Tekla's incredibly talented podcast producer and friend, Carin Huebner, joins Be Rooted today to share her stories and her journey of healing. There is a lot of reflecting on the past and growing up in the grind culture, how it affects mental, physical and spiritual health. Carin also shares her journey with healing religious trauma, and her wisdom from being a spiritual director for 8 years. Listen with the amusement and laughter that Carin brings to the conversation, and how an open mind to different ways of healing can bring even more healing!

Specifically they discuss:

• You don't know what you don't know- growing up as a teenager with physical pain, and when Western medicine is all you know, and when not exposed to other modalities, you just listen to the authority.
• Carin's experience of listening to the authority (doctors, pastors, Jesus, God) and how she learned to unlearn this way of being and learned to listen to her own body and intuition.
• The journey of learning that what we put into our body (pizza rolls, bagels and sugar) can really affect the physical and mental bodies.
• How Carin has healed her body when the doctors told her teenage self "there is nothing we can do".
• Carin shares some eye-opening stories about religious trauma and abuse, and the fear that it can bring up, and how it can engrain thoughts and ideas about healing, and Carin's healing journey and deconstruction.
• The neti-pot: how it can be a gateway drug to alternative and holistic ways of healing. :)
• Opening up and letting go of fear around energy healing modalities and realizing that there are a lot out there beyond Reiki! Specifically how acupuncture opened up both Carin and Tekla's eyes to energy and it is all connected and it is all energy.
• Carin's journey with Reiki- how it was for her weird friends but not her, and then how powerful it was for her, and her journey learning Reiki in Tekla's Be Rooted program.
• Carin's takeaways from receiving and learning the practice of Reiki, and how it is so connected to many parts of her healing journey- and how it is now a daily practice and part of her life.
• Ancestral healing and how Reiki and other healing modalities helps with this.
• You can heal your mind/body/spirit if you were pumped up with antibiotics and even if you took Accutane! Tekla and Carin share their stories here!

Tekla is grateful to have Carin as her podcast producer and highly recommends scheduling a call with her if you are at all interested in podcasting. Tekla would not be doing this without Carin's expertise and support. Carin is also an amazing artist, creator, and guide. Check out her websites about art, podcasting, and coaching here:

Website: https://www.carinhuebner.com/

Art Website: https://www.carinhuebner.art/

Instagram: @carinhuebner

CW: religious trauma and spiritual abuse

Dr. G (Dr. Giavanni Washington) joins Tekla to share her wisdom and knowledge, and her process of creating The Black Goddess Within Oracle Deck. Dr. G is on an ancestral mission to make the world safer for Black bodied people, and she is doing it through building community, her oracle deck, educating others, and one-on-one ancestral healing sessions. Listen to learn about her Oracle deck as we discuss:

• The power of using oracle decks and how they can be a guiding message in life- to validate what is happening or invite a new perspective.
• When Dr. G was not seeing Black bodies and Black goddesses in oracle decks, she decided to make her own- how she did this and the work it took.
• The research Dr. G did to learn about the goddesses, and how she used her academic expertise to sift through the (white-dominated and racist) opinions of the history and stories of the goddesses.
• To begin the interview, Tekla pulls a card from the deck and they discuss what it means to each of them. Get a glimpse of this beautiful deck through their conversation and how they interpret the card.
• Dr. G is a teacher, and she shares her passion for educating about the roots of racism and especially Black bodies. They discuss the unique course Dr. G created, Liberated Bodies, and how the course showed up different for allies and for Black women who took the class.
• The importance of affinity spaces and spaces that are of mixed cultural bodies, and Tekla's experience being Dr. G's student in Liberated Bodies for Allies (and why she hopes it is offered again- it is a powerful class!)
• Tekla shares a vulnerable realization she had in Dr. G's class about her own white fragility, and how it does not serve, and how she continues to work through releasing the story that keeps her from action.
• They talk the history of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and some of the misconceptions many Americans may have about it, and why it is important to unlearn and re-learn history.
• Ancestral healing and how The Black Goddess Within Oracle Deck supports this, for all bodies, not just Black bodies. (Tekla loves the deck and uses it regularly).
• Creating and leading community and being an entrepreneur can be lonely- and where Dr. G & Tekla have found support around this.
• Learn about Dr. G's one-on-one Ancestral Alchemy healing sessions and how she is honoring her ancestry by the work she shares with the world.
• Tekla will have Dr. G return after her Ancestral Alchemy 1:1 session. Stay tuned!

More about Dr. G and how to connect:

Called to the medicine of ancestral restoration, Dr. Giavanni creates healing opportunities to reconnect with lost histories and ignite hidden ancestral wisdom. Dedicated to amplifying Black Beauty, reconnecting to the deep roots of Black Divinity and encouraging the full expression of Black Joy, Dr Giavanni Washington's latest creative endeavor is the Black Goddess Within Oracle Deck. Dr G, as she is affectionately known, is an intuitive healer, mother, speaker and spiritual guide who holds a doctorate from UCLA’s department of World Arts and Cultures and was recently selected for the California Creative Corps Artist and Culture Bearer Fellowship by the California Arts Council.

Website: https://blackgoddesswithin.com

IG/TT: blackgoddesswithin@gmail.com

Learn all about The Black Goddess Within Oracle Deck here- you can even pull a card virtually on the website! Check it out, it is very cool- https://www.drgiavanniwashington.com/deck

Cynthia Taylor is in her second phase of life, with her grown children and husband supporting her as she is the new business owner of South Coast Organics & Bulk Foods in Wakefield, RI. She shares her journey of being a Child Life Specialist, while finding her own healing journey through the Applied Healing Arts program at the Tai Sophia Institute. She was Tekla's accountability buddy in graduate school and they share stories of learning how to be a healing presence. You can feel Cynthia's healing presence by listening to this conversation- be inspired by her experiences and storytelling as they discuss:

• What do you "do" to be a healing presence? What practices are important to continue?
• The ripple effect of Cynthia's own healing journey with her family and her job as a Child Life Specialist.
• Cynthia's experience of bringing in mindfulness practices to one of the biggest children's hospitals in the country, and how powerful small changes can be for the children as well as the doctors and nurses caring for them.
• Why it was so exhausting to bring in new mindful ways of being (presence) into the business setting that is the hospital system.
• How presence is healing for others- Cynthia's experience of being a healing presence, from working with children to now being a business owner and community builder in her small town in Rhode Island.
• The importance of being in the season of winter and being in the unknown, and how it can be uncomfortable, yet so rewarding if you allow for the presence in the winter seasons of life.
• How being in the winter can blossom into a spring that is more than you may ever dream and how Cynthia fell in love with the herbs of the earth and how she is sharing them with her community.
• The power of practices like Qi Gong and yoga for grounding and being in the unknown or challenging times that life brings.

More about Cynthia:

Cynthia blessed to have a loving husband of 26 years, Will Taylor and two amazing adult children, Nick and Kaila Taylor. She earned my Bachelor of Science degree from Florida State University in Child Development specialized in Child LIfe in 1997 and she earned her Masters of Arts degree from Tai Sophia University now known as Maryland University of Integrative Health in Applied Healing Arts in 2013. She worked as a Certified Child Life Specialist for 15 years at Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore Maryland from 2006 - 2021. She started studying spiritual herbalism in 2020 with The Gaia School of Healing & Earth Education. She finished her first year certificate in 2022 mainly working on healing herself and family and in 2023 started working on year two on how to serve others. On her journey during and after Tai Sophia I earned my level 2 as a Reiki practitioner. Her life has taken her on an adventure from raising a family and working in western medicine in Pennsylvania and Maryland to downtown Wakefield Rhode Island owning an organic bulk food and herb shop, South Coast Organics & Bulk Foods, being a part of and serving a loving and nourishing community.

Connect with Cynthia:

South Coast Organics & Bulk Foods in Wakefield RI email is info@southcoastbulkfoods.com and the web page is http://southcoastbulkfoods.com