[LISA LEWIS] The Am I Ok? Podcast is part of the Practice of the Practice network, a network of podcasts seeking to help you market and grow your business and yourself. To hear other podcasts like Faith Fringes, the Holistic Counseling Podcast, and Beta Male Revolution, go to the website, www.practiceofthepractice.com/network. Welcome to the Am I Ok? Podcast, where you will discover that being highly sensitive is something to embrace and it’s actually a gift you bring to the world. We will learn together how to take ownership of your high sensitivity, so you can make positive changes in your life, in the lives of others, and it’s totally okay to feel this way. I’m your host, Lisa Lewis. I’m so glad you’re here for the journey. Welcome to today’s episode of the Am I Ok? Podcast. I’m your host, Lisa Lewis. Thank you so much for being here today. I would like to remind my listeners that I offer a free eight-week email course titled Highly Sensitive People. My email course provides weekly tools that help you feel more whole in a world isn’t exactly made for us and I show you how your sensitivity can be seen as a unique gift and how many others are just like you. To find out more about my email course, please go to my website, amiokpodcast.com. Over this past year, I’ve had many different types of healers on my show from psychotherapists, a grief specialist, marriage counseling specialist, an eating disorder specialist. Well, today’s guest has what I think as yet unique specialty. I would like to explore more in-depth in the form of natural healing by the natural world. You may be asking, what does that exactly mean, natural healing by the natural world? Well, let’s find out. Today’s guest is Monica Ghent. Monica is a traditional healer, distance healer, teacher, counselor, and weather worker in the Nahua tradition of Central Mexico. She is an advocate of being in respectful relationship with the divine, natural world, and all living beings. As a healer and teacher, Monica supports others in awakening to the beauty of their uniqueness and living their truth to its fullest expression and health and wholeness. Monica also runs the Living Earth School of Herbalism with her husband, which offers certificate and diploma programs in Western Traditional Herbalism and related fields of study, general interest workshops and online classes. Welcome to the podcast, Monica. [MONIKA GHENT] Thank you. [LISA] I’m so glad to have you here and to hear all about what you do and what you offer. [MONIKA] Wonderful. It’s lovely to be with you and I really appreciate the work that you do and what you bring to the world. [LISA] Oh, thank you, Monica. I’d like to start off just by asking you, as I ask all my guests that come on the show, do you consider yourself a highly sensitive person or not and if you could just share a little story about that? [MONIKA] Okay. Well, that’s very interesting because until I spoke with you, Lisa, I had never heard that term. My friend Meghan, whom you interviewed told me that she felt that I was a highly sensitive person, which is why she connected us. When we had our pre-interview talk, Lisa, you asked me about that, and, honestly, I’d never heard that term. Since then, I’ve done a little bit of looking into it. Like I watched the movie Sensitive and a few interviews with people and, of course I’ve read your website and your offerings and, in this moment, I’m in contemplation about where I am, whether I’m a highly sensitive person. It’s totally fascinating. When we were talking, I realized, well, perhaps I am. I’d thought of, I’d captured myself in different labels perhaps than that because I’d never heard of that label before. Like I would, what I said to you is I consider myself an extroverted introvert, and because I love people, I love being in communion and community with them, but I also completely and absolutely need my alone time, like absolutely alone. I feel that I could go for days on end without uttering a word or seeing anyone and be really super happy, not lonely and not alone, but then I need people. So I think more than likely I will continue this investigation into this idea but I have a sense that more than luckily, I am [LISA] Oh, well, that’s really exciting. Thank you just for sharing that and just being really open and vulnerable with us as you’re going through this process of, I think another maybe form of self-discovery. I don’t know if you looked at Dr. Elaine Aaron’s website hsperson.com. She has the HSP test on there to find out how you rank and there’s different levels of it. So you may have some of the traits and may have not have all of the traits, but it just ranks about what level you’re at. But just the way that you described it, just there is a type of HSP that is the extrovert introvert that needs that needs their alone time, but also needs to be around people. So I wish you well on your continued self-discovery around that. [MONIKA] Well, thank you. Yes, I did look at her website and I did take the test. I had some, but definitely not all. The contemplation that, I mean, I’ve had a lifetime of learning how to be myself, who I am, and to respond to life as I am. It’s still an unfolding and awakening process. What I realized through speaking with you and looking at Erin’s website and yours and all that I’ve looked at so far is that I have adapted and worked on and done so much healing work in order to address my response to life and how I move through it, and how I can best live in the gifts of my nature. I’ve done so much and I realize that I’ve constructed a world, my world that that perfectly holds me and that I can control how much I’m out in the world and how much time I have in nature and with myself. It’s so very interesting to see that I’ve been going through this process of how to be, how to live in the world on my own, my own discoveries and my own exploration and the ways that I’ve adapted and things that I’ve needed to do. It was in response to my physical, emotional, spiritual response to being in this world. [LISA] Wow, that is incredible. I love how you just explained that. I want to, if you don’t mind if you would share some of that and talk about how you came to your healing and teaching work that you provide. [MONIKA] What specifically around that about how I came to that? Do you want me to talk about my healing work or just how I constructed my world? [LISA] Yes, well, actually, I would like to hear both, like how did you construct your world and I guess, and then it sounds like you adapted the healing work to be the gifts that you bring to the world as part of your, like as profession and how you support yourself in the world. [MONIKA] Well, when I was, I mean, growing up when I was young, I honestly, I had to learn how to be a human according to what society seemed to define a human to be, how to be with other people, how to be in the world. I really tried hard to present myself as someone acceptable, that seemed to be acceptable, that had the same sort of ideals and goals at what my society seemed to be asking. Quite frankly, I failed at it completely. I could never really hide my nature, and it was a source of great pain and a great struggle. But it was that pain and that struggle that led me to my healing path, my personal healing path, and also to the medicine that came to me. So I don’t regret any of what I experienced. It was extremely difficult and I felt alone and isolated in my own being. But I was determined to understand myself and the world, and not the world manufactured by my society, but what the world was really speaking and what it meant to really be a human and what is the place of the human in this divine expression. So that was really my motivation. It certainly didn’t sound like that at the beginning. It sounded like a lot of rebelling and anger and cynicism at the beginning, which is how I managed to put a crust over my sensitive nature, was to develop a cynicism and it, and quite frankly, an arrogance, which really was cynicism covering a tenderness. First I developed a crust, and then I spent many, many years dissolving that crust to the point where I could, I can move in the world and not feel that I need to defend myself. That was so exhausting. The constant defense was really so exhausting. So I determined that I did not want to just move through the world in defense. I wanted to just be in my own skin and in my own nature. So I began my path in healing work and after I came back, I had been working in an industry that was so ill suited to me, and I noticed it, and I didn’t know what to do about it because I was bereft and lost because I had never been, I’d never expressed who I truly was, and I’d never asked this that I am, what is the work that I must do in the world? I never asked that question. It was just like, how can I find work that I wouldn’t feel so horrid in and that was expressed who I was. I never dreamed that I could actually be who I truly am when I was young. But I came back from an experience. I had gone to Ecuador as a young woman, and I’d gone to the Amazon jungle and spent some time with some people there and something in that experience just changed my whole being. I’d never met any people like that before in my life. It was a great blessing and it was completely, completely foreign to anything I had ever known. So when I got back, I just didn’t fit into my life anymore and so I left it all, and I got a job first in a flower shop, which was the happiest I’ve ever been. It was working with the plants and it was like, I’m so happy, just making people happy, giving them beautiful, making beautiful arrangements for their loved ones. That was the happiest I had ever had in a job. Then from there, I got a job in a health food store and through various things that happened, I started learning about natural medicine. I was voracious because people would come in and they were at the end of their rope. They were at the end of their tether, and they had been, they had no resources and no recourse. That to me, I am, that is so not my belief is like, there always has to be another thing to look at, another perspective that can be investigated. There is no full stop unless you have left, you’ve died, basically. That’s the full stop but other than that, it just was not my nature. So I read voraciously everything I could about natural medicine, about herbs and everything and then that led me to studying herbal medicine as a practice. Then it went on from there and then all sorts of things started opening up on my spiritual nature. It was always there, but I didn’t know how to really access it at all. It’d been so hidden. It was something that honestly, I remember from a tiny little child suppressing because it was just so, it just got me in trouble. So this awakening process to my spiritual nature and to what the spirit realm has to offer in terms of true and deep healing, that was in whole exploration. But working with the plants, they were just like, okay, we’re going to start with our physical nature and you can learn all about that but then hold onto your hats because this is an awakening. It led me to plant spirit medicine and studying with Elliot Cohen, becoming a plant medicine healer. Then it just blossomed and open. It led me to eventually to my weather work path and then becoming a healer in that tradition. It still continues today. It’s just this constant unfolding into this incredible, wondrous possibility for life here. It’s been so deeply nourishing to myself and it’s something that I love to share because I love to see people opening to their true nature, because quite frankly, the world needs people to be open to their true nature, to the gifts that they are, no matter what they are. It’s always in alignment and it’s always in rhythm and synchronicity, that’s a word I made, just made up a word, in synchronicity with the divine natural world and the world wants us. This is what I’ve come to know. The world needs us to be who we truly are because there’s a space in the energetic field for our true nature and it’s like we’re a piece of this puzzle or a drop in the ocean that has its exact place and when we find our place, we begin to hum. Then world’s awakened to us that we never thought possible. So this has been this whole journey for me and it still continues and it’s so fascinating. [LISA] It sure sounds fascinating. I was just really tuned in to listening to your story. I just want to go back to the beginning, just when you mentioned Meghan Montero, who was on the podcast, I interviewed her, she’s a Fang Shui specialist. Then she referred me to you. One of the couple of things that really stood out for me, Monica, is especially with highly sensitive people, that, including myself and people that I work with, is feeling comfortable in our own skin. Because sometimes we can feel like we don’t even have skin. If you just think about even like an animal that doesn’t have skin, you’re just so prone to take in everything. So it’s that learning how to be comfortable in your own skin and having some tools to help with that. I wonder if you can share a little bit about what that experience was for you and what was that awakening process like for you? Did you hear something? Did you see something? Did you feel something in your body? [MONIKA] Do you want to, okay, so the awakening process, it’s a good question because honestly, sometimes I feel I’m so dense about those sorts of things. It’s like I feel that I have some really powerful spirit guides that just guardians and helpers that really help me open to the speed that I can open. It was like, we’re not going to open the floodgates for you. That wouldn’t be very good. We’re going to eke it out at first. It’s going to be this process, and you have to have skin in the game. It’s like, we’re not going to do it for you. You have to truly seek it. So it was more like, I’d have moments of aha. It’s like, oh. The truth of things or things that are true are always so, like, of course, it’s so simple, but yet it’s like the journey that, I would’ve set up for myself was so complicated but the arrival was so simple. But I had to feel it in my bones because I need to have an experience of things. I can’t just take someone’s word for it, even if there’s deeply wise. I take things in and I have to feel them, and they start up a resonance in my spirit and in my physical body too. I can feel them and they have to resonate as deep as my blood right to my very marrow. When they do, then I know that that is something that is true for me. It was learning that, learning how to understand what I was receiving. That was the real work, because it was, there’s stuff going on around all the time and, but there is something that is right for you in the moment. It’s all about the energetic moment of something. And it’s perfection of the moment and learning how to understand the perfection of the moment and learning how to have patience and not push, because I used to push the energy. It’s like I could feel there was something that needed to happen, something that was different and I demand it. My warrior nature, my warrior was so bristly, and she was so trained. I had to learn about, No, my warrior, this isn’t the time for you. Go sit down, put your feet up, have a latte, relax, I’m fine. You don’t have to come out with your bristles all going. I don’t need you. Let me experience this. I had to really, really work on that because she was so overdeveloped. [LISA] Is that the defensive part of you that you were talking about when you were, especially when you were younger? [MONIKA] I would say, yes. It was like my warrior was super, super developed because I had to fight for my right, even for existence, it felt. That’s what it felt like for me. And the way that I grew up and the family that I grew up in, it was like, you had to really stand, you had to fight for your life. So I was a fighter and so that part of me, it was like I was a weight lifter and I’d only worked one arm, and the rest of my body was atrophied, but it was still there. I was going through life with this big arm sweeping dangers out of my way and the rest of me was being dragged behind by this ferocious energy. [MONIKA] It was, it’s beautiful energy. I love my warrior, but I had to learn how to not respond when she would respond immediately beyond even thought. I had to learn to stand her down and allow those other parts of me to have access to the world so that they can be given a blood infusion. It was like, I’d been sitting on my legs for years and I unfolded them, and there were pins and needles, and it hurt a lot. But I realized that through the hurt was my own salvation. So I trusted that process. I was never, none of this I was doing alone. None of it. I could not have done it alone. Not only did I have amazing healers through my lifetime. And I access them all. I’ve done everything, not everything. There’s a lot out there, but I’ve done a lot and it was amazing. Every time I would go through a healing experience or worked with someone, I put my full self into it and the way that I do that, the way that I could actually sustain what I was experiencing was because I wanted to be, my whole being wanted to be a refuge for others. My nature to do healing work was in me the moment I was born. I came to the world with it, and my compassion was huge. I knew if I could learn this for me, if I could move this for me through me, then I could be of service to other people. That was my driving force. It didn’t even, it was like in service to my relationships, to my friends, to my husband, to my family, to my loved ones, to my community, to be of service. It didn’t necessarily need to be direct healing work, but I did it, it was for them, because that’s how I live my life. I’ll do this for you and I’ll forget myself in the process. That was the beginning. But then it was like, no, I cannot forget myself in this process. In order to be authentic, in order to really inhabit what I felt was true, I had to have the courage to do this work myself. So you do it. Though it was painful and frightening and various other things, it was also a revelation. It was a rebirth. It was a reclamation, It was a remembering of what I knew is true and it was my own salvation. But the way that I could do it is I’m going to do it for those that I love, those that come to me. I have to. So that is, so every time that I go through an experience, it’s like, I’m going to sit in it. I’m going to feel everything about it. Even things that frighten me or seem too painful, I’ve never dissolved in pain. I’ve never been completely torn asunder in anything I’ve done. So that is, so it’s like you know you’ll move through this. You’ve done it before. You can do it. You know you’ll be okay. I rely on my loved ones, on the people around me, my healers. I rely on my spirit guides and helpers. I rely on my traditions, on my teachers. I use all of the support and I claim my own strength, my own inner power. I claim it completely and all of it serves me as I continue to move closer to my own true expression, which is constantly revealing itself in every breath, in every moment. It’s a wondrous experience. But I came to know that I would not dissolve in this journey. So I trust and trusting, first of all is trusting myself. That was the first of everything. If I can’t trust myself, I cannot trust life. That trust is huge. It actually goes together because you have to trust life. Life isn’t against you. When I realized that life was beckoning, it was beckoning to me, It was like, you must be who you are. There was a place for this and an importance for it. It helped me too. So it’s this process of claiming self-trust and trust in life. If you have those, then you have everything. [LISA] Did you say, if you have the hose [MONIKA] No, if you have those [LISA] Oh, if you have those [MONIKA] If you have trust in life and trust in yourself, then you have everything. This is what I’ve come to know. [LISA] Wow, that is such a powerful message. When you are talking about the pain that you were going through, was that emotional pain, mental pain, physical pain, some other pain? [MONIKA] Well, it was everything all at once, sometimes the therapies that I were doing, this is, okay, I’ll give you an example. Years ago I was doing rolphing work, R O L P H I N G, rolphing, I think that’s how to spell it, I can’t remember how you spell it out, if there is an F. But anyway, it was Ida Rolph who created this work. I always, I wanted to do it for years and years, but I didn’t have a therapist that I knew. And honestly, I really like to go find my people that I work with through word of mouth, people that I know who’ve been to them, I trust them and so that’s how I usually go through when I’m looking for a particular work. I knew no one for years, but then one of my girlfriends had gone to this woman and so I said, okay, I’m going to do some sessions with her. You start in rolphing with 10 sessions. I was terrified because I knew I’d heard, I’d read, I’d read a lot about rolphing that it can be quite painful. I can handle a lot of pain. I just don’t, particularly physical pain, I just don’t particularly enjoy it. But it’s like, I want to do this work because I noticed that my body was misaligned. I knew that my body’s misalignment had a lot to do with what was going on in my psyche and in my soul but I also had physical discomforts, which is a really great way to start doing any work. It’s like, I’m really uncomfortable, I’ve got to do something about it. So it had to reach that level of denseness, this dense physical form and I had rolphing. And it’s beautiful work. Wow, I highly recommend it. At times it was horribly painful, horribly painful. I noticed one time that I was disassociating in order to handle the pain. I didn’t know I disassociated. It was my first realization that one of my survival mechanisms was disassociation. The way that I would disassociate is to go into thinking, into a dream, and I would be thinking about things so that I could not pay attention to what was going on physically. It was a revelation to me. So I made, so when I realized that I was disassociating, in order to handle the pain of the session, I made a declaration, declarations are hugely important. I made a declaration that I was not going to disassociate, that I was going to inhabit the pain that I was feeling. When I did, all these things were revealed to me that I’ve been hiding in my flesh. All these traumas or thoughts or experiences that I’d been hiding out in my flesh came out. Since I was in the hands of a beautiful being, I could trust my experience and knew that whatever would come up for me, she would be able to handle. So that is an example of my journey. That was such a revelation. Wow. [LISA] Those things, that is a revelation, wow. Woo, that’s powerful. Those things, the thoughts, the things that are hiding in your flesh, are they true, not true, does it even matter? [MONIKA] I don’t think it really matters. I don’t believe it matters because what is truth anyway? There’s only the truth, which is held in the divine, and then there’s what we perceive. Those two things together, it didn’t really matter to me, but what mattered, I held them as true. It didn’t matter whether they were true, because they were real for me and that’s what mattered. I didn’t really, I mean, some things I contemplated and some things were released. I didn’t need to contemplate them. Once they were moved, they were gone and what was left was a lightness of being. That lightness of being was a sacred doorway to more opening and understanding, which was really my focus, which was really where I wanted to go. I didn’t want to be held in my past, I didn’t want to be held in these beliefs. I examined things and from all perspectives, I looked at things, if I felt they weren’t my gaze and other things just left me. I didn’t even know what they were. I wished them well, and I was grateful for them and I loved them, and I let them go on their journey. I did not need to look at them. [LISA] Wow. I’ve had similar experiences myself so I can relate to what some of the things that you’re saying. I’m wondering, someone that is maybe just starting out or on their journey or not knowing how to start or where to start, what do you recommend? [MONIKA] Honestly, what I recommend, honestly is to make a declaration to yourself. It’s like a promise and it’s something that holds you and contains you, and it creates a spaciousness. Because without a declaration, then you’re in a nebulous state. So we’ve all made those declarations. It’s like, it could be huge like I declare that I choose to claim this that I am. It could be huge like that. Then there could be refinements. There could be other declarations that come in. That is an affirmation of claiming your own self. When you do this sparkly space, spaciousness arrives around you, in which potential and guidance can come in. Because when this skin is so tight to you, and you’re in your pain or your suffering, or your worries and concerns, then it’s hard. It’s so difficult for inspiration, for potential, for guidance to come through. It’s like this story of the full cup. It’s hard to fill a cup of someone who’s, to give someone teachings or wisdoms or healing when their cup is already full. You got to empty the cup some so that something new could come in. And honestly, you claim yourself. That’s the first of all of it. You claim your right to life. It could be your declaration. You want to know, you claim, I want to know this mystery that I am. I want to know this that I am. Once you do, then things automatically are drawn to you because they have the space to come into you, and you do it at the speed that you can and you always do gentle. You always do gentle and you find that gentleness within you and that gentle voice within you and that compassion. You bring these things in, and you go at the speed that you can go in and you seek allies, you seek allies. They’re so important. We cannot do this journey in a vacuum. We weren’t made for that. We were designed to move through life and communion. [LISA] Who would be allies? Can you give some examples of that? [MONIKA] Well, hopefully. If you have like a good friend or a companion that is your ally that you can trust, that’s wonderful. If you don’t, then find an ally in a therapist. You have to have an ally. So if you have community, find ally in community, people going through the same experience. It’s like you put out a lifeline to this ally and you speak. No matter how small your voice is, at first you speak it and you stand for yourself. You say, “This is what I need. Can you provide this for me? I need you just to listen to me. Can you do that?” If the ally says, “Yes, I can,” then you can start to voice this creaky little voice that has been just hidden. You start that way. So find an ally. If you don’t have a person in your life, you can make that declaration, I need a person in my life that is my ally. Maybe you have them already, and maybe you’ve never asked them to be your ally. Maybe you can open up that conversation or maybe you need to go find and work with a therapist of any healer, therapist of any kind, a teacher, someone, someone who looks at you and says, I want to know who you are. Show me, speak to me, I will listen. I will hold you in reverence. I will hold you in love. You have to have the courage. You have to reach for your courage. You reach for your courage and if you do. Also something that’s super important is the power of prayer. It doesn’t matter who or what you’re praying to, but you need to have that conversation with life and if you pray in whatever manner you pray, then you will always, your prayers will always be answered. You have to prick up your ears and listen to how it’s answered, because that’s the mystery. I highly recommend you learn to pray. It doesn’t matter who or what you’re praying to. [LISA] Does it usually, the answer, the prayers that you’re praying for, does it usually come in a way that you least expect? [MONIKA] It’s almost always. You know the expression expectation creates limitations? That is so true. You don’t want any expectations. You want life to respond to you in the way that, because life knows you. It knows you so deeply and intimately, and it’s beckoning to you. So you want it to come as it comes to you. It will always come as you can in some form that you can respond to and hopefully understand or have the capacity to go through the process of understanding. [LISA] When someone makes a declaration to life, is it better to say it out loud, like to the universe? Can you just say it in your mind? Do you have to say to somebody else? Does it matter? [MONIKA] Your declaration is a very intimate thing. Yes, you could say it to all those things. You could say it silently or if you want to speak it up to the world, to practice it, do it in a place of, if you want to speak it in nature, like what a beautiful place to speak it. But you can speak it in, you could speak it quietly, you could speak it internally if that’s how you need to do it. There is an understanding. There’s always an understanding that when you speak it out loud, like you think of our voices, you think of the resonance of a voice. It is the sound of you, one of the sounds of you that you make into the world. You look out in nature and everything is making it sound. A river is flowing over rocks. The wind is blowing through the leaves of the trees and each tree has its own signature sound. Insects are buzzing, birds are singing, worms are churning up earth. Everything is making sound out into the world. Sound is super important. There’s a knowing that when you declare out loud, it opens a sacred doorway for the world to listen. If you can do that, that’s wonderful. That is wonderful. If you can’t, at this stage, that is also wonderful. You do what you can do. You’re always asking yourself to go beyond, but never to tip over the edge into the abyss. You’re always standing at your growing edge. You want to stand there with one foot in what is known, looking out into the great and vast mystery of endless potential. You don’t take your foot out of the unknown and go plummeting off the cliff. You always have your foot there. It’s always your anchor. So you do what you can do, and you are always asking yourself, can I do more? [LISA] That’s so interesting. So you recommend one foot in and one foot, let’s say out maybe one foot in the, one foot in the known and one foot in the unknown? Because I’ve heard it. You have to take that leap to get to the other side and that’s like the way out. [MONIKA] Oh, absolutely. A leap of faith. But the thing is that when you’re leaping, you’re not leaving everything that you know behind. You’re not throwing the baby out with a bath water. You’re changing the water and keeping the baby, because the baby is pure and wonderful. So yes, it’s both. It’s absolutely both. [LISA] What would that be like, when we talk about the abyss, can you say more or give an example what that would look like? [MONIKA] Well, abyss is not naturally bad. The abyss is endless potential. The abyss that I was talking about falling into is where you feel untethered and ungrounded and you feel lost. You have to know your limits. You have to know how far you can reach into the great mystery. That’s something that you have to learn. That’s something we were supposed to learn as tiny little children. If we had parents that were actually adults and who took the, who knew what the responsibility is as a parent was, and were able to provide that for us, their job was to provide a safe container, but not a constrictive container. They allowed you to bump up against life but they were always there as a safety net if things were unsafe, that you were going too far. So we have to learn that as adults, if we did not have that as children, that we have to learn what are our limits? Where have I stretched too far? How many people have you ever met that have gone too far in any direction and you know that they’re untethered and it’s a horrible place to be? It’s that horrible place where, where you’re in a gray zone, a gray place where even breath is hard to breathe, and you feel you’re one breath away from extinction. You have to know your place. You have to know what sends you there. You have to know what you can receive and what you can do, what you can open up to. You have to learn that. It’s a learning process that was supposed to be our birthright, but how many of us receive that? [LISA] As you’re talking about that, I’m just thinking about, I have three children myself, and they’re teen and young adults now. Just being at the park with them when they were little, like three or four years old and being at the park and wanting to be on their own, but looking behind, always turning around to make sure to see where I was at. Then they would turn around and do what they’re doing but there would always be that making that connection, making that connection with mom and also me keeping an eye on them. That’s what I think of that safety net and exploring the world, but also feeling safe at the same time. [MONIKA] Perfect. Beautiful. Exactly. [LISA] It’s also being hard. It was also hard going to the park, especially as a parent, as a mother. If I see children that, okay, where’s your parent? Where’s your caregiver because you don’t look like you’re safe right now. So I think, especially moms always have that innate ability to look out for other children too. [MONIKA] Yes. [LISA] Monica, what would you like listeners to take away from the show today? From our conversation? [MONIKA] Well, I like everyone to know that they have such beautiful gifts to give to the world, and the world needs them. The world wants them, life wants them and we all need you. [LISA] We sure do. We sure do. Do you have a free gift that you would like to share with my audience? [MONIKA] have a pdf that’s about determining the voice of the mind versus the voice of the heart and how that really helps you to realize what is coming from your, the truth of you and the truth of life, and what is the construct of the mind and how that’s an important distinction to know. Because that’s really the basis of everything. We have been raised in the western culture to honor the mind, the voice of the mind, to think our way into the world. We’ve spent endless amounts of years and money educating the mind and the voice of the heart is what holds the truth of who we are. When we can distinguish the those two, then that will help us to claim our true essence, the truth of us. That’s what I would like to give. [LISA] Well, thank you so much. That’s a wonderful gift and just that discernment between the mind and the heart and just with the people that I work with, it’s learning how to shift out of the mind and come more drop into the heart. That can be really hard to do when we’ve had to use the mind to survive through our life. [MONIKA] Exactly. [LISA] Where can listeners get in touch with you? [MONIKA] They can go to my website. It’s simplymonicaghent.ca. They can email me at info@monicaghent.ca [LISA] All of that information will be in the show notes. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Monica, for coming on this show today and just to offer your gifts and the message that you’ve shared with my listeners. I’ve really taken it all into heart and I’m just assimilating all of it right now inside of me and just really feeling like I want to be quiet and whole and just really peaceful and perhaps go outside after the interview. [MONIKA] Lovely. Well, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate your nature, the openness that you have, the obvious love and compassion that you radiate. It’s been very lovely to be with you. [LISA] Oh, thank you. Thank you, Monica. [MONIKA] I know that you are a blessing to everyone who comes to you. [LISA] Ah, well thank you. I feel the same way about you too. So thank you for sharing your information out on the airwaves to everybody, so everyone from anywhere in the world can listen. [MONIKA] Thank you. It’s been a pleasure. [LISA] Thank you, my listeners, for tuning in today. Please let me know what you thought of the episode. Send me an email to lisa@amiokpodcast.com. Remember to subscribe, rate and review wherever you get your podcasts. To find out more about Highly Sensitive Persons, please visit my website, amiokpodcast.com, and subscribe to my free eight-week email course to help you navigate your own sensitivities and to show you that it’s okay not to take on everyone else’s problems. This is Lisa Lewis reminding each and every one of you that you are okay. Until next time, be well. Thank you for listening today at Am I Ok? Podcast. If you are loving the show, please rate, review and subscribe to it on your favorite podcast platform. Also, if you’d like to learn how to manage situations as a highly sensitive person, discover your unique gift as a highly sensitive person, and learn how to be comfortable in your own skin, I offer a free eight-week email course called Highly Sensitive People. Just go to amiokpodcast.com to sign up. In addition, I love hearing from my listeners, drop me an email to let me know what is on your mind. You can reach me at lisa@amiokpodcast.com. 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