Monica Moody, spiritual teacher, leadership development consultant, and trauma-informed coach based in Atlanta, Georgia

This is a transcript of the conversation between myself, Brandi Fleck, Host of the Human Amplified podcast, and Monica Moody, who shares her powerful journey of healing after a multiple myeloma diagnosis.

If you’d rather listen than read, you can do that here, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

Get to Know Monica Moody

Brandi Fleck:

What does being human mean to you?

Monica Moody:

So I love that you lead with this question. And when I realized that that was a part of your flow, it's a question that honestly gave me pause. It's so big, but I was happy to reflect on it. And I think for me, I came up with like three different angles, and I'll be quick. But I think the first thing that came up is that to be human means to find that sense of connection.

First with ourselves, our true selves, with others, and then with what I define as that something greater. And that something greater is called by so many names, whether it's the Universe, God, whatever is comfortable for you, but for that something greater. So there's that level of connection. And I think that sits at the foundation of my response to that question.

The next part of it is understanding that the human experience is about—it is about tapping into the experience, that full range of emotions that comes along with being human. From joy to pain, from fear to hope, courage, all of the things, and shame and grief and all of the things right and learning how to experience those things without resistance and sometimes all at once right.

Just a super quick story—one of my favorite artists is John Batiste, and he talks about this moment where he was nominated for Album of the Year at the Grammys. And that night, his wife was in the hospital battling cancer. And they had to make a decision about holding that moment of joy in him receiving this huge honor and the grief that they were experiencing with her at the same time. And so that is just so symbolic to me of that human experience.

And then I would say that the final thing is understanding that, to be human means that we are these limitless souls that are in these finite bodies. And with all of what I just described, it's about learning how to navigate that with grace.

Sorry to be so long winded out the box, but yeah, I was excited to dive into that and just give that question some thought.

Brandi Fleck:

Yeah, no, that's beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing that.

Everyone today, I am so excited to welcome Monica Moody to the show. She is a guide and mentor for those seeking to reclaim their authentic power, live purposefully, and move through life with greater ease and grace. As a certified life purpose and career coach, trauma-informed coach, spiritual teacher, and leadership development consultant, she helps individuals navigate change, cultivate resilience, and embrace healing as a transformative path.

Monica's own healing journey, marked by a profound reckoning with surrender, vulnerability, and the sacred power of rest, deepened her understanding of grace as an essential force for self-liberation.

She shares practical spiritual wisdom that integrates nervous system regulation, breathwork, and mindfulness with deep self-inquiry and soul work. Through her writing, teaching, and facilitation, Monica empowers others to embody the soul qualities of self-awareness, authenticity, responsibility, compassion, resilience, humility, and grace, all of which I think we're going to be talking about here today.

She believes that true personal mastery comes not from striving but from allowing, allowing ourselves to be fully seen, fully supported, and fully present to the wisdom unfolding within.

And she's coming to us today from Atlanta, Georgia. Monica, welcome to the show. I am so excited to get to have this conversation with you today.

Monica Moody:

Thank you so much, Brandi. I too am excited to sit with you. I've been looking forward to this for a few weeks now. And so, yeah, glad to be with you. Thanks for the invitation.

Brandi Fleck:

Yeah, for sure. Well, before we dive in, what else do you want our listeners to know about you?

Monica Moody:

Yeah, I think, you know, it was interesting hearing the bio. It's always interesting hearing the bio, right? It's like, okay, who is that? Is that really me? And I think it is. But what I would say is I consider myself a guide for sure in terms of how I feel…what I feel I've been called to the planet to do. But it's almost like the longer I live, the more humbled I become in that role.

And so I feel like I've been using that term for a few years, but I hold it differently now, primarily as a result of the journey that I've been on for the last year. And so really looking forward to unpacking that. But yeah, I am a humble guy. Maybe I'll leave it at that. That's sort of the framework that I'd like to talk from.

Brandi Fleck:

Gotcha. And guys, once you get to know Monica and you hear what she has to say, I think you'll recognize that in her as well.

And so you mentioned that you've been on a journey the last year. And so we've known each other since we were in the Trauma-Informed Coaching Program together in 2022, I believe it was.

Monica Moody:

Yeah, that sounds about right.

From Sacred Vision to Shocking Diagnosis

Brandi Fleck:

And yeah, so I've sort of been following you and watching your work, which I just love. And you have a really impressive background, not only in coaching and career coaching, but you were sort of shifting into a spiritual role, I think. And you had something big you were launching. And then all of a sudden, a different path sort of rolled out before you. What happened?

Monica Moody:

Yeah, so I have been in this space of personal development, professional development, spiritual development for a couple of decades now. And so I do work full time as a leadership development consultant for an organization here in the Atlanta area.

And I also maintain my own practice where I do coaching, training, all of the things. And one of my passions is—and I feel like it's taken me a while to learn how to blend that spiritual development component into pretty much everything that I do—And so I feel like I had gotten to a good place.

And one of my passions was working specifically with women and Black women to be even more specific. And I so this is 2025—I got to get my timeline right—so around the middle of 2023 I had a huge download to create an online community for Black women. It was called “The Healing Hive: A Sacred Space for Awakening,” and my daughter who's also a wellness educator and and lives in a similar world, she raised her hand to help me build out that community. So we spent months building it out. And I would say we worked on it for about six or seven months. And it was probably, Brandi, honestly, it was one of the most beautiful things that I feel that I've ever created through divine guidance, right? And so we launched with our founding members on February 4th of last year—of 2024.

And the clients, it was about 40 women. They came into the space. They were going to be our ambassadors. They loved it. It was beautiful. And we were planning to do a full launch in March of that same year.

And midway to that point on February 16th, I got a cancer diagnosis. So I was diagnosed with multiple myeloma for which there is technically no cure.

And, everything changed. Everything changed.

And so the journey from that point is filled with so much stuff. I was like, I don't even know how to approach it, but yeah, would just kind of love to unpack it with you.

Brandi Fleck:

Sure. So you say everything changed. Was your project put on hold?

Monica Moody:

It was. And so the message to our founding members was, this is what's happening.

And I had some folks who were… you know, I had a writer who was committed to pouring into the group to try to maintain, you know, a presence. My daughter poured into it for a period, but it was my baby. And, you know, my absence was felt. And so the message was at a point that we're just going to have to put this on pause. But, you know, we're coming back, you know, so it's like stay tuned. And in my mind I saw that, you know, I was committed. It's like I had a few phases of treatment to go through but I figured that by the end of the year, last year, I saw myself coming back and and moving forward with The Healing Hive, but that never happened and it was it was such a an interesting process to go through because as I said I knew that I it was a divine download to create the community.

And after I had gone through certain phases of the treatment, and I'm sitting with myself, you know, sort of contemplating what is going to happen with this amazing thing that has been created, I felt like I got equal clarity that it was time to just shut it down; that it was not meant to go any further than where it had. In some sense, so indicative of the ways of the Universe.

You know, it's like we can be on this path. It's like we have a clear direction. It's like, yes, I'm going to this island and like, you know, two feet out from shore, you're detoured in some significant way. And that's what the whole process felt like. But I was thankful for the clarity that I had at each step.

Brandi Fleck:

When you got the clarity that that was as far as this project was meant to go how did you deal with that? Because I would have been like second guessing it, personally. I’d have been like, “really [Universe], are you sure?” — like a lot of work went into that what what did you do?

Monica Moody:

So much work. So much work. And it was hard it was hard to let go and at the same time because of messaging, because of experiences that I was having, I was clear that I could not hang on to it. So much of this has been about honoring what is, you know, and on the heels of the treatment—and to be a little bit more specific, I went through about maybe five, four months of treatment where I was doing three different chemotherapy drugs. And that part of the treatment was called induction.

That nearly took me out. By the time I got to the final part of that treatment, on my last appointment to get the treatments, I remember, my goal was to get to the infusion center without having to be in a wheelchair. And I celebrated the fact that I was able to walk in. That's how physically diminished I was.

And then on the heels of that, I had to move right into a stem cell transplant, which is its whole, ooh, it's a journey. And so both of those things happened.

And in my mind, after the stem cell transplant, again, I thought I was going to return to The Healing Hive. But by the time I got to that point, I was no longer even the same Monica Moody who had built The Healing Hive, right?

And so I just had to honor the new me, and that included my physicality, it included my mindset, my thoughts about my contributions, and this new reality that had forced me to put myself first.

And so I was clear coming into this year that this year was all about rest for me in so many different ways. And if I had stayed with The Healing Hive, I knew the commitment that that would take in terms of what I would have to give. And I did not have that. I could have forced it and stayed in old patterns.

But I knew that if I wanted to continue on my healing journey, that was no longer my MO. I couldn't do it that way.

And so because of all those things, like I said, I had the clarity that, yeah, it served a purpose. And I think in some ways I'm still reflecting on—I have some clues—but I think it'll continue to unfold because these things, they come into our lives for a specific purpose. And we can have like tunnel vision thinking it's for one purpose or one thing, but it can be for 20 different totally unrelated reasons that we were meant to step into something. So yeah, so lots of clarity and it was hard, but it was necessary. And the clarity gave me peace around it. So, yeah.

A Mindset Shift After Cancer Diagnosis

Brandi Fleck:

Okay. I think it's really interesting that you've acknowledged that you are a completely different person now than you were before this sort of change in your path. And you mentioned everything's different, including your mindset. What is different now about your mindset than before you got the diagnosis? Yeah.

Monica Moody:

I think the biggest thing is, so healing takes place in the physical. And I feel like the physical sort of follows the spiritual and emotional healing. Like that has to happen first. And then the body sort of follows. But one of the biggest revelations that I had, let me put it in perspective. When I got the diagnosis, the sad reality, Brandi, is that there was a part of me because I was so exhausted from work, from life, from all of the things, there was a part of me that said, well, at least now I get to rest.

It's like the illness gave me an excuse to slow down.

And that was so, it was the thought just literally landed on me. And I was like, wow. And so as I went through the healing journey, as I'm going through the healing journey, there was a realization that I was pushing through life. I was stuck in a whole lot of doing to prove my worthiness, the way that I was moving at work.

I love my job. And so, and that's the tricky part. When it's something that you're passionate about and you enjoy, you can miss it sometimes when you're losing yourself in it. And so pushing through just on so many different fronts.

I was exhausted. And I realized that the pattern was I was doing to show myself worthy, to show myself competent, to show myself whatever. And so the biggest mindset shift for me has been reaching this point where I understand that loving myself and just being is enough. It's enough.

Brandi Fleck:

That's huge.

Monica Moody:

And so, yeah, that's the biggest mindset shift. And I'm still leaning into that and learning what that looks like. And I find myself at times tipping over into old patterns. And it's like, nope, I have to course correct. You know, again, old Monica, new Monica rising.

Rest is a Necessity

Brandi Fleck:

Yeah, well, maybe we can dig into that a little more because I feel like a lot of people have a hard time slowing down. I know my clients have a hard time, especially because a lot of people's worth is tied to their productivity, their ability to make things happen. But what is it about rest that makes it a necessity and not a luxury?

Monica Moody:

Yeah, and it's funny because, you know, again, I mentioned I've been in the space of personal and professional development for years. And I teach about productivity. I teach about mindfulness. I teach about all the things that we should be doing. And it's nothing like a good life experience to come around to show you the ways in which you are leading from an intellectual knowing versus a true embodiment of these principles and these understandings.

And so I feel like this this cancer journey has gifted me with that and understanding that like we can talk about rest and and the need to you know just be still, but now I just hold it in a totally different way. Again, it's more of the embodiment of of understanding these principles and so for me I consider rest sacred and it's sacred because of that mindset shift that I just mentioned—loving myself and just being is enough.

And when you truly get to that place of understanding, it's like, yeah, I get to rest. I don't have to constantly just be out there in this place of doing.

We Need Physical, Mental, and Spiritual Rest

And I think, you know, rest is also multidimensional. Typically, when we think about rest, we think about physical rest. Like, you know, I get my eight hours. Most of us don't. But, you know, I get however many hours of sleep per night.

And that is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the sacred rest that we need. We need mental rest.

We need emotional rest.

We need spiritual rest.

One of the things that I discovered was draining me was the fact that because I live in the space of development and because I want to show up in front of my clients and the people I serve in an authentic way, I lived in this place of constant self-evaluation. You know wanting to do better and be better—and there's nothing wrong with that but anything can be like we can fall over a little too much with anything no matter how good that root is, and so rest for me is like I understand it in a different way now.

It's like I get a break from like—and you will know this this Brandi—that grace is huge right, grace is this huge force in my life that I love to talk about—and it's like, I get to give myself grace. I get to give others grace. I get to give people passes, whatever the thing, because it allows me to rest.

I don't have to constantly be in the space of evaluating others, of evaluating myself. And that, again, that shows up in terms of the mental, emotional, spiritual, and the physical rest, all of the ways I get to do that because I am worthy. And I hope this is making It does make sense.

Brandi Fleck:

Absolutely. Because if you're worthy, you don't have to strive to change anything about yourself. And it brings me to, it makes me think of surrender. You're just surrendering to what is. You're allowing yourself to just be.

Grace as a Soul Quality

So you mentioned grace, but you also mentioned…surrender just came up. So let's focus on grace for a minute.

Monica Moody:

Okay.

Brandi Fleck:

What is grace? Grace.

Monica Moody:

I don't even remember the point at which I became smitten with the concept of grace. But when it landed in my life and my awareness, it just kind of became this framework through which I see or at least attempt to see the world.

And so in 2021, I wrote a book called Be Yourself to Free Yourself.

And in that book, I talk about what I consider seven soul qualities.

And so the idea is that as we are unfolding and we step into different dimensions of ourselves, as we move on that journey, those soul qualities become more apparent in terms of our expressing them in the world. And you named them when you were giving my bio.

They start with self-awareness, authenticity, vulnerability, and they end with resilience, humility, and grace. Grace is kind of like the capstone to me. because I associate grace with the unfolding of love.

So I define in that book—I define grace in so many different ways. But on my healing journey, there are three ways that have been the most pronounced.

And so I would define it as allowance and acceptance. And that relates to that whole concept of surrender, which I know we'll dive into. I describe it as authentic beauty, which was very much a part of my healing journey both in terms of my relationship to myself and to others

And then the final way And maybe the most significant, I don't know, it's all significant—but I define it as the unmerited favor and love of the universe.

The Unmerited Favor of the Universe

That last piece right there, the unmerited favor, like we don't have to do anything to deserve the love of the Universe.

That's what allows me to shift into that mindset change that we've been talking about. Like just, I get to just be because of the unmerited favor and love of the Universe. I can sit in a garden and just exude whatever frequency I want to exude into the world and that has equal value to anyone who's doing anything else in the world. So yeah, that's kind of how I would frame grace for our conversation.

Brandi Fleck:

I really love the phrase unmerited favor of the Universe.

And so I feel like some people who got a cancer diagnosis might not feel like they have the unmerited favor of the Universe. Can you describe for us how you know you have it and what it feels like?

Monica Moody:

We may have to dive into the conversation about surrender a little bit. I'm trying to think about how to frame this. There were so many points along the journey where I experienced what I would call miracles. And those miracles were a reflection of that unmerited love and favor of the universe to me. And it was hard.

You Might Also Want to Check Out: A MIRACULOUS Metastatic Ovarian Cancer Recovery with Teacher and Mom, Cheyenne England

It's the hardest thing that I've ever faced In my entire life.

There were points when I wondered—like I'm sitting here and I'm having this conversation with you and this was so far from my reality—at a point when I had no voice, when I had no energy, I was suffering and yet, through all of those intense moments the Universe showed up for me and it looked like:

For example, on my very first appointment to see my now oncologist when you walk into a cancer institute—that is sobering right—at that point I didn't even have a diagnosis. I had some lab work lab results from another doctor that I'd seen. So I'm walking into this cancer institute and, you know, it's like it's all surreal. And so I'm in line to check in and I hear somebody call my name.

I turn around, and it's a friend of the family, one of my sister's friends with her daughter. And she's like, “I know why I'm here, but why are you here?” And so I explain the situation. As it turns out, I had an appointment at, let's say, 10;30. Her appointment was at 10:15 to see the same doctor in a suite of, like, 13 doctors and we were seeing the same doctor who she had been with on her cancer journey for a couple of years.

And so she offered me the exact reassurance that I needed in that moment to say, “you are in great hands.”

I have been, I've done this treatment, that treatment. I'm doing amazing. And Dr. Amin is phenomenal. So you have no idea, or I'm sure you can imagine, in that moment, the grace.

Brandi Fleck:

Yeah.

Monica Moody:

And that's what the unmerited favor and love of the Universe looked like. Like in those moments when we have nothing else to offer, that something shows up. And that is just a small example of the many miracles that I saw along the way, where I saw God's hand at work through others to remind me that I see you and you are loved.

Brandi Fleck:

I got full body chills the entire time you were talking. That's an amazing example.

Monica Moody:

Yeah. Experience, like, oh, my gosh. So many experiences like that. And, you know, folks who know me as a writer have asked, OK, when's the next book coming? And, you know, I can honestly say it hasn't dropped yet, but I believe that when it does, like I look forward to the opportunity of sharing those stories, right?

Another quick one, Brandi, that just popped in my mind. When I first got diagnosed, I had, or right before, I had decided I wanted to do an ayahuasca retreat. And once I got the diagnosis, an energy healer who I work with, she suggested that it might not be the best path for me. And so, you know, I'm a student. And so I'm like, okay, so I will press pause on that, but I knew once I got the diagnosis that I had to do something, right? And so I ended up doing a personal healing retreat in Sedona. But let me tell you about the ayahuasca retreat. When I called the folks to say, I'm not going to move forward because of X, Y, and Z, they were so gracious, we understand. The person who coordinated, she said, well…and they knew nothing about my journey.

But the person who coordinated it said, well, I understand you're not going to come, but why don't you still meet with our shaman, you know, just to have a conversation with her. Didn't know who the shaman was, didn't know her name or anything. So I'm like, fine, I have nothing to lose. And so I ended up on the phone with this amazing woman only to find out that she was a former holistic nurse for oncology.

Yes.

Brandi Fleck:

Wow.

Monica Moody:

And so she gave me this protocol because I was torn as far as my treatment, as to whether or not I wanted to do conventional or holistic. I ultimately ended up doing both, but she was a key player in that because she told me about these treatments that I could do holistically that would support me while I was going through the conventional treatments. And so, again, miraculous. Everything just aligned. Yep. And the protocol that she gave me, it sustained me through my treatment. I don't know if I would have made it through my treatment had it not been for that supplemental work that she had me doing.

Brand Fleck:

Wow. Okay.

Monica Moody:

So, yeah, unmerited favor.

Brandi Fleck:

Okay. So the protocol she had you doing was with supplements?

Monica Moody:

So there were actually no supplements per se. She gave me two recipes. One was for a smoothie that had everything from like dandelion to, I don't know, I can't remember all the things. My daughters—I have a nutrition team that took care of these things for me. There was a smoothie and then there was a tea that was all of these incredible things from the Earth that they would blend and brew for me.

And so I did the tea and the smoothie throughout the treatment. And one of the most significant things was she introduced me to this team of doctors who did high-dose vitamin C therapy for me. And anyone who's interested can do their own research. I was blessed in that my oncologist, I actually have two oncologists, but one of them who led the plan, she approved of the high-dose vitamin C. And that gave me peace, right? But in some cases, doctors don't approve. But it was just helpful for me to have her blessing on that.

But doing those high-dose vitamin C treatments, I did them weekly. I would go in so depleted, could barely walk. And then I would leave those appointments with a new level of energy. Like, okay, I can make it to next week kind of thing. So that in particular just sustained me. And it gave me that extra that I needed to get through the treatment.

In Remission but Still Recovering

Brandi Fleck:

Awesome. Okay. Monica, are you recovered?

Monica Moody:

That's an interesting question because I think sometimes we look at lots of things and healing is one of them as if there is an end goal. And I don't know that that ever comes.

So I am recovered in the sense that I'm officially in remission, and I'm grateful for that. Yes, I am in remission. And so my treatment looks like, you know, for, so there was the first phase, which I mentioned, there was a stem cell transplant, and now I'm in what's called maintenance. And so I'm on a low-dose chemotherapy drug, and will be for some indefinite period. I've learned to just flow with it. But I am officially in remission. But I also understand that the healing journey is forever. And I'm okay with that, you know, whatever that looks like. Because, you know, like I said, to me, it's not just healing the physical. It's all of the things, the emotional, the mental, the spiritual. And so I see myself as in progress always.

Healing Modalities Monica Used to Save Her Nervous System

Brandi Fleck:

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. What are some other of the healing modalities that you relied on through this process?

Monica Moody:

So it was really interesting, Brandy, when the diagnosis first came in, I'm seeing like all of these doctors and trying to understand the treatment plan and all that sort of that would be required and that would come with that. And so I had appointments like, I want to say three days a week, and it was a lot.

At the same time, I had had a conversation with a chiropractor because I'm trying to get my healing team together, right? And so I met with this chiropractor, and he flat out told me, he was like, okay, your doctor, they're going to do this for you, but I'm going to help you save your nervous system.

And I heard him, and even based on the work that we've done, you know, as trauma informed coaches, we know the importance of that, but I had no space for it. I had no space.

And the irony is, I didn't pursue working with him, but the irony is because of that I had to learn to save my own nervous system, and when you're in treatment, when there is this taxing process that's on the body, like, again, it nearly took me out. And so...

We're talking about, I want to give like a visual so that folks can understand like the ways that it presented. But I knew that my nervous system was shutting down because, I mean, my body was in, it was in fight or flight, right?

And there were some certain symptoms that I experienced, you know, like at one point there was loss of hearing. There were vision issues. my heart rate had gotten up to like 105 at rest.

At one point I had to have a catheter placed in my chest, a central line is what they call it, so that I could get the medications and everything easily. And so it's a hole in my chest that, and there's a line that runs straight to my heart. And so when I got that in, for example, the body doesn't know that this is something there to help you. The body feels like it's being attacked.

And so my nervous system was just constantly just being put upon. And it looked like I couldn't stand noises, like a bubble whisper at points. It looked like feeling jittery. Everything was just overwhelming. I remember at one point I wanted to just be with my family. And my niece was having a dinner at her house. And it was a small group of us maybe, let's say 10 to 12, that's small for my family. I have 10 older siblings. So just a group of 10, 12, it's like, that's nothing. And so I remember going in and I was just so overwhelmed because I was overstimulated and they were trying to be mindful and trying to talk, but I just, I was overstimulated.

So I knew that I had to address my nervous system. And so thankfully, in those mini miracle kind of ways that I already described, resources just started coming in. I, Of course, there's what I already knew, but I had to connect the dots. And so...

The Importance of Breathwork

Some of those things that I did, the first thing is that breathwork literally saved me. It saved me. I had three friends who are wellness experts in different ways, and all of them are meditation teachers or breathwork practitioners. So they agreed to meet with me a couple times a week to lead me in breathwork sessions, right? And teaching me strategies and breathwork practices that I could do on my own. It saved me in the middle of moments when I was truly suffering. And you can't escape the suffering, the breath, the breath, the breath, right? So I can't overstate the power of just breathwork.

You Might Also Like: Breathwork for Nervous System Regulation and Deep Healing with Trauma-Informed Practitioner, Amy Pagett

The Role of Meditation

And then there was meditation.

I use these digital tools. They're called Relax Tomes. I think that's the name of it.

And they're basically these digital speakers that replicate the sound of singing bowls. And you can set them to different healing frequencies based on what you need. And so I think mine was pretty much set on anxiety. you know but i would listen to those as I would try to sleep so the sound of singing bowls regulated my nervous system and then there was another gadget and I'm not like a brand ambassador for any of these so but I do want to share them because they may be helpful to others but there was another one called sensate.

Sensate is this little gadget that you sit on your chest and it vibrates to different meditations and so you're you're listening to the meditations or the music, and it's pulsating and tapping into your vagus nerve to calm you down.

And so, Without those tools, again, they helped me to regulate and regulating helped me to heal because:

I knew that I couldn't heal in the absence of regulating my body.

The Importance of Nervous System Regulation When Healing

Brandi Fleck:

That's a really good point. And I would love for our listeners to take that away from this is that in order to heal, you have to regulate. And then your body can start allowing itself to do its natural healing processes. But if you're in fight or flight, it's just not going to happen.

Monica Moody:

It's self-defeating because your body is overwhelmed. And so I'm so grateful that all those resources, the insights and everything that came in for me because it truly was a game changer. But yeah, and I also realized on the topic of regulation, and this was a recent insight that, so I'm participating in this training called Compassionate Leadership, where it's basically the goal is to teach leaders a trauma-informed approach to leadership. And the idea, I'm taking the training so I can learn more and then translate that into some offerings for the leaders that I work with. And in a conversation recently, one of my colleagues in the class said…we were talking about leaders and how they show up.

And she said that the greatest thing that a leader can offer their team is to be in a regulated state. And she said that a regulated state is a state of grace. And you know me, Brandi, I just melted.

Oh, my gosh, a regulated state is a state of grace.

And so even in my book, in my mind, I've always seen alignment, like when we are aligned with our true selves as a state of grace. And so I started playing with the idea, like, is alignment and regulation, is it the same thing?

And I concluded that it's not the same thing, but I do see regulation as a path to alignment.

Brandi Fleck:

Oooh.

Monica Moody:

You know because we if I think about the ways that I tap into my own sense of alignment it's doing all the same things that I did to regulate my body when I was in treatment. It's the breath work. It's the meditation. It's the working with the vagus nerve. It's all those things to open that pathway so that I can connect with my true self right yeah so yeah some interesting concepts sort of coming together.

Brandi Fleck:

That is really interesting. And in thinking about it while you're talking, it's sort of like…and when you're regulated, it's easier to have that clarity—that vision of like how you want to move forward instead of the stress chemicals determining what you need to do to keep yourself safe. And you mentioned clarity, having clarity in the beginning of this interview.

Monica Moody:

It all comes together, right? And I love, and it's funny because I'm not necessarily one, like when I started on the development path, I was not one who was necessarily scientifically motivated right. I was very i was very much interested in what was the spiritual wisdom on said topic, but I feel like my journey has taken me full circle to now where I can see clearly like the scientific angle and how it supports the spiritual angle like it's all talking about the same thing and different ways of understanding it yeah, so it’s pretty fascinating to me.

Surrendering Control

Brandi Fleck:

Yeah for sure and now finally Monica, what have you learned about surrender?

Monica Moody:

So what I can share is that when I—as I was going through this this healing journey, I did not know the degree to which I was such a control freak until you know everything hit the fan so to speak.

I think if the Universe wants anything, it wants us to understand the control that we don't have, right?

It's like it wants to get us to that place of surrender because we can't even understand the big picture and our place in it until we get to that point of surrender and so it's like by choice or by force we have to get there and so I think I feel like the first part of my life was you know primarily by choice because I understand that surrender is about going with the flow and even in the model that I use for transformation flow is one of the elements just learning to just go with the direction of the Universe and not to fight against, but again we've talked about the difference of like…and I've understood that and I would even say in a deep way, but since this cancer journey— understand it in an even deeper her way.

And so for me, surrender has, it's been about learning to just dwell in that space of allowance and acceptance.

And I feel like the bigness of this cancer journey was that I had to surrender to that idea, even unto death.

Right. Even until death, when I first got diagnosed, I think I was just searching for someone to to tell me that I was going to be OK. Right.

Whether it was the energy healer that I was working with. I told you about the retreat that I went to in Sedona, a doctor.

I wanted anybody just telling me that I was going to be OK. And of course, they all gave me different versions of encouragement, reassurance, all the things.

But ultimately, it was not until, and this came as a result largely of working with Joe Dispenza's work, but it wasn't until I got to the point where I could accept that the Universe loved me, was mindful of me, I was going to be okay, but okay can look different ways, even unto death, right?

That was the level of surrender that I got to and I felt like I could then bounce towards healing.

Because in the absence of getting to that deepest place of surrender there was an aspect of resistance.

And resistance keeps us in that fight or flight mode. We're not healing at the deepest level that is possible because we're fighting against something.

And it's funny, I realized that along the way that I even had like a almost a visceral response to certain language like “cancer survivor,” it denotes fighting to me—nothing wrong with that if that's a concept that does resonate with you, but for me it didn't feel complete in terms of describing my journey.

And then there was another phrase—like I remember one of the things that I had to tap into, like my healing village was huge and one of the things I had was this page, the Support Now page. And I highly recommend that to anyone who needs support. It's called Support Now and you can look it up, but it allowed my healing village to support me in different ways, not just financially, but bringing meals, prayer, all of the things.

But someone in my healing village had posted on social media, sharing that link to my support page saying that, you know, my dear friend Monica is fighting for her life. And the term “fighting for my life” did not resonate with me—and of course, well-intended and you understand and appreciate the spirit of that. But I realized that it wasn't fighting that was going to save me.

It was surrendering that was going to save me.

It was allowing what is to be. And, you know, so on those days when I was suffering, because physically or emotionally, all of the ways, all I could do was just to give in to what wanted to be.

So that's what surrender means to me at the deepest levels.

Again, I feel like when we reach the depths of that That's when like the magic can start to happen, right?

We gotta just let go and allow the Universe to take us to wherever those places are that we are meant to visit.

Brandi Fleck:

Absolutely.

Monica Moody:

Whatever those places are.

Brandi Fleck:

Yeah. Real quick, what came first? The nervous system regulation or the surrender? Or was it like a cycle? Or how did that work together?

Monica Moody:

As I'm thinking back, I would probably say that they were just kind of dancing together in tandem, and ironically I would say that you know the regulation would allow me to surrender because when we are in that fight or flight we're not clear, we can't hear, we can't see, and so when I would allow myself to…

Or maybe it's almost like we were talking about before with regulation being that pathway for alignment or to alignment, maybe regulation is a pathway to surrender.

So I definitely see them as like dancing together.

Brandi Fleck:

Yeah.

Monica Moody:

Yeah. So that's a great question. I look forward to pondering that a bit more.

Brandi Fleck:

Yeah, me too. Mm-hmm. And I would like to invite our listeners and viewers to leave us a comment. If you've pondered on this, if you have experience with surrender versus nervous system regulation versus alignment.

Let us know your experience. We would love to hear it.

And with that, Monica, I would love to ask you, is there anything that we haven't talked about today that you feel is important to share?

Monica Moody:

So, you know, the funny thing is I'm learning to trust my intuition and my guidance so much more.

The first thing that jumped in my mind as you were getting that question out was Sedona. I want to highlight the fact that (we're talking about regulation in the body and that fight or flight), but one of the more significant parts of the journey for me was understanding that there was so much trauma that I had in my body that I was not even aware of.

And had I not taken that trip to Sedona—and it just looked like three or four days where, and I would actually like to share the name of the company that I use because I am their biggest supporter, but it was called Sedona Soul Adventures—and what they did was they listened to my story, and they created a private healing experience for me to step into based on my needs. So over the course of those three or four days, I saw six different practitioners who poured into me in different ways. And one of the more profound experiences was with a practitioner where I did a breathwork journey with and it was during that journey that it was revealed to me that there was trauma that I had been carrying, again, that I was not even aware of.

There was a tremendous amount of grief that I was carrying in my chest from losing my mother. There was just a mix of pain in this area that represented so many things that I had experienced in life. There was ancestral trauma that I was carrying, completely unaware. And in that breathwork session with her, I released buckets and buckets of grief and trauma. And that was before I started my treatment.

Again, unmerited favor and love of the Universe that orchestrated in such a way.

And in releasing those things and the other sessions that I had, I—it gave me what I needed to believe that I could move forward. I could take the next step.

And so certainly for anyone who is on a similar journey, I would say do the work. When we're talking about healing our physical bodies, there cannot be the absence of that somatic work that is needed. Like, research it. Find some practitioners who can help you to move the stuff out of your body that does not belong there. So definitely wanted to get that in.

Brandi Fleck:

Okay wonderful yeah because we're whole we have so many different aspects of our being you can't just heal one it's all tied together.

Monica Moody:

Exactly, exactly. We have to address the multi-dimensionality of who we are and heal at all levels and that's why you know going back to your other questions like yeah it's a lifelong journey and so let's just surrender to it and accept it for what it is.

Brandi Fleck:

So, yeah. Okay. Where can our listeners find you and your work?

Monica Moody:

So I'm in the process of simplifying. Like I said, this is my year of rest. And so I've closed down quite a few things, but I still have a presence online with my website. It's owningchange.com, owningchange.com. So you can certainly find me there, but I'm most active on social media and that would include Facebook.

So you can look for me under Monica Moody and the same for LinkedIn.

And so those are the two spaces that I go to. I just shut down my email community. Like I'm stripping away the things that I don't have space for right now. But every now and then you will find me out there sharing my musings on those social media platforms and just, you know, revealing what's coming to me as I continue on this journey. Love to engage in that way. So Monica Moody, you can find me on LinkedIn, Facebook, and then owningchange.com.

Brandi Fleck:

Wonderful. And I just think that you're a wonderful example of being able to strip things away and still have the presence that you want to have. I hope that you get the sacred rest that you want this year. And, Monica, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Monica Moody:

Thank you, Brandi. This was lovely, lovely, lovely. I appreciate sitting with you.