Alive & Kicking: Stories of Waking Up with Kay Eck

Valerie is the first Alive & Kicking guest to return to the podcast. When I interviewed her back in 2021, the topic of conversation was late-life love. Just a year later, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and embarked on a no-holds-barred journey of healing and discovery utilizing the best of holistic and allopathic medicine, inner deep dives, trauma resolution and joy-finding. She returns to talk about that journey.

Valerie is an artist, sound alchemist and breathwork practitioner in Sedona, Arizona. She has been offering private “Soundwave Journeys” using her Soundwave Bed™, womb healing sessions and breathwork for individuals and groups. She is the owner of Aumbase Sedona specializing in sound healing and conscious relationship guidance.  Now she also accompanies other cancer patients through their journeys toward divine healing through sacred practices. She continues to create art and live joyfully.

Find Valerie at:

www.valerieirons.com

www.sanjalihealingarts.com

www.aumbasesedona.com

www.cancersupporthub.com

Check out her cancer guides on Amazon HERE.

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Jade Orth is a family advocate who is currently working in the foster care and adoption realm, driven by a mission to bring together resources, community connection, and unwavering support for families. Her work is fueled by an enduring belief in the inevitability of human unity—the idea that humanity will one day operate as one cohesive family.

Beyond advocacy, she is a wife, a mother to three sons, and an intuitive creator who loves exploring the world through embodiment, music and poetry. Currently, she is channeling her journey and insights into a book about consciousness, emotional intelligence, and the practical path to self-assurance and creative self-expression.

Jade and I talk a lot about the upside and downside of adaptability. As a child, she was deeply entuned to the people and situations around her which often required her to adjust herself accordingly. It has been a profound part of her journey to understand who she truly is, outside of those adjustments. Throughout our conversation, I found her eloquence with the human/divine conundrum so reassuring.

Connect with Jade here on Instagram and YouTube: @quicksilver_alchemy 

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Joan Advent’s journey has taken her from addiction, sexual trauma, spiritual abuse, and poverty consciousness to the safety and freedom of true self-understanding and expression. Her thirty-year career helping clients to do the same draws upon multiple maps, lineages, schools of thought and traditions. 

She has worked as a licensed clinical social worker and now, as a spiritual and transformational guide. Her training has included child and family counseling, personal empowerment, addiction and the family, co-dependency and self-betrayal resolution, spiritual and psychic development, ancestral and inter-generational healing, somatic and embodiment modalities, leadership development and prosperity healing.

What I loved most about our conversation and about Joan is her clarity. She’s able to thread all this deep understanding through the fabric of her own life’s story and to share it so vulnerably and generously so that we can understand better the folds of our own stories. I learned so much about myself in this conversation! 

When mentioning her new focus on exploring her own desire, Joan mentioned these beautiful opening lines of Mary Oliver’s poem Wild Geese:

You do not have to be good.
 You do not have to walk on your knees
 for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
 You only have to let the soft animal of your body
 love what it loves. 

You can find Joan and her work here:

joanadvent.com

​YouTube: @joanadvent7171

Instagram: @joanadvent

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As a spiritual career coach, speaker, podcast host, and the award-winning author of Answering Your Inner Calling, Lisa has been guiding heart-led helpers, therapists, coaches, healers, and wellness professionals to create meaningful impact without sacrificing themselves in the process.

In this episode, we talk about her lifelong devotion to the Divine Mother, the traumatic events that shaped her, and the ongoing practice of listening for her Soul's guidance. 

Lisa is currently writing her second book, The Sovereign Helper: How Heart-Led Helpers Create More Joy, More Ease, and Greater Impact, which expands on the teachings she has developed through nearly two decades of coaching and spiritual guidance.

She lives in Mexico with her husband, Greg, and is the proud mother of five and grandmother of two.

Lisa mentioned this Anais Nin quote, which I also love: "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."

Connect with Lisa:
Website: www.lisaespinosa.net
Podcast: The Sovereign Helper Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@LisaEspinosa
Instagram: @lisaespinosa_
Free Sovereignty Consult: calendly.com/lisaespinosa/freeconsult
Newsletter: www.lisaespinosa.net/newsletter

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Jen’s ongoing journey is one from head, to heart.  As a manual physical therapist, she has made a career of working to understand the presentation of chronic pain and trauma in the human body; this as a response to her own trauma.

Jen shares the story of the loss of her sister at a very young age, the journey of being a queer Christian, and how this has undoubtedly impacted her body, changed her life trajectory, and ultimately contributed to her purpose.

We talk about Jen’s upbringing, a transformational mix of tragedy and miracle, which put her on a treadmill of high achievement that was finally disrupted by a nervous breakdown. And she shares how her journey to reconcile her identity with her family’s beliefs and the legacy of trauma is an ongoing one.  

When she was starting her practice, Jen’s mentor told her something that she would build that practice on. I too found it to be quite powerful: “People don’t buy from you because they understand you. They buy from you when they feel understood.” I think this is great insight for anyone seeking to connect with anyone – friends, family, customers, patients, people!

Jen’s Website is here: https://www.l2ept.com/

Find her on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/p/C-TZYOqSxBt/

Jen honed her healing craft here: https://www.barralinstitute.com/ 

Jen mentioned Peter Diamondis’ book Longevity Guidebook available here: https://longevityguidebook.com/home-blk-nav

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Lazor Lanson is an actor, creator, and wellness educator exploring the intersection of movement, fascia, performance, and human potential. Professionally represented for film and television, he combines his background in acting with a passion for making complex ideas about the body and nervous system accessible through engaging social media content. His videos on fascia and embodied awareness have reached millions of people, sparking conversations about movement, health, and presence.

At his core, Lazor is passionate about helping people heal. Whether through storytelling as an actor or by sharing embodiment and movement practices online, he sees both pursuits as expressions of the same deeper purpose: helping people reconnect with themselves and unlock their potential.

Our discussion about purpose and passion was filled with such incredibly mature insight. At a very young age, Lazor experienced a dark night of the soul when one of his friends took his own life. It led him to question his superficiality around the desire for fame and birthed his life’s mission to help people heal and transform.

We talked a bit about artificial intelligence (AI), and this comment on that will stay with me: “It’s not like knowing everything fixes our problems, fixes our pain.” 

Lazor mentioned this book as being very impactful on his life: The Way of the Superior Man by David Deida LINK

And this film solidified his understanding of the power of film and passion for acting: Call Me by Your Name LINK

Connect with Lazor:

On Instagram @lazorlanson

On tiktok @lazor.lanson

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Born in a small town in Arizona, Michael Shapiro was a highly sensitive and inquisitive child. When he was just three years old, his biological father mentioned the word God and he became fascinated, peppering his elder with big questions and contemplating the nature of spirit. His sensitivity placed him outside the norm of what was expected of young boys but also attuned him to the needs and feelings of others, establishing the foundation for the life of service he would eventually embrace. He became consumed by the world of skateboarding, competing professionally and mentoring young people who often also found respite from troubling circumstances on the halfpipes. He left a ten-year teaching career to help establish the Swappow PLUS  Foundation which, via skateboarding, works to provide opportunities and abilities to foster children in Arizona.

What I found most compelling in our conversation was how Michael, by following the call of his heart, stepped onto the path of continuous miracles. 

Michael is Executive Director of the Swappow PLUS Foundation which gives Arizona foster kids opportunities and abilities to thrive through skateboarding. As an avid skateboarder and coach for over thirty years, Michael founded and directed the Prescott YMCA skate park, taught team level gymnastics, and worked as a skate camp counselor. He was a public elementary school teacher for more than a decade, integrating both skateboarding and life skills into the school curriculum. He lives with his wife Robin, son Simeon, and dog Scout in Phoenix, Arizona.

http://www.swappowplus.org

Michael mentioned the following writers:

Henri Nouwen – (January 24, 1932 – September 21, 1996) was a Dutch Catholic priest, professor, writer and theologian. His interests were rooted primarily in psychology, pastoral ministry, spirituality, social justice and community. (Wikipedia)

Frederick Buechner - “Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.” From Now and Then: A Memoir of Vocation – Intimate Reflections on Faith, Seminary, Ministry, and Writing.

And course, his favorite song, Jesus Christ Superstar can be found here LINK

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Early on, Michelle Dunk became a perfectionist to manage what she calls her self-manufactured pressures and fears. When her father went into recovery when she was sixteen, he shared a perspective that became the key to her spiritual expansion and her eventual return to a biblical understanding of God. The perfectionism, however, didn’t just evaporate. It would prove to be her biggest challenge in many aspects of her life from partnership to parenting.

One of my favorite gems from this conversation was this: The story we tell ourselves about our regrets is that things should have, could have been different when the truth is that the past was never a problem. It was the experience you needed to get you to where you are now.

Michelle is a visionary entrepreneur, motivational speaker, author, and coach. She has worked with countless teens and adults, helping to transform the lives of each client in alignment with their unique God-given goals, dreams, and potential. She continues two decades of work balancing motherhood with an active commitment to motivation, healing, and mentoring through her non-profit work, entrepreneurial pursuits, and coaching.

https://www.visionarymentoringgroup.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelle-dunk-1b686319a

https://www.instagram.com/visionarymentor/

https://www.facebook.com/visionarymentor

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Brian grew up an Army brat, living around the world and in the U.S. until he was 13. His peripatetic childhood included a year in the late 60s attending a segregated school in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, a hasty exit from east Berlin just prior to the building of the wall, and a passage in Buenos Aires when the recently unexiled Juan Peron threatened to kill every American in Argentina. 

He has hung aluminum siding in Fairbanks, Alaska, washed dishes in the Sierras, guided white water rafting trips, bartended, worked as a paralegal, flew planes in the Navy, and spent three years in South America as a Peace Corps volunteer.

His resume also boasts a forty-year career in education as a teacher, school administrator, and now, for the non-profit Daraja Academy which offers a tuition-free boarding school education to the poorest young women in Kenya.

Brian has been a seeker throughout his life, and as he passed through middle age, the seeking turned inward, away from the outward explorations of his youth. This led to a deep study of shamanism, after which he realized he’d been having shamanic experiences his entire life--from potent dreams with animal guides to altered interludes in nature. He is now preparing to enter into another period of shamanic education and practice, ever-curious about where it will take him.

 During our talk, Brian talked about how impactful and uncommon it was to feel seen as a young man, his life of service, and the thread of cynicism that’s leading him into deeper inquiry. 

Brian’s path into shamanism has been through The Foundation of Shamanic Studies. LINK

He also mentioned a word I’d never heard before. This is a somewhat rare and exciting event for me! If you’re curious, you can find out more about mishigas here: LINK

Brian also mentioned a couple of books in our time together:

The World’s Religions by Huston Smith LINK

Quiet: The power of introverts in a world that can’t stop talking by Susan Cain LINK

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We open a brand new season with a conversation with Jenny Glick. Born to teen parents who themselves were atheist despite having roots in strong religious traditions, Jenny’s first spiritual memory was of Mother Mary standing at the foot of her bed veiling her from the dark energy her father later confirmed had taken up residence in her childhood home. Perhaps because of the “innocent neglect” of her youth, Jenny developed an internal barometer of the edge of risk and knew, as a high school graduate that her wild oats era was over. What followed, however, was a period of longing which caused her much suffering. Her greatest learning, and the teaching she now offers others, has been to understand how the deep desire for safety influences the unconscious decisions and shadows of our lives. 

With a string of achievements including MA, MSC, LMFT, and CST, Jenny is now a retired marriage-family-sex therapist and current writer, torchbearer, and change catalyst for women and couples. With over 25 years of experience guiding women and men to shift out of old, unfulfilling timelines, Jenny’s uncommon approach has been the answer for thousands of people who are ready for rich relationships and lives full of satisfaction, nourishment, and connection.

www.JennyGlick.com

Substack: https://substack.com/@relationshipwisdom

IG: https://www.instagram.com/jenny_glick/

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