Dr. Julia Spinolo is a Doctor of Nursing Practice and Reiki Master who offers energy healing, intuitive coaching, and spiritual guidance. She combines her knowledge of science based medicine and energetic healing modalities to help clients return to their centered selves.
We're talking about best practices for energy healers.
If you are a Reiki Master or a practitioner of another healing modality, this is a great set of ethical guidelines.
And if you are considering energy healing as a client or patient, we talk about the positive attributes you should be looking for in a practitioner, common red flags you might want to be aware of, and what kind of expectations you should have about outcomes.
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94 - Energy Healing Ethics & Best Practices with Dr. Julia Spinolo
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TRANSCRIPT
Julia:
I was working as a college professor and going on about life. Had my terminal degree. Thought that life was good, had a great house, had a great husband, great marriage, and then I was diagnosed with breast cancer. This was almost four years ago, which threw my world upside down.
So I went through having a double mastectomy and then months of chemotherapy and then recovering. And luckily, turned out fine. Everything is fine. I'm still doing fine. But I just did not feel like myself.
I got my energy back but my mind was very foggy. Had classic chemo-brain, which is where you feel like you're in a constant fog and you can't connect your thoughts or you forget things and I'm one of these very meticulous people that are on my game all the time. I'm very on the ball and I just wasn't myself.
My husband, funny enough, is an oncologist. He looked at me and he said, "Well maybe this is your new normal."
I was like, "No, I'm not going to let this be my new normal."
So I started looking at other ways besides western medicine to see if I could start to feel better. So going back in my history, I've always been kind of a metaphysical child. I have always been interested in having psychic readings. I had my first psychic reading when I was 12. I had my aura saged at 18 on a mountaintop, and I've always been kind of connected to that world.
So anyway, I go to a group meditation and they were offering pranic energy healings afterwards. I was like, you know what? I'm just going to try this to see. I had no expectations whatsoever, but I heard that it was good. People really raved about it so I'm like, why not?
So I'm sitting there with no intention of what's going on. Let's just see what happens.
So I had this 15 minute pranic energy healing done and it was almost immediately that I felt clear. My thoughts were... It was like the fucking light bulb came on and I was just elated. And I just fell into this. I said, "I gotta learn more about this. I know that I can do this. I'm a healer already being in medicine, because that's what we do. We help heal people and we're going to go into that later in our discussion.
But as I said, I know that I can do this. So I did. I started studying, actually I looked at different modalities. I looked at pranic energy, of course you have tai chi, accupuncture, accupressure, all of that is energy work. There are so many different modalities, but reiki really resonated with me. So I studied for months and became a reiki master and really started doing that work.
During this work with the energy, I did a lot of self healing and a lot of work on myself. That self work is very key for any practitioner because you've got to be right with yourself before you work with anybody else. So I did. I did a lot of healing on my own. Studied the energy work and then started seeing clients.
That's how I got into this and now that's what I solely do full time. I use my medical expertise in conjunction with the energy work, because really it's all connected. The body is connected to our energy. People that have these physical manifestations, there's some root cause of what's going on and that's basically what's going on energetically. And some people are like, well what do you mean?
So my thought is that everything is energy. Our cells are made up of cells that are vibrating at different frequencies that make up our different organs. But also the things that we can't see, such as our thoughts, our prayers, that kind of thing, all of that is energy.
What I look at is, this is a classic example. I'm fortunate to work with a primary care group, so I'm introducing this energy work into primary care medicine, which is so freaking cool. But basically people will come to me because I'm the last resort, which I really wish it wouldn't be like that. But unfortunately, it is. Because it's like, they can't figure out what the hell is going on with me. Can you help me?
Because it is.
So I'll do case studies. I had a woman who was coming in and she was having all these stomach ailments and she had the battery of tests and everything was coming out fine. Everything. I mean, she had ran a gamut of tests, doctors are scratching their heads like, you know, this is just how it is and here we're going to give you this medicine that's gonna help with these symptoms, and unfortunately with western medicine, we do. We kind of shrug and be like, "Well, there's a drug for that. Let's give you that and see how you do."
I'm more of like, okay, what's really going on here?
So she comes to me and we start talking and kind of digging down deep. It comes across that she's had really shitty relationships where her ego, her self-esteem, was just shot. When that happens, that tells me, okay, where the energy of our self esteem is in our solar plexus, which is right in our belly, the centre of our belly. So after we went through this, and the healing that she went through, and me giving her the tools to do the self-care, keep her where she's in alignment.
Because it's not just me doing the work. It's a two-way street here. The client needs to be giving the input in.
Somebody doesn't come to me, I'll wave my hands around them or wave a magic wand and POOF, they're done. It doesn't go like that.
So they've got to do that work too. So we work together and I mean, this can take time! It can take months of meeting and working through this. Sometimes you integrate with a therapist, if there's something that I'm not comfortable with, I definitely use other resources to help with patients.
And she got to where her symptoms went away because she felt better about herself, and it wasn't... It was so rewarding to see her, that look on her face and she doesn't have to take the medicine now and she feels great about herself.
I kind of went on a little tangent there..
Slade:
Well let me ask you something. Let me take you back for a minute. Because I remember, I mean, you and I are friends and we talk a lot. We've had conversations about this stuff. And you told me, at one point, that you were skeptical about this type of work itself. So I'm interested, what was it that, what was the skepticism that you had and what changed for you around that?
Julia:
Because with my background, I was trained in evidence-based medicine. So I needed to have a number of studies to convince me that this works. That's what medicine is. That's how trials are done. We do these trials. Okay, what was the most effective treatment for this plan? So that's how we plan our course for patients.
That's what I was thinking, well if this stuff works, where is the stuff out there that's proving it?
And when I started looking at this, I did, as a researcher at heart, I started researching this and you know what? There is stuff out there.
People don't look for that. They're like, people get uncomfortable because it's something that we can't see. It's something that's not measurable. The only thing that's really measurable is the effects on how the person feels. But also if you look at their blood pressure, for example, if they have high blood pressure, they're taking the medicine and it's not working, they go to have energy work. The thing is that the practitioners are not keeping record of that. And there's nothing that goes back to say, "Yeah this works." We're only going by word of mouth.
I really strongly advocate to have that data to show, yes, this does work. That gives it the validity that it needs, that people really need to show, like, yes, this can work.
Slade:
So when you were researching, you said one of the things that you were most drawn to was reiki. Was that because there was more research around reiki that convinced you?
Julia:
You know, that's a really good question. I chose reiki because it just resonated with me. I like the flow of it. I like the teachings of it. I like that you can take what it has and you can make it your own. There's some energy modalities where you have these rules and regulations. You've gotta do it this way, that step kind of thing. You have some of that fluidity with reiki, so that's what really got me into it.
But then when I started looking into the research, it was kind of like a confirmation. Yeah, this is the stuff that I really like and I can use to support the work that I do.
Slade:
So I know you. I know you immediately went and read a bunch of brainy stuff about this, so, I want to know in layman's terms the highlights for us.
Tell us. What are some of the scientific studies that back this up?
Because you're right. A lot of people don't even go and investigate it that much, but you've investigated it. So tell us what you'd found out.
Julia:
Well there's a lot. If people wanted to know the statistical information, like the p-values and that good stuff, that nerdy stuff, they can go to my website which will tell them at the end of the show, under Offerings, there is a tab for Resources.
Slade:
Okay.
Julia:
And that has a lot of studies in there. There's more that I could put in there, but I don't like to overwhelm people. But it has like the gist of it, just for people to say like, "Okay, this stuff really does work."
So to answer your question, there are studies that have statistically significant results in patients that have acute coronary syndrome, which is heart disease. They that have received reiki have a reduction of anxiety and perceived stress. This is all measurable results.
This one was really cool for me. People that received, and these are just patients in the study, patients in this study who received reiki before their colonoscopy. After they received reiki, they required less Demerol, which is pain medication, after the procedure than patients who did not have any energy healing. So that's significant, especially with our opioid epidemic and our addiction to pain medication. So that's a plus in my book.
Patients that had mild Alzheimer's Disease had an increase in mental functioning and improved memory and their behavioural problems had lessened.
Cancer patients who received reiki reported less fatigue and anxiety, and I'm a testament to that, which significantly improved their quality of life.
And this is a really cool thing because a lot of hospitals are now implementing energy work into their practices in the hospital. So they're actually taking nurses and having them go through reiki training to help not only their patients, and have their patients more comfortable, but also they're using it on their staff to prevent burnout. And healthcare professionals who have received reiki treatments have a reduction of burnout symptoms, which is compassion fatigue. But also it increases their focus and their problem-solving skills, which is a benefit to patients because they make less mistakes.
Yeah, so it's not just for the patients. It's for the patients. It's for everybody.
For the primary care group that I work with, I work with the staff and the patients, because I believe that the environment needs to be healing for the patients. Because that's going to radiate off of them. If they're feeling good, it's going to radiate out. And when those patients come in to that office, they're going to feel like, hey, I'm supported, it feels good here, I know that they're here to help me. So it's a win-win.
I know that you have questions about placebo, so I can hold this one study for you while we talk about that, or if you want me to talk about that now, I can.
Slade:
Let's go ahead and talk about placebo because I've been studying it from more of a marketing angle and I'll speak to that. But talk to me about placebo, because I think it has kind of a dirty word and I think we can change the connotation about it. But talk to me about that in the studies.
Julia:
Okay. So just to say that, initially when I started this is, because it wasn't my intent to get better with having this chemo brain, so as a placebo, I was kind of on the fence with it. Was I, did I really think this was going to kill me and well maybe it is.
And people chalk it up to placebo. Let me say something about the placebo effect. The thing is, is that if it works, it works. Period. If the patient feels better, whether or not it's placebo or not, if they're feeling better, it's kind of like, Who cares?? They're feeling better.
A lot of times, with us, we have to make it make sense to us. We need to have that statistical data for some of us. We need to have that word of mouth that somebody says to us. If somebody says it's placebo effect, it doesn't necessarily mean it's all in their head.
Now I'm gonna give you this study where reiki was done on newborn babies who were born to mothers that had substance abuse problems. So these babies were at risk for detoxing, having abstinence syndrome, which, when these babies received reiki...
First of all, reiki does not cause any harmful effects across the board, which is good. So it didn't show any bad effects for this. But when these babies, they don't know anything about placebo or what's really going on, when these babies had the reiki, it showed that their heart rate decreased that correlated to the peaceful state of relaxation.
So explain that to me.
Slade:
Right. Because they can't, they don't have the consciousness for the placebo effect to work.
Julia:
Correct.
Slade:
Well, I want to say something about placebo that really, the reason why I got really interested in this, and I'll try to find the episode and link to it for everyone so they can hear him talk about it, but Seth Godin, who is basically like a marketing expert, he did a whole show about placebo and about owning the fact that if your placebo effect is effective, then it's still valuable.
You know what I mean?
Julia:
Right!
Slade:
That there is something to be said for, like when somebody takes your course and they pay money to come to a classroom, well maybe they could do some of that work on their own. But part of what the workshop does is it gives them accountability, it creates a time frame and structure to learn whatever it is. All of those things are reinforcing to maybe a goal that they have.
But there's also a placebo effect around the mind-body connection. The thing is that the mind-body connection is for real. So if someone's saying something to you can activate your own mind-body connection, then so be it. You know what I mean? There's nothing wrong with it.
So yeah, it is really interesting though to look at and compare those results that are outside of placebo. That's when we go, "Oh crap... this person didn't even know it was being done on them."
I think there have been lots of studies around prayer that have those kind of results, right?
Julia:
Yeah. And let me tell you, there's been studies done. There's a few that I have on my website that deal with sham reiki, which is a double blind study, which means, here I'm getting all nerdy on you, but what that is is they came in. They did a group of patients that had reiki that was done by trained, attuned practitioners. And then they had a group of patients that were "treated" with people that didn't know anything about reiki. They just came in and told them that they were a reiki person and waved their hands over them.
So, this is going to get rid of our placebo effect here. So listen to this. So in this study, it statistically significantly showed that the patients that received the actual reiki was far more effective than the people that had received the sham reiki, without them even knowing it.
So there's something to it.
Slade:
Yeah.
Julia:
There's something to it.
Slade:
Absolutely.
Julia:
Because it kind of debunks that placebo effect. Because of these patients that did n'o know if they were getting a true reiki practitioner or a sham reiki person. They didn't know.
Slade:
That's fascinating.
Julia:
It was REALLY fascinating.
Slade:
I'm so glad that you have all these resources already in one place, because there are people who will want to dig into the details. We'll just link straight to that and let them see the sources that you're pulling from.
One of the reasons why I wanted to talk to you is that you do both have the medical credentials, you're ethically conscious about your reiki practitioner, you are super informed about these studies and this information.
And just to be honest, when you heard me criticizing some of the aspects of energy healing and kind of going off about it, what were some of the things that went through your head that you wanted to just like shout out in defense.
Julia:
Well, I think that there are standards that need to be set. I mean, definitely, you know, having some ethics to the work that we do. So I'm going to address what we as energy healers need to really think about going into this work.
Can we start with that first?
Slade:
Yeah, absolutely. That'd be great.
Julia:
Let's just say we'll call this the "best practices" for energy healers. This is just not for people that do reiki, but any energy modality. I think this is across the board for all energy healers or people who identify themselves as energy healers, lightworkers, what have you.
The big thing is, always ask for permission to work on people. I've heard horror stories where I've heard of people being worked on when they didn't give permission, like they received distance healing from somebody. That's totally not okay. Always ask permission.
Can I give you a story, a personal story?
Slade:
Yeah! Absolutely.
Julia:
I love telling stories.
This was a few years ago when I was just starting my business. I had somebody that was interested in talking with me, maybe joining as a practitioner with my business. My intuition was very cautious, let me just see how it goes. We ended up having lunch and I left the meeting nice. During the meeting, she wanted to kind of like, gasp, "I want to read you, I want to do this. Can I read you now? Drop the veil", and all these theatrics and all that stuff.
I was like, whatever lady.
Because I've had psychic readings forever. I grew up with this stuff. So I'm like, nothing you tell me is going to, "Ohmygod!" People love that. Let me just shock the shit out of somebody. And I was like, okay...
So anyway, after the lunch and everything, I was like, well that's cool. I'll keep her as a contact person, but I don't necessarily think that I'm going to work with her.
At any rate, later on in the day, my stomach was feeling kind of queasy and I was like, maybe it was something I ate that's going on.
Let me take another side note here. Okay, so there are things that happen with our energy, and some of it can be emotional or physical things. This doesn't discount bacteria or viruses or anything, so when people get sick and they're like, gasp, "Your energy is off." Well, maybe your energy was low enough to be susceptible to that, but stuff happens. We still get sick. People that are at high-vibe still get sick because viruses do occur, so I want to make that clear.
Anyway, so my stomach wasn't feeling good, so I sent her a text and said, "Hey, are you feeling okay?"
She's like, "Yeah."
I said, "Oh, well that's good!" I said, "My stomach was feeling a little upset. Maybe it was just the sushi that I had, some bad sushi." Just write it off as that.
She was like, "Oh no, I know what it was."
And I'm like, "What was it?"
And she said, "I felt that you needed energy work done so I did a bunch of work on you. People have these kinds of symptoms when I work with them, they have stomach pain or ailments and stuff like that."
I lost it. "Oh no you didn't."
Because you have a start to your session and an end to your session. And that's it. Anything that comes after that, like if somebody walks out my door and we're done, we're done. So this outside of let-me-heal-you or let me work on your Higher Self, that does not fly with me.
So I went all over her, and I said, "Ethically, that was just a big no-no. You don't do that."
She's like, "Well I'm just trying to help you. I'm trying to do what's best for you."
I'm like, "You don't know what's best for me."
So we really got into it. She could not understand why that was not okay.
Slade:
Can I tell a story too about this?
Julia:
Oh please! I love story time.
Slade:
So the whole permission thing.
Anybody that's worked with me around Automatic Intuition and my mentoring knows that I'm a stickler for this. I know that there's a lot of great TV about mediums walking up to strangers in line at the butcher and reading them. I've been doing this now for like 13 years and I cannot tell you how many hundreds of emails that I receive from people telling me that my guides have communicated with them and they have a message for me.
And I'm like, "Yeah, right."
Julia:
Okay!
Slade:
It's kind of a little bit insulting, you know what I mean? It's just like telling somebody, you know, that you've undressed them with your eyes or something. It's an invasion of privacy. It's also not going to be super effective if people don't have your permission and your involvement because like you said, you're not doing something AT someone. You're facilitating something that's happening within them.
I know that the best readings for me is when somebody is really participating and it feels like a conversation more than me sitting in a turbin just spouting stuff out. Those styles of readings, like you said, the drama and all that stuff... I mean, there may be people who do really excellent readings with all that, but one of the things that I really want to always pound home is this idea that this stuff shouldn't make you feel bad.
It shouldn't make you sick.
It should be practical. And it should be empowering. And it should make you feel peaceful and hopeful and all of that stuff.
So if somebody's coming at you even with just social energy boundary issues, we'll put that in the red flag category.
But anyway, so...
Julia:
We're going to go through some red flags today in a little bit, but yeah, that was just one.
Kind of piggy-backing off of that is keeping good boundaries. We as practitioners need to be respectful of other people's boundaries, and when they come to see you, again, at the end of the session, that's the end.
Some people say, gasp, "Well their grandmother came to me afterwards."
And I was like, "Good! If they make another session with you, you make a note of it and tell them then."
Also, and this is kind of like the Hippocratic Oath where it's always do good and no harm. Always come with that good heartfelt intent.
Oh, here's a big one. Check your ego.
When something is going on and you want to send reiki, whether it's to a person or to a population or that kind of thing, you want to question your ethics. You want to ask yourself, Why am I doing this?
Are you doing it out of a true sense of help or are you doing it for your ego? And how you can do that is, are you really truly there to help or are you looking for the accolades and the money in your pocket. So really check yourself before you do that. What is my intent here? Is it really because I care or do I want the recognition to say, I healed this person, and to brag about it?
And don't do any help unless it's okay with the person. Again, going back to ask the person. But also not guaranteeing that you're going to fix them. Nobody fixes anybody. Even in medicine, we don't fix people.
It's called practicing medicine for a reason. We practice it. We try to look at the best practices that have been used with these patients in these certain populations or certain diseases. It does not necessarily mean that we fix them. If it helps with that, yay. That's great. But as far as fixing people, no.
So when people claim "I cured this", or "Don't do that treatment and only come to me from now on", that's part of our red flag category too.
So really watch yourself and check in. What am I doing this for? Am I trying to fix this person? Am I using all the resources available that can be applicable for this person? Really check in with yourself.
The other thing that I want to say is for people to do that self work on themselves. They need to do those self healing practices. They need to practice what they preach. Are they taking good care of themselves? Are they checking in? Are they having energy work done by other practitioners and that self care?
Because if they're not able to take care of themselves, if they're gonna be like a martyr and wave their magic wand and fix everybody, and then they get so exhausted and compassion fatigue, they did that to themselves. So they really need to have those moments of where they're doing their self care.
So those are my best practices for energy healers.
Slade:
I know that we definitely have a lot of people in our listening audience who are coming to this as peers. They're listening to this conversation because they ARE reiki practitioners. Like you said, even if you are a practitioner, you still want to be on the receiving end sometimes, and there may be people listening to this show who've maybe never had a reiki treatment, or a session with an energy healer.
So let's flip it a little bit and look at it from the perspective of if you're looking to be a client, what are some of the things that you're looking for in choosing a practitioner, and maybe that includes some of the red flags as well.
Talk about that.
Julia:
Okay.
First of all, for people that are looking into it, they need to have an open mind of what all of this is. A lot of people will come in to be a skeptic, "Oh, I just want to figure out what this is about to debunk people", and that's just, who knows what's going to happen for that, so have an open mind. Look for your intent of what you are seeking energy healing for.
The other thing is, a lot of people when they're in desperate need of help, they're going to clamour around and get so many different people involved. So if too many therapies can be, you know, they're like, the more energy work I have from different practitioners and different modalities, the best.
Well people have to be patient with that to see how each modality works for them. Because I have some people say, "Well I just left my accupuncturist and I came here and then I'm going to go do yoga after I go to do this."
That's too much. Do one at a time. Do one every couple of weeks or whatever. People try to get that fix. Being healed like, fast, and it just doesn't happen.
Also, I want to advise people to really trust their gut. Go with that intuition of like, if somebody gives you bad vibes, or you're kind of questioning it, you're looking at their website and it doesn't really resonate with you, don't go see that person. Look at word of mouth. Your friends, what they say. Look at the testimonies on people's website and see if you really like what you read.
You want to avoid anybody that says that THEIR way is the RIGHT way. Again, looking at people saying that they can cure you. That's a big red flag. So watch out for that.
People that say that you ONLY need my services. You don't need to see that person. Or you don't need to go to that support group. People that kind of monopolize on that. That's something that people need to watch out for.
Slade:
Well here's a good point that just occurred to me as we were talking about this.
So kind of trying to grab all the stuff and do everything at once. I'm gonna do yoga, I'm gonna get acupuncture, I'm gonna go to my massage therapist, and I'm gonna have reiki. That's all too much. Partly because you can't really judge then which thing is being the most effective.
Julia:
Correct.
Slade:
You know, if you break them down and do them one at a time, then you have a better sense of which one's working for you.
Julia:
Yeah.
Slade:
BUT, by the same token, you need to have supportive therapies and treatments and experiences of different kinds. For instance, you need to have actual medical treatment if it's a medical issue, in addition to energy work. And then maybe you do need something that's a support group that's more of a social experience.
So that's an interesting thing that just came to me as we're talking about this, to be able to discern the difference between having a lot of different avenues of support versus doing all the things at once. You know what I'm saying?
Julia:
Right. I mean I do that with my... I refer out with my clients all the time. If there's something that I'm not comfortable doing, I refer them out. And I know the people that I refer them to are trusted individuals that are highly qualified to do what they do.
For example, I had a gentleman that, we were talking and he realized that he had a problem with alcohol. So I referred him to this great therapist and a support group that he could have. I mean, I wasn't going to sit there and say, "I'm going to be your support..." I'm not able to do that and I can't provide that for him. I'm not going to give him false hope.
Slade:
Listen, I have sent more people into therapy and 12 step programs as an intuitive than I probably even would've been able to as a therapist.
Julia:
Yeah! And I do! I refer them to, you know, if they have something that's going on with their thyroid they say, or whatever, I'll give medical referrals. It's like I'm the go-to point. "Here. Let me guide you this way."
I'm kind of like a guide for a lot of people.
Slade:
Yeah.
Julia:
They come in and they're all like, "This is what's going on."
I'm like, "Okay. Let's see what I can do. If I can't help you or if this doesn't work for you, then let's go here. Here's my list of recommendations here."
And go from there.
Another thing that I wanted to mention for people that are looking at energy healers. If they come across energy healers and they are talking about clients and not keeping confidentiality, you know, identifying information, if they're talking about people using their names and everything, they're definitely gonna be talking about you.
So you wanna make sure that your practitioner has a confidentiality clause in their policies and their procedures to make sure they ensure that for their clients. That's happened before. Because if they're talking about other people, they're definitely going to be talking about you.
The last thing that I want to say with researching energy healers for people is that if they go into a session and the practitioner's like, "Well, for us to do this, you're going to have to pay me more money."
I've been advised that I should be doing packages for people and it just kind of rubs me the wrong way. Because sometimes one treatment is good enough for that client and they can come back in six months or a year from now. Maybe that one treatment is enough for them, so that's something that I'm kind of like on the fence about.
But anybody that locks you in to get that more money coming in.
Now I'm honest with people. If they come in and see me and I feel they need a couple more sessions, I'll be like, "You know, I think you may need to see me in a couple of weeks. Let's see how this does. Let's see how you feel", that kind of thing. There's no pressure or obligation for them to give me money to help them, you know what I mean?
Slade:
Yeah. And I want to say something about that for other practitioners and other professional intuitives. Whatever it is that you're doing as a practice, people often ask me about bundling services and bundling sessions, the only place that I really officially bundle sessions is when I'm going to be mentoring somebody and training them in this work. And I let them know upfront, this pricing is based off this number of sessions with me.
So that's something that... There is no you do one session and then, "Oh, actually, in order to complete your training, you need three more."
I don't do that.
I will say this too. I don't really want clients that need to talk to me once a month. Because then I worry about their dependence on the work that I'm doing for them.
Julia:
Yes!
Slade:
Versus their personal empowerment.
And I also know that there's a certain type of person, and I'm one of them, who needs a really good session once every six months. And then I'm good.
Julia:
Yup!
Slade:
I've got a To-Do list coming out of that session and I'm on fire to go and work on it.
So leave me alone and let me go do what you just taught me to do and see what I can do on my own.
If I do run into a client who really just, they like to talk to me once a season or twice a year or whatever that is, I do create special pricing and packaging for them off the books. It's not on the website. It's kind of more like a secret deal for your best clients kind of thing.
It usually involves a discount, not additional money. It's usually like, you know what? If you're going to keep coming to me every year on your birthday, you don't need to be paying as much as everyone else.
I think that, when you would consider paying for bundling, like I'm going to go ahead and pay for three more sessions up front, it's as if you already had a couple with that person and you like them so much, you're already booking more booking more booking more. And then the option of doing a bundle is just a logical discount for you.
That would be a great time to do it.
Julia:
Yeah. Like I said, I'm on the fence about that but for people to promote it, I don't know. We'll see. Maybe I'll change my mind.
Slade:
It shouldn't be the exit speech before you leave.
Julia:
Yes!
Or if people say, some people say, "You have this curse. BUT I can get rid of that curse for you."
Slade:
Ohmygod.
Julia:
If you take this feather and this herb and pay me $600.
That's what gives us a bad rep! All that stuff gives us such a bad rep, because of the shady stuff that happens.
Slade:
Well, and I have people all the time that come to me with this idea that they've been cursed or hexed by somebody else. I had a lady try to tell me that there was a man in France that she'd never met before who had cursed her for six years. And I was like, "Okay...."
First of all, I do believe, I want to speak to this a little bit because I think it speaks to the idea of energy healing or working on people at a distance. I believe that we can do everything within the bubble of our own mind-body connection. I believe that you can absolutely curse your damn self. You can totally put a spell on yourself and screw yourself up.
I do believe that you can make choices that you have to unravel somewhere down the road. You're like, Uh, yeah, that wasn't the best idea. But the idea of somebody being able to project magical energy at you from France and screw up your life is not something that I believe is possible unless you take that on board.
In order for you to believe that you're ex-boyfriend is cursing you because he's stalking you, making your life miserable, well there's a part of your consciousness that is open to him and is taking on that belief. This gets to the idea of people doing distance healing on someone without their permission. I just don't, flat out, believe it works.
Julia:
So are you saying that you don't believe distant healing works? Or...
Slade:
I do believe distance healing works when the other person is engaged, like we were saying.
Julia:
Yes.
Slade:
When it's a dialogue. When you're facilitating their self healing, it is a conversation like you and I are having right now. We're both showing up to this. We're open to each other and we're communicating back and forth.
But I can't get an interview out of you by just willing it to be so while you're down in Atlanta having coffee. That's not... I don't know.
I mean there may be studies that can prove it wrong. I have seen really interesting studies around people being prayed for, that didn't even know they were being prayed for, and did not believe in prayer, who still reported miraculous healing and all that kind of stuff.
So I believe... Here's the thing. I believe everything a little bit and I'm open to something until it's been debunked. But my personal feeling when I encounter somebody who says that they are removing curses for people, or that they're healing someone without their knowledge or permission. My first thought is like, meh, that's probably not very effective.
It's probably just not working.
Julia:
It's called classic manipulation. Yeah. Classic manipulation there.
Slade:
Well, you have to be aware of the manipulation for it to work on you. You know what I mean?
Julia:
Yeah.
Slade:
I mean, you have to be at least having a conversation with somebody over the phone, you have to be reading an email from them. In order for somebody to manipulate you, you have to be open to that information coming in. I don't think somebody can manipulate you or curse you or heal you if you're going about your business and you've never even heard of them before.
I just don't think it happens.
Julia:
No, I agree with you on that point. I do.
Slade:
That's a little rant. A little tangential rant.
Julia:
That's okay. You go on. This is your show. You do what you want to do.
Slade:
Ohmygosh. Okay, is there anything else that we feel like, oh, I know something we can say about choosing a practitioner.
Julia:
Yeah.
Slade:
One of the things that's so cool about this show in this format, is it allows people to listen to us and maybe you do look at somebody's website and well, her website's pretty and she's got some testimonials. Look here's a link to an interview she did. I'm going to go and listen to her. I'm going to listen to her talk to someone else. I'm going to watch a video. I'm gonna watch her TV show.
It allows people to resonate with you and to evaluate how they feel about you. I can't imagine why you'd want to hire somebody that you didn't get a good vibe from. But I have heard time and time again that people are booking sessions with me because they listen to the podcast and they feel like they speak my language.
There's something about that that we really can't control. It's happening at a level we may not even be conscious of. So, like you said, trust your gut. Be open to the fact that you have the option in a lot of cases to even talk to this person on the phone and do a free consultation or something. You know, interact with them a little bit.
If they're not responsive in email, if they're weird on the phone, don't work with them. There's tons of other people out there that you would rather be working with.
Julia:
Umhmm. Absolutely.
Slade:
So.
Julia:
So.
Slade:
What do you hope to contribute to the greater conversation about spirituality and health and wellness, east meets west medicine, all that good stuff?
Julia:
All that good stuff.
I would like for people to have an open mind, to say anything is possible, but I love seeing what I'm doing now with bringing the, where western trained physicians are bringing me in to do this eastern part of healing for their patients to have that whole well-rounded care.
So what I would like to see is that, not that one is bad and the other's... Or like one's crazy and the other one is pill pushers or whatever. There's a happy balance between the two.
And then really just for people to do that self-exploration and see what truly resonates with them.
Slade:
You have a television show that's kind of this whole concept. Tell us about that.
Julia:
I do! I have a... I'm just wrapping up my second season of Medical Girl Mystical World at the Lighter Side Network. It's wonderful. The network itself has over 400 shows on there with different hosts. But it's really having that mind-body-spirit, that wholesomeness, it's like feel good TV.
We talk about that and I've always had people on my show where it peaks my curiosity of, let me learn more about that. That's the thing. I can't judge something when I don't know about it. You know what I mean?
So I have. I've had people that do crystal healings or people that do numerology or astral projection. That kind of thing. Because these are the things I don't know enough so I want to educate myself on there so I can make informed decisions about how I want to do things.
So it's my inquiring mind. Finding these people and just learning about what they do.
Slade:
And we're going to link in the show notes because you have a free promo where people can get three months of access to the network. Tell us about that.
Julia:
Yeah, so if you go to https://www.juliaspinolo.com/ If you look at the link that says "Medical Girl Mystical World", if you click that and subscribe to my email, it will give you that code where you get three months. So you can check it out. Check out my show and the other shows too. See if there's things that resonate with them.
If they continue after the three months, to continue with that, it's fine. I think the monthly fee is $6.99, very inexpensive.
So have them check it out. See what you like about it.
Slade:
Awesome.
Dr. Julia Spinolo. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today.
Julia:
It's an honour to be here. Thank you so much for having me.
Slade:
Tell us one more time where we can find you online.
Julia:
Slade:
Awesome. That was great, Julia. Thanks.
…there’s an Oracle message at the end of the audio episode…