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Uncommon Minds
Join host, Shelly Henriquez-Neill as she introduces you to some of the most extraordinary people leading from where they are and making real impact in the worlds where they live and work. This podcast is for everyone! People who think they know, think they can, aren’t sure if they could and just need to know they’re seen and heard. Join Uncommon Minds as we spotlights these true influencers.
Uncommon Minds
Not just in your head: Healing Beyond the Brain
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Go beyond the mind and learn about somatic and spiritual healing that truly transforms. In this episode, Shelly sits with renowned integrative mind-body health practitioner and scholar, Christina Simmons, LCSW-C, LICSW to talk about healing in ways that are accessible and so much more than you can imagine. Join this wonderful invitation to understand more about the power of your own spiritual connection and ability to heal from the inside out, naturally and from where you are.
Welcome to Uncommon Minds, where we sit down with truly amazing innovators and unique practitioners across common fields who think outside the box and carve their own paths to success. I'm your host, Shelly Henriquez Neal. Let's lean into another great episode right now. Hi everyone. This episode, like all our episodes, is very, very special. Today we are highlighting and spending time with a truly unique practitioner and thought leader when it comes to integrative mental health. When you step outside the traditional form of care in this space, there's a whole person, holistic approach that is extremely important to know about and extremely important to get into. It's about integrating other health modalities than the ones that you're traditionally integrating. It is about supporting your primary treatments to make sure that you can have lasting and balanced shifts in your mind, in your body, and in your spirit. Christina Simmons is an integrative trauma therapist, educator, and founder of Revitalizing Inner Self-essence, LLC. And for over a decade, Christina has worked with individuals and as part of healthcare teams to combine evidence-based clinical approaches, mind-body medicine, and energy psychology. She's certified in trauma treatment. She's certified in mind-body medicine in energy healing. And she is also a behavioral health manager at the Center for LGBTQ Health Equity. She's an associate trainer for the Danu Center for Strategic Advocacy as well. In Christina's words, her work, quote, centers the whole person, mind, body, spirit, and culture, because healing doesn't stop at the surface. It is layered and it is a lived process. Christina, welcome to Uncommon Minds.
SPEAKER_00Shelly, thank you so much for having me. It's such a beautiful introduction.
SPEAKER_01Well, it's all you and it's all real. Yes, for sure. I wish I could take credit for making it up, but it's all you and it's all real. So thank you for saying that. Yeah, so fun. So we'd like to start today with the same way, the same way we start with every guest. We'd like to find out about a little bit about your origin story. But it's really about how you got to where you are. But let's lead into that by describing for listeners how do you describe what you do in one breath.
SPEAKER_00In one breath. Help people navigate their journey into healing in a multi-layered way. Talk about that. So many healing aspects are surface level, right? We think about the thing that we're gonna do or the thing that we want to learn or something that we want to regurgitate rather than something that we want to embody. So the layers that I really focus on with the people I'm honored to work with is mind, body, spirit, emotion. Mm-hmm as well. There are many modalities that work with just one aspect of that. And those are wonderful. However, the way that most aligns with me is to work with all of them. Yeah. And I see them as like pillars, right, to mental health, but also to overall wellness.
SPEAKER_01That's a really good way of thinking about it as pillars, but hence the word integrative, right? It's pulling it all together instead of isolating just one piece. Exactly. Exactly.
SPEAKER_00You can't isolate a human.
SPEAKER_01That's exactly right. How did you come to this place in your work? Talk a little bit about your journey. Because my guess is you didn't start off this way or understanding the importance of the integrative aspect. So at what point did that shift for you? And how did you get to the place that you're in now in your career and in your practice?
SPEAKER_00It shifted at multiple times. The very first shift where I was like, okay, the things I learned in these books are not working. They all need to be thrown in the trash. Yeah. Really started when I was in child welfare. I was there and I was in a role as a domestic violence advocate. And for people who may not be familiar with that role, my role was to work with people that had been experiencing, well, that were impacted by domestic violence and also had children. And to support them with resources, referrals, et cetera. And one day I am going on a visit with a child welfare social worker because my role was in tandem to be of service to the agency and to be of service to the clients as well that the agency served. And what I mean by in tandem, it was to provide education to the social workers, to provide resources and to provide training, and then also provide the direct services to the clients that were being impacted. So, in that role, there was this one particular time where we go to a hospital where someone had been recovering from an incident, and I meet with the person one-on-one, provide resources, developing rapport, connecting with them. We get back to the organization, and the social worker tells their supervisor, Christina was back there with that person, kind of hush, hush. They went in, they shut the door in the hospital room. I have no idea what happened. And I walked away from that. And I was like, that's interesting, right? Be that you would like access to that information when I am developing a relationship with someone. Right. Right. So when that happened, and the other piece was when I would do things like that, like meet with the client one-to-one, have some time to get to know them, the clients would go further in their work, but the child welfare social workers were highly upset. So it was at that moment where I said, hmm, I don't know that I fully understand what it's like to provide trauma-informed care, but I think that this is where it begins. Yes. So that started a path of me going down some trainings for advanced trauma treatment. And then that then snowballed into some other things. But I'll pause here because you just in case you have some follow-up questions.
SPEAKER_01No, I mean, honestly, this is fascinating. I mean, the the brilliance, I think, of of what you're saying is that you were in the field when this came to be.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_01So this was an actual direct experience that is showing you the work you're doing now is supporting people like the ones you supported then.
SPEAKER_02For sure.
SPEAKER_01They told you basically what they wanted and what they needed. The ability for them to open up and connect with you in ways they couldn't with other practitioners was actually the answer that led you here. It's perfectly, it's very clear from the example that you've given. I mean, I think what you're explaining is that there is an aspect of the another approach that misses things. Yes. And so my question for you is what does your work notice that talk-based approaches often miss or sometimes miss?
SPEAKER_00The communication between the mind, the body, the spirit, and your emotions. Some talk, and let me let me preface this by saying talk therapy, we're not gonna give talk therapy a bad rap, right? So our conversation, of course, is not that talk therapy is bad. What I really want to highlight it is that talk therapy will take you but so far, right? If your interest is to truly heal, there is a multi-layered, multidimensional excavation and replenishment that needs to happen. So when we talk about what my work really focuses on, that other work may not focus on is really the interconnection between all of those things. I am not here to just talk about your mind. Your mind is beautiful and your mind is important, but your mind exists inside of your body, inside of your spirit that is also composed of your ancestors and previous lifetimes. So to work with just one part of you, that doesn't even make sense to me anymore.
SPEAKER_01Integrative mental health. How would you explain that to someone?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's the curiosity about what are the root causes of the distress, disease, illness in your life. Yes, which can come from anywhere. Yes, they can be genetic, they can be social, cultural, spiritual, mental, emotional, and some of them biological, physical, sure, but none of them exist without the other.
SPEAKER_01Right, right. They're not sort of isolated on an island and they're we're like the you know, the statement that you made not too long ago when you said, listen, our body isn't in, we're not separating parts of our body. It's all one body, it's all one whole. Exactly.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. And integrative mental health is like, look, I don't, we don't know what the root cause is, but let's explore all of the possibilities of the cause.
SPEAKER_01What exactly is energy healing and mind-body medicine in plain language?
SPEAKER_00So energy healing, and especially the energy healing modality that I practice, which is pranic healing, it's a no-touch energy healing process where you use intention to facilitate the natural healing process in the aura and in the chakra systems. Now, pranic healing is a little bit different from what people may traditionally understand as energy healing. And for anyone who might be curious and thinking energy healing is woo-woo, I completely understand that. And at the same time, that connects to mind-body medicine because we do have the benefit in the day and age that we live in, where science has supported the things that our ancestors, our own inner knowing, has long felt and to ring true. So, with pronic healing, as an example, it's a no-touch biofield therapy. And the main factors with pranic healing are cleansing and energizing, right? So, cleansing is the removal of any disease or illness out of the energy bodies. And then energizing is replenishing that energy with fresh energy. And the intention there is to optimize your overall functioning. And we start with the spirit because everything manifests first in the energy body before it physicalizes.
SPEAKER_01That is beautiful. That is really beautiful. So, the core of it, if you're talking about sort of the levels of work that are done, starting with the spirit, that's also interestingly enough, the part of people that is the most difficult to access, or the part that they don't access at all or enough. Yeah. It's that core, sort of that deeper part. I love that you address the woo side, right? Yeah. And that's the skeptic in really in all of us. But as it pertains to this work, I'm sure you get that all the time. So I love that you just really sort of put that out there in front because we know we're gonna have listeners who are like, okay, here we go with the woo-woo.
SPEAKER_00Exactly.
SPEAKER_01Why is it important, do you think, right now to embrace this that people call the woo-woo and really talk about looking into our spirit and looking at integrative mental health and integrative health as an option? Why is it important right now?
SPEAKER_00Because we all need to come home, right? When we think about the systems that support the compartmentalization of the body, right? Be it homophobia, be it racism, be it sexism, colonialism, capitalism, ableism. You know, the sad part here is I was just sitting here thinking, like, there's so many other things I could list as systems that fuel this mind-body disconnection, and especially trauma. So one of the reasons it's so important is because right now, in the current sociopolitical environment, the thing that is driving all of these changes is hate. And hate in and of itself can be very traumatic for everyone that experiences it. Where there are many people right now that are experiencing true ramifications of oppression that none of us are strangers to, but right now it is especially important because it is a reminder of how much power these systems have if we allow them to have that power. Mind-body medicine, integrative mental health, these are ways that we take our power back. When you look at the roots, right? So earlier you asked me the definition of mind-body medicine. Mind-body medicine is a term that was created by a scholar, a really great one, but it's a really fancy way to say that there are very intentional things that you can use to access the calming parts of your body and then reverse or improve disease in the body. And integrative mental health is saying we are going to look at what those things are. Science will help us identify those things, and then we're going to intentionally use them to improve the functioning of you as a human. And that's important right now because we're in a place where we are all being attacked from many different mediums. So, how do we fight back? We fight back by remembering our power was never external, it was always internal.
SPEAKER_01What is a frequent misunderstanding people have about energy-based healing? Are you pulling it from? And it sounds like what you what I'm hearing you say is oftentimes people assume that they're pulling their power from outside of them. Right? Is that a frequent misunderstanding of energy healing?
SPEAKER_00In a way, yes, it is. I would say one of the biggest misunderstandings of energy healing is that it's unnecessary. That you don't need it. You don't need it. That you just need to take this pill, go to the chiropractor, go talk to your doctor, and that's it. Right, right? Right. But your energy centers, be it your biofield or your chakras, or really both, they support the body. Right. So how does the body function with energy that isn't optimized for its function? Right? You take something like high blood pressure as an example, right? And one of the things that really got me interested in my body medicine was also how many African Americans that I knew that either had a diagnosis of high blood pressure or diabetes. Absolutely. And I said, that don't that don't make no sense. You lived a different life than this person lived, but you both had the same diagnosis. So there has to be a way that it's impacting the human system that is similar for the result to be the same, right? Yes. Especially with cardiovascular disease being one of the top killers, especially for black women and not the women of color. So I was like, what does this mean? What is happening here? And there are many people who have theories, right? Like Dr. Joy DeGries, she has a book called Post-traumatic sleep syndrome, where she traces it back to epigenetics. But if you take something like high blood pressure, just as an example, you go to your doctor, the doctor will say, Here are these high blood pressure medications, check your high blood pressure every day and stop consuming salt, right? Okay, wonderful. But if you combine the integrative mental health approach with that, you maybe you take your medicine. I'm not going to tell you not to do, not to follow doctor's orders, but maybe in addition to that, you explore what is it that's causing, what are other ways that are other contributors to the high blood pressure? And what we found with from an integrative standpoint are things like insulin resistance can contribute to high blood pressure. Things like emotions, especially like anger, right, can contribute to that. And there is a chakra called the Ming Ming chakra that is like the pump of the body. And if you think about it maybe like as a sump pump, right? It it pumps the energy through the body. Well, for most people who have high blood pressure, that chakra is overactivated and which means it's big, right? It's taking in more energy than it's able to use accurately and effectively. So then that one example says that there can be metabolic foundations of high blood pressure, there can be energetic foundations of high blood pressure and emotional foundations of high blood pressure. So we have to work with all of them.
SPEAKER_01This is fascinating because I think that if ignored, you can really experience things that you truly don't have an answer for. And so what ends up happening, and we often see this in our in our families or you know, close alliances with people, we have examples. Everybody has an example of someone who may ignore a particular symptom, and over time they end up either becoming dependent on the one thing that they've been doing. Okay, but it's not quite, it's not working all the way, right? There's something missing. No, no, no, I just gotta keep taking this pill.
SPEAKER_00Or maybe I'll add another pill. That is a placebo effect, right? You believe that it's gonna work, right? That's right. We've seen that in studies, right? People, you give people a sugar pill, you give people the actual medicine, and the people with the sugar pill have the same benefits, right? Or some of the same benefits simply because they believe. That's right. So now we talk about the power of energy again, right? Because because you believe that this pill is going to work, it has you increase its effectiveness.
SPEAKER_01Sure, sure. So we you you know, when you mentioned earlier when I asked you the question about why is it important now? Yeah, are you finding that because of the environment that we're in and because of the environmental factors that people are experiencing, that people that people are turning, that we're all experiencing, that people are turning toward integrative health now more than before? Is it easier to convince people to think about it differently?
SPEAKER_00What I'm saying is that there's a subset of people that are like, absolutely not, right? This cannot be the answer, right? So what is the answer? So there certainly is more curiosity. And I think that there's what I've also seen is that there's also people that are very much impacted by the weight of what's happening in the social, the current socio-political climate. Absolutely. Where they are, where it's becoming more effective, right? Meaning, okay, these people, especially for our trans brothers and sisters, they there are people who are detransitioning as an example, right? With the intention to keep themselves safe, and understandably so. And that's a different response, right, from the people, from the trans brothers and sisters and people separate from them that are like, we are going to fight back. Absolutely not. You do not get to tell me what I'm going to do. And I think that those people are the people that are keeping their curiosity and their definition of survival is different from people that are choosing to survive in a way that might be more indicative of their trauma. Okay. Because integrative mental health is really asking for you to lean into the woo-woo. And if you're afraid of what might happen if you lean into that woo-woo, then you might choose a different way to protect yourself. But the people that are like, I'm ready, I want to do something, my aunt, the people who can feel the call, the pull from their ancestors, from the world saying you need to step up, you need to be different, they are having an awakening right now. And they are finding tools like integrative mental health.
SPEAKER_01It's absolutely triggering. Yeah. Yeah. How do you define responsible integrative work?
SPEAKER_00We're about to shake the table, Shelly. Let's shake the table. Let's shake it. So responsible integrative work starts with embodiment. I'm not interested in being a hypocrite. I am interested in being an embodied healer. So it is very difficult for you to be a responsible integrative practitioner and you are not using the tools yourself. Because a lot of the integrative work comes from a combination of your training and a combination of your connection to higher realms. Okay. There are things that are happening in this work that you will just know, right? And there are branches of medicine that have recognized this healing touch, intuitive healing, et cetera, et cetera, with that are very popular in the nursing field. But being responsible means number one, being embodied. Do your work, be clear about what it is that you're doing. Also be clear that integrative mental health is an array of choices. They're an array of possibilities. It would be, I would have true ethical concerns if any integrative mental health practitioner or any integrative medical practitioner for that matter is saying this is the way versus these are the possibilities from what we see. Right. How do we explore all of these possibilities in a way that you are comfortable with?
SPEAKER_01That's a really good way of putting it because one of the sentiments that people who are skeptical will express is that they don't want to feel as though they're they're they're being forced to do or pushed towards a form of treatment that they really don't understand or they've never experienced. Right. So I think that patience, that understanding, that empathy, I have walked in your shoes. One of the brilliant things about the story you told about how you came to this work is you you weren't always that person. No. So you had to walk that walk too. Yes, absolutely. To get here.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Absolutely. Every step of the way, when I came into new information, I integrated that in a different way. And at first, when I found mind body medicine, I was like, this is the answer. And then I was like, for some. Wait a minute. For some. Right. And integrative mental health, functional medicine, complimentary and alternative medicine, they really all, and also conventional methods, we really all can work together. Right. And where where I landed was that I don't want to contribute to any unnecessary compartmentalization. If you want to try this traditional or conventional method and you want to try this other method over here, have added. What my message has been is that it's not necessary to separate the both them them, and that true healing really requires a multifaceted approach. But I did not start there. I arrived there. Yes. Even how I arrived at pranic healing. Was very interesting. I think you'll enjoy this story. I was implementing the mind-body medicine techniques, and people were having amazing changes. And then there was a session where I suddenly started feeling really sad. And the person in front of me, though, they were smiling. So I just took a second and I scanned my day. I'm like, okay, did this happen? What happened? What did I eat? Did somebody say something to me? And I scanned my day and I was like, no, I'm fine. Nothing happened. So then I just asked the person in front of me, I said, Are you sad? And they said nothing and then started crying.
SPEAKER_01Oh my god.
SPEAKER_00And I was like, okay, I don't have the tools for this, right? Let me explore this, right? So everything that has come to me and been something that I really embody has started from seeing the limitations of certain works and seeing my own interaction with energy, with the tools, right? There has to be an implementation that then helps you understand what is your way and what happens for you. These tools have found me.
SPEAKER_01So there are many who don't quite understand the impact of energy work and what benefits there may be when you combine it with the traditional approaches, right? So I wonder if you could explain the distinction by walking us through high level. I'm gonna give you a hypothetical session of situation, right? Right, all right. Put you on the spot a little bit, but I have a feeling that this is gonna be like curl Space. Let me tell you what I did last week, right? Okay. So you have a patient who's living with chronic depression, and they come to see you and they say, Listen, I've been diagnosed and I've been on medication for a few years, and I've had some success. It hasn't been completely without without success. But I want to see if there's more that can be done because it is starting to impact my ability to enjoy some of the activities that I used to enjoy. I used to be able to go hiking, and now I feel like I don't even want to get up and go anymore. Like it just the thought of it doesn't give me joy or or get me excited about going. So when it comes to a session, what might be some of the most significant differences that the patient would experience when this patient would experience when they're at an integrative session with you versus a traditional talk therapy session?
SPEAKER_00Just high level. So when I first hear you say that, the very first thing I want to know is when is the last time they felt joy? And what was happening? And this is where I'm leaning in more to somatics, right? Because yes, I'm asking you a question that may on the surface level seem like a cognitive question, but my wording was very specific. When was the last time you felt joy? Right. So that's one thing. Two, I'm gonna be very curious about your consumption. And when I say consumption, I mean everything under the sun. What are you drinking? What are you eating? What does that look like for you? How often are you eating? I'm also curious about how often you are in the sun. I'm curious about if you have any medical diagnoses as well. I'm curious about the specific peaks because what I heard in your example is that there's been specific times where things worsened. What was happening then? And what I'm looking for is what was the emotional state, what was the mental state, what was happening culturally, socially, politically. Also, what's your social connection, right? What's your spiritual connection as well? So I'm gonna ask a lot of those questions. I'm gonna be curious if the person can describe to me when was the last time that they felt joy. Sure. Because that tells me what is the extent of the mind-body connection or the lack thereof, some disconnection there. And from there, I'll begin to work on a treatment plan. The one thing I will say is hearing that they've been on antidepressants for a while and that there's a certain worsening that is happening, I'm curious about the medication. Not that the medication needs to change, but there is a certain level where people will become called as treatment resistant. I don't know that I believe in that. I think that there is a remedy for everything. And that's my bias, and I and I own that. But I will be, but because of that particular point, I will be very interested in energy healing for this person. Wow. Because what that tells me is that there is a root, right? And from an energetic standpoint, if something is continuing in your life, there are conditions that are fueling that. There are certain energy bodies that might be in your chakras that are fueling that. So we need to address that.
SPEAKER_01That is amazing. So that's the example of the integrative therapy session. Yeah. I don't even think I want to know what the traditional talk therapy is. The example is. And you walk me down that hypothetical. I don't even think I really want to know that. Because now I'm listening to you going, okay, let's go. Let's get it started. Right. Yeah, I gotta tell you. I'm like, okay, what do I need to go to talk therapy? She done told me, she done read my whole childhood. I got my grandmother who dad coming down. But this is exactly what I'm talking about. You touched on the physical. You talked about energies, you talked about the chakras and where energy stores may not be functioning the way that they need to be functioning. Yeah. You talked about the feeling, which is very much emotion, right? Which is tied into that as well. But as an individual, even though this is a hypothetical situation, I'm listening to you talking, going, I feel seen. Yeah. I feel heard. I want to answer those questions. It's not as sterile, and I'm not saying traditional talk therapy has to be sterile. It depends on the practitioner, right? Right. But if you were to go into the traditional talk therapy session, let instead of walking us through it, what would you remove? Right? All of those things that you just said, if you're peeling all, if you're taking all that away, then now we're just down to what?
SPEAKER_00When did you last feel joy? Maybe. No, you're not even. There's not, there's probably not even a question about joy, right? There's gonna be more questions, traditional talk therapists, and again, you all are amazing. Traditional talk therapists who are gonna be more concerned about symptoms. Where it's gonna be the onset, what's the duration? There may be some questions around what was happening at that particular time. There may be some questions around medication as well. And they may ask you about what you eat and diagnoses, but I haven't known many traditional talk therapists to ask you about separate diagnoses and then tailor their interventions to support you in that. Many of them will work in tandem with a psychiatrist or psychiatric nurse practitioner through more of a medical model. And that's really the difference, right? The traditional talk therapy is going to look more through a medical model, and it's gonna work more with your mind, your cognitions, and maybe even your behavioral responses. When we think about approaches like CBT, right, cognitive behavioral therapy, they will talk to you about your cognitions, they will talk to you about your emotions and your behavioral responses and the interplay between those. Sure. But I have not, but still from a cognitive base place and still from a medical model. And I started there, right? And I did not see really much benefit to focusing on the mind because you're how even if you use something like a cognitive distortion and you're helping someone reframe that thought, if they don't believe it, how do you have to teach them how to fake it till they make it? Absolutely. You have to teach them to be able to shift the previous energy and bring in new energy to even be able to receive. You're asking people to change their thoughts, their approaches, but they haven't first even connected that they have ever experienced joy. So it seems like it's very far away. Yes. Right. I want to start with that. When was the last time you experienced joy?
SPEAKER_01That's brilliant. That's just a brilliant approach. I absolutely am so grateful for you taking the time to break that down. And I think what this is also doing, it's giving our listeners an example of the style that you bring to your practice, which I think is wonderful. So thank you for that. What are some of the most significant differences? And I realize that it's unique to each person, it's on a case-by-case basis. But what are some of the most significant differences that you've heard patients say that they experience after they've had a series of integrative therapy sessions?
SPEAKER_00There are a couple. Well, with the integrative therapy, there's one person that immediately stands out to me. And one of the things that they said to me was, I went to my doctor. And this was just to give some background. This was a person that was pre-diabetic, hypertensive, significant trauma history. And maybe one day we'll get into the connection between trauma and mental, physical, emotional concerns. But this was a person that on paper would have been considered very sick. And we worked together for about two years through a combination of EMDR. At that time, I wasn't incorporating energy healing in therapy, but a combination of EMDR, a combination of somatics and self-compassion approaches and uh amongst other things. And they came one day and they said, My doctor told me to tell you that whatever you're doing is working because I can come off my high blood pressure medication. And I was like, What? Yeah. They said, tell your therapist to keep up whatever it is that you're doing because you don't need this medication anymore. Wow. And that was life-changing for me. And then a person who was just coming for energy healing was experiencing headaches and migraines, like every other day, debilitating. We did three energy healing sessions focused on headaches and migraines, and she hasn't had a headache or migraines. It is accessible and it is immediate.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes. There's a particular style of energy healing you practice. You've mentioned this a few times already, called pranic healing. Yeah. I've experienced it. And I'd really like for you to explain a bit about the practice to our listeners. So pranic healing is derived from ancient traditions, derived from it. How do you honor the authenticity of it, the lineage of it in a modern wellness space? How do you make sure that that is preserved as you are practicing and applying and tailoring your approaches and maybe even the way you explain it to folks who don't understand that that side of it?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. And for folks who do not know, Pranic Healing was founded and created by Grandmaster Choa Kaksui many, many years ago. He has since transitioned in the early 2000s. And one of the ways that I'm honoring it is before Grandmaster Choa transitioned, he created different classes, books, wrote down his protocols, which are basically instructions, if you will. And the ask is to for you to honor them by using them as they're written. Now, do you make certain modifications based on the person in front of you? Of course, but for the most part, you will stand true to the protocols as a way to honor them. The other piece of pranic healing, especially for the people that I serve, right? BIPOC people, LGBTQ people, is letting them know that this is a necessary part of what we are going to do. You get to choose, right? But I hope at some point you choose whole body healing. So honoring that also means telling them that this is what it is, talking with them about it, explaining that it's not woo-woo, talking with them about showing them pictures of curly and photography as an example. And for your listeners who may not know what that is, curly and photography is a type of photography that has captured images of the aura, of the biofield. So helping people see, no, this is not woo-woo. And here is an image of an aura. Here you go, right? You can see it right here. So, and the last piece I'll say is before before and after any energy healing session, I do what's called an invocation, which is inviting the higher beings, angels, ancestors, spiritual helpers to work through me, to allow me to be a vehicle and a vessel for the energy healing. I understand that I set the container, right? But I'm not the vehicle of your healing. I don't own that, right? It is the angels, the higher beings that are working through me. And my job has been to keep my system in a way that is pure, to be able to receive their guidance.
SPEAKER_01That's wonderful. It's such a beautiful practice, Brawnic Healing. And for, you know, those of you who of you know who are listening and watching this who don't understand it, please read about it. We'll obviously give our listeners information about you. It's beautiful, it truly is. I do want to say that if someone were to just listen to this and take one simple, energetic grounding practice that they can try this week, today, later today, what would you share with them? What would that practice be?
SPEAKER_00Relax your jaw. Relax your jaw. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Especially, especially for people of color. Really? Talk about that a bit. So in the world that we live in, there's so much stress, so much happening all the time. And how that ends up, and especially anger. And how that ends up manifesting is in clenching your jaw, tightening your jaw. And there are chakras that are associated with that that get congested, and all that energy gets stuck, right? As a culture, we live a lot of the neck from the neck up. Okay. So one of the reasons I'm encouraging people to relax your jaw, and that may be doing a breathing exercise that helps you do that. That may be self-massage with your jaw. It could be singing, it could be humming, it could be chanting, all things that will help you release that energy.
SPEAKER_01That's beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. That's wonderful. As you were talking, I was kind of going, like, what's happening with my job? To make sure, right? Show you chewing gumbo. She's just checking her jaw. No, I love that. Thank you. And then, of course, at the end of every episode, we ask our guests a signature question that ties in being an uncommon mind with the work that you do. What is an uncommon yet very real definition that you have of what healed means? What does it mean to be healed, in your opinion? That might be somewhat uncommon. Of course, you can't compare yourself to what everybody else would define it, but everything about what you do, Christina, is so unique that I would just love to hear, and I'd love for our listeners to hear how you would define healed.
SPEAKER_00Healing is a I will shift it a little bit to say healing. Sure. I don't know that any of us are ever 100% healed because we are always experiencing life. And to experience life is to always be doing this dance between stress and grief and joy and acceptance, right? So what I would say is my definition of healing is I would compare it to perhaps your favorite four-course meal. You might have all these things sitting out on your dinner table, and then you put them all together on your plate, and then you consume that meal, right? Healing is a combination of all these different practices that then speak to each other to help your body speak to each other from a mind, body, emotional, and spiritual lens. The same way when you have this plate, when everybody knows when they have their plate and it's full and it's a nice little meal and they're ready to eat, they're like, okay, I'm gonna eat it in this order. It's gonna be this and this and that. And oh, let me put, let me mix this and that together and oh, that's a good bite. I really like that, right? That is what healing is. It's fun, it is different, and it is particular, right? Because what I put on my plate is gonna be different from what Shelly puts on Shelly's plate, right? But it is unique. And another reason I'm comparing it to your favorite meal is really to debunk that healing is these small little bites, these quick surface level things that we do, right? For healing to be a full plate, that means it's something that you consume and you digest.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. Oh my goodness, I love that. And then eat it all up. Yeah. And then sop it all up. Yes, yes. And also the connection to that whole body and each element of the meal is different. Yes. Right? But we like to mix them up. Even people who like to separate their, I don't like this food. At the end of the day, it's still going down the same place. It's all getting mixed up anyway, right? Exactly. Christina, thank you so much for spending such valuable time and energy with us today. And thanks for being wonderfully uncommon in terms of your practice and the value that it offers our community. But I'm so thankful to you for expressing the things that you did about our community.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01Where we hold our energy and this powerful, beautiful, and such a necessary practice that you offer. Tell our listeners where they can find you and how they can get your help and more information about your practice.
SPEAKER_00Yes, you can find me at my website, www.risemdlc.com. Also on social at risemdlc.com. Well, risemd lc. And then also if you are interested in beginning healing with me or even solo, because some people want to stick their toe in the water before they go swimming, right? There is an ebook that's available on my website. It is risemdlc.com slash ebook, which is a place where you can begin. It has many of the practices that Shelly and I talked about today in a place that will take you through a transformative process for your healing.
SPEAKER_01Thank you so much for joining us for another insightful episode of Uncommon Minds. If you like what we do, let us know on Instagram, YouTube, or TikTok at Uncommon Minds Pod. And don't just pass by. Like, subscribe, leave a comment, and follow. And most importantly, keep thinking and being uncommon. It was great spending time with you for another episode of Uncommon Minds. This episode was produced by Cheryl Tuesday, and it was written by Shelly Enriquez Neal. We'll see you next time, and until then, stay true.