In this episode, Nick speaks with Debra Driscoll, who helps people in their spiritual development and healing by using magic. We all have this magic but may not know how to use it.

She helps people expand and heal even with the words we use and the things we look at. We are the creators of our reality, and we have the magic to make it a good or bad experience.

Debra walks us through how we can tap into our own magic to start our own healing process.

About Debra Driscoll

Debra is a Magic Weaver, Storyteller, Spiritual Teacher, and the creator of BIG LIFE MAGIC. Debra has practiced and taught spiritual development and healing practices for over twenty-five years and takes great delight in activating magic in others.

Her expertise: Reiki Master, TCM Practitioner, Meditation and Intuition Teacher, Grief Guide, Oracle and Energy Reader, and Master Storyteller.

Debra is the author of “A Series of Surrender ~ A Memoir of Grief.” In 2022, Debra will be writing and crafting her second book, “Surrendering to Magic”

Resources:

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Your Friends at “The Mindset & Self-Mastery Show”

00:00:08:08 – 00:00:27:17

Nick McGowan

Hello and welcome to The Mindset and Self-mastery Show. I’m your host, Nick McGowan. And on this show, my guests and I unpack the stories that shape us, the lives that we lead on our path to self-mastery. So let’s not wait any longer. Let the games begin.

00:00:30:20 – 00:00:33:02

Nick McGowan

Hey, Debra, welcome to the show. How are you doing today?

00:00:33:08 – 00:00:36:22

Debra Driscoll

Yeah, I’m well. Thank you. Thank you. So great to be here.

00:00:37:12 – 00:00:53:23

Nick McGowan

Yeah, I’m glad that you’re here. Thank you for reaching out. I’m excited to get into what seems like a bit of a crazy story that has has a little bit of twist in. Yeah, I won’t get into that. I’ll let you get into that. So why don’t you give us a little bit of context here? What do you do for a living?

00:00:53:23 – 00:00:58:04

Nick McGowan

And what’s one thing that most people don’t know about you that’s maybe kind of odd or bizarre?

00:00:58:22 – 00:01:31:12

Debra Driscoll

Okay. Well, as as a what do I do every day is I’m a magic weaver and a grief guide, which not everyone understands how you can be both of those things at the same time. Work with magic and people, spiritual practice and also hold space for grief. But yes, I do both. And one thing that people usually don’t know about me, because it doesn’t come up in conversation, a lot when I was young and people would ask me, What do you want to be when you grow up?

00:01:32:04 – 00:01:51:13

Debra Driscoll

I would say, I want to be an opera singer and I wanted to be an opera singer because everyone kept telling me I was too loud. I was a chubby kid who had the curves. And I was told all the time that I was loud. And so I looked out into the world and I thought, Where can you be loud and chubby, but you’re celebrated.

00:01:52:07 – 00:01:58:19

Debra Driscoll

And I thought, That’s Opus, it’s opera singers. So I decided that I wanted to be an opera singer. I held on to that for years.

00:01:59:22 – 00:02:04:19

Nick McGowan

So did you play in any operas? Did you get anywhere with it? Did you just do lessons?

00:02:05:20 – 00:02:09:01

Debra Driscoll

No. See, this is the irony, Nick. I can’t sing.

00:02:10:13 – 00:02:11:17

Nick McGowan

You just look the part.

00:02:12:16 – 00:02:23:13

Debra Driscoll

That sing me. Yeah. I was like, you know, like I was three for five at the time, and it was like that. That’s what I could see in the world that could be celebrated if you had curves and you allowed.

00:02:24:00 – 00:02:40:19

Nick McGowan

Isn’t that interesting how you catch on to that stuff where you’re like, Well, I don’t know exactly what to do, but I’ve seen these things that maybe this fits. I think that’s a start to where a lot of kids start to kind of figure out the thing that they like or they don’t like or where some of them kind of get stuck where their parents are like, Man, I did this thing.

00:02:40:23 – 00:02:52:18

Nick McGowan

You should do it, too. Like, I played baseball. So you should play baseball as well. Do you feel like you were kind of moved into that direction at all or did you have a family that was like, Yeah, whatever. You’re just allowed.

00:02:53:17 – 00:03:22:12

Debra Driscoll

We were we were allowed to a point. So my my father, Colin Joseph, he’s been passed for many years now. But he was a man who loved to learn. He had seven degrees, two of them doctorates. When he got his first doctors in Australia, he was the youngest person to get a doctorate in Australia at the time. And so he had seven children, sorry, he had seven degrees.

00:03:22:12 – 00:03:48:01

Debra Driscoll

And my mother raised seven children. And so we could be whatever we wanted to be as long as we were going to go to university. Like education was big in my family. It was, you know, something that we didn’t seem to have much of a choice, that it was something that we were going to commit to because that was a part of the culture of my family, was learning, learning, learning.

00:03:48:22 – 00:03:53:13

Debra Driscoll

And you could be whatever you wanted to be as long as that was attached to a university degree.

00:03:54:05 – 00:04:08:13

Nick McGowan

Interesting. So there was a I mean, how did you get away from that? It can’t be like, no, dad, I’m not going to go. I know you’ve gone for years and years and you have seven degrees, but did you end up going to university or what did that look like?

00:04:08:20 – 00:04:32:01

Debra Driscoll

I did. I did. And what I chose to do at university, I think, gave my father’s and some worry, some moments of like, why is she choosing that? I was I am a very like academically smart person to all of my teachers wanted me to do all of the chemistry and the high levels of math, and I wasn’t interested in that.

00:04:32:16 – 00:05:00:03

Debra Driscoll

I was interested in humanities and history and the arts. And so the university degree that I went to was to study theater. And, you know, my dad just kind of swallowed and said, well, it’s a degree. And he really wish that I went into science or, you know, some other kind of, you know, more kind of straight laced university and, you know, degree pathway.

00:05:00:15 – 00:05:22:17

Debra Driscoll

And but I had the experience of growing up that I was told often, you are smart, you are smart, you are smart. And there’s a there’s a beauty in that in having that recognized in me. But what I also had an experience of when I was growing up, when I was like, Yeah, but I’m also talented and I’m also intuitive and I’m also fun.

00:05:22:23 – 00:05:51:00

Debra Driscoll

Like, Can I be those things as well? Which is why I think as a teenager I, you know, did the classic teenage. Will you going to tell me to go left? So I’m going to go skipping right. And you just watch me skip, right, because you can you do battle it. And that’s what got me into theater and other humanities and, you know, exploring different things like spirituality and things that weren’t biology and, you know, math level three.

00:05:51:22 – 00:05:55:16

Nick McGowan

So let’s take a little bit of a jump. How did you go from all of that to what you’re doing today?

00:05:56:05 – 00:06:15:21

Debra Driscoll

Well, what I’m doing today, the magic lever part has always been a part of me. But the grief guide part is something that I believe came to find me in that I never put on a vision board or had a conversation with somebody in my life thinking, I think I’m going to be a grief guide. I think that’d be a great job.

00:06:16:07 – 00:06:46:02

Debra Driscoll

Wasn’t something that I aspired to doing, but my experience of life is that I’ve had a series of deaths that have been very close to me and have shaped my heart and shaped my spiritual practice and space, shaped who I am as human. And I got to a point in my own journey where I realized I have learned a lot and I could be at service to others who haven’t been on this journey that I’ve been on, who need help in navigating the grief journey.

00:06:46:21 – 00:07:13:03

Debra Driscoll

And so I stepped up to the plate and and and I’m telling you, I was the opera singer in me was shocked that I was now a grief guide as well as being somebody who talks about magic and spiritual practice. And and I have found great beauty in being a great guide and supporting people and great delight in being a magic weaver.

00:07:13:03 – 00:07:16:16

Debra Driscoll

And the work that I do. I do see how they weave together.

00:07:17:09 – 00:07:28:07

Nick McGowan

Hmm. So talk to us a bit more about the Magic Weaver and what that actually entails. And let’s tie that into mindset and how that actually matters for for what you’re doing.

00:07:28:15 – 00:08:02:04

Debra Driscoll

Yeah. So for me, I, I began to work with this, you know, like phrasing around, calling myself a magic weaver because I found it to be inclusive of all the ways that I turn up in my magic. And also, to be blunt about it, any time I introduce myself as in which people had questions about that and I found that I was explaining myself as a witch and why I said I’m a witch more than actually talking about the magic.

00:08:03:04 – 00:08:27:14

Debra Driscoll

And so I just went, Well, it’s just actually a title I can let go of needing to introduce myself as a witch and just actually say, I work in magic, I help weave magic. And I ended up with magic and we because magic, I believe, is also inclusive, where people can decide for themselves what their magic is. So for some people, you know, their magic is actually connecting to nature.

00:08:27:23 – 00:08:56:11

Debra Driscoll

For some people, their magic is connecting to angels. For some people, their magic is actually around prayer and their connection to a higher and they call God or any other name. And so I, you know, I believe that we all have magic and you get to decide what your magic is. But to me, magic is the piece of source energy, the piece of the universe that is us, like we I believe we’re all spiritual beings having an earth bound experience.

00:08:56:11 – 00:09:15:19

Debra Driscoll

And that spiritual part of us is a part of the universe. It’s a part of souls, energy, and it’s our magic. And we get to use it in whatever way that we want. We get to weave it in whatever way that we want. And a huge part of that is how we work with our mind, like the mindset that we have.

00:09:15:19 – 00:09:48:06

Debra Driscoll

Like. One of my favorite quotes from Einstein, like, I have a little crush on Einstein. And Einstein says, one of the most important questions that humans need to ask themselves is, do they live in a hostile or friendly environment? And I believe that’s that comes back to mindset, like how are you going to frame your experience? How are you going to frame the experience of the people or the situation that you’re having and is is it friendly or hostile?

00:09:48:08 – 00:10:17:22

Debra Driscoll

You know, is the situation happening to you or for you? Is it something that’s going to destroy you or is it something that’s going to shape you? Like, that’s it choices. And as humans, we get to we get to decide how free will is from our minds, as strong. And we get to decide. And so for me, a huge part of the work I do in magic is helping people with shifting their mindset.

00:10:19:04 – 00:10:42:13

Debra Driscoll

And then beyond shifting the mindset, shifting their actions or behaviors or patterns or beliefs that they have connected to the neural pathways of, you know, all of the amazing and also all of the not so amazing, sometimes destructive thoughts that humans and have in our amazing brains.

00:10:43:08 – 00:11:05:13

Nick McGowan

Yeah, I had a conversation with somebody recently. I think it might have been an episode, it may have been a client, but we were talking about that negative self-talk and the conversations that you have a your own self and you’re like, if you really think about it, like if that was a person that was outside of you, you would have kicked their ass, you would have gotten restraining orders, you would have done whatever you could because the shit that that brain talks to you at times.

00:11:06:00 – 00:11:30:03

Nick McGowan

And I find it interesting how you kind of use that along with the magic and the magic of what is your what are your talents, what are the things that are inside that can help kind of bring things out of you? And I think there are a lot of people that don’t really understand the amount of power that they have inside of themselves and the super power that’s within their skull that allows them to do these things.

00:11:30:03 – 00:11:37:16

Nick McGowan

So how do you help your clients actually get to that precipice of understanding that, alright, maybe I’ve got more power inside and then step through that.

00:11:39:06 – 00:12:02:08

Debra Driscoll

Yeah, that’s such a delicious question. Yeah. So one of the things that I do in my community and I repeat it often is I say you are the magic, that the magic is not outside you. You’re not working with me because I’m magical and I’m going to heal you or I’m going to help you, or I’m going to take all the pain away.

00:12:02:08 – 00:12:26:16

Debra Driscoll

That’s not how this works. I’m a magical guide or your grief guide. And whether it’s grief or another aspect of human experience that we’re working through, it’s an experience that you have choices along the hallway. And one of the first choices you have is, am I going to enter into my magic? Like, am I actually going to believe for a moment that I am magical and that I have some choice?

00:12:27:03 – 00:12:52:15

Debra Driscoll

So I’m reminding people all the time, you are the magic, anchoring your magic. Choose your own adventure. In this life you get to choose. Because I loved those books as a kid, the Choose Your Own Adventure Books. And then the other thing that I teach is, is around your words. You want to feel working in the idea of magic and, you know, working with all the metaphors that, you know, magic brings.

00:12:52:15 – 00:13:20:10

Debra Driscoll

One is the magic wand. And I believe our strongest, most amazing, magical one that we all have is our words. Even people who are nonverbal, they may have they have language in different ways that they bring it across. And so I say to people, your words are you won’t. So if you’re saying to me, I’m tired all the time and saying, okay, well, on the end of your wand, there is you’re tired all the time.

00:13:20:10 – 00:13:52:21

Debra Driscoll

You’re assuming that you’re affirming that, you’re affirming that. So what do you actually want? It’s like, I want to rebuild my energy. Are you? She wants that every day. In every way I will rebuild my energy, you know, just like reframing the words that people are saying and telling them. You’re going to have to repeat that because our minds are strong and the neural pathways get established quickly and then they become highways and there’s semi-trailers going down the highways.

00:13:53:04 – 00:14:23:18

Debra Driscoll

And, you know, where you want to go is, you know, the little forest path off to the side of the highway. And it’s hard to find sometimes. And so needing to be, yeah, if you’ve been driving the highway and you know, there’s so much around our words in our minds that we say to ourselves or we say out loud, or we allow others to say to us that we we don’t even realize are on repeat until someone is reflecting it back to you.

00:14:24:23 – 00:14:46:09

Debra Driscoll

Because the other thing about our mind is like we see our mind is in, you know, our little brain, which is our mental body, our brain, which is where a lot of processes is happening. But when you’re working in magic, you’re working with the whole person, which means you’re working with the whole field, the whole spirit. And the fourth layer of your work field is our mental body.

00:14:47:17 – 00:15:08:19

Debra Driscoll

And in your mental body is where all those beliefs and the things you were told as a kid like for me in my mental body is your too loud, you know? So I get to choice around my magic. Do I want to keep that in my mental body or do I want to work through clearing that and letting that mindset go?

00:15:09:07 – 00:15:33:12

Debra Driscoll

And just like finding the joy in, Yeah, I’m loud, which means I can walk into a room and facilitate 100 people and everybody can hear me. Look how magical I am, you know, rather than two levels should be quiet or checking myself all the time. A random or too loud, you know, so, so much of it is like changing your words.

00:15:33:20 – 00:15:53:16

Debra Driscoll

Words as you want, but then also clearing the thoughts that aren’t working for you. And some of them, we didn’t even come up with them. Some of them other people gave to us. And then it just stopped and created a highway and created some energy in our mental body. And then suddenly that’s who we believe we are. It’s not true.

00:15:53:16 – 00:15:54:13

Debra Driscoll

We’re magical.

00:15:54:23 – 00:16:10:13

Nick McGowan

So how do you also help find that that magic and use the talents that’s with inside of them and kind of have that balance between owning it, just not being fucking cocky about it and not being significance driven. So how do you help them with that balance?

00:16:12:00 – 00:16:30:07

Debra Driscoll

Yeah, it’s like you, you know, you go back into check like if you are actually anchored into your magic, you are working in the highest good. So I say in the magical playground there are no winners or losers, but there’s no finish line, there’s no gold star, there’s no luck. I’m going to be better than the other person.

00:16:31:16 – 00:16:56:18

Debra Driscoll

And we all have a place to play in the playground. And also, as soon as you step into that playground, why are you there? Are you there to be a hostile player or a friendly player? You know, and it’s like own your own magic. Enter into your own magic. It’s your process. And if you if your shadow or your ego comes to play, we’ll just say, Well, hello, you’re on the playground.

00:16:56:18 – 00:17:16:08

Debra Driscoll

I see you this dribble the ball for a while and see what you got to say. You know, like, I don’t I don’t invite people to deny or push away any part of their experience. But I do advise people, be careful. You don’t want to get stuck playing in the pool now with the shadow because that’s actually not very fun.

00:17:17:01 – 00:17:20:02

Debra Driscoll

When you could be playing with possibility over by the hoops.

00:17:21:08 – 00:17:44:11

Nick McGowan

That still do in the deep work though, you know, it’s almost like that difference between being in the movie and just watching the movie and processing from that. So without giving some of the secrets Office, what sort of advice would you give for some of the people that are listening to be able to work with some of that and to be able to step into their playground but also be mindful of the the shadow and the potential that’s there.

00:17:44:22 – 00:18:10:23

Debra Driscoll

Yeah, I always like advice people. Yes. Anchor into your own magic, which means I, I share your breath is your spirit. So as soon as we breathe in. Yeah. Anchoring in your spirit so you can do that in every beat to be in the present moment to anchor into your own and then follow, follow what you feel like if you’re in the playground and something doesn’t feel right, stop, breathe.

00:18:10:23 – 00:18:42:02

Debra Driscoll

Check it. You know, like we know when we’re moving towards judgment. We know when ego is running the show and we’re just, like, running behind. We know if we stop, breathe and check in. So it’s like, you know, just like you don’t need somebody else to be your safety monitor on the magical playground. You know, if you’re going to be honest with yourself and stop, pause, breathe, check in for a minute, it doesn’t mean that everything’s going to be pleasant.

00:18:42:02 – 00:19:06:09

Debra Driscoll

Some of the the activities in the magical playground can actually be difficult, challenging, exquisitely painful. But they’re all part of our human experience. They’re all part of us expanding our magic. We don’t want to deny those parts either. We just want to make sure that while we’re working with them, working through it, we feel supported. We feel anchored into our own magic.

00:19:06:15 – 00:19:31:16

Debra Driscoll

And we know the purpose of why we’re doing this, or if it feels like something outside you that is happening that you didn’t ask for. Just kind of tuned into what is here for me to learn or what is here for me to expect in myself? But, you know, I believe that we all know I believe we are all our greatest healer and teacher and and we have it all within us.

00:19:32:08 – 00:19:58:22

Debra Driscoll

So I give permission to follow your lead. Choose your own adventure, and be patient with yourself. Because if you haven’t done that for years and years and years, if life told you that you weren’t allowed to do that and you had to follow the parent or the teacher or the boss or society or, you know, whatever it may be, it’s going to take a while to get jiggy with, Oh, I can anchor into my own magic and I can no, this feels good.

00:19:58:22 – 00:20:10:11

Debra Driscoll

This doesn’t feel good. This is learning and it still doesn’t feel good. But instead of learning, you know, like you can tune in, you can figure it out for yourself and then everything expands.

00:20:12:02 – 00:20:41:05

Nick McGowan

Yeah, that’s when life actually begins. At that point. There’s a lot of a lot of hesitance around most things that have to do with doing deep work for people because of that fear, the unknown fear of, you know, it just being bullshit or fear of them not actually having a problem and maybe experiencing something. So those people that are kind of going through that time where they’re trying to figure out something doesn’t feel right, how do you help people actually get to their intuition?

00:20:41:05 – 00:21:03:23

Nick McGowan

Because I’m like you where I believe that we’re all spiritual beings here and we all have that intuition. It’s just probably layered over for most people where they can’t get to it because it’s so calloused and they can’t hear it. So how do you help those people be able to get to the point where they can hear more of it, even if it’s like a faint voice that they go, I think it’s over there somewhere.

00:21:03:23 – 00:21:27:07

Debra Driscoll

Yeah, I’m telling you, pick it up and put it down. You’re playing in my playground right now, Nick, because for the month of June, this is what I’m teaching in my membership. And also I also on the big life magic YouTube I do every Wednesday I do which Wednesday where I share something about spiritual practice or magic weaving.

00:21:27:15 – 00:21:51:11

Debra Driscoll

And for the whole month of June, I’m sharing about intuition and how we can tune into it. So to answer your question and what I first invite people to do is to affirm I am intuitive. Sure, the volume may be turned right down, but you have it. So the first thing you need to know is like time that you have, that it’s the voice of our spirit.

00:21:52:06 – 00:22:12:10

Debra Driscoll

So first thing to know is I am intuitive because I work with, you know, some people who come to work with me and they believe that Deborah is intuitive, but I’m not. And so that’s how I begin now. I’m just like, okay, well, let’s encourage your magic because I’m your magical playmate and your guide, but this is your magical adventure.

00:22:12:10 – 00:22:33:04

Debra Driscoll

So the first thing I advise people is affirm that you have it and then actually begin to work on the relationship because it’s a relationship, it’s a dialog, it’s communication. You can’t demand that your intuition turns up and sends you a sign and gives you an insight. If you haven’t turned up to the relationship for ten years. Right.

00:22:33:04 – 00:22:51:08

Debra Driscoll

You can’t do that. You wouldn’t you wouldn’t do that, too, you know, like someone you knew in high school you never spoke to. And then just pick them up on the phone and just say, Hey, buddy, I need to borrow your car. So if you wouldn’t do it, I the same with the intuition. Like you begin building the relationship and there’s different ways you can do that.

00:22:51:18 – 00:23:23:19

Debra Driscoll

Like you can just stop to assume that you have it. You can start to do breathing in meditation. You can and you can start to play. You can start to be curious about how does my intuition come through? But I often invite people more and more and more towards play and exploration because I think there is unfortunately, adults believe that when I grow up, I need to be serious and that is wrong.

00:23:24:10 – 00:23:48:19

Debra Driscoll

Like our brains love play. If we want to learn something, play. If you want to learn something, dance it out. Your muscle memory is going to learn it much quicker, you know? So I’m moving people towards play, play, play, play, play. And when people work with me, I do incremental little magic activations for them. So it’s almost like they can, you know, step onto the playground, step onto the playground and step onto the playground.

00:23:48:19 – 00:24:13:02

Debra Driscoll

Now pick up the ball on the playground. Now, invite somebody else to play with the ball with them like, you know, you can’t expect somebody to just go from. I haven’t been tuned into my magic for 20 years to suddenly shooting hoops, you know, it’s like you help people along with and a lot of it is about affirming for people you have it everyone.

00:24:14:09 – 00:24:15:11

Debra Driscoll

So what do you want to do with it?

00:24:16:13 – 00:24:42:09

Nick McGowan

Now I can see how it transfers over from what you do in that realm and working with people in that sort of way. How that transfers over to the grief because there are problems that people just push away and they go, I can’t handle that anymore. Like trauma, childhood trauma. Some people don’t remember that they had some crazy traumatic thing that happened because their brain was like, Well, this shit’s pretty rough.

00:24:42:09 – 00:25:10:10

Nick McGowan

You’re not able to handle this right now, and they just push it away. So yeah, and I can see where that kind of that bridge goes from. Okay, now you have an understanding and you’re tapping into your intuition and their shit that’s back there or something crazy that just happened. So can you give us a little bit of details as much as you’d like to give on what actually happened for you to get you to that point where you said, well, now I’m going to go through grief myself and help others do the same?

00:25:10:22 – 00:25:17:01

Debra Driscoll

Yeah, well, the you know, the the journey of grief for me is three times over.

00:25:19:05 – 00:25:51:21

Debra Driscoll

So the first verse of death was the very first man I’d ever fallen in love with Nick. And he chose to take his own life. And I was 20. And then seven months later, I’m 21. And my father, Colin Joseph, the amazing academic with seven degrees, died of an unexpected heart attack. So I turned from 20 to 21, the very first man I loved and also the very first man I loved, like the first fall in love.

00:25:51:21 – 00:26:14:20

Debra Driscoll

And my father, the very first man you ever love. Both gone within seven months, and all of my friendship circle was grieving. All of my family was grieving. And the truth be told, no one knew what to do. We didn’t know. We had no way, no guidebook like how do you do grief? And so, you know, it’s 21.

00:26:14:20 – 00:26:34:20

Debra Driscoll

So I drink a lot of bitterness, smokes and joints, and I believed in about a year. I’ll be good, you know, maybe I’ll just cry a bit, write my journal, you know. And I thought I was really processing grief. And, you know, truth be told, again, we were all doing the best that we could at the time with what we knew and what we were managing.

00:26:34:20 – 00:26:53:04

Debra Driscoll

But, you know, a couple of years later, I couldn’t get out of the shower when I was crying. I just couldn’t get out of the shower. I would just everything was falling down. And by the time I went to reach for help, the psychologist said to me, Oh, you’re processing undigested grief. And I was like, What? This a couple of years ago?

00:26:54:12 – 00:27:21:00

Debra Driscoll

And that was when I kind of realized, Oh, grief is patient, grief is going to wait for you because grief is offering you opportunities so your heart and your soul to learn to not be surprised. I was stoned or drunk. I didn’t turn up to class. So when I started to work through that later in my twenties, I promised myself if death and grief ever came knocking again, I would not deny it.

00:27:21:00 – 00:27:45:01

Debra Driscoll

I would turn up to class, I would be with it. Little did I know that that promise was going to have to be cashed in for nine years ago. My son, Sage Joseph, one month before his 11th birthday, unexpectedly died. So I went from being a single mother to an almost 11 year old amazing boy to one morning going to wake him.

00:27:45:01 – 00:28:08:02

Debra Driscoll

And he had already passed away in the night. And I had no idea. Completely unexpected. He wasn’t healed. You know, I found that the 18 months later, it was a rare condition of his heart that took his life. And in back up spirit. But there I am again, you know, at this place, and it was three days later, and I am sitting on my kitchen floor crying.

00:28:08:02 – 00:28:44:20

Debra Driscoll

There’s people milling and seething all around my house, in my garden in Australia, like the Australian version of Sitting Shiva. And I was like, I don’t know. It’s like, how am I going to I don’t know. Like just like lost in it all. It felt so heavy. And then I remembered, I was like, Hold on a minute. I made a promise and in my repair from my mid twenties, up until this point, I had begun to really study spiritual practice and healing modalities and I had been working in that, I’ve been teaching that and I was in clinical practice and I knew so much more.

00:28:45:23 – 00:29:04:01

Debra Driscoll

And so my curiosity got me off the kitchen floor because I was like, okay, I’m going to I’m going to follow through on this promise. I’m going to turn up to this grief, and I am going to find out what is possible. Can I survive if I turn all the magic and spiritual practice that I teach and work with other people?

00:29:04:07 – 00:29:32:05

Debra Driscoll

If I turn that onto myself, can I survive this? And the deeper question is there a life beyond this? And you know, the answer is yes, which is why my business is called Big Life Magic, because it was, you know, my big life loss was my pathway to discovering my big life logic. And and I believe we can all do that.

00:29:32:21 – 00:29:39:00

Debra Driscoll

And it’s not easy. It is a tricky pathway, but this gives along the way.

00:29:40:10 – 00:29:58:06

Nick McGowan

Isn’t a wild thought to think so much has happened after such a traumatic experience that if that didn’t happen, you would potentially still have your son, but you wouldn’t have anything else and everybody that you’ve helped would not have been helped.

00:29:58:17 – 00:30:19:05

Debra Driscoll

Yeah, I’ve had that framing light that started to work like, you know, not immediately, definitely not immediately. But, you know, as I started to like write my book, as I started to speak more of the stories of the things that I was learning and sharing as I started to do this work as a grief guide, it just kept getting reflected back to me.

00:30:19:05 – 00:30:40:23

Debra Driscoll

I was like, Oh, this was, you know, I had a guide, like a spirit guide come to make me in my sleep. A couple of nights before my son died, I had no idea that my son was going to die. And the Spirit Guide came. He was like Middle Eastern descent, very tall, amazing, elaborate hat, which made him seem like he had this great authority.

00:30:41:15 – 00:31:05:10

Debra Driscoll

And he sat on the side of the bed and he said to me very clearly, he said, I need you to listen for every night that I have come to speak to you, you have chosen to forget when you wake up. But this is the last time that I can come. Please remember, the research is important and I woke up from that and I was like, Well, that’s vivid.

00:31:05:12 – 00:31:38:09

Debra Driscoll

And I don’t normally have really vivid dreams. Like, so when, when I do get a really vivid dream, I really notice it. And I was like, I have no idea what that God is talking about, but he was wearing a fabulous hat and I guess that means something. And I didn’t even again, I didn’t click straight away, but after a while, when I began to process it and then share more of it, when I realized what he was talking about is my life, is the research like I have survived Nick’s death, my father’s death and my son’s death, the mother, the father and the son.

00:31:39:04 – 00:31:56:01

Debra Driscoll

I survived both of those all three of those deaths and had the experience. So because my life is the research which I now gift to others, so that they can have an experience that is enriching and healing and expensive.

00:31:57:13 – 00:32:28:14

Nick McGowan

I appreciate that you actually look at it that way. You know, obviously and I say it’s obvious because there are people that could choose a negative way to look at that, where they could think that, like you’d mentioned earlier, that do things happen to or for me that it happened to you, that the fact that you spun that and said it’s happening for me and for others simultaneously, that in and of itself, that level of awareness kind of just jumps over a lot of other people’s heads.

00:32:29:12 – 00:32:41:05

Nick McGowan

But you had made that kind of promise earlier in life. So did you feel like and forgive me if this sounds like if this is an asshole question, but did you feel like you called that in?

00:32:42:06 – 00:33:06:01

Debra Driscoll

Yeah, I think well, I believe we design our lives, you know, I do. And and I you know, I was I pissed at myself for designing this. Yeah. You know, it’s like, God, Jeff, why don’t you decide this, you know? But I also knew it was a reason, and I knew it was a reason for my son to leave at the time that he did and for me to stay.

00:33:06:01 – 00:33:40:01

Debra Driscoll

It’s just like it took a really long time for the acceptance into the to the being with that. But I absolutely believe that we make choices from spirit around and so therefore human blueprint and within that we have choice. Again, we have willpower and we have choice as humans. So yes, I wrote in my blueprint that I would be a single parent to Sage Joseph Preschool and that one month before his 11th birthday he would pass away using Sage as blueprint.

00:33:40:01 – 00:34:12:04

Debra Driscoll

Also so contract between the two of us after he dies. I have a choice. I can choose to move towards the lesson and the evolution of that. Or I can choose to wear the badge of Look at me, pull me. I lost my son. I’m the grieving mother now for the rest of eternity. You know, everyone has a choice and there’s more than two choices, you know, and and it comes in little shifts, but the choice gets.

00:34:12:04 – 00:34:32:16

Debra Driscoll

Sure, I had a head had a choice of like, I’m going to be curious about this, which got me off the kitchen floor three days after Sage’s death. But There’s another moment that I want to share with you, which I think was a really big mindset shift. My son had been buried, so it took it took a couple of weeks for them to do tests on his brain and his body to figure out why he had died.

00:34:32:16 – 00:34:54:20

Debra Driscoll

It was a mystery. So it was like three weeks later before I could bury him and then after the the day after the burial, myself and his godmother, my best friend, Julie, we planted a flower garden. So we put our hands in earth and we planted flowers. So we had something to do because it’s a surreal day, the day after you buried you.

00:34:55:03 – 00:35:16:00

Debra Driscoll

It’s a really surreal day. Like, what do I do today? So we planted this, this flower garden, which was Julie’s suggestion, because she’s an amazing human who knew exactly how to support me and also support her because here I was breaking to it was her godson. So we planted this flower garden and then again, a couple of weeks pass and I’m alone.

00:35:16:00 – 00:35:39:00

Debra Driscoll

Everyone’s left now. There’s more people coming to visit the house. The flowers have stopped turning up. It’s just that weird kind of floating energy of, I don’t know what to do with my grief. I’m just kind of in pain all the time. And I was out in the garden and looking at the flowers and I can see the flowers that we’ve planted, the starting to bloom and take shape.

00:35:39:11 – 00:36:01:00

Debra Driscoll

And I’m looking at them and I’m thinking over and over and over. I miss you. I miss you. I Miss you. Like my body was missing my son. I wanted him to be running down the backstairs. I wanted to be able to hug him. But my body was aching, my heart was broken, and my was on repeat. Miss this you miss you.

00:36:01:10 – 00:36:26:10

Debra Driscoll

And there was something about being with this and having this meditated space of just looking at these flowers that were actually changing and taking shape and coming to life in color. Something about that that dropped in for me. And so I quote, I miss him so much because I love him. So then I went, okay, I could change that.

00:36:26:10 – 00:36:50:07

Debra Driscoll

Instead of saying, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you. A groupie. I could say I love you. So then over the next few weeks, every time I’d get this burst of like, I miss you a miss you stop, pause, breathe, and then say, Oh, I love you, I love you, I love you. And it was a huge shift because like missing you, the shoulders roll in the heart.

00:36:50:07 – 00:37:14:15

Debra Driscoll

Cade’s in, everything is dark. And then when you expand to, I love you, everything opens up again. And I really believe that’s when I started to work on the mindset that there’s work in spirit, there’s work on mind, there’s work on harp, there’s work on body. Like grief is a whole body, whole everything experience. But that’s the day when I thought, Now I’m starting to work.

00:37:14:15 – 00:37:15:09

Debra Driscoll

It’s my mind.

00:37:16:16 – 00:37:36:02

Nick McGowan

That’s awesome. Thank you for sharing that. I, I want to point out a bit of a pattern that you’d mentioned before that seems like it showed up in that way where you had said before about play and having fun and just starting to move on things and continue to move and explore and make little changes and little adaptations, etc..

00:37:36:02 – 00:37:47:18

Nick McGowan

And it sounds like that’s sort of similar, if not 100%, somewhere more like that, what that path was like for you then to go, Oh, wait a minute, here’s something I see because I was out playing where if you hadn’t been out playing, you wouldn’t have seen it.

00:37:48:12 – 00:38:14:06

Debra Driscoll

Yeah, exactly. And just staying open to the possibilities, which is not always easy when life is giving you a tricky chapter or things feel dark. Like the other thing I do when I’m working with people is I’m like, You’ve got to be honest about how you are now. Like, if you’re like, I had a chapter where I was literally is Dead Angels.

00:38:14:06 – 00:38:36:23

Debra Driscoll

I was red hot, angry, you know? And my mantra then was, Why did you take my baby away? And and I like I had a long conversation that lasted days and weeks and I didn’t want to let go of it. I was pissed. Nick I was like, Come on, Angel, you got to tell me because I’m really pissed at you right now.

00:38:36:23 – 00:38:56:17

Debra Driscoll

I’ve been praying to you for years now. You really pissed me off, you know? Right. And it just, you know, and I had to be honest about the fact that in those weeks, my truth was I not feeling really magical right now. Angels can just get out of my space, you know, until they can turn up with a good answer.

00:38:57:13 – 00:39:19:02

Debra Driscoll

I’m pissed at them, you know? And so you can’t then be in that space and just go, well, like just speed, love and light. It’s like, that wasn’t love and light for me then. That was me being honest about the fact that I’m trying to channel and understand my anger and it needed to be directed at someone and I didn’t want to directed it anybody who was earthbound with me.

00:39:19:02 – 00:39:32:07

Debra Driscoll

So the angels copped it and I figured it out. I worked through the anger, so it’s not living in my body anymore. And the angels and I went, Good. Now.

00:39:32:21 – 00:39:33:21

Nick McGowan

Did they give you an answer?

00:39:34:06 – 00:39:55:12

Debra Driscoll

Yeah. They said to me, You planned it. We didn’t take him away. You planned it. And I said, I know that answer. I was like, I already know that answer. Come back and give me another one. I don’t like that one. Yeah, yeah. The thing that they actually said to me was this this was their this was their line.

00:39:55:21 – 00:40:08:06

Debra Driscoll

Nothing went wrong that day. Nothing went wrong that day. Yeah. When I received that, I was like kind of can’t ignore that one.

00:40:08:06 – 00:40:46:07

Nick McGowan

Yeah. Noted. Who is in that. I want to touch on that because that is so succinct and there’s no to it. There are no likes and arms and arms or bullshit like that. And isn’t that funny and interesting how spirits, angels, anything of the spiritual realm or intuition is always succinct and just this thing, this is it. Instead of like, well, you know, like you never even hearing intuition be like, well, you know, maybe we could do this thing, but, you know, this could get a little weird or awkward, that’s all bullshit in your fucking head.

00:40:46:18 – 00:41:06:04

Nick McGowan

So I think that’s a thing. And I’d love for you to be able to give some sort of advice for the people that are listening to, be able to listen for those things that are so succinct that they’re not your brain. That’s actually intuition. So like we’d mentioned earlier with like maybe it’s so far back and you can barely hear it, how do you hear that or catch those distinct things?

00:41:06:09 – 00:41:08:00

Nick McGowan

So that they do become louder?

00:41:09:01 – 00:41:34:19

Debra Driscoll

Yeah, again, great question. I could go on from just so many corners of the playground with this. The thing I like just to start with when talking about intuition and starting to listen and receive and and be with this communication is understand this. Your intuition cannot lie to you. It is impossible. Your spiritual self will never lie to you.

00:41:34:19 – 00:41:57:22

Debra Driscoll

It’ll never tell you something that is not in your highest good. And it will always come through in a vibration that feels either calm or loving or supportive. Like, you know, when we go when I I’ll claim it. When I go into overthinking or worry or doubt, I know the thoughts I’m having in my head are like, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me.

00:41:57:22 – 00:42:19:05

Debra Driscoll

Like the vibration is like, did it it didn’t they, they speed up and I can feel it. I can feel that it’s my brain going tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, you know, and the pathways, you know, every semi-trailer is on the highways. You know, when I receive from my intuition or from an angel or a guide, it feels different in the arriving.

00:42:20:14 – 00:42:44:10

Debra Driscoll

And sometimes it will repeat if we haven’t quite picked up what they put down. So sometimes you will get an intuitive message that will repeat, but also the universe can find really interesting ways to bring it to you, to watch it on the radio and there’s a particular lyric playing which reminds you of what your mum said to you yesterday that you didn’t want to hear.

00:42:44:17 – 00:43:10:11

Debra Driscoll

And then, you know, you go to the bookstore and there’s a book, you know, and all of that is all. So that’s your intuition as well, that’s your magic guiding you to those things. And our intuition either comes through in the knowing, which is clear cognizance clear sentiments, which is our clear feeling clairvoyance, which is a clear scene or clear audience, which is the listening.

00:43:11:12 – 00:43:31:14

Debra Driscoll

So the other thing you can do is just try to figure out like, how do I sense my intuition? Do I see symbols? Do I have vivid dreams like me? Not so much. I’m not so much clairvoyant. I mean, I am a believer of all of them, but I’m clear. Cognizant is my dominant. So I receive a full thought that drops in my mind.

00:43:32:05 – 00:43:50:19

Debra Driscoll

Like when the angel said to me, nothing went wrong that day. It was a full thought dropped in my mind, and it was in knowing. And that’s, you know, and that’s also like how I’ve learned to trust that voice. Not everyone’s going to get that. Some people are going to get strong feelings in their body. Some people are going to hear particulars.

00:43:50:19 – 00:44:15:00

Nick McGowan

And sure, it’s almost like how people learn. You know, some people are audio learners. They need to hear it, some people need to see it, and some people need to get in there and feel things. And there’s that spiritual side to that as well, that you ingest information certain ways that if you’re looking at it the wrong way and go, Well, I’m trying to see these symbols, but you really hear things and you’re not paying attention.

00:44:15:10 – 00:44:30:16

Debra Driscoll

Exactly. Yeah. And then you then you conclude, well, I’m not magical, I’m not intuitive. That’s for other people. And it’s like, nah, you just need to do it. You just need to turn around in the playground. You’re playing with the balls, but you need to be up on the swings.

00:44:30:16 – 00:44:45:02

Nick McGowan

Oh, man, that’s a that’s a great way to look at it. Like when you go to look in a spice rack and I think of like somebody being in the other room like, Hey, can you grab the salt and pepper? And I look and I don’t I don’t see it. It’s not even in here. And then the person walks by and just sticks their hand in front and grabs it.

00:44:45:09 – 00:44:56:11

Nick McGowan

It’s because they decided they’re not going to be able to see it and they don’t want to see it. And looking past it all, sight and the awareness right now, it’s that deep level to it.

00:44:57:05 – 00:45:27:07

Debra Driscoll

Yeah, that’s why I say stop with the relationship. It’s like, what is your relationship with your relationship to your intuition is, well, this is hard. Well, yeah, it’s going to be hard, you know, it’s just like, are you playful? Are you open? Are you willing? Because your intuition is Angel’s Guides, the whole universe. They’re playful, they’re willing. Will part of you going to play hostile or friendly.

00:45:27:18 – 00:45:43:21

Nick McGowan

Or a hermit? And they’re like, I don’t want any bits of it. It’s run away. Oh, well, Deborah, it’s been so awesome to have you on the show. I really appreciate it. This conversation before we wrap things up, what’s one piece of advice you’d give somebody that’s listening that’s on their path towards self-mastery?

00:45:44:15 – 00:46:11:15

Debra Driscoll

Stop, pause, breathe and consciously choose. And always, I have to say, anchor into your magic. Believe you. Magical, you know, like, just claim it. I am magical. New magic can turn up in any way that you want it to. And but in terms of mind mastery, it’s about choice. Yeah. Choose to live in the friendly environment.

00:46:12:10 – 00:46:18:03

Nick McGowan

That’s awesome. Yeah. Thank you so much, Deborah. Where where can people find you and where can they connect with you?

00:46:18:21 – 00:46:47:20

Debra Driscoll

Yeah. So big life magic. Big life magic is teaching and sharing meditations and all things magic on YouTube. So there’s big love, magic YouTube where you can catch me Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. And I also have a magic membership. If people are magic curious and want to be hanging out with other magic members. So that’s the big life magic membership or easy option be black magic dot com is another way in.

00:46:47:20 – 00:46:57:00

Debra Driscoll

If you want to go there, there’s a free meditation called The Smiling Heart that you can download, which is going to open your heart in less than 10 minutes.

00:46:57:00 – 00:47:02:16

Nick McGowan

It’s awesome. So everybody go, go download it, do a ten minute meditation before you go to sleep and you’ll be great.

00:47:02:18 – 00:47:05:02

Debra Driscoll

Yeah, that’s it. That’s it.

00:47:05:14 – 00:47:07:03

Nick McGowan

So again. Deborah, thank you so much.

00:47:07:07 – 00:47:17:09

Debra Driscoll

Nick, thank you so much.

00:47:17:09 – 00:47:40:01

Nick McGowan

Another great conversation on today’s episode of The Mindset and Self-mastery show. So what did you think of the show today? Love? Hear your thoughts. Check out the Instagram or Facebook page to join the conversation. If you enjoyed the episode, please jump over to iTunes and subscribe rate and leave five star review. It helps us be found and helps others be healed.

00:47:40:14 – 00:48:01:06

Nick McGowan

If this episode Open Your Eyes made you think or smile at all, then I’m sure it’ll do the same for your friends. Check out the show notes for more info from today’s episode and check out other episodes on the Mindset and Self-mastery showcase as well as our YouTube channel. Just go to YouTube and look up the mindset and self-mastery show.

00:48:01:20 – 00:48:18:20

Nick McGowan

Thanks again to our incredible guests for being real, honest and vulnerable with us today. And most importantly, I’d like to thank you thank you for hanging out with us today. Your support means the world to us. And with that, remember, your mindset matters and so do you.