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From the OR to Money Healing: Dr. Susan Nichols on the Spiritual Roots of Financial Trauma · White Coat Black Sheep

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Welcome to "White Coat, Black Sheep," where science gets curious and dogma gets
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uncomfortable. I'm Dr. Civelli, and today we're talking physiology,
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evidence, and real-world medicine, plus the questions you're not supposed to ask
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but probably should. If you care about health and think there's a better way,
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welcome to our show.
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Thank you so much, Dr. Nichols. Susan Nichols, thank you so much
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for joining me today. Do you mind telling us who you are and what
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you do? And I know that's a big question because you do so
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much.
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Yeah. Likewise. Well, thank you so much, Valerie.
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It is such a pleasure to be here with you today.
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So yeah, so as you know, I was much like
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you. I started my career in medicine.
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I trained as a surgeon and then a cardiothoracic surgeon,
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and then I had a very profound spiritual awakening, and it kind of leads
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me to what I do today as a private wealth manager.
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But yeah, it's been quite a journey to figuring out that
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this was what I'm meant to do in life, but I did start out
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in medicine, even before that as a chemist.
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I worked for a pharmaceutical company.
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But yeah, I did the entire rigmarole to becoming a doctor
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before I realized I had to make a significant change in my life.
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Wow. Is there any
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point that you were willing and open to sharing
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the spiritual awakening? I didn't want to over-ask, but
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I am interested if you're comfortable sharing.
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I am.
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Because that's a huge change, so I know it must have been
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profound and people--
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If in any way it could help somebody identify what is
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your signal to pivot,
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you did a major pivot, so that was your signal.
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So what would be helpful, I guess, would be the tie-in for that?
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Okay. So what I have come to understand is that
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there are two paths that we can go down in life.
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One, I believe, is our chosen path,
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and one I think is our rightful path.
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Ooh.
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And when I say a chosen path, I mean often that is driven
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by society, like what we should be doing or what we
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think is going to earn us money or what makes us feel good about
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ourselves or honor about ourselves, maybe following in family footsteps and so
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on and so forth.
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And then the other part, I believe, is spiritual in nature.
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That
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just like we are more than a physical person, that
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we're energetic in nature. I believe some people call it the
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spirit or the soul or the life force, whatever you want to call
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it.
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Mm-hmm.
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I think there's a duality of us as a human being, and I believe there's also
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a duality in our purpose or our paths in life.
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So I did like most people. I went down kind of
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what I would say was my chosen path, and I
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believed it for a very long time that it was my purpose.
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I felt so strongly about being a doctor.
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I declared it when I was 10 years old, and so it was.
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I literally did everything that I needed to do to be successful in that.
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So I did it. I went to medical school,
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I went to residency, and I went to fellowship, only to have what I call a dark
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night of the soul.
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And what that was,
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I could really follow a thread all the way back to my
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childhood
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on what triggered the dark night of the soul or the spiritual
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awakening during my fellowship.
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And it was really,
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Valerie, like this
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deep,
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visceral sadness that I carried,
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and I'll put it this way, I'd carried it for so long that I didn't
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know what it was to be without it.
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No matter what the
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kind of achievement was or the excitement or the thrill, I
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would always kind of come back to this very basal, this
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very low-energy feeling of sadness.
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And I believed that it was linked to my circumstances, like the
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circumstances that I was born into, that I had grown up with.
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I never felt really happy as a child.
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I felt like, yeah, there are moments, but
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I would say I would never want to repeat my childhood.
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It was challenging in many, many ways.
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And so I believed that once I grew up and once I kind of
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did what was my purpose and I got a job and I made money
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and I had titles and degrees, then all of that would kind of somehow
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dissolve and I would be free.
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Mm.
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Like I would be spiritually free, I would be happy, I would feel
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actualized. I kept remembering this
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Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and I was like, "Oh, I'm going to get there.
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I'm going to get to the top of this thing, and then it'll feel like it was all
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worth it."
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Yeah.
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Well, when I got to what I thought was that zenith,
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like that high point of being a clinical fellow in cardiac surgery, I was like,
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"All I need to do is just stay with this, then I will be off to the
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races. No problems. I will be completely free-
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Mm-hmm
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... actualized, and happy," only to feel like
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if I didn't change something at that time, then I
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didn't want to go on living. That's how deep the sorrow in my
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spirit was.
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Oh my goodness. I resonate with that.
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I think a lot of people do. I think the lion's share of humanity is on
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the treadmill of life, working to pay bills.
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So my spiritual awakening, it
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had a lot of legs to it, a lot of, I would say,
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roots to it, and I would literally
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drive down the road to my job and I would Look at
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people in their cars, and I had this
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aha moment. I was like,
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"Nobody seems like they're happy.
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Not really."
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No one's happy.
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Yeah.
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They're not.
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And I was like, "Wait a second." I was like, "What are we doing?"
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No one is happy.
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And I just, "I see it. Okay, so now what?"
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Yeah. And that was it. Neither was I.
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I could put on
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all the
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accoutrements. At one point, I
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had the kid, I had the family, I had the Mercedes-Benz in the
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garage, I had the remodeled kitchen, I had the clothes-
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The job
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... the house, the vacations, and still, there it was,
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this sadness. And I was like, "I don't know what this
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is," but
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I literally got to the point, Valerie, where I was like, "I have done everything,"
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everything humanly that I could possibly think of to
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do to become free of this
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sadness, and I couldn't. I
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believed that there was nothing else I could do. I had tried everything.
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And that's when things just got kind of scary.
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Yeah.
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In church.
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The things that you did try, were there any windows where you felt a
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lift or some sort of freedom that gave you a moment
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of peace, or it went away for a little bit?
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Was there anything?
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Again, I believe that there were
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some high points. There were times of joy.
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There were times of excitement.
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I remember at times looking forward to it.
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I was so excited for medical school, and I was so excited.
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Yeah.
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I think the shine kind of wore off by the end
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of medical school. I was like, "Man, this is hard."
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The shine does wear off.
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It does.
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Valerie is like, "Oh my God, what have I
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done?"
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And so I was like, "Oh, no." And I
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noticed that
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just the medical school part, not even the residency part, the
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hardest part, started changing people.
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Yeah.
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It's almost like the light started going out. You know what I mean?
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Yeah.
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You're like, "Ah,"
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excited, happy, and then it's like you got drained and drained and drained and
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drained.
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Yeah.
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And
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I remember
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this. I was doing my CT fellowship, and it was
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not common or often, but sometimes we'd have students
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or other residents that would rotate on our service. It was very infrequent.
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Only if someone really wanted to go into CT surgery or something like that.
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And I remember this young girl came on, and she's like, "Oh, well, I think I want
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to do heart surgery." She's all bubbly and whatever.
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And I looked at her, and I was like, "I remember being like you."
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She was happy, and like I said, she still had the light.
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But then she's still a medical student.
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I was like, "Oh, it's going to go."
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"She's going to get the beat down."
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You're like, "Well, it's just a matter of time.
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We're just going to give her a few more minutes, put her back into the
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hospital oven, the whole process of it, just let it cook, and then
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she'll be like-
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Yeah
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... 'Oh my God, why do I feel so heavy?'" It's freaking
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heavy.
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It is.
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Oh, and cardiothoracic surgery is no joke.
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Seven years?
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Yeah. I was on the 10-year track. So I
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did
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my CT surgery fellowship at Stanford, and part of the
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journey was doing research. And so some people were in research for
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two, three years.
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I did two years in research.
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And I did a two-year research fellowship.
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But my senior fellow
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came out of fellowship at age 40.
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Talk about delayed
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gratification and being in training for 11
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years.
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That's basically one of the reasons.
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It's a long and windy tracks. And so there is a
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lot about it. There's no doubt about
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that. But yeah, it's like we're
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full-on grown-up people coming out of training.
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Sort of.
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Sort of.
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I don't feel grown up. I even have pigtails today.
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I literally do not identify as grown up.
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I'm still figuring it out.
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Exactly.
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But I think what happens is
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when we do very protracted training programs in
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medicine, we feel like we're really behind.
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I agree.
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This is going to tie in, I believe, to what I'm doing now.
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We believe we're really behind financially
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because there have been all these years where, let's say
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from the early 20s to 40s, that your
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peers have been working and climbing the corporate ladder and
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earning more and more and having kids and families and cars and houses.
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And for so long, you can't afford it.
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You're just kind of almost in this protracted
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adolescence.
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But you're performing at a very, very high level. You know what I mean?
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You're
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executing at a super high level, but you're
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poor and broke, and got student loans up to your
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eyebrows, and you just can't
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literally figure out a way out of the debt.
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Yeah.
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And so that's how it was, and I really
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feel like
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it almost
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This is going to sound so strange,
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but I feel like I had to do that entire journey, that
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whole journey into being a heart surgeon
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because of some childhood, and I would say even generational
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wounds that I was trying to overcompensate for.
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And a lot of it was, I was born into poverty, and I was born into a
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pretty desperate circumstance.
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And I always believed that that was the root of what ailed my soul and
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the sadness. I couldn't really put my finger on the sorrow.
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I just knew that it was there, but that was the only memory or thing that was
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tangible that I could say, "Oh, yeah, that situation sucked,"
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blah, blah, blah, blah. But what I really think is this
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was a pattern that was occurring in my family for
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generations. So I was, I believe, carrying a
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generational wound around security,
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around finances, around work, around
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women. As far as being a woman
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and earning money,
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there was a lot of wounds in there. And I
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believe I was on this journey to really
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accentuate what that was so I could finally bring
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awareness to it to change it. I believe that
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we
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can recognize a pattern,
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but until we bring awareness to it, something's not right, or
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whatever this is, this feeling doesn't match.
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It didn't match my resume. It didn't match my outside
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life.
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I had no reason to feel this way on
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paper.
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Yeah.
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But my spirit was saying something else,
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and I think that happens with a lot of people that you see
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that reach the heights of their worldly success.
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It could be in athletics, it can be in whatever, education, it
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could be in Hollywood or whatever their
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art or craft is. And then they're whacked out
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on drugs or they're very depressive and sad,
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or even suicidal. And literally you're scratching your head,
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you're like, "You've got all these things." So on paper, it looks
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good. You're like, "Well, what do you have to complain about?" Or, "What are you
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upset about?"
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But I believe that's when we have to look back at
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what I think is generational trauma.
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Yeah.
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That connection that you made, I don't know at what point
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you recognized it, but that's pivotal.
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I never would've thought of it like that.
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I
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do resonate with all of the things that you describe and that you're feeling.
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And my family on my dad's side, they're from Malta.
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So my dad's first generation here,
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and my grandfather, so his dad
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was illiterate, came over as a stowaway on a boat, and
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then later got his green card because
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my dad went into the CIA, and they discovered, including my dad,
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that he didn't have that.
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Mm-hmm.
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So, he had to learn to read and write, and there's
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so much there, and I feel the compensating,
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the need to compensate or to overachieve, and it's
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not in my conscious daily awareness,
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but I never feel accomplished, like that feeling.
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Mm-hmm.
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I feel emotional about it, just the way that you connected it,
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because it is a real thing, and I don't know what it is or
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why it's there,
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or what to do with it.
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You know?
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Well, let me break this down a little bit.
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Mm.
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Okay.
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So I feel this, and I tell you, I was hitting my
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head against the wall for most of my life because I couldn't get it either.
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It's like a nut I could not crack
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because, like I said, it didn't make sense.
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It didn't make logical sense-
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Yeah
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... but I was experiencing it nonetheless.
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And so it's almost like, Valerie, the
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feeling of love, right? Where it might not make sense, but you just
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feel that way.
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Yeah.
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You're like, "Man, this is so inconvenient," or, "I don't know." You
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can't, but you just do.
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Yeah.
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And so now, just apply that to the other
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end of the spectrum of sadness or sorrow. You just do.
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You just have this feeling about you, or this way
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about you. And so I believe that this is what it is.
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So
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at the very core of us as human beings, we are energy.
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And I believe the energy of us, again, some people call it the soul
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or the spirit or the life force or chi, whatever you want to call it.
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At the core of it, it's energy. It's a feeling.
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It's a vibration.
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And as human beings, we have the capacity
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to hold or to feel every
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feeling imaginable or vibrational state available.
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Literally-
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Mm-hmm
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... we have the capacity to feel love, just like we can feel
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hate. We can be enlightened, and we can be sorrowful.
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Mm-hmm.
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And everything in between. We have the capacity to feel, and
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I think that's a part of our experience in life.
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It's maybe the wonderful part of it, because I also believe life is about
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contrast. We do not know what it is to love until we know what it
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is to not be loved, and vice versa. To be-
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Yeah
17:58
... hot, but we don't know what it is to be cold, and so on and so forth.
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Dark or the light, it's just a contrast.
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And so I do think life is just about contrast, and I believe that's maybe part of
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the reason we have the capacity to feel all of it.
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But I think what we don't recognize is that sometimes there can
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be a dominant
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frequency or
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almost like our set point of
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frequency that we come into this life with.
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And I believe many people have different beliefs or non-beliefs
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about past lives and past existence, but many of us
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can at least adopt the generational stuff, stuff that we can
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maybe put our head around. So let's just say it's generational.
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Let's not go back to your other lives.
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And so you say, okay, and if I look at the generational
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energies, the patterns, the stories that I come
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from, you could understand maybe some of your issues.
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You could say, oh, yeah. See, people will say it.
18:57
It's like, yeah, we have people in our family that have always had a
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talent or been very good singers or very good this or very good that, or people
19:05
that have had
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suicide. That runs in our family. Or there are a lot of murderers in
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our family, whatever it is.
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Absolutely. Yeah.
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So you're like, "Man, really?"
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Yeah.
19:16
And it's like generations of this stuff.
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And so you can see there's tendencies that come through
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generationally. And so I believe just like we can
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inherit, if you can grab onto this, if I can inherit a
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trait from a past generation, could I not
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also inherit an
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essence, an ability,
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a sound of my voice, a
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manner of being, a talent, something that's intangible?
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Could I not also bring trauma with me?
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If I can get to that like, oh, we have generations of
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singers in our family, and that's a talent-
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Mm-hmm
19:55
... could I also bring generational trauma
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along with me? And I believe we all do.
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I say nobody comes to Earth for free. Nobody.
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I know that.
20:10
Yeah. We're born into a little baby body, but I believe,
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Valerie, that our souls are ancient,
20:18
and that we bring with us all of that energy from
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generations past, maybe eons past, maybe lifetimes
20:25
past.
20:27
And perhaps there was a time when the coping skills that
20:31
we have now were useful. Or maybe that's all that
20:35
we could muster or do, but didn't make
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it done. It didn't
20:41
make it maybe even good. It just made it like that's all.
20:46
Sometimes we just die
20:48
in states of terror and horror and
20:52
fear and prejudice and whatever. We die like that.
20:55
And so then we come back, and then what do you got to do?
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To me, you've got to transform that energy.
21:01
You got to resolve it or dissolve it.
21:05
And so the idea is that
21:09
if you can believe that at the very core of us, we are energy,
21:13
and we know the very first law of thermodynamics is the
21:17
conservation of energy, and that energy cannot be created or destroyed.
21:21
It can't be forgotten, can't be numbed, it can't be ignored.
21:25
It has to be transformed.
21:27
That's right. And it can only change.
21:30
Right.
21:30
So we can only go from, let's say, sadness into
21:34
acceptance or something, whatever we want to call those feelings.
21:38
Wow, transformation.
21:39
But it's got to be transformed. And this
21:44
belief that I've had or what I've come to understand through my spiritual awakening
21:47
was also borne out by Dr. David Hawkins, a
21:51
physician just like us, who wrote the book "The Map of Consciousness."
21:55
And he measured all these human, the frequencies that are in
21:59
us just using muscle kind of contractions
22:03
and vibrations, almost like the train of four when you're waking somebody up from
22:06
an anesthetic.
22:08
Okay.
22:08
And so he measured all these frequencies, and then
22:13
we can name them. So let's say I feel joy or
22:17
happiness, and you measure what that is.
22:20
Oh, nice.
22:21
And it's, oh, that's happiness. What if I'm sad or depressive? You measure that.
22:24
What if I feel ashamed of myself? Measure that. That's what we call shame.
22:28
Okay? I'm in love. You measure me, that's what the love
22:32
frequency. Okay?
22:33
Wow.
22:34
And so all of this has been measured and documented, this map of
22:38
consciousness. And so it is
22:42
measured on a logarithmic scale from 20 being the
22:45
lowest resonant frequency in humanity
22:49
to 1,000, which is the highest or
22:53
these fleeting feelings of enlightenment.
22:55
So we can be anywhere between 20 and...
22:59
That's a big range. This is a logarithmic scale of
23:03
vibrational frequencies that we can experience, not just in a lifetime, but in a
23:06
single day. We're all over the place.
23:10
We can be all over the place.
23:12
Yeah.
23:14
I feel that.
23:17
So,
23:18
Valerie, guess where I was living for most of my life?
23:22
I was living at the lowest resonant frequency measured in humanity.
23:27
Oh my God.
23:27
I was resonating low of shame,
23:31
and I had a lot of shame around
23:35
money,
23:37
financial shame.
23:39
And so that is the nut that I couldn't crack
23:43
because no matter how much money I made or how
23:46
many titles or degrees, I always felt that there
23:49
was never enough, and I never felt like I was enough.
23:53
I never felt good enough. I always felt like I had to fight just
23:57
to get the same recognition or the same
24:00
value as somebody else because at a very
24:05
elementary, at a very core level, and I believe this was, again,
24:09
generationally, I didn't feel worthy.
24:11
I didn't feel like a worthy person.
24:15
And so what happens when you resonate
24:19
... shame or when you resonate love, or when you resonate curiosity,
24:24
more of those things come into your sphere.
24:26
I believe that's how the universe works.
24:28
We resonate our frequency out to what I call this
24:32
universal substrate of creation.
24:35
We're always putting out signals,
24:38
and then we're always, if you notice, getting back exactly what we
24:42
feel, because I believe that's what the universe does.
24:44
It's like, "Okay, you say you're afraid?
24:46
I'm going to show you more things to validate your fear."
24:51
Every week.
24:51
Oh, my God. It's messed up.
24:55
Yeah. So this is what I think we don't understand what
24:59
we're doing. I think we're-
25:01
Yeah
25:01
... literally unconscious, not understanding that we are
25:05
powerful and that we are-
25:07
Yes
25:07
... beings of energy, and that we are resonating out these forces all
25:11
the time, and then we're surprised or angry or frustrated on what comes
25:15
back.
25:16
Yeah.
25:16
It's like, well, if I resonate out there lack,
25:20
then there are more and more evidence of things lacking around me.
25:26
If you've ever noticed, if you ever resonate like, "I got this,"
25:30
you're like confidence. More and more things to show your
25:34
confidence, to validate-
25:36
Yes
25:36
... your confidence will come back to you. More things will come to you.
25:39
The belief of abundance.
25:40
People will ask you questions. Yeah. It comes back.
25:43
Yeah.
25:43
If I resonate fear, more things, more frightening things-
25:46
It will come true
25:47
... will show up in my reality.
25:48
Yeah.
25:48
Exactly.
25:50
Yeah.
25:50
And so this goes back to this existentialist thought, this
25:54
belief that we create our own lives.
25:57
We just are unconscious of what we're creating.
26:00
Which is the hardest part. It's almost like-
26:03
Exactly.
26:07
It sounds easy, but it's the hardest part.
26:10
The hardest.
26:12
Hey, figuring out this energy thing
26:17
has been harder than being a heart surgeon.
26:20
Or whatever you could be up to in life.
26:23
I swear to you.
26:24
I
26:26
believe it.
26:27
I can do that over and over again. But you
26:31
ask me to
26:33
figure out this pattern and this energy, I'm just like, "What the f**k?"
26:38
Yeah.
26:39
It's not like... You know what I mean?
26:40
A highly accomplished person like you, for me to
26:44
hear you say that is
26:46
wild, because you've done so much, yet you still didn't
26:50
change how that feeling of trying to make it and be enough.
26:54
And I struggle with that exact same thing.
26:57
It will never be enough. I don't care if I
27:01
built a whole city and it's sparkling,
27:05
shiny, it solves all the world's problems, I'll still be like, well,
27:09
I
27:10
know myself.
27:13
There'll be something that it isn't. Yeah.
27:15
Yeah. So, man, this definitely, at
27:19
whatever you're resonating with me, it hits target.
27:24
That hits target.
27:24
Yes. And
27:26
I feel like
27:28
now that I understand it,
27:31
well, at the level that I can understand the universe, right, and how
27:35
we are a part of it, or how the universe is a part of us,
27:39
and how we're interacting with this invisible force.
27:44
From the way that I can, in my corporal brain, understand it,
27:48
I believe that this is part of the reason that we are here,
27:54
and it's not designed to be easy.
27:57
No.
27:58
Because when we are challenged like this, even
28:02
with kind of esoteric understandings, like the
28:06
universe itself-
28:07
Mm-hmm
28:08
... we have to grow a little bit.
28:11
And I think that that's the game that we're up to.
28:15
Yes, we physically grow in our bodies and age and get older and
28:19
mature and all that, but then I believe there's a
28:23
spiritual growth that we must also embark upon.
28:26
Mm-hmm.
28:27
Now, we don't all do it in one lifetime. I don't believe any of us do.
28:30
I think probably we've all been here dozens and dozens of times trying to get
28:34
ourselves figured out.
28:35
Wow.
28:36
But then I believe that there can be a
28:40
lifetime when you do crack the nut,
28:44
and I believe that's the time-
28:45
I hope that this one
28:46
... to ascend. Yeah.
28:48
Wow.
28:50
Okay, so
28:52
I do believe that we're energy. Nothing else makes
28:56
sense, and like you said, when you put a thought
29:00
here,
29:01
that makes you move and speak, and you're
29:05
really radiating this energy to other people, and your
29:09
body and your molecules are interacting with your
29:13
environment.
29:15
So that being said, we do-
29:16
That's right
29:17
... have control over our thoughts.
29:21
So even whenever something negative comes in,
29:25
switching that is powerful.
29:32
Now, you froze a little bit. I don't know if
29:35
I am too.
29:35
Well, the bottom line of what I basically was just thinking, we have control of
29:39
this. So the good news in all of this is that
29:43
if A is true, then B is also true, that we
29:47
can really do so much, and it starts with a thought.
29:53
So
29:54
I love that. I love that because I believe that
29:58
thoughts are things,
30:01
just like our feelings are. I know especially in a
30:05
very masculine, patriarchal society, we try to pretend like our feelings don't
30:09
matter-
30:09
You froze
30:10
... or they don't bother us,
30:12
but they do.
30:14
And it's just that we're, I would say
30:19
particularly the males,
30:22
that they are conditioned not to show
30:25
this, and I think that's very damaging Because we can't help it.
30:29
We are emotional beings. We are energy.
30:33
Mm-hmm.
30:33
And it's coursing through all of us all of the time.
30:38
So what I've really learned how to do, so I didn't talk to you about
30:42
the awakening part. What happened
30:46
was I started having literally out-of-body experiences, like leaving my body,
30:50
feeling my energy leave out of myself and be fully conscious,
30:54
fully aware that I had left my body and that my body was somewhere, and I felt like
30:58
I was in what we call space or some other
31:01
dimensional place.
31:03
Is this while sleeping-
31:04
But so I had full awareness of that
31:05
... or random times throughout the day?
31:09
It's always when I am sleeping, and I believe that there's a
31:13
window.
31:15
There's a small window
31:17
between our wakefulness to this reality and our dream
31:21
state.
31:22
And that's when we can, I would say, leave out and have
31:26
very conscious experiences where that's not confusing.
31:29
It's
31:30
as I am speaking to you now. It
31:34
feels that real.
31:38
There's no confusion. In fact-
31:40
Mm-hmm
31:41
... you come back as sober as you've ever been, and you're like: "Hold
31:45
on a second. There's more to this life.
31:47
There's more to this dream than what I'm experiencing."
31:51
Did you find yourself looking down on yourself, having
31:55
thoughts
31:56
that would counter your natural thoughts during your awake
32:01
time?
32:01
Yes.
32:06
I think that goes without saying.
32:09
So to me, I'm going to put it this way, Valerie,
32:13
having those out-of-body experiences I
32:16
considered a gift,
32:19
because it helped me to see that I was more than my
32:22
circumstances, that I was infinitely more,
32:26
that we are all infinitely more,
32:28
and that truly, we're energy beings having a human
32:31
experience.
32:34
And so you've probably heard many people that have had near-death experiences.
32:37
When they come back, they perceive life differently.
32:41
They perceive-
32:41
Yeah
32:41
... themselves differently. It was the same thing.
32:44
I began seeing everything differently.
32:47
Obviously, it started with myself.
32:50
I
32:53
lost those whole thoughts that I wasn't worthy anymore.
32:56
I was like: "Are you kidding me?" I'm a completely, like
33:00
all of us, we are-
33:01
You just shed it like-
33:03
... beings that shed all that crap.
33:06
Wow.
33:07
Some people call it your mental garbage.
33:10
Yeah.
33:10
All the stuff that, the lies that you tell yourself, the
33:14
insidious lies that you're not good enough in some way.
33:17
All that began to dissolve.
33:21
I
33:22
did
33:24
begin to get to the root of what was ailing my soul, and I
33:27
began, I believe, again, only with awareness could I begin to
33:31
change it, and so I began to change it.
33:35
I
33:35
was very avoidant of my
33:40
life, my early life. I would never want to go
33:44
back to where I was born. I never wanted to talk about it.
33:48
I had a lot of shame
33:51
in my family. There was, I call it an unspeakableness in my family around
33:55
women and money because there was prostitution in my
33:58
family.
34:00
My mother's mom was a prostitute that had a brothel.
34:03
And my mother had a, oh, she had just the most
34:07
difficult life escaping that. And then
34:11
when I was born, I was forbidden to have a relationship with my
34:15
grandmother.
34:17
But nobody told me why. I just was not allowed to have a
34:21
relationship with her.
34:23
And as I got older, I began to understand the unspeakableness,
34:27
and it's because in my family, it might not be true for all families, but
34:31
in my family,
34:33
having someone in the oldest profession was shameful.
34:37
And so there was a lot of shame around money, and women, and
34:40
sexuality, and I embodied all of that.
34:44
Even though I
34:47
couldn't even have a relationship with it, spiritually, I embodied all of it
34:51
because that's part of me. If I can inherit
34:56
a physical thing from my grandmother or my mother-
34:58
Yeah
34:58
... could I not inherit that, that energy?
35:00
We have mannerisms like our parents.
35:02
Mm-hmm. That's right.
35:03
My mom and I stand the same.
35:05
Yeah.
35:07
Probably not the best posture, but like this.
35:09
And I'm like, "Oh my God, I need..." I try.
35:12
I fight it, but we stand the same. We have the same
35:15
gestures.
35:17
Exactly. And how intangible is that?
35:20
Just like the same manners of being, or the same gait, or the same
35:24
voice, or the same comic timing, or all those things that are,
35:29
you know they're not taught. Or kids that come and they're three years
35:33
old playing "The Flight of the Butterflies" on the violin, and you're like, "Whoa."
35:37
Their little fingers can't even move that fast. They're like...
35:40
And they're right.
35:43
So you know they weren't taught. They came in with that.
35:47
Yeah.
35:47
You know? And so I'm like, okay. Or kids that can play the
35:51
piano or people that are mathematical savants or
35:55
whatever. They didn't learn that, not in this lifetime anyway.
36:00
I think they're probably coming back to complete something, and that, I call it a
36:04
carryover.
36:05
Wow.
36:06
So we all have carryovers.
36:07
Oh my gosh. It gives me chills.
36:10
Yeah. I
36:12
started moving energy.
36:14
So I got my healing attunements to move energy to do Reiki healing.
36:18
In 2013,
36:20
2015 timeframe, I did a couple of years of training with a Reiki master,
36:25
and I've been doing energy healings ever since then.
36:28
And one of the things that I learned in my practice of energy healing
36:31
was that, again, I believed that
36:35
if you had good parents, you had enough, you
36:39
had friends, you had resources, that you had no problems.
36:42
Yeah.
36:44
Only to learn that my
36:49
My primary clients were moms like me.
36:52
It's like the soccer mom kind of
36:55
avatar. So the moms would come, I'd do the energy healing, and
36:59
then they would start to bring me their children.
37:02
I'm talking like kindergarten, first graders,
37:07
into the healing practice, and I kind of got an aha.
37:11
I said, "Wait a second. These kids have two parents who love them.
37:16
They're at private school. They got friends. They're well-fed.
37:19
They're taken care of. They're loved, and they have
37:23
issues in their energy field?" And I was like-
37:25
It is so weird
37:26
... "Now I get it. Now I get it."
37:28
We all-
37:29
Yeah. You think it's some infraction in the physical
37:33
world that creates that, but it isn't.
37:37
Not always.
37:39
Wow.
37:39
Especially when you have babies and young
37:42
kids,
37:43
that there's no other evidence of depravity or
37:47
abuse or anything like that, and they still-
37:50
Yeah. Mm-hmm
37:50
... have a soulful kind of
37:54
pain or experience. And so I've seen it in
37:57
animals. I've done energy healing with animals, horses and dogs,
38:00
primarily. Same thing. They can be traumatized,
38:03
too. And so, we all have this energetic
38:09
part of us.
38:10
Yes.
38:11
I think all living things, and then it's a matter of being in
38:15
tune with it, being able to recognize it, and for me, having the ability
38:19
to what I call transform it. So I know how to transform energy.
38:22
So I can do it in other people, and then I've been able to do it in myself.
38:28
And so I think it's a part of our
38:31
lives that we're never taught. It's like we almost have to have a
38:35
midlife crisis or some sort of traumatic
38:39
experience to start-
38:41
I'm familiar with those
38:41
... this journey. Yeah.
38:44
Because it's hyper-focused on the physical
38:48
experience and getting a job to pay your bills.
38:52
But yeah, I had lots of money trauma,
38:56
and that's what I did a lot of work in my spiritual work for 10 years.
39:00
I did
39:01
a show for three years called "The Money Consciousness Show." I did a podcast for
39:04
five years called "The Be Conscious Podcast." I did a TED Talk on money
39:08
consciousness, overcoming poverty.
39:09
I've done many speaking engagements, wrote six books, and
39:13
all that stuff, there's always a thread that for many of my
39:17
clients, no matter what they came to me for or what was
39:21
going on, a lot of them asked for me to do a healing around money.
39:25
So I've done meditations on it. I've created meditations about it.
39:29
And then that's what I do in my work now.
39:32
I come back to the world of finance from this
39:36
very deeply spiritual place, understanding that many people
39:39
have wounds regarding their self-worth,
39:44
value,
39:46
shame around how money's earned and spent.
39:49
Mm-hmm.
39:49
There's fears surrounding money, a lot of feelings of
39:53
lack and scarcity. And you think that you can
39:57
shake it with a big paycheck or some sort of big
40:00
contract, but you can't.
40:03
You
40:04
see lottery winners, athletes, they've got these
40:07
meteoric rises to wealth only to come back down again
40:11
into bankruptcy and poverty.
40:14
And it happens over and over. And I think what we do as a society is we
40:18
want to shame people for that.
40:20
Mm-hmm.
40:20
And I say, nope. To me, there's no
40:24
place for shame. There's no shame, no judgment.
40:27
This is something deeper.
40:29
Mm-hmm.
40:29
And then once it can be recognized, I believe it can
40:33
be healed, if you're open to that. But it can be transformed.
40:37
That energy can be transformed.
40:40
And so
40:41
I know that we're coming at time, but I would like to share an exercise.
40:45
Yes, please. Any tips. I am ready.
40:51
Okay. So this is what I believe happens.
40:54
I believe that we find ourselves in repeating patterns
40:58
in life. You'll notice it in relationships.
41:01
We'll notice it in jobs. We'll notice it around money, maybe with our
41:05
health, our bodies. But we notice
41:08
there's an underlying theme, and people will say, "Oh,"
41:13
people even recognize you for the
41:15
theme or the pattern.
41:18
And so
41:20
there's a point when I believe each of us has to ask
41:24
ourselves,
41:25
"What is this?"
41:27
Because what I think happens in the beginning
41:31
is you're kind of new to the pattern, at least you're new to the awareness, and
41:35
so you think it's outside of you. It's the economy.
41:39
It's my family. It's because I'm not tall enough.
41:41
It's because I'm not smart enough. It's always outside of you, some other force.
41:46
And so then you don't have to take responsibility for it.
41:49
Mm-hmm.
41:50
So then we get to a point where some of
41:54
those things are
41:56
solved. You're not a kid anymore. You have
42:00
a job, or you have education, or you have this, or you have these resources, and
42:03
you still see the pattern.
42:07
That's when I believe some of us say,
42:11
"What the f**k?"
42:14
That's the moment.
42:16
What's happening? Why is this happening?
42:18
And I say that
42:20
because
42:23
sometimes the patterns are so painful
42:27
that they're damaging.
42:29
They damage us.
42:34
We can feel defeated. Okay? And so I
42:38
know it kind of sounds funny, but
42:42
to me, I'm dead serious about it
42:45
because that's exactly the kind of- The awareness
42:49
that I came to, I was like, "This doesn't make any
42:53
sense. What is this?" And then I believe you
42:57
begin recognizing that it's a pattern,
43:00
and that you recognize that you have awareness that
43:05
something is up. Well, guess what?
43:08
That means that something can be
43:12
changed about it.
43:14
Absolutely.
43:14
It's not about somebody else. It's within you.
43:18
Empowering, actually.
43:19
How do I transform the energy within me?
43:23
Mm-hmm.
43:23
How do I do that?
43:25
So if you're really playing this game,
43:28
there's a process of energy transformation that I want to take you through.
43:32
Okay.
43:32
So okay, let's say you're in the pattern, let's call it the boom and bust
43:36
cycle.
43:38
Got money, then you don't have money. You got money, and you don't have money.
43:42
And it doesn't matter the job, your education, how good you are, how
43:45
talented, how smart, nothing. It's still doing this, right?
43:49
Yeah.
43:49
And so you're like, "Okay, WTF, here we go. What is this?
43:53
What is this about?"
43:54
Okay.
43:56
I should have everything that I need.
43:57
I shouldn't be going through this every month, every two
44:01
years, every whatever cycle.
44:03
Yeah.
44:03
Whatever the altitude of that cycle is.
44:06
And so there's a point where when we recognize it, we can
44:10
begin asking higher questions of it, like what
44:14
is it showing me?
44:17
What is it about me,
44:21
about this existence, about me in this time and space
44:25
that needs to be transformed? What game am I playing?
44:29
And so then we can go about the transformation of it.
44:33
So normally when we're experiencing a pattern that's
44:36
painful, we have a feeling in our body. It doesn't feel right.
44:40
Yes. Right.
44:42
I would have literally
44:45
gut--
44:47
When I would have these financial
44:50
downs,
44:51
I literally would have a pain in my gut.
44:54
I would lose my appetite. I would feel-
44:57
Yeah
44:57
... sick to my stomach. Sometimes I feel like I have a punch in the gut.
45:01
Yeah.
45:02
I feel like that's mine. So I like, "Okay."
45:06
Yeah, I used to think I was growing a ulcer.
45:08
I was like, "Oh, God."
45:10
Because I would have so much pain in my gut.
45:14
And so then I started to say, "Okay,
45:17
how can I transform this?" I knew enough
45:21
from my energy practice that I could do it with other people, so I began doing
45:25
it with me. So normally I place my hands on other people,
45:29
kind of go into this meditative state.
45:31
I started placing it on me and going into that meditative state. Yeah.
45:35
I was like, "Wait a second. I can
45:38
literally feel this energy emanating from me like cheat." And
45:42
so again, it was always outward for other people. And I was like, "Wait a second.
45:46
I got to turn this in on myself because
45:49
just by the fact that I am living tells me I'm in a pattern."
45:53
Yeah.
45:54
There's something I can transform.
45:55
There's something I'm here to do, and it's not just to get more titles and
45:59
degrees and money.
46:01
And so like-
46:02
Sure.
46:04
Yeah. Again, if that's all it took, many of us could do that.
46:07
We could learn skills, and we could figure out how to do that part, but
46:11
whatever's ailing the soul, there's no amount of
46:15
money, things, titles, degrees that will heal what ails the
46:18
soul. No amount of stuff.
46:21
And so I began to learn how to
46:24
recognize that I could also heal myself.
46:27
And thus, I believe everybody can.
46:31
We all have the-
46:32
That's the good news
46:33
... we all have the capacity. Yeah.
46:35
Yes.
46:36
But it's not, it's like how do I-
46:38
You can have a whole other hand. So that is-
46:39
Yeah
46:40
... helpful to even hear.
46:43
So here's three steps.
46:46
Okay.
46:46
Pattern, I don't feel good in my body, so I like to
46:50
just instead of calling it pain or
46:54
illness or whatever, I just say I have a sensation.
46:57
I try to make it as kind of nondescript as
47:01
possible because, of course, every word has meaning for us,
47:05
and then that creates another pattern and cycle.
47:08
Yep.
47:08
So, okay, I feel this sensation in my gut.
47:12
Doesn't feel good, okay? But I have this sensation, and so I would
47:16
literally begin, put my hand on this place that's
47:20
not feeling great. I got the pressure.
47:23
I got the heat, cold sensation, whatever, feeling of doom
47:28
. I got the feeling of doom.
47:29
Yeah.
47:29
And so I have this feeling in my gut.
47:32
And then I would literally start
47:34
breathing through it. So I would almost
47:36
imagine that I was taking a breath in, and it
47:40
was coming out through the area that was not feeling well.
47:45
So in by my mouth, and I just imagine this breath coming out of
47:49
my gut.
47:50
Just use my mind to imagine that there's almost like a cleansing
47:54
of that-
47:54
Bring through the organ and then out of the body
47:57
... out. Yeah. And I would notice that as I
48:01
was doing that, I would kind of
48:04
to narrow my thoughts, I'd say one, two, or in, out,
48:09
just so I wouldn't be thinking about everything else, all my grievances and pains
48:12
and issues and all the rhetoric,
48:17
the dialogue that would go through my-
48:18
Right. Eliminations
48:19
... during this financial thing.
48:21
Yeah.
48:22
And so I would just say in, out, one, two,
48:25
until I noticed that sick
48:28
feeling begin to dissipate.
48:31
Wow.
48:32
So it would start to, it would be less intense and less intense and
48:36
less intense. And I'd have to really focus on this at
48:40
first because
48:42
I was just new at it, and so I was very
48:46
serious. I was like, "I've got to figure this thing out because it's harming me.
48:49
It's harming-"
48:51
And so in out that I noticed that. And so then I
48:55
had so much to transform. I had so many grievances, so many issues
49:00
that I got good at it because I would do it with everything.
49:03
It could be the in-laws or whatever
49:08
is bugging you, and it's like, okay, why is this
49:11
irritating? And I do it. I do it again.
49:14
Why does this person bother me so much?
49:16
Yes.
49:18
And so I would recognize, I was like, wait a
49:21
second.
49:25
It's almost this idea that someone's pushing your buttons.
49:28
Mm-hmm.
49:29
But if you notice, no one can push a button that's not already within you.
49:33
Right? So
49:35
you can't push something that's not there.
49:38
Yeah.
49:38
So wherever that grievance, it's within me.
49:42
Oh, man.
49:42
They're just like a mirror showing me that this grievance is there,
49:46
right?
49:46
Oh my gosh.
49:47
So it's like all your relationships, I believe, are mirrors to what needs
49:51
to be transformed within you because they're going to push those buttons.
49:54
They're almost there to do that, to say, "Yeah, we know this is something that gets
49:58
you here."
49:59
Progress.
49:59
And then it's up to you to say, "Okay, it's not you.
50:03
This is with me."
50:05
Mm-hmm.
50:05
There's something in me.
50:08
Okay?
50:08
Yeah.
50:08
And then if it's not serving me, I'm going to let it go.
50:11
I'm going to let it go. Okay?
50:14
Parts.
50:14
So I started doing that with everything, everybody, everything,
50:18
until I call myself getting spiritually clean, until I could
50:22
be clean. It's not that life that doesn't happen, and I don't get upset,
50:26
and things don't bother me, but now I know what to do.
50:29
I'm like, okay, let me go into this.
50:31
I do breathing, and I do deep meditations.
50:34
I go walk into nature. You figure out what your things are that can help
50:38
you to transform the energy.
50:40
Absolutely.
50:40
I've worked with other healers. Sometimes I had a
50:44
fear that I couldn't--
50:46
I would notice it would come back no matter how much work
50:50
I did, and so I worked with other healers. I was like, I still have this thing.
50:54
I know what it is. How can I be free?
50:59
And so I sought help because I recognize that this is
51:02
just a frequency, energy, a vibration that's within me, and it's no longer
51:06
serving
51:08
me. And so then I learned how to transform energy within myself and
51:13
feel well again.
51:15
So yeah, it changed your entire perspective on life.
51:19
I
51:20
figure, if you got to live this life, you may as well live the best life.
51:24
Yes, please.
51:26
If fear, yeah, anxiety, pain,
51:29
shame, and all that, guilt, if you can
51:33
live without that,
51:35
you won the battle.
51:37
Yeah.
51:38
Nothing. The world's got to keep turning.
51:42
It is.
51:42
But what changes is you.
51:44
Yes.
51:45
You have to change. And then everything else is just like it
51:50
begins to be water off your back. You're like, okay. You see things.
51:54
And then even just the other day at work, I noticed something.
51:56
I was like, why did this-- Somebody did something, and it really bugged
52:00
me. And I was like, what is that? And it came back down
52:04
to this old energy where I didn't feel like I was
52:08
valued.
52:09
Wow.
52:10
So then I had to say, "Okay, Susan, what's this about?"
52:14
Yeah.
52:15
You know that this isn't true.
52:17
Yeah.
52:17
Why did this little thing
52:21
bug the s**t out of me?
52:23
Yeah.
52:25
And I said, is it worth it? All the mind garbage, all
52:29
the internal chatter, all the feelings, was it worth
52:33
it? And ultimately I said, no, it wasn't.
52:36
But there's something, I do that with every person, everything
52:40
that bothers me and triggers me, I'm like, oh, they can't push a
52:44
button that's not already within me.
52:46
So there was something, there's an act that happened that
52:49
triggered an old
52:54
energy.
52:55
Yeah. Well, it definitely, you're at the expert level,
52:59
so I'm going to try this and take
53:03
those moments as I experience
53:06
the trigger or somebody just bugging me, or
53:10
that inadequate feeling, which I exist with
53:13
most of the time. So
53:16
yeah, I think I'll check in with you because I'm
53:20
at the rookie level.
53:24
But you're a great resource to guide on that, and so you'll be
53:27
hearing from me for sure.
53:29
Absolutely.
53:30
It looks like Justin wants us to wrap up.
53:33
Is there any
53:35
last words before we wrap up for today? It was such a pleasure.
53:39
I learned a lot. It feels emotional too.
53:43
It is. I don't know. Something about it, and it's not my norm.
53:46
So I
53:49
hear you loud and clear.
53:51
Well, absolutely. I'm sure you'll have in the show notes ways to contact me, but
53:55
you can always contact me through this beautiful lady, Valerie, and it has been a
53:59
great pleasure being with you today.
54:01
Thank you so much, Dr. Nichols. I'll talk to you soon.
54:04
Have the best rest of your day.
54:06
Thank you.
54:07
Bye.