Meet Catherine Duncan, MA, BCC, a spiritual director and author, who shares her profound insights on spirituality, neuroplasticity, sound healing, and her new book “Everyday Awakening.” From a near-death experience to guiding others, Catherine’s story is a testament to the power of embracing life fully and finding peace, love, and meaning in every moment. MysticMag has the pleasure.
What led you down this spiritual path in life and what were your professional beginnings like?
My path started at 11 years old when I was facing my death. I was suddenly very ill and diagnosed with cancer. The doctors told my parents that I had a 20% chance to survive and starting intensive treatments I quickly felt like I was living on the edge. I was living on a tightrope between life and death. Out of nowhere, I started to pray. Prayer and faith up until then had meant nothing to me. My prayer was – could I live to be 20 years old? Not long after, a feeling of deep peace poured through my body and a knowing that I was going to live. I also felt the presence of something greater with me that I called God. This cracked me open and started me on the path of self-reflection and exploring what it means to be alive.
After college, I started out in the business world in advertising. While working in advertising I continued to voraciously read books on life, meaning, and purpose. After living through a Near-death experience white water rafting in Costa Rica, fifteen years after working in advertising, I walked away from the corporate world to listen to where I was being called. This led me to study theology and spiritual direction and become a spiritual director, chaplain, and now a self-help author.
What does it mean to be a spiritual director and how can you help people in such a role?
My training as a spiritual director has informed all the areas of my work to this day. The core training as a spiritual director is how do you meet the person on their path. As a spiritual director, you walk with people as they explore and open into what gives them life and meaning. It is a sacred path walking with another person as they open into their heart and soul.
Having faced my death 2 times and walking with thousands of people in transition, upheaval, and end of life, I feel called to work with people who want to open into their souls where deep peace, love, and joy reside.
What energy healing techniques do you use?
I am certified in neuroplasticity training, tapping (EFT), Reiki healing, qigong, and sound healing, and I share these modalities with my clients.
What is neuroplasticity and how does it work?
We now know that our mind is plastic. What we think, feel, and our environment is shaping our brains all day long. We can rewire our brains. Here are the four steps across all the major neuroplasticity models:
1. Identify what is the negative thought, loop, that is continually running in your mind. It may be an anxious thought, fearful thought, rumination. When you can come into the present moment, and tune in and name the negative thought, limbic loop, that is running, this will calm your nervous system.
2. Can you name the feeling present? Hold curiosity and breathe and notice what is arising. When you name the feeling present this calms your nervous system.
3. Take a few minutes and breathe into this feeling. Feelings are not permanent, and when we feel them they move through our body and dissipate.
4. Now grow the good, marinate in the positive. Here are a few ideas, work with a positive affirmation – ex. In this moment, I am okay, I am strong and resilient.
Pick a warm and fuzzy image or memory and marinate with this image. When you are marinating with this positive image, memory, you are creating positive new neural pathways in your brain and the negative neural pathway is dissipating and will drop away.
Can you walk me through one of your sound healing sessions?
I start with a short breath exercise to bring my client into this moment and open into some space and stillness. The first sound healing session will include short singing of my 5 sound healing bowls that range the scale of our 7 chakras. I invite the client to feel what is there, and breathe, and open. Sound healing is a powerful healing modality to lower stress, anxiety, blood pressure, and bring deep peace and calmness, and centering into our beings.
What can you tell me about your work as an author?
My first book, Everyday Awakening, launched nationwide on July 11, 2023. Everyday Awakening, Five Practices for Living Fully, Feeling Deeply and Coming into Your Heart and Soul is about what it means to be fully alive right now. We’re yearning for more peace, love, meaning, and embodied aliveness. We’re yearning for awakening. Awakening is often portrayed as mysterious, complicated, and dramatic or something that requires traveling to a distant country and sitting at the feet of an enlightened guru. But it’s actually something we can choose to do, by engaging in five simple and profound practices: Coming back to the present moment, Connecting with something greater, Growing our trust, Embodying love, Holding openness. In our fast-paced, turbulent world, it’s often hard to feel vibrantly alive. Constantly living from our minds has led to overwhelming feelings of stress, anxiety, and depression—often manifesting as chronic health conditions. Everyday Awakening integrates the best of spirituality, neuroscience, psychology, and therapy so you can change how you embrace every day, every moment, and every choice.
If you are hungering for more, more life, love, peace, and ease, Everyday Awakening is the book for you with 42 exercises that lead you into your heart and soul. For more information and orders, visit www.learningtolive.org/everydayawakening
To learn more about Catherine and her work, you can visit www.learningtolive.org and www.facebook.com/LearningToLiveLLC
