The Impact of Meditation on Health and Happiness with Carol Marko

Leaving behind the intense world of Wall Street, Carole Marko turned to meditation and discovered a new way of living. In this episode, she’s sharing her journey of how meditation helped her reconnect with herself, reduce stress, and find balance amid life’s challenges.

You’ll hear practical ways to incorporate mindfulness into your daily routine and how shifting your mindset can transform your health. Carole dives into why emotions like love and joy matter, how group meditation can amplify healing, and how these tools can help you navigate your own path to wellness.

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Chapters

• 0:55 Power of Meditation and Healing
• 10:06 The Impact of Thoughts and Meditation
• 20:10 The Power of Consciousness and Meditation
• 28:29 The Power of Mindful Meditation
• 44:48 Transformation Through Meditation and Science
• 51:49 The Power of Healing Within

Transcript

Nika Lawrie: 0:55

Welcome to the Inspired with Nika Laurie podcast. Carol Marko, welcome to the show. I'm so excited to have you here today.

Carole Murko: 1:08

Oh, thank you so much for having me, nika. It's always such a joy to come on your podcast and others who are just done such an amazing job of like stepping on a platform and creating an audience, and I thank you so much for bringing me into your world.

Nika Lawrie: 1:26

Absolutely. I am super grateful to have you here today. I love doing podcasts. The reason I continue is kind of a selfish reason, honestly because I love meeting new people and being able to engage with them and learn from them. So I'm super happy to have you here and come on the show. So thank you, yeah, you're welcome. Yeah, so today we're going to talk about something that I haven't really touched on too much on the show before, but I think I know for me it's been really really life-changing the power of meditation and kind of that changing the way we think and using. I know. For me group meditation, large group meditation, was really really profound. It completely changed my life, the experiences I've been through. So we're going to talk about kind of that the power of meditation and the power of our thoughts and how that can really help us heal. But before we get into that, will you tell us a little bit about who you are, what's your backstory and what brought you to health and wellness?

Carole Murko: 2:23

Excellent. Oh yes, of course, there's the backstory right, yeah. Seems like we all get to the health and wellness when we get there. It's because of the backstory, the backstory always yes. So you know, back in the olden days when I was younger and didn't realize that, like I, was so conditioned by society, you know, I graduated from college and went to Wall Street of all places. I mean, it was completely wrong for me.

Nika Lawrie: 2:56

Completely absent of health and wellness.

Carole Murko: 2:59

And I knew it, right, but I didn't at the time, you know, yoga wasn't really even big, I mean, I came of age in the 80s, right. So it's like in terms of like being, you know, a young adult and, and I mean yoga was still somewhat esoteric, right. I mean it's like and and so, and nobody spoke. I knew a couple of my friend's moms did TM, you know, and it was like what is that, right, are they weird, you know? And so there I was, you know, and um, so there I was, you know, but not, you know, my, my soul was absolutely unhappy, like I just knew it at the, at the you know the depths of my knowing, and um, but I, you know, I didn't have an alternative. So I stuck around for for 15 or so years and then, um, but I was always super creative.

Carole Murko: 3:52

So I went to school for interior design then and what I realized is that interior design is very creative. When you in finance that, I thought, gosh, I'm just going to be able to relax in this new career of mine where I'm focused on soft furnishings and fabrics and beauty. And it turns out that even my personality was too much of a pleaser, like I wanted everything to be perfect, and so it wasn't a great business for me, because I didn't know how to set the boundaries with my clients and, you know, when they had actually taken too much from me, right? I didn't know how to be like. Well, you know, all right, forget it, I'll just I'll do it.

Carole Murko: 4:51

And so I then morphed into one of my passions, which was cooking, and I created a storytelling platform called Heirloom Meals, which I thought was sort of my end. That was it. It was this beautiful passion project. I grew up in a three-generation household with my Italian grandparents, and I wanted to celebrate family recipes and stories, and so I had an NPR radio show. I had two public television specials that aired nationally and I thought, gosh, you know, this is it.

Nika Lawrie: 5:30

You've arrived.

Carole Murko: 5:31

Yeah, this is it, you've arrived. Yeah, except for the small fact that, like you know, both NPR and PBS require you to raise your own funds, and so I spent a lot of time raising money to produce the shows, to have the team, but I never could figure out how. To you know, I just didn't. I wasn't, I was an unknown talent, as they, as they said you out in the world of sponsor raising, and so I couldn't raise the super big enough bucks to support, and so I had to work other jobs, and so this is how we're getting to the breakdown of the body. It's just that it's unsustainable to you know, to work seven days a week, hustling and, you know, still doing interior designs. Then I'd gotten my real estate license as well, and neither one of those were soul aligned.

Carole Murko: 6:24

So I had this soul aligned beautiful project, because I can't call it a business and then I was doing all this over here to, like, keep myself paying my bills, yeah, and and so, and I didn't, I didn't really see, recognize the little hints along the way that were saying your body's talking to you, I, you know I would have migraine headaches, I, um, and then, of course, I would just okay, I know I just would take a bunch of aspirin and and then, all of a sudden, I developed GERD from the aspirin, right. So, like all of those things were just, but I I ignored them, right, it was just. And then, and then, out of nowhere in fact, I was landing. Um, we were going to, I was landing in Albuquerque, we were going to visit our friends in Santa Fe, and as we're landing, I developed all of a sudden it was like I had like hundreds of floaters in both of my eyes.

Nika Lawrie: 7:26

Oh, my goodness, that's scary.

Carole Murko: 7:29

It was crazy and I thought it was like maybe I caught blood vessels, like when you know, with pressure, maybe I popped blood vessels, you know, blood vessels like when you know with pressure change. I didn't, you know who knew right. And so, anyhow, that was, that was nine years ago, and I went to a retina specialist in Santa Fe because my you know, it was like what is this? And anyway, long story short, it turns out that it was an extremely rare autoimmune eye disease that had no known cure and that, of course, then put me on this whole journey because I just didn't want to accept blindness as my end game.

Nika Lawrie: 8:09

Absolutely.

Carole Murko: 8:24

And also didn't feel like the Western model had a solution. They only had pharmaceuticals right, absolutely attacking itself. I don't really think our bodies would do that, and I had this just feeling that I could heal myself and I think everybody can heal themselves but we just haven't been taught that we can and we haven't been taught the tools that can help us get to healing. And that's how I got here.

Nika Lawrie: 8:52

Oh well, that's an amazing story, like so many ups and downs, and I relate to you a lot in that I worked in the fundraising world for a long time. I worked for the Alzheimer's Association. I've told this story in this podcast many times, but fundraising is if you want a stressful job, go work in fundraising. Like there is almost nothing that's as stressful as fundraising and trying to raise enough money to keep the doors open and pay everybody's salaries and make sure that the mission is moving forward. It's insane and that's what led to a lot of my health issues too, which really led me to health and wellness and where I am today. So definitely relate to that. But I'm really glad that you were courageous enough to decide to take your own health, you know, take control of your own health and really try to find ways to heal your body more in a natural manner than just pharmaceuticals. I think you know there's a small place for some pharmaceuticals, but most of the time a lot of them can be replaced with good food and diet.

Carole Murko: 9:57

So yeah, yes and good thoughts.

Nika Lawrie: 10:02

Yes, definitely yeah. So let's talk about that. It's a perfect segue. So tell me, I love you have a philosophy that says first you are what you think, second you are what you eat. I couldn't agree with you more. Can you just elaborate on that a little bit? What do you mean by think? And then, obviously, I think most listeners know, because I get on my soapbox about what we eat all the time, but talk about what we think. That part has been key.

Carole Murko: 10:29

Well, and I really believe that hierarchy is absolutely spot on, because our thoughts create our personal reality, right? So how we think, how we act and how we feel create our personal reality, or our state of being. And so if we don't have control of those thoughts, then it doesn't matter how healthily we eat. If you're eating healthy but you're still stressed out, you're still in a thinking and feeling loop that are producing the hormones of stress. If you are, you know, actually thinking like oh, you know, I'm eating healthy. Therefore, you know, I don't have to worry about anything else. Right, it's like you have to get. You have.

Carole Murko: 11:25

Sorry, my border collie is like hi, maurice, it's time for me to be padded, it's time for me to be patted. So if you see my hand flying, it's a fly, he's a boy who knows what he wants. He's like what's mommy to pat him, anyway? So, but it goes further than that, because you know that's sort of just. You know your listeners might go. So what your thoughts?

Carole Murko: 11:58

But our thoughts actually produce chemicals and those chemicals then create feelings, and those feelings are often either kind of positive or negative, either kind of positive or negative, and sadly, in our society, statistically, we spend 70 to 80% of our time producing thoughts that create the hormones of stress, mm-hmm and so, and let's talk about stress now. So we now know that we spend and, by the way that we spend, and by the way, we have 60 to 70,000 thoughts a day. 90% of those thoughts are the same thoughts you had yesterday, which basically means that a lot of those thoughts are unconscious or subconscious. And by the time we're 35, 95% of how we show up in the world is a memorized set of habits, conditioned behaviors, etc. So we are unconscious with 95%. So our thoughts, you know, so whatever thought patterns we created until we're 35, are just operating underneath the surface of our conscious awareness.

Carole Murko: 13:12

So, as women, right. So the little inner dialogue oh you're so stupid. Oh you look fat. Oh, you're not this. Oh you're not that. Oh, look at that, I like her shoes better than mine. Whatever, all of that dialogue is just that chatter that we were taught as women. I mean, I believe that women were basically taught to hate ourselves.

Carole Murko: 13:36

Oh completely, yeah, and that's a conditioned thought pattern that we are most likely unconscious of, right? So those negative, unconscious thought patterns are creating the hormones of stress without us even knowing it. And so, and when we're in stress, guess what happens to our physical bodies? Right, we get narrowly focused, our digestion slows down, our heart rate changes, our breath work, our breath, our breathing changes, blood is moved out to our extremities, and we're always ready to run, fight or hide, so we are in survival mode 70% to 80% of the time. And so, yeah, so, if you don't think that has an impact on your health, so you could eat the healthiest food on the planet, but if you are allowing your thought patterns to create stress, no healthy food is going to undo that stress that your thoughts have created.

Nika Lawrie: 14:43

Yeah, yeah. And when you think about it too, it's kind of a triple whammy. Right now, right, so we have tons of unhealthy food, we're inundated with stressful things continuously, like the breaking news and the media constantly if it bleeds, it leads right and then social media and all the craziness that comes with that, and then on top of that, we've kind of innately had these negative thoughts running through our head all the time. So it's like this triple whammy. Oh, and then if you add the fourth one, our sedentary lifestyles that we now have, right, so you mix them all together and it's just like this detrimental tsunami coming at you. So, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Carole Murko: 15:26

So that pretty much. I think hopefully your listeners can understand that our thoughts are at the top of the hierarchy in terms of our health, and then the next, of course, is eating consciously, right, eating foods that nurture, nourish, but also energetically. I think a lot of people don't think about the energetics of food, mm-hmm, and the consciousness of the things that we're eating. And so once you get to that space where you're looking at food you know really is as as true sustenance, right, it's true nourishment, and it shifts, you know, your health profile even further.

Carole Murko: 16:12

And I'm sort of against all this like macro counting, I don't even know, I mean it's just like, because that I feel like forms another level of stress in everybody's life. Oh my God, I, you know like I ate one gram too much of X, y, z, and this is a disaster. And I think we just have to get back to um, to to basics and just like eating food, eating seasonally grown food, locally grown food, as much organic food as you can, more vegetables than than animal protein, not, but I'm not against you know, animal protein and um, sort of, uh, like michaelan, what he says eat and eat less. So it's like eat lots of vegetables, you know, fish and meat in like maybe 20% and then less of all of it.

Nika Lawrie: 17:10

Yeah, I think he's also the one that said like there's some say, if it came in a box, don't eat it, or something like that. Like it's yeah, yeah, yeah. But so I want to go back to our thoughts and really thinking about the, the kind of the meditation piece that plays with that too. So you know, I mentioned in the beginning of the show so I've been into health and wellness for years and years and years. You know I've I've coached in it, I've. I, while I was fundraising for the association, I had the privilege of learning from some of the top Alzheimer's and dementia researchers in the world and everything always led back to what we're eating and our lifestyle. And the lifestyle really included how we're caring for our body outside of just food and exercise, right, so it's like that community aspect. It's what we're thinking, it's taking enough time to rest, and then it's our thought patterns and meditation and taking those breaks as well. So, thinking about the meditation piece, talk to me a little bit.

Nika Lawrie: 18:15

I know you're a fan of Joe Dispenza and his work around meditation, especially group meditation. So kind of long conversation to get to where I'm going. But for me, I've done meditation for years and I've always had a benefit from it. But life-changing moments happened to me when I was in groups meditating. I was at one conference and there was about a thousand people there and I had one of the most spiritual experiences I've ever had in my entire life. And I've had the privilege to go to a couple other large group meditations and have really, really taken a lot back from those experiences. Can you talk about kind of meditation in that group setting and what power can really come from that and why it can be so transformative?

Carole Murko: 19:04

yes, yes so one of the things when we we I talked, talked about the fact that our thoughts produce a chemical, but they also, um, send out a signal into the field, right? And so when you get a large group of people over several days that are really focused on returning to love, right, deeply connecting into your heart, which is basically, you know, produces a much bigger electromagnetic signal than our brain does, and what happens is we start to. You know, there's this whole concept of quantum entanglement, right? So now, all of a sudden, you're in this big space and we become quantumly entangled with all the other people in the room that are opening up their heart space, and so, as you imagine, that actually creates an exponential impact.

Carole Murko: 20:10

And I don't know if you've read the work of Dr David Hawkins. He wrote a book called Power Versus Force. I haven't, but I'm going to check it out. Oh my God, it's so fascinating because he spent 40 years, david Hawkins. He wrote a book called Power Versus Force. I haven't, but I'm going to check it out. Oh my God, it's so fascinating because he spent 40 years. He's a medical doctor.

Carole Murko: 20:31

And then he really became fascinated with consciousness, and so he decided that he wanted to map the scale of human emotions, or what he was calling the map of consciousness, and so he wanted to really understand the differences between the lower um, um, you know, kind of the lower centers, right where we have shame and sadness and anger and all of those negative emotions like um, also like frustration and um.

Carole Murko: 21:02

And you know, once you get to the heart it's love and then it's joy and bliss and it keeps going up the scale to enlightenment. And so what he did was and I don't, you know, I wasn't in the, you know, I don't I all I did was read his books. I don't quite understand. He used kinesiology to measure and he worked with all different you know, using the scientific method of inquiry to measure all these different emotions. And so he was able then to put it on a logarithmic scale and what he was able to prove was that lower frequency emotions are collectively not as powerful as higher frequency emotions. So when we begin to move up the scale, they exponentially impact the consciousness of the planet. And what he said was that at the time, his book, I think, was published in 2009. There were like seven or eight enlightened beings on the planet at the time. He said, one enlightened being offsets 70 million people in the frequencies below love.

Nika Lawrie: 22:15

Yeah, that's incredible.

Carole Murko: 22:18

Right, so you put a bunch of people in the room, we're all raising each other's frequency. So then all of a sudden, you know you are like tapping into the field at a much higher frequency level. And then you know, and that's when all those unlimited possibilities start being available to you, right, and so if you just happen in, while you're in that space, to have an intention that has a particular frequency and that frequency is, you know, kind of floating around in that field, because there's thousands of people, it may be that you, you, you, you can, you can hit that frequency. Yeah, and, and that's that's the, the, that's what happens in those group meditations. The other thing, more you know on a on a more physical thing that happens is that we have different brainwave states.

Carole Murko: 23:09

So when we are in our heart, we, if you use a heart rate variability monitor from like heart math or an aura ring or anything you could actually like see when you're in coherence or not in coherence, and so if you, if you start seeing that that heart rate variability going being a nice smooth sign curve, then you have probably brought your yourself out of like a beta brainwave state into a more of a alpha brainwave state, which is a creative brainwave state, into a more of a alpha brainwave state, which is a creative brainwave state. And then, of course, the next brainwave state after that is theta, and theta is the. It's a hypnotic state where we're highly suggestible, so that's also that state, when we can manifest more quickly. And then there's gamma, which is like super consciousness, right. That's like kind of the God part, right.

Carole Murko: 24:02

So, however, the interesting thing is the reason why I encourage people to practice, practice. Practice is because we know what our intentions are and we know what our elevated emotions are that we want to achieve because we have spikes of beta all day long. Yeah, you could potentially like hit that gamma, like brainwave, at the exact time that you have you're in the frequency of that thought or emotion, be it healing.

Carole Murko: 24:46

You know a job, whatever it is that you want to create from the infinite field of possibilities yeah.

Nika Lawrie: 24:51

So I love that. I I mean, when I look back on the experience I had, so it um, it was a three-day business workshop with about a thousand people and, um, a lot of it was business education and you know how to do online stuff. But then there were a very key moments where we had, um, a woman who's um very well trained in, uh, meditation and a lot of other kind of like shaman practices and things like that, and she led us through different meditation experiences. And one of the ones that really stood out to me that I remember is I had this feeling of, you know, there was a thousand of us sitting in the room and it felt my eyes were closed and I was in the meditation and it felt like there was kind of like a goldish, yellowish energy coming from all of us but it was swirling up. So you think about I'm trying to think of it, I don't know Maybe think about like the, the Milky way, how we kind of swirl right, like, and so it had this swirl energy of goldish energy up to the top, which it had kind of a point at the top where all of our energy was meeting at that tip. And I mean, I definitely believe in the power of meditation and the power of, of um, spirituality and those kind of things.

Nika Lawrie: 26:15

I'm not a very woo-woo person, I'm a very, like, scientific, evidence-based person and I will tell you like this was a real experience. I felt it. I could feel the energy from others, I could feel all of our energy connected, and so that was so profound to me to understand how, like, being in the groups is really really key to have these big transformative moments, to kind of hit that, the gamma moments right, the gamma wave moments and so yeah, so it was really really powerful. Can you talk a little bit about neuro change solutions and like give that definition and explain how that can work or help people working through issues?

Carole Murko: 27:05

So you mentioned that I'm a big fan of Dr Joe's spends, that I am, but I'm also trained by him to teach his work, and so neuro change solutions is the, the little organization that he created to to train us.

Carole Murko: 27:16

So there's about 150 of us that are trained right now, that are all over the world to teach his work, and literally we were taught by him, right? I mean, it's not like you know, and obviously, with that small number of people, he really wants to make sure that we understand the work right and the model. And so the model I think I sort of alluded to it in the beginning is that our personality creates our personal reality, and our personality is made up of how we think, how we act and how we feel. And with knowing the statistics I also brought up, if we indeed do have all those thoughts a day 60 to 70,000 thoughts a day, 90% of those being the same, and knowing that of those 70, 80% of those are producing the hormones of stress, and that of those, by the time we're 35, we're just, they're all like a subconscious.

Nika Lawrie: 28:19

Yeah.

Carole Murko: 28:20

So, yeah, right, so the program is basically designed to set up that model, so you really understand that, and then we do exercises to show you that. Look, okay, if you're feeling frustrated, right, then it might be a good idea to kind of work backwards and think like, what was I thinking? Did you have an expectation that wasn't met? Why was that expectation not met? Or if your actions aren't equal to your intentions, if your behaviors aren't matching your thoughts, you're really going to create probably a negative emotion, which then will create the hormones of stress. So we set that up, then we look at what stress does to our bodies, we really examine that, and then we spend time looking at the different parts of the brain that are aligned with, you know, our thinking, you know so it would be our neocortex, then our feeling brain, which is our limbic brain, and then the seat of our procedural memory or our habits, which is our cerebellum. And so what we really want to do is just know that we have I teach that we have all the hardware necessary to make conscious change, and then we look at the different brainwave states and then we do meditation. We also do touch on breath work, though, because breath work is the single easiest and fastest way to regulate your nervous system. Our bodies know the difference between regular, ordinary breath versus conscious breathing, even a simple box breath, and what happens is that as soon as it senses that you're doing a conscious breath, it activates the parasympathetic nervous system and begins to put us into rest and repair. So a lot of actually Dr Joe Dispenza's meditations start with a breath work and then we move into guided meditations or any you know walking meditations, whatever, like I believe in all of all meditations. So. But in Dr Joe's work specifically, specifically with NeuroChange Solutions, we teach people to go into their meditation, like actively creating what they want. So having that clear intention.

Carole Murko: 30:48

For me it was like I could see clearly, right. So for the first few couple of years I literally that. I went into my meditations with you know, my eyes are healed, I can see clearly. I had the gene for the disease, so I imagine the disease, the gene, being turned off, right, like if I turned it on. Somehow I'm going to turn it off, and so over time I didn't have a spontaneous remission, but my symptoms started disappearing and it wasn't like. It was like they were here and then they were gone. It was just all of a sudden, I was like, oh wait, like I don't have floaters anymore and I don't have this vitreous haze that just would like come up over me like out of randomly. If I went from a dark room to a light room, a light room to a dark room, my retinas would just go, so it looked like I was in a bad disco, yeah, and all of them disappeared, and I haven't been on any pharmaceuticals since, like early 2018. Since, like early 2018. And so everything you know that has happened to me is a result of doing this type of work.

Carole Murko: 32:07

Yeah, along with I mean, I think there are three things that I believe you need to heal. The first is you have to believe that you can. The second thing you need is you have to make radical changes, and so, you know, one radical change is, you know, meditating right, like actually like understanding the process of self-mastery and self-love. And then the last thing is, you know, after you know, believing and taking radical action is, if you become healed, then I believe there's a pact with the universe that we must become the healer, right.

Nika Lawrie: 32:43

Yeah, you got to get to teach it. Yes, I 100% agree with that. So a lot of times I hear people like we'll talk about starting a meditation routine or incorporating it into their lives and people will say I can't even, you know, sit by myself for two minutes. And I think a lot of that comes from just our overload of information all the time, and you know, our dopamine hits from social media scrolling and so it's hard to focus for longer than a couple minutes. How do you suggest or do you have any tips for people who are just starting to incorporate this to start to feel more comfortable and confident in themselves and their ability to be able to meditate?

Carole Murko: 33:29

Well, the first thing is journaling, right. So? So the reason why most people aren't successful at meditation is they can't get the monkey mind shut down right.

Carole Murko: 33:42

And so they kind of sit there and their to-do list or they had a fight with their husband or wife and they can't get out of that loop. So the first thing you do is you write all of it. You kind of write everything you're thinking about, Like, get it on paper so that it's cleared Right, Even if it's your to do list, you know, because you know sometimes I have like rushed into a meditation and all of a sudden it's like oh yeah, I got to do that and I'm like then I stop, yeah, OK.

Carole Murko: 34:14

You know, write this down, get it out of the way Clear. You know, write this down, get it out of the way clear, let's almost like clear the decks of your mind so that they're as empty as they could possibly be, and that will give you a more successful like opportunity in meditation. Because you're not and, by the way, you're still going to have thoughts, because we have all those thoughts, right, those 60 to 70,000 thoughts, you know. However, you know if they're not, you know if they come in and you basically say no, you go away. Right, I'm doing this right now. That is a successful meditation. Yeah, because what's happening during that process is one of the definitions of meditation, which is called know thyself. That's what the symbol means, right? So? So, all of a sudden, you're going to know thyself that this is a thought that wants to come in all the time, but now you're aware of it and you can stop it and and that is very, very successful and you just you might have to do that for weeks.

Nika Lawrie: 35:21

Yeah, but just keep at it, Keep, yeah, yeah. You know, for me one of the one of my favorite things about meditation is that it's it's the moment that I have to be able to kind of communicate with you know, the, the universe or God or the higher power, whatever it is out there, right, Like that higher energy. I feel like I get so much guidance and you know, and even like my grocery list will pass by as it's telling me to walk this way, down this journey, right, and so it's like I feel so much gratitude when I meditate because I'm like all the insecurities and fears I have about whatever it is I'm trying to do, I've gotten clear guidance or at least been given kind of that next step to take in the journey of whatever it is I'm trying to do, and so that's my favorite part of meditation, for sure. Yeah.

Carole Murko: 36:21

Well, and I love that you brought up gratitude, because gratitude has a very high frequency, and so it has been said that gratitude is the ultimate state of receivership. So when we can be in that state of gratitude, that's when we are open to receiving. And I often tell people who are struggling to start with, you know, and they say, but what if I'm not really great? I was like, well, how about starting with the windows, the windows for keeping the weather out and letting the light in? You know, like the chair you're sitting on the grass, that absorbs, you know, the sunlight. You know. And then, and I said, keep it that basic, because we have gotten so programmed not to pay any attention to all the miracles around us. And once you start actually becoming grateful for every little miracle, then it becomes way yeah.

Carole Murko: 37:23

Yeah, yeah, grateful right. I mean like really there's no end point to any to any of our anything it's just like. The end point is joy yeah I have.

Nika Lawrie: 37:44

So, um, two things I want. I want to tell a story because it made me think of something I experienced last night, what you were saying. So, um, I had kind of a frustrating evening last night. So my guest guest bathroom toilet started running we have to fix the little stopper thing to say that it's full and I told my husband about it two weeks ago and he hadn't fixed it. He's very busy, but he hadn't fixed it.

Nika Lawrie: 38:09

And, of course, like the on-off valve broke last night and so water was just running continuous and my husband's a pilot and so he flies at night sometimes, and so it was just my daughter and I at home and I am pretty handy, but I am by no means a plumber, and so I was like really frustrated. It was like eight o'clock at night. I'm trying to get her to finish her homework, I'm trying to finish up eating and get her ready for bed, and this water is like just running continuously, and so I had to YouTube how to fix it. And we had to go to the hardware store twice and I was so flustered, I was just really annoyed. And we're driving to the hardware store for the second time and my daughter says to me my daughter's, nine, mind you. She says to me you know, mama, when I'm really frustrated, the best thing that works for me is to think about all the good things that happen in my life. And I was just like I was stopped in my tracks when she said I was so proud. I'm going to tear up just thinking I was so proud of her for saying that and for recognizing that, and it it just led back to that.

Nika Lawrie: 39:14

You know those gratitude practices that when you can see all of the good things that are happening in your life, the difficult things, the challenges, the frustrating moments, kind of seem silly and obsolete. Right, and for a nine year old to be able to share that with me was just so beautiful. So, yeah, beautiful old soul, right, yeah, yeah, she's magical for sure, wow. So, so, yeah, beautiful soul, right, yeah, she, yeah, she's, she's magical for sure, wow. So, yeah, Tell me, tell me about how we can start to really shift. So I think a lot of people will get. You know we talked about this gratitude piece, but I think a lot of people will get stuck in these kinds of negative loops or kind of get mindset blocks. Do you have tools that we can use to kind of move past those blocks or break those cycles to then start to see the more positive thoughts or start shifting our thoughts or reframing our thoughts. I hope that made sense.

Carole Murko: 40:12

Yes, so I'm going to first talk about the concept of neuroplasticity, which is nerve cells that fire together wire together, and nerve cells that no longer fire together no longer wire together, and what that means is that we can actually prune synaptic connections so our brain can change, and so one way that works with a lot of people is understanding that we have the power to stop that loop right, because it's just a synaptic connection that's in their brain and the and they, you could actually like, just snip it right, you could, you just, and so you can self-coach yourself, you could just. I mean really saying the two words stop, it is super powerful. I mean, as simple and ridiculous as it might seem, like you are actually, by doing that, in the process of rewiring your brain. So, just to understand that concept that we can change our brain, just knowing it and I think this is too like the knowledge that that's how our brain works 20 years ago, 25 years ago, neuroplasticity hadn't really. It was beginning to become, you know, known, but it hadn't been studied as much as it's been now, and so the thought back then was you can't change right, and so so now science has proven we can change, and we could do it simply by saying stop it, or the best thing to do is like, when you're in loop, what do you want to replace it with right? So if you're so, having that replacement, thought and feeling, so that you have a new target, um, and I feel like that is really important.

Carole Murko: 41:58

And once you're conscious that you're in that thought, you're like you're right, I don't want to be there, I want to be whatever it is. You want to be right. So if you're feeling frustrated, you want to move from frustration to ease, right To flow. So then start imagining what flow looks like and what you would need to think and do to be in a flow state. And so it's really. You know, it's so keen to be aware and not analytical, so don't like, oh, I'm in that thought loop again, right, like, then you're judging yourself. So then you pile on another negative feeling. So you catch yourself and you're just like okay, I get it. Those thoughts are producing hormones of stress, and hormones of stress are addictive. So I just I need to stop them, and so I don't want to feel that way, I want to feel this way. So that is really so first, understanding neuroplasticity and next, having the target that you want to create when you're in the negative loops.

Nika Lawrie: 43:06

Yeah, it's funny, I you know I hadn't really thought about it, framed the way you just said it, but for me, the thing that really changed in my life to going from more of this like disease and kind of chaos, I would get a thought and then I would spiral with that thought and it would completely derail you know what I was working on or my whole day or whatever.

Nika Lawrie: 43:30

It would just make me really struggle. And the tool that I use is when I start to feel myself derailing, is I tell myself, nope, like we're just, we're just not gonna. That thought is not gonna help me, it's not gonna do anything, and so I intentionally shut it off and I, you know, I don't know if it's like people talk about pushing down their feelings, but I don't really feel like it's pushing down, it's like pushing it out, it's no longer allowed in the brain, and then I start to focus on something that's at kind of at a higher energy level, something that's more positive, and doing just that simple action or or skill, having that skillset, has profoundly changed my life and and my ability to, you know, follow my dreams or make things happen, and so it's really cool to hear it put in that more of a internal process, I guess inside your brain.

Carole Murko: 44:27

Yeah, yeah, and that's what's so cool is that we have everything we need in our own bodies right To create conscious, sustainable change and become anybody we want to become.

Nika Lawrie: 44:40

Absolutely.

Carole Murko: 44:42

And that's the takeaway, at least you know, from the NeuroChange Solutions and the Dr Joe Dispenza work. And then you know I think I mentioned that I teach Qigong and I have been practicing Qigong for many years Gong and I have been practicing Qi Gong for many years. And the whole traditional Chinese medicine space is, believe it or not, exactly the same as what Dr Jung teaches, because it's all quantum physics, it's all energy right.

Nika Lawrie: 45:07

It's ironic because it's kind of light years ahead of where, like Western medicine is in a weird way.

Carole Murko: 45:13

But yeah, it's ancient medicine still yeah, well, modern science is finally catching up. Yeah, exactly Like. Oh, now we could prove it, because we, you know, have a, you know a model and a site, you know the scientific method of inquiry and all this other stuff.

Carole Murko: 45:32

That's the language, that of science, that's the language of modern society right, yeah, right yeah, and, and now you know, I think you we had mentioned before we jumped on to the podcast that you would watch the source um documentary about the largest meditation studies in the world that are being done by dr joe dispensa and the. Initially, the researchers were very skeptical.

Nika Lawrie: 45:57

Very skeptical.

Carole Murko: 45:58

I mean like yeah, we're just like, ok, let's just get this guy out of our way. And then you know, they finally got around to like looking at all the the test samples and they ran them. And then the research assistant calls the head guys, like, there's a like, there's an event, which means a statistical event, and so it's been proven that if you meditate every day and you dedicate time to love yourself enough to do this, that you can change your blood markers for disease, you can upregulate your genes. I mean, it's just, it's proven in the laboratory. Now it's not just a trust me practice anymore, and I think that's why I love this work so much.

Nika Lawrie: 46:51

Yeah, that was probably the most profound part for me watching the documentary, because I saw Joe speak maybe a year ago at an event and I've, you know, I heard about his work probably in like 2018, 19, something like that, and I was curious. But I was also very skeptical because I, you know, you hear about these people that are like, do this and it'll save everybody. You know the quote, unquote shaman that you'll hear about, you know, in South America or something right, like, not trying to call out a specific area, but there's stories like that, and so you do have to be skeptical. But then, watching his presentation, he actually went through the research and, you know, broke down the data that's coming out from these studies. And then, watching the source documentary and seeing how skeptical the researchers that are now working side by, like they were worried this was going to ruin their career, right, like. And then they go and start, you know, taking blood samples and taking, you know, they, they, I don't know what it's called.

Carole Murko: 47:54

The EEGs yes, the.

Nika Lawrie: 47:56

EEGs. Yes, you know, and and looking at that and start to see serious change. Mind you, you also have, you know, hundreds, even thousands of people that are saying, yes, this changed my life, like, yes, this did X, y, z for my health, right, and I and, mind you, I think there are other factors that play a big role, like we've talked about nutrition and lifestyle and other things too. But understanding how big of a piece this really can be, and then now to have the science, the actual data, to back it up too, I think was, was so um, I don't know, just eyeopening and exciting, I think, is the best way to put it.

Carole Murko: 48:34

So, yeah, it's profound, actually the best way to put it yeah, it's profound actually. And the work with my clients, right, when I work with my clients, you know, either through like mini retreats or one-on-ones when they do the work, I mean I'm witness to miracles, right, because they're doing it and the thing is, and I'm a miracle, right, Like I did the work. So I think what happens if you're like well, you know it works for you, but it works for other people, but not me. I think a lot of people have that sort of like you know, I'm not a chosen person, right? It's like, no, you don't need to be chosen, you have to choose yourself.

Nika Lawrie: 49:17

Yeah, the irony is like, you know, we're humans, we all sort of work the same way, and so, yeah, if it's going to work, it's going to work, you know. So yeah, yeah. It's funny Absolutely Well, carol, I've got two final questions for you, but before I get to those, is there anything that we haven't touched on that you would like to share that you think is really important around this topic?

Carole Murko: 49:53

The only thing that I will share is that you know a good chunk of the planet moving towards love in that frequency that we can shift. You know the consciousness of, of all of our lives and and that's really, I feel, like, the message. You know we didn't talk about love, but love is, by far and above, like the most important element I believe in, in the, in the universe.

Nika Lawrie: 50:23

Yeah, I hundred percent agree. I think it's so important. Love and kindness for me is is one of my top values, and I think kindness and love really go hand in hand together. So I definitely agree, carol. Where can people find you? How can they connect with you and hear about all your good work?

Carole Murko: 50:42

Great my website, which is loveeathealcom. Love yourself first. Eat consciously. Heal what needs to be healed. Always welcome an email. It's carol C-A-R-O-L-E at loveyhealcom and that's generally the best way to reach me.

Nika Lawrie: 51:04

I'll put everything in the show notes.

Nika Lawrie: 51:07

So, carol, before I get to my last question, I just want to thank you and recognize you for the work that you're doing. I think it's really important and there's so many people out there that need that care and support to heal through traumas or even just to shift their thought patterns. Even if they haven't been through like a big T trauma, those everyday little traumas can really, you know, put us in a in a dark space. Yeah, they do add up, definitely, and so I, I just I commend you for the work you're doing, and so thank you very, very much. Yeah, so last question for you I ask every guest what is something that you have either learned or experienced?

Carole Murko: 51:49

that inspired you, that you'd like to share with others. I learned an experience that we all have the power to heal. I mean, really that's it. I mean it sounds simple but it's. You know, healing is within our power, and so I think that's it. I mean it's that.

Nika Lawrie: 52:09

Yeah, I totally agree. It's, you know, healing's everything, and it's within our power. So definitely, yeah, yeah. Well, carol, thank you so much for sharing all your knowledge and taking the time to be on the show. I really appreciate it, oh.

Carole Murko: 52:24

Nika, it was really. It was my, the pleasure was all mine, and I think what you're doing is just so fabulous for your listeners and I'm just so honored to be on your podcast. So thank you, thank you, I appreciate it Welcome.