Rev Liliana Barzola on idealism, race, and the colonization of indigenous medicine
This week, Liliana Barzola renowned, spiritual intuitive, and the founder of Lotus Lantern Healing Arts takes us right up to the hard edge of idealism, racism, and the impact of colonizing indigenous medicine.
Referenced in the Show
Instagram referenced by Rev. Liliana Barzola @sparkleandshineguidance
James Jones (TikToker mentioned by Rev. Liliana)
Liliana’s Bio
Rev. Liliana Barzola, Invites you to leave behind the bullshit, encourages healthy boundaries, sans drama and spiritual competition. All who join are weavers of this circle. She is an psychic, healer and facilitator with a passion for elevating all things femme. An intuitive since childhood, is a first generation born, successful Latina entrepreneur. Liliana has been featured in Yoga Digest, Swaay and Bustle Magazine. She has conducted over 20,000 intuitive sessions, and taught over 600 students, since 2002. Her practice, Lotus Lantern Healing Arts, has an international clientele including individuals in Australia, Italy, Germany, Japan, Canada, Venezuela, Africa, the UK, and nearly every US state.
Full Transcript
Sarah Marshall ND: Welcome to HEAL. This week, Liliana Barzola renowned, spiritual intuitive, and the founder of Lotus Lantern Healing Arts takes us right up to the hard edge of idealism, racism, and the impact of colonizing indigenous medicine. I'm your host, Dr. Sarah Marshall.
(music)
I just am, 1) thrilled to have this opportunity to even have this conversation with you. You. I was actually sharing with my partner this morning, that the two most influential teachers of my entire medical education was you and Dr. Tom. (Liliana: Oh) And so having this opportunity, and then I'm clear, I've grown and developed over the last 11 years since you were training me, you've grown and developed a ton in the last 11 years. And so I'm just, this is just a really, I'm honored to have you come be on Heal and come make a difference.
And (inaudible)
Rev Liliana Barzola: I'm honored to be on here. I am honored to be on here. This is so fun.
Sarah Marshall ND: And I really do, like, I want to get into the, what you, in your many decades of healing work have, you know, uncovered is like the shit we don't talk about. The stuff that we're not easily willing to, to, 'cause that is what actually ultimately makes the biggest difference to just package it up in a pretty big, you know, package with a bow and say, Oh yeah, this is all it takes in the seven steps to the perfect healing journey. Just like I've found that's not it. And one of the things I'll often say is there's the ultimate thing I have discovered that can be known, which not a lot can be known about healing is healing begins when you step into the unknown, when you're willing to go beyond the structures and the, you know, and so like I've never written a how to guide for that reason. (Liliana: Right.) I don't know your journey. I don't know your process. I have all my knowledge and my skills that I will bring my heart and my soul to, to contribute as much as possible. But with each of my clients, they're the ones that are going to tell me what it's going to take. And I will hopefully guide them to whatever level, however far I can take them. And they might need to go work with somebody else or add on other people or their own process. So. I'd just love to hear, like what you've discovered in those processes. Like you've said, you've worked with people in hospice, you've worked with people at end of life care. It's a totally different conversation than what most people engage in, you know, in our fear of death, in this culture and our unwillingness to deal with that side of it.
Rev Liliana Barzola: There's a missed opportunity when we don't talk about it because just as you and I were saying, it's like, everybody dies. So dying isn't a failure. Your body is going to give out at some point. And that's actually the brilliance of it. That's the genius of it. It has an expiration date. And so, as you said, embracing the unknown, it really opens up the opportunity for your body to keep surprising you with what it's capable of, how it can clear, how it can heal.
And so that being said, I also know several people who've graduated from hospice. I get people sometimes calling me saying, I'm in hospice, it's the end, but they graduate. They're like, oh, you don't need to be in hospice anymore. You're getting better. So there's something about just really embracing that.
And also in hospice, the pressure is off. There's all this complementary care that can happen with good hospice experiences that people have of music and pampering and getting their nails done, or getting their hair done, or beautifying themselves in a way that they have never felt seen or heard. And that opportunity to heal sometimes the body can surprise itself.
So it happens sometimes. But that as you, just to kind of vibe on your idea of stepping into the unknown, like that place of total humility, connected with being in charge of your healing, you know, it's kind of a precarious place and it's like, the work that you do is you help people be in charge of their healing.
You're like, okay, just as you said earlier, like what could we add here? Like, what do you feel you need? So many people's experiences with doctors is so one sided, but they don't, they don't get validated. They don't, they're told it's in their head, you know, all kinds of things. And so you being like, yes, you are truly suffering. This is real. What have you done? What can we do? It's really taking out way more paints, right? To color with. And then that also coupled with the humility of like, and let's see what the body does because it's a negotiation between the body and the spirit. The spirit might say, I have so much more I want to do.
There's so much more living I want to do experiencing. I want to do, and I need the body to do it, but the body might be too toxic, too broken down to hurt to let that life force cheat live in the body. And then there's the separation where the spirit will go away from the body if the body's in too much pain.
So an example I would give is, you know, how many times have you sought sleep when you were in pain? You know, whether you were sick or you had like a really intense workout, all your muscles are sore. And you're like, Oh my God, I can't wait to go to sleep and get out of this feeling. Right? So it's not even esoteric.
It's not even like, Oh my gosh, the spirit and the body separate. It's like, you go to bed and you're like, thank God I don't have to feel this. Yeah. And then your body recoups. It has all that time to re to restore itself. And then the spirit taps on the body and says, are we waking up? Are you ready to play again? And that life force energy wakes the body up and then you go, oh, I'm still achy. Or like, no, I'm feeling better. So this is a negotiation negotiation that's happening constantly, that we just don't talk about in our culture at all. The people who are coming to you that are sick, that are not well. You're really bringing that into account. You're letting all, all of them selves show up to process and to help and to heal. And so what I was saying to you is that I get really frustrated with people that oversimplify the healing process as if everyone can do it. And it's so simple. One-- that's so abelist that so privileged, not everyone has access to you or me. (Sarah: no) I charge a pretty hefty hourly rate for someone to do talk to me. So not everyone has access to that. So there's a lot of stories of, I think whether it's in the world of medicine or whether it's the world of like the esoteric work that I do, people oversimplify it and it just tries me crazy. It drives me bonkers because then I get calls from clients that are just like, okay, clearly I'm doing something wrong because I'm not healed yet.
Sarah Marshall ND: Yeah, yeah, no, I see that same thing too. And often where. I think I get to bring something unique is that I do always stand inside of, I don't know what it's going to take. And I also don't know where you're going. Like I have my regular medical intake form and then I have a goals and wants sheet that is more interesting to me than all of the medical stuff. (Liliana laughs) Like I do that and I get their information, but like, I want to know, like, where do you want to be in a year? What do you want out of this process? What are the most biggest things that you struggle with? Because it's just because somebody has diabetes doesn't mean that diabetes is the thing that's bugging them the most.
It might be they don't get a good sufficient night's sleep or their knee aches, right? And that bugs the more in their life. Then the fact that, yeah, they're a diabetic and that might be involved in it, but it's that they want to go run again, you know? (Liliana: yes) And so like I asked those questions and I'm always, and that's why I think language matters.
And I shift, I guess I'm a doctor and I do technically have patients, but the language I use is consultant and client, because it's about them hiring me to produce a particular result in their life. And then it's my accountability to help support them in doing that. And to be honest about what I think it'll take from my experience, but then also like I'm constantly allowing, I want their bodies to surprise me and get them to be surprised by it.
And usually that's when we get, like, I get goosebumps and we were like, Oh, we're in good territory now is it's like way outside of what. We thought it would look like, you know, and, and...
Rev Liliana Barzola: totally, and then you get this collaboration, right? Because actually you doing that with them, you're mimicking and mirroring an experiential thing, an experience of collaboration, which is what they then take back with between the body and the spirit.
So you're like, Hey, you and I are going to collaborate over this issue that has you stressed out, tense, contracted, you're holding so much tension in your body every time you think about it. And suddenly you create a different experience for them, and then they can sort of begin talking to their body in a completely different way.
Sarah Marshall ND: Yeah. Yeah.
Rev Liliana Barzola: So you're just from that beginning of you saying, Oh, and by the way, what are your wants and your goals? Because in my language we say, when we're working on someone's energy field, we say what's their next step vibration. (Sarah: hmm) So we kind of see, we start with. Where is their pain, where's their confusion.
And it always looks cloudy to us, but colors that are stuck in someone's field, it's just cloudy kind of murky. And then after we clear that, we ask the spirit, you're literally looking at that person saying, what's your next step vibration. You're not saying the words to them. You're just asking from your mind to their being.
And suddenly they'll begin to show you a color. And my students like get crazy excited when I'm like, now let's see what their next step vibration is like, what are they stepping into? And they'll be like, Oh, it's Sapphire blue. Or it's this beautiful pink. Or it's like a sunset. And then they'll communicate that back to the person.
And it's like, wow, they can feel in their body what does that frequency even feel like? Where maybe everyone is just like, you're sick, you're sick, you're sick, you're sick. Or it's in your head. It's in your head and you're sitting there going cool. So this is the data. And then what do you want to create for yourself?
Sarah Marshall ND: Yeah
Rev Liliana Barzola: So good.
Sarah Marshall ND: It's awesome.
One of my favorite things about you is your transparency and willingness to have your own life, you know, share about what you've dealt with and have that be a teaching and a learning and a gift to other people. So like from your experience, like what has been some of the most profound healing work you've had to confront?
Rev Liliana Barzola: Personally, I think if we just start with 2020. How unpredictable the world is like, I'll give you an example. So when COVID started, I was reading the duration for people. Like how long is it going to take before this is gone? And my read was so off because of one thing I forgot to do. I wasn't asking about the location that person was in.
So I was getting the same read, kind of asking for my own space. And I was talking to people in Germany. I was talking to people in the Southern States and I just laugh because I teach my students. That's what I'm like, guess how I messed up on like COVID prediction. (Both laugh) Hi. I just forgot to ask the most basic thing that I teach you, which is like, when you're asking the question, how you phrase that question internally, when you're asking higher self, where you're divining in a way is it has to be a really clear diagnosis. You have to really kind of ask that in a way that's specific enough to give you a specific answer. So just say starting there, 2020 has just been like the biggest surprise ever on every level.
And it is whooped my booty (laughs) so intensely where I'm like, I don't know, up from down. One of my, one of the people I follow on Instagram, Sparkle and Shine she was talking about this time is like, doesn't it suck being a baby? Isn't it so uncomfortable when you have a baby body and that baby body experience is it's a great metaphor for what we're experiencing in 2020.
And she was like, think about it. You can't move your body around. You're not in charge. People just put you places and you can't really advocate for yourself. It's so uncomfortable. And then people are telling you, no, you can't do this and you can't do that. And I was just like, yeah, yes,
Sarah Marshall ND: that's exactly it
Rev Liliana Barzola: I need to embrace that.
And since I have been like, I'm like, no, I don't want a whole lot of the time. And it feels so liberating to just act like a child, even if nobody gets to hear that except for today. Right? But internally when it was like, Oh, I don't wanna. So that permission to be. Frustrated. Yeah. that's just always the lesson that keeps coming back to me, looking at my mistakes.
I had a teacher, Sandra Brooks, who said never get out of kindergarten. And I think that's probably the most powerful statement I have ever heard. She said, you know, the minute you try to be a master you're royally screwed. So just be a human be in kindergarten. You'll always be curious. And that's actually what makes good doctors like you, Sarah is because you're so willing to look at something you've seen a thousand times from that new mindset, that Buddha mind, that kindergarten mindset, and then you see something no one else has seen.
Sarah Marshall ND: Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I, 2020 serving me up a big old dish because biologically, medically, I have been diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome this summer. And I've been standing in like health. Like I reversed all my chronic illness as a child. I don't have any of the asthma or the immune problems or any of that. And for like a good solid 10 years, I've been like living it up in I'm healthy and I actually, one of my meditation revelations was I am healthy and this isn't an illness. Every person's in their own journey. And this isn't like the chronic fatigue. Isn't an illness for me personally, what I've discovered is this is a massive realignment opportunity for my body and my soul to get on the same page and where we haven't been. And so that's my context right now. And it doesn't mean I don't have moments of frustration. I'm also still pretty early on. I've only been symptomatic for about three, three and a half months. So like, yeah, right now I'm all like, no problem.
Ask me in two years when I'm like, I hate this thing. But I'm Also not creating that. I'm actually going to be in the same position in two years. Cause I'm, I'm listening. I'm taking the message. So 2020 has been talk about putting me back in kindergarten. Like the doctor becomes the patient (Liliana: sure) and in the beginning, and this came from love, but a lot of my friends and family were like, Oh, I know this great doctor kind of implying like I'm.. But then that's what I've had to deal with is... from inside of it. I can't see. It's totally different. (Liliana: sure) you know, and so having my naturopathic mentor, dr. Tom and my chiropractor, who does apply kinesiology and community of people around me to help bring in those tools and exterior things. Cause they see things I'm not going to be able to see from the inside of my own eyeballs.
Rev Liliana Barzola: Of course, I have this hilarious story about a midwife. There's a team, these two midwives that work together and one of them. Got pregnant. And of course her midwife was her cohort, her business partner. And the one that's in labor is like in this excruciating 48 hour labor. And she's constantly asking her cohort to check her, how dilated is she?
And she says two, you're dilated to two. And that midwife was so angry. She said, Oh, I know I have been working way harder than 2 there's no way. And she was starting to check herself because she was like, that can't be right. And I think about that story sometimes. Cause that's how I feel. And like, I I've gotta be done with this lesson.
There is no way. I have been working so hard. (laughs) (Sarah: yeah) So I hear you on that. I mean, it's like. I think that the cycle, and I don't know enough about astrology to, to prove this, but I feel like the cycle is taking us back to our birth as, Abigail Barella of Sparkle and Shine was saying that like, Oh, it's so beautiful, actually, that this is happening to you, which is, you know, it's also painful. Right? But it's taking you back to clearing some imprint. (Sarah: yeah) From that original embodiment. And so you're like, why am I having to go all the way back? Cause I had that too with asthma where my asthma of 20 years was coming up and it was like walking around the house, like psh I'm past this, I have those anymore. Like my kid's like, mom, use your inhaler. (both laugh) Okay. Okay. I will. I'm out of breath
Sarah Marshall ND: and I, that's actually a really good insight for me because. So I was diagnosed with asthma at 18 months old. And I had my first asthma attack when I was nine months and it was pre-verbal and I dealt with fatigue issues as a child.
And then I had mono really bad when I was 13 years old. Like I was in bed for four months and it was a whole thing. And managing my energy level has been a conversation I've dealt with my entire life and there has been this breakthrough of freedom that I had for a while in my late twenties and thirties. But I can see where there really just is this next. And it's interesting because the things that I'm craving, like I love my house and I love where I live and I want out of the suburbs so bad. I can't stand it. I'm going to totally drive me nuts. Cause I can't remember where I saw this, but I was reading something recently about another root cause of a lot of the illness that we deal with culturally is how protected our bodies have become from the elements and that our physiology actually developed to be stressed. We developed to be freezing. We developed to have times of extreme heat. We developed to have times of, of actually not being able to eat at all.
Like we're all these conversations about intermittent fasting and the power of fasting. We're trying to mimic a normal, natural thing that would happen, which is, yeah, just didn't have enough food and the hunters hadn't been it home yet and you got to go get more and then there'd be times of feast and some of the, kind of like the next revolution of the paleo movement, where we started with paleo diets. Now they're starting to get into this whole other aspect of Wim Hof breathing and ice baths and extreme levels of athleticism them. But it's about challenging the physical body to different levels of stress physically, and how the people who are doing this are experiencing is a deep sense of peace of mind and calm.
The anxiety that's building is like this pressure inside. And I, I literally have that experience, like where I want to be cold. Like I actually have a desire to be in the elements and on other podcasts, I've talked about this, that I have this kind of funny dream that I want to live in a yurt and own a Tesla but like I do, like, I want to have the experience of, I don't get to choose that it's going to be 65 degrees all the time in my environment that some mornings are freezing and sometimes it's hot and sometimes it's raining and wet and it's interesting that inside of my experience of chronic fatigue syndrome, that's one of the things that my mind, body, spirit is like hungry for being in the elements in that way. And like, who knows, they're going to discover that like cold and heat therapy is like critical to boosting the immune system function. And there's some wisdom inside of it.
Rev Liliana Barzola: Well, absolutely. And. Our ability to control our environment is our privilege. Because if you're poor,
Sarah Marshall ND: you don't have that.
Rev Liliana Barzola: Your you're mimicking that you're like your lights aren't on because you haven't paid the bill or whatever. Right? And so just to even go further and kind of validate what your saying is I was trying to lose about 10 pounds of toxic weight.
And when I say toxic weight, I mean, I know I was exposed to toxins and then I just blew up and it was that feeling of bloat. And I could not get those 10 pounds off. Now I'm a person. If I'm stressed out, I don't lose weight. Like I actually on a, you know, hahaha off the record, even though we're on the record here, it's like I admire people who like go through stressful, emotional things and they've lost 10 pounds.
I'm like, god I wish (Sarah laughing) I could at least get one good thing out of that. (Sarah: right?) And I'm like, no, I just gained 10 pounds. So when I go through stress, Like that it doesn't work for me, but we were evacuated because of the wildfires here in Oregon. And it was super stressful, but I was camping and I was on the ground and I could not control my temperature and I was eating intermittently. And I, I didn't want it for anything. It's not like I was starving, but just being out of my element, being under trees, being sleeping on the ground, I lost it 10 pounds and I promise you, it wasn't because I was stressed out. It was okay because I had changed and actually was around trees. I was sleeping on the ground. I wasn't in charge of my temperature. So just to validate, I'm like, man, I (laughing) just need to give myself 10 days to go over my evacuation PTSD. I'm like, I'm gonna go camping anytime I need to lose weight., (laughing)
Sarah Marshall ND: That's awesome. Yeah. So what are some of the, like, what are you up to in your practice? Like what's the things that you're working on for yourself and the work you're doing right now.
Rev Liliana Barzola: I'm so glad you asked (laughs) because I think it's really hard to sell yourself when you're an authentic person. You can, you, you get that, you know, it's like, it's really hard to be like, look it all my Instagram and my marketing and everything. I actually have taken the classes that you took A, B, and C and I totally changed the model. So you can basically say sign up and get that whole pack. It's online. It's DIY. I get emails all the time from people that are like. I am changed just from the A course. You know, sometimes people will pay that $79 a month, which is what it is right now. And they will just do the A-class and then they'll cancel. And then a couple months later, they'll log back on and get a B class. But people will just say, my life has changed from a, because you know, as you know, you learn how to understand your energetic boundary, which is the it's like the final frontier. Once you understand psychological boundaries and being able to say no, but you're like, why am I still thinking about this person? Why am I still thinking about this person? Why am I still beating myself up over this? And so that class really helps tremendously, but the how I change the model is actually kind of a painful story, which is that I had been working with this student of mine for 15 years. A, you know, I'm Latina, I'm darker skinned.
I'm, you know, I've, I've lived in, in a pretty conservative place from the time I was 12. I went from living in a very diverse place in California, where, you know, race was a thing, but I didn't really think of myself as a color until I came to Oregon at 12 and I have a Caucasian, Hispanic mother who's white.
And so we were constantly told that we weren't mother and daughter, which is a weird thing to happen, like to go into a store and have someone be like, who is this? And it's like, it's my mom. And then the store owner, like, no, like your mom was in here earlier, looking for you, like just all kinds of stuff that would have been like that.
Now with my daughter, who's very, light-skin Caucasian at the same thing happens except this time I'm the nanny.
Sarah Marshall ND: Oh my gosh.
Rev Liliana Barzola: So I grew up with all of this stuff. Which my daughter, I got to tell you, she has helped me so much with the microaggressions and racism that I deal with because she's white. And so when it happens, it's so shocking to her.
She's nine years old. and the other day we were in the car. So what will often happen to me happened to my mother in a different way. My mother was a white woman who had a very thick Latina accent. And people would not ever help her because when we moved to Oregon, foreigners were like not welcomed that there would be this whole conversation about her accent.
Where was she from? Why did she have an accent? You know, did she just move here? All of the things where my mom's like, you know, can I buy this bag of chips? And then there's like a whole conversation. And so that happens to me about my skin tone, which is that I'm a little bit caramel colored and in the dead of winter, It's not a tan, so people want it ask, did I just get back from Mexico?
Did I just get back from Hawaii? Am I Mexican, whatever it is, which I'm not. I'm South American, but, white people don't really know the difference between the different cultures of Latinos. (Laughs) All the time people are like, Oh my God, I just made the best, like something Mexican dish. And I'm like, I don't know how to make that 'cause I'm South American. And I think that's delicious too, give me your recipe 'cause I've never made that before. (Sarah laughs)
Okay. Conversations that she's privy to when I'm trying to buy a postage stamp or mail something or do my groceries. And the other day there was this long exchange of just 50 questions of my skin tone. And where was I from? And, you know, I also have had people ask me. Or say to me, you're not from here. Are you? And sometimes I just say, no, I'm not. Because I just can't handle it anymore. Like, I'm not going to fight you on this. (Sarah: right.) No, I'm absolutely not. I've been here for over 20 years. No, I'm not. So the other day we got in the car and she was just so exasperated and just frustrated and she was just like, ah, you know, mom, you don't ever have to tell them anything.
And it was so empowering to have my 9-year-old say. I watch you engage politely in these questions to get to the thing you need, which is, can they check you out? You know, can you get to the end of the transaction? So you (Sarah: right) can go. That day, by the way, we were in a rush, so she knew I was kind of trying to be polite to get what I needed.
And she just said, you do not have I have to tell anyone about your skin or why you're that color. And I just, I literally couldn't drive anywhere. I just sat there and had her just go off. And I was like, You're right. I don't have to, she started being like, anytime that happens, she'll just interrupt the conversation.
Sarah Marshall ND: Oh my gosh.
Rev Liliana Barzola: My mom has more melanin in her skin and I don't, but we spend the same time amount in the sun and she'll hold up her arm. And then she's like, okay, let's go. Let's do this. (laughing) And I'm like, (inaudible)
Sarah Marshall ND: Oh my gosh.
Rev Liliana Barzola: But also I could tap into her frustrated. Patient and her anger and her anxiety. because I felt that as a kid, with my Caucasian mother who had a very thick accent and just the prejudice that we encountered everywhere we went.
And so I just let her go off, you know, first I kind of wanted to shut her down, like, no, it's okay. And then I was like, man I remember being 12 and just wanting to interrupt that because my mom was speaking perfect English and the person behind the counter was like, Ma'am, I don't understand a word you're saying, could you speak more clearly?
And I just... and my desperate mother was like trying to say it again more clearly speaking in perfect English. She had an accent, but she was right. Totally understandable. But there's this manipulation and microaggression that happens that a lot of the time people of color, you know, we don't have time for it.
Sarah Marshall ND: You've got stuff
to do, and you've got to get checked out of there. So sitting there and reeducating the person
that,
Rev Liliana Barzola: you know, it's just, yeah, let me get through this microaggression so I can get my groceries and move on. And I know this is a bit long winded. I'll, I'll wrap back around to why I changed the classes to how I did, but also when I first moved to Oregon.
There was a black family. This woman, Melinda is now basically a godmother to me. She lives in the same small town I live in, in Oregon and she has really never left. She's been here the whole time. So I was 12, I'm 41 now, so it's a lot of years. And I was, when I first moved here, I was depressed. You know, people said it was cause I didn't have enough sun or, you know, cause it's kind of gray and rainy here and I wasn't used to the weather change, but honestly it was because I had a white mother who is experiencing all this prejudice, but she also didn't understand the experience I was having as being told all the time that I didn't belong here, that I needed to go back to wherever I came from. And then here was this black family who knew even better than I did, because I have privilege a ton of privilege in contrast.
And that woman took me in and had me hang out with her kids. And I know at the time that wasn't really what they were thinking--like they weren't like, Oh, you must be having this experience too--it was mostly just that they knew I was hurting and they out of the, their heart involved me in their family affairs. And that changed my life because I didn't experience what I was experiencing from my white neighbors with this black family. We were. Listening to music. We were dancing. We were singing. Everything I did was wrong. I was dressing in a, in a slutty way. I was listening to loud music, according to my white neighbors. With them, it was just like you dance and you shake your booty, and you express yourself as you have your whole life. I'm Latina. It's never going to stop. And it wasn't seen as I was being over-sexualized or I was being right? Cause. You've been to concerts in Oregon. People do not dance. The music goes and they just all like rock back and forth or they tap their foot. And they're like such a good song. (Sarah laughs.)
Sarah Marshall ND: Yup.
Rev Liliana Barzola: So that expression of who I was, was really embraced by that family. And so I remember those things: places where people could see me and let me be myself and places where they were afraid of my non-whiteness.
So back to my student, I have the student blonde woman, blue eyes, fair skinned. And I don't think anything of it 'cause I love this child. I'm just like, girl's going, gonna come up. She's so dedicated. And after 15 years of training her, she literally stole my stuff, created her own intuition class. And when I looked at the page, the main, the main byline was almost exactly the same as was on my website, which is basically like "master your intuition." And she did like that same byline. And what happened for me in my body was I spent a year that last year that we were together really explaining to her that I needed her to have her own voice. I work with people as you know Sarah for you to customize, you take the tools that I have shared and you make them your own, right. They're not, uh something that you even need to copy because you have your own brand that just naturally comes out when you're really using those tools. Right? You have your own energy tools that have come through your process, the work that you do with people, however you do it. It's just so innate, right?
Because we all have that indigenous energy in us, that natural medicine doesn't matter what color we are. We all come from the earth. We all come from the indigenous energy. And so that awakens that in that person. Oh, what's my earth medicine? Let me get back there. And so after a year of coaching her saying, like, I'm watching your videos and you're using all the same language as me.
Can you please, you know, when you hear some points in the video where I could really see you come out and really back then when I was coaching it, I wasn't even like feeling offended. I was just like (Sarah: yeah) this is an opportunity for her to step in, you know, in these three minutes, there's there you are a girl you're blossoming. It's beautiful. Step into that more and watching her gaslight me free you're and act as if, you know, I was being offended or I was being competitive or the teacher, you know, didn't want the student to succeed or something like that. I mean, it was just so hurtful and so mind blowing and I thought, you know, I do these high end programs for people where I teach A, B, and C with a lot of handholding. And I really spend all of this time helping you curate your thing. And I thought, and then this bitch goes on and takes my stuff and just selling it, like on the side of the road. I'm like, I got to re-vamp how I send this because I have this prejudice in myself thinking that I can control what people are going to do with it. That it's sacred information that I want to protect, but the fact is it just gets exploited. So I'm like, I'm going to sell that for free. Like for me to make this course, as, you know, $79 a month for someone who could sit and just do all the courses and you could do it in 10 days, really? Where I had been really spending five years developing that with someone and drip dripping it into
Sarah Marshall ND: I mean you and I trained for, I mean, yeah. I, if I could have, I would have split my time, 50/50 between you and med school, but there was a little bit of more classes, but I mean, every, every Tuesday night I was in your workshop in your office every day, then you opened up the Thursday night classes and it was like, I was going to school, you know, 12 hours a day and I would still get in and spend two hours with you. Cause it was the most restorative. I don't know how I would've gotten through medical school without you. Like, (Liliana: aww) there's what I learned personally. And similarly, like, The tools coming through me and, you know, I've gotten more outspoken here on HEAL about I do intuitive work with all my new clients and I actually pulled from what I learned from applied kinesiology (AK) and my mentors Dr. Carlotta Watson and
Rev Liliana Barzola: And I've pulled from AK too.
Sarah Marshall ND: Yeah. Yeah. And we actually had dr. Cyprien on the podcast in season one and he shared about his process and you, and I actually had had another teacher a few years before I went to medical school. And what struck me was the toolbox that she started to teach me was very similar to your toolbox. And so I got this validation of like, these are my earth medicine tools. And, but even still it's, it's filtered through me in lots of different ways. But the work we did in particular, like this is so don't want to sidetrack this conversation, but like, it was striking to me to go to naturopathic school and find out how much conventional medicine we were going to have to learn. I didn't know that. I really thought I was like going to deep Shaman school essentially, you know, like the Hogwarts of the natural medicine world, and you were one of the most integral people to help me navigate that disconnect and what it did inside my body and old remnant persecution energy coming up from thousands of years of being a healer on this planet and being burned at the stick and having cellular memory of what happens to herbalists, who were labeled witches and (Liliana: yes) all of that world,
Rev Liliana Barzola: the persecution, which has to be addressed. It absolutely does. And that persecution, the reason I'm so good at that is because I'm a person of color. So every white person that sits in my chair shows up for a session virtually I'm looking for that. I'm like, where have you been persecuted? Where have you felt that prejudice. And I'm not trying to even talk about race and that. It's like, all people have felt persecution, whether it's past life. Present. We've been on all sides of it. So the fact that you like have just taken that and healed that and integrated that, and by the way, the school you went to used to be that way, because I was a little kid when I went to that clinic at that college.
Sarah Marshall ND: Oh yeah, yeah.
Rev Liliana Barzola: Oh yeah. And it was, it was so, it was so beautiful and. Even though a lot of it was cultural appropriated from indigenous people, the people who work there, the white people who work there, they had open hearts and they really were not trying to prove the medicine. But you got there at a time when it was beginning, it was proving the medicine. We'd like, we're just as important as this allopathic world. And so it got lost. So your intuition was right on and you had to find your allies at that school, which you did.
Sarah Marshall ND: Went digging for them. (laughs)
Rev Liliana Barzola: High five! Good job. You're so loved.
Sarah Marshall ND: Yeah. And that's, I mean, there's a lot of testimonials. I could provide you the personal healing work I've been able to do with you as my guide and my coach. And then also what the difference that the tools that you train me in have made for my client population and to just say the value of those... I'm I have no problem promoting you the value of those courses and it's and one of the things that I'm, I'm not. You know, we all go through it with the way we go through it. Like, I almost want to apologize for the pain that you had to go through, but at the same time, here you are and you transformed it and you healed it right. Or you're where you are in that process. But from me, I'm so excited to know that is the case now, that they're as accessible as they are, because one of the biggest questions I get from people when we start to get, cause I'm willing to traffic a lot in the conversation of somebody having what I've deemed psychic pneumonia. Like, if you had pneumonia, we would put you to bed and feed you soup and put a thing on your head and say, take care of yourself until you know, you're healed.
And there are people that come to me that they've done the diets, they've done the detoxes, they've worked the physical level, they've even done the therapy and they've worked the mental level. They've done transformational work and they've worked the mental level. And there is something that this is like, I talk about there are dis-eases that come from. Watch, this is going to be straight something you taught me probably where your soul is trying to go in a particular direction and your life is going in a different direction. And the, the disease comes from the discord between those two paths not being in alignment. And the disease is manifesting as tools. If you listen to your body and you take action on what it wants to feel better to heal. You'll find yourself marching closer and closer back to that spiritual soul alignment. Cause that's what I see in my clients all the time. And that the reason or the origin of this disease comes where we've gotten out of alignment with like what we're here for, who we really want to be, or our soul's expression in life.
And that's one possible origin. It's not the whole thing. That's one of the things I don't like when metaphysical teachers get to be like every illness is rooted from the same, (Liliana: agreed. It's bull shit) you know, it's no, this is just one thing, but a lot of people have never even had that opportunity to think about what they're dealing with that way.
Rev Liliana Barzola: Right. Right. It's been...
Sarah Marshall ND: closing that gap.
Rev Liliana Barzola: It's both. And your, and also what you and I have been doing this entire time. We've been talking is honoring our teachers, you know, even when you're like and stuff I've taken from AK and I'm like, and I've taken stuff from AK too. Yeah. So I, you know, like that's all it is.
It isn't that we're saying you can't take a tool and reuse it or transform it or bring it into your practice. It's the copying part. That's all it is. And so it's honoring your teachers as long as you're honoring your teachers. And I struggle with that too. I mean, I have a teacher Shizeng Yang who changed my life.
And we go in and out of communication, we go in and out of understanding each other. I've lost contact with a lot of the teachers that have given me psychic tools and, you know, it's like, you're, you're doing the best you can. Right? But just speaking to those little bits honoring as much as we can, that's all it is because it's the great mother, it's really mama earth. Right? We're like really trying to get back to like, Oh, mama earth, you have so much intelligence. And the masculine oppressive way of thinking has disregarded that beautiful potent information that Mama Earth is offering us.
Sarah Marshall ND: And I'm glad you said that because you know, being a white girl from the suburbs of upstate New York, but yet I know I have, when I do the meditation work and when I've sat in some really powerful ceremonies, the information that's come to me is that I, I, whoever I is, whatever this thing is, this energy self that I may be am, have been around a really long time. And that there's 65,000 years of standing for humanity and healing, humanity, and bringing humanity into the next levels.
And that there's a lot of percentage of that time period, that whatever conglomerate of energy, this incarnation is is about being a healer and herbal medicine. And a lot of these like more ancient techniques and I'm feeling incredibly drawn and to use them and study them. And I'm in this catch between.
As a white girl from the suburbs, can I ever actually embrace this without ruining it or without watering it down? Like, or is it like, I just got born into the different incarnation and I got to live this one and I worry about cultural appropriation. I worry about neoshamanism and I've had the experience of being with people who are amazing and well-meaning practitioners and it is f-ing clear they are not coming from a lineage. They've just patchwork, quilted a bunch of things together. And it's not even to say that there isn't something beautiful and healing that gets offered, but I've also been with people that are multiple generation shamans coming down a lineage right out of the Amazon rain forest. And it's different. It's a distinct experience to be with them. So, I'm like: What do we do?
Rev Liliana Barzola: Yeah well, when
people, what do we do I want to do Ayahuasca I'm like, is it a white person in the US that is giving you that Ayahuasca and that training? I not saying. You shouldn't go see that person, if you have alignment with them, if you, if you celebrate them, if you have some buy in with them and some report go for it.
But if it was me, I would be looking for doing the medicine in the Southern part where it's really from that South American vibe and not saying it didn't exist in North America, but we know it's potent down there and finding that lineage for something like that. Something as delicate as Ayahuasca we are journeying and there's certain prayers and there's a certain lineage, just like we could talk about Chinese medicine and, Qigong and the different forms of, of body healing and movement that have happened that are really based off of different families, different lineages.
And you really can't. I mean, one of the things that the school does, when you're dealing with this, like cultural appropriation looking at acupuncture schools is they'll just shove people into a Qigong classes like, Oh, you're going to take this class. And this is what everyone's taking that form might not be good for that person's body. (Sarah: mmm) And there isn't an understanding of that. It's just trying to kind of piece it together. A lot of these schools, as they've really tried to prove themselves to the white man, that's kind of the thinking that I have. It's that sort of allopathic. Thinking well, if you go into a lot different countries that are not the United States, there's a much bigger blend of that.
The reason I was exposed to so much natural medicine is my mom was from South America. So she was getting homeopathy and she was getting that from her medical doctor, there was this integrative care that has always happened. And. we've just worked to destroy it here in the United States really. And just act like it has no value. Yeah. More and more medical doctors come to see me or do my training because they're like, I wasn't given any tools to heal. I'm a drug pusher. I was told what drugs are Contra indicated and what drugs to give, what person I have had pharmaceutical companies at my school teaching me what to do.
I know a lot of medical reps who know how to do surgery and surgeons don't know how to do surgery, because I don't know the prosthetic that they're putting in the person that rep is standing there telling the surgeon exactly what to do, which thank God they are, but it's a lot more complex. The medical and allopathic world.
It's not as straightforward as people make it to be. And people who are sick know that. (Sarah: yeah) , I want to say I'm 20% indigenous and 80% colonizer. So I, you know, I come from both sides of things and one of the beautiful things that, god, I'm not gonna remember his name, but there is this amazing TikTok guy who, is he's an indigenous person.
He is Canadian and it's going to come to me later on. But, He just keeps posting about stop asking indigenous people how much blood they have. Because a lot of us have lost our lineage. And so we can just think of it from that mindset. It's like, if you are, have indigenous blood in you, or you're a person of color, especially like people who have been brought here as slaves, their lineage is lost.
They do not know the stories of their ancestors and that's not their fault. But they still get to dive into that ancestral lineage through meditation. Just like you're talking about sitting down and for you or whoever somebody does Ayahuasca or somebody sits there meditate, same thing. You can tap into your lineage.
And that's what I do with people. That's what I have my students do. Connect to your guides and your guardians. It might be an animal spirit. (both laugh)
Sarah Marshall ND: Yeah. Oh my God. Totally. And, and that's, I think. You know, what we're reconciling and working through is like, I want to. I can't think of a better way of saying it. And there is a better way. Like what's there for me is like, I want to share and promote the possibilities of like, like these healing modalities that are, you know, for a long time, a lot of what is actually now starting to get validated in our understanding of neuroscience and how the brain works were things that we would just write off as like, oh, that's all smoke and mirrors and impossible.
And not really, but like there are actual a lot of science more, we would be great, going into spontaneous healing. And people's ability to shift things at a physical level that seems linearly impossible and quantum healing and, and like all of that is starting to open up us to a new conversation of what's possible.
That then we go back and look at the stories from indigenous cultures of the way that they practice medicine and how they took care of their own people. It's actually starting to come together in this new understanding of what's possible at how fast our cells can change, how quickly DNA can get reprogrammed like that that's all possible and real.
And then there's honoring the cultures that this comes from and recognizing where you know, I'm 5% indigenous and 95% colonizer. But then when I look at my lineage, I actually go all the way back to a lot of Viking blood. There are these fishermen and these ocean people that my lineage, where I just actually did my ancestral DNA and I'm European, European, European, European.
And it's a lot of German and some Scandinavian and some French, but it all revolves around that Nordic sea area. And I actually know from family history too, that there's just this really long, my mother's maiden name is Fisk which is F-I-S-K and actually means fisherman. And we have this like connection to the ocean and connection to the fish and that whole area.
And there's medicine and there's knowledge. And there's like the old Celtic gods and goddesses and Mists of Avalon. And like, you (Liliana: Yes!) can pull it cause (inaudible)
it's all there.
Rev Liliana Barzola: And I was like, I wish that like, oo, I can get a little bit, I got 5% Irish (laughing and inaudible speech)
Sarah Marshall ND: Totally.
Rev Liliana Barzola: That's awesome.
Sarah Marshall ND: Yeah. And
Rev Liliana Barzola: I love that. I love knowing that about you.
Sarah Marshall ND: If we go back far enough, we're all indigenous.
Rev Liliana Barzola: Right. Exactly. So let's bring it back. Let's just keep bringing it back. Let's just stop going the wrong direction because we don't have a choice at this point.
I will demystify for everyone listening. How do these, you know, miracles happen? How does indigenous healing happen? I think of my master teacher (NAME HERE) who is.. He, he was a Chinese medicine person who grew up in the villages where he was seeing the doctors reset bones and heal bodies and all sorts of stuff.
It's just Qi flow. Right? When you think about, if I have someone who's crying ill, I just work with them on Qi flow like, can you Google a YouTube video for Qigong, Tai Chi, some sort of body movement and flow because when we're in pain, we do not breathe into that part of our body. We just shut it down. We wall it off. And so that ability to come into the knee that hurts and breathe into that knee and tend to that knee and get.. It's like a river. It's like a highway it's like a traffic jam. And so what indigenous information, what's left of it, really understands is releasing that traffic jam. Eastern medicine is one of the most preserved forms. We have documentation we have, but this is all indigenous information. And there's a lot of hospitals in China, where if you have a stroke, they're going to treat you with Chinese medicine to get those muscles going. You're going to acupuncture and you're going to get the best drugs you can get.
Sarah Marshall ND: Yeah.
Rev Liliana Barzola: So there's an understanding of, Oh my God, this person has stroke. Let's get the energy moving with these needles to help the body remember how to flow. And so thank god there's the beginning of proof for the white man. And I'm being ridiculous when I say that. But just keep it simple. (laughing)
Sarah Marshall ND: Yeah.
Rev Liliana Barzola: And also in my culture as a Latina, there's so much racism.
I mean, there's so much pretending we don't have any indigenous blood in ourselves. There's so much, "we don't like black people." I mean, it is, it is crazy. So I just have so much hope for this generation that's coming up. And even the generations behind me, my wife is seven years younger than me. We have all these fights sometimes where I'm like, you don't know this song.
I've got her singing, the WKRP song. maybe you're too young for this too, but it's like, (sings) "baby, if you ever wonder" do you know what I'm talking about? "Wondered what ever became of me"
Sarah Marshall ND: no, and it's not an age thing cause we're only a year apart. So I just don't know. I'm just not tapped in.
Rev Liliana Barzola: Oh my God.
Sarah Marshall ND: It like
Rev Liliana Barzola: 1978. It's like cheesy song.
Right? But I've got her singing the song, you know, in the kitchen and she's just like "baby" singing it. And the other day I played it for her. She's like, Oh my God, what is that? I was seeing something else in my mind. I'm like, I have so much hope for her generation, and everybody else after. Cause they're like, you, people are ridiculous. You have so many names for things and rules for things. She does not identify as gay. She does not identify as one gender or the other. It's just, I am who I am. You know, you asked her about her pronouns. She's like it's Bree. (inaudible)
Sarah Marshall ND: That's awesome. Yeah. I love it. Yay. Oh my gosh. I'm clear. we could keep doing this all day and you've just been such a gift and a contribution to me and my life and many of my dear friends and, you know, the people around me, we all were in the Liliana fan club and would come home from our physiology, patho- classes, and cardiology. And there was a group of us that would meet at this one restaurant bar that used to be an old brothel in Portland. And we would pendulum all night and we would, we would pendulum about each other in class and try and figure out what all our past life relationships and why we had rifts where we did and why people challenged us, because we would figure out all these like historical reasons and was just play with it, you know? And, and I. Medical school would not have been the joy that it was with that,
Rev Liliana Barzola: that sounds really fun. I love the image of you guys in like a bar doing. That is so cool.
Sarah Marshall ND: It was so fun. It was awesome. Yeah. No, and, and I just, yeah, I'm really grateful to know actually the way that you've released your coursework and made it available because that's a big deal.
So many people come to me and they're like: Now, what, what do I learn? Where do I go? And I'm like, it's not, I'm like, I send them to you and you're you're, you know, but this opens up a huge door for accessibility to that information and that knowledge base for people, it makes a big difference. So thank you,
Rev Liliana Barzola: Totally yeah. 'Cause the, the trauma really got me clear actually like, okay girl, you got to like, get with it. You got to get into present time. And this just needs to take a new form because our tools are always evolving and shifting and changing. Thank you so much for having me on, I feel honored that you would ask me to be on.
I loved getting that email. I was just like, yay.
Sarah Marshall ND: Good.
Rev Liliana Barzola: Thank you so much, Sarah. Keep doing the awesome work you're doing out in the world.
Sarah Marshall ND: Will do. And we'll stay in touch for sure.
Rev Liliana Barzola: All right. Yeah. Bye (inaudible) thank you.
(music)
Sarah Marshall ND: Thank you to today's guest Liliana Barzola for her unapologetic straightness. If HEAL has been making a difference for you, we would greatly appreciate it if you left us a review on your favorite platform so we can reach more people and help heal our world. For a full transcript and all the resources for today's show, visit SarahMarshallND.com/podcast. Keep the conversation going, have ideas or healing story to share, send us your thoughts, wants for future episodes, or questions by contacting us at sarahmarshallnd.com or on Instagram at @SarahMarshallND. Special thanks to our music composer, Roddy Nikpour and our editor, Kendra Vicken. We'll see you next time.