Speaker 1: 0:56

Next up on Soul Level, human, we get a huge countdown. When we first start and we're like, oh hi, we're going, we're going, it's right now. It kind of feels like that's what life is throwing at us right now, doesn't it? The big giant countdown. Three, two, one, let's go, it's go time. Ready or not? Yeah, really Ready or not? Here we come.

Speaker 2: 1:23

Then I noticed that people would come into my office and pick up crystals and rocks off my desk and they would sit and hold them and talk to me about things that were not HR related. And I started to notice like auras around people and at the end of 2019, officially stepped out of corporate to do this work full time Wow, I would lay on my floor and draw what music looked like to me. I had synesthesia, which is a condition in your mind where your signals cross. There are over 80 different forms of it. For me, it comes through a sound to color or sound to shape or taste. When I take in a sense, in my mind it shows up as a choreography of movement and color and shape. As a little kid, I didn't really know what it was called and I didn't really have the vocabulary to describe it. I think I just assumed that everybody had that too.

Speaker 1: 2:14

You didn't come here to play safe. You came to remember your power and build what comes next. I'm Sylvia Beatriz, psychic medium and intuition coach, and this is Soul Level Human, the podcast for truth-tellers, cycle breakers and soul-led revolutionaries. You didn't come here to bypass the chaos. You came here to lead through it.

Speaker 1: 2:40

Today's guest is Heather Eck, a former corporate HR leader, turned intuitive artist, energy worker and spiritual coach. Heather has synesthesia, which means she literally sees sound, and she uses that gift to create custom intuitive paintings that serve as a mirror of her client's current spiritual state. These spirit portraits become a map for healing, release and transformation. We talk about what it means to step fully into your calling, how to navigate burnout and why spiritual responsibility is non-negotiable in a time like this. We also get into her personal story how she left corporate after receiving a promotion and her first solo art show on the same day. Talk about a cosmic fork in the road. If you've ever felt like you don't quite fit the mold of any career path out there, or if you're just exhausted by the push pull of purpose versus practicality, this one is for you. Let's dive in. Thank you for coming on, heather. I'm so happy to finally officially meet you. Yeah, same.

Speaker 2: 3:44

Thank you for having me. It's nice to see you in person outside of the socials.

Speaker 1: 3:49

Yeah, isn't that wild. I feel like we know each other already. We are in the same business program, we both are with James Wedmore and we're part of his communities. And can I just say I'm obsessed with your website and your branding and I see the flow, girl, I see what you're doing, I see the care, I see the intentionality, snaps.

Speaker 2: 4:10

Thank you so much. Yeah, I appreciate that because I know you know that you start to put something out there and then something changes and then you have to update everything and at the end of the day, I just want it to all feel cohesive and somebody lands there. They know what to do. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 4:28

And it's a living, breathing thing. We are both energetic practitioners and we have a very grounded and rooted background in how we approach things, so I feel like that's such a missing piece of the puzzle when it comes to the airy fairy spiritual approach to things, don't you think?

Speaker 2: 4:48

Totally. Yeah, I often say that too, like as an artist. I've met a lot of artists when I worked in games who were brilliant illustrators and art designers who could not fill out their new hire paperwork, and so I think it's so interesting when you have somebody like me who came from corporate, who is also an artist and lives in that spiritual space. I use so many spreadsheets in my world. It's like the two things came together to create.

Speaker 1: 5:15

That's a very particular skill set. I hate spreadsheets. How do you do it? My dad's a math retired now but he's a math professor, so I was like in calculus by junior year of high school. So like my brain can, it can do the thing. But I don't like it and I don't want to.

Speaker 2: 5:34

I know I'm the same way. I think I lean a lot on the skills I developed in corporate. Sometimes I think it's easier for me to lean into that world than it is to step into the spiritual space, sometimes because it's a known. It's a known thing, so I can sometimes keep myself there. Yeah, and then go okay, come on, come on.

Speaker 1: 5:56

Oh, that's fascinating. Okay, let's start at the very beginning. Let's do a little sound of music moment for myself right now. Tell me, how did you stumble into all of this stuff, like was it something that you always had?

Speaker 2: 6:11

You tell me yeah, that's a great question it is. It was with me when I was a little kid. I was a very spiritual kid. I was always like dabbling in astrology and reading books about the mysteries of the unexplained and I was always asking my dad questions about are aliens real? Like I think I just came into this world very curious about the mysteries of the universe and wanted to understand that from a really young age and I was very creative kid and was always sketching and drawing and singing songs and writing music and I would lay on my floor and draw what music looked like to me. And so I think that I had the synesthesia, which is like a condition in your mind where your signals cross, where essentially, like, there are over 80 different forms of it. For me it comes through a sound to color or sound to shape or taste. When I take in a sense, in my mind it shows up as a choreography of movement and color and shape, and that was with me, I think, as a little kid. I didn't really know what it was called and I didn't really have the vocabulary to describe it. I think I just assumed that everybody had that too and that was just me.

Speaker 2: 7:29

But I set about to pursue human resources because your parents are like you can't be an artist because there's no money in that, so go do something else. Right like you can't be an artist because there's no money in that, so go do something else. Right the spreadsheet. So I went into human resources for almost 20 years and then found myself like dabbling in collecting as many certifications as I possibly could, going to as many classes as I could. I started and ended so many little small businesses and creative spaces.

Speaker 2: 8:00

And then, when we moved from New Jersey down to North Carolina in 2014, I started working with a spiritual teacher and she helped me see. You know, your gifts show up when you're young. They've always been around you. The things that you were interested in as a little kid are actually like where your gifts live. And as soon as she said that to me, it was like this light bulb went off and I went oh, I'm an artist. It was like it came flooding back in. You know, like? And then I started to get really angry because I thought I've spent all this time sitting behind this desk. I hate this. I really.

Speaker 2: 9:05

You know, I think for a lot of us, we move into places where we think we're supposed to be and we don't realize the shoulds we should all over ourselves right Totally and we don't realize that we're building up this anger and resentment about where we should be. And so I found myself really angry and really tired and the kind of tired that, like no amount of time off was going to fix. And so I started painting again and I started stepping into my spiritual gifts and I noticed that people would come into my office and pick up crystals and rocks off my desk and they would sit and hold them and talk to me about things that were not HR related, and I started to notice like auras around people and then I decided that I needed to get out of that space and at the end of 2019, officially stepped out of corporate to do this work full time.

Speaker 1: 9:59

Wow, wow, gosh, what a reflection of like it's always been there, it's right under your nose. For myself, growing up, I was always that odd man out, square, peg, round hole kind of person. Like I was like I don't fit anywhere, I don't like. I'm looking at all the little career books and nothing feels like me, you know. And it turns out I mean, this is not a job description that was just readily available in the career books, right, exactly. And what do you do with that? Especially back then, nobody was talking about this stuff. Back then, like this is like totally fringe, very strange, very, very out there. And I'm so amazed that people were gravitating to you, even without you claiming it or advertising it or anything, and it was just a matter of energy already setting things up for you. That's so cool. Did you have any experiences as a kid where you would try to articulate the synesthesia or the experiences that you were having? That's a really good question.

Speaker 2: 11:04

I think you know, when I look back at that time I remember just having this like insatiable curiosity about the bigger world around me. You know like we would go to the library and I remember just gravitating over to like the spiritual, religious books and every normal kid does right, Is that not?

Speaker 1: 11:27

Is that not a thing?

Speaker 2: 11:28

I'm like, I'm like 11 years old and I'm like, yeah, I'll forget about those. I want to look at these Like. I remember pulling out a book on the Dead Sea Scrolls one time and my mom was like, um, maybe something else.

Speaker 1: 11:43

That's funny.

Speaker 2: 11:45

But my dad was always really curious about it and in our house we talked about like the other side and we would talk about ghosts and we would talk about spirits and like nobody. Nobody really pushed that away because I think my mom and dad had had their own experiences and so I had. You know, there's these moments from childhood that I would remember asking my mom and dad like I would have a sensation where everything was speeding up and everything was slowing down and that I would have sensations in my body that felt like, okay, you know, when you have a bushel of grapes and you take the grape off and it's got the little pointy end that has been the stem has been in the grape, I would have sensations in my body of the stems, like on my skin, and I never really knew what that was, but I could sort of I would feel and I wonder, looking back at that now, if that was me reading energy at the time and I didn't know what was happening. Because now, as an adult, you think so- yeah, do you still?

Speaker 2: 12:45

have that feeling now? No, but it's similar to like if I meet somebody whose energy doesn't resonate with me or there's something about them that I just am not sure of. I experience them as prickly or as pointy or something, so I wondered if that was what was coming through at the time.

Speaker 1: 13:05

I mean that makes total sense too, Because I mean, since now you're keyed into the energy and you know yourself so much better as an adult, you know you don't need the like the hit me over the head sign of it. Right, Right, Like back then, everything is so new. In order to notice it, Like the proprioception and things like that, you need a very loud input. Right, so that makes perfect sense that it was so distinct. And so what hand motion is this Specific right so obvious for you to actually track it and notice it? And now it can be so much more subtle. That's so fascinating. Yeah, it was weird.

Speaker 2: 13:44

I don't know if you had this when you were a kid, like, did you ever see yourself flying? Or did you ever see yourself moving around? Like, yeah, those things would happen to me. I was like, oh, I'm watching myself fly up the stairs, but I was sitting there. But I in my mind, I don't know those like bizarre things that you experience as a kid, where you have no vocabulary for what's happening, and then, as you become an adult and you start to realize, oh, actually, whatever the spiritual gift is, it's been with me for a very long time. I just packed it up in a little box and stuffed it way, way down until you have something that happens and you have to lean into it.

Speaker 1: 14:22

So, yeah, weird little things from childhood, yeah, it's such a bummer to that that just back then these conversations weren't being had, because I remember trying to talk to my friends about it. Like you know that feeling where, like you know you're here but you're not here, but like I didn't have the words for that, and it's like I can conjure that feeling even now, like it was. It's just like this out of body, like awareness that you're this person this time and you are in a body and you're here. It's like it's an acid trip. Basically is what I'm describing, but I've never been on acid. Like I can access all of this with zero drugs, wild, right.

Speaker 1: 15:06

And so how do you articulate that? As a you know, five-year-old, you can't. And then, of course, all my friends were like, yeah, you're weird. No, no, I don't know that feeling. And so, yeah, like you said, you just stuff it down and then you just put it on a shelf and decide, well, I guess I'm just weird and I'm so glad there's so many other weirds out there now, thank God, right, because it's same same.

Speaker 2: 15:31

I was really unsure where I fit in in the world and I think I had. You know, everybody has like a core wound right. Mine has always been acceptance, like I. I'm like I don't know who I fit with. I must not be acceptable. And it was just because I think I felt things so deeply. I was one of those very sensitive kids that people didn't quite know how to be with me, I guess because I just wasn't you know, I was just very sensitive. Now I think that sensitivity is something that attracts people to me, but at the time it was like oh my God, she's crying again. God, she's so sensitive, she's so shy.

Speaker 1: 16:09

Here we go again, yeah, and then you internalize all of that, right, because people say so much off the cuff they don't think twice about what they say around their kids or whatever, right? But it's so foundational to who we end up being and all the weeds that we have to sift through trying to come back home to ourselves ultimately. And so how do you help others in that process of coming home to themselves? Because if you've been through it, then you know the terrain, but it's not going to look exactly like yours. So how do you do it?

Speaker 2: 16:42

Yeah, that's a beautiful question. I think what is interesting about the way that I work with people now is in being able to sort of put their energy on like a jacket. I have strong clairsentience, so I feel a lot, you probably know. Like you walk into a room, you kind of know what's happening in that space or what has happened in that space.

Speaker 2: 17:03

When I sit with somebody, I understand what's the spiritual undercurrent or issue that they're going through, that's affecting them at an energetic level physical, emotional or spiritual and so I often create a painting for them that's called a spirit portrait. That's sort of like a mirror of their energy at the moment and it offers them a map out of that pain into healing. And so cool, thank you, thank you. So I really I seek, I seek color. That artistic, colorful aspect of my childhood is still very present with me and I see color around people and that color gives me information that then I can use to help work with them. And I do that through this kind of container of here's where you're starting with your spirit portrait, here's where you are, your spirit portrait, here's where you are. And we were going to work with you through therapeutic arts, somatic exercises, all different kinds of modalities to help you unblock that get unstuck, restore your understanding of yourself from a spiritual perspective, and then we do a final spirit portrait at the end that shows where they are today.

Speaker 1: 18:12

Oh, that is so cool. I love how you just you weave so many things that you can do all together into your own signature experience. Like again, this is not in a career book, career fair, like that's not a thing. But that's so cool because you have your own entry point.

Speaker 1: 18:31

I love that you use the metaphor of putting on a jacket, because that communicates volumes and just that idea, like you can you can quote, unquote, picture what it's like to put on a scratchy jacket where you're just uncomfortable but you can feel around and get so much information just from feeling the jacket on your body, versus a jacket that feels good and feel soft and all it fits all the right places. That is such a great way to put it. I love that, thank you. But then, okay, so you have that level. And then you've also brought in so many modalities and education. Like you are trained in so many different things and you can bring in knowledge and practices from so many different places. And then I'm sure you use your own intuition and your own guidance to weave through what hits first and where we're going next and how to best approach the situation, and then sandwiching in the process with another painting. Heather, that's exactly it.

Speaker 2: 19:28

I want to hire you to do my marketing for me.

Speaker 1: 19:33

I do like to write it works out well, that's funny. I do like to write it works out well, that's funny, Heather. That is so cool. And what I love too is that it all of this stuff is so like intangible for people, mostly like they can kind of get it but they don't really get it, and it's so helpful to have that 3d thing that they can see, look at, feels you know, sit with to explain it, Wow.

Speaker 2: 20:00

Yeah, you're absolutely right, because it's not.

Speaker 2: 20:03

It's not something that I can easily put into a business card and hand out to somebody, and it's woo enough that somebody's like, wait, what, what do you do now?

Speaker 2: 20:13

But I also think that the tools that I use for people in the conversations that I have really are meant.

Speaker 2: 20:19

I feel like all I'm doing is holding up a mirror.

Speaker 2: 20:21

You know, I'm holding up a mirror and giving somebody permission to see themselves as the beautiful, radiant spirit that they're meant to be here, and offering them permission to make space for themselves, because a lot of times we are so bogged down by whatever we're consuming in the news cycle or just our lives and going from meeting to meeting, and the next thing, you know it's eight o'clock and you haven't had dinner, and then you're in bed by midnight, you doom scroll, and so this is rinse and repeat, yeah, repeat, yeah, exactly, you know, and we are so, so many of us are so tired, and so it's really meant to give you tools that you can use to help give you back a sense of yourself, to help you see yourself again and actually to answer the question like what is it that I really want instead of why am I still doing this thing that actually makes me feel really bad, or that's contributing to high blood pressure, or that's making me feel you know, some of those things we just do when we're not aware of what the actual impact is on our mind, body or spirit.

Speaker 1: 21:27

Yeah, absolutely. And then meeting people at such an intimate level, that's that's a large, energetic ask for you to hold. You know how? How do you manage your energy doing all of this stuff? How, like, how many paintings do you? How often is this? This is crazy it is.

Speaker 2: 21:45

It's a lot.

Speaker 2: 21:46

I want to say oh, I'm so good at making time for myself to meditate and to do all the things right, but it's like the cobblers kids have no shoes. You know, I have to really work at making space for myself too and sort of practice what I preach right, but I think it is limited to a certain number of people because there's only so much that I can support at one time. But I also try to really make sure that I'm a clear channel for that person, so praying and clearing my energy, clearing my space before I sit with that person's energy, so that I'm trying to offer the cleanest and clearest information that is for their highest and best, so that I'm not blocking it. And so what I have found is that if I try to control too much of the process of making the painting or making the whatever, it turns out so bad and I feel so icky. But if I just sort of go okay, god, you know what does this person need, like, let me just be the clear channel through which it flows, then I just let whatever it looks like.

Speaker 2: 22:47

That's what it looks like and that's when I get the clearest understanding of how I can help support them. But it's a really beautiful, fascinating thing, and I think what I like about the spirit portraits is that that is like a Polaroid of your spirit. It's such a quick snapshot of where you are. The larger pieces that I do that are like the bigger abstracts are really like an exploration of bigger ideas that are out in the world today. Like I'm really honed in on this idea of spiritual responsibility at the moment because oh my gosh.

Speaker 1: 23:20

Yeah, let's go there, let's do this.

Speaker 2: 23:22

Right. Like yeah it's so important and, and I think it's almost like a glass shattering moment, Like once you have an understanding of spirit. You can't right Like you can't unsee it, you can't unring the bell. You know every other analogy you can think of. Then, all of a sudden, it's like okay, now you have a responsibility and you can't put, you can't walk it back. Yes, and so that's. That's what I'm exploring now in in my work.

Speaker 1: 23:52

Have you seen an evolution of your work from, say, 2018-19 pre-COVID to now? Like? What does that look like visually?

Speaker 2: 24:02

Oh, that's a great question. I think, visually, the work felt very, I would say, like constricted in a way. I don't think I really understood. You know, I would do a painting in the early days and I'd be like, oh, this painting's blue, white and gold. That's about the throat, that's about the spirit, that's about abundance. And now and now, when I sit to work, I'll see these images or shapes come out. And when I, it's almost like I, it's almost like slow art. The work actually comes through fast. The part that's slow is sitting with it and reading it and energetically sort of understanding, okay, now, what is it saying? And so that's where I'll kind of look at a piece and go oh my gosh, do you see all the circles in here? Circles are all about allowing, they're about completion.

Speaker 1: 24:50

So is that the interpretation comes after the painting? Then yeah, so you just channel through and then you sit with and interpret.

Speaker 2: 24:57

that's exactly right yep so fucking cool and there might be like a title or there might be a couple of thoughts or feelings that are I mean, obviously that are coming through while I'm doing the work. But, like you just said, a lot of the big interpretations and bigger energies come forward when I sit with it and ask, ask it what it's saying.

Speaker 1: 25:20

Oh, beautiful. Okay, so I know that on your website, you mentioned that you have synesthesia. You mentioned that you have clairsentience, but I'm hearing a lot of clairvoyance and a lot of clairaudience in you as well. So I like from the words that you're using. You have a whole symphony of situations that are happening all at the same time, and that is so cool. So let's not sell ourselves short. First of all, you're, you're working, you're in the channel, you're going deep and I love it so much. So you answer the question what does it look like from 2019 ish to now? How does it feel? Oh, wow, that's a really great question.

Speaker 2: 26:03

Thank you for asking that. I think it is so much richer and bigger than me. I think for a really long time I've tried to throttle my gift and I try to make room for it in places where it doesn't necessarily need to be, and so now it feels like I don't have any control over what the painting looks like. It's just me being the channel through which the art makes it to the canvas and in some ways it feels like I don't have to do anything except show up and be present for it. It also feels like that 11-year-old kid at the library digging for the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Speaker 2: 26:51

Like the things that come out of these paintings are deeply spiritual and rooted in a lot of biblical thought and not religious thought, but like biblical, and that, to me, is so interesting and makes me really want to understand from a deeper level, like our relationship with God and, again, spiritual responsibility and what our lives are like now, based on things that happened back then, and just a richer, deeper relationship with Source, with God, with Jesus, with, I mean, like just really going to places where I think people can kind of go. Oh, I'm not really sure about that, but all right, I'll stay with you. You know, let's talk about it. What's actually coming through in this painting? It's very different, very different.

Speaker 1: 27:41

That's so cool. What it brings to mind for me is the idea of before, like trying to make the puzzle piece fit in where you think it goes, and then to now it's just eh, fuck it, let's play, let To now it's just let's play, let's be messy, let's just see what happens, let's just see. You know, yeah, that's truly where the magic is. That's right, it's such a. It takes some courage to get there. It takes some healing work to let yourself just be in it and trust that something's going to catch you when you just leap. Yes, how has that process been for you?

Speaker 2: 28:22

Really, I'm going to say scary and not scary at the same time. I left corporate at the end of 2019. After painting for about two or three years, I think, I felt that nudge to leave when I got a promotion and my first solo show on the same day. That's amazing. It was so irritating. Honestly, I was so mad, I was so angry. I was like what the hell? God? It was like here's this, you know more money than you've ever made in your entire life and a buttload of new responsibility. And then it was like oh hey, heather, we would love to have your work in our space for a First Friday event. And blah, blah, blah. And I remember going like, oh my, I think that was when I had the awareness of what expansive and restrictive was, because the art show felt expansive and the promotion felt restrictive and my gut was like yep, yeah, and that was a really. I was irritated because I felt like I was sending mixed messages to the universe and it responded in kind you know and very loudly and specifically thank you for that.

Speaker 1: 29:38

How did you? How, from that moment, from that day, to actually making the decision, what? What's the time gap there?

Speaker 2: 29:47

Yeah, I think that that was probably about a full year later. I had decided that I would give my notice in September but plan to work out through the end of the year, because I didn't want to leave anybody in the lurch. And I also felt like I still needed to kind of figure out like I wasn't making near as much money as I was in my corporate job and I was really worried about that, because leaving behind corporate is leaving behind your 401k and your paycheck every two weeks and these amazing benefits. But also, you know, you find yourself, I found myself in the space of working really, really hard to keep all of those things that I was then having to go to the doctor for, to pay for all you know, like all the health issues that I was developing as a result of all of that stress, and so it felt really scary to leave all of that behind.

Speaker 2: 30:37

But I went in to tell my boss that I was giving my notice and no sooner did the words leave my mouth that he said Okay, great, let's go tell your team. And it was like the universe just squeezed me out, because at that point he didn't even give me a chance to say but I'll work through. He just told the team and within two weeks I was, you know, wearing eight hats as a business owner. Wow. So I felt like the universe had to kick me out or I never would have left, honestly, yeah.

Speaker 1: 31:07

That sounds like a very common experience this year, with a lot of people being laid off, being fired, being let go, you know, in whatever capacity that looks like being laid off, being fired, being let go. You know, in whatever capacity that looks like what? What would you say to people who are in corporate right now and who see or feel?

Speaker 2: 31:31

you know the imminent chopping block. You know, yeah, oh my gosh. Honestly, I think what I want to say is come hell or high water, put yourself first, because so many of us are giving ourselves away to things and to people who don't care about us in the big ways that we need to be cared for.

Speaker 2: 31:46

And our systems who don't, and our systems, exactly right, and we offer up so much of our energy and our time and our space and our you know investments and and we hope that one day will be provided for through them.

Speaker 2: 32:02

But I think what we're trading off in that instance is we're not giving ourselves quiet time, we're not giving ourselves space to meditate, we're not giving ourselves places to be healthy and we're honestly not listening to what our spirits are trying to tell us, or what God is trying to communicate, or what the universe is trying to communicate, and it's trying to get our attention all day, every day, all the time, yeah, and so, while it feels really freaking scary to be sitting in that place where you're like I could lose my job, I think what's the better question to ask is like what is this happening? For? You don't always get to understand the reason why something is happening, but you can operate from a place of everything is happening in my favor and I just need to be willing to see what it is that's trying to be communicated to me so that I can step into that fully aware and fully open to whatever this experience is trying to offer, even if it feels really hard right now.

Speaker 1: 33:03

Yeah, really taking ownership of the situation, not in terms of what happens to you, what happens next, but what you want out of your experience of living and what you are here to do, like what kind of impact you're here to have on other people. And you can have that impact. You know, in a coffee shop at home with your kids, or you know in your corporate job, like, you are the impact right, you are the impact right. Yeah, that's hard, though.

Speaker 2: 33:28

It's so hard. It's so hard I, because I still think you know it's scary to not have a job, because then your brain starts to catastrophize Well, what if this happens? And what if that happens, and I don't know? I feel like if you have I'm going to use the word faith, I feel like if you have hope and you believe in something that's operating at a higher level than you, at a higher frequency than you and you and you ask for help and you lean into that, that there's a reason and there's a purpose and that you will be provided for. I think a lot of times we forget that we are spirits having a human experience, and so the ego is like, oh God, I just lost my 401k, and the spirit is like, whoa, now we can go. Wait what?

Speaker 2: 34:15

It doesn't mean it's not hard. It just means that, like we're not meant to, I don't think we're meant to work for other people. I think we're meant to work for ourselves in service. We're meant to collaborate with each other. We're meant to understand our gifts. We're meant to use those gifts in service and we're meant to do much bigger work in the world than just filling in spreadsheets.

Speaker 1: 34:39

But that's hard. You know, yeah, that is hard. Is there any practical energy like tune up tools that you can offer somebody in corporate who is on the rat race hamster wheel who might say I don't have time for this? Yeah.

Speaker 2: 34:56

My first go to is always just give yourself like a minute to two of meditation in between meetings, like as much as you can. Try to just close your eyes and breathe for a minute, because I know the feeling and this even happens today too moving from one meeting into another meeting without giving yourself some space. So if you are really strapped for time and you can't sit in stillness for 10 or 15 minutes, just give yourself a couple of minutes in between just to breathe and kind of say what is it that I need right now? And try to actually listen to what it is and be obedient to that, because I think there's a lot of wisdom in those quiet moments that, because we're in the rat race so often we don't pay attention to.

Speaker 1: 35:38

Yeah, totally the way I talk about it is really like swimming. Like when you're going for a swim it's not like you breathe a lot at the beginning and then you're just out there for an hour underwater like you can't sustain it. You're never designed to sustain that. So coming up for air, even once every hour, is going to be better than not breathing or not being intentional or not being present at all ever.

Speaker 2: 36:06

Exactly Right, exactly, yep, I think it's better to do just a little bit each day, if you can, than to do 30 minutes once a week.

Speaker 1: 36:13

You know, oh yeah, totally, and that really goes with any habit. You know, like eating healthy one day out of 30 is not going to serve anyone to. You know, give you sustained, you live your life. That is also so hard for us little humans who are drowning in capitalism, it's so true. I think we're expected to be machines and expected to override our intuition, and that's really by design.

Speaker 2: 36:52

Yeah, yeah, and unfortunately it's just. It seems like that's the way we've all just been raised. You know, that's just the way it's been for a long time. And I remember, like growing up, what I always heard was we have to work really hard, you have to work really hard. And there are some days where things come to me without me trying at all and I'm like what is happening here? And I don't understand, because on the days that I bust my butt, I feel like there's no traction, and then on the days where I take a nap, I'm like, oh okay, thanks for this.

Speaker 1: 37:24

Ooh, I love that. Do you have any specific stories of something epic that happened when you just let yourself off the hook?

Speaker 2: 37:31

for a second. Oh, that's a great question. I mean, even just this week. I feel like the summer has been so slow business wise. It feels like people are very uncertain, and so when people feel uncertain, they don't really necessarily want to buy new artwork for their home or invest in themselves, because they're trying to save money for the groceries that are out of control right now.

Speaker 2: 37:51

You know, and I just kind of sat and I was like, Okay, God, you know what, I give up. I don't know what to do anymore. Like it is what it is. You let me know when you need me to do something. You know, and I think it was like Tuesday or Wednesday, I had three people call me to come do spirit portraits for them, and then somebody hired me to do a class in September. And then something else happened and I was like huh, all right.

Speaker 1: 38:22

So the surrender thing kind of works. I guess that is a repeated lesson, isn't it, Isn't it?

Speaker 2: 38:28

Like waving the white flag, okay.

Speaker 1: 38:30

I give up. Okay, we're so cute, aren't we? We think we could actually effort everything into existence when the trees and the birds in the sky are all out here doing it on their own. Just fine, weird.

Speaker 2: 38:44

I think about that all the time. I really do. I'm like listen, nature doesn't have to be told, it just does its thing, you know. And we're out here trying to think we can outsmart God and, honestly, what is wrong, what is going on?

Speaker 1: 38:59

Sometimes it's the only thing that's keeping me sane at this point, because, looking around, I'm like, okay, I am just one person, I can only do what's right in front of me, but if we're all doing what's right in front of us and collaborating and working together, then big things can actually happen. And when there's miracles involved, big things can actually happen. I'm not a student of the Course in Miracles, but I saw on your website that you are. My mom is as well, and she's always talking about different things that she's learning there, and she said the other day that there is no difference between a small miracle and a big miracle, that it's just as easy to do the small as the big. Yeah, and that's such a relief.

Speaker 2: 39:43

Oh, my gosh.

Speaker 1: 39:47

Can we just like how I picture it in my own meditation, like I put I imagine God, spirit, angels, everybody just having a basket for me to fill up and I'm like, okay, here's my kids, here's my house, here's my bank account, here's Gaza, here's LA, here's Trump, here's my house, here's my bank account, here's gaza, here's la, here's trump, here's the white house, like everything. I'm just putting it all in there, like at some point I'm literally putting the entire earth like here you go, I can't, I cannot anymore, I don't know.

Speaker 2: 40:11

It feels much better it does, it does right, even just in your imagination or your meditation, your visualization. You, you hand something off. I think there's a lot of power in that, because you take your hands off of it and you say this is not my problem to solve, but it is on my heart and it's on my mind, but I need you to please take it. And I love that idea of just putting it in the basket, like, can you just take this for me? It'd be really great. I've also started at night, when I go to sleep, I ask God to just sleep with me at night. I'm like can you just, can you just come lay with me tonight? I'm having a hard time falling asleep. Almost always, I instantly fall asleep and um, and I sleep through the night on those nights too, which is so nice. So yeah, I don't think there's any difference between a big or a small miracle. I think they're all. I think it's all a miracle.

Speaker 1: 40:59

I think so too.

Speaker 1: 41:01

I think so too, and you just actually hit something for me, because I have a practice with my two kids I have a five and a 10 year old and what I do for them which is I've never seen anybody else do but I kind of outline a heart and then I zip them up in the bubble of a heart and I just I trace it and I zip it up and lock it at the top, and I do it for both of them, but I don't do it for myself. So isn't that funny how we all have our own thing that we just forget to do for ourselves, like I will, I will put so much sunscreen on those kids and forget to put mine on. Or like get your you know jacket, change of clothes and wing it, you know, for myself. And so I'm calling myself out and calling all the parents out there, out, let's. Oh funny, my little microphone amp right here. It says focus right. Yes, I should focus right. Thank you, called out in real time, Thank you.

Speaker 2: 41:53

I love that. I love that concept of putting a heart around and zipping it up. I think that's beautiful.

Speaker 1: 41:58

Thank, you Thanks. Guides. You tell me what to do all the time.

Speaker 2: 42:03

That's so good, that's so so good. Yeah, I'd, like you said, I think we're always being communicated to and that message that you just got, like there are messages all around us all the time. I think nature is especially good at delivering messages to us and and just being you know, just being aware of it, you're not going to get them all.

Speaker 1: 42:22

I imagine that most of the time, my guides are like I think it's so funny to imagine them like that, like I, well, okay, there's there's so many things that I haven't explored in spirituality. There's like the witchcraft and the deity work and all this other stuff and I just don't feel very called to it myself. It's not my bag, but like there are so many different entities that you could connect with and I feel like it's just, it's just our human brains trying to understand and label a strand of infinite energy that we can connect with and we all fit in different places. What do you think I?

Speaker 2: 43:05

agree, I agree. I think whatever helps you feel connected to higher consciousness and, again, that spiritual responsibility, we are all one, we're all connected, we're all part of something bigger. There's no question in my mind. So, whatever it is the God of your understanding, your guides, your angels, your, whatever it is as long as you have that connection, as long as that gives you peace and it and it guides you in a way that brings light and love into the world, then I think that's a good thing. For me it's God, but for other people it might be something different. But whatever it is, it's just, it's whatever your heart feels called to.

Speaker 1: 43:47

Yeah, that makes sense to me. And you touched too on the law of one right there, which I feel like is the perfect entry point to like spiritual bypassing, because I don't see, in a universe of the law of one, how we could ever ignore anything. Yeah, because I mean, if we are ignoring our own shadow, for example, then we're only doing half of the work and we're ignoring an entire side of ourselves that exists and needs attention, kindness, presence and love also. And if we are one which we are, how can I, as a soul level, human, ignore, bypass, turn a blind eye to anything? Anything, yeah, but then, at the same time, anything, anything, yeah, but then at the same time, it's also a lot, especially right now, because we're so aware of everything happening. So, from your perspective, how do we navigate that in this time? Cause we weren't always aware of all the things happening, but it doesn't mean that they weren't happening. So this is a very unique time to be here. So what does that mean to you?

Speaker 2: 45:01

I think that's such a powerful question. I've been thinking about this a lot because we do have the ability to consume so much information about what's happening in our own neighborhoods and across the world, and it is overwhelming and it is really hard to see. And it's also, I think it creates I know it creates in me this feeling of oh my gosh, I want to do everything I can to help as many people in places as I can, but I also recognize that I'm only one person. What am I even going to be able to do, or how am I even going to be able to help here? And I think that then can create in me a cycle of I'm not doing enough. I'm not doing enough, I'm not doing enough. And that causes me so much anxiety, right, because I think that's the really hard part.

Speaker 2: 45:51

I feel like what I've been really thinking about lately is like this idea of spiritual housekeeping, right, like before I go to bed at night, thinking about like what did I do today that was helpful to other people in my community, in my and not just like my, you know neighborhood, but in my community of grace, the people that I support, who are part of my spiritual community? What did I do to support them? Is there anything left in my glass you know like? Is there anything left in the glass that hasn know like? Is there anything left in the glass that hasn't been said or that maybe I didn't feel too good about? That I want to ask for forgiveness for, or that I want to forgive someone for? So spiritual housekeeping is for me, before I close my eyes at night, going like is there anything I could have done to be a better person today, and is there anything that I want to let go of before I go to sleep? Because I think, like I said, we are only capable of doing so much, and so we have to sort of be responsible for our side of the street first and then being able to offer our gifts out in the world in whatever way we can.

Speaker 2: 46:55

So if you're an animal lover, maybe you're doing something in your community to help with animals who are in shelters right now. If you are somebody who cares about feeding children over the summer, maybe you find extra ways of volunteering at a food kitchen so that you make sure that those kids get meals or something. So I think it's very easy to get consumed by all the things that are going on, but I also think God doesn't. I don't think God expects us to fix all of that. I think he just wants us to go. You know what? I see somebody who needs help. I have the means to help them. It just so happens I have the means to help them.

Speaker 1: 47:30

Let me go do that thing, and um and we do what we can you know yeah.

Speaker 2: 47:36

Otherwise I think we'd get exhausted trying to do everything.

Speaker 1: 47:44

Absolutely, and that even tips into eco right there as well. Like we're not here to save the entire world, like that's not, that's not in the job description. But can we do everything we can and also learn how to balance that with taking care of ourselves, because that is also in our job description is to take care of ourselves and the people who actually count on us to be filled up. Um, that's a lot, yeah.

Speaker 2: 48:05

As it is in a regular day, right, exactly Right.

Speaker 1: 48:09

I know she's even talking about it. It's like what did we? What did who? Who picked this lifetime? Who? Who do I talk to? Who do?

Speaker 2: 48:21

I love it right, heather, I know and there I hear it all the time too on TikTok it's like you picked this life, you chose to be here at this time for this specific reason, and sometimes I'm like, yeah, okay, that sounds really good. And then other times I'm like oh, oh why?

Speaker 1: 48:37

What happened?

Speaker 2: 48:38

I got in the wrong line, but I think that's true. I think that's true. What a unique life that we're living. You know, I think about I'm 44. I'll be 45 this year. I was eight years old when the Challenger explosion happened. I was 21 when 9-11 happened. I think about, like we lived through COVID, We've lived through so many. I'm like, oh, all right, God, what is what's next? You know, I'm afraid to ask.

Speaker 1: 49:06

I don't want to know if you had told me in 2019, cause I was I was pregnant with my second and he's he's due on February, in February 2020. If I had known then what was coming, like we would have all just been catatonic and just checked out of life at that point, like, and that's not even you know as bad as it's gotten. So that actually is the perfect segue into another question as an energetic practitioner, as a psychic, do you get downloads and hints of what's coming, or do you just get here's what to do right now?

Speaker 2: 49:43

Like how does that work for you? That's a really good question. I honestly I have never tried to look. I mean, you know this too from being on TikTok. There are so many people out there who are like here's what's coming down the road and I love to watch them because I'm always like, wow, I'm so curious if this is going to be accurate or not.

Speaker 2: 50:03

I think for me, like you said, with the COVID thing, I'd almost rather not know. I feel like you know that first two weeks of COVID, when they said you're going to have to homeschool your kids for two weeks, it's just two weeks, it's fine, I thought, oh, I don't know how I'm going to get through these two weeks, two and a half five, you know, five years later, what a ride, I think, for me.

Speaker 2: 50:29

I think back to when I was a little kid, like I was always really consumed by the idea of war and very scared of war and I thought about nuclear war all the time. I was just like this kid, I think. Maybe maybe at the time I was sort of tuning into things and didn't quite know what it was and was like. This is really big and really scary to me, and so I wonder if that's one of the reasons I try not to look, because I feel like maybe I saw some stuff that I was like um, that's not for me, let's go back to art and color, let's play with some crayons.

Speaker 2: 51:08

No, but I do notice consistency in what I see where people are stuck, and so I think, from a collective level, there are, I think, energy, I think like collective energy blockages for a lot of women. They're blocked in their throat and their hearts, you know, and we're seeing this like unfurling of the throat chakra, with women now who are stepping into these places and standing in their power. And what a time to be alive, because you know, women are angry and good, you know. So I see, I see some of that, but I really I. It doesn't really become super clear to me until I've seen it a couple of times, and then I kind of go oh wait, a second, this must be happening, yeah.

Speaker 1: 51:50

Yeah, I made a tick tock this week that I was having some hip issues and I had to go in and rebalance a whole bunch of stuff and do some energetic work on it and it was like girl, it was deep and it was loud, it was a lot, but it was like I know that some of this is mine, but I also know that not all of this is mine, and so I was able to go in and do a lot of work and do a lot of shifting in service of my own life and also the collective my own life and also the collective.

Speaker 1: 52:17

And I feel like so many of us personalize everything, so many things, and make it about us and about our timeline, about our family, about our dynamic, about our individual situation, when so many, you know, crash outs or back pains or sore throats or anything like that also can be an invitation to do some work for the collective as well. And we were talking before we hit record about how we don't know how people are just raw dog in life right now, without spiritual tools and like being able to, like transmute energy and work with things and be in communion with their team at all, and I'm wondering how has that shown up for you? Are you feeling sticky? Are you having a hard time?

Speaker 2: 53:03

Yeah, I do notice that. That kind of thing, like I'll notice when, especially when it interrupts my sleep, I feel like when I wake up in the middle of the night sometimes. There was, I think, two or three nights last week where I woke up at 430 in the morning and I was, I was like what is this about, rude? What is that? Seriously? That's why the bags, you know, yeah, I do notice that stuff.

Speaker 2: 53:31

I do feel energetically overloaded at times and I worked with this wonderful healer. She can tune into your body and feel energetically where things are stuck and she can, like, pull them out. She's remarkable. And the other day she's like you got something in your throat, you got to get it out. And I was like, what is it? She goes, I don't know, but you're real mad about it. And I was like, oh. So she said I said, well, what do I have to do? And she said you need to write it and just write whatever comes up and then you need to burn it and transmute it back into into love. And I was like, okay, and I was sitting here and I got pulled into work and I was emailing something and all of a sudden I thought there's nothing more important than getting this energy out of my body, and so I instantly stopped, started writing and then went down and burned it, and you able to tap in and get into what it was that you were angry about and kind of dig around in there.

Speaker 2: 54:22

Yeah, I think so. And what was interesting this is so funny too I came downstairs and my son was down there and I said I gotta, I gotta go burn this writing that I just did. He's 12 and he's like oh, okay.

Speaker 1: 54:36

And.

Speaker 2: 54:36

I go anything you want to release and let go up. And he's like, oh, okay, and I go anything you want to release and let go up. And he's like, sure, so he scribbled something down on paper. Oh, I love that so much. I was like, come on, let's go burn it. Well, of course, his just like and gone and mine was like I had to light it three times. How funny, I know.

Speaker 1: 54:55

It's so funny. Of course it did.

Speaker 2: 54:56

Of course, and I said what did you write about? And he goes. I don't think I have to tell you what I wrote about, but it burned up pretty fast. I was like cool, You're a cool dude, Good job.

Speaker 1: 55:05

I'm so happy we're on the parenting squad together because, I mean, just this is such a reason that I have so much hope, because we as adults are doing so much work. We've been healing our lineage, we've been connecting with energy. In the present time, we are investing in the future generation and teaching them the languaging for all of these things and how to recognize their abilities and how to differentiate their own energy from somebody else's and think about things critically. We are doing so much work. Let me just say I don't see a reality where all of that is for nothing. We are doing so much work. Let me just say I don't see a reality where all of that is for nothing.

Speaker 2: 55:44

Right, I was just going to say we are doing a really good job. You're doing a good job.

Speaker 1: 55:50

I agree, we're doing amazing, we're doing a good job. We're doing the best that we can. I'm patting myself on the back right now, right, good job. We're doing the best that we can, right.

Speaker 2: 55:59

I'm patting myself on the back right now, Trying to raise conscious humans, trying to teach them how to not should all over themselves, trying to undo the patterns that I know I was taught and then trying to unwind those in myself so that he doesn't get stuck with it. So it's hard work and I do think that we deserve a little pat on the back sometimes.

Speaker 1: 56:23

And let's throw two more layers of awesome on there. Then we also have perimenopause, and then we also are a sandwich generation, which, for many of us, we're also reparenting the older generations as well, you know. So pats on the back right.

Speaker 2: 56:46

Pats on the back. Pats on the back, yes, yes, actually, that's one thing too that I think we can all get a little better at is just, I know for me, just celebrating little things.

Speaker 1: 57:02

We made it through the day.

Speaker 2: 57:03

I'm amazing Because, honestly, there are some days where you're like what the heck is going on here, and so the fact that you just you know you did a thing today, you showed up, you put on pants.

Speaker 1: 57:17

You know, well done, Well done. I have pants on. Do you understand what a win that is? Since covid, since covid, oh my gosh, you actually have to go back and listen to an episode I did with peyton dale. She's a stylist on tiktok and she's amazing. Her whole thing is did you get dressed today? Oh, I love that it's 11 o'clock, did you? Are you dressed?

Speaker 1: 57:38

I'm like oh thank you, thank you, because it really, like getting dressed is a big deal. It is, it's an investment, it's energy, it's it's intention. Do you watch the show the bear?

Speaker 2: 57:49

yes, love oh, we just started watching it. So we're in season two and we just finished the episode called forks where Richie gets the stage job at the kitchen and then he starts wearing suits and I just cried that whole episode, I know.

Speaker 1: 58:08

I know To see him from the beginning to the end, you're like wow.

Speaker 2: 58:13

But it's true, His whole energy changed. I mean talk about a character arc. His whole energy changed. He respects himself now. He respects the work. He's a better team player.

Speaker 1: 58:23

And he understands it. I mean yes. And he feels so seen and valuable.

Speaker 2: 58:28

Yes, oh. So that's good stuff, that's really good stuff, even a fictional character. Stories like that just make me go. We can change, we can, we can.

Speaker 1: 58:42

Mm-hmm, that just make me go. We can change, we can, we can, we can. And my guides speak to me a lot through media as well, so they're always dropping in nuggets all through songs and Disney movies and shows and I mean it's everywhere, right, I love that little nugget for everybody listening. You absolutely can go inside out, like connect with spirituality and get a lot of insights there. But you can also start going outside in, like what do you want to wear today? What do you feel like eating today? If you're coloring, what color are you drawn to? There's so many ways to come home to yourself and just giving yourself the space to feel into or think about or look into all the little ins that we have to make all those decisions and really give ourselves the time and space and honoring of what do we want? Beautiful, perfect entry point to power. Yay, heather, I'm not going to keep you for too much longer because I feel like we could just, you know, have a girl's night forever. Where can we find you? Where can people work with you?

Speaker 2: 59:51

Oh, thank you for asking. You can find me online at heatherackcom and you can find me on all the socials, really at Heatherack artist. Yay, and you have a podcast too. Oh, that's right, I do. It's called your Radiant Spirit and you'll be a guest on there soon. I can't wait to interview you. We'll flip the mics, yay.

Speaker 1: 1:00:03

Yes.

Speaker 2: 1:00:04

Can't wait to connect with everybody. Please reach out and say hi.

Speaker 1: 1:00:07

Yes, yes, yes. Thank you, heather. I am so happy we finally got to have this conversation. It's such important work that you're doing all of us out here, everybody who's on our squad. Can you just give us a hello, because it really feels nice when people are like yeah, me too. Thank you, heather. Thank you for listening to Soul Level Human. If this episode moved something in you, share it. Text it to a friend, post to your stories. The Soul Level Revolution spreads one brave human at a time and your voice makes a difference. So until next time, remember to slow down, tune in, trust your guidance and keep having the audacity to choose the highest timeline. When you show up fully, you give others permission to do the same. Make this the timeline where you show up.