[00:00:00] Hello, beautiful ones. I am very excited to introduce you to a guest today. Brit be stale. She is a spiritual teacher, leader, yoga teacher, and I have to say, I really believe she embodies so much of the feminine strength and wisdom that we talk about in our community. So I am just thrilled to present you to Brit.

So Brit, thank you so much for joining me today.

Thank you so much to all of you for taking your time and energy to listen and to be a part of this. And Lisa, thanks for reaching out. It's such an honor. And I have to say, I live in Mexico, which, may come up. So who knows? I'm hearing construction. There could be like a, a symphony of Mexican dogs at any given moment.

So May, may I offer that as a disclaimer right out of the gate?

That is okay. We keep that very real. I can also hear things going outside and I am right in Massachusetts, so you know, this is just [00:01:00] life and that's actually a lot of what I wanna talk about today is just navigating the inevitable.

Challenges that we all experience here on this earthly realm? I wanna say one thing. So I first met Brit in a business program when I first, very, very, very first started my business in 2020 and I reached out to her and I had like, again, brand new to business, had just left the corporate world. And you were so like forthcoming and so helpful and just like honest and transparent.

And I was like, wow, people are really like this. You know? 'cause we all sort of did something similar at that time. I think we've kind of veered off a little bit into our own, but I was just so impressed with just your beautiful, like graciousness and transparency and like willing to help because you had been in business for, you know, substantially longer in this space.

So I just wanna say thank you.

You're so welcome. And I think that that's, that's what I've learned that we do as sisters. there's been enough competition [00:02:00] over the course of our lives and over the course of the generations of women. And I know and operate from the place that we live in an abundant universe.

And, there's enough for all of us. So anyone else who's out there supporting women, having the tools and, the foundation to walk through the fires of life. The more the merrier. So it's an honor and I'm, I continue to be here in any way that, that I can support you and it's been beautiful to watch you grow.

Thank you. And it's been beautiful as well to watch all of your new offerings and I can't wait to talk about that. So one of the things that I wanted to start to focus on is, you know, as I've been following your journey and I get your emails and I'm on your social media, you know, you've been talking a lot about like walking through the fire and I remember seeing, I think it was some real, and you were like, you know, I was made for this.

And I know you've had some, I don't know if I should call them challenges, but you [00:03:00] know, some, some events that you hadn't planned for in the last couple of years. So I would just love to hear from you like what walking through the fire means and, and why you feel you were made for it. Yeah.

Well, gosh, where to start?

I think that. First of all, I'll speak to your question directly and then I'll, I'll probably blow it up a little bit. I learned maybe 15 years ago, maybe 20. I'm 54 now. I learned that I had a very precarious relationship to fire, and I probably should have learned, I probably know that I think about it. I probably should have recognized that when I was, uh, you know, nine and I was lighting fired. But in reality, fire's a big part of my constitution.

I am Pitta in, in Ayurveda, and fire has been my [00:04:00] driver throughout the course of my life. , Spark inspiration ignition, uh, using my voice. Encouraging people to, wake up, get moving, all of those things has been so much a part of my world. And I realized probably close to 20 years ago that my relationship with fire was a little bit, unbalanced.

And I ended up, at that time, more than a decade ago, coming to Mexico and leading a yoga retreat. I used to lead exclusively yoga retreats. I've been leading retreats for more than 30 years, and I. Sat in my first thecal in my first sweat lodge in the United States. Often they're called ies, a womb of the Mother Earth where we bring in hot stones and hot volcanic stones, and you pour water on them, and it's a birth cycle.

And I realized in that process that I had to heal my relationship to [00:05:00] fire. That was the big message that came to me through that ceremony, and I have consistently been doing that since that time. And life as life does continues to give me exactly what I need, like the universe as I like to say to my students, the universe is conspiring on your behalf in every given moment to give you exactly what you need.

To rise into your next best and highest evolution. It doesn't just give you what you need sometimes and then throw you, spitballs the rest of the time. The spitballs are there too. The, the challenges and the struggles that we go through are also absolutely a part of what we need in order to rise into our next best and highest evolution.

And knowing that I wanted to heal this relationship with fire, I began to go down a journey of lots of [00:06:00] things, which I'm happy to talk about at some point. A lot of crazy things. A lot of people thought I was really crazy, which eventually led me to here, to Mexico to live and to run my business and, to sit very close to the fire, quite frankly.

And so walking through the fire is essentially the recognition that whatever you're going through in your life. Whatever comes your way. Whatever the universe, casts in your direction, call it what you want. Call it God, call it gran, great spirit. Call it spirit. The universe, call it the big pickle in the sky.

I don't care, whatever you call it. That energy is constantly conspiring to give you what you need. And we have choices in every given moment. We're the only ones who get to choose how we navigate struggle. And I realized very early on, and it's just part of my nature also, that I can't go around it. That [00:07:00] the only way through it is through it.

And so when the fire presents itself, as divorce, disease loss struggle, financial burden, empty nesting. I mean the depression, menopause, all of it, whatever comes your way, whatever comes your way, if you go around it, you're walking in illusion because the fire still burns and you will still be afraid of fire.

It will still become something that you try to avoid. It will still be something that you, don't face. And so I made a really conscious decision that I was going to walk through the fire.

Such beautiful wisdom. Now, did you always have that conscious decision or when did that come to you? Like, I'm going to walk through the [00:08:00] fire.

Was that innate or is that something that came to you maybe with time?

I think my mother always raised me to face things. I remember when I was in struggle with my stepfather and I'd come to her and complain and he'd probably come to her and complain. She's, she would say, all right, ctu, get into this.

Come into the living room, both of you, and sit down. I'm not gonna be your middleman. I'm not gonna be your referee. You're gonna talk this out. And I'll tell the truth. When I, when I was 20, no, no, no, no, no. This was younger when I was, that was the second time I went to jail. But that's a whole other thing.

When I was. 12 or 13. I went out, I lied and said I was staying at someone else's home. And we went out drinking and we got pulled over. And so I got in underage drinking something or another. And the head of police, I lived in a [00:09:00] small town and the head of police called my mom and he said, we have your daughter here in Ottertail County.

And she was like, no, she's at Mary Beth Worm's house and she's spending the night. And he's like, no, Mary Beth Worms was driving the car that Brit was in the backseat and she's been drinking and blah, blah, blah. So my mom said back then, small town in the seventies, can I talk to her? And he said, yep. So he calls me over, like through the jail thing.

Jail things. Hands me the phone and I get it on the phone with my mom and she goes. What happened, and I'm like, and I tell her what happened, and she circles back and says, are you alone? And I said, yeah, I'm in your home by myself and blah, blah, blah. And you know, by then it's like three in the morning.

Mm-hmm.

And she says, I'll see you tomorrow. Sleep. Well. So I believe that my walking through the fire, I come [00:10:00] by, come by very honestly, because my mother refused to let me get, get away with things. She required that I face things.

Sounds like that's a fantastic mother.

Yeah. Yeah. She's 90 years old and still, and still definitely an inspiration for me.

So, yeah. You know, for me that I would say it came through my bloodline to do that.

Yeah. Oh, that's, that's beautiful. That's lovely. And it, it's interesting because we talk about the concept of the two good mother and the good enough mother a lot in the community. And one of the problems with mothers who don't do that is that then you get out into the world and you don't know how to handle the situations as they come up.

So it sounds like you were really set up for success with that.

Mm-hmm. She said to me after that, and I think I've carried this with me always, she said, so next time you decide you're gonna do something stupid, you better be really smart about it. [00:11:00]

Yeah.

and I've thought of that. It's like every time you kind of go, should I, it's like, okay with the consequences.

'cause they're real. Yeah, they're real. And I've paid a lot of consequences in my life, but I realize that absolutely everything that I've gone through and everything that I've faced, at the end of it all, I have one word, two words. Thank you. Just, just pure gratitude.

Just pure gratitude for it all. Yeah. and I wanna say, it's interesting you talk about walking through the fire and I know those are my words, but I really feel like. There's this process that, as I understand it, it's like fire has a, is a theme for me. all of the, the ways in which that I show up in the world and the work that I do in retreats, in working, as a facilitator with, the Earth [00:12:00] medicines, including Ayurveda.

my coaching is very, very direct. And I've come to realize that, and I say it this way, many women are afraid of fire. Many women fight fires. Many women walk through fires and others. They become it. And for me, that's where I am now. I am the transformation. I am the fire that is going to burn away anything in everything that doesn't serve me.

And it's not always easy. And it's not to say I don't have my blind spots. I have my blind spots in, in life. But that knowing has been profoundly liberating for me.

for the women

I work with, you know? [00:13:00]

That's amazing. Thank you. A lot of what I feel like I hear you saying like kind of talking about how everything the universe throws at you is for you, it's for your evolution and choice.

And becoming the fire really also to me sounds. Very much like the anti victim consciousness as well. Like, I will take radical responsibility for whatever life throws me. What do you think about that?

Yeah. You got two choices in life. beyond the shadow of a doubt you have. You and I have two choices.

Am I a victim or am I a creator? Yeah. In every given moment. And I am a creator, the creator of my life to the degree. Woo. Here we go, Lisa, to the degree that for me, divinity doesn't live out there. My days of like praying to a God that is outside of me are over. I close my eyes, I drop into my [00:14:00] own body, my own being.

My own heart of hearts. And in there, that force that has given me breath, has given me, life force, has given me meaning, and literally can, can take me out in a flash. And I face that in more ways than one. That is what I pray to. And that lives in me, on my own breath, on my own inspiration. In every step I take, in every word that passes across my lips.

That is the creator, that is God, that is divinity. And so, that's how I see it. I absolutely agree with you. Radical responsibility, and I'm not necessarily responsible s. For every little thing that happens in my life, although I've paved a lot of the stones to get me to every moment.

Yeah.

but I am [00:15:00] and choose to do everything in my power to create an environment for vitality every single day.

Forgiveness, compassion, love, presence, sacred activism every day.

and what a great reminder that divinity is not outside ourselves, but it's, it's within us. We have access to that. Mm-hmm. I think that's such an important reminder. Could you give, give us a real life example of walking through the fire and I know that you have a few, so whatever one feels, feels resonant

Well, probably one that, At this point, one in four women will experience in the United States alone, and that is diagnosis with breast cancer. And that is on the rise. when that came knocking, first of all, I would say my fire and my relationship with fire, which had shown up in the way of, I mean, even in Aveda, even in [00:16:00] Sanskrit, when we speak about tapas, right, the discipline, that's fire.

That's me saying, you know what, I'm, I'm gonna get up now and wake up later. I'm gonna go to the mat. I'm going to drink my turmeric tea. I'm going to B-B-B-B-B, like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do these things that are going to support me. So we do all those things and that tapas purifies us. It sort of clears out all the funk so that we can hear better.

So that we can see better. And so because I had been doing all of those practices, I feel very strongly that it was that discipline and the practice of spa, the practice of self-awareness, deep self-awareness and self-study that when I found a lump, I listened and so I found a piece sized lump.

Everything was great. No reason for me to think otherwise. Everything was great. I couldn't sleep very well that night, which wasn't my nature. Mm-hmm. And I knew my body so well. [00:17:00] And I had been practicing, sensing my body for so many decades already that I was like, this is not original to me. That's just the only language I could, express.

This is not original to me. Therefore I was in the United States. I booked a flight back to Mexico. 'cause this is where I do my healthcare, which I, where I prefer to do my healthcare. And you'll hear why in a moment. And, I got off the airplane, booked an Airbnb, stayed at that. Airbnb, went in to a place called Salud, Dina Dignified Health, which is just diagnostic.

It's very inexpensive that I went in and I said, I want a cancer blood panel. I wanna, a gra a mammogram. I want a pap smear. I want all these things right away. So, you know, I pay my $130 for all those things or whatever, ridiculously low price it is. And I wait. And while I'm waiting. I call my gynecologist.

Actually, I WhatsApp, my gynecologist. 'cause in Mexico you actually get to talk directly to your providers. That's amazing. [00:18:00] Like texting, Hey. And she's like, Hey, what's up Britt? And I said, do you have time for me to swing by? Will you palpate a lump? I have? And she said, sure, come on over. She said, I have a, like a 10 minute break, just swing over.

So I walk in and they're like, yep, she's waiting for you. So I just go back, it's not on the record. I don't pay a thing. And she goes, I think it's a fibroid. And I was like, woo. But there was something in me that said, I don't know. Well, by the end of the day, I I get my mammogram report and my mammogram says clean.

And my body goes, so my gynecologist said it's nothing. She doesn't think it's anything. And my mammogram says it's nothing. And I send her another message that night and I say, Hey, I'm uneasy. Do you have a recommendation for an oncologist? So within an hour, it's like nine o'clock at night. The oncologist calls and says, you can come in tomorrow at 7:00 PM or 8:00 PM It's a late night, you know, Mexico thing.

So I go and [00:19:00] she's like, it's a little bit, I don't like these margins. It's a little suspicious. She said, I can see how they missed it, but this is concerning to me. And I'm like, so what do I do? She says, go get, an ultrasound. So I get an ultrasound and they say, well, you know, 50 50 chance, let's just watch it for six months.

And I said, or. They said, well, then you can do a biopsy, but if you do a biopsy, it's gonna be really invasive and expensive and blah, blah, blah. So I said, schedule the biopsy, please. So the next day I got a biopsy. Six days later, malignant, malignant, malignant, malignant, malignant. So walking through the fire, facing the fire, being willing to do my disciplined practices, all of those things prepared me for that moment to have the self-awareness.

And I'm so, like, I just, it brings tears to my eyes now. I'm so grateful for the wisdom of this body, and every woman has [00:20:00] it. And if we're drinking a lot, eating a lot of sugar, hanging online, , overshopping, complaining, lamenting deep in grief, and I'm gonna talk about this. I know grief, but these are the things that keep us from our intuition.

And it is imperative that we listen. So I walked through that fire and I chose my path and I had a partial mastectomy, and I, chose to do low dose chemotherapy instead of high dose chemotherapy, was highly recommended. I do high dose chemotherapy and I did radiation, and I went to a state-of-the-art integrative hospital in Mexico on the border.

I paid for everything out of pocket, absolutely would've been cost prohibitive in the United States and. Came out cancer free with a relatively high risk for recurrence. So I am vigilant. [00:21:00]

Yeah,

I'm vigilant and I am just here to say I wouldn't change that path for a moment. as a woman and as a menopausal woman and as a keeper of the fire, a walker through fire, a a transformer in and of myself, I will say that absolutely every woman has the right to her voice, has the right to her choices.

The work that we do in, on a day-to-day basis is to prepare us for those moments.

Yeah. So that's a

That's just, just one.

Well, that, that's a very significant one. And first I wanna just say that's just, it's so powerful to hear how you continue to advocate that you were in touch with your body.

That despite, you know, doctors, and sometimes we can look at doctors as like these all-knowing people that know everything and they have the answers and we don't, but you're like, uh, it doesn't fail. Right? That doesn't seem right. And really kind of pushed forward to get the biopsy. I think that's just such a beautiful [00:22:00] example of staying aligned to what you know to be true and trusting your wisdom as opposed to like the professionals.

Yeah. And I, I have to, may I say a little bit more about this? Oh, sure. Yes. I went and saw a new oncologist recently, when he saw the treatment that I had chosen, because it was integrative, first of all, the oncologist that I chose is. Very well respected, and he is an expert in chemotherapy and drug treatment. I did low dose chemotherapy by choice, and I opted to not do hormone blockers for a variety of reasons.

he looked at my chemotherapy protocol, the treatment I received, and he went, it's in Spanish, but he goes, oh my God. And I said, why? Why? Oh my God. And he said, in Spanish, this didn't do anything for you. This was worthless. And I felt my body, fear, fear, [00:23:00] fear, fear, fear. Diplomas on the wall.

Expert, expert, expert. And I was like, ground, ground, ground. You chose, you made a choice. And I sat with it for a while. I processed through it for a while. He begged me, implored me to do hormone blockers. my risk for heart disease, which is a risk with hormone blockers, is significantly higher than I have no family, really no family history to speak of, of cancer, cancer.

And I have heart disease everywhere and osteoporosis everywhere. So the, the risks of the drug were not worth it for me and quality of life. I walked out of there and I said, thank you, thank you. and I picked up my phone. I do this often. I use voice memos on my phone to speak to myself so I can hear my wisdom, hear my fears, and circle back and process so that I don't just like stick that stuff in a junk drawer.[00:24:00]

But instead, I really faced, And I, I could, I've listened to it so many times, I can pretty much recite it. I picked up my audio after about an hour, I cried a little, like I processed through it. I, I received what he said, felt the fear, walked through the fire of it. And I said to myself,

you don't know how powerful you are. You don't know who I am, and you don't know who my God is. You don't know me. You don't know the path that I've walked, and you don't know the power that I have to change my future. And I was just like, there she is.

Wow.

And we see it. We see it in, in so many mind body practitioners work.

The science is showing us that we have so much power [00:25:00] to change our reality, but it can't just be lip service, it has to be bone deep. It has to be with vigilance and with presence, and that's everything. That's how you walk through a divorce. That's how you walk through the loss of a child or the loss of a parent that you had a deep reliance upon.

I know you recently, Lisa lost your mom. blessings to you on that, on that journey and through that loss, we have choices, how we go through absolutely everything,

Wow. That's really, that is just so inspiring. And I know that's gonna help so many women to, to remember that they do have the choice to choose and to tune inward and see how things fail as opposed to listening to others about how you are supposed to fail.

And I think that is just so, so important. One of the things that you said is, you know, and I think I may have read it in one of your [00:26:00] emails as well too, but you, you say thank you to this experience. What do you feel that you, like? What was the wisdom that you were able to extract from it, or how do you show up differently?

Like, my community, we work a lot with like the Jungian concepts and it's like, seems like it was almost an initiation where consciousness has expanded and sometimes we don't know what that initiation is until some time has passed. But I would love to get your thoughts on that.

Yes. Oh my gosh. What wisdom?

so for decades prior to being diagnosed with breast cancer, I did all the things studied in India. I became an Ayurvedic practitioner. I ran an Ayurvedic retreat center. I offered, advanced yoga teacher trainings. I built a vast shara home based upon the, like the [00:27:00] yogic fen feng shui principles. I practiced mantra, I studied veta.

I did the mudras. Uh, la la la la, la la. I ate vegetarian. I, chanted while preparing food. I made ghee during over the full moon, like, how much more can a girl do to avoid the trauma of my childhood? I think that's really what it came down to. I used all of these tools

to spiritually bypass what I needed to face, but the body doesn't lie. And so the wisdom that I have gleaned is pure consciousness. I'm not enlightened, but I am 50% more aware. I am aware and am able to regulate my nervous system. [00:28:00] I am aware of when sadness, judgment, grief, uncertainty, lack of trust, feelings of lack, when any of those things start to present themselves as undercurrents in my life, I very consciously shift my vibration.

And I don't think it's, I'm not gonna speak a lot about this because I don't think you get it out of talking about it, but we are vibration and

that vibration dictates what type of environment internally we create. what we are going to make real and make manifest in our lives.

let me say it this way, to anyone out there who's ever practiced pranayama, let me ask you one question, you don't have to answer it out loud or to anyone else. Do [00:29:00] you know beyond the shadow of a doubt, the direction that prana travels in the body because you've experienced it? Or is it just something that you've learned and you know, the five values and you understand that prana does this on the inhale and that on the exhale?

Or do you literally viscerally know it? ready. If you don't know it, then you've not been practicing yoga. You've been going through the motions, and that is completely different, and that is what 90% of the West does with all of this. We study, we take it, we take the course, we get the certification, we have the paper to prove it.

We've got this, that, and the other thing. And we have embodied nothing. Yeah. Deep, deep loss, world shattering, [00:30:00] foundation, shaking real life struggles are the greatest gifts that we are given in order for us to recognize we are deeply vulnerable. We are not separate from this earth. We are not separate from this earth.

We do not live on this earth. We live in this earth and the earth lives in us. She mother Earth is our original mother

and the greatest offering we can give to whatever the universe offers us is thank you. Not lip service, not like the door. Someone opens the door for you at Target and you go, thank you. Not that like bone deep, feel it, sense it. I don't understand this. I don't remember asking for this, but I know it's here for a reason and I trust.

I deeply trust, and therefore, with [00:31:00] all of my heart and soul, I say thank you.

Wow. What a beautiful prayer.

Thank you for letting me feel that.

yeah. You know, you said something that I, I would love to go back around because in, in my community and myself included, we tend to be very esoteric. Like we like to read and we like to think and do the rituals and do the practices where.

I believe sometimes it can almost feel like it's separate from our life. And really what you're talking about is like this more embodied wisdom. And you know, really what I'm also coming to see in my journey is that actually life is the practice. Like it is nice to do all of the rituals and do the reading and do the thinking, but that's not, that's not the end.

It, that's just, you know, that's to practice. That's why we call it a practice. The real work comes in how we show up for our lives. Like, can we walk through the [00:32:00] fire? Can we become the fire? Can we meet these challenges head on? And no, we're not always gonna get the results that we want. But can we also use that as as mulch, as nutrients for who we're going to become?

And I think that's a very different way of looking at. What we see in our culture now in this like world of infotainment where it's like, I can go on YouTube or I can get a program or a course and I can learn all this knowledge, but it's not actually embodied wisdom. Would you have any guidance for, for the women who are like, well, how do I start to embody all that I have learned because I have enrolled in all of these programs and courses and certificates, but now what do I do with it all?

Oh my gosh. So the, the visual that just came to mind was the, was the emoji of like Elmo or something, like throwing himself on the floor, because that's how I feel like, oh my God, this is like, this is it. Right? This is it. [00:33:00] So I can only tell you my journey. Yeah. What I can say to each and every one of you is.

Don't trust anyone outside of yourself to guide your path in the end. That doesn't mean you don't go out and say, oh my gosh, I trust this woman. I'm gonna ask her lots of questions. I'm gonna go on retreat with her. I'm gonna do coaching with her. I'm gonna do this online program. I'm gonna sit in her membership community.

Because I also feel like when we sit next to people who have what we want and we do what they do, and we don't do what they don't do, the portal opens. And what I mean by that is if I sit in the presence of someone who holds an energetic vibration that I want to embody because I feel the freedom in that energetic presence, when the portal opens, I am going to hear my [00:34:00] creator voice.

I'm going to hear. The pull of my heart, I'm going to hear and know where my next step is.

my mind and who I've been. I'm a survivor. I'm not talking about breast cancer. I'm a scrapper really. I was the youngest of six kids. We lived on a farm. It was like if I wasn't bleeding or dead or missing, I was just fine. And I was always off in the swamps, in the rivers, like just doing stuff that most parents today would be scared to death that would kill their kids.

And I'm like, yeah, I made it out. You know, I'm like out wandering between the cows and little, little, little, little, little. I'm a scrapper. I'm a survivor. I survived a lot of. Childhood trauma. I survived a lot and I feel protected. I felt protected all the way through. That being said, [00:35:00] those scrappy mechanisms, those survival mechanisms, coupled with being Pitta, Pitta, I was able to pave a path for me as a yoga teacher that people wanted to sit next to as a coach, that people wanted to learn from, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

So from the outside, I looked like I was doing great, but the moment I was diagnosed with breast cancer, I realized right quick that those were all coping mechanisms that, as I said.

Were allowing me to bypass going through the healing process. All my years of studying n Vedas, all my, getting a master's degree in public health doing on, I was an oncology researcher at the Arizona Cancer Center.

Wow, I didn't know that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, so all these things, right? And I remember [00:36:00] sitting, sitting with the psychotherapist, the psychiatrist rather, who was appointed to me in the hospital, in the MINDBODY Hospital holistic hospital.

He's like, you know, doing the thing. Do you vegetarian? Yes. Do you I'm, I'm like, my diet's anti-inflammatory. Do you drink? No. Do you smoke? No. Do you meditate? Yes. Do you exercise? Yes. Do you practice yoga? Yes. Like, and he just looked at me, he is like, huh, got cancer?

I said, yes. And I said, I don't get it. I just don't get it. and then I laughed and he said, so no recreational drugs. And I, I remember laughing out loud and going, ha ha, my drug of choice is cortisol

pushing, driving, achieving, making an impact, helping women rise, da da da da da da. So what really ultimately happened for me was being taken to my knees, surrendering to that. And then being in the middle of chemotherapy, treat, uh, [00:37:00] like I was hooked up to a needle for, for five weeks, came out on Sunday and then they put it back in again to receive IV treatments many hours a day during my treatment.

And during all of that, I received a phone call from my naturopath who is, has become a friend and who left her practice and teaching at a very prestigious college in the United States to do research with, psychedelics in plant medicine. And she called me and she said. I really think this would help you.

And she's known me for decades. She knows, she knows all my tricks, she knows how driven I am, et cetera, et cetera. And I said, I don't wanna do any substances. I have been substance free. I don't wanna do any drugs. I don't wanna do, I don't wanna take aspirin, and I don't wanna [00:38:00] sit with psilocybin and I don't wanna do ayahuasca.

And I don't like, like, no, I don't wanna do this. And she said, just think about it. Just think about it. I really think it would, would serve you well to sit with psilocybin, the mushrooms. And I was like, I don't have to. Like, I had another appointment, I'm sitting in my hospital room and I had to go down for another appointment.

So I'm like, thank you. And I just was like, no. Well, the, the, the appointment that I went into was with my mind body therapist. So she said, so what's going on? I said, oh, I just had this conversation with my doctor, former doctor from the United States, and she suggested that I do psilocybin. And this sweet woman, she just nodded and she said, I'm going to be going to a ceremony a week from Friday, which was the Friday after I finished all the treatment at the hospital with a doctor and a nurse who are facilitating this, in their home clinic.

And I just couldn't, I couldn't negate the [00:39:00] synchronicity of it. And I went I actually had finished my treatment, flew back here. It's about four hour flight. Flew back here to this, this part of Mexico. I'm in Central Mexico, got on an airplane after my radiation in the morning. I was still in treatment.

Went and sat with with. Psilocybin in a ceremony, and it was an absolute transformational experience. It unleashed for me, it, began to excavate the grief that as a little girl growing up in an alcoholic home, I was never permitted to feel. There's a thing in, adult children of alcoholics that when you grow up in a home of addiction and, and it can be dry drunks or it can be people who are actively using, using substance.

There are three rules for children. Don't talk, don't trust and don't feel, and if you play by those [00:40:00] rules, you'll survive. And I mastered those rules as a little girl. Don't talk about what's going on, don't tell other people, but daddy was drunk. Don't, don't talk, don't tell people the name that daddy called you.

Don't talk about the fight that mom and dad had. Don't ask mom about the fight that she and dad had. All of it. Don't talk, don't trust, because that really nice person isn't gonna necessarily show up so nice after he's been drinking. And then don't feel like, just shut it down. Shut it down. Shut it down.

Mm-hmm.

and so the, that's where I'm gonna circle back and say, this might not be your path, but if you are called, I know not of a more powerful, loving and piercingly direct teacher than the wisdom of the plant world. like the difference between a lime and a lemon, right? In terms of what it does to the body.

Lemon is [00:41:00] hot, you know it, it has a very heating quality to it. We'll just say lime has something called P intelligence. It goes into the body and if you need heat, it gives you heat. If you don't need heat, it doesn't give you heat. They might se seem the same from the outside. The wisdom of plants. We know it.

Like our greatest defense against the onset of disease is food. Yeah. As medicine, it is absolutely the greatest defense that we have and we're speaking predominantly about the plant world, the plants of the Amazon jungle. The Amazon jungle, for most who don't know, is absolutely imperative.

When the Amazon jungle dies, we all are gone on this entire planet. And without getting into the science behind that, we will be gone. If that dies, we go. The wisdom of the Amazonian plants, the wisdom of [00:42:00] fungi, the wisdom of fungi to be able to clean ocean floors from petroleum spills, to be able to cure disease, to be able to heal the flora and fauna of our gut, to be able to literally, render cancer cells immobile, like rob them of their weapons.

It is amazing what these plans can do and the wisdom of it, you said as well too, where it's not one size fits all.

Yeah. It's not one size fits all. So for me, that has been and continues to be my greatest teacher. it's not easy. It's not an easy path to sit with ayahuasca if you've never sat with it.

And it's not for everybody. It's not meant for everybody. And it's not for everybody. And it's not a trip. And we're not talking about like taking a few mushrooms and going for a hike and enjoying the colors. It's not that. It is deep in ceremony. And these ceremonies [00:43:00] invoke the spirit of this mother earth, which by the way, who you think your mother is or was, isn't never was the earth, is our original mother.

Your mother was a surrogate to bring you here. The earth herself is your mother and she can handle and heal everything and she has every nourishment nutrient

that you will ever need and sitting with these medicines bypasses the intellect.

Yeah. Yeah. I know we had talked about that a little before and that makes a lot of sense that a lot of the things that we do for healing, whether it's talk therapy and I don't like to say anything is like good or bad 'cause it's really whatever works, but this really connects at a different level.

It bypasses kind of that the prefrontal cortex, which is trying to make sense and really goes deep to where we have these beliefs. [00:44:00]

It's like you ever think about like if you hear a piece of music from when you first fell in love or, or you smell the cologne or the perfume of the person with whom you first fell in love or you smell chocolate chip cookies and your grandma used to make those or whatever.

You walk in the house and you smell cinnamon or whatever it is. And that visceral sense of like, and the whole emotional body wakes up. You know what I'm talking about? Mm-hmm. Like the whole emotional body wakes up. Our bodies are just storing everything that we have experienced, but we came as bliss and we go as bliss.

So in sitting with the plant world, you get to this place and I'd say it's not usually in one sitting. That's why often when, when folks come on ceremony here, when folks come here and we bring in that, I have a particular, shaman that comes from Brazil. speaks very little [00:45:00] Spanish.

They've only had internet and electricity in his village for four years. Wow. he comes and, he and his wife offer ayahuasca ceremony. We don't sit with it just once you sit with it. Two different nights, and we do all the preparation on the front end, and we help you set your intentions and we work through all your fears and we screen you before you ever even come to make sure that it's a good fit for you.

Same thing with psilocybin, as we host that and hold that safe container for you to be able to sit with a, a gentler medicine, but a still profoundly impactful medicine. This is, I knew when they rang the bell when I finished my treatment and they're like, you're done. You're cancer free.

I was like, thanks. And I, you walk out, we walk out, we cancer survivors walk out and we go, now what do I do? Yeah, now what do I do? Now I heal. Now the healing begins. There's no [00:46:00] healing happening during treatment. None. There's excavating, intox, intoxicating, and.

and finding a new vein and resting and learning new things and being infused with so much information infused with so many drugs. And then you finish it all, and then that's when the healing starts.

Yeah.

That's when the healing starts.

What a great, great perspective. And I saw, and I know that you offer these like beautiful retreats.

I would, I would actually like to go on one at one of these points. I have never worked with plant medicine before, but I know you have all of these beautiful Retreats. Retreats.

Thank you. Yeah, we have, we have plant medicine retreats, we have me, we have retreats, healing retreats that. Are super deep and profound that don't include plant medicine, that just include the thecal, the sweat lodge. We have a sweat lodge here. We have a water womb, we do art therapy, we have body treatments.

the food is incredible. Our chef is phenomenal, caters to whatever our needs may be. We have eight women maximum here at retreat. So with psilocybin, with ayahuasca, with [00:47:00] none of the above. We have a couple's retreat coming during s the day of the dead, which is really amazing in Mexico if you've never experienced that.

And then I also do one-on-one retreats where if a woman is like, I've got the means to just come and just be with you for a week. Everything is completely customized from plant medicine if you so choose to, um, education, to somatic breath work, all of it. That's what we do. And I also do, Very specific work for women who want to make sure that they create an envi, women who've, who've walked through the fires of breast cancer and want to do everything in their power to create an environment where cancer goes, well, there's nowhere for me to sit, there's nowhere for me to squat.

Yeah, right. There's just the, the oncogenes begin to express and the body goes and they're out. You know, and that's what we want. Everybody has cancer cells. We all have oncogenes in our bodies. We just wanna make sure that [00:48:00] we are doing everything in our power to wipe those out before they, they, they squat right.

And make, make your home their, firing ground. Yeah,

that just sounds fantastic. And I will put the, like the link and everything, all the links in that, like Instagram, your website, and you know, any, anything else in the show notes so women can connect with you. But I just wanted to say thank you so much for like all of your beautiful wisdom and, you know, sharing these very like, personal and challenging experiences.

I think it's just gonna be so inspiring for the women in my community. Is there anything else that you would like to share about anything that you have upcoming or just any, any final thoughts that you would like to share?

We have an upcoming 108 day program that I've been running for. This is our.

12th year called Pilgrim, and that begins middle of September. And it's a way to recalibrate body, mind, [00:49:00] soul with the option of doing simple yoga practices. Simple meditations daily, have daily inspiration, follow a very clean diet. So it's a really wonderful way to navigate through the holidays and to crossover into the new year in a way where you're really clear and brilliant and bright and not depleted energetically financially.

All of the pieces we're there to really support in community. There's women from all over the globe and we come together to, to walk with each other so that we stay conscious through a time when it's really easy to, to overextend ourselves and, and wipe ourselves out. And, that's called Pilgrim.

And that's at brit steel.com/pilgrim. And I'd also just like to say that I have 100% confidence that if you're listening to this podcast and you're going through your dark night of the soul, whatever that [00:50:00] looks like, menopause, empty nesting, the loss of a relationship that you had counted on, financial struggle, major transition, disease, diagnosis, death, divorce, any of it.

If you're walking through any of those things, I have 100% certainty that you can get through it. And it requires that you get really honest with yourself and you recognize you need help. And then you reach out to those people who resonate with you. You surround yourself with women who can hold you as you hold yourself up, who help you raise your vibration, and you immerse yourself in practices, experiences, people, conversations that are going [00:51:00] to hold your hand as you learn new tools and re-architect your life.

And I also promise you, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that what you will find on the other side of any dark night of the soul is the most beautiful life you have ever imagined. You might not be able to see it in the moment. I know that feeling. But just keep walking. Just keep trusting. Just keep reaching out, keep greeting the morning sun, and you will find the brilliance that is not out there, but that lives within you and can walk you to the end of your days.

And so thank you, Lisa, for this work that you do by continuing to bring consciousness to women [00:52:00] to help them heal. Thank you for trusting me and bringing me here to, speak to your community. It's, it's a deep honor in many ways. It's a deep honor to hear my own self, it's medicine for me to hear myself and go, whoa.

You're doing great, Brett. You're doing great. Like this is, this is not lip service. This is like my heart and soul, and this is my commitment to myself and to all sisters. And thank you, thank you for giving me the space, to, to be heard. And I just send you so much love and so much support, as you do your work.

And I'm right here always.

Thank you so much. It was so lovely seeing you and witnessing your journey, and I truly just appreciate and value all of your wisdom. So thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Lisa. Big love,