Harnessing Grandma's Remedies for Spiritual Growth

KATHLEEN: Hello everyone and welcome to the Journey of an Awakening Spirit. This is Kathleen Flanagan, your host, and we're streaming on the Bold Brave TV network. The purpose of the show is to help you realize that you are not alone and that you are in control of your life. It doesn't matter where you came from or what your circumstances are. We've all experienced pain, suffering, hurt. Abandonment, loneliness, and hopelessness.

KATHLEEN: This show is here to help you turn those dark moments around to create a whole new you. Despite your success, have you felt lonely, angry, frustrated, or even suicidal? Do you long to be supported, recognized, or respected for who you are and not just the awards and accolades on your walls? You don't want to be known, identified, or remembered in a way that feels fraudulent because you achieved things out of obligation.

KATHLEEN: And not passion? Do you find yourself sitting quietly at lunch, listening to what lights you up only to feel shame, fear, frustration, and resentment? Your inner turmoil and limiting beliefs surface, making you feel not good enough and afraid of doing something different. You've read the books, attended the seminars, and practiced new concepts and principles, yet you still find yourself in the same rut.

KATHLEEN: The lies you tell yourself perpetuate a cycle of disappointment. You say you'll change, but your self-limiting beliefs are running the show and keeping you in a self-fulfilling prophecy. As a certified coach, I empower you to become your authentic self. My Soul Journey program aligns you to your true self and guides you to find your soul vision, helping you discover your purpose in life.

KATHLEEN: I provide tools to step into your true magnificence and remember who you are. If you're interested in learning more, contact me at BraveTV at KathleenMFlanagan. Com. Each week I start the show with a tuning fork, springing in love, happiness, and balance. And this sets the tone for the show to bring out the best in both myself and my guests. So let's begin.

KATHLEEN: Today I wanted to talk a little bit more about my own personal journey where I how I actually started. I was a paralegal for around 20 years, give or take. That's how I started because I needed to find my voice and I needed to learn how to think. And just, I was a mess when I left the house. I was a real mess.

KATHLEEN: There was a lot of things that were wrong. I didn't know what was all wrong, but I just knew that if I got into the legal field, which I absolutely loved. At the time, I felt that I would be able to do something more with my life, at least learn how to talk and critical think and all of that kind of stuff.

KATHLEEN: And after 20 years of being in the industry and watching it change, that it was no longer fun for me. And I wanted to start my own business, but I didn't know what that was yet. But in the early 90s, I was living in Laughlin, Nevada with my then ex-husband. And I just remember wanting to start a business and I came up with the name Awakening.

KATHLEEN: And then it took three days because I kept saying, Awakening what? And then Spirit came up three days later. So it was Awakening Spirit. Now this company went through and morphed so many different times because they didn't know what Awakening Spirit was yet.

KATHLEEN: Now I was in with the Solara thing with the 11:11. I was working with that. I was doing metaphysical classes. You know, I... Decided to go into desktop publishing. That was another thing that I was looking at. And it just kind of kept morphing throughout, not really identifying what it was that I wanted to do with it.

KATHLEEN: But as Spirit goes, and prior to that, in my 20s, Spirit told me that I was going to be working with oils. I had no idea what that meant. We didn't have the internet.

KATHLEEN: Back then we didn't have anything so I had no idea what they meant by it but I said okay and 20 years later, I got into it and so Awakening Spirit started because I ended up having a swollen epiglottis which actually means that I had such a severe sinus infection that there's a piece of tissue that sits over the epiglottis and it was swollen and I could barely breathe now I almost died during this period of time I had asked my ex-husband to take me to a clinic so I can get this looked at and he couldn't be bothered.

KATHLEEN: Then I said, call my mother and he did, but he didn't ask her to pick me up. So I said, will you please call my sister then? It was just a comical of errors because I couldn't breathe. I literally could not breathe. I could not lay down without suffocating.

KATHLEEN: And had I known and had enough oxygen in my brain at that time, I would have called the ambulance myself because I knew better to get behind a car. That's why I asked my... Husband to call my sister because I couldn't comprehend anything at that moment in time. I knew I was in a critical state, but everybody just looked at it that I had a sore throat and I was being a baby.

KATHLEEN: So I ended up getting into a clinic and the girl who wanted to take a throat culture hit the back of my throat in such a way that I literally grabbed on her. Gasping for air. I was literally gasping for air where I could not breathe at all. And I had terror. She had terror.

KATHLEEN: She brought the doctor in and the doctor proceeded to yell at me about how she's not going to let me die in her clinic and how dare I come there and so on and so forth. Next thing I know now, I think I went unconscious, but I was still sitting up kind of thing.

KATHLEEN: And the next thing I remember is all these EMT, all these men are sitting here trying to find my veins, trying to get me in a place that's, I guess, comfortable. They put a horse needle in me because they couldn't find my veins or they were collapsing because of lack of oxygen.

KATHLEEN: So I ended up going to the hospital and I sat there in the emergency room. They had prepped the room for a tracheotomy because I couldn't breathe. I didn't realize I was in life-threatening situation yet. And I'm sitting here going, I just have a sore throat. You know, I was like my family in that respect.

KATHLEEN: As I, and then I realized this was an opportunity for me to die. Like I could leave. So I was doing everything in my power at that moment to get out of my body so I could leave and go home.

KATHLEEN: And at that moment, Mother Mary came and was at the foot of the bed. And she started yelling. Now, first of all, I didn't know that they yelled. I stood at attention and she just proceeded to yell at me that it is not my time. Stop doing what I'm doing. I am here for a reason. I need to follow through. And I was just like, yes, ma'am.

KATHLEEN: That's all I knew to say at that moment because I was so stunned, first of all, that she came to me and yelled at me and to realize that there was something more and bigger that I needed to do that I was unaware of at the time. She dematerialized and there's my mother and doctor standing there.

KATHLEEN: Now it took an hour for the doctor to get into the emergency room and he put a scope down my throat, let me know how much infection I was in, had, and then I, he gave me 500 milligrams of antibiotics for a month and then an additional 250 two weeks thereafter. But I ended up in the critical care area. So I was in pretty much critical care. They had put me on oxygen and I was really barely even functioning at that moment.

KATHLEEN: And my sister, and it was around Thanksgiving, and I remember telling my family I would rather die than go under the knife. And my sister had to make a decision to grant that they could proceed, even though I had specifically said to the entire family, nobody ever would have put me under a knife.

KATHLEEN: And she knew that if I died, then she would be held responsible and then she would have to live with the crap my mother has a tendency to do to us at that time. And she decided she was going for the lesser of two evils and I was going under the knife.

KATHLEEN: That's why the room was set up. Thank God that didn't happen. I had a doctor who figured he could get this taken care of through antibiotics because there was a new one out and that was the 500 milligrams. And I... Proceeded to be in there for three days.

KATHLEEN: He would come in in the mornings is the only time I would see him. And I remember just asking him, I said, can you just please let me sleep? I said, I can get well if you guys just let me sleep. Because when you're in a hospital, you don't get to sleep in a hospital. They're too busy doing whatever they do with blood pressure and temperature.

KATHLEEN: And God only knows what else they do to you when you're in a hospital. So the doctor had asked them to not bother me until I woke up. And when they did, they would flood in like. 10 people were in my room doing whatever it was that they did. And I was always like, whoa, I don't know what's happening here.

KATHLEEN: I proceeded to finally get out of the hospital after three days. And I spent the next three days, I got home, I went to bed and I did not wake up for three days. I did not at all. I didn't even know three days had passed. Now, when I think...

KATHLEEN: Back at it, I'm just wondering what my ex-husband thought or my mother, because nobody said anything to me for those three days. All I knew is that I was a baby because I had a sore throat, even though I was in a life-threatening situation.

KATHLEEN: So as a result of that, I started getting migraines because of the antibiotics that were in, because antibiotics give you candida. And I did not know that.

KATHLEEN: I ended up having candida. And as the years progressed, I started getting migraines, something fierce where I was knocked out for two to three days at a time from work. And I would take scalding hot showers. I would do fever view. I would do anything that I knew to do to get rid of headaches.

KATHLEEN: I just never went on pharmaceuticals because I did not believe in pharmaceuticals because this is what they did to me. So what came out of that was right before I found how to get healed.

KATHLEEN: I had been home for three days in utter pain, and I had taken a scalding hot shower to the point where my body was so red I was burning my skin because I had to get rid of it because a massage therapist friend of mine said, I did not have muscles, I had rocks, because that's how tense my muscles were from this candida.

KATHLEEN: And I had asked God to take my life because I did not see a reason to live. If this is how it was going to be, because this was not a life. This was pain and agony and suffering. And I didn't want to go through this.

KATHLEEN: The next day, I think it was, I went or a day or two afterwards, I went to work and I was talking to a co-worker and she had told me about a natural path in Boulder and suggested I go see her. So I did. She immediately knew what was wrong with me. She put me on this. Chinese herbal medicine, which is called Coptis, which is god awful.

KATHLEEN: And at that point, I was the only person who ever had to take two bottles of this horrible putrid stuff, but it was killing the candida. Now, I was on birth control at the time. She said, you can get it to that point, but the minute you get off birth control, it's going to come back and it'll come back with a vengeance.

KATHLEEN: And that's exactly what happened. Three days after I got off of birth control, I remember coming in my house, opening the refrigerator, took the milk out and drank it straight up. Out of the carton, which I have never, ever, ever done in my life.

KATHLEEN: And I did it. And as I'm realizing what's going on, I put it down. I called her. This is a Sunday afternoon. I called her and said, well, it's growing. And I got in the next day and got another bottle of this Coptis to kill the Candida.

KATHLEEN: Also during this period of time, I went to the botanical gardens with a friend of mine and she told me. That lavender could help with migraines. And I just looked at her like she was absolutely nuts.

KATHLEEN: And when I'm, and I tried it, I bought a bottle, just trying to make sure that she was right on the money with that. I tried it. I bought it. I was in a migraine. I was going into a migraine. I smelled it, put it on my temples.

KATHLEEN: I think it was, and then went home and then proceeded to clean my house and realized that I should have been in a full grain. Fledged migraine and I wasn't. And with that, we're going to go ahead and take a commercial break and we will continue when we get back.

KATHLEEN: Hello everyone and welcome back to the Journey of an Awakening Spirit. This is Kathleen Flanagan, your host, and we're streaming on the Bold Brave TV network. So as I was talking about how I tried lavender for the first time, and I did not like the smell of lavender, I do now, but I didn't then, I knew there was something there.

KATHLEEN: Then I found out that Mindy Green, who is an herbalist and an aromatherapist here in Boulder, was giving a class on making Christmas gifts with herbs and aromatherapy. So I decided to attend the class and I absolutely fell in love with essential oils at that moment. And I came home, I bought essential oils.

KATHLEEN: I started making my lotions and lip balms and bath salts and soap and you name it, I was doing it and I opened up for business. And I knew at that moment in time, Awakening Spirit was all about aromatherapy and personal body care products. And I wanted to share that story with you because not a lot of people know the story of that.

KATHLEEN: Even though I put some of it up on the site, I haven't put all of it up. So Awakening Spirit was born out of not feeling well. And I'm a very healthy person on a whole. And as I was getting better with using essential oils, I realized how much I was not well until I started getting.

KATHLEEN: Better. I mean, we don't know we're sick until we start getting healthy. And so I started getting rid of chemicals. I started understanding ingredients, learning about ingredients. And so that's what I did. Then I was in another relationship and we were coming to an end on that relationship.

KATHLEEN: And Spirit told me to go into aesthetics and I thought they were absolutely on drugs and there was no way I was going to do that touchy feely thing with aesthetics. There was no way. So they proceeded to show me what my hands were, what I was going to do to help people. So I said, okay, I'll do this. Okay, back up for a minute.

KATHLEEN: Prior to that, in around 2000, in that general vicinity, I think it was around the 20, yeah, 2001, whatever the 9-11 was, in that area, I started, I learned how to do sound therapy as well, because I absolutely loved working with sound. And so that was another thing. So when aesthetics came in.

KATHLEEN: When I was asked to do this, I realized that anybody can give a facial. I wanted to give a very unique facial. So I created a facial around sound therapy as well. And I did with essential oils. And I really took my aesthetics to a whole new level for people.

KATHLEEN: And they were blown away because they never had facials quite like what I was giving them with the essential oils and with the sound and all of the things that I was offering. And it made me feel good. And then, of course, that's when the books came up, when I was asked to go in 2008 to move to Chicago to write the books of Dancing Souls. And I did that. And then in 2019, I know Colorado was already smoking pot at that time.

KATHLEEN: And I had no interest in doing anything with that industry, even though everything that they were starting to make, I could make all of it. All I had to do was just buy the... THC, CBD, whatever it was at that point, but I wanted nothing to do with the drug industry. That was how I felt about it.

KATHLEEN: But in 2019, something just started saying, you know, I think I need to look at this a little bit differently. And so I started doing a lot of research. I listened to a lot of people complain about how they weren't getting any help with CBD, how long the THC products that they were. It took so long for it to take effect and so on and so forth. And most people didn't want to get high.

KATHLEEN: And so CBD was just starting to come out. So I researched that and realized that we are wired for CBD. We are wired for it. And so I did a lot of testing and market research. And anybody that tested my products were like, oh, my God, the pain's gone. I mean, I just had so many testimonials that were given because I had researched this.

KATHLEEN: And I can't tell you how many people said how much they have spent and never got the relief that they were getting as fast as my products. And that was Grandma's Natural Remedies was born.

KATHLEEN: And then when I brought it to market, it was because I had a seven-month-old cat who had leukemia and we didn't know it at the time until he started having rapid breathing.

KATHLEEN: And I decided to try the CBD on Shadow One. And he's all over Grandma's website because he was instrumental. In me coming to market with this product. And we got two more weeks of life out of him, but he ended up dying.

KATHLEEN: So that was a very, very sad day when he died because he was seven and a half months old. He was the coolest cat. He just was such a sweetheart. And I think if I would have known sooner, we might've been able to save his life, but it was too late.

KATHLEEN: Now, the reason I'm bringing a lot of this up is So you understand me a little bit better because when I created Awakening Spirit, part of what I wanted to do was come back to what it was like in a simpler, happier time. And that was my grandmother's era.

KATHLEEN: Now, I'm not saying it was an easy time by any stretch of the imagination for that generation, but it was a simpler time. People were connected. People supported each other. People helped each other. And they used... Plant medicine more than pharmaceuticals because the pharmaceutical industry was born around that time as well.

KATHLEEN: And I wanted to bring that back. Now, my grandmother is now your great grandmother and father, just so you know.

KATHLEEN: But that's what I wanted was to bring that back because there's something magical when you're using plant medicine and essential oils and herbs and things like that. Alternatives are really more designed for us than pharmaceuticals.

KATHLEEN: Because the pharmaceutical industry takes a constituent and then creates a product out of it, but our body knows that it's a chemical because the body's looking for the entire chemical constituent properties within that plant. And if it only sees part of it, it knows it's not real and it doesn't always effectively work. When you're using essential oils and you're using the entire plant, then the body understands what the...

KATHLEEN: Properties are of that plant and it says okay i know what you need and it starts healing what i noticed when i created Grandma's Natural Remedies for some reason i put the bottle up and the sun was beaming through the bottom and i had already put the CBD in which goes straight to the bottle bottom of the oil because it's very very heavy and then i put the essential oils in and i'm and when i was looking at it the essential oils at the top were coming down and the CBD was coming up where they were meeting in the middle and I was so blown away at what I had seen because I realized that CBD and essential oils work really, really well together.

KATHLEEN: And I think that's why my products work as well as they do was because I was taking so many other components in our natural vegetable area kingdom on the planet to help heal us. And I really truly believe that I'm not saying don't see your doctors. I'm not saying that because when I was in a life-threatening situation, I needed a doctor.

KATHLEEN: Okay? And I get that. And I understand when you're in those situations, you're going to go to a doctor. I broke my hand. I went to a doctor. It's not like I don't believe in doctors. I just try to stay away from them as much as I absolutely can because I believe that my body is designed, as is yours, to heal itself if you know what to do.

KATHLEEN: So why I brought up Awakening Spirit and Grandma's Natural Remedies is to let you know that this was part of this entire journey that I'm on to where I am today, because when Awakening Spirit was created and I made the therapeutic oils, They're designed for specific ailments, and I do custom blending and all of the stuff that I do with Awakening Spirit and the essential oils.

KATHLEEN: The one thing that I noticed that repeatedly happened over and over and over again is when somebody bought one of my blends, they would come up to me and say, I'm doing this. I read your instructions, directions, but I'm doing this. Is that okay? I said, well, where did you get the information? And they said, from my body, I said, then by all means, follow your body.

KATHLEEN: And what I started to realize when I called the company Awakening Spirit, there was a reason why I called it Awakening Spirit. And everything I have done since then has been about awakening your Spirit. Essential Oils has a way of waking up your body to where the body-mind connection is coming together to where you can hear what your body is saying.

KATHLEEN: It's not miraculous. But it appears to be miraculous. It's just like when I used lavender for the very first time on that migraine, that it went away.

KATHLEEN: I couldn't understand it. We were not in a time of light that we are in today. And I could not get this mind-body connection. I couldn't fathom this. I understood the essential oils. I became certified to understand it, to get the science behind it. I did all sorts of things to try to understand. What this was. I knew it was an ancient healing heart. It's been around for centuries.

KATHLEEN: I knew all of that, but I couldn't grasp it up in my brain. And I just had to keep trusting. I just trusted what I was getting because I'm an alchemist and I just knew. And when I went for certification, the one thing my teacher said, she said, first of all, I don't even know why you're here. And I'm like, what are you talking about? And she said, you just intuitively know what to do.

KATHLEEN: You just know what oils to use for anything that goes on. And I said, well, okay, doesn't everybody? And she's like, no. I'm like, oh, okay. And she said, why did you take this class? I said, because I want to understand the science and I wanted to have credibility because there was the young living people out there and they were doing a lot of things that were, in my opinion, were very, very stupid.

KATHLEEN: They just thought this was a game. And essential oils are not a game. They're a medicine. They really truly are a medicine. They make you feel good. And I called myself the feel good shop because you felt good when you came and bought my products.

KATHLEEN: And I wanted to just be able to understand the significance and the dangers because when I had people coming to me and they're saying, well, I put this on my oil and look what's happening. And it's, you know, and they're putting on like.

KATHLEEN: Citrus oil and it's photosynthesizing and their skin's getting brown spots and I'm freaking out because that's the one thing you don't do or you're putting essential oils on your body neat that shouldn't be put on your body neat or they're ingesting the essential oils and they're not even paying attention to what they can and cannot ingest because these essential oils can actually kill people and they have injured people and have killed people back in the old days before there was a lot more science and I'm talking you know centuries not necessarily in today's day and age But that was what I wanted to understand.

KATHLEEN: That's what I wanted to know is that I wanted to really respect this. And when I created Grandma's, part of that was to get back into it and understand that CBD, the hemp plant, the marijuana plant was a staple in everybody's medicine cabinet because of what it is. It's just what it does.

KATHLEEN: I don't condone getting high. I don't condone any of that because that's not anything that I want to do or have done.

KATHLEEN: And I just believed in the CBD product. And the results that I got were I had a woman who had Hashimoto's, I think it was. And she wanted to get off of all the drugs. And she was taking 100 milligrams of CBD isolate. And within two weeks, she was off of all the medications.

KATHLEEN: Now, I would never recommend that for anyone, and she scared the hell out of me during that period of time. But the whole point was, is that if this was an isolate, what would a broad spectrum do with somebody who could take care of this? And we're going to go ahead and take a quick commercial break.

KATHLEEN: Welcome back everyone to the Journey of an Awakening Spirit. This is Kathleen Flanagan, your host, and we're streaming on the Bold Brave TV network.

KATHLEEN: The other thing that I did with Grandma's Natural Remedies, because as I told you earlier that I was trying to save my cat's Shadow, the woman that I was working with, with the Hashimoto's, She had very stressed out dogs and she also took care of dogs, but her own personal dogs were very stressed out.

KATHLEEN: And so I created a pet blend for them to where they still had the essential oils, but a minimal amount, but enough to help them. And the dogs absolutely loved this. And we would just put it on their pads or you could put it in their ears or whatever.

KATHLEEN: And that's what we did. With Shadow, I didn't put essential oils in with him. What I did is I just created a blend and just... Put it on his food and he ate it without any problem.

KATHLEEN: But the whole point was, is that I wanted to be able to help people to be able to sleep because, you know, as women, as most women know that when they go through menopause, sleep becomes a commodity. And I happened to be suffering from sleep deprivation at some point. And I decided that I would try the CBD and I just with the sleep well, and I put it on my feet and within three to four days, I think it was.

KATHLEEN: I remembered how to sleep and I didn't have to use it again. That's the whole point of what I'm trying to let you guys know is that our bodies know how to heal us. Sometimes it just needs a little bit of support because we are very toxic. Our environment is toxic. Our food is toxic. Our water is toxic. Our air is toxic. Everything is over.

KATHLEEN: Polluted with just pollution and our bodies are trying to maintain this. What I love about the plant medicine is that they are thriving in this environment and if they're thriving they can help us to get our bodies back into homeostasis and we can thrive too.

KATHLEEN: I know that sometimes it's easier to take a pill because we don't really want to be responsible and it's easier to blame somebody and all of that but It's really not. I mean, the power is in you. The power is in your mind. When I broke my hand, I fought depression like you would not believe.

KATHLEEN: I mean, it took everything, and I mean everything, not to go down the rabbit hole. I wouldn't take any kind of drugs. I wasn't in a whole lot of pain, but I couldn't do anything. I couldn't wash my hair. I couldn't take a shower, really. I couldn't cook. I couldn't do anything because I didn't have a hand. And it was a very valuable lesson of what the body does.

KATHLEEN: I had this amazing nurse practitioner who helped me and she knew I was fighting depression. She could see it every time I walked in the office that I was fighting and she'd be like so positive and it's like your bones healing. I finally asked her one day, I said, you got to show me what you're looking at because to me it looks the same.

KATHLEEN: And so she started to show me what it was, which helped. Little bit to feel better about my hand and when I got out of the cast and went into physical therapy I think they had me scheduled for a month I think I was within two to three weeks I was done because it's like well if you can just you know do all these things that they had me do to get the strength back in my hand And she said, just do five minutes a day.

KATHLEEN: Oh, no, I did it all day long. I was so bound and determined to get my hand back because I didn't like the fact that I had no strength in my wrist. I had no strength in my hand.

KATHLEEN: I mean, just the weakness in my hand was unbelievable of that, what, four to six weeks, however long I was in that cast for my hand.

KATHLEEN: It was mind-blowing to me.

KATHLEEN: And I was just determined because, and I did, I said, I'm going to have 100% use of my hand. I'm going, it's not going to be like it was ever broken before. And that was the determination that I had. And my hand is back. I mean, I still get that where I broke the hand, the bone in my hand. I still get that cold thing with broken bones that you get.

KATHLEEN: I don't like that at all. It's just like, it's a pain you can't do anything about. But I still get that once in a blue moon and I shouldn't be having it, but I still get it occasionally. I just put my hand on my hand to just say it's okay and just try to warm it up. But it's still the power.

KATHLEEN: And that's the main thing is understanding that we have all this power and control over our own health and over our own wellbeing and over our thoughts. And even though I've been on this crazy journey my whole life and not understanding any of... What I was doing my whole life. I just followed what Spirit had asked me to do. And because of that, I'm where I am today.

KATHLEEN: I think that's remarkable because so many people don't look back and don't look at what they've accomplished in their life or what they've done. They just constantly look at themselves that they were a failure or they didn't make it happen. Now, I'll give you that. My two businesses aren't doing that well after the, after COVID.

KATHLEEN: And you know what? I'm okay with that because you know what else I know? They're coming back. People are coming back. I'm becoming, being asked to go on podcasts and talk about Awakening Spirit, that I'm becoming a wellness coach and expert. I'm like, whoa, kind of shocking, but it's, it's just what it is. It's, I love essential oils. I love both of my businesses. I really do.

KATHLEEN: It's just learning how to get them marketed a little bit better. That's on me, and I get that. But right now, what I want to do is what I'm doing, being on the podcast, doing the things that I'm doing, developing programs to help you take back your power because you're the only one who can. We are at a critical point. I started this high-protein diet two weeks ago.

KATHLEEN: The first week, I thought I was going to die. I mean, I didn't realize I was starving at that point, but I ended up doing that. But I also started noticing that my body, lots of things were changing. And I thought, okay, well, this is the body's getting back into wellness and a whole new level of just because I haven't felt like, like food's got really boring.

KATHLEEN: Like I wanted something different, something. Better, but I wasn't sure what it was. I wanted to try different food combinations and so on and so forth. And so I started and I actually made this Mediterranean salmon with asparagus and potatoes last night. It turned out, it looked just like the picture. It was like, this is so cool. And it was actually good.

KATHLEEN: And I thought that's really cool to get back into cooking the way I want to cook because I love to cook. But when you don't know what you want to eat, you don't want to cook.

KATHLEEN: And so I've got all these amazing recipes that I'm starting, and I'm just feeling so much better being more on a high-protein diet, really cut out the carbs. Not that I ate a lot of dairy, but for two weeks, for about eight days, I cut out all carbs and all dairy, all sugar, everything. All it was was protein and vegetables.

KATHLEEN: And it was a big shock. But I also noticed that I was feeling good on the inside. I may not have felt good on the outside, but on the inside, I felt good. I just knew that my body was readjusting. And sometimes that's what we have to do is we just have to be patient with ourselves and just trust a process that when you're changing something, it does take a little time to get used to the change.

KATHLEEN: And that's why I brought up this Awakening Spirit because I thought, you guys just really need to understand more of why I do what I do and how this originally started. And it all started really with the Awakening Spirit Aromatherapy Company. It just led me down a path that I didn't even know about.

KATHLEEN: Know could exist. I went to street shows. I went to all these summer fairs. I went everywhere. I dressed up in costume because I was a nature girl. So I had ribbons in my hair and flowing gowns. I look like my logo, the original one with the girl.

KATHLEEN: And she's on the website, awakeningspirit.com, if you want to see the original logo.

KATHLEEN: But people would follow me and In the late 90s, early 2000s, people didn't know what aromatherapy was. I remember one day, I think 2020 had something on about St. John's Wort, and everybody who watched it came and saw me, and they bought my products. It was shocking what a little bit of information could do for someone, but people really enjoyed the products.

KATHLEEN: And I enjoyed making them, and I loved being out in the world doing that. And then I decided to evolve that company. And become a little bit more professional looking than everything being made on my computer at home. Cause I really wanted to take this very seriously. And I did.

KATHLEEN: And we, I did as much as I possibly could of using natural organic ingredients back in those days, but there wasn't a whole lot of available. And the preservatives are generally cancer causing. And those are the worst things you can put on your body is a lot of these preservatives because I can't really use preservatives. Very well. And so I found other ways to extend the product's shelf life through that.

KATHLEEN: I use more organics as they became available because I really believe that our body deserves to have good, pure, clean products, just like I believe we should have good, clean, pure food and water and all of that. That's pretty much what I wanted to share today about giving you a little bit more of a bigger background of who I am and how I actually started down this path, because it's important.

KATHLEEN: It's important to acknowledge every aspect of your life that we think nothing happens to us and yet everything does happen to us. We just don't give it the energy or the thought of where it's going because in 2000 and... Nine, Ariel. Yeah, it was nine. I think it was. No, 2008, Ariel had said, one day you're going to be able to put it all together.

KATHLEEN: You're going to know how it's all weaving together. And she's absolutely right. It took a long time to learn that, but it is weaving together. And it is, I feel like a whole complete package because of it. That everything that makes me feel good or the things that drive me is what I have. Done for a living.

KATHLEEN: I'm an environmental consultant as well. I'm here to help the earth. What a better way to do than being an environmental consultant. And my ex-partner just said, well, I think you would be really good at it. I think you would love this. And it's like, no, I don't think so. And I was just, I mean, that is just how I react to everything is I don't think so.

KATHLEEN: And so I basically would say, yeah, when I moved to Chicago, I gave it a shot and believe it or not, I actually fell in love with it. I did not expect to love environmental consulting like I did. But you don't know unless you try. And when opportunities present themselves, I always say, just say yes. And if it's supposed to happen, it will.

KATHLEEN: And if it doesn't, it won't. I always said yes to myself, even if I said no, even though my original thought was, no, I'm not doing that. And then I do it. And then worlds of change and... Opportunities present themselves in ways I would never have expected. And that's the opportunity that when you say yes, when opportunities come to you, that's what happens.

KATHLEEN: You have worlds and opportunities that expand you and your growth and you discover new things about yourself and what you may or may not love or like. And if I didn't like environmental consulting, I would have walked away from it. Everything that I have done in my life has what I've done because I loved. Doing it.

KATHLEEN: All the way from being a paralegal, all the way to where I am right now is it's just been one step forward. Everyone was a little bit of a different journey, like I thought was a sidetrack when it wasn't. It was just beautifully orchestrated. I'm the one who created that, just like you create the story of your life. And with that, we're going to go ahead and take a commercial break.

KATHLEEN: Welcome back, everyone, to the Journey of an Awakening Spirit. This is Kathleen Flanagan, your host, and we're streaming on the Bold, Brave TV Network.

KATHLEEN: And one of the reasons why I really created... This line was, because it bridges the wisdom from the past with our modern needs. I think that was what I wanted to do because there's so much information out there in the world today. And there was so much non-information when I created Awakening Spirit that I really wanted to bring awareness to what our bodies can do for us. I wanted to bring what worked in the old days.

KATHLEEN: Compared to what wasn't working in today's modern times. And that's how I felt about it was when I would, I remember one time I made lavender and rose and I call this Victorian nights and it was the lotion or like a lotion. It wasn't a lotion. It's lavender, it's lavender, it's rose water and glycerin.

KATHLEEN: I remember the first time somebody tried it and the look on their face was, oh my God. And they remembered their grandmother because that's how their grandmother smelled, because that's what our grandmothers used. Not everybody understands what rosewater and glycerin is, but it is such a beautiful scent and it's so light.

KATHLEEN: And it was how they hydrated their skin back then because we didn't do a lot with things other than ponds. And God knows ponds had tallow and, yeah, bad things in it. So that was one of the reasons why I wanted to do that was because it was a gentler time. It was a happier time. It was a less stressful time.

KATHLEEN: Our health was different. We ate differently. Our foods wasn't contaminated or damaged or full of steroids or chemicals or anything else. And so what I found when I created the therapeutic oils, how many people couldn't sleep or they didn't have, or they had bronchitis or sinus, or they had post-traumatic stress, but they didn't know what essential oils to use.

KATHLEEN: And what I wanted to do was to create blends so people didn't have to go figure it out, that it was right there for them to pick it up and use it. And that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to make this very simple, easy process for them. And it worked.

KATHLEEN: It was more about physical healing that this actually started nurturing the soul. It was a gentle way to wake up and remember more about who you are and where you came from. It didn't appear to me at that moment, but it's actually, it ultimately did. And if you're being called to align your energy or awaken your senses or return to the roots of your...

KATHLEEN: Natural healing, I invite you to go to awakeningspirit.com and look at all the products that I created. I have essential oils out there and not all the oils are on the website, but if you wanted a particular oil, all you have to do is send me an email. I can let you know if I can get it, get you prices because I can pretty much get anything.

KATHLEEN: I think it would be nice if you just explored it. I mean, it's a feel good shop. I mean, bath salts. I mean, all these things that we go other places for and they put perfumes in and everything I have is a natural organic product. And then I also invite you to go to grandmasnaturalremedies.net and check out the CBDs products that I made.

KATHLEEN: I mean, they're similar to Awakening Spirit, but they have broad spectrum or CBD isolate. And they are tested and they are proven products. They're a little bit more expensive because of the ingredients.

KATHLEEN: They're faster acting than a lot of other products, but you're not going to get high and they are going to work. I can't tell you the stories that people still tell me that they put my blend on because they don't want to take painkillers and they put on the pain away, what's called something different because regulations wouldn't let me say pain away.

KATHLEEN: Anyways, they would put it on and it was instant relief. And then we're talking major back issues where people had gone in for back surgery and they could take the pain away and not be on drugs because they didn't want to be. I mean, to me, that was a huge testament.

KATHLEEN: And how do you get that word out? Well, I guess I have to shout it from the mountaintops. And I wanted all of you to understand that when I do talk about Grandma's Natural Remedies and Awakening Spirit, now you understand the backstory of...

KATHLEEN: Those two companies and where they originally came from and this was part of my waking up process and this was my journey of becoming an Awakening Spirit to help those who are on the path that are looking for similar products so they can be more effective and productive and live up to their full potential because the last thing that I ever wanted to do is Die and never live up to my full potential.

KATHLEEN: I will never get to my full potential. I'm fully aware of it, but by golly, I'm giving it my best shot to bring everything to the table that I can bring to the table. And if that means I'm uncomfortable some days, then so be it. I'm uncomfortable, but I feel so much better when I am doing the things that make my heart sing. So my question to you, what makes your heart sing? And then are you doing it?

KATHLEEN: So I wanted to thank all of you for joining me today. And if you found any value, then be sure to share the link with your friends and family. And then also please like and subscribe to the channel so that way you can get updates of the new episodes. And if you're struggling with anything or you'd like to learn more about essential oils or CBD, just give me a call and support so I can support you.

KATHLEEN: Reach out to me at BraveTV at KathleenMFlanagan. Com. Or you can go to the KathleenMFlanagan. Com site and sign up on a calendar link for 15 minutes and I'll talk to you for 15 minutes and we can. Go over what may be going on.

KATHLEEN: If there's anything I can do to help you, my books, Dancing Souls, The Call, The Dark Night of the Soul and Awakened are on at Barnes and Noble. I'm still so excited about that. Amazon and KathleenMFlanagan. Com. And then also make sure that you visit the KathleenMFlanagan. Com website because I have a list of all my services and products there that can take you down another path of into your own personal spirituality.

KATHLEEN: I also have a free de-stress, three-minute de-stress meditation, absolutely free, that can get you back into alignment to where you can start feeling better and not feel that angst all the time. And that concludes the show for today. So I appreciate all of you for being here and joining me today. And I will see you all next Tuesday at 4 p. m. Eastern Standard Time. And from my heart to yours, I hope you have a fabulous week.