Transcript
[00:00:00]
Gissele: Hello. Welcome to the Love and Compassion podcast with me, Gissele We believe that love and compassion have the power to change our lives and change our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe to our podcast for more amazing content.
Today our topic is gonna be, healing our bodies, spontaneous healing, and obviously love and compassion. today’s guest is the bestselling author of the book, Healing Happens Stories of Healing Against All Odds. Her articles have been published in Fitness Professional Online, 30 Seconds, and Sacred Dance Guilt Journal.
She’s an award-winning international keynote speaker, neurolinguistic programming practitioner. Healing breakthrough facilitator and global dancer. Please join me in welcoming Avital Miller.
Avital: Hi. Just sound like you so much for having me on here. Oh no. Thank
Gissele: you so much for coming. Thank you so much for coming.
I’m excited to talk about this topic cuz I’m really interested in the whole [00:01:00] healing our bodies and especially during Covid. It kind of is like, you know, people are really, really afraid or afraid about what the virus could do to them. Afraid for their family members. Mm-hmm. . so I’m excited to chat with you about the stories, and about your story.
Yeah. So I was wondering if we could begin, if you could share your story about how you came to actually write this book Stories of Healing.
Avital: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I graduated from college in mechanical engineering and dance. I became a program manager at Microsoft straight outta college. Wow. So obviously I was headed in a different trajectory from what is a former program manager from Microsoft doing, being involved with healing.
And the truth is, it’s because I had my own story of it, and Microsoft was a great company. But how many of us know what we wanna do for life at age 20? ?
I grew up in a line of, of a [00:02:00] family of engineers, and I just geniuses and I love the math and the sciences. but my heart was bent on helping people in a different way.
Avital: Mm-hmm. . And so I left that world and I dived into the yoga and fitness world and became a teacher trainer, fitness director. And I’m teaching 25 to 30 classes all over town, known as the Energizer Bunny. .
Gissele: Yeah, it sounds like it. That’s a lot of like, that’s very
Avital: like very busy. Crazy. It was busy, it was exciting.
there was a lot on my plate, a lot of people to support and I really love what I was doing. Mm-hmm. and I started to have health issues. Mm-hmm. , my hair was falling out, my muscles were turning to fat, I was getting weaker than my students. Kind of wondering, Wow, [00:03:00] am I gonna be out of the job soon? Like, you know, anybody might, you might wonder too, like if you start losing your voice, how can I do this podcast that helps so many people.
Gissele: Yeah. Yeah. And it seems interesting cuz you figured that with yoga you would’ve gone the other weight where you would’ve gotten healthy or you would’ve been more, you know, like flourishing. You know? Cause I mean, yoga has like all those healing powers, right? Like, well not yoga itself, but the practice of yoga’s helping you tap into those, your healing, right?
Yeah.
Avital: Yeah. And, and I think that was part of the other shock. And I was young. Yeah. Right. Yeah. But yoga’s deep. Mm, mm-hmm. . And often what is taught for health and fitness on the more mainstream level is not actually what really helps us, and this is why the food pyramid has changed over the years mm-hmm.
because we’ve realized, oh no, the staple of all [00:04:00] the grains that just sort of stuffs us up, dries us out and doesn’t fill us with nutrients. And, you know, it’s, it’s like I change my diet and all of a sudden I’m losing weight and I’m having more energy, right? Mm-hmm. and I’m less stuffed up. And then I start taking, you know, different supplements and, and I’m slowly leveling out and then I start meditating and the doctors start tapering me off the medicine.
Hmm. Well, because what’s the root of disease stress? Mm-hmm. , what does meditation do? De-stresses. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Yeah. And I was fascinated by this. Like, oh my God, the doctors didn’t tell me that I could heal at all. You know, they just shove some medicine and like, Okay, that’s it for life. Just take the medicine and you’ll feel fine.
But it was a rocky road. It was very up and down with the medicine. And, and [00:05:00] then I start, you know when, when you are shopping for a new car and you decide, Okay, you know, I’m gonna buy a. Tesla, Right. You know, convertible. So then all you see around you are the Tesla convertibles, with the particular activating system.
So you tend to, when you tune into something, notice more and more of it around you. And I’m tuning into healing stories. So what do I start hearing more extreme stories than mine. I was just gonna be uncomfortable, you know, have this little autoimmune disorder, Hashimotos and hypothyroidism, which actually like 30% of women have.
And, and then I’m meeting people who are told they’re gonna die in a few months or a few hours, but I’m meeting them years later. And they all were inspired by their own story and they’ve incorporated their learnings into their practice. Some of them were already Western medical doctors, but they didn’t pay attention to nutrition.
They didn’t pay attention to certain ways of thinking or certain supplements, and they started [00:06:00] bringing that in and noticing more and more of their clients healing. Mm-hmm. . so I was like, Okay, if this is happening so frequently, we have to get the message out and understand what is it that’s in common among all of these d.
Stories, and that’s when I started interviewing them and then posting those stories in my podcast and my book, Healing Happens. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . That, that’s how we get to today, you could say in, in terms of sharing all of these healing practices.
Gissele: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. Mm-hmm. , I have so many questions. can you tell their audience a little bit about what Hashimotos is?
Avital: Which perspective would you like ?
Gissele: both or maybe multiple, whatever. so you could give us maybe like the, are you talking about like a 3D perspective versus like a higher, Is
Avital: that actually, we could talk 3d.
but we can versus fived. but what I can do first is say, you know, medical doctors will say that Hashimotos is your body attacking your thyroid gland. [00:07:00] Oh. And, and your body building up a bunch of antibodies against itself. . there are other perspectives like Epstein Bar Virus or Lyme Disease. Okay.
Avital: Okay. so, and these are things that I’m saying from other medical practitioners mm-hmm. . Yeah. and, and so, and that, that is what’s in your thyroid gland and your body’s not attacking. Self, your body’s attacking the disease, the virus that it doesn’t want to be in your body. And your anti body levels always increase, right?
When your, when your body needs to work on something. And the impact of all of this happening in your thyroid gland also makes it harder for your thyroid to function because there’s so much more going on there and your body needs to, how do you say it focuses itself. So this is also why hair loss happens.
Same thing for chemo. you know why like skin is getting dry. I had trouble seeing, I had headaches. Right? All, all these things are happening. Like the body isn’t preserving muscle because [00:08:00] it’s saying, well, there, there’s a disease, there’s a virus in here. Mm-hmm. . And so I’m gonna focus my energy on that.
You don’t really need hair, right? Mm. Yeah. . so I’m gonna reallocate my efforts to that. So a lot of times when we think that we’re getting worse, that something’s wrong. It’s actually part of the body’s healing process. Mm-hmm. . So the, those are more, those are all 3D layers. There’s just various perspectives.
Yeah. and then definitely we can get to fived perspectives. You know, I think in my situation, all of it applied , all of it applied.
Gissele: Yeah. Sorry, can you share a little bit of how it, it applied just so that people, that the audience that maybe not understand what a fived perspective is?
Avital: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and, and the, the 3D perspective, one of the things too is, is eating breads.
I’ve mentioned that. it’s a very dehydrating food. And when, when your body is, It is taking in dehydrated food. It’s leeching water out of your cells and your cells become dehydrated and your body says, That’s not [00:09:00] a body cell. I’m supposed to mostly be water, so I’m gonna get rid of that thing. So that’s the only situation where your body is sort of attacking itself, but it doesn’t seem like itself anymore.
Mm-hmm. . so that’s one layer is just learning how to have more hydrated food, how to have more vegetables into my diet. Cuz I was mostly a meat and potatoes kind of gal. And, and then it was also, looking at what are the chemicals in my environment preserve it, right? So we, we do an, an overhaul on, on the 3D layer.
and, and that’s where we get some of the 3d, and then I start reading. About Hashimotos and hypothyroidism, and they’re like, Okay, do you know that a lot of times, that they’re in these relationships where people are not really serving them or they’re, they’re not really the best at communicating.
Avital: It’s a throat, cha throat is about communication and I’m going, I’m teaching 25 to 30 classes. I’m, I’m teaching teacher trainers. I’m managing a hundred staff people. As a fitness director, how could I not have issues with [00:10:00] communication? Oh, let’s go back to romantic relationships. Mm. Yeah. I do not choose people who are truly as giving as I would want.
In relationship and I am not communicating well enough what I want, you know, not trusting that it’s okay to want that, to ask for that. just expressing my feelings. I dated a lot of men who were unkind to me as well, and, and just learning how to navigate the unkindness or getting out, which obviously I’ve done my now.
so that’s like a, you could say the mental emotional layer. There’s another interesting one. I mean that I can go down a rabbit hole with all of these things that I’ve discovered over time. but another interesting one is, there’s a bunch jumping in my head, but one of them was, you know, shortly. I started having health issues and I was really ashamed, so I wouldn’t tell anybody.
Avital: I’m this fitness director [00:11:00] and then here I remember these health issues, like, nobody should know this because that invalidates, you know, my capabilities and I don’t want anyone thinking any less of me, you know? Mm-hmm. . so I have, and I, I was working at a center which had more older adults to it. I mean, very prolific.
this was in, Montecito, you know, California. this is where Oprah has a home, if that sort of, you know, tells you. Yeah. but they’re still older and probably any more health issues. And one of them walks up to me and she’s telling me she is thy hypothyroidism and all this stuff about the challenges. Oh, but you probably wouldn’t understand. You’re too young. Oh, well, I do . Yeah. And actually I got, I got a gift of getting this disease so young so I could understand and relate to other people.
Avital: Mm-hmm. , because when the health challenges happen and I was only getting worse and worse and kind of wondering, is this gonna lead to death? I mean, no doctors were saying that, but when you’re just getting worse and they’re not telling you exactly what’s [00:12:00] wrong, it’s easy for the mind to go there. And if you start reading the internet rabbit hole, then you do think you’re gonna die.
Gissele: No. Like, that’s the biggest mistake you can make is
actually you go to Google Docs because you’re always going to die.
Avital: it, it just depends. But because I did the reading online, I was able to say, the doctors test my antibodies. because they didn’t think the thyroid issues were enough of a problem.
And I said, Test my antibodies. And then they’re like, Okay, you have Hashimotos. And even, even though the, the label that they gave is different than what I believe it truly is, you know, I’ve been diagnosed with Epstein Barr virus. I’m working with a lime specialist. I didn’t get tested because the tests don’t actually, like they don’t easily give full results.
Or I can pay $500 to get a test that is a higher percentage of accuracy. but I have to pay it outta my pocket as I’m like, let’s just treat it cuz that’s less expensive and it’s, and the treatment takes care of Epstein Barr virus. It takes care of shingles. You know, we all got chicken pox as a kid, so the shingles, the virus, it’s the same virus, so it lives in your body.
and that’s actually the [00:13:00] treatments that I’m doing right now. Is to take care of that, that deeper root. but, but all these, all these things are happening and I, and I’m going, there’s, there’s no way I’m gonna die. I really see a future of helping a lot of people.
It’s interesting that you mentioned that because, you know, when you look at people, some of the research that have actually successfully overcome big adversity, whether it be a disease or whether it be some adversity mm-hmm. it’s, it’s the belief that they can’t overcome.
Gissele: They see themselves beyond that barrier. and the people that don’t are people that usually don’t overcome. I wanted to go back to the medical model that you were talking about cuz I have people that I know, people that work in the medical model and so, and it has its place like in the sense that, you know, it, it can be helpful.
although I do think that it’s a lot of it is symptom management, although I see more and more practitioners now opening up to the possibilities of, using meditation or using, all these different modalities for people to heal. Mm-hmm. . you mentioned meditation as being something that was really [00:14:00] instrumental.
why do you think medi meditation helped you other than that, you know, you mentioned that de-stressing, but how do you think me meditation helped with the de-stress?
Avital: Yeah, I have a list of 101 benefits, that I share on social media. Nice. ? Maybe three. Top three. I know, I know. But we definitely talked about, about the de-stressing and, and disease, you know, often being rooted from stress.
the next thing that’s popping into my head to share with you is the idea of detachment. Because we often think we can’t, we don’t have meditate because we can’t stop doing all the other things that we think we need to do. Mm-hmm. . So our life is run by all these things. And that way of thinking in itself creates a level of stress also.
but being on a hamster wheel, constantly needing to do all these things in order to have success right [00:15:00] in, in order to really move forward. and to give yourself a few minutes to say, no, it, it, it’s okay. I can take a few minutes for myself. All those things will be fine. You know, five, 10 minutes. You know, some people meditate longer.
Avital: I ed a lot longer when I lived in the yoga community. but just to say that it, none of that matters in this moment and I can take this time for me it’s really, really helpful to teach us for a moment to detach from what is happening in our daily.
There’s so much demand on us constantly and so many ideas of how we should need to live and all of the people in our lives and our jobs, you know, a few family partners and kids, and taking care of the health of your body and taking care of your finances. so all of these things are constantly [00:16:00] there, but the question is, does it need to be constantly there?
Can it survive for five minutes? If you don’t think about it for five minutes, can it survive for 30 minutes if you don’t think about it for 30 minutes? But what you also give yourself that opportunity to do is when you say, Yeah, I don’t need to take care of this for the next five minutes. I don’t even need to think about it for the next five minutes.
It gives you more freedom to relax, to let go, to be present with your own. And spend time with you loving you. And it, it’s, it’s like penetrating your heart cells as well. So it’s, it’s huge for de-stressing, but it’s huge for empowerment to say, I have control over my life. I can what I want in this moment.
It’s okay. I don’t always have to be pulled [00:17:00] by all those things. And then you’ll start to feel more and more like you have more choice in each moment. So you don’t need to be pulled in this direction or that direction. It’s where am I gonna be in this moment? Mm-hmm. .
Gissele: Yeah. I know in my meditation journey, I really found that really challenging.
I had a real resistance to actually relaxing and letting go. I think fundamentally it was fear. It was fear of letting go of the control for a second and something, happening. But I think the more I started to let go, the more that I found, like you said, that present moment awareness that enabled me to see where my true power really lied, which is obviously in the present moment.
Gissele: Yeah. But yeah, so I found that really, really helpful. Oh, good. can you share a little bit, because I, I know you talked about the Hashimoto’s, disease that you were diagnosed with, and then you found that meditation was really, really helpful in your journey. Were there any other things that you found that were really key in on your path to healing?
Avital: Absolutely. [00:18:00] Absolutely. And what I actually did was created what I call the top four Full Body Success Mastery strategies as a result of the interviews that I did for my book. Healing Happens at my podcast. And the result of my experiences and the result of my reading is to say, what are the top four things that are most accessible to us, but also that we can relate those success strategies to other areas of life.
So we kind of create this template of success and how we magnetize that to ourselves. And one of the, people who I interviewed in my book is Dr. Bernie Siegel. He wrote Love Medicine and Miracles, so he’s really well known and he’s treating all these cancer patients and then he’s noticing. So a lot of them get terminal diagnoses.
So he’s noticing that the ones who are surviving the terminal diagnoses are the ones who are focusing on their [00:19:00] reason to live. Honestly, it did not matter. One of, I mean, it, it’s, yes, watching your kids grow up, your kids walk down the aisle, right? These are are common things we wanna live for. See your business thrive.
But one person, it was who’s gonna take care of your nine cats if you pass away another story from a, a different practitioner. This woman wanted to finish watching a soap opera opera series. Good. Great. I think we sometimes, and this is important because it, it opens up the understanding that sometimes we think our reason to live is like our, our nine to five job.
I mean, kids, you know, and family is an obvious one for a lot of people, but your job. It, you know, that might just be the thing that sustains you financially. and you might love your job, but is it really your job that’s your reason to live? Or is it the joy that you bring to people through the job?
Avital: Is it your ability to problem [00:20:00] solve that shows up through the job? so getting more fine tune as to what our reason to live is, Allow ourselves to be more unique in that, allow ourselves to open up and to appreciate that. and I, I’d like to give this example, and I’m so curious where this goes, but I think growing up, I think I’ve always had, appreciation for material things more than my family.
And as soon as I was off on my own, I bought nicer things than my family did for my home. And my mother even made this comment about, you know, like I was being too materialistic when she saw my home for the first time. Like, that’s not us. and also I had Barbies growing up and I loved Barbies mostly because of their outfits or the things that they do, like the skirt that you could, the big ballow skirt that you could take off, and all of a sudden it becomes your nightclub outfit.
and I, I used to draw like, fashion, you know, [00:21:00] plates with the Barbie outfits. So I just, I love fashion, but I never thought that fashion would be anything that I would work with because it wasn’t taught as an ideal in my home. Growing up. It wasn’t a high value, but I’ve just always loved. Fashion. Just had an appreciation.
Avital: I have an appreciation for all the arts and, here I am in the past year, all of a sudden falling into the fashion industry in Denver and I’m there just to help a friend with her. I thought it was a program to help people, like become more confident in themselves and their bodies. But there was also a fashion show and she and I asked her if I could volunteer to help her.
And, and she had me dress the models and I thought I was just gonna take off cuz I recently had a concussion. And I was like, I don’t know, I’m gonna handle the noise. And the people mm-hmm. and 10 minutes before the performance start saying, I’m getting ready to leave. And they’re like, you’re a speaker, right?[00:22:00]
Yes. Mm-hmm. . Well, we don’t have an MC tonight. Would you do it? I mc. Then all of a sudden, I’m in the cover of a fashion magazine. I have an article inside. I’m MCing other fashion events, and I am putting together my own fashion show. It was rated one of the best fashion shows in Denver. This is my first one.
250 people came the first time I host, stood a fashion show, like immense, huge. And it, it was just opening to a flow and doing what I appreciate and value and allowing that to be its own thing. And I added messages behind the show. We were doing it for charity. We had sponsors walking the runway
It’s like fulfilling these dreams for all these women and some men and. [00:23:00] and showing though that everyone can look glamorous, all body sizes, types, and ages. We had two women in their seventies walking the runway and there were probably two of the most joyful people on the runway. Mm-hmm. . and so in a way I was able to plant all the personal development into the fashion.
So I wanna to give these examples to help us continue to open up our minds and not put as much judgment as we might use to have. Mm-hmm. on some of the things that we love being a part of our lives. because this opening of mind has opened many doors, and I like it when people think about Reason to live is you put your hands on your heart and then you open your arms forward and out to the sides and say, Reason to live just to show that vast potential of opportunity that is out there in reason to live.
And then do you ever notice this Gissele, when you start [00:24:00] to tell people an idea of yours and you’re really excited about this vision and they’ll start to tell you about what’s gonna be hard about it?
Yeah. What’s gonna be challenging? How you might not have the skills. It didn’t work in the past. Right. And when it comes to the medical stories, it’s all of these stories of people being told they have a few months or a few hours to live. Mm-hmm. . So number two, is don’t listen to everything. Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, Michael Jordan, Lady Gaga, Albert Einstein.
I can go on and on with names of these famous people who’ve made huge contributions to society. Every single one of them was told at one point they didn’t have what it takes. Mm-hmm. , they didn’t listen. Now we can always take heed of advice and say, Okay, well how do I overcome that challenge that they’re presenting, but we don’t need to let it stop us.
Mm-hmm. [00:25:00] and just because everyone else in your situation has not survived that diagnosis, doesn’t mean that you won’t, you know, it’s important not to have false hope, but it’s important also not to have false doubt, if that makes sense. you know, false belief that there’s no potential. Roger Banister, every single coach, doctor, medical practitioner, said it is not possible to run a mile in less than four minutes.
As soon as he beat that, all these other people started beating it. We had the belief we don’t need to listen to everything.
Gissele: Yeah. thank you for sharing that. you know, a lot of the stuff you said really resonated with me. I had read the book by Victor Frankel, Man’s Search for Meaning. And one of the things he said that, was that the Holocaust survivors that survived were those that had a purpose or, or saw their lives beyond that, that occurrence.
And so having a reason to live is so important. Yeah. the second, I think key [00:26:00] thing that you had said was around, Really listening to ourselves and, and our hearts rather than listening to or looking out for guidance or direction externally. Not that, I mean, I feel like we’re in the world here to help each other out, like, you know, to engage in dialogue and conversation and grow.
but I think the person that, or, or the beings that we really have to get to listen to is ourselves, our inner voice, our inner guidance, our intuition. instead of those voices that keep us, hold us back and tell us that, you know, oh, fashion is not really something we should be focused on. Or, you know, it’s not appropriate to have all of these materialistic things because that’s not who we are.
Gissele: Not that there’s anything wrong with that, it’s just that’s their choice. And that’s maybe what their inner guidance is saying. But other people’s inner guidance should not be our. so I think listening to ourselves is really key. I did have a question about, you talked about the difference between, false doubt, mm-hmm and false belief.
Can you, clarify a little bit?
Avital: Oh, yes. false, [00:27:00] false belief is what I’ve specifically saying or, or false out. false doubt is specifically when, when your doctor comes in and says, Get your affairs in order. but then you actually live years and years and years and years beyond that. so that wasn’t an accurate statement, right?
Oh, if you believe you’re going to die and then you don’t, and then a false belief would be believing that you’re going to survive and you don’t,
Gissele: is that sort of like, if I could just clarify, So in, in the people that teach kind of reality creation and manifestation, really talk about believing in the manifestation before you’re seeing, So they believe, you know, believing is seeing rather than seeing is believing.
Mm-hmm. . but some people say, Well that’s, that’s denial. You’re denying the current reality that you are experiencing. so I think that’s maybe where people, but I think from my perspective, people that are in denial really do believe what they’re seeing. They just don’t wanna believe it. [00:28:00] Whereas I think from the manifestation perspective, it’s more around truly believing wholeheartedly, that whatever is gonna happen is gonna happen regardless of the circumstances outside.
Mm-hmm. , what are your thoughts? Yeah, well
Avital: first I wanna, this is a great point, but first I wanna clarify also my. Perception in all honesty, is that there’s the mind’s belief and there’s the soul’s belief and the soul’s understanding and true intuition and, and the mind’s belief, right? Thinking something, believing something, thinking that it believes something that doesn’t end up happening, you know, in either one of those directions.
the mind is the thing that doesn’t necessarily completely control what’s actually going to happen in reality. Mm. So if the mind’s belief is different than the souls desire [00:29:00] mm-hmm. then that’s one of the times cuz there are times where people would say, I didn’t believe like this was going to happen and, you know, and whatnot.
and I, and the other thing I’m gonna say, I mean, I just, I feel like this whole world is our creation. And so in a sense we can just create it however we want. So we talk about that, having the belief, having the visualization, and that helps manifest things. I think for me personally, when, when I get an intuitive hit that something’s going to turn out a certain way.
Avital: I mean, how do I host for my first time a 250 person fashion show? Mm-hmm. . cause I felt the energy of it, you know, and I, I said, Well, what’s my target number? It’s 200 . My target number’s over 200. That’s an intuitive number, you know, And then I got a venue that could host 300. I was like, Oh, okay, well we can have up to 300 people.
do let a [00:30:00] few more in, you know, . Mm-hmm. . but. I really had just an intuition that that was going to manifest, at a hundred percent belief, but I think I had the hundred percent belief because it was also meant to manifest. So there’s, there’s kind of this also a ability to, to tune into what’s actually going to happen and that becomes your belief.
So what I also say for people is to work on honing your intuition skills, which meditation is also great for Yeah. And that will also tell you what to believe in. Yeah. If something is, is truly true, you don’t need to remind yourself constantly of it. Yeah. You just do cuz you’re excited about it. Mm-hmm.
you do, because you bring that experience to this moment. Mm-hmm. . But if, if it’s [00:31:00] true, you can relax and let it happen. Mm-hmm. .
Gissele: Yeah. From my experience, the times when I’ve been able to like tap into my intuition and, manifest successfully, it’s always been kind of a knowing. I wouldn’t say it was even a belief.
It was like a knowing. Like I knew there was no question. There was no doubt there was. And then there’s other times when you just try to force the manifestation. You’re like, Come on, you’re like a revving engine. It’s like, Come on, come on, come on. Yeah. I wanted to go and ask you, since you had talked about the difference between the soul and their mind, do you ever think it would be the soul’s purpose to pass away to, you know, because it goes to the concept, through the concept of death, right?
Mm-hmm. .
Avital: Absolutely. I actually think that when people do supposedly die of a disease that it’s actually an excuse to die. Because again, when I talked about reason to live, Hmm. we have dispositions, we have beliefs that we’ve programmed in mm-hmm. . And for most of us, [00:32:00] we think death is bad. Yeah. And most of us, you know, would agree.
We don’t really know what happens either. Mm-hmm. and, and there’s a lot of religious beliefs that have created a, you know, an idea concept of what happens. And, and so a lot of people choose that as their belief, but you didn’t personally experience it to, you know, to know for yourself. Like, how many of us truly have a memory.
Right. and, and then there’s people who feel they’ve come closer. People that feel, they truly have the memory and the connection. Right. I just strongly believe some things, they may be true, it may not. but there’s an unknown there. And, and so it’s, it’s all we know is what’s here. It’s in this life, and we know how wonderful it is to experience certain people in your life and how [00:33:00] much it sucks to stop experiencing them.
Yeah. There, there’s a, you know, or if somebody leaves kids behind, right? Like, there’s a lot of, of things that are in a sense, you know, that feel terrorizing about death or how somebody died. Was it painful? freak accidents, like quick accidents may be a different story than diseases that happen over time.
you know, just to say that, those may literally be like this shock or surprise to the system. but we use it as, as an excuse because we culturally don’t necessarily accept, that death is okay. You know, and this isn’t necessarily true, but this is, you know, my, my opinion or an idea for people to consider.
Avital: But I, I wanted to say this also. I mean, as a, as a yogi, there are stories that we have the control to just leave our bodies as well. you know, and sort of what, what keeps us in the body and what doesn’t. And, and what also sort of, there’s a state, right, that yogis can be in where they’re alive, that they’re also [00:34:00] not actually like functioning, you know, in daily life.
Like they’re just stuck in meditation for a long time. And again, I haven’t personally seen, you know, someone in that state right? To, to know is that true? But I believe in that potential. but here’s the other thing I like sharing. My grandmother called me a few months before her 97th birthday and she said, I’m going to die tomorrow.
Don’t cry for me. I’ve lived a very full complete life. Will you come to my funeral? There was nothing physically wrong with her. . She didn’t die the next day. She died two months later. So she didn’t have like a hundred percent control. Right. , But she knew she was leaving. Mm-hmm. , medically. There wasn’t a reason.
Did she die in her sleep?
I don’t know. I mean, [00:35:00] she, she kind of like, like her body was, it did start to degrade when she said that. But there was like, again, nothing, you know, medically, but I knew like her mind was still there. I mean, my family was still writing these genius jokes or just cute things. Like she was really, really cold and, and so they just kept finding whatever blankets they could to put on her and they’re like, Okay, we found everything possible.
And then she’s like, that there’s still hankies, you know, which is like I to keep her warm. So it was, it was just this funny joke. So I don’t know if she was, You know, I mean, she might, it might have seemed like she was going into sleep and then, you know, passed in that, in that moment. But I, I do know it happened
Gissele: pretty peaceful.
That might say she made a decision to crossover. Right. I know that there are some cultures that don’t perceive, death in the same way they, you know, and even like the Egyptian culture used to perceive it as a transition, into the afterlife or to another life, or a new beginning, another reality.
Mm-hmm. . Um, but death is always [00:36:00] so much harder on the people that are left behind because, like you said, we miss them. We want to be with them. We, it, it can feel really, really challenging. and, and maybe some of the people that passed away maybe did feel like they had something to hold onto. so it’s, it’s, yeah, it makes it hard for the people that are left behind.
but from my perspective, I believe that there is something beyond death, and I don’t think that the, the soul or spirit ever dies. but even if you do believe that, then there would be nothing but peace, right? Like even if nothing happens after you die. But peace is pretty good . So like, you know, so I
Avital: say do this fully while you’re here.
So when you end up on your deathbed, you’re like, Yeah, like my grandma. Like I did it completely 97. You know, she’s a few days from being 97, 97 years of fullness.
Gissele: And that’s it. That’s how I think it’s so important. It’s not just about healing, it’s about living to the [00:37:00] fullest and enjoying the journey.
Like enjoying the journey is something that I’m really like becoming more aware of. Like, I’m always trying to fast forward myself and you know, like, Oh, Even though, like I, I live a fantastic, miraculous life. but I’m always trying like, Oh, I can’t wait for that goal to come. Because you’re like, Oh, I should be doing something . but I, I wanna talk about, your, if you could just go back a little bit, I just wanna talk about the transition between you on your journey to healing and you coming to write the book.
How did you find people’s stories? And I was wondering if you could also share your favorite story as well, or one of your favorites. Yeah.
Avital: Yeah. I would be happy to. And you know, the reticular activating system, do you know that when you are going shopping for a new car and you decide, okay, , I want a red Porsche.
And then all of a sudden you notice all the red Porsches around you. Mm-hmm. . So here I am going, Oh my God, I [00:38:00] healed from, you know, an autoimmune disorder beyond what doctors explained was possible. Mm-hmm. . And all I know is that in the process of this, I was doing all of these natural healing techniques.
And then at the same time, I’m the sales and marketing director of a book publishing company for the yoga path that I was on for the Guru Par Mahan Yoon. And we compiled a set of his writings into a book that we called How to Achieve Glowing Health and Vitality. Coincidentally, that mapped the roadmap of it.
It followed the roadmap of the actions that I took for my healing. And as a sales and marketing director of the book publishing company, I would present the books to other people and I started giving talks on the book. So now you can see [00:39:00] that I’m, I’m tuning into not just my story, but to bring that opportunity to other people so my ears are peaked.
Mm-hmm. , every time that my spiritual teacher, Swami Cris, disciple, would tell a story of, of somebody healing beyond what was expected. Every time I was out and about somewhere and somebody sharing their story, it’s, Oh, oh, oh, wait, wait. There’s multiple of these stories going on. I need to put this in a book.
Mm-hmm. one story. It’s easy to say. There’s some fluke there. Many stories. There’s something else here we need to understand. Besides what we’re being told. So let me go find out. So it was making the decision, so obviously I already had a handful of people to ask, to interview cuz I already knew some of their stories.
some of, a couple of the stories were really old, so like those people already [00:40:00] passed on or, you know, somebody didn’t wanna be out in the limelight. So I didn’t get to to interview them, but I had a few people to start with. And then literally it was kind of like the Valentine story, the fashion show that I just hosted.
Avital: I just would tell everyone I talked to about it, which is how so many people also got involved. So everyone I talked to, I’m writing this book, you know, I’m looking for more people to interview and, and that, so that was just all of this word of mouth. And then at the same time I’m also studying about the health and healing.
And so I’m thinking, okay, who are some of these pros who I’m studying with? So let me reach out to them. what I will say and what I do love about Dr. Bernie Siegels, cuz a lot of the. Famous people who I wrote to were basically saying, I don’t have time for you. Mm-hmm. you know, or they wouldn’t even respond.
And he answers his own emails. Mm-hmm. ,
Gissele: like very
Avital: thoughtful. He, he didn’t need to see, you know, he just wanted to share. so I [00:41:00] just, you know, my heart goes out to, to that man also for, for him doing that. you know, and then I’m talking to somebody who’s helping publish other people’s books. I forget exactly which role in the publishing process she had.
and she’s like, Okay, well, two of my authors are also, you know, they’re, they’re both doctors and, and they had transformations. Like I, I said something very specific when I was looking for the Miracle Healing stories, but it had to be an established medical practitioner. Okay. Who, yeah, so there were a couple people who I interviewed, and it’s in the, actually in the book companion course I included some interviews mm-hmm.
Avital: that were phenomenal, but they didn’t fit the template. Mm-hmm. of being like a health and healing practitioner. but it’s, it’s very valuable. And it was more like of the spiritual perspective also that they gave. but so that was, so, it was very clear. Like you’re established medical practitioner.
It’s really clear online cuz I want a place for [00:42:00] people to fall into when they hear your story. I want you to feel credible that you’re sharing this story. And then you need to have a story where it’s like, the doctor said this and normally this is gonna be their prognosis. And something happened in between.
and then their prognosis changed. And then I had a story of somebody who did pass on because it was important to address death.
Avital: But also to address that healing isn’t just about living, it’s also about living in the best way while you’re living. Yeah. And, and so we wanted to address that, of the ability to make somebody’s life more comfortable and to extend their life and mm-hmm. to have the family feel very, Great. You know, gracious, like very grateful of what happened.
one of the stories that I just found really profound is Maureen Bells and she was into green design, into natural healing. [00:43:00] She loved plants, animals, maybe you can relate to that. You know, lots of people have plants, animals. She was a type A personality. Maybe some people listening. You know what that’s like, whether you’re one or you know, of people who are like that.
Avital: And what do we do as a Type A? We keep pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing. She actually brush shoulders with cancer and she’s a type A. So go, go, go, go, go. And then she’s in a wheelchair and she’s still pushing. And then she passed out. Her friend takes her to the hospital. She was diagnosed with like stage four non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Wow. Given six to eight weeks to live. Holy crap. They said We can do some chemo, maybe prolong your life, but that’s it. Mm-hmm. two months later as predicted, she’s 85 pounds [00:44:00] bedridden, unable to get up morphine patches, oxygen tubes, not eating, and they’re expecting her to die any moment her son comes to visit.
He remembers the strong single mom who raised him, who knew about natural healing. So as he’s saying goodbye to her, thinking that’s it, he also asks her, Why didn’t you fight? Why didn’t you fight? She’s kinda wondering, do I have a choice? Choice? It rings in her ears. She goes into what people call a near death experience, where she notices her body separate from her.
And in that [00:45:00] moment it’s like, ask your body, do you wanna come back in? You know? Or do you wanna go on to something else? Yeah. And the body’s like, Sure, let’s give it a try. Let’s give it another shot. . So one of the things was before that moment, she was having this dream where it looked like her body was spliting into two and walking down two different paths.
And when she woke up, it was back to one body, one path. Mm-hmm. . And she realized that one of those was her physical body and one of those was her soul we’re talking about what happens after we leave the body, You know, what’s the difference between the mind, the body, and the soul? What she said was she really felt like they’re soul mates.
Mm-hmm. , we’re always trying to find our soul mates from outside, but we already have it within ourselves. Yeah. And they’re different. Mm-hmm. , they’re different personalities, [00:46:00] different desires, different temperaments, different abilities to take lots of action. Mm-hmm. , great lesson for me. Sensitive body, extreme willpower for me.
Mm-hmm. , I have overrun my body many times. .
Gissele: Hmm. I, I love the fact that I, I believe that the body gives us messages when we need to slow down and stop, but we keep ignoring those messages and the messages get bigger and bigger until we listen. Yeah.
Avital: But it’s just, imagine like when you do have a, a partner and whether it’s business, romantic, whatever it might be, and, and you’re on a, a vacation, you know, and one of you wants to be like, Okay, let’s do one activity after the other, after the other.
And the other one’s like, I want a day of rest. I just wanna sit on the beach and do nothing. And then you create a compromise. . Mm-hmm. . That’s right. [00:47:00] That’s what you have to do with your body, is learn to listen to that. So she shared a meditation, which I share with people as well about how do we learn to listen to our body because as she was going through the healing, when she wakes up, it’s the first time that she didn’t feel pain in months.
Wow. It’s the first time that she felt hungry. but the big thing was, so in the, in the beginning of my book, Healing Happens. It’s like, okay, well here’s this person appeal from diabetes from getting this like 100% pure natural vegan diet and, and here’s all the risk factors of, of sugar, of meat and blah, blah, blah.
And then there’s Maureen Bell who they figured out that they would just put on a cooking show. And when, when she would get hungry, when something would salivate her, then her sister would go quickly make that food for her. And it, it fit into none of those categories. So she was also learning intuitively to tune in and that in different moments, our body is wanting different things, [00:48:00] that it doesn’t always follow this one template for all of us at all times.
but here’s something else really interesting, and this is also what really fascinates me about her story. She had one more round of chemo schedule. After, you know that experience and intuitive is just go, Oh, I don’t need it anymore. But also intuitively, she got a message. Go ahead and do it, and look up what’s actually in the drugs.
Avital: They prop her up on the bed, sit a laptop in front of her. She starts looking it up. The first one V Stream made from the Finka plant. Do you know what it is? Periwinkle? Oh, that was her favorite plant that she planted everywhere. She lived as an adult, so now she’s going into chemo like, Oh, my favorite plant.
Perrywinkle’s coming into my body. It’s coming into my body. And normally it would take about 10 hours for all of the drugs to get into [00:49:00] her body. This time it only took three. Normally her urine would turn blood red. This time it stayed. Its normal color. Mm. Her hair was growing back in, she was gaining weight and the nurses, they called the doctors and they said, Did you give her a placebo?
I mean, this is a possible, you know, like for her condition, they said, No, we cannot do that for her condition. This is the real chemo drug. And this is also what we go back to. Don’t listen to everything. Yeah. She was given six to eight weeks to live. Where now I think this was around like 2008, right? So we’re about 14 years later.
She came to visit my beach home in Oregon a couple years ago. Walked on the beach. It was fully healthy back to, you know, in a sense, maybe a more balanced version of her type A personality, but just creating a lot of things for other people. And, the chemo didn’t have to have the [00:50:00] negative side effects to the same effect Yeah.
That they did previously because when our relationship was different from it, it changed.
Gissele: Yeah. It’s so interesting that you mentioned that, you could eat a salad and it be such drudgery that you might as well be eating the hamburger. it’s so, it’s our relationship with it and how we perceive it, I believe that we are all part of source. And so all of these things that we have are source in itself. so there is no real good or bad, it’s just our perception of what we think are good and bad. . and so from that perspective, I think, your relationship with anything could be positive or negative.
the other thing is it reminds me of how powerful we are these stories demonstrate our true ability to be able to be in our authority, heal ourselves and choose for ourselves like she did to say, No, I don’t wanna go.
Gissele: Or, Yes, I, or, or yes, I do wanna go depending on what you choose.
Avital: Yep. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Gissele: And [00:51:00] so I’ve, I know that you also follow, I follow people like Dr. Joe, who I know who’s, his goal is to try to show that this isn’t. But these aren’t supposed to be perceived as miracles, right? Like this is within our capabilities, but we have, I guess, forgotten who we truly are.
That we are these very powerful beings, and that we have the ability to do that once we allow ourselves to address, our beliefs and our thoughts in our emotions, so when you got together and you got all these stories, was there like a common theme? I know you had mentioned two key things that you had found within healing.
Can you share a little bit some of the other ones as well.
Avital: yes. I said, Reason to live and don’t listen to everything. Mm-hmm. . And number three is do what you can do. Dr. Brooke Goldner was diagnosed with lupus at a young age. She was actually on chemo high school, and it healed her enough that she continued not to say I wanna be a doctor, [00:52:00] and made it through medical school fairly, because especially when you start, doing your residency, that’s tough.
And I don’t make different exceptions for people who have, you know, an autoimmune disorder. Mm-hmm. . so she even had like a mini, stroke during that time and shortly after that she met Thomas Tadlock and they fell in love so fast that after one month he asked her to marry him. Oh wow. Now Brooke is sitting there going, Well, gosh, I mean, in one month all we talk about is, What are your favorite books, movies,
She didn’t tell him about Lupus.
Gissele: Oh, okay. Yeah. Cause I mean, you don’t have enough time to really get to know each other. Sorry. She says
Avital: to him, You know, I have this thing called lupus, not expected to live long, can’t have kids, and my body’s going to deteriorate as I age, and I’m gonna have to be taken care of.[00:53:00]
He steps back for just one moment, and then he says, Short life with you is better than none at all. Oh,
Gissele: that’s pretty great.
Avital: She’s like, Oh my God. I only thought I’d ever wear a white coat as a doctor. I wanna wear a white dress. Mm-hmm. , I wanna look fabulous. Yeah. Vanity. He says you’ve come to the right person.
So he says, Well, you’ve come to the right person, I’ll put you on my workout plan. She goes, Okay, but I’m a vegetarian so I’m not eating meat.
Mm-hmm. He goes, Okay. And I think she wasn’t vegan before that, so he made her vegan. Mm-hmm. cuz he didn’t have, you know, like the dairy and the eggs is part of it. Mm-hmm. and the weddings. A few months later she did her routine lupus checkup. [00:54:00] No lupus. Wow. That was about 15 years ago. No lupus. She’s had two kids.
Gissele: Oh, that’s so great.
Avital: Yeah. What, what did she do? Well, she thought, Okay, I’ll be a doctor. I’ll do the best I can. She fell in love. She wanted to look great for her wedding. That was when the changes happened. She wanted to look great for her wedding and she’s going, I’m a, I’m a doctor and wait a minute, I’ll, The only change I made in my life was my nutrition.
Hmm. Cause they don’t actually, for general medical practitioners, they don’t actually dive that deep into nutrition. Mm-hmm. . So she started studying it more. Oh, there’s something here. And now she focuses her medical practice around nutrition. Mm-hmm. .
Gissele: Wow. That’s pretty impressive. Yeah. And it shows the power of love.
Right. The fact that you can, it’s, you know, the motivation is there, The reason to live is there. Right. And her reason for, I [00:55:00] called it to look
Avital: good. I called that chapter, Was it love or was it Kale? Yeah,
Gissele: I think it’s laugh, not the Kale. . Oh, that is a great story. So that’s number three.
Avital: Yeah, that’s number three.
You want number four? Yeah. Okay. Wait, I gotta take a sip of water before I said
Gissele: this one. Okay. Yeah. I ran out of water.
Avital: So I think sometimes also when we get diseases, we think like, Oh, what did I do wrong to cause this? But I don’t believe that it’s some divine retribution. You know, God saying, What did you do wrong?
And here’s your punishment. But it, there’s often a message behind that of how we can grow in life. And people change jobs. They move to a new city, they get out of a relationship. Mm-hmm. , all of a sudden they heal. Yeah. And for me, you know, [00:56:00] I learned so much about health and healing. I’m able to relate to a lot more people.
I’m able to create gifts to bring to people these teachings, these messages of how we can thrive more in life. All the other medical practitioners who I’ve mentioned, they have this gift of this wisdom that they learned that they bring out to other people and regift to other people. Mm-hmm. . So the last thing is, and you have to sing this , if I have to.
No, I do. Ok. But you reach your arms above you is if you’re singing to the heaven. Okay. And you sing. What is the gift?
Gissele: That’s what is, what is thinking. The gift. ,
Avital: what is the gift? I like this kind of silly thing, but yourself going into the emergency room and you are in pain, you don’t know exactly what’s wrong.
You’re not really sure if you’re [00:57:00] going to heal and you don’t know how long it’s gonna take till you’re seen. and how much worse you’re gonna get before then. And then you’re noticing everyone around you feeling the same way, thinking the same things. So you just feel worse and worse and worse while you’re sitting there in the chair.
What if you get into the waiting room, you reach your arms up above you, and you sing what is the gift? Now they, they might send you to the Loony Hospital instead , but you’re gonna feel better.
Gissele: Yeah, that’s that’s so true. and we can use that strategy for anything, for challenges that come up and issues.
because you know, like I’ve spoken to so many people that have talked to me about, when you shift from the, the why me or why is this happening to, what’s the gift? You start to open up to potentials, into possibilities that you wouldn’t have when you were stuck in the why me that victim consciousness.
Gissele: Right? Like the the why me,Cuz I don’t think the why ever gets you anywhere. [00:58:00] Whereas the what is the gift really does open you up to the learning, which really is, I think the purpose of the experience. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Yeah. That’s all.
Avital: Lovely. So we have reason to live. Don’t listen to everything you gotta say with attitude.
Yeah. Do what you can do. Sing what is the gift.
Gissele: Mm-hmm. .
Yeah. Oh, it’s so powerful. Thank you for sharing that. That’s wonderful. Yeah.
Avital: Yeah. Thank you for asking.
Gissele: Oh, yeah, . can you talk a little bit about where, love and compassion might fit into the healing stories from the, from the stories that you have, heard from as well as your own?
Hmm.
Avital: The thing that’s popping into my mind in terms of, of the stories for, and I’ll, I’ll say a point for myself also, but, Sam, Shelly, for some reason this is popping in my mind to answer this question, so we’ll see how it relates. but he had, bipolar, suicidal ms. So he [00:59:00] was on medicine his entire adult life.
And one day though, he just reads in a book like meditation equals inner Peace. He goes, Oh, I want that. And he just sits down for five minutes. No instruction in how to meditate, just sit there five minutes. That’s, that’s what started, it’s five minutes. You don’t have to push yourself so much. and he starts to relax and he keeps doing it.
And then he starts doing it longer. And then he realizes that all of the side effects of those diagnoses are in our head. And so he decides to create a different definition and then just everything starts healing months, and he gets off of his medicine and his body’s able to move and walk again. He, his mind becomes clear.
And so now he, he does this program, he calls it, head, head trash anonymous, or you can clear your head out. but [01:00:00] again, it goes back to what I was saying before about. Taking that time. And actually I’ll say this too, cause I don’t think he had any clearer techniques when he was sitting to meditate.
And I have all these wonderful techniques and, and what they do is, is they help you basically let go of the mind so that then you can relax with yourself afterwards. And I’ve found that if I convolute too much of my time with the techniques and not enough with just sitting with myself, I get frustrated.
Because in a way it’s like the techniques help you get to yourself, but if you spend all of your time in them, then you’re not really being with yourself. You’re being with this action that you’re doing. Yeah. So that time to have the ability to get to yourself. So even if you need something precessing to help prep before that.
but nothing else but just being with you. I remember when I lived at the yoga community and the ceremony that was, My most [01:01:00] treasured, It was the one I loved the most. Like I felt like it created the most impact on me. I just felt it the most, and I hit this point where one day I couldn’t even go to that.
Avital: Cause I was like, No, I have to just sit here with me, my hands on my heart, and that’s it. But also what I wanted to say about the way that I went about my path, in a way it helps that I believed the doctors that I was just stuck with this thing for life. Mm-hmm. , because I didn’t try to work against anything.
I tried to work with it. Mm-hmm. , I tried to flow with the disease and say, Well, how do I live in the best way possible? Instead of trying to manicure, here’s the result, you know, that that has to happen. And, and then falsely going for that or putting my mindset in, in this feeling of there’s something [01:02:00] wrong with what’s going on with me.
and it’s actually a lot of times when we use the word healing, it’s counterproductive. Mm-hmm. , because the thought behind it is there’s something wrong and that needs to change. Yeah. That is not a form of love. And what is healing love? Yeah. This man was wanting to commit suicide, and I think it was during the depression, and how am I gonna support my family?
Avital: And he’s like, Okay, I’m just gonna go dive into the ocean and commit suicide. And every time he tries to dive in, the ways would just toss him out and he’d get all bruised and he’d end up back on shore. And after a few of these attempts, He looks down at the sand and he sees this delicate shell in perfect condition, and he’s going go through all the waves and not get impacted.
And it’s way more easily breakable than I am. Yeah. He’s going, Oh, cuz it moves with the waves rather [01:03:00] than trying to move against them. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. And from there he went back home and changed his life around. Mm.
Gissele: What a beautiful story. I, I, yeah, I do believe that, you know, being more in touch with yourself, choosing to have your own authority over giving your authority away to other people to determine how your life turns out.
as well as, you know, not being in resistance, in, in prioritizing yourself really is an act of self. So thank you for sharing that story. Okay. Yeah, I was wondering, as we’re coming to the end, if you could share what you’re working on, what you wanna, what you want the audience to know, where to find you, if they’re interested in your services as well as in your book.
Avital: Yes, please. Okay. Well, so we’ll start with the simple, my book, Go to Healing Happens book.com if you want to learn about it. Here’s a little secret. You can get a chapter for free . Oh, nice. There’s a couple other, for those of
Gissele: you that didn’t hear you get, you get a chapter for free People ,
Avital: just, just go to Free Gift from Avital. [01:04:00] avitalmiller.mykajabi.com.
Free gift from Avital. Avital is spelled a V for victory. I t for talented a l. There’s a couple other gifts on there too. So people like gift. yeah, so you can check those out.
So it means whatever challenge is coming up, if you wanna break through it, the solution’s probably right there in the membership site
So it’s important that it’s created around the community and these types of people who really want massive growth and, and shift and, and the best in your lives are the people who I like to have fun with. Mm-hmm. . And, and that’s where I created what I call the Do drop community, which is basically like fun events almost every week for conscious people to come together.
You can go to my main website, avital miller.com. And there’s a calendar on there, so you’ll see what’s coming up.
Gissele: Wonderful. Thank you so much for being with us today, Avital. It was really, a great conversation. and thank you listeners for joining us for another [01:05:00] episode of the Love and Compassion Podcast. Thank you and have a wonderful day.