Dr. Kathy Gruver joins Tonya Dawn Recla to talk about energy and super powers. Kathy is a motivational health speaker, award-winning author, host of a national TV show based on her first book, The Alternative Medicine Cabinet, and she shares her secrets for navigating the body intuitively. Listen in as she talks about empathy, energy healing, and public speaking.

Intuition of the body.

Hello everyone. This is Tonya Dawn Recla, your Super Power Expert and I am delighted to have with me today Kathy Gruver. Dr. Kathy Gruver is a motivational health speaker, award-winning author, host of national TV show based on her first book, The Alternative Medicine Cabinet. But as you know, you know, to us that is awesome and I’m glad she’s bringing some of that information and experience to the show. But the bigger piece for me is that, you know, the very short time that I’ve had to get to know her, she shows up like she is pretty clear on who she is from the beginning, her energy signature is really strong in that regard. And I appreciate this really practical kind of weaving together of walking the walk, talking the talk and modeling that. And so some of the concepts that she’s traversing and mastered in her own existence, I’m excited to have her share with you all. So please join me in welcoming Kathy to the show. Welcome, Kathy.

Oh, thanks so much for having me I appreciate it.

Absolutely. So, I’d like to jump right in and ask you, what are your Super Powers?

Uh-huh. Well and I was thinking about that because I do so many different things. So I think, first of all, I have to say the healing work I do in the massage and in with that is the intuition of the body. Sometimes I just put my hands on people and my hands just know where to go it’s almost as if I have a little GPS guiding me to what to do. So that is definitely one of the Super Powers. And then running totally parallel to that is the public speaking I do. And that really came clear to me yesterday. I was doing a panel discussion of seven incredible women. And afterwards even with all these amazing women and all the incredible stories they shared, people rushed over to me and said how inspiring I was, and how captivating I was, and my sense of humor was so on point, and so I suddenly went, wow, you know, as for as many as I’ve done it really just illustrated, that’s a really big skill I have. And it’s so important, as you and I talked over there to share what we know with people. So I think it’s a combination of my healing ability and that ability to reach people through speaking and humor.

I love that and I love the fact that those are absolutely connected. You know, a lot of people don’t realize that we read people’s signature first and foremost. And so it makes sense to me that you would have this intimate connection with the body and understanding that and be able then to embody yourself in a really powerful way and present that out to the world. I think it’s so pivotal especially coming from, you know, my journey was one of vacating the body in really, you know, I mastered the mind stuff first and then had to go back and pick up all that which is, you know, a large portion of our member base and our listeners, you know, kind of took that trajectory. I think it’s pretty common. And so any time I talk with people who have that body peace and have journeyed through that hugely valuable and so, so needed right now.

Yes definitely. There’s so much going on with an increase in illness and different cancers as well as people just feeling really horrible about what’s happening globally and in this country right now. So I’m seeing a lot of people really hurting. And it’s been interesting because I had a lot of people turning to me. I had a 19-year-old who I was mentoring, who, you know, in the days following the recent election, I got all these, you know, text messages from her and from other people saying, “Please tell me this is going to be OK.” and “I’m really scared. I’m really hurting.” and “What can we do?” And, you know, so I think this has mobilized a lot of people but I also think it’s brought up a lot of fears and a lot of negative feelings that I think we’re all going to have to navigate.

So talk to me about what is your perspective on, you know, how we kind of store energy in the body and what…and specifically as it relates to what you’re just talking about because I know there’s tons of confusion about you know what’s mine, what’s global, what’s collective. Talk to me about your perspective on that.

I’m very empathic. Photo by Tom Pumford on Unsplash

Yeah I actually think I have a pretty different perspective on that because I’m very empathic. And so that goes along with helping me be a better healer. But it also can be really painful because sometimes I don’t know if what I’m feeling is the guy standing next to me in line or my own. Sometimes those lines get really blurred when I allow myself to be so incredibly open to that. But I think we’re all feeling it right now. I think no matter what your level of, quote, empathy or intuition is I think we’re all feeling, what’s happening in our town, in our country, globally. You know, we are a global world, we’re a global soul now. We’re all so intricately linked if for no other reason than the Internet, you know. I’ve got friends from around the world on Facebook which we couldn’t do 10 or 15 years ago. So I think we are feeling it. And I think it’s important to really sit down with yourself and know yourself, know how you’re feeling physically, know how you’re feeling emotionally and spiritually. When we talk about health, we so often talk about just physical health, you know, what’s your BMI, and how many steps did you walk today and how many calories did you consume. And I think we forget often about the emotional health and the spiritual health. And that’s not only of us as individuals but us as a community and a society. And so I think we need to be just more aware of that. I think we need to sit down and really ask ourselves how am I feeling; how am I feeling about this, how am I feeling in this. And then we can help others through that as well.

I really like that. Yeah, I have a ton of conversations of people. One of the assessments I do determines, you know, whether or not people are, you know, predisposed to, you know, empathy or whether they receive their intuition through emotional energy and those are two pretty distinct different strategies. And in knowing that, in knowing whether or not you’re more prone to be pulling in that energy from outside of you or if there’s some intuitive information in it for you really assists with that. But again, you said something kind of fascinating of knowing, you know, how do you know if it’s yours or if it’s not, you know, and part of that journey is asking yourself you know, and really getting connected with you and you know in my journeys I think that that’s one of the hardest things for people to really master is knowing themselves to that degree. You and I talked a little bit about the idea of mastering you know your own personal power, your own personal journey in order to be able to help others and to work with other people. And so talk to me about…how did that come about for you? Like, why you? Like why the journey, why the persistence, why all of that?

That’s a lovely question that I wish I had an answer to. I don’t know. I, as you said when we were talking, I, as a human part of me, I didn’t pick this journey. This was not what I set out to do. I was an actor, an actor which definitely helps me with the public speaking part so I know that part of the journey, the healing part of the journey really just kept appearing in various forms to me. You know, I was the one in high school that everybody would plop down in front of. “Could you rub my shoulders you’re so good at it.” And I was always interested in alternatives. My mom died when I was young and watching her deal with cancer and not really given any options. And this was Pittsburgh in the 80s where your choices were chemo, radiation, surgery. Period. That was it. There was no acupuncture. There was no alternative. There was no meditation. There was no anything other than what Western medicine in its very small container offered. And so I, even as a kid looked at that and thought, “Well, I can’t be right. There’s got to be something else.” So that piqued my interest a little bit. And then when I was in college as a theater major, a woman showed up one day with a bunch of mats and started doing body work on everybody. And I didn’t have much to do during this particular performance. And so I watched her. And I would hand her the tea she asked for, or the lotion that she needed or that, you know, I was sort of her little gopher for that summer and near the end of the time with her she said, “Oh Kathy, I’m so busy. Can you take those mats and go in the other room and work on John?” And I looked at her. I said, “No, I don’t know what I’m doing.” like, why would I do that? You know, I’m just sitting here watching you and she looked at me and the music swelled and everything faded away and our eyes met and she said, “Yes, you do.” And I had the sense to listen to her. And I realized looking back through my journey of going from massage therapist to doing herbs to doing homeopathic to doing nutrition to doing my masters and my Ph.D. and writing books. And, you know, a lot of it has been sparked by me having the sense to listen to strangers and talk to strangers. And when somebody says, “You might want to think about blah, blah, blah.” I go, “OK.” you know. So I am very lucky that I had these fairy godmothers and godfathers who came streaming through my life at various times handing me a little bit of information and magically disappeared. And I listened to them. So I just followed the bread crumbs with the healing aspect of this and I still don’t know where it’s going to go. I’m still not quite done yet. So, yeah, it’s been an amazing journey and I never planned on any of it.

What a fantastic story. So much about that is just perfect from the sense of, you know, really recognizing that those intuitive messages can come from anywhere and being open to that. That’s huge, too. Well, I think a lot of times we like to pre-qualify how things should show up. I talked to, you know, because we deal with Super Powers, you know, people get really depressed sometimes and they’re like, “Well, you know, I don’t have beings appearing to me. I don’t have this and I don’t hear voices. I don’t see dead people.” and all these things. And it’s like, well OK. Well, once I start dialoguing with them they realize that they really are phenomenal at receiving messages in unique ways, maybe through symbolism or maybe through other people, you know, and in helping people see that they, you know, all of our Super Powers come in very different shapes and sizes and then that’s OK. And it makes things interesting. So I love that you kind of went through that journey and trusted it. That’s tough, you know. I don’t want to say that’s tough. I want to say that that’s valuable. Let’s go with that one.

Well, but it was tough because I was so young. I mean, I learned about visualization when I was 15 years old from a man I was doing Community Theater with. Why in the world would I, a 15-year-old listen to this weird Chinese guy telling me to visualize my immune system like, who would do that? But I did. So. I for some reason just had that urging of, “Yeah. I’m going to listen to this guy.” And I’ve had that throughout my life. And sometimes it’s, you know, someone you meet at a bus stop and sometimes it’s, you know, you have to be open to it. I had read this really fascinating article years ago on luck and people who perceived themselves to be lucky. It’s not that they’re lucky, it’s that they’re positive. They’re outgoing. They are looking for opportunities. They have good self-esteem and they feel good about themselves. So it’s about that. It’s not about those doesn’t happen to me. Are you open to it? What are you looking for? You know, I was always such an open kid. I was an only child so I was always talking to strangers and myself, and, you know, so I just, I think I live in a sort of a different little world than everybody else did which allowed me to be open to those experiences. It still happens to this day. I still talk to strangers and I still get the most amazing info and sometimes it’s me giving them info. You know, it’s a relationship.

I love that and it’s. . . I like it. To me, it’s magical. Those are the clues I call the Choose Your Own Adventure, you know. So it’s go through the world, looking at it very symbolically, and you know, at one point in time I remember, you know, asking myself, you know, what if I’m wrong like what if really the mundane is all there is and we’re just, you know, we all drink the same Kool-Aid. There’s nothing else. And then I kind of had a laugh at myself because I was like well at least I’m having fun with it you know like at the end of the day what’s the worst thing that can happen and the worst thing that can happen is that you enjoyed your life.

Right.

Not such a bad gig, you know. So it’s like, well, I’ll keep going up, you know but there was…there were many, many, many mileposts along the way where it was like OK let me do the check in here, like am I going totally off trajectory of, you know, believing in things like you get even little things like walk. And I like what you said. I think that there’s a huge intentionality to it when you expect, you know, the universe to conspire with you then it does. I read the other day definition of conspire and it was to breathe together. It was so beautiful I was like, “Wow! That’s really cool.” I may be butchering that but it was something about the breath. And it was really kind of neat to me like I had this real vision of this like real easy, like flowing energy and it was so comforting to me to think of, you know, kind of the universe and I in this is like synchronistic kind of little movement that I thought that that was a really cool way to look at it.

No that’s beautiful. Absolutely.

So very cool. So, of course, you’ve done all of these amazing, amazing things in the world. What…do you…do you claim to or even within yourself take a stand saying that you know you’re here to change the world. Is that on your trajectory?

Yup, absolutely. I was working on a client. We were talking about, you know, I was doing really deep tissue on him and he said, “Jesus, I knew state secrets I’d tell you. Stop it.” I said, “I’m off to take over the world one knock at a time. And he started laughing and he goes, “I get world domination through massage, you know.”

I love it.

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It was worth getting. But on one hand, I mean, yeah, I think I hope we’re all out to influence the world. You know, this is why I do the speaking that I do. You know, I realized that I loved sharing information with one client at a time and then it was, oh let me do a little workshop and it was five clients at a time and then it was let me write a book which has reached thousands. I don’t know how many. And then it was, you know, going to do some radio and some podcasts and then it was, hey, I’m going to do a TV show and then it was, you know. And so by this point, I know in just a rough estimate, I’ve probably reached millions of people between the live talks and the radio shows and the podcasts and the articles that I’ve been quoted in or have written or, you know, I’ve had a really huge sphere of influence which is not exciting so much from an ego place. I mean, it’s kind of cool to say all that but that’s not what it’s about. It’s about oh my God how many people make a different health choice or laugh or think about things differently. You know, we really never know the influence we’re going to have on people and sometimes it’s just smiling and holding the door open for someone who had a really crappy day. We don’t know what that influence is going to be. And I remember doing, you know, and I do a lot of radio and sometimes I know it’s, you know, silly Joe sitting in his basement. There’s three people listening, you know, I know that. I do. I know. But you never know who that’s going to reach. And one day, I had done this radio show and I just kind of went and that was OK, you know, it just wasn’t, it wasn’t as professional as I would have liked from that other end. But later that day I got an email from a woman saying, “I was having one of the worst days of my life and I didn’t know if I’d make it through. And then I heard your interview talking about what it was like losing your mom and being bullied and how you overcame that. And I really feel so much better. Thank you so much for sharing your story as you’ve made me stronger.” or something to that effect. And I remember thinking wow you know, I don’t know what this woman’s situation was. I don’t know if she was heading off to kill herself. I don’t know if she was heading to the doctor with the antidepressants. I don’t know if she was going to hit her kid. I don’t know. But in that moment I was able to have influence on her so that she had a better day. And then I did my job. You know, I mean that was the purpose of that.

Her father and I are both veterans. Photo by Benjamin Faust on Unsplash

That’s so beautiful. It’s funny because I’ve been working on this theory that’s been going through my mind of, you know, this idea of like it matters. You know, it matters when you show up. And our daughter is seven and she does a couple of different businesses. But one of them is she calls it Spreading Light, Love and Pixie Dust. And so she started off she drew pictures for wounded warriors and veterans. Her father and I are both veterans and she had seen a tribute that we experienced at CEO Space. And she came up to us, this is probably three, four years ago now, and said, “You know, I want to do something. I want to do something for those soldiers.” And I said, “OK. Well what do you want to do?” She wanted to draw pictures. So then it became OK well how do you. . . and she was like, “Well I don’t want them to pay for.” And I was like, “OK well how do you get money for supplies? And so, you know, as a true entrepreneur, a mom like walking through all that stuff. And here recently this last Veteran’s Day, she ended up getting corporate sponsors and so she had over a thousand pictures sent out over the Veterans Day weekend and she was, you know, she’s seven, and so especially on a Friday itself, it was a test like many stops, many people. And there was at the very last stop, you know, she said, “Mom I just want to go home. I’m tired.” I said, “I understand that and you’ve done really, you know, great work. And this is the last stop and this is a commitment that you made, you know.” And so you show up and you do it. And at that stop in particular, there were about three men who cried when they saw her picture and read them on what she’d written. And one of them in particular was so moving. He stood up and he was like I can’t, you know, I can’t even look at this little girl, you know. He’s like I have to step away, you know, and he came back around to her and told her what impact she had made on him in that moment. And you know and so afterwards it was a really awesome opportunity to dialogue with her about, you know, yes, you were tired and yes you just wanted to go home and yes, yes, yes to all of that. And look what happened because you didn’t. You know, because you chose to show up. And you know, we can make her physically appear. But she had to make the choice to connect and because she did, you know, it had an impact. And another gentleman told her that he was going to frame it and hang it on, in military terms it was what they called an “I Love Me Wall”, you know, next to his uniform. He even pulled up his phone and showed her the picture of his wall on his phone. You know, you could tell it was a real source of pride for him.

Wow.

And you know, it was such a great example and so I love the idea of the ripple effect and, you know, not knowing what impact you’re going to make by that one split-second of showing up. And I love that you said that you know maybe it is an audience of three people and maybe this but what happens when it’s that one person who you know you’ve change, that you had an impact on in that exact moment. So I honor you for sharing that story and for showing up in the world and continuing to show up. So thank you.

Thank you. I’m glad I got the opportunity to do it.

Absolutely. So as we close the interview here, you know, I like to ask about a Live in Your Power story so the time that you got an intuitive hit or inner guidance that you took action on and what transpired because of that. Could you think of a story you’d like to share?

Yeah. There are so many but one that happened most recently and it’s a combination of listening to your urgings because I get what I describe as this urging where it’s like you got to do it now. It’s like you show up to the movie theater and you’re like I could be but I probably don’t have to. And then half-way through you’re like I got to go. But, you know, you’re like I got to do it now. You should have never but I got to do it now. So I get this urgings of this almost as little taps of “OK. Go. Now. Do it.” Years ago, I had looked in to join the National Speakers Association and I thought oh you know I really want to do more speaking. I should just pay my couple of hundred bucks and join. Well, it’s not that easy. You have to qualify. And I was nowhere near being able to qualify. You had to prove that you’ve done 20 paid talks in a year and I went oh my god I’m nowhere close to that so I kind of let it go. I didn’t think about it. And about seven months ago, I had this, just this moment thing in my head of, you know, I should at least be getting their e-mails. I should go to some of their mixtures. I really should get involved. And so I signed up for their e-mails and the e-mails came and I didn’t even look. I deleted them, just didn’t even bother to look at them. And one day the e-mail came in and I went you got to read this one. Read that one. They were having a mixer in Newport Beach California which is about four or three hours for me, nowhere close. And I told my husband hey I’m going to go to this mixer. He goes, “Why are you going so far away? If you were in the ones in L.A., that’s an hour and a half. Why do you want to have one that’s three hours away?” I said, “I don’t know. I want to go.” So I drove down. I made a whole day of it. I did. I do flying trapeze for funds or did this munch to the mixer. And when I go to things like that my objective is twofold. I want to meet four new people and I want to talk to the most important person in the room. Because that’s the end that’s who you get information from. I ended up hunting down the president of that chapter. Through our conversation, he told me I actually probably did qualify and gave me some tips as to how to get qualified. I’m like, “What?” He gave me all this phenomenal information because he was sharing info, because I sought him out to talk to him. Three days later I gathered all my stuff. I applied for membership. And I was accepted.

Very cool. Very cool.

And I was so excited and so proud but it was this unfolding of me signing up for the emails and not reading them that when I had to, that when I had to go to, I had to talk to that guy he gave me info. I mean, it was just this profound very confusing, you know, none of this was a straight line. But had he not shared with me a couple of the things he did that he just he didn’t have to. I didn’t ask him, “How could I join?” He just sort of spit it out. But I just look at all that unfolding and it’s like, I listened to that urging of you need to go to this mixer. You need to talk to him, you know and I think so often we ignore those things and then we miss these opportunities, not that they won’t maybe come up again or in a different way. It’s that, you know, I’m going away at this green light a little bit longer and someone goes flying through the red light and would have hit you. You know we all have those moments of I’m going to listen to that and sometimes we don’t even know what the result is because it’s not as clear as the car running that red light. But I think we need to listen to that intuition. And when you have an urging to do something do it. Talk to that person. Follow through. Say what’s on your mind. I think that’s going to lead us to so many phenomenal things.

I love that. One is if that nothing else is fun and entertaining life.

Yeah that’s true. Yeah I mean how many strangers have we, you know, make sure they’re safe strangers. I mean don’t go crazy because you know.

But it was an urging. Kathy told me to do it.

Yeah like playing in a dark alley with that mask. You might want to skip that one.

I love it. Well awesome. This has been really delightful. Where can our listeners go to find more information about you?

Yeah. The best, I’ve got two sites, http://www.thealternativemedicinecabinet.com/ is sort of my general site. You can get my books and info, lots of links to past shows and articles, lots of free resources there. So that’s the best way to just sort of get general information. And then http://kathygruver.com/ is my speaking site. You can find out about my workshops and lectures and how to book me and my books are there, as well. I’ve got five. We’ve started. . .we just started working on the sixth. So I’m very excited about that.

Congratulations.

Thanks. So yeah, http://www.thealternativemedicinecabinet.com/ and http://kathygruver.com/

Very, very cool. Thank you so much for joining us today. I have really enjoyed connecting with you and I just I’m excited to know that you’re out there doing really cool things in the world so thank you.

Thank you. I’m glad I got the chance to do it and I’ll do it as long as everybody wants me to.

Perfect. Well I’m rooting for that. So if you will at least know that I’m rooting for you. But I think you’ve got many, many, many fans out there. So thank you.

Thank you. I appreciate you having me on and giving me the opportunity.

Absolutely. And to all of you listeners out there, of course, as always, we absolutely appreciate your loyalty. And until next time, go out, uncover your Super Powers and change the world. Take care everyone.