#150 The Power of Our Life Stories and Their Impact on Our Health with Carrie Rowan

The information provided in this podcast is educational and not intended to diagnose or treat medical conditions.

Dr. Donnie Wilson struggled for decades to solve her numerous health issues and heal her body. But with focused determination, she healed herself and in doing so, she discovered the Dr. Donnie stress recovery Protocol. On this show, you're going to hear from doctors, nutritionists and Experts along with Dr. Donnie, who will give practical advice and wisdom to help heal your body. This is how humans heal.

Hi and welcome to how humans heal. I'm Dr. Donnie Wilson and today I want to introduce you to Carrie Rowan. She is a certified mindset coach. She's also an international bestselling author and an award winning singer and songwriter. Thank you so much for joining me today, Carrie.

Thank you for having me on. Dr. Donny. Super excited to be here, of course.

And I know that you are so always been so interested in learning new tools and techniques for helping people heal and that you are here to share about that with us today as well as about your book where you talk about that more. Your book is the Tell a New story, five simple steps to release your negative stories and bring joy to your life. So we definitely want to hear about that. But please start by telling us more about you. Like how did you get going in this direction in your life?

Sure. Well, I've always sort of been kind of a self help junkie, if you will, ever since I was a little kid. And I just remember my parents having all these tapes around. You know, they were in Hanway years ago, so they had all these Zig Ziglar and you know, all the greats back then. And as a kid I would take those and listen to those. I don't know, I was just very drawn to that. And I remember seeing my first Wayne Dyer book in their bedroom, Erroneous zone. So I've always been exposed to this in my life and I just ate it up. It just became my thing. So I say in my book, I think I was born sunny side up. So I've always had this. I think it's my superpower to look for what's good and find the good thing even when life isn't great. So but through taking all that information, I actually went right out of college into the corporate world. I was in professional sales for 10 years and climbed the ladder and did all the things I thought I wanted to do. When I got to the top, I had eight people or so reporting to me and I was like, oh, is this all it really is? And so I took that leap off the ladder And I really, I landed on my piano bench and I went back to what I did as a kid, right. My passion, which was music. And I used to put on musicals with the neighborhood kids. I don't know why I did that. It was just what I did. So I find, I love helping people find their passions, right? Because when we look back at what we did as kids, that's usually what we were just innately passionate about. So luckily I was able to go back to my music and I put out four CDs and I had some great success with it. And I also performed music for little kids, the smaller kids, which is a beautiful audience to play for because they love everything. They cry when you leave. What size are that? It's really great. So all of this sort of culminated. And it's all part of my book. I feel like my book is, was like the next natural step for me. You know, all this information and studying that I had done. Natural medicine, holistic medicine. I used to work for New England's largest holistic magazine for three years. So I got to interview and talk to a lot of alternative type practitioners. And I myself is a, I'm a huge proponent of functional medicine. I've dragged my kids and my husband there for years before anybody really knew a whole lot about it. So the book is really a culmination of all my teachings. And you know, storytelling is something that we do and it's been passed down through generations. It's one of the oldest forms of communicating, right. And so is singing. Singing is just three minute songs and stories that we tell. So through all this, I wrote my book and my book is really, it's my deepest personal stories and tragedies, Good times, everything that happened to me in my life, all those things that we wish didn't happen in our lives, but they do. What do you do with that? And so by sharing my stories, it's really a reflection for my readers. They can see here's how I got over my stories and I healed from them and here's how you can do the same thing. So it's powerful.

Now when you mention like the stories, because I like how you, you really say it in a way that's kind of like, you know, very accepting of the experiences that we have. But sometimes, I'm assuming sometimes those were. Could be something traumatic for a person, right? Or something really difficult or a betrayal or a loss. Is that the kind of stories that you're also helping people tell?

Absolutely. Those are the stories that, that I'm talking about. But what I find in my work is so interesting because we do need to share those stories. We do need to get them out. But what I found was, you know, and the tagline on my book is that the five simple steps to help you release the negative stories so that you can live with more joy. Because that's what we're here for, right? So by finding out what those stories, it wasn't necessarily the things that happened to us, right. That's outside of our locus of control. I can't change what happened. The only thing I can change as we were talking about is my mind or the story I tell about it. And when I started studying that and realizing that my stories were making me feel even worse about what already happened, which was bad enough. So then when we keep repeating these stories, right, they're like, stuck on repeat, dating myself like an elbow. When the needle used to get stuck in the groove, you had to get a little tap. That's what happens with our stories. And a lot of times we don't even realize that it's those stories that are holding us back from what we want in life.

I think that's a really. It's a really good point. Like, we. We might be just seeing it even in our physical health or in maybe not accomplishing certain goals that we think we want to accomplish. And we're like, why is this happening to me? And sometimes we don't realize that there's kind of like a. Yeah, a record on repeat that needs the attend. You know, we need to put attention and figure out how to. How to release it. How to. Is that what you find is when people. I mean, that's what. What I've learned too, but I'm curious is that when people tell their story, it somehow releases it or shifts it.

Sure, absolutely. And especially, you know, the type of stories. There's a lot of different types of stories we tell, you know, And I talk a lot about the different types of stories. The what a shoulda could have story or the oh, if only story, you know, and all these little types of shame stories. Shame stories are a beautiful example of what you're saying, because those shame stories, they need to come out. Those are the little, tiny, insidious ones that we tell ourselves. The time, you know, the negative things. You're so dumb, you'll never get it right. Somebody said that once, and it just stuck in our head. Right. We probably created that story before we were seven years old. And so we keep. Those are the kind of stories that are really bad for Us to keep repeating and do affect our mind, body and spirit. And that's what I love to do, is help people capture those stories. The ones that make you feel worse than you already felt about what happened. But um, you know, cause stories contain a lot of our, our negative beliefs and our limiting beliefs and things that we picked up a long time ago in our life.

It's so powerful is how is it that you, if you can give us a little sense of it, how do you help people to do that? How do you. Do they start by writing about it, speaking about it? How do they start to. Because I think someone, people listening might be like, how can I even figure out what my stories are?

Yeah, that's a really great question. I talk about in the book. The first thing I tell my clients, you gotta get a pretty little notebook, cute little story catcher, it's called a story catcher notebook. And once you become aware of those stories, you start writing them down. And the coolest thing that I love about this work is that once people become aware of these stories, you can't go back. You'll start telling a story midstream. So catching them and realizing that, hey, you know what, if this is resonating with you, I think I have some stories in there which most people do that are really holding me back. I want to find out what they are. So setting that intention right, and then I came up with an acronym for the word story. S D R Y. It's five steps. Those are my five steps based on that. So you can't forget it. It's easy. And I take you through those five steps to really help you go through each step. And as you progress, those stories just start to change themselves because you get so excited that you realize, wow, this has been holding me back. I don't want to keep telling this. And you'll be mid story in a song or in a song too, but even in a story. And you'll pull that back. You'll start pulling your own stories back. And as we know, that's, that's change right there when you can catch yourself in the middle of that.

Because that's really true. Like if we think about it, it's what's happening each moment in our lives and each, each week, each year is, is essentially on a repeat of what our, what we experienced in the past until we get enough awareness to realize, hey, that's not what I want to repeat again. How do I get enough awareness to shift it so that I can create a different pattern going forward? It's really, it's really something. Do you have people put their stories to song? Sometimes.

That's. That's funny. You know, I always think of. I do. I teach people to, to release that. And you know, a lot of times I will use music in my coaching, especially if somebody's very musical or they just love music. It doesn't matter if you play an instrument or not. But yes, creation like that, creating, journaling, writing stuff down, poetry, all that creative work gets us out of our head and into our creative and really back into our body, which completely helps to do that. So yeah, whatever resonates with people, I love to do. I'd love to just be open and I'm super insightful into what people need and what resonates with them. And I love coming up with creating things like that for people, you know, coming up with a, a theme song that they play for themselves every morning, like a little mantra that they like. So it's super fun work too. I feel blessed I get to do this with people to help them change.

Do you usually work with people one on one or how do you. How are you usually interacting with them?

Well, that's a great question. I love to do classes because I feel like the group synergy that gets created in there is super powerful and a lot of change happens, you know, with these women, it's mostly women that join the class. So I do, I offer every modality because everybody's different. Some people like that one on one attention. And so I can do that with them or if they want to be part of the group. And they each have an accountability partner which is really powerful. So they're learning when they're with me. And I do live coaching, it's not prerecorded. And then they have a partner that they can share stories with that they might not want to share the whole class. But it's a very safe container for people to come and they love the connections that are made throughout those classes. So that's another nice way. And I also go to corporations and I'll do talk on, you know, teaching people, meditation or whatever they need to really help people. So there's a lot of different levels. And when I do my big talk, I have my guitar on me and I sing and everybody sings with me and it's part of the healing process. Music is so powerful.

Wait, so are some of those classes online or mostly in person?

They're. Well, they're mostly online right now. There's zoom classes online, but I might be doing some locally here. In person, which is nice. People love that in person. I find that people are asking for that more often. So I have a couple different wellness centers that I work with and I teach at their facilities.

Now, I know you're also trained as a Reiki master and maybe you can tell us a little bit more about that. But I'm very intrigued by. Because Reiki has to do with working on balancing energies, and I really am curious at how that interrelates with the storytelling.

Absolutely. Well, I feel like, you know, it's all related. Right. Because it's all just happening right up here. And I love to give people tools that they can be proactive about managing their stress. And I think that's really in line with what you do as well. So, you know, whether it's Reiki or we're doing eft tapping or I'm showing them some Donna Eden energy pumping to move the energy around in their body, it's also related, but I love to be proactive about it. So if you can have yourself a morning practice, say a morning ritual that you do, and maybe it includes a little energy medicine or doing some. I think the power of self healing Reiki is super powerful. But what you're basically doing is you're balancing your body and then the mind will follow. Right. So if we're waking up feeling some gratitude, coming up with a plan for ourselves, and then doing something physical that gets us in that space, we're way better able to handle that stress because, let's face it, the stuff's going to hit the fan at some point today. It always does.

True stress happens, so we better be ready for it, right?

Exactly. And that's okay. It's not ashamed to be stressed, but you don't want to stay stressed. Right. Because then you get in that bad. You just constantly in fight or flight, and that's bad for our adrenals and everything. But so to be proactive, that's really what I try to teach people and whatever resonates with them. I love Reiki. I do Reiki on everybody in my family distance. But, you know, I don't. I'm not a table healer. People don't come in. I don't do that. But is it part of what I do? You betcha. And did I used to always, you know, practice that and put energy medicine on with kids? Absolutely. It's all just part of the energy field that we're sending out there. So. Yeah. But really staying proactive is really kind of one of my things. I like to teach people how to do well.

And I, I find that it's like as much as we can even become aware of stress and how it affects us, it's not so natural to choose these activities that you're mentioning. Anything even from singing or journaling or you know, even dancing for that matter. We, we tend to like hold ourselves back from giving ourselves, ourselves those things that can help us. So I love that you're encouraging people and saying, hey, this can just be like. It comes across to me like you're saying, hey, this is just be part of your daily life activities. That's how it is for you.

It sounds like absolutely, you know, a dance party for one. You know, this, these are all things that, these little things. I love what you just said because I think that's so true. People hold back. People don't want to allow themselves that freedom of expression. Yet we're all really long for it, aren't we? We, we need to be creative. Creative is when that energy is flowing through our body. I mean, it doesn't get any more connected to the whole universe. So I love giving people creative exercise because they don't get themselves the license or permission to. And I do. We're going to have some fun here. It's not all serious. And let's just let ourselves be, be kids again. Let's color, let's dance, let's do whatever creative activity it takes for us to feel in the flow and in our bodies. We spend so much time up here worrying about everything and let's bring it down here into our heart and let's celebrate who we are as humans with some joy. Yeah.

So it's so powerful and, and really you're bringing to us what a musician experiences in a songwriter. You know, you're experiencing, experiencing the feeling, putting it into words and then sharing it with others through music. And you're saying, hey, this isn't just for the musician. Everybody can access the healing capacity of this tool.

Absolutely, absolutely. There's so much power in being able to write down what we feel, you know, because I, you know, in my songs for many, many years I wrote about the stuff. I couldn't really share the deepest, deepest feelings. But you can put that beautifully in words, in a poem and something that rhymes has cadence and rhythm. And now we're going to add some beautiful music and it's gorgeous and you could be saying the most heart wrenching thing in the world. And it's cathartic for me and it's cathartic for anybody that listens to it. So, yes, all of this did stem from all of these experiences that I had in life that brought me right here to this point.

That's really cool. It's really amazing. Thank you so much for sharing all of that with us and. And with the world with the work that you're doing. It's so beautiful, you know. So people. When people want to access your book, is it. I'm assuming they can get it at Amazon or where's the best place to find it?

Absolutely, they can get it on Amazon. I just put my Audible book up at the end of the summer, which was so fun to do. I love Audible. So, yeah, they can go there. They want to find the link on my website@carrierowen.com. that's C-A R I E R W A N dot com. And you can find my podcast there as well.

Yeah, I see your podcast, look for the good, which is what you were saying that earlier you came out sunny side up, right? So, you know.

Exactly, exactly. And I love to teach that to people because, you know, as, you know, our brains are so beautifully predisposed to look for what's wrong, because that's what's kept us safe all these years. Right. But we need a software upgrade because we've never had one. So in order to do that, we have to retrain our brains. We have to. We have to start training them to look for the good. Right. That RA system that we have in there, we've got to teach it what is important to us. And when we start looking and noticing what's important, you know, that starts to grow. And it's funny, a lot of times, well, I'll mention that to somebody as a. As a practice, and they just, oh, that's too easy. No, I know. Gratitude, you know, it's the funniest thing because people think they practice it because, of course, we're unhappy when something good happens. Right. Isn't that gratitude? And that's really not what it is. It's. It's much more intentional than that.

Yeah, it's. It's true. It's. And I write about this in. In my book, too, the Master Stress Reset your health book. Because I think it's. It's really helpful for people to understand the. The science and the physiology behind this. Isn't. This isn't just, you know, something that sounds good or, you know, because sometimes people feel like that's almost like faking it or dismissive or something, but it's actually the science behind it shows that, like, the things you're mentioning, say, gratitude. We know the vibration of gratitude is way higher vibration than other states of being and that we can, if we choose that, if we choose gratitude on purpose, you know, to put our focus on that, that that could be very healing for our bodies in many ways, including release of oxytocin. Right. Or like you were just saying, if we focus. I mean, as you were mentioning, meditation. I mean, I think that meditation and mindfulness in general can be such a tool for us to learn how to have more awareness in the moment and then also to train our brains how to focus on what we want them to focus on. Right. And then we can start to use that tool more often, whether it's with, with meditation or biofeedback or guided imagery. And, and, and there's so much science behind that. So tell us more how you, you use that in your work.

Absolutely. I love that. Well, in my book, I think, as mentioned I mentioned you before, it's interactive. So for each of those five steps, I have a meditation that I've created. And here's the really cool thing about it. So for each of the steps, because my book is interactive, there's a QR code right at the right moment when you need to hear that meditation. So it's super powerful. I mean, I love meditation. It's me speaking. It's a guided meditation. There's so many different types of meditation, and I just tell people to just find one that works for you because you're going to get all those beautiful benefits as we know that meditation offers us. But I feel like the really, the greatest thing is, like I was saying before about being proactive, right? When you're meditating every day, just like, stress is cumulative and you're filling up that emotional backpack, if you will, until, like, it just about explodes if you don't do something about it. The good stuff is meditation is cumulative as well. So you're building these reserves up, right? And at those moments that the stuff's hitting the fan, you have this extra reserve. I mean, I love to explain it as like this, this beautiful warm wave that you have of calm that lives inside of you. And you can call on that more often. The more often you meditate, right?

It gets so much easier. It's right there because you've been practicing it and you just know exactly how to go to it. So at first, so someone listening, if you're like, oh, my gosh, I don't know how I'm going to integrate this into my schedule or my day, just know that you can start little by little, and then you start. It starts to become easier and part of your just usual habit, and you can just go right to it. Carrie, do you mind sharing with us the. What are the five steps?

Oh, absolutely. So the five steps are based on the acronym STORY S E R West. So the first one is S, which is your state of mind. Right. Learning how to manage your state of mind. So it's not managing you. And again, it's in a chasing state of mind or mindset. We get out of ahead of it early in the day. And then the second step is T. Your true intention. Understanding that all of our stories have an intention. There is a reason that we're telling that story. And if we can look a little bit deeper behind it, sometimes we don't always want to admit it's not a really great intention. It's not as pure as we'd like it to be, and that's okay. And I talk about what your different intentions might be. But all stories serve a noble purpose. And I always tell people. Yeah. That they have a life self, compassion when you do this work. And then the O is outcome. Begin with the end in mind. Right. We don't realize that the outcome of our stories, how our stories are affecting everybody around us. The energy we're putting out there. We don't want to be that person that's telling the story. And the whole room energy just kind of drops to the floor. So starting to become aware of that and being like a story detective, if you will, and seeing how your stories are bouncing off of other people gives you a lot of insight into what they're doing to yourself as well. And then the R of that is the reframe. We all love the reframe. That's looking for the good. Right? Like usually our messiest, ugliest stories that I might come and say, oh, this is my worst story. I love when people bring me their worst story because I know deep inside that worst story is actually their greatest strength. Their worst story is usually their biggest comeback story. So we talk a lot about that in the book. And then. And then your why? The why is you had the power all along, right? We have the power within us. We were born with it. We just forgot about it. You know, that creativity and it just gets all strangled out of us when we're younger. And so owning that power and realizing, hey, I have the power to change, the only thing I could change anyways, which is. Is my mind. And I had that all along. So we celebrate taking your Power back and relearn and not to give it all away when you should be keeping it for yourself and to share it with the ones that you love.

Yeah, that's so powerful. I find some of the biggest transformations with my patients is when they realize that, that like, oh my gosh, I was. Because I think a lot of this is, is stemming from as you mentioned, like what we're taught in childhood or sometimes things we heard in childhood. And then we, we, that it just continues on forward and we end up feeling like we're supposed to be giving to others first and being, you know, sometimes over, over welcoming or over giving instead of kind of saying, hey, this is, this is me, this is my body. I'm gonna take care of it. Yes, I want to be feeling well enough to be able to help others and give to others, but I have to, to also make sure that I'm taking care of, of my energy and my body right in my, my space. And so just some. We have to, we have to sometimes learn that as adults.

Absolutely. It's so true. You know, that whole self care thing, you know, because it used to be kind of glamorous to be like the martyrish. Right. And that's another generation. But that gets handed down to us. And especially I feel like as women, you know, we're always trying to, we're the caretakers, we're taking care of everybody else. But you know, the whole thing about the oxygen gotta go on us first, we gotta take care of us first. We can show up better for everybody else that we care for. Right.

And it may seem counterintuitive at first, you know, because all things do when it's kind of new information or a new perspective on things. So don't be surprised if at first you're like, how, how can I even make that flip happen in my life, in my world? But if you, the more you kind of like just let it, let it just at first just listen and then, right. Just kind of like start down this path and little by little you'll start to see these subtle shifts in this direction. That's what I find anyway. And then, then you start to go, oh, okay, this is what it looks like to little by little be taking my life back, my body back, my attention back, my focus back to myself and, and be the one choosing. Because even if we're not actively choosing, the choices being made without us being part of it otherwise.

It's so true. And I love what you said, those tiny little steps, because people think, oh, that's Too small. It's not going to make a difference. Well, actually it is. Those small little steps, that intention that you're setting, the little positive things you're doing for yourself, those are the things that will accumulate and cause huge changes in your life. Shifts, major shifts. And you're going to look back and go, wow, that just started with a small little morning routine. Or I just started meditating five minutes a day and look where I am. It's transformed my life in so many ways. So I love that. I just. And it makes it seem so doable because it is doable. You know, I think people get overwhelmed, which is why I always talk about this time of year, why New Year's resolutions don't work, because they're, they're just, it's just not a conventional way to do it. It's an old fashioned way to look at things where really we want to look at small little daily steps, tiny little bites that I can take every single day to lead me down the path of where I really want to be.

It's beautiful. Oh my gosh. Thanks again so much for sharing with all of us. Is there anything else you want people to know or to be able to get in contact with you if. What would you say is that, you know, the people who usually reach out to you, what. What does that look like? What are they? What are they dealing with? What are they looking for?

Yeah, that's a great question. Well, like you people are stressed out. They're, they're so stressed out, they feel overwhelmed. They're. They're anxious about the future and they're worried about the past and what happened and they're, you know, they're spending all their time up, up here in their, in their heads. And it's usually women that I work with and I just like to, you know, I always think of things in terms of music because that's the way my grade marks. So, you know, I work with people who want, who want more from life. You know, you're stuck, you know, you want more, you know you're not feeling your best. You want to feel better every single day. And I love showing people how to feel better every single day. So, you know, I take people who go from singing a sad song to, to humming a happy song, finding their voice and skipping along their life. Right. Isn't that how we want to do it with Joy is the soundtrack life.

Oh, I love that. That's beautiful. Joy as the soundtrack of your life. Beautiful. Oh my gosh, it's so great to meet you and get to chat with you, Carrie. Thank you so much. And, and I'll definitely share information about your book and your website with this video. So everybody, can you check this out? With the video you can find out more about Carrie and how to be in touch with her. And, and I think I can speak for you, Carrie, to say, just wishing everyone, you know, just that you have the best experience with getting to explore what, what's there for you in this message. And one thing that's sticking with me from listening to you, Carrie, is like, go back to what you enjoyed as a child. For me, it was dance. I love dancing as a child. I was also performing in little musicals and pageants as a kid. And for many years I wasn't dancing when I was raising my daughter. And when I went back to dancing, it was huge for me. It is such a, it is such a therapy for me to learn about myself and connecting with other humans. So just right, like, just encouraging everyone maybe just to take away from this, from this conversation, like, what is it that you really enjoyed as a child? And, and what might be holding you back? What are the messages that are holding you back from choosing that? And, and if so, maybe Carrie's book can help you to take the next steps to solve that and help you get closer to finding your joy, as Carrie says.

I love that. Thank you so much for having me on. And I have a lovely free gift where I help people tune up their life. And so you can go to my website@carrioron.com and grab that gift for yourself. And I so loved being on here with you and I love the work that you do. So thank you so much for having me.

You're welcome.

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