Radically Genuine Podcast with Dr. Roger McFillin

to the podcast. She's a registered clinical health and rehabilitation psychologist consultant with a PhD in clinical psychology. She's a regular presenter at conferences across the globe. She's published research and peer reviewed journals. She's passionate about optimizing well-being and leadership through embodiment. There's a lot for us to talk about with some terms that are probably new to our audience. I also want to welcome Casey Berglund. She's a popular podcaster, TEDx speaker, certified professional coach and embodiment guide, a founder of Worthy and Well, an online coaching and training company that helps clients live their deeper purpose without neglecting their body's wisdom. She's an accomplished teacher who helps founders change agents and guides become powerful, embodied leaders who succeed at the transformational work they're meant to do. You can learn about her at let our body lead.com will have all this information in the in the show summary. Julian Casey, welcome to the radically genuine podcast.

Julie:
Thanks Roger, great to be here.

Casey Berglund:
So happy to be here excited to dig in with you.

Kel:
I want to congratulate both of you on your project. It was a fascinating book that really got me thinking as a psychologist on various ways I can approach different clients. And I'll definitely bring that in today's podcast. But I'm really interested in the two of you. Two of the three, unfortunately, we don't have the third partner here. But I'm interested in how you do write a book and collaborate with three authors, but a little bit more about your interest in this area. and how you walk down this path to create this book.

Casey Berglund:
I'm going to start by saying that the book came together in a really kind of synchronistic and embodied way. Like each of us felt connected in some way to the yes inside of our body. When Courtney first proposed the idea of writing a book, um, Courtney and I met in an ashram in India, and then Julie and Courtney had been friends for many, many years. So she proposed this project after. doing a leadership talk or preparing for a leadership talk that she kind of trashed and started from the beginning in a different way through like letting her body lead her to prepare the talk. So she was kind of inspired by how when she brought her body on board, it created a more meaningful and connected talk on leadership. And so... From my end, she reached out to me on Facebook and shared the role that my TEDx talk played in that process and pitched this idea of a book and shared about a friend, a psychologist friend named Julie. And, um, and then we hopped on that first meeting and each of us felt a yes. It just felt like a really easy, connected, collaborative yes. And that kicked off our first meeting really, and the start of the project.

Julie:
Yeah, and that first meeting was in January 2020. So timely. And from my, my experience entering into the collaboration, I had just finished a second long Vipassana, so silent meditation retreat, where there was 10 days fully in silence, and then 11th day reintegrating into some speaking and looking at people again and Right as I left that I was on the phone with Courtney and she proposed this idea and during the retreat the word embodiment had come to me as my theme for the year. I tend to set annual themes so I was like whoa okay there's something here there's something here in terms of synchronous happenings that I just leaned into it and that first call as Casey mentioned. There was a just a deep connection amongst the three of us. And I could tell right from the beginning that we each had different strengths that would really compliment and bring this book to life. And the writing process demonstrated that. There was a real flow throughout. Like many people have asked us, you know. What about conflict and how did you manage writing together and all that time virtually? So we co-wrote together every week online. And yeah, we had points of disagreement, but throughout all of it, there was, Casey's articulated this in previous discussions, a co-regulation amongst the three of us such that even in an, And when there were points of disagreement, we could really see what mattered to the other person and sense into that in a way that we could talk about the differences. And I think especially during these times of increased polarity, having that as a basis or a foundation for our past three years was a very grounding influence. I know for myself in my life, but I know. Courtney and Casey have also spoken about that for them, that when there's like chaos around us, when this is like a grounding foundation.

Kel:
So I have to ask the question, what it is like to be in a 10 days silent kind of retreat meditation environment. Because that scares the hell out of me when I think about it. Like I love to meditate. I've been talking about this on the podcast. But boy, 20 to 30 minutes is something that really serves me well. 10 days, tell me what that's like.

Julie:
It is and was and has been one of the most challenging experiences I've done and I've done it more than once. The first time was more challenging. For me, more difficult than the silence was the sitting still. So much of my meditation or mindfulness practice tends to involve and incorporate movement practices. But in this Goenka, Vipassana style retreat. It involved 11 or 12 hours of sitting completely still with one's eyes closed.

Kel:
What happens within you when that happens? What do you experience?

Julie:
everything. Everything. Literally, you can get to the place where you, you feel and sense every part of your body in a way that you can't even really imagine without having had that experience. There's also moments of, it can be like psychedelic type of like altered states of consciousness, for sure. Yeah, and moments of excruciating pain and discomfort and bliss. I remember moments of there was just one little trail that I think if I walked slowly it maybe took me 13 minutes to walk and I can't remember how many times I did that during breaks. And there were moments where I felt this deep and profound connection with the trees and different squirrels or animals that I would be seeing. And just really blissful moments also.

Kel:
That's some of the things that I've heard

Julie:
Yeah.

Kel:
is that altered state of consciousness that leads you to some profound realizations about how we're all connected.

Julie:
100%. Yeah.

Kel:
And then that provides a level of joy

Julie:
Mm-hmm.

Kel:
or bliss or euphoria that is kind of unmatched in

Julie:
Yeah,

Kel:
our day-to-day lives.

Julie:
absolutely.

Kel:
So what's it like then coming back to reality and reconnecting after something like that?

Julie:
It can be challenging. So I remember that particular, was it that one? No, that retreat I did before that a few years prior, when I reentered into life in Ottawa, I had a friend that was on the male side of the Vipassana Centre, and he's a long standing Vipassana retreater. And we reintegrated into life in Ottawa by spending some time in a provincial park. I'm just walking in the trees talking together, but just the two of us prior to like re engaging in life. And then I think it ties really well into the theme of embodiment in that it's not about that state being the ideal state for all times, but knowing when is this quality of presence useful? And when is it maybe more useful to be a little bit less embodied,

Kel:
Mm.

Julie:
a little bit more protected? And so when you go into different situations, say, you know, you go into shopping at Costco or some other big grocery stores, maybe not helpful to be interacting with Costco in the way I might interact with the trees and nature in a more protected environment.

Kel:
Casey, why don't you try to do the best that you can to define embodiment for us and what that experience is like, and then we can kind of build off of there.

Casey Berglund:
I love that you set it up by saying do the best that you can to define embodiment. You know, we're writing this book on embodied leadership and bringing embodiment into leadership spaces. And it's fascinating because there really isn't one cut and dry, hard and fast definition. The simplest one that I use is bringing awareness back into the body and allowing the body to reveal wisdom about how you're doing, about your next steps. But just like bringing awareness back into the body, sensing through the body.

Kel:
So I've mentioned on this podcast before that I'm on my own kind of spiritual evolution. And I'm just curious to know what the two of you mean about that inner wisdom that we can tap into.

Julie:
That's a deep question. We've, the three of us talked a lot about both in the book and in speaking on other interviews and together about how we come into this world, whatever your belief is in terms of how we arrive, but as very embodied beings. And so much of, you know, culture and different life experiences lead us to become disconnected from this internal wisdom that we talk about as being central to embodiment. And it's a biologically driven mechanism for a way of protecting ourselves. So the spiritual side of us, it's about really connecting to what we might call.

Casey Berglund:
I might add to that with my personal experience and journey through embodiment. For me, my personal journey started with disconnecting from my body through an eating disorder, which is really an interesting context because, you know, food literally keeps us alive or it's part of what we need in a really human embodied sense for nourishment. And yet... Eating can happen in such a disembodied way, in a way where I'm following rules that someone else made up outside of me. I'm looking for some sort of diet plan or someone to tell me which is better, the keto diet or, or a whole foods diet or plant-based. And what I realized personally, and then also professionally first becoming a dietitian was that I actually replaced one set of external rules. maybe those rules came from magazines or like, you know, sources of perhaps misinformation. I replaced that set of rules with another set of rules that just happened to be more science-based, evidence-informed, rooted in like chemistry. And still I was disconnected from my body. Still my eating experience was how can I receive the most nourishment based on this scientific article, for example. And All of that has value, external wisdom has value. And for me, the healing of the eating disorder and then the profound shifts that I helped to facilitate with clients came from this coming back to the body and honoring its wisdom in its most primal ways. When a baby comes into the world, they root for milk when they're hungry or they cry. There's like an expression that isn't so put together that guides their... experiences of being and it's very embodied. And then we get smart and we get we go to university and we get our PhDs and we become doctors. I didn't become a doctor. I can't speak for the two of you. But like we get smart and intellectual and I'm starting to realize how I've used my intellect as a sword. I've used my intellect as arm armor to in some ways disconnect from a really primal sense inside of me. And so for me, that started to look like trusting my body around my eating decisions. Can I trust my hunger signals? Can I trust what my body is asking for? And can I be open to giving myself evidence that works, that actually helps me feel good? So it started very physical. And then for me, like yoga was part of the pathway towards deeper and deeper embodiment. And within the realm of studying yoga, I mentioned meeting. Courtney in an ashram in India for our advanced training with like the really like at the root of where yoga is, I just really started to open up to the spiritual experience of that pathway that started very physical. And for me now, embodiment actually, the act of using my definition from earlier, bringing awareness back into the body. a tuning from the inside to sensations I feel like pulsing, tingling, tightness in my chest, tension in my shoulders. Those are just examples of sensations or the practice of embodiment is a tuning to those sensations. What I've realized is when I slow down that process of a tuning to, even if it's a tingle in my pinky finger, that awareness back in my body will tell me, you know, let's say I'm cold. It's like, okay, put a sweater on in a very basic sense, right? The body is saying, warm yourself up. The deeper I go, the more I realize that embodiment is actually a practice to alter my state of consciousness, similar to what Julie said about the Vipassana. The act of bringing awareness back into the body into sensation creates an altered state that does open me up to spiritual awakenings. I'm, I'm not attached to that language either. We might call that something different. We might use neuroscience to describe it. But the act of coming back into my body allows me to open up to receiving visions. to hearing words, to having clear cognizance, unknowing that seems to come out of nowhere, to have a clear sentience. I'll get, when I hear truth, when truth will come through on this podcast, I'll get waves of chills down my arms. I might get instant tears at the backs of my eyes. And those are the most real moments for me is when my body is talking. And for me, it's deeply connected to spirituality. And of course, when you're writing a book that you want to be accessible to more people, you know, we had conversations about like, how much do we bring the spiritual part into this? Like, do we stick with just talking about polyvagal theory and nervous system regulation? Or or do we like allow people to explore or experience how embodiment might also be a pathway toward deeper spiritual connection? And so I can only be myself and be authentic and say that embodiment for me takes me deeper and deeper and deeper into altered states, and more awareness and a stronger connection to what I would call God, the universe source, divine consciousness, energy, all of it. So that's the connection for me. And, and it's one of those things that you can't really go back. Once you see and once you know, and once you practice once you tap into the body's wisdom. It's harder to ignore. I have less experiences of like, Oh shit, I knew it. I shouldn't have done that thing. My intuition knew it all along. I have less experiences of regretting decisions because I let that part of me lead and I'm proud of what that part leads me to.

Kel:
So the book talks a lot about the understanding about the inner workings of nervous system. And I did see you talk about the polyvagal theory, which I think links the nervous system to experiences generally speaking, but how important is that link? Yep. So I'm fascinated by this idea of finding ways to become more embodied and then get connected to a higher level of consciousness, whether that's a divine wisdom. But one of the things as I'm on my own journey to try to implement this in my life as a therapist as well, is how you become much more connected to the emotional experience with a person in front of you. So now I'm going to become disembodied and try to become intellectual. So like, so then I asked myself, all right, what, what's going on there? Do you think we have the ability to tap into like an energy frequency between people around us and experience that? Because I, I notice a lot of people who are, who would be deemed interpersonally sensitive, maybe they're artistic, they feed and they feel the emotions and experience of others. are prone to being pathologized in the modern psychiatric or medical based system with these diagnoses, which I just think are unjust in so many ways. And I think that if we reframe the entire experience and allow them to maybe understand that this is a gift, and they can harness that, that we can completely alter their reality and their quality of their life.

Casey Berglund:
Yeah, as soon as you started sharing, or opening up the invitation for this topic, I felt this literally in my body this like, Oh, yes, thank you. And you might start to notice just even in how Julie and I respond to the questions, like the different roles that we play in the book. I would say that my role really has been like bringing storytelling and bringing the like making it personal into the book and And you know, Julie's are like fact checker on the nervous system regulation stuff and the sciency elements that are so important to creating a well-rounded piece of literature. And I just feel such a deep personal connection to that. Uh, having been an emotional sensitive child who You know, now I'm realizing like I could just sense bullshit. Like I was intuitive and I could feel through things and people couldn't lie to me, but yet it was almost my fault, like being too sensitive. And it's been a really interesting process to actually heal the ways in which I've shut down my sensitivity or used techniques to survive in that maybe family structure, community structure, and slowly coming to a place of understanding truly how to use those gifts, those empathic gifts, those sensitive gifts, those intuitive gifts. And when it comes to guiding others, it's easy for me to like get right to it with others as a coach, because I can feel them, you know. And, and also part of the learning journey has been how to not experience burnout or do other people's work for them as a practitioner because of those sensitive gifts. And for me, definitely doing lots of therapy as one mechanism for healing, but and also expanding beyond into alternative realms like breathwork, like yoga, like intentional healing use of psychedelics. Um, and also more recently receiving a mentor who can speak to things that I experienced that I never learned about in school or that are hard to find mentorship around like, uh, like lucid dreaming and like these downloads that come to me in meditation and the, the just sense that I have sensitivity. Um, you know, I've had to learn how to. clear my energy after walking out of a coffee shop, because who knows who I'm engaging with on that somatic or nervous system level. So I think it's, and I feel so empowered now, and even navigating different diagnoses or labels. I'm exploring the like ADHD label, but then I'm also like, wait, why are so many women in their 30s like me getting diagnosed with ADHD and put on medication? Hmm, interesting, but also do I kind of want it? Would it make it easier to survive in this world or be more focused? And also what am I turning off in order to turn on a different part of myself? So I like deeply love that you're asking those questions and creating spaces to bring that to the forefront because I think that there could be for someone a more empowering. way forward. And I just see how there's both purpose and harm in certain diagnoses. And we have to be like mindful and conscious about exploring those realms.

Kel:
All right, Casey, we talked in the beginning, we said, all right, there's no boundaries here. Let's just have a conversation. I'm gonna, I'm gonna let you know something I've been experimenting with, because I'm having this profound spiritual journey that I'm on. But I'm also like this cognitive behavioral psychologist. And

Casey Berglund:
Mm-hmm.

Kel:
so I'm like melding both worlds. So I work, I do work with people who, I guess would be identified as chronically dysregulated. I don't even like

Casey Berglund:
Mmm.

Kel:
using that word. But let's just say like they have a difficult time regulating their emotions. And so I've I've realized in my experience that the more I try to intervene with that cognitively, sometimes it just goes the wrong way. It's interpreted sometimes as invalidating and it just kind of creates a negative response. So some of the things I've been doing have been silent. So meaning just like trying to communicate in my own mind and with my own body, just like a loving kindness and compassion.

Casey Berglund:
Mm-hmm.

Kel:
And I see my clients. start to regulate. And

Casey Berglund:
Yes.

Kel:
so that makes me then think that there are energy frequencies that we absorb and that we take on and can be experienced between two people. And we have these other opera options for healing.

Casey Berglund:
Mm-hmm.

Kel:
In my field, I just want to get your thoughts on this because I feel like comfortable I can share this now, even though

Casey Berglund:
Yeah,

Kel:
there's 1000s of people listening.

Casey Berglund:
we love this. Thank you for bringing yourself forward. Thank you for modeling a radically genuine conversation and like bringing yourself to the table. I don't know about you, but when I'm on my podcast or facilitating, sometimes I feel like I need to be in a bit of a protected space, like I'm facilitating vulnerability for others, but also how can I keep myself out of it? And I think part of our training does that right, like the personal professional boundaries. And I've just noticed that the more I actually like lean in to my humaneness, it like actually creates better outcomes sometimes. So I just want to honor you for bringing that forth on your own podcast, and actually say that when I'm so part of what I do in my work beyond the book is training other facilitators, coaches, guides, healers. to learn more skills to add to their toolbox to create deeper, more transformational change. And I think the thing that I bring to the table are these things that I've had to learn through experience that I didn't learn in school, right? On my own sort of like journey. And one of the pieces that feels very true for me and that I often share in those teachings is if you just... Fill a space with unconditional love and drop into presence. People will change, they'll transform, they'll heal, they'll grow. And it takes a softening, when I'm facilitating, it takes a softening of my own ego to actually do that, to actually prepare by doing an embodiment practice, by taking breaths, I'll do a specific clearing practice to get my energy grounded. And, you know. in my window of resilience from a nervous system perspective. Because I know scientifically that my state, my nervous system state is felt even via Zoom, even when someone's on the other side of the world. And so when I am aware and conscious of my nervous system state, and when I set an intention for loving presence, and I trust that I am not doing the work here, I am a vessel for this work and this is about my client. In other words, Casey, get the fuck out of the way and just

Kel:
Yeah.

Casey Berglund:
love your people and they will change. And sometimes I think the more that I actually don't use my tools, the intellectual ones, don't think about what particular skill would be useful here. Like there's an embodiment of those tools, they're in me. I've used them a lot so I can trust that I can pull upon them when they're necessary. But first and foremost, the foundation of all of my work and I think it would serve many practitioners to actually really drop into this is be present and fill a space with unconditional love and let that higher consciousness and I'm going to call it that come through to do its work. And I would say it's helpful to have altered consciousness experiences either through meditation or breath work using your own breath to have a psychedelic like experience to feel for yourself the ways in which there are more ways to work with people other than using our minds. And it's, I don't think it's that fluffy that I can be conscious of the tone of my voice, the length of my silence, my breath. These are unspoken nervous system. co-regulation tools and they're extraordinarily effective when hanging out with friends, when having a hard conversation with your partner, when dropping in with clients and supporting them and working through something that's challenging. One of the pillars of our book is trust and integration. And there's this real building of trust that is part of the embodiment path and part of embodied leadership, trust of self and the effectiveness personal regulation techniques. And also trust that embodiment is doing a lot of the work for you. The co-regulation is doing a lot of work in the context of working with teams or navigating conflict in the workplace or helping clients. So again, thanks for bringing yourself forward because you're pulling the passion out of me.

Kel:
Yeah, I'm going to come back to you with follow up, but I do want to bring Julie into this conversation. So Julie, are you aware of acceptance and commitment therapy? me as well. So my center here is a, you know, we call ourselves third wave behavioral therapy, we have dialectical behavior therapy and ACT treatment center. And you speak to experiential avoidance in the book. And I think this is a great opportunity to talk about how experiential avoidance might maintain a lot of problems in living. If you can kind of talk about that and in ways that your embodiment can actually target that. There's a paradoxical effect with experiential avoidance. The more we try to avoid what we're feeling, it's almost like the more intensely it's going to control our life. Kel's use of experiential avoidance is Miller Lite, as he's told us in previous. Absolutely. But I mean, that's the idea. It's like we're trying to escape what we're feeling and then we give it a whole lot of power. And before we know it, we're impulsively reacting on that. state without even having awareness of it. Yeah, and I think one of the things that are definitely communicated in your book is not only are you missing out on an important piece of life, but you're also missing out on potentially critical wisdom and a part of you that is kind of being disconnected and impacting your ability to influence people and lead. So I am curious about that before I get to some of the spiritual stuff again, Casey, but you got you

Casey Berglund:
Thank

Kel:
chose

Casey Berglund:
you.

Kel:
to focus on leadership. This is such so widely applicable, right? I mean, I could have an entire conversation today just on the treatment of PTSD, you know, trauma survivors, and how important and necessary this is a key component of an effective treatment, but you chose a different route. You chose to focus on leaders. Tell me why.

Casey Berglund:
Yeah, well, we felt that in the current resources out in the world, from an embodiment perspective, a lot of the focus in books coming out is on healing trauma, using somatic practices to understand trauma in a different way. And many of the big players in the game, I'm thinking like Gabor Mate, for example, like people... It's kind of like going in deep. And we felt like there needed to be a more accessible entry point into embodiment. And at least in my work, I see that people can lead only as far as their trauma lets them in a way, or only as far as their bodies limit them. And there's an application, bringing embodiment into leadership spaces. We are speaking to a more well person, although that's subjective, I suppose. And we just felt that, you know, we were witnessing in the world, what's normalized in leadership spaces is kind of a low bar and bringing embodiment. Say more. Yeah, I thought you said something like that. It's a low bar. It's a really low bar. And if we bring what we knew about embodiment, and you know, really early on in the process, these six pillars came to us, and they became this framework for really applying the wisdom of embodiment into a space where we feel like it could make an impact. You know, if we had more leaders, who could drop into their hearts or feel their emotions or understood how to connect with teammates in a more authentic way, how might that change how we show up for each other? Maybe in a polarized divisive world, it could create a type of leadership that's a bit more connected. And that's... could be really useful right now. And little did we know when we first sort of like pitch that idea to each other that we would see firsthand, like through 2020, 2021, 2022, we're in 2023 right now. It felt like as we lived through those years, it became even more important for leaders to have these types of skills and awarenesses to elevate their consciousness. So that they're not just heads on sticks walking around with this wisdom. I'm I'm realizing it's a podcast, so I'm pointing to my head, this heady wisdom, and actually embracing the wholeness of body consciousness as well, to just be more thoughtful and more aware in how we lead.

Kel:
So this is very aspirational. My concern is sometimes the personality structure of somebody who seeks out positions of high authority in government and industry. I think there's some fairly good research in our field, Julie, that they tend to have more sociopathic tendencies. And we certainly see how that has influenced society. I do believe from a spiritual perspective raise the collective consciousness of, you know, if there's really good people who care about each other and do things for the best of society that we can, you know, kind of advance our culture. But we're at a bad spot, aren't we? You know, and I think we can blame it a lot on our leaders.

Casey Berglund:
They're not gonna pick it up.

Kel:
But why do you think that is that they just, they wouldn't listen at all. Even if they were losing their, you know, they, they realized they were losing the people under them, that they have to have some sort of realization. You don't think they would listen at all. Yeah, I want to go back to Casey, okay,

Casey Berglund:
Oh. Ha ha.

Kel:
because she's, I feel like maybe there's a language I'm learning that she's already learned, and I want to kind of tap into this a little bit. So it's around this idea of like, frequency and energy. Do you believe that there are people amongst us who have been able to tap into a higher frequency or a different frequency that connects with a wisdom and a divine spiritual connection and they have skills and abilities that maybe we have, maybe all people have the ability to kind of evolve that way, but most people don't. But do you think there people walk amongst us who have these really advanced kind of talents or skills?

Casey Berglund:
Yes.

Kel:
Okay. Okay, good. Because when I say these things, some people think I'm crazy. I was on a Canadian podcast last night where I was talking about my spiritual kind of connections. And I'm, you know, a little bit afraid of saying kind of these things for the for the first time. But like, I've met

Casey Berglund:
I was just going to say, Roger, I think you're one of them. I

Kel:
I-

Casey Berglund:
think you might be one of them. I think Julie might be one of them. I think I might be one of them. I think Kel might. I we haven't had as much interaction, but I don't think it's unusual for us to be able to access a different part of our awareness.

Kel:
So I agree, like, I'm intuitive. I think I'm intuitive and I think I can enhance my ability to harness my intuition. And it first started with an awareness that that's what I'm feeling. So if I wasn't ever aware of the feeling, so I met with a medium, a very special woman. I mean, she's amazing. And she told me that I have to be careful. I take on a lot of the energy of my clients and that I have to use these techniques and this approach to be able to manage my work because I will consume that energy. She also said there's other things I, you know, I can do around being able to protect myself and I try to do those things. But the more that I become aware of my emotional state, my physical sensations, what's going on with my body, I do experience Casey, exactly what you said. the answers come to me. So I found a way to get out of my own way. And I think what needs to happen is we have to teach people to be able to do that. And I feel like I've been able to catch on to other frequencies. Like, so maybe that's the only way, maybe we're talking here today only because of that, right? Like I would have never been able to connect with the two of you unless we're on a similar frequency. And so a number of things are happening in my life that are unexplainable, but

Casey Berglund:
Mm-hmm.

Kel:
I think it's cause I tapped into that.

Casey Berglund:
Yeah, I just want to say that as you speak, I, you know, same wavelength, it's real. I feel in my body as you speak the what I called earlier, the truth tears, these like tears at the backs of my eyes, I feel my heart space connect. It's like, thank you, like, thank you for your vulnerability. And it's like, now we go deeper. Now we get to enjoy this frequency that we ride. And I also find myself thinking, what if every therapist had those extra tools? Like, it's not that we need to necessarily ditch one set of tools for a whole new set of tools, but what if you, Roger, get to integrate what you learned from the medium with what you learned through your PhD, with what you've learned through your body's wisdom in experience showing up? It's like, of course you... take in other people. That makes me think you're probably really good at what you do. That same gift is probably part of why you have a podcast called Radically Genuine. It's probably part of the frequency of creating spaces that maybe are more open to talk about ideas that aren't mainstream. I think this is a sign of an elevated consciousness. And in my experience, Like my life is a series of synchronicities, for lack of a better word, and I actually am not attached to labels, but like literally yesterday, I was doing some work at a coffee shop and there were two like beautiful, empowered, integrated men having a beautiful conversation about their lives in a real way. And we like dropped into a conversation together and it was of a certain frequency. And in that moment, we were all present. We were all in a non-judgmental awareness. And we decided to go out later in the evening and just like have this conversation or this connection. And through those two men, I also received like really important wisdom that were answers to some of the questions I've been asking. And this is just my meaning making system. I'm actually not attached to anyone being like, oh, you know, I don't actually care about other people's judgment. It's like, this is true for me. And you can explain these like Julie and I met in Costa Rica. And there was like a series of events that led to that and us finding kind of the perfect thing at the perfect time. And so on the on the advanced, let's call it advanced, I don't know, embodiment, such a cyclical journey, we're like beginners, and then we're advanced, and then we're beginners again. But I think the benefit of this deeper work is you open up to different ways of knowing and being and ultimately like living life. Think about how heavy trauma feels in the body. For me, doing deep trauma healing, it's created this tension, true discomfort. And it feels like the more that gets healed, I literally get to be lighter, life literally gets to be easier. I meet people, I'm no longer attracting men in my dating life that I feel like I need to fix or heal. They're just meeting me on a level, because I am that, you know? And it's something that to me is a bit magical. Like, how does this actually work? Like even these therapeutic philosophies like attachment theory, and you know, like there's these ways that we understand growth and evolution. And I find that there's still an unexplainable magic underneath of what happens when we heal and elevate our consciousness, frequency, become lighter in our energy field. we flow through life in a lighter way. Or at least the default is lighter.

Kel:
Julie, I have a question for you. Now the floodgates are open. So, all right, here is a, maybe this has occurred to you when you're deep in meditation and you have that kind of psychedelic experience. One of the experiences that I've learned when this has happened to me are one, there are no coincidences. Our souls are on a journey, and everything that happens to us is to benefit us. Okay? Are we in agreement there? Okay. So I am trying to find ways to integrate that into my clinical work. The hardest thing for me is when really bad things have happened to somebody. And then for me to somehow frame it that everything can serve us. And I know that there's there are people that are listening that are our patients or have, you know, gone through traumatic experiences. I also know that there's people who are listening right now who are like Christian oriented and they might be just using different language, like the Holy spirit or a number of other things that they connect with. But clinically, how are we able to get people to understand that even horrible things that have happened can serve them without it coming across as like invalidating and... not compassionate, or just flat out just making people angry. Mm. Before I jumped on with the two of you, I was on another podcast, a popular one, Ali Beth Stuckey Relatable Podcast, and she's got a large following. And I was talking about the power of the placebo effect

Casey Berglund:
and

Kel:
and that we haven't tapped into and harnessed the power of that mind body healing connection. As we speak here today, There was a recent study that just came out on opiates for pain versus placebo for pain, and the placebo group actually outperformed the opiate group, which is fascinating. And some other studies, and I say this on a day where my son is getting arthroscopic surgery on his knee, that they did a clinical trial where they had a group of individuals who had a specific knee injury. it was unclear whether that arthroscopic knee surgery yielded any results in improvement, like lessening pain and improving mobility. So what they did is they did the placebo controlled trial. So they would actually have a group, they wheeled them into the OR, did the entire surgery. Then they have another group that they did the same thing, wheeled them into the OR, gave them anesthesia, woke them up and they thought they're, did an incision on their knee, but didn't do anything. They actually thought they had the surgery. And then you see the... group that didn't get the surgery performs just as well as far as pain and improved mobility. So there's this power of the mind in being able to heal the body that we have not in any way been able to tap into because of the limitations of the allopathic medical system that we all live in Western medicine. And you see that in like prayer groups or the power of prayer groups and how that can have such a powerful impact on somebody. It's just, it's amazing when we

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Like I'm just now willing to go behind the microphone and start saying these things because I'm afraid of being judged. Even to like one of my best friends, Kelly, like I'm afraid to say it because he's gonna look at me like I'm crazy. I'm judging him right now. But now listen, that brings. So I'm listening to all of you talk. And one of the things I think I'm not sure who said it, but I listened to your podcast. And I took one of these in order to get to the point that you guys obviously are all at. It's as somebody on the podcast said, it's basically like people are imposters. In other words, they're not able. To get to this point, what he just said is this fear of judgment, this fear of almost like fear is this overriding thing that causes people to not want to believe that the mind is that powerful. And one of you said it, I'm not sure which one, but you said it's basically people feel like you're living your life as an imposter because you're not allowing yourselves to get out. Is that pretty accurate?

Casey Berglund:
Yeah, I mean that it aligns and it's interesting. I'm just going to bring it back to frequency, you know, like I sought out a mentor who is unlike anyone I've ever met because I wasn't getting what I needed from all of the tools that I was using. And she would say that fear will plummet your energy field faster than anything. So if we're all vibing up here and fear enters this space, that person who's experiencing the fear, their frequency will literally drop immediately. And then because we're co-regulating, it will fill the space. So it's like, it's that powerful. And speaking of the power of the mind, like, of course, we're not using our minds to their fullest capacity or mind body because it's one. But it's like that definitely ties into it. And, you know, Roger, thinking about how when I was a dietician and I was young, like I started my business when I was 25. and learned so much through that degree, science degree, and then, you know, found sort of yoga and mindfulness. And I was like a bridge between worlds is what I felt. And I still am, I still want to bring all these other modalities together with what we know in science. And I remember really early on in my business, I was like working with clients who had eating disorders or were chronic dieters. And I'm a dietician. And I was taught to you know, calculate their nutrition requirements and offer meal plans and all of that. And so soon into it, I was like, this is not what these people need. And I started to, in secret, behind the scenes, in the one-on-one moments, with the consent of my clients, teach them what I'd learned through yoga and mindfulness and bring that part into our nutrition counseling. And it started to show me like, ooh, this is actually more effective for getting to the root of some of these eating issues. And the whole time I did it, I had this lingering fear that I was gonna get my license taken away, that the College of Dietitians of Alberta was gonna say to me, find out, find me out, and take my license away because I'm not practicing evidence-based nutrition. And this is me bringing meditation to people. who are exploring emotional connections to food. So when I think about it, it's like, okay, before we had all this research on mindfulness and meditation and before like Google and Apple and like the biggest, you know, CEOs in the world started meditating, it was an Eastern philosophy that was ancient in India. And people like me, I mean, it's like, I still had this implanted belief. There's lots of research coming out at that time that it was effective. But I still felt like it's, I'm going to get my license taken away because it's not what I was taught. I'm not following the rules, you know? And I, and I also was working digitally when most of my colleagues were working in person and I remember I was such a type a perfectionistic dietitian, like wanting to do it all right. And I called the college and I was like, so I really want to impact more people by doing this online. And here's what I'm thinking. And we had this whole conversation and at the end of it, they were like, you know, Casey, maybe you could support us with updating our guidelines. And I was like, wait a minute, I'm over here terrified that I'm going to get found out for doing transformational work with my clients and using my skills beyond just what I learned as a dietitian. And I'm like terrified and hiding. And you're telling me that actually like I could help you evolve. And then all these dieticians started like reaching out and being like, what are you doing? Can you teach us how to bring mindfulness to our nutrition practice? You know, and it was like, why the fear, you know? And I feel like this, there's of course this vulnerability and opening up the space to, to sharing about personal experiences. And sometimes I wonder how you could be the leader that your clients are looking for. I wonder how many people are just waiting for more to be brought into the practice. And I just think it's fascinating in my experience, every time I've like leaned into moving through that fear professionally and owning say my spiritual experiences, the mystical awakenings that I've had, and it's, it's only attracted more intrigue and interest. And I think part of it is because it's integrated because it's embodied in me. You can't fuck with the truth. I'm not teaching anything I haven't actually like really worked through my own system first. I'm not just learning some teaching from this mentor and then spitting it out to my clients. I'm pulling it in. I'm speaking from the eye. I'm also sharing, you know, I was on the news as a dietitian every month and I would share like from the ancient practice of Ayurveda, here's a philosophy. What do you think? This is different from nutrition science, but sometimes I think that there's a way when sharing from that place of what's behind this wisdom that actually helps open the doors. Mm-hmm.

Kel:
Yeah, I think you bring up some really good points about the rules that are developed and what I call is the illusion of evidence-based practice or the illusion of consensus in a lot of this area. It's really just, you know, financially driven guidelines to serve an industry. They get to choose what is evidence-based, unfortunately. And I certainly fell into that as a psychologist. Not that I don't say that there's value, I think there's value into measuring progress, but that's with each individual person and doing that in kind of an empirical collaborative way. But I'm just curious, have either one of you ever read or been exposed to A Course in Miracles?

Casey Berglund:
I haven't gone down a deep dive, though I'm aware and have heard lots of people reference it so have a bit of a sense of A Course in Miracles.

Kel:
Yeah, I mean, Casey, you speak a lot. It's, I mean, it took seven years to write and the person was channeling it. And it's, there's a depth to it that, you know, you can only do a little bit at a time. But bottom line is like, you were talking to things about truth and, you know, the search for truth and seeking out truth and really the ego, what gets in the way and the ego is connected to fear. And I do think that there is at least one of our life. challenges is to transcend fear in order to live truth in the manner in which you live truth. And I think, you know, what we're all trying to do is we're trying to have some positive influence on the lives of others around us. We have a mission. There's something that we're here for. And the only way I think we can really get connected to it is if we transcend that fear and we're willing to be able to speak that truth that we're we're referring to. And I think your book in the six pillars is a way to actually experience it and to be able to connect with it and achieve to it. The paradoxical thing about a lot of this is that we're so cerebral, we want to use our mind, which is another word can be ego. We use our mind to try to find all the answers and that just tends to leave us missing and empty and stressed. finding that way to quiet the mind and then to connect. And then there are answers that are provided to us that I can only say that they are so much more intricate and there's so much depth to it that leaves you sometimes understanding, you know, why you did things the way you did in the past or how everything was bringing you to a particular moment. And I've tried to talk about this with Kel and Sean on the podcast, especially about the future of the podcast is that manifest. I've talked about that, like manifesting things into reality. I do believe we're creators of our own reality. So, you know, if radically genuine means we're going to try to seek out truth and honor that truth, then we have to be absolutely willing to stand outside what is mainstream and to catch the catch the flak for that. Like, or be on the firing line. And I know I've been on the firing line lately for a number of things, just because of my willingness to speak out against psychiatric drugs. I'm willing to, I'm interested in getting your thoughts on this. I'm concerned about where we're going in society because I agree with both of you in the value of our body and our emotions and our experience. If we say emotions are energy in motion, that's another way to kind of conceptualize all this. And I think they're powerful indicators of messages. in our life and we need to be able to utilize them to make changes, even if they're scary. And the idea of thinking about emotions as symptoms to be drugged is absolutely frightening to me and that we're doing it for younger and younger people. I just feel so disheartened and I'll do everything in my power to be able to speak against that ideology. grounding to the earth. Yeah. Well, listen, we've held you for over an hour here. We've had a fascinating conversation. I feel like we're gonna have to get in touch again in the future to talk about, extend this conversation to different topic areas. But before we conclude today, where can people find you by the book, get in touch with you, listen to you?

Casey Berglund:
Everything related to the book is on our site mindbodywaybook.com, including links to where the book can be purchased, though it's everywhere in the digital realms. So just finding the retailer that's aligned with your value system is probably the best way to go about getting the book in your hands. Unless you're physically nearby Calgary, Ottawa, or in New Brunswick, where our co author Courtney is, we, I think just by way of the book being about embodiment, we are loving really grassroots ways of sharing the book, like, I'm kind of like, let's go for a coffee, and we'll talk about the book, like, let's share it in these really beautiful, connected ways. So my body way book.com is where you can find everything about the book. And then I am at let your body lead.com and have a podcast called the purpose map. I'm feeling that there could be an extended conversation over there as well, because I'm enjoying this so much. And, and Julie, why don't you share where people can find you

Kel:
Yeah, I think for those who go out and purchase the book, you know, we could have gotten into practical strategies to be able to achieve this state. And listen, it's not easy. I'm not going to communicate to people that becoming more embodied is actual actually easy. There's a commitment process to it. And sometimes there's a lot of discomfort in that process. But certainly valuable. And if you buy the book, you'll be able to learn some of those practical strategies mixed with, you know, very interesting stories. and sound science. And that's what I liked about the book. It had that nice balance. Casey, Julie, thank you so much. It was such a fascinating conversation. We really appreciate it. It was absolutely radically genuine and I wish you to the best of luck with the book and moving forward.