Mystic Mag’s Miguel Amado talked with Peggy Fitzsimmons, a Ph.D in Counseling Psychology that expanded her work to include holistic and mind-body approaches and Intuition Medicine. Peggy is also the author of Release: Create a Clutter Free and Soul Driven Life, available at Amazon. The interview below touches on many subjects, including how to blend all the influences in schools and knowledge and the experience of writing the book. Check it out!
Please present yourself to our audience
I started my journey as a therapist. I worked with adolescents and adults in all kinds of settings, including residential treatment, psychiatric inpatient, wilderness therapy, and private practice. Then I decided to follow my longing for new experiences and went to live and work at the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies in New York.
There, I got exposed to the healing arts and alternative ways of thinking that transformed my life and led to my current work helping people release the clutter in their lives.
You use the word “clutter” in your work. What is the main clutter for people nowadays?
The way I see it is that we all have two aspects within us: our soul and our ego. Our soul nature is about love, peace, contentment, connection, collaboration and letting go.
Our ego aspect is about fear, lack, scarcity, competition, consuming, and holding on. When the ego is at the wheel of our lives, we accumulate all kinds of clutter: mental, emotional, energetic, relational, and physical.
People are most familiar with physical clutter – the stuff around the house – but all forms of clutter are interconnected. And in my experience, all forms of clutter reflect a soul not being true to itself.
Do you believe traditional methods of psychoanalysis and treatments and holistic methods are complementary and dialogical?
Definitely, yes. There are many roads to healing and we are wise to integrate them where possible. I draw from traditional psychological approaches as well as more holistic approaches in my work.
I feel fortunate to have all kinds of tools in my toolbox. Since clutter arises from the deepest fears of the ego, it helps to understand states of mind and emotional history, and also be able to introduce people to the possibility of energetic and spiritual paths to more freedom.
My background in psychotherapy is foundational in my work. And my studies with people like Francesca McCartney, the founder of the Academy of Intuition Medicine, helped me incorporate energy work to help people free themselves from clutter and live more in alignment with their true nature. There is room for all approaches, and it is fun to find synergy among them.
How was the experience of writing your book?
Writing a book is challenging, without a doubt. It brings up all the ego mind insecurities! But I knew I had something to say, and I wanted to share my experiences, rather than hoard them. I feel like we are all here to help each other remember who we are – souls first and foremost, temporarily here to serve our love to the world in our unique ways. To me, that is the only game in town.
Writing my book was a way to serve my love to the world and keep learning myself how to keep my soul at the wheel and my ego riding shotgun! I will forever be learning to live the contents of my book… and I love when someone tells me the book has been helpful to them on their journey.
What is the first step to control and workout anxiety problems?
I believe that the first step in all healing is to reduce our over-identification with the ego. Our ego says: “I am not enough, you are not enough and there is not enough.” That kind of mindset keeps us in fear and anxiety– running energies of resistance, striving and urgency, relating with others in competition and judgment, and accumulating and holding on to things that don’t serve us. In addition, the tendency of the ego mind is to jump back and forth in time. We are perpetually bouncing between thoughts of the past (and accompanying emotions like regret or guilt) and thoughts of the future (which is the land of worry and planning).
But our souls are most at home in the present moment. So, from my point of view, learning mindfulness skills and ways to come into the present are key. In the present, we can feel safe and make choices from awareness, rather than reactivity and habit. In the present, our soul has a chance to take the wheel. And when the soul is at the wheel, we are in a different mindset of “I am enough, you are enough, and there is enough.”
From there, our fear and anxiety can soften and we are in better position to do the work of healing, using any approach that resonates with us. I believe at this time we are all part of ushering in a new, soul driven consciousness in our world. We are in the birth canal of this new consciousness, and it is a rough, anxiety-producing, and sometimes scary ride! But this is what we are here for, and we need to embrace it and accept it so we can transform.
What do you mean by birth canal?
I feel like at this time in the world, something is birthing. We are seeing social and financial systems break down, and watching nature react to the ways we have treated her, and dealing with the life and death matters of Covid. My perspective is that we are in the process of birthing a wiser world– a new way of being, of treating each other, of honoring the planet, of focusing on what truly matters rather than endless consumption, of balancing the economic and social inequities driven by individual ego minds and the collective trance of the ego.
We are in the birth canal, entering a new level of humanity. And we are here for it, to contribute in our unique ways. To midwife the birth, so to speak. To help the shift in consciousness towards a soul driven rather than ego driven world.
Please share a special message with us for these difficult times.
We all carry a deep intuitive knowing about what is good, right and true for ourselves and other people. Very often, this knowing is obscured by the clutter of our ego minds.
Clutter is the fear of the ego made visible, and releasing ego identification is the key to love and serve ourselves, other people, and our planet. So if we can all get more honest about the stuff in our inner and outer closets that doesn’t reflect and support our soul nature- presence, peace, acceptance, wisdom, contentment, safety, collaboration, enough-ness– we can put ourselves in position to let them go. And we can be more free to love the world and let it love us back.
