Catherine Duncan identifies as an author, spiritual consultant, resilience trainer, and international speaker who is committed to holistic healing. As a board-certified chaplain and ordained minister, Duncan focuses on integrative spiritual consulting by working one-on-one with clients to help them find peace, joy, and meaning in life. She specializes in helping clients navigate grief, loss, chronic illness, life transitions, and finding meaning and purpose. With the current state of the world, it is easy to fall into despair, but in her recent book, Everyday Awakening, Duncan provides five core practices to help you awaken yourself and live fully.
After suffering from a terminal illness and having two near-death experiences, Duncan learned how to live fully by coming back to the present moment. Her first core practice, living in the present moment, sounds simple in theory, but requires continuous intentional work. Luckily, Everyday Awakening provides guided examples readers can try for each core practice. The second core practice that Duncan suggests is connecting with something greater beyond yourself to help ground you, especially during times of uncertainty. By using personal life experiences, she helps the reader understand that we are not alone and that the mystical side of life is just as valuable as the physical.
The third core practice Duncan highlights is the value of growing your trust through radical acceptance of the good, the bad, and the ugly parts of ourselves. This also requires letting go of what is beyond our control and trusting while taking charge of what is within our capacity. The fourth core practice in Everyday Awakening centers on embodying love, which requires removing barriers that prevent us from self-love. In addition to other exercises, the book suggests daily gratitude as a great way to engage in self-love by allowing you to appreciate what you already have. The final core practice Duncan proposes is holding openness, which is the opposite of resistance. This means flowing with the energy of life by releasing fear to experience ultimate peace and freedom.
To better understand the motivation for Everyday Awakening, we interviewed Catherine Duncan about her spirituality, experiences with death, and highlights from her book.
Just N Life: What inspired you to write Everyday Awakening?
CD: I witnessed thousands of people days before they died have an awakening, an opening, and feel the preciousness of life right before they died. Many said, “This is it!” And a feeling of awe and wonder filled the room. This, coupled with facing my death twice and deeply understanding what it means to be alive, was the impetus to writing my book. My message is you don’t have to wait until the end of your life, or upheaval or unrest to choose to feel fully alive right now.
JNL: What is your definition of spirituality?
CD: Spirituality is what gives you meaning; what gives you life. The word spirituality is expansive and opening. Many people get hung up on the word religion and I’d define religion as man-made doctrine, dogma and how you practice a faith tradition. I deeply resonate with the word spirituality.
JNL: With your personal near-death experience and working with people transitioning into the afterlife, how do you currently feel about death?
CD: Death is not an end. Our spirit, and soul goes on. We do not die alone. I witnessed this when people died. I could see spirits, and angels in the room before someone died. Many people named loved ones who were deceased with them as they were transitioning. I felt the energy move up people’s bodies and out through their head and there was a notable energy shift in the rom. Many patients within days of dying came back to see me in the middle of the night. I’d open my eyes and see their spirit hovering over me and I’d feel gratefulness, and then they would leave my bedroom.
JNL: Your book emphasizes the importance of moving from your thinking mind into your body, how can we balance both while connecting the soul?
CD: When we are in our thinking mind we are in the past or the future. Many people live head up and let their mind run them. When we can take time and come into the present moment, through our breath, senses, and coming into our body, we open into the deep peace, ease, our heart and soul. Our bodies are always in the present moment. It is a conscious choice to create more moments of presence, and living in just this moment. We can live multidimensionally, anchored in this moment, and using our mind for work, thinking, and planning.
JNL: How can we love unconditionally without excusing toxic behavior in relationships and friendships?
CD: It is a conscious choice who we spend time with in our daily lives. If we have someone who is toxic in our life can you either eliminate them from your life or limit your time with them. Can you forgive them for their behavior and have strong energy boundaries with them so you don’t take in their toxic energy? Love starts with self-love and loving ourselves. When we understand that other people’s behavior is not about us, but a reflection of them and their level of consciousness, there is freedom. I encourage people to grow your self-love. The more love we have, the more love we have to give to others. The more love you embody, the more compassion you will have for toxic people.
JNL: What is your advice for people who want to practice radical acceptance, but given the current state of the world, are struggling to balance celebrating life and honoring the dead?
CD: Accepting the moment for all its messiness is how we heal, and open, and grow. When we resist, we are coming from our ego mind and lower our vibrational energy. It takes a conscious awareness and choice to keep learning to accept, and open, and heal.
JNL: As someone who believes the soul never dies, what is your view on reincarnation?
CD: I do believe in reincarnation. There are too many people I have met that there is a strong familiarity even if they have just come into my life. I believe what we don’t heal in this lifetime, we take it into our next lifetime.
JNL: Since you often encounter spirits that have transitioned to the other side, how do you discern which spirits align with you?
CD: I can feel spirit’s energy and most spirits are neutral or positive. I have had a few experiences with a spirit that is negative. I know that light overshadows darkness and if a dark spirit is near, I ask for God, infinite spirit, love, and light to protect me and I am always protected.
JNL: Since life is as spiritual as physical, how do spirit guides and unseen energies impact our daily existence?
CD: We have angels, guardian angels, spirit guides, and loved ones who have deceased around us. We can call on help from our angels and guardian angels, and be open to what you experience. I call in archangels and my guardian angel every day, and I see my spirit totem animal, a wolf, daily. I also feel the divine love of God, infinite Spirit, around me and within me at all times.
JNL: How can we integrate political consciousness into our spiritual practices and take accountability for the privilege our positionality affords us?
CD: Every day we are choosing to embody love or fear. We are leaning into opening, growing, coming from a place of truth and love, or we are letting our mind, our ego run us and all the chaos of the world impact us. It takes strength and courage to look inward, to do our inner work, to release difficult past experiences to heal; and, we can all heal. It may mean working with a skilled therapist to work with difficult family-of-origin issues. When we can heal our past and open our heart and live in the here and now, we can be the change in the world. What are you choosing?
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