If you’re overly worried about offending someone, then you’re too dialed in to their experience rather than your own and you start self-abandoning. 

– Dana Childs

 

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ABOUT THIS EPISODE

Renowned intuitive, energy healer, author and teacher Dana Childs joins us for a powerful conversation on navigating life as an empath with ease and purpose. Dana keeps it real and practical as she helps us understand how to identify if you’re an empath and shares tools for managing your empathic abilities. Together, we explore different types of empathy, such as physical, mental, emotional and relational. Whether you think you might be an empath or are looking to better understand yourself, this conversation is for you. When you know more about who you are, you can share your authentic heart to all those you love.

 

SHOW NOTES

Dana Childs | Dana Childs Instagram | Dana Childs’ Empowered Empath Course | The Mind’s Mirror by Dr. Judith Orloff | Chakras, Food, and You by Dana Childs and Cindy Dale

 

 

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Episode Transcription

Dana Childs
How can we be safe? How can we say what we really want and not be worried about offending someone? If you’re overly worried about offending someone, then you’re too dialed in to their experience rather than your own, and you start self abandoning, and that’s probably harder on an empath than taking on someone’s feelings.

Vanessa Cornell
Welcome to The NUSHU Podcast. I’m your host, Vanessa Cornell. I invite you with love into this space to learn and grow with me. And for a brief moment of the day, come home to yourself. If you think you might be an empath, this is an episode not to miss Dana Childs, an intuitive and energy healer that knows how to keep it real and practical helps us to understand what it means to be an empath, and how we as humans are actually wired to understand someone else’s experience. She helps us explore different types of empathy, physical, mental, emotional, and relational. And most importantly, she gives us the tools to understand how to manage the world. If you are an empath, how to know what’s yours and what’s not. Tactics to ground yourself and stabilize when you’re feeling overwhelmed, and how to at the same time both protect your energy and also keep an open heart. I cannot wait for you to listen.

Before we start, I want to quickly share to current offerings at NUSHU. These offerings are particularly potent for empaths. The first is NUSHU Group. This is a space for self reflection in community, non judgmental community. In a small group of eight to 10 participants with a facilitator, you will journal on prompts, share your thoughts with the group all in a space where there is no fixing. No advice, giving it simply a space where you can hear yourself think it really is the ultimate form of self care. The winter series coming up is focused on setting your intention for the new year, it’s up on nushu.com So register quickly as the limited spots will sell out.

Also on offer right now is NUSHU Group Facilitator Training. This is a 20 week live training with me and a small cohort and apprenticeship really where you will learn both the skills and the theory behind pulling powerful space in Group. This is particularly suited for those who want to be of service in the world, but hate the guru model. It is also great for those who want to expand their current offerings to include group work. And also those who like me understand that their personal development journey is in close step with their professional development journey and their work in the world. Those who have experienced this training in the past have felt transformed and empowered. It has impacted every part of their lives, from their work, to their relationships to others, as well as their relationship to themselves. This training is the heart and soul of my work. And I am very proud to offer it again this year. Learn more on our website at nushu.com And as always, thank you for being here. All my love.

Vanessa Cornell
Thank you so much for being with us today, Dana.

Dana Childs
Thank you so much for having me.

Vanessa Cornell
The reason I really thought it would be helpful to a lot of people to talk about being an empath and what that means and what you do if you are or if you have empathic qualities is because it comes up so much comes up so much in NUSHU Group and it comes up so much and everyone I work with that they say, I’m so sensitive. I take these things in so much and particularly during COVID, particularly during a pandemic. I think people are feeling so much collective fear so much collected grief, if you could Dana, just share with us what does it mean to be an empath, because it’s people have empathy, but that’s not the same as being an empath.

Dana Childs
So first, let me say some things I was hearing coming through as you were talking, this idea of being an empath being sensitive people finding like wow, I am sensitive, I do take everything, and I feel everything, that I think that’s how we’re actually ultimately meant to live as humans are meant to live empathically we’re meant to be able to just connect and know and really dive into that intimate space with someone and it’s been shut down for so long. I do think the Earth is a little bit of a harsh place to come at times. We have a lot of opportunities to choose love. I guess you could look at it that way. And so in that space, I think we’re meant to be empaths we’re naturally empathic and yet it’s been shut down. And so those of us who have like dialed in or connected enough to our humaneness to find and recognize that empathy. I think that comes in several times. forums, a lot of times, people who are very shut down and don’t do any emotions are actually very empathic. So think about it, when you’re born and you’re young, your energy system is really open, your chakras are really open, whatever you’re really sensitive at that chakra is really big. And so then it’s just getting bombarded, and traumatized and all these different ways. And so we go, close that down. And so we shrink it down to stay safe. So when you find people who are really shut down, it’s ultimately if they were to do the work or feel their emotions, or get in touch with themselves, they would find they’re very empathic. For example, my sister, she’s older than me, she’s like, five years older than me.

And she works as a waitress. And she switched jobs for a short period of time and went to work at an age facility, serving meals, helping the older people in there, and she called me after the first week, and she said, Gosh, I don’t know what’s happening, but my body is breaking down. She’s like, I feel so tired, my muscles hurt, everything aches. And I said, that’s your feeling the other people? And she said, What do you mean? And I said, physical empathy, right? Because we think of it as emotions, but it’s physical and like you’re feeling the sensations like you’re surrounded by people who have Arthritis and Inflammation and joint pain. I was like, you’re feeling all that? Because yeah, I keep saying like, I feel like I’m at I’m like, because you are literally feeling like you’re at because that’s what you’re around. So there’s a physical empathy. And this will come through with people who they’re around someone, someone, they get a headache, or a stomach ache, or something goes off, if someone else in the vicinity has that, they’ll pick up those symptoms, there’s a period of time where my knee was really hurting. And I thought, That’s odd. I don’t have knee pain. I live four hours from my parents, I went home to visit my parents. And my dad was like, gosh, I’ve had the worst knee pain recently. So we’re hundreds of miles away, weren’t even talking. And yet what he was experiencing, I was experiencing, as soon as I recognized it was my dad said a prayer to clear it out, I was fine. So we have to unlimit empathy to being emotional, it can be physical as well. So take stock of like how your body and actually sets what you naturally feel symptom wise. And then you can say, Oh, I’m going to the grocery store. Now my head hurts. And then the same with emotion. So people who feel overly emotional, they’re feeling everything, and the people around them are not feeling anything, or they’re very level headed or logical or calm. They’re probably empathically doing everyone else’s emotions.

Vanessa Cornell
I think what’s really important about what you said is sometimes people feel like there’s something wrong with me, I take on too emotions, I’m too emotional, I’m too sensitive. And what you’re saying is, that’s actually the most human ideal state. And that ties into say a prayer, clear it out. But how do we sit in that most human ideal state and not feel like oh, my god, I can’t like I’m going to feel the pain and I’m going to feel the emotion, I’m just going to become completely overwhelmed and drowned. And my survival is going to kick in, and I’m just gonna shut down.

Dana Childs
Ultimately, we are energy. And so that means if we can merge with something, a feeling, a sensation that doesn’t belong to us, we can unmerge from it as well. So anything that we merge with, we can also unmerge the key sets and being self aware, to know what emotions you hold in your body. What your triggers are, and what physical pains or sensations you hold in your body and what those triggers are, when you know that you’re really quick to identify what doesn’t belong, instead of becoming scary, it becomes like, Oh, this isn’t me just clear that out? Or am I meant to do anything with it? We want to also recognize like am I meant to do something with this recognition that I have or not? So we can choose when to use it or when not to use it? Empathy becomes something that we can control, we can open for it or not. And we can decide if we want to be open all the time, right? Because that I think is living as an ultimate empath is living in that spiritual space where there is no fear of merging because there is ultimate trust in yourself a source and so you can always emerge. So that constant sort of assuredness is the ultimate living and I do think that takes steps to get to I don’t think it’s like hey just live openly I don’t think that’s a safe learning track if you will.

Vanessa Cornell
Even that awareness is built over a long period of time right the bodily awareness even recognition of physical feelings or sensations that in our busy busy busy Go Go Go might just have been completely ignored. So that’s a big process to to just be able to be aware like I just felt a sensation that felt off and then you get to the step of Is it mine or is it someone else’s right?

Dana Childs
And what I’ll say is yes, it can be this deep dive long process of figuring out it can also come from really quick one minute a day sitting and just before anything chaos, you just really set and you like you literally just ask your boss To clear and you just sit and you feel it clear out. And you can do that with light, or with color washing through. And then when you get that you just say, Okay, let me scan my body top to bottom or bottom to top, whichever feels comfortable. And what is it that physically I’m feeling in my body today? And then emotionally do a one minute scan? What emotions are sitting in here for me today? And then what’s there, so then you immediately know what’s out of place.

Vanessa Cornell
Thank you for that, Dana, because it’s true. Sometimes it can feel big and scary. But sometimes it’s just little check ins every day, no big deal. Just check in. And sometimes the answer is, I’m not really sure. I can’t really put it into words exactly. I actually took your empowered Empath course, which is beautiful. And there is a section where you talk about mirror neurons, right? So talk a little bit about the mirror neuron way of explaining what happens when you come in contact with somebody and that person’s energy, what’s going on for them that impacts you?

Dana Childs
Right, okay, so there is a very old dating trick, if you really want someone’s attention, and you want them to dial into you, you mimic or mock their positioning. So if they’re sitting with their hands, you know, here, you would just mimic or mock that, to try to dial into their attention. It’s like a little cheek, but it actually really works. And so someone’s Oh, they’re cold, they’re rubbing your arms and you want their attention, you just get cold to they’re going to dial in because you’re on that same frequency or on that same wavelength. Mirror Neurons are in the body, in the brain. And what happens is when we dial into someone, our mirror neurons kick back so that we are mirroring what their experiences, we mirror how they feel, we mirror what they’re experiencing what their emotions are. And we mirror that because we’re hardwired for connection. We’re hardwired for empathy that’s in our biology. So those mirror neurons help us go, I can understand this person’s experience. So we actually then create in our body, the same kind of sensations, or emotions or feelings, or whatever that is, there’s a woman named Dr. Judith Orloff. She’s done a lot of teachings and work around mirror neurons as well. And she has great resources on empathy. I love recommending her books, I didn’t allow myself to read them because I never, I didn’t want to copy. But I knew when I looked at her book cover, I was like, this is a good resource there, I’m sure there are YouTube videos, too, about mirror neurons where you can understand it science, it’s not just some weird woowoo, I have a special power. We’re wired to understand someone else’s experience.

Vanessa Cornell
Right. The way I think about it is that mirror neurons actually, when you observe someone or you’re around someone, it actually changes your body chemistry, like if they’re happy, whatever the chemicals are firing in your body, if they’re stressed, whatever those chemicals are fire in your body. And so your intention and your thoughts can also change your chemistry. So if that’s a way that you feel more comfortable understanding all of this, you can contextualize it like that.

Dana Childs
That’s a great way thank you for bringing that up. That’s a great way to explain it.

Vanessa Cornell
And so talk a little bit about developing that ability to stay open, not just by avoiding the things that are tough. And I think what you said to me is, you can develop a filter where you’re all the way open to the outside, but you’re not all the way open till the outside in.

Dana Childs
And that’s really done through the heart space, it’s also recognizing the kinds of situations in which you’re comfortable, some situations will produce anxiety, B that we’re being an empath or not. So we just have to know what those anxiety producing things are. And not consider that as empathy, that there’s actual anxiety there, I’m just going to give a really simple little visual exercise, the ability to keep something really open, like you can keep your heart open, your heart should always be controlled by you anyway. So if there’s an environment in which you’d like there is hard energy to deal with, or there is even a harsh person maybe who’s attacking or doesn’t feel good. You should never let someone else or that event control your heart space. You want to keep that open, because that’s true to you. That’s who you are. You’re the one empowered with your heart and your openness. So you can shine that out like a little star, just because the stars at night, we may not go outside and go oh stars, you’re so beautiful. Thank you for shining because sometimes we may but we may not always the stars don’t go I’m not gonna shine anymore. She didn’t come look at me tonight. You know what I mean? It’s like, they’re just they’re being what they are. That’s what they do. They shine. And so you can do that and be open. But then you can put this little bubble, it’s just an energetic bubble around yourself and you can paint it any color you like. And then that means that other energies you don’t want to get in, they stop at that, but that your energy is flowing out because it’s well intentioned, right, it’s heart open, it can flow out So there doesn’t have to be that overwhelming sensation. But I will say also to take care of your physicality, your body in those situations. And so sometimes when we’re in an overwhelming space, we can find a little bit of chunk of, you know, real estate, or a little bit of spot that we can really just take a minute if we need a minute to reset. And that can even be like a bathroom stall. If it needs to be it can be anything, but sometimes just giving ourself that breather clearing ourselves out, will allow us to remain open instead of closing down. You can also keep your heart open, but close off letting anything in, people will feel that you can be open, but it’s like you’re not letting anything in. So you’re not as interactive with people’s emotions.

Vanessa Cornell
Yeah. And when you say doing that, I’m anticipating that some people are saying, Yeah, but how do I do that? So how do I keep my heart open and then say, but you can’t come in? What is the technique? What is the tool? Is it as simple as setting that intention? Visualizing?

Dana Childs
It is setting the intention. But it’s also staying really steady in yourself. The goal of life, if we look at it this way, there’s lots of goals of life. But the goal, if we look at energy, vibration, we think that, oh, I want to have my vibration here. And so I need to protect that vibration. And if someone’s vibrating here, I’m vibrating here, gosh, if I spend a lot of time around them, they’re gonna bring me down mirror neurons, everything you just we talked about. So our goal is to hit a vibration in which we bump people up, we think about bringing people up rather than being brought down is to find that steadiness in the self, that real self love, self recognition, self esteem, where no matter how someone else shows up, you’re not rocked, you’re not off balance, that you can see where they are, you maybe can even empathically feel where they are. But you can hold that space rather than taking it personally. So your vibration isn’t impacted, right? We want to be sort of Christ or Buddha, like in that space, where we hit that vibration, where we bump other people up, they don’t bump us down, it just doesn’t become a possibility. And that takes practice. And it takes work. I had this awakening moment years ago, when I was in the sort of, you know how you do that in and out of relationship. And so we were in and out. And I remember sitting there with premeditation and going, Gosh, he just needs to do his work. Like, if he would do XYZ, we would be okay. With it, like a bad sign right there. He would do this, if he would do therapy, if he would, whatever, and close my eyes and went into meditation, and I heard or if you don’t do your work, you will be stuck with him. And I was like, Oh my gosh, I’m making it about someone else, I’ve got to focus on me, doing my work gets me to that different point. So when we’re empathic, I do think there is a space where we start to get judgmental, like, my vibration is here, and yours is here. And it will I can’t do this long with you or this person. But being aware of your own self, I’m empathically picking this up, but it’s about me and my boundaries. It’s about me and what I want to take on, it’s about me, and why am I taking us on instead of it’s about this person having a crappy vibration.

Vanessa Cornell
People lose the plot a little bit when they decide that they’re here, and everyone else is down here. And it’s like, you’ve lost the plot a little bit when you start setting yourself apart from your human-ness.

Dana Childs
It’s true, but we also have to know and give recognition. Whenever someone starts, any of us ourselves included a spiritual journey, there is a phase of ego that we go through. It just is it’s part of sort of the progression of it. So there is a space of like, Oh, I’m feeling judgmental, or I’m in my ego. And I’m not it is a forming up of the spiritual self. I don’t think it’s wrong. It’s more like I look at it like the terrible twos.

Vanessa Cornell
Yeah. So I want to touch again, a little bit on this sort of sense of collective grief. Right? So we talked a little bit about, oh, that stomach ache isn’t mine, that feeling isn’t mine, the mirror neurons, but what about the sort of collective energy and I know that my daughter who’s very empathic, and sometimes doesn’t know what to do with it feels like, nobody understands me. Like, why am I like this? This is so hard for me. I don’t know why I’m upset. I don’t know why I can turn on a dime and my mood. I’m like, I know why. And so I’m trying to help her understand that this is both a challenge and a gift. But I know that at the beginning of the pandemic, she was overwrought. And she couldn’t understand why. And I really feel strongly that she was feeling in her body, the collective grief and the collective fear. So talk a little bit about that, how it works. And then if you’re a person who is impacted in that way, what you can do to keep yourself both safe, and also not shut down in order to keep yourself safe.

Dana Childs
The way I see it energetically is I envision like my own sort of energy field, and then as the collapse I envision it like a river. And I can choose to let that river run through me or not. And if I start to feel sort of anxious and panicky before that pandemic, I had all this weird anxiety, I didn’t know what I was feeling. Just sometimes I feel things before they happen. And I had this weird kind of like, move, something just doesn’t feel right. And then sure enough, at all hits, it’s like, oh, that’s what I’m feeling. And then once there was a recognition, I was like, Oh, I’m gonna move that river, I’m gonna let that flow, I’m gonna let Source Energy God energy, universe, energy, whatever word is comfortable, I’m going to let that energy hold that collective because that’s where it needs to be. It doesn’t need to run through me, that doesn’t serve me, I can be aware of the river and help keep the river from flooding without being in it. So that visualization helped me tremendously. So I think whenever you have the awareness of the panic, or the grief coming in from outside, you just envision it like a river, step out of it, move out of it, or pull it out of you and run it elsewhere.

Vanessa Cornell
Yeah, I really had a moment myself where the collective weight of the grief in the suffering felt unbearable. And what was interesting was, the magnitude of it is what freed me of it, because it was like, there has always been this much suffering in the world. Obviously, this is a moment in time, but there has always been and I have always just been one person. So I do what I do in my corner of the worlds, and I acknowledge it, but I don’t try and carry it because we can’t, there’s something bigger that needs to carry that.

Dana Childs
Exactly. Those of us who are like dialed in, we’re aware that we’re empaths. And we’re like, a little overwhelmed by it, or we’re anxious, and we don’t recognize ourselves as an empath. But a lot of times, I do think that’s what anxiety is. It’s not in the brain, or chemical. I think that a lot of us wired this way as empaths are overly responsible. And so in our childhoods, right, in her upbringing in our lives, we’ve learned to be overly responsible for other people’s feelings or other people’s happiness. And so then when the collective is unhappy, and we feel that it is crushing, because we’re going, Oh, my gosh, what do I do? How do I do, there’s a helplessness disempowered feeling that comes in. And really, it’s okay, like when the whole pandemic started happening, I couldn’t get that sort of collective thing. And finally, I just went, I am one person, how am I called upon what a source calling upon me to do an offer in this, maybe it’s to get groceries for my neighbor, it was to teach a class and do some fun stuff around that. But it’s like, listen to that personal calling, because that everyone does that. That’s how we start to shift the collective around us. That’s how we shift that kind of consciousness.

Vanessa Cornell
It’s really interesting, because I know that what you talked about, it’s like the people who are feeling the most responsible and also feel the most helpless. I’ve also seen that the people who are the most sensitive, often are the same people who are drawn to be of service. So they’re the same people who say, being around other people’s emotions, and being around other people on their journey and hearing about it impacts me deeply and is hard for me to hold. But I also want to go do that. I also want to go put myself in that position. And I see this in NUSHU Group Facilitator Training a lot. People who are really drawn to the work will also say, I’m a little afraid that if I hold space for these eight people, and they share what’s in them, it’s going to overwhelm me. And so talk a little bit about that the sort of the people who are both drawn to it, and impacted by it the most.

Dana Childs
We’re to it, because that’s the recognition of who we are, and will be set up for that in childhood will have dysfunctional families or will have irresponsible parents are in that people pleaser, or that mode of how can I take care of what’s not happening? So we’re like a moth to the flame. we’re drawn to that. But our spirit chooses that kind of incarnation, those families those experiences that education, because our sole purpose lies in service and in helping others it’s a caretaking healer, I’ll say it’s a healer mentality. It’s a healer being. And so there’s the recognition of that sense of self as a healer that comes in. And so when that comes in, we’re just we can’t stop it. It’s who we are. We can’t get away from it. And so then if we’re not doing it, we feel that NACA, unfulfilled and if we are doing it, we feel overwhelmed. And the answer there is to come into how do I do this and balance myself care because I do think as a healer mentality, which is often what impacts Are, then what happens is we’re giving it away and we feel depleted. And then we get tripped into that disempowered Empath, or victim mode. And instead, it’s like, I really want to give to you, I can’t really do it well, until next week, I really feel called to serve. But I can serve on this day, not this day. It’s really having those kinds of boundaries, the self care tactics and techniques, as well as listening to that service call. I remember being approached by a group one time and they said, We want you to come and do sessions for us and readings for us. But we need you to do like six to eight in a day. And I responded, and I said, this is a great opportunity. I can do for Max after that I’m not it’s not good. And I don’t want to be my less than best for someone. And that’s a way to answer the call of service, but have the boundaries around it, where you’re taking care of yourself, you have to fill your well, right or it runs dry.

Vanessa Cornell
And I think people sometimes think of self care as baths and massages and that kind of thing. And I think what you’re saying is boundaries, are real self care, saying no, is real self care, understanding what works and what doesn’t, and what’s going to feel depleting and what’s going to be aligned.

Dana Childs
Yep, 100%, you really take care of yourself, and you have the boundaries that you need, when we’re being honest, in a really caring way. And our words are being really energetically charged through our open heart space, then we create this safe place of connection, where that safe attachment. And that’s what we’re really looking for, how can we be safe? How can we say what we really want, and not be worried about offending someone. If you’re overly worried about offending someone, then you’re too dialed in to their experience rather than your own, and you start self abandoning, and that’s probably harder on an empath than taking on someone’s feelings.

Vanessa Cornell
Yeah. So I know that you like me, were living a life that was not what you wanted. And you knew when you took a journey, and you went to India, and you studied with teachers, and you discovered these gifts that you have. And so I wonder if you could just talk about this idea of people’s gifts, this idea of someone’s listening and things, I don’t have any gifts of tapping into who you are and what you have to offer in that process, and how it might look for different people.

Dana Childs
Yeah, so we all have gifts. And if you are out there right now thinking, I don’t have gifts, or I don’t really do anything psychic, or, you know, intuitive, like you’re wrong, I just flat out saying that I learned as a teacher, because I taught public school for like eight years, seven years, I learned the teacher never to say you’re wrong, like it’s really harsh. But I will say if you think you have no intuitive guests, you are wrong. So we all have them. That’s why we’re here is to find these special guests and utilize them not only for ourselves, but for the world around us because we all not only have gifts that other people have, but we all have a special unique gift that no one else has that only we have that only we can do. I do think we’re all wired for empathy, I do think we are all empathic. And so gifts, I visually see them sitting in certain chakra energy centers. And so our root chakra, right that place at our hips, that connects down through our legs and feet. That’s the place where we hold physical empathy, we connect into other people’s physical feelings, then we move up and we have emotional empathy. And that’s like in the abdomen area, and the sex organs. And that’s where we have emotional empathy, we can feel other people’s feelings. And then we move up into the third chakra, which is more stomach, pancreas, digestive organ, that’s where we have the gift of mental empathy, which gets overlooked. But if you’re like a great employee, and you know how your boss thinks, and how they’re gonna want, everything laid out, like you can just read their mind, you’re using a gift. That’s a gift of mental empathy when you’re talking to someone and like, Oh, I know what she’s gonna say, next. I know how our mind works, or I know what my partner’s thinking like, I know what he’s gonna say, when I bring up Oh, I’d love to do this vacation. That’s mental empathy. It’s a gift, you’re using a gift, which is a really overlooked one, and quite a fun one. And then there is that gift of energy healing that sits in our hearts, that gift of the ability to also send out relationships. You go to a party back in the day, where you’re on a zoom party, and you realize, oh, and so like so and so but she doesn’t know it and he is liked by her but he doesn’t know you know, or Ooh, they’re together and they’re not telling anyone they’re together. You can just sense those relationships. That’s a relational empathy and it’s in the heart space and then we get into the gifts in the fifth chakra where we have clear audience we can hear clearly. We can also taste clear information and we can smell clear information so like you smell cigarette But no one smoking, maybe that’s as deceased spirit. Right? That’s a gift. And then you have clairvoyance. So you can see you can have images, maybe you have dreams, maybe you see things with your open eyes, or you close your eyes and see it in your mind’s eye, or you can see the future. There’s so many more like they just keep going. So there’s all these gifts. And I think sometimes people are utilizing gifts, and they’re so second nature to them, don’t realize that they’re using guests.

Vanessa Cornell
Yeah. And I think that there are a lot of people who asked me, How do I know if it’s intuition? Or if it’s anxiety? How do I trust myself? And I think that sense of being kind to yourself is a big factor.

Dana Childs
Yeah, it’s a huge factor. I will say, when you feel overwhelmed by anxiety, first, you want to go into your nervous system, because this is how you can tell the difference, right? You first go into your nervous system, so be that that you take a minute you close your eyes, and you just do deep breathing. The box breath with four in hold for four, four out hold for for that done three to five times or for a minute, is going to help reset your nervous system. So that’s step one is getting to that. And then once that’s reset, then you go quiet for 60 seconds and do that body clearing where you ask what is not mine, I need it to leave and go please leave me with only what’s mine, then you’re left with what may actually be anxiety, or with clarity of like, wow, that was just was weird. That wasn’t me. And if you’re left with his anxiety, then you go, Okay, I need to keep focusing on my nervous system and calm the nervous system down. So there yoga postures for that, specifically, there are meditation techniques, there are breathing techniques, sometimes just walking, just being in a quiet space and taking out noise pollution, and visual pollution can help. So anything that helps calm your nervous system can bring you out of anxiety, and reset you back into your intuitive self.

Vanessa Cornell
Yeah, that’s wonderful. A couple of other questions I want to get to and we don’t have too much time. So maybe we’ll do a little bit of a speed round here. Do you think that remembering and following themes you loved as a child is a good place to start to look for your gifts? So for example, I used to pretend I had energy shooting out of my hands as a child, I’ve been studying Reiki as an adult, no idea if I’m on the right path sounds like it?

Dana Childs
Yes, is the answer. We’re more connected to our natural, authentic self when we’re young, because we’re not yet forming up how we have to be who we think we should be. So we’re still in love with ourselves, our real self, for some that can go away quite early for others that can stick around. And so then to get back into what that was, that can really clue us in, when I was eight 910 1112. I would literally play school all the time, my mom was a teacher. And she would bring home teacher workbooks and I would set up my school in the attic, and I had all my stuffed animals and my roster I would call attendance, I would teach all about science and flowers and pistols and statements. I don’t know how I even remember that I taught it. I taught it when I was in fifth grade. And so it was that natural space. And then, of course, I was like, I’ll never be a teacher. Now. I’m like, Oh, this is exactly what I love to do. So we do think that we connect back into what those gifts are. I also remember having this real connection with animals growing up, like I just wanted to be around them. I knew what they were thinking and feeling. And so when I took an animal communication class years and years ago, it came so naturally. And I was like, Oh, I’ve always done this. We’re reminded of who we are. And it will come back. So if you’re having you’re stumped, you’re having trouble with your guests, by all means, look back at your childhood, what did you feel pulled to? How did you feel pulled there and then regain that reconnect to that?

Vanessa Cornell
Yeah. So how do I balance wanting to hang out or spend time with friends and family but also wanting to protect my peace, I miss social gatherings people miss me a lot. But I like to preserve my energy and don’t want people to feel like I don’t love them.

Dana Childs
So I would say that’s where you have to really day by day dial in to what feels good, right for you, to protect that space. But to give yourself that connection that we are social creatures, even if we’re empaths. And introverts, we are very social creatures. And so if we go without that for too long, our wiring can get off, our nervous system can get off, we need that. So I would say to push yourself sometimes put yourself out in that environment and work on your boundaries while you’re in the environment. And then know when you need a break. No, when you’re done, I often will go Gosh, I don’t really want to be around people like I’m so good about myself. And then I will make myself like go talk to a neighbor go do something and then I feel this energy by it. And I’ll come back and go Gosh, I’m really glad I did that even though I don’t want to it’s like going to the gym sometimes. Where it’s like the worst thing you could possibly think up. But once you go to, like, feel so great. So I would say to push for that balance, but read your body and read your mindset when you’re in it and know when you need to be done and honor that. 

Vanessa Cornell
Yeah, I have the same thing. If I pre COVID, when we used to have friends over for dinner, I would dread it, I would have a feeling of dread in my body, and I would push myself through. And then I would be with my friends. And I would say this feels so good and wonderful. However, I always had the same feeling of dread when I was going to some obligatory dinner with people I didn’t really like. And that’s my boundary. I know that once I push through the feeling of dread, it’s going to feel wonderful and warm, or after I push through the feeling of dread, it’s going to feel depleting and horrible. I’m just gonna want to get out of there. We only have a couple minutes left, I want to touch on two things. One is your book, because I know you’re talking about your chakras. And your book has to do with the chakras, which is super exciting. So tell us for a second about that.

Dana Childs
Yeah, so the book is co authored with my friend Cindy Dale, and it’s called Chakras, Food, and You. So oddly, I never set out to write a book about food. Not my specialty. But the way we structured the book, it just came to be that we have this cool little quiz that you take, and you figure out your energy type, you figure out which chakra of we do 12 Chakra is not seven. So your 12 chakras is your strongest. And then based on that, it’s like how do you best be yourself for your optimal weight? And how do you best take care of yourself with meditation and mindful techniques. And the really cool thing is, we break down what the special intuitive gift is for each center. And we give developmental exercises for how to use that gift in your everyday life, and how to use that gift to apply it to select your food that’s going to nurture your body. So the really cool thing is if you take the quiz and you go, Oh, I’m this type of person, like I’m really a seventh chakra type spiritualist is the seventh chakra, then you go but, but I also want to know about like this gift of channeling and the fifth chakra, then you can go read that chapter on the gifts.

Vanessa Cornell
What are some resources you recommend? And where do you start? If you’re like, I am interested in this, I want to access my gifts. I’m not sure where to start, what’s a good starting place for someone to just go and look at some resources besides your empowered Empath course, which I highly recommend.

Dana Childs
Yeah, the Empowered Empath course is a great start, I would say there’s an old book by Sonia Choquette. And it’s called the psychic pathway. And it only does the seven chakras. But she writes it in like a workbook kind of way where you can help figure out like where your chakras are open or closed. I do think that’s a good resource. But then I would say to just Google like intuitive gifts, psychic gifts, read what they are, and trust your body on which ones you feel pulled to. And then Google resources because they’re gifts that we forget, like animal communication is a really cool gift, right? So I would say to go, oh, no, I’m really interested in mediumship, Google mediumship. And look at what comes up there so that you’re directing yourself. But if you want a good overview, the advanced energy healing course is the course that I’m teaching. That’s probably the best overview I currently know up for the gifts. Cindy Dale does a lot of work. Her books tend to be resource reference sort of things. But she does do the 12 chakras. And she does have books on the gifts as well, she’s a great resource. So I would say start there, but trust your body to go. Well, I’m excited about this thing. Read up on that.

Vanessa Cornell
Thank you, Dana. And I would say that in putting together all of the speakers that I bring into NUSHU, and putting together the NUSHU Thought Leader Series, because there are so many people out there, there is so much content out there, I really just depended on what made my heart feel full, which people I just felt came so deeply from a place of heart that it just couldn’t be bad, it couldn’t be wrong, it couldn’t be useful, it couldn’t be loving. And so I would also encourage people to trust yourself.

Dana Childs
I would say too, I really feel called to say this, is you’re going to feel you’ll sometimes feel called to a teacher or pulled to a teacher, and allow that pull to happen. And sometimes you won’t, and that’s okay. It doesn’t mean anything at all. It’s just you find a resonance. And then when you have this teacher, allow yourself to take in the information not as the truth, but as an idea. And then you thought that through because it may land with your gift and get expressed in a different way. Or it might be an evolution of a teaching. So not to make what someone says the end all be all for any teacher, myself definitely included. Just like this kind of resonates. And I’m going to think about or this doesn’t resonate, and I’m not going to think about that. But to just allow yourself to come and go.

Vanessa Cornell
Thank you Dana. Thank you for being with us I always love chatting with you and sharing your wisdom and knowledge and insight and inspiration and energy.

Dana Childs
Thank you so much.

Vanessa Cornell
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