Ep 452: What Is Your Medicine?

This week’s episode is an invitation to recognize and honor your unique medicines (which may reach beyond how you’ve thought about “medicine” before).

As we explore the concept of “your medicine,” I’m encouraging you to ask yourself what it means and where it lives within you and offering The Medicine Woman archetype to help. I explain how this archetype embodies alchemy and provides guidance for navigating life’s complexities while accessing your inner truths.

The Medicine Woman’s multidimensionality brings the potential to break lineage patterns, embrace intergenerational gifts, release victim stories, and more. Enjoy!

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In episode 452 of the Embodied Podcast we discuss:

(4:29) Acknowledging and respecting the cultural contexts of this language
(6:51) The Medicine Woman archetype in the context of the Wild Soul Archetypes
(10:14) How alchemy can be applied to your growth, weaved experiences, and healing journey
(15:25) Embracing The Wild Woman archetype and challenging societal expectations of femininity
(20:43) Understanding what your mystical medicine is and discovering your unique gifts
(23:55) Reading and diving deep into the description of The Medicine Woman
(25:56) A prayer for finding your inner Medicine Woman

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Quotes from this Week’s Episode of the Embodied Podcast:

It’s easier to nitpick language than it is to take bigger, more involved actions.

The Medicine Woman helps you be with multidimensionality and paradox, and make your own rules in a safe way.

As we do our healing work and as we alchemize things – at a certain point, the past doesn’t need to affect us the same way that it used to.

It’s helpful to take medicine into the multifaceted meaning of it because so many things can be medicine.

How was this episode for you?

Was this episode helpful for you today? I’d love to know what quote or lesson touched your soul. Let me know in the comments below OR share the episode on Instagram, tag me your stories @elizabethdialto, or send me a DM!

About the Embodied Podcast with Elizabeth DiAlto

Since 2013 I’ve been developing a body of work that helps women embody self-love, healing, and wholeness. We do this by focusing on the four levels of consciousness – physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.

In practical terms, this looks like exploring tools and practices to help you tune into the deep wisdom of the body and the knowing of the heart, which I believe are gateways to our souls. Then we cultivate a new relationship with our minds that allows the mind to serve this wisdom and knowledge and soul connection, rather than override it, which is what many of us were taught.

If you’ve been doing self-help or spiritual development work for a while, these are the types of foundational things that often people overlook in pursuit of fancier concepts that often aren’t practical or sustainable. Here, we will focus on building these strong foundations so you can honestly and thoroughly embody self-love. If you’re feeling it, subscribe to the show, and leave us a review wherever you listen from. You can also keep up with show updates and community discussions on Instagram here.

Transcript for Episode 452 “What Is Your Medicine?“:

Elizabeth DiAlto 00:00

The Medicine Woman archetype helps you to release your victim stories and embody your Victor stories, that when something becomes the victor, the victor, the winning story, you define what winning or succeeding looks like by your own standards. And then you learn to manifest in an integrative holistic way that’s aligned with collective healing and liberation.

Elizabeth DiAlto 00:34

Hello, everybody, welcome to episode number 452 of The Embodied Podcast. I am your host, Elizabeth DiAlto. And today our topic is What is your medicine? And in the Sunday sermon that I’m sharing with you, that’s part of this episode, we get into the Medicine Woman, which is one of my Wild Soul archetypes. And I explained all that in the sermon. So I’m not going to give too much background on that here because it is coming up in just a few minutes. But I said this last week, what I’m loving about this new episode format, is getting a chance to allow the sermon to sink in for a day, see how people respond. And then just add a little more of an opening and some extra notes here as part of the show. So something that I pulled up, which is from a couple of years ago from 2021, when I was running immersions to work with the wild. So archetypes are just some extra things that I added to the Medicine Woman description. And just a reminder, like one of the reasons I love archetypes. I’ve loved archetypes. Since my junior year of high school the first time I learned about archetypes, reading Homer’s work, the Iliad, the Odyssey. And, you know later on in life, I got more as archetypes through the lens of people like Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Carolyn mace. And it’s just so illuminating to work with these energetic and mythical ways to see life through to recognize aspects of ourself that simultaneously allow us to depersonalized things, right, because the archetypes exist within all of us, it’s just a matter of if or how we’re accessing them are, how prevalent they are in our makeup. But it also allows things to be really personal, despite things that might have us in other contexts distance ourselves from the truth of them. So for example, someone might think, well, I can’t consider how a Medicine Woman and archetype like that exists within me because I’m not indigenous, or because I don’t come from this place or that place. But and we talked about this in the sermon, this is a yes end. Yes, you might not be an indigenous person. But the word medicine exists far beyond that, right. And I also share this in the sermon, but I do have indigenous lineage. And so I speak this not as some person who comes from a non Indigenous place. And it’s important for us to try these things on and to go inward and to engage with them, never in an appropriate way, but in a way that allows us to uncover, in some cases, heal, in some cases, integrate, embrace and express certain aspects of ourselves and certain things within ourselves that need a voice. Or that would be useful that in this current stage of society, which in a lot of cases, has become so hypersensitive, about word choices, I read a great post. Man, it was probably a year or two ago at this point that my friend Nisha Moodley had shared with me. And I forget who the original author was, and wasn’t the only person to speak about this, but how people really over focus or give too much attention to micro aggressions. Meanwhile, the big macro stuff that really needs our attention doesn’t get as much of our attention as we could be giving it, right.

Elizabeth DiAlto 04:29

Because it’s easier, it’s easier to nitpick language than it is to take bigger, more intense actions. For example, like people this week, at the time, I’m recording it by the time the episode goes live, it will have just ended the Global Strike, right. It’s easier to nitpick the language that someone has used to describe something than it is to actually try to not spend any money over the course of a week other than absolute essentials. And if we’re where you need to spend money to specifically go to and find a local business, not do it online, if you can, obviously, and maybe pay cash instead of using a card, which this isn’t meant to be a huge commentary on how people should be doing those things. Because I have seen a lot of people online missing the point of the strike and being like, well, I can’t do that it’s not excessive, then don’t do it, right, do what you can manage to do. But that’s just an example. That’s harder, that takes thought that takes preparation, it’s much more challenging to do something like that, than to just like, nitpick someone on an Instagram post, because they use a certain term. So that’s the point that I’m making here. And it’s an important thing to say around the Medicine Woman, because I remember, back in 2020, when I first launched the quiz, I got an email from someone who was wanting to call me in around using that term, and I what I appreciated about them as if they weren’t an asshole about it at all. And they acknowledged like, I don’t know what your lineage is, I don’t know what your identity is. And that was a white person. And she was like, you know, but I’ve recently learned that you know, this term, and that, then this and that, like this might not be this might be offensive to some people.

Elizabeth DiAlto 06:07

And so, you know, one of the things we really have to do is acknowledge the language we’re choosing to use around things but also not limit. What really is a broader context for certain things, right, not all things. And the term medicine, or even the archetype of a Medicine Woman is a different thing. This falls under that category, where we get to appreciate and work with something in a broader context, while also acknowledging that there is a context in which it would not be appropriate. If I had to boil down the Medicine Woman, to one word, that word would be alchemy.

Elizabeth DiAlto 06:51

The Medicine Woman archetype in the context of the Wild Soul archetypes, is the archetype for transmutation, which is basically taking the shit in your life and turning it into gold. Right. So weaving something beautiful, out of what was not beautiful. This is what healing work is right. And also noticing things like where your joy and your sorrow reside next to each other, to give a little hat tip, a little nod to Khalil Gibran who talks about that, in the book, the Prophet, the Medicine Woman helps you be with multidimensionality and paradox, and make your own rules in a safe way, as safe as possible, right. Around disrupting and dismantling things, without sabotaging yourself through wisdom through healing through breaking patterns. All of that is alchemy. The Medicine Woman is really the archetype to work with, lean on, lean into, when it comes to being what I have called a lineage breaker. And we see these memes floating around sometimes that talk about this from one side of things that say things like ran in the family until it ran into me, which I love that statement. And that’s not my quote, by the way, again, that was on some meme that I saw God knows when and I don’t know who the author was, because it was so many years ago. So if you’re going to quote that anywhere, just don’t attribute it to me. And then on the other side of that is reminding people that yeah, there’s intergenerational trauma. But there’s also intergenerational gifts. We talked about shadow and light on one of our wild Soul Sunday services a couple weeks ago. And this is that right? You just don’t get one without the other the things are inextricably linked.

Elizabeth DiAlto 08:40

Another beautiful thing about the alchemy of the Medicine Woman archetype is that it helps you to release your victim stories, and embody your victim your stories, right? And again, never ever, ever, on this show or in anything, am I minimizing your real life experiences where you have been a victim of anything? And at the same time, another yes and right, we also acknowledge that there comes a point where we have to engage with things in a way that we’re not like re victimizing ourselves, that we’re not dragging something into the present in the future, that has happened in the past. Right? Once we do our healing work when we alchemize things at a certain point, you don’t need to affect us the same way that they used to. And listen that everyone’s timeline for stuff like that is different. Takes however long it takes, there’s no judgement around that. And when you’re looking at yourself through an honest lens, one of the most incredible things you could do on your healing journey, for your own liberation is to be like, okay, it can adjust the way I’ve been engaging with this. That’s when something becomes the victor, the victor, the winning story. And again, you define In what winning or succeeding looks like by your own standards, and then you learn to manifest in an integrative holistic way that’s aligned with collective healing and liberation.

Elizabeth DiAlto 10:14

And this is where you learn again, this continues to be alchemy, because you’re taking something that wasn’t great. And you’re spinning it into something that is where you learn. And when I say spinning, I mean spinning, like, the image I have in my mind is what’s the story like for punzal, where she’s spinning the was it hay or straw into gold, that when I say spinning, I don’t mean like, spinning like a story. I mean, like literally weaving, turning something into something better. And this is where we learn that the best manifestations are the ones that benefit all people, or as many people as possible. And you really learn to detect things like when centering yourself as appropriate and necessary without guilt. And also, when it’s not. You learn to become a vessel and allow life to move through you becoming fully alive and fully receptive as an instrument and divine orchestration. Where synchronicities become a language that you’re fluent in, and your perceptions sharpen, and you learn to speak the language of the universe, like Paulo Coelho showed all of us in the alchemist if you’ve ever read that book, and ultimately alchemy is where you get to access truth, your soul truth deepens. And although your sensitivities might heighten, so does your resiliency. And this again, the multidimensionality, the paradox of the weaving from one thing into another, from something that wasn’t great into something that’s better, or just something that didn’t serve, or something that harmed you into something that can serve you or be good. And I hope you can feel the different texture of what I’m talking about here, than from something like finding the silver lining. Or, you know, when people want to just throw blanket, everything happens for a reason, onto stuff, because that makes it sound dismissal. It sounds like dismissing the horrendous aspects of certain things that have happened, just so we could jump into the good stuff, which is a spiritual bypass. But that’s not the case, I was recently chatting with a friend of mine who lost a pet. And we were just talking about, obviously, all the ways in which that was devastating. And this was the beginning of a grief process. And also, the things that were now going to be available to her because she wasn’t having to care for this pet. And so like a couple of things I’ve said already here. Lots of times, when we’re talking about alchemy, when we’re talking about paradox, multi dimensionality, interconnectedness of things, we’re like spinning one thing into something better. We’re not bypassing, because we’re not avoiding the shadow aspects of it, not avoiding the dark with the painful or the shitty aspect of it. We’re saying, and also, this thing can be true. Many things can be true at once. So with that, please enjoy the sermon. Please enjoy the prayer. And we’ll see you later.

Elizabeth DiAlto 13:11

I am actually thrilled. So I’m having simultaneous experiences here. This is one of the things I love about everything we do. It helps us to hold many things at once. So I’m simultaneously having like, I’ve had like three or four such intense, courageous conversations over the last two weeks, with a couple of different people, including my parents, who I hadn’t spoken to voice to voice for like eight and a half, nine months, it was actually a great conversation, but still just so much energy around, just recalibrating some stuff that needs attention, and just needs to be reworked that I’m also so excited about this, because when I was waking up yesterday morning is when I was you know, sometimes I will intentionally like sit down to feel into what is the theme going to be for this. And it wasn’t coming to me it didn’t come to me till yesterday. And I was like, Oh, we got to work the wild. So archetypes in the Sunday services. And let me know as it was the Medicine Woman, Medicine Woman was like, pick me. And then I was like, oh, yeah, and that also, just like timing wise makes sense. Because probably within the next month or so we’re gonna get the wild so archetypes course up on the website, which those of you that are in wild, so sacred body, it’s just our journeys. It’s our journeys that we did. And so it’s cool for those of you and wild. So sacred body, these next six Sunday services are going to be like bonus content to those journeys. So you’ll also have a flow class, a fusion class to go with those journeys, and then a new sermon to go with those journeys as well. Which is kind of cool because we just wrapped those up and wild so sacred body at the end of the year. What’s up Elise, so you just logged in. So for some of you I see many of you here I know that talking about the Medicine Woman in the wild so archetypes is going to be a review. And for those of you that are new It won’t be a review for you. This was also partly inspired by a really beautiful love note about the Sunday services that someone sent me last week. It was about how they were feeling just inspired by experiencing the feminine energy and womanhood in a different way, the way that we present it here in the School of sacred embodiment, and I won’t read the whole thing or share their name. I am just going to share one sentence though, because this, this felt so important. They said, What I recognize in you is that transcendent power of the feminine, which was denigrated. And since 2014, I’ve been talking about reclaiming and redefining womanhood for the 21st century. So I loved hearing this. I loved that comment specifically, because this is one of the biggest themes we aim to always embody and always provide you with in the School of sacred embodiment, right ways to embody yourself, your own womanhood, your own feminine energy, your own all of your energies, really, which is one of the reasons why we love working with archetypes. They’re just energetic expressions, mythical and energetic expressions, but in your own unique way. And in 2020, when I created the wild, so archetypes, that was one of the reasons and we have a quiz for that, by the way, if you’ve never taken that quiz, you can go to untamed yourself.com forward slash quiz to see what your I forget what I called it, but like your most present, your most pressing, maybe your most dominant, I just don’t remember the word I used archetype is right now. So we’re starting today with the Medicine Woman. And to tell you a little bit about the archetypes. I created them in 2020. After years of working with the wild woman archetype, which most people have heard of the wild woman, it’s been around forever, most popularized probably by Clarissa Pinkola. Estes, with her book women who run with the wolves. And that was a big, big, big inspiration, the wild woman archetype, when I started developing the original Wild Soul movement practice, and this whole body of work that has evolved to be the school of sacred embodiment in 2013. As well, in addition to books like women who run with the wolves, learning about fierce goddesses, like the Hindu goddess Durga, was really liberating for me, because I had up until that point, I had never really felt feminine, because feminine had only been presented to me, or I was only familiar with ways of being feminine, that you know, a lot of people talk about or that like this society presents as the best, most acceptable or most common, right, or the only, which tend to be, you know, really soft, dainty, submissive, subservient. And I do believe there are many ways to be soft. And I’ve learned and embody that in my own way over the years. But that’s just generally not the way I felt like my primary embodiment, or presentation. And I think some of you can probably relate to that as well. And if it is yours, that’s great. Because here’s the thing, and some people miss. Some people miss this when I talk about things sometimes, because I am very passionate about things. And I am also really, really comfortable in my expression of things. That doesn’t mean I think there’s any way that’s better than anyone else’s way. There’s also the aspect of it, which I know some of you, not all of you can relate to as well, of being a multiracial, ethnically ambiguous woman, being a woman who’s always had big breasts, and especially after some weight gain in my 30s, you know, some of you might be whether it’s bipoc person multiracial, or whether you’re in a larger body, or whether there’s things about your physical appearance, that could be fetishized, or anything else, we experience all these ways that we get othered when it comes to being feminine, or being a woman, if we don’t fit into that, like small list of checkboxes that is like socially acceptable. And the world is really waking up around this, like we’re experiencing a lot more expansion around this. But the old crap is still like, very alive and well.

Elizabeth DiAlto 19:11

But I remember, back in my 20s, my first job I ever had was a sales job. And I was top rep in the company. And then when I moved into management, I wasn’t like top of the top of management, because I didn’t have a great territory. But I was up there. And people would say that I was only successful because I was hot. I was like so early on, I had this kind of can’t win. And of course it was men that would say that it wasn’t any woman that would say that. So from early on, I have this kind of can’t win feeling about being a woman. So discovering the wild woman and archetype a version of being a woman that felt more like me was so healing and liberating, because the wild woman is multi-dimensional dynamic and fierce. And I was like yes, thank God, amen. And after working with 1000s of women over the years, about connecting to their own unique experiences of womanhood and embodying that, I realized that there were really some sub archetypes under the wild woman. I named these the Wild Soul archetypes. And they’re all just different versions, different expressions of the wild woman. And I put them in three categories, the loving ones, which are the Divine Mother and the erotic priestess, the mystical ones, which are the Medicine Woman and the sacred Creatress, and the fierce ones which are the sovereign queen, and the warrior goddess. And so by doing this work myself, and working with my own archetypal energies, and now after three years of working in the specific world saw archetypes with people in our communities,

Elizabeth DiAlto 20:43

especially after last year, in 2023, the archetype journeys we did with energy and archetypes, where we sunk up each archetype with a chakra, in wild, so sacred body, it’s just really fun to see people connecting with all kinds of things, but especially in what we’re focusing on today, their own medicine. So it’s fine to take medicine into the multifaceted meaning of it, because so many things can be medicine. So I’m not just talking about like plant medicine, a lot of people when they hear medicine, they are thinking, Ayahuasca, psilocybin, Cambo, or, you know, whatever, all these all these different plant medicines and things that people do. I’m not talking about anything, culturally appropriative, though, if it does make anyone feel better, one of my lineages is indigenous, of the tiny nose of Puerto Rican of Puerto Rico and the Caribbean. Though, to be honest, if you really get into working with your ancestors, everyone has ancestors who were indigenous, somewhere at some point. But the problem is most people are not connected to those lineages. Some people, those lineages go way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way back. So some families don’t even know what they are. And it’s a little bit of a sidebar, but it’s important to acknowledge. But I also just see so many people’s medicine, and working in the Akashic records with folks over the years, since 2018, that often reveals to people what their gifts are, or the light, they’re here to shine, or how they’re here to shine it, which is just amazing, right? So whatever your medicine is, doesn’t have to be anything you monetize or make a business out of. It doesn’t have to be something you build your career around. It can be any of those things. But we live in a time where a lot of people have overly commodified their medicine, and also where people think that their medicine can only be like, like a skill or like a healing superpower. But you know, for some of you your medicine might be that you just are a naturally joyful person, right? Or that you’re just so kind are so understanding are so generous, or you know what I think about, I have a elderly neighbor, and there’s a woman in the building, who visits him every single day. That is medicine, right, like so beautiful. So there’s just so many different types of medicine, Medicine Woman, the archetype helps you connect with what that is. Some people are never called to be actual medicine people, right? Like healers. Others are some people feel pressured to do things like that. And giving into that pressure can be really detrimental. Others just see their medicine for what it is a blessing and a gift and use it in whatever ways, whatever context they can. And that is ultimately what being human is all about. That’s ultimately what life purpose is all about as well. embodying your gifts, using your medicine, having the courage to let your soul and your ancestral gifts, take up more space in your life. Let them come through let them be sacred threads that you weave into this tapestry of humanity in whatever way, whatever way makes sense for you, whatever we currently have capacity for might be more prevalent during certain seasons and cycles of your life than others. So I want to read you the Medicine Woman description.

Elizabeth DiAlto 23:54

A lot love these descriptions. One of the best ways of working with the wild two archetypes is actually just to contemplate the descriptions. If you want to like take a breath and close your eyes and just kind of let the sink and let it wash over you so you could see what jumps out to you. The Medicine Woman sees wisdom in everything. A mystic and Alchemist, a healer and a shapeshifter. She reminds us of the sacredness in all of life. She helps you to activate your psychic senses, when your abilities to perceive the truth beyond what is obvious. and harness the power of your sensitivity. Bringer of fierce love and hope peeker of holy curiosity, piercer of illusions, wielder of humor and levity. She connects you to the part of yourself that need not abide by the rules and restrictions of the physical world. She is the healing medicine that helps you wade through your shadows and deep emotional waters so that you may become cleansed unstuck, and fearless in your expression of truth. And I always pause on fearless because that doesn’t mean never without any fear ever. What it means is fear less less fear, right? The wisest of healers. She’s the embodiment of paradox, multi dimensionality, alignment and a Bridger of worlds. She is transformation personified. Helping you to trust yourself tends to life and communicate in ways that can be understood by those with eyes to see and ears to hear. And I love that last part so much. Because even once you are connected to your medicine, you know what it is, you’re building your capacity or comfort, your confidence, your ability to share your medicine in whatever way is appropriate in the world. There’s always gonna be people who don’t see it, and who don’t get it. Right. And often we are finding ourselves in positions of having to administer our own medicine to ourselves, to just be here to just be in the world and to just exist, right.

Elizabeth DiAlto 23:54

So with all that, let us pray. Divine Mother Goddess, use me move me and make me an instrument and a channel for your infinite love and mysterious grace. helped me to find my center route into my life, my relationships and everything that matters to me, to the mystical medicine of my own inner Medicine Woman, make me available to her alchemy, healing, wisdom, and ability to shape shift in the name of sacredness. Let me know myself as a multi dimensional and aligned being and a bridge of worlds. Please, please, please, flood me with all the love and understanding from my every encounter with the paradoxes of life. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Amen. Amen. A man. Thank you so so much, everybody for listening to this episode. If you loved it, please share it in whatever way that you share podcasts with friends, family, loved ones, co workers, whoever else. Also a reminder that we have our new membership reweave coming sometime in the first two weeks of February. You can find out more about that and get on the interest list at untame yourself.com. Forward slash interest dash relief. And that’s it for today. We’ll be back next week.