Debra Graugnard-Fear Food and Feminine Power

Debra Graugnard-Fear Food and Feminine Power
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In this compelling episode of Conversations That Make a Difference, Teresa Velardi is joined by Debra Graugnard, author of Fear, Food, and Feminine Power, to explore the deeper roots behind emotional eating, body image issues, and the pervasive feeling of being unsafe in the body. Debra shares how cultural messaging, shame, trauma, and “the societal double bind” can disconnect women from their sacred power and how healing is possible through embodied, spiritually grounded practices.

We also discuss Debra’s CARITAS Healing Process, a step-by-step framework for clarity, healing, transformation, and sovereignty, and how the body’s signals aren’t “broken,” they’re communication from within.

If this conversation resonates, please like, SUBSCRIBE, and share it with someone who needs hope and a gentler path home to themselves.

Explore Debra’s work + programs: fearfoodfemininepower.com
Get the book: Fear, Food, and Feminine Power (Amazon)

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Transcript

Introduction & Serenity Preyer

SPEAKER_04 0:00

And you know that every word you speak matters. Are your conversations making a difference? With a passion for words and a heart for conversation, Teresa Millard is a self-professed word, best-selling author, miscet 360 columnist, and publisher. Children's books, as well as fiction and nonfiction books, are welcome at WeBee Books Publishing and Book Endeavors, the imprints of her company, Authentic Endeavors Publishing. Whether written or spoken, Teresa strives to encourage and inspire meaningful conversations that make a difference. Here's the host of Conversations That Make a Difference, Teresa Villardi.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

Hey everyone and welcome. Thanks for joining me again for Conversations That Make a Difference. My guest today is Deborah Gernard, but and everybody who knows me, who's come to the show on a regular basis, knows that we start the show with a prayer. So we're going to say the serenity prayer. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. And it is by God's grace that we are fabulous, blessed, and highly favored, living in our greatness, using our gifts and talents, making a difference in the lives of others with passion and purpose. And all of God's great universe is conspiring in our favor. And together we gratefully say

Meet Debra Graugnard + Why This Book Now?

SPEAKER_00 1:25

amen. So, Deborah, welcome. Let me just tell everybody a little bit about you. I have your bio in front of me. Um, so Deborah Grenard is author of the book Fear, Food, and Feminine Power, and that's going to be the center of our conversation today. She's an intuitive spiritual healer, teacher, and a chaplain. She's a longtime body worker, passionate about holistic self-care and spiritual embodiment practices. Deborah is the founder of the Community for Conscious Living and host of the Self-Care for the Soul podcast. She developed the step-by-step Caritas Healing Process, C-A-R-I-T-A-S. I'm sure we'll talk about that a little bit too, which combines many disciplines to guide and equip people to truly be the change they wish to see in their world. Deborah is especially passionate about helping people to realize how our daily habits and beliefs impact all that exists in this beautiful planet so we can each make choices that contribute to the sustainable environment and a peaceful world. Deborah facilitates transformative programs and retreats online and in person, including the program that accompanies the Fear, Food, and Feminine Power program, living from our sacred your sacred feminine, the Caritas Journey to Embodied Transformation. Deborah, welcome. I'm excited to have this conversation with you. Thank you, Teresa. I am honored to be here with you. Thank you so much. I know we've been waiting for this book for a long time. It's been we sure have. It's been in the works for uh a bit longer than you anticipated, but I have a big question to ask you. Why this book? Why fear, food, and feminine power?

SPEAKER_02 3:20

Yeah, very good question. So I started the book about 10 years ago. Well, no, nine years ago. I was teaching a program called at the time called Food, Weight, and Feminine Power, which was addressing issues that come up around our um uh compulsive eating and our emotional eating and our issues with body image. And um, it was really uncovering a lot of deeper issues that were related to trauma and feeling unsafe in the body, and it was so profound, it was really unlocking very deep and poignant uh uh things that were coming up for people and really sparking some deep conversations, poignant conversations. And one thing, you know, I had just started on that book, and then my father, who is now 103, at that time was 94, he uh needed, he he injured himself and needed some help in the home. I moved in with him, come to find out all kinds of stuff was going on, and and his doctor said that he had less than a year to live. That you know, this would be his last birthday, his last Christmas, blah, blah, blah. Fast forward, I'm still here. He's 103. Um, but you know, being a full-time caretaker is a lot, it takes a lot. And so I kind of put the book down and I thought, okay, this just I can't put any focus on that right now. It's I'm you know, it's it's still in my heart, but I don't have time or space for it. And then one of the things that really sparked some of the conversations in the first place was well, there was two things, right? There was the Me Too movement,

Media, Messaging, and Early Imprinting

SPEAKER_02 5:06

and then shortly, I think it was after that Me Too movement, a while after that, that the the video, oh, this is I hope it's okay to say it. There were some some music videos that came out, one in particular, that was very, very popular at the time, very sexually explicit. And it was by two female rappers. And you know, and they had the acronym, they had the merch, they had everything going with it. And it was, I think it topped the charts on number of downloads and everything. It was, but it was yes, very sexually explicit. And I went to pick up my nephew's children from school, and a 12-year-old and a 10-year-old got in the back seat and started talking about, I know what this is, and I know what this is. And then they were talking about the music and the songs, and that I was just like, whoa, hold on. Yeah, we're not having this. We're gonna, you know, we just like it. It took me back to what a strong influence media had on me personally in terms of um sexual trauma, in terms of uh feeling unsafe and doing things that I later felt shameful about and regretted, and just this whole thing that is a lot of what this book is is unearthing. Because there was so much in our culture, so much in our media, so much in just you know, the way we throw around uh comments and conversations about um, you know, about sexual abuse, about sexual exploitation, about sexual uh uh exploration. That and I, you know, it just always raises that question for me about where does self-responsibility lie with media and their market when they're marketing to our children with a lot of this, the the music and the merchandise and everything

Feeling Unsafe in the Female Body - The Hidden Epidemic

SPEAKER_02 7:12

else, and and how does that impact us? How does that affect us? How does that put us into situations that then lead us to feel unsafe or lead us to experience things that then traumatize us and make us you know jolt our nervous system into a a state of feeling very unsafe? The name of the book is Fear, Food, Feminine Power. We get in this. If you ask, uh, you know, I've been to Tony Robbins' conferences where he asks how many women feel unsafe and all of the hands go up. Yeah. The the publisher would only let me put 50% in here because that's what they could find online. I know it's higher than that. When you ask women, do you, you know, how do you struggle with feeling unsafe? The hands go up. And then we self-soothe

The “Societal Double Bind” + Shame Cycles

SPEAKER_02 8:04

with food, and we're so conditioned by the media voices that say that we're supposed to look this way, dress this way, show off this way, you know, and then we're supposed to have this body that looks a certain way. And it's, I call it in the book the societal double bind, also known as known as the virgin whore dichotomy. It's you know, you're damned if you do you do and damned if you don't, yeah. So like really put yourself out there or try to conform to society, and then you know, you get into uh you, you know, something if something bad happens to you.

SPEAKER_03 8:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:38

Then all of a sudden, you know, oh well, you were out there being on the horror side of things when you should have been on the virgin side, and now you're shamed into a bottomless pit of, you know, it and and so then we, you know, it's it creates a uh a very strong inner conflict. And even if you don't experience it directly, it's so prevalent in our culture and in our media, and you know, all the messaging. And what it really, the the you know, the feminine power part of it, right? We feel the fear, we self-soothe with food, we wrestle with the body, whether it be through body image, through weight, through um health, through you know, uh all of the the things that we're doing to our bodies, right? And what we're really being disconnected from and suppressing when we're self-soothing is that true voice, the true power, the sacredness of what the woman is created to be. All of that gets completely lost.

SPEAKER_00 9:46

I yeah, um, so well said. And what really struck me is in the beginning when you started telling the story about your uh the children in the back of the car listening to watching on their devices or whatever, this video that is not meant for that age. Like, where is childhood in this whole thing? And all of the things that you discussed are being implanted into the minds of these very young minds, and the trauma that comes from that, even just I would have to imagine that at 10 years old, a video like that would be quite traumatic. Like, what the heck is going on, you know? So that would be quite traumatic as well. So it starts at a very young age. So, parents, if you're listening, take responsibility for what you allow your children to watch, first of all, right? Because all of these things, as you said, Deborah, all of these things lead places where women, mostly women, I'm sure there are some men who feel unsafe as well, but this we're talking about the girls today. Um, and it leads them to places where they may never have gone had it not started at such a younger, a young age. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 10:58

Yes. We're entrained at a very young age. And if I can, this is not my book. I was actually reading my book to um uh an audio engineer because I'm I'm turning it into an audio book. And the audio engineer recommended this this uh documentary that is called Brainwashed, and it shows how the media there's actually five techniques, it shows five techniques that the media uses to entrain the male gaze. So this is brainwashing the men to be that like like that jaw on the floor, drooling, awestruck by a sexy woman, and it objectifies the woman's body, and and it like wipes out her voice and her power all at the same time. It was an amazing uh video to really see it point it out. This is the technique they're using here. These are five techniques that they teach how to create films to create this power over dynamic, and it's so subtle or so common. I don't know that it's subtle, but it's so common, it's hard to imagine a film done in another way. Yeah, you know, but it entrains us, it entrains the boys and the men as much as the young girls and the women, yeah. And it's all all takes us out of the truth of who and what we are.

SPEAKER_00 12:22

Yeah, and that's and that's really sad because um we don't know who we are when we're young. We really don't know. We are finding our way through this thing they call life, and um, and then everything that is around us, everything that we we see hear, um, impacts us, impacts us. And to be irresponsible as the media is most um more often than not, um, you know, it's it's shocking to me. It's shocking to me. It's shocking to me. And it leads, and and a lot of these things, you know, lead to um some of the topics that we have been covering on this show, like with with Andy Berger from Voices Against Trafficking. All of these things, all of these things could potentially be elements for that kind of a result happening to any one of us.

SPEAKER_02 13:13

Yes, one of us, yes, and you know, around that same time as well, there were those those um those rape cases that were, you know, and that one in particular at the college that I'm thinking of, where you know, it's the the whole boys will be boys attitude, and the man gets a slap on the wrist, and it's you know, the the woman shouldn't ruin his life. But it's obvious that his behavior was I don't even have words for it.

SPEAKER_00 13:43

I know, and then ultimately that the woman ends up to being the victim twice around twice around a victim because of the attack, and the victim because of the way that the media portrays the situation. So, you know, exactly how are we gonna get through this, Deborah?

SPEAKER_02 13:57

Yes, exactly. Well, you know, okay, so here's the interesting part there, or an

Higher vs. Lower Expression of Masculine/Feminine

SPEAKER_02 14:02

interesting part. There is a Native American proverb that says the highest calling of the woman is to lead a man to his soul, so as to unite him with source. Oh, say that again. The highest calling of the woman is to lead a man to his soul, so as to unite him with source. And if I can all right, so you this next part might be a little bit triggering, but I'm gonna say the whole proverb. But hear me out on this because I have an interesting point to make about it that I make in the book. The lowest calling of the woman is to seduce a man, lead him astray, and leave him wandering. The highest calling of the man is to protect the woman so she is free to walk the earth unharmed. The lowest calling of the man is to ambush and force his way into the life of a woman. Now, whether you uh get triggered by that or not, what is obvious about it is that we are conditioned and have been conditioned to live in the lower expression, more so culturally, more so than the highest expression, where there is the uh seduction and leading astray and the ambushing as opposed to where we are really created to be, which is the higher expression of the sacredness, the sacred temple, and that connection with and communion with source, really moving through the feminine to lead a man to his soul so as to unite with source, and the man being that which protects the temple. So the temple can walk the earth and really bring that light and that uh that beacon and that connectivity with source into the world. And in the book, my my mission in writing this book and goal is to help us to take some of the old stories and the patterning and reframe them so that we can like get into the roots of it and uh see the masculine and feminine, whether you're talking about in relationship, in culture, in the collective of masculine and feminine, or in the inner masculine and feminine, to look at the relationships internally and externally, individually and collectively, and reframe it from the lower expression to the higher expression.

SPEAKER_00 16:40

Yeah, yeah. I think that um, you know, I think that a lot of times people don't even recognize that there is a higher expression. We are so conditioned to stay in that space of not knowing or the underneath the line, so to speak. If if I can just paint a picture in my head, um, that we don't get it, give ourselves a chance. Maybe something happened, and we don't give ourselves a chance to rise above that to be able to see the higher level of I love this proverb that you uh you have just said, I need a copy of it. I'm sure it's in the book somewhere. In the book, yeah.

unknown 17:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:19

So um I think that a lot of times between the media, between the music, between the movies, between everything else that the world brings in, I think the sacred gets shoved out.

SPEAKER_02 17:32

Totally. And it really is keying on that lower expression, seduction and ambush. I mean, explicitly. And I think there's a reason for that. It keeps us from from tapping into our sacredness.

SPEAKER_00 17:50

Yeah, and all that we can be, because I think that there are so many women, um, many, many women who are journeying a path to try and find out who they were created to be, what they are here for, what their purpose is, what their mission is, and how can they do it in such a way where there's not this degradation and the um and the defamation of our own bodies to keep ourselves safe, as you say, you know. So I think that I think that this this book will take us on a journey.

SPEAKER_02 18:26

Absolutely, absolutely it does, because it looks at, you know,

Reframing Adam & Eve - Beyond Blame

SPEAKER_02 18:31

and one of the key things that it looks at is it looks at the story of Adam and Eve and specifically how it has been interpreted and applied to the culture. Because if you really look at that story, it's been interpreted in the lower expression as the woman was uh seduced by the demonic forces and was weak, fell weak, and you know, doomed all of humankind to a life of pain and struggle, and um, you know, and then she led Adam astray, and you know, seduced and led him astray, left him wandering, you know, got everybody uh got them banished from the garden. There's there, if you really look at the story and look at, you know, what God made for humanity on this earth journey, you know, and our opportunity that we have here. And um, I mean, this the whole cycle of the human journey, there is a way to really look at that and see it in a higher expression. And when you reframe that and say, what if we applied the higher expression of that story to the uh uh our our who we are in this world, then all of that that has been imprinted as the woman is weak, the woman is is uh easily seduced by demonic forces. I mean, that was the whole basis of the witch trials. But when we had the witch trials, is there were things that that could not be explained that were happening, you know, plagues and illnesses and weather patterns and everything else, and and there was a um a uh science couldn't explain these things, and so there was a an assumption that the women were being seduced by demonic forces, and therefore they were called witches and needed to be burned at the stake. That was the only way, apparently, uh that they believed at that time, and that goes back to the story of Adam and Eve. There's so many things in our, you know, of a woman being property, of a woman being, you know, that um uh a man needing to lord over a woman for a long time, abuse of women was not even considered a crime, it was just a man's need to keep his his wife in line because that was the role that was expected, and she was, you know. So, so even you know, I mean, in the book it talks statistics about crimes and about um victimization of different um forms of abuse. And you know, there was a long time that wasn't considered a a a crime, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:31

Um hold your thoughts hold your thought, Deborah. We have to go to a break, but we're gonna come back. I want to talk a little bit more about this um this biblical story, the Adam and Eve story, because it's a it's uh yeah, we're gonna go back to that. But in the meanwhile, I want to encourage everybody who's listening. Be sure you go to Amazon and get yourself a copy of Food, Faith, Fear, excuse me, fear, food, and feminine power. I got faith on the brain today. We'll be right back. And we're back with Deborah Gernard. We're talking. About her book, Fear of Food, and Feminine Power. And we're talking about the story of Adam and Eve. And you know, when I when I think about the Bible story, and um God created Eve as a helper for Adam. And so a lot of women think that um, you know, Adam was superior to Eve in that garden. But the way that the way that it's written, it doesn't necessarily mean that. It means, yes, God took a rib from Adam and created Eve. He created Adam from dust and he created Eve from his rib as a helper for him. So it's what I read that to be is we are on this, we are telling this, we're telling, writing the story together. We are together. We are a um um a united, we have a united purpose, right? And how it went wrong, how it went wrong the way that it did, and what you bring forth is really interesting to me in relationship to what um what is being taught or what people are assuming is being taught, but until you actually study, you don't know. And that's where you are. You've studied this, and you've you've brought forth some things that are um that we may be dealing with today, you know, that is a result of what happened so many years ago. Isn't that always the culmination of things? We have to be we have to make sense of what we had no control over. Right, right.

SPEAKER_02 23:42

Yeah, well said, and you know, it's um just I'm always a little bit uh um uh just want to say, you know, as you as I talk about the things that I believe, if it if it brings up questions for you or you don't believe it, then you know, yeah, um listen to your

The Human Experience & Free Will

SPEAKER_02 24:04

heart, of course. But but like when human beings came to earth, there is a uh, you know, I I studied with a Sufi teacher from Jerusalem for um a number of years, and there is a saying that when God spoke to the collective of humanity and when it's still in the spirit realms, and God asked everything, everything in creation who wants to manifest with this thing called free will, and everything in creation said, Oh no, not me, not me. I'd I could not imagine a better existence other than one completely aligned with the will of God. The human being said, Well, we'll give that a shot, we'll try it out. And so human beings came to manifest on the earth with free will, which basically means that we forget and we perceive ourselves as disconnected from God's will, we forget, and then we test the boundaries of all the laws of nature, you know. That's how we test them, we test them, yes, exactly. And we have to forget what they are in order to test them, right? And so the teachings say that God put three things into the human being to make us to like really instill us into the density of our bodies and into the ecosystem of the earth and make us forget. And that first was just the need to eat and defecate, so that puts us into the earth ecosystem, the desire to make love and procreate, which then puts us in relationship with each other and all of the things that go, you know, our challenges with relationship, but also furthering the population, and then the desire to individuate and be successful. And if you look at any uh like um what do you call it, uh uh New Year's resolution, right? We're coming up on New Year's. You look at your New Year's resolutions, they all have to do with either your food and your health or your relationships or uh success, you know, and and career, money, you know, those kind of things, whether it's it's bringing them together or pulling them apart, you know, or making them better in some way. So you were on this intentional journey in that way. And if you really look at the story of Adam and Eve, it actually lays out all of those things. The other thing that it was so important about that that story is that this, you know, even though Adam and Eve were told, don't do this one thing, or don't eat from this this tree, don't don't do what they did. There's in the free will, in the forgetting, we're going to test the boundaries, and in testing the boundaries, we make mistakes. Yes. And we're not meant, none of us ever, not male, not female, not Adam, not Eve, not anybody, is meant to be doomed to the fate of the mistake forever. We're meant to find the truth of who we are, yeah, through making the mistakes and then returning. So when Adam and Eve went to God and said, Hey, we did what you told us not to do, we made this mistake, God taught them that forgiveness is here. All you have to do is recognize that you made the mistake and come and say, Hey, whoops, we made this mistake. Help us to return. And the the like the the asking is for us.

SPEAKER_00 27:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:36

Because the forgiveness is already there. Yeah. Asking is to help us to receive.

SPEAKER_00 27:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:42

And all of that is laid out in that story. But we we focus on the mistake and the sin, and we like spiral that into like a downward spiral in into the depths of that lower expression and stay there.

SPEAKER_00 28:00

Yeah. And that's and that's where, and that's where it all turns to whatever. Right.

SPEAKER_02 28:11

But um it's it's time, it's time for us to to come back from that and to recognize who we are, the higher expression of the male and the female, the higher expression of the the archetypal, archetypal masculine and feminine. You know, the that feminine is that state of being, that state of receptivity, that state of connection, that is that that quiet, still place that you go to in meditation, where you really need to return and to settle and to commune with source and with truth and with higher light. Right. The masculine is that moving out into the world and doing. So that feminine is when you talk about being a helper, it's that which returns that the masculine can return to to like decompress, to clear out all of the stresses of being out in the world and to like reconnect, reunite. So, you know, on the inner, on the archetypal, and on the the you know, the the physical and in relationship, it's it's mirrored in all of those ways. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:16

So interesting. So, so so interesting. I um I I've never really looked at the the uh um the Adam and Eve story from that stand and to that depth and in that standpoint.

Why Food Becomes Comfort and a Coping Language

SPEAKER_00 29:30

So um tell tell me about the food part of this whole thing. When how you uh you so graciously and effortlessly can can put out the information there about how we go into this state of fear with everything that you've talked about so far. What's the deal with the food? Yeah, well, I love it because this is this is a journey that I have been on for most of my life, you know, and I think that there are a lot of people who have the same thing. Food in general, my my perception, food is uh can help soothe these emotions, these spheres. Food also can be um something that people have to avoid in order to be able to. So you got I I call it the ABCs, anorexia, bulimia, compulsive overeating, and whatever else goes along with that, in order to be able to uh cope with whatever it is that has you with the fear factor.

SPEAKER_02 30:35

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And food, you know, it's it's one of those things, okay, everybody needs food, so it can like creep up on you subtly. You don't recognize you're having a problem. It's not like, you know, oh, I'm drinking or I'm taking a drug or I'm you know um uh getting into gambling or debt or anything like that, or other addictions and compulsions. Um because we need food. I was blessed. My father is a baker, a third-generation French baker. So is he still baking?

SPEAKER_00 31:07

Is he still baking? Oh, yes, ma'am. God bless him.

SPEAKER_02 31:12

Yes, he still is, yes. Um, and so I mean, I think that's another reason why when I, you know, started writing this book, then the universe brought me back to live with my dad because I got to live in my childhood home, in my childhood bedroom, and with a baker who wants to bake all the time and eat sweets all the time. And um, I hadn't been living that way for 36 years before I came back home.

SPEAKER_01 31:40

And so it was like, oh, I'm gonna go through it all again. Um but with a new perspective though.

SPEAKER_02 31:47

Well, yeah, kinda. I mean, yes, yes, absolutely from a new from more awareness, but also I went through a period of like, oh, all of the the urges came back, and they it's like I could see myself, and part of me didn't even want to control it. You know, like I just was really, yeah, anyway, it's it was a whole whole like okay, here we get to do it all over again, but but learning from it this time, getting really into the intricacies of what's going on. But food, I think, is is particular because when you think about when you are in the womb, you are you are being held in a snug container. We really talk about the metaphysical um uh uh uh vibrations of the womb as a macrocos microcosm of the macrocosm of creation as well. But the but when a child is in the womb, they're being fed and sustained through the umbilical cord. It's completely passive and you're being held. There is a a beautiful story that I tell in the book about a young girl that I worked with years ago who was six and a half years old at the time, and remembered being in the womb. She told her mom she liked being in the womb because when you're in the womb, you can go back. You can go back and ask questions when you get scared, she said. And her mom said, You really? She says, Well, well, you got scared? What happened? And she says, Well, mom, you get to see everything. So they show you a whole movie of your whole life before you come here. And mom says, Really? And it's scary. Well, well, you know, she says, she says, Well, if you didn't like it, can you change it? And the little girl says, No, mom, it's not like that. You see, God has it all worked out, and you have to come here. It's like going to school and you have lessons. And she says, Really? She says, Well, do you remember the movie? And this is this is a priceless part right here. She says, No, mom, that would be like going on a treasure hunt when you already know the treasure.

SPEAKER_00 33:51

Oh my goodness. And she was six and a half years old.

SPEAKER_02 33:55

Yeah, Lord, that is so great. Isn't that amazing? And here's the thing so she remembered being in the womb and she remembered that connection, but still didn't remember the movie. So she was experiencing here in this life getting scared, but also remembering that once upon a time when she was in the womb, she got scared, but she still had that connection and could go back and ask questions. So, so that when you're in the womb, we get back to that story, you're being passively fed through an umbilical cord. When you are born into this world and that umbilical cord is cut, now you're, you know, in a sense, you can be held, you can be snug, you can be, you know, contained, but that first thing that you want to do is suckle. Now you have to, you have to like latch on, you have to be nurtured, you have to be held, and you're close to the heart when you're suckling and you're being fed, and you're being so the whole nurturing, nourishing, sus sustaining, all of that gets very much intertwined. Right. And so that times where we feel unsafe, it's so natural to want to go back to that, you know, also feeling disconnected from our bodies. Putting food into our bodies helps us to reconnect with earth, reconnect with our bodies, feeling that fullness, feeling, you know, what just some sense of connection to our grounding centers, you know, when it feels doesn't feel safe to be in our bodies. So food has so many different, and I actually identify in the book five subconscious belief patterns that we uncovered that come up. And I'll I'll I know we're about to go to a break again, right?

SPEAKER_03 35:36

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 35:38

So I'll I'll save those. Um uh actually you can read the book for those, but there's five subconscious, yeah, five subconscious beliefs that uh keep us looping in those patterns of discontent and not recognizing what we're doing or not able to break those patterns. So we go over those in the book too.

SPEAKER_00 35:57

Yeah, we'll touch on a couple of them. Somebody in the chat says they love this, they love your mind and your wisdom and how you you put this all together. So, yeah, thank you for that comment. Uh, I love your mind and your wisdom too, otherwise, we wouldn't have these conversations. It's awesome. It brings us into places where we might not know that we really um can go for information, education, and and healing from whatever it is that keeps us into these patterns that we have created in order to be able to survive, basically, right?

SPEAKER_03 36:33

Right.

SPEAKER_00 36:33

So, yeah. And on that, we're gonna go to a break and we're gonna come back and continue the conversation with Deborah Gernard. Remember, go to Amazon, get the book, fear, food, and feminine power. We'll be right back. And we're back. I

Daily Gift Book series + The Grateful Hearts Community on Facebook

SPEAKER_00 36:46

just want to tell everybody about the daily gift book series. First one, gratitude, second one, hope. Yes, these are on Amazon, and so is a daily gift of kindness and a daily gift of peace. And now we have the newest daily gift of friendship. Yay! Deborah's got her copy too. Yeah, so be sure to go and um get your copies. Some of them are still on sale for $10 each. Um, great Christmas gift for people. So um, the other thing I wanted to say, uh the daily gift book series is just one way that we we get out there together and tell our stories. The other way is through the the Grateful Hearts community. If you go on Facebook and look for Graceful Hearts Community Group, you'll see we're playing the gratitude game in there right now. Like gratitude A to Z, finding something with the letters of the alphabet each day to take you out of the box of being in a rut of being thankful for the same thing over and over again. Let that gratitude muscle grow. So um we have okay, we have somebody asking since I talked about the caritas method, somebody wants to talk about that. So shall we go there? Sure.

The CARITAS Healing Process (7 Steps Overview)

SPEAKER_00 37:55

Let's do that.

SPEAKER_02 37:58

Okay, so um I I pronounce it karatos. It might be caritas. It's actually in uh in the Latin, it means uh love and compassion, and it is a seven-step process. The book has you know introduction about and conclusion, but it's all in between there, it's got seven chapters, and each chapter introduces a step of the keratos healing um process. And um it's a seven-step process that takes us from getting clarity about just what our distresses are, what are what are the things that we're uneasy with, what you know, what is it in inside of us that's calling for healing. And it takes through a step-by-step process to really looking at, okay, you know, you you mentioned the serenity prayer, what's within my power to change and what is not.

SPEAKER_00 38:57

Right, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 38:58

And you know, and also looking at where are the where's the mercy? Because there's mercy in everything, and even in our compulsive eating, in the foods that we eat, in every in our addictions and in everything, there is mercy that is helping us to get through a time where we feel unsafe, where we feel disconnected, where we feel ungrounded, where we feel, you know, um, and we don't know what else to do at the time, or how to do it differently, or how to maintain a uh a change, right? When it's time, I see this in the book of you know, everything is a form of mercy. And when it's time for us to make a change, the form of mercy changes. Like in my case, I actually um uh had a traumatic experience in college at the end of my college years. I was held gunpoint uh in a bank robbery, and about a month later, I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis. But what was happening inside my body was right where this gun had been shoved in my back, I was experiencing excruciating back spasms and internal bleeding. Wow. And though the gun had not gone off, energetically, it was going off on a daily basis and it was exploding inside. And so that's what really was a turnaround for me. Prior to that, I'd had also I'd had fibrocystic disease and hypoglycemia, which are all things they say, oh, people get those, you just live with them, just do this, just do that. The ulcer of colitis was more severe, and the uh they, you know, just said, oh, well, again, people get it, you live with it, you know, and uh just don't eat any foods with fiber, no raw fruits, no raw vegetables, and you know, eat white bread, not wheat bread, eat potatoes, things like that, and um, take steroids for the rest of your life, and that manages the symptoms if you're lucky. I did that for a little while, and then it just, you know, by the grace of God, a light bulb went off in me and said, No, there is another way. And by the way, there was a gun still in your back.

The Body’s Wisdom - Symptoms as Signals

SPEAKER_02 41:07

So that led me on number one, cleaning up my diet and and everything. So, you know, just recognizing also the wisdom of the body and how incredibly wise the body is. There is a section in the book called uh navigating the journey, and it's all about the navigation system of your earth vehicle, you know, your earth ship that you're you're walking around in here. There are signs and signals that your body is giving you all the time, and that's you know, this realization of this vessel that you have and the signals that it gives you, and the incredible, incredible wisdom your body's not broken, it's just speaking to you, it's speaking to you and it's guiding you. So, if you you know, that's one of the parts of the book that realization of the vessel and the wisdom in it and how it speaks to you. And when it's time for you to make a change, that form of mercy changes. These light bulbs start going off. You start recognizing things, you start right recognizing, well, oh, that's not working for me anymore. And I've really got to do something different for myself. And the signals are there, so that's like the third step of the process is having that recognition. And then there's um what do I call the journal journey to the center of yourself to really illuminate what's true for you? That place, you know, we tend to like uh live from the outside from our reactions and from our responses and from the you know, the disconnect and the discomfort. But when there's a very specific uh pathway that we follow to really tap into what's real, what's true, and it illuminates the core light of what's true for you, what's real for you, and it gets us into that who are you? You know, the question of who are you? And then we have has a phase of transformation, and where the as I say, the knower becomes that which is known, and um then an assimilation, right? We're going through the caritas, the clarify, the assess, the um realize, the illuminate, the transform, the transformation where the knower becomes that which is known through like a vibrational shift in the field, and then an assimilation, really assimilating knowledge from heart, head, and your state of being, which really takes us into that feminine, the feminine state of being, being who you're here to create, a being returning into that communion with source to really be in that state of receptivity and that state of of being, and moving then from that place. And when you when you tap into that connection and you know, like it you assimilate that vibrational shift throughout your body, mind, and heart and spirit, and you can move from that place, then that is when the S stands for. Sovereignty. That is when we can recognize sovereignty, sovereignty from the pulls of the material world and that lower expression. Recognize ourselves in that higher expression. And, you know, there it doesn't mean there won't ever be things that pull us back into that lower expression, but we recognize like, oh, those things, you know, when when you come into that vibrational shift and you assimilate that through all the parts of your being, those things don't have the same pull on you anymore. Like you come into a state of knowing, and that's where the sovereignty comes in.

SPEAKER_00 44:41

I love that. Clarify, assess, realize, illuminate, transform, assimilate to sovereignty. Yes. Powerful, powerful stuff. If it were that easy

How To Start Living from Your Sacred Feminine

SPEAKER_00 45:00

as just saying the words, but the bottom line is that you got to do the work. You got to do the work that goes along with it. Speaking of which, you have a course that goes along with this. Yes?

SPEAKER_02 45:09

I do.

SPEAKER_00 45:10

Yes. Okay, let's talk a little bit about that, Deborah.

SPEAKER_02 45:13

Okay, yes. That course is it's a powerful course. You mentioned at the beginning in my bio that I incorporate um embodiment practices in with the spirituality, which is, I think, what makes you know this this course, it it combines my my 20 years of study with a spiritual teacher, um, my um intuitive healing and chaplaincy and all of that um experience with the embodiment practices and the mystical, metaphysical, if you will, of the vibration, the the vibration shifts and the embodiment to really help you to be the change you wish to see in your world, but really to become who you are created to be. And meanwhile, we're peeling away all of those things that were the misperceptions and the lies that we've been told, and the you know, all of this stuff that's been so subtly imprinted into us. Yeah. So we're peeling all of that away and really tapping into the that that core, because everybody's got a little bit different of an essence, right? So I want to tap into your core essence. What did God put in you that is so incredibly beautiful and special to you and unique to you? That is, you know, your expression of divinity in the world. Tapping into that is what you know, that's like you know, tapping that tuning fork and that where we really resonate and light up and being that.

SPEAKER_00 46:51

Yeah. Yeah. Wow. And that course is that course is going to help to bring us back to that sacred space of who we are created to be. You know, it's so funny when you said become who you're created to be. I actually wrote a book called Become. I love it. Yeah, it's mostly a journal, but it's it's um it's little tools along the way. But yours sounds much more involved and much more um uh has a lot of depth in it that you help to bring forth the um the places where you need to go in order to be able to rediscover yourself.

SPEAKER_02 47:32

Yes, yes, and and the beauty of doing it in a group, even though we do it online, I've done this before a number of times, and and we do it in a way where we still have a level of witnessing and connection online. There is, you know, how many times have you like healed something, and then you go out and you're around people, and that judgment comes at you, and you revert back to that same place of oh, you know. So what we're doing when we're doing the practices in group is we're retraining the nervous system to not go into retreat when those criticisms come, but but actually to be reaffirmed and to be like repatterned with a mirroring and acknowledgement of that core truth of who you are.

SPEAKER_00 48:17

Core truth of who you are. Yeah. I think I I feel I'm still in my head, I'm like back with that six and a half year old girl, knowing that life is a school, and um, and just just inherently knowing through her communication during the time in the room and probably afterward. And you know, for people who think that this is not possible, just look up Akayan Kamaris, Kasmeric, and look at her pick her paintings. She came to this earth with an incredible, incredible ability to paint. And at nine years old, she painted uh a painting called the Prince of Peace, and she kept saying God, she said God kept telling us paint the picture, paint the picture, paint the picture. And she says, Well, I have nobody to sit for the picture. And then somebody came to the door, a carpenter, no less, picture of Jesus, she's supposed to be painting. Carpenter comes to the door, she asks him to sit for the picture, she paints the picture exactly as she sees him, leaves, never comes back. Nobody ever knew who he was. Nobody ever knew who he was. So I believe that stuff like that happens all the time. And then when that six and a half-year-old girl is knowing who she is inherently, but didn't get that didn't get the end of the movie, that's the experience we call life. And we take all the things with us. You know, we'd have everything we need to get through, I believe, the judgment and all the criticisms and everything else that bring us to places where we might not want to go, like dive into the food when you don't feel good or whatever. Ask me how I know this. It's right. And uh, and yet we can still we know that there are ways to handle it a little bit differently because the creator is always with us. Yeah, yeah. And I think that your course, um, although I haven't seen it yet, yet, keyword, um, haven't seen it yet. I I believe that based on this conversation alone, that course will help people to really come back to who they were created to be.

SPEAKER_02 50:28

That is a deep prayer. Yeah. And if I can just say it is time for women with where we are collectively in our journey of humanity, right? In the collective of humanity, it's like looking at that archetypal for the woman to come into the truth and reality of who we are to create, to like wake up that conduit so that the masculine can return to commune with source, and we can, it's two parts of one whole coming back together to commune with source, to be in that higher expression of masculine and feminine feminine, and to be able to live in unity.

SPEAKER_00 51:08

And it's time, it's time, it's time, it's time, you know, and and uh how brave of you to say that in this in this time that there is such an upheaval in the earth and and the spiritual realm um that we can come to someone like you who knows, someone like me who uh who is uh learning, but at the same time, I know that there are things to come that that are better than what we see here now. Um, but how how brave to say it's time that we do this work because it's time that we do this work. Yeah. Deborah, we have

Where to Find Debra Graugnard

SPEAKER_00 51:56

one minute left. How can people get in touch with you? Where did this hour go? How do can people get in touch with you? And besides going to Amazon to get the book, how can they get involved in your course?

SPEAKER_02 52:06

Go to fearfoodfemininepower.com. Fearfoodfemininepower.com.

unknown 52:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 52:14

There is uh information about the books, links on how to get the book. There's also a link to the program there, and um just other ways that you can get started. Awesome. Be sure to get on my mailing list at the very least. And I mean, get the book, sign up for the program, but get on the mailing list so that you can be notified of other things that are coming on.

SPEAKER_00 52:35

Other things that are going on, other things that are coming. And also, she also has another book I'm gonna recommend to you when we were silent. And uh While we were silent. While we were silent, yeah, and there are there's a lot of information and a lot of uh stories in here that speak to trauma. So yeah, that's the specifically about healing from sexual trauma. Yes, yes. She's an author, she's a speaker, she's a coach, she's a friend, and I'm grateful to have you here on the show today. Thank you for all you brought to the conversation and thank all of you for being present. Make sure that all the conversations that you have, even the ones with yourself, are making a difference in the world. And we'll speak to you next time. Have a great day, everybody. Bye.