How Energy Healing Can Help You Break Old Patterns

Interview By Brandi Fleck

Erin Grace shares how childhood trauma, anxiety, and self-limiting beliefs shaped her life, and how energy healing, intuition, and self-awareness helped her reconnect with herself.

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This episode has been maintained in loving memory of Erin Grace. October 13, 1986-April 7, 2024.

What happens when the stories you've believed about yourself aren't actually yours?

For years, Erin Grace struggled with anxiety, depression, dissociation, and a persistent feeling of not being enough. In searching for answers, she turned to trauma work, energy healing, and intuition to better understand the beliefs that had shaped her life.

We dive into childhood trauma, self-limiting beliefs, emotional healing, and how changing your inner story can change the way you experience the world.

While we explore energy healing, its central message is about understanding yourself, challenging limiting beliefs, and creating a different story for your life.

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Table of Contents

The Lasting Effects of Childhood Trauma and Feeling Unseen

Erin Grace: Being human is that we have the ability to create. We have the ability to manifest, express ideas, and experience a huge range of emotions. We are communicators and storytellers, so I believe that we have the ability to shape and change our life with stories. We are experiencing and exploring life not just through our physical bodies, but also spiritually and emotionally.

The most important aspect of being human is the ability that we are able to create and make positive differences in the world. So I feel the way of doing this is by connecting with others and sharing our truths and our stories, and also inspiring others to step up and do the same in their own unique way.

Brandi Fleck: This week's episode is one of the most intimate storytelling episodes we've done. Guest Erin Grace is a healer, traveler, blogger, and the face behind Story Bones, an online resource for recognizing your trauma and healing it.

Erin hails from New South Wales, Australia. From her heart, Erin tells us about a life of being unseen and the excruciating pain it caused. She talks about the trauma resulting from becoming enmeshed in close relationships, causing your identity to become unclear.

Erin talks about symptoms of trauma from her own personal experience, such as dissociating, anxiety, and depression, but also tells us how she started to heal, continues to heal, and how she helps others through energy healing and spiritual healing.

You get insight into recognizing and stopping destructive behaviors that you might engage in. If you're not sure where those behaviors come from or how to stop those patterns, Erin gives you advice for how to surrender and stop running from the pain.

You'll also learn how to start listening to yourself, how to tap into your own intuition, how to call on universal energy for healing, and how to change the stories you've believed about yourself throughout your life and past lives so that you can step into your own power.

Erin serves as a great example of self-awareness, taking responsibility to change her own life, and progress.

We start today's episode with Erin telling her personal story before diving into the interview.

Now here's Erin.

Erin Grace: A lot of the deep pain that I experienced growing up, it took me a long time to understand where this came from and why I felt this way.

My biggest thing growing up was that I had a lot of shame and always a feeling of being invisible, of not being seen or validated for who I truly am as a person.

So for me, there felt like a huge amount of shame. There was always a voice in my head telling me I'm not good enough. I'm not worthy. This was a story that I carried for a long time, and I felt like even if I did speak up, what I had to say wasn't important and it didn't matter. I felt that even if I tried to, I would be repressed. So I guess I felt, what was the point?

I feel this really contributed a lot to my mental health conditions and my anxiety and depression.

I guess I had a lot of shame as well because I didn't feel like I remembered much of my childhood and early adolescence. I thought it was quite weird, and I would only remember random snippets and fragments.

I felt quite incomplete. I didn't feel like I was whole within myself, and I was not able to piece a lot together for a long time.

So for me, I always felt like parts of me were missing and that I was kind of floating around elsewhere. I didn't ever feel grounded in myself. I felt very disconnected from myself and my body, and often I felt kind of like an intruder in my own life. I didn't feel I had a sense of identity.

Also, for me, I didn't know how to create healthy relationship boundaries. So that was the thing that really influenced all areas of my life, relationships, work, friendships, sex, every aspect of my life. That really controlled me.

So I became very self-sabotaging. I felt like my life was always in a bit of a state of turmoil, with a lot of anxiety and depression.

Because I was really sensitive and pain really affects me on such a deep level, I learned to dissociate from a young age. That's where you disconnect from your body, really, your feelings, and your sense of identity. That can be really dangerous if you don't know how to work with that, and you kind of become disconnected from yourself. Often you don't even know you're doing it.

It took me until three years ago to even know what this was, and it was quite confronting for me to realize that I had not been present for so long.

I felt that I grew up very vulnerable and really kind of unable to protect myself in the world.

Another reason for this as well was, I feel, growing up in a very close-knit family, I became very dependent from a very young age on another family member.

When you become dependent on someone, you can really become enmeshed with this person. 

This is pretty common, I think, in families and definitely in intimate relationships, often it's not able to see how damaging this can be because the two people may not be able to form their own identities. Me being the youngest, I didn't feel like I was able to be free and be my own person. 

I felt quite controlled and manipulated for a lot of my life, and I felt like if I tried to express myself, I was put down and made to feel that it wasn't good enough. Then if I tried to challenge and fight back, I felt like I was always shut down and things were always my fault. 

So I became very fearful of speaking up, and I guess I just felt it was best to keep quiet and try to stay small. I didn't feel that I was truly seen for who I was, and I had this painful longing to just have this freedom to express myself, but I didn't feel safe to do so for a very long time.

It was quite shocking for me to realize that I actually became quite manipulative myself. It was because I felt that I was not able to express myself and be myself for my whole life. I had this huge fear of being controlled and manipulated, and I guess my way of protecting myself was to self-sabotage and create turmoil and drama in these relationships.

I was so terrified of showing my vulnerabilities to anyone because in the past they had been rejected. So I would try to hurt people and push them away before they hurt me. It was a really damaging pattern, and it caused a lot of pain to myself and others. It took me a very, very long time to work through this.

Intimate relationships are one of my biggest triggers. So I did make a decision to be on my own and work through this and feel whole within myself and comfortable before I feel ready to be intimate with someone again. This has really been a huge influence over my whole life, and I always felt like something was wrong with me. Like, why am I this way? Why can't I just be normal and stop doing these behaviors and patterns and hurting people?

I always knew inside that I'm a good person. Why am I doing this? But it was because I hadn't dealt with the trauma, and I was unable to put the pieces together and understand that.

In my early teens and twenties, I turned to drinking and drugs and sex to numb out the pain I was experiencing. I would also have blackouts and go into states of psychosis where I would wake up with no recollection of what I had done the night before. 

Then when I was told about my actions, it caused tremendous shame and guilt, and that often sent me spiraling into deep depression and created a lot of pain in my life because at times I felt like there were two separate people.

I felt like there was this good person who's doing good things and kind and gentle and generous and caring, but then there's this other side of me that, because of trauma, I would become. I felt like this monster, and I guess I shocked myself all the time. How could I act that way?

So there was constant shame and a lot of pain in that. It took me a lot to work through that.

By my late twenties, I knew I couldn't keep going this way. I wanted to put an end to the shame and all the pain I was living in. So I really had to make the decision to face myself and commit to change.

It was really difficult to challenge some of these patterns and confront some things. I had to really shift my entire thought process, the way I felt about myself. I had to work with many counselors and healers and was on medication for a long time. Also, just getting to know myself.

I had to start learning what was important to me, how I like to express myself, who I was, because it took me a long time to have my own identity.

So who was Erin? Who is she? What brings her joy? How do I honor myself and learn to trust myself rather than constantly being influenced by others?

So for me, it was really huge, and I had to make some big changes and cut myself off from people. I had to learn to create healthy boundaries and learn to respect and honor myself and my body.

It took me until 30 to learn to be truly present in my body and to create space to feel safe to stay and to feel whole and complete.

It's rare now that I dissociate for extended periods, but when I notice I'm being triggered, I definitely have grounding strategies and things in place to bring myself back into my body and feel safe again.

So really, for me, it is a constant, lifelong journey. It's something that I'll always have to work on, and I still sometimes have that deep pain, or I can be triggered, or I'll have random fragments of memories or flashbacks that don't make sense, or really dark dreams and chronic pain in my body, which is on a really cellular level. So I have to manage it every day.

For me, I have to really put the effort into my morning routine, to honor myself, to be in nature, to do the things that are important to me because that's my healing, and it's really essential in my life.

So I want to stress that it's not just like one day you feel, "Okay, I'm all good now." It takes constant work on yourself, and you have to have that dedication and be willing to do the work.

Brandi Fleck: Today I want to welcome Erin Grace to the show. How are you doing today? I'm so happy to have you here.

Erin Grace: Hi, Brandi. Thanks so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here.

Brandi Fleck: This is going to be a fun episode, and I just want to dive right in and have you introduce yourself to the listeners and tell us who you are, what you do, and what is your background?

Erin Grace: Okay, that is a big question.

I live in the beautiful Blue Mountains, which is about two hours west of Sydney, and I'm very much involved in nature. I love living here because it's such a beautiful place, and there's so much inspiration here. It's a really creative and beautiful community.

I'm a writer and a creator, so I spend a lot of time expressing myself through my writing, and I love to get out and about and do creative things in the community.

Like I said, I love being in nature. I'm also a healer and a mentor and a traveler. I spent a lot of my life traveling, and I'm very curious about cultures and exploring life and seeking truth, and I guess stepping out of the conventional ways of living.

I'm a big believer in following your own path and your own life journey, and for me that's been a big process, a big journey to get to where I am today.

My whole life has expanded in such a huge way, and I feel that I'm finally able to step into my power, be who I am, and take those leaps of faith and have the courage to share myself and my story with the world to help others.

Brandi Fleck: There's a lot to unpack there, and so many questions are coming up. You've had such an interesting journey. You're a creator, a writer, and an energy healer. Is that correct?

Erin Grace: Yes.

Why Energy Healing Became Part of Erin's Healing Journey

Brandi Fleck: Okay, so let's talk energy healing. Can you tell us what it is and why it's important?

Erin Grace: Yeah, sure. Everything is energy. Everything that exists in the universe is connected by energy, and it vibrates at its own frequency. So our thoughts, our words, desires, our choices, and beliefs, they're all energy. Everything is manifesting constantly into your reality. What vibrates in your energy field is demonstrated in your life.

One of my favorite quotes is from Einstein: "Energy is everything. Match the frequency of the reality you want, and you cannot help but get that reality. It can be no other way. This is philosophy, not physics."

I found that to be such a powerful piece of information, and it's the truth. But it took me a long time to be able to embody that as the truth. You can hear it as words, but to actually feel that and incorporate that into your life and shift your life so that you can work in a positive way with energy, I think it's really important to understand that and the law of attraction, that like attracts like. Positive attracts positive, and negative attracts negative.

So I think we all have the ability to work with energy because everything is energy, and we can all be healers of our own story in our own life. It's just grasping a deep understanding of this. When you start taking responsibility for your energy and what you're projecting is when you can start healing yourself, and you'll start attracting the right people and opportunities and situations into your life.

So basically, to me, energy healing means to clean up your energy, to shift these blocks, the negative beliefs, the stories, the traumas. It also goes into ancestral trauma and past-life trauma. It's a huge journey, and it takes a lifetime. I'm still uncovering all of this, and it takes a lot of dedication. Often it takes support from others, so I've worked with a lot of healers through my life because a lot of this stuff is quite big, and it's hard to shift. We don't always understand or know what we're carrying.

So the process of energy healing, to me, is shifting energy blockages, connecting with spirit, and, like I said, releasing trauma. It's empowering you to feel whole in yourself.

Understanding Energy, Trauma, and Emotional Blockages

Brandi Fleck: Gosh, there's just so much stuff I want to ask you now. It's crazy. First, can you explain when you say healers, what types of healers have you met with? Then you also mentioned universal energy. Can you explain to our listeners what that is?

Erin Grace: Okay, so the type of healers I've met with are all kinds of healers. I've met with clairvoyants. I've worked with Reiki. I work with Reiki healers. I've worked with shamans. That's kind of what I'm working with now. It's called shamanism, but it is very much soul healing, so bringing back soul parts, working with past lives, inner child work, and releasing trauma.

To me, this has been the most profound healing system that's created the biggest shifts in my life. I love Reiki, and I do that for relaxation. I'll use hand placements on, say, my chest if I'm feeling anxious, and I'll just breathe the energy in and out through my hands to calm myself.

But when it comes to releasing blockages and things trapped, because we can walk around with so much trapped and blocked in our energy, soul healing is the main energy work that I like to work with now.

Brandi Fleck: Can you describe universal energy for us?

Erin Grace: Energy is everything. Every single thing in the universe is made of energy, so everything is connected in the universe by energy.

Brandi Fleck: I think you had mentioned using universal energy to heal with your hands, maybe in Reiki. Was that how you referred to it?

Erin Grace: Yeah.

Brandi Fleck: So how would you use it?

Erin Grace: Basically with your intention. I think it always comes down to your intention. Also, where attention goes, energy flows. It's all about attention. If you have that intention to provide healing for someone, it's really kind of switching on and connecting and allowing that to channel through you. Anyone can channel this energy. We're just not really taught how to do it. Once you understand how to tap into that, you're able to channel this healing through you. It's about intention and wanting that healing and the belief behind it as well. You have to believe it.

Brandi Fleck: That makes a lot of sense. What is an example of an energy blockage?

Erin Grace: An energy blockage might be, for example, I had a fear my whole life of being trapped. I always felt like I had to have an escape plan or something in life. I didn't understand why, but I always felt that I was going to be trapped and stuck. This was such a fear, and it came across a whole range of my life. It influenced everything.

So I worked with a healer, and she saw that... I mean, this can sound a bit out there for some people, but I've seen this releasing in my life. She went into a past life where a soul part was trapped in a fire. So I had this feeling of constantly being trapped in this life and just feeling that intense fear but not understanding why and why this fear was so intense. It didn't seem valid in this life to me.

But when that was released, the freedom I felt it wasn't there anymore. The beliefs that I kept reinforcing about, "I'm going to be trapped..." Even the fact that when I would travel, I'd worry that I wouldn't be able to travel again, or I'd be somewhere and I'd get stuck, or my car was going to break down. There are so many examples.

It released that block for me, and I was able to invite more positive things into my life because I no longer had that limiting belief and blockage there anymore.

Brandi Fleck: Does that make sense?

Wonderful. Yes. So a blockage is anything that's in your energy that basically keeps you from moving forward in life, whether it's from this life or a past life?

Erin Grace: Yeah, exactly.

Brandi Fleck: Okay. And it could be from childhood trauma. It can be related to so many things. When you say soul part, what is that referring to?

Erin Grace: Basically, we are whole. We are an energy body. If you suffer trauma in your life, parts of you will leave. If you suffer trauma, you will dissociate to protect yourself. You may not remember the trauma that has happened to you, but your body will remember.

These soul parts don't feel safe to be in this body because of the trauma you've suffered. I was someone who was very anxious and full of a lot of fear. I was constantly in fight-or-flight mode, so these parts of me... I wasn't whole. These parts of me didn't feel safe to be there.

Brandi Fleck: Okay. By doing this work, you clear those blockages, and then those parts feel safe to return to you and bring that wholeness back to you.

Wonderful. Okay, thank you for that explanation there. That's very helpful.

Does everyone need energy healing, or is it just people who have suffered trauma? How would you know if you need it?

Erin Grace: Personally, I feel that some people have been through more than others. Some people have been here many more times than others, if you're looking at a past-life perspective. Some people are more sensitive. I'm a highly sensitive person.

But I do believe that in the form of what you want to manifest and create in your life, most of us, if not all of us, have blockages and limitations.

I think sometimes people see energy healing as this airy-fairy thing. They don't understand the importance of understanding your energetic health. To me, that is the work I'm trying to do, to make people understand that your energetic health embodies everything. It has everything to do with the way you live your life, and it's just as important as your physical health.

Some people may need a lot deeper healing. Some people may be able to work with this themselves. It just depends on where you're at and what you need. But I definitely think everyone should learn to understand energy and their vibration and look at what you're attracting into your life and what's being shown to you.

So yeah, I feel like it definitely would benefit everyone.

Brandi Fleck: That makes a lot of sense. We've talked a lot about energy healing, but let's back up a little bit to explore your evolution and own discovery of energy healing and healing in your life.

I know you've mentioned that you evolved to where you are today a lot through writing and that was your foundation. I imagine that was part of it, but can you tell us what were the steps of healing you've been through before you got to energy healing?

Erin Grace: I think the biggest shift for me was when I started to trust in myself, when I started to tap into my intuition instead of being influenced by others. I spent most of my life, my teens and early twenties, being influenced by other people and listening to what they thought was best instead of what I knew to be true in myself.

So the biggest shift came from trusting in myself, and that came through so many things: through my travels, through exploring healing, through reading, researching, through the people I met, and just shifts in myself and my beliefs. That was a really big shift for me and part of my healing process.

Like you said, writing. I've always been a writer, and I didn't realize the power in this gift of writing. I'd always been writing my whole life, but I started to trust in what I was channeling. For me, writing really flows naturally. It's not something that I think about on an intellectual level. It's almost a channeling, and it flows through. It's a real form of healing for me because my head is so busy. I have so many thoughts, and because I'm an anxious person.

Well, not so much anymore because of the work I've done. But writing is a form of healing and connecting with spirit and channeling. It allows me to express who I am on paper, and I found it really hard to speak about who I was, so writing was what was comfortable for me.

It really is a form of healing because I'm channeling myself and my true nature through writing.

How Anxiety and Self-Sabotage Can Be Connected to Trauma

Brandi Fleck: Why did you have to go through these healing processes? What happened? I know you said you were a very sensitive child. You had a lot of fear. You had some past-life blockages going on, but was there anything else?

Erin Grace: I believe that I am an old soul and that I came into this world carrying a lot of grief and shame and fear. I felt so much. To me, this controlled my whole life. The underlying pain was always there. No matter what I did, I couldn't escape it. There were so many things contributing to that.

I think for me, I was really scared of being seen in the world. I had so much fear and anxiety. I tried to ignore it for a long time. I tried to run away from it, but in a way, anxiety was my driving force because I was terrified to take action. But I guess I was more terrified of not taking action and just settling for a life where I felt I wasn't making a difference.

Even though it was hard, I began learning to trust myself. I think true healing starts when you begin to find that courage to take action.

Brandi Fleck: Would you say that anxiety in and of itself creates trauma?

Erin Grace: I think anxiety is a symptom of trauma because you're always in this kind of survival mode.

Brandi Fleck: Okay, yeah. And then as far as depression goes, you mentioned that earlier. Do you think that is a symptom of denying yourself who you really should be?

Erin Grace: Yeah, absolutely. I think that is one of the main factors because we're trying to be who society thinks we should be, or who our family thinks we should be, or this image of perfection, who we should be. That's not who we are.

So yeah, we're striving for something that's impossible, and we're always going to fall short. Until you begin to accept yourself and forgive yourself as well for your past, then depression and anxiety are most likely going to play a big part in your life, which they did for me.

Brandi Fleck: Are those gone now?

Erin Grace: I wouldn't say they're gone. I would say depression. I used to have weeks or months where I would find it hard to get out of bed. I wouldn't be motivated. I had terrible beliefs about myself. That's gone.

I still get anxious. I still have fear because I think that's normal, and I choose to challenge myself. I think you have to have fear and anxiety in order to grow.

But in terms of who I was even a year ago to now, I really feel like I won't allow myself to get back to that point of depression because I have so many things in place to support me, and I'm so aware of when my energy shifts and when it drops and when I need to take that time to go inward for self-care or take a step back or have some quiet time.

I know myself now, and I know what I need to do, whereas before, like you said, the struggle to not know yourself would bring that on, and not know my needs.

Brandi Fleck: Gotcha. How did you get to a point where you were at your lowest? You were in London.

Erin Grace: Yeah. There were a few. London was a point where I was just drinking and partying and being very reckless. I was stuck with no other option but to face myself and stop running.

I had to surrender. What else is there to do? I can keep running from the pain, but I realized that there was this huge fear around it. I learned to just start to sit with it.

This was with the help of, I was on medication at the time. I had counselors and healers. I had women's circles. I had huge support. It wasn't just me going, "Okay, I can do this on my own." I definitely recommend having support around you.

But I just knew that I had to stop running. I learned to sit with what was coming up, and when you start to sit with these thoughts and these fears, you realize that they are just thoughts and beliefs. They don't actually have any power. You put the power into them. So you can choose to believe them or not.

This was a big wake-up call for me to realize that I had a choice in what I believed about myself, and that started to create a big shift in my life.

Brandi Fleck: Awesome. Then we've sort of come back to connect with the whole topic of setting your intentions and putting energy into the thoughts that you want to be in your life.

Erin Grace: Yeah, exactly.

Brandi Fleck: Great. Awesome. That is a perfect transition into the fact that you have a business online. It's a blog, and it's where you're based with your healing services. Is that right? Called Story Bones?

Erin Grace: Yeah.

Rewriting the Stories That Shape Your Identity and Self-Worth

Brandi Fleck: Through your work with Story Bones, you discuss the idea that we're all influenced by the stories we believe about ourselves and that these stories shape our lives. You've mentioned some of that. Can you tell us more about that and some of the stories that have influenced your life and how you've learned to challenge them?

Erin Grace: As humans, I believe we are all storytellers, and we're born into a story. That's created by the world around us, and it's influenced by so much: environmental, social, cultural.

The moment we're born, we're influenced by stories about who we're supposed to be and where we fit in and what's right, what's wrong, all of that stuff. Before we know it, we've taken on all these stories, and we reinforce them daily. This is what forms our belief system, and this is the belief that we have about ourselves and the world around us.

Like I said, because of energy, this is then reflected into the life around us. This is what we see in our everyday life.

So often these stories don't even belong to us. We've just accepted them as our own. They can come through ancestry. They can be from past lives. They can be other people's beliefs. It can be something that's happened to you, like a trauma. 

We actually take them on as our truth, and then we wonder, "Why can't I express myself for who I am? Why am I afraid? Why am I holding myself back?" It's because we're often not even aware of the stories that we're telling ourselves, and they're just so woven into our life.

The stories we have are extremely powerful, and when you begin to realize that you have the power to change your story, that's when things start to shift. When we believe our story, this is all to do with energy as well. We're putting our energy into it, giving it power, and that power is building, and then it's your reality.

When you stop giving a story energy, it loses its power.

For me, I had all kinds of negative beliefs about myself. I played the victim card for a lot of my life. I felt like life was against me, and why is this happening to me, and all that kind of stuff. Of course, life was showing me these examples, and I was in this pattern. It would play out especially in relationships.

It was a big problem for me that I would expect my partner to make me happy and play the victim if they didn't live up to these expectations. We place so many expectations on others and externally.

There's always kind of an underlying story under every situation. The victim story, that I'm not worthy, I'm not good enough. I would self-sabotage in my life a lot, but underneath that I was saying, "I'm not worthy of love. I'm not deserving."

So it was when I started to see what actually was playing underneath. It was very confronting to think, "Okay, so that's what I think about myself."

Really, you have to start taking responsibility for the stories in your life, and you have to stop blaming everything externally for what you're experiencing because when you can identify the stories, check in with what your beliefs are, pay attention to what you're attracting into your life, and then challenge the story and decide to change it, then you really take back your power and you stop being a victim of life.

Obviously, it takes patience and it takes time. These stories you may have been carrying... I'm 33, so maybe I'm carrying this story for that whole time. It's not just going to be overnight that I now think this new story. It takes time and it takes patience and belief in your new story. You have to feel your new story. You have to put energy into that and really feel it to transform that.

Brandi Fleck: Awesome. Thank you for that.

Is it easy to take on stories that aren't our own because we're all connected?

Erin Grace: Yeah, I think so because we're not taught how to really tune in and listen to what's right for us. We just assume maybe that if we listen to someone else or we look for things externally, then that's going to be the answer to our problems.

Learning to Trust Your Intuition Instead of Fear

Brandi Fleck: So for someone who's never been taught how to tune in to their own truth, how would you tell someone to do that? How would they do that?

Erin Grace: Our mind is very busy all the time. You've got all these thoughts going around and around your head, and they're really busy and loud and overpowering. But when you begin to listen, your internal voice is very quiet. It's almost like a whisper. It's not forceful. It's not yelling at you like anxiety is, like, "You need to do this. You need to do this now. Something bad is going to happen."

It's not like that. So it definitely is a process, and it takes time and patience to strengthen that voice and allow it to come through. It's not an overnight thing where you'll just know what to do.

I would say spend some quiet time each day and try to tune into yourself. You could start simply by asking yourself, "What do I need today?" Just listen to it. Start doing these things and start responding. The more you start to listen, the easier it will become to hear, and the more you will stop feeling that you've got to always go externally for answers or be ruled by this anxious, overpowering voice.

You really have to start to honor yourself and get to know yourself.

Brandi Fleck: You've done this. You've talked about the processes you've gone through to tune in to yourself. So who are you as a person internally? What is your truth when the anxiety is not talking?

Erin Grace: I'm a very sensitive person, and for a long time I thought that's really bad, to be sensitive, and it means I'm weak. I saw it very much as a weakness, but I actually see it now as a gift because I'm able to feel things on a deep level.

I'm able to hear. I hear that inner voice. I hear the voice of spirit. I'm able to pick that up because of my sensitivity.

I'm definitely really sensitive. I'm a deep thinker. I want to know. I want to find the answers to things. I want to understand things, and I have to do it in my own way because it's not always the way that you're supposed to learn or you're told. I just have to go with what works for me.

Actually, when anxiety is not around, I have a very calm energy. When I'm anxious, my energy is frantic and it's not calm. But I definitely feel a calmness when I'm just trusting myself and being true to myself.

Brandi Fleck: We talked about Story Bones a little bit earlier, so can you tell us what Story Bones is all about and what you offer to those seeking healing?

Erin Grace: Story Bones is constantly evolving. I started it a year ago, and it was a blog. It was a way to get my messages into the world and a way to take that leap of faith and feel the courage to share my writing.

It's really all about empowering people. I want to empower people on that unique self-healing journey because everyone's journey is...

Erin Grace: Different, and we're all taking different paths. Different things work for different people. So I really aim to provide resources to help people recreate their life and align themselves with their true purpose, who they really are. You know, who they really are and who they know that person inside them wants to be, but maybe there's a lot of fear and anxiety there.

So I talk a lot about working through and challenging old stories and breaking self-limiting beliefs and painful patterns, and also through a holistic and spiritual approach, like exploring energy healing and spiritual growth, looking at trauma and ancestral healing, as well as challenging mental health from a holistic point of view and overcoming fears.

Those are some of the topics I touch on, but it's important for me because everything I share is my own lived experience. I want people to know that I get it and that I've been there, and I want people to know that we're all in this together. You don't have to go through it alone. There's a lot of help out there, so I want to be part of offering those services and help.

This year I'm really expanding, so I'm really excited. I'm working to put together some online courses and webinars on many of the topics in my blog. Then I will be finishing my training in soul healing, so I'm looking to offer energetic health mentoring and soul healing, which can be done through distance healing. That will be really cool. It's very exciting, and it's always evolving, so stay tuned for that.

Brandi Fleck: Awesome. Is soul healing the same thing as energy healing, or is it a little different?

Erin Grace: Yeah. This is what I was touching on before with working with inner child work, ancestral trauma healing, and past lives. I guess it's, in a way, the kind of shamanic work, which is trying to bring you back to feeling whole and complete.

Brandi Fleck: Gotcha.

Where can listeners find you and Story Bones?

Erin Grace: If you go online, you can find my website at storybonesonline.com, and you can sign up for my free guide, which is called Master Your Story, Transform Your Life. I'm also sending out fortnightly email updates and information.

I'm also on social media. I'm on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter. If you'd like to follow me on there as well.

Brandi Fleck: Awesome. All of those links will be in our show notes, listeners, so you can go over there and find those.

Discovering Your Purpose Through Healing and Self-Awareness

Before I let you go, I have a couple more questions for you. Can someone begin to find their life path or purpose before they've started healing, or should they start healing and then they would be able to discover their life path or purpose? How would you suggest they find what their purpose is?

Erin Grace: To me, I think the two definitely go hand in hand. Our journey through life is a constant process of healing and evolving, so we're constantly changing and growing all the time.

Who you were even last year to who you are this year is a different person. Who you were even a day ago to today is a different person. You're constantly evolving. You're constantly healing and going through processes, whether you're aware of it or not.

For me, when I started to discover my purpose, it was there all along. I was always a writer and a healer, but I wasn't honoring that. I didn't see that in myself.

The most important thing you can do is really get to know yourself. What are your passions? Spend that time with yourself. What are your passions? Your desires? What brings you joy? What's your unique gift that you can share with the world?

Because I have a blog, yeah, a lot of people have a blog, but they're not me. They're not sharing my message. You may be doing something similar to someone, but the way you do it is very different because it's you. You're showing yourself to the world.

So yeah, you have to learn to honor yourself first.

I wanted to share this because this was really powerful for me. One of my mentors, Shamaran Ibrahim, from Unveil the Feminine, which is a beautiful soulful women in business circle, shared this information that came to her, a strong message that came through to her that really kind of changed her life.

It was, "How can the world honor me, my gifts, and my work if I don't honor myself, my gifts, and my work?"

Before you can really share what your soul purpose is with the world and help others, I think you really need to know yourself and honor yourself and understand yourself.

So yeah, my piece of advice would be to start tuning into your needs and really honoring and listening to yourself. Do things that bring you joy, and you never know what can come of that. The universe will always be there to support you. You just have to allow it as well.

Brandi Fleck: Yes. Do you have any other parting wisdom you can leave for our listeners?

Erin Grace: Yeah. If you do have an idea or something you're passionate about, start doing it today. Even if you're not sure exactly what it is, just start taking steps. Even if that is just starting to get to know yourself.

Really don't be afraid to step up and do what feels right to you. Don't be afraid to speak your truth in the world. I think for me that's when the magic really started to happen in my life, so hopefully that will be of help to others.

Brandi Fleck: Wonderful. Erin, you are a beautiful person. I was so happy to have you on the show and that you opened up and shared your story today, even the difficult parts. Thank you so much for coming on the show.

Erin Grace: Thank you so much, Brandi. It's my pleasure. So nice to chat with you.

Join the conversation!

Feel free to share your own experience and let me know if you have any questions in the comments.

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Hi, I’m the founder of Human Amplified. I’m Brandi Fleck, a recognized communications and interviewing expert, a writer, an artist, and a private practice, certified trauma-informed life coach and Reiki healer. No matter how you interact with me, I help you tell and change your story so you can feel more like yourself. So welcome!

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