Spiritual Media Blog Podcast

Interview with Carl Greer

Carl Greer, PhD, PsyD, is a retired clinical psychologist and Jungian analyst, a businessman, and shamanic practitioner, author, and a philanthropist, funding over 60 charities and more than 850 past and current Greer Scholars. He has taught at the C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago and been on staff at the Replogle Center for Counseling and Well-Being. He received his PhD from Columbia University and was on their faculty teaching finance and management in their graduate school of business. He is also the author of a memoir: The Necktie and The Jaguar: A Memoir to Help You Change Your Story and Find Fulfillment in Your Life.

In our conversation, we talk about the following:

• Why and how he switched careers as the president of an oil and gas company to become a clinical psychologist, Jungian analyst, and shamanic practitioner.
• What synchronicity is and how you can create more of it in your life.
• His work as a shamanic practitioner and how you can use shamanic practices in your life to connect with your Spirit and create a vision for your life.
• How you can find meaning and guidance in your dreams.
• How to avoid burnout, compassion fatigue, and stay motivated.
• What your mythopoetic self is and how you can connect to it through nature.

During our interview, I actually lost connection with him over Zoom about 18 minutes into the conversation. After about 10 minutes we eventually reconnected, regained connection, and restarted the conversation. Carl looked for the deeper meaning in that experience and remarked, “Life throws us curves and sometimes we can’t overcome them. But sometimes we hang in there and things change.” This is a good life lesson that comes across throughout our conversation and during his memoir: The Necktie and The Jaguar: A Memoir to Help You Change Your Story and Find Fulfillment in Your Life. For more information please visit http://www.carlgreer.com/

Interview with Dr. Sha

Dr. & Master Zhi Gang Sha is an international spiritual teacher, Tao Grandmaster, world-renowned healer, and 11 New York Times bestselling author. He is one of the leading voices today in combining modern science with alternative medicine, alternative wellbeing practices, and spirituality.

In a time of real global upheaval, Master Sha organized a very ambitious online summit with some of the world’s finest thinkers (including none other than Deepak Chopra) to discuss the need for spirituality, consciousness, and the ability to self-heal, in order to create happiness in today’s climate.

The ambitious inaugural science and spirituality online summit, titled Tapping The Source, took place Saturday July 16 featured speakers such as Deepak Chopra, Ervin Lazlo, Master Sha, and quantum physicist Dr. Rulin Xiu.

In our interview, I had a chance to talk to Master Sha about this conference. Additionally, he shared his wisdom on the following topics:

• Dr. Sha’s work on quantum healing and how that can help you heal yourself
• The vertical between science and spirituality
• The Law of Shen Qi Jing and how the soul leads the heart, the heart leads the mind and energy leads the matter
• Dr. Sha believes that when we all have positive information messages and energy, life flows and we can transform our lives physically, mentally, emotionally, and spirituality.
• Specific tools and resources to help create this positive information messages, including a live performance of a healing chant, a reading from his latest book Tao Calligraphy, and a demonstration on creating and using calligraphy to create wealth and happiness.

Dr. Sha has an Instagram Live show with Queen Diambi of The Democratic Republic of Congo every Saturday at 11:30 a.m. ET where he shares a healing. He also has many services, programs, and books, including his latest book, Tao Calligraphy, all available at his website at https://drsha.com. 

Interview with Duncan Cryle and Karen McAllister

Duncan Cryle is Senior Director at a global software company with over 25000 employees where he also leads a company-wide mindfulness program. He was previously one of the pioneers of IBM's mindfulness community. He is founding member of Clear Sky Center in British Columbia, Canada, and is co-executive director there. He co-teaches Clear Sky's Integrating Mindfulness and 3 month residential mindfulness-in-action program.

Karen McAllister is founder of the Mindful Money coaching and is passionate about building the bridge between spirituality and money. She believes that our current relationship with money reflects a spiritual crisis in the human race. She is a founding member of Clear Sky Meditation Center in British Columbia, Canada. She has been Director of Fund Development since 2008 & Board Chair from 2014 to present. She co-teaches Clear Sky's Integrating Mindfulness and serves the community in helping them clean up their relationship with money.

In our conversation we discuss the following:

• What is mindfulness and how people can apply it to their lives
• What are common challenges to integrating mindfulness into our daily busy and chaotic live
• Duncan and Karen's personal and profession journey of integrating mindfulness into their daily lives
• What is Clear Sky Center
• Duncan's role in in his software company and how he teaches mindfulness to other employees at his company
• Karen's work as a mindful money coach
• What is a mindful approach to money and finances
• Why it is important to bring awareness and healing into our relationship with money

For more information, you can find  Duncan Cryle and Karen McAllister on LinkedIn. 

Interview with Mandi Freger

Mandi Freger is a professional counselor, consultant, and author of the upcoming book From Exhausted to Energized: The Autism Spectrum Disorder Caregiver’s Guide. Mandi is not your typical counselor.  Being in a rare position of gaining experience early on with the first generation of Energy Psychology leaders in the field, Mandi has over 20 years of experience making her a master in the art of using energy therapeutic techniques with her clients.

Mandi’s counseling approach is truly individualized, typically blending energy therapeutic techniques and principals of Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) to treat a rainbow of issues including but not limited to: Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) through the lifespan, peak performance, general fatigue, anxiety, depression, trauma, cognitive disorders and managing pain. Her upcoming book From Exhausted to Energized supplies rapid relief tools that are the perfect solution for ASD caregivers! It is the first book to illustrate what hasn’t been talked about – the psychoenergetic dynamics that cause and sustain the emotional, mental, and physical drain on family members and guardians. Freger further provides readers with quick energy psychology tools that address trauma, anxiety, depression, and burnout. In our conversation, Mandi shares with me:

• Why traditional stress management strategies for ASD caregivers don’t always work and why her techniques do
• Specific Energy Psychology breathing techniques caregivers can use to help them manage stress
• How she combines Energy Psychology and Applied Behavioral Analysis in her counseling and consulting work
• How to better communicate and understand people who have ASD
• How she works as a peak performance consultant to help people maintain mind-body wellness and increase performance

For more information on Mandi, you can visit her website at: https://mandifreger.com/

Interview with Karen V. Johnson

Karen V. Johnson is the author of Living Grieving: Using Energy Medicine to Alchemize Grief and Loss. In 2014, her twenty-seven-year-old son, Ben died of a heroin overdose. She shares on her website: “it never occurred to me to see grief as a journey of transformation, or to find the blessings in the grieving process, or about allowing myself to grow into the state of living with grief. I had to figure it out by myself. It was a lonely path of self-discovery that was not mainstream and not accepted.” She decided to retire, sell her house, and went on a two-and-a-half year journey that took her all over the world on a search for meaning in her tragic loss. This was especially surprising to others considering she had spent the previous thirty years as a criminal and energy law attorney and administrative law judge in Washington D.C.

During our conversation we talk about the following:

• How she moved from a state of sadness and despair over her son’s death to finding greater meaning and purpose in it
• Her two year journey across the world learning how to use energy medicine and shamanic healing practices
• Specific advice and ceremonies people can use to help them transform their grief
• How people can better manage sadness, guilt, anger, and despair when they are grieving
• How she transitioned from being an administrative law judge to having a deeply fulfilling career as an author, consultant, and energy medicine practitioner
• How you can follow your dreams and create a deeply fulfilling life 

Interview with Stephen Chong

Stephen Chong is the author of The Afterlife, a Journey To. ‘The Afterlife’ is a book that takes the reader into and through Heaven’s many levels or portals – a bit like a scenic railway tour. The book is written as a novel. Stephen explains the book was written around the time when horrendous stories were emerging about the abuse of children within religious orders and other institutions. He then wrote a short story (essentially, chapter one of the book) about what happens after death to those complicit in the process of denial and abuse.

One of the principal characters - ‘the Bishop’, upon his death, has to face the consequences of his actions - in this case, his self-righteousness and insouciance to the truth. For the narrator, Athar, his is a journey told from the horrors of abuse by the clergy and his subsequent suicide, that plots his path through heaven with the sword of forgiveness in his right hand and the scepter of love in his left.

In our conversation we talk about the following:

• What the different levels of Heaven look like in his book
• How people can continue to grow, evolve, and practice forgiveness in Heaven
• How children and people with physical disabilities are taken care of in Heaven
• His beliefs about life after death

Stephen’s ideas about Heaven and the Afterlife helped me increase my faith and hope that my loved ones and myself would be taken care of after death. It also encouraged me to live my life in a way that is more consistent with my Soul Purpose. 

For more information please visit his website at: http://www.stephenchong.com.au.

Interview with John J. Spitzer, M.D.

John J. Spitzer, M.D. is the author of Finding God Again and Again. He is a practicing pediatrician in private practice and also a clinical assistant professor in pediatric medicine. He lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan, with his wife, Anne, and has two young adult children, Tim and Patty.

With two young children and a loving wife, the stakes were high when John J. Spitzer found out his testicular cancer had returned after thirteen years. The relapse forced him to confront his mortality—and a second relapse drove the point home. The setbacks also gave him a great opportunity to become one with God.

In Finding God Again and Again, Spitzer looks back at how it took over twenty years of life experiences to realize that he had to feel God in his heart again—and not just think of God.

I recently had the chance to talk to John about his book, spirituality, and life experiences. In our conversation, John talks about the following:

• His spiritual development over 20 years
• How testicular cancer helped him grow his faith
• Specific techniques John uses to let go and surrender his will to God to better understand what God wants him to do with his life, including in work and family situations
• What John feared and did not fear when he confronted his own death
• Advice John has for others who are going through difficult life challenges, including how to never feel alone, how to receive guidance, and how to find your purpose and faith during life challenges 

Interview with Ann and Bill

Ann and Bill are the co-founders of My Conscious Wellness and Love Evolution and Clearly Conscious. They are pioneers in the Canadian consciousness and alternative holistic wellness industry. Their organization and everything they do, including their relationship with each other, are driven by the expansion of conscious awareness through love.

As part of their offerings and initiatives they introduce and share the use of advanced consciousness-based technologies (divine sciences) to help balance and harmonize the subtle energy fields of the human form so that people get an opportunity to begin to more easily let go of emotions, mental and physical traumas, and experiences stored in the human energy field.

During our interview, we cover the following topics:

• How to connect with the Divine energy of our soul
• Common blocks people have to connect with the Divine energy
• How they use technology and sound frequencies to help people connect with Divine energy
• How Bill surrendered to the Divine to help his work reach others

For more information, please visit https://loveevolution.ca/meet-ann-and-bill/

Interview with Kelsey Crystal

Kelsey Crystal is a clairvoyant medium who takes a trauma-informed approach to her readings. She, herself, has endured years of both health-related and emotional/physical trauma and has PTSD. During our conversation she was very open and honest about how her PTSD has affected her throughout her life. She also discussed how she uses her life experiences as well as her gifts as a clairvoyant medium to help others better understand and process their trauma. Additionally, Kelsey gave specific spiritual practices people who are empathic can use to better protect themselves from taking on other energy. Other topics Kelsey and I discuss include:

• How trauma and PTSD shows up in our body
• Somatic trauma therapy practices she uses to help people who have trauma or PTSD
• Why not everyone who has PTSD or trauma fully heals
• Common themes and messages she receives during readings related to people who have trauma or PTSD about not feeling like they belong
• How she got PTSD and practices she used to help her better process and understand her trauma

Kelsey speaks about trauma and PTSD from a very grounded, compassionate, and authentic desire to help others. For more information on Kelsey and how you can work with her, you can visit her website at: https://www.kelseycrystal.com

Interview with Linda Hochstetler

Linda Hochstetler is a Buddhist Lay Chaplain, social worker, psychotherapist and author of 21 Days to Die: The Canadian Guide to End-Of-Life. During our conversation we discuss the following topics:

• Practical advice for preparing for the death of a loved one (e.g., honoring preferences related to eating, finances, physical signs the person is ready to die)
• Spiritual and mystical experiences she has witnessed (e.g., visions and communication with loved ones who have died)
• Psychological preparation for death (e.g., managing family disagreements over end of life issues, steps to process grief, therapeutic  interventions to overcome a fear of death)

During the conversation Linda shares her wisdom, experiences volunteering at Hospice for persons in their final weeks and months of life, and how the death of her boyfriend at a young age affected her. While the topic of death is often sad, heavy, and painful, Linda speaks with lightness and passion. It is evident Linda has a true gift and calling helping other people navigate the challenges related to death, dying, and end of life care.