Shownotes
Some lives look like they are working: schedule handled, everyone cared for, nothing dramatically wrong. This is for the person doing fine and quietly wondering what fine has cost them.
Ellyn McLeod explores how inner peace is lost slowly from childhood on, why the body signals before the mind admits anything, and how to gently come home to yourself.
About the Guest:
Ellyn McLeod is a Sedona-based nutritionist who works with people facing serious illness and draws on attitudinal healing principles. She is the author of It Takes More Than Carrot Juice: The Missing Ingredients to Total Healing.
Key Takeaways:
- Inner peace is rarely lost in one moment. Core beliefs formed in early childhood can quietly shape how you live decades later.
- Traits the world admires can cost you. Workaholism and over-giving look like strength while slowly emptying you out.
- In her practice, Ellyn sees suppressed emotion surface in the body, so she encourages addressing feelings early rather than letting them fester.
- The body sends signals before the mind admits anything. Learning to notice an upset emotion is often the first clue.
- Ten quiet minutes can begin the shift. Solitude, journaling, and meditation help you hear what you actually need.
Connect With the Guest:
- Website: https://www.sedonasolution.com
- Email: [email protected]
- Book: It Takes More Than Carrot Juice: The Missing Ingredients to Total Healing
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ellyn-hilliard-mcleod-80b94419
Episode Chapters:
[00:00] The Life That Looks Like It's Working — naming the quiet cost
[03:00] Where It Begins — childhood core beliefs and inner peace (approx.)
[09:00] The Double-Edged Strengths — when admired traits empty you out (approx.)
[15:00] From Hot to Cold — Ellyn's view of how stress settles in the body (approx.)
[22:00] The Body's First Signals — learning to notice an upset emotion (approx.)
[27:00] Ellyn's Own Wake-Up Call — a health crisis at 28 (approx.)
[31:00] Ten Minutes of Stillness — identity, journaling, and coming home (approx.)
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Transcripts
00:00:09 Nazish: Welcome back to Inner Peace. Better health. I am Nazish, and this is the space where we explore the deep connection between the inner state and physical health, and where we move slowly enough to actually feel what we are learning. And today we are going to take a look honestly at something most people don't allow themselves to be the quiet daily cost of living a life without inner peace, and even nothing dramatic is wrong. My guest today is Evelyn McLeod. Evelyn Ellen brings perspective on inner peace that's grounded in real life, rather than the retreats and the ritual, and is here to help us look at what it costs to live without it and what becomes possible when we start to reclaim it. Ellen, I welcome you to the show.
00:01:00 Ellyn Mcleod: Thank you. Nazish. Very nice to meet you.
00:01:04 Nazish: Wonderful. Before we go ahead,
00:01:44 Nazish: So, you know, before we begin, like something I keep coming back to is how invisible the loss of inner peace is. Like nobody loses it in a single moment. It happens slowly over the years and tiny choices that look so reasonable from the outside and that they don't feel like a problem. So in your own. Yeah. So in your own story, in people you sat with, where does the inner peace actually begin to be lost? Like what is the very first stages of loss looks like?
00:02:18 Ellyn Mcleod: Well, I'll have to be honest with you, it happens in childhood. So when we start, uh, creating core beliefs, it's really between the ages of zero and seven. And we may not necessarily think of it as, uh, something that's affecting us later in life. We may even forget the incidences. There may be some people who have very traumatic or abusive childhoods. But there may be some who think that they have perfect childhoods. And yet, when we go back and take a look at where the cause is, where the root is for their health issues, which all stem from an inner peace, uh, obstacle, they tend to be in that zero to seven picture that that age in which you're incredibly impressionable. It could be something as small as being punished for, uh, stomping on a neighbor's new newly seeded grass. It could be something like breaking a candy dish and having the parents yell for only 30s of shock. And yet, as a child, you take that in so deeply and you you create a core belief around it. So that's where we really find a lot of the the very deep issues that are affecting inner peace are really childhood issues.
00:03:41 Nazish: I never had a clue that it begins so soon in our life because.
00:03:47 Ellyn Mcleod: Yes, and I was going to say, I think that's where a lot of the inner child work comes from, is that the recognition. And Carl Jung actually spoke a lot about it too. But it, it's this, uh, very impressionable age. It's this age in which your nervous system is developing. And that's where the real, uh, feeling impressions begin. And it's where you take them further into life and the anger that you have over someone criticizing you. If we really trace it back and do the inner work, we can find that anger that you felt when you were criticized as a child over not, uh, painting your painting as beautifully as you could in first grade. So it really is a childhood, uh, issue.
00:04:34 Nazish: Yes. And that is something a lot of people are not aware available. So, you know, thank you so much, you know, for sharing that with us. And that is such an important place to begin with because the laws described isn't dramatic. It is like quiet and it's reasonable looking. It is a kind of laws that other people may even admire from the outside, but it looks like strength, capability, reliability.
00:05:02 Ellyn Mcleod: Yes. And you could create a core belief that in your adulthood serves you very well. For a while you might be perceived as a really capable worker. And yet you're you've developed workaholism kinds of traits, and you're doing everything for everyone else your boss, your spouse, your children. You're not taking enough time for yourself. And that could start very early trying to please your parents as, as you're younger, trying to be the best that you can be, you know, trying to really achieve well in school or do all the chores so they can be perceived as traits that are considered beneficial traits. You know, a hard worker or, or even, you know, seeing someone as compassionate. And yet what they do is they give up so much of themselves that they can't take back and fill their own, uh, personal body or soul or spirit with that self compassion. So it's, it's kind of a double edged sword.
00:06:07 Nazish: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That is something that you have said. Very true. It is like a double edged sword. And, you know, uh, people often people talk about stress, burnout, exhaustion, as if, you know, if those are price of busy life. And but the cost of living without inner peace is deeper than that. It costs your body, your closest relationships in the sense of who you are, your ability to feel your own life in real time. So in your experience, what is the long term cost of living without inner peace? Actually look like for someone like, look like across someone's life?
00:06:50 Ellyn Mcleod: Well, in my particular practice, because I'm a nutritionist, I've really narrowed it. I work with people with life threatening illness. It ends up creating a subtle illnesses in the body. First, we call those hot illnesses. You might notice things like, you know, colds and flus and things, coughs, sneezing, stomach upset are these hot illnesses. But if you stuff it long enough, if you stuff those feelings long enough and deep enough, they turn into these cold diseases. And that's where tumors or cancers begin. So when I am first introduced to my patients, they tend to be someone who is really suppressed or pushed down a memory. It doesn't even have to be a childhood memory. I had a gentleman who had a very catastrophic situation happened to him when he was in Vietnam fighting the Vietnamese, and he happened to kill a child. And so that to him was such a traumatic thing. He never spoke to anyone about it and developed prostate cancer later on in life. But he was able to look at it. Once we did reveal it, he was able to look at that, how it was affecting his peace, how it was affecting his life, his happiness, his joy. And he turned that around and he he ended up after doing quite a lot of inner somatic work, inner child work. We did a lot of journaling with him, and then he ended up going home and working with children in an orphanage and working with other veterans to help them uncover some of their hidden traumas. So he really did such good work that he was able to reverse that, that illness. So it would be better if we caught it early on. Right? It would be better to catch it in those hot stages when it's just a cold or a flu, or the chicken pox or something. And rather than let it fester because it's it's letting it go on long term. It's like the you've probably heard the analogy of the frog in the pot of hot water. You put a frog in a cold pot and you turn that pot on high. Once it starts to bubble, you don't really notice it until it's too late. And then the frog boils to death. It's the same way. You don't look at these issues that you've really, uh, had traumas, basically, even if there are many traumas happen over your life. And if you don't take a hard look at them and you let them go on for too long, you become the boiled frog.
00:09:18 Nazish: Yes, yes, that is that is very true. And, you know, I think it is so important for all of us to realize that.
00:09:28 Ellyn Mcleod: Absolutely, absolutely. You know, there's I, I work with a lot of the attitudinal healing principles, if you're not familiar with them. But we we have an exercise with my support groups and we work each week with a different principal, but we look at things like. And I'll just give you a few as an example, is that we are teachers and students to each other is one of the principles. And so you can learn a lot from not only your, your spouse, your children, your friends, but we in the support group can learn a lot from each other. And another deep truth is that now is the only time there is. You cannot go back and change the past. You have to look at it, deal with it, move through it, and then you have to forgive yourself for it. You have to forgive yourself for feeling guilty. You have to forgive yourself for feeling like you're not doing enough. And so we try to stay in that present moment, in really doing a lot of that work and recognizing what your true identity is.
00:10:31 Nazish: That is that is actually very true. And, you know, Because the course you are describing doesn't usually arrive as a slow as a clear bill. It arrives as a slow dimming, a slow disconnection, a slow forgetting of who you are inside, the life you have been managing. And that is the most heart breaking part of how late most people see it.
00:10:56 Ellyn Mcleod: And I think it's because we we deal with society sometimes whatever culture you're from or whatever country you're from, in which there's a cultural expectation. And so if you're not living up to it, and yet your whole culture is exhibiting it around you, it doesn't feel like there is something that needs to be explored. It feels like everyone else is suppressing these feelings. Everyone else is suffering. Everyone else is working too hard or not, you know, dealing with the the current issues of stress. So you take it on as a mantle and you think of it as something that's just part of life. And I think it takes a crisis. Sometimes it takes a wake up call. And if that wake up call is a life threatening illness, sometimes people tell me that they they actually think their illness because it was the thing that woke them up. It did creep up on them so slowly they didn't really see it. And when that illness hits them, they realize, wow, I got to take a deeper look at this. This is there's something here I haven't been exploring. And it's their teacher. Right? So that can be an aspect of illness that can be a benefit.
00:12:11 Nazish: Yes, yes. And that is true. And, you know, let's bring it into the body because that's where the show always wants to land. One of the truest thing about losing in a piece is that the body knows before the mind admits. It's like it shows up in. It shows up as tension that won't show that you won't share. That we won't want to realize sleep that won't restore a wake. Heaviness that never has a clear cause. So tell me, in your experience, what are the body's first quiet signals that inner peace has been missing for too long?
00:12:52 Ellyn Mcleod: I think the hardest thing for people to do is, is recognize that they have an upset emotion. I think that's really the first clue. If you cannot recognize that you even are upset. Many people say, oh, I'm fine. Oh I'm fine. Are you sure? Oh yeah, I'm fine. You know, it's it's if you can't even recognize that very first emotion that is bothering you, you could just keep taking that into the future. So I think it's really learning how to get in touch with your feelings, recognize you, have them recognize that you really can't blame the outside world, but the outside world, before even illness comes in, the outside world starts giving you clues, right? You know, you get in a fight with your spouse or you get in an accident with your car, you get a fender bender or you forgot to the deadline date at work, and now you're in trouble with your boss. All these little things that start mounting as upsets. And yet, if you don't recognize it early enough and you don't really realize that these are things that have to be addressed now in this particular moment, they can keep festering until that wake up call is is a huge one. So it's not always the symptoms of the body. It's not always an illness or a sickness. Sometimes it's a feeling and you really need to learn to to identify those feelings. Overwhelm isn't a normal feeling. That isn't how our body is programmed. We're not meant to feel overwhelmed. And yet so many people think that they, they have to feel overwhelmed because they have to be busy because they're working so hard to provide for their family. but it really needs to be addressed early and, you know, start to let go of some of these responsibilities and some of these, uh, these cultural expectations.
00:14:48 Nazish: Yes. Yeah. The expectations are the real thing that, you know, sometimes makes it difficult for us. And sometimes they just, you know, make us work harder as well.
00:14:59 Ellyn Mcleod: Mhm.
00:15:01 Nazish: Yeah. And, you know, I think they have been treating these, their physical people have been treating their physical signals as inconveniences instead of messages. And the body has been faithfully trying to talk to them the whole time. What you just described gave people a different relationship with their physical experience, one where the body stops being a problem to manage and start being a wise companion that has been waiting for them to listen.
00:15:33 Ellyn Mcleod: You know, I had my own health crisis back when I was twenty eight years old. This actually, what spurred me into this work is that I had this same kind of wake up call, and I had to turn that around. I had a diagnosis of a pre Crohn's disease, an intestinal disorder that was starting to irritate the bowel. And the only options medical science could come up with was pharmaceuticals for so long. And then surgery removing parts of the colon. And as a twenty eight year old, I wasn't about to start surgery that was going to remove my colon piece by piece. I knew how important it was. So I really had a wake up call. I had a really fantastic nutritionist that was working with me at the time that I happened to meet at a party, and she really helped me understand how my body could reverse it. My body had this ability, this, um, you know, amazing regenerative quality that if I started to give it all of the things that it needed, needed, not just food. I mean, even energetically, you know, working with yoga and meditation and really putting myself in that energetic space and making my life a little bit more peaceful so that I could tune in to what spirit was telling me that I needed to do. And so little by little, that state of homeostasis, which is this, this, um, process of the body that regenerates the health and reminds you that this is the, the divine space space of the body is to be in perfect health that you start to tune into that and you realize you don't need to have a constant runny nose, you don't need to have that gravelly cough. You don't need to have those skin lesions. Those aren't normal. Those are just symptoms. They're all little red lights, little warning signs. So using the body for that, uh, use using it as kind of a testing site. So, you know, when it's not feeling right, it's not looking right. That body can be, you know, an amazing diagnostic tool.
00:17:41 Nazish: Yes, yes, that is very true. And I love how grounded it is, like, because most people are waiting for something major in their life to change before they even begin other major life changes. Keep change keeps not arriving. What you just described is something a real person can start in the middle of an ordinary day. And that is the one kind of beginning that actually compounds everything together.
00:18:11 Ellyn Mcleod: Yeah. We always need we think that we need to surround ourselves with other people. You know, that that's a core belief too, that you're you don't want to be alone. You've got to surround yourself with your colleagues or you need your family to be there. You always need to have a spouse. And so by doing that all the time and not having that silence in the day. To be able to tune in really hinders your ability to see, uh, not only what your body is telling you in terms of health, but that inner peace that the body requires in order to kind of hear the spiritual voice, right, telling you what to do with your life. Maybe helping you make decisions about things. So I think that taking that time in the middle of the day, um, even at lunch hour, rather than always hanging out with all of the colleagues at work or, uh, sitting down at the table with your entire family, there are these moments in which you can take ten or fifteen minutes of solitude and really listen to that inner voice.
00:19:17 Nazish: You should. And you know, it sounds beautiful. And it is such a beautiful practice to do for anyone listening right now. I believe you have handed us the Golden Rule today.
00:19:29 Ellyn Mcleod: Well thank you. I, I, I think that before we finish up, I should really mention that the, the essence of real healing is, is love. And one of the, in fact, the first principle of attitudinal healing is that the essence of our being is love. And it is that love in which the healing happens between the space that we leave it. So it's not just that silence isn't just for us, your peace of mind. It's also for just expanding our heart and expanding the heart helps us become more generous with others, helps us become more caring with our families, and helps our bodies to heal.
00:20:13 Nazish: Yes, that is very true. So, you know, if someone listening in right now could only sit with one honest question about their inner own inner peace tonight, a question that might begin a shift, something, what would you want that question to be?
00:20:31 Ellyn Mcleod: You know? I think it's really about identity. Who am I? Who am I? AM I this person who's running around like a little chicken that's trying to accomplish all of these things? In the end of the day, you realize seem meaningless. AM I involved in relationships that are superficial? AM I giving myself an identity? When I come home from work, I'm not satisfied with what's happened at work. AM I just doing something for money? I really think identity is the key. And if you can do journaling before you go to bed and first thing in the morning, I would also recommend and really ask yourself that question, who am I and where do I want to be right now, at this moment in my life? I think that's a very important one. So for me, meditation and journaling are like the two keys to flipping the script.
00:21:26 Nazish: Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing that with us. And, you know, this is something that I'm going to I think it's going to resonate with a lot of listeners tonight. So, Ellen, where can my listeners find you and your work, especially anyone who has hurt themselves in this conversation tonight?
00:21:44 Ellyn Mcleod: Um, I live in Sedona, Arizona, but I do have a website. Um, my website is Sedona solution. It's singular. There's no s at the end of it. Sedona solution dot com. Um, I just released my book. In fact, I haven't even seen the hardcopy yet. It's supposed to arrive today. Um, it's called it takes more than carrot juice. It's the missing ingredients to total healing. And, um, you can email me. I believe my, um, my email is on the, the website as well. So the email is info at Sedona solution dot com.
00:22:19 Nazish: Thank you so much for sharing that with us. And I will make sure to include these details into the show notes so that a lot of people can reach out to you and learn from you. Thank you so much for being here. And this is exactly the kind of conversation in our piece. Better health exist for honest, slow enough to actually land, and unafraid to name the quieter forms of laws that most people are taught to ignore.
00:22:46 Ellyn Mcleod: Thank you. I think that the the work you do is really important. And I think the more we realize who we really are and that is, you know, spirit and that we really have an eternal system that can live on forever and that we are not our bodies, the more peace we'll have. So thank you so much for doing what you do.
00:23:07 Nazish: Absolutely. And to whosoever is listening right now, especially the person whose life looks fine from the outside but feels quietly hollow on the inside, I leave you with this. You don't have to be in crisis to begin coming home to yourself. You don't have to wait for a breakdown to deserve a different way of living. The quiet loss of inner peace you have been carrying isn't something to be ashamed of. It is something to start gently taking back one breath, one boundary, and one small moment of stillness at a time. And the right time is to begin. Is always closer than you think. We will be here for the next conversation. Until then, take care of yourself. This is Nazish and it has been a wonderful time talking to you all. Thank you so much.
