Seeking Center: The Podcast

Medicine + Mysticism: Holistic Healing + The Technology of Self - Episode 128

• Robyn Miller Brecker, Karen Loenser, Dr. Erica Matluck • Season 2 • Episode 128

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Imagine if your doctor was able to tend to your health complaints and also help you clear stuck energy that you've been carrying around since childhood. Such a doctor exists! We can hardly wait to introduce you to Dr. Erica Matluck. She is a Naturopathic Doctor, Nurse Practitioner, Reiki Master, massage therapist, and vinyasa and kundalini yoga instructor. Erica has extensive training and experience in both conventional and alternative approaches to healing and has studied with masters from various traditions around the world. Whether you're overcoming physical illness or embarking on a new chapter of your life, Erica's Holistic Framework, Seven Senses, will show you how to get there.

It's a new paradigm of care, where your health and your life are not separate, and incorporates the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual areas of your being.

Through this methodology, Erica guides you to heal, gain new perspective, transcend limiting beliefs about yourself and your life, and discover the creator that you are. She truly believes that everyone has the ability to thrive, and when we're all in this state, our collective potential is infinite. We agree. With her past clinical medical practice experience to her many other integrative and spiritual experiences, Erica's approach to leading a holistic and meaningful life is truly one of a kind. Listen now.

MORE FROM DR. ERICA MATLUCK

Visit theseekingcenter.com for more from Robyn + Karen, plus mega inspo -- and the best wellness + spiritual practitioners, products and experiences on the planet!

You can also follow Seeking Center on Instagram @theseekingcenter.


Robyn: [00:00:00] I'm Robyn Miller Brecker and I'm Karen Loenser. Welcome to Seeking Center, the podcast. Join us each week as we have the conversations and we, through the spiritual and holistic clutter for you, we'll boil it down to what you need to know now, we're all about total wellness, which to us needs building a healthy life.

Karen: On a physical, mental, and spiritual level, we'll talk to the trailblazers who'll introduce you to the practices, products, and experiences that may be just what you need to hear about to transform your life. If you're listening to this, it's no accident. Think of this as your seeking center and your place to seek your center.

Robyn: And for the best wellness and spiritual practitioners, experts, products, experiences, and inspo, visit theseekingcenter. com. if your doctor was able to tend to your health complaints and also help you clear stuck energy that you've been carrying around since childhood. Such a doctor exists. We can hardly wait to introduce you to Dr. Erica Matluck. She is a [00:01:00] naturopathic doctor, nurse practitioner, Reiki master, massage therapist, And Vinyasa and Kundalini yoga instructor. Erica has extensive training and experience in both conventional and alternative approaches to healing and has studied with masters from various traditions around the world. Whether you're overcoming physical illness or embarking on a new chapter of your life, Erica's Holistic Framework, Seven Senses, will show you how to get there.

It's a new paradigm of care, where your health and your life are not separate, and incorporates the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual areas of your being.

Through this methodology, Erica guides you to heal, gain new perspective, transcend limiting beliefs about yourself and your life, and discover the creator that you are. She truly believes that everyone has the ability to thrive, and when we're all in this state, our collective potential is infinite. We agree.

with her past clinical medical practice [00:02:00] experience to her many other integrative and spiritual experiences, Erica's approach to leading a holistic and meaningful life is truly one of a kind. We can't wait to get going.

Hi, Erica. Hi. There's so much that you have learned, been a part of, created, and we can't wait to dig into all of it. 

Karen: Why don't we start at the beginning, you have so many things that you've done in your life, 

how did that journey into wellness and spirituality start for you? 

Erica: So the journey for me started very young and for me, this is a journey that's both personal and professional. It really started because my mother had cancer when I was a young girl and she went through very conventional medical treatment. It was a diagnosis that was caught late and she ended up passing.

I was a very sensitive kid, like a lot of us were, and I knew what was going on, and the adults didn't really tell me what was going on. And what I couldn't have expressed to you [00:03:00] at the time, but I felt, was this was not a healing experience. Her treatment was not healing her. It was not giving her life.

And It wasn't beautiful. It was poisonous. Really like it felt like a poisonous experience in a lot of ways, which could be another conversation, but I think what happened when I lost my mother was two things. One, it Inspired this curiosity in me that that still drives me today.

Like Is there another way? What could healing look like? And the other thing it did is it connected me to. We could say spirituality, but really what I like to say is the unseen realms, very early in my life, I had someone that I felt very connected to, more connected to than anyone in the world alive on the other side.

And I knew when she passed [00:04:00] that we were still connected. I knew that she was there. I didn't know how to articulate that it wasn't like, I was seeing ghosts or talking to the dead, but I very much felt the connection. And so that was the thing that set the stage, I think, for what has become my career and my work.

But then a few years later, something very interesting happened. I fell in love, my first love, and when I met this boy, his father had recently been diagnosed with a cancer. Now, my medical brain has to tell you, these are two very different cancers. It's like comparing apples and oranges, but when you're a teenager, that's not what you hear.

You hear, Oh, my father was diagnosed with cancer. He was given a six month prognosis. He went down to Mexico to this treatment center where he did IV nutrient therapy and all kinds of, what would be classified as natural medicines. He was put on a [00:05:00] macrobiotic diet and remains on one and he is in remission and doing well, And this was like over a year later, so he by far outlived the prognosis. And this was a really big aha for me. And I think the aha came from the fact that there's another way and other people have found other ways. And I Maybe those other ways might exist more so in other countries.

And so it's planted this seed in me and I didn't even know what anthropology was at the time. But This interest in the intersection of health and culture and how do people around the world heal and what could that look like and how do I let this loss and this like really painful thing that I experienced very young drive me to create something in the world that protects future little girls from [00:06:00] experiencing the same kind of pain and loss.

And that's where the story begins and it continues to unfold, driven by the same things. 

Robyn: Wow. I can relate to losing a parent at a young age. I lost my father when I was 12. And for me, it's just really interesting to hear number one, that you did know that there was this connection, even if you couldn't articulate it for me.

it was much more black and white. I didn't realize it till later and my dad and I talk now every day, he's on the other side, but as a kid, he came to me in my dreams. But I just didn't know that was anything more than just a dream. It felt very real And now I know it was visitations.

Did you have those? 

Erica: Yes, I would agree. she Has come in my dreams throughout my life. And like you, I made sense of my relationship with her in a much sort of deeper and articulate way later in life.

[00:07:00] But what I think is profound about what I experienced and continues to come up in my work with people all the time is the fact that as an 11 year old, I knew something, and the adults didn't know it, and if I would have gotten a lot of time to converse with the adults about what I was feeling, they probably would have told me it wasn't real.

Robyn: Yes. 

Erica: And over again in my work these days, I see these examples of adults who were children that really understood what emotional intelligence is. , By feeling something, you are receiving information, and oftentimes that information can't and doesn't need to be interpreted, unpacked, or understood with the mind.

It's just coming through the felt sense, and sometimes we need to cry or laugh or jump up [00:08:00] and down or shake our bodies in strange ways or whatever it may be, and I didn't share that with the adults. And to some degree, I'm glad I didn't, because had I, it probably would have shut something down in me.

Because these days, time and time again, I'm seeing adults who cannot let themselves feel, because as young children, they were told that's not real or that's not rational. And I think there's a lot to, even in answering your question, robyn, where I'm like, I don't really remember.

I remember the morning that she had passed, she passed overnight. And then my father told me the next morning, and I remember looking outside my window and saying to myself. We are still connected. We will be together again. 

Robyn: Wow. 

Erica: And I think part of that was probably a coping mechanism. And part of that was this deep knowing that someone could be on [00:09:00] the other side and that doesn't mean that they're gone.

It's what I think I've come to understand later. is in some ways she could and continues to mother me better. 

Robyn: Yes. Yes. I have the, definitely. 

Erica: Yeah. And sometimes I see her signature on things. . 

Robyn: My 

Erica: child, my partner. . a situation and it's she is, puppeteering the forces, seen and unseen, so that this can, work for me in this direction.

And I really know that's happening. 

Robyn: Yeah. And in so many ways we can look back now, knowing that then you have this experience with this. first love and his father so that you could really see this difference and then it could lead you on this path to where you are now and continue to be on in terms of understanding how to holistically take care of yourself.

In this lifetime. 

Erica: Yes, and I think the [00:10:00] challenge, which we can all relate to, is holding the fact that often our biggest sources of suffering, our most painful wounds, Are the very thing that help us discover our purpose and really carve out the landscape of our paths.

 Often what I'm bringing to people who are working through chronic disease and, or these mystery illnesses where no one can tell them what the cure is. Nobody can tell them when they're going to feel better. And.

Erica: If we can reach for these moments, and see how they've served us. If we can remember those in those really dark moments, like a mystery illness or something like that. a new diagnosis or a challenge, we can also hold on to that connection to knowing that it's something bigger than like the pain I'm feeling in my body.

And that's what heals. 

Karen: So tell us about the journey forward after that boyfriend's father did not pass [00:11:00] away. What came next in your journey? 

Erica: So I was a junior in high school when that sort of a ha went off, and I was applying to colleges, and it was that exposure to my ex boyfriend's father's journey that led me to start the pre med curriculum.

And I was pre med at Oberlin College in Ohio, which is a very small town. Small liberal arts school in a relatively conservative part of the country. And I had a California soul, And today in 2024, like that doesn't really mean that much, but I'm 46. And in the 90s and early 2000s, people in New York weren't getting acupuncture and yoga was crunchy.

No one was a vegetarian. I belonged in California. I can see that. So I got to Oberlin. Of course, I instantly fell in love with a man from California. who I ended up going there with [00:12:00] eventually, but I was doing the pre med curriculum and one day I was in a store and I heard these two women talking about Reiki.

I had no idea what it was. And I was only picking up snippets of the conversation. Like it was energetic and it was some form of, light touch. And I was like, I need to know what this is. And I asked them what they were talking about and who had. Done this with them and Oberlin's a very small town.

They told me where the woman lived. We also didn't have cell phones yet. This was ? 1997 ish. I was a junior And I knocked on this woman's door and I said, I want to learn about energy healing. And so for that year, all of my friends were going to parties and staying up all night and doing drugs and drinking. And I was waking up on Saturday and Sunday mornings to go do Reiki trainings. And was weird, right?

 I was almost [00:13:00] embarrassed to tell people what I was doing with my time, but I knew it was right. There was just something in that for me that connected me back to those unseen realms. And I kept having experiences. feeling things with my hands that turned belief into knowing.

 . When I started learning with this woman, the Reiki master who taught me 

 , she was really teaching me how I wanted to interact with information and people.

And. the unseen realm. So I think a lot of my intuitive capacity is whether it was seeing things, feeling things, hearing things, just knowing things came back in a bigger way. 

Karen: . Did you stay on the medical path then? Or was that an opportunity for you to integrate the two? 

Erica: I did. It took me a very long time to figure out how to integrate the two.

[00:14:00] 20 ish years, really. I wore different hats for a long time. So I stayed on the, pre med undergrad medical path. And then at that point, my older sister was living in Arizona, and I spent some time out there, 

 . And I was taking this herbal medicine class. And the teacher, one day we were talking I said, I was pre med, and I was wanting to find a way to help people heal, but it wasn't quite allopathic medicine.

knew that regular medical school and an MD was probably not the right fit. And , he said to me, You want to be a naturopathic doctor? And I said, what's that? Of course, I looked it up that night and I was like, I want to be a naturopathic doctor, I value this idea of holistic practice, I really cared about the philosophy driving the thing that I was going to study and share [00:15:00] with the world.

I knew that the medical model was based in disease. that doctors and physicians were treating disease.

What is interesting is that I was a very strong academic in those years and nursing was never presented to me as a path, These days we know going into nursing is a very prestigious career path and it's a great career and 

what I later learned was the philosophy of nursing was much more aligned with my beliefs. But so was naturopathic medicine, and naturopathic medicine is grounded in these principles, it , truly believes that The human body is capable of healing and our job is really to just support the innate capacity to heal.

And then they take into account this philosophy is what they call what we call the therapeutic order, which is, it doesn't say that antibiotics or [00:16:00] pharmaceuticals are bad or surgery is bad. It says that you use the gentlest or the least invasive, yet effective therapy first. And if that doesn't work, you move down the ladder, getting more and more aggressive.

But, we don't run after constipation. With a prescription first, we start with diet. We start with stress management. We start with water intake. We start with the basics and then when they don't work, you start to move down, the ladder, or I guess up the ladder into using more aggressive tools.

And I really liked that because I'm very much like a bridge. I'm not really anti anything in the world, and I do absolutely think there's a time and a place for allopathic medicine. I think there's time and places for ERs and, the most aggressive antibiotics and immune suppressive drugs, and I've seen Conventional Western medicine [00:17:00] save lives and limbs and all kinds of things.

I think it's an incredible blessing that we have access to all of that. And I think it's extremely overused. 

Karen: something caught me when you were saying the difference between disease and wellness and treating from the point of view of disease versus wellness.

I've never really thought about it like that before. I think that's very revolutionary in my mind or maybe it's, A different way looking at the two tracks that you can take that often is seems like a fork in the road, but it can really be two parallel roads that you're taking together. Can you talk a little bit more about that, Erica, and how that played into the direction that you took 

Erica: yeah, I can talk about this both as a naturopathic doctor and as a nurse. Nurses often different differentiate themselves from doctors based on this very principle because the nursing [00:18:00] model is to support the person and the family, And so The medical model says, what's the diagnosis, right?

And the diagnosis is a pathophysiology. Sometimes it's a diagnosis of exclusion, which we have a lot of these days, like irritable bowel syndrome or PCOS, right? The syndromes. Where we say, we don't actually know what this is, but if you have some of the following symptoms, you meet the criteria for the diagnosis.

and this is an interesting conversation as we see AI make its way more and more into healthcare systems. Because what happens in the physician model or the medical model is you have a diagnosis, And then based on that diagnosis, there's a standard of care, this is the treatment that you go to.

And back in the day, medicine was very much an art and it's still very much is, and there are a lot of [00:19:00] physicians that are still practicing the art of medicine because of course you and I both know that there's a lot of nuance that goes into a diagnosis. Sometimes you see a patient and they fit the criteria for five diagnoses, But you have to choose the top two or something for insurance billing. But what medicine is doing is they're saying this is the diagnosis and this is the pathophysiology. This is what we know about that diagnosis. And this is what we treat that with. What a nurse. Or even a naturopathic doctor is saying, is okay even the diagnosis in nursing, naturopathic medicine diagnosis the same way, and naturopathic doctors are primary care providers in numerous states, and use the same diagnostic classification system.

But we still think about things conceptually, So I might say. My patient has IBS, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, and yes, these are all the [00:20:00] IBS drugs on the market, but That doesn't quite work. I need to know what are the triggers for your IBS? Is it really just stress? Is it anxiety? Is it that you're having loose stools?

Is it that you're bloated? Is it that you're bloated after you eat certain foods? It comes down to, as a nurse or a naturopath, I'm much more interested In what your experience is, then I am the diagnosis. I don't want to drive a line that says all doctors are more interested in the diagnosis because that absolutely is not true.

Plenty of doctors could be listening to this and saying, we do that too. They do. But philosophically speaking, and the way that we're taught, as naturopathic doctors and as nurses, it's really emphasized to us you really need to understand what are all the faces of this [00:21:00] experience in order to figure out what you're treating.

Because it might be that the diagnosis is IBS, but it also might be that The social anxiety is the thing that really needs to be addressed first. 

Karen: I think you're giving us such a great example. And very often, we're just so quickly wanting that prescription to make it better that we don't take the time. You have to always dig a little bit deeper to what is causing the symptom versus just treating it. 

Erica: And you're getting into something that I think is important, which for me, the most important part of the art of medicine is where to begin, so for someone like me, the question of where do we begin is always the most important question, and I'm weighing a lot of different things.

Robyn: So once you heard about naturopathic doctor, nurse, where did you go next? 

Erica: So the next [00:22:00] decade or so in my life I actually spent some time abroad after college mostly following this, personal interest in , how do people in other parts of the world heal?

 And ended up spending about a year and a half in Asia Transcribed and being exposed to a lot of different healing approaches and modalities. And then when I returned to the States, I did know I was going to go to some sort of medical school, but I was really loving learning outside of the classroom.

I next went to massage school and I was still doing Reiki. And so first it was like, let's learn about body work. Let's start learning about the body and merging the energy work with the body. Something that is actually grounded in human anatomy. And then I used that to drive my travel interests. And I spent a year and a half down in Latin America, and I was working in spa settings and eco retreats, but also pursuing [00:23:00] this interest in How do the people in the Belizean jungle heal themselves, so it was really serving me until I hit this point with body work where I didn't want people to keep coming back.

I wanted to give them the tools, give them the information, give them the treatment and have an end to the therapy. And so that is when I decided it was time to do graduate work. And I went to Bastyr university which they have a naturopathic doctorate program in Seattle. I loved working with people with chronic disease, and mystery diagnoses.

And that put me in a position where I had a semester off. I went down to Nicaragua and I did some medical volunteer work there. And for the first time in my life, was exposed to nurses. I ended up doing a lot of work with the Nicaraguan nurses. And thinking to myself, Why didn't I ever even think about this profession?

They were [00:24:00] doing all the things I wanted to do. And so when I came back to Seattle, I finished up my naturopathic degree, my doctorate. And I did a postdoc nurse practitioner program. Because I really wanted to see and have the experience of a conventional provider that was philosophically aligned with my beliefs.

and then that put me in a position where I was. One of very few duly licensed and credentialed naturopathic doctor nurse practitioners and ended up taking a job at what was a pretty innovative startup at the time in San Francisco called One Medical Group, a primary care group, That was growing nationally.

We had a very innovative and open minded founder who said people in China, people in the East, people all over the world have been, treating disease. Without allopathic medicine for [00:25:00] thousands of years, maybe we should consider that. And so he was interested in having some sort of he called us subspecialists.

So I did a hybrid of primary care there and served as a subspecialist in integrative medicine. we ended up growing. We had probably over 30 offices in the Bay Area. New York, DC, Boston, Arizona, and it was amazing because I got to teach a lot of doctors some basic integrative tools, how to talk to a patient about diet, and maybe how to consider lifestyle changes or meditation or stress management practices before writing the script for an SSRI. And so I got to have a lot of impact because my patient volume was enormous for me and still not high for a lot of primary care providers. I saw 16 people a day.

Robyn: Wow. 

Erica: It sounds like a lot to you, but in a [00:26:00] lot of the major primary care facilities, primary care providers are seeing like 30 patients a day, And they have 15 minutes and they're writing a script and they're on their way. And I fought for it. I fought for, 45 and 30 minute visits with everyone.

And as the company grew, the fight got harder and harder, but they let me have it because it was really working and people were getting better and people were coming because we had a more holistic option. 

 

Erica: . So I had this amazing opportunity because I had tons of doctors referring me patients that didn't respond well to quick fix treatments. So I saw a lot of digestive issues, a lot of hormonal related issues, a lot of chronic fatigue.

Yeah. Yeah. Lyme disease, anxiety, depression things that really required a little [00:27:00] bit deeper of a dive and a lifestyle change. And I had the amazing advantage of seeing volume, a lot of people in the alternative healthcare space don't have a lot of experience trying the thing that they do.

Because a lot of the programs They don't give you, 2, 000 patient contact hours, They give you just enough to feel confident enough in whatever it is you're sharing with the world. And then you go out there and you start a business, right? So the first year you're saying, three or five people a week. it takes a very long time for an alternative practitioner to get to a place where they can say to you, I feel very confident that this is going to work within six months because I have done this with 2000 people.

 And so I got that. 

Robyn: Yeah. 

Erica: And I'm very grateful for it. And, I [00:28:00] hit a point too where I was like. I can't really do my best work in this paradigm.

 I need to be able to take someone outside. I need to be able to extend my session by 20 minutes when someone needs to cry. 

Because the tears often are the healing, . And so then ventured into some other roles where I was doing more teaching and training and trying to solve our mental health challenge, which was that anxiety was our number one diagnosis nationwide.

 I created this. stress management, anxiety management group program, where we started integrating breath work and meditation and mindfulness into the primary care setting and billing insurance for it, which was very cool.

 One thing that happened as I started working with groups is I really discovered the profound therapeutic potential of the group [00:29:00] dynamic.

And that ultimately is what drove me to do retreats. Because I thought, wow let's take this out of the medical setting. Let's really get human together. And so I had a really blessed first 10 years of my medical career where it felt like once in a lifetime opportunity where in a very conventional model, I got to do some very unconventional and innovative things that really shaped how I do things and how I see things.

And eventually, I said this structure is limiting me more than it's serving me. 

And that was when I did the first retreat. I teamed up with my partner, Paul, who's a sound practitioner who had no medical background and thought about things very differently. And we did our proof of concept retreat. And It was based on the archetypal journey of the seven chakras. That just [00:30:00] came to me out of nowhere.

Robyn: And is that where you then coined what you call the Seven Senses Holistic. framework? 

Erica: So we called the retreat seven senses.

And the reason we chose the name is because we're talking about moving beyond the sensory experience, and interpreting self and the world through the lens of the seven chakras. The framework really has two, pieces to it.

The first piece really comes down to my favorite question in the whole world, which is what is holistic? What are the boundaries of the whole and who defines that? I guess that's three questions. But as a provider that identifies as a holistic provider, I think it's very important that I answer that question for people when they first meet me.

And acknowledge that the boundaries of the whole can change. [00:31:00] And that's where the chakras come in. And I have some digital images where I'm not a digital creator, but I have attempted to communicate this through some images. that I can share with you. You do a 

Robyn: beautiful job of that. on Erica's website she does, you, frame it out.

Erica: And it's on my Instagram in a lot of different ways too, where it starts with the foundation and in my image you see a circle and that circle is the individual self. And in that circle, there are four quadrants, physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. 

And we're starting with the idea that the whole of me has four quadrants. And what's important about those four quadrants is understanding that through each one, I relate to myself. and the world around me differently, and now here's a really important distinction about my framework because I think in conventional medicine what we see over and over again is people lumping mental and emotional [00:32:00] health into the same thing and using inappropriate language.

For me, emotions Are states that we feel when a chemical messenger binds to a receptor, A receptor. I feel good. An adrenaline or, norepinephrine binds to its receptor, I feel anxious. Now, my three year old is a wonderful teacher of, how emotion is meant to be moved. He feels it, he screams, he shakes his body, he cries, he doesn't care where he is.

or if it's inappropriate, he moves it and then he smiles and he is in a different state. That is emotion. As women, we often understand this too because you're feeling things a lot and then all of a sudden you start bleeding and you're like, oh, okay ah, that makes sense now. But what we often do as adults [00:33:00] is when we feel an emotion that we don't like.

We jump over into the mental quadrant, and the mental quadrant the language is not emotion, it's thoughts and beliefs. And rather than it drawing us in, it projects out primarily. So when I'm feeling sad and then I jump up here, I say, can't cry right now. I'm on a subway in New York City. That would be too weird.

So let me come up into my mind and figure out why I'm crying and what I can do to not cry or to feel differently. And as soon as I do that, I scan my whole life, and we all know that at any point we can scan our lives and we can find tons of things to be sad and angry and frustrated about, and we can find tons of things to be grateful for and appreciative of and that make us feel loved and joy.

But as soon as I shift into the mental, rather than feeling it, I find the thing that is causing it, and I put my [00:34:00] attention on that. I start creating more of it. It's a feedback loop. With my mental quadrant, I create the world around me, and with the emotional quadrant and the physical, I experience it.

what I created. And so we get stuck in this cycle. The way that I work with people is I invite them to differentiate between a mental experience, their thoughts and beliefs, 

versus Their emotional experience, which needs to be felt. 

And then there's the final quadrant, the spiritual quadrant, which of course nobody in conventional medicine wants to talk about spirituality. That's reserved for religion or maybe energy work or something, but the spiritual quadrant of the self,

it is the thing that connects us to something so much bigger. And in these times where we're not well, and we don't know how long we're going to be in pain this is where faith or trust [00:35:00] comes in that there is meaning there will be a light at the end of the tunnel, we will learn something from this experience and there will be gifts.

And if we forget that, and we lose sight of that, any health crisis is a perfect condition for depression. The other piece about the spiritual quadrant, which some newcomers might not be as comfortable with, is that the spiritual quadrant of the self is what we might call the quantum field, And in the quantum fields all possibilities exist. But where we put our attention or our intention makes one possibility more likely than all the rest. And so if someone wants to engage in the spiritual quadrant of their health, and it feels too woo, or they don't know how it could be as simple as just.

Defining what healing means for you, setting the intention. What is my [00:36:00] goal? And it's through that spiritual quadrant where we set the target.

And then it's the work to align the efforts of the physical, mental, and emotional quadrants of the self toward that goal. Catching our thoughts and our beliefs and changing our mindset and feeling our emotions and tending to our body. This isn't easy.

So I don't want to say this Oh, healing is so easy, but when you do the work strategically to align the physical, mental, and emotional aspects of the self to where the spiritual quadrant. is defining the direction of healing, things happen very quickly. It is miraculous. 

Robyn: don't think anyone has really put that together in that way.

 People don't talk about the thoughts and beliefs and what that means and tying it to emotions, let alone how that then can work with the [00:37:00] spiritual aspect of yourself. And the physical part. 

I think that's a huge aha for 

Karen: most people. 

Robyn: And this was came up early in our conversation, which is that then how you would define holistic? Because I don't know if we defined it. 

Erica: so back to that. in a very sort of basic new patient or client comes to me, and I want to explain to them what I consider to be holistic.

This is where I start. I show them this diagram, and I tell them the circle, which contains these four quadrants, is you. And that's what we'll be working with. But as we continue to work. The boundaries of the whole can keep changing, So when we're at the level of the root chakra, the boundaries of the whole are the physical body, And maybe we could even say the earth, our connection to the earth. When we get into the sacral, those boundaries also include the emotional field. When we get up into the solar plexus, those [00:38:00] boundaries would also include the mind, all of our thought forms and our beliefs. And when we get into the heart, it could include our presence.

What is the experience of just being in my field? Or we could say that it includes, everything in the space where you can measure the electrical impulse of the heart. And then as we get into the throat, it includes all the space in which you can hear. And then into the third eye, the concept of the whole gets much bigger because we're beyond time and space.

This is also now all the archetypes in the sky. This is my child, my future children. This is my ancestors. And then we get to the crown and the whole is, there are no boundaries. Everything is the whole, And so when we start to think of the whole. The truth is, the hole doesn't end at my skin or with my thoughts or with my [00:39:00] emotions, but the spiritual quadrant of the self is almost like an all access pass into everything else.

So as long as that spiritual quadrant is in the definition, Of the whole, that gives us access to our relationships, to our environment, to the earth, to the cosmos, to the heavens, to the waters, And so I think how I would define holistic as a practitioner, for someone who is coming to me because they have an autoimmune condition, it might start, if we put ourselves in the chakra terms from the heart down, So your physical experience, your emotional experience, your mental experience and how that affects your relationships, your home, this, the space in. which you interact [00:40:00] with on a regular basis, We don't necessarily need to go into your future children and your ancestors, but we might.

 And then I will tell them as we go, the hole is getting bigger. We've done all this foundational work. You're feeling really solid and how you feel in your body, your emotional wellbeing, all of these things are feeling healthy. We can start to talk about what does the world for your future children look like?

How does that relate to your healing, your purpose, your legacy, And then we get up into these more upper chakra, more esoteric spaces.

Karen: My mind's blown right now because it's just making me realize how quickly we jumped to just give me the prescription to make me better.

And how often we really aren't thinking about our holistic selves. So 

Robyn: and what are the most common reasons people come and is it because they haven't found [00:41:00] someone to really hear them or see them , or help them , what would be those common reasons that they end up, being connected to you? 

Erica: There are two types of people that come to see me. One type has something going on, whether it's Mental health issue or physical health issue, and they've had a lot of bad experiences with conventional and non conventional providers, and they don't trust anyone.

 The work we do together in the beginning is helping them to feel safe in their bodies again because it's very scary often when you're feeling something and you're going from provider to provider and specialist to specialist and they don't know what to do with you You feel like you're going crazy, but you're not.

 But more often than that, the person that comes to me has tried everything, gotten not nowhere, but they haven't gotten the results that they're looking for. And they're doing all the right things, [00:42:00] but either in the wrong order. Or simultaneously, often people come to me after or while working with functional medicine doctors and they're taking a ton of supplements, they don't feel a lot better.

They know that there is a connection between their spiritual work and some deeper knowing and what they're experiencing, but no one has talked about it in a way that they, you know, Satisfied with yet.

And what that person needs is to know that they've found someone who looks at things differently. And when those people hear my little orientation, their shoulders usually drop and they say, yes this is what I've been looking for. And they come with all kinds of things, I really wanted to.

work with people who wanted to not solve the problem, [00:43:00] but see that the problem was a doorway into the great mystery of self awareness and self exploration and start to uncover What is deeper and deeper. And so nowadays people come to me with all kinds of things. Sometimes they have broken hearts and sometimes they wake up at 40 and.

They have money and a great career and a partner and they're miserable and they don't know why. And sometimes they feel like parenting has sucked the life out of them and sometimes they have an autoimmune disease. 

Robyn: And then do they work with you on an ongoing basis?

or is it like a six month process? How does that 

Erica: work? I call it chapters of work. So they come to me, we get clear on what is the intention or the goal. And most people I work with them for three months, we see each other twice a month.

 And. In most [00:44:00] cases, I feel confident on the first session telling them that I believe we can get where they want to go in that time period. If I didn't believe that, I would tell them up front. And then some people , arrive at that point and they say now I want something new. I want to work on something else that's come up and maybe we do the same arrangement again.

At some point Usually within six months or a year, we move to more of a maintenance type of relationship where we check in monthly. And some people do that for, four months or eight months, and they feel really complete . And Some people have been with me since I opened my practice in 2018 and there's nothing wrong, but they just appreciate the perspectives on life and change.

 

 

Karen: What's your perspective on manifestation? And how do you believe we're able to manifest through our chakras? 

Erica: it's funny, because I love the idea [00:45:00] of manifestation. And I Contract a little when I see what the, new age, like pop spirituality world has done to the term. For me, I think of three words as being very intimately connected. Manifestation, creativity, and healing. I do not think you can separate them.

And I think of manifestation as the embodied results. Of the creative process, Creativity being the creative process and then healing being the act of coming into integrity with the creator, which is you. So back to the chakras, This idea that each of the seven chakras gives me a different lens of self.

Just like I talked about as different boundaries of the whole so don't get me wrong when I talk about the chakras, I'm not talking about it's the chakra that we use to manifest the thing. I'm really just using the [00:46:00] chakras as a way to talk about seven different perspectives.

seven different aspects of the self. And so the way I would answer that question is, it's not that we're manifesting through the chakras, although we are, we're manifesting using different mechanisms of action. So the root chakra, for example, is in the present, the boundaries of the whole are my skin.

This is my physical body. So to create something, From the level of the root chakra. I have to create it here and now, So if I want something in the future something that's completely unrealistic to show up here right this second The root chakra is not where I want to create from, if I have a manifestation practice, because let's say I want to meet my partner and have a baby, but I don't want to do it now. I want it three years from now. I'm not going to work at the level [00:47:00] of the root because the root uses the sensory experience, touch, sound, smell to create.

So if I'm manifesting from the root chakra, what I want to do is I want to find the places that I already have it so I can have the sensory experience of it. Okay. So it's if what I want to create is a new house, let me find the aspects of my current house that I want to be in the new house.

The aspects that I really like already. And let me, touch those. Fluffy rugs, let me smell the smell of the wood that I want to build the new house with. Let me feel my feet on the ground on a surface that the marble floor that I also want to have in the new house.

So that is what I mean by manifesting from the root chakra or creating from it when we're in the lower chakras. there is this [00:48:00] separation between myself and the creator. Above the heart, I start to merge with the creator, So let's take the throat chakra, for example. If I want to manifest through the throat chakra, I have to choose my words carefully because abracadabra with my word I create.

So if I want to be a billionaire, I need to use language like I have a billion dollars, I am wealthy, I am abundant, I am prosperous. And I really have to catch my language when I'm saying something else. But interestingly, if I say with my throat, or with my voice, I am a billionaire, and I don't believe that to be true, I block my own creation at the level of the solar plexus, because the solar plexus needs to believe it.

I need to find [00:49:00] language. That my solar plexus can get behind because our thoughts and our language are very closely connected. And so rather than saying I am a billionaire, I might say, I have so much money in my bank account. I have more than enough. I am wealthy. And so it's a dance because.

It's very easy to work through one and not realize how another one is blocking you. 

 I often give this formula. I say, if you are going to have a manifestation practice, understand how you can work through the seven different chakras choose four. Make at least one of those four the solar plexus because our beliefs are often where we limit ourselves.

Make another one of those four either the throat or the third eye because They act so directly with the quantum fields that they're [00:50:00] very effective. And then make the other two your choice. 

Karen: Love that exercise. 

Erica: you also have to think about the timeline, So remember when we talked about the boundaries of the whole, the third eye is beyond time and space and it works through visualization.

The farther you go up the ladder.

The farther you get from this material life that we experience, so if we're trying to create a thing in a reasonable time frame, I would choose three of the lower, the throat, the solar plexus and probably the heart and the sacral or something. 

Robyn: Wow. I've never thought of it that way, honestly.

 What's one practice that you recommend that can benefit 

Erica: So I'm going to answer it with the caveat that what I really think benefits everyone is whatever it takes to become more self [00:51:00] aware. So the question I would ask everyone is, What is it that you need to become more aware of yourself? Is it time in your body? In which case, you might do better with one yoga pose in the morning, where you scan your attention through every part of your body, just acknowledging how it feels.

Is it that you're in your mind, you spend a lot of time in your mind, and the practice of awareness would best serve you to observe what your mind is doing, which is more of a traditional meditation practice. would it be to like do a check in with how you're feeling, I work with a lot of empaths.

One of my favorite tools for an empath is before you enter any kind of social situation, whether it's a house where another person is, a dinner with a [00:52:00] friend the bedroom with a partner, check in. And acknowledge what is in your emotional field. What are you feeling that way if you step out of the situation with someone else feeling completely different, it's clear to you what is yours and what was theirs.

And then spiritually speaking, there are so many different ways to become self aware. through a spiritual practice. I love divination practices. My personal practice is with the I Ching, but tarot cards are popular and easy, And I love using tarot cards in two ways. One way is, you ask a question and you pull your card and then You decide what that means for you or you just move about the day and inquiry of what is this about today?

The other game I love with tarot cards is pulling many, even the whole deck, [00:53:00] in order to see that every one of those archetypes is within you. And you can associate and create story with any one of them. Because you're all of it, And all day long, we're doing that. We're going out there and we're having experiences.

And then we're creating a story around what those experiences mean or how significant they are. And it can really help us become aware that we're doing that in the world when we do that with a deck of cards. 

Karen: I've never heard someone suggest that before and you're right, you forget that you are all of the tarot deck.

I'm always thinking it's reflecting something specific of me and where I am on the journey versus the whole potentiality of myself. So that's really 

Erica: helpful. It's a both end and to bring it back to the chakras, This is the solar plexus and the third eye, So the third eye says.

You told me at the beginning of our conversation, your sun sign is Leo, [00:54:00] The solar plexus says, I am a Leo. I identify as a Leo. The third eye says you were born under every sign of the Zodiac. You are all of it. And you choose at any given moment, which one of those archetypes you want to embody.

And One of those is not better than the other. There's a time and a place for each of them. A lot of the time, when we're really struggling or suffering because of the prison of the identity that we've created, the third eye is an incredibly therapeutic perspective. To come up here and say just because I've been, in TV my whole life, doesn't mean I have to be in TV.

 I can be a dating coach, I can be anything I want. And when we put our site on something that we want, like I want to be a producer on this network, it's really helpful to get into [00:55:00] the identity of being the producer on that network to get there. And so this is the other reason I like to use the chakras in my work because We can come at anything from so many different perspectives and so much of the art of medicine is deciding which is the best match for the given goal.

Robyn: On the opposite side of the spectrum, what's one thing that you feel like? people could stop doing to live a more meaningful life.

Erica: I hesitate to say this because I know it sounds easier than it is, but I really believe. That what we need most is to get out of our heads, to stop overemphasizing rational thought, reasoning, deductive thinking as the greatest And most valuable way to, inform our decision making in our lives.

And similarly to [00:56:00] what I said before, how to get out of your head is not necessarily the same for every person, but. That is what I think is needed. So the question becomes, what gets you out of your head? Is it easier for you to get into the body? Is it easier for you to get into the feelings?

Is it easier for you to be in prayer? what can we do to move the center of gravity away from the thinking mind? 

I think that solves a lot for a lot of people. 

Robyn: Yeah, I totally agree. And I think it's one of those practices. I think Karen and I are constantly catching ourselves.

calling each other out on, when we can, because it's very easy to go along with that thinking mind and what is in quotes normal and what has been done before. And this is how in quotes things should be. Rather than following your own knowing, And a [00:57:00] feeling and all of the different ways that you've pointed out today, that we could really be approaching something from these different aspects and perspectives.

, it can be so life changing and so many of your knowings and your dreams. can come true if you can start to pay attention and do something different.

Karen: I think the hardest part too, for so many of us, is that we've been taught To function in a certain way . And we were taught that way from a very young age. Up into adulthood and beyond. I think all of these practices that you've given us to help us stop ourselves. And just reground in whatever chakra we want at the moment, but just even know that they're there as opportunities to bring us back to remind us of who we really are and be more well beings in our day to day.

Erica: You touched on something too, I'll just add to this, which is another thing that I think people can really do more of. I think a lot about yoga and in yoga, Sometimes you move a lot, and then at the [00:58:00] end, you do Shavasana.

And what happens in Shavasana? You integrate all the benefits of your efforts. And in the West, a lot of yoga studios, they shorten the Shavasana. People run out during the Shavasana. And It's so unfortunate because the Shavasana is where you get all of the results, where you integrate it into your body.

And I think a lot about the way that people in the West exercise. You go to the gym, you get your workout in, you run into the shower, you grab your coffee, you go to work. We don't stop enough and integrate. 

If we can take five minutes in the week to just reflect on where we've come from, whether that's in your healing journey, in your career journey. I used to do this practice. regularly when I woke up in the morning before I got out of bed, I would take a few minutes and I would scan my room and [00:59:00] I would think about how hard I had to work to get those thread count sheets on that California king bed in that apartment in New York City, That wasn't a little thing. And be and learn to be beside the man who is next to me and how much travel and adventure and exploration it took to find that painting that was hanging on the wall of my bedroom. And this takes five minutes. It's just Self reflection, self acknowledgement of how hard we've worked to get where we are today.

And in that moment, we receive the benefits of the work. 

Robyn: I've never done that in that way. 

Karen: No. I'm like literally looking around where I'm at right now. Just thinking, oh, I got to this house. Yeah. To this conversation with you. That's 

Robyn: right. That's powerful. 

Erica: It's not a little thing, 

Robyn: We have covered a [01:00:00] lot of ground and the thing is what people don't realize is there is so much more we will need to discuss because you're such a treasure trove of wisdom and experience and real guidance for people. And we're so grateful to be connected. 

Karen: And you two have taken a courageous journey, Erica, or from where you come from.

Just going back to that little girl who lost her mom and having the inner knowing and conviction that she was still with you and then following that thread your whole life. To how is there a better way for people and how can I help and showing them that direction or making those connections for them?

That's such huge impact that you're having. I'm sure you can't even imagine today, but we'll continue to help so many people, even if you've just opened their eyes. Eyes and ears and conscious mind open a little bit to the possibilities and the connection between the body and the [01:01:00] disease and the symptoms and their entire, holistic self like that, even here, just listening to you, I forget.

You forget that all of the things that are leading in your day to day life and your daily behavior that impact that could be impacting from when even you're much younger. So there's so much we have to learn about ourselves but giving people these connections and just aha moments of understanding that we're all connected in this way so helpful.

So thank you. 

Erica: Thank you. 

Robyn: Thank you so much. And you can find out more about working with Dr. Erica Matluck, including her upcoming retreats, online courses, and workshops, as well as her one on one work at experience7senses. com. You can find Dr. Matluck on Substack, search for Becoming Whole, and you can also follow her at experience7senses on Instagram and on Facebook. Thank you so much, Erica. We can't wait for our next conversation.

Erica: to thank you for having me and for doing this.