260. Empower Your Healing Journey: Addressing Trauma for Holistic Wellness with Katie Beecher

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Katie Beecher I'm so excited for this conversation, and just looking at your bio, I'm like, oh my gosh, this is going to be such an amazing conversation. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for inviting me. It's a pleasure. Oh my love.

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Okay, so you are a medical and spiritual intuitive and a licensed professional counselor. You've been featured all over the place. Goop push, Miranda Berg's blog. Love it, love it, love it. We're going to dive into all of that, and you have a book and you've got so many amazing things going on, and we're going to dive into all of that.

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But first, what I want to know is, how did you get to this point where this is like your full time passion and job? Because we all have a turning point in our lives. And usually there's something that happens where either you hit rock bottom or you get burnt out or something happens, car accident, whatever the case may be. But that's a common theme with the guests that I speak with. We all have that turning point in our life where we just have to make a change and we need to do things differently.

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What was that moment for you. So there were actually two. Early on, I had a really pretty severe eating disorder. Throwing up three times a day, suicidal, all the nasty things. But it really was divine intervention that made me get help.

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I was 16, and I decided either I was going to end my life or I was going to do something. And I called our pediatrician, not even telling anyone, including my parents. And fortunately, he hooked me up with a youngian counselor who taught me how to connect to intuition, to be okay with all these weird gifts that I have of talking to dead people and knowing things and it being really scary and weird at times. And so that was huge, because if it were not for that experience, I wouldn't even be alive, much less doing what I'm doing. So it was really a blessing.

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And then became a licensed counselor. All the things. So fast forward to God, 14 years ago or something like that. And my mom became really seriously ill, almost died, and actually was in a pretty bad paralyzed state, and I became her caretaker. And just with all the experiences with the family dysfunction, more family dysfunction that can cause, I realized that the work that I had been doing as a counselor and as an artist at the time was just not quite enough.

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And I needed more meaning. I needed to make more of a difference. I wasn't quite sure what that meant. And in fact, I said to my husband, either you need to check me in somewhere where they bring me my meals and have me sit on a beach or something, or I need to find something else because I'm losing my mind and happened to be browsing through a Kapalu catalog or retreat center, saw three day workshop on medical intuition. And I just thought, I've always been into medicine.

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My mom was a nurse. I've always worked as an intuitive. So how cool if I could combine the two. And that was, like I said, a three day thing. I discovered abilities that I really did not know I had, could never have imagined that I had.

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And that was the turning point to me saying, I have this whole other skill set that I need to explore, and it certainly didn't happen overnight. A lot of people do the kind of work that I do, or psychics or whatever, and it takes a while to establish clientele and your business and get press and all the things. It takes a long time, but I'm really fortunate. And now it's literally what I do on a full time basis. I love it.

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Well, and here's the thing. I think that most of us, and correct me if I'm wrong, but it's my understanding that we all have these gifts and abilities. We just don't know how to access them. Is that correct? I absolutely believe that I am about as non woo woo, a woo woo person as you can get.

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I'm the same way, Katie, because I'm like, I'm so into woo woo. But most people look at me and they have no idea that I'm into the woo woo stuff. Right? Yeah. I really try to normalize intuition.

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Yeah. And being connected to the other, like quantum physics is a thing. We're all connected. So I can't explain how I do what I do, and it's a really unique process. But I know that my husband, I once said to him, how does it feel to be married to someone who trusts dead people for a living?

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And he said, it's just what you're good at. Some people are really good at carpentry and building things, and this is what you're good at. And I'm like, way to normalize it. So we all have these abilities. We all have to figure out if you or your kids, let's say, have a sore throat, you have to kind of then take it a step further and say, well, do I need to take their temperature?

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What is this about? Can it sit? Do I need to contact someone? You're being a medical intuitive at that moment, correct. Really think that way, but you really are.

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And so I take it to the nth degree, but it's abilities and things that we all have, and we just kind of lose touch with it. When you talk about medical intuitive, can you just go into that a little bit and explain to the audience what you mean by that and maybe even provide an example of somebody that you've helped for sure. So I call myself a medical and spiritual intuitive, and my process is pretty unique. I just know a person's name and age and prefer to know as little as possible. And I create a really extensive four page report that details.

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I try to make it as complete as possible, but my guides literally tell me all the things going on in a person's life that is impacting them positively and negatively. So it's things like, certainly physical and emotional symptoms. Are they connected with intuition? What have been the traumas or just experiences in life that are impacting them now? What are the relationships?

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Like, career stuff? Literally every single thing you can think of, because we are holistic creatures, so give them all those details. And I also create an intuitive soul painting that gives me more information, but it's symbolic in nature, so it's a different way to get information rather than words, which I can sometimes get in the way of. And when I'm like, I can see into people's bodies. For example, I get information from my guides while we are meeting as well.

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So maybe I will see a picture in my head, hear a word in my head, be able to feel in my body something that's going on with the client. I'm also a medium, so I get information from loved ones during the process. And my goal is to point out all the things that are going on, get to the root causes, physically, emotionally, and spiritually, of, again, what's going on positively and negatively, and then look for all the possible solutions, which may mean, for me, it does mean, like, recommending herbs and all those types of things, but also, like, practical things. What can you do if you're having a problem setting boundaries? Let's figure out some steps you can take legally and ethically.

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No one can diagnose except a licensed physician. Right. So that's really important to know. If you're working with someone who is telling you that you have cancer, they legally cannot do that, and it's not appropriate. Correct.

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I'm able to point out symptoms, and I can say things like, you may have symptoms similar to Lyme or similar to whatever, and then I have people that I trust that I can refer them to to do testing, treatment, all the things. And so it's kind of like a team effort in a way, to make sure that I'm serving them properly. And then people can ask me questions after and things. But it's really a holistic healing and wellness thing. Not everybody who contacts me is sick.

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Sure. Well, and here's the thing. We all have to be advocates for our own health anyway. And so even if you were diagnosed with cancer, you may want to go to a second and get a second opinion anyway. Right?

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Exactly. Just to be sure. Because doctors practice medicine. It's a practice. It's not perfect.

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And so if I'm confirming some of the symptoms that you have or some of your intuitive thoughts, it's very important for me to empower the people I work with. I teach them how to connect to and trust their intuition, how to talk to their bodies, how to listen to the signals that they're getting from their bodies, as well as be tuned into the practitioners, maybe that they're working with, too, because we are an active participant in the healing process. That's right. Wow. Can you give an example of a situation where you've helped one of your clients, they came to you and helped them to really discover something that they.

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Weren'T aware of, maybe, yeah. Interestingly, I feel like I'm a guinea pig for my clients. I always say that. And an issue that I have been encountering fairly frequently, especially since I got evaluated for it, is something called Ehler Stanlos syndrome. Okay.

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The outward presentation is that people are very physically flexible in some cases, in all cases. Also, you're also very tight in certain areas. But it's a connective tissue disorder. It's genetic. It affects potentially every single part of the body, because connective tissue is everywhere, including, like, brain and blood and histamines and neurodivergence.

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So all the potential things. So it's very often overlooked or misdiagnosed, and you can be very functional or you can be debilitated. So a very wide variety of symptoms. My daughter and I both have it, and we present the same and differently.

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I probably now identify one to two new cases every week. And again, I just say you have symptoms similar. I'm feeling symptoms similar to this. We can do a little bit of screening because I'm a licensed counselor, and then I have written a letter that people could take to their practitioner for referrals or whatever. But, yeah, there's been so many people who did not know that they had this, and they've had all sorts of symptoms for a lifetime.

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Worked with some the other day who had migraines and gastrointestinal things, and all the drugs, all the treatments, nothing was really working. And so we discussed this, and she's like, oh, my God, I have all of these symptoms. This really resonates with me. I was able to provide her with a letter that she can take again to a practitioner. And she was like, I was just talking to my physical.

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She wrote me and said, I was talking to my physical therapist about this, and they're like, yes, you very well likely do have this. So then they could approach it from a whole different angle instead of just treating the symptoms. Oh, my gosh, that's incredible. That really is, because I just think of so many people that I know that have some underlying thing that's going on for years and years and years, and the doctors have never been able to diagnose it correctly. Well, Lyme disease.

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Yes, that's a classic one. I'm in Northern Virginia, dear country. We've got cases just off the charts around Here of Lyme disease. Very bad. Connecticut.

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I grew up two towns over from Lyme. I had it since I was a kid. I didn't get properly diagnosed till my mid 40s, it's gone. I'm cured. But no one picked it up, even with all the symptoms I had throughout my life.

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So it's a real problem. It is. And that's something that I know my cousin's husband, it was so bad and it was not diagnosed for many years that he had to retire early, go on disability. And it's debilitating. And it is amazing because it often depends on also underlying conditions like I was exposed to mold, to just your body in general, what other things like trauma?

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Trauma severely impacts how diseases are exhibited in the body. Different things. And that's another disease that it looks different on every single person. So let's talk about trauma really quickly because I want to respect our time here. But most people have some sort of trauma, especially from their childhood, whether it be a little trauma, major trauma, there's a big spectrum there because of the trauma.

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Let me reframe that. What part does that mind body connection have? Because you're traumatized and you've got these thoughts and maybe anxiety, and that's going to have an effect. So can you just talk about that a little bit and how that manifests in the body? Absolutely.

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In every person I work with, their previous experiences, whether they're traumatic or not, but especially traumas, absolutely play into every single case, into all their symptoms. So it's gigantic. And the thing that people don't really think about trauma with is if you go to just traditional therapy, which is a great thing, you're only expressing yourself in words. The trauma didn't happen to you in words. The trauma happened to your entire body, your whole psyche, your whole being, often over long periods of time.

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So you've expressed it with every cell in your body. And that's why it's really great to know, to be able to communicate with those symptoms and say, okay, why are you here? What are you teaching me? What do I Need to know? And a great example is often people who have trouble setting boundaries.

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So trouble, no, aren't great at standing up for themselves, stuff like that. Part of that is learned behavior, but also part of it is just this wall that they've built around themselves for a survival mechanism and fear of abandonment. So as we work on physical things, like I'm huge on exercise and movement for getting rid of things, somatic therapy, regular therapy, the work, that symbolic work that I do and all that kind of stuff, unconsciously, you're releasing that trauma so you don't have to relive it all, you don't have to reprocess it all. But it's incredibly important to address in some way, because if you do not address it, you will keep having the symptoms, and the symptoms will have to keep getting worse to get your attention. Very true.

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Because that's what ends up happening, is that you're ignoring it, and then the body just starts to break down and it's like, excuse me, hello. Like they're trying to get, can you pay attention to me over here? Right, right. And also for people like that, they're like, well, once I got sick, I couldn't do things. I needed attention.

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I needed someone to take care of me. And I was like, you mean you need an excuse to say no, you needed an excuse for self care, you need it. And they're like, oh, I never thought of it that way. And I'm like, so imagine if you used your words and actions instead of having to get sick. Right?

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Wow. Oh, my gosh. That's really incredible. So tell me and the audience more about what you have going on, because I know that you've got a book, Heal from within, a guidebook to Intuitive wellness. Love that.

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Can you talk about that? And then some of the more practices that you work with. Yeah. So my book came out in February of 2022. It was something that I knew I was going to write when I was going through my recovery from eating disorder.

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And it starts with my backstory and then takes somebody through a reading. Basically, it's kind of like doing a reading on yoUrself, but with the guidance of my spiritual guides and my experience. So it helps you to identify all of your different issues, the root causes, what parts of the body, what chakras you need to attend to and focus on. It teaches you a lot of the techniques that I use during my readings. And it's very deep, it's very complete, it's very step by step.

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But it's also, people have been like, you kind of need some time to go through it, depending on where your issues are. And then you have to keep referring back to it, depending what's going on in your life, which is great. And then the back section, you can look up some of the issues that you're having and find stuff that you need to do about it and stuff. So it's kind of like in two parts. But, yeah, I'm really proud of that.

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I wanted to let people know that you can recover from really hard things and also teach how to find self love and authenticity and all the things that are just essential for health and wellness. I love it now how can people find you and reach out to you if they're interested in booking a session? And how does that work? Yeah, so it's Katiebeecher.com, Katabeecher.com. And you can make an appointment right on my website.

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The only thing is I need is your name and age. And there's two options. There's one with a report and painting. And then if you don't feel like you need all of that, we can just meet without doing that. So a couple of different options.

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Yeah, really easy. I'm booked. Well, as we're talking right now filming this, I'm about a month out, so it's not too bad. And you can order my book from there to Amazon and all the things. Oh, my gosh, I love that.

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So all of that information will be in the show notes as well. But just to repeat, it's Katiebeecher.com. Katiebeecher.com. And you can look in the show notes for that as well. Any last minute words that you'd like to impart with the audience.

00:22:00
Before we finish up, I want to. Let people know that self love and self acceptance are possible. No matter what you've been through, no matter how frightening that seems, it is possible and it's worth the time and effort. And I went from not having any self and just hating who I was to fairly high functioning at the moment. Right.

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Took a while. So it's worth it to put the work and the time in. Never give up. Yeah. Well, and if I can just add to that, self love practice is something that you need to do every single day because we all have that voice in our head that likes to keep you down, likes to push you down, and you have to be aware of that.

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So know every single day and sometimes every minute of every day you're focusing on. So, Katie, thank you so much for joining me today. This has been such an absolute delightful conversation. And I just wish you all the best and thank you, everyone, for listening. Thank you so much.

00:23:20
I certainly hope that you enjoyed today's interview. Thank you so much for joining me. And as always, I hope that you and your family are healthy and safe and that your lives are filled with peace, joy and happiness. Take care.