Squats & Séances
What happens when physical strength meets spiritual awakening?
Squats & Séances dives headfirst into this fascinating intersection, offering a fresh perspective on the mind-body-spirit connection that goes beyond conventional wisdom.
Meet Venessa – CrossFit trainer, nutritionist, former competitive bodybuilder, and self-described "burgeoning intuitive" who received some divine guidance during meditation to share her self-healing discovery journey with others. After years of building expertise in fitness and nutrition while simultaneously battling anxiety and processing trauma, she discovered that true wellness requires balance across all three foundational pillars: mind, body, and spirit.
This podcast serves as both personal roadmap and community resource, drawing from Venessa's extensive background in fitness training, medical knowledge, and spiritual exploration. Expect deep dives into functional fitness, nutrition, neuroplasticity, trauma healing, energy work, intuition, and spiritual connection – all approached with an authentically gritty perspective that values truth over comfort.
What separates Squats & Seances from other wellness podcasts is its commitment to integration rather than separation. You won't find pure spirituality divorced from physical reality, nor physical training devoid of mental and spiritual dimensions. Instead, you'll discover how these aspects complement one another to create a fully present, engaged, and optimized life.
Whether you're a fitness enthusiast curious about spiritual growth, a spiritual seeker looking to strengthen your physical foundation, or simply someone wondering if there's more to life than what meets the eye, this podcast offers valuable insights without forcing any particular belief system. Take what resonates, leave what doesn't, and join us on this journey of discovery. Share your stories, ask your questions, and become part of a community dedicated to living well in all dimensions.
Squats & Séances
Naked Under the Stars: Finding Wisdom in Darkness
Two women wade into the inky darkness of the Pacific Ocean, stripped bare under a moonless sky. It's a ritual they've established—where anxiety transforms into calm, where something is left behind in the sea, and something new is taken back to shore. This is where our conversation with Pam Rivers begins.
Pam, a seasoned therapist and transformation guide with over 35 years of experience, returns to share profound insights about our connection to water, ancestral healing, and the energetic exchange she calls "osmosis." The ocean ritual they describe isn't just about cold water therapy or thrill-seeking—it's about honoring something ancient within us, a recognition of our primordial connection to water that transcends rational understanding.
As the conversation deepens, Pam guides us through her understanding of "the collective"—that vast ocean of ancestral wisdom and experience we can access, where we follow particular "streams" throughout our existence. She explains how we carry our family's trauma in our DNA, but also their gifts, their resilience, and their light. With remarkable clarity, she details her recent spiritual pilgrimage to Ireland, where she discovered unexpected connections to her heritage that left her "destabilized" for weeks afterward. Her stories of gates clanging shut behind her at an Irish church, encounters with devout Catholics, and revelations about historical atrocities weave together a profound narrative about how we reckon with the past.
Perhaps most refreshing is Pam's rejection of spiritual bypassing—the idea that being "evolved" means forgiving everything. "Sometimes there's a cost to being a horrible human," she states, challenging listeners to consider that accountability has a place in spiritual growth. She describes how certain soul contracts—energetic agreements we make with others across lifetimes—can be recognized and completed, while others can be consciously severed.
For anyone seeking to understand their own ancestral connections, soul contracts, or relationship with spiritual practices, this conversation offers both practical insights and mystical possibilities. Listen now to discover how slowing down, tuning in, and honoring ancient wisdom might transform your understanding of yourself and your place in the greater tapestry of existence.
https://pamriverstransformation.substack.com/
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Welcome to episode 10 of Squats and Seances. Today's guest is Pam Rivers. You may remember her from episode 2, mycelium Mind that was released in July. In case you missed that one, you should definitely go back and listen. It was mind-opening. For those just meeting Pam for the first time, allow me to introduce her. She is a seasoned therapist, transformation guide and psychedelic facilitator, blending over 35 years of therapeutic experience with plant medicine. Pam specializes in guiding people through the process of learning to tune into themselves and listen, allowing the individual to step into their power, beauty and wisdom, aligning their inner world with their outer world. Welcome back, pam. Hey there, lisa. Hi, I am thrilled to have you back on Squats and Seances for another chat. There is so much that I am excited to talk about today, so let's get right into it. How are you and what have you been up to since we last chatted in July?
Speaker 2:Today, this moment, I am really good, very excited about this. It's, it's my life is wild that's the best way to describe it and things just keep unfolding and coming, coming towards me and me, stepping into them. This week, as you know, has been, it's been a strange week for me and I'm feeling really good today, which is good because I've been I've been a little kind of under the weather. Good reasons yeah, I'm good, I'm good, Okay.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's so good to see your face, as always. I recently had the pleasure of meeting up with Pam and she was in town, and we have a special little tradition that we do whenever we're in town.
Speaker 1:We live in separate states, for any listeners that have been following since the beginning. Interestingly enough, our tradition has always aligned with the new moon, which is that synchronicity. Right Once darkness has settled over Santa Cruz, we walk down to the ocean, we strip down naked and we take a plunge. It's inky blackness, under the stars, no moon. I am always super anxious and very excited beforehand, and then surprisingly calm and anchored afterwards. This experience has become something that's pretty special to me and it's something that I absolutely won't do without Pam. It's almost a spiritual cleansing ritual I've come to discover. So I bring something that's on my heart and I leave it in the sea.
Speaker 1:Pam and I have often talked of feeling a special pull towards the mythical creatures of mermaids, and for me, I think my fascination is in the fantasy of a creature that is so connected to Mother Earth, aligned with the power of the ocean, aligned with the aquatic wildlife living in a way that is physically impossible for oxygen requiring mammal that does not exist in the sea. So for me, the ocean is this powerful, magical, energetic body. I think for thousands of years humans have been obsessed with it. I guess it's natural that when I do this, this is always when I feel like this connection is strongest, so that's sharing what it means to me. Pam, I would love for you to speak on what does this tradition mean for you specifically?
Speaker 2:such connection there and I know you do too. I know you and I share that and the mermaid connection and it's the sea is. It always draws me, it always pulls me, it has always been powerful for me, even when I was a little girl, and I love to go skinny dipping in the ocean at night by myself with Vanessa Pam is badass.
Speaker 1:Okay, she will do this on her own. No one around strange countries. But I don't want to get ahead of myself. We're going to talk about that.
Speaker 2:I love it, I love it and I and it does. It does something to us and and like you and I, it's so funny I start to get giggly now a little bit. Like it brings out it brings something very young out in us and, like you and I, it's so funny I start to get giggly now a little bit. Like it brings out, it brings something very young out in us and, like you know, the first time, okay, you're like we were dying laughing.
Speaker 2:And then you do you want to share the story, or do you want me to tell it? Vanessa, you tell it. I want to hear your story, okay.
Speaker 1:And then I'll pipe in. I was so excited to do this the first time and so nervous, for a number of reasons. Okay, it's dark. Somehow I think I'm going to get swept out to see some after dark. Shark is going to eat me, or I don't know. Hypothermia, I mean a million reasons. Oh, I'm going to get arrested because it's obviously not legal what we're doing.
Speaker 1:I had just met Pam maybe even less than 24 hours, yeah and she was like let's do this. I surprised myself by saying yes, and then I thought, oh shit, I have to actually do this. So we get down there and we strip down. Pam's amazing, she's already sourced out the perfect place. I got the spot, she's got the spot. I mean, this woman knows it, she's done this before. I feel very safe, despite my rising anxiety. I'm like I can do this. I can do this. This is going to be really good, vanessa, get outside of your comfort zone and we do it, and we go in the first time and I'm like but shorebreakers.
Speaker 2:remember the shorebreakers? It was a little bit hard to get in. We had to time it because the waves were not small. Yeah, and they were the shorebreakers.
Speaker 1:Yes, there was definitely a significant shorebreak that day. So we go in the first time and the water's cold, but it's not as cold as I thought it would be. It washes over me Like February, wasn't it April? I think April, okay, yeah, it was April, so, but still that's legit springtime here. And then we go in a second time and I'm starting to feel a little bit more of like powerful, like yeah, I got this, I'm feeling better. Then Pam looks at me and she's like we need to go in a third time. But I was like, yeah, and I charged, I ran my naked ass into the water and I jumped, but not like, not like jumped up, like I. I jumped like diving arms out, and it was just as the wave, the short break pulled back and I belly flopped completely naked on my stomach. Then the wave broke over me. That's really not funny, but it was so funny. It kind of took my breath away. And then I came up and I was like I feel so alive right now. It's so amazing.
Speaker 2:But then we were dying laughing, stop laughing.
Speaker 1:10 minutes of laughing and any chance we had of being inconspicuous was gone, like we were hysterically laughing. It was so good, it felt really good, it was cathartic. It really was. I couldn't not do it again after that. Then I was like okay, now.
Speaker 2:I have to do this every time. Yeah, it's, you know, I, I find it. It's what you said at the beginning. You know, bringing whatever, bringing things to the sea, and there's a merge that happens and there's some, you know, the nighttime, naked man is there's something, something to that, and I just find that there's that things are pulled from me but also given to me and I the word osmosis is so strong for me right now. I feel like that's happening a lot in my life and that's part of what I feel happens those nights in the sea. There's an osmosis happening and you know, in our last swim I just felt so charged, and I always do. I just get there's this charge, I get charged with. I don't know what that is. It feeds something in me and it brings something out in me and it does, it strengthens, strengthens us somehow, and there's I, there's, there's so much that happens that we don't even know what's happening.
Speaker 1:I love that osmosis turn. Yeah, I think that is really poignant. That's what it feels like it's an exchange?
Speaker 2:Yes, there's an exchange.
Speaker 1:There's literally there is like on a cellular level there's osmosis happening with the salinity of the water and our bodies.
Speaker 2:But that energetic or that spiritual side, I feel like the sea, I feel like the ocean, like what the ocean kind of gets from me, from you, from us, is fun. I feel like there's this like playfulness that happens with the ocean. I feel like the sea likes that we, that I do this, it's almost like it does. It feels osmosis. It's like you silly girls out swimming naked and my oh, my god, this is so much fun. Oh god, the guys on the top, I mean on the pier, there are a bunch of guys fishing on the pier. They have got themselves a show tonight. We don't know what they could have seen, but there's a playfulness about it too.
Speaker 2:That my, my experience and my kind of woo-woo side. I feel like that the ocean likes this. This is, this is an honoring in ways as well. It's about me and it's about what I'm getting. It's about you and about what you're getting, what we're giving in terms of, like, letting go of stuff. But I feel like what the ocean gets is some love and playfulness and that side of things which just feels good and right to me, where else have you done this?
Speaker 1:If you want to disclose, you don't have to share.
Speaker 2:How does location change the experience for you? Yes, and when I travel to the Santa Cruz area seems like frequently lately, so always there, and I've got the spot there that we go to and I don't go by myself, I love to. That's part of my own when I'm down there, what I do. And also, growing up I, in my time with my friends, we skinny dipped a lot, so this has been a thing I've done really my whole life. But yeah, I've done a lot of skinny dipping and a lot of swimming at night naked. So it's. I can't even tell you where I've done it all the way, but I know what you're getting to.
Speaker 2:And so my, my other, my recent kind of bigger swim was in Ireland, in Ireland, and that one was, yeah, it was different, it was different, it was. It actually didn't feel as playful. Now that I'm, you know, riffing on the playful thing, it didn't feel as playful. It felt. I felt very, very quiet and heavy, but not in a bad way or how we think of heavy. It was a good heavy. It was like a strong heavy. It was like just something substantial. It's hard to explain. It felt heavy and solid and real and kind of important and substantial somehow substantial, that word about it but the there weren't a lot of waves, it was a quieter, it was like a cove kind of thing and it was outside of Dingle and I had I was staying in a old farmhouse on the Dingle Peninsula and so it was the beach near the house that I was staying at and I'd gone to the beach during the day to kind of scope it out.
Speaker 2:Right, just because I got, I wanted to hit my spot and I had to walk a little bit out. It was kind of shallow, it was very calm, the water was very calm and yeah it was, and I stayed out for a while. I stayed out in the sea for a little bit too. I feel like it wasn't an in and out thing. I stayed out and kind of swam around for was the water very cold compared to this.
Speaker 2:you know me and you we freeze. I agree it wasn't. It was not as cold as you would think. In Ireland the water was surprisingly warmer. I, I was cold, but I was okay and I just expect that. But then you know how it is you get out and you're actually warmer. There's something about it. You just get really warm. So I went out for a bit and then came back in and then I went out again. I feel like I always go in at least twice. There's something for me about the first is one thing and then the second or after that third or whatever something else, and so I went in twice, and the first time I was in there for a bit, a little bit yeah it was amazing, and it was.
Speaker 2:it was really windy out, which was very interesting too. It's very interesting.
Speaker 1:Do you know what phase of the moon it was when you went out?
Speaker 2:Oh, I will look it up. I can go back on my calendar, that's true.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And see what it was.
Speaker 1:That's the neat thing about lunar calendars.
Speaker 1:You could look at any time in the history and know what the phase of the moon was. I ask that because the new moon is that time of intention setting, looking ahead, and then full moon is release. Yeah, so that I set my intention to going into the next new moon cycle. Yeah, I want to go back to mermaids. I touched on what this mythical creature represents for me. Is there anything more that it represents for you? Or or are there other creatures, mythical or non-mythical, that have this kind of mystical pull for you? And given your work, especially as a transformation guide, how might that come into play?
Speaker 2:Lots of ways we could go with this question. I love it. So I feel like the mermaid is probably my one and only, and I, when I decided to come into this work, I was actually at my niece's wedding outside of Cancun, mexico, and I was swimming, I was snorkeling in the ocean with my sister and we were both having this moment of like, being so grateful that we grew up in Southern California, when we did in our beach life, and we both, like, we looked at each other and we're like, we're mermaids. We said this to each other and I've always been set, but it's something in that moment and also on that trip, I decided I was going to leave my work and come into this. So it was a very big. There's a lot happening for me on that trip just in terms of like, my decision and everything, and and so there was. So there's something in that. And then we were like diving down in the water and you know all the fish and being mermaids. And here we are in our sixties, right, playing mermaid girls in the ocean is so much fun, yeah, so, and I always joke when people say what's your heritage?
Speaker 2:And I always joke when people say what's your heritage? I'm like, I'm Irish, I'm a mutt, basically, and I'm 50% mermaid. I just love it. I like I just say that I feel is that I can see in the dark and that, for me, diving deep with people and staying there, that's what I do, that's what I love. I've always loved that. I've always, like, loved diving in, going deep and staying there and so, without even like before, that whole, all that imagery and what I do came to me like the mermaid has been the constant, but I think of mermaids and what that's what they, it I feel like all of it is powerful, even the heavier, darker side of things that people may think are bad or whatever.
Speaker 2:I think that all of that is very powerful. But yeah, the scene in the dark, the staying down there, the deep dive and my work, that's what I can it?
Speaker 1:What a beautiful connection to make.
Speaker 2:All the language that I use in my work really aligns with the same concept. And you know, and I think of, like the women throughout time that have swam in the new moon naked, you know, a thousand years ago, like we're not. This isn't new. And even in my, in my twenties it's interesting what comes to mind I had one of my closest friends who lives down there. We were at this main healing arts festival that we used to go to and we were skinny dipping at night and she, we did this whole ceremony for her where we unbaptized her. She resented being baptized as an infant, when she couldn't say she wanted to be baptized. So we did this whole thing and I think this group of women were naked. We're like in this lake and the moon, I mean it was just, it was fantastic. So this stuff is always, it's always been. Yeah, yes, we unbaptized her.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. I've never heard of that before, but I think that might have a track with people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we walked her backwards out of the water. We were just talking about it. I kind of forgot about it. And when I was down there. I remembered that and I can't remember. I think we like painted our bodies. I don't remember what it was, but I remember her walking backwards out of the water. That was like undoing. That was the symbolization.
Speaker 1:Wow. Where I think I want to head next is that ancestral component. For as long as people have come together, in particular women, our cycles align with the phases of the moon. The moon is aligned with feminine energy. I know that we didn't get a chance to speak on this in the initial episode, but a lot of the work that you do is ancestral or collective work. This seems like a really good segue to open that door and explore. What does this mean? Somebody might be like I don't even know what is ancestral work. What is collective work?
Speaker 2:It's kind of inevitable, I think, for most people, and the way that it's, the way that it comes through me now I it's almost like I can't help it and there was a time in my life where I abandoned all. I didn't believe in any of that. I rejected so much of what I had believed in, and it was a good, good chunk of years. And then coming back into it and through this work, specifically through this work so, and really like the last five years, I feel like I have been. I don't have a choice about the ancestral connection, the collective. It comes through me now and most of my clients and their deep dive journeys and even not deep dive have that element, the mushrooms access. That I believe. But it's almost like I can't ignore it and I feel you know, I've told you this I feel like an instrument. I'm thinking the client.
Speaker 2:I had this last weekend and this happens every time. It's I channel stuff. My client will be in the medicine and stuff is just like coming through me and I write it down or if I'm called to action, I'll do the things that I'm asked to do or told to do, and it's and I call in dead people before my work. I've got this the client I had this weekend. This was all very new to him. This was not, this is not the world he comes from. And I've got my little bottles of different bottles of ashes of different people and so I pull them out and I can see he's like okay like oh, what did I sign up for?
Speaker 2:People here, okay, and calling it in, you know, actually connecting with that and realizing, you know, and I think of one of my, one of my clients, we are, them or us, that collective, the connections are there if we want to feel it and allow it and cultivate it. And so some of that I feel like, as you open to it, it just starts to come Backing up a little bit for someone that this terminology may be foreign to them.
Speaker 1:When you say collective, could you give an outline of what that means to you?
Speaker 2:So this is kind of a conglomeration of some of the various definitions. For me it's everyone, everything that's gone before us and what I've come to in this work and where I am in my life developmentally and what I've experienced. I feel like that collective.
Speaker 2:Within that collective we are in different streams almost of types Like I have been this type before and I know it, like I feel this connection really to powerful women and persecuted women, outspoken women, rule breakers, disruptors that's been and helpers that's been the stream that I have been tumbling through. And so the collective, it's everybody, it's all of it and it's all that's come before us and what's in front of us too. It's also the future.
Speaker 1:I'm getting a really cool visual I want to share. We were just talking about the power of the ocean. I'm envisioning the collective is this huge oceanic body of energy and then it comes down through deltas into rivers, from rivers into streams, from streams into springs. It's all coming from the same source and during certain lifetimes, we distribute through different streams. Do you feel that there's crossing of streams in a lifetime?
Speaker 2:I think that there can be, but I think mostly we are a type, Mostly we are a type, and I say that I got that really clearly when I was in Ireland. I was there a few months ago and I got that really clearly there. My client this last weekend had the most phenomenal experience that still he's still making sense of it. But part of it is this it's like eternity, right, what's the definition of eternity? And it's that. It's that energy, it's that collective, it's like when you're not here doing the life, where are you? It's eternity, so it's all. It's all mushed together and even through that there are specific, I feel, like connections and drop-down points for people.
Speaker 1:Thank you, I think that's really helpful, especially for someone that this kind of talk is hard for them to wrap their heads around. If it's new, right, yeah, how does that connect to ancestral work? So we know we're all from this shared space to ancestral work? So we know we're all from the shared space. And when you call in ancestors I've also heard some people refer to it as spirit team guides, angels, ascended masters. I've heard it called a million different things, but the meaning is all inherently the same. Yeah, it's energy of those that have gone before and their knowledge.
Speaker 2:Yeah, energy and wisdom. So, again, my experience has shown me and told me that there's a few things right. There's one of the arenas is our bloodline, what I carry in my blood and my bones and in my body, right, what our DNA. That's one track, that's our bloodline, ancestry, our grandparents, great-grandparents, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All of that, where that is and where that is.
Speaker 2:And then there's the everything, the collective, and we carry our family's trauma, right, we carry that definitely right, we all know about this right, so we carry that, and so that's where we, for me, like, I think I have this ridiculous fear of rodents it's okay, I feel that way about spiders yeah, and and and some of it's like what the heck?
Speaker 2:or you know people that have these random fears where there wasn't a specific trauma that would have caused such a thing, and or these aptitude like certain things where you're like where does that, how can this even be? So some of that I feel like comes through our bloodline, comes through DNA and it does. We know that. But then I the hard stuff and the good stuff, that isn't just their bloodline but they can. It comes through them through and out. And especially now, I think that there are people are realizing that they are that kind of an instrument where and I thinking of a another client where that clearly happened in her journey where this trauma was coming through her, but it was not her trauma- and it was a bloodline that she processed so much, and I feel some of that too.
Speaker 2:I feel like some of what I know, that what some of the stuff that's processed through me and because of the work that I was drawn to it's not mine, it is not my experience, and yet it comes through and out and it's so important that's happening right. We are clearing as we can, clearing and letting go of things so that we can move forward, maybe as civilized beings right.
Speaker 1:Unrelated, but also related. I was working with an individual who was doing a reading for me. We were doing an ancestral reading, and that was what this individual shared was that here is this ancestral trauma, for lack of a better word and you are the generation. You have something you can do about it. You can do something about it right now. It was very specific, even what the action was I had to take, but that it could stop. Yeah, it could stop. It doesn't have to continue anymore. That's powerful stuff.
Speaker 2:Especially as women. It's like now especially, and then the divine masculine, to like the men that are in the know and that are, you know, they get it. There are men that get it, especially that kind of thing, that assignment that you have around being one of those people that does that, yes, yes, and the flip side to that is it's the trauma, but it's also the lightness and the fun and the goodness too, and that's where things like swimming naked in the ocean at night, that kind of thing we tend to focus on the trauma side of everything, but the other side is absolutely as important.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the rituals, the traditions. What comes to mind for me is oration, the storytelling. We know that Indigenous people, that's how they've passed down everything their ancestry, their family lineage, but also their traditions. Oration and storytelling was so vitally important to us as a species, and maintaining rituals and the sanctity of that it gets lost. Think of today. It's hard to get my two teenagers, my toddler, myself and my husband to sit down and have dinner all together, and that's an incredibly important ritual for us.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. That's a really good point, Vanessa, because I think one of the things that we can do for ourselves and the world is to slow down. Yeah, it's the slow, slow it all down, feel the pause and just slow down, slow down and quiet down.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so powerful. Yes, learning to sit in that quiet space by yourself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or even not even by yourself. Slow down with your family. Yeah, just like slow down, slow down.
Speaker 1:I recently had a Sunday like that where I found myself okay with being home, not working. I wasn't creating content, I wasn't coaching. I said it's okay, I'm going to stay home, we're just going to be home, vlog around, I felt so refreshed.
Speaker 2:It's something, and I feel like it's more key than we realize and it links to my we talked a little bit about this but how I traveled in Ireland when I was there in May and it was a new experience to me because I have slow, I can, I and my place in my life. I get to slow down much more easily than you do. My children are out of the, they're grown. I live alone, I can do whatever I want. So you know I, someday I'll get there. I was, I was in mom land. So I know, yeah, right, slow down, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about Ireland. I have been dying for you to share because I know on a personal level how pivotal it was. It was like a pivotal spiritual pilgrimage for you. Transformational, yes.
Speaker 2:What's on your heart about it? The thing that I did from the second I landed was I didn't plan, I just followed. And so I was by myself, and I mean I had the places I was going to stay. I knew where I was going to be, because I'm not going to be scampering around to find a place to sleep at night, not doing that. So I knew where I was staying. I had rented. When I first got there, I was in Dublin. I didn't rent a car then, but when I left Dublin rented a car and went to different places. But the way that I moved through that trip and moved through my days was following whatever lead came to me. I didn't plan I would leave and just go and see where I went, and see who I met, and that in itself was so powerful to not have an agenda.
Speaker 1:To back up even before that. So listeners understand why did you go to Ireland understand why did you go to Ireland?
Speaker 2:Because I well, I wanted to go, but I did my DNA and I found out that I was 48% Irish and I knew I was Irish but I didn't know I was that much Irish. And so there was a piece, this genealogy, there was the ancestral piece that I was going for, and so it was really interesting what happened to me around that and the soul contract stuff and my family lineage and so much around Catholicism that came to me so much. So here's the thing because I did not have an agenda, I really didn't have an agenda. I knew it was going to be big, but I was like take me and leave me. Like we do in journey, work is surrender. If there's a I surrendered, I'm like tell me, take me, I'm, I'm following your lead, where do you want me to go? And that's what I would do.
Speaker 2:So what I got while I was there, like a mushroom journey, was not what I. I wasn't even trying to think of what I was going to get, but I could not have planned. I could not have planned. I could not have anticipated what happened to have happened, because I went in literally with nothing, no, nothing, and so it was. It was enormous and, as you know, when I came back I was pretty destabilized. For a while. I had a hard time getting my feet back under me. It was. There was so much to integrate. Right back to this language of this work. Mushrooms are one way, but, man, we can have so many other types of journeys that are potent and powerful. It was one of the most powerful experiences in my life that my gosh let's talk more about it.
Speaker 1:No plans, no itinerary just showed up. What were you met with?
Speaker 2:Oh, my goodness, so many things. There were themes and some of the gosh I don't know it's so, it's so big. So one of the things that was unexpected I'll go with that was my relationship with Catholicism, which I didn't even think I had stuff there Really did not even, didn't even, hasn't really been a thing. My paternal line, my father's bloodline, is the Irish. He's the Irish side and he was. He was a in, in theory, pretty devout catholic um. He did go to mass, not all the time, but he carried it right. My parents were divorced. He never remarried because catholics don't do that. I think that that right. So he, he was definitely a catholic um, and I've always been drawn to religious art. Super strong pull through all religious art, but do love some crucifixes. I liked that and I would.
Speaker 2:And I, when I travel, you know, and there's a beautiful church, I love to go in and see beautiful churches and just sit there and take it all in. I always had this pull and I would go to mass here and there, and so it was just. This little sprinkling of this is lovely and I liked the ritual of it. I liked the ritual when I would go to mass. I also poo-pooed it. I was like this is cute and I love it too, bar Catholicism. So don't you think I'm buying a hook line and sinker? There's a little bit of a yeah, I get you, but I can still appreciate the beauty in the ritual.
Speaker 2:So while I was there the first day that I took off, I got there early in the morning and couldn't get into my. They held my luggage and I just wandered. I just took off and I ended up at this church and I explored around it and then I left and then I found that I was lost and I wasn't worried about being lost, but I really didn't know where I was. And I you got a phone, you can get back to the hotel, like. But I was.
Speaker 2:I was into getting lost, like I just wanted to wander and then just not know where I was. So here I am, lost again. I'm like God, I'm lost. But I didn't take out my phone and I just kept going. I ended up back at church again. So, yeah, so that was interesting. And then you, I've written some of this that night. I think it was that night. It might have been the next night, but that night no, it was that night, it was the day I got there I had. I got into my hotel, dump my stuff and then I was going to go out and get some dinner and I was trying to stay up till 8pm before I went to sleep Because jet lag and all of that.
Speaker 2:Yeah up till eight, it'll be better. So I'm like, okay, eat food, wander around. So I ate food wandering around. There's this I'm in this area that's not very busy, it was pretty quiet and it was probably 637 at night and there's this gorgeous Motherary statue on the back side of this church, and so it's the back side of a church and kind of like a little parking area. I don't know if it maybe used to be where a little convent was or something, but some officey looking things. So I go back into this area to look at this beautiful mother mary statue and I'm sitting there in my looking at this and these gates slam shut behind massive, like 14 foot iron, and the sound was like a clank, yeah, and I whip around and I'm like, oh shit. And so I'm like I'm going to have to calm down. Okay, how am I going to? How am I going to do like, oh my God, there's nobody around.
Speaker 1:They must've been on a timer or something.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, I had this familiar feeling. That's what man I'm like. Oh, oh okay.
Speaker 1:Okay, in that moment you felt that, yeah, I was like Recognized that feeling, yeah, I was like what the hell.
Speaker 2:Okay, I wasn't scared, it was more like shit. It was more like I fell for it. That's what it was like. God damn it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So go over there to see if there's some kind of a way to open the. There's no way to open this gate. There was like nothing, there's no handle, and I. So I'm thinking, jesus, I'm glad, I'm strong and I'll get over it, like I will get over this thing, do it. But I'm looking around there's no cars, no pit, nobody's walking around like I. And then I look to the little office areas and I see a light on in one of the offices and so I go over there, I'm like, and I go to knock on the door and as soon as I put my hand up to knock I haven't even knocked yet the door opens and this man is right there and we had the strangest exchange I'm, I'm locked in and I don't want to have to climb that. And he's like oh no, you don't want to do that. And we had. It was just the weirdest exchange. It was like was that all you said to each other?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was just like this. There was no pleasantries like hi, I'm visiting, I'm from the United States. No, no, no, it was literally just.
Speaker 2:It States. It was literally just. It was just like this weird thing and I scared the shit. When he opened the door, he jumped. Yeah, he was like leaving or something. I don't know what he was doing. He didn't have anything with him, but I scared him. When he opened the door, he didn't expect to see me and I didn't. I was like oh, and he was like, ah, I got the gates shut, I'm locked in here and I don't want to. You know, I don't want to. He's like no, you don't want to do that. So, anyhow, we walk. We didn't talk, we had very few words and he goes over, and there was a keypad which I hadn't seen, which I wouldn't know the coding here. So he punches in a key thing Gates open. I leave, but the way that that experience sat with me was so interesting and it felt so familiar and it felt like it felt like something.
Speaker 1:Do you think it felt like ancestral something or collective something?
Speaker 2:It felt like I knew this and it felt connected to Catholicism and me being trapped and me escaping somehow or getting out of something. And because I wasn't scared, I had this like I had more of a damn it. I got tricked. I felt like I had let my guard down a little bit and got tricked. That's what it felt like to me, and so, as my time in Ireland continued, I had more things around Catholicism happen and more interactions and meetings with people.
Speaker 2:So that church that I had come to the next day I I went back to it and I met this woman there. We ended up talking for hours very the most devout Catholic I've ever experienced. But she had come to that church to pray for this woman named Margaret Ball who was buried in this church, and I and I so resonated with Margaret Ball too, who was definitely a persecuted woman who had an underground railroad for priests. Basically, when England came in, they were rounding up the priests and killing them, sending them into slavery, and she was helping priests escape and her son, who was rising in power, didn't like what she was doing, so he imprisoned her, imprisoned his mother.
Speaker 1:Were they practicing the same Catholicism as modern day?
Speaker 2:Right, that was the older Catholicism. Yeah, there was more spirituality, there was more mysticism back then, and right. So this was semi what we know of Catholicism now, but definitely an older version. But this guy, margaret Ball's son, imprisoned her for four years in a Dublin castle and she was in this tiny cell in a basement. She had really, really advanced arthritis and the woman that I met, maria, that the Catholic that I ended up talking to for two hours, she told me that Margaret was, that her son had had her dragged through Dublin behind a horse and that's how she was killed that her son. And then, but I googled it and what Google said was that she just died of starvation in cell. But the point is her son.
Speaker 1:Yeah, still imprisoned by her son.
Speaker 2:To his mother. So that's when the stream of how people are through time came about. That man and some connections I made to other people of that stream, that was when it really came into me about that part. But throughout my time in Ireland I met devout Catholics and completely rejected Catholicism and heard just from the from people, what Catholicism has done, which we all know. We know a lot of it, and so one of the things, one of the current events that happened right when I was there towards the end, there's this woman who was a kind of a hobby historian, hobbyist historian, and she had come, come to this conclusion, this idea that there were some people missing about little under 800 babies and children, that they had birth certificates but no death certificates and they were wondering what happened to this whole group of infants and children that were born at a home for unwed mothers. So she was sleuthing and now it's a big thing in the media there. So what was the time period? This was in the 30s 1930s.
Speaker 2:Okay, it was the 30s, 30s ors or 40s, maybe a little bit later somewhere in there. And this home for unwed mothers run by the church, they, they disposed of almost 800 infants and children into a septic, decommissioned septic system. So now they're unburying all of this 800 and, and you know, in the name of the church. But then what I get? So this is where I go with that. So the church, yes, bad, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all of that. But what I come from that is no, it's the individual.
Speaker 2:We can blame the church, we can say the Catholic church, and it is. It's an institution and we can say all these institutions are bad. But it really comes down to the individual. And I thought if I were one of those nuns at that home for unwed mothers, I would not have killed any babies or children. If they would have told me to. I would have told them to go fuck themselves. You can kill me if that's what it's going to be. We can say bad church, bad whatever, military, bad this, but it comes down to the individuals.
Speaker 2:Individual accountability, yeah, and those different streams that people are in, that's right, and some people don't have the strength to be like, oh hell, no, I'm not doing that, and we see that today.
Speaker 1:We do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, how can people be doing what they're doing? Their fallible orders? Oh, come now. You do not get to get off that easily no and that was in there too.
Speaker 1:It's like, yes, catholic church, blah, blah, blah, but it's like these people that were running that home yeah, what I'm seeing come up again and again is that you were faced with these heavy realities of how some people are Yep and they don't get a pass for choosing to be that way. We talked previously about soul contracts. How does this concept play into soul contracts? Again, if you're someone that this language is very new to Pam, how would you describe what a soul contract is?
Speaker 2:Again my interpretation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, your interpretation.
Speaker 2:So it's good to like look at them and then pick what resonates for you, but for me it is. It's exactly that. It's like the people or whatever the beings, that, the energies that you have some repetition with throughout time and family right, I think of that with my family, and one of the things that happened in terms of soul contracts for me there was this, or institutions I felt severing with Catholicism. That happened very clearly. I don't know that I'll ever step foot in a Catholic church again. This is what I came to.
Speaker 1:It's almost like an energy contract.
Speaker 2:It is, it can be, yeah, it's an energy contract, but it's like, yeah, maybe, but it's also. I also think that at some point when you have a at least for me, this is me I have a realization. I had this knowing about some contracts that I've had going for a really long time, that I was like, oh I see, I see what that was about. What do I need to do to finish my side of this? Yeah, what needs to happen for me to finish my side of this?
Speaker 2:I would like to be, I'd like to finish this, and I felt like a lot of that happened for me in Ireland and even with Catholicism as a whole for me. I feel severed there, I feel cut, I feel done. I didn't even know I had that much there. The amount of experiences connected to Catholicism I had there and the people that I met was just wild and I felt felt. This is an interesting thing that I felt almost like which is very interesting word, so warning I almost felt revenge, which is not something I have experienced really in my life. I'd never really have felt revenge about things.
Speaker 1:What did you feel it towards?
Speaker 2:I felt it kind of in general about, well, about Catholicism and about some of and these streams of terrible people, and not that, not that I had to act on anything, but to experience that feeling was really interesting. And this thing about being a woman is a Margaret ball, the one that was imprisoned by her son.
Speaker 2:I felt something for her man, I sat next to her grave for a really long time, this woman, maria, that I met she prayed to her regularly, and the power that I felt with Maria, this live woman now, who she and I, we recognized each other. She and I recognized each other when we saw each other, and so there was something with Margaret Ball in there, so that I felt not closure there but opening.
Speaker 1:That's a great distinction to make. It's not the soul contracts or something closing. It can also be something opening. Yeah, like my definition, one that resonated with me was individuals and their energy, that you have something to learn from each other and you just keep crossing energetic paths, soul paths, until that that lesson, whatever that particular theme is or themes are, are finally closed.
Speaker 2:Or and this is what I got to Vanessa or until, like for me, I, I'm seeing things I'm like I don't want this anymore, I'm done. Yeah, and that's. That was new for me, because there's some I'm like I am, I don't want this anymore. So if there's something else I need to do you better, tell me real quick, because I don't want that Like and I don't want the ties to Catholicism that I ended up having that I didn't even know I had. I don't want those anymore. I want to be done with that. And the revenge piece in there I actually think is healthy, because we're so afraid of that, I was so afraid of that. I don't like that word.
Speaker 1:Even though it identifies like what revenge should feel like there was no action, no Right, it was your awareness of your truth, your reality that was enough to create this feeling of I know what's up now.
Speaker 2:I know what's up now and there's a price to pay for being horrible. That's where the revenge comes into. We think that we have to evolve into this. All love thing, right when? Just rise above it, be forgiving, no, no. We think that to be good people and to be spiritually evolved, that we need to be forgiving. You know one love rise up.
Speaker 1:Love and light don't hold anything. Yeah, and that you can like.
Speaker 2:no, sometimes there's a cost to being a horrible human. There needs to be a price. You need some accountability, more than accountability. We don't forget some of those things and even like the people that killed those babies and children in Ireland 800 infants and children and dumped them in a sewer and hid them. No, they don't get, it's okay. They don't get forgiveness for that.
Speaker 1:Coming back from this trip and all of this. There was so much intensity, so much intensity and it took a long time to let everything settle. I know we had many conversations following and you're not there yet. The snow globe is still shooken up a little bit. Eventually it settles and I can tell energetically when we speak, when we've had conversations more recently, that it's like okay, it's back at baseline, the dust is settled, the snow globe is not shook up anymore. How do you feel different now?
Speaker 2:I learned so much. I feel like I understand, you know, even like soul contracts and the streams of existence, and there I feel I felt what I got was a lot of closure about some things, which was interesting, didn't set out for that and I feel like my view is wider. And I feel like my view is wider and I feel like my capacity is more and what's happening in my work with my clients is bigger. It's bigger and some of it's a little I need, I'm having to shift the frequency of what I do and so I'm heading into a break time. I'm going to need to take significant chunks of time where I'm not doing deep dive work because that osmosis, like it is, it's so much.
Speaker 1:That's from dialing up the intensity of this channeling and these interactions and the ancestors and the energy you're pulling in from a collective Everything just feels more amplified. It's almost like you cleared a bunch of debris. If it was glass that was all fogged over and dirty layer of scum from years and years. It's all wiped and now the radiance, the power is so palpable that it makes sense that when you would be working with a client and exchanging, taking on theirs and giving them some of you, that you would probably need to do that less frequently so that you can recover after each session, and my clients are having bigger experiences too, which is interesting.
Speaker 2:That is that they didn't before, but I feel like there's a progression that's happened with me and it's definitely coming into the container that we're creating for this work. And, yeah, it it's something, and and I yeah, and then I'm leaving in two weeks to go back.
Speaker 1:So you have another trip plans. I'm going to round out this conversation by talking about that. Can you just maybe tell me and the listeners where are you going, what are you doing?
Speaker 2:What do you?
Speaker 1:think is going to happen.
Speaker 2:Oh, my God, I have no idea what's going to happen. I feel I told you this earlier this week. I feel like I had a client last weekend and now I'm in my preparation phase for this trip and I needed to go back to Ireland. I needed to go back again now and I'm going to a whole different area. So while I was there, my last name used to be McCarthy that's my father's, okay, and I met this and I and so, and my dna thing our, my family was from the sligo area, which is in the north northwest coast, that chunk up there, and when I was up there, I met this guy named thomas mccarthy and he was fishing on a bridge and we ended up having this great conversation. He's like you got to go to cork, that's where the mccarthy's are. He's like you got to go to Cork, that's where the McCarthy's are. He's like every third grade.
Speaker 2:So, anyhow, that that this is part of why I'm going. There was this guy, thomas. So I feel like I am now turning towards this trip and opening to again. I'm going to do what I did last time and just go and I'm going to a different area, and then there's a guy that I'm going to do what I did last time and just go and I'm going to a different area. And then there's a guy that I'm trying to connect with that has a Celtic shamanism school there.
Speaker 2:So when I was there last time, I had a reading with this guy up in Sligo. Oh, I just got goosebumps, pam. It's like you've got to meet this man, so he's really hard to catch. So I don't know if it will happen. So, anyhow, I've got that guy I want to meet and then this two general areas I'm going to, but I'm going for a month, not in Ireland. The whole time I'm going to be in Ireland, then Greece, and then I'm going back to Morocco, which is another place that I am super drawn to. I've been there before. Very powerful for me there too. So I'm going to be gone for a month this time, wow, and I'm going to write and paint.
Speaker 1:Yes, for all listeners. If you don't know, pam has a Substack account and she publishes a lot of her written word there. It will absolutely give you pause, make you think, go check it out. So a month and you leave in two weeks.
Speaker 2:Weeks from today.
Speaker 1:Okay, we'll put a pin in all of this because when you return, I would love for us to do another episode. I know our listeners are going to want to know what did you learn? What did you discover? It's an extraordinary pilgrimage. This is just an evolution of what started in May. Absolutely, it is yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh Amazing.
Speaker 1:As always, pam, I'm so grateful for your time and energy and your wisdom, and thank you for sharing today with everybody.
Speaker 2:For your lovely, beautiful self.
Speaker 1:Aw, thank you, Pam. All right, I'm going to sign us off now. Okay, Bye, bye. Thank you for listening to today's episode. Off now, bye, bye. Thank you for listening to today's episode. I hope you found it interesting, actionable and worthy of sharing. You can help contribute to this growing community by emailing topic ideas, suggestions for interviews and feedback to vanessa at squatsandseancescom. That's Vanessa with an E. At squatsandseancescom, you can find new episodes of Squats and Seances on all major podcast platforms and the vlog cast on our YouTube channel, squats and Seances. Be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode, and leave us a review if you are enjoying the content. Season one will be drawing to a close on October 31st. Visit us at squatsandsayancescom and subscribe to our newsletter. While there, you can also check out our weekly blog posts on all ways to optimize your health and fitness. Follow us on social media at Squats and Seances on Instagram, facebook, tiktok, linkedin and YouTube. And until next time, stay gritty friends.