Episode 32 | What is Spiritual Counselling with with Lindsey Kluin
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Podcast Transcript
Episode 32: What is Spiritual Counselling with with Lindsey Kluin
Spiritual Counseling and Classes with Lindsey Kluin
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[00:00:00] Amy: Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the Holistic Health Show. On today's episode, I have Lindsay joining me all the way from the United States. So happy to have you here, Lindsay. Now, Lindsay is a spiritual counselor, and , Lindsay, you've been a spiritual counselor for 15 years. That's a long time to be dedicated to this work.
[00:00:21] I'm really excited to hear about it. And one of the questions that pops into my head immediately is, what is spiritual counseling? And that follow up question that I always like to ask when something is, is what is it not?
[00:00:35] Lindsey: Yeah, I love that. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. What is spiritual counseling? Well, I consider spirituality to be the desire to be connected to and supported by something greater than ourselves. Something that I think for me, I can just. feel and something that, you know, to me, it weaves through everything and is all things.
[00:00:57] And I think we can call it anything we want, whether it's energy or God or consciousness or any number of constructs or words. But spiritual counseling to me is really helping people through the lens of their life, the day to day challenges, find that sense of interconnectivity to something more than themselves.
[00:01:16] So that instead of our lives being this slog of kind of getting to the next hour, the next day, the next year, it becomes about something bigger, more of that sense of inner kind of purpose, inner connection.
[00:01:28] . What is it not? Well, so [00:01:30] it's not dogmatic. It's not rigid or structured. It's your path. Everyone has their own way in this life to find meaning and purpose and connection to themselves and others. And so spiritual counseling to me is, again, just meeting someone where they're at and it's not about, you know, doing it the right way.
[00:01:53] It's doing it their way.
[00:01:54] Amy: Very individualized.
[00:01:56] Lindsey: That's right.
[00:01:57] Amy: I guess where I'm leaning now is and again you know, we chatted before the show I practice Reiki, so I understand the spiritual connectivity and inner consciousness and that sort of thing. What I'm not necessarily familiar with is the spiritual counseling. I guess the counseling word on the end of that title and so I want to clarify Is this similar to a life coaching sort of scenario?
[00:02:23] Is someone meeting with you regularly and you're guiding them on their life journey? I think there's two questions in there. Ha
[00:02:30] Lindsey: absolutely. And it's tough because I, even spiritual counseling, I have gone back and forth on deciding what do I want to call myself? Why I landed on counseling is because over the last 15 or so years, I have hundreds of people that come to me maybe once a year, and then I also have, you know, a lot of people who come to me every other week, maybe once a month.
[00:02:52] And so as I started opening a couple years ago, when I moved into doing this full time and said, if you want to come to me [00:03:00] more regularly, I can get you guys on the calendar. That's when it morphed more into counseling. That's also when I trained myself in a lot of different healing modalities and therapy modalities so that I could kind of Be able to meet people where they're at with a more holistic approach, whether it's meditation, mindfulness, or more cognitive behavioral therapy more traditional kind of reflective thinking types of therapy.
[00:03:26] Amy: Yeah. And so I love that. I love that you're merging, the science with the spirituality aspects. That's, that's kind of what the show is all about is showing people how that's possible and the great success in that holistic approach. So I love that you're adding that aspect in there. And I'd like you to tell us a little bit more about what modalities specifically you're applying within these sessions.
[00:03:48] Lindsey: My favorite baseline to start from is meditation. And so I do often invite people to close their eyes and go within at least for chunks of time while we're working on things together to be able to look at something that is up for them, something that might be challenging or hard or painful from different layers of perspective.
[00:04:09] I think when we kind of take the time to go within and meet with not only the thoughts and the narratives that might spin with certain memories or things we're anticipating, but also the feelings, the sensations in our body, it's really powerful. And so that's where the cognitive behavioral therapy approaches.
[00:04:28] concepts like [00:04:30] EMDR can be wildly effective. And starting from there, it also builds this baseline of just mindfulness of noticing what do I do when that person, when my manager walks through the door, starts telling me something that's maybe hard to hear. How do I react? Does my breathing quicken? You know, do I tense up?
[00:04:48] Do I anticipate the worst or maybe assume the worst in their intent? There's all these things that are so normal, but we often don't investigate them. And that's where the gap of pain is. Once we investigate it and get to know ourselves, there's so much more freedom to be with whatever's happening in, in any given moment with a lot more ease.
[00:05:07]
[00:05:08] Amy: And you mention investigating, you know, these thoughts, these feelings, these emotions. And I agree, completely agree. And where I'm going with this thought that I'm having is that there are so many people who forget about investigating them. They don't acknowledge them. There are so many people who, whether it be from past trauma or it not being accepted , in , the life they grow up at, in their social setting and their family to acknowledge or discuss or feel to, to go through these emotions.
[00:05:40] In my work, and again, I don't do the counseling aspect, but you, you talk to your Reiki clients, you know, , you connect with them on a personal level. And you hear many, many people say, well, I don't know what I feel. And they, when you kind of do a deeper dive and you say, well, let's, let's talk about that now through some, you know, let's meditate on that or let's focus on [00:06:00] our session.
[00:06:00] Let's focus this session on that. You tend to realize that there are even many people out there who, , they can tell you they're happy, they're sad, and they're angry, confused, and a lot of people will use the word depressed if that's a feeling that they're having, but outside of that, they don't Have much more on the spectrum of emotions.
[00:06:20] So I guess when you're saying that, you know, people aren't always investigating I'm sure you too must come across people who just don't have the experience acknowledging the emotions and when they come up What do you do with them when you've never done anything with them before?
[00:06:37] Lindsey: That's exactly right. Yeah. It's a very common human experience where we're often conditioned in childhood to just be happy or just do the thing, kind of strong arm
[00:06:48] Amy: don't cry, you know, it's okay. Don't cry.
[00:06:51] Lindsey: It's okay. Yeah. And so it dismisses the feeling instead of going, what is there? And how can we put names to it?
[00:06:58] How can we pull it apart and look at all of these different ways that we might experience an emotion like sadness, right? Sadness can mean so many different things when we kind of experience it through the corners of our, our body and our memory. But without the Deliberate kind of intention that says, let's look there because this matters.
[00:07:21] Because this is what does alleviate anxiety and depression. Without that deliberateness, it just kind of gets dismissed and we say, well, [00:07:30] I'm gonna just work for the next thing and hope that in doing in this world, it's gonna change our being or how we're feeling. And that's just not how it works. It's upside down
[00:07:41] Amy: Absolutely. So often when I'm talking with guests on this show, I think, wouldn't it just be great? And I'm sure regular listeners maybe are, you know, thinking, gosh, are you going to say this again, Amy? But wouldn't it be great if these things, these holistic methods that we're talking about were just the system?
[00:07:59] They, you know, they weren't the last resort for people. Again, if I could. I speak to my own personal experience with clients, sometimes people walk through that door and you're their last stop because they think I've done it all and what do I do now and I'm willing to give anything no matter how outrageous or alternative it might be.
[00:08:19] And that's when they find, okay, there is actually a lot more out there than the Western medical model, which again, I am fully supportive of, but not on its own.
[00:08:31] Lindsey: Yes.
[00:08:31] I find myself always overwhelmed with that thought when I'm speaking to guests on this show.
[00:08:37] Lindsey: Yeah, I get it. It's where I just kind of did a rebrand. I took a big step back from my practice and thought, who are the people coming to me? What do they need? And my new little tagline is redefining the benefits of spiritual awareness for busy people because of that, right? Because it's spiritual awareness, looking at energy and tuning into our inner energetic body is not something that a lot of [00:09:00] people have.
[00:09:01] Access to it's not something that is widely really known or practice yet. And I also agree that balance of, of Eastern and Western or traditional and non traditional is so important because balance in all things is. spirituality is inner knowing, right? And the equanimity of feeling safe to explore.
[00:09:21] So I'm right there with you.
[00:09:23] Amy: Yeah, once you adopt this approach, you don't really turn your back on it, you know, because you see how valuable it is. So you, Lindsay, you do classes. Do you do anything else?
[00:09:33] Lindsey: Right now I'm doing one on one sessions. I'm running classes and now I'm starting a monthly free guided meditation for anyone who wants to join over Zoom. The only limiter being my current Zoom Only allows a hundred people, but on my homepage, you can read about the one on one offerings, the classes, and the be able to just sign up in ten seconds for the upcoming free guided meditation.
[00:10:00] Amy: Perfect. And so I'll make sure that we link all that in the show notes. So if you're listening and you want to sign up for that, do it. It's free. And even if you've never tried meditation before, absolute game changer. It can be tough to get into again, but I the benefits are, you know, again, life changing. They're remarkable. But I guess the reason why I'm sharing this is because if you feel like, oh, I can't meditate, or it feels overwhelming, you know, stick with it slowly, slowly.
[00:10:29] Lindsey: [00:10:30] Yeah, there is this really interesting study I just learned about where they asked a set of men and women if they would rather sit with their thoughts quietly for 15 minutes, meaning kind of inviting and meditation or give themselves an electric shock. And the results were shocking to me. 30 percent of women chose the electric shock, 60 percent of men.
[00:10:52] Chose the electric shock. And when they asked them, why did you choose that over sitting with your thoughts for 15 minutes? They said, it's far easier to just have a moment
[00:11:00] of a painful, shock. Until we do it. Right.
[00:11:04] Amy: I thought those numbers might even be a little higher. Yeah, I, I understand that. I do understand that. I would choose the sitting with my own thoughts, but I've been practicing doing that for years. And again, it's like we said earlier, if it's not something you've ever done before, It is overwhelming and you're gonna learn a lot about yourself and you're gonna go through a lot and that's why it's so great to have someone like yourself on that journey with you because you don't always know what to do or how to react and You know, you might think oh, well .
[00:11:37] I'll just feel these things and then I'll get on with my day, but you don't realize how it sits within you It
[00:11:42] Lindsey: That's exactly right. And that as soon as we begin really practicing this inner awareness of noticing what's happening in my body and my emotions and my energy, that it does become actually quite fun. It's just that first step of getting through the gate it's almost like a scab that we [00:12:00] develop over ourselves, over our inner awareness, because it just feels easier to dance above the pain and not look there until something in our life kind of forces us there.
[00:12:10] And it's usually anxiety and depression are pretty common ones, you know, where we say, there's got to be something else. What, what can I do to alleviate this suffering? The other thing too, is, you know, giving this why I like guided meditation is because if we give our mind just enough to do, then it gets easier to really start feeling, you know, just saying, okay, I'm going to try to turn off my mind or turn off the thoughts.
[00:12:32] It never works. It doesn't work for the most experienced meditators, you know? And so that's the misnomer that I think can catch people trying to start. That really makes it harder.
[00:12:42] Amy: Yeah. I'm just reflecting on my own experience it can be really tough to shut down the thoughts and I can remember asking, what do I do? You know, I'm, I'm meditating and I'm, I'm finally kind of in the groove. And then all these thoughts come rushing in and I think, oh, have I failed? And well, no, it's part of that process, right?
[00:13:04] That's
[00:13:04] Lindsey: exactly right. It's the dance between thought and falling asleep as if we are that thought and then coming back to a space where we notice we just have the thoughts and if we don't engage them and we let them pass by like clouds in the sky, there is no problem, right? Otherwise, we're just asleep, even during our wakeful day in a thought that's remembering the past or anticipating the future.
[00:13:28] And as we notice [00:13:30] this. It's just a part of being human. It's a part of having a body and a brain. We begin to develop a deeper relationship with the present moment by noticing. Yes, the thoughts will want to dance in past and future, but our breath can always anchor us right back here to what's
[00:13:45] real.
[00:13:46] Amy: that's a wonderful way to put it. Yeah, I really like that. Now we focused a little bit on meditation or quite a lot actually on meditation right now, but you've mentioned things, you know, energy healing cognitive behavior, bringing in some of the the, the Western or the science EMDR, which I'm a big fan of. I have another episode on that as well. So if anyone wants to do a deeper dive, take a look, but I'd love for you to explain some of these other modalities. So how are you integrating energy healing, for example?
[00:14:17] Lindsey: . So many of my clients are really into the energetic side, energy healing, looking at themselves as a soul. And there's a whole other set of clients that really aren't as interested in that. And so I want to just make that known that there is no one right path for the people who are into energy work.
[00:14:37] They, most of them found me a long time ago. Well, not a long time ago, but when I started doing this work, I really just called myself an energy reader and healer. And that's how I started my practice 15 years ago. And I utilize meditation as my foundation for going within and doing my best to be this clean slate where then I.
[00:14:59] Essentially, [00:15:00] look at them as an energetic spark of consciousness using constructs to help translate what I see. So I do like using chakras, I do like using past lives sometimes just constructs like a flower as a representation of them. So something that kind of depersonalizes what we might be looking at, that could be a really charged subject, but when we kind of pull it out from us and look at it as a separate construct from ourselves, it makes it easier to kind of hear it and go, Oh, yes.
[00:15:28] So for example, if I were using the construct of reading you as a flower, we could see things like, oh, there's some thorns here and these thorns are scary to other people, and then be able to kind of go into that without it feeling so like you are scary to people.
[00:15:47] We all can be scary to people, right? And so what is this thorn here to teach us?
[00:15:51] Amy: That's a beautiful way to analyze, and again, it's, it's still so relevant, but you're taking something that might be painful or difficult to acknowledge, and you're turning it into this, something beautiful, even if it does have thorns, and then you're able to look at it from the outside instead of almost internalizing it and making it your physical self.
[00:16:14] I really like that.
[00:16:15] Lindsey: . Yeah. Thank you. That's a nice way to look at it. It's decoupling it from our physical self and looking at it as maybe just a temporary experience or behavior that once we look at it with that vulnerability and say, Oh yeah, I [00:16:30] guess I do do that. Then it gives us more space to actually do something about it once we can notice it and look at it from all angles.
[00:16:36] Amy: Yeah, that's beautiful. And I, I want to touch back on your individualized sessions again. You mentioned that It's not a one size fits all approach, which certainly isn't when you're dealing with humans, and So you're talking with the individual examining or kind of investigating what it is they need or why they've come to you and then applying the modalities that, you know, resonate with them or that they're up for trying. And so, you're doing all of this work and as you mentioned, sometimes it's once a week, sometimes it's once a month,
[00:17:11] so, how long are the sessions?
[00:17:14] The work is broad , you have to tread slowly when you're dealing with people and emotions and you know, anything really. So how long do the sessions tend to be and what do you find people are coming to you for?
[00:17:28] Lindsey: Most of my sessions are 55 minutes. On occasion there will be periods of time or things that we're working on where I say, , you know, an hour and a half, or even two hours might suit us better. And so, if, and when that longer time frame suits someone better, we will do that.
[00:17:43] But usually about an hour is ample. And then what was the second question?
[00:17:48] Amy: What are people coming to you for? What do you tend to see walk through your door?
[00:17:52] Lindsey: I would say it's so broad, but anxiety and depression are two really rampant [00:18:00] things right now. And then all of these other symptoms that can fall out of it of like apathy, you know, so if someone isn't experiencing acute panic attacks or anxiety or depression, they might notice, you know, I used to feel good.
[00:18:14] I used to really like these aspects of my life. And now something feels off. What is that? So something just shifting in them where to me, it's often noticing from a more consciousness level that they're just ready for more. They're ready to not be stuck in this mundane head down, do the life, get the things done.
[00:18:34] They're ready to kind of take this. Big step back and have a broader perspective of having more of that meaning in them in their life. More purpose for why they're doing the things they're doing. That's probably the most general, swath of why people might be drawn to, to book a session or join a class.
[00:18:52] Amy: yeah, open to exploration, I suppose, of what more is there within oneself, and how can I See the world or interact with the world in a different way because all of that does change when you're, first of all, feeling relief from anxiety and depression. That's huge to just be able to go outside the door and be happy and content and not worry so much.
[00:19:15] And that in itself is, again, a huge, huge change in the way you interact with everything around you.
[00:19:24] I'm curious if your noticing that your clients are [00:19:30] mentioning, a reduction in pain, or a decrease in illness, , or being able to reduce their medications or anything of that sort, anything physical.
[00:19:40] Lindsey: Yeah, for sure. And when it comes to medication of course I say, ask your doctor and work with them. I have recently though had a number of three different clients in the past couple of months decide to begin stepping off of a medication for some of these for anxiety or depression and are doing wonderfully and are feeling deeply.
[00:20:00] Now, do I see that as the end goal? No, but, you know, I do often see how when someone is able to then wean away from some of those types of drugs, they can feel more deeply, they can feel more themself when they're ready in the right time and working with other medical experts. So that is one that's, , definitely in play as far as physical pain goes.
[00:20:21] Yes. The number one symptom that I've noticed people saying, wow, this is so much better is really headaches and migraines.
[00:20:27] As we're moving into more of the mindfulness of noticing, Oh, my breath, you know, just noticing behavioral patterns that do physiologically lead to distress in our body. Which by the way, anxiety is a part of the distress of feeling kind of spun out, having shallow breath getting kind of.
[00:20:49] Lindsey: Swirled into the thoughts that are just circling on stressful things. So even just the act of knowing our breath and getting to know ourselves through that mindfulness lens that says, what am I up to right [00:21:00] now? Could I take a breath and refocus my thought on something that helps me? It's something that feels soothing right now.
[00:21:06] That I think is a big part of the alleviation of headaches and migraine patterns.
[00:21:11] Amy: If I could just touch on the relief from headaches and migraines. Even becoming more self aware. Becoming more in touch with your inner consciousness, understanding what your emotions are and how you can then manage them.
[00:21:27] That's, that stress relief alone is enough to potentially lessen headaches, and again, you mentioned the breathing, if you've got this understanding of your emotions and you, you take on that breath work, even if it's just as simple as like you said, deepening the breath. Oh my gosh. You know that.
[00:21:45] Must be a huge relief for people who suffer from migraines. And again, it's not the only cause, you know, there are many reasons why somebody may be receiving migraines and it could be a symptom of a physical illness. Oftentimes, as you said, it's getting in touch with oneself, learning the meditation tricks, and just working through it.
[00:22:06] Lindsey: Exactly. Noticing how pain leaves us when it's done teaching us, but it teaches us most efficiently when we look there, right? Like the pain and the fear is like asking us, look here. And so when we look there, ideally from a lot of different layers, you know, from the everyday layers all the way into the more spiritual and attunement layers, we learn from it.
[00:22:27] And it's not always things that we can write down. [00:22:30] It's not always line items. But it's this deeper experience that says, what maybe have I been contracting away from that? If I just give myself some space and time to be with it without resisting it, how might this shift and pain, you know, is an incredible teacher and it can be alleviated through these more holistic techniques.
[00:22:50] Amy: Yeah, it can be if I can use the analogy of peeling back the layers of an onion, it doesn't happen overnight and it can be a slow process and it tends to need to be a slow process so that we can handle it so that we can work through it and truly get the benefits. You know, it's, it's not always just ripping off that bandaid and.
[00:23:11] One session, I'm, I'm fixed. It's just working through all those many layers that us humans are made up of.
[00:23:17] Lindsey: that's exactly right.
[00:23:18] Amy: So if I could touch back We talked about some of the modalities, and I love that, you have a broad range of those so that you can really get down to the individualization of each person. So those are your Individual sessions. What are your classes? What do these classes look like?
[00:23:36] I guess they're group sessions? ,
[00:23:37] Lindsey: The group sessions. Yeah. And I love them so much. I my classes are where it's a mix of group guided meditation where within the meditation, I'm teaching them experientially intuitive energy healing techniques and how for example, one of, I use a lot of nature symbols. And so one of the core things that I use to help people [00:24:00] ground
[00:24:00] and begin their meditation in really any class is using roots and seeing and feeling into this energetic connection that to me is always present between us and our body and our body and the earth and using the energy of these roots to feel them and get to know them and feel held by them to help us be more present and have a way to just release to the earth what we're ready to let go of you know and so that's one of just so many different techniques that I teach as we're looking at different topics.
[00:24:29] To A, make it easier for people to create a little bit of space between them and their thoughts, and then B, really begin to have this lived experience of them healing themselves. You know, them recognizing that there's so much more to this world and our experience than what meets the eye, and getting to know this energetic relationship we have to things, to our body, to the world around us.
[00:24:53] Is really powerful. And so each class has a different topic. My upcoming one that I'm so excited for and I can't believe it's still so many weeks away, I, I should have booked it sooner, but it's on Saturday, February 10th, and it's on the topic of accelerate your spiritual awakening. . This is something that I'm seeing just everywhere around me and so many people right now where people are going, Oh my gosh, you know, I, I feel these moments or these days of so much more joy and so much more of the sense of something within me that maybe I don't even have words for.
[00:25:24] And then I have days where it's really hard and really bad again, you know, and it's this [00:25:30] kind of flip flopping back and forth and why I decided to focus this upcoming class on this topic. Is because when we get quiet enough and look at this space from a few different angles, we're gonna have a journaling component to it helps us get to know what for us individually has blocked us from thinking that we can have more peace and joy in our life.
[00:25:52] Right. It's like so normed that, Oh, life is stressful and hard. And then we die. And I'm like, no, life does not have to be that way. One of the metaphors I use is how, when we're waking up spiritually, which I do think is happening all around the world. And for all, all people, it feels like when our limb falls asleep at night.
[00:26:12] And so when our limb is asleep, we think everything's fine. And then it starts waking up and it starts getting uncomfortable. And we think intuitively we think, Oh God, something's getting worse. Something's wrong here. Right. But the sense of it getting worse or feeling wrong, like anxiety or depression is really just more awareness, more consciousness flooding into what had been numb.
[00:26:32] It's indicating we're ready for something more. And so as the wakes up, you know, It's a journey and it is uncomfortable, but it's so well worth it because then once we get to the point where we really understand what has been at play and what we're ready for life itself is just, has so much more meaning and joy in it.
[00:26:51] So that's the topic of Saturday, February 10th Accelerate Your Spiritual Awakening. We'll be using a few different energy techniques in our [00:27:00] meditation and again, a little journaling component, but Each month I focus on a different topic, and it is one of my truest joys to teach these classes.
[00:27:09] Amy: It must be just so wonderful to sit in that space with a group of people, not only as a facilitator, but as the participant. You know, you're surrounded by these people and you, you may not have gone with a friend, you may have come alone but you're joined by these people who are looking to enter the same type , maybe not the same, but the same type of journey that you're looking for.
[00:27:31] And I imagine the support that. comes with that is just amazing
[00:27:36] Lindsey: Yeah, I hope that people experience it that way. That's what I'm trying to offer. Yeah.
[00:27:41] Amy: that's how I would imagine it. And I like the you know, you're talking about your arm waking up because it's very uncomfortable when something falls asleep and you just want it to be over. I know I do anyway, because it's not nice, but you don't have any choice but to wait and wait for the body to wake up.
[00:27:57] That limb and it's great the how you've compared that with waking up and embracing spirituality Because it can be hard and there does become a point where it's uncomfortable and it lasts and you have a choice at that point Shut it down. Don't go there, step out of that journey, which I don't recommend But that's one of your options , or sit with it, be uncomfortable, know that it will pass, but it, it takes the work and it takes some time and you know, it [00:28:30] takes discomfort really to, to bring change, doesn't it?
[00:28:33] If we look at any aspect of our life, we're not we're not making big changes by staying in our comfort zones.
[00:28:38] Lindsey: That's exactly right. . That's a good way to look at it.
[00:28:41] Amy: Lindsay, I really But I'm loving the work that you're doing. I think it's incredibly, not only is it interesting, but beneficial. I would imagine that you're helping a whole lot of people and I hope that you continue to help many, many more. I want to invite again, anyone listening to please look at
[00:29:00] the monthly Zoom meditations. Even as a start, just to kind of get your feet wet, . Absolutely reach out, look at the classes or the individual sessions that Lindsay has on offer. And I want to remind you that I'll put the links to all of this in the show notes so that you've got direct access and you can always ask me as well if you're a little bit more comfortable doing that and I will send the message on to Lindsay.
[00:29:26] Lindsay, thank you so much for sharing with us today. I really appreciate having you on the show. It's been wonderful.
[00:29:31] Lindsey: It was such a joy to be here. Thank you so much for having me. The Holistic Health Show