Asking for a Friend - Health, Fitness & Personal Growth Tips for Women in Midlife

Ep.83 A Clairvoyant and Medical Medium - Using Her Gifts in Transformational Coaching

Episode 83

Are you curious as to what the future holds and at a crossroads in your life journey ? Are you concerned about a certain nagging pain? If you are at the point of "Now what?" in a career or a relationship, you will love this week's guest.

Carol Walkner left behind corporate America to pursue her dream of helping people rediscover themselves and the direction in which their life is going. She is a certified Reiki Master, clairvoyant medium, and transformational coach with clients all over the world.

She shares her fascinating journey, from her early experiences with clairvoyance to how she uses her unique powers in her work. Carol believes that your to-be list should always be longer than your to-do list and that maintaining a youthful spirit is key to long-term happiness. 

You find Carol Walkner at:
https://www.carolwalkner.com
https://www.instagram.com/carolwalkner/
https://www.facebook.com/carol.walkner



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Are you ready to reclaim your midlife body and health? I went through my own personal journey through menopause, the struggle with midsection weight gain, and feeling rundown. Faster Way, a transformative six-week group program, set me on the path to sustainable change. I'd love to work with you! Let me help you reach your health and fitness goals.
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Michele:

Health, wellness, fitness, relationships and everything in between. We're removing the taboo from what really matters in midlife. I'm your host, michelle Fohlen, and this is Asking for a Friend. Have you ever wondered what that nagging pain is in your hip? Are you curious about what the future holds? And maybe at a crossroads in your life, if you are at a point of now, what you will love? This next guest, carol Walkner, left behind corporate America to pursue her dream of helping people rediscover themselves and the direction in which their life is going. Carol is a certified reiki master, clairvoyant, medium transformational coach and a seriously fun person to know. I mean that. Welcome to Asking for a Friend, carol Walkner.

Carol:

Hello, I'm so happy to be here.

Michele:

Well, thank you, carol. Actually, we have met. We had coffee over the weekend and that was delightful and I'm so glad. I do want to tell everyone how we were introduced, because I find this kind of a cool little story. So Donna Carvada was on the podcast a while back and in one of our chats she said hey, I have someone that I think would be wonderful for your show. Her name is Carol Walkner. She is clairvoyant, transformational coach and also a medical medium. Let me connect you two, because she did and little do we know. We live literally minutes from each other. Who would have thought, right, I know right, and you said nothing happens by accident, and I thought that was so cool.

Carol:

And then I know someone who you knew went to school with who I didn't know that connection, so it's yeah, they're magical, it is.

Michele:

It truly is Nice to see you again and thanks for being on the show. I want to dig into some things that we talked about on Saturday, and the first thing is is that you said that you kind of knew that you were clairvoyant even early in your life. What did that look like?

Carol:

So when I was a kid I would see things, I would see happenings that hadn't happened yet, but I didn't know what I was seeing. I just thought I was some weird little kid who saw stuff. Because you don't talk about it, I probably didn't say, oh, I saw this plane crash. Is everybody okay? And you know everybody would look at me like what are you talking about? Because it probably was a plane crash in Europe and I live in New Jersey or whatever. So I knew I was different and that there was something. I was a gift, but as a kid I didn't really know what it was.

Michele:

Yeah, you probably couldn't define it because you didn't know what a clairvoyant was at that time. And then you kind of went through life like many of us do. You ended up in corporate America, right.

Carol:

I did. I did. I call myself a refugee from corporate America. I was there for 40 years, but in one of the places when I lived in Minnesota, I met a woman who was an extremely powerful energy healer. So that's where I started my journey of realizing what energy was and that's what led me to become a Reiki master. Really, energy is quantum physics. Everything in motion stays in motion until it stops and gets stuck, and so part of the energy work is to get it moving again so people won't get so stuck. And I studied Chinese medicine at the same time, which leads into the medical medium piece, because I literally feel in my body like if someone is grieving or disappointed. I get a feeling of heaviness in my lungs, and according to Chinese medicine, lung issues are disappointment, grief, sadness, having to do everything alone. So it gives me a guideline of what might be going on with the client and then as soon as we resolve the issue, then my heaviness goes away. Thank goodness I don't keep all that stuff.

Michele:

So a couple things, because you got my brain going. This is my ADHD kicking in. When you were 40 years in corporate America, how did you use this gift when you were in business?

Carol:

So the clairvoyance was I knew who to call on, I knew what to say to them, I knew who the clients would not be open to the company that I was working with. So I was extremely successful in sales because I knew what to say and to whom to say it and who to call on. And I'm a people person. So I had a lot of people working under me and usually customer service was under me also, and I just knew what to say and how to treat people in a way so they would be comfortable and do the best job that they could do.

Michele:

Yeah, that's a gift we all wish we had that in corporate America. Trust me and you had mentioned to me that your sister is also clairvoyant, but that she is more of an empath Can you define the difference between the way you approach things and the way your sister does?

Carol:

She's very psychic also and empathic. She's chosen not to use her gifts most of the time, but she works with teenagers. She was a manager in a company same kind of thing. She used her gifts dealing with the people who worked in that company and she uses them now of how to treat these teenagers that she works with. She works for a non-profit part-time. She's a loving, loving person and she's just figured out how, in her way, to utilize the gifts that she has and the way she has them. Does that make sense?

Michele:

It does, and I guess if you're an empath you could probably carry a lot of burden too right, If you take that on too much.

Carol:

Yes, yes, and thank goodness I'm not an empath and she probably has learned over the years how not to carry it. She walks in nature every single day and I think that's part of what assists her, because mother nature is here to help us and being on the earth, that's probably what's her saving grace.

Michele:

Interesting. You said you became a Reiki master and I did have a Reiki master on my show a while back. Would you orient us to what Reiki is and how you would use that with a client? Sure, sure.

Carol:

Reiki is again energy, quantum physics. I see it as when our energy is out of balance, when we are out of balance energetically, when we have an emotional trauma, something has upset us and it blocks our emotions. So Reiki balances everything out and straightens and gets the energy to a point where it's vibrating correctly again. I guess is the best way to say it. And what I learned over COVID is I don't have to have someone right here, right with me in person to work on them, because originally we thought, okay, the way to balance the energy best is to have the person right here in front of you.

Carol:

And I have clients all over the world. I work on the phone, I work on Zoom. I don't even have to see you, because what I've been doing and learned to do is when I have a client, I tune into their energy and it's like I'm with them. They're with me right here, right now. I just finished with a client over the phone and she's a thousand. Well, no, I'm in California, she's 3,000 miles away. And as soon as I connected with her energetically I said, oh, this is going on, that's going on, and it was true, because it's like she's right in front of me and I don't have to see her and she doesn't have to be here physically.

Carol:

So it goes back to the quantum physics. It's energy and it doesn't matter if it's right here under my palms or if I'm like that.

Michele:

Okay, how do you also tie in the clairvoyance too, because I know you kind of use these as like combination tools with working with your clients. I do.

Carol:

Thank you, that's a great question. I open up to the spirit world and the angelic world Also. I've always been a visual creative person, and maybe that's the other side of the clairvoyance, because I see things in my head too. So as soon as I tie into the energy of the client, I see things about them or for them. The client I was just working with we were talking about her husband and her father and mother and I would clue into the energy of those people and I could actually see, like their childhood. It sounds unbelievable, but I see it and the client verifies, and I'm also clairvoyance. So I get messages, I hear messages and they yell at me. Sometimes if I don't listen, they get louder and louder. Tell her this.

Carol:

I had a client the other day. She was asking a question about her dad and they said to me bananas. And I go what? So instead of questioning, I said what's the relationship between your dad and bananas? And she said oh, that's hysterical story. When I was a kid, my dad, we had this one morning and he made me eat like three or four bananas because he thought it would be healthy for me. And she said I haven't been able to eat bananas since. So it's like, okay, that was the correct word, even though it was weird, and I'm claircentient, which is I feel it in my body and that's what makes me the medical medium, because I feel exactly what's going on with the person's physical body.

Michele:

The medical medium piece is absolutely fascinating. Can you provide like an example or two of where you've been able to use that gift to help someone through a medical issue?

Carol:

Yes. So the client I just had, when I tuned into her energy, I said I feel a heaviness. And I said I feel a heaviness in your chest. I said, but it's not physical, it feels more, more emotional. And she said well, funny, you should say I have a heaviness in my chest. She said I had chest pains last week and ended up in the ER wondering if there was something wrong with my heart. I said no, your heart's fine, she goes. Yes, they told me that too, because I could see her heart and she just had some residual emotional thing related to her mother who's probably going to pass away soon. From a Reiki standpoint, I remove the energy so I can feel it, I can see it, I can take it out. And when I remove energy from a physical body, it also, to me, removes it from their energetic body, which I see is like an invisible presence around us, and I blow love into that area. So it kind of closes the energy body back up and then the love is in there instead of the emotion that was clogging.

Michele:

How do people report feeling after you go through that process Lighter, brighter wonderful, mostly lighter.

Carol:

And one woman had a pain in her shoulder. This was a few years ago and we were on FaceTime because it was during COVID, and I said, oh, that's your mother hovering again, and so I pulled. I went like this and we were on FaceTime and she goes oh the pain's gone and that was all it took.

Michele:

Yep, yeah, that's amazing how you feel these things Couple things. Has your gift gotten more fine-tuned as you've gotten older?

Carol:

Yes, because I use it more. So I use a combination of all these gifts with all my clients and I get a lot of referrals. So I probably have two or three or four clients a day every week. So the more I do it, the more fine-tuned it gets, because there's nuances that are just that come to me also.

Michele:

So yeah, you did share a story with me about the young lady that you spoke to that had the, I guess, upper gastric pain. Can you tell that story, sure?

Carol:

That makes me chuckle, but I shouldn't. Anyway, very young woman and she had a pain it's the little space between your esophagus and your stomach and she had a tube that comes down and that's where her sharp, sharp pain. For like two years and she'd had endoscopies and thisoscopy and thatoscopy and nobody could figure out what was the matter. So I was kind of like a last resort. We were in person actually that time and she said she had a pain and I pointed to her and I said is this where it is? And she said yes, like how did you know that? And I said it's right there and it's very irritated. I see a red, raw irritation.

Carol:

And I said do you drink carbonated beverages? And she said yes, I drink kombucha tea all day, every day. And I said stop drinking that, stop totally cold turkey for a couple of weeks. You can start again, you know, after that a little bit, but stop and that pain will go away. And she stopped, it went away. That was what was making that raw, but the tests weren't showing anything because they're putting tubes down there and it was just the inside edges that were raw. There was no way of medically telling, but I could see it, that it was red and raw.

Michele:

Yeah, hey, another success story. Talk one up for Carol on that one. I have to ask you this, because I didn't ask you this Saturday Do you ever sense things about people, health-wise or around their future, that doesn't look so bright and it's something very negative? How do you handle that? How do you deliver that message?

Carol:

I'm very fortunate those people do not come to me. Okay, the issue with that is we have free will. If someone has an illness or there could be something that I might see that would be negative for them, they could turn around and go a different way, and that just changed. I will not say anything negative. Then it could become a self-fulfilling prophecy too, which I would not want.

Carol:

I'm putting something in somebody's head like uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh. No, those people don't come to me, or they don't ask me those questions, or I don't answer them. I don't even look because I don't want to know.

Michele:

That's fair. I think you want to keep things positive. In light of that, as a transformational coach, you're working with both younger and older clients In regard to the things that they're needing help with. How is that different If you're working with younger clients? What are they typically coming to you for? And then, women in midlife like us why are they coming to see you?

Carol:

Great question. The 50 and 60 and into the 70-year olds. It's like a spectrum. They're on one end and their life has changed. They're widowed, they're divorced, they're retired, they have health issues. Their life just doesn't look the way they thought it would when they were 30 and 40 and because of the widowhood or divorce, or they've reached a point where, okay, I can't do this anymore, I'm going to leave corporate America and start a business, and then it doesn't turn out the way they thought. They're looking for direction, they're looking for clarity, they're looking for something I guess that would be most of it direction and clarity and wanting to just be happy and have a really, really wonderful life that they thought they were going to have.

Carol:

There's a lot of confusion Younger people in their 30s, probably mid late 30s, early 40s it's like the same thing. They're looking for clarity and direction, but it's from a different vantage point. They're young mothers, they're happily married, they're maybe they quit a job to raise kids and now the kids are in school, so maybe they want to go back to work. But what should they do? A few of them that I've had, women that I've met recently, the younger ones it's like they're looking for something real, something bigger than themselves, something maybe something spiritual. And it's not about religion, it's about I have a hole inside. There's something in here that's yearning, but I don't know what it is. It feels like they're also looking for direction and clarity, but it's more from a fulfillment.

Carol:

What's my purpose? Why am I here? It's a bigger question. The older women are asking the same thing, but they kind of know why they're here. They're just wanting to tweak things a little. But yeah, it's just. It's so. It's so interesting. I'm going to start an online coaching program. I already have done it in person for years. This is the first time I'm doing it online, because I have so many clients all over the world. My intent and hope is that these age groups will come together because the wisdom from both of them, each of them, it's just. There's so much to learn and so much to share. I'm getting very excited about the potential and the possibility.

Michele:

I can tell. You're getting me all excited. Yay, yeah, I want to go back to this because I see something here with your younger clients. Versus your older clients, your younger clients I think sometimes that these young women, they may have left a successful career, they're home now. Being a mom can be very gratifying, but is it exactly what they thought it was going to be? It's kind of that. This is way harder. It's not as. Where's the fantasy, you know? Yes, yes, right, it's like oh, this is going to be so great. I'm going to go to lunch with friends and go to the park every day with the kids, and it may not be that for them. I think they need something beyond that to keep them totally fulfilled.

Carol:

Yes, yes, part of the fantasy is there, but, okay, you've gone to the park with the kids, you've done all that. It's two o'clock in the afternoon, now what?

Michele:

Naptime for mom.

Carol:

And the kids are okay, the husband has a good job, we have a beautiful home, everything's wonderful. It's not enough. It's like I want to be out in the world, I want to make an impact out there. I'm here in my living room. I want more than that. Yeah, everyone's saying I want more. I want it goes down to give me clarity and direction. What's my purpose? That? How will I feel fulfilled, how will I feel happy all the time? So when I created my coaching program nine years ago, I pulled myself through it because I was asking the same questions. It's like, oh, life's OK, but how much longer do I want to live with? Ok, I think I want fabulous, but where is it?

Carol:

I spent a whole year left a long term relationship, drove across the country from New York to California, was helping out my son and daughter in law for a few months and it's like, ok, I got to keep moving here and I knew the universe was guiding me and I was designing, designing. I had worked with some individuals in a group before I left, so I knew it on some level that this worked. So I pulled myself through it and it was like I recreated and redesigned my life exactly as I wanted it, and that was eight years ago. And I've never been happier and it's like, oh, me and I get to have coffee with you on a Saturday, I get to play Maja on Friday afternoon, I get to see clients all week, I get to come out to play with my grandchildren. It's like I have a life that I truly love. It's totally fulfilling and happy, and I designed it and that's what my program does. I'm going to design good lives for the people who come to me.

Michele:

So for women in the midlife and beyond age group, I see so many women. They're finally got their head up right. They've finished taking care of the kids. They may be empty nesters now. They may or may not be still taking care of their parents or maybe their aunt or whatever, and they now are saying, OK, what about me? Just like what you were saying. And they still have a good 30 years ahead of them and they want to know what that looks like. And I think this is so great to be able to get some answers.

Carol:

I know absolutely Everybody wants answers and we really design it together. So I'm excited about my group program because I said I design it, but it's really we're working together. I'm working with each of them, but we're working as a group as well to really, individually and as a group, design how we want things to look, because we can do that. We just don't know. Oh yeah, I get to choose, we get to choose Right.

Michele:

You're going to start your group program. You have individual coaching. How else do you work with clients? So I know you do in person. You do zoom Telephone also. Telephone. That works too.

Carol:

They're all over the world now. So, whatever works, the zoom is great because then we get to see each other and they can watch me go like this is doing my magic over here with my eyes closed. So most of my work up until now has been individuals, and I've done workshops for years on vision boarding and different things like that with groups in person and online, but not a long online program. So it'll be just a mix of everything and then I get to come out here to California and play with my grandkids in the meantime, in between time.

Michele:

That's great, and you can do it from there. That's the beauty of doing the remote thing. I do want to share this. When you and I met on Saturday and I told you that someone close to me was not well, yes, and immediately you coughed. I did not tell you at that time that they had lung cancer, but when I did, you said that you had sensed that and felt it. That floored me, and I think people may be listening to this and saying this is woo, woo, because there's always going to be naysayers, right, right. But I do believe that there are people that have been given a gift and I believe that there are people that have the gift and don't know it.

Carol:

Oh, yes, oh yes, definitely, definitely. And the naysayers, they won't come to me. Right, you know, it's that simple. The naysayers won't come. They're naysayers. They don't believe that. Yeah, how can you do that? You know well, I have X-ray vision. That's how but?

Michele:

yeah, all right. Have you ever met someone and immediately knew that they had the gift and they didn't know they had it? Has that ever happened

Carol:

not exactly, but I believe everybody has intuition. Everybody has the gift. They just have to enhance it, they have to hone in on it, they have to believe it. And some people have more intuition than others. And some people say, maybe some is not an actual gift. We all have that little voice that says, ah, maybe you should do this. Most of the time we ignore it. I even ignore it sometimes. I have a lot of funny stories about the ones I ignore. It's like ugh.

Michele:

I have my mother. I think my mom still is up there, just as I say, I think my mom's up there directing traffic Probably. I totally believe it, and my dad too, but my mom for sure.

Carol:

And if you were close to her, she probably wants to kind of hover a little bit from up from over there. Wherever, Make sure that your life goes smoothly for you.

Michele:

Yeah, she definitely did look out for me, particularly after I got divorced and single mom and all those things I know. My mom definitely kind of kept extra tabs on me. So I felt that even as an adult with my mom, sure, sure.

Carol:

And that's not going to go away.

Michele:

No, matter where she is. Oh no, trust me, she's got a direct line to the guy upstairs too. Carol, I have to ask you this what is one of your own pillars of self-care?

Carol:

Every year I come up with a word or words or phrase of the year and it's something for me to live into and live up to or whatever, and this year it was thankful and playful. So this is an answer to your question. It's a longer answer, but I don't take for granted the gifts I've been given. I'm very thankful. I'm thankful for the women who come to me, thankful for all the people I can assist. I have a lot of gratitude, but that's kind of like a platitude to me. I like the word thankful better. I'm very thankful and I respect the gifts I have.

Carol:

I drink a lot of water, I eat very well, so I take care of my physical body. I get exercise and I'm playful, so I play. I love to play, so we have to take time off. Every Friday afternoon from noon on you cannot reach me. You cannot reach me because I'm at the country club playing maja. So I make sure that my to-be list is longer than my to-do list. So I really am guard full of not overworking and really respecting that. I am a human being and it's OK for me to take time off because then I can be better when I'm actually working, if I work a million hours a day, like I was in corporate America. You get exhausted. The work I do now, I can't be exhausted.

Michele:

I love what you just said. My to-be list is longer than my to-do list and I wrote that down. I think that is such a fabulous mantra. Whether it's your mantra or not, it's fabulous, so thank you for sharing that. That's great, carol. One last thing how can our listeners find you? Thank?

Carol:

you. I have a website, carolwopnercom. It's being redesigned and simplified, but it's up and running. Of course, my email is carolwopner888 at gmailcom. Those are probably the best ways, and I do offer a 30-minute complimentary discovery call. If somebody is interested in finding out how I might help them, I would love to chat with you and we'll discover together. Can I help you? Most likely, but if I can't, I will say not my bailiwick, not my area. That's never happened yet. But I'm not going to say yes, if I really can't help somebody, not really. Yeah, we get to know each other in that curiosity call, so it's really nice, and then I'm not wasting a session time with them asking a bunch of questions that I already know the answers to.

Michele:

I think that's a wonderful process, carol. This was great. I'm going to put all that in the show notes so people know how to get ahold of you. And thank you, it's nice to see you again. Good to see you. When you're back in town, let me know and we'll meet for coffee again.

Carol:

I would love to do that. I'll be back next week. This was a short trip to the West Coast. Enjoy those grandbabies yes yes, we were playing hide and seek last night.

Michele:

Ha, ha, ha ha. Stay young, stay young, that's all I got to say. Stay young.

Carol:

Yes, keep playing, whatever that means for each of you. Keep playing. Keep moving Drink water. Keep moving, blow bubbles. That's the number one stress reliever on the planet is buy a bottle of bubbles, because when we're stressed, we're anxious, we hold on, we don't breathe. When you blow bubbles, you have to breathe in, blow out. You see these rainbow colored orbs and you smile. What just happened? You loosened up. The universe wants to provide you just opened up.

Michele:

We all have to remember our inner child.

Carol:

Totally, totally. And for the holidays coming up, buy a bottle of bubbles for everybody around your table and then you can all be blowing them instead of arguing.

Michele:

I think we need to pay you for this. We've just got a bunch of advice here. You did All right, but it's OK.

Carol:

Carol, thank you. Thank you, michelle, this has been fabulous.

Michele:

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