0:00 Hi, everyone.
0:00 Welcome back to the Change Your Mind podcast.
0:03 I'm your host, Kris Ashley.
0:05 Today, I'm really excited about my guest.
0:07 You're going to learn all about energy healing and demonic work.
0:11 But first a couple of quick announcements, head over to the links in the show notes to check out my book, Change Your Mind to change your reality.
0:19 I also have a bunch of free offerings like a free workshop every week and some downloadable from my website.
0:27 And you can also get information on how to join my coaching programs and my courses.
0:32 So today on our podcast, as usual, we're blending personal development, spirituality and science.
0:39 Hi, I'm Kris.
0:40 When I was younger, I went through trauma that caused me to feel broken and lost.
0:45 But my life changed after I had a spiritual awakening.
0:49 Since then, I've dedicated my life to studying and learning from masters all around the world that have helped me to create a life of fulfillment and abundance beyond my wildest dreams.
0:58 Now, I'm dedicated to sharing everything I've learned so that you don't have to suffer for decades.
1:02 Like I did, I've seen people's lives completely transform and I share it all right here and I am so excited for you to get to know my guest.
1:13 Sunday Oliver.
1:15 So Sunday Oliver has done demonic work for decades, spent 28 years in the woods without electricity or running water simply to be more in touch with plants and the elements and weather.
1:28 She also spent decades doing research on alternative health, especially plant medicines and neuroscience.
1:34 I can't wait to hear how these all combine and learning different healing modalities.
1:39 And then her life changed when she got a mystery illness and it was the kind that doctors and even alternative health care workers had no idea how to heal.
1:48 She was told that get worse and die was her prognosis.
1:52 So she did what any healer would do.
1:55 She translated her shamanic work into her own healing.
1:58 She started to learn energy healing and she couldn't stand talk, think or do anything physical anymore.
2:06 So she dropped hundreds of symptoms.
2:08 Now she combines logic with magic.
2:10 I love that so much to help people with chronic conditions that don't get better.
2:16 She's created programs that are designed for people without a lot of energy or time and she uses them to show people how to find their own way through.
2:24 I love that bio.
2:25 I cannot wait to hear your story.
2:27 I'm so excited to have you on Sunday.
2:29 Thanks for being here.
2:30 Thanks for having me, Kris.
2:32 It's nice to be here.
2:33 Yeah.
2:33 , so, you know, I think let's start with your origin story because that's, well, you have a couple of origin stories actually.
2:42 , let, let's start with your mystery illness.
2:44 And then I want to get into your 28 years in the woods too.
2:50 But tell us, tell us because because the path you're on right now is helping other people because you overcame a serious, serious illness.
2:58 So tell us, tell us that story, what happened and how did you overcome it?
3:02 Ok.
3:03 So I'm gonna start out by telling a little bit about how my life was as I got ill so that you can understand that it was a really big change for me.
3:13 When, when I first started getting ill, I had a rather physical job at my neighborhood mom and pop slash health food store.
3:22 And I also had another job being an indexer which is where you analyze text and you create an index which, you know, sort of satisfied my intellectual side.
3:31 And then I was also in,, an improv band and I was also a person who liked to walk around in the woods a lot.
3:39 So I did a lot of physical stuff, you know, and I did a lot of, I did a lot of brain stuff too.
3:45 I've always been a, a massive reader through most of my life and so any big Lehi out there can relate that, I was, you know, opening myself to a lot of ideas.
3:57 And so at first, you know, it's like I'd always taken my physical strength for granted and also, honestly my brain,, strength.
4:05 , so I just, you know, at first I just thought, oh, well, it's sort of like a passing thing, you know, it sort of like I felt more tired when I was at work and the indexing was a little bit crankier and, you know, it's like I stopped enjoying being in the band so much, which was really weird because that was one of the great musical experiences of my life and I didn't really know what was going on.
4:28 And so we got to get these weird new nosebleeds.
4:32 I'd have these just kind of strange feelings that I needed to lie down and rest at times when, you know, it just didn't make any sense to me.
4:40 , so I tried to ignore it and pretend it wasn't there,, for maybe a year, year and a half, something like that.
4:49 But,, that didn't work.
4:52 And,, I think anybody who's dealt with this kind of what I call mystery illness might relate to this because it's very strange and they can come on suddenly or they can creep up on you and, you know, I, I went to the doctors to have a blood panel done and nothing, you know, this is also a very typical experience.
5:11 , I got a prescription for sleeping pills because by this time I was really having a hard time sleeping.
5:19 They didn't work and I didn't know why they didn't work but they didn't work.
5:24 And since their side effect was liver failure, I thought, well,, I think I'll just pass on those.
5:30 Don't understand how liver failure can be an acceptable side effect, honestly.
5:34 , so I didn't really, really know what was, what was going on.
5:40 And one day I remember I was playing a gig at this May Day festival and I, I was after it was kind of like, had like arts and crafts and, and organizations, charitable organizations and stuff and there were a lot of people there I hadn't seen in a long time.
5:55 So it was like, kind of happily going around chatting with people and then suddenly there was this interior voice in me that said you have to drive home and lie down now.
6:04 And so I did and that was sort of the start of me realizing.
6:10 No, I can't ignore this anymore because I went, by the time I got home, I really did need to lie down seriously.
6:16 Wow.
6:17 Yeah.
6:18 And as with a lot of people with these kinds of illnesses, I got my diagnosis by suggestion, not by anybody health wise, telling me anything.
6:30 And I did try a lot of health things, by the way, I tried, I tried, you know, diets, gluten free diets.
6:38 I tried dairy free diet.
6:39 I tried, you know, all kinds of alternative things because I'm a pretty good researcher around this kind of stuff and I've done a lot of it so I just figured, ok, well, I'll find a way and,, I tried, you know, some different kinds of therapies like,, Atlas straightening work, which is I, you know, which is great and a couple of acupuncture, which is also great and for many people with these kinds of illnesses, they do get at least some relief from acupuncture.
7:06 But in my case, it may be worse.
7:08 That's the other.
7:09 Yeah, that's the other thing about these illnesses is like what applies to one person as far as typical modalities may or may not apply to you.
7:19 So it's, you know, it's kind of a tricky thing.
7:23 So finally, I tried tons of protocols.
7:27 I tried protocols.
7:28 It was this biochemist who was retired from Lawrence Livermore and he had a theory and I followed that there was somebody who had, had an illness similar and he had a theory and I tried that, but none of them worked.
7:43 None of all, all this stuff that, you know, like a functional medicine person might recommend.
7:46 None of it worked well.
7:48 So I had a friend who had a friend who had chronic fatigue immune dysfunction syndrome and she said, you know, your symptoms seem an awful lot like hers.
8:02 So I thought, ok, I will look that up and, you know, I did and there were all my weird symptoms or at least a lot of them.
8:09 And I thought, oh, yeah, this has to be it.
8:13 And so, you know, but that didn't really get me very far because I have my, my sister kindly gave me access to a website that a doctor friend of hers works on.
8:24 It's by doctor for doctors.
8:26 Sort of like the latest info on what's going on and what my prognosis was was progressive and terminal, which means get worse and die and that may be soon or it might be late.
8:38 We don't know.
8:40 So that was kind of a blow you might say.
8:44 But you know, the funny thing about that moment was at that moment, there was this little voice inside me that said that doesn't apply to you.
8:56 And yeah, it kind of was because, you know, there was a lot of evidence in my face saying that it did.
9:02 And so it was really helpful that I had that moment.
9:07 And so what happened as far as what I did was I was reduced at that point.
9:16 I mean, basically I was the same week waking and sleeping.
9:20 That's one of the things these, these illnesses have when you get them really badly.
9:24 And so I wasn't really sleeping, I wasn't really awake when I was awake.
9:29 I had to lie down most of the time because I would get dizzy and pass out if I didn't.
9:34 So one day I was sitting up for like, the 10 minutes that I had to sit up and, you know, I was pretty much, I mean, I don't know if brain dead is quite the right term, but it's pretty close at this point.
9:49 And so I wasn't able to think or rationalize or figure anything out and what I realized sitting there was, yeah, I'm not gonna figure this out.
9:57 This is not a figure out all kind of thing.
10:01 What I have to do is really deeply listen, like to that interior voice that I was talking about.
10:09 And so I would say, you know, I wanna speak to relative to what your podcast is about because this is the moment when I started changing my perspective from being a victim to being empowered.
10:22 I love that.
10:23 Yeah.
10:25 Yeah.
10:25 And you know, it's not one of those things that happens all at once in a big burst.
10:29 I mean, maybe it does for some people, but I think for most people it doesn't.
10:33 Yeah.
10:34 But I would count that moment as the moment when that started to happen because it was like a, a switch flip, you know, like I saw that I was, you know, madly trying to do it somebody else's way and that wasn't working for me at all.
10:47 So I just had to listen inside and do it, you know, whatever way I was given.
10:53 I also decided that if I was in pain, I was gonna get value out of it and I kind of wanna stop here because there's a whole lot of stuff in our culture that kind of encourages us to think that, well, you know, bring on the pain and the challenge because that's a good thing.
11:14 It'll, you know, like, build your character and you'll get value out of it.
11:18 And here's my thought on that if you are in pain, definitely get value out of it.
11:22 But I think the, the phrase, you know, no pain, no gain.
11:26 I really think that should be eradicated from the entire universe because it is so untrue.
11:33 And it's so why I think we have so many societal problems because we think it always has to hurt, you know, for us to gain anything, we have to hurt something.
11:42 Yeah, it's almost like if you're not changing and walking down the path you're meant to go on and learning the lessons the universe will make things so painful that you have no choice but to change.
11:53 But you always have that choice to, to make those movements before.
11:58 Right.
11:59 Yes, that's such a great way of putting it.
12:01 I totally agree.
12:02 And, you know, some of us like me have to have the head over the head by the two before experience, but I do not recommend that.
12:09 Actually, it's a lot better to catch it before then.
12:15 Yeah, it's interesting.
12:16 So many people who have had spiritual awakenings and myself included, it comes from their own trauma, their own adversities, their own challenges.
12:26 And they get to that point that it sounds like you got to or one day it's like I can't do this anymore.
12:33 Like I, I will die if I keep doing this and I have to change and I have to re invent myself and I have to figure out another way and listen to my inner being and it's, I know it doesn't happen all at once, like you said, I totally agree with that, but there's usually that point where it's like that decision gets made, even if it's not a conscious one and then you start to make that right turn.
12:54 Right.
12:55 Yeah, I totally agree with that.
12:57 Yes.
12:57 It's just like you start going in a different direction or different dimension or something, you know, that, you know, not like what you were doing before.
13:07 Yeah.
13:07 So, so, so your ST, that's so scary what you went through, like, like having something wrong with your body and not knowing what it is and probably also being kind of brushed aside by doctors, right?
13:20 When they run those blood tests.
13:22 That's, that's a really scary place to be because it's like, I know my body, I know there's something that feels off but to not have that validation or those answers.
13:31 That's, that's, that's terrifying.
13:33 Right.
13:34 And then, yeah.
13:35 No, it is really scary.
13:37 And,, a lot of a lot of doctors actually refuse to believe that these illnesses exist because they don't show up on their test.
13:43 So, right.
13:44 They don't exist.
13:46 Yeah.
13:47 So, ok, so let's keep going with your story.
13:50 So you knew you needed to change, it was time to listen to your inner being.
13:56 You said you decided to gain from your, from your suffering.
14:00 So what happened next?
14:02 What did that look like?
14:03 So what I did next was I went for four days, four, not four days, four months of complete rest.
14:11 You know, I've been sort of like trying all this time to sort of like, you know, do some work and do some stuff and do, you know, it's like at least do something.
14:19 And then I realized, you know, I just needed to completely, totally rest.
14:23 Actually, that happened because I had a conversation with somebody coincidentally I met who was a yoga teacher who had, had a similar experience and she told me, you know, what I did was I basically stayed in bed for a year and I did, I kind of worked out a yoga thing that helped my pain and I came back and, or I regenerated actually because coming back is really not an option.
14:48 But, you know, so I couldn't, I wasn't her and I couldn't, I couldn't imagine like being shoved in the house that long.
14:54 But I did four months of that in a place that was, you know, in the, in the country.
14:59 And,, and that was sort of the start.
15:06 , I had still kind of a mistaken idea in my head when I started out on this venture that, well, after this four months, I'm gonna have the 12 steps to how to help heal, heal these illnesses and blah, blah, blah.
15:17 Well, that was a complete shock.
15:18 I didn't, but I did do a whole lot of,, deep meditation addressing my DNA.
15:25 Like for me, at that point, like a three hour meditation was nice and satisfying an hour and a half was like, just getting there.
15:33 So I did a lot of really deep work.
15:36 I discovered,, Tibetan bowls were actually something that were helpful to me, which was interesting because I'd been musical all my life.
15:45 And at that point I could not listen to music because it was like way, way too much stimulation, even the simplest time.
15:52 So that was, you know, the Tibetan bowls were, were really an interesting experience as were many of the things that I learned by listening to a bunch of Teles.
16:03 There were at that point, a lot of Teles sus about alternative health.
16:07 And so I listened because I was lying in bed.
16:10 I just figured and I couldn't read or I couldn't do like any of the things I normally get.
16:14 I just thought, ok, well, I'll listen to these and see if there's something that applies or that might work for me.
16:20 And I tried a lot of programs.
16:21 I tried a lot of stuff.
16:23 , a lot of it really didn't apply to me but I didn't know, I kind of had to learn how to sort through.
16:30 I did find a few people who really,, improved,, you know, like I could really feel improvements when, when I felt there were.
16:39 So I wound up working with one of those for a year and a half on a regular basis.
16:43 And I think that that's kind of t to how I regenerated even though she was a really, really excellent healer and knew a lot about body chemistry, which I'll be talking about more later.
16:59 But she didn't know my particular illness.
17:03 So what she started to do was encourage me to do my own energy healing pieces because I would go to her.
17:08 I would, you know, when we had our sessions, I would say, well, could you, you know, work with this or that?
17:13 And she said, well, why don't you try doing your own energy healing pieces?
17:16 Because when you have stuff with high neurological content, which is what these illnesses are.
17:21 You have the weirdest symptoms.
17:23 I mean, things like the texture of cloth will affect you or, or highly patterned wallpaper drove me bat and almost like make me faint, you know, it's like, I know it sounds really stupid, but that's just how it is.
17:37 And So it's really difficult to understand that kind of illness if you haven't been inside of it just because it's so wacky.
17:45 So she encouraged me to create my first energy.
17:49 The piece.
17:50 , and if you'd like, I could demonstrate that now I would love that.
17:56 Yeah.
17:57 Ok.
17:59 So this is actually what I have available for free on my website if you sign up for my email because I consider it to be one of the foundational pieces to, to the foundational work, I guess to repeat myself, it's called calm outside nervous system.
18:15 And what it's for is I sort of perceive our bio fields or electromagnetic fields as sort of like a bunch of wiring.
18:26 And what happens when we get overloaded by having too much stuff come at us at once is it's sort of like the rats chew on the wiring and then the bare wires kind of cross and mash against each other and spark and fuse and cause all kinds of confusion.
18:42 I, I like that imagery.
18:44 Yeah, it really works for me.
18:46 So I'm glad it works for you too.
18:48 And you know, this also happens by the way to very sensitive people.
18:51 I'm pretty convinced that it's like sensitive people, creative empaths.
18:55 They're the people who tend to get these kinds of illnesses.
18:58 I don't think that's a coincidence because we are kind of wired differently.
19:03 We are wired to pick up kind of more stuff than a lot of people do.
19:08 So that's why I think that this piece is so key and here's how I'm gonna do it.
19:14 I go, I do a lot of silent healing.
19:16 That's what I'm gonna do in this piece.
19:18 So I would be very boring to look at although you're welcome to do it, but the show is actually inside you.
19:25 So your job is to be as comfortable and receptive as you can in this moment.
19:30 You know, life being what it is, it doesn't have to be perfect and maybe take a quick check in with your emotions and your thoughts and your body sensations.
19:41 And now I'm gonna go silent for a couple of minutes and I'll let you know when it's due.
19:45 Here we go.
21:10 OK.
21:12 So check in again with your emotions and your thought and your body sensations and see if you notice any differences and if you do and you like those differences, take a little minute to savor them because that will integrate them into your nervous system.
21:29 That was really lovely.
21:30 I felt my shoulders relaxing more.
21:33 No.
21:34 Can you explain what it is that you just did?
21:38 I have a theory about it but I can't actually really, you know, scientifically explain it.
21:43 My theory is this, that it's a kind of extra low frequency sound because it has the same qualities as extra low frequency sound in, in that it doesn't weaken with distance.
21:56 So it's like I can do this with anyone in the world anywhere.
22:01 And also it goes through solid objects and it isn't weakened by that.
22:06 So, and also I will say too that when I do these kinds of healing, I have like a whole range.
22:14 It's like music to me.
22:15 And when I make recordings a lot of times I will layer tracks just like you would in with a musical peace and it works.
22:26 So, in your mind, were you making sounds?
22:30 No.
22:31 No, it's,, it's more, it's more like a vibratory thing.
22:34 It's a frequency thing.
22:37 Yeah, that's really cool.
22:40 Well, thanks for sharing that with us.
22:41 Yeah, that's my pleasure.
22:43 , and you can see why that was helpful to me in, in sort of like a nervous overload state because it began to sort of just slow things down a little bit and make it easier to take in things.
22:56 Yeah.
22:56 So how, how is your health now?
22:59 My health now is certainly not perfect.
23:02 , you know, I would say that I, like, I'm able to work about half time.
23:06 I'm able to, you know, but I can, you know, I can, I can walk a mile if I take it slow and like rest afterwards and then go back.
23:13 I, I did that on trails here and I've done it on trails elsewhere.
23:17 , I can think and speak and talk fine, which is really nice.
23:21 I can read, I can,, at one point.
23:27 I would have if I had a like a 10 minute phone call, that would be like my entire day's work because believe it or not processing words is like this whole thing.
23:37 I remember one time when I was, when I was doing that whole resting thing, I was realizing that word formation is just this big process because first you have to sort of like coagulate, you know, the mental thought, the fog of the mental thought into like something more solid.
23:53 Then you have to find the word for that, then you have to go down and do the whole like diaphragmatic lung, you know, bringing it to your lips and tongue kind of thing and say a word and that's one word.
24:07 And, you know, there are a lot of words in a sentence and when you have a conversation, you know, it does tend to be a lot of that.
24:14 So words are actually a lot of work to do.
24:17 And so, you know, you work with words.
24:19 So it's not surprising if you're tired after you do that.
24:24 Yeah, it's, it just makes me think these little things that we take for granted when, when we feel healthy, right?
24:32 So how long did it get you take you to get to the point where you were lying in bed for four months to now, that would be, well, that the lying in bed thing was like 13 years ago.
24:45 I would say that I started getting functional, a few years ago and, you know, it just sort of gradually increases and I would say that I'm also still on that healing spectrum because, you know, just in the last few weeks, honestly, I felt more improvement.
24:59 So it's a continuing thing.
25:02 I think that honestly, it can be a lot quicker than I did it because I had to fumble around and find my way.
25:08 You know, like if I had known then what I know that kind of thing, but I didn't and nobody else did either.
25:13 So, you know, it's sort of like I just had to create a path for myself.
25:18 Well, that's, that's so like people who are healers or coaches, it's like we've all gone through the difficult things and we've done it the hard way and we're sharing it now so that people don't have to suffer for decades like we did.
25:31 That is absolutely true.
25:33 And that is the wonderful thing I think about the community of healers is that, you know, we can do that, we can make it easier for people and also, you know, kind of be with them in what is often a very lonely kind of situation.
25:47 Yeah.
25:47 Also I have to point out you have this amazing like light coming across you can you see that from your end a little bit.
25:54 Yeah.
25:54 Yeah.
25:54 It's like this vibrant purple rainbow across your face and it, it's I don't know, it just kind of appeared a moment ago.
26:02 I noticed it and it almost feels really symbolic for some reason.
26:06 It is an interesting timing for it to appear, probably refraction from sunlight.
26:11 But yeah, but I do find, I do find that, you know, nature responds in some ways to this healing.
26:19 It's sort of like a, an interaction between us.
26:22 Yeah.
26:23 So I have a question and, you know, I, I, I don't mean any offense by it and I'll tell you a little back story why I'm asking it.
26:32 So I have a mother who went through some serious serious illnesses.
26:37 She's still a very unhealthy person and hers all stemmed.
26:42 I was, I was sexually abused by a family member for four years when I was younger.
26:47 And when I got out this, we had this really big tight knit extended Italian family, most of them disowned me and it just totally ripped the family down the middle.
26:55 Oh, wow.
26:56 That's my origin story.
26:58 But, you know, I found all of these teachers and healing modalities and books and, you know, retreats to go on and I was able to change my mind to get better.
27:09 But my mother never did that and it manifested as serious illness for her for a very long time.
27:16 She basically didn't get out of bed for 15 years.
27:20 And, you know, so that's all the back story.
27:24 So my, my question is, do you think there was a spiritual cause for your illness?
27:28 Do you think there was something you were meant to learn?
27:30 Do you think there was something you were?
27:32 Do you, do you think that we were meant to go through it for a reason?
27:34 , because I think, I think that was the case for my mother.
27:39 I don't know if I was meant to go through it for a reason because I think that sort of starts harking back to the pain is good for you thing.
27:46 But,, I do think that it was what you said earlier.
27:51 You know, it's sort of like, I think that I was meant to do at least something akin to this kind of work and I wasn't doing it.
28:00 And so, you know, since I wasn't doing it, I was doing things that were kind of peripheral to it, but kind of more acceptable in society, you know, but I wasn't doing this.
28:11 I wasn't coming out this way because I think a lot of it had to do with being raised in a very intellectual environment where, you know, my shamanic awakening at 14, it was proper to call a nervous breakdown, you know, sort of like it's an illness, you know, when you don't see the world, the way everybody in the world around you is seeing it.
28:29 Right.
28:30 Yeah.
28:30 And you're, you're almost, your gifts are almost stifled then.
28:33 Right.
28:34 Mhm.
28:34 Yeah.
28:34 Or you have to hide them, which is what I did.
28:36 You know, I hid them in things like research and hid them in music.
28:38 And by the way, both of those things gave me a lot of joy.
28:42 But I think that I got to a point in my life where it was meant to do something else and I said, last, vastly avoided doing it.
28:49 So I think that's what, why that happened.
28:51 Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense and, you know, a lot of times illness and pain can be messages from our body, right, that something's out of alignment or they're, we're not on that correct path or we need to be doing something different.
29:05 You know, there's just a vast array.
29:07 But yeah.
29:09 No, thanks for sharing that.
29:11 Yeah, I think it's an important question honestly.
29:14 Yeah.
29:15 Yeah.
29:15 And, you know, I, I don't mean to suggest that anyone's illness is their fault by any means.
29:22 But, you know, oftentimes there are deeper spiritual lessons or meanings behind things.
29:29 So, you know, I, I do wanna talk a little bit about your shamanic journey in the beginning and I know we have a lot to cover.
29:35 , but just a little because, yeah, that bio 28 years in nature, that's, that's not something that a lot of people have done.
29:44 So I just would love to hear a little bit about that.
29:46 Not a lot of people in the industrialized world anyway.
29:49 Yeah.
29:49 Good traction.
29:51 But,, yes, and I can segue to that by sort of pegging on to what you were saying about, you know, how our bodies tell us these things.
30:02 Candace Kurt, a neuroscientist and cell biologist says essentially that our bodies are, are subconscious.
30:10 Hm, which is a very interesting thing.
30:12 And I think that that really applies to, but I did being out in nature that long because that was me picking in things for my body, you know, sort of like I had the experience of, you know, being in the woods listening to natural sounds.
30:30 , getting to know the plants.
30:33 I, I was a plant freak so, you know, sort of like, of course, I was getting to know the plants and I did, you know, very silly things at first.
30:40 Like, I didn't know anything about firewood and I was living in this,, little, it's a, a wiki which is kind of a dome structure that's made out of bent saplings and I covered it with like warps plastic, which I tied on with crochet thread, you know, very outdoorsy and, and it's supposed to have a smoke hole in the top.
30:59 Well, well, I didn't know because, you know, I had certainly been around fireplaces but I, I didn't understand the whole, you know, heating by wood thing.
31:07 It was not something that I learned in my childhood.
31:10 And so I just,, I, I got, went out and I got like punky wet pine, which of course, made more smoke than it made flame.
31:19 And I smoked myself out of my wiki and I just, that's dangerous.
31:24 That's super dangerous smoke inhalation like that.
31:27 It was not a, not a good thing, you know.
31:28 It wasn't.
31:30 Yeah.
31:30 But,, you know, you kind of do learn through your body even if it's in sort of stupid ways like that.
31:37 But part of it was just, you know, I was just out of college when I was doing this.
31:41 And so I had been super, super intellectual in college and I kind of like thrown my body under the bus in order to be smart, you know, and so I was kind of recuperating from all of that.
31:55 And what happens when you just, what I call be a body out in nature is that you begin to get all these messages.
32:04 You know, we've been talking before about the deep listening.
32:07 If you want to learn how to do that, just hang out in nature.
32:10 Hm.
32:12 One of the things I used to do and I would never tell anybody at the time and I find it hilarious that apparently it is now a form of meditation that people pay to learn.
32:20 But I would sit out in the woods under a tree and I would just look at like sort of the, the dust, you know, the pile pile of leaves that was maybe in a square foot in front of me and I would just do that for a long time because it satisfied something in me.
32:38 Yeah.
32:38 It's like something deep in your soul knew what you needed to do.
32:42 Yes.
32:42 It's just a good way of putting it.
32:44 Yeah.
32:44 That's absolutely true.
32:46 Something in my soul knew I needed to do that.
32:48 So I did.
32:49 Yeah.
32:50 Sounds like a really peaceful,, existence.
32:53 Well, it wasn't entirely, to be honest with you because it was about a mile and a half off the road and it's a place where you know, people go to have, have fun in my area like it was on a river and there were a few other people living there and some of the people who decided to live there, you could kind of camp there for a while because it was B L M land.
33:15 Some of the people who decided to live there were kind of nuts.
33:18 Vietnam vets who have guns kind of thing.
33:21 So, no, it wasn't always peaceful.
33:24 You know, but a lot of it was, and it was really beautiful and if you want to get in touch with the elements, you know, try cooking with fire and drawing your water from a spring and you know, washing yourself by jumping in the river and sitting on the earth and having the sun be your clock and the moon be your clock.
33:48 It feels like that's the way humans were meant to live, I think it really was.
33:52 And I'm, I'm really grateful that I lived that way that long because that, although, you know, I acquired sort of more stuff and, and, you know, over time, but I think that living that way, really sunk that into my body, that, that sort of original way that humans lived a little bit, even though it was kind of a sort of, you know, maybe suburban version of it.
34:21 And I think that I drew on that.
34:24 Well, I know that I drew on that a lot when I got the illness because that was, that was sort of the strength I had to draw on.
34:33 I didn't have my intellectual strength anymore.
34:35 I didn't have my physical strength anymore, but I did have that.
34:39 Yeah.
34:40 It's like you had spent so much time practicing, tuning inwards and quieting your mind.
34:45 It almost feels like that was prep for what you were about to go through in a way.
34:49 Yeah.
34:50 I mean, you know, it's sort of, I certainly wouldn't have put it that way and that wasn't the way I thought of it at the time.
34:54 But, you know, yes.
34:56 And that's certainly one aspect of what it was.
34:59 Yeah, I agree.
35:01 So, what, what made you decide to go live in nature like that?
35:05 And then second part of the question, what made you decide to come back?
35:09 .
35:10 Well,, I don't know if going to live in nature was as much of a decision as it was,, a drive in a way, I will say that as a kid I'd always loved being by plants is like, if I remember my early transcendent experiences, if they have to do with plants, even just the ones in our yard.
35:33 And I remember being taken to some friends of our family and they had like a little woods in the back.
35:37 And then I, I was like, thrilled, you know, and then later on,, my grandparents had a cabin,, in the Pacific Northwest.
35:46 And my grandfather is one of those people who's like, super handy and can build it everything.
35:50 So he built the cabin, he built the, you know, the chimney, he built all of that and he built a trail down to the beach that was there and that place was heaven to me.
36:01 And it had no electricity when I first went there.
36:03 So we did kerosene lamp.
36:06 It had no hot running water.
36:09 It did have running water.
36:10 My mother said that earlier they used to go and haul it in milk pans from a neighboring place, but we had to heat the water on the wood stove.
36:18 You had to cook everything on the wood stove.
36:19 So I did learn how to use the wood stove.
36:22 And,, and, and that place is just like everybody was always in a good mood there.
36:28 You know, it's sort of like it was just a place where it brought out the best in everybody.
36:32 So I think that that was sort of a deep impression on me and I, you know, we went there, like, for, what, a week or two every other summer, but it still sank in really, really deep.
36:47 I learned to listen to nature there.
36:50 Yeah, that's really beautiful.
36:52 Yeah, it really was, you know, it's a really a wonderful gift that my, my mother and grandparents gave me, I think.
36:58 Yeah.
37:02 So you have OK, so I'm just looking over our notes because we had a, we had a preliminary call a few weeks ago.
37:09 And you were telling me that you had done demonic healing a long time, but you had shied away from energy healing and then you discovered energy healing, but none of them were helping your illness, you had to create your own.
37:21 Can you tell me a little bit about what that process was like?
37:24 Yeah.
37:27 I guess the part about energy healing was when I started listening to the tele summits, I just started realizing, oh, this is helping me.
37:34 And also I did go to a kind of alternative doctor who used a lot of chiropractic kind of knowledge and she gave me at that point, I had 24 7 nausea and gut pain.
37:49 I mean, like really sharp gut pain.
37:52 So it was really difficult for me, me to eat.
37:56 And I, you know, actually this is one of the things that people die of quickly with these illnesses because, you know, like, you know, eventually if you can't eat, you're gonna die.
38:05 So she gave me this preparation that was by this guy and I did not know it at the time, but he was kind of an alchemist and he had this formula that he made blessed by some Russian healers.
38:20 Hm.
38:21 And also she gave me a homeopathic preparation.
38:24 And those two things actually helped me even though I had to take them in super tiny doses because I was so sensitive.
38:31 And so that kind of, and then there was another thing that I ran into, I ran into a healer named Lisa Hopkins who's actually I totally recommend and she does a lot of sound healing.
38:42 And she also, you know, looks at healing kind of from a shamanic viewpoint because she's also had that kind of, you know, experience.
38:50 And I found that her work really spoke to me and you know, that it felt like there was something there for me.
38:59 Whereas a lot of the other stuff that I tried, it was sort of like, well, you know, scientifically it should work, but it didn't, but I didn't know at the time was that my metabolism was so messed up that, you know, like things were just, you know, it's like, it was like ping pong balls, things were not going the directions that we were supposed to go so I began to sort of twig to the notion that, you know, this woo woo stuff that I kind of avoided.
39:22 And I think honestly, one of the reasons I've avoided it is because there are a lot of people out there who do this kind of work, but they do it from a kind of a disembodied point of view.
39:35 , I, you know, kind of like they're not in their lower chakras And so they're not entirely in their bodies.
39:41 And that was my problem was that I wasn't entirely in my body.
39:45 So, like, I kind of didn't want to go there.
39:47 And I'm not saying that I recognized this consciously at the time, but subconsciously, I kind of knew it.
39:52 I could feel it.
39:53 Yeah.
39:54 And so, you know, I didn't.
39:58 And then also too, there was my upbringing of, you know, intellectual, analytical and even though I had done all that time in the woods and even though I had done all the demonic work and the rituals and blah, blah, blah, even though I still was a little hung up on that one.
40:12 You know, it's sort of like your origin story is, you know, is kind of hard to change and I hadn't really inspected it that deeply.
40:23 So I had to sort of learn the hard way again and to find my way to realizing that the kind of work that would help me even in this, like heavy illness.
40:35 And this is why I really understand people who are skeptical of energy healing because you know, the thing that's so heavy that even doctors can't do it.
40:43 Well, like what is this woo stuff, this airy fairy kind of stuff gonna do?
40:48 But as it turns out the airy fairy stuff, the gentleness is actually the most powerful.
40:55 Yeah.
40:55 Yeah, I love that.
40:57 So I know you also said that you can like back all of this up with science.
41:01 And we were just talking before we pressed record about how it's such an exciting time to be alive because science is backing up what mystics and spiritual teachers and ancient cultures and civilizations have been saying for eons.
41:13 So what do you think the science is behind backing all or that backs all of this up?
41:19 OK.
41:20 Well, I will, I'll tell you the first piece that probably the first piece that fell into place for me and created what I now use as a foundation for healing.
41:32 And that's also from Candace Pert, cell biologist and neuroscientist who unfortunately died recently.
41:39 because I read her book, Molecules of Emotion.
41:42 I had gotten to the point then where I could actually read like three pages at a time a day.
41:47 So I read that book and one thing that she says in there is that your body chemistry equals your emotions.
41:55 And she says this because she was on the team that discovered the first specialized cell cell membrane receptors, like the opioid receptors that c certain core hoes you might say in your cells except certain substances and not other ones.
42:12 And so she dealt a lot with body chemistry and this was her conclusion as a scientist, I mean, you know, obviously science probably doesn't accept that, but she is definitely a bona fide scientist and that was her conclusion.
42:28 So I kind of took that and ran with it because, you know, that is the foundation to what I do.
42:35 Now, when I, when I take people through my, I have something I call the healing catalyst and I have a foundation program in it, which is three months and I start out by helping people calm down their body chemistry because here's the thing.
42:50 If you don't do that, then all those metabolic pathways are gonna be like ping pong balls, they're gonna just be bouncing all over the place.
42:57 That was why none of the supplements work for me.
43:00 That was why the sleeping pills didn't work for me.
43:02 That was why it was hard for me to absorb food even.
43:06 And you know, so things and that's also why by the way that if you go for treatments, you might or might not respond well to them because your metabolism is gonna be wacky to use the scientific term.
43:21 It's like every system, sorry to interrupt.
43:23 It's, it sounds like every system in your body was just out of whack.
43:26 Right.
43:26 That's exactly it.
43:29 Yeah.
43:29 Yeah, that's exactly what goes on.
43:31 So, if you don't somehow slow that down, then you're just never gonna purchase, you know, and this is what happens to a lot of people with these illnesses is like you might make a little progress but then it goes back or you, something might help you, but then it doesn't, or, you know, you might have a symptom and, you know, then you won't, but you get a new one or, you know, it's just very discouraging honestly.
43:53 So this piece was like, really exciting to me.
43:58 And I'd also say again that for sensitive people and empaths and creatives who tend to get these illnesses, this is part of the difficulty.
44:07 So another thing that I discovered was the, the research has been done on the H P A axis and Joe Dispenza is one of the people who does a lot of this.
44:19 You probably know him.
44:20 And yeah, he is, I think so too.
44:23 And so it's hypothalamus, pituitary adrenal, which is sort of the mechanism for keeping inflammation in your body.
44:33 And originally, you know, we were designed to have our hypothalamus which takes in sort of nerve electrical signals and it ran it magically kind of transforms them into chemistry which drips on your pituitary and then your, your pituitary being the, you know, sort of the head gland of all the endocrine glands.
44:55 It then distributes information to your endocrine glands according to what it receives from the hypothalamus.
45:01 Right.
45:02 Yeah.
45:02 So, in our, like, back, way back in our tribal lives, that was all designed to,, to send a message to our adrenals when we were being preyed upon by like a lion or a bear or something like that.
45:18 So we could all, all of our stuff, our body would be like flooded with cortisol and adrenaline and a bunch of other stuff and it would, you know, all the energy would go from our brains into our muscles so that we could run really, really fast and get away.
45:31 Fight or flight.
45:32 Right.
45:33 Yeah.
45:33 Fight or flight.
45:34 That's exactly it.
45:35 That's exactly what it is.
45:36 And so that was the, the flight part, but in those days after you ran away and sort of like panted for a bit, you were over it.
45:45 But now we get triggered every day, like multiple times a day by stuff that feels like something that is preying on, like, say watching the news or having somebody cut in front of you in traffic or having somebody say something to you in a snarky tone of voice or, you know, on and on.
46:03 You know, these are things that we get triggered with constantly.
46:06 And so what happens is that our body interprets them.
46:10 If we don't, you know, consciously work with this, our body interprets them as something that we need to run away from and we're constantly in this loop of the adrenal hormones go into our body.
46:26 If they go to our cells, the cells, then at one point at some point get flooded because they're just getting this constant, you know, tsunami of this stuff and they shut those little hatches that take in the cortisol or the adrenaline or whatever.
46:41 And then your pituitary gland says, oh, the cells aren't getting any cortisol better send more cortisol.
46:49 So it becomes a loop.
46:51 And you know, if you find yourself addicted to this kind of stuff, this is why there's a chemical reason for it.
46:58 So, one of the things that I teach in my, you know, foundation course, the first thing I teach is energy healing plus practices that kind of start to take that loop apart and stop it from being so cyclical and it does take time.
47:18 But there is, and, and actually, you know, it involves more than just the H P A access.
47:24 It involves pretty much your entire endocrine system and other parts of your body.
47:28 But it is possible to slow that down and it is possible to then get more clarity.
47:37 Yeah.
47:37 Thank you for explaining all that.
47:39 It's, it's so fascinating to me to hear the science behind it and it made me think of adrenal fatigue too, right?
47:45 I'm sure that's tied in there as well.
47:48 When, when, yeah, there's so much cortisol that your adrenals just get drained and then you're not producing any.
47:55 Yeah, that is absolutely true.
47:57 And I think it is that is exactly how adrenal fatigue happens.
48:01 And adrenal fatigue is part of these illnesses.
48:03 But unfortunately, it's often also conflated with them.
48:06 And what works for adrenal fatigue does not work for these because as you pointed out all your systems, so wacky, not just that.
48:13 Yeah, that makes sense.
48:15 Ok.
48:16 So you, I know you specifically help empaths and sensitive types and we've talked about them a little bit.
48:23 How can these types of people protect themselves from this external environment where there is so much stimulation and triggers like we were just talking about.
48:35 Well, I would, first of all, I would encourage people not to think in terms of protection.
48:40 Ok?
48:40 Because that sort of puts you in the victim position.
48:46 Hm.
48:47 You know, and I'm not saying that there aren't times that we need it.
48:53 But I'm saying if you think of yourself as in constant need of protection, what you're thinking of yourself is as helpless and that is not very empowering in any way.
49:04 I, I love it.
49:05 I'm over here smiling because so much of what I'm trying to do is empower people and get them out of victim mentality.
49:11 So I love that you just called that out.
49:15 Yeah.
49:15 Yeah.
49:15 And I appreciate that you are doing that because I think there is so much of it that's unconscious, you know, and I, I keep finding new levels in myself.
49:22 It's like, I think I've gone through it all.
49:23 But, oh, no, there's more because it's almost become trendy to be a victim these days, especially on social media.
49:29 Oh, absolutely.
49:31 It has.
49:31 And, and it, it's like, there's, there's this weird binary thing going on where it's like to be a, to be inferior and superior is kind of part of the same two sides of the same coin, you know, and it's the same with being a victim and being powerful.
49:47 It's like there's a weird sense of like fake power with being a victim, you know, that you can kind of manipulate people with it or you can just, yeah, sorry to interrupt you.
49:57 But yes, because there's perceived payoffs to it.
50:00 Yes, that's a really good way of putting it.
50:02 No, I don't.
50:03 I, I appreciate the interruption, feel free because I think it's really nice to flush these things out in different ways.
50:08 So people get it because it's a really important thing to get.
50:12 So as far as you know, what I would recommend for sensitive people and also for people with these illnesses who are like really physically sensitive is kind of a twofold way, which is sort of what I teach.
50:27 And one is, you know, do some practical stuff which is become aware of what drains you and start to change that.
50:35 And, you know, I'm gonna just give some really simple examples.
50:39 So like, say if you're a person with this kind of illness and like me, well, you know, pattern wallpaper drives you crazy, then do not spend time in rooms with patterned wallpaper and if your dad has it change that, you know, sounds obvious.
50:53 Yeah.
50:54 Yeah.
50:54 Right.
50:55 But, you know, it's a lot of times we don't think of these things because they're just there and, you know, it's like we're not supposed to be bothered by them.
51:00 So, you know, and sensitive people and creative people are bothered by a lot of things that many, many people think, you know, they're kind of nuts to be bothered by honestly.
51:08 So, you know, it's, it's important to notice when you are being drained.
51:14 I think a lot of us try to just ignore it and, you know, carry on and, you know, carrying on is necessary in certain circumstances.
51:20 But I would say that those circumstances are generally emergencies and we don't want to make our entire life an emergency.
51:27 I love that.
51:28 That's so well put and it, it, it really just comes back to following your own tuition, your own gut instinct about what works for you and what doesn't right?
51:37 And other people's opinions or interpretations be laid on top of you.
51:42 So I can't believe an hour has gone by.
51:46 I feel like I could listen to you talk forever.
51:49 There's still so much I want to ask you about, but I want to respect everyone's time.
51:54 So you know, maybe you can just tell everyone how they can find you what you're working on right now.
52:01 If there's any special thing you wanna share links, anything?
52:06 Ok.
52:07 Well, I would say one of the best places to find me is on my website Sunday oli dot com.
52:11 Very original, but you know, easy to remember.
52:14 So on my work with me page there, there's a sign up for my email where you can find a recorded copy of the healing work that I did earlier.
52:24 And so if you want to try this out, I recommend doing that because it works over time, you know, you can get some effects, you know, in a, in a short bit like we did.
52:35 But if you really want to train yourself to something new, you kind of need to do it over time.
52:41 And along with that MP3, I also send instructions and in a few emails so that you can kind of get the best use out of it and kind of start learning how to be sensitive to your own, you know, to what you get, what ranging and what replenishes you.
52:56 The other thing I would suggest is that I have a a youtube channel, Sunday, Oliver.
53:02 And there I do healing work and talk and I have a lot of short videos and a couple of long ones.
53:09 There's, if you're really interested, there's one webinar that kind of goes through the basics of what I do, that's about an hour long.
53:16 And for those people who are interested in maybe going deeper, you might want to look at my web page called the Healing Catalyst because it basically lines out the whole system I kind of work with or the, the map of what I do.
53:31 And if you haven't found satisfaction in the ways that you've tried it, this might be worth looking at just to see what a different path looks like.
53:42 Yeah, thank you so much.
53:43 And all of those links are going to be in the show notes.
53:45 So if you're driving right now, don't, don't try and write them down, you can come back and look at them later and I know Sunday is great about helping people with things that doctors haven't been able to help with things like Long COVID that a lot of people my dad suffered from Long COVID for three years.
54:01 So, yeah.
54:02 Yeah, he actually passed away from Long COVID.
54:05 Oh man.
54:06 So you know, get, get help from these things and Sunday is a great resource.
54:11 So thank you so much for coming on.
54:13 It's been such a pleasure to talk to you and learn from you and I really appreciate your time.
54:18 Thank you so much for having me.
54:20 And I have to say I was really shocked when you said an hour was up because I wasn't keeping an eye on the clock.
54:25 Yeah, it's amazing time time is just this crazy illusion, right?
54:29 It is.
54:31 and thank you for everyone for tuning in.
54:34 Check out the links in the show notes for my own links as well.
54:37 You can find places to purchase my book, change your mind, to change your reality.
54:41 Get information about my free workshops, my courses, my coaching programs and I hope everyone has a beautiful rest of your day.
54:49 Thank you so much for joining.
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