Wise Woman Summit | Patricia Lohan

In this interview I did with Patricia Lohan we talk about energy healing, mindfulness and meditation as part the 2016 Patricia's Wise Woman Summit. This chat will provide us some great insights into the correlation between mindfulness and self-confidence.

Transcript

So welcome everybody back to the Wise Woman Summit.

My name is Patricia Logan and I'm your host and I am here with the fabulous Abbie Nguyen.

I am delighted to have Abbie here.

Abbie,

I have crossed paths many times in Dublin in the mind-body-spirit scene and you know we've definitely interacted a lot.

I've seen her like flourish before my eyes over the last few years since I first moved to Dublin and she's doing amazing things and I'm so grateful that you're here and that you're sharing your time with us to spread some more of your wisdom and yeah so Abbie I'm gonna just pass you over to you to explain what exactly you do and the kind of people you work with and also and then you have the title that you wanted to talk about was Survival Guide for Healers so I'm really looking forward to hearing your insights.

I said well not everyone considers themselves healers and she's like well everyone is and I totally agree so I'm looking forward to hearing your insights.

So over to you Abbie.

Oh thank you for having me it's so great to be here and you know when I got my contract with Hey House my dream comes true.

First thing I thought of right right I really have to put my roots down in Ireland.

Ireland's my home this is where I'm from.

You can't make it at home you can't make it anywhere else.

So it's great you asked me and I love these Irish initiatives and things that are going on.

Well what do I do and all of that wow it's different for every time it comes out of my mouth.

You know when I was starting off and networking and here's my card I'm like oh how do I actually took a whole summer out just to figure out how to say what I wanted to say and it still wasn't right.

So I suppose the closest thing I could say now is I'm a psychotherapist I'm a shamanic practitioner I'm a Reiki master teacher I also say chem master teacher and we're not made of separate pieces we're not and people do all the mind work we live in the mind all the time but it just doesn't gel together with the rest of us so I bring in the shamanism bring in the Reiki and consolidate go deep deep down into the subconscious and look for those limiting beliefs.

Somebody actually wrote me a message yesterday and said 99% of our thinking is from the subconscious and I'm like no we don't actually think we just are.

What I do is say right what is your thinking and it's almost like me and the client we hold hands and go right let's go deep down and see does it match what you're carrying and usually when we get there there's heaviness there's sadness there's grief it might not even be theirs and then we can go around sometimes I have them visualizing a landscape we go around smashing rocks planting flowers you know and then they come out of that and they feel that something in them fundamentally has changed and the reason yes we all are healers because we all can do this for ourselves we just don't know how we just don't know how so in my quest to figure all this out you know I went through the phase of buying all the self-help books there's nothing in here for me I'd find one or two things and I'd say oh that was a good book so I kind of thought well I want to be the person that I needed back then I'm sure there's a whole cohort of people who then need me now which is such a wonderful thing and I know already because of my following on social media is just massive very overwhelming in fact and my big book that the piece he's my masterpiece up to this point and I can't say you know that it's gonna be for the rest because I know there's more there's always more comes out next spring and it's called how to be well and the thing that shocked me the most Patricia was I looked you know you do you look it up on the internet does anybody else have the same title as me nobody has written a book called how to be well there's one recent one called how to feel better but it's not promising you how to be well I'm thinking okay am I being like a brazen the hussy out here standing up and saying but I'm just saying we all have the capacity to heal ourselves this is how you do it and it's totally either you do it or you don't do it but you don't give it to someone else and get them to do it for you so I'm thinking the survival guide for healers was what came up when I was thinking of a title for today well because it's a survival guide for living really but if you call it that then it's it's too big of a piece underneath so is there anything I left out or anything you think I should elaborate on more no not at all yeah I totally understand where you're coming from that like we I think we all have gone through those phases of reading all those books and buying everything and going oh that wouldn't know that yes then everything else cool and that and when we do go in and we do have a choice and I love that where you were like you have a choice whether to do it or not and whether that being well I love it so it congratulations on your book I can't wait to read it and just be found the bookshelves like what an amazing vision to have and to really bring it forth into the world that you'd be so creativity now the survival guide for healers well I suppose for us all what would you say would be like two people that come into you what would be the tips or for the women here or the man that could be tuning in for anybody listening anybody and even though we might be the wise women I'm really very strongly let's welcome the men into the circle yeah you know I'm to connect to the soul inside the body as well as the body work you know as you were talking there I saw the framework behind my book basically I worked in adult education literacy I was a course designer for IT and you have to have a here's the theory here's the context here's the practice here's the theory here's the context here's the practice and so everything I do I give you a practice and the survival guide for anybody listening really is to know that if you have a practice of coming in words every day you have more energy when you go out do you know and it's really that's the basis of the fundamental nugget is what are you investing your energy in that's a waste of investment if your energy was like money you wouldn't be handing it out on the street to anyone that was asking you and yet are you doing that with your energy you know yes and the problem with those of us who are natural healers okay some of us are natural accountants some of us aren't but we all have the ability to heal up to a point and then some of us are healers for everybody else if you know what I mean so the difference is you know coming inwards and going right do I value myself enough to be able to say no to giving my energy away willy-nilly does that make sense yeah so as well as the fundamental piece of what am I investing my energy and outside of me that's taking me away from my life for want of a better word then do I value my life enough to invest in my own life and I truly believe my success my success in practice is because I don't see clients every day because Michael you know clients ring me up I need to see you now and I'm like well my next appointment is in two weeks time because I'm booked out because I look after me and I value my time to look after me and then I'm fully present for my clients so I've had to renegotiate with myself where do I fit in and there are people out there who will pick you up off the ground give you a band-aid if that's what you need and they're there go to them if you want to do deep work then come to me so I've had this value what I'm doing to say I'll miss the business of the people with the broken legs and the fallen knees in the car crash but they're not my clients do you know what I mean mm-hmm so to be able to value who you are and see where you fit in the world is also really helpful and then saying well what am I investing in and why am I investing in it does that make sense yeah for sure and the I love that connection with the you know if your energy was money then where are you putting it because it's a really interesting way because you like well they're not going to be like fluttering it away all the time they'd be a lot more mindful of it and then how do you not even like make your money but actually how do you fill that cup energetically for yourself so that you can give you know it is about filling that cup and having it overflowing well I'm listening to a new guy this is another way I fill my cup I like to listen to people and hear what they're full on either now I don't go with that or oh that's very interesting it's the same thing I guess of the books so this guy his name is T Harv Ecker I don't know if you've heard of him and he's doing the the secrets of the millionaire mindset right and so far it's like oh my god it's just so American and he's getting everyone to go true or true true and it's like oh but he said there's so many ways to invest your money so you guys listen to this when money is energy right so us rich people have more money than time so you come to me you tell me about a great deal I am very interested in a great deal but making the great deal means going to auctions picking the houses out which one is this which one is that I'll just write you a check and you go to the auction and you go to the house and I'll just sit here and reap the benefits through the rewards of that because I have more money than time that's a millionaire mindset and we're going to become our own millionaires of our spiritual essence of our soul essence of our energy we have to start treating it like money it's amazing really when we think of it we were afraid to ask for money but we're afraid to give ourselves the value so if we don't feel of value we're never going to get the match of that in the world around us so even anyone who's listening to this now you might like to just take a minute to just think well am I investing so much of myself in the future in something that hasn't happened yet worrying about that and what actually is the cost of doing that and can you just by imagining your energy investment as little hooks in the future can you imagine unhooking that and it's just coming back to you right now and some of you might already be feeling a bit more substance here you know I'm sure this has happened with you Patricia I get people come to me all the time what's my sole purpose and I'm like well are you present in your life what does that mean how do you know what lights you up if you're not even here so another survival tip is to know yourself and when you're you know so being present and then starting to know yourself so I'm hoping this is making sense yeah I don't have like a top five tips I said yeah it's just a flow yeah yeah and with the I loved how you talked about a practice to go within and like obviously one of those main ones would be meditation or perhaps yoga so what other well even talk even touch on those as as tools how you know people would find it difficult sometimes to sit and just like meditate and I know that there's many different types of practices under the whole meditation oh my gosh yeah I get people coming in I meditate really what do you do oh well I I don't know I developed raise your vibration boot camp so it's an online class and I do it twice or three times a year depending on on what I'm up to and it's a 21 day class so for 21 days I send an email to my participants with a task to do to help them create their own practice and I throw everyone into a private group on Facebook and they can all talk to each other and then I leave the group open because the whole theory is right if you can do something for 30 days you've got a new habit so I give you 21 different things and you can go oh I really like this thing I didn't like that one so much but the whole point of it is to take the moment in the day doesn't matter what you do you know I even have people take your cup of tea or your glass of water and just pull yourself out of all of your investments and you know you can even imagine the light coming into the water and the water is going to heal me but the whole point is disconnect from what's outside you and reconnect to you that's the whole piece and it's really interesting I'm reading a book at the moment about prayer and apparently Jesus says something like don't quote me on this first go to the kingdom of God before you do anything go to the kingdom of God well if God is within us before you do anything inside and that's the practice and the thing I find is that you can't just do this for 20 minutes in the morning it has to become a way of life that you're always pulling yourself back that you're all and when you get that as a habit as a technique then you can incorporate the 20 minutes meditation in the day or you can do a yoga class I'm sure you're aware of this where you're completely not present yeah and you're off with the shopping or you're off with whatever is going on in your life or with your clients or something and the math is just but even if you're present for four minutes or five minutes the difference is phenomenal yeah so so truly if we start valuing the richness of our existence the way you would value diamonds appearing in my gosh this is so great I don't want to spend these I'm not just gonna give them away to everybody actually I just how you were talking about that I remember a gentleman at a at a business work that workshop I was doing came up and he said you do meditation I said oh yes yes how how do I meditate and I said to him you know just sit quietly set an alarm on your phone for one minute and just sit quietly for that one minute and just listen to your breath okay I can do that so the following week he came back and he said I did it every day for one minute I said great now top it up to two minutes a week you did two minutes every day and I like by the I think it was like we were doing a seven-week program by the time week six or something came along he said I did seven minutes and the alarm stopped at five and it flew like it's gone so fast yeah because you don't want to feel like I have to put this pressure on yourself to want to do it it's much more like a little bit of the time and just like you saying it's quite a fear it has to be part of your entire day or actually like it can be a huge segment of that 20 minutes but I love how you talked about the whole practice and I think that every day is a is a journey into a space of being able to be mindful and present in it and the end hey I just lost my train of thought there cuz I told that oh no you're grand no no as you're talking it's like something else coming up for me you can be contained in yourself and then whatever happens is gonna happen but there's more of you present to deal with it like what a lot of people suffering anxiety panic attacks and everything I think recently because we're all connected to each other okay and recently there's been a lot of terror and pain and fear and there's been earthquakes and there's been things all around the world and it's as if there's a pool of consciousness that we're all tapping into as well as our own subconscious and so when you pick up fear and pain and panic and anxiety you're gonna feel it and so you can manage it better when you know yourself better and you can say okay I really have dealt with this so maybe it's not my panic the first thing that I'm gonna do when I feel panic is I'm gonna come back into myself and then I do a grounding technique where you connect to the ground the idea if you're the lighthouse shining the light and the wave comes and knocks you over and you don't have good roots in the ground you know it's not gonna work so the first thing you do is connect into your roots connect into the ground you can imagine your feet are going through the building through the concrete right down in you know and I have people who like that's not strong enough so okay imagine the biggest rock you've ever seen under the ground and you wrap yourself around that but then you come back up to you when you've done that and this is all in my book how to do this and you realize how small you are so we're not living at our full size we're not living in our true potential but by feeling the connection to the biggest rock in the world under this under the ground it feels safer to get big so then you get bigger and then suddenly the problems are smaller because there's more of us here to deal with us you know and you get people who are nervous about flying or nervous about interviews or this conflict in relationships you know when you get smaller and smaller and smaller it is the equivalent of being powerless it's equivalent of being poor it's coming from a space of like most of the people out there oh I don't have this and I don't have this it's because they're small in their lives and they're small in the world so if you get bigger in the world then you have more energy and more capacity to make better decisions yeah and it does come from that being rooted and grounded and present in yourself I love that connection with that that you know what often do is that they roots into the ground wrapping around that big rock that you do feel so much more confident and firmer and like just yeah that's strength and that inner strength then comes in to be able to speak your truth around you and to see those obstacles and go oh okay well in the past I might have like shirked away from it and being afraid but now I'm like oh I can speak up because I know that I'm pretty firm with this you can and you also realize when you realize how small you are without judging that it's fascinating because then you can actually make more space in your life for you and so that's when you realize when you're saying yes to too many things mm-hmm because that's when you start to value what you're made of so I suppose ironically the more you value yourself the more of you is present the more you're contained but it's also you know the difference between working really really hard and not getting anywhere I'm making a calculated decision based on how you feel and your instinct and having it work straightaway you know it's like being in the flow and there's so many people have you know I'm sure you're aware of this that we do enough trouble to our own selves we cause enough trouble but then there are people who cause us trouble as well so it's always good then to ask for help so I mean another survival tip for anybody particularly for healers but for anyone is to know that it's okay to get help that you're not going to be able to do this on your own and that not everybody is going to want to go to the same person for help either because we're all different mm-hmm yeah and you know I definitely believe that you know no matter whether as healers and working with people and helping them come into alignment we have to stay in alignment and it is a really important to realize there's something there's a thing I've been just like working on a thing here I'm on my lower back and I'm like you know what I have me able to ship this so I think I'm just seeing someone for it because I really want to I just know that I can really it's not in my power at the moment to just be like okay I just need to and that's where you can I go all right and look around and see the health but I also love what you said about the people who can take away from us and who really that it's about being very mindful around the people that we surround ourselves with like really really important I think that will be a huge step that can go to the other extreme I mean I got I got an email from one of my clients who was in great difficulties around her and it was I think the weather has important sorry I just missed pretty much the last like two minutes you said you got the email from your client the internet just went all like okay so so my back now yeah yes yeah okay so I got the email and so I said to her if you believe that your sister is bad for you that she is what's the contaminating your energy that she's making you this and making you that well then that's what you're offering up to the world and that's what you're saying to her that you're allowed to do this to me whereas if you decide I can be in the presence of someone that doesn't understand me without being hurt by it then you get stronger that way but you have to be the one to take responsibility and make that decision it's not an easy choice it's not when it's like you're responsible for what you do you are the one that's on the street giving away your energy like sweets you're the one doing that so just noticing I mean I've said this a few times now in this interview just notice are you actually doing that you know stop and then it's it's about delivery it's like how can I speak my truth how can I say I don't want to talk about this anymore you know I have another client who was sitting at a table for the women now women are great but women can be incredibly jealous at the same time and they all start giving out about this guy so she said well I actually like him and I'm not gonna change my mind about him and you can say whatever you want I'm out of this conversation the women I'm sure you could imagine this Patricia the women immediately turned on her because how dare she accused them so how do we hold ourselves in that situation because we can't eliminate all negative people people because people drift in and out you know it's like the economy it goes up it goes down people are negative it depends on where they are you know that you but you can hold your ground when you know what your ground is and then you don't take it personally so they all turned on her you could say well maybe they've never heard that type of speak before maybe they needed a kick up the other yeah I don't know but if they are immature enough to hold a grudge against this woman forever because of one thing that she said well then they're not the right people for her definitely so I mean in the Kabbalah it says that gossip is just as bad a crime as murder and so by being aware of what we're saying or speaking what would you know what we're engaging with and these can actually pull more of our investment in what we get exactly and there's that there's what we're speaking with the gossip and then I think that you know what we're what you said that I think was a very beginning regarding our thoughts and like what we're actually saying to ourselves that we're very hard on ourselves whether it's like dispersing our energy to everyone else and just like giving away like sweets in the street but also that like in here this meanie the meanie meanie pants inside meanie whoever that mean girl or whoever it is that's inside that it's being mindful of what we're putting out but also what we're regurgitating in here well that's it I mean and a lot of these big spiritual teachers say get rid of the ego and I say no I say the ego is fundamental to who we are we can't function without it you don't get rid of it you make friends with us this and if it's your best friend you have a friend forever you know and if it'll be the one that says oh you made a mistake let's take the learning don't feel bad about it it can just as easily say that I say oh you're an idiot because you made a mistake you have to train it in so untraining it is hard but that's where the practice comes in every day where you become more aware of what you're saying what you're thinking what you're doing and then you can catch it and go no I don't really mean that and if you can't change that yourself that's where you go to somebody where you can go into the subconscious pull out what you're really believing and tear it apart and get rid of it or transform or change it so that you do believe you're in you know you are good at something and that you're allowed to be good at something and you're allowed to be happy when people around you aren't happy and that you're not the person who cleans up the mess after everybody all the time and that you deserve people to clean up you know for you too and it's equal and you start to value yourself so we're back to valuing value yeah which is that essential you know even with the work I do with the women and they it's about that oh you know this is actually one of the things that's come in through this wise woman summit is that you are worthy and you're enough and it's about like filling up that enough ness that valuing you as an amazing person and you know whether it's coming to someone like Abby or whoever anybody on the summit that to clear those limiting beliefs and that kind of because sometimes we don't even realize we have it inside of us not we were saying the break we just don't yeah it is and I'm wondering then is it because we keep giving it away that you don't feel like we're enough because our investment is outside of us and we're not enough in that organization where we invest in the future invest in our fears invest in other people's ideas of the fears invest in ideals that will never exist you know what I mean by that you know like this is the way life should be it's never gonna be that way but you pour so much into that that you aren't enough because it's all out there but when you bring it back in then you are then you can really embrace that because from all the people that have met it's the people who feel they are enough are the ones who don't invest in fear or the future who are giving so much of themselves outside of themselves that's an interesting way to look at it because you know I can say I am enough if you don't believe it maybe it's because you're not fully present to yourself yeah so I think that this you know coming into presence has been really the underlying fundamental of that survival guide for years is taking that time out of your day for whether it is starting like that one guy who I spoke to you like taking one minute and then one minute is better than no no exactly and then if you can start to work it up and coming into that presence and that groundedness and and you'll certainly start to create that foundation and strengthen that value for yourself and valuing your time and so Abby would you have like any other little tip that you'd like to share in your survival guide or survival tip I was just making me think of them as a psychotherapist you have to go to a supervisor for every 10 sessions that you do and supervision my supervisor calls it super vision because she's looking down at what I was doing and she gives a third-party view so for genuine for healers that are in business that are seeing clients other traditions I don't know acupuncture reflex there are no supervisors required because it's not state-legislated or even self-regulated so I do believe that for you to keep an eye on you to feel supported if something should come up that everybody should have a mentor or a supervisor or a spiritual director as Carolyn miss call somebody that you know that is of service to you because if you are of service to everybody else you need somewhere where you can completely go oh this happened this happened rah rah rah rah get it all out there then they give you a different perspective and then you leave with that feeling of yes I did my best and I know where I'm going and I know how to do that you know I want a woman like Carolyn miss says that she has a spiritual director and she's seen him two hours a week for 15 years and she's continuing to do this and she's for me she's a top of her game you can never be high enough to not need one one do you know you you always need to have somebody teaching you things or being there for you so that's that's something that that that that would be good as well for people yeah totally and I know that just even for my own experience that in the fields that I've worked that I've trained in there isn't particularly that and that that isn't that system that you have to have someone to go to but I have found that I've ended up like minding someone by default because you just need that like you know who who looks after the healer he's like watching and he's that support for the healer and I do find even even if it's a barter it's not the same no because sometimes your boundaries get blurry and it's like well hang on it's my session but I'm helping you whereas if it's someone that you go to it's clean that you pay them and you're there and it's your time however that looks or whatever that might be then you leave feeling that you received because life is about giving and receiving and if we don't receive then we're not very good at what we're you know we're waiting for thank yous all the time it's like that making the food for everybody pouring on the table and then you don't eat and then you start resenting them because they're not hungry and you're starving you know oh my god yes so true so brilliant I love it I love that I love that like final comment and to really get into a space of like that we we do have to just come into our own bodies and be present and look after ourselves like fill up that cup in whatever way because I know for sure that you know for some people the work that you do is gonna be like oh yeah this is what I really want but also there's so many different modalities and that's where we're all different people and we will like be drawn or led to whatever that is and to acknowledge that and that there is because we're different there's all different things there's different modalities so whatever you're drawn to is the one that's going to like help you absolutely but the most important thing for everybody is to know that if it doesn't feel safe and it doesn't feel right then it isn't yeah just give your power to someone because they're the one who you're paying and if you feel this isn't the one for me then stop and that's really really important to also say in fact I wrote a whole appendix to the end of my first book and I've requested that it goes into my second book how to find a good therapist and I've split it up into body workers and psychotherapists and questions to ask a reiki master based on their responses to you asking the questions if they're confident and strong and good you know yeah that's the person for me but if you as the client don't ask the questions and you just turned your power over that can be dangerous so I'm all for educating everybody educating everyone yeah and saying no saying no yeah exactly and holding on to your power so well thank you so much Abby for having giving the time to share with us because you know it's my valuable time I know for sure that everybody listening will definitely have had a few little mini aha moments during it and I think that's what this is all about is just those little moments of awakening and it will then about oh I'm gonna my energy away like candy on the street start bringing that sweets back in and nourishing yourself and thank you I'm knowing that they're diamonds and knowing sweet worth more than that yes exactly exactly so and yeah turning the sweets into diamonds I love it and and so that's well thank you if first of all I'm so grateful for everybody who's watching this interview today with Abby and as part of the wise woman's summit we've had amazing speakers on already and loads more to come I promise you that you will be just having aha moments and inspirational and transformational thoughts and you know hopefully taking action on some of the insights that you have heard today and also over the whole summit so if you've enjoyed it please share this wise woman someone with any women or men that you think could be interested in Abby's wisdom or all of the amazing women that are part of the summit thank you again and we'll see you on the next summit the next video bye for now

Reviews

Thank you sweet siblings! This is the day she rises...Deepest gratitude💛💚💙💜
Boundless love,light and blessings..
Namaste
🙏⭕🙏

Really interesting talk. Thank you beautiful ladies 💜x

Thank you! That was so inspirational! Beautiful ❤️😘🙏

Really good thanks so much ✨