When the Body Holds Grief: Secret Language of Pain — with Inna Segal | EP 490

You know you need something, you're just not sure what. You've been listening, you're doing the work, but there's still this feeling that you're circling the same place, like you're waiting for the thing that finally moves you. Now maybe you've thought about working with me one-on-one. Maybe something's held you back, the timing, the money, or you're just not sure you're ready yet. I get that. And I want you to know there's still a place for you. I built a resource for exactly this moment, guided meditations for when the waves hit and you just need to breathe. Workbooks to help you get out of your head and onto the page, ebooks on what near-death experiences tell us about the people we've lost, and whether they're really gone, a full course for widows and widowers who are ready to find their way back to living, and a full course for the evidence of the afterlife. And all of it is available for pay what you want. Nobody gets turned away because of money. I think these resources are valuable, but I don't want to hold them back because you don't have the money to pay for them. You don't have to wait until you're ready for coaching. The next step might be a lot smaller than you think. To find out, go to grief2growth.com/store. That's grief, the numeral 2, growth.com/store. And check out the resources I've made for you. Close your eyes and imagine. What are the things in life that cause us the greatest pain? The things that bring us grief are challenges, challenges designed to help us grow, to ultimately become what we were always meant to be. We feel like we've been buried. But what if, like a seed, we've been planted? And having been planted, we grow to become a mighty tree. Now, open your eyes. Open your eyes to this way of viewing life. Come with me as we explore your true, infinite, eternal nature. This is Grief to Growth. And I am your host, Brian D Smith. Hi there, welcome to Grief 2 Growth. I'm Brian D Smith. And if you're new here, thank you for finding your way to the space. And if you've been here before, welcome back. This show exists because life breaks all of us open eventually, through loss, through illness, through the things we never saw coming. And in that brokenness, some of us discover something that we never expected. That there's more going on beneath the surface than we were ever taught. More wisdom in our bodies, more connection across the veil, more possibility for healing than conventional medicine or conventional thinking ever told us. And that's what we explore here. Today, our guest is Inna Segal, and Inna is a pioneer in energy medicine and human consciousness. Her learn to heal herself when nothing else could. Now, her story didn't begin in a lecture hall or a clinic. It began in a body that was suffering with chronic back pain and a skin disorder that conventional medicine couldn't touch. And then the devastating loss of a stillborn child. From that depth of pain, she discovered something extraordinary. She could see the energetic blocks and disease in her own body, and she could learn to heal them. And that discovery changed everything. For over 25 years, Anna has worked with people worldwide, from trauma survivors to doctors, psychologists to elite athletes, teaching them that the body isn't the enemy, it's the messenger. Her bestselling book is The Secret Language of Your Body, and it's been translated into 27 languages and has sold over a million copies because it speaks to something that people feel in their bones but have never had words for. That is, the pain is trying to tell us something. In this conversation, we're going to get— we're going to go somewhere that most people are afraid to look. Into the roots of suffering, not just what hurts, but why it hurts, what the body is holding that the mind has never been able to process, how ancestral wounds passed down through generations and live in our nervous systems, and how it's possible, genuinely possible, to transform that, that pain into freedom. So if you've been living with chronic pain, illness, or grief that just won't shift, if you've done the work, tried the things, and something feels stuck, this one's for you. And it has something to say to the part of you that's been, that's been waiting for a different kind of answer. And if you want to continue this conversation after the episode, head over to grief2growth.substack.com. It's grief, the numeral 2, growth.substack.com. And you'll find an article there about today's discussion, where you can comment and connect with me and with other listeners. So let's get started and welcome Ines Segal.

Thank you so much.

I'm glad to have you here. Um, I know your story— well, you tell me where your story started, but I know you had chronic back pain and a skin disease that just wouldn't be touched by conventional medicine. So maybe you can start with that.

Yes, I had psoriasis all over my skin, and I had really bad digestive issues where even when I was very young, I remember ending up in a hospital with no explanation for it. I had really bad back pain, and that was the thing that actually changed everything. Because whilst psoriasis was very uncomfortable, and I know people who have it would say the same thing because I had it all over my elbows, all over my knees. It definitely runs in my family. My grandfather's had it. It. My dad still has it. His sister is covered with it from head to toe. So it was definitely something that people said, oh, you know, it's genetic, it runs in the family, you know, just keep putting creams on it. And I think the more I went to doctors and the more medicine I took, the worse I got. Because it really deeply affected my digestive system. My skin, which is actually connected to the liver, was doing way worse the more I took. And my back pain, I mean, I could only take so many painkillers without thinking that this is not okay. There's got to be some other way. And so my mom, she was very much into just medicine. And she did put doctors on a pedestal. So she eventually took me to a physiotherapist, which didn't help much at that time. And then when I turned 18, I actually ended up— or not when I turned, but at 18, I ended up meeting my, I guess, my first husband in an acting class. And he was very open to alternative medicine and had explored it and researched it. And, um, he decided that the way he would help me while we were dating and so on was by taking me to different people. And I went to everyone from, um, kinesiologists to, um, chiropractors to rolfing to just literally anything that he could think of definitely naturopath, homeopath. We're trying to look at all the different issues that I was having and seeing who can help me. And eventually what kept happening, essentially, Brian, was that I would get a little bit better and then I would have a crash. And then when I had the child that died, It was kind of like the biggest crash. Like everything that was being held together kind of started falling apart, falling into pieces. And I felt like I was the victim. Like, how could this happen to me? I was so young. I was completely and utterly unprepared for it. So in my mind, I literally thought there's something really wrong with me because this doesn't happen. At 20, and it was literally— I turned 20 maybe 2 days after the baby died, but I didn't know. So it— the whole thing happened, um, around my birthday, and I remember saying to my mom, I'm never going to celebrate my birthday again. It's over for me. I just can't understand how this can happen to somebody in Australia. This happens in third world countries. And obviously I'm not okay. Obviously something's happening inside of me that, that has been happening for a while. But this is showing that, yeah, that there's something completely wrong with me and my body. And so at that point, I had been seeing a chiropractor for a while, and my back got really bad. It seized up. I could not turn. Um, it was definitely very, very inflamed. And sitting, lying, standing, everything felt like agony. And like, what's the point of this? Like, what's the point of my life now? And so, um, I went to see this chiropractor, and he essentially he had been trying to help me. I mean, I was seeing him every 2 days, so seeing him 3 times a week, sometimes longer, sometimes more. So, and this particular day when I wake up and I was just at that point in my life where I was thinking to myself, you know what, how does this happen to somebody at 20? And if I'm like this at 20, what am I going to be like at 25 or at 30, I'm going to be in a wheelchair. And so when I showed up at his office, I was really depressed, I was angry, I was confused, I was sad. I, I had all of these feelings happening. And he— I think that he felt like he needed to shake me. He needed to get me to do something that was different to what we had been doing for over a year by that stage. And he actually came out of his office and he looked at me and he said, well, your body's stuck. And I say, yeah, I know that part. What are you going to do to help me? And he was very quiet for a moment and he was really thinking about what to say and I think how to help me, to wake me up from, you know, from this state that I was in. And he basically said, well, there's nothing I can do for you at the moment. You know, your body actually wants to be stuck. And when I heard that, I definitely felt enraged in terms of how dare he says this and what do you mean you can't help me and what am I meant to do? And so when I left, on the way back home, I was reflecting on what he was saying on this, your body suck, you know. So what does it mean? Does it mean my body has a language? What is this language? What is it speaking to me in? And at that point, I had been studying professional writing and editing at university, and I was doing subject on linguistics. And so in my mind, it was easy to think in language in terms of, you know, how do we break language down? How does it work? And I was thinking to myself, it's almost like my body is speaking to me in Japanese and I don't know Japanese. I don't even know the letters. I can't even recognize them. And it's speaking to me in this language that, um, that is giving me an opportunity here to learn and to discover, but I know zero, nothing about it. However, at the same time, I made a decision, and it was something I'd never done. I felt like I tried everything. I was one of those people who would say, I've tried it all and nothing works for me. And I remember thinking, the only thing I haven't really tried is self-healing. Because I don't actually know how to do it, but I'm going to— I'm just going to improvise when I get home. And so I actually just started from breathing into my back. And as I was doing that, it occurred to me that I was always breathing shallowly. I never, ever allowed myself to breathe deeply except if I was in an acting class. So that occurred to me, and I was feeling inspired. I was feeling open to it. But otherwise, I would shut down and breathe very shallowly. And I was really afraid of feeling that pain that was inside my body, and I was afraid of discovering anything that was really going on. And so I gave myself permission to do that. And I was then counting backwards from 30 because my mind was quite negative. And as I was doing that, there was this moment of clarity and space. And in that moment, I remember thinking, why don't I ask for divine help? And internally, there was a conflict inside of me around this, because in my mind I went, well, how can I ask for divine help like really and truly if God made me have this experience. So either I'm being punished for something that I've done that I don't know about, and thus I'm not going to get help, or, um, this just things that I don't understand. Because after I had the baby that died, I had this very profound experience and As I was lying, you know, in, in the, in bed and staring at the ceiling contemplating how could this happen, and just in a complete state of numbness and shock, I saw an angelic being. And it, the being was feminine, and she said to me It's okay, Ina, you're going to have two children soon. And she showed me a boy and a girl, and I just felt like this energy of calm poured inside of me. And for 3 hours I was calm, and I was saying all sorts of things about how I will use this experience to help others and there's a reason for it. But once that 3 hours and that calm wore off, I went into fear and anxiety and stress. And so I felt like, you know, maybe I made it up, but I was not really in a state at the time to make things up. But I had not had my children yet, so I didn't know., you know, to believe or not to believe. But at that point I went, okay, I have had this experience, so there is something spiritual out there. Why? Yeah, I, I might as well ask. And so when I asked, I felt this warmth again coming into my body, similar to the warmth that I felt when I had the experience with the angel.

Mm-hmm.

And there was an unwinding that was happening. And since I had my eyes closed, I could see this warm yellowy golden light, like the sunlight shining onto you. And another thought came at that point, a thought I'd never had. And the thought was, I wonder what my body actually looks like. I wonder what my back looks like. And at that point, again, within moments, it felt like this switch was turned on and I could see my back. And as I was seeing it and the inflammation, I could see all the vertebrae. It was literally in that moment, it looked like X, you know, having an X-ray. And I remember thinking, okay, so if I could discover why I have all this. And not from the victim perspective that I've been exploring this from, you know, but from a place of, I actually wanna know, I wanna understand how did I get here? Yeah. What is this language? What is this about? Why do I have pain everywhere in my body? Why do I have all these issues at this young age? What, you know, what would it be? And what happened next was kind of like memory connected to a vision connected to wisdom. And so I started seeing, um, what happened when I came to Australia. So I didn't know one word of English, and I went to school, and I was from the wrong part of the world, you know. I was bullied, I was attacked, I cried every day for years going to school. And it became very clear that this is when I started getting psoriasis all over my skin. And psoriasis and obviously skin conditions are connected to how comfortable we feel within ourselves. Or this is something I found out later on, but it made sense to me that I did not feel comfortable in any way or form to be myself. And so it— so yes, psoriasis appeared. And then, you know, as I was feeling through all the things that I was seeing, as much as I was capable of doing in that time, the images started to change and I started to become aware of when my back pain appeared, and the, the tinges of it appeared at 14, and then at around 16 it became really bad. So as I was asking these questions, I was shown that at around 14 I changed schools, and I ended up going to, um, and I had changed schools prior to that as well, so I had to end up this was my, I think, fourth school at that point in terms of in Australia. And as I went to this particular school, it was a private school, and the children, or the majority of children who were there, about 90% of them came from insane wealth, like wealth that I'd never seen in my life. And then there was me and my friends who all came from Eastern Europe, who came from the kind of poverty that the people in that school had never even dreamed of existed or considered existed. And so there was this massive conflict between them and us, and most of my friends, including myself, started to kind of compensate by self-protecting. And so a lot of my friends ended up with scoliosis, and for me it was more about the lower back pain and sciatica, which later on, again, as I was discerning and trying to understand the body, I find out was very much connected to struggle and finance and my parents and their relationship. They were in constant conflict with each other. They had moved to a new country again with a completely different way of living and seeing things. And they were always fighting about money. They had the opposite views of money and how to, I guess, work with it or deal with it. And I, as a child who was very sensitive, absorbed it all inside of myself. And so all of that struggle was within me. And again, as, as this became very clear to me, I started to feel a deeper unwinding inside my lower back and The last thing that became very clear was the, the ancestral aspect, not just of the, the fact that I had skin issues, but also that I had digestive issues and the digestive, digestive, I can't speak, digestive issues exploded and became really painful once I had the child that died to a degree where I found it very hard to eat anything. And I had a conversation with my grandmother at one point, and she said to me, I wish that it was me. So she, that she wished that it was her who had died instead of this baby. And my grandmother actually grew up in a family where, um, Her mother was clairvoyant, and her mother had 8 children. And just before the war started, my grandmother was the oldest. She was 12, and her mother said to her, the war is coming and we're all going to die except you and your father, and I'm going to have to hide you and protect you. So that when the time comes, you, you're going to hide and you're going to run. And when the time came, my— essentially, her mother, who had a 3-month-old baby at the time, had asked somebody to hold the baby and, um, protected my grandmother with her own body. And so my grandmother— she said to my grandmother, you run, they're going to shoot. Do not look back. And so my grandma did. She— that's what she did. And she essentially lost everybody in her family except her father. Her father came back from the war 4 years later. Um, he didn't leave for long like mother predicted. And my grandmother essentially had this enormous, enormous trauma that she never talked about until, um, she came to Australia. So she— or I should say, the way she talked about it prior to that was just giving very, you know, um, kind of very small details, and only to the main person she, she shared it with was my grandfather. So when she was in Australia, when she came here, it was like she felt the freedom to talk about it. And in that moment, I realized why I had all the digestive issues that I had, because how do you digest experiences like that? And essentially I realized that everyone in the family had digestive issues. Hmm. And Yeah, after that, I, I, I had an inkling that I was this sponge as well. I was one of those people who sponged off other— so whenever they had issues, I would then have issues as well. And I fell asleep after this massive kind of day of realizations. And then when I wake up the next day, there was about 70% of the pain that was gone in terms of back pain, and I felt different. I felt like it was the first time that I was the person who transformed the pain, because I've had this experience before where the pain, where the pain would go to 30 or 20%, but it was never me who did it. It was always the chiropractor or rolfing practitioner, whatever, whoever I was um, and so I remember thinking, okay, well, don't get too excited because it may not last, but, um, because I have a skeptical nature, um, but keep exploring and see what happens. And so for the next 3 weeks, I spent a lot of time in bed. I spent a lot of time asking questions, journaling, writing things down, just kind of trying to listen to my body and what it was really saying and what it was about, and putting the different pieces of the puzzle together. And by the end of these 3 weeks, all the psoriasis disappeared and all the back pain disappeared. The anxiety that I had went right down and I kind of went, okay, wow, something feels much more real that has happened. My digestive system improved so I could eat, but it took years and years for that part to get better. And I always say I still have to be aware of certain things like milk. I can't just eat, I can't just drink milk or eat a lot of cheese without having some effect inside my body. Nothing like it used to be. But all of this kind of led me to go, oh my God, wow, my body is actually intelligent. And then I realized that I— the same way that I had that experience of seeing into my own body, I started seeing into other people's bodies. Hmm.

Wow. Wow, that's pretty— that's amazing. So you, you had this revelation, and you saw that, I guess, some of your, your stuff was your stuff from, from your personal experience, but someone was also ancestral. And was it just the seeing and the awareness that you think started clearing things up? Because it sounds like you weren't doing any, like, you know, really involved techniques or anything. Was it just the awareness?

I think there was awareness. There was a lot of emotional release that was happening for me at the time. There was a lot of self-reflection and starting to see things from new perspectives.

Okay.

At the time. So there wasn't a real technique as much as there was more of a letting go and recognition and a shift in perception. At that time, for me.

And so you saw this in yourself. And then you said, then you began to see it in other people. How did that manifest?

Stay with us, we'll be write back.

You know, one of the hardest things about grief? Most of the people in your life just don't get it. They want you to be further along than you are. They get uncomfortable when you bring it up, so you stop bringing it up. And that's why I started writing. My Substack is where I go deeper. Thoughts I don't always get to on the podcast. Essays on consciousness, on continuing bonds, on what it actually means to carry loss and still build a life. The stuff that used to keep me up at night, written out in a way that I hope meets you in the morning. But here's what I didn't expect when I started it: the community that showed up. People who are doing exactly what you're doing— listening, learning, trying to find their footing. Readers who comment, who share their own stories, who remind each other that none of us are as alone in this as we feel. And that's what the Substack has become— a place to go deeper with me and to find your people. It's free to subscribe. Find me at grief2growth.com/substack. That's grief, the numeral 2, growth.com/substack. Or just go to Substack and search for Grief to Growth. I hope to see you there.

There were two things that happened at the time. One was my partner at the time had a friend that had come over and She was very good at writing. So I was doing an assignment that I needed to hand in, and I asked her if she could come and sit next to me, next to the computer, and read it with me and give me some suggestions. So she did. And as, as I was reading and typing and I kept kind of looking back and forth, at one point as I was looking at her, I saw this cartoon-looking liver above her head, and I kept opening and closing my eyes because I thought, oh my God, now I'm going insane. And she said to me, do you have something in your eye? And, um, I said, well, no, but can I ask you a really strange question? And she said, sure. And I said, do you have liver problems? And she said, yeah, I do actually. How do you know?. And when she said that, the image changed and I actually saw an older man. I just knew it was her grandfather.

Mm-hmm.

And I said, well, did your grandfather have the same issue? And she said, yes, he did. And I had a sense that her grandfather had been in a concentration camp and she acknowledged that. And then I said, 'Do you get nightmares?' And she said, 'Yeah, I do.' And then I said to her something that I thought, 'Oh my God, I paid zero attention in science, in biology.' I wish, you know, when I was at school, I wish that I had, um, because I cannot believe I'm saying this because I actually don't know what I'm saying. And I said to her, well, the issues that you're dealing with in terms of your health are connected to your DNA. And she's like, okay, thanks for sharing. Um, and then I said a lot of things to do with her family that she didn't know. And she called her mom and she spoke to her for about half an hour and her mom acknowledged everything I had said. And so when she spoke to me afterwards, she was like, oh my God, um, I— she was 25 at the time— she said, I've learned more in the last hour or so than I knew in the last 25 years of my life about myself and my family. I was really— what was really interesting was that she ended up doing these specific tests 2 years later and all this stuff that I said, including the DNA, came like that's what they said it was, you know, her issues. But yeah, that was one experience. And then my mom called me up and my mom's very supportive of, you know, anything that I do, actually. I think the only thing she wasn't supportive of was acting. She's like, I just don't see it for you. But yeah, she was very supportive in my healing journey. And she called me and she said, you know, your dad was at work and he hurt his knee really badly. Can you do something to help him? And I said to her, well, no, I can't because I don't know what I'm doing. And she said, well, whatever you did for yourself, surely you can, you know, you can connect to your dad. And I was like, he's not even here, he's at home. I don't know what you're like, why you're saying this. And she's like, look, just try, just try it. So I thought, okay, fine, um, I'm just gonna focus on his knee and if anything shows up, it shows up. And so he, um, so yeah, so I was focusing on his knee and I kept seeing this image of boats. And I could not kind of go past that. So just like one boat after another after another. And I called him— sorry, I called her back and I said to her, well, I'm, I'm just needing to clarify, did he hurt his leg at work or was it on a boat? And she said, no, it was definitely at work. He's not been on a boat. And I said, okay, fine, so I must be wrong. I can't help you or him. And so 2 minutes later, when I hung up, I get a phone call and it was my dad. And he said, what are you doing? And I said, well, I don't know if Mom told you, but I healed myself and I have this new special ability that came, you know, I think came about, and I just need to know, was— were you on a boat? And he was like, well, yes, I was, but I don't need you telling your mom these types of things. So he had been on a boat.

Oh wow.

Um, and I remember thinking, okay, well, I 100% didn't know this, and my mom didn't know this, right? Um, so, okay, I'm starting to to reflect on what to do with this ability. And so, um, it was really interesting because after that it felt like it kind of became wide open. Because up until that conversation with my dad, I had not really gone out. So I'd been at home for weeks trying to just, you know, heal and deal with this stuff. And so then I went outside and I realized that I could cross the road and see all this stuff about whatever, whatever was going on with somebody, or I could go to yoga class and see it with whoever I was standing next to or focused on. So I was a little bit taken aback with what to do because I had no clue. And so I made a decision to, to start kind of doing what you're doing, to interview people who had some kind of an ability or wrote books about it or go to classes around it. And yeah, and see how— what I'd learn and how I can work with it so that I can adjust it and not just, yeah, not just be constantly bombarded by information that I could do nothing— that I couldn't do anything with.

Yeah. So with your dad, you were right, you saw he was on a boat. Were you able to do anything with his knee?

Well, I, again, I didn't know what I was doing. So I was just focused on seeing energy and just pulling it out of his knee. He said that it was better. But what was really interesting was that my dad's actually extremely intuitive, but he pretends not to be. So I think, um, maybe a couple of years later, I said to him, please, can you just— can I just do a healing session on you? And, um, I was scanning. I remember I was scanning him and I was writing things down, and then I was doing processes, and he didn't know what they were or anything about them, um, because everybody in my family had to come and be my guinea pig and Um, I remember when I finished the session, um, and I wrote everything down, I said to him, okay, I'm gonna tell you everything that I felt or saw after you tell me what you experienced. And I was literally expecting him to say, oh, I didn't really feel anything, but thanks, I appreciate it. And He told me word for word everything that I wrote down for, you know, like about him, what I saw, what I felt, what I did. And I remember just staring at him and going, okay, do you wanna tell me something? And he said, well, I'm just as intuitive as you. I just don't advertise it.

And then, spoken like a typical father.

Yeah, he's like, you know, I think he, he said the, the only time we've really had these types of conversations have been more recently where, you know, he's acknowledged that he's very intuitive and sensitive. And he shared that one of the things that he, um, one of the things that he does to feel his feelings is to listen to music on repeat. And I was like, I never knew that because that's one of the things that I've done. And he said, well, if you remember when you had that experience with the baby dying, I spoke to your husband then and I gave him a song. To give to you to play. And I actually never knew that he did that. And I was like, oh, okay, wow, you know. And it was a song that I, um, listened to on repeat at that time. And I was like, okay, that's really interesting. Yeah, you know, just the different things you find out.

Yeah. You mentioned earlier, and I know in some other material you mentioned the secret language of the body, and you, you mentioned earlier you had this intuition that your body was speaking Japanese. And it's interesting, like you said, not only do I not speak Japanese, I can't even read the characters. So when we're going through these things, is, is it our body trying to tell us something, the, the pain and the disease that we go through?

Well, it's a combination of the body and what embodies the body, which is the soul, you know. And I know we can talk about this on your podcast, um, so the soul is the part of you that makes you who you are, makes you individual, makes you unique. And it's also inside of it, it has something called the astral body. And the astral body is the body of sensations. So it's the body of pleasure and it's the body of pain. So, and it's also connected to all your emotions. So The astral body is what's actually constantly showing you whether you have pain inside and what it's really about in terms of your experiences. But the astral body is actually also connected to the etheric body, which is the body of memory, and also the body of vitality, and also connected to ancestry. And so what it does is it presses into the etheric, and then the etheric body, which is the copy of the physical and looks the same as the physical, or almost the same, will press into the physical body in terms of showing us what's really going on in terms of our experience. So essentially, it's A lot of pain— I'm not going to say all pain, but a lot of pain is connected to, you know, emotional experiences that have been pushed away and suppressed for often long periods of time, intertwined with the memory and the perception of it. And so part of the language of the body is actually identifying the fact that wherever it's stored inside your body, there is a connection to certain wisdom and certain experiences based on what the body actually does in terms of its function. And so when we're starting to break it down, and I probably I probably confused you and everyone else around it, but what actually occurs is that when we're looking at the body and we start to break it down and we say, okay, what are my eyes doing? You know, what are they for? And we start to go, well, my eyes are for seeing, for seeing something and then interpreting that perception And, you know, explaining potentially to somebody, oh, this is what I see, right? This is, this is how I'm seeing things. This is what it is. And obviously all of us see things slightly differently. So the eyes in themselves are about our vision, but as they deteriorate, we start to look at, well, what is it that I'm seeing in my life that is painful, that my eyes are saying, this is something that is very difficult for me to see. And this, in combination with the fact that we stare at the screen all the time and we don't do any eye exercises and all sorts of things like that, that we used to do before we had screens creates all sorts of problems inside your eyes. And I've looked at this from many perspectives because I've had people in my family who've had issues with their eyes where what happens when somebody's a child as opposed to when they're an adult? And obviously there are different eye conditions and eye issues that we can break down, and I wrote about them in my book The Secret Language of Your Body. But essentially, you know, when it's a child, the child is often absorbing what's in the environment. And when there's things that are hidden or unresolved or pushed away and you know, things that are painful to see and to watch, even if the child doesn't know this consciously, they'll usually absorb this and start— and their vision will start to deteriorate now, which is also different to somebody being born with, with the, with an eye condition, in which case we need to look at the idea of multiple Earth lives, and that there is a high possibility that they brought it with them for a reason. Yeah, you know, and then there's the womb stage of what was happening in the womb, um, and how that affected the child. And then we also have, as we get older, you know, we start to see more pain in the world. We start to see people in our family getting sick or dying and loss and grief that we have. If we don't allow ourselves to really feel those things, then there is a high possibility that the eyes will be affected and they'll actually become hardened. Because tears and, you know, are very cleansing in that sense.

Yeah.

So, you know, so each part of the body is also storing things in terms of that language, you know. So when we break things down and we go, okay, so eyes are about seeing, ears about hearing, what am I hearing that is not working? Um, and I actually did a podcast recently and the lady had an issue with her ears and we broke it down And she went, oh my God, wow, that is— that makes complete sense. Because she was overwhelmed and hearing so many things from so many people that her body just went, I don't even know what I believe, I'm gonna block it all out.

Yeah, yeah. So what you're saying, and, and, uh, you said you may have confused me and other people, it is a little bit complicated because from my understanding we do have multiple bodies and they're kind of like Russian nesting dolls. So you've got, you know, and I don't know the different levels, but they're like different levels of the body. And so what happens in, in the spiritual or in the astral can affect us in the physical. And so, you know, it's interesting because I find that, like you were talking about some of the ailments that you were going through that started breaking your body down, but then you had the— when, when you lost the child, that pushed you to the point where you actually made a transformation. So these things are trying to tell us something. I think sometimes the illness, the ailments that we're going through are saying, this is something you need to look at, this is something you need to look at. And it'll keep kind of nudging us until we kind of wake up and, and actually look at these things.

Well, 100%. And I think that when we are willing to see things in a much more spiritual way, we start to go, I'm, I'm just, I'm not just a physical body, right? And the pain that comes into my life experience is there to teach me something, to help me to become a deeper person, to help me to grow. And it's kind of, I think when you have a massive loss in your life, especially early on, it really creates a— I guess it makes you who you are afterwards, and it either makes you explore and opens up your perception of what is possible, or it shuts you down completely.

Yeah.

So for me, I think for me it was the opening and the realization that there is a spiritual world, and I wanted to really explore and understand what happens to us when we pass over. It felt like it was a need more than just a desire for many, many years, where I was like, I need to know to be okay. And, and so you know, the spiritual kind of became very, very important. And I guess, you know, coming back to that experience with the angel, it started with that for me. And then when I had my children, it was like, okay, well, this, this angel was there and supported me and shared this with me. I'm more open to seeing how the spiritual world works and also how I can, I guess, how I can work with loss, loss and grief. And I know this is what the podcast is about. How do I, how do I work with this when it shows up? And I think for me it was really interesting because I started when I was I think 26 or 27, I started meeting people from what I believe is my soul family. And the first time I met somebody again, it was just this crazy experience that happened within a short period of time of meeting this person. This immense fear of loss came up for me. Like to a point where I was like, I can't breathe. And there was a realization that because I— this was where I really started to open my heart in a different way. Um, and it wasn't like, it wasn't a romantic way, it was a soulful way. It was on a level that I could not understand at the time. And, you know, I really actually had to face loss at that point way more than when, when this child died, because I just, you know, for a while there I shut down. And it was, you know, so much— it kind of— I channeled it into the pain in my body and what it was about and so on. But the actual depth of like when you lose someone and then you open your heart again, that, that was something new to me. Because, and I had a realization at that time, my children were very small still, that I was in that constant protection mode even with them, that it was hard for me, and I'm gonna say more with my son than with my daughter at the time, to get close to him because there was always this fear. What if I lose him? What if I, you know, what if he is not here? I'm not going to be able to cope with this, right? And so yeah, when I, um, connected with this person without any expectation where there was this soul love that came forth. I remember the first few years, it was so overwhelming, and I had such an intense fear of losing him and not being able to function in my life again. And I think that's where the deeper healing happened. And I remember at one point, he lives in Europe, he came to Australia And, um, you know, and I said to him, look, I don't know, something's happening to me, I need you to hold space for me. And it was like— I don't think I've ever shared this actually— it was like I was being held by this person that I trusted by that stage and knew that he would be there for me and I would be there for him for the rest of our lives. Like, this was this incredible friendship, and that no matter what happened, he would be that person that would hold me. And in that, there was an allowance to go to the depth of loss. And it went on. I think we sat in this hotel room for about 10 hours where I just cried and, and grieved, and he held me. And I, I remember going to places in that grief and loss that I'd never allowed myself to even touch prior to that.

Wow.

And it was like, at times it felt like falling, like just falling, and there was no— you didn't know where, where you would fall to.. And yeah, it was just the most profound experience of, you know, where I finally felt like I could really trust someone where, yeah, that level of grief and transformation of it could occur. And it was, it was very profound.

Yeah. Wow. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, you know, I think that, that grief and loss are here to teach us, as painful, as painful as they are. And that's what, you know, that's what my podcast is about. I talk to people who have gone through these profound losses, and those are the things that really transform us, you know. And, and so as you share your story and we hear about the, the things you went through, that the, the loss of, of a child is, is one of the worst things that anybody can go through.. And we can, we can choose, right? We can choose to try to stuff that inside and it can make us sick, or we can choose to process it and it can transform us. And that's what you've done.

Well, yeah, absolutely. And I think that it makes you a much deeper, more compassionate person and someone who, you know, who's able to hold that space right, somebody else to experience whatever they need to experience. I think that's been, yeah, a huge journey for me and a learning, because I really feel like, you know, from the deep losses that we have are through, you know, death, but it's also through breakup of relationships.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

You know, I feel like, you know, in some ways the hardest experience is when you're unprepared because it, it, it literally kind of breaks you open in a way and it makes you feel like you don't know how you're gonna put yourself back together. And afterwards, I think a lot of people go into protective mode and so they're always on guard. In some way or another. And so it's again, very difficult to trust. And I think, you know, this is where in some ways preparing yourself for possible loss can be very helpful in a way. I know that one of the deepest losses I had was when my grandmother died. And, you know, I have 5 years before she died, I was just imagining her dying was— it would give me so much anxiety. And internally, you know, I felt like, um, in preparation for it, it actually became one of the most beautiful, memorable, transformational experiences for me in terms of what transition can look like.

Yeah.

And, you know, and I felt like when she died— actually, you asked me when we first started having conversation if I've ever been to the US, and it was literally she died and the next month I was, um, going on tour for the first time to all across America, including Ohio. And, you know, and I remember thinking to myself, I am, I'm feeling so vulnerable. My grandmother, who I, you know, loved and connected to deeply, has just passed over. How am I going to go on this journey? Like, I, I need to feel and see her during this experience. And while I was touring, there were constantly people that were showing up that had the qualities that my grandmother had. And I remember recognizing them and going— so rather than grieving, I would celebrate. So because at that point I was like, you know what, she actually had a long life considering where she came from. And I'm going to, yeah, I'm going to acknowledge and celebrate, you know, everyone that reminds me of her. Because so I actually sat down and wrote down all the qualities before I left on this trip that she had that I loved, that I would miss. And then as I was on this, yeah, on this tour, I would constantly go, oh my God, that, that person just showed me this beautiful loving quality that my grandmother had, and I'm going to receive it both from them and from my mom, from my grandmother, from the perspective of even though she's not here with me physically, she is here with me expressing herself through other people and through other experiences, and that was very healing.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, Anna, your, um, your book, um, obviously great success, sold over a million copies, translated into over two dozen languages, and that's hard to do in today's fragmented book world. I mean, as someone who's written a couple of books, I know that, you know, to break through like that is, is not something easy. So first, congratulations on that. But what do you think it is about your book that touches people?

Well, I think that the accuracy, because there were other books before I wrote this one that were out there, but I feel like the people who wrote them, there weren't many. There's way more now. They did not necessarily have the ability to see into people's bodies, so they found this information through others. Yeah, but the actual author, the authors themselves didn't, as far as I know. I think that I took time not to just write one line about each um, body part or condition. I actually sat with each one, tuned into it, had— I had a lot of clients by the time I wrote the book, so I had, had a lot of experiences and I could see the connections. And I also only wrote about the conditions that were in the section for diseases. Sometimes people say, well, you know, not all the conditions are in there, which, you know, it would be 3 books if I wrote about every condition that was there, right? But I actually wrote about the ones that I had some experience with at the time rather than just, you know, writing about any condition, right? And so, um, I feel like there's a depth and an accuracy to the book, and then I also write, you know, layered processes for people because, you know, as we were talking about and you were asking the questions, Brian D Smith, around when I started, I had no idea. I had no concept of what to do. And so it was just made up. And then when I was writing the book, I was looking at, you know, everything from how do you work with your mind And I thought, everybody can work with their mind, so I'm going to put something about that in every process, how to let go or change your mind or release things. Mm-hmm. Everyone can work with their emotions, so I'm going to talk about emotions. I started learning about energy, and the easiest way that I felt that I could teach people about energy was through color. And so I thought, I'm going to, I'm going to put information about color and how to work with it into the book. And I'm also going to look at the systems of the body and how they are giving you messages, in which case I'm going to ask a lot of questions in every process so that the person can get to know themselves. And the other thing I'm going to do is I'm going to get people to breathe, to move, to touch, to work with pressure points, because I, I started learning about that. I'm going to— I did years and years of yoga training, so I was like, hmm, there's ways of moving or kind of opening your mouth and doing certain exercises with, you know, with sound or with your tongue that can help you to cleanse things from the body. And so I looked at everything from Chinese medicine to pressure point reflexology to, you know, um, to essentially anything that was really simple and easy to teach people, um, where they could take charge of their own body. And so I think that, um, from, from feedback, my book is used by a lot, like a lot of practitioners of alternative healing, whatever the modality is. And it's also used by, by anyone because I wrote it in layman's terms because I wasn't, I wasn't coming from that perspective of being scientist in that way. I wanted people like me to understand it. And I actually originally wrote the book that I would have wanted to have to help me heal.

Right.

That was kind of my perspective. What would I have needed? What would I have wanted to have? And I also think that people actually have experiences of healing through doing the exercises in the book. Then they share and they buy it and they give it to their friends and they give it to their clients. And that's the feedback that I received.

Awesome. Awesome. And I know in addition to your book, you offer some masterclasses. So tell me about those.

So I've been teaching people how to heal themselves since I was 22. So I healed my own self at 20, and then I spent 2 years practicing and learning and doing things on everyone that I could find, lots of family. Yeah. And And I started to recognize that it is vital that people know how to do healing on themselves, even if they do see other people for help. And I still go and get acupuncture or massage or whatever I feel I need done, but I do a lot of healing on myself when I need it. Right.. And so I started, yes, I started teaching people how to tune into their own bodies, how to understand what the body's saying, how to realize that a lot of the health conditions that people have that have been there for a while did not start where they are.

Right.

And that we can learn about the wisdom of the body from the feminine, the masculine sides. The meaning the left and the right side of the body, the front and the back, the center of the body. And we can start to work with pain and diseases from the perspective of what is my body really sharing with me and where is it now? Where did it start? How can I transform the thought patterns, the beliefs, the emotions, the energies, the stuckness, the and recognize that pain is a sensation that comes from the astral body. And so I started teaching people, and I've been doing this for many, many years all over the world. And then when COVID hit, I was like, oh, how do I do this now? And I was given an opportunity to do it online, and I didn't realize that actually doing it online was going to create way better results than even live because people could, you know, could do workshops with me and processes and then repeat them because you actually have to repeat this, right? You cannot just do it once. And sometimes people say, oh, but you did it once and you healed. No, I did not do it once. I spent, you know, weeks originally working on the conditions that I had without really knowing what I was doing. And then years working on my digestive system, right? So, you know, so it wasn't instant in that sense. And the more I understood all the different parts and how they come together, all the, you know, stages of healing that we go through, and how all of this is so important to know in order to recognize where am I stuck and how can I heal, and how can I sensitize my body so that it can become my friend as opposed to my enemy? And so I started doing these masterclasses and mini workshops to introduce people to that information. And then if they wanted to go deeper, then they could do actual workshops with me. And we have some masterclasses that we're offering for free at the moment, but that's only for a very short period of time because you know, I wanted to take away all the excuses from people and go, hey, come to my website inaseagull.com, look up masterclasses and jump in there and do it while it's free, because there's going to be information that you— that might be very helpful to you. And also there's several processes, and so I've done them on many different topics from, you know, the secret language of your body and how to start to heal yourself, to understanding deeper aspects of yourself. And, um, I have a program called Awaken the Healer Within, which is a 10-day program that creates a life-changing transformation in terms of all the different aspects of yourself and your health. Yeah, all of this is on my website.

So, um, you offer a lot. You got the master classes, the other classes, you've got, got the book. So for someone listening right now, if, if you were to say, where would I start? Would it, would it be to go to your website and jump on one of the master classes?

Yeah, I would go— if, if you're new to this, I would go to my website and start with the Secret Language of Your Body Masterclass. And if you can order or get the book, then that works really well in combination.

Yeah.

Or if you've gone, I already know a lot of this stuff, I'm really familiar, but I want to go deeper, there's just deeper stuff inside of me that I want to work on, then I really encourage you to watch Awaken the Healer Within Masterclass because that goes into a kind of a new dimension. Yeah, yeah, of understanding yourself and your life and who you are as a spiritual being.

Right. Well, Anna, thank you for being here today. You're, you're been a wealth of information. Thank you for being so open with your journey. I know that's going to help other people to give them hope that wherever, whatever we're going through, there's always a way through it. And there's, and a lot of this is within us. I'd love I love that message. Um, so for people that are listening, just so everybody knows, your website is inna.seagal.com. It's inna.seagal.com. That'll be in the show notes also. And, uh, the name of your book is Awaken the— no, what's the name of your book? I'm sorry.

The Secret Language of Your Body. But there's a few, there's a few books there, but start with that one.

The Secret Language of Your Body. Yes. So Uh, yeah, again, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for getting up early. Anna is in Australia, I'm in Ohio, so it's late for me and it's early for her. So appreciate you, uh, doing this, and, uh, have a good, have a good rest of your day.

Thank you so much, Brian. You too.

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