Deborah Meints-Pierson, LMFT

Deborah is a master therapist (licensed for over 35 years), spiritual teacher, television host, author and 3rd generation intuitive. She has helped transform the lives of thousands of people around the world. Her pioneering approach bridges Psychology, Spirituality and the Mystic Tools. Deborah is a sought out authority in the field of psychology and has served as a Palm Springs psychological expert for TV, radio & print. She wrote and Co-Hosted the popular television program "It's A Family Affair" on Time Warner Television for over a decade. Deborah has been featured in numerous shows, radio programs and publications including NBC, ABC, K-News Voice of The Valley, Desert Sun Newspaper, Desert Woman magazine and Health & Spirituality magazine.

When Deborah is not transforming lives you can find her hiking in the beautiful desert, music jamming with friends, dancing, practicing yoga, reading, & writing poetry. For more: https://soulpathsessions.com

Brenda Littleton, MA

As an educator & counselor based in social justice, personal literacy, eco & depth psychology, Brenda has worked with thousands of students and clients in their wholeness journey. She holds a graduate degree in education, post-graduate studies in counseling, and depth psychology at the doctoral level and is certified in coaching, trauma and psycho-biotics. Blending modalities of attachment theory, somatic healing, active imagination, dream work, restorative education, & place-based learning, she empahsizes the link between the mind-body-spirit-earth relationship for the healing.

Brenda's has served as a university program director of graduate studies, a clinical counselor for domestic violence & trauma recovery, a behavioral specialist in schools, & is a successful coach of executives, creatives and entrepreneurs. She is a reiki master, writer, speaker & continues in a lineage of Druidic animistic prayer circles. For more: https://www.brendalittleton.com

Acknowledgments:

Original Music composed by Zach Meints

The Soul Path Sessions Podcast is produced by Homeless Betty Productions

PLEASE SUBSCRIBE ON YOUR FAVORITE PODCAST APP TO LISTEN TO FUTURE EPISODES. THANK YOU...AND REMEMBER TO FOLLOW YOUR SOUL, IT KNOWS THE WAY!

Episode 8 Description

In this episode, Deborah and Brenda discuss some of the research that underscores the significant connection between nutrition and mental health. How the food we eat affects our mood and can be an extremely useful method to reduce inflammation. The soulful journey recognizes those things that we put into our body that either helps or hinders us along the way, from what we eat, to what we listen to, to what we read. Both Deborah and Brenda highly recommend a diet high in poetry.

Chapters & Links

00:08:12 - From Trauma to Transcendence

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8-QPHxWJws

00:14:08 - E.S.S.E.N.C.E.

https://www.christchurch.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Siegel-ESSENCE-Adolescence-Gladesville.pdf

00:21:25 - Eco-Soulcentric Development

https://www.animas.org/wp-content/uploads/Intro-to-ESDW-for-Animas-website.pdf

00:30:02 - It's All Related: The Systems Approach

https://positivepsychology.com/systems-therapy/

00:33:54 - Relationship Matters

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjfpGGOGDCo

00:39:13 - The Medals of Olympic Apologies

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/peaceful-parents-happy-kids/201706/how-and-when-apologize-your-child/

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Original music by Zach Meints

The Soul Path Sessions podcast is produced by Homeless Betty Productions

Speaker 1: (00:08)

Welcome to the Soul Path Sessions podcast with Deborah Meints-Pierson and Brenda Littleton. Brenda is an educator and counselor rooted in Jungian and Eco psychology, she helps her clients understand the importance of the mind, body, spirit, and earth relationship for healing. Deborah is a licensed psychotherapist and has been trained in traditional and sacred psychology, exploring from the ground up what makes our human experience meaningful, wholesome, and enlightening. Deborah, and Brenda invite you to a company them on a soul path journey and explore the possibilities of living a more soulful life as therapists, seekers, and lovers of fate.

Brenda: (00:51)

This is Deborah Meints-Pierson, and Brenda Littleton on Soul Path Sessions. And today in our discussion, we're gonna be looking at the relationship between mood and food, how mood follows food and looking at the gut brain relationship,

Deborah: (01:08)

A juicy topic. Indeed

Brenda: (01:10)

, we're not really talking about diet, although we are talking about nourishment

Deborah: (01:17)

In every sense of the word.

Brenda: (01:19)

Yeah. So we were gonna be looking at a couple of studies, um, some of our own phenomenology, as far as our experiences with clients and groups, as well as some poetry that has been a form of nourishment for both of us as well. Yes, this topic is of great interest to me. Um, not only for my own health, uh, and, and healing and with my body, but professionally, when I first became a therapist, I had transitioned from being a professor at a university and graduate studies and pretty much secure in what my role was and the material I was going to share. And I came from a place of, um, understanding. And when I became a therapist, I was beginning all over again at, uh, 50 54. And, um, I was, I wouldn't say insecure because a lot of my work, um, as a therapist was teaching, but my first three or 3,200 hours was at a domestic violence shelter clinic program.

Brenda: (02:27)

That was based not only in providing education psychoeducation to the community, but we had a safe house and we had extended two year programs, uh, where women and their children could live and reenter society. And I did a lot with, um, how they did that transition. And one of the things that I observed, uh, when, you know, dealing not only with domestic violence and the trauma multi-generations, we had grandparents, parents and children in the, in the safe house. But, uh, looking at the lack of, um, awareness of health and the primary, uh, some of the primary, uh, situations that we dealt with were children and their mothers dealing with deep depression and deep chronic anxiety for obvious reasons. Most of the clients did not have health insurance. And so it was really up to us, the staff, the, and the clinic, the clinicians to create a pathway for their, uh, movement forward in, in not only in their safety.

Brenda: (03:35)

Um, but how are they gonna move forward with new behavior and new choices? And I took some post-doc work with Dr. Leslie Korn and K O R N. And it's, I'm always interested in how last names we, uh, match up what people do, but it was, um, it was the beginning of my commitment in looking at not so much diet, but looking at the microbiome and looking at how the gut brain relationship really influences mental health. And, uh, I was lucky enough to, I had a supervisor who was completely behind the idea of looking at diet and the biochemical, the psychobiotics of food and not so much, um, the types of like what, what kind of meals that were being prepared, but what type of process foods, high refined, fructose sugar, uh, non-essential carbs and other microbiotics, um, had a chemical effect on the house, the, the actual ability of the house to have a calm, safe, uh, clean energy in the house. We, we had maybe 20 women and an equal amount of children, and I was able to provide, uh, education psychoeducation on the, the microbiome. And we had this two year experiment where we granted, we really tried to eliminate the processed food, the refined foods, the high sugar, and just observe the nature, the pulse of the house, you know, the, the sense of anxiety and depression. And it was phenomenal. The difference

Deborah: (05:22)

Did they, were they given choices or just kind of remove processed food from the choice,

Brenda: (05:28)

Uh, once the education was shared and the women, uh, that the clients would actually go and, and shop, they would buy nature. Oh. To make. Yeah. So it was all part of the awareness. Yeah. Being mindful and trying. And the idea is that, uh, many of our clients would stay for two weeks or some would stay for two years. And what, what would they take with them? And my goal was to allow the sense of choice to be, uh, tried on and lived in phenomenologically, imbued in their body so that they, if, if their children were depressed or if they themselves were had high anxiety, that they could actually, instead of going, cuz they didn't have medical insurance. So they didn't have the, um, the pharmacology support that other people might turn to mm-hmm uh, and because of their, uh, the, the lack of safety, there was a very high concern, high anxiety about being seen in public.

Brenda: (06:32)

So there was a lot of multiple layers involved in, in trying to, um, create a safe space for them. Why would they be afraid to be seen in public being stocked? Okay. Yeah. Being stocked. That makes sense. Yeah. Mm-hmm and we had a lot of attacks that way. Yeah. Yeah. Terrifying. So, and lastly, corn, Dr. Corn has, um, done a lot of, uh, work in, uh, inner city work in dealing with, uh, clinic and doing psychoeducation. But her basic premise is that mood follows food. Mm-hmm and she's not the originator of this. I I'm looking at a report here by David Cohen from the Atlantic who's, um, talking about a health article about when gut bacteria changed brain function and it's, as it starts out, it says it's not new. I mean, we understand that how, how different chemicals affect the brain. But, uh, what I like to see, what I'm seeing is that there's a wider scope of, of understanding how the microbiome in the gut definitely affects the neurotransmitters and that are neurotransmitters.

Brenda: (07:42)

The ones that we rely on in our brain health for serotonin, for oxytocin, for, um, you know, there's this sense of, uh, uh, cortisol in, in how our blood system is flooded. It, most of those beginnings don't begin in the brain mm-hmm or in the thymus or in, or in the adrenals. They begin in the gut mm-hmm and how the gut lining is affected by what we put into it. Mm-hmm, definitely has an affect as far as how it affects our, our mood mm-hmm . So I'm constantly looking for material on depression, anxiety, hyperactivity. I was a, a psychologist in the local school district where most of the, the cases I were given were hyperactivity, uh, AKA, a ADHD, you know, ADHD. And, but yet, if you were to actually do a, a diet analysis, not so much based on protein fats or carbs, but what type of processed foods were chemicals, what food coloring, what additives were in the child system from morning, till night mm-hmm and then equate it with their behavior and their learning adaptability. Um, there is a very clear case in correlation mm-hmm and, uh, and so we still promote sugar. We still promote the refinements.

Deborah: (09:04)

Yeah, we don't.

Brenda: (09:06)

No, we don't but

Deborah: (09:07)

Society, but it has been true. I came of age when the space age came of age. So there was dehydrated food, it was more full of sugar. It was modern, it was easy packaging. So women didn't have to be locked in the kitchen because they had appliances and there was cake mix. You still had to mix it. Um, but there was more sugar in the food than your grandmother might have used. Yeah. And there was this whole idea of oppression, like women's rights. You don't have to be oppressed. You can be out. And about. My mom was a golfer. She was a good cook, by the way, she, she knew about nutrition, but it just sort of, it crept up. There was Coca-Cola there's jello for the astronauts, all that dehydrated Ang instead of orange juice, you know, that stuff is really addictive. God,

Brenda: (09:59)

I forgot about

Deborah: (10:00)

Tang. Oh, I love Tang. um, I don't have it anymore, but I love, I loved you. Just add water. Nestle's quick. Yeah. Quick. It was quick.

Brenda: (10:09)

Yeah. Speed. Well, it, this brought home I a few years ago and I think I've mentioned before in some prior, uh, conversations of breaking my back, I was living a life of breaking my back and I broke my back and I took me a while to not have a broken back and broken ribs. And I had a surgeon who scheduled me for, um, pretty important surgery saying that there's just too much inflammation. Uh, your nerve endings are not mending. Um, you have the possibility of the one wrong move on a horse, or even in yoga, you'll be paralyzed for the rest of your life. Yeah. And she gave me six weeks to make a decision as to a date for surgery. And I was headed off to Hawaii and I wanted to go boogie boarding. And she just said, you can, you can be paralyzed by one wrong move by the heightened level of inflammation and the irritation to your, um, central nervous system and your backbone.

Deborah: (11:10)

She got your attention.

Brenda: (11:11)

Oh yeah. She got, I mean the whole episode got my attention. And um, and I said, I just downloaded the idea that I'm gonna have to make something, some, a change here. And I found it really ironic me who had been so ardent in my own diet into, into my own exercises, into my own yoga practices and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And here I was facing being paralyzed as well as major surgery. And I went to, I just downloaded to, to look at a few options. And, uh, Dr. McDougall came up, um, uh, he was interviewed for the movie forks over knives. Mm. And, and basically was one of the, in many, um, people feeding that information. And I just followed his, his advice of, uh, no, no oil, no flush, no dairy. And I thought I can do, if I had broken a leg, I'd be wearing a cast.

Brenda: (12:13)

And I would be a therapeutic moment. Mm-hmm . So, uh, his, his philosophy was to create an anti-inflammation diet for anybody, for anything. And I thought, well, I have high inflammation. He's an expert in non-inflammatory, I'll follow this and see what happens. The worst scenario is it's not gonna work and I'm gonna have surgery. And that's it. Well, within two weeks, I, uh, following his, his recommendations, which was more elimination than adding anything. Mm-hmm , uh, I had no pain in the hands, uh, long story. I went back after six weeks and I, this, the surgery was, uh, canceled mm-hmm and I was able to go body surfing in wow. The big island. I did not. Yeah. So it really reinforced the idea of the, the gut brain bio, um, bio, uh, connection with respect to inflammation. Yeah. So most of what I see in articles and perhaps it's self selection, because it's something that's of importance to me, uh, is how we can, how inflammation is the primary predator. Um, in many of our imbalances, whether it's, uh, uh, arthritis in our fingers, but the, the body is dumping the pain. And we know what it's like when we're dealing with patients and clients that are just riddled with pain. Life is impossible,

Deborah: (13:44)

You know, and animals instinctively know this. They'll, they'll be put off their food. They'll go out in the yard and eat grass. Yeah. They'll instinctively know and not, and just turn towards what they need. And it's, uh, it's, it's getting back to the garden. Mm-hmm , you know, it's getting back to the garden. My, my beginning, uh, gosh, my grandmother was a healer, so she always said whole foods. I mean, she didn't say whole foods cause that wasn't a thing. It was, it was food. And she would take a, you know, she would great every kind of vegetable known to humankind that she would work with. And that's what weird salad was. Food was clean and it was prayed over. It was made with love and intention and light. And so when I go to grandma's house, we ate every, I didn't think I like okra, but I was kind of pick eater, but, but if beta called her beta, if her, if she made the okra, I just eat it.

Deborah: (14:43)

I drink the liquor off the B not liquor Laur. And you know, it would just be the best. And so that came up through my cells to know that, and when we would get sick, she would fast us. Mm-hmm so you didn't eat, you could, you know, she knew this, she studied deeply in her own, in own fashion because she lived through the pandemic of what, 1917. And she learned all about these things, body brushing and all kinds of things. So I grew up with an innate knowledge of that, but I had incredible resiliency as well as a young person I could eat and drink pretty much what I want, do whatever the hell I want and felt pretty good. Use. I look back on it now and say, I probably wouldn't have had such painful menstrual periods. Had I understood that, that my mom just said, that's the curse, you know, but we were eating, we were eating more processed food.

Deborah: (15:36)

We had ding dons, hohos Liz, potato chips, you know, it, all the junky stuff. Oreos she'd still make cookies, but you know, as I got older, there'd be less of that kind of stuff. It got more into the culture. I came home from school, just, just eat whatever I wanted, Coke and lip and soup mix with sour cream. yeah, yeah. I just eat the whole thing. And so no, you know, I didn't make the connection that comes later in life. So I think it was really, um, fortunate for those women that were in your program to UN for you to understand the healing power of food. And sometimes we have to be reintroduced to it if, I mean, I've gone through periods of forgetting. And when I was really young in my twenties, I got violently sick. And, um, I started to study, I'd had an operation, I'd had hysterectomy and I started really putting the math together, the maths together about it.

Deborah: (16:35)

And I stayed . It was the best thing they ever happened. Really. I already had my kids, it was fine. Um, but I started studying VEIC medicine and India, I'm India, 6,000 years old, and really looking at the type of body, the type of symptom, the type of food. So they, these things called doshas or body types. And I took the little quiz. I mean, I read all about it. And uh, and I started going, I want to heal really, this scared me really badly. And I, I didn't know how to, I couldn't even couldn't even fathom having a tumor. So I came back to my grandmother's wisdom. Right. Mm-hmm like, you can, you can heal yourself. And then I studied macrobiotics, which is Japanese, uh, Michi Kohi. And I did things like, uh, fasting, like my grandmother taught the BR vegetable broth for listeners out there. You can just get a vegetable broth and you can heal your body just by having vegetables, uh, in water. Just any vegetable you really feel like. Yeah. And then just drink the, my grandmother would call it, drink the Laure to get warm. And that's all you, you live on. Yeah. You just fast that way. And then if you feel a little better, you can eat the vegetables. They last quite a long time. You can sit 'em out on the stove and they don't go bad. You put onions and you know, they're naturally fine, ginger.

Deborah: (18:04)

Yeah. If you can handle ginger, I don't think she had a ginger. She said in the beginning, just put vegetables and then drink the broth. So I can't buy I, what you're saying is so, so important. And a lot of people don't have that historical precedent.

Brenda: (18:21)

Well, what I see also is that when I'm sitting with friends and they're stressed and they're trying to decompress, they're consuming a lot of like popcorn or potato chips or, you know, things that taste good. That sound good. That give comfort, but then there's this immediate hyperactivity or a headache, or there's a pain in the back. You mean there is this direct, uh, uh, result,

Deborah: (18:48)

You

Brenda: (18:48)

Know,

Deborah: (18:48)

The affect it's so true. Anita Johnson wrote this incredible book called eating by the light of the moon and it's about eating disorders. And she said, if you're craving something, describe what you're craving mm-hmm oh, I want ice cream. What's ice cream. It's sweet. And it's soft. Mother's milk. Yeah. So crunchy, crunchy, salty earth, anger. Yeah. Connect the emotions. Um, so the textures of things that you crave have a lot to do with what you were deprived of. Mm-hmm . And so a lot of my clients are abused. Obviously they come to therapy cuz they were abused abuse history, and they, I ask 'em what do you, what do you crave? They have eating disorders. They want soft and creamy mother's milk. Mommy was gone earth and grounding daddy's presence. They'll find a food that, that hit the spot mm-hmm and you used to have that phrase. Yeah. It hits the spot. Yeah. And it allowed them survive trauma that, but it has something to do with the, with the actual taste texture of the food itself.

Brenda: (20:03)

So I would go into that spot and ask the, the image of the spot to, to give me advice, you know, to gimme like, you're you're you arrived, you're here and I crave you mm-hmm you know, what can I do for you? And, uh, uh, when I was on this McDougal, I guess I would call it a diet. It was, uh, pretty, pretty stark. And yet I CRA I learned to crave it because it satisfied the pain. And I, I learned at that time how to go into the pain, I have to lean not to avoid it. I couldn't take any pain meds. I, I, I, I tried some Tramadol and, and it did help, but the other stuff I would do, it would just make me worse. It made me me more sick. So I just had to like, there's a lot of pain present mm-hmm and, and I'm eating potatoes, like little tiny potatoes, no butter and just warm.

Brenda: (20:58)

And just that sense of that. My Irish coming out, you know, being held by the land. And, uh, and, and I found this, every ti every bite I would swallow, it was, I am satiated. I am cared for and I would lean into the pain and it, the pain became, you know, that term bright as pain, you know, the brightness that takes over. And I, I asked the pain, would it, instead of coming in and dumping in my body where I would become logged, like when I think of a log in water and kind of logged, but water logged mm-hmm and, and just slow and, and decrepit in pain, I said, and I made a deal with it to convert it into the brightness of light. So the bright light of pain and, and going into that light and being surrounded by that light and being really in recognition of the, of the light of that pain.

Brenda: (21:58)

And it didn't happen right away, but it happened within a couple of weeks of being so overwhelmed with this pain. And, and, and also it took a couple weeks of me not putting food into my body that contributed to the endurance of inflammation that I had a breakthrough. And it wasn't a breakdown. It was, again, it's not so much having the light come into us. My feeling is our light is able to come out through, through our cracks and that pivot, uh, provided the encouragement and, and, and hope of going forward and knowing that it was gonna be okay, mm-hmm . And, and I saw that also with a few of the clients in the domestic violence program is like, I get it. My kids go to sleep at night. I can sleep at night, we wake up and we're happy. It's, you know, that's still the same fearful world out there, but I am better prepared. I'm grounded. And it it's it's, it adds to their sense of resiliency. Mm-hmm . And so there is this beautiful understanding of, uh, food is a bio psycho biochemical. And if we take care of our gut, um, and how we inform our body, by what we put into it, it will assist in this homeostatic place of balance. Mm-hmm

Speaker 4: (23:35)

right.

Brenda: (23:37)

That's true. Mood follows food. Yeah. Pepsi, Pepsi. pep up Pepsi, Pepsi. See, that's what we do with

Deborah: (23:44)

Our culture. We're like Pepsi, you wanna pepper? You wanna take Dr. Pepper, pepper, pep, pep, pep, pep, pep pepper.

Brenda: (23:49)

Oh, we wanna avoid it.

Deborah: (23:52)

well, people know it's like Starbucks star, you know? Yeah. The long lines for caffeine when the body might be naturally tired. So we've learned to override our systems. Yeah. And overriding the system consistently leads to breakdown of the microbiome, that little world, little tiny world that lives inside your little tiny tummy and just sort of seeing it like this little world and getting information on it. And I think this is really an important center of our show is that there's a little, it's a small world after all. And these little tiny dudes, little that tiny bacterium live inside and they're jamming. Mm-hmm . And if you eat certain foods, they get more of them. Uh, and they're healthy and you know, they're healthy cuz you feel good. Sometimes you find out the hard way that doesn't feel good to your microbiome and you can also supplement with probiotics. You can get really nice probiotics, which I take in the morning and I, and I kind of do it intuitively if it makes sense. I'm not like a super muscle test. Yeah. Well sometimes I do muscle test actually. Yeah. Muscle test. You wanna tell them what muscle testing is? Brenda?

Brenda: (25:00)

Oh, well, uh, David Hawkins, uh, wrote a couple, well I think he has like 22 books or so of, uh, the calibration of energy. He was an MD that became, I believe a physicist as well. Um, perhaps I'm wrong on that, but he was an MD and uh, there's lots of free YouTubes of Hawkins. I know he's everywhere. He, he passed away about four years ago in Sedona, but um, perfect place for him. It is he's still there. yeah. Yeah. Anyways, he, um, he was part of a,

Deborah: (25:35)

Uh,

Brenda: (25:37)

Research and, uh, papers at both, uh, Stanford, I believe. And, uh, his, his work grew into kinesiology mm-hmm and kinesiology grew into more sports medicine as opposed to, um, psychology, but it there's with the advent of somatic psychology. There's somatic psychology, uh, relies a lot on calibration, Soma body. Yeah. Soma and, uh, anything to do with the body. And he created, uh, Hawkins, created a way of testing, um, an individual. You can do it yourself, or you can work with a client or a friend, um, by holding out your arm and holding an object, a piece of food. Or I do this it when I'm in whole foods or something and I'm buying a nutrient, a supplement and I put the jar under my armpit and I hold it and I, uh, make a circle with my, uh, fingers and, uh, make a, like a, what is that called? A link, a link. Thank you. And you just pull and if you pull easily, that means you really don't need it. Mm-hmm , it's a low frequency for you. A low

Deborah: (26:53)

Calibrations start with yes and

Brenda: (26:54)

No. Yeah. Yes. And you pull hard.

Deborah: (26:56)

So no is my name Deborah.

Brenda: (26:58)

And then you

Deborah: (26:59)

Test it and then I go is my name Bob.

Brenda: (27:02)

And it falls off,

Deborah: (27:03)

It falls off. So the subconscious tells you if it's good for you. Yeah.

Brenda: (27:08)

And it, it is a form of intuition as well. Mm-hmm but it's, uh, reading the frequency and it's not a wooo thing. It it's, you can actually, I mean, if you Google Hawkins and watch him in some of the early work, in the seven early seventies, he gives great demonstrations. And his main, one of his main books is power versus Eden and, uh, let's available in all forms. And uh, and then the next one to follow up with that would be letting go. And it's more of a integral and a practice of power versus force.

Deborah: (27:43)

Um, I thought it was all hooey actually, you know? Cause it didn't work for me. I didn't, I just, when I was younger, like

Brenda: (27:50)

,

Deborah: (27:50)

It was just kinda like, well, people are just doing that, you know, I wanted oh, ice cream. Yeah. So I didn't go for it. Didn't understand. So when I went to do my chronic healing, which is working with energy in my PhD program, I was introduced, I thought, oh, this is gonna be some easy units here, man. Cause I know everything about there's no, but energy, big deal. And the first thing they had us learn was to feel our energy. And then they did muscle testing too. And I thought, okay, but actually as I got more into it, I was like, no, there's something to this and played with it. And also in advanced integral work, we did muscle testing to know when the person was releasing, we did it with one finger on a thumbnail. Just kind of flick

Brenda: (28:33)

It. Yeah. Yeah. I don't like, I, I, I don't get much with that.

Deborah: (28:37)

Yeah. I hear what you're saying, but, but if you only got one hand or something and your writing so, so I did that and I still do it. It comes, it kind of comes and goes for me. Yeah. But it's definitely, um, one of the ways to be insightful insight to pay attention to what's happening on the inside. But getting back to the way I learned to measure energy on food, for me, it was just to put my hands on it. After I learned to activate my hands by rubbing them together. Mm-hmm and then slowly pulling them apart and then slowly and intentionally asking to feel my inner aura. Yeah. Aura, meaning the, a body around the physical body. And if you do it slow enough and intentionally enough is you bring your hands together after rubbing them together, you'll feel a little sponginess it'll tell you how, if you'd write it in half, how far your aura is from your body. And so once we got good at that, we got good at like just working with our chakras and uh, learning to feel our, we learned another people, but to cut to the chase, we go to lunch. We learned how to measure the, the pron in our food. So we just put our hands, we go to Chinese restaurant together and put our hands down and you could feel if it was alive, like vegetables, lettuce, uh, it'd be way out from the bowl.

Deborah: (30:07)

If it was dead, like packaged food and you just close your eyes, you know, you just kind of be way down there. So you can, you know, I learned to sensitize my hands and it was just so rad because getting high, we all wanna get high. I learned that too. We all wanna get high, but in our culture, we get high by doing a bypass of the body, right. That's Western culture, modern Western culture. So this idea that by eating, by being aware of the PR in my food, taking it in my body would then refl, you know that what eat you are so I'd feel very expanded. And then I'd measure my aura after lunch. My belly shock would be a little bit full because it would digesting food and it would, it would've definite effect. So it's just another way in to this idea that mood follows

Brenda: (31:02)

Food. Absolutely. And some discrepancies come up when you I've, I've worked with people who actually do Reiki on their food or they feel the, the energy of the food and they eat it anyways. Even if it's low energy mm-hmm and, and it's like, I have to eat it, you know? And so then they do. And, and that's for the sleepiness and the digestion afterwards. Yeah.

Deborah: (31:24)

It's called, um, scientific investigation.

Brenda: (31:27)

When one last little tidbit on the Hawkins, uh, the muscle testing. I love working with people who, who don't believe it. I mean like may, maybe I'm introducing it for the first time and they, you can just see on their face. It's like, you are so full of. and I'll just say, stand up, just stand up and, and put your arm out. And then I'll, I'll do the same que like your name is, and their arm will resist and I'll push down and push down and push down. And it, they are in their truth and their arm stays up. And then I will say something like, your name is Batman and immediately. And the look on their face is,

Deborah: (32:06)

And you tell 'em to hold firm. Yeah. Put your arm out and hold firm resist me. Yes and no. Yeah.

Brenda: (32:10)

Yeah. Just resisted all your might mm-hmm and they can't. And then that moment of they intuitive. I mean, they it's their own phenomenology. They've embodied a new place. They will never not know now what they know. And it's, it's the look on was like, oh my gosh. Yeah.

Deborah: (32:29)

Okay. Yeah. And it can be surprising. Cause I remember one time I was in, um, speak kind of hearkening back to this idea that different foods at different times do different things. I was in, uh, I was in, uh, New York city and I was in Manhattan and we toured every single possible thing you'd fit into a day. And we had a couple shows. We were gonna go to at night. It was just like a lot. And I just lost my energy. And I was laying down in the, his natural history museum on, uh, Atlanta bench, which was very, my daughter's like, this is so uncool.

Brenda: (33:11)

Mom. You're embarrassing me. Yeah.

Deborah: (33:12)

Right. There's like people like walking by you like traditional Hasidic people of their bonnets and stuff. And here I, the mother, you know, I'm like, dude, I gotta take care of myself. And then I just laid there and I went Coca-Cola and I went into the cafeteria and it was just the right thing. It wasn't an every day thing. I can't remember the last time I had a Coca-Cola but I had that Coca-Cola and I felt awesome. Boost you up. It was, well, it was just, I don't know what's in it cuz it's really secret. It's a secret syrup. It's it's, it's, it's actually guard it's most best kept secret. I mean really vaulted information. I dunno if I'll ever beat the bolt, the seal will be UN take, but you can't get that taste anywhere else.

Brenda: (33:59)

Uh, they old Coca-Cola had they old Coke

Deborah: (34:02)

Cocaine in it. Yeah. Coke syrup. But the, but the actual recipes, the most, one of the most guarded secrets in the world, like didn't know that clear coat

Brenda: (34:10)

I do

Deborah: (34:12)

and when they try to change it, people don't like it.

Brenda: (34:16)

Well that, I think that's all the other types of recipes that they, they send out like light this and light that. Right. So how long were you, did it revive you

Deborah: (34:26)

Just long enough to hail a cab and get to the show? Yeah, I feel good. You know, I just listen to my body and it just, so my body will gimme weird things, but you have to learn that. Yeah. I mean, that was just a, I learned it and I went Coke. Really? I don't do Coke. Coca-Cola

Brenda: (34:45)

Well you did then. And it, it seems fitting to be in Manhattan and uh, fast. Yeah. Fast and effervescent and

Deborah: (34:54)

Five days. Yeah. See

Brenda: (34:55)

It all dash

Deborah: (34:56)

Yeah. Dash. So sometimes you can do stuff, but it's like, this is listening to body. For me, it took getting sick, Really sick. Yeah.

Brenda: (35:07)

Besides nutrients, the other forms of nutrition, um, not just the bio and or gut, but I do believe my gut is activated when I am appeased and satiated by other forms of nutrition. Other forms of, um, diet is the sense of music, the sense of being in the garden and the, um, the relationship with poetry, having a diet of poetry mm-hmm um, sense of PSIS having a, a life built around PSIS mm-hmm of, um, sensuality, the, the natural form of a balance color mm-hmm , uh, uh, I work a lot with essential oils and not the heaviness, but the sense of being activated in certain ways. And, um, and I know I'm, I'm compelled to sign up for the David White, uh, the three weekends, uh, of, of his work and just to be around his, uh, his energy of poetry and listening to him, speak and listening to him, give a lecture and being with other people who also appreciate the same form. Yes. And, um, we were, you and I were both watching what was the, um, see, um, the American poets?

Deborah: (36:36)

Oh yeah. The academy of American poets, their fundraiser, their

Brenda: (36:40)

Was there. That

Deborah: (36:40)

Was so

Brenda: (36:40)

Cool. Yeah, it was, but

Deborah: (36:42)

We hear that in common. We love it.

Brenda: (36:44)

And um, after watching you wrote a poem, oh

Deborah: (36:49)

I did well, it poem wrote me and I just take dictation in this way. Okay. So you, I guess you're queuing me up. I

Brenda: (36:56)

Am, I'd love to hear that poem because the idea of poetry as being a form of nutrition and new and nutrient I think is important it's is important to both of us.

Deborah: (37:05)

Yeah. So I had this experience and I, well, what I really experienced was a lot of things. And so the, uh, subconscious process was of course at work and the subconscious pro process wrote this poem. And I, um, I laughed. Okay. After watching the American academy of poet scale of fundraiser, I ate a bag of poems today. Greasy, crunchy, salty, sweet. I didn't know what saver came next. I was taught to eat one at a time, just eat one. They advised don't go back for seconds. Thirds, fourths, 50 helpings or more, some swallowed, barely tasting some hit my belly, like nails. Thank you for the flavor of my ignorance. The Oracle of my opinion served up hot and sizzling seasoning my licked fingers and gorged after hollered holiday dinner bloat, I reached in until they were all gone, stopped to pick kernels from my teeth, taste them again. Even if I bit into something sharp, even if I gasp for air, I press for crumbs. I ate a bag of poems today.

Brenda: (38:25)

I love it. I just love it.

Deborah: (38:29)

I actually got a little sick just cause I was eating so many of them.

Brenda: (38:33)

It was a pretty full, um, special

Deborah: (38:35)

Full plate. Yeah. Full plate, full plate. But I couldn't turn away. I just kept overeating them cuz I wanted to see it so badly.

Brenda: (38:42)

Yeah. I watched it again. Yeah. Mm-hmm

Deborah: (38:43)

yes, yes, yes. For sure.

Brenda: (38:47)

So beautiful work, beautiful poetry, beautiful response being in the moment. So tell me how you felt. You know, I know how I felt when I was watching this, uh, amazing collection of, um, it wasn't in a one venue, it was cutting into each person's space in their own home. And we would, it was, you know, I guess the zoom or something like that. Mm-hmm and um, and seeing a poet or seeing different people read different poems, not all their work.

Deborah: (39:19)

It's so funny. You should say it. Cuz a poem that made me cry was a Mary Oliver poem about Pease. Mm. I just remember the line about peas. I can't even tell you the poem. I can't appease you with the poem

Brenda: (39:30)

Deborah: (39:31)

But what you talking about these peas? Yeah. I had the tears running down my face and my husband just left the room. It was too much for him at that moment that I was breaking down over the peas.

Brenda: (39:42)

So there's a, a, a gut brain bio. the sense

Deborah: (39:46)

Something about innocence and tends of peace. It just didn't matter. Mm-hmm but I, you know, you know how you have Thanksgiving, you eat well, at least most people you eat without thinking you just it's a day of en engagement for most people. Yeah. In America. And it's at a certain point towards the end. It's just like, I'm gonna be sick

Brenda: (40:08)

Deborah: (40:10)

But I want more, what, what if the next one is a diet gel?

Brenda: (40:17)

So what would happen if we filled ourselves up in poetry every day? I mean, I would love to, I, I did sign up after that. I did sign up for a poem day. So I do start my day with a poem a day. Good. Even though I used to write them now I read them. Yeah. But um, yeah, I think it's a good experiment. The idea of where, where can we, you know, slide in a slice of poet,

Deborah: (40:41)

A poet? I think it's absolutely right on. I mean, I was, I went to school to become, well, I was interested. I found out I was interested. I always written poetry my life. And um, so this is at this stage kind of going back to our show prior, um, I've created space and poems wrote me. So it's both, both and David White. Of course. Yes. Yummy. He got us through the pandemic with Sundays and you know, this is called soul food. Yeah. Soul food comes in many containers. Mm-hmm soul food comes in many iterations, you know, it's it's this is the thing. It's, it's a lot of different conversations. And that concludes

Speaker 1: (41:32)

That's this week's episode of the Soul Path Sessions podcast with Deborah Meints-Pierson and Brenda Littleton. If you'd like to hear more about living a more soulful life, please subscribe to our channel on your favorite podcast app and be sure to check out the show notes and links below. For more information from Deborah visit soulpathsessions.com and for Brenda brendalittleton.com. Thanks for Listening and remember to follow your soul, it knows the way.