EP 176: Dr. Robyn McKay - Authenticity and ADHD: The Power of Being You

Prepare to ignite your creativity and unlock your spiritual intelligence with our special guest, award-winning psychologist and successful entrepreneur, Dr. Robin McKay. In this fascinating exchange, Robin shares her unique insights into how ADHD is a unique gift common among highly creative people.  Robyn also  helps us understand the often overlooked phenomenon of Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria. For those gifted and coping with ADHD, this is a conversation not to be missed!

Dive into an exploration of the rapidly changing corporate landscape and discover how spiritual entrepreneurs and transformational thought leaders can pave the way for profound change. We examine a different way of working that transcends the traditional obsession with productivity. Learn how embracing intuition can lead to a more significant impact in the corporate matrix and challenge the conventional understanding of 'soft skills' and emotional intelligence.

Finally, we reflect on the immense energy shifts the world has experienced over the past couple of years, and how they have propelled us forward. We discuss the concept of 'being yourself', the power of authenticity, and how having a creative, open personality can be both a blessing and a curse. Experience firsthand how embracing the unknown, like watching a good movie, can turn life into our greatest work of art and discover the spiritual intelligence within.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:18

Your life is your greatest work of art and it all relates back to the synchronicity. Welcome to Integrate Yourself, everybody. I'm your host, alison Palau, and you can find me at alisonpalaucom. You can find my book Finally Thriving there. That is your first introduction to what I do, what I offer, how I help my clients and the process that I bring my students through in my Finally Thriving class. So if you're curious about that, pick up a copy of my book. I also have it available on audiobook through Audible as well as any other all the other audiobook resources out there. You can find that as well as anywhere you can find books. My book is available if you don't want to go to Amazon. So I have another class coming up in August August 21st it's coming.

Speaker 1: 1:21

So the next group it's going to be amazing. We're going to tap into our inner creativity, our inner wellness, our inner peace All of these things. We're going to bring them together to bring true joy and be able to access that in our lives, live a heart centered life where we don't have to be thinking in circles all the time and figuring things out. We can just be and experience the joy that is right in front of us in our lives. So sometimes we have conflict in our life that really shakes things up and it brings to our attention things that we could be working on within ourselves, and I'm seeing that a lot in people lately.

Speaker 1: 2:09

Today happens to be the 8-8-Lions Gate Portal. If you're familiar with astrology, this is an important day. It's an important activation day. So today, get some rest, sit back and receive the messages that you're meant to receive today, and also just get really clear today on what you want to create, moving forward, not only what, but how you want to do it, and that's another thing we go through in the finally thriving class is what is your process? Everybody has a unique creative process, whether you're creating your life, whether you're creating a project, whether you are a leader or in the service industry or a coach entrepreneur. All of those things take creative energy, and the more we're distracted by our lives of thinking and trying to figure things out, then it really takes us off our course of creating what we're here to create. And so, by tapping into your inner play, you're the love that you know. We're learning how to love ourselves through our self-care practice and our wellness practice and our wellness dates, prioritizing time with yourself, learning how your energy feels and then creating and cultivating that confidence within and that calmness within to really take on whatever life hands you. You can do this with grace and ease and then that's how we can experience the true thriving in our lives and get out of that survival mode. So that's what I help people do.

Speaker 1: 3:53

We go through a 12-week course and coaching program where you have a live coaching session with me every week and you get one module every week to practice, to create your daily wellness practice with. We go through different things through. We start with the mind, then we learn how to connect naturally to our body and read the messages and listen to the messages our body tells us, and then we learn how to tune into our spirit. We create spiritual maturity and spiritual intelligence, which is something that a lot of people are really curious about lately and I'm really excited to share that how you can do that. So today's show we do talk about spiritual intelligence and we talk about intuition and we talk about ADHD and it's something that is close to my heart because I've experienced this in my own life. So because I've experienced that, I've created a book and a program that helps people who are highly creative, really direct this energy back into themselves and then shine the light for other people. It's not about us saving other people, it's about us shining the light so they can be inspired to do the work themselves and to show up fully as themselves too. So for you to show up fully as yourself is the work. So that's what we do, and if you want to join that program on August 21st, it starts then. So if you want to, another week for the special waitlist price, that's discounted and then after that it goes back to the regular price. So if you want to get in on that, go ahead and set up a free call with me by following the link on the show notes and we can get you signed up, all right.

Speaker 1: 5:41

So today my guest is Robin, dr Robin McKay. She was an amazing guest and I did this, recorded this podcast with her back in the winter time. So this is why, if you're looking at the YouTube video, I'm wearing a sweater and we're talking about snow and the cold and stuff. So sometimes with these shows, I titrate them out to come out at a certain time Just when, from my experience when I intuitively know that it's the right time for people to hear these messages. And this is the right time because, like I said, we are in a very big activation day energetically, and this is the time for you to create that courage, find that courage within yourself to really step out of what you've learned, what you've been programmed to do, and start to honor yourself. This is the time. So today we talk about the gifts that we can find in ADHD and how that's related to highly creative people, which I thought was so interesting.

Speaker 1: 6:45

In this episode. Robin shares also how she helps people in the corporate sector who are undercover light workers and are doing this work but not, maybe not, know it. And we talk about how to get out of the spiritual closet and back into spiritual maturity and become in a line. That's really how you become aligned with yourself, when you take in all aspects of your life and then you, you discover who you truly are, the truth of that. We talk about that today as well, and you know the well, the, the well adjusted life like we're so well adjusted, we're taking all this energy. It takes all this energy just to show up at has someone we think people want us to be, and that's that perfection mode, that's that trying to fit in mode and we we address that today and how that can really stifle you from expanding out to where you really want to be in your life and creating the abundance you want in your life as well, becoming a leader as well. How that really blocks you from doing these things when we're not showing up fully as ourself Right. So we talk about all these things. This was a super, super great show and Robin was such an incredible guest and I really connected with her in this episode and I'm actually I've actually signed up to do a consultation with her as well, cause I feel like her work is really important. So if you want to sign up with Robin and do a consultation the link is in the show notes as well you can set up a call with her and check out her work and follow her too. So, without further ado, it is my honor and my pleasure to introduce you to Dr Robin McKay. What's going on, dr Vampira? Thank you so much.

Speaker 1: 9:03

Today I'm here with a very special guest, robin McKay. She's an award-winning psychologist, multi-six figure entrepreneur and an executive coach on top leaders in Fortune 500 companies and entertainment. Dr McKay is also a leading expert in the new field of spiritual intelligence. She brings bridges between reason and intuition, science and spirit and her clients' heads and hearts. In her life outside the office, robin loves hiking on the desert trails near her home in Scottsdale, arizona, and climbing the red rocks of Sedona. Sounds like fun. Thank you so much, robin, for coming on. I'm so excited to talk to you today. We're going to talk about some really fun and interesting topics. Before we get started, if you'd like to share anything about what led you to this work because it's very interesting, as we'll talk about today and to bringing this field of psychology more into a spiritual experience with your clients. What got you here?

Speaker 2: 12:28

Sure, that's such a great question and thanks for asking me. I will not be hiking today on the trails near my house because it's not as cold as where you are, but it is a bit chilly down here. We'll be staying tucked in today. Sounds good.

Speaker 1: 12:45

I'm a.

Speaker 2: 12:45

STEM girl. I'm a STEM girl from way back in the day. I got my first microscope when I was 10. As only a 10-year-old girl can be, I was immensely disappointed with the light source. It was a mirror and I just was disgusted by that. I was really quite insulted that that was the best that they could come up with. Not withstanding that it was the early 80s. I was a child raised by parents who were teachers Okay, so there are so many things that were sideways with that. But eventually I did go on to major in biology and I worked in a biosafety level laboratory biosafety level three laboratory for a couple of years early in my career I was working with microorganisms and I did get to work with high-powered microscopes. That met that need of my 10-year-old self, who I suspect could see into the future even back then.

Speaker 2: 13:44

In addition to being a STEM girl, I've also been a clear channel and intuitive since I was well, I just came in that way. I'll just say, for example, when I was five I knew that I was going to be a doctor and write books and I just would know things without really knowing why I knew them. I would know when I was having a pop quiz and math class, I had an essay completely download into my brain as I was walking from my study hall into the principal's office to write an essay for a scholarship, and that's just kind of how I lived my life. My family is intuitive as well. We didn't have any language for it, though. When I was growing up we just could kind of read each other's thoughts. We could have entire conversations just telepathically, and no one would think anything of it. We would just, all of a sudden, one of us would blurt out well, what about that guy? And everyone in the room would know what we were talking about.

Speaker 2: 14:40

So I had all of these early experiences with my intuition just as a native part of who I was, but it wasn't until I was probably 28. I had my quarter-life crisis when I looked around my life. I was married to my college sweetheart. We were living in Kansas City. I had a good life. I was working in biotech at the time, but I really had this kind of come-to-Jesus moment with myself where I was like I don't think that this is where I'm supposed to be. I wasn't in grad school, I wasn't getting my PhD yet. It was just one of those existential moments where I was like I think I'm living somebody else's life because this isn't what I had seen when I was a kid. So that moment put me on this trajectory of leaving my college sweetheart, getting divorced, going back to school, getting my PhD in psychology and simultaneously doing a seven-year apprenticeship in spiritual intelligence and intuition.

Speaker 2: 15:42

So I remember I said I was a STEM girl, why I became a social scientist. Psychology was actually the area that I could really sink my teeth into when it came to doing research and to kind of put a big bow on everything. A lot of the work that I do today still, we can find the roots in it, in who I am, how I grew up, how I came into this world, but also all of the work that I did in my graduate studies as well, around gifted and talented girls and women, around the psychology of creativity, intelligence and leadership. I still use those tools and practices, and even the lens through which I work with my clients is really founded in my graduate studies. And, of course, the ADHD link as well. So I know you want to go into that.

Speaker 2: 16:31

Maybe I'll just take a pause there and see what comes up, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 16:38

Yes, are you still there? Hold on a second, robin. Ah, shit, are you still there? Okay, you posed for a second. All right, I was, it's my end, definitely for that one.

Speaker 1: 17:01

So, yes, definitely want to get an ADHD, because I feel like, like, as I was telling you in the very beginning, I've definitely experienced that in my life, being a high performer, as a gymnast and you know, someone that I was interviewing not too long ago brought this to my attention because she was a gymnast too, and she said, yeah, we can focus on things. We were taught to focus on things for a brief moment, very intensely, and then we're on to the next thing, and so it's kind of hard to it's always been hard for me to stay consistent with one thing throughout my life. I always like to do different things, you know, and I guess that's where the creativity comes in. But I think that's where the creativity comes in. And I think that's where the creativity comes in, but it's it's good to know that other people are experiencing that too, cause I used to beat myself up a whole bunch about it before when I was younger, thinking, oh my gosh, I can't get organized. I, I, you know, I could barely you know, keep it together.

Speaker 1: 17:58

What's wrong with me?

Speaker 2: 17:59

Why can't I? Why? Why are other kids able to do this and I'm not? Yeah, that is kind of the hallmark of the gifted ADHD Girl in particular. You know, I'm Gen X and even the millennials, I think, would say that they experienced this too. A lot of us, as children, were overlooked.

Speaker 2: 18:20

I wasn't diagnosed with ADHD until I was in graduate school and I was the one who initiated that diagnosis, because I was in my internship and I was assessing students who had ADHD and I started looking at the criteria and I was like, wait a minute, that's me. And then I took a quiz on WebMD and that was like. Then it was like, okay, I need to go, go get a formal assessment for this, and so that, to me, was a turning point. Not everybody likes to identify as having that diagnosis, but for me it explained so much of how I operated and how I functioned in the world up until that point.

Speaker 2: 19:04

I was a high performer too. I ran track in college and I could do all of these things really well, but then I would let things drop off and I would forget about things and my calendar was a mess, and you know, and people would label that as she's careless, she's messy and I have an emotional regulation piece of that too. So I used to be a golfer in high school. I golfed on the high school golf team and I was a pretty good golfer. But even that wasn't an uneven performance, because when I would get into a high-stakes situation my brain would literally freeze up and I would get, I would totally lose all of my focus and you know, then my game would go to the pot and you know the rest of the street.

Speaker 1: 19:55

I've experienced that many times in my life. Like it's so weird. I see things that you know, you know, but you freeze up and you just you can't think of what to do.

Speaker 2: 20:04

You know, it's so weird, so just even if you think about, like for you as a gymnast, if you're on the beam and you get distracted and then you fall, or how do you bounce back from the fall. I know that in gymnastics there's so much mental and psychological work that goes into the focus for that, but that even that's a lot of effort and energy that somebody a girl with ADHD has to put forth in order to focus. But one of the gifts is we can hyper focus. Yes, as you know as well. Right, wait, did you know something else I want to share this with you.

Speaker 2: 20:36

What's that? Well, when I started researching ADHD, I was simultaneously looking at the creative personality. And there's this woman who was my graduate school advisor's peer. Like her colleague, bonnie Cramon, she was at the University of Georgia and back in the mid 90s, I think, she published up an article comparing the diagnostic criteria for ADHD and the characteristics of the creative personality. And do you want to know something? They're the same. They're the same.

Speaker 1: 21:09

Wow Really, oh my goodness.

Speaker 2: 21:13

So, depending on which lens you're looking through, am I looking at this as what's the problem or am I looking at what are the strengths? If you're looking at one or the other, you're missing a part of the puzzle that I think is really important, especially for high performers, which is it's a both and and. What I came to realize with that is that, as when I was practicing and as a psychologist working with with high performers, with gifted kids and the middle school level and up to the college level, when somebody would come in and say I want an evaluation for ADHD, I would also say yes, and we're also going to give an assessment for creativity, because chances are quite good that we're going to see both. I wanted to have the holistic picture. Too much of the time in this world we pathologize and we make ourselves wrong for how our brains work, when in fact there are some gifts in that that a lot of people, a lot of neurotypical people, don't have access to that we do.

Speaker 1: 22:19

Wow, that's amazing, that's amazing and it actually makes it.

Speaker 1: 22:23

It's very cool to know, because it's like, wow, okay, because when you grow up like that and the reason I was put in gymnastics was partly because I had ADHD there wasn't medication back then, thank goodness, but gymnastics was a way of helping me also. You know focus, but, yes, it took an intense amount of energy to do so, but it's also. It is also really good to know that, you know, because most of my life I thought my pro, my process was wrong or how I did things was wrong. I must like learn how to do this, especially as an entrepreneur. You know, you hear all these other people doing these things like it seems so easy, but you're like I can't do this. You know this is not. This is not the way I work. This is not a process. So I had to learn throughout the years what my process was and then honor that and then I. That's what I've been able to do, and I think it's important because not everybody's going to have the same process and oftentimes they don't. But it's good to know that there is some, some level of higher creativity within all of this. It makes it does make me feel good, because it makes me think okay, well, there is a. There is a purpose for all of this, you know, and I find that I have much better productivity when I have support like people helping me and and providing a little bit of structure for me to follow through with things you know that are creative, that I want to create like this.

Speaker 1: 23:55

You saw me playing the ukulele. I was, you know, talking about a practice that I do at home called vocal toning, and this is partly how that I've got an album coming out this Friday. So this is how that all came out right. So, but I had to have some people in there helping me structure it. I had all the ideas to creative energy to make it happen, but as far as the structure goes, I need help with that. So that's kind of that's an example of how I work and and how I work Wow.

Speaker 2: 24:26

So I think it's a collaboration you know it is, and unfortunately, when we're young. So look at let's look at the intersection of being gifted, and what I mean by being gifted is very it's very clear, just on an intellectual level being able to figure things out quickly, make sense of things and know what to do about them. The people who find their way to me often were identified as gifted and talented as kids kids or elevated into advanced classes, skipped grades. Before there was. In my day we didn't have gate programs. We had I got advanced reading classes and things like that.

Speaker 2: 25:04

But when we have that level of intellectual processing speed available to us and we have an underlying neurodiversity like ADHD, one of the things that bright girls will do is to mask their disabilities, not because we're being sneaky or manipulative or anything like that, but just because we can. We figure out workarounds, because this is a brain that we have and we're going to figure it out one way or the other. The challenge with that is that because we mask our disability I'm calling it a disability, but you know what I mean Like it can really get in the way of, it really can get in the way of productivity and creativity, even as we develop. But when we mask our, when we mask these symptoms, the challenges, that people then don't believe us when we say that we have it. Oh no, you just need to focus more, robin, you're just too sensitive.

Speaker 2: 26:04

Well, I have it's called. It's a new term RDS rejection. Rsd rejection sensitive dysphoria. It's really like it's a felt sensation of fear of rejection If somebody says no, there's this literal. Can you relate to this? Oh yeah, like this painful thing that you have to work through. It's actually a thing that I've seen more recently in the ADHD forums and social media.

Speaker 1: 26:37

Yeah, yeah, it's fascinating. I did not know that, okay, so I do relate to that. Yeah, so we have worked with things that we work around, right, we work around them and I'm just sensitive.

Speaker 2: 26:49

So I have to steal myself. When I'm inviting people, like I'm teaching an Akashic Records level one certification class in early March, one of my approaches is always to tune into my intuition and see who I see in that program and then reach out to them and invite them in. You would think on the surface that's a pretty simple protocol, right, you just invite people in. But when you have ADHD, when you've got this sensitivity to rejection, it's like a sysophysian task sometimes. So you have to work with the energies of that as well as you're realizing this about yourself. So the point I want to just go back to the masking just briefly, because this is something that, unless and until we really acknowledge that this is a thing that's going on in our brains, I think that when we're trying to fit in I've said this for a while now when you're too well adjusted for your own good, it usually means you're masking something.

Speaker 1: 27:48

That's a good way to put it.

Speaker 2: 27:49

You're deploying your intellectual resources to solve a problem internally without asking for help. You have mastered that in understanding that it is a collaboration and that you do provide the creative energy and the flow of it, but there are other people around it who hold the container for you to be able to produce something like an album. And congratulations, by the way, thank you, thank you so much.

Speaker 1: 28:15

That's so interesting too, what you talked about the rejection factor, because I just assumed it was what I learned as a child. But that could be part of it too. But I didn't realize it was a part of ADHD either. That's so interesting because I've been going through this. I do the same thing. I will envision who would be in the class because I teach this class. I also wrote a book which is called Finally Thriving and I do a group program with it about three times a year. It's a 12-week coaching and course program. I always envision first who I would like to ask and invite into it. Yes, sometimes people say no, I'm like it does. I've gotten a lot better with this, but at first rejection was so hard for me and it still isn't great. But I would take it personally for so many years and I just really had a hard time. I just assumed everybody experienced it like that, but maybe not as much, not as much.

Speaker 2: 29:21

Okay, one of the assessments that I give, the assessment that I give is the Neo5 Factor personality assessment. It is the gold standard of personality assessments. I can give it because of my credentials. Personality exists on a normal distribution curve. People who have a profound sensitivity to social exchanges have even a social anxiety. I would say even Most people score about average on that particular facet. Then there are those of us who are over on the tail of the curve who really have a deep sensitivity to those interactions and those exchanges.

Speaker 2: 30:00

Yes, to your point, there is some societal, cultural, familial influences with these experiences. But we can map it pretty clearly on the personality profile to that sensitivity to social environments. Being overly anxious about social exchanges and just having a general sense of anxiety as well on top of the ADHD can also contribute. There are a lot of different influences that create the conditions for the expression of that sensitivity in your business to show up. Now here's the thing when you're also very bright, you can usually manage that pretty well.

Speaker 2: 30:45

But literally right before I got on this podcast, I was just boxering with one of my mastermind buddies, elise, and I was like what do I do about this? I'm feeling and I'm filling this class and what am I going to do? And here's where I landed as I processed through it with her. Here's the trick when you engage the energy of invitation first, when you just sit in the energy of invitation and you start sending out invitations, if I say hey to you, you should do this you're invited. Even if you say no, it still activates the energy of invitation and those people who are going to say yes are going to feel that vibration as well. So it's not just a one-to-one exchange. It's embodying the energetics of it which shift the perspective, doesn't it? So it's not about you saying yes or no. It's just as me being in the energy of invitation and how much that my brain just relaxed a whole lot when I even when I was talking about that.

Speaker 1: 31:46

Yeah, that's something I've been practicing too, but I didn't think of it like that. That is a great perspective. I love that.

Speaker 2: 31:54

Isn't that good?

Speaker 1: 31:54

It's not personal no yeah.

Speaker 2: 31:58

It's not.

Speaker 1: 31:59

It's so interesting that you also have gone through that, because you're working with a lot of corporations, you know, and that the corporate sector is very I would think, very hard to deal with that. So how have you dealt with that in that arena?

Speaker 2: 32:15

Well, remember, I'm a STEM girl at heart and so the organizations that I work with are largely tech and biotech right. So I work with execs at Nike and Intel and you know all the other big fortune, even Fortune 100 companies, caterpillar and so on. And because I grew up with them, I went to an engineering college at the beginning of my education. I didn't major in engineering, I was one of the science majors but I went there. So I grew up around engineers and I just feel like that particular set of people. I'm just one of the family. I'm different from them because I'm a psychologist, I'm not an engineer, but they're my people. So, for whatever reason, when they know I'm quirky, they know I talk about intuition and energy and that sometimes they're like McKay. Can we like not? They don't want to talk about emotions, even.

Speaker 2: 33:12

But what's changing in corporate? And one of the reasons why I work with spiritual entrepreneurs and transformational thought leaders around bringing their message into corporate is because there really is a call right now among the emotionally intelligent in the corporate space to do something different. They're tired of the grit, tenacity and hard work. The last few years especially have just weighed down on people around. There has to be a better way of working and living. We've seen the great resignation and the quiet quitting, and now there's this wave of layoffs that's happening as well, that people like you and me, who are wired for this, like we've already been through our transformation. We're on the other side of it and we a lot of times, can speak their language.

Speaker 2: 34:03

If you worked in corporate at all, you know the language of corporate. You know probably what it was like to be up at 3 AM emailing your boss about something that was due at 8 AM or whatever, like. There are all of these little nuances that the spiritual entrepreneurs have access to because of our previous experiences working in a Biosafety Level 2 lab, working with the FDA later in my career bringing a couple of new drugs to the market, like. Those kinds of things still are part of who I am and I've integrated those, so I speak their language. But then I can take them beyond the way that they've been working in the past and into this next iteration of how we're actually meant to be working, which is a lot more creativity flow, guilt-free work I think is a good way of saying it Optimism, hope, that kind of thing, and they're hungry for it.

Speaker 1: 34:57

Wow, that's good to know. Yeah, I want to speak a little more to this energy that's coming in, because I've noticed it too and I've been talking to people about it for some time now. This is like we're getting out of the striving, working ourselves to death energy into more of a creativity aspect, but also just showing up in your own energy being enough, like you don't have to do anything else. It's just like so liberating. Also, maybe scary for some people, because we're used to doing, and I would love to hear your take on what is happening energetically, because we both know that a lot is going on, both astrologically and with the human residents, the solar flares we're getting all these.

Speaker 2: 35:48

The matrix Downloads yeah, all the things In lightworker language, in lightworker language. Yeah, that's exactly it. So this is great. I love talking about this because I work regularly with the leaders in tech. They'll hire me privately even. They don't even go through their organization. They just invest in themselves and their future because they know they want something different. And when I talk with them about this new way of living and working, innovation, creativity flow, optimism, hope all of those constructs that come out of really positive psychology, but it's also lightworker language they're in agreement with that. But they also have really strong programming around the grit tenacity, hard work, busyness, productivity those are a couple of other big things. Some of them are internal. They come from family messages around work.

Speaker 2: 36:51

In fact, one of my clients recently she's getting ready to go on sabbatical, so she's offloading some of her projects and getting ready to do that, and she said the other day she's felt this immense wave of guilt show up, and so we explored that. I always look at those emotions not as problems to solve but as invitations, invitation to deepen into something. The guilt, for example, would be an invitation to deeper into the truth of who you are and to look around and see what's not in alignment with the truth of who you are. So one of the things that, as I was reading, I'm a psychologist by training, so it's sort of through that lens, but I also read the Akashic records. I'm working in the energetics of my people as well who come in and sit with me.

Speaker 2: 37:44

So I was looking at it and I really recognize that a lot of the energy around that guilt experience that she had was coming actually from the I'll call it the corporate matrix, the expectations that the system has set up for the people to prove themselves to be productive.

Speaker 2: 38:06

You've seen the memes about like moving your mouse around on your screen so that somebody thinks you're working Like exactly yeah, I don't know what the F even is that Like I don't anyway, it makes my eye twitch. So when we extract her from that, from being connected with that aspect of the corporate matrix, and if she's really feeling like 80% of that, that energy of guilt is coming externally from her, the expectations of the organization, not from her boss, who's very understanding and supportive, not from maybe a little bit from parents like mom said, if you're not busy or lazy, that kind of thing but largely it was actually from the structure, the systems and structure in place within the corporate. I'll call it entity. When you extract from there, then you can just be in that world, but not of it. And now you can make decisions based on your own personal sovereignty and the infinite field of possibilities, rather than on this limited field of what the industrial complex says that you should be doing in any given moment, on any given day.

Speaker 1: 39:16

Yeah, does that make sense, absolutely. Yeah, it sounds like what you're saying is you can be an observer and not participate in the program. Right, you can just see it for what it is Because, like you said, there's layers and layers of programming that we have in our society that many lightworkers and other people have been working on destabilizing, and then it's up to the person to realize and become aware of the program they're running on and decide to make a different choice and to live a different way. So that's where the integration happens.

Speaker 2: 39:57

Yeah, it's something that you can't unknow.

Speaker 2: 39:59

You can't when you start really discerning is this me or is this outside of me? And if it's outside of me, then I can't process it first of all and I can make a choice to disconnect from it and do the right thing. And I said to her she's actually, she's got a team who works for her. She recognized this. First she said I have a responsibility to set a different tone for my team, to set a different example for my team and even if I'm not saying I feel guilty about X, y and Z, my team will be able to sense that. That's how emotionally intelligent these engineers are. I'm not like it's so cool to see this generation, especially the women engineers who are coming in, are so emotionally intelligent. Many, many of them are actually highly intuitive, even if they don't identify that way, but they're recognizing that as they're learning to name what they're experiencing and then seeing the influences trickling down into the ranks, which means that she's actually setting a tone for the future of leadership, even in the tech space.

Speaker 1: 41:11

That's amazing, that's what we need right now.

Speaker 1: 41:15

That's powerful and that gives me hope with the tech industry, because I wasn't sure where that was going and I've talked to a few people and tried to work with a few people in the past in the tech industry and some of them just don't have the emotion. It just didn't work because they weren't able to really connect with themselves that way. But it's good to know that people are doing that and then they're creating that awareness and emotional intelligence, like you're saying with that, and I'm guessing that's where you're bridging the gap with you had on here. Why are lightworkers and spiritual entrepreneurs well suited to serve the people incorporated? And it sounds like this is why and it can be possible that people who are even in that industry are working as spiritual or light people- they're undercover.

Speaker 2: 42:15

They're undercover lightworkers yeah.

Speaker 1: 42:16

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 42:19

And I was too. At some point when I was still early in my career, when I was working in the pharmaceutical industry, after I had left the biosafety level three lab, I started in pharma as a medical writer and clinical scientist and doing that kind of work. But simultaneously I was getting my PhD in psychology and, as any high achieving smart girl would do, built a house and also studied spiritual intelligence for seven years. Because why not do all the things at once? And so I would go to work and my colleagues, my neuroscientist colleagues, my pharmaceutical chemist colleagues would come to me and ask me for a very human advice and ask where I was studying Reiki at the time. Can I have a Reiki treatment?

Speaker 2: 43:12

So even then, while I was still in that space, I was still serving my higher purpose, which is to anchor in light. I couldn't have probably articulated that way at the time, but I was really doing that work and also working my day job. So there are a lot of lightworkers who are still in the corporate space, who are in the closet around their intuition, around the fact that they're a lightworker at all, but they're behind the scenes, reading their Oracle cards and studying astrology and studying human design and coming to you and coming to me and asking questions and the barrier for them really is. I don't want anybody to think I'm weird.

Speaker 1: 43:56

That's what I used for a long time.

Speaker 2: 43:59

Yeah, and then I was like well, actually being weird, isn't that bad. I read recently I don't know where I saw this, but there was a headline that what made you weird as a kid makes you great as an adult.

Speaker 1: 44:12

Good, I love it.

Speaker 2: 44:14

I know. So part of the mission in me working with the lightworkers who really are meant to be back in the corporate space doing the kind of work that I do is that we have to get really comfortable with our own lunas and we have to stop tolerating the criticism about your too touchy feeling. We have to insist that the language changes around. Emotional intelligence, being an air quotes soft skill, it's actually a capability that a small portion of the population has immense access to, more than average people do. And when we stop nodding our heads along and soothing people's anxieties about touchy feeling, emotional intelligence or beyond intuition a Kashuk records, when we get real comfortable with that language and bring that into them, that gives them permission to do the same. This has been several years ago.

Speaker 2: 45:14

I was over at Honeywell doing a talk for the Society of Women Engineers and one of my I love her. She was one of my clients for a long time and she actually brought me in. She was a leader over there and I did my talk I think it was on burnout and I used the word energy at some point. This was pre-COVID and it's probably 2018. And afterwards she came up to me and she's like so you're using the energy, word huh. And she's like yes, I am.

Speaker 2: 45:42

Another time I was over at Intel doing a talk for another group of women engineer leaders and I said I was doing a meditation and suddenly I said and breathe in love and grace. And I was like shit. I just said that and I'm like no, I'm standing in that and afterwards a woman came up to me and she said she said you're intuitive, aren't you? And I said yeah, I am. She said I need to work with you and she hired me and paid in full. In a way we went. So there is something when the people who are meant to work with us, who are in that space, are going to see us because we're going to speak in somewhat code, but we have to be able to speak that other language as well in order to accommodate people who are still kind of behind the curve in terms of being able to speak the language or even recognizing that it's a capability that is meant to be maximized.

Speaker 1: 46:38

Yeah, do you feel like the energy that, as we went through this energy shift, the past couple of years especially, I feel like it catapulted a lot of people into this, whereas before they would have been a lot more off put by it, and now they're more open to it, and I felt instantly more comfortable in my own skin talking about this stuff, whereas before I was in the spiritual closet for years as a trainer, not really talking about health and even sometimes.

Speaker 1: 47:09

I remember my early years even talking about organic food sounded crazy to people and they were like what? That's not even a thing. I'm like it is Promise, it's a thing.

Speaker 2: 47:21

Eat your vegetables. That aren't straight with DDT Like organic is different than conventional.

Speaker 1: 47:27

Trust me, they're like no, no way. They didn't believe me and I was like, wow, ok, so, and this was back before like organic was even known like it is. There was no whole foods, but yeah. And then so I come into this place in my life where I've been doing all these things for years Energy work and all these spiritual practices and really diving deeply into wellness and how it bridges with the energetic and getting into energy healing and all those things too, over the years, and finally I'm like I'm doing this. I'm going to start just outing myself and be just show people who I am, because I was just so tired of hiding for so many years. I felt like that was hiding parts of myself. And, granted, you meet people where they're at yes, absolutely. And at the same time, like you were just describing, robin, is sometimes you just when you channel that energy and you're going to say the right things to the right people and then building that trust around that is also key Is learning how to trust yourself.

Speaker 1: 48:39

right, it is yeah.

Speaker 2: 48:40

From the time I was a little kid, my mom had this thing that she would say to me can you just be yourself? And I didn't know what she meant by that, and I'm not sure that she did actually either, because remember I was talking about that neo personality profile. There's one aspect of personality that is called openness to experiences and that's really the hallmark of the creative personality. It's highly imaginative, has a love of beauty and aesthetics, has a deep connection with her own emotions and the emotions of other people, can read the room, basically has a great sense of adventure, challenges the status quo as a lifelong learner. That's kind of the crux of that openness.

Speaker 2: 49:21

So how that looks when you're a kid is like I was fascinated by people from Britain, so anytime I would hear like a sense and sensibility, I would pick up on the accent. And then I would meet people and I would pick up on their accent. My best friend moved from South Dakota to Florida and then suddenly she had a Floridian accent and when I was with her I would sound like her and my mom would always say can you just be yourself? Well, what I didn't understand is that I had a very open personality that could just take that in. I was creative, so I could hear that my language centers were very active, and so I could just imitate even my French accent. My French accent is better than my French by far, Wow. So I say this don't ask me to demonstrate, though, because my French is terrible.

Speaker 1: 50:09

What does a Floridian sound like? There's just lots of y'alls in Southern, like Georgia, georgia, florida.

Speaker 2: 50:18

Yeah, she was in Tallahassee, so it was kind of that Georgia-Florida kind of situation. But the being yourself remember I said a while ago, sometimes you're too well adjusted for your own good. When you can mask who you are, you become a chameleon or you become a shapeshifter, and that is a gift. If you're going to be a spy, like in World War II, that's a really good skill to have. It's also highly protective when you have we'll call it, I'm going to call it the witch wound around.

Speaker 2: 50:56

Maybe there was another timeline you were on that. You were burned at the stake or tried as a witch and drowned. You were found innocent and also dead. And so all of these experiences that women have had across lifetimes, with our intuition, with our spiritual intelligence, with our healing capabilities that go beyond Western medicine, it would be natural for us to protect ourselves. But here's the thing is now. There's never been a safer time for us to be fully ourselves, first of all. Secondly, I was having this conversation my guides. So I'm a clear channel. So I channel all kinds of work in the Akashic records. I channel my guides. And when I walk Cooper, my golden doodle the guides speak to me through my voice. So I'm talking out loud during my during my walk with Cooper and the other day we were talking about dogs named Cooper, cooper, cooper, mac.

Speaker 1: 51:51

I used to have a dog named Cooper.

Speaker 2: 51:53

Yeah, that's a whole nother story.

Speaker 2: 51:55

I'll tell you how he got his name, if we have time. So I, with my PhD in psychology, being raised academically by psychologists, I've still felt myself distance myself from the, from the psychology community, because I don't want them to think I'm crazy, because I don't want them to judge me, whatever those stories are that we have about what people will think of us if we actually show up as ourselves. And my guides reminded me of this. They said, robin, how do you think if you went to your psychology friends, if you said I'm a clear channel, what do you think they would say to you? And I said well, they're trained to affirm my experience. First of all, if we're going to look at the DSM, the DSM would say that hallucinations seeing things that other people can't see, hearing things that other people can't hear is is really only a pathology if it's outside of a person's worldview.

Speaker 1: 53:03

Oh yeah.

Speaker 2: 53:04

Wow, okay. So if it's so, I was raised charismatic Catholic, so laying on of hands, healing, those kinds of things were always in my field. They're part of my worldview. So if I'm having this experience of being a clear channel and having conversations with my guides who other people can't see, it's still in my worldview. Is this? I don't know why we're talking about this.

Speaker 1: 53:28

I just like it's like a value that you have, like yeah, yeah, so it's not crazy for me to do this.

Speaker 2: 53:35

It's integrated. When I say I have a PhD in psychology and I'm a clear channel, that's me being integrated.

Speaker 1: 53:41

Oh, absolutely. I think that's the best of both worlds. And it's balancing too, because a lot of people are way over too far in the other direction and no, but everything you were talking about is just like. I feel like you're talking to me, robin.

Speaker 2: 53:57

Yes, I am talking to you because if you look at the witch wound, if you look at, like any time, a woman, there is a lot of crazy making in this, in this world that we live in. Let's be honest, and I learned a long time ago that there's a fine line between being psychic and being psychotic.

Speaker 1: 54:16

Yes, I've thought about that too, yeah.

Speaker 2: 54:19

And if you look at the energetics of it, we have to ask the question what are you channeling? So, if you have diffuse boundaries, if your body is in bad shape, if you have unprocessed, unresolved trauma, if you've got a genetic predisposition for a bipolar disorder, like there, are all of these things that would create the conditions for a psychosis to arise clinically. But if you have none of those things, if you're healthy, if your body is fortified, if you're eating your organic foods and having a, if you have a clear channel, the frequencies that you're going to be able to channel, like you with your music, are going to be high, clear and sweet.

Speaker 1: 55:03

Right, because it's coming from a pure place.

Speaker 2: 55:06

Exactly. It's coming from a pure place, but if your body is, how do I want to say it? I was going to use the word dirty and I don't mean it like pigpen, but if you're not if you have fields.

Speaker 2: 55:19

Yeah, if there's density, if there's holding on emotions or yeah, and even if you think about it like I've gone through periods of anxiety and depression, I'm channeling that too. Everything is channeling through the field of anxiety and depression then, and then I'm very capable of going down worst case scenarios into the bad neighborhoods of my mind.

Speaker 1: 55:39

Right, yeah, and it's a matter of becoming more of that observer in your life and just like noticing it come through like, okay, this is coming through, all right, you're not resisting against it, you're allowing it. And it's more of that feminine aspect of yourself that is just letting yourself go with the flow of the energy.

Speaker 1: 56:04

And that's how you become the clear channel and you continue to let go of that density as it comes through, because it's coming up for a reason, right, I mean it wants to be, it wants you to let it move through.

Speaker 2: 56:17

To transmute it, to alchemize it, to use it as an invitation.

Speaker 1: 56:21

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 56:22

Rather than being in the problem reaction solution triad. Why don't we just look at if I'm feeling anxious. What is it an invitation to do when I'm feeling bored or unchallenged? It's probably an invitation to contribute, to get creative, to change my energy up. Those are the things. So it's the angle that we're looking at the experience from, rather than pathologizing everything. So my point to wrap that piece up about how can we shift things as light workers going into a more traditional corporate space is why don't we just own ourselves first and be super clear about who I am and super clear about what my mission is, and then it doesn't matter what you think about me or what I have to say. I'm a truth teller and I'm going to tell the truth, and the truth creates glitches in the matrix.

Speaker 1: 57:20

Yes, yes, and it's already happening. I mean it's interesting Things I've noticed and heard people talk about is like it's like that, the book I've ever read the book Truth vs Falsehood You're going to see the falsehoods and everything, or the truth of it, immediately, whereas before it might have been masked in a lower density kind of dimension of reality that we were in before. Now the veil like when they say the veil is getting thinner. That's because now you're going to be able to see the truth of what everything is. There's no hiding it anymore, and so that's, I feel like what we're stepping into, right, yes, that's discernment, and there's a difference between skepticism and discernment, isn't there?

Speaker 1: 58:11

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 58:14

Skepticism actually, in my experience, will block, and even critical thinking will do this too, will block my lived experience. Skepticism, critical thinking, outsources my inner knowing and says but what do they think? What would she say? What would he say? What would that person say if they knew? That's the skepticism. The discernment is. This is my experience.

Speaker 1: 58:39

Right? Yeah, it sounds like the discernment honors your experience. The skepticism is concerned with the judgment of others, right?

Speaker 2: 58:48

Yeah, and it gaslights your experience.

Speaker 1: 58:50

There's perspective, exactly, exactly. It gaslights you and then you can never really see things for what they are. You're always coming from this different lens, right of seeing it. And that's why the self-work is so important, because we want to be able to come from a very pure perspective, so that we can kind of come in with more of it Unconditional love for ourselves, and then you can just spill that out to others, so like for lightworkers.

Speaker 1: 59:16

Traditionally they've been like these warriors, these saviors in the narrative right, but really, like you said, you're nailing it. They are not. It's about you showing up as yourself fully, and it's purity, and then that spills on to others and then they are inspired to be themselves and then you don't have to rescue anything.

Speaker 2: 59:40

Exactly, I've got my business coach is Jennifer Lawnmore and she is she's a founder of a Cashick Records System, a soldier in the news method. I've worked with her for five years. She comes out of forensic social work and now she's got you know, an eight-figure and just. She's quite remarkable in everything that she does. But one of the things that I learned from her over the past three years, in this little COVID era that we've experienced, I call it the Great Awakening.

Speaker 2: 1:00:11

She said you can be a life raft or you can be a lighthouse, and the difference is the angle. Are you going to still be in that victim, persecutor, rescuer triad? You know, wonder Woman is always the hero. But when we position somebody like Wonder Woman or a light worker, one of us, as the hero, there's always got to be a victim then and there's always got to be a persecutor, a bully. But when we shift from that kind of life raft scenario the hero is the life raft into. I'm going to be a clear signal, I'm going to be a clear channel. I'm going to be a lighthouse, and a lighthouse just shines.

Speaker 1: 1:00:48

Right, I love that, and if people don't?

Speaker 2: 1:00:51

like how bright the lighthouse is, put on some sunglasses, but don't dim your light, because your job is to shine, and that's actually, I believe, what the light workers, the light warriors, the light ambassadors are here for is to just shine. That shifts things more than anybody else. It gives other people permission and activations to shine as well. So in your upcoming launch of your album, that's an opportunity for you to shine and for your light to be carried out across the field and to shift people in some way. The activations in your music, I sense, are going to be very powerful for the people who are listening to the music. So everybody buy the album and listen.

Speaker 1: 1:01:37

Thank you so much, robin. I feel that too. It's a little bit like surreal. I'm serious, that just came through.

Speaker 2: 1:01:43

That was channeled. Wow, you're welcome.

Speaker 1: 1:01:45

No, that was channeled, those are activations.

Speaker 2: 1:01:48

Those are activations that are coming through.

Speaker 1: 1:01:49

That's what I was. What kind of?

Speaker 2: 1:01:50

music, is it? Oh it's, I don't even know. It's like a diff.

Speaker 1: 1:01:54

It's like there's frequencies that are put that are in each song, but it has spoken word, it's my voice and it's also some singing and but different, different songs have different frequency. I'll send you the link if you want to check it out. You do? Yeah, and it's that's. What I feel like I'm going into is less of a. I mean coaching for a long time and serving people that way, but I have like hid myself behind the coach role and now I'm like, you know, I just feel like I've worked so much in my life. I just feel like being right now. I just feel like can we just be in each other's energy right now and enjoy that, you know, and that's that's what I'm bringing to the table, like inspiring people through play, like how can you, you know, do this channeling, yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:02:42

I mean the things that you're channeling. I want to have you on my podcast. Okay, it's called becoming the channel. It's called becoming the channel.

Speaker 1: 1:02:48

Yeah, I've been doing a lot of channeling this past year, for sure. Yeah, yeah it's. It's amazing when you can just be a clear vessel. What comes through it always surprises me.

Speaker 2: 1:03:01

That's how you know, that's how you know is it always surprises you? And so, just to come back to this ADHD link right, we have these brains that are unusual. We have these brains that are connected to higher levels of consciousness, that have the capability of tuning in. One of my guides said your brain, your nervous system, is like a radio antenna, and what frequency are you tuned to? Yeah, and so when you have, when you're, a clear channel, you get to choose. What am I going to tune into today? Joy, creativity, the field of infinite possibilities. What am I tuning into today? And you just send up the signal and it's right there.

Speaker 1: 1:03:50

Ah, that's, it's so simple, right? It's just so amazing that we have access to that. That's so simple.

Speaker 2: 1:03:56

Yeah, so, yeah. So, if you know, if we were to give you the Neo, I would guess that you probably score very high on open, as you're probably, you know, in a room of a hundred people or even a thousand people, one of the most open people in that space and you probably, you know, the distractibility would probably show up as well, or the day dreaming would show up as well. It's not diagnostic for ADHD, but we can sure predict it based on how the personality is wired. And the reason that's important for for the those of us, those of you who are listening to, is that if you have ADHD and you haven't been assessed yet or you don't know for sure what's the other side of that, the way to get at that in part is by looking at the personality as well and looking at what the strengths of the personality are and why you are the way you are. A lot of us are called to be channels.

Speaker 1: 1:04:44

Yeah, so you're you're saying, when I hear you saying, robin, is that people who have, who are channels, are more likely to be ADHD. Is that what you're saying? I think so. I think so. Wow, that's interesting.

Speaker 2: 1:04:59

I never, I never think of it. I don't. You know the research, I'm still a scientist and I'm like, okay, can I say that? And like this data bear it out. Well, the the evidence that I've seen in all of the people who I've interviewed and tested around, they identify as I'm intuitive, I'm a channel, and I look at their personalities and then we ask about ADHD and those. Those things seem to be linked. So you have to have ADHD. Do you have to have ADHD in order to be a channel? Probably not, but there is a neurodiversity that I think you would find present. Also, and one of the keys is recognizing, like if you're, if you're feeling like you're too well adjusted for your own good, if you're masking some of these symptoms or some of your abilities, God forbid. You mask your abilities, your capabilities, your gifts, because that's what you came here to share and that's what needs to come forward now, and I'm glad you're sharing yours.

Speaker 1: 1:05:58

Thank you. Well said, I love it. Thank you so much, robin. If you would please leave my listeners with a way to find you, connect with you, whatever you're offering at the present moment as well, yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:06:12

So a couple of things. Usually on podcasts there's one or two people who just know that they're meant to work with me and if you're one of those people, you start the process by booking a call, just a a consult with me. So you go to drrobinmccom, forward slash call and that takes you to my schedule. You just get on my calendar for that. I'm on Instagram, drrrobinmc, and TikTok is really surprising me with how fun it is to be over there.

Speaker 1: 1:06:40

Okay, I'll try it then. So I'm over on TikTok as well. I've been avoiding it.

Speaker 2: 1:06:44

I know, but there's something I actually just posted on are you too well adjusted for your own good? How to? How to tell if you're too well adjusted for your own good? And it is. I'm not joking, I'm not exaggerating when I say it's blowing up. I'm like holy smokes, like what even is this? So it's been fun to connect with people who are raising their hands and saying, yeah, I am, I'm intuitive, I'm smart and I'm too well adjusted for my own good. What do I do about that? So you can find me on either of those platforms. I'm on Facebook, of course. Becoming the channel is my Facebook group. That's the. That's the official home of the podcast, and you can find my podcast becoming the channel wherever you listen to those.

Speaker 1: 1:07:25

So that's it. Well, thank you so much, Robin. This has been an incredible show and so amazing to connect with you. Thank you for all your insights and your wisdom that you shared today. I appreciate it so much. Thanks for coming.

Speaker 2: 1:07:39

You're welcome, thank you.

Speaker 1: 1:07:45

I believe bliss is a spiritual experience and you can't find this without first learning how to play, make mistakes and have fun, fun.

Speaker 1: 1:08:01

But it's hard to experience bliss until you've learned how to surrender to what you cannot control, control, control, control, control, control, control, control. It's more fun to roll with life most times and, of course, control what you can, but let go of what you cannot and hand that over to the universe or your higher self, self, self, self, self, self, self, self, self, self, self, self, self, self, self, self, self Self. Our joy lies in the idea that many times, life does not unfold the way we always expect our plan, but it does unfold the way that is right for each of us, giving us exactly what we need without losing anything. Oftentimes, the result is even better than what we could have ever imagined, ever imagined, ever imagined Because we opened ourselves up to infinite possibility, possible, possible. Embracing the unknown in your life is like watching a good movie and waiting for the next clue as to what could come next, with curiosity and excitement. Curiosity and excitement. Curiosity and excitement, curiosity and excitement.

Speaker 1: 1:09:25

What you discover along the way in your life is important, important, important, important, important, important, important, important, important, important, important, important, important, important, important, and it all relates back to you being able to see the beauty and bringing awareness to the synchronicities, the synchronicities. Your life is your greatest work of art. We are all artists in that way and you get to create your life any way you like. That's the fun part, and having fun, I believe, is a spiritual experience, experience, experience, experience, experience, experience, experience. Your life is your greatest work of art and it all relates back to the synchronicities, synchronicities. Having fun, I believe, is a spiritual experience, experience, experience, and it all relates back to the synchronicities, the synchronicities. Your life is your greatest work of art and it all relates back to the sacred mystics, the sacred mystics.