Pulled from the Tools For A Good Life Summit interviews.  Meg Gibbs guides us through a heavy time.  Meg pulls strategies from Shamanism, ceremony, and sacred ceremony to give us her answers.  1) stop doing and slow down.   2) gratefully put your feet on the earth.  3) Ask for help.  And trust yourself.  Write down 20 things that you know.  End the day with gratitude.  And then there’s nature :).

Administrative: (See episode transcript below)

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Transcript: 0:00:00.1 Speaker 1: Welcome back, everybody, to the Tools For a Good Life Summit. And right now, I would like to introduce to you, Meg Gibbs. Welcome, Meg. Before I read your official bio, I just want to say that... You know what, I'm gonna start with your official bio and then I'm gonna shower platitudes on you. How about we do that?

0:00:25.2 Meg Gibbs: Great, I love it. A compliment at the end, sounds good.

0:00:28.8 Speaker 1: Okay, good, good, good, good. So Meg Gibbs is a shamanic spiritual guide and somatic coach who helps people heal their relationship with their body and spirit. She has over 20 years of experience, studying with indigenous teachers from the US and South America, specifically working with the Lakota medicine wheel, which I freaking love, and the Q'ero. Am I saying that right? Q'ero.

0:00:58.6 Meg Gibbs: Q'ero.

0:01:00.9 Mischa Z: Q'ero. And the Q'ero lineage from the Andes of Peru. Her work weaves together ancient wisdom, experiential coaching and leadership techniques, and is grounded in embodied practice... And is grounded in embodied practice and intuition. She holds space for her clients to uncover the truth of who they are and how they want to share that with the world. She offers sessions remotely, for scientific fingerprint analysis, customized coaching, sacred ceremony and soul-aligned branding, to meet her clients where they are, on their personal or entrepreneurial journey?

0:01:39.7 Meg Gibbs: Absolutely.

0:01:41.5 Mischa Z: Absolutely. Welcome, meg. So, serendipitously, I think our relationship speaks to a willingness to have an open mind and willingness to perhaps embrace and work with somebody that you might not normally go to. Yeah?

0:02:01.8 Meg Gibbs: Yeah, absolutely, for sure.

0:02:03.7 Mischa Z: Yeah, yeah. So we met through serendipitous events, perhaps five, six... Four, five, six years ago, somewhere in there, and sort of forced cohabitation almost, for a weekend. Yes. And then normally, I think, in the outside world or however you wanna say that, we wouldn't have had an opportunity to work together. But we did, and you have been such a massive, massive part of my personal journey and my transformation. And I just was writing down some of the amazing things that we did together, that you brought me on the journey of. You're like, "Hey, Misha, here's... Let's do this, let's do this." And so, I... Movement exercises, writing exercises, meditation exercises, these ridiculous visualization exercises. And when I say ridiculous, just like ridiculous in a magical way.

0:03:06.3 Meg Gibbs: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:03:09.7 Mischa Z: And then we did some really cool group stuff via Zoom, which I was pleasantly surprised with, where you had put together some... Almost an online class structure, and people from Canada jumped in, I was in there, we just did all this cool stuff and you've... Again, you bring the magic. Simple as that.

0:03:35.9 Meg Gibbs: Thank you. Yeah, it's so fun to be able to support people in that way. And it's funny, because you can read my whole bio and we can talk about what I do, and here's the bullet points, but the truth is, if someone was like, 'Meg, what do you do?" and I was like, "Oh, I make magic happen." And I can't really say that when I shake somebody's hand, but I know that that's part of my truth and part of my gift, is to show up and hold space for magic to happen, for other people. That's the fun part for me. For sure.

0:04:05.1 Mischa Z: Yeah, and as I was going down that list, I was literally getting chills, and my hair was standing up even more than... So powerful, so powerful. And again, it just speaks... I don't mean audience, thank you for indulging us, but to have that open mind and to try... If an opportunity falls in front of you like this now, take advantage because it can be transformational, and I think one of the great things you said about me, Meg, not to make this about me, I apologize. But I'm a gamer and willing to jump in the fray and try different things. So I would encourage anybody watching and listening, jump in the fray, take a risk, if somebody on this summit resonates with you, but they're outside of who you might normally think is in your wheelhouse, just go for it.

0:05:02.7 Meg Gibbs: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that speaks to something that we'll talk about, which is for me, the connection to the body and really listening intuitively for what comes up for you. And so, when I think of when we met and how we've worked together, there's a sense of trust or expansion or listening, and that's the piece that when I tell people, "Oh, you're looking for a coach or a healer or whatever, a mechanic," it doesn't really matter. But if you can tune in and listen, "Oh, does that person feel good to me?" and it might not even, like you said, logically makes sense of like, "Oh, they're a different gender, or they have this woo specialty that I am not so sure about or whatever," but if it feels like, "Ooh, there's a little something there to play with," that's the piece that I encourage people to follow.

0:05:50.6 Mischa Z: Yeah, yeah, I love that. Thank you. So, quickly, somatic. What's somatic coach? When you say it... When that's...

0:06:02.8 Meg Gibbs: Yeah. Real simple. Somatic is just meaning, being in your body. So what I do is, I coach people around being in their body, and for me, being in your body is a sacred practice. So it's like building a muscle. We talk a lot about going to the gym and building physical muscle. And so, when you haven't had practice to be in your body, because our society doesn't teach that, you're not asked on a daily basis, "Mischa, how is your heart feeling in your body right now? What does it feel like?" You even named the goose bumps, noticing your physical sensation, noticing when emotions come up, because there's so much wisdom there, and 90% of our world is run from here up. That's it. So imagine, you have access to all of this other information and transformation, and that's what I feel like the body provides. So somatic coaching or somatic wisdom is just being in your body, checking in with your body, learning from your body, all of that is in there. So it's just a fancy word for it. But, yeah.

0:07:08.0 Mischa Z: Okay. I love that. Thank you for that. That's a beautiful explanation. And as you were talking about it, literally, I was sensationally in the body, like...

0:07:19.0 Meg Gibbs: Right. I could see it in your eyes too. [chuckle]

0:07:22.0 Mischa Z: So I wanna talk to... Just quickly too, and maybe three-minute version, but this... You... And I love this about you. It's one of my favorite things about you, is just the fact that you didn't five years ago, decide, "I'm gonna go explore shamanic ideas or this or that," and then bring that to the world. You grew up in it, due to the nature of your family. So when you say 20 years, that means... Yeah, when you were a teen, when you were young, you were... Due to the nature of growing up within it, you're doing this practice. Yeah?

0:07:58.2 Meg Gibbs: Yeah, absolutely, yeah. I'll give you the short version. So my mom started working with a Lakota teacher when I was young, and I started working with that teacher when I was 11. So I've been studying shamanic wisdom and lineages for over 20 years, since I was a kid, and I am a white woman, and I like to say that because it's important to know that this is a spiritual lineage for me, it's not a genetic lineage. And honoring that and honoring my teachers, and part of what I believe in, is giving money back to the people who created the space for me to do the work that I do. And with that, what happens for me is this balance of holding what is true, even if it doesn't match up with the outside. And what I mean by that is like, "Yes, I'm a young white person, and I also have this really deep soulful appreciation and carrying of this work inside of myself," and it's integrated into how I see the world and how I relate to people, the work that I do, how I show up, even when I go to the grocery store.

0:09:11.1 Meg Gibbs: It's in me, in a way that is not just, "Oh, I took a workshop and now I'm a shaman." And we talked about this, but I don't actually call myself a shaman. Some other people call me that, but I say I'm a shamanic practitioner, and that I do energetic and emotional healing and support with people. But holding the two lineages that I hold spiritually, are the Lakota and then this Andean tradition from the mountains of Peru, and my teacher is Don Mariano. So I've been initiated into these teachings, and it's an extremely... Or it has been, in the past, an extremely private world. And so, growing up with this really disciplined spiritual approach made me, obviously, pretty different from the other kids in middle school, who were talking about sports, and I'm talking about talking to trees on the weekends.

[laughter]

0:10:06.2 Meg Gibbs: The short version is just that this is very much a part of who I am and how I show up, and it's important to me, that people are honoring the root of where this comes from as well.

0:10:20.6 Mischa Z: Perfect, thank you. Beautiful. Well done, in three minutes too, the three-minute version.

0:10:25.0 Meg Gibbs: Perfect.

0:10:26.9 Mischa Z: And you were saying studying and I'm gonna add to that, implementing. So studying and implementing. So, beautiful. I think we get to it. I say we get to the question. What do you think?

0:10:37.7 Meg Gibbs: Yeah, take me. Let's go.

0:10:38.9 Meg Gibbs: Alright, fantastic. So I'm gonna lay out a scenario, and then I'm gonna ask

you a question, and... If we think of life as that three-legged stool, relationships, finance, health, it's when two of those legs go out, that it really can get... Life can get lifey, if you want to say. And so, for me, my parents passed away in rapid succession, divorce, further failed relationships. Physically, I was fine. I would tell you that. I looked physically fit. I had no stressors going on, physically, but that... For other people, that might...

0:11:31.5 Mischa Z: Anyway, you get what I'm saying. But the fact of the matter was, things got so heavy that my normal tools for working through emotional upheaval or through stressful times weren't enough, so I couldn't success my way through it, or work at it, work harder, fix it. So that being the case, and... Oh, here, I'm gonna get back to script. That helps me. I'm gonna get back on script. So to top it off, the pull yourself up from your bootstraps, fix it and push your way through it methods that served me so well, were no longer working. I needed new tools.

0:12:15.8 Mischa Z: By the grace of God, I had an open mind for new tools. Hence, Meg dropped into my life. This is my question to you. Thinking of shamanism, ceremony, sacred ceremony, what are the exact next steps you would offer this person, so they know they are headed in the new right direction, that they will have positive momentum towards getting their life back on track?

0:12:43.1 Meg Gibbs: Yeah. So the first thing honestly, is take a breath, [chuckle] acknowledging where you are, checking in, noticing what it's like to be you in this moment, is a really powerful tool, and almost zooming out and looking at yourself with love. So I say that because so often, when we're in that space of life crumbling or struggling or whatever, especially if you're holding on from the inside, like if you are someone who is still high achieving and making money and doing the thing, so people don't think there's anything wrong, you're holding a lot, there's a lot of that hamster wheel going on. And so, that breath and that acknowledgement to even just go, "I'm having a hard time right now. Wow. What is it like to meet myself with some compassion?"

0:13:42.9 Meg Gibbs: So I think, so often, we launch into action and action steps, and, "How do I do x, y, z?" And here's the thing, you can read books, you can listen to podcasts, you can go to therapy, there's like... Here's 29 things you can do it. But the other side of it is, how you be, how you be in yourself, how you be in the world, how you show up for people, how you need people to show up for you.

0:14:11.1 Meg Gibbs: So this is just general sort of life advice, container energy stuff. So to answer your question more specifically around the shamanic piece or around ritual, I like to really use small intuitive rituals. And what I mean by that is, I'm gonna show you. So I brought some tea to our call, I don't know if you can read this.

0:14:34.4 Mischa Z: Yeah. Sending you a socially distanced hug in a mug. Nice.

0:14:38.5 Meg Gibbs: I love this. It's a happy mug. And so, what I really like to do that's simple is, in the morning or when you have your tea or your coffee or whatever, and you can do this with me if you have some water with you, whatever you're drinking, and so you'