We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Dr. Daniel Atkins. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Daniel below.

Hi Daniel, thanks for joining us today. Was there a moment in your career that meaningfully altered your trajectory? If so, we’d love to hear the backstory.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers?

I am an Intuitive Psychologist and I act as a bridge between the modern clinical world of trauma healing and the spiritual realm of alternative and holistic modalities. I was trained and licensed as a clinical psychologist, which was a path that began years earlier as a child struggling with mental health. I received just about every psychiatric diagnosis a young child can receive, ADHD, depression, anxiety, OCD, tics, etc. But I quickly learned that these labels could not touch the truth of my suffering nor could they touch the truth of who I am. I continued into adolescence and young adulthood with heavy emotional burdens and a painful thinking mind that would not let up. I was exposed to Buddhist philosophy from my father and studied Psychology in university, always drawn to understanding the inner world more than the outer one. After a tumultuous period in my early 20s seeking modes of protection from my wounds that were all but helpful, I cleaned up my life and found my way back to graduate school to pursue the path of healing, both for myself and others. I always knew this part of me existed – the desire to heal and to be a Light for others – in fact, it was the realest part of my existence though I had trouble articulating it. Others always felt comfortable around me and I played the role of mediator in my family, though it was not until I began to shed the more toxic elements of my masculinity and embrace the divine feminine that I opened to the path laid before me. I dove into the pursuit of a doctorate in clinical psychology and did very well in school. I graduated with a 4.0 and was the top selection for the doctoral internship program of my choice. I worked extensively with trauma conditions and a range of psychiatric diagnoses in individuals, families, and groups. I worked with children as young as four to older adults and received excellent training in the areas of psychodynamics and attachment theory. I was quite good at conceptualizing my work and doing the therapeutic dance, and yet, my ego was still very much running the show. I wanted to be liked, to be smart enough, a good enough clinician, and approved of by my clients and my supervisors. I was also still struggling immensely with the pain condition that had emerged throughout this time.

I could no longer keep my personal journey separate from my professional one, and so it was during an intensive period of studying for the licensing exam that I had had enough of the current state of suffering and opened to more spiritual realms of healing. As I opened to the world of intuitive, shamanic, clairvoyant, and energy based modes of healing, my own intuitive wisdom blossomed and I began to heal the lineages of trauma I was carrying for a lifetime and beyond. My pain conditions evaporated as did the anguish of my mind as I continued to surrender deeper to a spiritual path. Almost two years ago now, I decided to chart my own path and lean into the wholeness of my gifts and how I serve others. At the core of my work is addressing trauma at its roots, though my version of the roots go beyond early life. I learned to intuitively guide clients into ancestral lineages of trauma, going back generations, as well as into karmic inheritance of past lives. The trauma tree has broadened in my intuitive work, however, it is still focused wholly on what emerges in the present and on the conditioned beliefs we hold of ourselves, others, and the world, and the associated emotion states lying dormant in our bodies. I use a variety of modalities, including particular kinds of breathwork and energy-based meditations, to guide clients into accessing the fears and conditioning ready to be acknowledged and released. I also sit in meditation to receive guided messages for those I work with and use intuitive wisdom to light the path forward in sessions. Through this practice, the clients that I work with end up opening intuitive capacities in themselves naturally.

All human beings are intuitive, they are only blocked to differing degrees of fear conditioning, trauma, and attachment to the thinking mind. I still use my clinical training to teach clients how to begin rewiring the nervous system and neural patterns in the brain in order to release attachment to the sickness in thinking and heal the physical body. It is my understanding that trauma is at the core of all manifestations of sickness and suffering, whether it shows up in chronic pain, financial issues, relationships, career, addictions, etc. So whoever shows up for healing needs only a readiness to open to the parts of themselves previously walled off and disavowed. We do not come into this world as blank slates only to be painted over by the colors of experience. We come in carrying the unresolved conflicts of our lineage and karma, as well as carrying the seeds of Light we are meant to remember on our journey through the darkness. I am aligned with my highest vision and purpose as a guide for others to access the greatest vision for their lives and to shed the blockages in their way. I am a healer at the core.

I work with clients virtually and in-person, and in one-on-one, couple and family, and larger group workshop settings. I also use my voice in my writing, video content, and podcast “Be The Vessel” to bridge the gaps between spiritual and western psychological realms of healing.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

A deep-rooted lesson I had to unlearn was around wealth and the path to achieving success. A part of me always felt distant from the western societal view of success that was rampant through my experience as a Jewish boy raised in an east coast culture. Money and its manifestations appeared a clear declaration of one’s status, worth, and success in the eyes of others. And yet, the pursuit of such wealth never came naturally to me. Though my family was well-provided for by my father’s business, I never learned to appreciate what having money actually meant and how to appropriately relate to it. Though my family had money, they also had deep-rooted fears around it, and when the first recession hit I had to witness my father struggle immensely with the weight of newfound financial burdens. I also witnessed a sickness in my uncles and grandfather as their relationship to money manifested in all sorts of gambling addictions, compulsions, failures, and rigidity. I learned quickly that having money did not mean you were at all comfortable in your relationship to it and, in fact, may have even more distorted views of wealth than those who lack it. As I emerged into a more defined life path for myself, I became more interested in the pursuit of money and how to build wealth within the field of my choice. I began to see the competitive nature of those around me as well as the distorted views of money both by those who worshipped it and by those who disdained it. The field of psychology is a breeding ground for all sorts of distorted views, particularly the view that healers are meant to be wounded and poor and should in no way pursue financial freedom. This was the first lesson around money I had to unlearn, that I deserved to have it.

However, healing the wounds of worthiness around money brought me to the next lesson, which was in what way to allow abundance to flow in integrity and in alignment with my spiritual path. Could they co-exist? As I began to work with my spirit guides, I heard a clear message: I was able to create abundance but not through chasing or striving. I was simply not meant to structure my “business” or my service around the pursuit of finances. I was still meant to charge what I am worth and eschew many of the pitfalls of wounded healers offering their life’s work for very little, but I was not meant to focus my energy on marketing strategies or social media games. It was simply not authentic to me. I have no judgment toward those who pursue such means to “get clients,” but the message was clear that my path was different and was one of surrender. The past few years of my life have consisted of letting go of many trappings around money, both in my worthiness to have it and my fear-guided impulses to chase it. I now walk a balanced line of welcoming abundance into my life through surrender rather than force.

I believe we can surrender into abundance by allowing our highest vision to unfold. This idea may sound counterintuitive to most, but I do not believe we have to grind effortfully to produce the aligned fortune of our dreams. If we can stoke the fire of passion within, we will be guided true into abundance. To be clear, abundance is not merely financial wealth. Financial wealth comes and goes and is merely an external attachment. True abundance lives within and does not depend on the external conditions of one’s life. Therefore, to discover richness and royalty is to know your truth as a royal and rich individual already. When the inner circumstances align to the frequency of abundance, the outer follows. The lesson, simply put, is to believe it in order to see it. Contrary to the popular idiom, “see it to believe it,” many people become wealthy and still fail to see their inner wealth. Such individuals only try to hold even more tightly to their wealth out of deep-rooted fears of losing it. What good is wealth if it only amplifies your fears? This is not a wealthy person to me. I have surrendered to Spirit in this regard, knowing that all is provided for as I walk my path. I am simply not meant to worry about money in this life and I trust that those who are ready to receive my gifts – my Light – will find me. Now I am not naive and still practice common sense around finances as well as revealing myself to the public, such as conducting this interview, though sometimes it takes letting go of the fears before you are ready for the circumstances to bloom – to leap before the net appears. In fact, in my experience it is the only way.

Putting training and knowledge aside, what else do you think really matters in terms of succeeding in your field?

The most important realization to success in my field, as well as in life, is that capital “T” Truth lies beyond training and what can be learned in the thinking mind. The thinking mind actually cannot discern truth from falsehood, no matter. True wisdom, true knowing, can only be experienced through your own radically subjective witnessing. True knowing does not come from books, from research, or from others’ opinions, though the authors of such works may have known it for themselves, it comes from the universal intelligence you carry within you. The only way to begin accessing this universal intelligence is to first recognize that you are not your thinking mind and the mind as you know it has been wired with fear-based and survival based conditions to keep you alive in a modern, traumatized world. Your brain is a powerful computer but it is only ever as mighty as its programming, and it is still firing on outdated modes of survival, scanning for danger and threat, and producing thought based on conditioned beliefs about who you are and what is safe in the world.

True wisdom about the self and, therefore, about how to guide others in the art of healing, comes only from going inward and learning the emotional, psychological, and spiritual lessons you came here to learn. All that is needed to heal and grow stems from the inner experience. The outer circumstances of your life are not random nor are they simply a nuisance, they are a medicine for the inner growth to occur. Through the opening of the heart space, you begin to tap into an ancient, powerful source of consciousness that extends beyond this physical mind and body – a timeless realm of all-knowing guidance and support. This is the way forward in the “field” of healing. To be ready to heal others you must only journey inward to heal the self. In fact, it is the only thing you are truly capable of doing. Lighting the way for others is a happy byproduct of healing yourself but it is not a requirement nor something to be focused on. You must only focus on speaking your truth lest your mind get distracted by what others expect of you. Focus on the wisdom within and know you are already whole and already worthy. If you commit to this path, everything you learn from books and teachings can be a scaffolding – a luxurious addition – to what is already accessed within. It is wonderful to stay up-to-date with modern research and scientific inquiry, but you must be cautious not to confuse this information with the truth of your being and what is meant for you. To show up with another person, another couple or family, or another group is simply being willing to reveal oneself and allow the medicine to flow through. Simply be the Light and allow others to access their own in your presence.

My life’s work stems from this principle and this principle alone. I have read many books and received accolades from my time as a student and a clinician in training, but nothing prepared me to guide others through the dark more than my own walk and my own surrender, one step at a time. We can only guide others as far as we are willing to go ourselves and, unfortunately, the current state of clinical psychology is marred by the limitations of diagnostic criteria and outdated modes of “management” for suffering. True healing is possible and requires in-sight (sight within) into this possibility to provide the frequency of healing for others. If clinicians choose only to read the books and read the research papers, they will appear highly intelligent and likely be validated for their thinking minds, but they will forever be limited in the possibilities of where their inner vision allows them to go. No realm of experience is off limits for healing. All is possible under the guidance of the Great Spirit, just look at the many so-called miracles of healing from previously considered incurable sickness and disease. Surrender to the Self within and you will be guided to the outer resources that you need. From this place of faith, you learn discernment and how to navigate the saturated world of healing tools, modalities, podcasts, books, webinars, classes, training, retreats, foods, yoga, fitness, supplements, and so much more.

No kale or pilates will heal your trauma, all are only tools to guide the healer within. You must choose to practice accessing this part of you – this power – within and from this place of wholeness you will be led true. By all means, still eat the kale, do the pilates, and read all the books you can. Just do so with a faith that what is truly meant for you will be revealed in time.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.DrDanielAtkins.com
• Instagram: DrDaniel_Atkins
• Facebook: Daniel Atkins
• Youtube: Dr. Daniel Atkins
• Other: Podcast on all streaming services: “Be The Vessel”

Image Credits
Roni Martin Photography