Episode 136 How To Come Out Of The Spiritual Closet & Embrace Your Intuitive Gifts As A Healing Practitioner: Interview with Venessa Rodriguez

Chris McDonald: Have you ever heard a gentle whisper from within nudging you towards your calling as an intuitive healing practitioner you're meant to be? Or maybe you've sensed an invisible force guiding your decisions, offering insights beyond logic and reason. Well, my dear listener, it's time to embrace that innate power now to unlock the extraordinary within you.

In this episode, we'll explore the concept of incorporating intuition into your healing practice, but that's not all. We'll also touch on a subject that lies close to my heart, coming out of the spiritual closet. We'll empower you to unlock the immense potential that lies within. It's time to step out of the shadows.

Embrace your intuitive gifts and find your authentic voice as a healing practitioner. Stay tuned. This is Holistic Counseling, the podcast for mental health therapists who want to deepen their knowledge of holistic modalities and build their practice with confidence. I'm your host, Chris McDonald, Licensed Therapist.

I am so glad you're here for the journey.

Welcome to the Holistic Counseling Podcast. Are you held back from embracing your intuitive gifts because you worry you might lead clients and patients down the wrong path? Or maybe you're afraid of being judged, perceived as unprofessional, or too woo woo? In this episode, we'll be discussing how to let go of limiting beliefs that are holding you back, how to step into your full self, body minded spirit, and embrace your intuitive gifts to further facilitate healing for your clients and to live your best life to its highest purpose.

Thanks for watching. I am super excited to bring you today's guest. Vanessa Rodriguez is an intuitive nourishment guide and creatrix behind Feed the Wild podcast. She's on a mission to help wild hearted practitioners and healers step out of the spiritual closet and enter their soul calling and medicine through intuitive based healing work, embracing their unique gifts.

Welcome to the podcast. Vanessa. Oh, I'm so

Venessa Rodriguez: happy to be here and to connect. And I was, we were just talking about how it's the day before my birthday, the time we're recording this. So it feels kind of like a, this is one of my absolute favorite things to do. So this is like a little birthday gift for me

Chris McDonald: and everybody I'm sure is wishing you happy birthday and you identify yourself as an intuitive nourishment guide and create trick.

I think I said it right. Can you share what these

Venessa Rodriguez: are? Yeah, I know, you know, I made up these terms for

Chris McDonald: me. You claimed

Venessa Rodriguez: it and made it your own. Creatrix I didn't make up, but, uh, I, yeah, I claimed it. And really it's because It's one of these things, and I'm sure many of your listeners can also identify with this.

When you start to do things that are a little bit beyond what you previously had done in your work, you know, and, and you don't quite have ways to describe it. How do you describe, you know, in that short elevator pitch or like, you know, in two to three words described what it is that you do. So I came into intuitive nourishment guide because I feel that.

My work is primarily as a guide for my clients, for my students, and I'm formally trained as a clinical nutritionist. So I'm a certified nutrition specialist. I've done a lot of work on the clinical side with functional nutrition, holistic nutrition, all of that. But what I started to do, and you know, this is part of my story, right?

And what I do now is go into realms of intuitive healing. And they used to be separate parts of my life. Like I, I did the intuitive stuff and, um, did a lot of like spiritual practices and work and working on my intuition on a personal level. And, you know, there's a whole story behind that. And then I had my professional work, which, which was primarily the clinical nutrition and health coaching work.

And then I started to see that the universe and clients who would come to me were actually asking me to merge the two. And that wasn't something that I ever intended to do. I wasn't, you know, I was doing all of this study on the spiritual and intuitive side, but never thinking that I was going to incorporate it into my professional healing work.

And here I was being invited over and over and over to do it and kind of universe really pushing me to do that. And so then I started to embrace that and start that work and I didn't know what to call it. Right. Um, because it was the merging of my clinical nutrition practice. So I started to combine that clinical nutrition work with the intuitive healing work.

And I asked my, I have a developed a relationship with, you know, my higher self with my guides, with my spiritual guides and as for insight, like what is it that I can call this work that I'm doing? And I got the message, you know, this is all about nourishment. It's about nourishment on all levels, body, mind, and spirit.

There is no real separation. And not my work is really to consider the whole person that body mind spirit of the person and do is do so by using utilizing my intuitive faculties. So that's where intuitive nourishment guide came in and create tricks is kind of a fun play of, it's more of a reminder for me that we all have this power.

and ability to create, to be the co creators of our life and that we can make changes and radical shifts really whenever we truly desire and we get into alignment with that. And it's just kind of a reminder for me because I know that I can get a little bogged down in my mental space and thoughts. I could get caught up in like the earthly realm of, Oh, I need to do this, needs to do that kind of get in stress mode.

And that brings me back to the Creatrix piece just sort of brings me back. It's another way of saying creator, but with more of kind of like this feminine vibe for me, Creatrix is just that reminder again of, Hey, You are more than just your thoughts. You are more than just your to do list. You are actually a divine creator of your life and that you get to do this.

So that's where those two terms come from. I love

Chris McDonald: that. So I'm just thinking about that because I think it is easy for all of us to get caught up in the day to day and to do lists. And what do I got to do after this interview? Those kinds of things. Yeah. So I think it does take us away from our holistic connection to everything and the interconnectedness of everything.

Can I just tell you something funny though, that you said into everything is about nourishment. You said body, mind, spirit. So you know, my word of the years. Nourish. Oh, I love it. Oh, we're meant to be connected. Vanessa . Totally.

Venessa Rodriguez: Here we are. I let you call me in. I know.

Chris McDonald: Isn't that funny? But yeah, cuz you think about that word.

Yeah. So it's, and what does that mean? How it can fill you up? I'm, Hmm. Yes. I could really see that as a wonderful term for

Venessa Rodriguez: yourself. Yeah. It, you know, it started off for me with food, uh, food as medicine. Hence the, the me going into clinical nutrition. My, just a quick. quickie overview of my, my background. I think it'll be helpful just for listeners to know where I'm coming from.

I got into nutrition and, and sort of the holistic health world through really an initiation process. My mom, this was a many, many, moons ago, my mom got diagnosed with breast cancer and she was the first in our family. There was no history of breast cancer. And now as a health professional, knowing what I know, that's actually most cases of breast cancer.

There isn't necessarily any family history. And so it got me really thinking and I'm kind of a researcher. And so I went into the weeds of it. And this was, you know, before Google was really robust and good. And so I found myself and also a lot of what we have now available with all of the free information about holistic healing, health, nutrition, and all that was not readily available.

It was harder to find. And so I found myself in these random forums, you know, with like people talking about things like, what is this energy medicine? Or, you know, different parasite cleanses, like things I hadn't heard of before. And I found myself in this totally new world immersed in this and I just ate it all up.

I was like, Oh my gosh, why isn't anybody talking about this? Right? So that's, that's really where I started. And I got really passionate about nourishment, about food, the power of food for healing. And then I saw how, wow, when we shift what our lifestyle and our diet, how so much else can also shift. And then I started to see the reverse as well.

Right? It's like how often when we have a shift in our relationships or our patterns of thinking, how that can shift and change our habits and, and like how we actually feel in our body and our health. So there, I learned that there was no disconnection between the mind and the body and I started to incorporate that.

with my work. So that's where I, and then I turned, turned all of that into a podcast. And so I have a podcast is called Feed Your Wild, but the, really the principle of the podcast, the purpose of it, and that, that title of Feed Your Wild, it's, it's feeding all aspects of ourself, our innate self, our essential self, who we truly are, how we were, what we came here on earth with, and, and to remember that.

And so nourishment to me is also an act of remembrance. It's a reclamation process. It's remembering these aspects of ourselves that have, you know, I mean, a lot of times been forgotten because of conditioning, because of programming, because of a habit and, you know, familial patterns and lineages and all of that.

And, and so nourishment is like, Hey, we are feeding what our body, mind, and spirit has been asking for all along. And through that nourishment process, it's awakening within us that which is already here, right? That we just needed to remember and to open up. And that's the primary core of my work. You know, it looks different ways depending on who I'm working with, but that's my belief around nourishment.

And I'm a cancer son. I'm into astrology. For any astrology folks, the fans out there, um, I'm a cancer son. And so, you know, cancer, cancerians are all about food and nourishment and family and, and all that good stuff.

Chris McDonald: Yeah. I appreciate you sharing that. So how would you define intuition? What does that

Venessa Rodriguez: mean?

Intuition? That's a big one. Yes. Well, when I, I've asked this many times and I've received many different answers, . I know. That's why

Chris McDonald: I always like to hear everybody's

Venessa Rodriguez: perspective. Yeah. And you know, there isn't any one right answer, right? I think it's, no, there isn't. It's, um, it's forever changing, even with thin one's own perspective.

And so where I'm at today, I, I feel like intuition. is a, it's a messenger. It's a mode of communication that we are born with. We all have. It's connected to our brain, our nervous system, our body, and the various fields that we can't see. So a lot of the unseen realms like our, you know, aura and energy body and energy field and all of that.

And it's like a communicator. It's a communication pathway that allows us to connect with our essential selves, our soul selves, our higher self, however you want to define it, the, the self that is beyond just this body and just this perceived material experience. And so there's a wisdom, a well of wisdom that we can tap into when we.

Connect to, like, when our intuition comes online. And what I have found is that for so many people, especially empathic, more sensitive individuals, when you're younger, and this world is tough, it's like Earth school ain't easy. And we signed up for it and we're here for it. So I'm always like, every single human is incredible because you could, it's my belief that we have chosen to be here and that it's not easy.

Right. And so we've signed up for this NASA mission basically, and through a lot of challenging experiences, we disconnect from our intuition or we, we kind of. We turn it off. We turn the volume down because it's too much. We're feeling too much. We might not know what to do with all of it. It could be a survival mechanism, you know, that we've done this.

And then what I see for a lot of people that I work with is that their intuition starts to come back online after they've done a lot of healing work on themselves, you know, self realization type of work, or sometimes even spontaneously can just. like, Oh, here it is again. Like, what do I do with this? But it it's, for some people, it's still very quiet.

It could be like a very gentle, simple, quiet voice that's inside or that's in your heart. Or maybe it's located in your solar plexus, your belly, you know, it could, it could be in different places for different people and for others. It can be incredibly loud. And so with intuition, I feel the most important thing when we're, when we're thinking about intuition and maybe we're wanting to connect to our intuition or, or amplify our intuition.

The first place that I always recommend folks to start is reconnecting with your body because Your body is this vessel that is here to assist you in your mission here on earth, right? And so you came programmed with this perfect vessel of your body and your relationship to your body that, you know, we're going to say we're going to put that aside for now, right?

So it doesn't really matter. how you feel about your body. I'm just going to share that in my, my deep sense of knowing we are here with our bodies in its divine perfection, no matter what it looks like or feels like. And your body is going to communicate with you. Always, always, always. Your body also keeps the score.

So I'm sure many of your listeners are very familiar with all of that, right? And neuroimmunology and the mind body connection and, and all of that stuff. So Our bodies are reservoirs, our bodies are maps, our bodies are communicators, and we have that inner GPS, um, the nervous system, like everything that's part of our body, the nervous system, all the neuronal connections, our cellular memory, like there's so much that we can, our DNA, obviously, genetic mitochondrial, like, um, we could get into quantum with things like this.

But. our body is really the first place to start in terms of cultivating a connection because our body will never lie to us. And now how we interpret the message, like our mind likes to shift things a lot of times, right? Or our anxiety. It totally. Thank you. Yes. So our anxious patterns. those negative thoughts, they might take those messages and then convolute them or, you know, take them down a different train.

But then ultimately we have the power to come back and say, Hey, do I know that to be true? Right? Does that feel true in my body? My body is going to tell me yes or no. And we have all the always, always, always, we have all the answers within when we connect with our body. So that's the first place that I say to always begin.

Cause I think a lot of times. And I have people coming into my programs and stuff and they're like wanting to plug into some, you know, I work with the Akashic Records, uh, which I could explain later if you desire, but they want to plug into something that is outside of themselves, like, you know, know their spirit guides or tap into the Akashic Records and, and that's all beautiful and that's all amazing.

But all of that. Information, all of that communication and messaging is going to come through your body. So we have to build and practice that relationship building with our body and modes of communication that our body has for us, which looks different for each person.

Chris McDonald: Yeah, I would think so. But I think a lot of people are held back, right?

By beliefs and they sometimes keep them from embracing their intuition. What do you think are some of these limiting beliefs? Man,

Venessa Rodriguez: there's so many. So many, isn't there? Yes, and I, I've had so many and I still do, right? It's not like, yeah, like we ever get over them, uh, but we can alchemize them. And so what I have found, like even just thinking about the people that I've worked with, with the most common limiting beliefs that I've seen.

First is, well, we could put it under the umbrella of imposter syndrome or imposter phenomenon. And then there's a lot of like little beliefs that kind of come under that. And for those who are aren't familiar with that, I mean, it's pretty clear, right? Like if you're like, if you have it, you know, right?

You're like, yeah, that's me. But it's essentially feeling as though you are an imposter, even despite all of your training. or the evidence that is there available to you, or like your felt sense and your knowing deep within, there's still sort of this voice that tells you, you're not good enough. You're not smart enough.

You're not intuitive enough. You're not creative enough, right? There's like, you're not, you're not good looking enough, never enoughness. So that is kind of at the core. of imposter syndrome. And, and we can dive even deeper into each of those because a lot of those are rooted into even deeper limiting beliefs, right?

Like it's, it's like a web, they're all kind of interconnected. And when I go deep with a client or a student on their flavor of imposter syndrome. Sometimes it's coming from intergenerational beliefs or trauma where perhaps they saw like their grandparents or even their parents as recently as their parents struggled with something or they were maybe there was some kind of violence that occurred against.

somebody because of a practice or because of what they said, or this happens a lot, especially with immigration and folks who are come from immigrant families. And that was my experience with my family. My, my family's from Puerto Rico. And so there's this sense of like, We need to show up in a certain way, present in a certain way, forget a lot of the things of our tradition in order to be accepted.

And at a certain point, like, there's never enoughness, like you can never fully be that which you are not, right? And, and so it, then it, you're kind of on this hamster wheel, you're never going to get off of that. So that's sort of like one root of that. Another example that I've seen, and we can look at it even more like on a soul level.

We have, and, and also, I mean, cellularly. So we know now through like intergenerational patterns that we can absolutely carry in our lineage, um, in like our cells, in our DNA. But also when we look from a soul perspective, uh, and it's also my belief, my personal experience that we have multiple lives. And so in previous lives, and I've seen this for some clients, we, we would call this the witch wound.

Okay, where we have experience in previous lifetimes or maybe through our ancestry of violence, of suppression, oppression of various populations of our own experience in a previous life because of the work that maybe we were doing, um, healing work or, you know, even like. Like herbalism. I mean, there is history of this, right, where people were attacked and killed for doing this type of healing work.

Most of them, many, many, many of them have been women. And so that's a huge one that I see that we call, we call the witch wound, um, because of the witch trials and all of that. Yes. Oh my God. that we see that contributes to this imposter syndrome. So it's not so much that they don't necessarily believe in themselves, but it's more of a protective mechanism behind that to prevent any further violence, right?

Or, or danger. And so a lot of, a lot of the root issues are more of a protective mechanism of, I don't want to get hurt. I don't want to hurt someone else. Because as healers, I mean. I mean, you're here to support people in their healing process, right? And do no harm is kind of what we came here coded with in our hearts.

So to imagine that the work that we do actually causes harm, that's, that's just as bad as if, you know, harming ourselves. So we have a lot of these things in place that then kind of, it gets tricky, right? In our mind that it could show up in very clever ways that looks like a limiting belief. So those are just a couple, but I just wanted to tune in and see, like, if, if you find that any are active in, in your audience or like if they, any of these resonate with you.

Absolutely.

Chris McDonald: And I think, cause you were talking a little bit about like how people perceive us or how we have to present. Cause a lot that are listening are licensed therapists or counselors and a lot of them are afraid people are going to judge them or they might see that as, Ooh, you're too woo woo.

I'm professional. You can't add. that, you know, into your practice or talk about this stuff. And I think there's just some hesitancy, but it kind of makes sense what you're saying though, that people are afraid because it is a protective mechanism, isn't it?

Venessa Rodriguez: It, that is such a huge one. I'm so glad you brought that up because that's the number one that I hear from the folks that I support who are practitioners.

Like it's their day job where they're a practitioner and they're not necessarily out of what I call the spiritual closet. They haven't stepped out of the spiritual closet yet. And they're doing amazing work, but it's not to the fullest of their abilities and capacities and even desires, right? So. But one of the biggest things holding them back is that fear of judgment, that fear of being ostracized.

I mean, that's a very human thing, right? Like when we even just look at in terms of the survival and, and the, like the hierarchies of needs, right? Where we need community. We need acceptance. This is a very visceral, primal thing that we need as humans. And so if we believe that we are going to be kicked out of the tribe because of who we are, that's the ultimate kind of death.

Like, yeah, we're not accepted for who we are. And that is incredibly scary. Absolutely. And not to mention all of the very important material stuff that can come with that. Like, well, if I start to show my intuitive or spiritual colors in my work, am I going to lose clients and patients? Am I going to lose money?

Am I not going to be able to support myself or my family, et cetera? And that's another level of fear that comes with it too. Those are very, very active in this community. Yeah. I will, I just want to share maybe a personal experience of this. And this is also something that I see mirrored a lot in people.

So when I first started to do this work, I had these very same thoughts. I thought, well, there goes my clinical new career. I'm like, yes, no one's going to want to work with me. No one's good. Like all of these renowned doc. I mean, I was, I was a part of really big, uh, like research institutions, um, clinics that were doing amazing work.

a renowned clinicians, doctors. I was like, if they find out that I'm a witch in the closet, I'm doing all this kind of stuff. It's totally beyond their maybe ability to even comprehend or like, what is this? Then surely I'm not going to have any work and I'm going to be ostracized. But what I started to find was that, first of all, The right people, the right clients and patients and colleagues and partners begin to be magnetized to you the more that you lean in and say, yes, with curiosity.

So you don't have to go full blown commitment, right? Yes. But there's something magical that happens when you get into that place of openness, curiosity, and alignment with like what's true in your heart.

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Because isn't that just that being authentic? Exactly. It's being inside and

Venessa Rodriguez: out, right? To yourself.

Like you don't even have to tell people necessarily yet, right? Announce it. So you don't have to announce it to the world. But I started to find that where the more authentically I showed up for myself and, you know, I would let a handful of trusted magnetize.

the right people for me at that level who really desired and needed that kind of support. Did I get some backlash from some groups or people? Yeah, I'm not going to lie. There was one experience where I went into, there is a group of doctors. Uh, there's some net, it was a holistic healing clinic. Um, they, they specialized in cancer treatment as well as Lyme.

They were really well known in the area, the region where they were at. And it was a group of doctors, naturopathic doctors, um, I think there's an acupuncturist. I came in, so they were, you know, they're into holistic healing, right? That like, Yeah. They claim that they're into alternative medicine. Um, and then I came in and they started asking me about my work and what I do.

And at that point in my career, I was not hiding it anymore. I mean, it was all over my website. And so I was very honest. And I said, you know, I could do like, the clinical stuff. And then, but what I also do is XYZ, which is, you know, supporting people intuitively with intuitive readings and then combining that, um, with the intuitive healing work and energy work and all that.

Well, half of them seemed like pretty accepting and interested and the other half kind of shut that you could just see right away, eyes glazed over. And there was, there was one particular doctor who laughed. He like laughed out loud, like he couldn't hold it in when I was talking about it. Wow. And he, he said, he pointed to the dog, cause there's a dog, like a, like the clinic office dog.

You know, he pointed to the dog and he's like, well, you know, I forgot the dog's name, but Roger, we'll say Roger has been, you know, dealing with a foot thing. Can you intuitively tell me what's going on with the dog? And. you know, to that in front of everybody, right? And so I had in that moment, I had to stay in my professionalism.

Of course, I felt those feelings like, you know, I had all these things that I wanted to say to him, right? But I was like, you know, ultimately, this is not a party trick. And this is some, this is part of my profession. And if it's not something that resonates with you, then that's absolutely okay. And I'm sure that you have some patients that it may not.

And I'm 100% sure that you have patients that would be supported by this type of work. And when you feel like you meet that patient, um, maybe send them my way. Because they may not be a good fit for you, right? What ended up happening, he subsequently, this was like over a year, he sent me like five of his patients.

Seriously? The same guy who made fun of me, right? And so I just want to, I want to Show that highlight that because we can't control how like the level of consciousness or, you know, openness or acceptance that people have, we can't control how they react or what they say, but we can control is how we show up in integrity, what it means to us, right?

And. Don't burn bridges, like keep the door open because they may change their mind or maybe they come across a patient or a client that's like, you're like, Oh, well, you know what? You're a great fit for Vanessa and here's her information. So that's what I found time and time again. And the more that you can get.

Really connected with your core purpose, your authentic self, why you are here doing this work. Nobody can question it and nobody can throw you off your path and everyone who you're meant to meet is, is, you know, going to bring is going to open up even more up along that path. So I, I hope that serves somebody in here.

Maybe, you know, if you've had like some fear around sharing it with a colleague.

Chris McDonald: So do you recommend just starting small as far as like starting to share and come out of the spiritual closet, like you did? You

Venessa Rodriguez: know, I think it's different for everyone. I have some people, so I have a group mentorship and mastermind and basically it's for practitioners who desire to create an intuitive healing practice.

And so to step out of that spiritual closet and to really go for it. And I, I've had. Some students who they just full on jump ship, you know, they're like, here I am and all my colors and it's beautiful and it works for them. And then there are some others that it seems to serve them better if they take smaller steps, if they build a bridge.

And they're really communicative in that process with both their team or their colleagues or whoever it is, you know, they're working with and their clients and patients. Um, because sometimes just doing like this stark contrast and just changing or, you know, bringing in a bunch of this stuff that seemingly comes out of nowhere, even if you've been doing it for years, but for others, it, you want to drip it in for them.

And that can be really supportive, not just for you, but also for the people who you're serving. And that that can help create a bridge for them because they might start to get interested in it. And so some of the ways that you can do that are just starting to like in the way that you communicate. Maybe if you have a newsletter or email that you send out or on social media, or even in the ways that you're talking to clients and patients, starting to bring up things that could expand their awareness or consciousness.

into these realms, into more of an intuitive way of knowing and being and processing or, you know, even spiritual teachings, like whatever orientation you have, uh, I do find that it could be really helpful to start dripping that even for yourself so that you can start to Redefine your language, which is a really big thing,

Chris McDonald: too, because language is important

Venessa Rodriguez: to language is so important, right?

It can form so much. And your words are so powerful. So learning your new language of your healing work, your expanded healing work can be really helpful, even for you to really embody it, understand it, so you can communicate it in a clear way. And

Chris McDonald: I'm glad you said that because for a long time, you know, I got trained as a yoga teacher.

But I wouldn't call myself a yoga teacher or a yogi. And it's like, once I was like, wait, what am I doing? It's like, I know what I'm doing. It's almost like that imposter syndrome like blocked me from even identifying that role. But once I started to do that, it just really aligned and it just. was able to feel like a solid foundation of this is what I believe in 100% to the max.

This is who I am. And, and just put it out there and it's just brings such joy. I think once you can find that space that you find that passion and really connect with the world, put it out there.

Venessa Rodriguez: You make such a good point there too, like even in terms of like, okay, so when I say authority, I don't mean authority over another, but there's, there is a sense of authority within oneself.

Like when you get so clear on something that you can speak even to yourself through that place of you know, so it's, it's like there's a, a clear felt deep sense of knowing. of what is. So for you, it's like you embodied yoga and those teachings at like, and so, so much so that maybe it became part of just who you are and how you speak.

And so that's where that embodied piece and that practice and that cultivating a deeper connection with your own practices, your own intuition are critical before you really start to share it and communicate it with others. Yes.

Chris McDonald: So true. But for me, it's not just yoga for me is, is not just professional.

It's personal. It's in my personal profession. So it's all intertwined. So it's 100% what I believe in because I have my own personal practice and I just feel like for me, that is what helps with. That body mind spirit connection to it is,

Venessa Rodriguez: and it's an embodied teaching. Like you don't, Chris, you wouldn't even need to necessarily talk about it or use the lexicon like yoga buzzwords, right?

Because you embody it. You are quite literally emitting it because you're living it. And that's the most important thing.

Chris McDonald: Yeah. Yeah. I think so. I just put, I think that's one way to put it out. Like, how do you identify yourself as a therapist? Because for me, I never did call myself a holistic therapist until a few years ago, honestly.

So I would just consider myself a therapist, which is great because that's what I was. But once I started to do that too, I felt like it expanded who I am and my knowledge. And I actually sought out more trainings and really wanted to, I guess the word embody it even more, if that makes sense. Yeah,

Venessa Rodriguez: and I think that there, well, at least with so many of the people that I used to, to do readings for and like clients I would receive, there is such a need and people are actively looking for holistic therapy specifically.

Right. Yes. Um, because there's so much now in the zeitgeist around holistic healing and various modalities, but people have been doing what they might identify as traditional therapy and, you know, whatever way that that looks for them and they're needing more. And so. Exactly. That. is also a differentiator for you, right?

Where people are like, ha, that's what I want, you know? So yes, it might for some people, it might repel them, but it absolutely is repelling the right people to repel, right? And repel by meaning like, oh, they see you and they're like, no, that's not for me. And that's perfect, then they go on their way. But then you are attracting and magnetizing the exact people that you are meant to help and that you can help.

That, that

Chris McDonald: makes so much sense. And can we just backtrack to the intuition part? I'm just wondering what listeners can do to trust their intuition more and to use that with clients? Because I think there is some hesitancy. you know, to really dive into that. And, you know, how I can, how can I bring this into my sessions so that it's helpful to clients?

Venessa Rodriguez: Number one thing is evidence, collecting evidence. We have to be journalists in this work. And that's where keeping our curiosity online, right, is one of the most important things, staying open. Cause when it comes to our intuition, That's the energy. So when we think about our state of being, we are vibrational beings.

So we are vibrating at a certain frequency. And intuition is something that we can more easily tap into when we are vibrating at frequency levels that are a little bit on the higher side. And the place to start with that is by being open. And curious and playful. And this is like, I mean, kids are all kids are like super intuitive, right?

But they're also imaginative. They're open, like they come not nonjudgmental until we program them, right? And condition them. So we want to kind of come back into that sort of space and level of consciousness so that we're open and we can actually connect with our intuition. And then we want to. take evidence.

We want to look for the evidence. So that means maybe keeping an intuition journal, writing down some intentions, some dreams, uh, some of the signs, synchronicities. So when you start to do this work, you start to experience and acknowledge more and more synchronicities. That's just something that I hear over and over and over again.

And it's like, it's kind of like, Oh, this is so interesting. Like what is life? Because here are like all of these synchronicity things start happening. It kind of feels like a video game at some point. So you start to, to write those down because then what happens is you quite literally create pages and pages of.

evidence that supports your intuition and anytime you get any kind of like ping or idea or thought that comes through that's maybe about the future or something you should do, write it down your intuition journal and then come back later. It may take some time or maybe it's right away, but you will receive an answer.

Another thing is, um, if you're into prayer, I am, I feel like prayer is one of the most powerful things we can do. Prayers are always answered. Always, always, always. They're just not necessarily answered in the way that we want, like a lot of things. So you can put down a prayer and obviously, you know, tune into that and really like connect with that prayer, but then write it down and write down the date.

and then see what comes through that's connected with that. Because a lot of times our prayers are answered, but it's hard to tell because it's coming in a way that we weren't expecting or that we didn't want, but it's all there. And the more that we can actually document it, then the more we see the literal evidence.

And what happens is you're telling your brain through the evidence. that this is real, that this is true. And it opens you up more to your intuition. It connects you even more. And then it just gets more amplified and more amplified. The more you do this, another thing that I have found, which is the whole reason why I created my group program, because I used to do just one on ones.

And I found, you know what? everybody needs to be in a group. Like I got this message. We need to support one another. And how powerful would it be to have a group of intuitive healers together supporting one another, right? It's phenomenal. It's like beyond my wildest dreams. It's so cool, but it's so powerful to plug into any group.

I mean, obviously not, not just necessarily mine, but any type of group. Even if it's just like three people or you just have a partner in this, your intuitive partner, where you can come together and support one another. Maybe you start to do intuitive readings for one another. Maybe you just start to talk about your dreams and you have a dream circle or you do journey work or you do yoga and meditation together and document and support one another and reflect back to one another.

Yes, I also got that. So when you're in a group, And you are getting multiple people telling you the same thing that you intuited, or they're reflecting back to you things that you felt that you knew, but you didn't know if it was right. That is so incredibly powerful. And, and all of these, again, are just building up the documentation of that evidence that skyrockets your intuition, because then you trust it more.

It's building your trust muscle. And the more that you build your trust muscle, the more open you are. And that's just kind of how it works. So it kind of sucks because in the beginning you're fearful, you may not trust it as much, right? So you feel kind of closed and, and it could feel sort of like this, this loop, right?

That you can't get out of. And that's why I say, just start with building the evidence with a, with a journal or connect with somebody else who might be into this type of work and, and be patient with that because once you get into it, it can quickly start to grow and amplify and. guarantee like you're going to start to see things that you're like, Whoa, I never anticipated this quickly that I would be receiving this kind of information or insight or feeling this open about it.

Chris McDonald: I appreciate that. So helpful. I love the idea of finding other people that you can do these practices with and help each other out and learn from each other. I think that. That could help you go so much further than just doing it on your own.

Venessa Rodriguez: Yeah. And then, yeah, you feel like you're not alone. , you know?

Yeah. That too . We're, and we're not. And, and that to me, so I truly believe that health in general, on all levels, the pathway forward for true healing is connection and collaboration and community. This is, this is the foundation of health in most indigenous cultures. is community. And we've really gone away from that.

So the more that we can kind of bring that back and integrate it in this, you know, more modern world and modern age, I think even more so is why we need it. We love the technology and, you know, distraction and all of that. Right. But there's nothing like it. And so if you can even just get like a partner or two other people and just start, you don't have to know what you're doing.

Like just start and, and set an intention and guaranteed you'll have some direction come in.

Chris McDonald: Wow. That's fabulous. So I know we talked about a lot today. It's a lot to absorb. So I know it's going to take listeners some time to maybe journal about this episode. It might be good homework, right?

Venessa Rodriguez: Yeah. And if you have something like that came through for you a message, and I would say maybe that's a little bit of homework.

So grab, grab a journal, dedicate it to your intuition and ask yourself, your heart, your higher self, what is it that you most want me to know right now? What is it that you most want me to know right now? And trust what comes through, just write automatic writing, inspirational writing, I call it. Trust what comes through and come back to it later.

You could set it aside and come back to it later and come back to it time and time again. It may not make sense in the moment, but I promise you that's a seed. that if you plant something beautiful, it's going to grow.

Chris McDonald: Oh, I love that. We're getting deep here on the Holistic Counseling Podcast. Yeah. And if you want to shoot me an email, I'll share it with Vanessa Chris at holisticcounselingpodcast.

com. We'd love to hear from you. I would love that. Beautiful idea. What's the best way for listeners to find you, learn, to learn more about you?

Venessa Rodriguez: Well, my website is wildlyrooted. com. You can find. all the things there. And I'm on Instagram. That's the social media platform where I'm most alive. And my handle is at wildly rooted and I am a real person and you can DM me.

My podcast is called feed your wild and you can find that wherever you find podcasts. So I know you're a podcast listener, you're listening to this, so go to your favorite podcast app and just search, or you could go to my website and, um, and it'll be there. And Chris, you know, since we were talking about imposter syndrome, I have this workshop.

It's called dare to shine healer. It's all about overcoming imposter syndrome. And I would love to offer that to your listeners for free. If, if that's something that you were listening to and spoke to, yeah. So I'm just going to make up a coupon code right now. Thank you. We'll do. How about HCP? Forensic Counseling Podcast.

Yeah. Okay. So I'll send you the info, Chris, after, after our call and yeah, and so that'll be for free. And if you have any questions, uh, just feel free to reach out to me.

Chris McDonald: And we'll have that in the show notes as well. And I highly recommend her podcast. If you like this podcast, you're going to love Vanessa's podcast too.

Oh, thank you, Chris. But thank you so much for coming on the podcast today, Vanessa.

Venessa Rodriguez: Thank you. This was so fun. I appreciate being here and, and thank you everybody to, to opening up your ears and your hearts to what we had to say today. And

Chris McDonald: that brings us to the end of another episode. Be sure to tune in next Wednesday when another episode drops.

And listeners, I have a question for you before we go. Are you always last on your to do list? You are not alone. Many counselors find it difficult to find the time for self care practices. My book, Self Care for the Counselor, was written just for you. In this easy to read book, You'll find it jam packed with holistic strategies to help create consistent practices and help you find the balance and energy you need.

Go to hcpodcast. org forward slash self care and grab yourself a copy today. Until next time, I'm sending each one of you much light and love. Take care. The information in this podcast is for general educational purposes only. It is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher, or the guests are giving legal, financial, counseling, or any other kind of professional.

If you need a professional, please find the right one for you.