dr--erin--she-her-_1_06-02-2025_102812: [00:00:00] Hey, Sacred Illness™ listeners, Dr. Erin here. I am doing a solo episode today, and there's gonna be a few of those upcoming because I have been called to. talk more about my philosophy and my paradigm as time goes on this podcast. So I do have some guests coming up, if you also are interested in being a guest on this podcast, there is a link down below where you can apply and share your story and we can get a time set up. So that's definitely still gonna be part of this podcast. And as I said, I'm also going to be doing some more talking on here just myself because I have a lot to share and I think the mixture of me sharing my philosophy and my own journey alongside the people who I interview on here will be a nice mix for you all. So on that note my life lately has been taking me into this place of really sitting with this idea of desire. When we go on a healing journey, we have this deep desire to heal, to feel better.
We have this desire to maybe be symptom free. [00:01:00] We have this desire to get back to life, right? We wanna get rid of our illness so that we can get back to life to be the person we were, to do the things we were doing. A lot of you already know that part of my philosophy or paradigm is that Illness's point or goal is to take us out of life.
It's primary purpose is to take us out of life because the whole point of illness is, it's this thorn being stuck in our side or this cog being stuck in the wheel that's trying to say, you have to stop. You have to stop living the way that you're living. You have to stop maybe interacting with the people you're interacting with or working the job that you're working or thinking about yourself, the way that you think about yourself or showing up in your skin in the way that you are, because it's not conducive to a good life.
It's not in alignment with who you are. It's not taking you in the direction that you're meant to be taken. To take it a step further, I believe deeply that illness itself is part of our journey. That we actually have to get sick in order to do this deeper exploration [00:02:00] because a lot of times if life is hunky dory and things are going good we aren't going to stop and do some deep introspective work, right?
We don't usually do that when life is good. And so illness is actually part of the story. It's part of the path because it's this necessary thorn in our side where we can't keep going on without it getting in the way. And so at some point we have to slow down and look at it and be like, okay, why is this thing here?
What is it trying to teach me? The whole idea with desire is, it's obviously it's this thing we want, it's something we long for. Maybe it's something we are addicted to or something that we just desperately are wanting to call forward in our lives.
Like for me, I have this desire to order food. I love eating out and I want to eat out like all the time. And so if I have to cook dinner, I have this thing in the back of my head that's like this longing, like I really just wanna order food.
I wanna have food delivered. I love being taken care of in that way. I love food being brought to me. I love [00:03:00] someone cooking for me. It's just feels really good to my soul. And yet, every time I give into that desire, every time I order food, every time we get delivery or whatever it is, or go to a restaurant and then I have the meal, it's almost like,
like that feeling of that's not what I wanted it to be, or that's not what I wanted it to feel like. Or is that it? Is that really it? And I was talking to my friend about this, not about the food piece, but we have a lot of conversations around business and income, and she's doing really well financially.
Her business is doing really well. She's an amazing practitioner and so it makes sense that she's making more money. And she had her, biggest month in May, so today's June 2nd May was her biggest income month to date, and she had the same thing. She was like, oh, okay. Not that she wasn't excited about the money, not that she wasn't grateful for the money, but it was just that feeling of huh, okay.
That's what it feels like to make that much money. She's been wanting to make that much money for a really long time. That's been a goal of hers for a really long time, is to make [00:04:00] X amount in one month's time. And she did it. And again, she was just huh, all right, cool. What's next?
that's the thing with desire, is that it has us in this constant state of what's next? Okay, that was cool. Or whatever, right? Like we have that kind of feeling of, oh, that was nice, but okay, what's the next thing? And I think truly what we're seeking something to satiate us.
Something to really quench the thirst. I don't know what we think it's going to feel like, but it's like I'll know when I get there, kind of thing, right? And what happens is it puts us into this perpetual state of seeking. We're constantly seeking the satisfaction that is this ever dangling carrot out in front of us.
And what I'm coming to learn in my own work and working with people and things that I've been reading lately, all point to this idea that. We are actually built to desire things. We are built to long for things, and the reason for that is because it creates this pull in us to seek experiences.
It pulls us [00:05:00] out of comfort zones and it pulls us out of places where we might otherwise get stuck. Because when we desire something, it's pushing us to take an action to move forward in some way, shape, or form. And so that's never gonna go away because when that goes away, that means we have ceased to exist essentially, right?
Like to be human, to be alive is too long for something. And so that is actually part of the human process. And again, it's what pulls us out so that we continue to seek and to desire, right? Like it's to keep having experiences and that's what helps us evolve. I remember a really long time ago, I had an astrology reading and basically at the end of the session I asked him clumsily 'cause, I knew what I was asking, but I didn't wanna just come out and say it. But essentially I was asking him what's the meaning of life? And I'm even blushing as I say that 'cause it's just like such a.
it's the question, it is the question like, what is the meaning of life? What's the purpose of life? And so I said it clumsily and he was like, are you asking me what the meaning of life is? And I was like yes I am.
But he [00:06:00] paused. So I asked him that question and he paused for a moment and he said to evolve a little bit. That's it. To evolve a little bit is our purpose, and I deeply believe this.
I believe that we are here all on this journey as a collective human body and as a collective living organism on this planet to move things forward a little bit. What the ultimate goal is, we don't know. I don't think we're meant to know.
But I do know that when we tap into our deep desires and our intuition, it pulls us in a certain direction that we might not go otherwise. And to me that's that divine voice, that collective knowledge and wisdom that we all have deep in our bodies, that our shadow gets in the way of, our programming, our blocks, our subconscious rememberings from our traumatic events as children and, our stressors and the way the world is and the way that culture programs us.
Those are all the things that get in the way of [00:07:00] that deep knowing that lies within our bodies, that knows who we are, that knows how to live life and how to show up in this world and what is possible. I think we all see, get glimmers of this like reality that's possible. And then we get scared and we retreat back into our shell and we hide away and we don't pursue it.
And we go back into the mediocrity of day to day-today life. And so this idea of to evolve a little bit being the purpose, to grow a little bit to face our shadows a little bit and rise above them to do something differently despite what this programming and these shadows are telling us to do, and they're trying to keep us safe.
It is out of This nervous system programming where what is familiar is safe, but it's not the best for us and it's not the best for our humanity and our collective story and our collective forward evolution and progress. And this is why, I was sitting with recently and thinking about what is my...
not my purpose, but my core message, my core philosophy. And truly at its core is [00:08:00] this message of our challenges contain the gift of our freedom or contain the seed of our freedom, of our evolution. When we are able to sit with the things that challenge us and that hurt us and that feel harmful and scary and overwhelming and just not good within that is the gift of life itself. And it is hard for us to grasp that.
And I think a lot of. Religions and spiritual practices and like toxic positivity stuff is all about move away from bad, move away from it, rise above it or numb it or cut it out or whatever because we see it as like evil or there's such an ingrained belief that those things are, evil or bad or detrimental or, if you wallow in them, you're failing and you need to just keep working. Like it's, it really puts us in this place of just being in our head, right? Because if we are to ignore suffering and challenges, we're disconnecting from our body.
We're disconnecting from 99% of who we are [00:09:00] because to be human is to suffer. To be alive is to face challenges. And if we are moving in a direction where we're trying to ignore that, or sugarcoated or numb it we're basically deciding to not evolve. We are deciding to not meet our purpose in life. And it's so fascinating to me as I'm saying this, I'm recognizing that western medicine is literally that. The purpose of western medicine has become in, by and large, there's, I always say this, there's always merit to it, right?
There is a function for western medicine. God knows my family has utilized it many times this year. Like I had pneumonia and my son broke his leg like we need. Western medicine for some things. However, the general paradigm of Western medicine matches this mindset that we have fallen into, which is that pain and suffering is bad. Do everything you can to numb and get rid of, cut it outta your body. Like whatever you gotta do, get rid of it. [00:10:00] And then you're good to go. Get back to it, right? Like just keep living, keep pushing ahead, keep whatever that is.
And so we need to unwind from this mindset. We need to move away from this idea that challenges are bad. and by proxy, that illness is bad. Because when we continue to be in that mindset we move away from our purpose. We move away from the purpose of evolution in our lives. The challenges in our lives contain the gift of life itself, contain what we need to move forward in our personal evolution, and therefore in our collective evolution.
So back to this idea of desire. We have desires to pull us forward.There is a problem though with desire. desires help us evolve, to help us find our purpose, to keep pulling us out of that place of where we might get stuck.
Let's use the healing journey as an example of how this can also become problematic. So we desire to heal. And more often than not, if you listen to this podcast, [00:11:00] you have seen the arc of everyone's story follows this similar pattern and it's, initially you get sick, you go see your gp, you go see the specialist, you take the medicine, you do all the typical western medicine stuff or the things that you're used to in your personal medical paradigm. You do those things first. And then something pushes us to that next step. Usually that next step is okay, now I'm gonna pursue quote unquote alternative practitioners. We do that for a little while and maybe that helps a little bit more, maybe that gives us a little bit more support or a different toolbox. Still, there's this feeling of there's something still there, I'm not quite getting into the core of what this thing is.
So we start to get this hunger for healing. We start searching and searching. What I often see as I work with people... we begin to uncover the stories, the programs, the conditioning, the things that are within their system, within their body, within their world that are manifesting illness or causing their illness to [00:12:00] manifest. And then what happens? The desire for healing is still there.
This is where things start to get slippery. It's going back to that thing I was talking about where my friend made that amount of money and she was like, okay, what's next?
That's the problem. We get to this place where it's like we get the thing, we get the answer, we reach the goal, we have the reward, right? Whatever the thing is, we finally obtain the object of our desires, and then our mind is programmed to be like, what's next?
What's the next thing? It's not a bad thing to have that, because again, that is what pulls us out of our stuckness and it's what pulls us forward in our evolution. And there has to be this balance between seeking and living, actually living and embodying what you are looking for. And so how does one actually, now, with all the answers and all the objects of their desire, how do you then take it and actually begin to be it?
For me there's actually a lot of [00:13:00] stillness in this stage. When you're pursuing something you desire, it's very active. You're learning, you're reading, you're meditating, you're doing something to obtain the object of your desire. There's momentum going and it's hard to stop the momentum. It just wants to keep going. And so we need to begin to recognize that when we achieve the object of our desires or we in some way obtain it, there has to be some sort of balance of then beginning to hold it in our lives to become still with it.
And this stillness is really uncomfortable. And the reason for that is because it's unknown. What we really know how to do as humans is to strive to keep going, to keep searching, to keep whatever that is, right? There's this momentum pushing us forward, and so we have a really hard time being still.
Again, that is unknown to us. And whatever is unknown feels very unsafe. Our nervous system does not like the unknown. We like what is familiar. We like what [00:14:00] has been done before. Our nervous system really prefers things that are repeatable because it knows what to expect and knows how to predict.
And that's what it really wants. It wants to know what to predict and how to show up based on past experiences. So if we sit still in order to begin to become this person or to reap the benefits or to just sit with the idea of our desire being here. There's going to be a lot of counterforce being like, keep going. You have to keep going. What are you doing? Why are you stopping?
Let's say you're sitting with one of your symptoms and you learn that there is a belief that you hold in your body of, I'm not enough.
Pretty common. I feel like a lot of us feel that in some way, shape, or form. knowing that is great. That's. part of the battle. So you now know, okay, I hold this belief in my body. I'm not enough. Great. That's part of what's manifesting my illness.
Maybe that's the whole thing. Maybe that's the whole story and everything you know, is coming from that belief.
There's two things here. The healing journey is first and foremost about understanding the unconscious parts of your illness a hundred [00:15:00] percent. You have to understand the unconscious aspects of your illness in order to heal, because healing or illness is 100% an unconsciously derived manifestation in the body.
We are sick because of what we hold in our subconscious mind, what we are unconsciously living out thinking, believing how we are existing every day. So we absolutely have to make the unknown, the unconscious, we have to make it known. We need to know what's in there. We need to understand what's in there in order to heal it.
So that's that first part. That's that part of that pursuit, right? As we're pursuing this desire to heal, that is a big part of that journey. And then the next part of that journey is to take that knowledge and to do something about it. We can't just learn the thing and then get back to, okay, great.
Figure it out. Back to life. No. Now the next lesson is how does this thing show up in my life? How does this belief show up in my day-to-day life? Where does it show up? With whom does it show up? In what circumstances does it show up? How do I live it? How [00:16:00] am I living this belief in my day-to-day life, in my relationships with my children, with myself?
what are my thoughts saying or how am I thinking and acting and behaving that's reinforcing this belief? And that is where we start to actually heal. So yes, you need to know what those beliefs are. You need to know what has been programmed into your system that has created your illness, but then you absolutely have to pause the momentum of pursuit because part of the issue is we think that when we get the object of our desires, something's gonna happen, right? Like where you think fireworks are gonna go off, or Confetti's gonna blow out of some champagne bottle or
it's gonna be this magical, euphoric situation... it's this thing that is so subtle that we miss it if we don't know what we're looking for.
This desire that pulls us forward in healing, this desire is looking for something really big. It's looking for the carrot that has been dangling in front of you. It's looking to [00:17:00] feel so satiated and so satisfied and so amazing, and it's probably not gonna feel that way.
And that's what can keep us in this cycle of searching forever and ever. I think that's why we really need to have this mindset and this presence of mind more so of what exactly to expect.So when you learn these subconscious stories and programs that are making you sick, that's it.
That's so important. That is gold. And it's not gonna hit you like ton of bricks. It's not gonna be the confetti. It's just gonna be this subtle oh yeah, that makes a lot of sense. It makes a lot of sense that I feel that way. I can see based on X, Y, Z thing, why I'm programmed to feel this way about myself.
It's really subtle, but oh my gosh, you just got the object of your desire. You just achieved it.
So this is where there's this division. Your desire is going to remain unsatiated because it is actually separate from the thing you're pursuing itself. Our desire, it's inherently baked in [00:18:00] thing that pulls us forward in life. Desire is just, it's almost like I have a nose... I have a nose and I have, I breathe, I have lungs, I have desire. It's part of my body, and it has this objective to pull me forward. And again, that is just part of our soul's evolution.
We have to desire to live, we have to desire to evolve, we have to have, it's like gas in our engine, and as long as we're alive, that gas is gonna be there. whether or not we decide to pursue it is, a whole other thing, but that's always gonna be there. I think we need to be mindful and careful, and I'm saying this to myself too, because I'm right in the throes of this experience myself, of missing the achievement of our pursuit because our desire still exists.
If we are still in this place of feeling our desire, it's going to convince us that we didn't actually get what we wanted. And that is not true. We're always gonna desire something more. Thank God. That's our energy for evolution. That's what's gonna pull us, it's gonna keep bringing us to the next thing.
[00:19:00] There's always gonna be more, There's no end game to our evolution and we have to let that be its own energy pulling us in a certain direction while at the same time we are really present to and living the achievement of our desires at the same time. So while that energy is pulling us that way, we have to say, okay, yes, I feel that desire. I'm always gonna feel that desire and that desire doesn't mean that I haven't already gotten what I need right now to move my body and my health in whatever that thing is you were pursuing in a different direction or to enjoy it or to be with it.
So there's this presence that we have to begin to cultivate that's separate from desire. We have to tease it apart from desire and not let desire muddy it and make it feel less than and make it feel like it's not the full thing.
Because if we aren't careful, desire is gonna make us miss our whole lives. It's gonna keep pulling us away from the present moment. And really the present is, it's where it is, right? We know this. [00:20:00] The present is where everything exists. So again, you uncover this belief of I'm not enough. In the present moment, how is that belief showing up right here, right now? How can you begin to catch it in action? See how it's manifesting in your life and choose differently to choose a different path. that is actually your evolution, right? That is actually how you evolve. Your desire pulls you to these different things, but you actually then hopping off the desire wagon and spending some time in the new place that it pulled you to
and figuring out how to live there and what to do with it. That's where you evolve. That is the evolution of your soul and of your body and of how you heal. You see how that thing is in action, that limiting belief that thing that's keeping your body stuck in this state of survival, whatever that is, you see how that shows up and you begin to consciously make decisions that counter it.
And it has to be gentle, and it has to be mindful, because at the core of [00:21:00] that belief is an inner child who became programmed with that belief. So your 4-year-old self, for example, learned that they were not enough because of whatever happened in their life at that time.
So we're not being mean to this thing. We're not yanking the rug out from underneath, right? We're saying this is a beautiful. Inner child, part of me who learned how to survive by believing that they were not enough. And I love them and I appreciate them for developing that belief to keep us safe and to help us survive that time.
And I'm gonna hold them by the hand and show them how now that belief is no longer needed and how we're going to walk forward in this new way together. And so if you're interested in learning more, this is all the stuff we do within the Sacred Illness membership, which you can join at the link below, but this is how we actually feel is by, by actually walking the talk. So let's do a little recap, shall we? We are born with desire. Like a bone in our body, it will always pull us forward. It's always gonna pull us to the next thing. [00:22:00] There's nothing in the world that
is going to satiate that desire. Our desire hooks on to different things in life. That convinces us that that we think that is the goal, or we think that's going to cure, so to speak, our desire. But desire isn't actually about anything. It's just an energy within us.
And so we hook it onto something, material or physical. But then when we get that thing, the desire exists, it continues to exist. So the more we can feel that desire more as an energy that pulls us forward and helps us evolve, which is the point of our lives, to evolve a little bit, to face our shadow, to face challenges, and to find the gift within them.
Then that's how we work with Desire Energy, and we have to also at the same time learn how to cultivate this other energy, which is presence alongside this desire energy. So the desire is pulling us forward. The presence energy helps us get off of that [00:23:00] desire train and actually look at what is here in the present.
What has this desire opened up for me? What challenges has it helped me to face? What discomforts or what failures or what limiting beliefs has this desire stirred up in me? As it pulls me forward in my evolution as it pulls me forward in my life, what challenges have I faced here in the present and how do I find the gift that lies within that? How do I face that challenge and begin to make different decisions so that I overcome that challenge so that I evolve past that challenge, so that I heal these limiting beliefs and these programs and conditionings that I received in earlier years of my life.
So that's how we evolve alongside our desire. Our desire pulls us through the mud, and then as we're in that mud, we sit and we look at what's there. We overcome those challenges, and then as a result, we heal.
So I hope this was helpful for you. This is something that I'm sitting with currently. I'm working [00:24:00] with acknowledging this desire, energy, and recognizing how strong it is in my life and how distracting it is because it's thisnever, there, never there energy. And I'm recognizing how I've been riding that train for such a long time and I'm grateful for it because it has stretched me so far. Farther than I ever would've been pulled, or farther than I'd ever been stretched before, and now I'm learning how to hop off of that train and how to actually begin to see what has it opened up for me? What challenges has it caused me to face?
Because the point of life is to evolve. To evolve we have to face challenges. Illness is one of those challenges. And as I'm facing my challenges and I'm seeing my blocks in life, every time I face one of those blocks, I have opened up deeper, more beautiful ways of being me than I could have ever imagined.
Deeper ways of being myself than I could have ever imagined. And so I am so grateful for that desire as my forward momentum, and I'm very grateful for this [00:25:00] new place that I'm at, where I'm learning how to cultivate presence and to actually begin to live who I am in the world. So thanks for being here.
Thanks for listening. And again, if you're interested in learning all of these steps of the healing journey, how to begin to understand what your blocks are, what your personal challenges and limiting beliefs are that are contained within yourself. This is exactly what we do inside the Sacred Illness™ membership.
It contains the Blueprint, which takes you step by step through everything you need to do to begin to get into that subconscious programming and understand why is my illness here, what have I been programmed with or conditioned with that has led to the manifestation of this illness?
My infamous question is, what is my illness inviting me to become, or who is it inviting me to become? Your illness is a messenger. It's talking to you. It's inviting you into the evolution of your life. It's leading you to your purpose, it's leading you to yourself. All of our challenges do that, and illness is no different.
And so if you're [00:26:00] ready to look into these layers more deeply, I highly encourage you to join the community. It's very inexpensive. It's a monthly membership and you can cancel anytime. And I'm in there active talking with folks all the time. So I'd love to see you hop on this journey with us. All right, everyone, until next time.
