Caroline Myss on Balancing Your Energy Centers

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0:33When you are pioneering anything or introducing new ideas to the culture, you get criticized. You do? Yeah, did you hear about that? I didn't find the one. I found someone I respected and we made it the one. In a sort of longing kind of view of love, people understand each other as if by magic. Nothing in itself is addictive on the one hand. On the other hand, everything could be addictive if there's an emptiness in that person that needs to be filled. I now know that nobody changes until they change their energy. And when you change your energy, you change your life. I'm Gwyneth Paltrow. This is the Goop Podcast, bringing together thought leaders, culture changers, creatives, founders and CEOs, scientists, doctors, healers and seekers.

1:20Here to start conversations, because simply asking questions and listening has the power to change the way we see the world. Here we go. This week, we're sharing a gem from the Goop Podcast Archives.

1:37Today, I'm talking to someone I've looked up to for a long time. Caroline Mace. I've loved Caroline's work for a long time. She's probably most known for her book, Anatomy of the Spirit, which came out in 1996 and will remain relevant for many years to come. It was incredible to have the opportunity to talk with Caroline, to ask her about the mind-body-spirit connection, consciousness, and where she sees the world heading. So without further ado, let's get to my conversation with Caroline Mace. Hi, everybody. I said to Gwana, I would never trust my ankles to those heels. I know, but they say love on them.

2:20They're gorgeous, but love. They're pretty, but I can't feel my feet, to be totally honest.

2:30Could you tell me a little bit about your background and what is a medical intuitive? Well, I'm also a theologian and writer, so I have to say that because medical intuitive sounds like, but all of you are born medically intuitive, believe it or not. When I was a publisher, I was reading a manuscript and my partner said, you know, this neighbor isn't feeling well, and I said, she has leukemia. That was my first instinct. And after that, you know, one thing led to another. And really, my skill is that I have a natural ability to sense what's wrong. And it was directed toward your health. And everybody has that ability.

3:19but our system, your body's system, is naturally directed to tell you what's wrong, to keep you alive. Let me put it that way. Your intuition is directed to keep you alive. So it tells you when and how you're feeling, what you should eat, what you should not eat. When you're sitting around and it'll say, you should get up and exercise. you know when you're annoyed you know when your system's annoying you that's that natural intuitive that works like a doctor in you and then my skill happens to be impersonal more impersonal than personal so I have an ability to read yours as well as you can read your own how do you know the difference between your intuition and your hypochondria for back of a letter?

4:21Yeah, that's a good, that's a very good question. Because intuition, if you're attuned to it, it's very rapid. It's not emotional. It's not emotional at all. You can get emotional about it, but it's not emotional. That's a very good distinction, I think. how did you come to write anatomy of the spirit you want the truth yeah i'll give you a good line no i don't um here's the truth i had to write a book on energy anatomy that's what i was contracted for but i had already recorded an energy anatomy for a company called sounds true and the way i work is that once i've done something it's out it's like giving birth twice to the same child you can't do it and it was out of me and and as I sat at my desk trying to write it again or to deliver that information again it was gone and I knew it was gone and it was a crisis for me because I had audibly delivered it as I anguished over it I really did go into the desert and it was months and months and I thought what am I I don't know what to do then I started to teach a seminar with my medical partner Norm Sheely with whom I had done all the years of medical intuition work I still work with him and we were I was in a classroom and I was about to teach the human energy system what you are like to me what you know and as I turned around and I looked at a blank board, all of a sudden, I saw the seven chakras, the seven sacraments from the Christian tradition, the Kabbalah, and they all merged together into one system that speaks to our bio-spiritual consciousness.

6:25And I got it. It was like we were like human scriptures to me. and I saw how that fed our energy system. It was a lightning fast download. And I excused myself. I went to the phone. I called my editor who I had dinner with last night and I said, I'm changing the book and this is what I'm going to do. It was that fast. Wow. That's how it was born. Amazing. Yeah. I remember reading the book 20 years ago when it came out and I think it was the first time that I had really understood the chakras illustrated in an intellectual way and also in a way that I could fully understand what they all were. So I just wonder if you could take us through what all the chakras are.

7:15I've always been fascinated by, and I go back and look in your book when I think, oh, I'm having this issue. So what is the trauma that corresponds to the chakra well are most of you familiar with the word chakra i mean these are goopies okay all right so but if you guys don't know what the chakras are let me point something out about how much we have changed that you would be familiar with that that is not and that's not part of our vocabulary but Now it is part of our vocabulary, just to show you how much we have crossed a very different Rubicon in terms of what has become common, not part of our parlance.

8:03Number two is that you now think of yourselves as having energy centers in you, which is not how your elders grew up. so your fundamental framework for your body is that you now dwell in a world behind your eye far more than people of previous generations so you, I mean, get that compass it's quite an extraordinary leap so we have these seven energy centers that are filled with data and make the leap that you are also in a hologram, that there is an energy field around you, so you just don't have energy centers. You're dwelling in an energy field. Then you make the leap to this, that there's energy coming in through the top of your head.

9:06It's not enough to know that. You need to know that you are actually managing that energy all the time, which means you can hemorrhage that energy at the drop of a hat, that every choice you make is a negotiation of power, of your energy is power. So your seven centers are actually centers of power, and your first that you're sitting on, you want me to describe the interior? Yes, please. The first that you're sitting on is, if I were doing a reading on you, the first and second and third, do you mind if I stand up? No. Because it's kind of, it's easier. Okay. Your first and second and third are your survival centers.

9:59And this is where you're going to lose your most power. This is where you get sick. so your first center has all the data about who you are where you came from the family you came from your tribal center your ethnic background and it it has your habitus maximus that's where i find that that's latin it's the best way to say it it means the maximum habits that you absorbed when you were growing up. The habits around the hearth, whether you come from a loving family or not, that data is in that part of your body. Going up to your second, this is where we wear our weapons. There's so much to tell you about each one of these.

10:53I have to do it fast, but it isn't. I could take you into each one of these centers for all day long. your second center is where you connect one-on-one. So if your first center is your community, is whether or not you're rooted, whether or not you have roots, whether or not you need roots, and what roots you entirely. It's whether or not you're associated with a religion and what that means to you. and by that I don't mean whatever political or personal issues you have with religion in the streets today I'm not interested in that

11:41I'm talking about roots in an understanding of whether there is a cosmos above you and does it matter to you

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13:02Your second is your relationship one-on-one with people. And this is where, for example, the lower back, this is financial, this is sexual, and this is your need to create. So this is the pregnancy area. This is also weapons, fight or flight. This is also your stress of your fear of being raped. This is also mistrust. This is your gut sense of survival. And the important part about this, this is the beginning of your sense of conscience, not consciousness. And we've gotten away from that word conscience. which is a real dilemma for us. This is where that metronome of balance, is this right or is this wrong?

13:57Is this a good move for me or is it not? This is where that instinct is. Instinct, your survival instinct, right here. Your third is your sense of identity. Who are you? Who am I? What's my self-esteem? So, you know, your lower back is financial stress and your right hip. Your feeling that someone's talking about me, my fear of being attacked or raped, is back here. People get sciatic nerve. People get feelings, backaches. You're losing power because you're frightened about your financial survival. you don't lose power out of your elbow for that reason, you lose it here your solar plexus if I said to you, I would never wear that sweater I would never wear that I would, I would but you would hemorrhage here from your gut, right here some people wear bright red ties all the way down to the good catch that's my kind of person because they're covering their insecurity this is where you hemorrhage when someone criticizes you you go this way or you sit over that you're being gutted like a fish if I said wow that looks fabulous you're going to open up because I'm giving you, here's another word for it, grace if you really want to fly with the angels use the word that really, grace it's like a blessing your fourth is your heart but to say it's love is a masterpiece of understatement this is your capacity to sense your atmosphere.

16:10This is where you hold resentment, major wrath. Wrath is bad. Big, huge bad. This is your power of choice and your center of addiction. Right here, here and here. Your two centers of addiction. This is your intellectual center, the center of how you create your narratives about what you think is real in the world. This isn't your brain trust. This is how you create what you think is real. And then your seventh is your connection to the non-physical. I've gone through this so fast. It's like me taking you into a gourmet restaurant and giving you, that's all you get. You know, you get me started and I can't stop.

17:00That's good. I'll stop you. I'll stop you. So I suppose what I would love to know is what are some of the most common symptoms that you see people having and what chakra do they relate to? Like if you have a thyroid issue, for example, what does that mean? And what do we do about it? Do you know, the first thing I want to kind of clear up is that one of the ways we think that is really not an asset is that we think like mathematicians or very Cartesian, which is that we think that for every one thing there's one solution, like one-on-one, which is not the case. Right. So if we have a thyroid condition, it's like coming to me and saying for every one problem there's one solution.

17:49And we're doing the same thing with climate change or things like that, when in fact sometimes when I do a reading on someone, you don't have a problem, you have a predicament. And if you're at the predicament level, there aren't solutions. We have a predicament with climate change. There aren't solutions. So just to cheer everyone up, you know, but you know, I mean, it's going to take us in an evolution. You're here because you're part of a new way of thinking. With thyroid, it indicates that the challenge of, it could be a challenge of expression. It could be a challenge of maturation in you.

18:39That you've reached a level of your life where you are not speaking even to yourself. Oftentimes someone will think that you're not saying something to others when in fact it's how you counsel yourself and counsel is a big word it's how you speak to yourself about matters in your life how you interpret your problems how you interpret your thinking your attitude all of that

19:21How detrimental is it to our health to not speak the truth to ourselves? It's lethal. It's actually that problematic. Because how can you resolve anything? If you don't speak the truth to yourself, your only option is to find a way to blame others or to come up with reasons that are not accurate. And then that's called creating a narrative. And then you're going to live a lie. And it takes a lot of effort to live a lie. A lot of effort. And there's a lot of strain that comes with living a lie. So what would be the process? So if sometimes symptoms are there to, or an issue is there to sort of wake us up to that part of ourselves or wake us up to a specific issue.

20:27I see a lot with friends who have chronic issues that, for example, Western medicine isn't necessarily healing. how does one start to identify the deeper emotional or energetic connection to something chronic like for example I have a friend in Los Angeles who constantly has a bladder infection and antibiotics don't work and she was saying to me the other day what what shall I do about this And so I thought, well, I'll ask Carolyn Mace. All righty then. Like with any other issue, the first thing I would always say to somebody is, let's get out of the issue and let's just put your lifestyle on the table.

21:17Let's put your whole lifestyle on the table and let's look at the whole of how you are living. because obviously think of your life as a ship that's gone out of balance and and i'll give this to you this is one of those jewels you can take with you for the rest of your life forever and that's that you are like a ship and a ship always will go back to balance it will always struggle to get itself to balance in order to sail right. And so when anything goes wrong in your body or in your life, imagine that it's trying to get back to balance. So instead of looking like, what's going on with my bladder?

22:07The first thing you should ask is, what's out of balance? And go at it that way. Because it could be any number. it could be a complexity of things and that's the best way to do it

22:28so you start there and then what is the roadmap to go to explore the next issue of what it could possibly well you know it can be a mixture of well how am i acting in relationships is there a struggle that's ongoing in any number of relationships. What am I struggling about? What am I worried about? And how am I handling those patterns? You know, if you are repeating yourself in how you're trying to solve your problems, then you're not solving them. Okay. If you are constantly worrying about something, but not doing anything, that's not serving you, and that's keeping you off balance. If you are in anguish about something, and you are repeating the anguish to people without actually resolving it, that's a type of poison that can get into your bladder.

23:32Repeating your anguish without ever taking a step to resolve it however it is you want to resolve that does does the resolution mean i need to act on something i need to say something to someone i need to change my attitude change it there's always a door open there's always a door open you have to take that door so we're we are responsible for getting to deeper levels of healing, accountability. There's always something. There's always something that you can resolve or do in some way. Yes. You wrote something that was really fascinating to me. You said, I think, something like people in their interactions are looking for intuitions that are safe, but not necessarily healthy.

24:32So what do you mean by that? Intuition has been greatly misunderstood by people. What is intuition? First of all, we're born intuitive. But oftentimes people will think your intuition is about getting a gut hunch to save you from making a mistake, to save you from losing money, to get a gut hunch on what someone else is doing. And that's what I mean. But in fact, your gut intuition is always about, it works like this, there are stages of your intuition. The first is animal gut level. And that is the kind that will, you don't even have to be aware of it. It turns on automatically. It's the kind of intuition that says, I shouldn't cross this bridge, or I shouldn't walk down this alley.

25:32And when this level of your intuition is on, it's the kind that says, I don't think I want to eat this. It looks bad. Or I don't think I want to trust this person. And that level of your intuition is up and running all the time. And you rarely think, think, I think I just had an intuitive hit. It's just automatic. It's organic. The second level is when you actively pursue guidance. When you actively want to refine this system and you're going for something a little bit more conscious. and at that level you become a participant in refining this and you start asking for things for your system to speak to you in a much more dialogue you're asking for guidance about what should i do what should i do here the third level is revelation there's nothing you ask it's given.

26:42Well, I think we're just about out of time. So my last question is, what are the things, like, do you do any chakra meditations? What are the tools that you use to stay connected to yourself? I'm probably going to disappoint you here. I pray. That's beautiful. Actually, I'm writing a book called The Holy Language. it's on prayer grace and guidance and i'm i'm a deep believer in the power of prayer and i have when i when i introduced that in my workshop after years i'm telling you years of staying away from it my work took a shift a profound shift into the more mystical waters and I was so hesitant to go anywhere near that and I witnessed a healing as a result of prayer.

27:48And so I brought prayer back into, not like Catholic, none of that, none of that, just a guided sort of prayer. And in the second workshop, I was on a book tour for Entering the Castle, one of the books I wrote, And another healing happened. I'm talking an actual healing. And after that, I pursued healing. Like, what is it? And what is a miracle in the true sense of it? What is this power of prayer? And why are people afraid of it? Afraid. That's what I do.

28:38Thank you so much for listening to my conversation with Caroline Mace. I hope you got as much out of it as I did. And I absolutely recommend that you dive into her work at Mace.com. That's M-Y-S-S dot com. And pick up a copy of her books, including Anatomy of the Spirit. This has been a presentation of Cadence 13 Studios. I hope you'll listen, follow, rate, and review all of our episodes, which are available for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey, or wherever you get your podcasts.