You are listening to Get Booked with me, Hazel Butterfield, for Women's and Men's Radio Station, and welcome to today's show. Now, on today's show, we're going to be discussing The Inner Champion by Kathleen Quinlan. A 7-week practical guide to peace, happiness, and miracles. You have the right to awaken to the true power that comes from your relationship with the inner champion. You also have the responsibility to let this awakening happen for you. Now more than ever, it is essential for us to reclaim the limitless creative freedom that is natural for us when we align ourselves with our true self. It is increasingly evident in our lives and in our world that we are facing complex problems that have no viable solutions we can draw upon from the limitations of our ordinary experience. The Inner Champion will help us let go of beliefs that tell us we are powerless to change what clearly violates our right to peace and safety and show us the reality of love and its power. Kathleen Quinlan, the author, is a licensed clinical social worker who has been practicing for more than 30 years. Her postgraduate experience with world-renowned psychiatrist Milton H. Erickson, MD, and years of study in a variety of spiritual traditions, including A Course in Miracles, helped her create a unique synergy of clinical and spiritual approaches to healing. Kathleen has developed and administered many clinical programs in both the public and private sectors, including interventions for breast cancer, infertility, HIV/AIDS, and veterans with PTSD. Her work has helped many discover the role of the inner self as a powerful champion for transformation and the fulfillment of our dreams of freedom. Kathleen continues to maintain a counseling practice in Las Vegas, Nevada. You can find out more at kathleenquinlan.com. She also has various podcasts on apple.com. Just search out The Inner Champion. Today's author is published by Leschenault Press and the Book Reality Experience, who publish new authors from across the globe. You can check out their latest titles at bookreality.com and subscribe to their Book Realities podcast on Spotify, Acast, or your usual podcast platform, and tune in to their dedicated YouTube channel to hear more interviews with authors. They are always on the lookout for fresh new stories in all genres, and yes, they are open for submissions. Leschenart Press and Book Reality—great stories for great authors. Now it's that time of Get Booked to chat to today's guest about searching out our inner champion. The Inner Champion by Kathleen Crinlan, a 7-week practical guide to peace Happiness and Miracles is about going back to our roots, who we were before life happened and the world told us otherwise, about reconditioning what we think we have learned that is stopping us being what we can be and actually what we need to be, to harness that innate power we do have that is or can be buried quite deep down through whatever trauma or life lessons, experiences have affected our current understanding of ourself. This book looks to reconfigure what we think we deserve, stripping back what life, our mistakes, and society has told us. It is delivered to us in daily, easily achievable steps with an associated meditation that can utilize— you can utilize it as much as of your time as you wish to and what is available to you. It's perfectly put to us. I thoroughly enjoyed working my way through it. Kathleen, hi, thank you for joining us on Get Booked. Oh, Hazel, hello, it's wonderful to talk with you. Yeah, you too. Now I've been working through this book, and, um, am I right in thinking that the book's main aim is to break down learned negative behavior and get back to a better us? Yes, you know, um, the, the inner, the inner self is a, is a powerful reality that most people are, uh, are, are simply unknown to. We get so, uh, we get so intensely involved with the demands of our daily life. Yeah, that we really don't, we really don't pay attention to or recognize the presence of this Great Self that we— that's within us, the true self that we are. Um, that self is the eternal limited part of us that we, that we have before we come into the physical world. It's the true self that we are, um, a pure state of limitless loving power that is what we were created to be. But we step away from that power when we come into the physical world and as you said so beautifully, you begin to accept society's, uh, um, judgments about what you are, and certainly, uh, take on the opinions of those around you as you grow up. And essentially, the personality becomes deeply cluttered with and distorted because of ideas about itself that have nothing to do with what we really are. I read quite a similar concept of a book, but also not as spiritual as, um, your book, The Inner Champion. And I don't know whether you've come across it, but I'd love you to go and research it. It's called Be More Kid, and it's written by, um, a couple of psychologists and a radio host. And it's trying to get us back to our roots, who we were and what we wanted to be before the world and adulthood kind of got in the way. And it's trying to get us to harness the attitude and the outlook we had towards life when we were kids, you know, that we were invincible and that we could be anything. You know, if you wanted to be an astronaut, you know, you wore the outfit and you were convinced you were going to be an astronaut. And then as life happens, we think we've got limitations, and we have limitations imposed by ourselves and imposed by people who sometimes we shouldn't even have respect for their opinions. Yes, right. Yeah, yeah, you're absolutely right. I'm not familiar with that book, but certainly when we are very, very young, we still carry with us the knowledge of where we came from, the, the power, the innocence, particularly the, the joy and the creative freedom that, uh, that we experience and, and we still know about when we're very, very young. Um, it's typical with what you see in young children, and it's something that gets educated out of us Essentially what happens is that we, we come into the physical world, um, because we wanted to see what it would be like to be different from the nature of our own free, creative, powerful, loving being. And so we come in when we're born, um, and in the words of Wordsworth, we come in trailing clouds of glory, you know, which is the remembrance of the love that we are and the freedom and the, and the extraordinary joyous abilities that we have at that level. But as you're saying, once we, um, once we are born into a family, we begin to, um, uh, we're looking for the love that we remembered and the freedom that we have, but, uh, we're seeking that love from, uh, from parents who have their own ideas about what we should be. And we, we accept, uh, their limitations and their, uh, the deep sense of, um, uh, separation that they've carried into their own experience. And so we begin to form our personality around, uh, the expectations and the limits of those who are, you know, in our family and, and who are responsible for, uh, for helping us grow and develop. And that becomes then, um, a powerful beliefs that actually is like a, like a computer program. It's like a, a template that becomes very, very intransigent and distorted relative to what we actually are. And that, um, that template sits between the inner self, which is the energy that forms our, our bodies and our, our experience, and our physical experience. And we, uh, as we, as we grow up, um, we, we incorporate the experiences that we have, like loading data into a computer program. And out of that data, then we develop ideas that become very, very powerful beliefs and determinants. Um, and so our experience gets created because the inner self flows through those ideas that we have and that are very distorted, and we get an experience that's, uh, that's exactly what's held in that template. And so the inner self, uh, becomes our champion in the sense that it's an advocate for us to, to learn and become aware of its presence and to let that presence then undo the distortions, the limitations, the, um, the fears and the judgments that we've accumulated throughout our life and replace that with the truth about ourselves, which is that we are worthy of everything and we have a right to a life that's filled with happiness and authority and, uh, peace, and, uh, is quite different from the one that we have come to believe is real on this level. Well, it's about harnessing a positive mental attitude as well, because whether it is unwittingly or not, you know, I know my parents did it, I know that I sometimes done it with my children, that we, we sometimes project things that we've learned ourselves onto other people, or maybe we've been disappointed in our life and we want to protect our own children from feeling the same disappointment. And so it's just, it's so hard to sometimes decipher What is protecting the people you love and what is teaching them limitations? It's about, you know, we need to reconfigure what we think is right. And I think especially in the last few years, I think we've predominantly been focusing on mental health and the power of the language we use towards ourselves. I mean, I know I have— I've read some fantastic books on the language we use, not just to ourselves but to other people as well. And, you know, when my children, they you know, they just, they say things like, oh, I'm rubbish at football, I can't pass, I can't do this, I'm not fast enough. And I just say, yet. You might not be fast enough yet, but that's not the end of the story. You can do anything you want to do, but you've got to put the effort in, you know. And I think language is so powerful. And, you know, as you talk about in The Inner Champion, you know, there is nobody else on the planet we will speak more to than ourselves, and we need to make sure we're saying the right things to ourselves. Yes, exactly, exactly. And in, in reality, the inner self as our champion, as the part of us that wants to return us to what we actually are, it speaks to us and is guiding us all the time, but its voice is compassionate and loving. And most of us choose instead, as you're suggesting, to listen to the ego, you know, that's telling us all the time that, you know, we're not as good as we think we are, and we're not going to be able to achieve what we want in our life, and we have no right to be happy, and we need to pay attention to the chaos around us because that demands our attention, and it's real. And the voice of the inner self, uh, in contrast, is, uh, is not what we should be paying attention to. Well, I suppose the chaos around us— that is why I'm assuming you integrate so much meditation into your practice, because that quietens the noise and helps us actually listen to what we're trying to say to ourselves. And, and what you were just saying then, is that what you mean by splitting away from the inner self. Splitting away from the inner self, yes. Uh, I mean, what— that's exactly what happens when we, uh, when we're born in the physical world. We have stepped away from the reality, uh, that we are the love and the power and the creative freedom that we are, and we adopt the limitations and the, uh, the sense of failure and the fear and the belief in chaos that is so typical for what our experience is right now. And so meditation is very, very important, either in the way that I have described it and used it in my book, which can be short, you know, and simple but powerful, or, you know, more lengthy opportunities when we have to really step back and quiet ourselves and perhaps listen to music and Let the inner self bring us back from the battleground, so to speak, and the, um, the distortions that we carry about ourselves. And let our— let it educate, re-educate us to the, the nurturing and the, um, uh, the power and the support that we have within us that, um, that is very, very easy to get distracted from and not pay attention to. I just want to point out to all of our listeners as well, because there are some people who completely get meditation. There's, there's people that have practiced it and they're, they're good at it and they're good at quieting the mind. But to those that are listening and are thinking, right, I, I can't meditate, I, I find it hard, I can't just stop and sit still for 10, 15 minutes, you don't have to sit still and stop. You can literally just go out and quickly weed the garden while you're doing it. You just need to be doing something mindless. It can be walking to the shops, you know, the 10-minute walk. That can be meditative as long as you've not got the kids going, 'Mummy, Mummy, what's the meaning of life?' Yes, right, exactly, exactly. No, it doesn't have to be long. And, uh, what you're describing too is, is important in the sense that It's— we need to remember we have a choice when we, uh, when we close our eyes or when we step back and hold expectations for the day, which, uh, which is— it's very important to set expectations for what you want in during your day. And we only have two, two, uh, parts of ourselves that we can give responsibility to for guiding us through the day. We can give it to the inner champion to, um, to guide us and direct us, uh, direct our actions and thoughts and our, our feelings so that we are, um, we have the intention of having our day be filled with, uh, with happiness. Or we can listen to the ego, listen to our, our old ideas about ourselves that, uh, that are not part of what we are. Yeah. And let ourselves get distracted by, um, the expectations of others and, and learned limitations that we carry with us. So no, you don't have to sit for a long period of time. The, the inner self is very, very responsive to our desire for happiness and, and peace of mind and safety. Those things are in line with our birthright. And so as we ask for that, the inner self will respond very, very quickly. But we need to be somewhat disciplined in staying with that teacher through the day rather than letting ourselves get distracted by again, the ego that isn't interested in our well-being. Well, we are very busy, we are all very distracted, which is why I like the way you've put the book together. It's, you know, it's a, it's a 7-week practical guide where, you know, each day there's something to do which can be a matter of a couple of minutes. Nothing's overwhelming. It's very easy to kind of, even if you skipped a day, in theory you could just do 2 days in one. It is— to be honest, it's one of those things you could even keep in the bathroom, you know. There's always— if you feel like you need to multitask. Yes, yes. But what I'm quite interested in is I've seen that you've previously done a meditative, um, practice for— that focuses on children. Would you consider making this an audible program where people could just stop and start and, you know, they could do it on their commute, on the way into work, on the way to the supermarket, on the way back from dropping heads off. Would you consider doing that? Yes, you know, as a matter of fact, I, um, uh, I created a, a meditation for children that's relatively short called The Land of Love many years ago. And, um, it's, it's— although it was created for children initially who were physically or sexually abused, um, and who couldn't go see a counselor or, you know, participate even in play therapy It was designed to gently set aside the, the infant or the toddler's waking consciousness, and take them to a place within them, called, which we call the land of love, where their fairy godmother, which is the personification of the inner self and the inner champion, takes them into her, her castle. And gives them a new heart and releases some of the fears that they have, gives them a— opens up the top of their head and pours in a golden liquid of positive, powerful, loving, supportive ideas about themselves, and then also gives them a, a beautiful purple shield that keeps them safe, that keeps them knowing that they're connected to the fairy godmother and to the innocence of their own being. It reminds them of their— the joy of their creativity and, and the goodness that each child has within them. And that meditation has become broadly used by, by therapists, by other people. Not just for infants and toddlers, but for older children. And then eventually parents began to use the meditation as well. I think I'd like to use it as well. Oh yes, yes. We— I actually used it with, uh, with a group that I did with combat vets who have a lot of difficulty overcoming, uh, the trauma of having been in battle. And so when they go to bed at night, um, their sleep is, is usually marred or patronized by lots of memories of their powerful experiences. So in the groups that I've done with combat vets, we've actually used the meditation of the Land of Love. And I remember in one, uh, in one class that we had, listening to, um, one of the Marine sergeants in the back of the room say, 'No, I don't want you guys to object to what she's saying about the Land of Love because the Fairy Godmother is now helping me sleep peacefully every single night.' See, the thing is I, I know that I would like to listen to this practice, but because I've read The Inner Champion, I think I'll start giggling knowing that you actually dressed as the fairy godmother. That was, that was really a funny story because, um, and a good example of how the, the meditation is supposed to work for children or, or for adults. The little girl across the street from me had been traumatized by an intruder into the family home, and she was about 18 months old at the time and wasn't able to sleep very well after that. And so her mother asked me to, to make the Land of Love available to her, and she used it for several years. And was able to sleep. And actually, the trauma that she had been experiencing that was evident even during the day was, was beautifully healed. So for her third birthday, her mother asked that I dress up as Princess Leia and come over and participate in the birthday party. And, you know, I was very worried about that because I thought, oh my goodness, this child knows me and she's going to know that, you know, this Kathleen from across the street. But I did go dressed up as the fairy godmother, and it was very, very interesting because she never realized that I was the neighbor across the street. The next day, I went over to her home for a family dinner, and she looked up at me and said, "I wish you had been here yesterday. Princess Alea came, and it was just so wonderful." like powerful. No, I was giggling all the way through and I thought that's really sweet. But, and, and before that I was thinking I'd really like to listen to, to this practice, but I just think I'd probably giggle knowing that, you know, you, you weren't dressed as a fairy godmother. Yes, don't put it in your car, um, because it tends to put people asleep very, very easily. Oh, that's good to know. Yes. Yeah. Now you were talking then about power of purple. I assume it's extremely intentional, the COVID of your book. Yes, definitely, definitely. I mean, the purple has always been associated with the, with the experience of healing, you know. In, in a lot of traditional, uh, Christian, uh, religions, the color purple is used when there are sacraments and other kinds of experiences related to forgiveness. Um, but for, uh, in, in a deeper spiritual sense, in a metaphysical sense, the, the use of, of the color purple was meant to signify the introduction of the miraculous. And so that color is very, very powerful when used in meditation, particularly when you are asking for the inner self to, to end the the whatever past trauma you may be holding that gives you pain, that, that, uh, that keeps you from really experiencing the, the, uh, the loving support of the inner self. Wow. I mean, the thing is, it's— I, I love the idea that the book is focusing on just harnessing your inner, your inner power, your inner knowledge, and your inner strength and just trying to beat down— there's so many negative thought processes that are just taking over people's psyche. And it's not, it's not something you can suddenly go, right, I'm going to stop thinking negatively now. That doesn't happen. You have, you have to practice it and you've got to relearn something. But you know, nothing that is worth anything is, is as easy, but you appreciate it more once you've worked it's hard to achieve it. Um, I'm interested, do you get much feedback from the book as to what people's favorite chapter is? Uh, yeah, you know what, I will tell you that, uh, one of the things that, that many people say they, they remember very well and they, they continue to use in their own life after finishing the book and the, and the guide is the set point for happiness. Because We— I talk about the way in which the inner self, um, as our champion, wants us very much to understand that happiness is our birthright. We were created to be happy. And so as we go through the process of growing spiritually and psychologically and emotionally and feeling the presence of the inner self as a reality more and more, it will want to show itself, evidence of its presence within us, more and more the more we trust it. And when that happens, the experiences that we have begin to be much, much happier than they had been previously. But what, what happens then is that as we grow up, we have developed an idea about how much happiness we're going to allow ourselves. So when we grow spiritually, what happens is that, that, that set point that was established as we were growing up, um, it has to flex. It has to get, uh, broader and deeper and stronger. And we need to be aware of that because if we don't recognize that we are allowing ourselves much more happiness than we did previously because we have a right to that, then our egos will try to pull us back to some, something happening in our, in our daily life that will pull us back from and, and away from our happiness. It will, for example, you'll get a new car, you'll find a scratch on it, or something will, you know, after you've had some time of exuberance and joy about something, the, the ego, because it's not interested in our happiness, it's interested our, in our unhappiness and our, our, um, our continued belief in our distortions about it ourselves, it will want to create a situation which will dampen that experience or draw us away from it. And so it is important to know that happiness is our birthright, and as we grow spiritually, it's important to accept, uh, the expansion of that happiness as something that we can look forward to. Well, the book does serve as a good reminder as to what we should watch out for, what isn't working for us, and what's not got our best interests at heart. Yes, yes. I think day 15, that was my favorite. The Power of Becoming What You Desire. Oh, okay. I really enjoyed that. It's just, it's one of those ones where I've read a few times. In fact, towards the end of the show and I would like to just read that out to our listeners so we can get a little bit of an idea of how the book is put together and how you work through it. I, I think the listeners will hopefully love that page as much as I do. Oh, okay. And something else I do want to talk to you about, and it's, uh, just to kind of help our listeners understand a little bit more the concept that you describe on page 70, which is day 37, lucid dreaming and the experience of creativity. Oh yes, oh my goodness, yes, yes. That one of the things that, that, um, we learn as we begin to discover the presence of the, of the inner self and its role as our champion is that it has been— it, it will insert ourselves into our lives continuously wanting us to learn about its presence and about, about our power, because it's so common for people to believe that they're, that they're victims, that they're separate from the inner self and powerless to, to really use creative authority in our lives. And so the, the lucid dream was definitely an intervention by my own inner self. To, um, to show me the, the power that we have to create our own experience. And I'll tell you just, just very briefly what happened with it. I, um, I, I was in a bookstore and a book literally fell out from a top shelf and hit me in the head. And, um, it was about the nature of personal reality, written by a very famous author named Jane Roberts.. And in it she talks about lucid dreaming as a way of understanding our power, because in the lucid dream state you take your waking consciousness into your dream and you become, uh, you, you realize you're as awake in, in the dream state as you are, um, you know, in your daily life. And so because in the dream, we're not, uh, we don't have the density that we do at this level. When you ask for something, you get it right away. And so I tried, you know, I also, I would say that lucid dreaming is something that is so respected as a method of, um, really understanding what your power is that Stanford University in the United States continues to have a department of lucid dreaming, as far as I know. And so I knew that it was important for me to, to try to have a lucid dream. And I did, you know, several for about a week. I kept going to bed saying, you know, I want to take my, my waking consciousness into the dream state. And I repeatedly was not able to do it until I really decided I, I must have the power to do this if, if others do as well. And so I did wake up that night in, uh, in my dream, uh, fully conscious, but also knowing that I was having, that I was having a dream. And initially, because of we take our beliefs with us wherever we are, including in the dream state, um, I was still feeling a lot of guilt about something that had happened when I was working as a child protection supervisor. And so initially what I was seeing in the dream was frightening. And what I started to hear was, you can change your reality at any time, you can change the picture at any time. And as I accepted that, the voice of my inner self directing me to to set my expectation differently in the dream state, the scene would change. And so what happened then was that I recognized that my intention would have the power to exchange what I was experiencing as fearful into something that was joyous. And so when I finally was wanting to go back to my own bed, I said that. And Hazel, what happened was that I immediately saw 7 different beds that were, that were made up each somewhat differently. And I dove into literally, again, in the dream state, the one that was most like my own. And what happened was a wall of darkness appeared right in front of, you know, the bed that I was in. And the bed lifted up, and I found myself soaring, you know, in my dream body, um, through the dark, and gradually coming then from that darkness and from that state of being in a dream body through the, um, through the regeneration of my physical body and the cellular structure, and then landed in my own bed in, in the physical state. And so, you know, I pinched myself and wondered, you know, was this the same body in the same, you know, physical space that I was in before I was in the dream? And it was. And I realized that what it must have looked like was the— from Battle— from, you know, the Battlestar Galactica request of the captain to beam me down, Scotty, because, you know, I went through— I went through the experience of consciously knowing what it was like to, to recreate the physical body once again, which was very, very powerful. And it was a very powerful gift from my own inner self because so much of my early practice involved working with people, and, and still does actually, who have chronic or, or catastrophic illness. And it was meant to show me that The physical body has its origin in the, uh, in the energetic state, um, the energy body that surrounds our, our physical body. And so we can change that structure when we wish to, and that's part of the authority that we have. Well, undoubtedly we are capable of amazing things on so many different levels of consciousness. Yes, I mean, you know, it is similar to being hypnotized and just how much we're capable of and how much we don't know about the brain. If you think about it, most people are probably not even using 1% of the capability of what their body is, is capable of. And it's just, it's mind-blowing, isn't it? Yeah, yes, yes. We're meant to really return to the, the awareness of, uh, what we actually are. And the limitlessness of our own natural state of being, especially now, you know, when so many people are struggling with what they perceive to be so many solutionless problems. But, you know, whether it's a physical problem in terms of an illness or a political problem or the more, more global issues related to the kind of world that we're in at the moment, much of what we're seeing to the physical self, to the personality, seems to be solutionless. And yet that is why we're experiencing, you know, at this time so much motivation to return to the inner champion, the self within us, for whom there are no limitations in terms solutions. And there are many, many solutions that are powerful and available to us at that level that are not available to us based on our individual history. Well, that's just based on people having, um, fixed mindsets because they keep on being told that they— that that is what they have. And we need, we need to be a little bit more open. So before we run out of time, there is something else I want to address with you as well. Page 14, you address repressed anger and the role it has in, in dealing with searching out our inner champion. We, we have so much anger at ourselves that can just dampen our abilities and actually our self-worth. Yes, I'm so glad you brought this up because that it's, it's most important to understand that as we grow up, um, we, we have a strong, strong tendency to suppress powerful emotions. Particularly anger. And a lot of people think that simply because we don't express the anger that it doesn't stay with us, but it does. So I often say to people, and, and it's powerful in terms of affecting, um, our health and, and our well-being and our happiness and our ability to be empowered in our life because it sits like a dense weight within I often tell people that if I open up the top of their head and lifted out the template of their belief structure and the consciousness that's being used to determine what their life is like, you know, at the time, you'd see areas of, you know, like looking at an X-ray or something, you'd see areas of brilliance where people are allowing themselves to be loved and understand their worth. But you would also see a big, dark, dense area that is the energy of long-held suppressed anger that, uh, weights one down and creates a painful tyranny from the past. And so it's most important to allow yourself to understand that, that, that weight is very likely there from, you know, sometimes decades of not expressing anger that you have felt on so many occasions throughout your life. And there, there are powerful ways of getting— of releasing that anger. And one way that I would strongly recommend that I use very, very often with people is to get yourself time alone, you know, where you're— you have completely private time to yourself for at least half an hour, although the exercise doesn't take that long. But what you do is, it's very, very simple, and it will allow the release of a lot of pent-up suppressed anger that again is, is very much a burden on our being. What you do is you take a, you stand, you take a physical stance like a warrior, get yourself alone. And this is a physical exercise. But what you do is you open your mouth and you open, you know, the area of the throat that is so powerful for all of us. You open your mouth and you take a pillow and you stand in front of something that you're not going to hurt. And you just, you open your mouth and you begin to bellow, I'm so angry, I'm so furious. And you don't even need to know exactly, you don't need to be angry at the time. This is just a— this is an exercise that you're doing. You just bellow and you say, I'm so— I'm furious, and you allow that anger to be expressed. Sometimes people will then, like priming a pump, begin to say, I'm angry about this, or whatever, and a lot may come up, but that isn't necessary. What happens is that the inner self sees that you have the attention and the desire to release that powerful past energy, and it will literally send out big hunks of that debris energetically from yourself. And, you know, as you use the pillow, you use your physical self to strike it against something so that you're using your full physical strength. And what happens is that density, over time, if you repeat it perhaps, uh, you when you have the opportunity to do so several times, it will— the inner self will discharge that energy. And because you desire to have that done, and it will transmute that energy back into the love that you are. And there's often a very, very strong feeling of relief and, uh, peace and empowerment once that, uh, that energy gets released. Very, very powerful. It takes just a couple of minutes. You just bellow, um, you know, for a few minutes your furor. Use the pillow strongly against something you're not going to hurt. And, you know, after a minute or two, the inner self will have released a great deal of what has tyrannized you. Do you know what? That sounds so incredibly cathartic. And I would— I mean, I, I live in, in London, and the idea of finding somewhere where I could scream. And I don't mean, ah, I mean literally like a gurgling scream, because if you get that out, it would be incredible. I mean, I had a friend the other day and she's just so angry at the moment, you know, life is just really getting to her. And I'm like, you just need to scream. But there's nowhere, you know, even if you went to a local— like, we've got some fantastic parks in South West London, you're gonna be heard and people are gonna think you're being attacked. Um, but I I would— I want— this is, this is like a business idea. We need booths, right? That are called— oh, what a wonderful— yes, yes. I will tell you, I will tell you something though, Hazel. Um, when people have told me, clients and students and so on, I'm not going to be able to find the time or the space or the opportunity to do it, it's very, very— because my experience with people has been that when you really want to do and the universe will, your inner self will clear the decks for you. For example, I had one woman who persistently said, no, no, no, I really can't do this because, you know, my house is too crowded. And then I told her, if you really want to, you know, it will happen. And the next day she went home and it was a Saturday morning and all of her family members had left her notes saying, we're going to be gone for half an hour. And so she had the opportunity. I would love that opportunity. And we've never had the police called. I mean, sometimes people say, oh my God, my neighbors will hear me, or they'll, they'll think I'm being attacked. But, you know, I, I believe that, again, the inner self will— or because this is such a powerful, healthy thing for us to do, I believe that the inner self basically says stand back to the universe and creates a sacred space that is not going to be be interfered with or punished when you are doing something that's so powerful for your own growth. Yeah, I write notes throughout my Get Booked interviews on things to check out once, once the interview is done, with things to go and check out, authors and, and whatnot. And I've just scribbled down Google screaming booths. Wonderful idea. That is a wonderful idea. Yes. Yes. Uh, right, so Kathleen, we are running out of time, but I do— I've got a couple of questions that I do like to ask all my guests here for Get Booked, and, uh, I, I know that my listeners love this section. So my first one is for 3 top tips on trying to achieve a good level of mental well-being. Yes, yes. Okay, so I would say, certainly I would say, um, be conscious of the presence of your inner self as a, as a reality, a powerful reality within you, you know, because we tend to think of ourselves as separate from, from love and from power and from support. And so as you can discover your relationship with your inner self as your champion, that's certainly going to provide you with, with a lot of support for continued well-being. I would also say, uh, learn— as you learn to trust it, practice giving complex problems to the inner self. Um, so much of our distress and our anxiety and our fear come from trying to deal with complex problems using the, you know, the history that we have, you know, from our physical experience. And more and more, that not going to be enough to solve what's in front of us. So when you're confronted with something that is clearly— has lots of moving parts, seems very, very complicated and difficult, that should become a trigger for you to, to know, no, I'm not going to be able to solve this on my own. Give it to the inner self, and you'll be surprised to to see that its intervention is available to you and step aside and let it clearly come through for you. You don't know unless you try. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. Um, and I, I guess my third suggestion would be that, um, it is so important to know that, that peace and safety, happiness and miracles are our birthright, and that we shouldn't settle for any less than that. That, you know, the, the notion of those aspects, uh, those attributes as being part of our birthright is very foreign to, uh, to the experience we have as human beings with such limitation and suffering and chaos in our lives. And so it really takes an education to be able to begin to understand that those peace and safety and happiness and miracles are literally our birthright. And so we need to be honest with ourselves as we move forward in our life and admit to ourselves when, you know, when we're frustrated or when, uh, you know, we're, we are suffering because of certain, uh, things that are happening in our life that are, that are making us fearful and, um, anxious or perhaps depressed, and recognize that this needn't be, you know, that, that this is a violation literally of, of our birthright, and we need to ask and have the expectation that we can get the support that we need to return to what is our right. I love that. I think we just need to remember sometimes that we need to treat ourselves as well as we would treat people that we love. Oh yes, yes, absolutely, yes. And finally, um, Something that I do often ask on this show is for our guests to state someone that they admire in the public eye so we can look at the positivity of what we're seeing publicly. Yeah, at the risk of, um, of being political here, in the United States we've got a lot of conflict now, a lot of division, and there is a There's a member of the House of Representatives whose name is Liz Cheney, who has been standing up to a lot of the corruption and violence and misinformation that has been an untruth that has been typified in a lot of what we're seeing in the media and a lot of what is being expressed in her own her Republican Party. And she has been on what's called in the US now the January 6th Committee to evaluate what happened in our country when the current election was being fought literally by the former president. And it's taken enormous courage for Liz Cheney to be able to stand up to those in her party who want to deny what's happened. And in spite of that, she's had the courage to, um, to stand for what she believes in and her responsibility for defending the Constitution. It's very powerful to see. I love that, that the more that people are courageous and stand up, the more it paves the way and makes it easier for other people to do the same. Oh yes, yes, I love that. And now I very briefly, just before we end today's interview, you've contributed to, um, an anthology called Forgiveness Is the Hardest Thing, which I, I think is fantastic. I love the, the concept of the book. And tell us just a little bit about your contribution to this anthology. Yes, um, forgiveness, uh, is one of the things that I think people most have difficulty with in terms of letting the inner self return one to the, the innocence and the, the value and the worth of their own being. And for me, this story, what I contributed to this anthology was what happened for me when I was a child protection supervisor and had, had developed a way of determining when children were very, very much in danger. And I had a situation with a 17-year-old mother who had abused an older child and was going to give birth to an infant. And I knew that the child was in danger and sought court jurisdiction twice to save the child, and twice we were turned down and the baby was murdered. And wow, the baby was murdered. And so I— this was a real turning point for me in my life because I had really believed that I was, I was able as a, you know, as a personality, as Kathleen, to be a champion, and I was devastated by my failure to protect this child. I became very depressed and, uh, went home and didn't come back to work for, um, for about a week and expected that, uh, the news would be, um, the media would be filled with news about this because it was, uh, it was clearly, um, well, what we found out was that the baby was murdered and was found in the mother's bed. And so my belief was that the media would, would be explaining this and that because of that, we would have much different authority in trying to protect children. But because it was a political— it was an election year and the county attorney, you know, perceived this as a threat to his election. There was, there was no real investigation of the, of the murder. And what came out instead was that the baby had been pushed down the stairs by, by the older brother, which I knew had not happened. And so I eventually— well, I, I became the target of an investigation then in the county. Because, of course, the county attorney did not want to show any evidence of his own complicity in the death. And it was terribly frightening time for me. I ended up going to, at the suggestion of a friend of mine, seeing a psychic to get more information about what was happening. In spite of the fact that I had grown up in a very traditional Catholic environment and I had a deep belief in, in the presence of God and the existence of God, I had no sense about what we're speaking of today in terms of the presence of that loving energy within me. And so, um, I really was very, very victimized in the situation. And the— my experience with this psychic, again, was something that I was guided to have. It began to show me the, um, the kind of dimensions that we've been talking about, the, the multi-dimensional way in which we relate to, um, uh, angels spirit guides, and at that time, but, and now my understanding is of course of the inner self and what that means. And so I ended up leaving the county and, um, did a lot of metaphysical and spiritual reading at the time to, to try to grow spiritually and recover from the event and, and let it be used as a, as a spark for my own spirit And so what happened was, I— one of the books that I had been reading, and this is probably something you're familiar with as well, Shirley MacLaine years ago, years ago, wrote a book called Out on a Limb, which was about her own spiritual development. And one of the processes that she had used was to, to secure the, the, the people who were able to channel, that is, they're able to step aside from their personality and directly access information from the inner self and from higher levels of being. And so, um, after leaving the county, I took a job as the director of a mental health program in a hospital, and I wanted to to teach my staff about the presence of the spiritual self and the support and the guidance that, uh, that it was able to provide for healing and for, um, better well-being and, and certainly better psychological and emotional functioning. And I had, um, I asked several channels that I had used as a result of you know, reading Shirley MacLaine's book, to come and teach my staff about the presence of, um, uh, the spiritual self and support at much higher levels of, of our awareness. And so during this seminar, one of the channels said that she wanted to— she had a message for me, and she asked me to come back to the hotel that they were staying with. And what she told me was that this, um, she had a message from the infant that had been murdered. And she said, yes, she said that, um, she said that that child was a part of my own history spiritually, and that she had allowed that situation to happen as a way of creating a, a powerful impetus for my own spiritual development. And what was said was that, um, she had already re-embodied into a loving family and that I would meet her again and know her as Sarah, and that I would have a relationship with her. Instead of experiencing her in that situation as a loss, and that I would know her as she grew up, and that when I was finished with my own responsibilities here, I would turn and give my torch to her, and we would recognize one another for— in terms of the past experience. Wow. Okay, well, yeah, another— life really can put us through a lot, and another reason really why we all need to find our inner champion. Um, yes, I must say, absolutely incredible and very enlightening chatting to you today, Kathleen. A bit of a reminder to all of our listeners, The Inner Champion: A 7-Week Practical Guide to Peace, Happiness, and Miracles by Kathleen Quinlan. You to find out more at kathleenquinnlan.com. Thank you so much for joining us here on Get Booked Today. Thank you, Hazel. Thank you so much for interviewing me. It's been a pleasure. Thank you, and hopefully we'll chat to you again. Enjoy the rest of your day. Yes, you too as well, Hazel. Good to talk with you. Bye-bye. That was Kathleen Quinlan, the author of The Inner Champion, published by L'Échelon Press and The Book Reality Experience, who publish new authors from across the globe. You can check out their latest titles at bookreality.com and subscribe to their Book Realities podcast on Spotify, Acast, or your usual podcast platform. And tune into their dedicated YouTube channel to hear more interviews with authors. Just search for The Book Reality experience. They are always on the lookout for fresh new stories in all genres, and yes, they are open for submissions. Leschenault Press and Book Reality—great stories from great authors. Thank you for listening to today's Get Booked with me, Hazel Butterfield, and hopefully you'll join me next week.