Episode 18
18: Bridging the Gap between the Body and the Mind with Ashley Andrews
In this empowering episode, Cherie is joined by Ashley Andrews, a radiant healer on a mission to awaken the body's innate capacity for wellness through energy work and massage therapy. Ashley's journey into the realm of healing began in her twenties, propelled by a deep-seated empathy and a calling to serve others.
With passion and authenticity, Ashley shares how her exploration of modalities like Reiki and intuitive body talk has evolved into a profound practice of holistic healing. She gracefully guides clients through the labyrinth of physical and emotional traumas, offering gentle yet potent remedies that unlock the body's wisdom. Through heartfelt anecdotes and transformative insights, Ashley reminds us of the miraculous power of the human spirit to transcend adversity and find liberation.
In this sacred space, Ashley advocates for a paradigm shift towards holistic wellness, where healing is not synonymous with pain but with profound self-love and acceptance. As we journey together towards wholeness, let Ashley's radiant spirit and unwavering commitment to healing inspire us to embrace our own innate potential for transformation. Join us at Elevated Life Academy, where each episode is a beacon of hope guiding us towards a life of purpose and vitality. Don't forget to share this episode and spread the light!
Want to know how you can begin your journey to hope and healing? Visit Elevated Life Academy for classes and free resources for personal development and healing.
Resources:
youtube.com/@celtichealinghands?si=WSda6WixRAKXrZdH
www.facebook.com/HealingIntuitiveBodyworker
https://www.instagram.com/intuitivehealingjourneys?igsh=cWg1czhhZWxtOGQ4
Transcript
00;00;07;27 - 00;00;40;05
Narrator
Hello and welcome to Cherie Lindberg's Elevated Life Academy. Stories of hope and healing through raw and heartfelt conversation. We uncover the powerful tools and strategies these individuals use to not only heal themselves, but also inspire those around them. Join us on this incredible journey as we discover the human spirit's remarkable capacity to heal, find hope in the darkest of moments, and ultimately live an elevated life.
00;00;40;07 - 00;01;08;18
Cherie Lindberg
All right. Welcome back to another episode of Elevated Life Academy. And I am Cherie Lindberg. And I'm joined here by Ashley Andrews, and I'll let her to introduce yourself in just a second. A wonderful healer that I met when I was in Florida for a couple of weeks. And we're just going to have a conversation here about the different ways that Ashley works with folks and helps them in their healing paths.
00;01;08;19 - 00;01;11;19
Cherie Lindberg
So welcome, Ashley Andrews.
00;01;11;21 - 00;01;36;07
Ashley Andrews
Thank you. I'm happy to be here. So I have been doing energy work my whole life, but I didn't really go into it until my twenties. I've always been an empath and I've always felt what other people feel like most people. Usually it's initiated by a trauma of some sort to make us very hypersensitive, and I kinda didn't want to go that route.
00;01;36;08 - 00;02;00;19
Ashley Andrews
I didn't want to feel everybody stealing. So I tried to shut it down and the universe was like, No, you have a path you have to go on. So I started researching different modalities where I started off with Reiki, and it was a great stepping stone for me. I was very appreciative and grateful. And then I found out in Florida that you have to have a massage license or be an ordained minister in order to do any energy work.
00;02;00;21 - 00;02;27;18
Ashley Andrews
So I decided to go and pursue massage therapy. That's where I found a lot of different modalities, and it opened up my eyes to more how to expand my energy more, how to the tools I needed to help others because everybody's different. Even though the body typically has stores is the energy's the same. So then I started doing massage, which led me more back into my energy healing.
00;02;27;18 - 00;02;53;09
Ashley Andrews
And I do what's called intuitive body talk. And what we do is when I work with someone, I go into the body kind of like more of a medical intuitive, and I find and I see different constrictions, compressions and traumas that have happened in the body. They're stored. And with body works, I try to work on them, whether it be massage therapy or with energy healing.
00;02;53;11 - 00;03;27;21
Ashley Andrews
It really depends on what the body needs at the time. So what I do is talking to the body. Depending on where you are at your journey and where you can expect the energy, because not everyone is ready to go up to that high level. Sometimes people are a little stuck. So based on what the body gives me as the feedback, then I listen and I will help guide you or I will help bring the trauma to the surface just to energy, work and energy healing.
00;03;27;24 - 00;03;30;12
Ashley Andrews
Unified. Now.
00;03;30;14 - 00;03;32;12
Cherie Lindberg
Have you been doing this?
00;03;32;15 - 00;04;03;01
Ashley Andrews
So I have been doing energy work for about 15 years, massage about 12 years now. It's just a passion of mine to be able to help people, especially being in a position myself and not having any guidance. The body and the mind are two separate ways of dealing with pain and trauma. So having someone that can bridge that connection and bridge that gap for the body and the mind is so helpful.
00;04;03;04 - 00;04;30;28
Cherie Lindberg
So talk to me about maybe some of your mentors. How did you you know, because I'm hearing you say, well, I recognized I was an empathic I really didn't want to go that route. But then the universe kind of said, well, this is your path. So how did you find mentors or how did you start to accept, Hey, this is my path and then let those gifts come in more?
00;04;31;00 - 00;04;31;24
Cherie Lindberg
It was very.
00;04;31;24 - 00;04;56;21
Ashley Andrews
Difficult because energy, when you talk to people about energy healing, they go they have an apprehension or I heard woo woo or, Oh, it's voodoo that you do. So when you would talk about it to some people, I just shut down in the beginning because I was like, Well, no, there's not a lot of people out there that are being receptive, so why should I write in my horizons?
00;04;56;23 - 00;05;27;23
Ashley Andrews
And until the universe had made me, because I was actually working at a career that I was very happy with, but then it started to get very unhappy. So the universe had pretty much told me that this isn't the path. And I got laid off from a job at five years and except in the massage school. So the very first mentor that I had sought out was the teacher was walking down the hall and he had told me, Oh, you're interested in massage school?
00;05;27;23 - 00;05;46;01
Ashley Andrews
And I was like, Yeah. I said, I really want to do more of the energy healing, but not necessarily massage. And he's like, No, this is the school for you. And I said, Well, why do you say that? And he's like, Well, because you have a gift and you need to be explored. And he just went off. He started to rattle off so much.
00;05;46;06 - 00;06;11;19
Ashley Andrews
And Scott Coleman was an amazing teacher. He has actually passed now. But at the time he taught me so many different ways to accept myself as in accept my gift. And that was the starting point that, okay, well, wait, there's more people out there that actually understand it and they facilitate it. So if they can do it, well, maybe I can do it.
00;06;11;21 - 00;06;48;03
Ashley Andrews
So he he started that. And then I met another Reiki teacher and she was a very great inspiration. Georgina Johnson She had does Reiki and just a very amazing patient teacher that did a lot of hands on. And that was what I gravitated to because, you know, every student that you work with, they are either auditory, visual, kinesthetic, and I gravitated more of hands on and most of the teachers I sought out was all book, you know, read this book or, you know, look up this if you have any questions, look on the Internet.
00;06;48;06 - 00;07;16;24
Ashley Andrews
Well, that's great. But it wasn't giving me what I needed. And then you fast forward to my mentor that is still today with Cynthia Laymon, and she's in an amazing, amazing medical Natsumi, medium intuitive, psychic, incredible person. She's like family to me and she still helps guide me to this day. But she started with doing her circles and a friend of mine was like, Hey, I think he would really resonate with this.
00;07;16;24 - 00;07;35;06
Ashley Andrews
Ash, come with me. And I was like, Okay, well, let's go. And she blew my mind is the very first meditation she did. She she opened up the energy so much. And it's funny because the very first times that we were in the circle, she's like, Ash, you have to stay in the room for the meditation, can't leave.
00;07;35;08 - 00;07;53;08
Ashley Andrews
And I was like, Wait, what do you mean I'm leaving? And she's like, You like to astral projects. You need to stay in your body the shit. And she said that every time that I would, she would start. She'd have to put an anchor to my foot because I would always want to leave. But that was pretty funny.
00;07;53;10 - 00;08;04;19
Ashley Andrews
But she's an inspiration for me today still, because you're I'm a I'm a forever student learning energy. And yeah, I'm so grateful for her.
00;08;04;21 - 00;08;26;28
Cherie Lindberg
Yeah. Beautiful. Can you share some, you know, without, like, identifying any of your clients and so forth? But absolutely, part of this podcast is about stories of hope and healing. We want to be able to share how, you know, experiences that you've had with some of your clients that they've experienced, where they're actually has done some, you know, beautiful healing to their body.
00;08;27;00 - 00;08;32;16
Cherie Lindberg
And that comes to mind when I even ask that question.
00;08;32;18 - 00;08;54;14
Ashley Andrews
So it depends on where you want to go, because some of some of the stories, I mean, they have actually quite a lot. There's one in particular that fascinates me to this day because eastern and Western medicine still have a little bit of a battle when it comes to what's best for the body. And Western has a place, so does Eastern.
00;08;54;14 - 00;09;18;03
Ashley Andrews
And I gravitate gravitate towards the Eastern modality. So I have my late fifties, early sixties and she I worked on her before, but there was a gap that I did not work on her. And she had called me up out of the blue and said, well, my doctor said I have drop foot. And I said, Oh, okay. And typically drop foot is medical.
00;09;18;04 - 00;09;37;18
Ashley Andrews
It's all surgical. So she's like, Hey, I have this person, I know that, give me to six months, I'll come back. And then we still need to do the surgery. Then I'll go ahead and we'll do the surgery. You can schedule it. So he's like, I don't think that's a good idea. It's going to get worse. You need to have surgery now.
00;09;37;18 - 00;10;02;12
Ashley Andrews
It's really bad. And she's like, No, no, trust me, I'll be back. And then if I then then prove I'll have the surgery. So she came and we worked for about five months and I told her the very first time I laid he has on her, they said, Listen, if a body has dysfunction, it just needs to be unblocked to allow the restriction to move so that it can heal because the body knows how to heal.
00;10;02;12 - 00;10;21;10
Ashley Andrews
It just needs the tools and sometimes the roadmap, you're you're too close to the problem. So it's hard to decipher what you need, what the body needs. So I said, okay, let's work on it. And I give her homework and give her tools to work on depending what she needed. And each time was different. But about five months.
00;10;21;10 - 00;10;41;04
Ashley Andrews
And she went back to the doctor. She's like, She called me immediately after the appointment. She's like, Ash, you will not believe what happened. And I was like, Oh, please do tell me. And the doctor said, So she went in and she's like, All right, well, I scheduled you for your surgery. He's she's like, Well, wait, wait. Can you can you test me to make sure that it hasn't improved or anything?
00;10;41;04 - 00;10;58;27
Ashley Andrews
And he's like, okay, that's fine, but I already have the date. And so she goes and she sits down and then he's like, Huh? He looks at his chart. He's like, It was your right foot, right? And she's like, Yeah, Zucco Cha again. He's like, Well, wait, I'll be right back. And he goes and gets the x rays.
00;10;59;00 - 00;11;17;25
Ashley Andrews
He brings him back in the room and he's like, I know, I know. I diagnosed you as a drop foot. And she's like, I know you did. I was in the office when you did it. And he's like, You have no there's no signs of it. It's. It's healed. How is this possible? There's no way that it can be healed.
00;11;17;27 - 00;11;42;23
Ashley Andrews
And she's like, Well, I have wait. And he's just like, I don't know what you did. And she she tried to explain to him what what she did the entire time. And he was just like, there's no way that that worked. And so they did a new X-ray and there was no nothing. It was completely healed. So that's one physical aspect of body talk so energetically.
00;11;42;25 - 00;12;04;00
Ashley Andrews
I was working on this one lady, she is late forties and she just was stuck in life and she just didn't know how or which way to go. And usually when people come into my life to work on it energetically, they are at a crossroads and so they need help and guidance to help facilitate through the rough rocky time.
00;12;04;02 - 00;12;23;24
Ashley Andrews
So she had come in and it was just a it was very interesting because I had seen her daughter and her mother, but I never saw her so or knew the grandmother, so I never saw the mother. And so she had come in and she was just like Ash, and I'm lost. I'm lost. And so I said, okay, well, let's let's see what's going on.
00;12;23;24 - 00;12;43;12
Ashley Andrews
And as I was working on it, she just said it felt comforting and it was very nice. And then what I was directed usually through intuition, I was told, okay, you need to take her on a journey and she's going to have a really hard time. So you're going to really have to be work with her. So I said, okay.
00;12;43;12 - 00;13;05;26
Ashley Andrews
And I and as I'm working on her, it's very hard to remember specific details because when you channel, you're in that moment. So it's but pretty much the next steps. What I went through with her was going through some trauma responses when I would hit a spot in the body and say, okay, this is what this is. And she'd go, Oh, that's oh man, that was my childhood.
00;13;05;26 - 00;13;29;26
Ashley Andrews
And she would start doing stories. Well, it came to the part where I was getting ready to close, but something else had come up and it honestly, it looked like she was having she was giving birth on the table. She her body was extended, her stomach, everything was contracted. She was breathing really heavy. And I was walking her through this whole entire process.
00;13;29;28 - 00;13;57;10
Ashley Andrews
And she was crying and screaming because her body needed this release. And I just held her and I kept the safe space for her. And after probably about what seemed like an hour, but it was only like 5 to 10 minutes that she calmed down and she rested. And when we were talking at the end, what I remember her saying, she's like, Ash, It felt like I just you just delivered a trauma, baby.
00;13;57;13 - 00;14;10;20
Ashley Andrews
She's like, you're an energetic midwife. That I was like, Yeah, you did. And she from that point on and I still have contact with her today, that was a turning point in her life.
00;14;10;22 - 00;14;37;07
Cherie Lindberg
Beautiful. Well, I really love what you say about body knows how to heal, because I totally believe that. And that's a lot of what this podcast is about, wanting to share that with the world. And there's a lot of things that we can do without medical intervention. I'm not here saying don't use that. I'm here saying there's a lot that we can do to help facilitate the natural healing capacities for our body.
00;14;37;10 - 00;14;38;13
Ashley Andrews
Absolutely.
00;14;38;16 - 00;15;01;28
Cherie Lindberg
And and and I know some people, you know, whether you believe this or not, there's going to be people questioning and so forth, because just the the western point of view versus the eastern point of view. Right. So I understand what you're saying, too. So talk to me about distance healing.
00;15;02;01 - 00;15;26;26
Ashley Andrews
Well, that's actually something new that I've been doing this past year was doing a lot more distant healing because there are clients that I have had come to me from different states and they're like, Ash, you know, I just really wish I could just take you home with me. And I have been so focused on the physical aspect of working with massage and body work that I was like, Well, you know what?
00;15;26;26 - 00;15;47;28
Ashley Andrews
I can that's possible. And they're like, What? No way. So the fact that last year I started doing this in healing where you can be in the comfort of your home or your office anywhere, and what we would do is we would either if you do want a phone call or if you want to do virtual, which we can do a virtual visit and we'll have a conversation just like we are having now.
00;15;48;01 - 00;16;09;10
Ashley Andrews
And then what I'll do is based on where you need it and what you want, then what I'll do is I will either hang up or end the virtual call, and what we'll do is I'll do distant healing that way so you can relax and you're not so focused because I'm learning with people, they actually focus so much on the computer screen, on what I'm doing that you can't fully relax.
00;16;09;12 - 00;16;25;01
Ashley Andrews
So I, I, what I do is it depends on the person. It could be a 20 minute healing, could be 30 minutes. It depends on what you need at the time. And then I'm going to call you back and we're going to engage and we're going to compare. Okay, This is what I found. You know, does this resonate with you, too?
00;16;25;01 - 00;16;48;12
Ashley Andrews
Giving example, one of my recent clients, she actually lived more and she has been going through a lot of really tough time. And one of the experiences she had during the healing, I was seeing her, so she kept wrapping herself in a spiderweb is what it looked like to me in my mind's eye. And when I had spoken to her and told her of the experience that I had, she's like Ash, No way.
00;16;48;18 - 00;17;02;21
Ashley Andrews
It felt like my body was tensing up on you. And it would relax and then it would tense up again. And I was like, That's exactly what I was seeing in my mind's eye. And so this is stuff that we work with, and I help facilitate what you need during that time.
00;17;02;24 - 00;17;14;01
Cherie Lindberg
In your phone. So anything more that you would share that maybe I haven't, as that might be an important aspect of the work that you do.
00;17;14;04 - 00;17;41;06
Ashley Andrews
Well, the biggest thing that I find throughout their life, people's journeys and their chapters that they're in, I find they get sidetracked or lost. And a lot of times people have the understanding of what they need to do in their body, but they don't know that there are people like me or like other intuitive's or healers out there that can actually help them piece together.
00;17;41;06 - 00;17;56;12
Ashley Andrews
So when we feel like things have to be so hard all the time, like because we're wearing grain that if it's not hard, then it's not going to work. Or the best line that everybody says is no pain, no gain.
00;17;56;15 - 00;18;00;02
Cherie Lindberg
Oh, I've made that say, Yeah.
00;18;00;05 - 00;18;23;12
Ashley Andrews
Everybody, everybody I ever see is like, Oh, no, actually don't worry if you have to go hard. I understand because it just it has to hurt. But it doesn't have to hurt. It's we we punish ourselves so much over and over in the lifetime because we feel like we have to. And so I'm helping people understand that, you know, facilitating their healing.
00;18;23;12 - 00;18;47;28
Ashley Andrews
It doesn't have to be hard. They just need the help, the hope that you talk about on your podcast to be able to move forward and enjoy life and the experiences instead of it feeling they have to muddle through. So I love in my passion in life not only being a mom and helping my kids, but to be able to help others and facilitate them.
00;18;47;28 - 00;19;15;22
Ashley Andrews
Because you know what? Sometimes we just get stuck and we need help. And the body, like I said earlier, the body has such a different roadmap than the mind, because when we at one point in their life, they got disconnected. So when they got disconnected, they decided to branch off and make their own maps. And so if you don't know the communication or what kind of language they speak, your healing is going to stay stalled.
00;19;15;24 - 00;19;22;17
Ashley Andrews
So being able to provide and facilitate their healing is something that I'm just I'm just really passionate about.
00;19;22;19 - 00;19;52;27
Cherie Lindberg
Oh, I love that. And I agree with you that, you know, often we've on this earth, we have learned through pain and suffering and trauma. And equally, I agree with you that you can learn through joy and flourishing and love equal. So and fortunately, we we think it's only one way. So that's a great message to have out there.
00;19;52;29 - 00;20;14;23
Cherie Lindberg
Well, I just want to say, you know, thank you so much for being here. And there's a little spark that's coming up in my mind to right now. Before we wrap up, could you speak into as I know you do ancestral work because I've been honored and we've getting ready to wrap up. There was a wait a minute.
00;20;14;23 - 00;20;24;08
Cherie Lindberg
You got to talk about this piece. So anything you want to share about the ancestral patterning that you find in people's bodies?
00;20;24;11 - 00;20;48;14
Ashley Andrews
Well, that one is a deep one, because so the work that I do everybody has is usually familiar with the ancestral karma, and that's the first thing that gets usually people talking about any ancestral past. And so I'll talk a little bit and I'll give you the life experience real quick. And so what I do is a lot of these patterns that I notice in people's bodies, they're stuck.
00;20;48;16 - 00;21;13;15
Ashley Andrews
So when I go to that art, it's actually something very familiar. Somebody had their grandmother and it was something that they had. It wasn't even their trauma, but it was their grandmother's trauma. So they said, Well, why am I holding on to it? Well, but when you're born into a family, you have to you're pretty much taking the whole baggage of mother, grandmother, great grandmother and so on.
00;21;13;15 - 00;21;38;15
Ashley Andrews
And so forth. And so you are having to work through not only your life experiences from when you were a kid, but their entire life experience. And we hold it. So what I do is I'm helping the walk through with who it is. We usually identify who it is, and sometimes they don't identify because the person, the mother or the great grandmother or even uncle.
00;21;38;20 - 00;22;01;11
Ashley Andrews
It's not gender specific, but what they'll do is they'll come out and they'll say, Well, this is this is mine. And I just was not strong enough to work on this. So I don't know how to really see for myself. So I'm actually walking that particular person, uncle and cousin, whoever it was, through their trauma, through the recipient.
00;22;01;11 - 00;22;18;19
Ashley Andrews
But I'm working on that. So to give you an example. So I had our lady on the table and I give ages because just to kind of I was a reference, but she was late thirties and she was working through multiple traumas and she knew she had a social problem. She knew that that's what she wanted to be released.
00;22;18;26 - 00;22;41;23
Ashley Andrews
But her biggest thing is she was angry. She didn't want to release the anger because she didn't think that the family member was worth it. They did this to me, so I don't want to release that and so we had to sit them down together. And what I do is I creating the safe space. And then when you're on the table, we'll go through the journey together.
00;22;41;23 - 00;23;06;07
Ashley Andrews
And I was now the ancestral. So the mom, the great grandmother actually sat down with her and she just was just cry because she's like I asked her, forgive them. So then I had brought her family, her kids, into the circle that we have created. And then she lost. She's because her kids, she showed her that the mother wasn't that bad.
00;23;06;07 - 00;23;29;27
Ashley Andrews
And, you know, if they can forgive her, then she should be able to forgive. So we went through in she was able to be able to sit there with her mother and her great grandmother and actually have a conversation. And she even told me, she said, getting off that table, it was the most amazing, light hearted experience. And she didn't feel heavy in the areas that she presented when she laid on the table.
00;23;29;29 - 00;23;31;14
Ashley Andrews
And so it's a journey.
00;23;31;17 - 00;23;57;05
Cherie Lindberg
No. Yeah. Well, and I know people listening to this and I remember feeling this way and like, it can seem so unfair. You know, there are, you know, trauma can be borrowed and it can be out in we know scientifically, for those of you that are listening going I, I need epigenetics is this study in this and how it gets stored in the cells right Yes.
00;23;57;07 - 00;23;58;13
Ashley Andrews
Absolutely.
00;23;58;15 - 00;24;22;24
Cherie Lindberg
Is that where we have awareness to this And when we have awareness to this, then you could do something with it. Our ancestors did not have awareness of this. No, that's the gift that is given to us in this timing that we are aware. And there are belief systems out there that, hey, there are things that we can do to this to heal so that the next generation does not have to carry this.
00;24;22;26 - 00;24;23;28
Ashley Andrews
Absolutely.
00;24;24;01 - 00;24;43;26
Cherie Lindberg
Out. Thank you for that little spark, because that was an important aspect to share and talk about without you. Yeah. Thank you, Ashley, so much again for for being here. Is there anything else that you want to add here at the end for our listeners? Maybe I may get a hold of you like your website.
00;24;43;28 - 00;25;02;24
Ashley Andrews
Oh, sure. You can actually go to my website which is WW W that's Celtic healing hands dot com I also do Instagram and Facebook which if you go to the website it's linked there too. And then if you have any questions, I'm an open book and I'm I look forward to helping people along their journey with.
00;25;02;27 - 00;25;08;02
Cherie Lindberg
You and we'll make sure in the show notes to have your links and everything so to you. So thank you.
00;25;08;02 - 00;25;09;01
Ashley Andrews
Thank you.
00;25;09;04 - 00;25;10;21
Cherie Lindberg
Yeah, It's good to see you.
00;25;10;23 - 00;25;16;16
Ashley Andrews
I know you look so amazing.
00;25;16;19 - 00;25;52;20
Cherie Lindberg
So thank you for coming and listening to this Elevated Life Academy episode with Ashley Andrews, where we talk about energy healing and distance healing and basically the journey of life and how the body knows how to heal. If you really enjoyed this episode, please share it with friends and family because elevated life, what we're trying to do is to share this information as widely as possible, because you never know when somebody might need this information.
00;25;52;22 - 00;26;04;26
Cherie Lindberg
It might inspire somebody to go and get some body work and to realize that indeed, their body can heal itself. Thank you for listening.
00;26;04;28 - 00;26;23;24
Narrator
Thank you for joining us. On another uplifting journey on Cherie Lindberg's Elevated Life Academy. Stories of hope and Healing. If you found resonance or connection with what you've heard today, we encourage you to share this episode and consider becoming a subscriber. Please spread the word so others can live an elevated life.