Healing Through Grief with Britt Michaelian

00:00 Britt McGaillian thought she had it all figured out. She was creating art, raising her daughters, and living a beautiful life in San Francisco. But when her mom got sick, everything changed. What began as a move to help turned into a profound unraveling and a return to something deeper. Through loss, intuition, and healing, Britt uncovered a version of herself she didn't know was waiting. That morning at about 11, I said to him, I feel like my mom's going to die today, and it's going to be bloody, and I don't want the kids to see. 00:30 And he was like, do you want me to not go play poker? And I was like, no, what are you going to do? Stand around and just stare at her all day? know, like she was fine. She went to the grocery store at six o'clock that night. You know, like she was fine. There was no reason for him to just worry about her. And I just, I don't know. I just had this feeling. I'm Maciel Hoolie and this is the Life Shift. Candid conversations about the pivotal moments that have changed lives forever. 01:07 Hello, my friends. Welcome to the LifeShift Podcast. I am here with Britt. Hello, Britt. Hi. Thank you for being a part of the LifeShift Podcast. Before we even have this conversation, I just think that this is a journey that I never really could have imagined for myself. And to be able to have such deep, meaningful conversations with strangers that maybe I never would have like come across had it not been for this podcast. I'm just so honored. And I think of 01:36 this eight year old version of me who had just found out that his mom had died in a motorcycle accident. And my life felt like, like, there's nothing that we imagined for my life after this point is now available to me anymore. It felt like very hopeless. And I always wondered growing up because I wasn't able to kind of process that grief because of the time period. was like early, these people weren't really talking about it. And behind the scenes, I was like, man, do other people have these? 02:05 line in the sand moments in which everything changes. And for me growing up, it was always focused on like a trauma event. But I've come to realize through all these conversations that like we as humans also have these moments that are like internal fires or something triggers an internal fire that we kind of change our lives and whatnot. And so I'm just so honored that you want to share your story, which probably encompasses both of those pieces in different ways, you know, interest in this platform. So thank you before we even get started. 02:35 Thank you so much for having me. This is such a lovely space to be with you and I'm just really glad to be here. Yeah. Well, thank you. I envision this as people listening, like overhearing a conversation in a coffee shop and like we have, we talk about the things that maybe growing up, some of us were told we shouldn't talk about because that's taboo and now here we get to do it and everyone and anyone can listen. So before we get into your life shift story, maybe you can tell us who Brit is in 2025. 03:05 How do you show up in the world? How do you identify? So I'm a mother of three daughters and a wife, and I've got a dog and two cats who are in the room with me right now. So those are like my, those are my most important things. And then aside from that, what I do for work is I'm a frequency artist and a quantum healer. And that all kind of came about in a very random way, but I work with clients. 03:32 Basically, people who are interested in understanding themselves on a deeper level, on a soul level, and helping them kind of clear their blocks and move forward towards the mission of why they're here in life, what they're here, what their soul's here to do. That's a big responsibility is not the right word, but that's like a heavy lift and something that is like probably really rewarding, but at the same time, maybe somewhat hard. Is it like not hard? I don't know what the word is. It's like. 04:02 Heavy? Yeah, I mean, you know, I, I never do things that are very like put in a box, you know, like I've never been that kid, that person, whatever. So I always, you know, kind of, very hyphenated in terms of what I do. And a lot of what I'm doing right now actually came from the transition of things that happened to me a few years ago. And I did not think that I was heading in this direction at all. And so it is interesting how life experiences kind of 04:32 If you're not paying attention, you could keep staying on that road and life could just be knocking you upside the head and you're not really paying attention. So you just stay because you think this is my box and I'm supposed to stay in here, you know? Yeah, that's very societal. Like, I feel like many of us were conditioned in that way. Maybe we assumed we were supposed to stay, right? Like it wasn't necessarily someone was like, oh, you need to stay in this lane. But it was like, the society was creating all of these, like you say, boxes. 05:02 that we kind of just played in. And even if we escaped a box, we jumped into a different box and we just like created our world in that particular box. So yeah. But I'm assuming like this, when you were growing up as a little girl, you were not like dreaming of the job that you have right now, or is that a wrong assumption? No, it's funny. I always wanted to be an artist and I did go to school. went to, well, it took me a couple of different directions. 05:27 twists and turns, but I went to the Art Institute of Chicago and got my bachelor's in fine art there. And then I got my master's degrees, I have a master's in marriage and family therapy and a master's in art therapy. So I knew that art was kind of always there and that background, I always wanted to help people, but going into kind of the energy healing in that space was very much, it started when my life shift happened. 05:57 sometimes even if they are traumatic events, which we'll talk about in a second, or traumatic things happening, sometimes they push us in the direction that like maybe we always kind of wanted to be in, but like on a subconscious kind of level, even in the the life shift podcast example, like, as an eight year old podcast didn't exist, I didn't imagine and I wasn't allowed to really talk about my grief and sadness. But then once I found my voice in it and was took a 06:27 a second master's degree during COVID because I was bored. I took a podcasting class, so I was kind of forced into it. But at the same time, I found the space that I wanted to be in kind of haphazardly. But also, I think I always knew I wanted to do something like this and have these deep conversations. So that being said, maybe you can kind of paint the picture of your life leading up to this life shift moment or one or two of your life shift moments that kind of 06:55 shows us this before version of Brit and like how that's transitioned into who you are now. Yeah, I'd love to talk about that. So it's interesting. So we were living in San Francisco. All of my daughters were born in San Francisco. My husband was born in San Francisco and we did not think that we were ever going to do anything else besides live in San Francisco. And I was going to be a mom and I was at the time my art was being exhibited in galleries across the United States. it was just 07:25 I mean, that's big in itself. Yeah, yeah, it was great. I'm not complaining, but it was very normal, so to speak. You know, like I was a traditional artist. You know, I was a color expressionist and my art was often compared to Mark Rothko. And, you know, everything was very, you know, people could understand what I was doing. You know, you're an artist. That's you. Artists are kind of out of the box, but they what we know in an artist is, you know. 07:51 And then I was working in a hospital when I've got my master's degrees. I did my practicum through California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, and I worked in the hospital oncology, heart transplant, and pediatric unit. So I was going into the hospital rooms and working with all the patients, and I was pregnant at the time as well. Great. Yeah. Some emotions. Yeah. 08:18 So then as soon as I finished my practicum, I had to go on bed rest because I was going into labor too early. And so I had to stop working at the hospital and then 9-11 happened. So things kind of changed a little bit, but from that point, you know, that was just my life at that point in time. I was a mom, you know, I had my master's degrees, my art was in galleries and that was, and my parents lived in Southern California and my sister lived in Northern California. 08:48 So I won sister and my mom was always my best friend and my dad loved my sister. And it was just kind of one of those relations. I my dad loved me too, but I mean, he really loved my sister. So that was kind of, you know, that was life. We were just, you know, a family in San Francisco. Would you say that it was a happy life? It was something that like you, you enjoyed your life. I mean, first of all, I think it's beautiful that you were 09:17 you were able to create a career and whatnot through art. Because I think there's a lot of people that have maybe a creative inkling or they just didn't feel like they had permission to move forward and get better and do all these things. And here you are, like creating a career, which is so inspiring in itself. Well, thank you. But that was why I kind of had some twists and turns before I went to the Art Institute of Chicago. Because when I was in college originally, 09:46 I wanted to please my father. I wanted my dad to pay attention to me, right? So I went to University of Southern California because he thought that was a great school. And I just, I got lost and that was not the right place for me. It was not the best version of myself at all. And so I dropped out for a while. I worked for a while. I took some classes and then I... 10:10 realized that I wanted to get out of Los Angeles. We went to a wedding in Chicago and I brought my portfolio and my mom said, you know, my mom had always told me you're going to go to the Art Institute of Chicago one day. And I was like, no way, you know, like I'm never going to get in there. And so when we went to that wedding, I brought my portfolio, I met with them, they accepted me and three weeks later, I moved to Chicago. So that was pretty awesome. Yeah, no, I mean, I think that in itself is also a beautiful story, because I think 10:40 There are a lot of people that I, I'll just say I did. I did a lot of the things in my life for a long time, hoping that I would show my dad that I was perfect and that I did everything that he needed me to do. Although he never told me that I needed to do this. Like I just assumed as an eight year old who had just lost his mom, moving into my father's house, my parents were divorced. And I was like, everyone wants to see me happy. 11:09 So I just automatically assumed that if I didn't show that I was perfect or happy, that my dad was also gonna leave, because my mom had just left, and it just snowballed from there. And so I went to college picking the degree that I thought would be impressive. My dad will be happy. So you're normal too, you did that as well, but at some point you realized, oh wait, this is not serving me in the way that maybe it should. So you get it. Yes. I think a lot of people do though. 11:38 But I commend you for for realizing that and like making a choice because that's a that's hard. Was that hard to quit? Was it hard? Yeah. I mean, you know, my dad, my. So the reason why for for my relationship with my father, the reason that my dad and my sister kind of got along is now I know these things, but like astrologically and human design wise, they were very aligned and my mom and I were very aligned. 12:08 And so, you now as a parent, it's funny, because I look at my kids and I think, now I'm like, okay, she's Aries, she's a, you know, she's a generator, she's this, she's that, and just kind of trying to understand them as people so that we don't have that kind of push and pull. But with my dad, I mean, so I'll tell you more along the life shift lines in terms of like how things went and, you know. 12:36 It's very interesting how how things turn out. Yeah, no, it does. Well, I just want to say before you move on, I commend you for choosing yourself, at least in that moment of like, because like quitting college is a big deal. Like people will judge no matter what you do. Yeah, I mean, I always knew that I would go back. I just didn't want to go back until I figured out the right way to do it. You know, for you. think I 13:03 I think it's commendable. don't know if people listening think that, but like for me, like I always wanted to quit, but I didn't quit because I was because I figured, oh God, people are going to judge me in this way and I couldn't handle that. you know, so so good on you. But carry on with your story. I just think it's really awesome. I need to because society puts especially with college, right? Society puts so much emphasis on where do you go to college? You know, and what did you study? And so now I have three daughters. One of them is 26 and she has a 13:32 bachelor's degree in entrepreneurship or whatever, and she's doing her thing. The second one is a songwriter. She's 23. She's a songwriter and producer. She started out going to college online before COVID. My dad was like, that's not, that doesn't count. She needs to go to a four year school, whatever. And I was like, let's just let her do what she wants. And then she ended up dropping out. She's doing great. She's, you know, working with some top talent. 13:58 side with Universal, she's fabulous, you know? And then my youngest daughter is 19 and she was never an academic. I mean, even in second grade, was pretending she was sick all the time and she just didn't want to be in school, you know? So, okay, fine. And trying to figure out what was going on. Sometimes it was bullying. Sometimes she just didn't understand and, you know, but she's in school right now in London in music school because that's what she wants to pursue. So it's like, 14:27 You know, I think because I had the experience that I had and my husband, thank God, is very accepting of all of these, you know, kind of nuances, we just allow our kids to do, to follow their heart, you know, and that's the most important thing for us. And had we not had the experiences, you know, we wouldn't be parenting kids that way or we wouldn't be that accepting of other people. Yeah, no, it's beautiful. You're allowing your kids to be the humans that 14:56 they want to be. Yeah, which is which is what we all want. But I some of us in different generations kind of assumed that we had to do certain things a certain way. Yeah. Yeah. So carry on with your story. Sorry, I didn't mean to sidetrack us, but I just think it's so commendable just to follow your passion and then create something out of it and then find success. However, we want to determine that word and what that means. You know, that's that's a beautiful life. You were living this happy life at the time before we're kind of leading up to your life shift. 15:27 Yes. what ended up happening in my life shift, I'm just going to go into it. My mother was diagnosed with DH3 lung cancer. She was diagnosed by my godfather, who is a cancer oncologist. My sister and I flew down to Newport Beach from Northern California to be with my parents after my mom had been diagnosed. As we were going on a family walk, I said, we're going to move down here. 15:56 And my parents were like, what are you talking about? And I was like, I don't know, we're gonna move here. And my husband was born and raised in San Francisco. His parents lived there, there was no way, but he had just sold his business. And my kids were young enough and I knew that my kids loved and adored my parents. And I knew that they would wanna live in Southern California to be near my parents while my mom was going through treatment. 16:21 And so it ended up being that that was what we did. We moved down. My husband was a little bit iffy on that, but once we got down here, we were moving for a year. And then after a year, it turned into two years. And after two years, my mom's journey was like this. you know, we were, we had a year into it. I think she went into the hospital and she had a staph like pneumonia and just like. 16:49 crazy things going on and the doctors pulled us into this room that I'll call the death room because there were like pamphlets everywhere that were about death and he just said listen like she's got maybe two weeks to live there's no way they're her lungs we can't even go down to like wash out the infection. 17:07 she's not gonna make it. And by the way, we can't turn out, like when we went in to do the scope to figure it out, we had to intubate her and we can't get her to breathe on her own. So she's on a breathing machine right now. And if she doesn't wake up by tomorrow morning, you guys are gonna have to decide whether or not to pull the plug. So I was like, okay. So I went home to rest and just kind of deal and. 17:34 my sister and my dad stayed at the hospital and then I was going to come back later. Before I came back at like 930 that night, my mom pulled the tube out of her mouth, sat up and wanted a steak and a mascara, her mascara in the middle of the ICU. So I knew, I was like, oh my gosh, you know? And so, and then she said she wanted to have a party. So we had a party for her. We called it Martinis and Miracles. It was amazing. She lasted another year. 18:02 And then by that point in time, we had moved out of the house that we were renting because remember we were only going to come for a year. And we had decided that it was at the time with mortgage rates and whatnot, it was a better, better deal to buy a house. So we were in contract to close on a house, but we had to move out of the house that we were renting. So in the meantime, we had moved in with my parents and we were living with them with our dog and three cats and their two cats. 18:30 And it was crazy, but it was wonderful. And one day my husband was going to go over and play poker with a friend who he has never played poker before ever. But he was kind of looking forward to going and hanging out with some men. And I was like, that's great. You know, go do that. And that morning at about 11, I said to him, I feel like my mom's going to die today and it's going to be bloody and I don't want the kids to see. 18:57 And he was like, do you want me to not go play poker? And I was like, no, what are you going to do? Stand around and just stare at her all day? know, like she was fine. She went to the grocery store at six o'clock that night. You know, like she was fine. There was no reason for him to just worry about her. And I just, I don't know. I just had this feeling. And so he went to go play poker. I put the girls to bed. I went to bed. And then at about 1030, my dad came in and knocked on the door and asked if I could come. And I had one of the 19:26 the girl sleeping in the bed with me, he said, can you come help me? And so I went to go help him and that was the moment when it was bloody and my dad was calling 911 and I was in the room with my mom and I was telling her to breathe but she couldn't breathe because I don't know what was going on but there was just a lot of blood everywhere. And I just looked at her and I just knew, was like, this is it. 19:54 know. And so I looked at her and I just started saying, I love you. I love you. And I laid her down on the ground. And my dad was still in the other room. He didn't know that she had passed. I was, it was really an honor. I felt in that moment, it was an honor, because this is the woman that brought me into this world. 20:24 And she was my favorite person until I met my husband. And I got to be with her until I loved her as she passed. And I saw her spirit leave her body. I know that sounds crazy, but I really did. saw her look up and I saw her spirit light leave. 20:46 really like interestingly enough for anybody who's like upset listening to this because I know it's a lot. When I talked to a medium a year later with my sister, she was telling my sister about my sister has a son with autism and you know, she was telling my sister about stuff and then she got quiet and she said, you know, your mom when she was passing, you thought that she was unconscious, but she heard what you said and she loves you back a thousand times. 21:16 And I had never told anybody besides my husband that I hadn't even had that experience. So it was pretty amazing because she did hear me. I mean, it's that's a devastating story. But also I can understand the beauty that comes with being with someone. I had a very similar experience with my grandmother. She had lung cancer as well. And I spent the last five days with her in the hospice house and was there for the last breath. And I felt the same way that you did in the sense of like 21:47 She was in the hospital when I was born. She was near me, near my first breath, right? And now I get to be here and witness the last one. So I can understand how we can also say it's beautiful as heartbreaking and terrible the situation itself is as humans if we have the capacity one, I think, and have the honor of being there and helping. 22:14 not helping, but being there when someone is is passing on to whatever comes next. I mean, what an honor. But I'm so sorry that you lost your best friend and think in that way. But yeah, I can I can feel that. You said that you first there are two things that really stood out, one being you kind of knew something was going to happen or you had this inkling was that is that something that like you had? 22:43 before, like things like that in your life before, were you intuitive in that way? Were you or was this like a first time where you were like, something's gonna know I was always super intuitive. But that was the first time where it was like, I knew it was gonna be bloody. I knew I mean, and I actually said that medium, her name is flur. She's amazing. And I went on a retreat. 23:09 that she did two years ago with my youngest daughter because my youngest daughter is also extremely intuitive. And so this retreat, she basically walks a group of people through how to tap into your own intuition. And then also we did this walk with spirit where we, all of the people, were 28 people that were there with us. We walked around this room and all of us experienced our loved ones in spirit in that. 23:38 process. And it was very overwhelming for my daughter because at the time she was 17 and she had always wanted to have a reading with FLIR after I had that experience where she told me what I said to my mom when my mom was passing. And and Soleil at the time my youngest was like six, you know, or seven. 24:00 I guess she must have been seven. So every year for her birthday, she would ask if she could have a reading with Flora. And it was like five hundred dollars or six hundred dollars or something like that. And I was like, I'm sorry, but I can't. So then when we did the retreat, I felt like this was something that we could go do together. And she was going through a hard time and a transition in her life. And so it was a really special thing that we could go do that together. But it it's just I think for anybody who's intuitive to kind of explore that. 24:28 It's a pretty powerful experience. I would imagine I would also imagine and maybe you didn't experience this because it seems like you kind of cultivated the art in a way that was somewhat intuitive as well. But did you have experiences in which you were feeling certain things, but you like push it away or you were like, oh, this to quote unquote woo woo or you know, like, did you have those growing up or were you always kind of like leaning in? 24:56 I mean, yeah, we lived in a house where there was some stuff going on in that house. So I always knew things, you know, I saw things and, you know, experienced things. And I always have been sort of weird. Were you able to tell people and feel comfortable telling people? Well, my parents just thought it was really dramatic. But I was actually I was born on the day of the death. Like that's my birthday was 25:24 born on the day of on November 2nd. So I really believe that I just kind of have always been in between like a bridge between the worlds. And that's why now like with the work that I'm doing, it makes so much sense. You know, I'm working with people who have lost loved ones. I'm working with a lot of people who have cancer. I'm working with a lot of people who are in transition in their lives. And usually when you're in transition in your life, it makes you kind of think about things in a more spiritual way. 25:54 Yeah, no, I mean, I love that you kind of were like honing these skills, but that just it seems so I don't know for I don't is it is it fortunate or unfortunate that you had the premonition of your mother's passing in the way? I don't know if I would say that it was either. It just was. It just was like, yeah, I 26:18 I am so grateful that I got to have that experience. mean, obviously I wish that she was still here and I have weird things happen, you know, like she visits me in dreams or all the time in yoga and Shavasana. I'm like, I feel her, like I'll feel her hand on my shoulder or things like that. And I do have friends that have lost loved ones who wish that they had that same thing. And my sister used to say to me all the time that she, 26:46 Because my mom would come to me in dreams and have messages and things. And my sister would always say that she wished that my mom would do the same thing for her. You know? Yeah. Yeah, it's challenging. think it's although it's interesting. And I think the reason I stuck on that is because there's something about us as Americans, a lot of us like to know before we know. Right. And so I was curious if knowing helps if knowing 27:15 softens anything or if it just it is what it is. 27:21 Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if I was in any way prepared for what happened, because even in the moment where I looked at her and literally, I mean, obviously she's about to die and I was telling her to breathe, you know, and she was like, can't do it, you know. Yeah. But that's our natural. think that's a natural human instinct is like, yeah, we try to solve. Yes, exactly. But then there was also that moment where I was like, all right, this is it. And then right after my mom passed, 27:50 My dad was diagnosed with bladder cancer. Oh God. So he went through treatment for that and that was pretty easy for him. We didn't have like the ups and downs, you know, was like every time he went in, I think it was not as aggressive and it hadn't metastasized or anything where my mom's had metastasized. But he was freaked out, you know, cause he had just been through this two year journey with her. So that was a lot of support for him, you know. 28:17 Would you say that losing your mom was like a major life shift moment for you? Thousand percent. Yeah. When my mom, when my mom passed, that was like at the time that that was going on, I was doing, I was doing work that was fine. Like anybody else will look at it and think how I was so blessed with the work that I was doing. I was consulting, I was doing social media influencer work before anybody even knew what that was, you know? 28:46 It was like 2012. I was doing things that were great. And, you know, and I ended up doing a lot more things that were great. But when my mom passed, it really made me stop and think, was I put on earth to do what I'm doing right now? Because at that point in time, actually, when we moved down to Southern California, I stopped painting. I got all of my artwork back from galleries because I wasn't going to paint. When we were down here, I didn't have a space to paint. 29:16 So when we moved, was like, I got all my artwork back from galleries and actually had a party in Northern California and invited all of my friends and collectors and everybody over. So I gave everybody the price that I would, the amount that I would make if they bought the painting. And then 20 % of that they could donate to the food bank or they could donate to Cure Autism Now in honor of my nephew. So I sold. 29:42 the majority of my work before we moved down here, had nothing. I had 75 pieces I got back from one gallery. Like I had a lot of stuff. So I sold all, you know, but like four campuses when we moved down and I didn't paint and I was doing all this consulting. So anyway, when my mom passed, everything sort of, I reevaluated what I was doing with my life. And I just kind of stepped back and took a break for a while, you know. 30:12 And I just was a mom. Like, that's not enough. You know, was just a mom. And I was really, you know, just that was what I wanted to be focused on. And then and then my sister got diagnosed with cancer. So and when she got diagnosed, she was more advanced than my mom was when she was diagnosed. So she had a very large tumor and they had to do. 30:39 surgery and you know, they didn't know how long she's so she had a four year journey of you know, and in the meantime, right in the beginning of when she got diagnosed before I even knew that she got diagnosed three months, three months before she got diagnosed, we were in a car. And she said to me, she wished that she would get cancer, so that somebody would have to take care of her for a change. And three months later, she got her wish. 31:06 And you know, it's just like, we really need to be careful what we say. And there's a part of me that was wondering if she intuitively knew already that she had cancer, you know? Yeah, that's tough. That's tough because I think a lot of people can relate to that feeling. Yeah, because sometimes we, have so much life is hard and we're doing a lot that people don't know that we're doing. Right. And so 31:35 naturally people don't even acknowledge it because they don't even know we're doing it. And then we feel that way. And then it's an unfortunate circumstance in which you say it. And then three months later, something like that happens. But I think people can relate to that feeling of like- For sure. Yeah. Life is hard. And there are moments where we just say things and we don't really think about it, you know? But I think we really need to pay attention. And at the time that she had said that, I was going through training, reiki training. 32:04 As she went through her treatment, by the time she was in the middle of her treatment, I was a Reiki master. And I really was into the energy of everything. And I was obsessed with Dolores Cannon. Are you familiar with her work? You've got it. You really need to check it out. So she's super interesting. So she actually passed away in 2014, Dolores Cannon did, but her daughter, Julia, I think kind of took over the helm. So she does, or she did quantum healing hypnosis. 32:34 technique. so basically, hypnosis was just kind of, you know, taking people through and learn, you know, how do you stop smoking or how do you lose weight or whatever. But what Dolores Cannon did was she put people into like a trance state basically, and she would have them go into past lives and what the lessons of those past lives were and how some of those lessons might have 32:59 caused physical ailments in this lifetime in order to help us heal our soul. it's just, I mean, I can't even go into, she wrote 17 books and it was all through, the books that she wrote was all through these hypnosis sessions. And so while my sister was going through treatment, I knew that it was, I didn't know she was, I knew at some point in time she was gonna pass. Like I knew that this wasn't gonna be a situation where she was just miraculously gonna get better. Even though, 33:29 She had surgeries and chemo and radiation and all of the things. just, you know, I knew because in the beginning she wanted to get cancer. I knew that she didn't ever say that she wanted to not have cancer anymore, you know? And so she needed to do healing that was different from therapy, you know? And so she had pain in her back all the time because she had a tumor that was in her rib that was cracking her rib. And so I would do Reiki on her back so that she could sleep. 33:59 because it really helped the pain and it helped her relax. So, and I was going back and forth between Northern and Southern California when I would take care of her, then my dad would come to take care of her and I would go home and take care of my family. And when I couldn't be there, it was like I was calling, I was constantly trying to help her and I would do remote reiki, but I wanted to like do something else. And so one time when I came up to take care of her, 34:25 She had bought me this paint by numbers kit, because she knew that I hadn't painted in so long. And I started doing paint by numbers and I had just done the Reiki on her back. And when I was doing the paint by numbers, I had like this vision that I could put the Reiki energy, healing energy into artwork and she could have it in a room and it could be transmitting healing to her all the time. And so I started painting like that and I started creating artwork like that. And so that's why now I'm doing frequency artwork. 34:55 And so that I can have healing energy be transmitted all the time to people. Wow. I mean, what my first natural like, Matt type A logical brain is, how does the art come out differently than maybe you had done it before in this different process? Like, what does that look like maybe actually or just in process? 35:21 Yeah, the creation process is so different. mean, before it was always kind of meditative and, you know, that type of thing. But now, I mean, it's like I'm cleansing myself with sage. There's prayer, there's, you know, energy coming through me and tension. The whole time that I'm doing it, like when I'm making little dots, every single dot, I'm infusing love, love, love. I mean, the intention and the process behind creating it is entirely different. And then I'm using like 35:50 powdered minerals and crystals and things because the frequency in the earth, the frequencies of where these minerals are found completely corresponds to the ley lines in our own body, the energy meridians in our own body. So there's different crystals and minerals and there's this like for the logical minds, there's something called stone medicine that goes back. have a textbook. 36:15 called stone medicine and it was transcribed from the lectures of an 88th generation Chinese stone medicine practitioner. So this is a very old art and everybody thinks crystals hippies woo woo, know, it's fine. I love them. You know, I'm a little bit of a hippie child, but there is science to it, you know, does correlate. So anyway, I put those into the paint as well. 36:40 And then I use tuning forks like 528 Hertz to tune the crystals and all of the materials on the canvas to these healing frequencies. So everything that I do is about healing energy. So it's not like I'm just putting paint on canvas, know? I'm putting paint, intention, love, prayer, reiki, crystals, all of it into the artwork. 37:08 Do the final results or the final piece, do they look different from your previous? Like how visually do, like, is it night and day? Is it like slightly different, more tuned in? What does that look like? The other thing that has changed is I used to be very linear with the paint. So I would do a lot of lines and boxes and things like that. And now it's all circles. 37:34 So sacred geometry is another thing that I have that is it sends healing frequencies through, you if you look at any of the experiments that have been done on water where they do certain vibrations and things through water and what the water looks like, that's all sacred geometry. And then if you look at nature and the water and how the water 37:54 molecules inside something that it's creeped when it's created, it creates sacred geometry and flowers and shells and things like that. So I am absolutely obsessed with sacred geometry from that standpoint. And I think it's really interesting that you're asking this question because I never really thought about what the the shift is, but it literally went from linear to, you know, more organic shapes. Yeah, I think it kind of 38:23 makes sense. And like, if you you find the parallels of like, structured, like living, I think, like, I mean, not that you were like, super rigid and structured, but like, you leaned into something that maybe was a little less mainstream than the artist box that you had that you described before of like, this is how we define it. And so it's like, in my brain, trying to make the connections of something that I'm not super familiar with, it kind of makes sense in the parallel of your life. It's like, 38:52 this life shift and then followed by another life shift and then followed by a third one like in these transitions, can see how if you lean in, it can make you and this is probably the wrong word. So don't take offense to it can make you looser. Like in the way that you absorb life. I'm thinking of myself like when I like intentionally grieved losing my grandmother. I held on to things differently. 39:23 And so I can kind of relate in that way. wasn't like, there's a right or wrong answer as much now. It's more of like, it's a little bubble, a little bit more bubbles around it. I don't know why bubbles came to mind. just in the flow. Yeah. It's just, you know, I think also just as you get older and as you have experiences in life, you kind of do loosen up. You know, you do kind of learn how to just more be in the flow because if you're tightening up, you're just going to get, you know. 39:51 I think I think there are a lot of people though that get more rigid. think oh yeah, I think you have to. I think there's a place in which you have to hit something that allows you to settle. And so when you were telling the story of your mother's passing, and you said after that, you kind of like had to stop and like reassess it, it brought me back to the first part of our conversation about your college experience as well when you kind of hit this wall of like, is this 40:20 Is this what I want? it a very, do you see those as similar experiences in which you had to pause and really reflect on what you needed in life? Now that you say that for sure, you know, I've never really thought about it before, but yeah, and I do think there was a moment in both of those situations where I had to make the choice to just stop because I wanted to keep pushing forward, but I just was like, no. 40:49 And I think, yeah, and I think with my sister, she needed a pause and she never gave herself that pause, you know, and a lot of the work that my sister that I did with my sister in healing before she passed, because we were watching a lot of the Dolores Cannon lectures on YouTube. And she talks about, you know, between death and life, what happens. And she also talks about 41:18 forgiveness and how a lot of illness and blocks and things happen in the body when we don't forgive. When you lose someone, you know, grief, there is an aspect of forgiveness for that too. Like, you know, I think my sister had a lot of energy that was stuck and she needed to give herself that pause so that she could be more in the flow. But because she was 41:44 a divorced single mom with a child with special needs and she had to work and all of these things, she couldn't figure out how she could take a pause. And so it is a bit of a luxury for sure. But some of my clients that I work with, they don't have the luxury of stopping either. And so then it's like mentally, tell me what your schedule is and where can you change things? instead of when you go for your walk, 42:12 if that's the only time where you're by yourself, where you can kind of chill instead of listening to a podcast or doing emails or checking voicemails or whatever it is while you're walking, just give yourself the walk. Just let that be the time where you can pause. know, so important. It is important. And as you tell the story, I'm like, I mean, maybe that's what your sister meant when she was like, I wish I got sick so someone could take care of me. It was like. 42:40 just need a break. I'm kind of going through that right now where everything is very noisy in my life. And I vocalized it with other people as well. But it's like, I wish I could just like control alt delete just like for, for like, a couple hours or something where everything's quiet. And it's one of those things where you're maybe the words that come out are not correct. But it sounds like that's what your sister needed was just like, maybe what she meant. But sometimes, you know, 43:08 things align in different ways and show us different stories. She did get her pause, you know, it didn't come in the way I think that would be like, we're not all going to be here forever. Do you know what I mean? Like, I think it's so important to just know that it's okay for some people if they pass before us, like it's sad and we can grieve them, but we're not all going to be here forever. And so I think that that's a really important thing for us all to just 43:37 be grateful for the time that we have. And like my sister in the end and my mom too, there were so much beauty that happened as a result of their illness. And I'm sure that you probably experienced this with your grandmother as well. It's like we wouldn't have had those experiences the way that they happened. We wouldn't have been able to show up for them the way that we did. We wouldn't have been able to see other people love them the way that they did. And so there's... 44:06 There are blessings in the difficult lessons of life. Yeah. And it's hard to say, and I don't think people talk about it a lot because I think we associate a lot of negativity and sadness that comes with the grief journey itself. And there are lots of layers to grief, and there are certainly sadness in it. But there are other moments in which we can, because there's like anticipatory grief too, in which we can, you know, like when my grandmother, when we knew it was the end, was like, you just said, I was like, 44:36 I was so intentional about the things that I needed to do to make sure that both myself and she were whole when everything was done. like, had I not had a really crappy version of that experience after my mom died and like felt like I couldn't and I didn't know how and nobody around me knew how, had I not had all of that mess, I don't think I would have done it in the same way. And so it's one of those instances in where 45:03 you kind of appreciate something more or in a different way when you have it another way. So, but it's messy. It's all messy. I mean, if for someone like you, that's like super, I'm making assumptions here in tune with yourself, with your feelings, with the world, with energy and those things, is the grief journey different for you, would you say, than maybe other people like after your mother died? What was that grief journey like for you? 45:32 It was really interesting because I actually part of the part of me pausing and clearing the deck, so to speak, as I was in a business partnership that was not super healthy and my mom's passing and her illness gave me a really good reason to say I can't do this anymore. 45:58 And because I was able to do that, even though I had to walk away from a lot of very important things that I built and deals and things and money and whatever, and I just was like, I need to just walk away from this here, have everything. I need to go take care of myself. I also was really aware of the fact that my kids were watching me and my youngest daughter in particular was very close with my mom. And so she was really struggling. And so I felt like 46:28 I needed to show her how to grieve. Do you know what I mean? And when she was, cause she did not express sadness at all, but I knew that she was feeling sadness and she started having temper tantrums and things cause she just couldn't. And so it was like all of these things were happening at the same time. And so the grief, 46:52 that I felt with my mom was very, I feel like I didn't express it as, like I did express it, but I feel like I expressed it more with my sister because I didn't have all of these other circumstances going on. And it wasn't like, I mean, I definitely cried and I definitely had a lot of conversations about my mom with my dad, and know, kind of processed everything. 47:20 But with my sister, mean, there were like really magical things that happened with my sister as she transitioned that didn't happen with my mom. I was, and I don't know if it was because I was going through Reiki mastery and things like that. So the creepy process was very different because I was so in touch with the spirit world and I was having all of these. mean, I was, my mom was there. I was like getting goosebumps right now. I was having all of these. 47:48 really incredible experiences because I was with my sister as she was transitioning. don't know if it was very raw with my sister too, which is interesting because I didn't have the same like blood and all of that that I had with my mom, but with my sister, I guess with your sister, was like my only sibling. With my mom when she passed, it took me a minute because I sort of lost. 48:17 I didn't know who I was. I was like, who am I? I don't have a mom anymore. And so then I got used to that, and then I lost my sister. Now I have my dad, but my dad, at my sister's memorial, my dad said, and now I'd like to introduce my second favorite daughter to everybody. It's that I had to step up to the microphone. Do you know what I mean? And so it's kind of like. 48:44 It's just interesting how all these things happen and then you have to heal the wounds. You have to do the work, you know? If you don't do the work, life's just gonna keep handing you these situations until you see what it is that you need to do. Yeah. Do you feel healed? I just think it's life, you know? I just think it's life and we have times where we feel... 49:09 and like everything's, you know, and then we have times where we're kind of going through the storm when we got to just, you know, hunker down. And I think one of the most important things about there's gratitude and forgiveness, you know, and I do an event every year. I do an event that's just kind of my way of giving back to everybody. It's called Healing House. And I do like a sound bath and a guided meditation and a groove reiki. And then I have my artwork all around and that is divided up into seven. 49:37 healing practices that I think that we all need to do every day and whether or not, and I think wellness is a whole nother topic because I think wellness is actually creating a lot of anxiety for people. if they're in guilt and like, you know, everybody needs to go easy on themselves, you know? But the seven healing practices are grounding, inspiration, movement, nourishment, gratitude, forgiveness, and grace. 50:05 And those seven things, if we can just be aware of them, are really important as we're going through life and as we hit any type of transition, having the ability to forgive, having the ability to be grateful for the lessons, and while we're going through the lessons, after the lessons. Grounding is just really important when we're going through these types of things too, because if we're not grounded in the moment, 50:34 we're not fully experiencing life. And so, you know, even when we're in these hard times, it's like we have the tendency, a lot of us, to wanna escape, whether some people that's through alcohol and drugs or just, you know, kind of not paying attention to what's going on. So think it's really important to be present. And like looking back at what I went through with my mom, you know, when my mom was going through and I had like the kid going through this and my dad having cancer. I... 51:01 couldn't really be fully present with how I felt, but in those moments that I did feel the grief of, you the process of grief, I really felt them, you know? Yeah, it's complicated being a human, isn't it? It is. I do love that you said that everything's not perfect all the time. Because I think we have this false sense of... 51:31 people that are super in tune with themselves or they're like they're healers of some like everything is like sunshine and rainbows all the time and it's like no you just have a practice and you just have you know how to move through those moments maybe in a different way than other people but it's so important that we show up as full humans and we can admit to when things aren't great and when things are great and you know like the whole spectrum growing up for me I was 51:59 Conditioned to very much only show that either I was happy or I was bad and those were the only two things that I was allowed to show as a little boy growing up with a dead mom, you know had someone told me that I was allowed to cry had someone told me that I was allowed to be sad and and Even be depressed here and there like had I been given that permission? I think life would have unfolded in different ways. So thank you for for admitting that life is complicated and that it's not always 52:28 beautiful every single second. I mean, maybe it's beautiful every single second, but it's not always easy every single second. Yeah, it's it's it's so important. So I'm curious if I mean, your journey feels so so like intentional in a way a lot of like a lot of the moments, especially when you when you pause. So I'm wondering if if this version of you with all the things that you do now all the things that you lean into 52:56 If you could go back to the version of Britt that took a pause on college that was like, no, I need to think about this. Is there anything that this version would want to say to that version of you? 53:11 just listen to your heart. You know? Served you well. Yeah. More than once. Yeah. And like in your practice. Yeah, I mean, I think that is really, because your heart is really your soul and how your soul speaks to you. And so I just think that we're not taught that, you know, as kids we're really not, you know? And even down to like kids in... 53:36 They want to, you you got to, it's meal time and the kid doesn't want to eat and it's time to eat and you need to eat and you're teaching the kid not to, and trust me, I did this with my kids too. And now knowing what I know, I'm like, you know, but it's like, you're teaching the kid not to listen to their body. And that is like, that's where it starts, you know, and then we just go through life and we're in school and we have to, whatever it, unfolds the way that it does. But I think if, if, if there's one thing that I feel is 54:05 the most important aspect of navigating life and the challenges that we face, it's definitely listening to your heart and taking that time to kind of go inward and take those pauses if you need them, know, however you can. No, I mean, I think it's beautiful. think someone in a different circumstance that faced the things that you faced, especially in such close order, I think life could have turned out quite differently. 54:32 if it wasn't this version of you that was super in tune and listened to yourself and moved in that way, I can see how even one of those instances would throw someone way off course, or maybe on the right course, but way out of sync with maybe what their intentions were or they wanted to do. And so there's something to be said about really like trusting yourself and your heart and your instincts and your intuition and all the things that like we should be doing anyway, because this is our life and like, 55:01 We should be living it in the way that we want to as long as we're not hurting others. And that's my opinion, but it's also hard because society makes things a little bit more complicated. Yes. Yes. Well, I appreciate you telling your story in this way and allowing me to make assumptions and ask questions in the way I did and your cat for joining us. Yeah. Thank you. 55:26 If people want to like check out your artwork, learn about what you offer to the world, your services and all these things, like what's the best way to like find you get in your space? Yeah, so I have a website. It's BritmyKalian.art and it's spelled B-R-I-T-T and then like MichaelIan.com or .art both of them. And then I'm on Instagram and my website. And then I also have a podcast. It's just meditations right now. It's called The Daily Healing. 55:55 Yeah, so that's beautiful. I encourage anyone listening to reach out to you and tell you how your story impacted them or something reminded them about something in their own life and whether you want to hear from them or not. I'm encouraging them to reach out to you. you. I think it's so important to feel heard and seen and understood and by people hearing your story. Maybe there's something you said maybe they didn't have the same exact experience as you but you said something that 56:24 kind of gave them permission that like, oh, I also felt that and now I can feel comfortable that I'm not the only one that felt that way or said that thing. So thank you for giving people permission in the world to just be themselves and to live most authentically. Thank you so much, Matt. Thank you. Wow. I appreciate you. I appreciate everyone listening. Everyone also knows that I never know how to end these episodes. So I'm just going to say. 56:51 Thank you for being a part of the LifeShift Podcast. Thank you all for listening and I will be back next week with a brand new episode. Thanks again, Britt. Thank you. 57:10 For more information, please visit www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com