my story, but then I want to help others and if I was to guide you and I was to tell you what I did and what worked, this is my answer. And so there's really four pillars or four principles to me that make up the essence of the who am I question? That's, the recognition of who we are is not the identity but as awareness itself. So awakening to awareness itself is the essential. I mean, really that's the answer to everything. But and there are other we're in a three dimensional or five dimensional animate universe and there's ways that we can work with that. So the second part is attuned to the living universe. So that incorporates all the frequency work, that incorporates recognition that we're energetic beings in an energetic body and that we can work with frequency to support us to this energetic body, to attune to that living universe and so that awaken and then attune to the living universe, then the third pillar is the surrender, which is allow the flow really work with all of the parts within us that have formed this identity self. When we surrender back and release, when we allow, then we allow the flow of life to move through us and that's really where it feels I'm not doing my life, but life is doing me. And these, these three kind of work in. It's not you do one, then you do the other, then you do the other thing. They, they interweave. 

10:48

But to me they're the sort of four essential principles, and the last one is align with your wild heart, and that's really the recognition of the heart, is the portal to well, to everything. 

11:02

In my journey and in my just experience of being human, that I've always said to my children just do what you love. If you don't know anything else, just do what you love. Because when we, when we've come back, the master resonance of love in our heart is the guide and we can't go wrong by doing that. So aligning with your wild heart for me is to come back into resonance with these beings that we're arising as in our unique form, have a frequency and a signature, a blueprint, something that we're here to uniquely do and contribute. We're all beautiful fractals, we're snowflakes in this universe, and when we, when we tune into the essence of who we are and we let the resonance of that kind of vibrate and we feel that and then we allow our actions to flow from that, we're really moving in concert with the universe, we're synchronizing our beings with that, and so those four pillars that allow, awaken, attune, allow and align to me are the answer to your question. 

12:09 - JJ DiGeronimo (Host)

That is beautiful. I love myself a good framework, that's for sure, and I think a lot of women do. They want to know, kind of, where they are, where do they have to go, what are the steps. So I think your book will be amazing. I'm super excited. You said it's coming out in January 2026? Amazing, I'm super excited. You said it's coming out in January 2026? It is January 8th 2026. Yeah, I love that. I love that. Good for you, congratulations. I think that's going to be such a great conduit for so many to kind of find you and to talk about all the things that you're doing in your retreats and your programming and the work that you're doing. I would say what type of person seems to migrate towards you. 

12:49 - Holly Erin Copeland (Guest)

That's an interesting question. I mean, I have worked with everything from sort of older women to younger women, to men. Sometimes I get this whole string of male clients. 

13:00

So I guess what I'm gonna say is it can be any phase of life, but I tend to attract people who are seekers, who are on the verge but just feel there's a little bit of mystery in the spiritual path. They tend to be people who respect the science. They're sort of interested and intrigued by the science and I'm a bridge between ancient wisdom and modern science. I'm kind of a bridge person and so often I'll attract somebody who comes from that sort of almost more materialistic realm. They've got that in their history but they also sense the steeper spiritual path and they're very drawn to it. 

13:40 - JJ DiGeronimo (Host)

Yeah, it's super interesting and I love those. I always find people that are at a crossroads. They want to change their job, they want to change the way they're in their marriage, they want to change something, and then what is the first step? I always find that crossroads for me as a big first step, and I think that's because that was mine too and I feel you could track what you are. Yeah, absolutely. 

14:01 - Holly Erin Copeland (Guest)

I think you're right. 

14:02 - JJ DiGeronimo (Host)

And the fact that your mom was into mysticism and other things. To me that's a clear indicator that you have big gifts, because generally most of the people that I've met that have parents that have dabbled in that or were even more than dabbling that. They usually come through those types of people because they have a lot of work to do or a very specific gift that they're here to share and they have to believe it's okay. So they choose those people to come through. 

14:29 - Holly Erin Copeland (Guest)

Yeah, yeah, thank you for saying that. I don't know that anybody's ever quite said, quite said that to me in that way, but I appreciate that. Yeah, I'm so grateful to my mom for, especially for leading the way in this path and giving me permission to be wildly metaphysical if I wanted to be, and also my dad, who's more conventional, to bring that science inquiry mind into it. 

14:55 - JJ DiGeronimo (Host)

So I love that. I love that my mom did the same and I'm super grateful. I'm super grateful she started taking me to Lily Dow when I was 12. 

15:03 - Holly Erin Copeland (Guest)

I love it. 

15:04 - JJ DiGeronimo (Host)

Yeah. 

15:06 - Holly Erin Copeland (Guest)

Yeah, I mean, I had my first channeling at 14. 

15:09 - JJ DiGeronimo (Host)

Ooh, that's amazing. 

15:13 - Holly Erin Copeland (Guest)

I actually have. I found them and dug them up when I was moving old recorded tapes of St Germain channelings from 1982. Of. 

15:25 - JJ DiGeronimo (Host)

St Germain channelings from 1982. That's fabulous. Oh my gosh, how fun. I think that's fascinating. I talk a lot in my book Seeking. I talk a lot about how my aunts and grandma used to turn to metaphysics when they couldn't figure things out, and so they completely normalized it for me, and I think I might not be as bold in putting this out there if I didn't have them ahead of me saying this is what we use and this is how we do it. So it takes away some of the fear, I think. 

15:56 - Holly Erin Copeland (Guest)

Yeah, absolutely yeah, jumpstarts us. 

15:59 - JJ DiGeronimo (Host)

And yeah. 

16:00 - Holly Erin Copeland (Guest)

And I mean of course ancestral connections are so, so, so important. I know work with my grandmothers and ancestors and the plant medicine work I do and really call them in. In fact, my primary altar is the shawl for my great, great grandmother. So I feel we are right now, at this incredible time that we're living in, we're not only healing our ancestors, our lineage and whatever things are asking for healing, but we're also I'm calling them in to be sacred partners in the work that I do. 

16:33 - JJ DiGeronimo (Host)

That is so beautiful. That's so funny. We are in very similar paths. I've started calling my higher self and guides into and it's amazing. I mean, why didn't I do this sooner? 

16:44 - Holly Erin Copeland (Guest)

Yeah, yeah, because we're in partnership with all of them all the time. 

16:48

Everyone is right For people listening. Your ancestors are in partnership with you right now. All you need to do is call them in and ask for their help. And I call in the grandmother and grandfather oak trees in the morning. I call in, you can call in Isis, you can call in Mary Magdalene, you can call in whoever you want, they're there. And then the more you connect, the more you develop relationship. Then these things build on themselves. It may feel kind of awkward at first when you do it. Is this really working? I mean, I know in me for me when I first started doing, I have a practice in the morning where I say different prayers and I got a whole hour long practice and at first it felt a little fake, almost a little uncomfortable, especially if you're not used to doing that. But what I have found over the now I've been doing this for six, seven years is that it it's a program that you start to get comfort with and comfortable with, and then you build a relationship and then it really builds on itself over time. 

17:58

Have you experienced that too. I don't know what your morning practice is. 

18:01 - JJ DiGeronimo (Host)

Yes, I definitely, and I'm just starting to do it more and more. I used to think I had to go somewhere, be at the special place, and I now I've just started doing it whenever I have time and it is amazing, but a lot of it took me just giving myself permission, allowing myself to let go of what I think it's going to be and just really just allowing it to be whatever it is. Some days it's amazing and other days it's quiet and not much happens, but the consistency, I think, is really what I've started to practice. 

18:33 - Holly Erin Copeland (Guest)

Consistency is key. I so agree with that and when I work with clients, I really emphasize that the consistency coming up again, showing up again and again and again each morning or evening, whichever your practice is. But I recommend a morning practice, even if it's 10, 15 minutes, when you keep showing up in that space and acknowledging the sacred in that way, because every day is a ceremony, where really the ceremony never ends. It's only are you connecting to it. So when you reignite that every morning and you reestablish yourself in sacred presence, in sacred ceremony, and then you give time to listen and just open yourself up to hear messages I said jokingly in a post, I did, but not jokingly, but kind of tongue in cheek I meditate to get my instructions for the day. 

19:22

This is where you open yourself up to receive the divine and for allow it to speak through you and to you. But you need to show up every day. I mean, I don't show up when I need to get on an airplane at 4am, but that's, that's fine, but I show up basically every morning other than that. 

19:46 - JJ DiGeronimo (Host)

I yeah, that's exactly too. I travel a lot and some days it works and just some days it doesn't, but I'm doing it more than I'm not. 

19:52 - Holly Erin Copeland (Guest)

Yeah, yeah. 

19:53 - JJ DiGeronimo (Host)

That's beautiful. So tell us, Holly Erin, tell us what is on the horizon for you. 

19:59 - Holly Erin Copeland (Guest)

Well, right now my focus is on this book and getting it out and building a course. So the book is a memoir, half memoir and then half guidebook, and so I'm making a course to go along with the book that includes a guide, a digital guidebook, so you can walk along the path with me. And I'm running this retreat to Costa Rica in April, if anybody's interested. Beautiful, amazing, amazing place in Costa Rica and we'll do a little medicine work and it's going to be beautiful. And really right now I feel this inner rewilding is going to build and grow and I'm going to see kind of where it goes. But speaking engagements, tedx, these are the things that are in my consciousness for next year. 

20:49 - JJ DiGeronimo (Host)

That's so beautiful. Well, thank you so much for joining Together we Seek. I cannot wait to get your book. I'm so excited you're putting the pillars out for people, because I do think that frameworks, action-based guides and tools for awakening are so needed right now more than ever, and I really feel you're leaning into the calling, and I look forward to hearing about your retreat in Costa Rica and hopefully joining you on future retreats. And as so many of us get together and together we seekonline, where we share so many of the things that we're doing, so that we don't have to be just crawling through Google trying to figure out okay, how do I awaken, where do I find my teachers, how do I get there? And I'm so honored to have you in there too. 

21:31 - Holly Erin Copeland (Guest)

Yeah, thank you so much. I'm so honored to be there. 

21:34 - JJ DiGeronimo (Host)

Oh well, thank you everybody for listening. We look forward to seeing you next week and we hope everyone just has a lovely day and really finds that time to connect with self, call your guides in and be consistent. So with that we're signing off. This is JJ DeGeronimo, and thank you for listening to Together, we Seek.