Seeking Center: The Podcast

Woo News: The Psychology of Hope, Cosmic Classrooms + Mediums - Episode 202

• Robyn Miller Brecker, Karen Loenser, Lisa Capretto • Season 2 • Episode 202

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Woo News is back — and this isn’t your average news roundup. Robyn, Karen, and Lisa (aka our in-house Oracle of All Things Woo) dive into the headlines that made us gasp, giggle, and wonder if the universe is trolling us just a little.

From a scientific study showing that short inspirational videos can reduce stress (yep, almost like meditation!) — to manifestation being explored in labs, psychic detectives, and a teacher who used astrology to seat her students — this episode proves that the “woo” is officially mainstream.

Get ready for your monthly mix of the weird, the wonderful, and the wildly soul-stirring.

IN THIS EPISODE


KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • Hope is medicine. Whether through meditation or a quick scroll filled with good vibes, inspiration matters.
  • Science is finally catching up with spirituality — and we are so here for it.
  • There’s no one “right” way to connect with energy — you can mix the mystical with the modern.

TRY THIS

  • Instead of your usual scroll, watch a 60-second video that makes you feel something — wonder, joy, awe, hope.
  • Close your eyes afterward. Take a breath.
  • That calm you feel? That’s your nervous system saying “thank you.”

Visit seekingcentercommunity.com for more with Robyn + Karen and many of the guides on Seeking Center: The Podcast. You'll get access to live weekly sessions, intuitive guidance, daily inspiration, and a space to share your journey with like-minded people who just get it.

You can also follow Seeking Center on Instagram @theseekingcenter.

Robyn: 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. woo. News is back, and I'm here with the one and only Lisa Capretto, our in-house Oracle of all things. Woo. And of course with the Everwise Karen as well. This isn't your average news roundup. We're talking about headlines that [00:01:00] made us gasp, giggle, or say, wait, is that even real life?

Think psychic FBI sidekicks, manifestation science, witches with a wifi connection, and one teacher who used astrology to seat her students. Yes, really. So whether you're long, whether you are a long time, so whether you are a longtime seeker or just here for the cosmic popcorn, you are in the right place.

We're diving into what's weird, wonderful, and wildly soul storying, all in one mystical mashup. Let's get woo. . Hi Lisa. Hi Karen. 

Lisa: Hi. How are you guys doing 

Robyn: good.

Lisa: Where should we start today? 

Robyn: You tell us. You are our Woo news guide. 

Lisa: Okay, let's start with the American Psychological Association.

So we'll start a little sciencey. There was a study that came out that said short inspirational videos, maybe as effective as meditation at reducing stress. And we know some people meditation doesn't work for everybody. We've talked about that on here. And especially [00:02:00] with 18 to 44 year olds saying we feel moderate to extreme stress daily, which who doesn't really?

But anyway, researchers at uc, Santa Barbara did this study. It was a four week study that they conducted between the most stressful time ever between Thanksgiving and Christmas. And so they did this last year and it was a thousand people. They. Grouped them into five randomly assigned groups. And every day, each group was given a video to watch.

So one group was given inspirational videos. One group was given comedy videos. One group was given guided meditations, and one group was told to just scroll as we do. And then there was the control group. So this was just for five minutes a day. And the results showed that people who watched either the inspirational videos or followed the guided meditations, they reported feeling significantly more hopeful.

During the intervention week compared [00:03:00] to the control group and hope predicted lower stress levels. So the key to all of this was that feeling of hope and what you're watching. And the comedic videos of course made everybody laugh and they had a good burst of energy but they didn't have an impact on people's later stress.

So in terms of the longevity and the real impact, inspirational videos with a component of hope seem to be super, super effective. Obviously, anything's better than our nightly doom scrolling, but this is scientifically proven. This could be an alternative, particularly for people who are like, meditation doesn't do it for me at all.

Yeah. What do you guys think? 

Karen: I couldn't agree more. It's funny that you're bringing this one up. I found a wonderful Instagram channel. It's a photographer he does those beautiful videos where you can go underwater in a stream and take you along in the ocean, or up really high.

And I wanna say less than 30 seconds, there's the aesthetic of [00:04:00] just soothing that comes up, literally washes over you on those videos. I'm curious though, I could see it being, bringing a level of calm. 

Lisa: Yep. 

Karen: And peace. I wonder where hope is associated.

That's the cur, like that's where I did a little head turn when you said hope, how that connectivity actually happens. That's the really interesting part I think. 

Lisa: I think so too. 

Robyn: And how they measured that, what were the questions that allowed them to say that, to actually come out and say it was hope that they left with 

Lisa: Yeah. It was all self-reporting. And what was also really interesting is that, I had mentioned doom scrolling. We don't really turn to media for hope these days especially. So this was really interesting from that perspective.

 you have to seek out, the right type of content if you're especially trying to lift your mood or have a goal like reducing stress. But it's not [00:05:00] all bad out there. There's still pockets of hope. We just have to find them. 

Robyn: And I'm also really interested too, in understanding if those videos alluded some sort of frequency , like what that transmuted for somebody in terms of their brainwaves or certain energy frequencies.

Yeah. Because however they were determining this from a scientific level was actually supporting Stress relief. I almost, can see measuring, with an EEG, certain people's brainwaves or if there's another way to measure 

Lisa: You're talking holistically, like it might not just be what you're intaking. Maybe there's something 

auditory that's happening as well. It's what's going on with our brains. That actually leads into another story that we had about manifesting. Science says you can train your brain to manifest.

There is a neurosurgeon and Stanford professor, he actually passed away this past [00:06:00] July and his name is James Doty. He's been on Mel Robbins, a bunch of podcasts, and he has this book where he writes about neuroplasticity, which is the brain's lifelong ability to change and how manifesting he reframes it as like a mental training.

It's obviously not magic, right? But he's talking about what it does to the brain and he talks about. Value tagging, which is apparently how our brains prioritize information. So goals can become embedded in the deepest levels of the subconscious. And what he says is, visualization is a part of it, mental imagery, you're hypnotizing your mind to recognize that the intention is what's important he has like this five step process.

And Robyn, this is what just reminded me, is when you were saying this holistically, his holistic approach, his five step process, he says, you have the intention, you write it down, you read it silently, [00:07:00] you read it out loud, and then you visualize it over and over again. And that uses all your sensory organs as much as possible to embed the intention in your subconscious.

Which activates different parts of the brain, including the parts of the brain that repeat self-talk and our identity. So he says, manifesting, it's not necessarily about acquiring things, but it's really more about gaining the detachment from the need for that external validation. He is it's not magic.

This shit's just neuroscience, basically. 

It's very basic, very simple. Almost sounds a little like that can't really work. But it's the repetition and like we said, just using all of the senses in that way. It's something really fascinating 

Robyn: and I wanted to say that it's also based on James Doty, who wrote into the Magic Shop, a neurosurgeon's quest to discover the mysteries of the brain and the Secrets of the heart, which we've actually talked [00:08:00] about on our podcast before.

He also wrote another book called Mind Magic, the Neuroscience of Manifestation and how it Changes Everything. And I know I wanna read that 'cause I haven't read that one, but that's where some of this comes from. And this is free and why wouldn't you try it? 

Karen: I was gonna say is try it with something.

That you don't really care about, like something really simple that you want to manifest.

I love that. 

Lisa: We'll have to try it. 

Karen: Yeah, 

Robyn: absolutely. 

Lisa: For our next story, I wanna go back to school. There was an elementary teacher in New York. She shared on TikTok, one of her most unhinged teaching tips, and we love it. She has leaned into astrology in terms of doing her seating charts.

When you first have your class come in, you don't really know the students. And she was trying to figure out like, how do I seat them? And she decided I'm gonna go with astrology. So she put four quadrants together, the earth table, the [00:09:00] fire table, the water table, and the air table. And so she grouped these kids together and she said that there were some learnings that came from this interestingly, which I thought was cute.

She said The earth table always finished their work first, always. And then they would help the other students and they earned the most table points. So Earth table on top of their shit, water table. They had a lot of upset tummies at Mr. Parents. 

Robyn: Oh my goodness.

Lisa: Yep. The fire table, lot of big personalities.

So there were some butting heads and some fighting, but she said, interestingly, whenever she would consider, separating them, they were like, no, we love this. What are you talking? Don't do that. This is great. And the air table, she said they often had their heads up in the clouds.

 And she had made the mistake of putting them in the back of the classroom. So maybe not where the air signs need to be, but I am a fire sign and I was [00:10:00] thinking. I would probably be freaking out, sitting at the fire sign table with everybody like arguing and fighting. I think me in elementary school, I would be at water table with upset tummy.

Where's my mom? Get me outta here. It sounded like a lot going on, but where would you guys be? What table would you be at? And is it true to you? 

Karen: I'd be at where everybody was fighting. 

Robyn: Wait, what? What table would you be at? Karen? 

Karen: At the fire table. And I don't know. We all know it's not just your sun sign.

Lisa: right. 

Karen: So I don't know if that would, I can see Robin like you're an earth sign, so I can see you finishing your work and helping other people easily. I don't know. Leo's are very different critters. because they're, what I can say is that there's a lot of loyalty when it comes to Leo's.

They tend to be That's right. protective of their own. That's 

Robyn: That's right. 

Karen: See how that potentially would be me. Maybe I wouldn't be part of the arguments. Maybe I'd be trying to calm everybody down and then everybody would be mad at me. 

Robyn: You know what's interesting too is that , our [00:11:00] go-to astrologer, Stevie Calista always says that she bases things on your rising sign rather than your sun sign. So it would be really interesting to see if you did this exercise. if maybe the second half of the year she went by the rising sign, 

Karen: that would be cool.

Robyn: And what does that look like? Because then there would be some changes in the tables and is that more true to each of these students? I don't know, but that would be cool. That would be really cool to see. Oh, I love that. love that there's teachers thinking about things in that way 

Lisa: Another article that I think we should talk about is a little more serious. It has to do with infertility and loss.

So trigger warning for anybody listening. But this was a piece in The Guardian written by a woman named Elizabeth Day. She went through 12 years of infertility and she was chronicling her journey in this piece. she met with a psychic and everything changed. So essentially. Her friend had [00:12:00] recommended meeting with this psychic.

And at this point, after more than a decade, she figured, yeah, I'll meet with a psychic, whatever. And the psychic did say several things that resonated with her, but the one that resonated the most obviously was when the psychic said, I feel like you're grappling with letting go of a lifelong desire.

 And you don't know whether to let it go or not. And the woman was like yeah, definitely. And the psychic said I don't know if it has anything to do with children, but if it is, I wanna tell you I don't always talk about past lives, but for you, I get a very strong sense that you were a mother in a past life.

You were the mother of six, and it almost melted you. That was the word that she had used. And Elizabeth Day the woman who's receiving this reading, I think her face just did what yours did, Robin, which was like, what's that dumbstruck? She also said that the number six had significance to her because she had three miscarriages [00:13:00] and had undergone three unsuccessful rounds of fertility treatment each cycle, having gone to an embryo transfer.

So she had six failed pregnancies. 

Robyn: My goodness. 

Lisa: Prior to meeting with this psychic. So what the psychic said to her though, she said, be careful what you wish for. Because sometimes when we push really hard for something that we think we want and that there's a lot of obstacles in the way, it's because we're being protected.

And. That was a whole perspective shift for this woman. And , just because you have a child or just because you want something to work out a certain way doesn't mean it will. And she had only considered those options, right? Like of things being great. And this kind of gave her permission to get a little more grounded in reality and oh, okay, let me think about this a little differently.

And she said when she got permission to do that, she didn't feel [00:14:00] sadness. She felt relief actually. 'cause sometimes quitting and not persisting is actually the bravest thing to do. So I thought that was a really. Unique approach and I wanted to bring it up because, meeting with a medium can shift your entire perspective and it's not about hearing what you wanna hear, and you might not hear what you wanna hear most of the time.

And I think that's what really draws me personally to a lot of these spiritual things is just that it, I don't know, it opens doors to self-awareness and a perspective that can just be really valuable. So I wanted to share this story. It's a long one, and it's in The Guardian, so I highly recommend giving it a read.

Robyn: Yeah. I'm glad you brought this one up because it's something that we do talk about and maybe not even enough, which is that you're never going to hear things that are scary, at least from the people that we [00:15:00] recommend. However, you may not always hear what you want to hear, but what you need to hear.

And it's whether or not you can actually process that and take it in. And for this woman, it's really interesting that it seems like she did, and it took a minute, but she actually did, it gave her a different perspective and with such a sensitive subject. 

Karen: I was thinking the story was gonna end differently too.

when you started, I expected the story to be about someone who's trying to have, conceive a child and then whatever this psychic medium said would finally enable that to happen. That she would, 

Lisa: a child would come into her life, 

Karen: he would highlight yeah, what the block was and that then the, happily ever after would happen.

But that message that she gave that woman is probably one of the most profound that I've heard in a long time, which is. Sometimes giving up on something, letting it [00:16:00] go is the bravest thing to do. And it's absolutely true, but I don't know if I've thought about it that way.

And we're all trained to, to do and carry through on the goals and execute and achieve as opposed to gracefully maybe allowing things that as they're unfolding just to be, 

Lisa: It's a hard place to get to. It took her obviously a long time and a lot of different experiences to even be able to be in the head space to hear that.

 But she said, even the next day she was walking down the street and there was a woman pushing a stroller, and she smiled at the woman and she said she didn't feel the bitterness or anger that, she had been feeling. And she says it, did feel magical. But at the same time, the grief isn't gone.

It's just not constant like it's still there. But she said even now, three years after this experience, she still has a sense of peace about all of this, which is incredible. And she went [00:17:00] on, she was doing a lot more writing and she was feeling super fulfilled in her creative process. So this opened her up in a lot of other ways too.

I think that a lot of people, when they hear about meeting with a psychic or a medium, this is not the kind of experience that they would think of, but this is very often the kind of experience that people have. 

Robyn: And I would say too, that what she got was validation. That what she was going through wasn't just because of her physical body.

 That validation, if you can believe it, that there was a real reason coming into this lifetime, why this particular desire was so challenging. It was based on something else. And what I would say is that some of that peace came from her soul receiving that information in her current body.

And so therefore it was truth. And so [00:18:00] that's. That's why 

Karen: she could hear it. 

Robyn: That's why she could hear it. That's why she could finally be like, okay, maybe this isn't what is most aligned for me in this lifetime. I always say, you never say never, and especially when it comes to having children that can come into your life in ways that you never expected.

And so maybe for her it's not physically carrying and so forth, but I would just say that also her soul was finally able to hear what it needed to move on. 

Karen: So much of that she might've been carrying from that past life. 

The should. 

Robyn: That's what I mean. It's like where did the desire come from?

Is it because that's what she thought she was expected to do? 

Karen: Totally. Yeah. And then yet having maybe that fear of, gosh, what if I get. I want and I wish for, like you said, Lisa. 

Robyn: And you never think about the challenging times. And I think so many of us, I know personally I can relate from an infertility perspective.

it was hard to have Bella. [00:19:00] I did have Bella. I didn't go quite through what she went through, but then I tried after and at some point had to make some decisions in order for me to move on emotionally and physically and I'm at peace too with those decisions. and everyone's different I love that for This woman, she was open enough to hear the message and actually go to a medium like, 

Karen: yep.

Lisa: . Let's move on to a well-known psychic medium. Mr. John Edward, I think you guys may know him from his show crossing over back in the day where he would read for random audience members, but what you might not know is that a big part of his life has been helping to solve crimes with the FBI.

He's been quietly working

 and his FBI agent partner wrote a book that just came out in September. It's called Chasing Evil, and it chronicles their work together. And, just to preface this the FBI agent, he was certainly not bought in [00:20:00] from the jump. he was like, this is a little crazy, right?

And he now says, this book isn't written to convince anybody of anything. it's this is just what happened. Believe it or not. it just is. So you take it for what it is. I would love to read this book. And John, for his part says he's not solving anything. He's I'm just passing along information.

And I think like both of their approaches really work well together and, having a healthy dose of skepticism, especially when it comes to something like as important as these investigations. I really liked that approach and I had no idea that he was doing this. He kept it very quiet, but he has worked on some higher profile cases according to this article.

I don't know. Really interesting. You never know what other people are working on. 

Karen: I saw an interview with John Edwards about this book and how if you can find any of them, it's definitely worth watching because he does talk about the relationship and how it started and how this detective was like not [00:21:00] having it at all.

And he went in with that attitude of listen, I'm not here to convince you or anybody else, but it's gonna give you what I have and how that relationship really developed over time. So it's like what we say all the time. We can't say that any of this is true. We don't know it for sure.

But you can't really dispute the fact when you see sort of these things actually come into reality. So I love that the two of them are working together. It feels a little bit sciencey too, in a way, like it's showing evidentially 

Robyn: Yeah, it's true.

Lisa: Give those boys a TV show.

I feel like 

Robyn: that's I it feels like it lends itself to that for sure. And I'm excited to read this too. 

Lisa: that was a cool one. Our last article about mediums. Robin, you're from New York? 

Have you ever heard of Lily Dale? 

Robyn: Yes, I have. 

Lisa: You have? 

Robyn: Yes. 

Lisa: I had not. 

Robyn: Oh yeah. 

Lisa: Lily Dale is an hour southwest of Buffalo is very tiny.

About 300 people and about 40 of 'em are [00:22:00] mediums. And in the summer, thousands and thousands of people come to this place to really immerse themselves in spiritualism and mediumship and have readings and really just get in touch with that side of things. What is very cool. They have a vetting process that they follow. You can't just walk in there and be like, I'm a medium. And then you set up shop. That's not what they do. It's a two year process. Oh, for vetting. A medium has to come sit for an interview in front of the assembly board and the Lilydale Mediums League.

And if they are then accepted, then they'll be tested for a year and they do these outdoor messaging services. Some readings, Monday night circles. Basically it's this year long test period of like mini readings. And. If they do that really well, then the board and the Mediums League decides that they get to advance to year two, and that's when they'll do more private [00:23:00] readings and they get evaluated on that.

And if they pass that, then they are allowed to register with the assembly and renew every single year. And this was written about in the Smithsonian magazine if you wanna read more. But I thought it was really fascinating how they have this vetted process. It's not like doors open everybody in we'll take anybody.

It is very clearly vetted and carefully done. And I had never heard of this town much less that they had such a formalized process for mediumship. I thought it was really interesting. I 

Karen: didn't know about that either. I did 

Robyn: not. Either 

Karen: town has been written about and I've never been, but I've always been fascinated by this town, so I love that they're giving themselves that, that credible. Yeah. 

Robyn: I know that there's Lilydale and then there's this other place in Indiana.

I don't know the name of the town that Tina Powers who's been on our podcast several times. She [00:24:00] actually studied there in Indiana. So it's like the Lilydale of Indiana, it's interesting. I am intrigued by their process 

 Just like , we do too.

To have integrity with what we're doing. We do feel that people and their practices have to pass our own test in terms of us being able to recommend practitioners. So I'm so glad that they are doing that there. 

Lisa: if we wouldn't go to them, we can't recommend them, 

Karen: it is a wonderful thought, isn't That they're putting together communities like that, that are vetted because there are so many others you've got Sedona, you've got a Asheville, North Carolina, you've got places where people love to go.

It's a mecca for people seeking spirituality and like anything, you don't always have everybody vetted. So it's an interesting idea To actually put something like that in place so that people know that, they have been vetted before they go.

Yeah. 

Lisa: Yeah. I think it's important to say too, that just [00:25:00] because something is vetted, what does that mean? Who's doing the vetting? What's the process? 

Karen: Yeah. 

Robyn: Yeah. 

Lisa: We don't know. 

Robyn: We 

Lisa: don't know. So the experience could be fantastic for some people and for others it could be maybe this doesn't land, but I would have a lot of questions about that.

Yeah. 

Robyn: And I'm really interested too, which I've never really looked into, but how did Lilydale become Lilydale? I'm curious how people settled there with those kinds of beliefs and why they're, I wonder if something calls to them With that land and within that community. So it's something to look into. 

Listen, I think for some people it may be very intense because the energy may be too so strong in terms of that kind of feeling.

But love that it's being written up in the Smithsonian magazine. That's pretty cool. I agree. 

Lisa: Lot of cool stories. Are there any others that we had on the list that you guys want to touch on? 

 

Robyn: I wanted to tell you guys a story which you might have seen on [00:26:00] TikTok, which is that on Saturday after I had did that human design call with that woman, Chrissy,

and we were playing with it with Bella. When we put in her birth time and all that, and it comes back with your human design. It puts your birth time and military time. And Bella's birth time is 5:11 PM but military time, that is 1711. 

Karen: No way. 

Lisa: Robin 

Robyn: Bella was born at 1711.

 For those of you who don't know, my dad passed away when I was young and his birthday was 1117. And so those are my leading numbers in life and they always show up to let me know I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be and that he is with me and my daughter Bella, and my husband and my family and everything.

So this is crazy. 

Karen: That's cray. 

Robyn: nut balls. Literally, she looked at me, we looked at each other, we're like, how did we not know this? [00:27:00] And I said to her originally, I was like, why did it take 17 years? I just had to tell you that. 

Karen: Wow. That's crazy. 

Robyn: Bella was born in 1711. Now if there's 

Karen: not, you literally started telling us this at 1117.

Robyn: If we don't live in the Matrix, then I don't know. Literally. I am like, 

Karen: oh, I love it. 

 

Robyn: I feel like this month we had a lot of mediums. we talked a lot about connecting with the other side in that way.

Not to say that we don't talk about that on the regular, but it feels like more this month than most 

Lisa: that, yeah. It feels like we had more medium articles, more medium related, medium psychic. And then, we love to bring the science in and I feel like there were, a couple really good 

Robyn: I agree. 

Lisa: Couple really good research pieces and things that were. linking the science and spirituality as we like to do. 

Robyn: I always believe there's no coincidences and the fact that one of those articles that had to [00:28:00] do with the neuroscience of things brought up James Doty who sadly passed away in July of this year.

But he's come up several times in this last month. So I feel like number one, it cannot wait to just try his way of manifesting. But I also would really suggest to people checking out his books because he walked the walk. He was a neurosurgeon who really transformed his life.

So I feel like he's quite believable. 

Lisa: It feels like we have more follow up work from the Swo news than 

Robyn: Yes. 

Lisa: Than we usually do. A lot more things that we could dive a little deeper into For sure. 

Robyn: Yeah. I'm excited and as you said, that's science part of things. That's a big part of what we wanna bring to all of us who seek is bringing in more of that validation and keep 

Lisa: it a little more grounded,

Robyn: yeah. So thank you Lisa, pulling these together. Of course. 

Lisa: You're welcome.