Ep 228 Jillian Faldmo: Navigating Grief & Loss with Biofield Tuning

 

SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:

In this collaborative conversation recorded for our respective podcasts, I sat down with fellow Certified Biofield Tuning Practitioner (and Biofield Tuning Trainer) Jillian Faldmo.

We discussed the grief journey, the complex emotions that arise when we experience loss, how grief can manifest differently for each individual, and how our respective paths led each of us to energy healing work.

Jillian shares how her early experience with health issues and a feeling of detachment from her father impacted her longing for connection into adulthood.

As we wrapped up our conversation, Jillian and I shared how energy healing and Biofield Tuning, specifically, have improved our lives and how this work has impacted our lives personally and professionally.

May this episode inspire you to explore your emotional world and consider how energy healing, including Biofield Tuning, can support you on your path to healing.

RESOURCES:

CONNECT WITH JILLIAN:

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CONNECT WITH VICTORIA: 

Exploring the Transformative Power of Biofield Tuning in Holistic Healing

In recent years, holistic healing has gained significant traction as individuals seek alternative methods to address physical and emotional well-being. A fascinating podcast episode from early 2025 delves into this world by exploring energy healing through Biofield Tuning, featuring Jillian Faldmo and a dedicated host. This collaboration between their respective podcasts, “Grieving Voices” and “Grow A Thriving Practice,” offers valuable insights into the intersection of grief experiences and holistic health practices.

The Journey Into Energy Healing

Jillian Faldmo’s journey into energy healing is both inspiring and relatable for many. Initially drawn to nursing with aspirations of helping others, she became disillusioned with traditional healthcare’s limitations in addressing chronic conditions like fatigue, pain, IBS, Lyme disease, and Epstein Barr Virus. Her exploration led her towards holistic approaches such as nutrition therapy before discovering Biofield Tuning—a modality that uses sound frequencies to interact with the body’s biofield.

Through transformative sessions under Eileen McKusick—the founder of Biofield Tuning—Faldmo experienced profound changes herself: reduced anxiety levels coupled with increased stress resilience prompted her decision not just personally but professionally too; leaving conventional roles behind entirely so she could focus fully on energy medicine coaching instead!

Grief & Emotional Disconnection

The conversation also touches upon deeply personal histories related to grief/loss which resonate universally among listeners who have faced similar challenges themselves – whether it be losing loved ones or dealing internally within familial dynamics where emotions often remain unexpressed due societal norms around vulnerability/sharing feelings openly without fear judgment/rejection etcetera…

Episode Transcription:

Victoria Volk: Hello, and thank you for joining me on this very first interview episode for twenty twenty five. Thank you for being here. If this is your first episode you’re ever listening to, this is a great one to start with. And if you’ve been here before, maybe you’ve been along my journey for the past four plus years and have been a loyal listener. I appreciate you, and I thank you for being here and sticking this out with me for this long. And hey, I wanna give a shout out to my listeners in Albuquerque, New Mexico. If you were listening to this, I wanna hear from you because I’ve been tracking my stats for the last four plus years And every year, Albuquerque, New Mexico has the most listeners of my podcast, and I find that really curious and interesting. And so if you are a listener from Albuquerque, I would love to hear from you. And again, thank you for sharing this episode if you are from there and you’ve shared it with those you love. I appreciate you. And I do someday hope to get to Albuquerque, New Mexico for the hot air balloon festival. It’s on my bucket list. So again, thank you so much for listening. And I’m excited about this episode because we talk a lot about energy healing because it’s with fellow certified bio field tuner Gillian Falmo, and she’s also a trainer for bio field tuning. I had been trying to pin her down for an interview for quite some time because I really did want to speak with her and her expertise as a trainer and being a bio field tuner for as many years as she has. And our schedules weren’t aligning and and she has a podcast as well. It’s called Growa Thiving practice, and she will speak about that in this interview as well. But rather than me coming on her podcast and her coming on mine, figured we would do a collaborative recording and both of us just share it on our respective podcast. So if you are in the healing modalities, doesn’t have to be bio field tuning or a tuning practice, but I highly recommend checking out her podcast, grow a thriving practice, which there will be a link in the show notes. But I’m really excited to share this episode because we both speak to our experiences of what brought us to biofuel tuning, but Gillian specifically speaks to the health challenges that she experienced from a young age into adulthood and how bio field tuning helped turn that around for her and really you know, it’s like these breadcrumbs that we can either follow and choose in our lives and pick them up and do something with them or or not. And I think for both of us, we reflect on how differently possibly our lives would have been had we not picked up these tools that benefited us and helped us with our energy as empath as well, because we speak to that, but also in support of other people. So excited to hear what you think of this episode and excited to share it and enjoy. Alright. So Jillian and Victoria are here today to talk about biofuel tuning and we’re gonna weave in some grief and because my podcast, we’re gonna share this on both of our podcast, Minus, Greeting Voices, and yours is.

Jillian Faldmo: Grow a thriving practice podcast. It’s a it’s a podcast for wellness practitioners who want to grow a pack. Practice. It’s all about marketing strategies and also some coaching in there too. Some life and business coach.

Victoria Volk: And mine is all about grief and I talk a lot about energy healing work. And so I’m sure that a lot of practitioners who listen to your podcast will also have experience grief because who hasn’t. Right? And no one has to die for us to experience grief. And so We’re gonna talk about all those kinds of things today and share on our respective podcast, this one episode. You know, efficiency, right, is king. And it’s like why we record two separate podcasts, so we’ll just do this once and done and share it and it’ll be what it’ll be.

Jillian Faldmo: Totally. Such a good idea. That was victorious idea everybody.

Victoria Volk: So I guess I’ll let you take the floor first because I’m curious to learn what brought you to energy healing work, and then I can share how I found my way to it.

Jillian Faldmo: Yeah. Sounds good. Well, let’s just say, I’ve always had an interest in kind of, I guess, the unseen. I’ve always been kind of a magical thinker since the child And I have always also wanted to help people. I remember even when I was really really young, my mom would ask me, what do you want to be when you grow up? And I wanted to be a nurse. I think it’s because I had been to the nurse so many times as a school age kid. I was always at the nurse with a stomachache or something, and I think I just love the the care and attention. Then, you know, just see. The nurse made me feel so good. Like, she was always so caring in all of the schools that I really went to. So I did actually end up becoming a nurse, but it wasn’t It wasn’t what I thought it was gonna be. There wasn’t a whole lot of care that I was experiencing in that industry. There wasn’t the opportunity to care for people. It was really, you know, working with people’s medications and, you know, following following your to do list basically as a nurse doing some charting and just very stressful, very stressful environment. I also let’s see. I don’t wanna jump around too much, but I think what kind of opened my eyes to there being something different than nursing or something I could even integrate in nursing was my own health challenges. In high school, I was diagnosed with chronic fatigue, chronic pain, IVS, Lyme disease, Epstein Barr, so I obviously was not doing very well in high school. Health wise, still haven’t really pinpointed exactly what created that, you know, kind of group of symptoms. Because I didn’t have huge trauma as a kid. I had some trauma. I think maybe what I did with my emotions was internalized them. And so it kind of led to all these health things. So I went on my own healing path after high school in when I was in college and in nursing school. And just started, you know, learning things like like herbal medicine and the importance of nutrition and things like that. And while I was in nursing school, one of my nursing professors she was teaching a side class called holistic nursing. And I was like, well, that sounds cool. And so that was just kind of an introduction to all these different alternative modalities, like acupuncture, herbs, essential oils, energy medicine, sound healing, and I just love that class. I was like, this is why I’m in nursing to be able to help people in this sort of holistic way. And and In that class, holistic was defined as basically it’s like keeping the whole person in mind.
Like it’s not just about the pharmacology and the the symptoms that the person is having, but we want to take into account their environment, their mental health, their physical health, their spirituality, you know, the whole person. So loved that class. She saw how passionate I was about it. And she actually invited me to start the American Holistic Nurses Association, Delaware. I was in Delaware at the time.
Delaware chapter. With her. So I cofounded that chapter with her and we we basically networked with a ton of nurses in the area. We had probably like twenty or thirty. Members, if I remember correctly, and we’ve led that together for a few years. Eventually, I ended up moving to Vermont. And one of my friends told me because he knew how much I just loved energy medicine. He told me I needed to go see this woman with tuning forks because she does some pretty cool stuff with tuning forks and Victoria’s smiling because she knows my And this is Aileen McCormick, the founder of Biofield Tuning. And I had my first session with her in two thousand eleven and didn’t really notice a ton during the session. What I noticed was how grounded she was, how just kind of matter of fact she was, and she was working around my body with tuning forks, validating the experiences I have as a child, the emotional experiences, like, how I dealt with my emotions, you know, things like that. And I was like, wow, this is really cool. And what I noticed after that was just the sense of less anxiety, less stress. My body could relax more, so it was it was like, okay, I’m gonna keep doing this. I think I did jump ahead a little bit with that story because I think leading leading up to that, I had, you know, I was in the holistic nurses association, like, meeting all these cool nurses and trying all these different things I eventually ended up healing my chronic fatigue, chronic pain, all, you know, that whole list of things through music. I was going to, like, different music festivals, around the area, and I think their music festivals get a bad rap because there’s a lot of recreational drugs going on. I did have my time with that, I’ll be honest. But when I was healing myself, I was going to these festivals totally sober and just really enjoying the music. And it it did something to my system, like something really, really healed within me. I was also doing yoga at the time and careful with my diet too. But I knew there was something about music that, you know, was powerful and I wanted to learn more. So anyway, started seeing Aileen as a client And then it took me three years of being her client to finally go, you know what? I think I wanna do this. I think I wanna be a practitioner of this work. And I became certified and I tried to integrate it into my nursing practice, but at the time nobody was really interested in having a nurse who practiced energy medicine. I know that I think it was more accepted in the hospitals like, you know, Ricky, being on cancer units and things like that, but I was working in mental health I was a substance abuse rehab nurse and a psychiatric and mental health nurse. And there just wasn’t really any room for it. So I ultimately decided to leave nursing and to just do bio field tuning full time. And here I am today, I haven’t I don’t think I’ve had my nursing license in, like, five years or maybe even don’t think I practiced as a nurse in seven, but I think my nursing license lapsed. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. I love that having the background of nursing and all that knowledge, but being able to help people in this way with bio field tuning has really been fulfilling and amazing. And so I’m a full time biofuel tuning practitioner. Well, I should define full time. That’s what I do. As a career, and I’m also a life coach who coaches other wellness practitioners to grow practices because I wanna I wanna see this work out there. More and more. And that’s my mission. So I have a practice here in Central Oregon seeing clients in person, and then I also do remote work. And, yeah, that’s That’s how I got here. Did I miss anything?

Victoria Volk: Well, because I talked about grief. I had to ask, you know, trauma is what happens and grief is what’s left. And we don’t have to have these big trauma experiences to have grief. But had you gone through a lot like some losses in your life around that time? Not necessarily that you would have perceived it as trauma or traumatic losses, but had you had have you had did you experience losses in your life, in your childhood, in into your teen years?

Jillian Faldmo: Yeah. You know, one thing came up recently that I had this big aha with that makes a lot of sense now. It’s kind of a a complicated story, but to just make it short, when I was when I was eleven or twelve, I I remember my dad kind of disconnecting from me. And I don’t know if it was it wasn’t intentional for sure, but I don’t I think it was I became an adolescent, became I was becoming a young woman, and I don’t know if my dad had some kind of awkwardness about that or maybe I was just being a brat and he just was like, I can’t deal with this anymore. Right? And so I kind of was like, wow, I think that was that was a loss for me. Of course, I didn’t realize it then, but I think it really impacted me in in some way. So and then I think yeah. I think I’ve always like, love has always been something that I really longed for. And I don’t know if I came in with, you know, past life stuff around that, but I also remember, like, my my brother kind of being you know, he was being a brother. He was being, you know, calling me, you know, names and kinda bullying me. I remember feeling kind of heartbroken around, like, I looked up to my brother. I loved, you know, and I still do. But I just I I he was five years older than me. He is five years older than me. And I just I wanted I wanted his love and I wanted his validation and acknowledgement so bad and he would just you’re stupid. He since apologized for that. By the way, he recognized his bad behavior. But but yeah, I think there was some loss in that regard. Just like a having that longing for love and connection even as a young child and being, like, where did it go? Where is it? So yeah.

Victoria Volk: So love wasn’t really something that was shown in affection and physical, ways, hugs, or anything like that. Maybe not even words or how would you describe how love was expressed?

Jillian Faldmo: Well, I think it was when I was especially by my parents when I was younger, but I think when I became more of a teenager that kinda and like I said, I might have been being a total teenage rat. My parents were just like, okay. Like, you need you need your space. We need our space, but I felt it. I think my nervous system felt it. And maybe I was asking for it. But yeah. And so I’m still more trying to, like I’m in therapy now. I’m trying to, like, unwind all that because it’s like, I think when you have a big trauma, it’s like, oh, yeah. This is the thing that, like, created the womb, but it’s one of it’s one’s a little bit more subtle.
It’s like,

Victoria Volk: what was it? Well, and subtle and ongoing. Right?

Jillian Faldmo: Oh, I’m ongoing.

Victoria Volk: Yeah. There’s a lot of similarities in our stories, and I’ll get to mind. But I’m curious, did your parents have losses around that time that you had those diagnoses?

Jillian Faldmo: Interesting question.

Victoria Volk: Let’s

Jillian Faldmo: see. My grandfather, my mom’s dad, that was that was actually pretty traumatic. Just witnessing her get that phone call. I was only six, but she got this phone call that he had passed in a motorcycle accident. So it was it was tragic and it was unexpected. And I remember being in the bathtub and she picked up the phone and she just I watched her just scream and fall to her knees and I was like, whoa, what just happened? Like, you know, I’m six years old and like, I love my mom and you know, just like so as young children are, we’re so connected to our mothers and just seeing her fall apart like that I think was probably pretty traumatic to my system. Now that you mentioned it, And then her mom died when I was nineteen. So that was about, like, when I was happening. I was having the health stuff, maybe fourteen to twenty three, twenty two, or twenty three. So I think her mom died was right in the middle. And then my dad’s parents hadn’t died until much later Maybe there was some job stuff, maybe some loss of jobs or grieving old jobs. Yeah.

Victoria Volk: It’s very, like, just listening to you. It’s like, oh my gosh. It’s like, are you talking about my story?

Jillian Faldmo: Really?

Victoria Volk: Yeah. It’s really bizarre. Wow. I mean, my I had a lot of loss and trauma in my childhood, like, you know, my my grandmother had passed away when I was seven, and then my grand my father passed away when I was eight. So it was my mother who lost her mother. And then and actually, her dad died the year I was born. So she lost her dad few years, you know, within five, six years, she lost her father, and then she lost her husband. And so you can imagine she was, like, emotionally spent. Like, there was no emotional connection there and kind of how you described kind of what happened with you you and your father, like, emotionally disconnected from you. Mhmm. And, you you know, talking about how you were diagnosed with IBS. I was diagnosed with IBS Mhmm. In my teen years. And needed I needed a lot of sleep, and I was gonna go into nursing, and then I had my son and didn’t feel like I could do, like, didn’t think I could do both. I didn’t have the confidence in myself that I could do both. And, you know, it wasn’t until five, six years ago that I discovered Ricky and started to be open to because my healing kind of really didn’t start until, I’d say, until my thirties. Twenty fourteen is when, like, my personal development, like, just really took off. And I thought there was something wrong with me. Like, my my symptoms were really manifesting in again from the same kind of things that I had, not the same kind of things, but similar, like overall pain, Eptiv are reactivated, like these fibromyalgia like symptoms, GI, like, similar to you. Right? Right. It was I know now, for me, it was grief. Mhmm. Just coming ahead, you know, coming to a head again. My youngest was starting kindergarten. I’d closed my photography business that I’d poured, like, ten years of my heart and soul into. So much change. We had moved. Like, we had, you know, big changes in my life and wasn’t connecting the dots until, of course, you know, after I went through grief recovery and I worked through a lot of my anger and resentment and grief from my childhood and all of that, that I recognize that and connected the dots. Like, oh, this is what was happening in my life. This is why this was manifesting. Because grief manifests in our bodies. And it either comes out. We’re we’re like tea kettle.

Jillian Faldmo: Yeah.

Victoria Volk: Either implode or we explode. Mhmm. And like you, I internalized everything. And so I was imploding, you know, and then I would have these bursts of anger you know, these explosions of anger. And I think a part of it is just connecting the dots for ourselves. Like, what’s happening in my life or what was happening in my mother’s life. Right? To kind of bring that compassion in, like, And for me to be able to do that and look at my past and look at that relationship I had with my mother as a result of her experiences that changed her, which then changed our relationship, it really helped to change my perspective. Of her and of her relationship. And I think that’s that’s the transforming thing that happens when we can when we are able to connect the dots like that for ourselves.

Jillian Faldmo: Yeah. Yeah. That makes so much sense. Yeah. So how did you find Ricky then? What what was the kind of catalyst there?

Victoria Volk: You know, I think because at that point, I would have been See, that was about that was five years ago. Almost to the day, actually, last Sunday was my five year anniversary of my Rakey certification. I mean, it was four years into my personal development. I was taking because I at the time, that’s where I was going to. I I thought something was wrong with me. Mhmm. You know, very well. Maybe you did too. Like, sometimes wrong with me. I’m so screwed up. Everyone else has got it all figured out and they’re all put to got everything together and hears me and I can’t get my shit together. You know? So I was taking different programs and, you know, Tony Robbins and reading personal development books. You see a whole bunch of them up there. Mhmm. You know? And just, like, diving into learning about myself and trying to figure myself out. Like, I keep like, I was my own, like, science project or something.

Jillian Faldmo: Yeah.

Victoria Volk: Yep. Just to gain an understanding of, like, how did I get here? And and grief recovery is what helped me figure that out. But what was happening, the more I was working on myself, the more I would I was more open to hearing the intuitive guidance I feel like I was receiving. So I actually just had a a podcast interview earlier. Calls herself an intuitive, but she’s a medium. And was telling her that, you know, I kept hearing Ricky over and over. And I heard it three times, and I’m like, oh, okay. The third time, there’s something to this. Go to Google, had a conversation with somebody that practiced Ricky, was learning that, oh, there’s different lineages. Like, what’s all this stuff? And I ended up finding a practitioner that that I could meet with in person for my certification. And it was a six hour drive, but I took it and I went and had a really profound experience personally. And, okay, this is I’m guessing, I’m doing this, and this is it, and this is pretty amazing. And I went to my that was level one and two. I went finally, did six months later. I went got my rinky master with her. Six months after that, I got my coronah holy fireraki master with her. Now she offers sound bowl healing classes and stuff too. Mhmm. But it didn’t happen until, like, two years ago. So three years doing Reiki, just went down a rabbit hole, which seems to happen a lot and found biofuel tuning through some really differently. I’m like, well, this is bizarre, but this is really interesting. It was with sound, but it was like this machine that you hook people up to and it could, like, translate their energy, like, into sound frequencies or something like that. And that that led me to biofuel tuning.

Jillian Faldmo: Oh, interesting.

Victoria Volk: And when I found biofuel tuning, I’m like, oh, I’m doing this. This is cool. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, it’s just one rabbit hole after another rabbit hole after another rabbit hole. Speaking of rabbit holes, I have one to send you down that is for a two ounce morning shot called magic mind that will improve not only your focus, but also your well-being and energy, all to help you get things done without negative side effects. I’ve been thinking a lot about mental wealth lately. And last month, you know, with the holidays and managing all that I do with my business and family and trying to stay present and keeping My own energy balanced, I realized I needed to invest in my mental resilience, not just for myself, but for my family and the people in my life and clients and things like that. That’s where magic mind came in. They reached out and sent me their focus shots to try along with their deep sleep formula, and I’ve got to tell you, it’s become a game changer in my daily routine. The focus shot has these amazing ingredients that support mental clarity without the jitters you get from coffee. And at night, their sleep formula helps me wind down naturally. What I love most is that magic mind isn’t trying to become some miracle cure. It’s part of a bigger picture of mental wealth that includes sleep, Diet, exercise, and stress management. It’s like building a savings account for your mind, and these shots are just one of the tools that can help you get there. Right now, they’re offering an exclusive deal for my listeners. Forty five percent off, they’re twenty four our bundle, which includes both the focus and sleep formulas. Just go to magic mind dot com slash gvjAN. That’s all caps, gvjAN. Again, that’s magic mind dot com slash g v j a n for forty five percent off. Invest in your mental health and your future self. Well, thank you. Yeah, that’s that’s how I’ve gotten here. Yeah.

Jillian Faldmo: Yeah. And so now you you do Ricky as well as bio field tuning or is it just bio field tuning or

Victoria Volk: I kinda have my own hybrid. Like, I kinda have my own, like, way that I do it. I bring in elements of Ricky into it. And, of course, if, you know, contraindications come up with certain clients, then I I use more rate key, of course. But but more importantly, I wanna say and I have a question for you too.
Mhmm. But it’s helped me do the work that I do. Like finding energy healing has helped me do the work that I do in my grief work. Yeah. Because

Jillian Faldmo: That makes sense. It’s really heavy stuff.

Victoria Volk: Yeah. And so my question I thought of when I was listening to you and and what was actually posed to me on that interview that I was telling you about or mentioned is because as a child, I needed a lot of sleep and I just I I consider myself an empath and highly sensitive, but not all highly what I’ve learned is that not all highly sensitive people are empaths, but all empaths are highly sensitive. There’s a difference. But would you consider yourself an empath? Absolutely. Okay. So the question that was posed to be by this medium or intuitive was did you do you because when she was talking about because I kinda asked her a question like this, where do you feel like we’re all we’re all mediums in a way? Or do you feel like we’re all intuitive in that way? And and she was like, you know, there’s certain there’s there’s a person. Like, one person might be, like, let’s say you have a person that runs marathons. They’re very they’re very physical person. They have to be moving constantly. It’s really difficult for those people to sit and be still. Right? It’s Yeah. Very hard for them to it’s gonna be harder for them in her experience. She said to connect to spirit. And to be open to the what spirit is trying to tell them. Mhmm. But if you have someone that is not as much as the visit in the like, they have to experience the world in the physical way, whereas someone like an empath it’s not necessarily the case. And but she was saying in her home growing up, like her sister is very empathic and highly sensitive and felt like her sister carried a lot of the emotional weight and almost processed a lot of everybody’s else’s emotions where she didn’t have to. Mhmm. And what that brought because what she asked me then was, like, she said, do you feel like you were processing like, your sibling she asked me if I was a sibling. I said, yeah, I’m the youngest and she said, do you feel like you were processing a lot of your siblings’ emotions? And I said, you know, because my my brother is five years older than me. And then my sister is nine years older than me. And but I would definitely say that I was processing a lot of my mother’s emotions too. And so as an empath, energy healing has been huge for me and the work that I do, and I imagine it has been for you. And so I’ll ask you the same question I was asked. Do you feel like you were processing a lot of the emotions and the people in your house for the people in your household that they didn’t necessarily have to then process for themselves? Like, you were taking it on?

Jillian Faldmo: Think that’s definitely possible. I know I remember just really being keenly aware when somebody was not comfortable or not happy or upset. Or, you know, whatever it was. And I think maybe I processed it, but I also think that that’s probably what I internalized a lot to make, like, oh, it must be me. I must be the problem for this person. Never really getting much clarity about that. So, yeah, I think it’s I think there’s something to it for sure.

Victoria Volk: Yeah, and just listen just I mean, it’s fresh in my mind because I just had that conversation not long ago, and and hearing her ask that question and her saying too, like, you know, you can you can be it. There’s healers and then there’s teachers and healers can be teachers. But for the most part, healers are the ones that are the empaths and are the ones that are you know, the emotional processing tanks for other people, unless we learn how to manage our own Yeah. And kind of sweep our own doorstep. And I the more that I’ve learned how to process my own journey in my past, the better I’ve been able to sit with others in theirs. That’s one of the things I say a lot too in my podcast, like, you know, people that I don’t know what to say. You know, to someone who’s grieving. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to do. And, you know, it comes naturally to someone like me or an empath. Right? Just just Right. With people because we can put ourselves in their shoes. That’s not doesn’t come natural to everybody, you know. Yeah. But you don’t have to do or say anything, you can just sit there and be there. Right? You don’t have to do anything.

Jillian Faldmo: Yeah. I think that’s for me, like, that’s where it’s so natural for me to connect with anybody. Like, I can connect with anybody. And so I never have that kind of, like, social anxiety that some people have about going out. Like, am I am I gonna know what to say or am I gonna find anybody there that I can talked to.
I’m just like, no. I like, that’s so easy for me and it’s not because I feel like I have a I have a lot to talk about, but because I feel like I can really sit with somebody and listen and just understand them. Like, instantly. And I wonder if, like and then I’m thinking back to childhood, like, connection was really something I I longed for and into my teenage years too. And that’s why I have the business that I have today is just really like, when we do bio field tuning, we are in a very intimate setting with someone and we’re we’re basically like, we’re listening to their body, we’re listening to their mind, we’re listening to, you know, what they’re saying and it a space that as a client is a very precious and rare opportunity to have somebody listen so deeply to you, and I just really thrive on that. And then having the the coaching practice that I have where I just bring healers together and we connect, you know, on on live calls every week. Right now, I’m also coordinating in person venues for bio field tuning classes. So it’s just something that I’ve it’s interesting. Something that you can that seems to be something that you’re lacking in childhood, you can then cultivate later on. Like, what you’re talking about too, being able to sit with people.

Victoria Volk: Yeah. How has biofuel tuning changed your life?

Jillian Faldmo: Oh my gosh. Well, it’s interesting because I I am thirty seven now and I’ve been receiving biofuel tuning since I was twenty three. So I know that it has changed my life. I just think I would be on a completely different trajectory, like into when I was in my twenties into my late twenties, into my thirties, I think I would be I think I’d be pretty unhealthy. So it’s really put me on the path to health.
And and because I think it’s been I mean, how many years is that? It’s been fourteen years, which is a good chunk of my my life. Anyway, it just feels so natural to just be, like, here. And we’re Like, I remember I remember the moment I knew biofuel tuning was helping me when I was in a substance abuse rehab facility. And there was a patient that was having a seizure. And as a nurse, what we do is we tend to that seizure, we go grab the injection of ativan, stick it in their arm, and, you know, monitor vitals and all that, might have to do the injection again. But it was something that would just stir up my nervous system incredibly. Like, I hated it. I I mean, I don’t think anybody likes since someone has a seizure, but what it did in my nervous system was like, I was like, this feels like too bad to keep doing. I can’t keep putting myself under the stress. But someone had a seizure and I reacted as call like, I was as cool as a cucumber. Like, I would just I just responded to what was happening in the moment. And I got, you know, I got a little adrenaline jolt. I think that’s normal and natural when you’re in a life saving, you know, situation. But I felt myself come back to back to neutral, back to that, like, centered and calm feeling almost immediately after that situation was over.
Whereas before, I would have been totally stuck in that adrenaline state. So that’s when I knew. I was like, oh my gosh. Like, this is amazing. This has to be from bio field tuning. Also anxiety just diminished after, like, maybe a year of receiving biofuel tuning. I didn’t even know I had anxiety until it was completely gone. I was like, well, this is different. So yeah. And then I just I met my husband mall on this journey. That’s a whole other story. Yeah. It’s I think it’s changed me in a lot of ways. Changed my life in a lot of ways. And also, it’s just weird to kinda look back and go what would life have been like if I didn’t find this work? Where would like, where would I be living? Who would I be married to? You know, what would I be doing for work, and at the same time, I can’t even I can’t even fathom it. I think I’d find it one way or another.

Victoria Volk: It’s like life is made up of these yes, we have these big choices and decisions we have to make, but it’s all these daily collective, minute choices that we also make

Jillian Faldmo: Right.

Victoria Volk: On the daily, you know, for daily experience. And so what Like, how has that changed? Like, your daily, like, self care. Like, self care when you first, you know, in your early twenties till how it’s how has that changed now? And you’re a parent too. Correct? You have children.

Jillian Faldmo: I am a deaf parent. Yep. A very, I’d say, a very dedicated and committed step parent. They’re they’re like my own. They just didn’t come out of me. But yeah, you know, I think with bio field tuning and with just age, decision making has been more about how does this decision feel in my body? What’s a yes feel like? What’s a no feel like? I’m really listening to that. And I think probably without this work, it would have been much slower, meaning that I’d probably, you know, be thirty seven today and still trying to figure out what my yes and my no felt like. In my body. Do you know what I mean? Does that make sense?

Victoria Volk: I do. I’m forty five. I’m a I’m a little bit more time at this game of life than you, but it’s like all I could think of is like, man, I wish I would have discovered what I know now at twenty three rather than forty? Yeah. You know, I mean, so I can speak to that slower pace of growth because like I said, my journey really started in twenty fourteen when I was just so sick and tired of being sick and tired.
Yeah. You just you know, and I had so many different coping mechanisms. In the meantime, that I’d perfected because, you know, from a very young age, I had a lot of practice, you know. So it was like, it took me thirty years to build up all of that emotional gunk. Mhmm. It took me much longer to come to the awareness that there is something better that’s available for me. Mhmm. It’s really difficult to see that when all you feel in your body is like, the suffering feeling, you know?

Jillian Faldmo: Right. Yeah. Especially when yeah. When you’re in physical pain.

Victoria Volk: And that that is one thing too. That so many experience. It’s, again, this manifestation of physical pain and how have you seen biofuel tuning transforming people’s lives from physical pain? Because that’s an unseen thing too. And that’s that’s another layer of grief. Right? Because people don’t necessarily see that.

Jillian Faldmo: Right. That’s actually where I started. So I moved to this little town in Central Oregon. It’s called sisters. You have the opportunity to visit.
It’s just such a little gem but that’s what I started to kind of notice in this community where there’s so many people who are dedicated to their health and they’re exercising and they’re eating right. It’s really inspiring to like be around these people. But still having ailments like, you know, pain in their shoulder or pain in their hip and just like getting totally frustrated with it. And so that’s how I started to really talk about biofuel tuning was like, this is this is the thing to try when you’ve tried all the other things. I mean, ideally, we try it before that. But for these people who are doing all the their quote unquote right things and still not feeling comfortable in their body because they have some pain or they have some injury that keeps coming back is to let’s let’s uncover the emotional origin of this and resolve it from that space and see how that feels. And so I’ve had a lot of success with my clients and just helping their shoulders to free up or helping their hips to free up or even their breath to free up from from working. We don’t even necessarily have to understand what it was emotionally that created the tension in their body. Which is pretty cool, but to just like locate it in their bio field and unravel that tension. I’m working with somebody now who she’s in her fifties and the past seven years she’s just had all the things, like kind of like we were talking about. She’s got some interesting gut stuff going on and blood sugar stuff. She’s she eats so clean and she loves to be outside and hike and, you know, do all the things. But her she’s just really struggling in her body. And so I’ve seen her three times now, tomorrow, Wednesday will be the the fourth time, but she said to me, I’m starting to feel more resilient. And I’m like, cool. I mean, that so that’s an example of, you know, how biofuel tuning can help clients in that way who who have been struggling. And she’s still not quite sure about what the emotional struggle was. But like I said, we don’t necessarily have to know. I think the awareness is great. But just helping the body to integrate whatever trauma, you know, it experienced and help to relieve people of stuff they’ve been dealing with for a long time.

Victoria Volk: And for people that don’t know really the intricacies of bio field tuning or what it all involves? Can you just talk about from your expertise as a trainer? Right? Because you’re a trainer too.

Jillian Faldmo: Yep. Yeah. Yeah.

Victoria Volk: And I’m a student. I’m very much a student. So put your teacher hat on if you don’t mind and just share with people because there’s a new there’s some new contradiction or contraindications too. Right? There has been a revision

Jillian Faldmo: Yeah. But it kind of it’s a little bit looser now. It’s more like we’ve gone from contraindications to cautions and guidance. And that’s really recognizing that each person is different. And we kind of we manifest our symptoms just based on our own life experiences. So there’s not really a one size fits all. Approacher or a black and white kind of thinking when it comes to, can I work with someone who’s got cancer? Can I work with someone who what’s another thing? Is on medication, like psychiatric medications and things like that. Where we do kind of I still practice extreme caution as pregnancy just because now we instead of there being one human involved, now there’s two. And so we just wanna make sure so biofuel tuning can allow your body to have like a cleaning response, meaning that this tension that we hold in our body can hold built up toxins as well just from like the food that we eat emotional toxicity, environmental toxicity. And so when we get that tension freed up, then that body has the opportunity to release that waste. And so people can have a headache, or digestion, upset, or kind of a number of things. They’re usually pretty mild, but they can happen. And so when we’re working with somebody who’s pregnant, we just we we don’t wanna create any kind of discomfort because it could affect the fetus as well. So anyway, I think you were asking how this were what was your question about bio field tuning specifically?

Victoria Volk: I don’t think you answered the question, but that that leads me too. Like, the hardest thing I I the hardest thing for me to explain to people is how does it work distance. Right? Because time knows no space or sequence or distance or anything like that. Right? So but that’s a really big concept to wrap our head around. And Yeah. I think the example I use is when, you know, when you’re thinking about someone and then that someone calls you, Yeah. It’s kinda like that. So

Jillian Faldmo: how do you hugs happen? Right? Yeah. So yeah. So it’s it is really hard to explain and wrap our heads around, but I kind of think too of, like, cell towers I don’t know a whole lot about, like, cell cellular service, but I was just thinking about it. And, you know, the the cell tower is putting out radio waves. And we can use our cell phones to contact anybody in the world. Right? With it, we’re not connect there’s no string connecting our phones or we’re not even in the same time zone. But we can connect with someone instantly. And so I think it’s kind of like that. Like, what we are working in waves and in waveforms and what we call it a plasma, right, which is it connects us all. It’s a medium that connects us all. Plasma, ether. And so it’s kinda like when we do this distant session, it’s like we’re dialing. I mean, we do literally dial someone’s number to connect with them. Over a distant session. But but the intention connects too, and we can connect with that person’s field and work with them at a distance, and they can receive that work in real time. So I don’t know if that confused people more than it needed to, but we just we think about, you know, just using things like cellphones. We don’t I don’t know how they work, but I use it every day. I rely on it. I trust it. And so we can do the same thing with this work too. And just so everybody knows with bio field tuning, we have a very firm boundary with this work that we always receive verbal permission to work with somebody because I just want everybody to know we’re not as practitioners going in there deciding we’re gonna work on this person now and they don’t even know. No way. We need their permission.

Victoria Volk: I have been asked that. Yeah. I have been asked, yeah, to do that. And I’m like, nope. I need permission. Even my own kids. Right? They, you know, I ask them and or they ask me, actually. And I have a lot of clients know too that Do you have a lot of clients know too that I love the analogy, by the way, on the tower, that’s I’m gonna use that. Do most

Jillian Faldmo: of your clients work with you remotely now? It’s like half and half right now. Yeah. So I I see clients in person twice a week at it. Amazing little wellness center here in town. You just love it. The owner’s amazing and she’s got great practitioners, including my husband who is a roping practitioner. Oh, what? Rolfing. Okay. So some people know what that is. Other people don’t. Rolfing is it’s like massage, but it’s working with the body’s connective tissue, and there’s a real focus on posture and movement and alignment. That’s the best way I can describe it. And usually, it’s done in a series of ten. So the first session is to release the breath and then you work he works from the feet all the way up to the head And it’s just great for people who have, you know, any of the things like postural issues, pain from, you know, not having good range of motion, things like that. I was born with my feet turned all the way in and my knees turned all the way out. So I’ve got these, like, fast shole torgens and my leg at all the way through my body and rolfing has really helped with that. So Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, so I two days a week at daybreak, wellness it’s called, and then I have remote sessions the other days of the week, and then I teach by Feltini.

Victoria Volk: Do you find that a lot of your clients that because a lot of my clients that started out of as as in person now have gone distance. But what I found too, like, a lot of them now, it’s like maintenance. Like, after you’ve had so many sessions and you’ve been a client for a while, you kinda you I think you it’s that you’re better able to tune in to yourself. Right?

Jillian Faldmo: Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. That’s what I tell people too. It’s like when you know, we usually recommend three sessions to start. And then after that, you know, if you wanna if you wanna keep going weekly, you totally can, but you start to kind of get a feel for when you’re going out of balance again. Mhmm. Because you have become like, it’s like a muscle that it’s an awareness that you build of what centered and grounded and neutral feel like. And so when you feel yourself kind of listing off to like, oh, now I’m I’m in this trigger state or I’m in this state of like anxiety or whatever it might be. For me, it’s I’ve my body feels compressed.
That’s when I know it’s time for me. That’s when I know it’s actually I’ve waited too long to get tuned. When I start to feel compressed and congested inside. Energetics.

Victoria Volk: Or it’s like your your chest, like, you’re just, like, tightness in your chest or you’re not, like, you know, breathing in people. Brand.

Jillian Faldmo: Yeah. Mhmm. Yeah. That’s Yeah.

Victoria Volk: Kinda like that too. Like, you and that’s what happens. Right? When you’re kind of like this and you kinda bring your shoulders in and you can’t get a nice deep breath. Well, what is oxygen?
Right?

Jillian Faldmo: Right. It’s Right.

Victoria Volk: What feeds all of your cells in your body give, you know, the oxygen is what your body needs. Yeah. I just had to take a deep breath when you were talking about that. Me too. You know, it’s like plants. Right? What do they need? Sunlight, water, and oxygen. An oxygen.

Jillian Faldmo: Yeah. Yeah. So how about you, Victoria? What what have you noticed the most about your, either transformation or the way your life has changed since doing biofuel tuning, but also Ricky, because they kind of happened pretty close together. Yeah.

Victoria Volk: They did. Yeah. Yeah. Energy work. Well, yeah, I think the biggest thing for me too has been being able to tune into myself. Just kind of what we were talking about, what happens with clients that happened with me. Right? I was better able to recognize, okay, this I need to step back or I need to break, people’s energy is just too much for me right now. It’s affecting my energy or I’m not making my energy a priority and maintaining that and cleaning it up. Right? Do I’m not cleaning my sweeping my side of the street and so other people’s stuff is affecting me. It’s been I’ve been it better able to recognize when that’s the case. I just feel more at peace more often than I feel And then when I’m not, I’m more I can quickly if I can shift more quickly too, you know. Right. Build that resilience. Like, you were talking. You were talking about building resilience. I think that’s what it helps us do as well. You know, and it’s in when once we feel the opposite side of suffering or grief or anger and resentment or physical pain, and once we feel the opposite of that, there’s the clarity. Right? Because there’s there’s a remembering that you can’t forget what that was like. But when you get a taste of what it’s what it can feel like the opposite of that, I want more of that. And so that’s where, you know, I feel like being open and curious, following the bread crumbs. If you’re listening to this and you’re like, this bio field tuning sounds really interesting or rakie or maybe you’ve heard about tuning forks or sound frequency a few times, maybe once. And now it’s like the third time, third time is a charm. I don’t know. It seems to be three times for me, but, you know, follow that curiosity. Go down the rabbit hole. It’s, you know, I think it’s coming to you for a reason. I think these things find us in perfect timing. You know, I can say I wish I would have discovered all of this stuff in my early twenties, but would I have been ready for it? I obviously wasn’t. Right? Because it didn’t come into my sphere of awareness. You know, I had to go through this really slow, arduous, like, long road, you know, is what it turned out to be. But I feel like I’m I don’t know if you’re into into human design at all.

Jillian Faldmo: I’ve just kinda skinned the surface of it.

Victoria Volk: Oh. So that’s a that could be a very deep rabbit hole. Yeah. That’s that’s a rabbit hole I’ve been going down for, like, about two years now.

Jillian Faldmo: Oh, okay.

Victoria Volk: Yep. And, you know, one thing that’s helped me is to realize, you know, just how how my energy speaks to me, really, and how it’s speaking to other people. In a way that I never realized because I would feel rejection a lot throughout my life. Mhmm. And what that what what that was, how I feel now, what that was, or how human design helped me reconcile that is they were feeling my energy. And I feel like once we start to pull back the layers of our own energy and our own lives and look at the stuff from the past where it can inform us it’s information, it’s data. Right? We can choose to look at that and shift our perspective and then help us to inform us for our future. Right? Because if we if I would have kept dragging my past experiences into the present moment and into my future. I would not be where I am today. Right? You know, so I had to look at that to recognize the impact it was having on me, but not just on me, that was the energy I was projecting out to others. Yeah. So

Jillian Faldmo: Yeah. That’s that is a really good point of why at times it is important to reflect and become aware of those patterns so that you aren’t recreating the same thing over and over, especially if it’s not serving you.

Victoria Volk: And so what do you have to lose by trying biofuel tuning or reiki or any energy healing modality? Right? It’s what is it costing you not to? Really? What is that lack of awareness costing you.

Jillian Faldmo: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And I think it’s important to let people know just like the the cell phone analogy. Like, we don’t have to understand how it works for it to work. So if you think it sounds cool and intriguing, but you’re like, but, yeah, how does that even work? You only just come try it. Just, you know, with Victoria or me or anybody who, you know, someone that you trust, I think that’s the important thing. Right? Is is finding somebody that you trust. And that might take a few attempts to to find a practitioner that works for you.

Victoria Volk: Just like therapy. Right? You know, you’re not may not find the first one that you resonate with.

Jillian Faldmo: Yeah. I think it’s just so incredible to have support around you. And then we talked about that holism, right, holistic support. So what does that look like for you? Do you have the nutritional support? The physical support? The mental and emotional support? And do you have the spiritual and energetic support as well and making sure that we cover all of our bases so that we I mean, we are whole beings, but it’s when one of those areas isn’t supported that we start to lack wholeness in some regard.

Victoria Volk: That’s good.

Jillian Faldmo: That’s very true. Very true.

Victoria Volk: Yeah. But is one thing that you would I mean, that was a that was a great way to end this episode. But is there anything else that you would like to share either about you know, transforming emotion or challenging experiences throughout your life or grief using biofuel tuning? Is there anything that you would like to share with those listening about them.

Jillian Faldmo: Yeah. Well, my favorite phrase and I didn’t make this up is you gotta feel it to heal it. So when it comes to emotion, we are designed, inherently designed to want to avoid it and or or resist it or react to it because it’s uncomfortable. Like as human beings, we are like our brains are designed to avoid pain, seek pleasure, and do it with the least amount of effort. So it’s an unconscious kind of response that we have when some kind of uncomfortable emotion comes up. We wanna either fix it or get rid of it, you know, those things. And so we have to use the part of our brain that has our highest and best interests in mind, our prefrontal cortex. That’s the amazing thing about being human. Is that we have this prefrontal cortex that we can intentionally decide that when discomfort comes up, that we’re gonna notice it, and we’re just gonna be with it. For I don’t know. Like, they say emotions last for ninety seconds. I don’t know how how true that it’s probably like an average. Right? But if we just decide to allow that emotion be in our body for even just ninety seconds, it can do wonders for our health. Because it’s when we’re resisting it or avoiding it, trying to get rid of it, it actually ends up building up in our bodies and in our tissues. And that’s where, you know, illness and disease comes into the picture. So that’s, you know, bio field tuning has taught me that for sure. To just when grief comes up or anxiety comes up, notice where it is in your body first.

Victoria Volk: Is it

Jillian Faldmo: in your chest, in your belly, in your throat? And then under not understand, but you know, tune into the frequency of it. Is it fast? Is it slow? Is it chaotic? Is it stuck? Is it open? And just breathe with it. And it’ll pass. And sometimes the emotions don’t pass in ninety seconds because we’ve either had them for a while or there’s something, you know, acutely going on. And it’s like we can we can go about our day and be present with emotion at the same time.

Victoria Volk: Are ruminating Right. On the emotion. And Right. Over yeah. Yeah. That brings up one key point about grief. Because I know you’re gonna share this on your podcast as well. And people have listened to mine. They’ve heard it a million times already, but bring it up because it’s going on your podcast too, is that reminds me of, you know, these behaviors that we resort to. We call them in grief recovery. We call them nerves. Short term energy relieving behaviors. Mhmm. And it could be things like alcohol or you know, substances that like drugs and pills, things like that, or shopping, gambling, pornography, workaholism can be a stirb. Exercise can be a disturb if, you know, you’re using it to avoid feeling. Right? It takes you out of that element of feeling when you’re It’s like you’re chasing this other high, right, as let’s say you’re a marathon runner. I’m not saying you’re running away from something in your life, but could you be? And that’s the curiosity I want to pose people with is, are you using this behavior whether it could be deemed as positive or negative, like running your exercise versus alcohol. Are you using that to feel better for a short period of time? Because, yeah, you will feel better for a short period of time, but you know, maybe some guilt and shame and other things come into play as a result. Well, that doesn’t feel very good. Well, so what do you do again? Oh, you resort back to that same behavior. It’s like this vicious cycle. Yeah. That’s where we have to recognize what’s happening within us is being We’re exhibiting that on the outside. Well, how is it showing up though? Is it showing up? Is it physical manifestation? Or is it showing up as a behavior? Yeah. Anger two can be a stirb, you know.

Jillian Faldmo: Right? Because it’s a release. It can be a release. Right? But maybe not used in an appropriate way.
Yeah.

Victoria Volk: One suggestion I just heard not that long ago was a screaming pillow. Have a pillow that you used to scream in Yep. For anger. That could be it. Well, I I added the part for anger because that’s what comes up for me. You know, that’s what I think of is you know, because how out, you know, you could positively like another way for me with anger too is, you know, moving weights, like lifting weights. It’s a great, like, you know, great, you know, pushing something, you know? Yeah.

Jillian Faldmo: Yeah. Oh, my gosh. I love weight lifting. That’s me. That’s something that has just really helped me to get into my body more.
Because you have to especially with heavy lifting, like, you have to pay attention to how your feet are on the floor, to where your breath is, to what muscles you’re engaging. It’s been such a an amazing tool in the toolkit, weightlifting.

Victoria Volk: And, you know, like, I’m in my four days now, so it’s, like, to get this, like, have this aha, like, I don’t have to do anymore cardio. Like Yeah. Right? Don’t sign me up. I live five days a week. I’m like, yeah, bring it. I I absolutely fell in love with it. Fell in love with it. Yeah. Me too. What’s interesting too is I used to be a gym rat, like, in my early twenties. But I would also then I’d I’d be at the gym for, like, two hours, you know, doing cardio and stuff like that. But then I’d also be at the bar for, like, I’d shut down a bar too. So I was like, okay. It doesn’t really equate. Do they? You know, it was like one behavior after another. You know, that I was trying to just avoid Yeah. That it’s feeling.

Jillian Faldmo: Was the gym going to the gym in response to, like, guilt and shame about being at the bar or Probably like that. Like, cycle.

Victoria Volk: Yeah. It was a cycle. It was a cycle because I don’t think yeah. You know, come to think of it. Yeah. I think it probably was. You know, it made me feel better. Well, I’m doing this. I might be doing this later, but I’m doing this now.

Jillian Faldmo: Yep. Yep. Yep. It reminds me sometimes of when I have one too many cookies and I’m like, alright. Well, I think I should go for a walk now.

Victoria Volk: Yeah. And and it that’s a good question. Like, what’s motivating me? I think that’s the deeper thing. Like, what’s motivating me to do this?
Is it because I’m feeling guilt or shame around something else? Yeah. Right?

Jillian Faldmo: Or is or is it because I love myself and I want to, you know, honor my body and feel amazing. And that’s

Victoria Volk: a much better intention to go into it with. Right? Yes. And I think that was one of the things I was gonna bring up to was, like, even going into, like, an energy healing session with a client, like or someone just really wanting to sit with their own energy and tattoo into it is, what’s the intention? Intention is half of it.
Yes. That’s really half of what we do is setting an intention.

Jillian Faldmo: Totally. That’s so funny. And we were just having a conversation about that with Aileen I was just on a call with Aileen Mckusick and and Angela Kent, and we’re talking about intention in biofuel tuning sessions, and intention is different than having an agenda. Like an intention is something, let’s put this focus out there, or let’s put this thought out there, but then let it go. Right, with no kind of no expectation of what the outcome is going to be. Having an agenda would be having a very specific expectation of what the outcome will be. And trying to get there. And it’s it’s not done in the right kind of space. It’s not when we have an agenda, we’re not being curious, we’re not deeply listening, we’re not hearing what wants to happen when we have that intention. It’s like setting the focus and then letting it go and just seeing what presents and what arises.

Victoria Volk: And I don’t know if this is the case for you, but I I tend to because my son was like, you know, he’s in a he’s in college and he’s like, as he’s kind of a skeptic. And I’m I’m actually a true I’m a skeptic too. Like, I I have to try it and I have to, like, be proven

Jillian Faldmo: Yep.

Victoria Volk: Before I’ll, like, share it with somebody else or, like, I have to experience it first before I’ll share it with somebody else and you know, he just it’s, like, witcher here. It’s, like, some sort of voodoo, you know, like, do you have any idea what you’re bringing into the space when you’re doing this stuff? And I’m, like, yeah, I absolutely do because I have a I open every session with a prayer. I only asked for the highest for my highest good and for my the highest good of my client, you know. Yeah. Oh, okay. Well, that’s good to know. Then he was okay with it. But it’s like, again, that comes back to intention and and, you know, that we only want what’s for the highest good of our clients and also for ourselves if we’re, you know, working on ourselves. So

Jillian Faldmo: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so coming back to the the walk or the exercise or whatever, if we have if the intention is well, now I need to beat myself up because I just did that thing, and it’s not gonna be a very good walk. Very experienced. You’re probably not gonna get a lot out of it except for just more beating yourself up. But if you go in, you know, the intention is, I love myself. I love my body. I want I wanna provide my body with this opportunity to move. It’s gonna be a lot nicer.

Victoria Volk: Yeah. And it’s just like if we’re gonna have a difficult conversation with somebody, it’s what what is this has come up a lot in, you know, just in relationships. Right? For me, personally, lately, it’s what does the intention before I go to send that voice memo or the go before I go to send that text, like, what is the intention or what is the energy that I’m in doing that? And I think it’s important for us as practitioners too that before we come into a session, what is the energy that I’m in. Right? What what is my energy at right now before coming into this? Because just as we can feel the energy of our clients, they can feel ours too.

Jillian Faldmo: Yes. I don’t know if you’ve been experiencing this lately, but, you know, with the chaos of the world right now, which I try not to tune in too too much, but it’s palpable. You know, I can’t really feel it. My energy levels have been just a little bit lower. And so I’ve been noticing myself, like, at the beginning of the day, just be like, I don’t wanna see clients. I’m just doing this whole whiny thing. And then I’m like, no, Jill. No, no, no. Like, I kinda do this flip where I coach myself and I’m like, no, I chose this path. Like, I want to help these people. I love it. It’s just kinda like giving myself a little pep talk. I love doing this work and I’m not faking it. When I say it, but it’s just a matter of, like, kind of changing the narrative because I think it’s the chaos of what’s going on out there that’s really informing my thoughts on being, like, no. And whiny and, you know, all that.
So just kind of what’s the word I’m looking for?

Victoria Volk: Like, shifting the energy?

Jillian Faldmo: Yeah. Shifting it or overriding that and and coming into a more conscious and intentional place with how I wanna be in my own life. Because like you said, if I came into a session with clients feeling it. No. No. No. I’m at. It’s so they’re not gonna come back. I wouldn’t. If I were them,

Victoria Volk: Yeah. Or how much of the session is influenced being influenced by, like, how much of it or is it your energy that’s getting in the way, you know? Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jillian Faldmo: Good stuff. Is there anything else you wanna share about your journey before we disconnect?

Victoria Volk: I just want people who practitioners because I think it’s mostly practitioners, you know, people in the energy healing work modalities that listen to your podcast, I imagine. And I just want people listening to it’s so important for us as healers to heal ourselves first. And I think we can only sit with others in their lowest energy. Right? Because they’re coming to us low energy.
They need their I don’t wanna say it. How does Aileen say it?

Jillian Faldmo: That she talks about voltage. So They’re battery charged.

Victoria Volk: Yeah. Yeah. They’re coming to us to get their voltage raised. Right? And if we’re not raising our own voltage.
How can we expect to sit with them? And are we gonna match you know, like attracts like. Right? So a session can either go one way or the other. It’s either gonna either they’re gonna match hours or we’re gonna match theirs.
Yeah. Although at the same time, I get energized by sessions too. So

Jillian Faldmo: well, I think part of that it it’s I think part of that is the sound, but I wonder if part of that and I haven’t thought about this before, so this is just like off the cuff. But I wonder if part of that feeling energized as a practitioner at this at this session is because we have been so intentional with our how we’re using our energy. Like we like as bio field tuning practitioners, we are trained that when we’re in sessions to really bring our energy our own energy in and have it flowing through our central channel. And we we intentionally connect to the earth and to the sun. We help the client do that too.
So I’m wondering if it’s that that energizes us is because we, on some level, take our power back because we’re being so conscious about how we’re using that energy and how we’re we’re directing our own energy. When we’re, like, out in the, you know, just, you know, out in the world and not being intentional with that, I think it’s so easy for us to leak some energy and light and just Or be a sponge. Or be a sponge. Right? Yeah.
Yeah. Take on a lot, which is draining.

Victoria Volk: I guess, what have you found if you’re having a have you ever canceled the session? If you’re having a really difficult day or, you know, challenging not feel Well, of course, if you’re not feeling well, you know, it’s

Jillian Faldmo: Yeah. Definitely. Like, you know, I’ve I’ve had, you know, bouts of COVID or the flu and I will cancel for sure. What I’ve learned too is that if I’m feeling physically unwell to just don’t overthink it, don’t try and wait till the very just cancel everything that day and give yourself the opportunity to rest so that you bounce back. Because I’ve done it before. I have just dragged it out, just canceled one client, and then the next, it, like, over time, just think maybe I’ll feel better. Maybe I’ll feel better. And it just prolonged, I think, the illness. But yeah, emotionally, like, you know, I remember my husband and I getting into a big fight about something. It was probably really dumb, but we were both emotionally upset. And I think when you fight with your spouse, it’s it’s just really upsetting and I couldn’t quite come to neutral. So in those instances, I’ll cancel. But if I’m just feeling like a little off usually a sessional. Help me get back back to the right spot. How about you?
I’ve actually

Victoria Volk: I have not been sick since twenty twenty two. Wow.

Jillian Faldmo: How did you

Victoria Volk: COVID. I had COVID. And but it was actually my son had really traumatic accident. It’s changed his life, but he’s good now. But that’s when I got COVID. It was like my system was just as complete overload. I had a kink or sore that was like the size of Texas in my it was that was horrible. It was so stressful. No wonder I got COVID.

Jillian Faldmo: Wow.

Victoria Volk: But Yeah. I haven’t had it since, and I, you know, flu, colds. Nothing. It’s like

Jillian Faldmo: Wow.

Victoria Volk: Yeah. I don’t know. I knock on wood. Like I said,

Jillian Faldmo: Yeah.

Victoria Volk: But I really do contribute the work that I do to, you know, to that. Like and recognizing when I need to rest before it gets to that point, I think, where I do get sick, you know?

Jillian Faldmo: Right.

Victoria Volk: And I’ve really looked at my schedule. This is great for practitioners listening to. It’s like, I’m trying to find ways that I can work with my energy because I know that I need more rest than some human design has helped me recognize that. Like, I and even as a kid, like, I needed a lot more sleep. And even as an adult now, I need more rest than maybe some other people. And so working with that in understanding that about myself, well, how can I make that work with my life in because I, you know, I have a day job? I have three kids. One’s in college. One’s gonna be going to college. I have I’m a spouse.
I do my healing work. I have my podcast. Like, I have a lot of irons in the fire. Right?

Jillian Faldmo: Yeah.

Victoria Volk: It’s like, how do I manage it all? Well, I I think where I started was looking at my energy. And what do I what am I choosing to put my energy toward? What are my priorities, and then looking at my schedule. And I only do one energy healing session per day.
That’s it.

Jillian Faldmo: Yeah.

Victoria Volk: That’s it. Typically, I only do one podcast recording per day. That’s it. Yeah. Like, I really limit what I do.
And it’s like, well, how do I need

Jillian Faldmo: to be able to do a lot? Because, you know, how

Victoria Volk: to to sparse it out. And so now I’m looking at how can I help more people in a shorter amount of time or in a same amount of time? And so that’s I’m working on something right now to do that with energy work that works around my life and my energy so that I can show up and really come to my this work with more play and creativity. And so that’s kind of that’s what I’m working on right now. So I love that.

Jillian Faldmo: Oh, I’m excited to hear more about that. What is your human design? Oh, go ahead.

Victoria Volk: I’m a four six emotional manifesto.

Jillian Faldmo: Oh, see, I don’t know. The the I know I’m a manifesting generator, but I don’t know the numbers or There might be something about a sacral in there. Does that make sense?

Victoria Volk: Okay. You’re a sacral authority probably then. Yeah. And Yep. So, like, for me, I’m an emotional authority, so I have to ride before making decisions and stuff. I have to ride the emotional wave, which has been a huge, huge game changer in my life. I need to be in a neutral place before I make a decision. I can’t make a decision on an emotional high, and I can’t make a decision. I shouldn’t. Making decision on emotional low.

Jillian Faldmo: Mhmm.

Victoria Volk: And that’s really helped me. Meaning for business, it’s huge. That’s a huge. Just even knowing your authority alone is a game changer, especially if you own a business.

Jillian Faldmo: Yeah.

Victoria Volk: And if you’re in relationships, which most of the star. So

Jillian Faldmo: Yeah. Yeah.

Victoria Volk: Because where there’s conflict, right, is when let’s say now sacral and spleenek are kinda similar in a way. Sacral, it’s like your body speaks. It’s it’s either an uh-huh or a no. Yeah. And we’re splenic. It’s like instant and it’s your body’s not gonna tell you more than once. But sacral is, like, if I ask you a question in you tune in, like, how does that feel in your body? Is that a yes or no? Like, do you wanna go out to dinner tonight?

Jillian Faldmo: No. Oh, I was like Yes.

Victoria Volk: Feeling okay. So you feel like, yes. Let’s go. Let’s do this. That’s your sacral. Whereas if you said, if you if you’re, like, no. In your body, like Yeah. But you said yes. Yeah. That is not you’re not You’re not You’re

Jillian Faldmo: no kidding.

Victoria Volk: Yeah. Yep.

Jillian Faldmo: Oh, so that’s really cool because that affirms what I was saying earlier about how biophilled tuning has helped me is to know my yes and my no in my body. Bingo Yep. And ingest it.

Victoria Volk: Yes. And so how it’s helped me as a manifesto, emotional manifesto is Okay. Recognizing the emotion and what that emotion feels like in my body? You know? So it’s like, I’ll have this feeling come up. They actually just happened not that long ago. I was just I got I don’t know. It’s just like this overwhelming, like, sadness. Just came over me and I even said to my daughter, I was like, we’re driving somewhere. I’m like, I don’t know.
I just feel like the sadness. Just like about what? I’m like, I don’t even know. And it’s like, okay. Well, That wasn’t even mine. I was thinking about my son, but I think it was that wasn’t even my sadness. I was feeling something from him. Mhmm.

Jillian Faldmo: You know

Victoria Volk: what I mean? Yeah. So it’s it’s even recognizing, like, what is mine and what isn’t. That’s where, you know, energy work and biofuel tuning has helped me kinda tune into too.

Jillian Faldmo: Yeah. So helpful. Do you do within the petrochem human design, like, for your clients? Or is that more a tool for you?

Victoria Volk: That’s still a playground for me. Mhmm. So, like, with my grief clients, for sure, I will ask them their details because you need your date of birth, your time of birth, and your place of birth. And it really does matter your time of birth because that can change your gates and channels of your human design. And so and there’s guidance. I think if you go there’s I mean, just Google it. Like, if you don’t know your time of birth, there’s guidance on what to do with that. But if you can find it, that’s important to know, not to guess on that. But, yeah, with my grief clients, I do I have had a few energy clients that felt, you know, when I was especially first kind of dabbling into it, I would ask them and actually one in particular I can think of right now and she was a projector and I’m like, that makes so much sense. And so I was kinda helping kind of coaching her around her energy as a projector because projectors need like, manifestors, projectors need a lot of alone time Mhmm. And need time to be with themselves and can feel very drained if they’re peeling a lot. So and in order to tune into themselves, manifestors and projectors, that’s where there are a lot of like, we need that time alone. To be introspective and reflective. And that’s how we come that’s how we sat and re reset and recharge.

Jillian Faldmo: Yeah. I could see that being so helpful for somebody who’s in their grief. Like, you know what? It’s acute. Knowing that about them because I think it’s I’m I think in some cultures anyway, it’s like surround the person who’s grieving.
Like, be with them. Don’t leave them alone. But if someone maybe who’s in that culture knows that about themselves that they they will actually do a little bit better having some alone time than being able to ask ask for that or, you know, tell people like I need some alone time.

Victoria Volk: Well, and so one of the other aspects of grief recovery that I’ve incorporated into my grief work is called umap, and that’s actually uses four different assessments, including Clifton strengths. You get your top five strengths and then we glean your top ten values and your preferred skills, at least preferred skills and then your personality and how how you’re wired. That’s actually also another element that I bring into the work that I do because when your values are being dishonored by somebody else such as, let’s say, honesty in your relationship with somebody and they’re not being honest with you or they flat out did lie to you and they told you they lied to, that’s not honesty is a reciprocal value. So if and you can dishonor your own values. Let’s say growth, for example, because your podcast is about growing a practice and, you know, if I’m growth is one of my values.
So if I’m growing and evolving and, like, looking into personal development, but my spouse isn’t, and that’s not and we’re kinda growing at different paces or different you know, that can create some friction or that can create some

Jillian Faldmo: totally

Victoria Volk: disconnection and things like that. So you know, but we I don’t know where I was going with that. But when it comes to then human design, depending on what your gates and channels are and your authorities. So take authority, for example, too, like, let’s say, you are a sacral, and I’m an emotional, and we’re in a relationship. Or your spouse is the opposite of you, you’re gonna have an answer like that, or a spleenek will, for sure.
Mhmm. I’m not. I might take two or three days or even two to three weeks to come to a decision. So if it’s a decision, like, we should we move, I’m gonna need to ride my emotional wave, whereas, you know, that can create conflict.

Jillian Faldmo: Oh, totally. I could see that. Yeah.

Victoria Volk: Yeah. So

Jillian Faldmo: that’s good to know.

Victoria Volk: All of these tools like, human design or u map can reveal to us where the conflict is. Yeah. But then when you know what the conflict is or what the root of it is, then you know what to work on. Right? Yeah.
Yeah.

Jillian Faldmo: It’s not some big mystery. Yeah. Like, can’t we agree on something? Or why can’t we come to a decision together? So, like, why is this

Victoria Volk: always an issue? Why is this always coming up? Yeah. Yeah. There’s tools out there that can help you find that figure that out.
And especially, like, if you’re in business for yourself, and you’re also you’re a solo entrepreneur, you know, do you need a coach? Sometimes you don’t. Sometimes the answer is just knowing yourself better. Right? You know? Not same. Yeah. But I’ve hired coaches. So, I mean, I’m not can you know, yeah, sometimes you need a coach because you can’t see the label from inside the jar either, you know.

Jillian Faldmo: Yeah. But Right. You don’t always need one. Like, it just times when you do and times where you can learn how you best make decisions and learn about your emotions? Yeah. And go from there. I know that we’re Oh, wow. It’s totally okay. I wanted you to Good. I wanted you to talk a little bit more about your you have a grief or you said grief recovery program?

Victoria Volk: Yeah. So I okay. It’s called do grief differently. And it’s twelve weeks one on one, and I do that virtually. And then I can also do groups in person or online as well. But it’s yeah. That’s my, like, flagship offering for my grief work. And it includes grief recovery method, which is you work through two really difficult relationships. They can be someone with someone living or someone who has passed and you learn your u map. So we start with u map. We go into grief recovery and then we end with u map. So it’s kind of like this u map helps you better understand where there might be grief that you didn’t realize. Yeah. And we end with it because after you’ve really released a lot of this emotional stuff, it’s like, okay. Well, what’s next?

Jillian Faldmo: Yeah. You

Victoria Volk: know? So that’s cool.

Jillian Faldmo: Yeah. I love that. I love that. And I love the way that I’ve listened to your podcast and the way that you talk about grief is let’s talk about grief like we talk about the weather. Mhmm.

Victoria Volk: That’s so good. Let’s normalize it.

Jillian Faldmo: And I’ll just add all emotions to that because Grief is one and then, oh my gosh, there’s just so many that that aren’t talked about because I think it’s definitely changing, but in the past, it’s like you’re supposed to be happy all the time.

Victoria Volk: Well, an anger is bad, you know.

Jillian Faldmo: An anger is bad. Yeah.

Victoria Volk: That was the belief that I was, you know, I was around a lot of anger. And so I stuffed my own anger because I saw the impact it had. Not only on me, but in the household. Right? And so when you stuff anger, it’s it’s like poison that you take. We say that resentment is poison you take, hoping the other person dies. Right. But anger is like a poison too.

Jillian Faldmo: Wow. Yep. Yeah.

Victoria Volk: And it’s not like, it’s it’s anger stuff down becomes the poison. Right? But Yeah. Anger can actually be really great fuel, totally for change and transformation, which is what it was for me.

Jillian Faldmo: I started to look at what all the emotions, all the uncomfortable emotions are trying to tell us. And they all have an important role Shame included. I know a lot of people are like, no. Shame is not useful and they’re actually it is useful. It’s you know, it helps us to stay in integrity and to like I was talking to Aileen today. She talked about Shame and she was like, if I didn’t have shame, then if my kitchen were a mess and my whole house were a mess and I was just being a slob and, like, I wouldn’t care about it, but, like, if somebody walked in, I and I was like, oh my gosh. What am I doing? You know, it just it keeps us you know, in check. Yeah. But we don’t wanna overindulge in it.

Victoria Volk: Yeah. And that brings up a good question. I’ll ask because people listening who listen to my podcast, they’ll People who listen to yours already know this, but people who listen to mine may not. Can you just talk a little bit about the emotions and where we tend to find them in the body?

Jillian Faldmo: Oh, yeah. So just like we have an anatomy in our body. Right? We all have a, you know, our hearts are all in the same place, you know, maybe give or take a centimeter or millimeter or two. Grains are all in the same place. We also have an emotional anatomy that’s stored within our bio field. And so this was discovered by Aileen McCusick, who we’ve been talking about. She’s the founder of bio field tuning. She found that we door, like, sadness, grief, and loss over to the left of the shoulder, left side of the heart chakra. We store saying yes when we mean no or resentment over on the right side of the heart chakra. We store a pattern of busyness, overdoing, overthinking, off the right side of the hip, frustration and disappointment off the left side of the hip, as well as unmet needs. And we really I won’t go into the full map here, but we’re we can map all the way from the feet to the head where certain emotions are stored. And so if those of you who are listening, if you have a body part that’s been ailing you for some time, it may be emotional. It probably is. There’s probably some emotional significance there. And so if you’re a listener of Victoria’s, she she can surely guide you there. If you wanna reach out to her, if you have, you know, a shoulder that’s been bothering you for a a long time. A lot of us have right shoulder issues, caretakers do, so moms, those who are in the caring profession because that’s the the shoulder of our over caretaking for others emotional needs and putting other people first. Instead of ourselves. This is a really common one. Wanted to point that out. Lot of right hip stuff in the world too. The right hip busyness, overdoing, overthinking. Gotta stay busy, to stay productive, to be worthy. So right hip could be indicative of that. Yeah. I think I already talked about the right hip, but it that’s a really common one. Really, really common. A lot of hip replacements are done in the right hip. In our culture.

Victoria Volk: And often too, I have found too, like, with clients. Like, if they are having, like, headaches on the left side of their head, the right hip is yeah.

Jillian Faldmo: Yeah. The left side of the head is worrying about the future. Yeah. Yeah. Yep.
And they they go together. Right? Worrying about the future, overthinking, staying busy, staying productive. Mhmm. Yeah.
You

Victoria Volk: know, it that was mind blowing to me when

Jillian Faldmo: I first learned about the anatomy app and Yeah. It’s yeah. It’s fun to just carry around like a little mini version of the map and, you know, I I travel a lot, you know, teaching bio field tuning and my whole family lives on the East Coast, so we’re out there at least once a year. But, you know, strike up a conversation in an Uber or on a plane and my left elbow or whatever and just pull out the math. You know, could it be related to this?
Like what?

Victoria Volk: Yep. I actually have it in my Google Drive. So

Jillian Faldmo: Oh, nice. Yeah. There you go.

Victoria Volk: This is there.

Jillian Faldmo: Yep. Hit hit pull it up on your phone or tab with it. Yeah. Nice.

Victoria Volk: Well, this has been so fun, and I hope that your listeners Other practitioners out there have learned a little bit about grief and and how it can show up in your practice because actually I’ve had several of people come to me for energy work and they end up doing the grief work with me.

Jillian Faldmo: Yeah. It makes

Victoria Volk: a lot of sense. You know, because, you know, oh, I guess I oh, I haven’t thought about that in a long time or it brings up stuff. You know, sessions and energy where it can bring up some stuff. And so I’ve I’ve often found that you know, the grief work kind of follows the energy work sometimes. Or it can go the opposite too. Like, people that have worked with me and the grief work, like, oh, I just you know, I just wanna, like, up level my you know, I’ve done all this emotional stuff and done all this work. Now, let’s brace my voltage. Right? So it kinda goes hand in hand and and I know my listeners heard from you in a way that, you know, you explain it differently than I do and probably have better than I did because I love the whole cell tower analogy. So thank you for that.

Jillian Faldmo: Oh, yeah. You’re welcome. Yeah. And I guess I’ll just add one. I know we’re trying to, like, wrap this up, but I I can’t stop, like, talking and coming in to talk about. But kind of how I see, like, grief connected with the work that we do in in energy work and biofuel tuning is when we have these experiences that maybe aren’t necessarily, like, someone passing away, but even the things like, you know, how I mentioned in the beginning of the episode where there’s, like, this lack of connection that all of a sudden I’m sensing. These moments in time where we experience stress, we’re also experiencing some sort of soul loss as well. It feels like, like, that’s it. When we experience stress, we emit light particles, we emit biofotons, and so those those little biophotons that are supposed to be, you know, running through our center, and they’re now kind of outside of our body. Second, our field, they’re still with us, but they’re just kind of orbiting around our field. Rather than being centered. So that can be, you know, just these experiences we have that we don’t maybe we wouldn’t consider them a loss. I mean, essentially, that is what they they are. It’s it’s a loss of light and I think it’s when we return that light. We that’s the process of biofuel tuning is is locating that light in the field and bringing it back to the body. That’s when we realized, like, oh, like, now I feel at home, like or now I feel whole again. So just something else to kinda consider when it comes to grief and loss is it’s I like you always talk about, it’s not it doesn’t have to be this big tragic loss, but it’s just sometimes these little moments in time where we lose parts of our self. And if we do that frequently and often, you know, I’m I’m sure grief would absolutely present.

Victoria Volk: It’s like, that was so good. It’s like dying from a thousand paper cuts, you know. Yeah. And, you know, And, really, I’ll share with your listeners too. I mean, the definition of grief is the loss of hopes, dreams, and expectations.
Mhmm. And anything that you wish would have been or could be different, better, or more.

Jillian Faldmo: Yeah. That makes sense. Totally amazing. Yeah. It’s a lot of things.
So that’s why processing grief is so important because it it it’s pervasive, really.

Victoria Volk: Yeah? Yeah.

Jillian Faldmo: And I’m so glad you’re doing this work, Victoria. That’s awesome.

Victoria Volk: Well, and thank you for teaching and expanding bio field tuning. I’m glad it found I’m so thankful it came into my awareness. I’m actually the one forty four. And then when I first heard it, I was like, what was it? Yeah. The one forty four. Yeah. Yeah. That’s the emotional one. Yeah. I like, when I first heard that, I was like, But it’s like it’s the it’s like the one that when that comes up and I don’t I don’t I don’t know if you do this, but I don’t choose the fork for my sessions.

Jillian Faldmo: Yeah.

Victoria Volk: I let my pendulum do that.

Jillian Faldmo: Mhmm. Okay. Yep.

Victoria Volk: And it never fails. The one forty four is only after they’ve had several sessions with me. Does that one come up? Or they’ve done a lot of energy healing work before coming to

Jillian Faldmo: me? Mhmm.

Victoria Volk: And so Yeah. It’s that’s been a fascinating connection for me to draw with that fork. It’s one of my and maybe it you know, it’s who I draw to me. Right? Because of the grief stuff that could be. Mhmm. But, yeah, that’s that’s often the go to for me and my work.

Jillian Faldmo: Yeah. I love that work. I call it my my bestie. But I hated it when I first got it. I was like, what is wrong with this fork?
It sounds terrible. And then I just kept using it. And now I was like, oh my gosh. I it’s that’s why I’m I only work with the three forks now. I think we were talking about that before. We started recording, but and biofuel tuning, there’s like a set of well, it keeps getting bigger, but it was just a set of five, including the two weighted forks, the one seventy four, five twenty eight, four seventeen hertz. And then we added this one forty four, and it was just I was just using the one one forty four and one seventy four. And now I use the I’ve added the two twenty two. But I have a whole sulfageo set on its way to me. Oh my god. I’m so excited. Yeah. Let’s see how I I had to order an extra carrying case because I’m I’m gonna run out of room.

Victoria Volk: I find too that I’m using the weighted forks a lot on the body as well, you know, when you know, sometimes that just comes up to be to be used. So Yeah. I I I don’t know. People listening, like, I love my pendulum. Like, the pendulum is is my b f f in sessions. I I feel like it’s not my energy then. You know, getting in the way or it’s, like, I’m not making the decision. Like, my clients’ energy is guiding the session. I feel like Yeah. When I let the pendulum, you know, when I yeah.
I don’t know. That’s a nice way

Jillian Faldmo: to approach your session because it’s like if you don’t have to think about anything and you just follow, it just it saves you energy and it’s just such a much enjoyable more enjoyable session because there’s like no need to perform. Yeah. You know, a lot of practitioners can get kinda stuck in, like, needing to perform. And that’s not what it’s about. Just it’s about listening.

Victoria Volk: Yeah. And I think that’s I I think that’s where especially when I was first new, like, you you feel like you have to do it this certain way and it’s this prescribed way.

Jillian Faldmo: Mhmm.

Victoria Volk: And I was just, like, I don’t know, with that with the pendulum safe, that’s the one I should use. And, you know, I even, like, drawing a card for somebody. Like, I use Oracle cards and I’ll draw a card for somebody. I thought, pendulum is deciding what deck When I draw a card for myself, I’m yeah. It’s a pendulum. So Yeah. Nice. And not using your pendulum. Play with it a little bit more. Yeah. You know, if you’re listening to this.

Jillian Faldmo: Good stuff.

Victoria Volk: Yeah.

Jillian Faldmo: Well, thank you so much, Victoria. This is lovely.

Victoria Volk: Thank you. I look forward to sharing this on my podcast. They can people can learn more in-depth about bio field tuning and energy and all of that because I’m trying to bring more of that into my podcast too because it is it it is how do you wanna say it? Like, emotions involve our bodies. Right?
It’s it’s an energetic experience. And so I think there’s the two married together is Yeah.

Jillian Faldmo: Yeah. Emotions are electromagnetic. And so energy work is working on that spectrum. So even I mean, even just feeling your own emotion, even just allowing your own emotion is energy work. So good job.

Victoria Volk: That’s true. Well, thank you so much for having me on your podcast, and thank you for being on mine. And just thank you for this opportunity. I’m glad we did this.

Jillian Faldmo: Yeah. Thank you. It’s it’s just always so good for my audience to hear from other practitioners who are who were doing the work and the world and what their journey has been and what you know, their your perspective has been on the work, and it’s been great to hear from you. So thanks, Victoria.

Victoria Volk: Where can people find you if they wanna reach out to you?

Jillian Faldmo: Oh, yes. Good question. You can find me at gillianfaldmo dot com. And you? Victor, well, where aren’t you on social?

Victoria Volk: Are you in social?

Jillian Faldmo: Oh, I I am on social. I’m not the most active but you can find me there, jillian falsmo dot coaching on Instagram and then Facebook. I think it’s just jillian falsmo. But I’m all about I’m all about teaching people marketing without killing themselves on social media.

Victoria Volk: My favorite either. I have a VA and gosh. If I when I got a VA that was, yeah, for your listeners too on, you know, building your practice and stuff. You know, it’s hire that stuff out. Like, you don’t have to do everything.

Jillian Faldmo: Yeah. You know? Yeah.

Victoria Volk: Yeah. I am at the unleash chart dot com. The unleash chart dot com. My website and linked to my podcast grieving voices is on there. And a book that I wrote, I mentioned, is on there, and all my socials, you’ll find me there, are the unleashed Heart on Instagram and the unleashed Heart LLC on Facebook.
And then I’m on LinkedIn too, but Yeah. All the links are on my website though.

Jillian Faldmo: Awesome. Yeah. Go check out Victoria’s podcast, the unleashed heart. It’s awesome.

Victoria Volk: Angelic. Because if you wanna learn more about energy work Yep.

Jillian Faldmo: Awesome. Alright, everybody. Thanks for being with us. We appreciate you.

Victoria Volk: Much love.

Ep 165 Maha Bodhi | Part II: The Pet Loss & The Surrender That Cracked Me Open

Maha Bodhi | Part II: The Pet Loss & The Surrender That Cracked Me Open

 

SHOW NOTES SUMMARY: 

This week’s guest, Maha Bodhi, who previously appeared on the podcast in season 3, shares her experience of saying goodbye to her dog and the grief she experienced as a result. Having to choose what she felt was right for her pet versus hoping nature would take its course is a struggle many pet owners face when their pet reaches the end of their life.

Pet loss is one of the most minimized losses. Those who don’t experience pet loss, and many grievers, often see pets as being replaceable. Although Maha did attempt to replace Blake’s loss with another dog a month after his passing, she quickly realized it wasn’t the best decision for herself or the other dog.

In the following months, Maha was reminded of what she had learned through several Heart with Ears sessions with me, Victoria, while her dog, Blake, was preparing to transition. And that was that grief needs to be honored, felt, and addressed. One of the ways we can do that, which I had shared with Maha, is through the Grief Recovery Method, as described in The Grief Recovery Handbook.

Maha took herself through the method in the book and found tremendous value and relief. Although going it alone is not recommended for reasons explained in this episode, Maha gained new knowledge and tools that help her better support herself and others during times of challenge.

“The degree of your surrender is the degree of your success.” – Maha Bodhi

RESOURCES:


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CONNECT WITH VICTORIA: 

 

Victoria Volk: Welcome listeners to grieving voices. Today, I’m excited to bring back a previous guest for a part two recording Maha Bodhi, we initially recorded, and you can I’m gonna link to the episode in the show notes, but it was from season three episode one zero nine, a quest for inner peace and freedom. And thank you so much, first of all, for coming back to record with me and the reason why I wanted to have you back is because since we recorded, you had a devastating loss that you’ve worked through and you’ve moved through. And so you’re here to share that experience. And also, what’s kind of just blown up in your world since in a good way. So thank you so much for coming back.

Maha Bodhi: Thanks for having me, Victoria. I’m so excited to be here. And I’ve been looking forward to our conversation to follow up on our previous podcast. So, yeah, I’m excited to be here.

Victoria Volk: I had actually met Maha initially at a women’s convention thing. And you’re a public speaker there and, I don’t know, we connected after and kept in touch, and I actually invited you on my podcast. That was that first episode. And after that, you had reached out to me because you blake, your dog was incredibly sick, and he was going to be passing. That’s why I wanted to have you back here too to speak to that experience because it hasn’t really been covered on this podcast before. But also because you’re kind of on the other side of it now, and I want people to realize the importance of that loss that it’s because it is so minimized in our society, and if you would mind taking it from here and just speaking to that experience.

Maha Bodhi: Yes, absolutely. So I really, you know, I’m a a yogi first and foremost, and I truly believe that the universe always gives you the right people at the right time in your life that can support you throughout your journey. And we have met in the Woman Business Summit in the Conference where I was a public I was, like, the inspirational speaker, the keynote, and that’s how we connected, and you have this great podcast in Europe. You’re certified in Grief recovery, and that’s kind of your area of expertise and your superpower. And when we did the initial podcast, I truly haven’t experienced a tremendous loss in my life, so I wasn’t able to really speak to that. And it’s interesting that we did our podcast and that’s it and we went our separate ways.

Maha Bodhi: And then my dog and he was such an important figure in my life. Like, my dog was or I don’t have kids and we were really we had such as deep on it and I know a lot of dog parents can relate to this, but we were inseparable where I go. He goes. I would always tell my friends he’s part of me like a limb. Like he’s just always with me. We travel together. We do yoga together. You know? I do everything with him. And if, you know, I have even if it’s a a work opportunity and they don’t allow dogs, like, I won’t go. Like, that’s how I refused to leave him behind. And when I got him, he was he’s a he’s a rescue. So we really didn’t know how old he was. They told me he’s two years old, and then I took him to a vet, and they said he the vet said he’s five years old. But we really couldn’t tell.

Maha Bodhi: But I had him for eight years, and I thought that I still had more time with him. So I was really I was not prepared. It was a shock to me, and it happened so quickly, so fast that I took him to the vet and they said he has kidney cancer and he has and he’s gonna and he’s gonna die. Like, be prepared to make arrangement. I knew that this was gonna be a big deal for me. And I knew that this thing can I didn’t want it to break me. So I knew that I needed support. And I wanted expert support.

Maha Bodhi: And so I reached out to you right away because I knew you were certified in Grief recovery. You also kindly suggested that I hire an end-of-life Doula, which I didn’t even know such job existed, which I am so grateful that it exists because it’s such noble work to help people in, you know, the most difficult time of their lives. And like you said, I really think that our dog’s passing the way is really underrated. Like, when you tell someone my dog is not like, oh, I’m sorry. And that’s pretty much it. But for me, he was my whole life. He was like my child, mine, everything. And like I mentioned, like, we wake up together, we sleep together with you. So then there’s this emptiness when he’s gone. It’s like, what am I gonna do when he’s gone? And I really wanted the support that I need. I wanted to process this in the healthiest way possible. I know it was gonna be painful. I know it was gonna be hard. And so I just needed support. And we did a few sessions together, and it was tremendously helpful. And the doula was because you’re not we’re not in the same physical location. So the doula was actually here in Los Angeles, so she was able to come over and really had really hold my hand step by step. You’re helping me there, and she’s helping me. So I really got incredible support, and I’m truly grateful. Because with pets, it’s not just that, oh, your pet is dying, you have to make a decision. The most difficult decision that there ever is is whether you help them cross over to the other side or you let kind of nature take its course. And that’s the most difficult decision. And I just felt like oh my god, not only am I grieving his loss, grieving his illness, seeing him suffering, but now I actually have to make this the hardest decision that I’ve ever made is like how you and it has to happen quickly. It’s not like, oh, you have time to think about this. You have it’s like he’s suffering and you have to think and it was against everything in my nature. Are you telling me that I’m supposed to, like, I’m just gonna say, like, kill my own dog, like, that’s not in my nature, that’s not. And but then you see him suffering And I and it was just like, okay, what do I do here? And that’s where you helped me. And she helped me.

Maha Bodhi: And I’m a deep meditator. And I tried to we even did Reiki with my dog together, and I really tried to tap into his energy. But I also knew him so well because of our bond. And I knew he was kinda done. He was done and who’s ready to go. And animals, they’re different. They don’t have the ego that we have the clinging on to the life that we as human have. Like, he knew that his journey was over and his soul was ready to leave his body and he was okay with that. And so I just had to hold his hand and help him pass through when I had to make that difficult decision with the help of the doula. So we did everything together step by step. I actually I didn’t want to do the unionization, but what ended up happening is that he ended up having seizures. Like really, really bad seizures. I could hear his, like, bone clicking. And I just was like, I can’t, like, if it was me and I’m having these intense seizures, I would want somebody to help me pass away peacefully. So that’s what I did. And it was an emergency because it was just hot. It was, like, at it was, like, at three in the morning and then and I called the doula. I mean, how amazing is she? She’s, like, I’m on call. My phone is, let me know, and I’ll come with you. And I call her, and we go at three in the morning, we go to the hospital, and the hospital was amazing, and I’m just so grateful that we even have these resources and we have these people and we have access to this support because I’m not originally from the United States and most other countries don’t have these kind of resources. They don’t have an animal hospital, an animal room, where you can go at three in the morning and the vet is there and the staff is there and and and they know what they’re doing, their pros, and they know how to help you. And they put me in a private room and we were there with him the whole time. And I will say that I don’t have regrets. I feel like I did the right thing to do because of my the meditations and the energy that I was tapping in. I just felt like this is this is just the right humane thing to do for him. And then we and in the hospital, they take they take the that they take the pet and they cremate him or whatever you decide you wanna do. But because I had my doula, I took him back. I took him back and we washed him at home, and we did a ceremony, and we did a vigil, and it was really truly healing for me. It really gave me that closure because it was really, really stressful before and I had to make the decision and it was just so and then once thou was over and I was really able to grieve and sit with him and sit with and pet him and he’s just there’s a put flowers around him and just meditate and process the pain. And I learned this from both of you to really give myself permission to breathe. It’s okay to cry. It’s okay to feel pain. And I would sit every single day and just allow myself to cry and sit and really create space. And I’m like, I’m just gonna sit here and I’m gonna and I cry and I but until I don’t feel like crying anymore, I’m not gonna resist it. I’m not gonna try to distract myself. I’m not gonna try to run away from this pain. I’m gonna honor this, this like that came into my life. And I will say that it was really, really healthy and I kept seeing you and I kept seeing the doula after a few times and until I felt like, okay, I think I’m now in a good healthy place. And I’m ready to take the next step of the journey. So really thank you to you, Victoria so much you played a tremendous role in this experience that I had.

Victoria Volk: Thank you for sharing all of that. What people don’t really may not realize, like, you didn’t and maybe many other people listening don’t. Is that because I’m an end-trained end-of-life doula, and it hadn’t occurred to me either, even in my local area to pitch myself as an end-of-life doula to support people with their animals passing. Right? Like, as an end-of-life doula, we have this training that can transfer into these other areas of people’s lives like pet loss. And so I’m glad that you I’m glad that I had that idea to share with you and that you took it upon yourself to do that.

Maha Bodhi: I did not even I have heard of, like, the birth doulas that helped bring life into the world, but I did never heard about end-of-life doulas. And I think people need to know that there is support available and there is a healthy way to process this. You don’t need to do it alone.

Victoria Volk: And had this end-of-life doula, had she ever helped others, as a service in with pet loss before?

Maha Bodhi: Yeah. She’s Verint.

Victoria Volk: Okay.

Maha Bodhi: Yeah. She’s Verint. She works mostly, like, with people that are past in the way, but also she said, oh yeah, with animals and she also said that it’s very underrated and people think, oh, it’s just a dog, it’s just a pet, but that loss is huge for me.

Victoria Volk: Well, and just like people who have a spouse. Right? A spouse passes away. That person becomes very much a fabric of your daily life. You have breakfast together or you have dinner together or you mow the lawn together, regularly what are all these activities, right, that you do on a day to day basis with a spouse, you were doing with your pet. And our pets are involved in our daily lives.

Maha Bodhi: So it. They don’t talk. They don’t, pets are just so unconditionally loving. And there’s also a chemical literally, a chemical withdrawal that happens because dogs are known to induce dopamine, induce those happy hormones in the brain and the body. They say just snuggling with your dog induces all sorts of chemicals that induce happiness, induce joy. And there is a chemical withdrawal that happens when I’ve been living with the stock for eight years I come home, and he’s jumping, and I’m smiling. Now when I come home, like, I don’t have a reason to smile. I don’t have a reason to giggle, to laugh, to run around because there’s no one there. And so that’s like literally a chemical withdraw that your brain has been used to your body has been used to inducing, and now it’s gone, and it really drops your energy. But I mean, like I said, because of the grief recovery, and, like, your support and we’re gonna talk about this in a little bit, I was really able to to process it in a healthy way.

Victoria Volk: And I do recall after he passed, you were looking for another pet, which is also our inclination. Right? Like, we want to replace that loss and

Maha Bodhi: Who said, don’t do it?

Victoria Volk: Yeah.

Maha Bodhi: I’m just gonna be really transparent. I’m gonna be really honest and I struggled with this a lot. But I was looking for another pet and you told me don’t do it because you’re just gonna replace you’re trying to replace your dog. And it just doesn’t work first. And I think you even sent me an article and I read the article And I just I’m just so emotional. And it hasn’t been, like, maybe a month since Blake, my dog passed away. And I just saw this furry animal online, and then he looks exactly like Blake. And I was like, I’m just gonna go and get this dog. And I went and I got this dog and I mean, it didn’t work out. Believe it or not, because I’m a dog lover. And I was like, oh, I will love any dog. It’s unconditional love, and it’s and even though I was aware because I was educated by you and I read the books and I understood that they say, oh, don’t just try to replace the dog. And I’m like, okay, this is a new dog. He’s a puppy. Right? Like, when he passed away, it was older, it was mature, so it’s a completely different energy. This is a one-year-old puppy active hyper different energy. We haven’t bonded, this is a new completely new relationship And so I even though cognitively, like, intellectually, I was aware of that, and still the reality of it was very different. And so it was very difficult for us to bond even though I tried. And I would walk him and we’d try to do training sessions, and we and we did all these things and he and he was very high energy. If I wasn’t breathing, it would have worked out. But he needed a lot of energy and a lot of attention that I didn’t have the capacity at that time to do. He was chewing everything, chewing the furniture, chewing the remote, chewing my shoes, and Blake was beyond that phase in his life. And so that dog needed more training, more energy, more. And if I was in a like I said, in a good place, I would’ve probably would be more ready for that, but I wasn’t. And it was because then what I was looking for was an emotional support animal. And what this dog ended up being, I was the one who needed to support the dog. And so it just it wasn’t fair for the dog. And the dog didn’t bond with me. So the dog, they’re highly intelligent. They’re so they’re just feelings. Right? They’re all, like, just intuition. They don’t intellectualize. And so the dog felt like this isn’t right. And so we tried for two months we did trainings. We hired professional dog trainers. And it was just the dog was so unhappy. Would distract the house, would it would try to bite me, would try to like, it was just the I can tell the dog was like, you’re not my mommy, I don’t wanna be here, and it was really sad and I had to rehome the dog. And I will say that I always judged people that overwhelm the dog. And I would always say there’s no bad dog. There’s only a bad owner. And this experience allowed me to change my mind about a lot of things. It was a learning experience, and it was my mistake that I didn’t honor the process grieving and I didn’t give myself time to grieve and I thought this would be just a quick fix and everything is gonna be okay and it wasn’t and it was really really hard and I was ashamed I will say to rehome him because people will come, where’s your dog? Where’s your dog? And I just feels so like a really bad person to say I had to overwhelm the dog. But guess what? The dog ended up having exactly the parent that he needed. Right? He now he’s happy. I even asked the new mom. I was like, is he chewing? It’s just like, no. He doesn’t chew in her house. He doesn’t do destructive things at her house. And so it was the energy. Just wasn’t the right energy. And ever since I haven’t, I haven’t gotten another dog. I was like, when the time is right, it’s gonna happen, and the right dog will find me, and I will find the right dog.

Maha Bodhi: But it’s definitely been a tremendously growth experience that impacted the work that I do. I’m an inspirational speaker. I’m a yoga instructor. I live with retreats and teacher trainings and all these things. And it really added a level of depth of my empathy, of my compassion, to people, to loss, to grief, and to understand it instead of running away from it. So I will say, like, before that, I was very focused on positive mindset, positive thinking moving forward And this was kind of the missing piece of the puzzle because the ying and the ying, that’s really part of life. And it is superficial for us to just focus on, yes, positive, positive and moving forward is a great way to live life. But we also really need to honor and process the darkness and process the grief. And there is multiple healthy ways to do this. And if you don’t and if you try to skip steps and you’ve tried to hack your way through it, it keeps building up, it’s building up, and it’s gonna come out one way or another, and you’re just gonna make mistakes. And that’s the beauty of life. It keeps nudging you in the right direction and it gives you exactly what you need until you face, what you need to face. And that’s how you move. And it’s called I’m sure you’ve heard the spelling post-traumatic growth versus post-traumatic stress, that’s how you choose to grow instead of stress and get stuck.

Victoria Volk: Thank you for sharing all that because I did not know that piece that you had actually gotten another dog in all of that experience. So thank you for sharing that. I mean, for people listening too, it’s it doesn’t have to be a dog. I mean, this can apply to relationships too, friendships, spouses. Like, I mean, this is what we do. This is our like, are instinct to do. We, like, we just wanna we wanna get over the pain. Right? And so we just wanna feel better and it just doesn’t work to push yourself through it or to sweep it under the rug and try to just

Maha Bodhi: Gonna come out one way or another, energy. It’s literally energy. And if you don’t give that energy time to liberate itself to process, to move through you, right? We know that saying about emotions or energy in motion, so they wanted to move, they want to. The energies want to be liberated. It’s us that keep them stuck when we resisted, when we try to cheat, when we try to skip steps, that’s when things get messed up. But if we allow nature to take its course. And we honor the process that’s where growth in learning happens. That’s where opportunity really happens. And it builds care and it makes you a better human in life and it makes you then better in relationship in your future because you’ve healed and you’ve processed what he’s processing and you’re not gonna dump your expectations and your pain and all the past information on this new relationship. So it’s not even fair to the new relationship just like with my dog. It wasn’t fair to that dog, and the dog was happier with someone else. And it’s the same thing like you said, with the spouse, with the relationship, with the human being. So we’re always trying to avoid pain as humans. It’s in our nature to do whatever we can do to avoid the pain, to run away from no one wants to hurt. Right? But it’s kinda counterintuitive that the caves you fear to enter, hold the treasures that you seek Joseph Campbell said that. And I always say that in my teachings, but leaning into the pain and processing the pain and allowing it to feel your feelings I mean, I can’t stress this enough to feel your feelings. And I’m not talking about to feel the story behind the feelings, but actually to feel the sensations of the feeling, and a lot of people don’t know how to discern between the two. So, like, feeling your feelings is, like, oh, I like, oh, I’m feeling I’m feeling sad. I feel I missed this person. That’s an emotion. That’s still you’re still at the level of the mind. But to feel the feelings, it’s this what is this sensation? This you’re missing this person or you’re hurting. You’re grieving. You’re you’re experiencing loss. What is how does that manifest physically in your body? It’s a physical sensation. So if I pinch you, The pinch, it’s a physical sensation. So is it sharp? Is it heaviness in your chest? Is it hollow stomach is it a fidgeting, a shaking in the legs. So it’s a sensation and it really took me a long time to get this. And so when we feel that heaviness in the chest, when we feel I sometimes I used to feel like my arm goes numb. And so what happens is that when we feel the sensation, the brain freaks out, and it’s like, okay, solution, solution, solution. Let’s run away from this. What do I? Because the brain is creative. Problem solving. Okay. Get another dog. Okay. Let’s go shopping. Okay. Let’s binge-watch. Okay. Let’s grab the drink. Let’s grab the alcohol. Let’s let’s do something so I don’t feel this sharpness, this numbiness, this heaviness. But the secret is that you actually wanna lean into it. You wanna sit with this. You wanna hold your own hand. And be like, I’m gonna be here. We’re gonna stay here and it’s gonna be okay. We’re gonna feel the feelings. And I’m not gonna abandon you. I’m not gonna neglect you like how everyone did in your life, I we talked about my upbringing in my past. And so we learned this abandonment. It’s really your abandoning yourself when you grab the drink, when you grab, you turn on the TV or you grab your phone. You’re doing what people who abandoned you did to you and you’re just repeating the cycle. But if you say, hey, you know what? I’m not going I’m gonna love you unconditionally. And I’m not gonna leave you when you’re hurting. I’m gonna be with you when you’re hurting. And I’m gonna feel the hurt, and we’re gonna be in this together. And then this tremendous liberation of energy happens. When you tell your brain, hey, you know what? You can go offline. You don’t need There’s no problem to solve. Okay? Just it’s okay. It’s safe to feel.
You can just be quiet and I’m gonna feel my feels. I’m not gonna try to fix it. I’m not gonna try to change it. I’m not gonna try to solve for it. I’m just going to feel it. It’s as simple as that.

Maha Bodhi: And the moment you wholeheartedly do this at the liberation of energy because that energy that’s being consumed and overloaded and trying to find an escape is now liberated. And there is this sense of freedom, and that’s where really true healing happens. And it’s almost like a superpower because you’re no longer afraid of the pain. And that translates in so many areas in your life, Victoria. I mean, it translates it in you not being afraid in the world anymore. You’re able to take more risks because you’re not afraid of the pain. You’re not afraid of rejection. You’re not afraid of doubt. You’re not afraid of uncertainty. You’re not afraid of the unknown because, hey, no matter what life throws at me, I’m I’m okay with that. I’m okay with feeling the feels. I’m okay with feeling the pain. And that translates into confidence in the world that translates and you’re really wholeheartedly showing up. Here I am, whole complete, not perfect, but whole and complete, vulnerable. Yes, I’m a human being. Yes, I have flaws, but I’m okay with that. And I accept myself unconditionally, and it all starts with leaning into the pain and allowing yourself to feel the sensations in your body and not running away from it.

Victoria Volk: So good. And when people listening, they couldn’t see what I was seeing unless they’re watching this on YouTube, but you kind of gestured to your left shoulder, which energetically is grief and despair. In biofuel tuning, that’s where we see often is grief and despair is off the left shoulder. So I just wanted to share that with.

Maha Bodhi: And when we worked together, you touched upon that because we worked and you would ask me these things where do you feel it in your body, and I didn’t even need to think about it. Like, I mean, right away, for me, it’s always my heart and then my left sided. And all and if it’s intense, like, when like, that it goes all the way down to my left arm, to my left fingertips, and normally I would freak out, before I learned about going for covering the pond how it manifests in the body and all these things and feeling the feels I would be like, oh my god my arm is going numb. Like, oh, let’s call the doctor. Let’s, what’s happening. Right? But now I understand this. And I understand what’s happening, and I just literally bold myself. Like, it’s okay. I know you’re hurting right now, and it’s okay.

Victoria Volk: So when you had this realization that this second dog was not going to replace Blake, that you had to do something for yourself to get to move through this. What did that look like? What was that process for you then?

Maha Bodhi: I rehome the dog and I just took a few moments. I just took it one day at a time to be honest. I took it one day at a time once at that time. And, I’m a yoga teacher. I have a very strong yoga practice, and I embody yoga, not just, I don’t know, like, a lot of people think yoga is an exercise. It’s stretching and exposes and it’s so much deeper than that. And for me, I embody it as a way of being I believe that yoga is a science. It’s a science of being in the world. It’s a science of living healthy in the world. Not only in your body, but in your mind and in your heart. And so when stress builds up in your body, when your arm goes numb, when your chest is hurting, that’s energy in your body. And when we move the body in a very specific way, in a very mindful way, you’re helping that energy to process. You’re helping that energy to move. So yoga is deeply connected to the nervous system. It’s connected to the mind, to the brain.

Maha Bodhi: So I had just had my practices, and I check-in with myself every morning I wake up and I’m like, okay, what is the diagnose? How am I feeling today? Because sometimes if you’re breathing too intensely and the body is too overwhelmed, you actually don’t wanna do the invigorating sweaty power yoga classes. You might wanna move a little bit slower and a little bit more gentle and do the more gentle flow. So I would every morning wake up and check-in with myself, how am I feeling today? Do I need to pick it up a notch? Do I need to slow it down? In the evening, I always journal to process my thoughts, so they’re not just floating in my head and overwhelming. So I always write I always start with gratitude because we do have a negativity bias that the brain automatically wants protect you from danger. So the brain is always looking around what can go wrong. And so practicing gratitude is grabbing the steering wheel and be like, no, no, no, yes. There are hard things in life, but there’s also really good things in life, and let’s not lose track of those good things. So I would right away start to write three things that I’m grateful for, and they could be as simple as, I don’t know. I had a a nice smoothy today. You know? It’s it could be just as simple as that. And then if there’s something that I’ve been struggling with, I’ll key I’ll start to process it and I’ll start to write it down. In the moment you start to write things down, you it creates a little bit of clarity and you will start to really see things and you start to see even patterns in your journal and you start to see, okay, this is just, me in my default state and I actually have control in in the way that I process information in the way I process the world.

Maha Bodhi: So I always say we see things not with our eyes. We see things with our mind. And it was Dr. Wayne Dyer that famously said when you change the way you look at things, the things that you’ll look at begin to change. Right? And so and that’s what journaling does for me. It changes the way I see things, it changes the way I process information, and it gives me an opportunity to make a choice because we always, always have a choice even though when it doesn’t look like we do, we have a choice.

Maha Bodhi: So those are my practices for the longest longest time, yoga, journaling, and my work, my work is really participating and helping people and being of service and contributing to society. And so because my work is deeply integrated with my personality, there’s I’m very fortunate. And you this. I used to work in the corporate world, so it wasn’t always like this. I used to have to be two separate people. I used to be have to be, Maha at home and then Maha at work. But because of now I’m so fortunate that I get to do what I love, and I am a living, breathing embodiment of what the practice of yoga is, there is no separation. So it’s either I’m either practicing yoga or I’m teaching yoga or I’m creating something around yoga. And that I really heal through the work. When you do meaningful, purposeful work, you heal through the work and then you see people come to me and I can be just saying something so simple and they come to me thank you so much. You have no idea how much I needed to hear that. I don’t know how you knew what I was going through. And I’m like, I didn’t. No. But you need but you heard exactly what you needed to do. And yoga is so universal that it applies to literally almost every person no matter what you’re going through.

Maha Bodhi: So really that’s that’s how it helped me through. It wasn’t until recently that I actually did the grief recovery program. And I know when we were working together, you were telling me, and it was honestly thanks to you because I didn’t even know it. It even existed. I didn’t know much about grief. I’m gonna say that during those things to you that I really am now educated. You recommended. You and you kept drilling it. You’re like because we log in and we’d have a session like this, and I’m just, like, complaining complaining complaining. Like telling you about all my pain and what I’m going through. And you keep telling me you have to do the program. And I think I was just in so much pain at the time, and enrolling in a program felt overwhelming. And I was like, oh my god. I am dealing with this, and now I have to do a program, and I have to, like, write things and all these things. And I was like, I just don’t have the mental capacity to do it.

Maha Bodhi: So again, I was trying to skip steps. Again, I was trying to cheat my way through. And like I just mentioned earlier, there’s it comes out one way or another. That energy is gonna be dispersed. It’s gonna slowed one way or another. So it wasn’t until very recently, and I think it’s been, like, more than a year since we did our sessions. And it wasn’t until very recently that I kept feeling this level of grief. And you know grief is not like, okay, my dog died and that was a horrible thing, but it’s not it’s not just that grief. It’s all the griefs that you felt from the day you were born, one on top of the other, on top of that that you never processed in a healthy way. So that energy kept building up, building up, building up until, the dog dies, and then it’s and then it’s an explosion. And so then that just kept happening. I just noticed that I’m very sensitive and I’m very easily I don’t like the word triggered, but I just I I just wanted to I I just wanted I’m like, okay. There’s something off here. There’s something off here, and it just won’t go away. And I noticed because of my love of awareness, this voice in your head or this pain in your body. If you don’t pay attention to it, it just keeps getting louder and louder. And louder until it forces you to stop and drop everything and look at me. That’s what it’s saying. It saying, look at me, I need your attention. And that’s really just reached a point where it happened, and I can’t tell you that it’s like a specific incident. I think it was just an accumulation of events. And I was like, you know what? I need to nip this in the butt. I need to find the source of this grief and process it in a healthy way. And I remembered you and I remember the grief recovery program. And I was like, let me look this up. And I looked it up, and I found the book, and I bought the book, and I started reading the book. And I just started doing the exercise because it’s literally a workbook and it’s a step-by-step workbook and I just kept doing it. And I’m not gonna lie to you even though, I’m in this field of healing. I’m a yogi and all these things. It’s not for the faint of heart, and I was nervous. And I honestly see the value of having someone like you a guide to guide you through. I just thought I was like, I’ll just do it by myself, and I just did it by myself. And in the book, they always say it’s better. So much better to work with someone, but they also give you an option to to do it on your own. So I just follow the instructions to do it on my own, and I drew the graph the timeline of my and it always usually starts with your parents because that’s, like, the oldest grief ever. It always starts there. And so I did that and I did one for my mother and I did one for my father and I was so scared and because they tell you to write things, to process, to write the statements. I’m like, are they gonna tell me to show them this statement?

Maha Bodhi: And I was like, I almost stopped at that point because I was my subconscious mind locked in that fear, just locked in and I stopped at that crucial point, which I’m not supposed to stop. And I stopped, for a couple of days, I stopped just like, oh, tomorrow, tomorrow. Like, you know, like, I’m just so scared. And then and then I felt that the energy. Right? It’s like it’s like it wants to be released, and it’s like I’m like I stopped in the wrong moment. And I’m like, this is not gonna go away until I cross the finish line. I need to cross the finish line. And I need to trust. I need to trust the process. This grief recovery program was built in the eighties or something. Right? So it’s time-tested.

Maha Bodhi: Over forty years. Yeah.

Maha Bodhi: I don’t know, like, how many thousands and thousands of people have been, you know, went through the program and it’s highly highly recommended. So I was just like, You know what? You have to trust to this and not trust your fear. They know what they’re doing. Let’s just finish it. And if it ever gets too scary, you could always stop. So then I finish it, and it’s funny the moment I opened the book. It’s like the only I read, like, flipped to the next state. Exactly. You should never do not send this letter to the person that you’re, you know, mad with or grieving with or and I was like, okay. There’s no confrontation. This is really more about me and my feelings and my grief, and my personal journey because really that’s what it’s always about. It’s your relationship with yourself more than your relationship with other people. It’s your relationship to the grief. It’s your relationship to the pain, not the person that caused the pain. And so I did I finished it all the way to the end and I instantly instantly felt a weight lifted off my shoulder, off my that literally, that physical pain that I told you in my chest, in my arm. It was like, like, lifted, like, immediately. And I was like, oh my god. Why did I wait this long? Why did I not listen to Victoria?

Victoria Volk: It’s never too soon. It’s never too late.

Maha Bodhi: And just because, like, well, why did I kept torturing myself for this long? You know, and I’m very strong. I’m a very strong person. I think that didn’t serve me because I’m like, I’m strong. I can handle this. I can do this. But there’s no reason to suffer. There’s no reason to power through this, and they talk about this in the book, like, if you have a cut, like, if you’re hurt, are you gonna wait? Are you gonna, like, oh, next year, I’ll deal with it. I’m like,

Victoria Volk: Let me just let me just let it let’s just let it fester and ooze with bacteria first.

Speaker 1: I’m strong. I’m tough. I’m gonna tough it out versus, like, you immediately wanted to clean it up and you wanna nurture and intend to and allow it to heal in a way that it deserves to be healed.

Victoria Volk: Well, and thank you for sharing that because I didn’t know that either. And so to have you share the testimonial of the process for you is beneficial for the listeners to hear. I do want to share that so I tried it alone too. I was just like you. However, I was not I wasn’t as what’s the word? I hadn’t evolved myself and my growth to the point where you had been at the time that you did this on your own, for me to have this awareness of myself to do it on my own. I tried to do it on my own and I realized really quickly that I needed, one, the accountability because for exactly the reason you said, Yes. Because this and even in the program when I’m working with someone in person or online, I tell them you know, next week, you’re not gonna wanna get on Zoom with me. You’re not gonna wanna put your shoes on and get out the door. And I’m telling you, do it anyway because when you’ve already pulled off that scab. Right? And if you don’t tend to that wound, this is when those old behaviors and these old patterns start to come back. And it can actually put you back in progress. Like, you can actually go even it’s like when you lose fifty pounds and then you gain a hundred. Right? Because you fall off the wagon and you just give up on yourself. It’s the same way in this work. And so I don’t encourage anybody to do it on their own for those reasons. Because it can

Maha Bodhi: Of course. I agree. Yeah.

Victoria Volk: However, you’re different. Everybody’s different, but you are in a different place in your own evolution of where you were too. Yes. And you were you I know I feel in my heart that had you felt yourself stuck in that place that you would have reached out to me.

Maha Bodhi: Yeah. Yeah.

Victoria Volk: Or another grief recovery specialist that you could have finished that work with?

Maha Bodhi: Yeah. Absolutely. Yes.

Victoria Volk: So I think it’s important for listeners to know, yes. Grab the book. Learn a lot because you will. You will learn a lot. But don’t go into it, adamant, hell or high water, you’re gonna do this yourself because you don’t wanna set yourself up for, first of all, that disappointment. Right? And then there’s shame in that too. Right? Gosh. Canning. I can’t do this. I just I can’t even heal. I can’t even do this myself. Like, you know what I mean? Then that

Maha Bodhi: Absolutely. Yeah. Now it’s it’s absolutely better to do it with with another person for accountability. Also for perspective to things that maybe you can see sometimes we get too caught up in our pain, in our shame, like you said,

Victoria Volk: Can’t see the label from inside the jar.

Maha Bodhi: Yeah. Exactly.

Victoria Volk: And for anyone listening to, it might be let’s say you’re in a household of people. Right? You live alone and not everybody lives alone. And so you might be afraid somebody might find your writings and things like that. Right? That can be a worry for some people. I actually just discovered an app. It’s called day one, and it’s for journaling with your voice. Okay. So for a lot of people, if they don’t feel like they can just for the journaling piece. Right? Like, I don’t suggest doing using day one to do this grief recovery work. But, I mean, if it helps you move forward and helps you get to a place where I can finally reach out for help. Right? Because sometimes we just need to realize, I can’t do this alone. I do need support because that was me for over thirty years. Right? I got this. Like, I can do this myself. You know, the DIY or that was me. But so how has this work going through that process now and being on this side of it, which I really fully wholeheartedly believed eventually some day you would circle back to. Because that’s what loss does. Right? It just kinda worms. Because I was even gonna ask you what loss like, what came up for you that would have been a better lead to the squad to you talking about that. But what losses came up after you lost Blake? But you just described that. But how has this work now? You mentioned briefly that it’s influenced or maybe it was before we started recording. It’s influenced your work and what you how you work with people today. But, yeah, what’s happened for you since doing this? How does it change things for you?

Maha Bodhi: Change my yeah, definitely with the work that I do, you know, I lead teacher trainings and these teacher trainings are trends formational, and they’re long, and they’re challenging, and they’re physically demanding, and it’s a two hundred hour train, and you go throughout and you go through this journey of ups and down. Sometimes you feel triumphant and sometimes you feel like, oh my god, this is too hard. And it could get emotional and your grief can come up because the mind and the body are deeply connected and we just talked about how the emotions manifest as a physical sensation in the body. And with yoga, what happens is that when you hold the pose because of the nature of the practice, you hold the pose, for a little bit longer than you would do in a gym and other workout. And you’re you’re guided to be present in the pose. And to quiet the mind because it is a meditation first and foremost and we add the poses to the meditation. So a lot of people get it mixed, and it’s just a workout. But if yoga is, first and foremost, the removal of the fluctuations that disturb the peace within the mind. That is the very definition of yoga according to Potentially in the yoga sutras. And so when yoga is taught, traditionally and properly, you’re in the yoga pose and it’s, yes, it’s challenging. Some can be very challenging. And you hold the pose, for a minimum five breaths. And you’re guided to breathe. You’re guided to quiet the mind. And be present to the challenge and not escape the challenge, which is literally a rehearsal. That’s why we call it a practice. Because it’s a practice for how to live life. It’s a practice of how to quiet down the mind and to be peaceful in the mind. And to be present in the heart and present in the body and present with the challenges and that’s how you kind of cross that threshold because it it challenges you to go be a little bit beyond your edge. Right? And that’s where growth happens. That’s where transformation happens.

Maha Bodhi: And so I see people when they struggle, sometimes you see people break down and cry, especially if they have trauma, if they have unprocessed grief, and they’re going through this journey. And there is this, they crying so sweet. They’re like, I’m so sorry and I’m like, why are you apologizing? Like, there’s nothing to apologize for. This is a beautiful opportunity for you to process what’s being demand it to be released, that your body has been probably craving a moment like this, a moment of liberation of this energy that has been stuck for, God knows how long in your body. And this is the only time that you’re able to be still enough and present enough and quiet enough for it to be released. So, cry. Go deeper into this pain. Don’t run away. Don’t apologize. Don’t try to fix it, don’t try to rush through it and just be with it.

Maha Bodhi: So literally what yoga is, it’s like an embodiment, a process, kinda a metaphor for your whole life. And so that’s the level of compassion and the level of understanding for me to recognize brief in others to recognize pain in others. And I know you know this. That loss is not always just loss of, death loss. So many things are considered lost, a grief of even just a dream you had, a potential that you thought is gonna be your future, and then it disappeared. That’s a loss. That’s a great losing a job is, you have to grief that. Losing that relationship. Even if it’s a brief small relationship, it’s the dream behind the relationship. That that’s what you’re grieving. So it can it can be so many different things and that just deepened my level of understanding of grief in that. And before that, before this experience that I had, I would probably be like, hey, you can do this, like, just breathe through it. Let’s you know, you’re stronger than you think you are because I’m such a motivational, inspirational person, but now I’m like b with this. Be present with this. I’m right here. I’m not running away. I’m gonna be here, and that’s okay. And I and I think that’s in a much healthier way. And like we talked about the balance of, yes, the lightness and also the darkness. And we wanna honor the darkness just as much as we’re honoring the lightness. And you see that symbol, I love it because it explains everything. Right? It’s the yin, the yang, the lightness, and the darkness. But within the darkness, right, there’s a little bit of light. And within the light, there’s a little bit of darkness. That it all belongs and it’s all part of the holistic experience, the holistic human journey. And once we understand that and we embrace that and we accept that as a whole. Really your life experience, the way you navigate through life, becomes way more graceful, way more peaceful, because you’re no longer grinding, you’re no longer hustling, any fix it mode, trying to change the world around you, and you’re literally flowing with the current. Right? Like, paddling down a canoe down the river and you’re letting that river kind of carry you through and you’re just in it for the ride. Yes, you’re navigating. Yes, you’re choosing where you’re going. But you’re literally trusting the current of life.

Victoria Volk: Trusting the current of life. I love that. Yeah. We have really difficult time trusting. Right? Trusting ourselves. And so we have a difficult time trusting others and trusting the process. Right? of of

Maha Bodhi: But that’s the level of them. It’s always trying to some. And the truth, it’s like so useless because that’s the energy that’s just being consumed and depleted and drained and really use useless way of using your mind, using your brain. It says that, like, the most sophisticated technology in the entire universe exists in your brain. Right? And no one gave you the manual. And everyone is using their brain in wrong. It’s so sad, but everyone is using their brain wrong, solve it, solve it, solve it. How can I fix it? How can I control the world around me? You cannot control the world around. People are gonna die, your heart is gonna get broken, bad, things are gonna happen, and good things are gonna happen and then you’re gonna grow and you’re gonna be stronger and you’re gonna succeed and you’re gonna laugh and you’re gonna love and you’re gonna be all these things are part of the human experience, but you trying to control it is a waste of energy is a waste of time. But being present for the experience and seeing what’s unfolding in front of you and then participating in this unfolding whether it’s positive or negative I’m not checked out. I’m going to participate. I’m here for it all.

Victoria Volk: And there are tools to help you do that.

Maha Bodhi: Absolutely. Yes. And I know you have you know your your grief program. I have my yoga program, and it’s not one size fits on. They’re all these they’re multiple tools and yeah. I’m a yoga teacher, but I need a grief recovery coach. I need an end-of-life doula too. Like, you need different things for different experiences that you have in your life. And there’s plenty of that. We are so fortunate to live in this day and age where we have, you know, access to resources and information.

Victoria Volk: And so please share with my listeners some of your tools and where can people find you and work with you. When you got cooking.

Maha Bodhi: I can

Victoria Volk: know you got something to know better.

Maha Bodhi: I will say that the most, like, in-depth and premier experience that you can have with me is my yoga teacher training. My yoga school was accepted by Yoga Alliance under elevated standard. It was unprecedented. They’re, like, a yoga they were, like, this is the fastest that we’ve ever accepted a yoga school. I put so much thought and so much work into it. And it’s really the work of my entire life that led me to this moment. So all the pain, all the grief, all the growth and all the strength that I accumulated in all the education throughout my life. And I truly believe that this is my offering to the world and this is the reason why I am here in the world is to teach the science of yoga, which is a science of how to be in the world. So it doesn’t really matter if you wanna be a yoga instructor, It’s a way to help you, like we talked about, navigate through life with more of a embrace, and you literally take your power back, you take your mind back, you take, control of your not external environment, your internal environment.

Victoria Volk: So where can people find you to learn that?

Maha Bodhi: Yogimaha.com. It’s my website. All my events are there. So my teacher training, the dates, all the details, how you can sign up, is there I lead yoga retreats, from time to time. So if there’s any upcoming retreats, you’re gonna see it on my website. I’m on social media, @yogimaha108, so you can follow me on Instagram, on Facebook. Yeah.

Victoria Volk: Thank you so much for sharing everything that you’ve shared today. And I loved this follow-up in this part too. I think it was much needed. Because we can see, we can have this bird’s eye view or this be the, like, the fly on the wall of a conversation of someone’s life. But to see it in this stent. Right? Like, to see the I always wonder, like, sometimes when I hear a story, oh, I wonder what happened to so and so. And so I think it’s important that we share the darkness in this light. Right? Because you had that in your first episode, but then life continues. Right? And it stuff gets are on our way and challenges happened. And so thank you for sharing about Blake and how that experience just really opened you up even more to this deepened learning and experience. So thank you.

Maha Bodhi: So honor Victoria. Thank you so much for having me, and I’m so glad we were able to have this follow-up.

Victoria Volk: Check out Maha’s website, yogimaha.com. I’ll put the links to everything in the show notes. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.

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