Episode 121 Heal, Reveal & Embody Your Soulful Self!: Interview with Dr. Shannon South

Chris McDonald: What do you know about your soul? Did you know that when you're not aligned with your soul, you can feel disconnected, feel angry, dissatisfied, and experience loss of joy or meaning. In today's episode, we open up discussion about what a soul is, ways you can feel more aligned, and how you can move towards self-healing.

Join me today on the Holistic Counseling Podcast. This is Holistic Counseling, the podcast for mental health therapists who want to deepen their knowledge of holistic modalities and build their practice with confidence. I'm your host, Chris McDonald, licensed therapist. I am so glad you're here for the journey, Ernie.

Welcome to today's episode of the Holistic Counseling Podcast. In this fast paced world, it's easy to forget that you are more than the you That gets lost in worry, stress, panic, confusion, or depression. You are so much more than the one who feels lack in love, self-love that overthinks or who longs for healthier relationships.

You are so much more than the you who gets lost in old trauma. Self sabotages with food, drinks or other people staying so busy that you don't even know yourself anymore. It's time to wake up each day feeling connected, inspired and beyond your stress patterns guided by your inner wisdom, love and joy.

It's time to connect you back into your power. Purpose and joy. It's time for your soul to shine. And today's guest, Dr. Shannon South, is here to talk to us about how to do this. She's an award-winning transpersonal therapist, bestselling author, a professional speaker and expert in the field of spirituality and healing trauma for over 20 years.

And this is her. Third time on the podcast. Welcome back Shannon.

Dr. Shannon South: Thank you. Chris. I love doing this work with you. We, you and I have such a heart for this and I'm. And

Chris McDonald: we are so aligned in so many ways. Yes, we are.

Dr. Shannon South: We really believe this makes this to be true, this healing.

Chris McDonald: Yeah. Can you share a little bit more about yourself and what you do?

Dr. Shannon South: Absolutely. I just got done teaching a class. I teach counselors and coaches how to help. Access a person's higher nature so they can reconnect to their soul, um, through a thing I call soul-based practice. And then I work with clients in my private practice, um, helping them overcome their survival patterns of trauma and anxiety and depression and abuse, and rewire those patterns so they literally can access their more soulful self, their divine nature, who they truly are more.

Because, um, it's all there according to spiritual psychology and my training, it's all already there. We just have to remove what's in the way of us accessing

Chris McDonald: that. And we're gonna dive right in and get deep here on the Holistic Counseling Podcast and talk about what is the word soul? What does that mean?

Dr. Shannon South: Oh my goodness. Just, it makes me just go, mm, I heard that. Yes. So according to my experience and just working in this field for so long is people see their soul in such different ways, but the common themes seem to be love, like our higher nature, unconditional love. Um, that, that part of us that's really luring us to grow.

That's pulling us up and out and beyond into possibility and the, almost like bees to a honey honeys to bee, you know, it's like this, this our natural essence of who we truly are that gets over clouded. You know, I use the, uh, image a lot, like life conditioning or life experiences just cover up the windshield of our car, right?

And so they, we can't access the soul. You know, one of my favorite quotes by Maya Angelo is, When things just got hard, my soul crawled up behind my heart and went to sleep. And so our job, um, if we so choose it, is reawakening into our soulful self, our grandest, highest nature. You know, Abraham Maslow called that yourself, actualized self.

And some people call that your self-realized self. Some people call it that enlightenment, whatever you wanna call it. Your hotness. Actualized. Yeah, your actualized self. That really lures you into healing and fullness and wholeness and love and trust. You know, the qualities of the soul that, um, I find people.

Embody as they move into, you know, their healing. I may be moving too fast on this. I apologize if I'm jumping right into another question you had for me. It's, um, but the qualities I see as the soulful self are unconditional love. They are that trust, the peace, the strength. You know, we forget about strength.

Um, I think that's one that I often. When we have trauma and we feel fractured or wounded or shameful or anxious, we don't feel strong necessarily. And so embodying a sense of strong, like I can show up and handle what's coming at me. I can handle life as it is. I am more than this experience. Like that takes strength.

To say something like that. Oh, for sure.

Chris McDonald: Cause I, I know you mentioned, I was thinking about the windshield, how you said like if it's dirty, like the soul's not shining, and is it just all these ne life experiences and some of these traumas and negative things that happen to us, that kind of clouds us from shining and absolutely

Dr. Shannon South: embodying conditioning, um, survival patterns.

You know, I think about, think about a family member of mine that I know well and he's struggling and, you know, I think you know about how he's had some really tough shame induced situations that, um, have created a lot of se a way he, of seeing himself that is not really who he is. But he believes himself to be a certain way that is not supportive, self-supportive, and so as he reconnects and heals, you know what I would do with him if he came in to see me, I would help him reconnect to that more soulful self so he can see himself as a creative, loving, strong, amazing being, as opposed to, you know, a very lost, scared, anxious.

Teenager.

Chris McDonald: Yeah. And I think that's hard with family members that we can't do the work for them and we see them suffering and we know all this stuff and know some ways that could, I was just saying that to my husband today. I'm like, this is my dad and he's struggling right now. And, but I can't do it for him.

No, I know

Dr. Shannon South: I did refer him to someone who I'd trained, so that was helpful. But it's hard. Yeah. People can dive in there and be like, Hey, it's right here, but when they can't feel sense or see it, it's

Chris McDonald: painful. Or believing the stories they tell themselves, which create those grooves in the brain once they say it over and over and over.

And sometimes we can jump in to be like, Hey, you know, this is what I noticed. But sometimes that doesn't help.

Dr. Shannon South: True. You know, thing I wanna say about the soul. It's a rejuvenating quality within us, so it's like it's ever present and rejuvenating, meaning that when we're able to quiet the static access, the more loving self, then it, there's a natural healing that occurs when that loving self is present to the painful aspects of our conditioning, our experience that our system knows how to soften.

And move into a more expanded nature. Cause when we're in survival, we're in constriction and we're in that looping, like you talked about, right? That looping of like anxiety patterns or self-hatred or perfectionism or over pushing or whatever that we do. We all do it right? Like one of my favorites used to be codependency.

Like I would just throw myself into other people and like, I didn't even know who I was or what I, where my head was or my toes were, and developing a sense of myself where I can feel that inner rhythm and what's best and right most of the time where I'm supposed to put my energy versus feeling so lost and reactive to the external players in my life.

So that's more of a soul led. Feeling and the soulful rhythm versus just reacting like we would as a child. Cuz that's how we survive as children. We react to what's happening around us. Right. And yeah, we have to. It's brilliant that way. Absolutely. We develop, we learn to really have an inner guided rhythm, which is.

It feels different. It feels we have less anxiety with that kind of rhythm. We have less depression. We have a trauma can heal. It's beautiful. Yeah,

Chris McDonald: it is. And I was wondering, and listeners might be wondering this as well, so do you have to be religious to believe in a soul?

Dr. Shannon South: Absolutely not. In fact, religion sometimes gets in the way.

No, I mean, I love religion. I have a minor in world religions from Chapel Hill, but I, it's a beautiful thing and you know, it's beautiful. Love stories. However, religion can be abusive just as any other kind of conditioning, any kind of nurturing parent can be, right? Can be abusive as well. A parent that's well-meaning can still be harmful and not meaning to.

So we all are passing down our stuff. However, religion tends to get into story, whereas the soul is alive and it's experiential, meaning that it's here. So it's something that we access in the moment to moment in the simplicity of life versus it having to be some complex theory. About how we do this thing, right?

The soul is like in the all in the bliss and the joy or the peace of the moment versus, or the wisdom like this. Aha. Or this creativity, you know? I had this one kid that said, I don't have a wise self or a soulful self. I don't have one. You know that, and that's not an uncommon experience. Yeah. And I said, what's, how do you play your music?

He played the guitar. I said, how do you do that? I mean, he said, well, the ideas just drop in. And I'm like, oh, interesting. So what do you do with that? He's like, well, I follow the inspiration. I'm like, well, there's your soulful self giving you that song. Like inspired in spirit, right? You're inspired, you create the song.

There's your creative, soulful self working with you right there. And he's like, oh my goodness. So that shifted for him, his ability to see himself and then we access that to help him with his healing.

Chris McDonald: Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah. So what about hire self? Is this part of this or is that something different?

You know,

Dr. Shannon South: I, they did a study in sp, my spiritual psychology experience, what do you like to call this aspect of the self and higher self actually won. Mm-hmm. It actually won over soulful self. So, um, you know, people call it the super conscious self, the soulful self, the higher self, higher nature. The wise self.

Wise self. Yeah. Higher power even in the recovery community. So, you know, and I'm, I wanna say one more thing about the religion question. You asked me, you know, I can have a, I had a Baptist minister one time come in and literally the soulful self will come to you with your belief system intact. It's pretty amazing like that if you do have a strong religious belief experience.

And literally when we called in his wisest self, his higher nature, he felt like Jesus appeared to him. Wow. So, you know, it's a beautiful thing to have a religion that

Chris McDonald: support healing. Yeah. As part of, so that spiritual side and, and I think it was you that I learned from when you talked to clients about this in session that, you know, whatever you wanna call it.

So kind of giving that option, do you believe that it could be your wise mind or higher self, soul self and kind of where, meeting them where they are, if, if therapists listening, wanna use this?

Dr. Shannon South: Totally. I had a client that felt like her grandmother was her highest self. And then a dog. One person had their dog.

Yeah. You know, so it's like what's the most loving experience they've had and supportive and wise and powerful. It may be the love of their animal.

Chris McDonald: Yeah. So I'm just thinking like what is most therapeutic for them, most healing and using that.

Dr. Shannon South: We want them to have a corrective experience. Right? So if they can't access a person who's been that loving and supportive.

Yeah, and they can, it may be someone that's passed on. It may be someone, a spiritual figure. It may be just their inner essence of creativity and how that shows up for them. It may be nature. So, It's a beautiful thing to let them have that experience.

Chris McDonald: So I'm just thinking about, for something I've done recently that connects with this too, is like that compassionate image and connecting with, and I don't know if this is connecting spiritually at to a point to like, who is someone that you most connect with that is most loving, nurturing, or could be a wise person and some people have been connecting like with someone on the other side or, or someone that you know, mother Teresa or, of

Dr. Shannon South: course I love that it's.

Like, it's like who represents these aspects that are within you that want developing and or that can support the development of you being kinder to you if Mother Teresa does that for you. Cause who, how, how couldn't she? I think they did a study on Mother Teresa even looking at pictures of her loving.

Caring for babies, like people's IGA levels went up, their immune system got stronger by looking at her being so cool. Loving. I know. So if that pops in for you as a supporter or an inner self sense of self, is just that your, your imagination, which is your friend Oro, right. But your imagination, trying to help you bring this beautiful energy, lack of a better

Chris McDonald: word.

I was gonna say that. Isn't that almost like helping them connect to that energy? Yes.

Dr. Shannon South: Yes. Of that unconditional

Chris McDonald: love. Cause I think you said the word embody. So is it helping them embody that

Dr. Shannon South: too? And Yes they do. It's crazy like that. Cause when we call in these new patterns, the body will create resistance.

If there's a, uh, they, they've proven that in the subconscious mind, the cells of the body hold this emotion. To these negative experiences, what we can call 'em negative. They're not really negative, they're just experiences where we disconnect from our soul, so to speak. Or it feels that way. And so our body will like show resistance, like our heart will hurt or like we'll have like tightness in the body or constriction in the throat if we can't speak up.

Something like that. Right? Or pain in the back when we don't feel supported. I mean, there's some themes to these things. Stomach, you know, we don't have a sense of ourself. Our stomach more anxious will hurt when we go into the body. We track. Letting in the new soulful self rewiring that side of the system, the body will show us if there's fear and resistance to that by feeling tight, constricted, shut down.

And as we open up the gates and the wiring and untangle that old trauma and open up the new pattern, the body will start to settle and we'll see a somatic shift. So you're literally embodying the peace into your heart. Or the love into your stomach, self-love or the trust into your arms, let's say. And you can feel people have it, different sensations and different feelings in their body, but we use the body as a wisdom keeper to help us know, is this really getting in and embodying or is it, are we still battling ourselves?

And disconnecting from it in in survival mode just to fight flight, freeze fawn or flop? Yes, I

Chris McDonald: know. Which, which one? Close. So what did, so what did you say with the body as a wisdom keeper? Was that right? I've not heard that

Dr. Shannon South: before. That is beautiful because it holds all these memories that want unfreezing un, they want healing.

When we open up the right channels in the healing, I don't not like the word right. When we open up the channels to the soulful self and heal the old, the body will respond. Accordingly and we can embody,

Chris McDonald: respond. That's why I think it's so essential to have the body in therapy. It's, it's so wise. It's such a healing modality.

Dr. Shannon South: Yes. Oh, it's so wise. And you know, we can use the mind, the body, the emotions, all spirit that Yes. And our imagery and Right. And the energy body, the spirit. Yeah. Exactly. So it's all there help.

Chris McDonald: Cause I know I learned from you just using the imagery too and how that can really

Dr. Shannon South: shift things big time. Our imagination is a key to helping us heal.

It really is part of the super conscious, soulful self.

Chris McDonald:  Are you a holistic counselor looking to build your confidence with holistic counseling and earn c e U credits at the same time? Look no further than my online holistic training series now, offering CEUs. My training series is designed specifically for you, including startup strategies for using yoga and sessions, ethical and legal considerations and self-care boundaries.

For therapists. You get a script you can use right away to use yoga. And learn when and how to introduce yoga practices into sessions. My ethics course will help you dive deep into ethical practices and how to protect yourself and your license. You can take one, two, or three in the series. Currently they're 50 each or 120 for all three.

If you purchase before May 25th, you'll get lifetime access, and I'm doing a holistic webinar in June that you get to attend free on May 25th. The price is jumping up, so grab yours as soon as possible. Go to www.hcptrainingseries.com.

Yeah. So I know you mentioned the protective personality or subconscious survival traps, and I know we discussed, we don't have to get into all those, but can you say some, what are some of the traits of that protective personality?

Dr. Shannon South: I've been talking a lot this week about.

Fawning. I don't know why, but like when we are people pleasing and not really speaking what we know to be true and we do that to survive, right? Like women do it all the time, especially and men do too. But like I won't really tell you how I feel or what I need. I'll just tell you what I think you wanna hear or feel or sense to survive.

And it's probably kept us. People alive for years, right? By doing this or not getting hurt, or not getting judged or not getting criticized or whatever. So fawning is one way. We do it right, and then freezing and just avoiding something. That's another way. We just completely avoid dealing with something altogether, or we want, we're almost in denial, right?

You know, that's a, another survival for, and it's, it keeps us alive. It's a survival mechanism, thank goodness. Right. Some things we are too afraid to go into until we have the right supports. Um, and then of course there's perfectionism over pushing on and on and on. There's

Chris McDonald: so many. You mentioned flop too.

I just recently saw that on social media. I was like, what is that?

Dr. Shannon South: I know. We don't see that one that often. Can you share that?

Chris McDonald: It's good. I think so. I know.

Dr. Shannon South: What is that? No, it just like when your body just shuts down. Shuts down. Okay. Like you do. You just, you go down. Right. Um, and it, it protects you. I'm assuming that if I get chased by a grizzly and I'm, I freak out too much, I would flop.

I mean, I'm assuming that would happen, but it, it might keep me alive. That's true. Um, so we do so many things to survive, right. We, um, overeat, we overdrink, we. Over technology. We under develop ourselves and sell ourselves short. We overthink

Chris McDonald: the busyness. I know you mentioned with that, what you had written that's just so busy that you don't even tune in.

I, I get that a lot from clients that they're so, and I'll be like, well, tell me how you've been feeling. They're like, what feeling? Who knows?

Dr. Shannon South: Right? I'm so busy. I don't know. It's a beautiful thing. As we heal, we become more mindful, and then our present moments become so much more rich versus just remote controlling.

Through the day, which we often do when we are just not paying attention or in our survival brain, we're just literally slugging through the day and we've all done it. Yeah. And then we're like, wait, what happened? And it doesn't mean those timeless days. Sometimes we're just in a timeless day where it seems like it goes really fast.

That's okay too. That can be the flow state. So some of that can be very positive. That can be like a flow state of our soul as we get into a creative thing that we like and we're in the present moment and we're enjoying ourselves. And then the day's over. And that's okay. That's not a negative experience.

But I think what we're talking about more is this sense of like pushing and grinding and struggle, um, as opposed to creativity and flow and ease. That's, that's a diff They're different qualities, one's survival oriented, and one is more inspired and soulful oriented. Yeah. So

Chris McDonald: I know you mentioned the soulful, why is the self, we talked a little bit about that.

Is there anything else that you wanted to share

Dr. Shannon South: about that? Years ago I read Thomas Moore's, you know, book Care of the Soul. Remember that one years ago? Yeah. Gosh. As we allow in the more soulful self through practices, right? I know you, you believe in all this. You do these things. Meditation, yoga, journaling, visualization, deeper inner counselor work like I use with clients, healing the old patterns as the soulful self moves into the home of your body.

It has a radiance to it. There's a radiance, almost like the soul shine. Right? That's why I created the program, cuz there's this shine to it and it has energy to it. And it doesn't mean you have to be an extroverted person, I don't mean that, you know, I'm more just naturally extroverted. There could be an inner.

You know, these more introverted people have an energetic shine. You know, they just have this inner energy that's moving them that's very peaceful and soulful and strong and healing. So I think the soulful self just feels like an inner joy or an inner sense of, uh, presence That's very, very powerful. Um, as we keep, as we practice tuning into it and allowing it to run the show, as opposed to the survival patterns being in the front seat of our car running the show.

Chris McDonald: Yeah, so it sounds like when all that can be aligned with a mind, body, spirit, then we just feel more connected. That's the word I feel overall, I, I'm guessing more settled, like you said in the beginning too. And

Dr. Shannon South: alignment. That's the word. You got it. Cause it literally, they show, I've seen, I've seen some yoga teachers with diagrams of this.

Literally, they show that misalignment, right? When things get out of alignment, the energy is running. In a very unpredictable, out of aligned way. And when we are out of our own way, so to speak, and more in alignment with that soulful self, there is a natural alignment and flow of the mind, body, spirit lined up.

What does yoga mean? Union, right? Yes. Yep. You're in with your soulful self at the it moments. At a time or hours at a time. You know, how cool is

Chris McDonald: that? So how would people know if they're getting out of alignment?

Dr. Shannon South: So, you know, I think know, knowing your survival patterns, you know when people know like, oh my gosh, I, when I get in survival mode, I am more critical on myself.

And so then my brain is getting outta balance already. So my brain, my heart, my body. So what do I need to do to soften that? Maybe I need to go play more. Maybe I need to go out in the sun. Maybe I need to go do some stretching. Maybe there's a deeper trauma in there that I haven't gotten to that creates that reaction to be so inwardly critical.

So finding out what that is, or just doing things that open the door, the window to your soulful self and care for that aspect of you. And it may not be logical. I think that's what we have to do is step out of our logical brain. When we're in these places, it may be like, well, I've got these deadlines and I've got this and I've got that.

And sometimes, yeah, we just choose to slog through and get it done, right?

Chris McDonald: Yes,

Dr. Shannon South: it's, but if we can be as mindful as possible and as full and trust that. If we, as we get our needs met and allow that part to guide us or allow those parts of more loving, trusting aspects of self to guide, it works out. It works

Chris McDonald: out. So said trust.

Dr. Shannon South: Yes. Trust is a, a quality of the soulful self and not trust, like a spiritual bypass in denial, head in the sand trust, but trust of like you.

You'll know it in your body. Your body will tell you if you're out of alignment. You ask me this question, so I'll be more specific. Your body will tell you. You're stinking thinking will tell you. You get in stinking thinking, your emotions will help you. They will tell you. And you know, we know about halt, hungry, angry, lonely, tired.

Your physiology will tell you. I need sleep, I need food, whatever, whatever, whatever I need. Love. Yeah. Cause

Chris McDonald: I'm guessing that the sooner that you can really notice these signs too, the better. Cause I know just like people we see in therapy wait a long time before they ever get help. And so yeah, I would imagine to be able to stay in alignment it, that awareness is gonna help you stay there and, and get back to that if, if you're struggling.

Dr. Shannon South: Well you said that. Well, cuz I just was, I was just supervising a group of people doing this process, the inter counselor and one of 'em was working with a young person like 22 and they hadn't gotten fully ingrained in this pattern of not speaking up yet, but they felt it like they couldn't speak their truth.

And so she did one session with her to help her embody more of its the courage and the confidence to speak the truth and. It was fine. But this older woman who had been really neglecting parts of herself for so long, it took several ways in to help heal that pattern. Because of the survival needs were so strong, it had been practiced for so long.

So it doesn't mean age per. Say, I mean, you know, some kids come in with a lot more trauma and by the time they're 18, they're really, really, really loaded with this stuff. But yeah, getting on this stuff sooner, right. And when we notice it, as opposed to letting it get way out of hand and being sensitive to ourselves in a, in a healthy way, you know?

And I don't mean taking your temperature all the time. I mean, sometimes we misinterpret that. We're like, we're always taking our emotional temperature, we're always taking our mental temperature. No, I don't mean that. I'm paying notice in a larger context. Your energetics, right? Yeah. Like what's happening here with your energy.

Chris McDonald: At least staying connected. Cuz I have a lot of clients who are so in their heads Yes. That they're so overthinking that they forget everything from the neck down. So I, I purposely will have them practice check-ins cuz body, mind, spear and give them a little checklist.

Dr. Shannon South: No, that's wonderful. That's exactly it.

Getting them relo in with their whole self. It really is about the whole self. We have to. The more the whole selves on board, the easier things are gonna be. We have access to all of ourselves to help us through this crazy life.

Chris McDonald: So I know you mentioned self-healing too, so can you talk more about that?

Dr. Shannon South: Yeah, self-healing. Gosh. Well, what we just said, the whole self is there, and the more we embody our soulful self, we can access, we have more inner resources, so our inner environment's richer to help us navigate this outer environment that's coming at us all the time.

So we're kind of like a self-cleaning oven. We do have a capacity to, to heal ourselves, but the, the environments that we're in, Externally and internally matter in that area. You know, they've done a lot of studies as even if you heal these trauma patterns and you put yourself back in an abusive relationship again, which you probably wouldn't do as quickly cause of the trauma, you've healed it, right?

So you're probably, the chances you're getting in another one are very, very, very low. But if you were to get in another situation that was so toxic like that again, you could really revert back, right? To really, really negative things. So creating habits and choices and lifestyles that support your inner work and protecting it so that you're self healing, you keep that healing, you would take care of it like you would a child, like your inner child, and tend to it and love yourself.

You know, without a relationship with our soulful self. We tend to focus too much on external things to get our needs met, and then doesn't mean we don't need external things. We, we, we still have that as a need, but we get too much, they get too much attention. So as we have more connected to our inner soulful self, we have that to always fall back on.

Chris McDonald: Yeah. And that's a gift to really kind of nurturing yourself and Yes. Taking that time. And I think just being patient with this process too. With our society, everything is a quick fix. It's not a quick

Dr. Shannon South: fix. Right? No, no. You know, there are faster ways than others as, as we've talked about before on here, like that's why I use the inner counselor so much.

I didn't create the process, but it is faster. It's an energy psychology process, and it's just faster than talk therapy, let's say. Right? Um, versus other processes that you might get that might take more long term, but either way, just committing to some way of healing. Yeah. And staying tuned to that in a loving way and listening to the self and taking our self growth seriously in a healthy way.

Right. Not like over serious, but like making it a top priority cuz self neglects one of the number one reasons for depression. So how is that? Absolutely. So when we neglect parts of the self that want our expression or our healing or our attention and honoring and loving so they can heal. We don't have as much energy.

We feel shut down and we get back into those survival patterns. That's another sign of a survival pattern, right? Feeling shut down and unlive.

Chris McDonald: So what led you to create that Soul Shine program?

Dr. Shannon South: This is what we're talking about, you know, just knowing that there's a way to feel more alive and there's a way to feel more aligned and restored and really tap into that.

Rhythm moving through us. It's already there. So what I do is I give people like weekly experiential exercises where they can line up mind, body, spirit and line up with their soulful self and reflect on that. And so it's like a self-healing journey. And it doesn't take the place of therapy. It's not meant to take the place of therapy.

It's meant to be in addition to, or an in between thing. But it's a wonderful way to. Line up with the soulful self and practice those skills and discover and create a relationship with that so that you take the things we can't always see. You know, I like to describe it this way. We have our mind, we have our fear, and we have our knowing.

And the knowing is the most soulful self. You know, the mind says a lot of things. Chatty, chatty, chatty, chatty. It doesn't mean it's bad or good, just says a lot. And the fear says plenty, doesn't it? Oh, yeah. But the knowing is really that soulful self, that knowing all shall be well, that knowing, you know, we've, we are okay.

Be patient with ourselves and slow down. It's okay. It's safe to slow down. You are strong. You are whole. You are healthy despite the circumstances. You are connected. You're always connected. You're never really alone. You're always connected. They're those kind of knowings. Yeah. You know, that's the soulful self.

Um, and when we do the intercos process, like I, I peop the soulful self will speak to the person. Like it will tell them what they need to hear. And it's like, I would've never thought of that in a million years. I'm like, oh, that's, look at them. Their soulful self is just like pushing it out right too. I'm like, yay, self.

And we learned to trust that and more. Mm. That process to know what it feels like. Yeah. We've been to know what the soulful self actually feels like. It feels very different than the survival self, but you're both important.

Chris McDonald: Right. So what, where can people learn more about the Soul Shine program? Yeah,

Dr. Shannon South: so on my website, Dr.

Shannon south.com, they're under events. I believe I have it right at the top there, and you can look at the monthly membership. And then for your folks, we have a, a code for them. Oh, excellent. It says Heal, h e a l. So if they sign up, it will, um, support the holistic podcast and help them in their healing, so excellent.

That's gonna be super cool. I would love for your folks to, you know, and then also I'll be able to tell who signed up from your. Program and I'll be happy to send them some additional support materials as well. Nice. Yeah. To help them with their Oh, I appreciate that reconnecting, right? And therapist. Sure.

That yes, yes, yes, yes. Happy to do that

Chris McDonald: for you. And that'll be all in the show notes too, in case you're driving and can't remember the code. So it'll be on the website holistic counseling podcast.com. But thank you so much for coming back once again. So I think you made the record of the most times on the podcast.

Yes, so

Dr. Shannon South: honor. Yay. This is such a treat for being with you. I love it.

Chris McDonald: Yes. And that wraps up another episode of the Holistic Counseling Podcast. If you wanna join me and other holistic therapists who are as excited about deepening their knowledge of holistic modalities as you are, come on over and join my Facebook group, the Holistic Counseling and Self-Care Group.

In this group, you can ask those burning questions about how to integrate your modality and discussions and any other ways you need support. The link for the group is in the show notes as well. And again, this is Chris McDonald sending each one of you much light in love. Until next time, take care. The information in this podcast is for general educational purposes only, and is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher, or the guest are giving legal, financial counseling, or any other kind of professional advice.

If you need a professional, please find the right one for you.