Exploring Ancient Wisdom and Holistic Wellness with Angell Deer

[00:00:00] I'm a wellness holistic practitioner, shamanic teacher.

[00:00:05] I live here in the state in the Catskills, New York, like an hour and a half from New York City.

[00:00:10] And I support people in connecting to their purpose, ancient wisdom, and bringing them back to health itself.

[00:00:18] How exactly do you do that?

[00:00:20] I've been studying for almost 20 years now with masters and teachers of ancient wisdom, native people.

[00:00:30] Here in the Americas and in South America, in Peru, especially where my teachers are.

[00:00:37] And I personally found a lot of wisdom and guidance for my own life by learning those ancient teachings

[00:00:47] and by practicing them, by transforming myself.

[00:00:50] And that's what led me into people then starting asking me, hey, can you help me?

[00:00:55] And so I started a school, place for transformation.

[00:01:00] Welcome to the Wheel With It podcast with your host Devon.

[00:01:03] At Wheel With It, we are dedicated to exploring DEI issues in a fair, balanced, and fun way.

[00:01:10] Let's get into the episode.

[00:01:13] Hello, welcome to another episode of Wheel With It.

[00:01:16] Today we have Angel Deer on with us today.

[00:01:21] I hope I got that right.

[00:01:22] Angel, how are you?

[00:01:23] I'm very good.

[00:01:24] Thank you.

[00:01:25] Good morning.

[00:01:26] First of all, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and then we'll get started.

[00:01:30] Yes, sure.

[00:01:31] I'm a wellness holistic practitioner, shamanic teacher.

[00:01:36] I live here upstate in the Catskills, New York, like an hour and a half from New York City.

[00:01:41] And I support people in reconnecting to their purpose, ancient wisdom and bringing them back to healthy self.

[00:01:49] How exactly do you do that?

[00:01:52] I've been studying for almost 20 years now with masters and teachers of ancient wisdom, native people here in the Americas and in South America, in Peru,

[00:02:06] especially where my teachers are.

[00:02:08] And I personally found a lot of wisdom and guidance for my own life by learning those ancient teachings and by practicing them,

[00:02:20] by transforming myself.

[00:02:22] And that's what led me into people then starting asking me, hey, can you help me?

[00:02:27] And so I started a school, place for transformation.

[00:02:31] I do a lot of that now.

[00:02:33] And yeah, I guess it was my own journey, my own transformation that led me into wanting to share that.

[00:02:39] Do you have a favorite success story from your?

[00:02:43] From my clients, you mean?

[00:02:45] Yeah.

[00:02:46] I have so many.

[00:02:47] It's hard to pick one, but we have literally thousands of people that have come through our work.

[00:02:53] But I guess someone that came to me years ago with a very big physical illness that was life-threatening,

[00:03:03] so something quite serious.

[00:03:05] And this person was exploring, working with doctors, western medicine,

[00:03:09] but that person also wanted to understand why this was happening to them.

[00:03:14] Was there spiritual meaning?

[00:03:16] Was there a reason?

[00:03:18] And we started diving deep into that.

[00:03:20] And we discovered very ancient, emotional and spiritual issues that this person had in his childhood.

[00:03:30] We work on that through shamanic joining, through rituals, through practices.

[00:03:36] And a few months later, I think three or four months later, as we were walking this through this person at a remission in his illness

[00:03:45] and got fully healed and transformed.

[00:03:48] And we never know exactly what is it that, is it the Western treatments, but the doctors told him there was really no hope.

[00:03:55] And so I truly believe, and it doesn't mean it works 100% of the time,

[00:03:59] but sometimes our body is trying to tell us something about our lives, about our relationship, about the way we are.

[00:04:07] And to look at something that's in our past or something that happened.

[00:04:12] And this person today lives a beautiful life and has beautiful kids.

[00:04:16] It's always beautiful to see such transformation.

[00:04:19] That's amazing.

[00:04:20] What inspired you to transition from a successful corporate career to becoming a shaman and who was decocted practitioner?

[00:04:28] It was my own quest for purpose and meaning, and I guess happiness.

[00:04:34] I used to be a CEO and a successful entrepreneur.

[00:04:39] What we call successful meaning I raised a lot of money from my company, a few hundred employees.

[00:04:44] So the company grew really big, but despite what looked like success, I didn't feel at the time an inner fulfillment, an inner success.

[00:04:54] In fact, I was quite miserable internally, I think.

[00:04:58] And I was like, that can be it. That can be what life is about just doing this.

[00:05:06] But I'm not feeling this deep sense of purpose and happiness.

[00:05:12] And so I basically quit all of that.

[00:05:14] I went on this big quest for many years for my own healing for trying to answer this big question about who am I?

[00:05:24] Why am I here? What is life about?

[00:05:27] And it led me to different countries in the world, in India, in Nepal, in South America, in Asia, in many places where I study and heal myself.

[00:05:40] And then when I came back, I was like, okay, so what do I do now that I feel better and all of that?

[00:05:46] And in fact, people at the time were reaching out to me and say, hey, I'm very interested about your job, what you've learned.

[00:05:52] And is there anything you want to share? And I started to teach. It happened, right?

[00:05:58] And then that transformed into me becoming a practitioner of this way.

[00:06:02] I still study them. It's not like you're ever done with it.

[00:06:05] And starting to help people on their big life question.

[00:06:10] So can you elaborate on your time studying under all these people? Because that sounds fascinating.

[00:06:16] The first I spent time in India, Nepal. And I study with an old tradition that is called Advaita Vedanta,

[00:06:26] which are the ancient Hindu scriptures, very old texts that say, John mystic of the time, we're trying to answer those big questions.

[00:06:36] The purpose of life, the meaning of life, the nature of reality is what we see reality or is there something else?

[00:06:44] All those big questions. And I study many for a long time, this tradition and I think it's quite magical, the answer we found there.

[00:06:52] And then somehow this led me into the jungle of Peru in the Amazon where I started studying and healing and working with local shamans, healers,

[00:07:06] learning their connection to plants, learning their connection to the spirit world, learning their connection to land, to community.

[00:07:13] This is where a difficult time. It's not easy to be in the jungle as all of insects and it's not super comfortable.

[00:07:20] I don't want to be in the jungle. I love survival. Do you watch the show?

[00:07:30] No, I don't watch the show now.

[00:07:32] Oh, I was about to get excited there for a second. Anyway, there was a season in the Amazon and that is one season that I would not want to be on

[00:07:42] because then I'm glad I wasn't enough to be out at the time because it was like 20 years ago.

[00:07:47] But yeah, I would not want to live in the Amazon so cool.

[00:07:52] Yeah, I think the desire to learn to understand that type of wisdom was bigger than the discomfort.

[00:08:02] And then I've been studying also with Native American elders here in the US and I still do.

[00:08:09] And yeah, over the years I think that I found also some commonality between all those ancient teachings and Native teachings.

[00:08:16] And it seems to me that with all the issues we are seeing in the world on the social side, on the environment and on people,

[00:08:26] that type of wisdom I believe and it's my experience with it can provide good answers to the issues we are facing.

[00:08:35] That is an amazing answer.

[00:08:37] Can you share some practical tips for creating sacred spaces in both personal and professional environments?

[00:08:44] Very often I think Western people when we think of sacred space, we might think of religious places like a church or a temple,

[00:08:54] maybe an ancient sacred site that we visited during our travel.

[00:08:59] But in the ancient teaching and more traditional teachings and wisdom, every place is sacred.

[00:09:07] Every place has meaning, right? And that includes your home. That includes your environment.

[00:09:11] That includes the place you live, you work.

[00:09:13] And I think I wrote a book called The Sacred Web that is about how do you transform your own home,

[00:09:22] your own space into a sacred space.

[00:09:25] Because why would we do that, by the way? People say I can just go to church on Sundays, right?

[00:09:30] Or temples or whatever you're doing to connect to the sacred.

[00:09:35] But I think what we want to experience is sacred all the time, every day at every moment.

[00:09:41] When I wake up in the morning, I want to experience that because I know it's the nature of who I am.

[00:09:46] We are sacred beings, all of us. You are, I am.

[00:09:49] And so our space reflects that.

[00:09:53] So if we live in a space that feels cluttered and crowded and that is just functional, let's say,

[00:10:01] it's just objects for eating and sitting and resting and watching TV and things like that.

[00:10:08] We lose a sense of sacred. And when we lose a sense of sacred in the places we live,

[00:10:12] we lose a sense of sacred in us, in ourselves.

[00:10:14] So I wrote a book that was, that is about how do we bring back this connection to the sacred in our everyday life.

[00:10:22] And you don't have to be religious. You don't have to even have any foundation in spirituality.

[00:10:29] And my experience is that's at least what the readers are telling me,

[00:10:32] that when they implement things like putting up in place sacred space in their home,

[00:10:37] starting to shift the objects, starting to shift the connection that they have with the space,

[00:10:42] they're feeling a transformation of themselves and of their life.

[00:10:46] And that's really the goal, right? Ultimately.

[00:10:48] What role do you believe ancient wisdom traditions such as shamanism, play and modern society?

[00:10:56] I think it's pretty clear and difficult to argue by anyone.

[00:11:02] Unless, I think we're in deep denial that the world has a lot of issues and problems, right?

[00:11:08] It does. Watch the nudes.

[00:11:10] Exactly, right? The environment, wars, social unrest, epidemic of drugs and addictions, depression, anxiety, stress.

[00:11:23] People are not doing well. And when you look at ancient teachings and ancient wisdom,

[00:11:29] they explain you, they show you exactly why because of our disconnection.

[00:11:34] Disconnection to nature, disconnection to the self, disconnection to each other, disconnection to the sacred.

[00:11:41] And ancient teachings, they're not ancient as they are old.

[00:11:45] We mean ancient by, we mean timeless, meaning they're still alive today.

[00:11:51] They still exist. And why does it still exist?

[00:11:53] Because they mean relevance for thousands of years and I believe they're even more relevant today.

[00:11:58] In fact, sometimes I work with people that have no connection at all to ancient wisdom.

[00:12:04] And when they start implementing those teachings in their life become better.

[00:12:08] So they work, right? And they can, I believe, show us a way of living in the modern world,

[00:12:16] in this DNA that we are in, not in the past. It's for living in today,

[00:12:21] but in a way that is much more healthy, compassionate, loving, kind, connected, sacred.

[00:12:28] That brings a lot more meaning into the life of everyone.

[00:12:33] But I just want to know, can you name a specific teaching that has helped you the most?

[00:12:39] One of the teaching that is key is that we are all related, meaning we're all family.

[00:12:46] We're all connected, not just your blood family, but you and I here on the call.

[00:12:50] You and the trees, you and the animals, you and the river, meaning that every life on Earth is sacred.

[00:12:58] It's part of creation. And we are interdependent. We're connected to each other,

[00:13:03] meaning the only reason we are alive, you and I right now it's because there's a sun in the sky.

[00:13:08] It's because there's water on the earth. It's because the trees are breathing.

[00:13:12] In fact, the only way you can take an email right now is because a tree just excelled for you.

[00:13:17] The teaching of interconnectedness and relations, they are probably some of the most important.

[00:13:24] And we often forget, right? Because we just think that, yeah, we can do whatever we want to the earth, to each other's,

[00:13:30] and we're going to be okay. And that's not true. It's just not the reality.

[00:13:34] Biology tells us different. Physics tell us different.

[00:13:37] So I think that's one of the main teaching that is common to most of the native wisdom I've explored

[00:13:45] and learned from around the world.

[00:13:47] That is an amazing answer, by the way. So as someone with experience in leadership roles,

[00:13:53] how do you integrate spirituality and mindfulness into your approach to leadership?

[00:13:58] I think most people that are in position of leadership or corporate careers and, yeah, some kind of power, right?

[00:14:07] I realized very quickly that just money, power or fame is not going to fulfill their life.

[00:14:13] In fact, a lot of my clients come because they are looking for purpose. They're looking for meaning.

[00:14:19] They feel that maybe they've been successful, but there is something inside of them that needs to birth, that needs to awaken.

[00:14:25] And I think when we think of leadership, we think about big business and being a leader and being famous or leading people.

[00:14:34] But what about leadership of the self, being a true leader of our life?

[00:14:38] Being really empowered. I mean, the sense of meaning, having a sense of purpose.

[00:14:43] So for me, if we don't have a sense of meaning and purpose, when we wake up in the morning, if we're not really excited for this life,

[00:14:52] for the impact we're going to make, not just for ourselves, but for everyone on the planet and for the next generation,

[00:14:58] for our children and grandchildren, was the purpose of living.

[00:15:02] I think many people realize that because I got very often people coming from, let's say, a successful career or a successful life in the modern system.

[00:15:13] But that are going through a crisis because of that lack of purpose, lack of meaning and because of stress, anxiety and many other things that this life cost them.

[00:15:24] What advice do you have for individuals who are seeking greater balance and harmony in their lives?

[00:15:29] Particularly in the midst of demanding corporate careers.

[00:15:32] In the midst of what? Sorry?

[00:15:34] Demanding corporate careers.

[00:15:36] Yeah, first I think we need to realize that we're not just a brain, a mind.

[00:15:41] And we probably, when we have such career and such life, spend a lot of time in our head, a lot of time outside of ourselves, right?

[00:15:49] In interaction with others, connected to devices, watching TV, watching our phone, listening to things.

[00:15:56] So it's all out there, right?

[00:15:58] There's nothing wrong with having social interaction and things like that.

[00:16:02] But I think we need to realize that we are much more than just a thinking mind.

[00:16:07] We also are feeling beings, meaning we have a heart, we have feelings that we have a physical body that is right there.

[00:16:15] And in the ancient tradition, we believe the sense of purpose that reason, essence of why we are here is not in our head.

[00:16:23] It's in our heart.

[00:16:25] It's in our belly, in fact, for some tradition.

[00:16:28] So unless we learn tools to develop those muscles, connection to the heart, the connection to the belly, the connection to the body,

[00:16:37] we're going to feel very imbalanced because that's just not who we are.

[00:16:40] We're not just a brain on the shelves or on a stick, right?

[00:16:43] We are everything else.

[00:16:44] And so a lot of the cost of our life to be completely in our head is pretty massive.

[00:16:51] And we're seeing that every day, obviously.

[00:16:54] This is just my question.

[00:16:56] Can you elaborate on the role that phones addiction has played in this whole epidemic?

[00:17:02] The phone are designed to play on our desires for immediate rewards, right?

[00:17:10] We click, we see something.

[00:17:12] We like, we got all the comments.

[00:17:15] We see funny videos of cats or whatever it is we're looking at.

[00:17:19] We get an immediate boost of endorphin in our bodies, in our brain.

[00:17:25] And endorphin is a hard drug.

[00:17:27] It's a natural drug, but it works like morphine.

[00:17:30] It's a very strong molecule that we're hooked to it.

[00:17:35] So we get hit of that all the time.

[00:17:38] But we did not evolve for tens of thousands of years having immediate rewards.

[00:17:43] In fact, rewards were due to long work to patients, right?

[00:17:49] If you wanted to eat, you had to go on a hunt and you have to find food.

[00:17:53] And if you wanted sugar, now you can just pop open your cupboards and take a cookie or take some sugar.

[00:17:59] But our body were not designed for that.

[00:18:02] So we love sugar.

[00:18:03] Why?

[00:18:04] Because it's so rare in nature.

[00:18:05] And what we were finding in the universe really precious.

[00:18:09] So we've designed our bodies for today, the way we have entertained our body and develop our bodies for immediate rewards.

[00:18:16] So we have no patience.

[00:18:18] I think the attention span now used to be like a few hours in the 60s.

[00:18:23] And now it's like a few minutes.

[00:18:26] Like people can't say something.

[00:18:28] Yeah, exactly.

[00:18:29] So we can't really ask, are we going to learn about anything, especially ourselves?

[00:18:36] If we cannot close our eyes more than a few minutes and then feeling I need to watch Netflix or I need to check my phone.

[00:18:42] Right.

[00:18:43] That's, I think, really problematic.

[00:18:45] And I think it's, I was when I was born 50 years ago, there was no phone.

[00:18:50] No cell phone.

[00:18:52] Right.

[00:18:53] I think for the kids that are born into this era, it's going to be much more problematic because they're developing a brain that only have this way of thinking and this way of being.

[00:19:01] And that's really problematic.

[00:19:03] Yeah, it's crazy what our kids have to go through nowadays.

[00:19:06] I'm glad I'm not a kid anymore because I'm addicted to my phone and I'm not even a kid.

[00:19:12] So.

[00:19:13] Mm hmm.

[00:19:14] Yeah, I think we all are addicted to it.

[00:19:16] It's very difficult.

[00:19:17] Yeah.

[00:19:18] So do you watch The Office at all?

[00:19:20] I used to.

[00:19:21] Have you heard of that rain?

[00:19:23] Wilson's got a book out on spiritual stuff called slow room.

[00:19:27] No, I didn't.

[00:19:28] Yeah, I was thinking about that the whole conversation with you.

[00:19:30] I think you'd really like the book.

[00:19:32] You might want to download it.

[00:19:33] I haven't read it yet either.

[00:19:34] Okay, I'll check out.

[00:19:36] And he's got a podcast coming out too.

[00:19:38] So nice.

[00:19:40] How can individuals maintain the sacredness of the spaces and adapt them to life and equitable shifts and changes?

[00:19:48] I think we are seasonal beings.

[00:19:51] I always tell that to people.

[00:19:53] We have seasons, we have our storm, we have our winter, we have our summers, we have our spring or fall.

[00:19:59] Right?

[00:20:00] So for me, a sacred space to stay alive, to stay connected to you needs to follow your seasons.

[00:20:07] And so my sacred space constantly evolve, right?

[00:20:11] It defile with the season of the earth right now where in spring and it's beautiful.

[00:20:15] So I'm going to bring flowers on it.

[00:20:17] I'm going to bring seeds.

[00:20:18] I'm going to be bringing green leaves.

[00:20:21] But then in the fall, I'm going to put dead leaves and orange colors and things like that.

[00:20:26] So my space needs to be a reflection of the season of nature because I'm part of nature.

[00:20:32] I'm part of all of it.

[00:20:33] And my own season, let's say you are going through a very difficult, challenging time emotionally and you are feeling quite depressed and low and you have anxiety.

[00:20:44] What do you bring in your space to bring the light, to bring the joy, to bring the colors?

[00:20:51] If you're feeling very gray, you want to bring colors, right?

[00:20:54] So you see, you can bring your space not just mirroring what the seasons are in the greater realms on the earth, but also your own season and try to influence that, to reflect that.

[00:21:07] So when you sit with your sacred space, when you are in it, it shift your mood, it shift your energy.

[00:21:13] What are some common misconceptions about spirituality and holistic wellness and how do you adjust them in your work?

[00:21:20] I think there's tons of misconceptions, probably.

[00:21:23] I don't know.

[00:21:24] I think probably less and less today because most people are experiencing some kind of holistic wellness.

[00:21:29] Let's say just with yoga, for example, that's very popular now or meditation.

[00:21:33] But I think one of the misconceptions is that it's separated from life.

[00:21:38] It's something we do outside of life, right?

[00:21:41] We're stressed and then we're going to do that.

[00:21:42] And then we go back to life, right?

[00:21:44] The reality is that those traditions, these spiritual teachings, they were designed for life, not to escape life, not to get us happy when we do the practice but not in life.

[00:21:58] They were designed to bring into the life those teachings so we could live life in a better way.

[00:22:03] And very often I think people separate that.

[00:22:07] I'm going to do that retreat or I'm doing that practice but then have to return to life.

[00:22:11] Now, I'm more interested about how do you bring that practice into your life?

[00:22:16] They always say yoga is not just when you do the asana on the mat.

[00:22:19] It's how do you bring yoga into your mind, into your emotion, into your life, right?

[00:22:25] And practice it as you are at work, as you're going to the supermarket, as you are in a relationship.

[00:22:29] That's true yoga.

[00:22:31] So all the spiritual teachings were designed for that, for helping us growing through life up and down in a better way.

[00:22:39] Yeah, I had one of my favorite college professors was really into yoga and she like incorporated those teachings into daily life and it was really cool to see.

[00:22:51] So I definitely can see how people incorporate yoga and their daily life, the teachings.

[00:22:59] That's beautiful. Yeah, it's very important.

[00:23:01] You have a tattoo on your hand for people that are watching on YouTube.

[00:23:05] Can you elaborate on the meaning of that because that's a very cool test.

[00:23:09] Those are runes which are North Nordic, North shamanism symbols.

[00:23:16] What? I'm sorry, I pronounced it.

[00:23:19] From Europe, Northern Europe from the runic tradition, the Vikings people.

[00:23:24] If you look at the show Vikings, you probably saw those symbols over there and the runes are an ancient alphabet, but they were also tools for divination and sacred work for spiritual work.

[00:23:36] And so they can be used for many things and have worked with shamans from that tradition for many years now.

[00:23:42] And so that's why I have some of them on my bodies.

[00:23:45] So anything else you want to add before we get off here?

[00:23:50] I just want to say that sometime in life we feel like it's too much that we don't know if we're going to make it.

[00:23:58] We think it's difficult. The world can be very daunting at times, depressing, sad or make us really angry.

[00:24:05] And I really my code here is that people reach out, search into ancient wisdom, teachers, teachings.

[00:24:14] No, not just specifically me, but because I know in there you will find answers and support.

[00:24:20] You would find guidance for some of the questions that are downing for you or the troubles that you are living through.

[00:24:27] So I hope that whatever I share today is going to make your careers seem to exploring more what are those ancient teachings?

[00:24:36] How can they help in your life and how can they really transform your life for the better?

[00:24:42] So where can people start if they want to get into these ancient teachings?

[00:24:47] There's a lot of books out there. I don't want just to promote myself, but people can go on our website.

[00:24:52] We offer a lot of free teachings, a lot of readings, a lot of things that people can access for free.

[00:24:59] And then if people want to go further, we have online, on-demand video classes.

[00:25:04] We have in-person teachings and things like that if they want to go deeper.

[00:25:07] But there's a lot of resources available for sure online now.

[00:25:10] Okay, and we will put all the links to follow you on social media in the show notes.

[00:25:15] So be sure to check those out.

[00:25:17] And thank you for being here today and we will see you guys next episode. Bye guys.

[00:25:23] Thank you.