Your Space Mirrors Your State with Helen Armstrong | Heather Aardema

What is energy?

What is energy? It's frequency and vibration. And we are all energetic beings. So, you know, even before we all feel physical, we feel heavy, we feel our bodies. But if you think about how the body is made up of cells and what we all learned in school, you've got a nucleus and a mitochondria and some other stuff, but mostly we're just space. And so energy is the frequency and the vibration of that space that we can tap into and connect to and heal ourselves on all kinds of different levels other than just the physical level.

It's hard to conceptualize that. That we're more space or energy than matter.

Right.

How do you get your head around that?

I mean, I think all of us have a capacity to feel energy. When you walk into a room, you go, oh, feels great here. Or, ooh, something feels a bit off. Or you meet somebody and you think, oh, my gosh, I feel like I've known Heather my whole life. She lights up a room, she's bright and joyful, or I just met this person and I just don't connect or resonate with them. So I think it's tapping into that. That is 100% energy. And what we can tap into that again, is very different than physical.

So different than physical. So you mentioned heaviness. And so what is that heaviness when we feel that in our body?

Oh, that's a good question. I mean, I think it can be a number of different things. One, it can be our intuition trying to tell us something. Right. It can be our body's reaction to an energy, whether that's I'm not aligned to this person or I shouldn't be here, or this isn't aligned to my highest purpose. Right. If we sometimes start to feel that, it can also be. We're probably talk about could be trapped emotions. So it could be signaling things in your body that want to come up to be healed. For me, I. I call them taps. It's kind of the tap, tap, tap. We're trying to get your attention. And oftentimes I do feel I have a physical reaction in my body that just kind of alerts me to start asking questions. What I just, you know, is this a good place for me to be? Is this. Does this person have good intentions, you know, or am I overreacting and I'm in my head and I need to move out of my head?

Okay, okay. So you mentioned trapped emotions. Explain that for me. So, so many people, right? I was raised to believe that you feel something and it's gone or you don't feel something and it's gone.

Yep.

And to not even really express true.

Emotion or to suck it up and push them down, I think, yeah, I.

Was either too happy and too excited, you know, or if I was upset, oh, don't you dare express any kind of discontent. And so this idea of a trapped emotion, it would not have made sense to my parents generation. What is it?

Right, yeah. So it's, it's energy and it's a frequency. So all emotions have a frequency and a vibration, and there's a pyramid of frequencies and the lower emotions have a lower vibration. So if we are frightened, scared, angry, sad, they all have a lower vibration and a frequency. And unfortunately, you, you are spot on. Our, our soc, for us, our generation, we're similar ages, it was the, stop it, Helen. Suck it up, move on, get back out on the field, stop crying or you're too much. And so when we're told those things, those are. It's a trauma. It's a trauma experience. And so we take that emotion, we don't know how to process it, and we shove it down in our bodies and we subconsciously are kind of sitting on, unfortunately, hundreds of trapped emotions. But there are oftentimes several or few that have such a frequency and a vibration that they are buzzing around in our body and creating a state of dis. Ease or disease that ultimately, if we don't process it or handle it, could manifest in a physical manifestation.

Is. Is there a place in the body where they hang out most? Like, I'm just curious, like, if it.

Yeah, yeah. So if so, people that follow. In Chinese medicine, people have done acupuncture, acupressure. There are meridians and organs associated with different emotions. So, you know, anger, frustration, resentment, typically is held in the liver. Worry, fear is your kidneys, heartbreak, heartache, your heart, grief is in your lungs. And then I can feel them with the work that I do as I'm. We can talk a little bit about how we clear them, but as I work to clear them, I can feel them in. In people's energy centers, which are the chakra systems. So there's an alignment. But I can typically feel, you know, if I'm upset, I'll feel it in my gut or my stomach. What I have found with the work I do, most of us have a spot in our body where we do feel things more intensely than, you know, a lot of people. It's the gut. For me, it's actually my throat. Right. My throat will clench up or if I get sick, it's always my lymph nodes around my throat. So we have different energy centers and areas, oftentimes tied to, you know, areas that we have either shut down or forced our way through.

Why do you think that is, that, you know, we'll either hold things in our throat or our chest or what? I'm. I'm just so curious about that.

Yeah, I mean, I think some of it is potentially our. Our wounding. Right. And it sounds like we had a similar childhood or background. Right. Helen, you're too much. Be quiet. Stop talking. So what if that's your V, that's your throat? It's why so many women have thyroid issues, you know, and there's an imbalance in not using our voice, not speaking up, not speaking our truth, you know, and I see that a lot in our healing center with so many women, where we have just shut ourselves down to either conform, to fit in, or to people, please, and not ruffle any feathers.

Okay, so tell me a little bit more about your past. I am interested in the clutter. Right. And so for you, what was the clutter? Emotional, mental, physical, spiritual. That was blocking you from becoming the person you are today?

Yeah, so I. I'm a hugely emotional person and a huge. An empath. And an empath is somebody who feels other people's emotions. And so for years, I. I had my own intense emotions, but I also took on everybody else's emotions and everybody else's feelings without knowing that they weren't mine. And so I would say I had an excess of emotional clutter. Some mine, some not mine. And so my. My. I grew up in a British family with quite reserved British parents, where it was, you know, be quiet, be. Be appropriate, fit in this box. I also. I had an eating disorder. So When I was 12, I was hospitalized with anorexia, and then that pivoted into bulimia and binge eating disorder. And I think that, for me, was. It was a coping mechanism to try and numb the pain and the emotions that I was feeling or. Or give me mind and mental clutter to obsess about something that really wasn't the root issue. You know, I was creating another issue to mask and hide the things I really needed to deal with.

Okay. Okay. Yeah. I was just thinking about the buffering that we do. Right. We ask, we hide, we buffer. And so for so many of us, it's that emotional clutter that weighs us down, and. Yeah. It makes things so heavy. Yeah. For me as well, I hold things in my throat Right. You know, we have. We have similar backgrounds, as you mentioned. We both worked in corporate. I call it my corporate clutter.

Yeah. Yeah.

Some good experiences. But I was mostly bored out of my mind.

Yes.

And asking myself, is this really it? And I felt empty. And I remember my husband asking me at one point, heather, please, just work 10 more years and we'll be set. And I was like, would you do this for 10 more years? No way. And I'm so glad I spoke my truth in that moment, but I must have not spoken my truth for decades, since childhood.

Right.

And I'm so curious about your take, because my trachea, which is my windpipe, just how we breathe, not my esophagus. That's how we eat. But with my trachea right below the vocal cords, the opening is blocked over 80% right now by scar tissue. And I've been told it was triggered by toxic mold, like a lot of my other symptoms.

Right, right.

But also, I have to believe that me not speaking my truth or suppressing myself absolutely played a role as well. Wouldn't you agree?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the other intuitive message I'm getting or hit is, I mean, it's all about the breath. Right. Breath of life. And it's minimizing yourself and minimize to make room for everybody else.

Right.

So it's the. I'm going to shut myself down and make myself small to make room for these other people with big energy or people that I'm told need more attention than I need or need more things than I need. And so I'm gonna minimize my breath of life. Right. I mean, that might be something for you to look into as well. And then the scar tissue is the. The wounding of that. So what's the.

The.

Both the energetic and the physical scars and wounds that that has left.

You nailed it. You nailed it. I thought other things going on in my life with other people, that those things were more intense and heavier. And so I just tried to just hold it all in.

Hide. Move. Yeah, move over. Move over, Heather. You got to make room for everybody else.

Yeah, yeah.

And, you know, so you're. I was in corporate for 27 years, and I got. Had similar messages. Well, like, what are you going to do if you're not in corporate and you have to earn a living and you have to. And I was supporting somebody as. As well in my life, and it was, you have to fit in this little box, and you have to behave a certain way and act a certain way. And when I look at you, I See this bright, you know, just this energy, like bursting at the seams that wants to come out and that. But we've been taught to stay small. So I think it's your opportunity to.

Oh, yes, I will say close to 10 years ago is when I left corporate. I didn't know what I was walking into. I was kind of just kind of jumping into the unknown. One of the best decisions of my adult life. I have never felt more fulfilled and know I'm living my purpose. And so. Yes, but. And at the same time, we still all are on healing journeys. And the more I learn about emotions from you and from others, the more I realize that this is really where my healing, my real, true healing is going to come. And so knowing that emotions can lead to. Or trapped emotions can lead to dis. Ease or disease, and it certainly has in my case. How do we begin to trust that we can feel these emotions? And how do we feel the emotions? How do we move through them so that we can get to the other side?

Yeah, I mean, I think so much of the work I do is around giving ourselves permission to let them. The way I describe it, it's like a balloon filled with air that if we just acknowledged the emotion and kind of popped it with a pin and let it fly off, we'd be in much better shape than denying it, ignoring it, and pushing it down. And the analogy I use is pushing a balloon underwater. And if you've ever tried to do that, it's really hard and it takes a ton of energy. And I mean, I was in therapy with the eating disorder. I did therapy for years. I could talk about my issues till I was blue in the face. Right. I'm really good at compartmentalizing and keeping everything up in my head. This is really about, where are these emotions and where is this stuck in your body or where do you not feel safe in your body? And so, you know, one of the techniques I use is. Is the emotion code, which is helping to clear them out. I love that as a modality for people that are new to energy work, because most people can wrap their head around the fact that, like, okay, yes, I've experienced emotions, and yes, I can envision them trapped in my body. I do other. Lots of other things as well. But the initial is like, let's just get it out. Like, you don't have to relive the trauma or the experience. It's just, let's pull the frequency and the vibration out of the body and then work to infuse new frequencies which we can, you know, sound healing. We have frequency devices. I do other energy work to start to entrain your body to know and understand those higher vibration frequencies. Love, enlightenment, you know, those kinds of things.

So if somebody's ready and saying, yes, I want to. I have trapped emotions. I think I know where they are. I want to pull them out. How do I do that? What, what is. What is the first step?

Yeah, so the, the, the work I do is I tap into your subconscious. So I use muscle testing. But we can. We do it remotely just as easily. And the cool part about it is I might. I might know what the emotions are. But a lot of times, you know, people are like, well, I think it's X, Y and Z. And it turns out has nothing to do with that. You know, there are other things and other emotions that. Or we can inherit emotions. Right? It's. We. We think we got enough of our own baggage. But guess what? You know, typically mom and dad have passed some things on to us or there's ancestral lineage that we can pull out as well. So I use muscle testing to kind of assertive a chart of 60 different emotions. And it's going through chart and finding what your body or your. It's really. It's your soul, it's your innate wisdom and knowledge is saying, I know what the problem is, but the, the 10% of my brain that I use on a daily basis doesn't want to admit it or acknowledge it. But the 90% that is either. You know, it's like the computer system. It's the whole back end of the computer system has this innate wisdom and knowledge that we just typically don't tap into. So for me, it's tapping into that, identifying the emotion. And then, you know, with the emotion code, it's pulling it. We have a governing meridian that goes from the tip of our nose up our head and back down our spine. So it's pulling it out through that meridian.

Okay. Okay, you mentioned muscle testing. And so for somebody who's never heard of that before, can you give a quick little.

Yep, yep. So muscle testing is. It's circuitry in our body. So if you go back to the whole thought of we're energetic beings and creatures, when something is aligned in our body, our energy spins in a clockwise direction. When something is not aligned, it'll spin counterclockwise. And so in person, in the healing center, I actually hold people's feet and I'll ask yes or no questions. And someone's foot, when the energy starts spinning clockwise, their. Their Left foot will get a smidge longer and heavier. Or chiropractors use the arm test. Right. Where somebody puts their arm out, and if they can resist the push down or the. The electric circuitry breaks, then that's a sign for a yes or no. The other method we use a lot is a pendulum. So a pendulum will spin in a clockwise direction when something is aligned, or it'll go counterclockwise. So it's a way to bypass the monkey mind and the. Again, I think I know. To get past that and just tap into your innate wisdom and knowledge.

Okay. Okay. And you also mentioned ancestral trauma and something personally that I found out that was really interesting is one of my relatives, a long time ago, was hung in Boston because she went against the Puritan beliefs.

Yeah.

And she was a midwife. Got a bit of a following because she was around people.

Yeah.

And she was hung. And then all of a sudden, I'm like, well, wait a second. I feel like I've had a noose around my neck for seven years. And so I also wonder if there's a little bit of that that just gave me.

Yeah. I twitch when something is aligned. Some people shiver or get goosebumps, and I start twitching, and that made me twitch. So, yeah, I mean, I think they're. It's compounded. Right. And I think many of us are the healers of our families. Like, we have come in to clear and heal this ancestral baggage and this lineage that we don't even realize we have. So, I mean, that makes total sense to me.

I heard somebody say once that you can heal, you can heal moving. You can heal generations behind us as well as generations in front of us. Can you explain that to me?

Yeah. So it's. You just typically, the phrase I've heard seven generations back and seven generations forward, I. I think the way I see it, energetically, it's like a thread, this ancestral thread. And so the same way that you inherit physical characteristics, the color of your hair, the color of your eyes, your voice, you inherit these ancestral characteristics as well. I mean, I will say the thing I see all the time, again, particularly for women, that shows up is worthiness. And, you know, a lot of women will say, well, yeah, that makes sense. And I'm like, great, let's clear it for you. But guess what? This isn't just yours. You. You came in carrying this backpack of heaviness of ancestral trauma. And when I muscle test, I can test how many generations back it goes. And I've seen it go back 10, 11, 12 generations. So as I'm clearing it, I see this kind of pulling out threads and wires of this ancestral sort of baggage. Right. It's. It's cellular. It's cellular memory that is passed on. And I'm gonna screw. I hope. The other thing I heard that was fascinating is, you know, you're in the womb. You're living in the womb of your mother for, you know, nine, ten months, and your mother energetically was like her eggs were in her mother. Right. So there. There literally is this physical thread as well of us sitting and swimming in other people's emotional trauma and other people's emotions that goes way back as well.

So. So what this is leading me to think is what the heck was going on in my grandmother's life when she was pregnant with my mom and. Right, right.

Yeah. And her mother. And her mother. And her mother.

Yeah, yeah. The impact is massive. It is. It's so big. And so help connect the dots for.

Me.

With energy and emotions and the nervous system trauma. Connect. Connect some of that for me.

Yeah, I. The way I describe it to people, if you think about. If you go through something that is traumatic and you're in shock or panic and you take that emotion and you, you know what does that. You lose your breath. You can't breathe. You stuff that down because you. You don't know how to process it or you're told to move on. Right. That is a frequency and a vibration that is now buzzing in your system. So just imagine that constant buzz of shock, panic, trauma. So you're. How can. How could we possibly ever truly move into our parasympathetic nervous system of sort of that rest and digest when we have taken the. The physical. The physicality of the. The shock and the trauma, which is fight or flight. Right. So it's. How could you. How can you calm. Ever truly calm your nervous system down without removing or peeling off some of that baggage?

Wow. Wow. And so you mentioned emotion code as one tool in terms of releasing some of that baggage.

Yep.

What are some of the other things that we can do?

Well, another thing I love to do with people, it's. It's called a soul retrieval. So when. So again, we're all energetic beings and we have souls. When we experience a trauma or shock to the system, oftentimes a piece of us actually fragments off and spins up and out. It's like a. This doesn't feel good. I don't like this. I'm out of here. And so we can tap in and kind of figure out what Again, lots of us are, have fragmented souls. It's happened to all of us. But you know what I say to people is again, wouldn't it be great to have all of your resources and feel whole, to be able to heal versus doing it with, you know, half a soul or a quarter of a soul? So the soul retrieval is tapping into somebody's energy and going to those times or areas in their life where they may have spun up and out. And it could be something as little as, you know, when was the first time that your, you didn't feel worthy? Or when was the first time you were told to be quiet and stop talking? And more often than not, you know, people like, if we were doing a session, you might be like four, right? It'll just pop into your head. And then we want to go back to that four year old Heather and talk to her and convince her that is safe to come back and it's going and retrieving that piece of your soul that spun up and out and fragmented off to come back and come back into your body. And the cool thing about that, you know, I get a lot of people that are like, I just can't. I never feel grounded or I always feel flighty or I don't feel safe. And again, you know, that makes total sense to me. How would you feel safe if you're not bringing all of your resources to bear or if at a part in your life a piece of you spun up and out, so it's bringing that back in and creating a more solid foundation or playing field for you to, to heal with.

What percentage of people do you think are, are not feeling integrated or not feeling in their body? I, I think I spent most of my life not feeling like I was in my body. I don't know.

I mean, I think most of us, and especially those of us that are more sensitive, that it's much easier. You know, I spend a lot of time in my head or have kind of, oh, it's much easier to be up here than it is to feel my body. And I spent a lot of time beating up my body and telling it was terrible and ugly and awful. But part of that is because I've never felt safe in my body for the things that I experienced. So I, I mean, I think we all have, everybody has trapped emotions. I would venture everybody's got soul fragments. It's just how many fragments and you know, how willing are we to come integrate them and you can live your life with a fragmented soul. It's not that you Couldn't have a fulfilling life, but whoa, how much more amazing could it be if you brought all your pieces back together?

Let's talk about that. So in at school of Living Lighter, we like to talk about the lighter path. And that gets to mean whatever you want to make it mean. And so for you, what does that lighter path, what does that mean? What does that entail?

Well, and when I hear, I know lighter is probably physic. It's bringing all of your resources and your brightness and your light, your soul light out and to the forefront. So lighter for me is, you know, about authenticity and us having the courage to show up as our true authentic selves and shedding the baggage and the clutter of, you know, the doubt, the self sabotage, the not feeling like enough. So it's getting rid of those limiting beliefs and bringing the light and vibrancy back into your life.

Oh, I love that. Oh, I think that's such a beautiful description. I love it. And so what is something that you do to keep yourself on the lighter path or to remind yourself of its potential? What do you do? Maybe on a daily basis?

Yeah. I think for me, my belief is we all have a divine energetic blueprint. And so it's this blueprint that we've all been gifted in life that we sometimes lose sight of or don't tap into. And so one of the practices I've been doing every morning is, is aligning myself to my divine energetic blueprint. And it's almost like I see it coming down and kind of lighting up my body and all the cells in my body. Because if my cells and my soul are truly aligned to their path and their purpose, there's no room for any of the other muck or anybody else's stuff.

Yes. And the muck and other people's stuff, that's all clutter. Right? It's clutter.

Clutter, yes. And we all have bags and bags of it. Right. And we're holding stuff for other people. I mean, the other thing I' is you can't heal somebody else. Like, I see so many, like, mothers that are like, oh, my son or my daughter is in pain. I want to take it for them. And you can't. So when you take it, you are creating a carbon copy or a mirror image of it. So you're holding it, you're holding the clutter and the muck, but so are they. So, you know, it's where you've got to put your own oxygen mask on first and you've got to take care of Yourself and then create ways to be supportive and compassionate without taking on other people's things.

You know what else I see as a parent? I see if I try and do that for my kids, I then rob them of the experience, the lesson, the gift. And so I remind myself, like, it's okay for my kids to feel their emotions. I can provide a safe home, a safe place. And yeah, I see that happening. So I mean, even with myself, I see that happening where we try and protect them. But that's interesting that really all we're doing, as you say, is creating a mirror of it. Yeah.

Another image. So you've got to deal and, and you can't resolve it for them. So again, you're creating that heaviness and that extra clutter and that extra baggage in your life that then is sabotaging you and your energy and it makes you less able to support them on their journey anyway.

Okay, I have one more energy question for you. Our energy field. We have energy fields. I hear horses have massively large energy fields, I think. Explain how does that tie into this?

Yeah, so we all have an energy field and it's multiple layers wide. So if you stretch your arms out, it kind of goes up and around you. It's like a big golden egg. And your physical body is the first layer of that energy field. And it goes out a couple inches outside of the body. And then there's an emotional layer of the energy field. And then there's mental, which is your beliefs. You know, the, the beliefs and the mental patterns you have. And then there's an astral field, which is the connection between us and our physical bottle body and then the spiritual realms. So we all walking around with this golden egg. But you know, when we have trauma and different thing, we sometimes we shrink our energy fields or they get clouded and mucky. So, you know, to me that's that brink calling in the divine blueprint. If I can call in that foundation and that light of who I'm meant to be and what I'm meant to do, it's going to start pushing that energy out and clearing the other fields.

Okay. And the way you explain it, the golden egg and, and it just. Yeah, it's dynamic. It's not static. It's. It's.

No, yeah, it's constant. Like people might be auras. Like some people see auras or see things. It's why, you know, you can feel people when you walk into a room before you get anywhere near them. It's because our energy fields are starting to bump up against each other and kind of bounce against each other.

Hey, on a side note, do you have any suggestions if you kind of bump up to somebody who's got kind of a heavy energy field and you love them anyway, what is your suggestion for not letting their energy pull you down?

Yeah, I mean, one, I clear my energy every day. Well, the other thing you can do is continue to bolster your energy field. Or I tell people, I know Teflon is gross and not good, but I'm like, imagine your Teflon that if someone's stuff comes at you, just see it fall off you. Or I've heard other people say, imagine you're a disco ball. So as their energy comes at you, you're gonna ping their energy off you and you're sparkling.

While you sparkle. Yes.

Yeah, exactly. While you sparkle.

While you sparkle. Oh, visual. I love that. Oh, this has been so much fun. Is there anything else you feel our viewers and listeners should know or it would benefit them to know when it comes to energy and emotions and clearing the heaviness?

Yeah. I think right now, just the world we are living in, we are all. Most of us are energetic sponges, and those of us that have. Have had chronic issues or have had, you know, are trying to declutter and trying to get rid of things in our life. It's recognizing what is yours and what isn't. And, you know, for years, I was. I was in hr, so, you know, I was. People were coming and dumping their baggage at my doorstep, and I would just take it on and then wonder why I felt so heavy or wondered why I had no energy. So a lot of times for. It's just checking in and asking, is this mine? And all you have to do is take the first pop that pops into your head. I mean, I do it as I drive to the healing center. If I don't feel great, I'm like, is this mine? And more often than not, I hear nope in my head. And I go, okay, thank you for the information. Go away. Right. That's not mine to hold. And it's. You know, we can. We can control certain things in our life, and we can't control every. So it's. It's protecting yourself. It's recognizing if something is not yours to hold, letting it go and just sort of seeing it shower down off you and into the earth.

And that's such a beautiful way to take back your agency by just saying, oh, not mine, not mine. Permission to let it go.

Yeah.

And you maintain agency and you're able to show up intentionally the way you want to. I love that.

Absolutely.

Tell us more about the healing center.

So we have an in person healing center in Charlotte, North Carolina. But I actually love to do remote work. So we do some holistic health and help people with, you know, the physical and health issues. But more often than not, most of them started on an energetic or emotional level. So that's the work that I do. And we're gonna, we do clearing work for people and bolstering people's energy. We've got a membership program and we're gonna start teaching classes. We all have the ability to tap into energy, to feel energy. It's just starting to become aware of it. If, if we haven't had that opportunity before.

I want to just put a little plug in. Helen has done some energy clearing for me and I felt so light, so light afterwards, just like I could float. And so I, Helen, I just, I love the work that you do. I think it's so useful. So many of us are walking around feeling so heavy, so stressed, so burdened. And it doesn't have to be that way. And it starts by tuning in, asking yourself, what am I holding? Is it mine?

Is it mine? Yep.

Yeah, yeah. And where, where in the body?

Yeah.

And I just, I love it. And so if, how, how do we find out more about you? Where, where do we go?

Yeah. So we have a website which is divine healthalliance.com or we are on social media. So same thing. Divine Health alliance on Instagram and Facebook and we're trying to do more on Instagram. Little snippets, teaching people about energy. So my business partner Jen, who you know well, Jen Payer, we, we want to make it fun and relatable and do it in a grounded way. Right. This is, it doesn't have to be woo woo. And like this is real stuff and we all have access to tap into it. So follow us on Instagram and we'll. We kind of keep doing the snippets and teaching people about it and give you tips and techniques of, of how to clear your own energy.

I am a big fan of the work that the two of you do. My life is lighter because I've met the both of you and so thank you, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, for giving us a glimpse of the potential, the potential that we all have.

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. And you are one big bright light yourself. So thank you for having me. And go disco sparkle.

Yep. I love that image.

That is.

And we can all access that image, too.

Absolutely.

We can all sparkle. So here's to the sparkling. Thank you, Helen.

You're so welcome.

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