PROFOUND Medicine Songs: How Robin Landsong's NDEs Transformed Her Life!

Announcer
Hi there. Welcome to grief to growth podcast. Your host is Brian Smith, spiritual seeker, best selling author, grief survivor and life coach. Ryan believes that the worst tragedies of life provide the greatest opportunity for growth. Ryan says he was planted, not buried, and he is here to help you grow where you've been planted by the difficulties in life. In each episode, Brian and discuss will share what has helped them to survive and thrive. It is his sincere hope this episode helps you today.

Brian Smith
Hey everybody this

is Brian back with another episode of grief to growth and today I've got with me Robin land song and I first heard Robin's story. We're just trying to figure out it's been a couple of years ago, it was on Sandra Champlain show we don't die and it's Robin has a fascinating story. And she's doing really great work in terms of healing. So I want to read Robins introduction and then we'll get started. Robin Are you sure Lance song is a transformational speaker. She's a visual artists a medicine singer and a medical health intuitive Robin had To near death experiences during the Rhodesian war in 1977, when she was eight years old when Robin was called back to life by the medicine song of a rural Zimbabwean woman, and opened up Robins own medicine songs and she has given singing medicine to over 14,000 people. Robin specializes as a demonic craniosacral therapist, and she works with people in trauma resolution, the neurobiology of connection and restoring the natural rhythms of the body. Robin sees each person's guess strengths and underlying cause of their physical emotional or spiritual distress. And Robin helps people regain their creativity intuition and embodiment and her website is ra is www Robin land song calm that's Li n d s o n g calm and as always that'll be in the show notes. So with that I want to welcome Robin to Griff to growth.

Robin Landsong
Thank you Thank you for having me.

Brian Smith
Yeah, Robin, it is really great to have you on as I said I heard your story you know a few years ago like to be Do that again today. You and I have been in some classes together. So I know we've kind of met a little bit, but this is our first time talking face to face. So if you could start by telling me about your your story that started, wherever you'd like to start.

Robin Landsong
Mm hmm. So when I was I grew up on the east coast of the US. And unfortunately, I had parents who had lost their natural instinct to protect their children. And so I was exposed to a lot of dangerous adults. And one of those adults saw me as a vulnerable unprotected child. And he was obviously not mentally well, and he abducted me. He came to my school at the end of the day at the end of the school year, and took me drugged me and then brought me on a plane. And when I woke up again, I didn't know where I was. But I actually was in Rhodesia, which is now Zimbabwe.

Brian Smith
So he is He touched you and put you on it took you on a plane to some some byway and that's where you woke up and had no idea where you were

Robin Landsong
correct. Yeah. And so what I've researched since then is that the Rhodesian so it was the Rhodesian bush war at that time, and the Rhodesian government didn't have enough people to fight their side. So they were recruiting all around the world. And one of their special kind of focuses was recruiting Vietnam vets. So this is 1977. So the Vietnam war had ended, and that there was a number of Vietnam vets who you know, were having trouble integrating. So literally, I've got the 1977 soldier Fortune Magazine, that's advertising company, a man among men, so you can come be a soldier again. Wow. So he

Brian Smith
was there to be a soldier, but he decided to take you with him.

Robin Landsong
Right And so I'll never really know, you know, on that. One historian, I spoke with her proposed a theory again, which I'll never know is that a lot of the soldiers who were in Vietnam fathered a child with a Vietnamese woman. And then when they got deported back here, then they didn't get to bring that child with them. And so, from clues of things, he said, he might have just felt like, Oh, I lost a daughter. I'm just gonna get another one.

Brian Smith
Yeah, well, you know, we all I think we try to struggle to understand what the mentally ill people do. But sometimes, frankly, we just, we just can't so you find yourself there and what was life like for you then?

Robin Landsong
I, since I grew up with unsafe people, I I knew that he was one of the most dangerous that I have ever encountered. And I knew that my life could be ended at any moment. And so I just did the best I could to cope and survive, which a lot of which is a lot about doing what he wanted, and kind of being what he wanted. And we've all heard about Stockholm Syndrome, where the person has to kind of basically mind meld with their doctor. And just to be able to anticipate, like what they're going to do or say a request. So in my healing process, it took quite a while to kind of undo that Stockholm effect and can be able to come back to my own perspective on it. So he, he did assault me and he kicked my ribs. And the MPs came because we were actually on a military base. And I've been able to go back and stand there was an article on it, but I was able to stand there and look in that exact place. So the MPs came and I was hospitalized, and I've also gone and found the hospital and I found the exact bed that I was in. Hmm. And from there, sadly, no one stopped him from coming to get me from the hospital. And he took me with him to a market and basically, he took have left me in the hands of another man. I don't know the nature of the exchange, but my from based on my research, I think he had to. He had five days of training, and then he had to go into the field and fight. You had to get rid of me.

Brian Smith
So he left you with someone else. And this person took you in. And then how was that?

Robin Landsong
We he put me on a bus and I was the only white person and it was a, you know, kind of the buses we've seen. You know, there's animals. There's people it's overpacked? Yeah. And the bus broke down. And since I was just freshly out of the hospital with broken ribs, we were all instructed to get out and walk and I couldn't keep up. And so the man who I was in his care, say, pushed me along and when he pushed on my broken ribs, I just bit him, which is kind of defended animal. So he kind of was You know, done with dealing with me. So he just left me behind. And hours later, soldiers came by and picked me up. And again, now I've done my historical research and gone back twice to Zimbabwe. And now I know that for a white girl to be alone, in that war, it was kind of just a matter of hours of survival. That it was a war over land and land use and of course, you know, the history of colonialism and oppression. And what I found out is that it is likely I was actually picked up by the guerrilla soldiers. And, and from my perspective, you know, they're fully armed and I thought, well, this is the end of my eight miserable years and it's going to be quick. And for me, at that time, I felt like quick is mercy. And let's just get this done and what happen happened is that two of the men had an argument over me. One advocating? No, of course, it's all in our language, I understand, but I understand. And one was advocating for my life and the other was advocating for my death. And, and as you can imagine, kind of the stress in my nervous system, when the man who was advocating for my life kind of took me towards him like a father would do in a protective way. On the one hand, it was so much what I needed. And on the other hand, it just undid my coping, and so I just collapsed and it will be called dorsal shut down. So in, in my perspective, now, I have one of the most dangerous soldiers to think for my life. So I have the enemy to thank for my life. Yeah. And so he took a risk and, you know, knew that my time was limited. He couldn't really keep me safe there. So He got a vehicle and transported me to a village that was right close on the border to South Africa. And is a no probably by his best gas that they would be sympathetic to a white child. So he took me there and basically dropped me off and just kind of, I guess, hope for the best. Okay.

Brian Smith
So here you're at eight years old, you've been kidnapped handed from one person to another person, that person abandons you. You get picked up by a soldier and he drops you off in a strange village. Hmm,

Robin Landsong
okay. And, and believe it or not, I felt free

because I was free from the abductor, who was the absolute worst danger? Yeah. And so I spent the night in the tree by myself. And thank goodness, I didn't know about the animals that were all around me. And in the morning, I heard women singing. And, and it was The first sound of hope, sound of caring sound of life. And so I went closer and of course, I was very threatened and very scared. But I stood on the edge of this I hid behind a tree and I watched these women and they were grinding food and pounding corn. And they were singing. And this was the first time I had seen adult women with so much natural joy. And so much generosity and like one woman came and kind of took the food that had been ground and, and the, and the generosity and the getting I had never seen that before. I always thought needing something was basically bothering someone else. And so I watched them and and then I kind of, you know, peeked out from behind the tree and they saw me and, you know, who knows what they thought that Hello white tie like, like people just didn't mix there. Right, right. There was like the white people who had a farm and then there was the black Africans and there was really, unless you went, unless they went to work for them, there was no mixing. Right. And, you know, this is the time period, you know, in South Africa, there's apartheid. And so they brought me food and water. And, and eventually I came out from behind the tree. And that night they gave me a sheepskin to sleep on. And I was too afraid to actually go and hot with any of them. And it was the next day that the children came around me. And they were touching my wife's skin and my hair was more blonde. And, and they were, you know, kind of like what is this they'd never really no little touched a white girl. And, and so then they took me to the fire circle. And the eldest one, which was probably about 13 might have given her the name kaneesha. And so she's so proud, and she's, you know, she can stand so regal and I've never seen that either. And she takes ash from the fire and she starts putting it on. Me. And so she is making me black like them. And she's telling a story and it's in venda so I can't understand it. But I get that she's story me and she say, telling the story of, and then she came to us. And it was the first belonging I had in my life. And other children joined in and they're all putting black Ash on my, my clothes and my face and my arms. And I, and for the first time ever, I had a feeling of welcome. Wow, wow. And what and one of the women who had been part of the food preparation area, she came over and she was laughing and laughing and thought it was a great time. And she started singing to me and calling to me. And the drawing that's behind me is a turtle that symbolically represents her. And there's the creation methods that the turtle rests on that the world rest on the back of a turtle. And so I do that and you You can see the Africa on my world vest in on her back. She sang to me, and she melted my armor. And she was calling me to look in her eyes. And with my upbringing, I never looked adults in the eyes. And so she was calling me to kind of go against all my defenses and let me be a child, and she was offering to be my shelter. Mm hmm. And when I took the risk to look in her eyes

is the first time I saw the eyes of a mother.

Unknown Speaker
Wow.

Robin Landsong
And I literally collapsed in her arms and let her become my mama. Wow.

Brian Smith
Now this singing I assume was not an English or did you? Did you understand what you're saying?

Robin Landsong
So they're, they don't speak English. It's vendor or some other languages. Okay. So you're How did you How long were you there? I mean, I'm just trying to figure out how you communicate it and Mm hmm. So I was adopted probably about the first week in June. And I was returned sometime in August.

Brian Smith
Okay. So you were you were there for several, a couple months anyway. So this particular family take you in.

Robin Landsong
They did. And there was another another woman who also mothered me. And they, and they really did. They took me in because I'm guessing they assumed that my family had been killed, and that I you know, that I was Rhodesian, and that and that my family have been killed and somehow I've been escaped. I'll be assumed I was orphaned. They had no idea I was American. Okay. And, and what I found out later is the kind of the nearest white family that they did have a daughter about my age. And so a lot of them thought that was me.

Unknown Speaker
Okay.

Brian Smith
So you're living with this family at some point. Something happened something that's something triggered this the near death experience you had, right?

Robin Landsong
So I wandered a bit too far from the village and

and I went to a creek where the way we usually swim and like the two mothers had put clay on me to try and heal my bruises. It was a really positive, safe place for me, when I didn't know was that in the field right next to where that peak was that there was a battle starting. And being there by myself being on the edge of where the soldiers were starting to gather for this battle. One of them spotted me. And when he saw me, I froze. And I knew that I could never make it back to the village and that maybe just running would incite him even more. And so he immediately brought up his rifle and fired and the bullet graze the top of my head and blew me off my feet. And I began to die of blood loss and Chuck

And I crossed over to the other side.

And there I met a series of beings. And, and one of them, I was still hoping to be able to get back to my family because I was still disoriented that I was dying. And one of them I kind of ran to him hoping like he could help me get back to my family because they had named me and they'd given me a naming ceremony

Brian Smith
for family in Zimbabwe To be clear, okay.

Robin Landsong
Okay. And, and when I stood in his presence, I couldn't remember why I was disturbed. And his face kept changing. And it changed to people I didn't know. And then I thought, Oh, I would like to show this tattoo who was one of the men in the village that was so good to me. And when I thought that his face changed at all, and my heart is Don't open with all this love. And then his face changed again to someone I didn't know. And my heart still stayed wide open and I thought, I'm more capable of loved my thoughts.

And his face changed to a lion.

And he leaned his forehead and touched mine. And I could see as he sees. And it was like a living matrix with gems, and golden connections like, like, you know, the iridescent and the spider webs. And what I realized is that, even if I lose my newfound African family, I am still connected to this whole web of life, that I can strengthen my connections with my focus and my love, and that I belong to something even bigger, and it's this universal family. And when he came back from touching my forehead, my faith in him was absolute. Wow. And so I allowed my being to just lean into his and when I did that I was closer to the source that he was made up also. And so there we traveled in a tunnel of light. And we came out above the scene looking down on where my body was in my element on the axon had found me and she was holding my body and stopping the blood flow. And she was rocking and she was wailing and, and I wanted to let her know, I'm watching from above. I wanted to let her know I'm okay. I'm pain free. I'm all right. And I have this beautiful guide with me, and I'm totally held. And so from there I lifted off and went upward and met more beings that purified me and took away any notion that the abuse that had happened to me in my lifetime was my fault. And as I kept going further and I was going home to my source, and I call that the great heart, and every part of me was going to be received home and and I knew I was going back to my original source where I felt I was like a seed syllable song into being. And as I kept going towards this freedom towards this spaciousness and losing all kind of my injuries from this lifetime,

and then I heard singing.

And what was happening is that my mom Yeah, time had changed her wailing into singing. And then she had called on the ancestors in the land sing a calling song to find me where I was. Meet me and remind me of the medicine songs. And so her her singing made it through all the veils that had closed behind me. And when it reached me, I had a choice. And hearing those same voice I remember I haven't done my purpose which is to also be a medicine singer like her. And so I had a choice I could either keep going forward to the great heart to my back to my original source or I could come back no kind of to this denser plane, but then I could do my purpose of of singing to others as she's saying to me to restore me.

So I chose to come back. Wow.

Brian Smith
Well, I just tell them the story right but I'm just like so so drawn in and just so fascinated by you know, your eight short years but the you know, the pain that you experience in the end the relief and going back and the bonding with his family generally been with for a few weeks, right? I mean, at this point, it's only been A couple weeks had been there. So and I write it also as you tell the story about you know, near death experiences I hear it sometimes they'll feel the prayers of the person on the site praying for them it sounds like that the song as you said reached you through even through all these veils that reminded you that you still had something to do here. So at this point, you come back and you find yourself in your body again, I assume

Robin Landsong
Mm hmm. Which was um you know, like most near death there say is

not a great moment. And, and it was really her arms around me. She was solid and I just felt like the wind could blow through me. I felt like just kind of, you know, dry crackly leaves. But when they did the medicine singing for me, they made sure to do a song to clear the hatred. They had come with a bullet that I wouldn't go through life without hatred on my head. And so they cared for me and unfortunately about two days later, the soldier came back. And they attacked the whole village. And so one other mother was carrying me on her hip and running. And sadly, she was shot from behind. And so we both went down. And she just yelled at me to get up and keep going. And so the hardest moment for me to heal from is that I wanted to pull her with me. But I was, and I had just been shot and died from blood loss two days earlier. Right. And so I did what she said, and I kept running. And it was running towards the tree cover next to the Limpopo. And I made it to a little hill and then as I went down a little hill, I collapsed because, you know, I still I still know I probably need an IV and last a couple days ago, right? And so I had a second near death experience. And, and in that it was entirely different. experience. And I met one being. And he was, he was still behind a veil himself. And his message to me, and he was his skin was blue and he had a black button and there was kind of all kinds of ornamentation around him. And I knew he was incredibly powerful. And that with one hand, he could make a mountain, and with the next hand, he could take it down. So he was like this intensity of creation, destruction. And here I had just been through a massacre and I didn't know if I was the only want to live or if anybody else had lived and, and his message to me was out of destruction that makes available the ingredients for a new creation. And so, when I came back to my body after receiving that message, he was still his voice was still with me. In this dense plane in this human plane, and he commanded me to crawl forward and get away from the site of the massacre, and you literally I had no real to live. And it was his will that just commanded me to go forward. And what he was doing is getting me to go to a well, we're the next day. And he knew that a woman would come and woman found me her name is Nia, Lucy. And she washed the blood off me and she took me back to her homestead her village. And she took care of me. And she had the local medicine singer come in and sing to me. And that's where I met her granddaughter, who is my Mo. And they ended up kind of talking to the closest white people in South Africa and saying, we have this white girl we don't know who she belongs to. And they said, Well, we don't know either but together to ask them we'll find out. And so they literally took me across Purple river into South Africa

and gave me to the nearest white people who are farmers.

And so from my perspective, I went from going from a culture where people touch each other. There's animation, there's expression in the face, you know, I was sleeping next to other children I was always being touched to always being some to, to white apartheid, South Africa and the cultural shift for me. Just like I wasn't being touched, I wasn't being sung to I was being cared for. Yeah, your bed to sleep in and we had running water. And we had plenty of yummy food. Yeah. But I needed touch and I needed pink some too. And so I, I kind of again, started to die of trauma. And so I was hospitalized again, you know, maybe I had gotten infected. So I was hospitalized in Polk County. Me, in South Africa. And again, that was an apartheid time period. So I was in a whites only wing. So all of a sudden, I wasn't seeing any black people. And, and if I said I want to go back and be on the other side of the river with my family, you know, the reactions were not positive to that. Hmm. They took away the dress that Miami has given me and addressed to me in more kind of white people clothes. So from my perspective, as an eight year old, I was like, wait, I went from being loved to being treated as this problem that nobody wants.

Yeah.

And from there, my team, they kind of threatened me to tell them where my parents were, because obviously they could tell I didn't have a South African accent. Yeah. From there. They figured out who my parents were and some agent we can't figure out from what agency flew me back to Philadelphia.

Brian Smith
Okay, so you didn't voluntarily tell them you're from Philadelphia.

Robin Landsong
No, and it's sort of like, you know, they basically said you don't want to go to an orphanage a little girl. Yeah.

You had parents tell us their names.

Brian Smith
Yeah. So what was it like coming back? Was it like really reorient back to your family, the culture here, everything else.

Robin Landsong
This guy didn't really talk much for a year, I was just in like a traumatized state. Unfortunately, the rule in my family, like many families that have a lot of abuse is that we don't talk about it never happens. And so when I tried to talk about it, and I might have said something like, I have to get back to my real mother and my mom, my biological mom, she hit me. Yeah. And you know, I have a brain injury. My head still my brain still swollen and she hit me in the face. And I just thought, I remember the girl shell I have to be to make it here. Yeah. So my family never asked me what happened. We don't talk about it. It never happened. What? No one from my family.

Brian Smith
Yeah, Robin. But as I'm listening to you, I'm thinking about people having their death experiences. And I was talking to PMS. pmh. Atwater interviewed her, you know, a couple of months ago. And adults have trouble integrating these experiences. And children have even more trouble integrating these experiences. And being a child going through the trauma that you had been through before coming up, and then coming back to you a more trauma. How did you manage to integrate this this experience?

Robin Landsong
You know, it's funny, you mentioned pmh, because that was really validating to me, because she says, like five to seven years for adults. Yeah, reasonable support. And then she says 30 to 40 years of support. So I ended up going back to Zimbabwe 40 years after, so I went back when I was 48. Oh, wow. Okay. And it's really been writing My book, that's been the big way to integrate this. And certainly I do. I did lots of therapy and EMDR therapy I highly recommend, and I've done all kinds of body healing techniques. Like, can I offer those services too? And but it's really been writing my book and like, my husband has interviewed me for 11 years I've been working on this book, because it's been this polishing the gym, and that my commitment to my readers is that I'm going to have metabolized made sense made meaning of everything from my story before I deliver it to you. And I just got a reading from one of my friends who's also an intuitive and she said, she said, it's like you've been hands making this diamond called your book to give to people and like polishing it and smoothing in 11 years. Yeah, because the first the first draft of it was just going to compress traumatized voice and it didn't have any grace or even sense structure. And so my husband and I've given it out to about 45 different people. And it's been amazing to get feedback. You know, I think I'm on my sixth professional editor. And, and so it's just needed that much work and the book has worked me. Right. And the beauty is sometimes people tell me when they read it, they say, all the transformation you did while writing it, is the gift that comes through. I mean, the story is interesting. Yeah, but you can feel the transformation when in your writing process. And yeah, deliver.

Brian Smith
Yeah, well, you know, when I talk to you and listen to you, and I can, I can feel the the transformation that you've gone through or are going through, you know, coming coming through and, you know, hearing, you know, again, the trauma that you went through, which is just incredible trauma that you know, that most of us can't even imagine, but how that you know, has formed you into the person that you are and You know, so it's also interesting to hear you say, Okay, I went back and I was you were told you you weren't, you know, ready to go because you had your mission to fulfill. But you still have to come back here. It's a pretty tough target circumstances that you had to endure until you start fulfilling that mission.

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Brian Smith
Yeah, so tell me about the work that you do now. How did you how did you become a medicine singer and transformational speaker and all the things you're doing now? Mm

Robin Landsong
hmm. Well, I would say just first I want to thank all the people they helped my healing process. You know, Friends and therapists and body healers and therapists and you know, just all the classes that I took on healing and, and so it's been a real delight to be able to give back. And, and so what I've really done is kind of, you know, the foundation of it, the passion of it is that I have gone from being you know, so Much trauma response in my nervous system to having a lot of freedom and a lot of choice, you know, and always we're still working on somebody in an audience was asked, When are we done healing? And I was like, I think your last breath and then you didn't start again. Yeah, exactly.

Brian Smith
Exactly.

Robin Landsong
So, so as my intuition, you know, I kind of say that like, in my 20s, I was just so full of trauma content. And when I was able to bring down that trauma kinda how

Brian Smith
did you how did you become a medicine singer and transformational speaker and all the things you're doing now? Mm Hmm.

Robin Landsong
Hmm. Well, I would say just First, I want to thank all the people that helped my healing process. You know, Friends and therapists and body healers and therapists, and, you know, just all the classes that I took on healing and, and so it's been a real delight to be able to give back And, and so what I've really done is kind of, you know, the foundation of the passion of it is that I have gone from being, you know, so much trauma response to my nervous system to having a lot of freedom and a lot of choice, you know, and always we're still working on somebody in an audience wants ask, When are we done healing? And I was like, I think your last breath and then you didn't start again.

Brian Smith
Exactly. Exactly.

Robin Landsong
So, so as my intuition, you know, I kind of say that, like in my 20s, I was just so full of trauma content. And when I was able to bring down that trauma content, like by my kind of early 30s, mid 30s, my intuition got freed up, because I was no longer just hyper vigilant scanning for danger. So as my intuition got freed up, I realized, Oh, I can see inside people, I can see people's organs. I can even see sales if I focus. And I also get movies and stories. people's lives, and that I hold those with compassion. And that what's happening is that the part of us that wants to be witnessed wants to be known is communicated to me. And, you know, so I don't see this all the time like it not everybody I walk past. But we know when I have people's permission is that I see the relevant stories either in their lifetime or maybe their parents or going back generationally about what created distress what created imbalance will create a contraction that is still limiting this person's life. And then my favorite thing to do is to help people come home to themselves come back to their app, come back to their body, and, and just be able to live with more freedom and more choice. And one of my favorite, you know, I had like, I've had thousands of stories, fantastic transformations. I'll just share this one. I was in Texas at a near death conference. And my husband and I offered to see this workshop. In the hall before the workshop, I met a person who had had a near death experience as a child, she had drowned. And she just was very blatant. She was very open. She's like, yeah, I'm just waiting to go back. And I'm not really enjoying being here. And it just broke my heart like, oh, sweetheart, you're 60 That's a long time, just that you've been sitting in the waiting room. Yeah. And so fortunately, she came to the city medicine workshop. And when it came, I kind of I call people like, would you like to make some to and then they come in the center of the circle. And then I use my intuition and I ask what's medicine for them today? No, through my singing through my reflecting them back through seeing them. And she felt to me like she was barely here. Like her form was here, but her vitality wasn't here. And so I just did prayer and it called The spirits I work with, and I was like, you got to help me on this one. You know, we got to pull it out for this one. And so I did my prayer and I began to sing to her. And I asked her if I could hold her. And she said, Yes. And I was holding her, and I whispered in her ear, we need you to come back now. We need to hear. And Brian, it was one of the most incredible moments in my life. I felt her come home. It was like I was holding a shell, and boom, all of a sudden, I was holding a three dimensional person. And I thought, well, that went well. I'm going to do it again. And I said, We need you here, come back, and she did it again.

She brought her vitality back into her body.

And you know, the whole room was weeping. I was weeping. She was weeping the whole room especially all the near death is we're just and so I you know, held her for a while and then I backed up and I looked at her face and I said, Do you need help back to your chair? And she said, we're in my so I helped her after a tear and like three other near death, there's like came and sat right by her like snuggled up to her and, and I thought, well, this might be a tough integration for her later. But I saw her later in the hall. And she was like hugging people and like saying hello to everyone like this, like super extrovert, so happy to be here. So that's my favorite thing to do is, you know, whether it's trauma or near death experience, or generational trauma. Like I am just amazed how many people I work with, like, you know, World War One, World War Two is still this compression, this distress, they're still alive in their body. And so that's where I love to use my intuition to help people figure out the mystery of where's the original source, and then I use my compassion practices and the cranial sacral therapy, to just be with it. Breathe with it, have the cranial rhythm, smooth it out. And, and the transformations are incredible. I just it's so my honor that I get to be part of that. No, I think I've worked with over 14,000 adult around about 14,000 sessions. And, and one I'm changed because I get to practice compassion 14,000 times Am I really changed by getting to witness and be with people. And so it's just a real privilege to do my do my work and and the same medicine Of course comes from my near death experience and being sung to myself and that that's the real key I've discovered in the past, like four years or so. But I also get medium information in terms of being able to hear through the veil and hear the other side and that it's the singing that can really bring that through. And I started doing groups for helping parents heal And, and I work with like four or five people from that group. And there's one woman I sang to, and her son who had died was a very kinesthetic person. So I wasn't getting any visuals. I wasn't getting a lot of story. But when I sang to her, she said, I felt my son moved through me, I felt as low physically in my body. And I thought, it's perfect. You know, he's kinesthetic, of course, it was going to come through a felt sense. Yeah. And perfect that she felt it because it doesn't matter what I experience. It's about what the other person receives.

Brian Smith
Yeah. Well, you said something earlier that really caught my attention about the woman who didn't feel like she'd fully come back after neglect the near death experience. And I heard you say something about that in a video that you've done recently. And I'm reading a book right now called the team and it's about it's written by this woman channeling her mother who's cross to the other side, but I hadn't really heard this concept of sometimes our spirits don't seem to be fully integrated with our bodies. Sometimes they're kind of you know, Check it out a little bit. And we're more there than we are here. So it sounds like you're helping call people back to be fully present in their body. Would that be a fair way of putting it? Mm hmm.

Robin Landsong
Yeah. You know, and honestly, it's like a biology doesn't do well, without that vitality being home. Yeah. And I'm not crazy about the term soul retrieval, because our souls are fine.

Brian Smith
Right. Right.

Robin Landsong
It's, it's our physical bodies that need our that vitality, that spirit coming back in. Yeah, we're just not fully connected, right? It's kind of right. And that for some of your doctors I've worked with, you know, there's still so up and out like, they have the doors still open, which is fine, but then they don't actually really commit to being here. And one woman I worked with, it's like every business she tried to start it didn't work. You know, people couldn't relate to her, because she still was like, one foot over and the other side. Yeah. Which I can understand is very pleasant. But it doesn't make for a committed lifetime here. I

Brian Smith
think that's something that, you know, you mentioned helping parents heal, and I work with helping parents heal and have for about the last four years or so. And as as parents going through grief, and I've said it myself, I'm half here and half there, because my daughter, I feel like my daughter is there. And I think it could be a challenge to be fully present in this life, when we've got so much invested on the other side. So I think it's important though, that we know that while we're here, we're meant to be here.

Robin Landsong
Hmm. It's true, and, and just in all the mindfulness practices, and I've been really doing a lot of research lately on self compassion. And just I'm really struck by how much self criticism and self bereavement when we can move that over to self criticism. I mean, I'm sorry, self compassion, right? That's actually a place, you know, obviously, a much more psychologically well place to be. We actually have more motivation, and we're actually more present for others. And it's Kristin Neff. I've been reading and she talks about that when we're in like a shame dive or, you know, a self bereavement, you know, party, that we're really very self focused. And we're not actually available for other people. But when we can do the mindfulness practices and the self compassion practices, and move it over here, that's when we can be steady and, and be more accountable. And when I did an interview with Jeff, my friend Jeff Olson, who's also a near death experiencer I think Jeff's superpower and I love naming people superpower I love seeing people's strengths. So we did this interview together and then I called him afterwards and I said, Well, you know, your superpower is accounting, abiding with because you know his story. I do. Yeah, yeah, he was driving the car. And unfortunately, he fell asleep. And the resulting accidents, keeping in the crossover, his wife died and his infant died. Yeah. You know, a person lived. And I mean to sit with that and go forward from there. And so he doesn't crash, you know, I'm sure in the you know, for the first decade, whatever, 15 years, like sitting with abiding with what happened, he fell asleep, but not going into self arraignments. And so he just stays right in the center abiding with the truth. And is not into self pity and is not into suffering. It's right in the center of it. And so that's when we have choice. And that's when we have freedom of how we respond. When we're out of our body. We're super reactive, and we don't even know why because we never sensed their own emotion. And so the key to being present is, emotions are chemical events in our body that generates sensation. That sensation goes up to our brain and our brain interprets it and says, My stomach does tighten. That means I'm anxious. Why am I anxious? Well, is it because I'm in physical pain, and I don't know where it's gonna stop, or because it's something I'm uncomfortable with just enter the room. So when we can, you know, be that mindful, be that presence to the body sensation, you know, be present with, what are our thoughts, and all the meditation practices that are so useful for increasing our brain health. That's the whole key to all of it. Not only is greater physical health, but it's choice and freedom to not just be reactive from our trauma response our whole life. And I my view is the people who abused me as a child, they already stole my childhood. They're not gonna steal my adulthood. And so that's why I invested so much in my healing process really early on, was because I wanted the rest of my life for me. Yes, I could show up and do my assignments. Yeah. And it's my favorite thing. to just help people do their divine assignments, and that's awesome. Yeah, the home in themselves enough to even have a felt sense of what that is.

Brian Smith
Yeah. So let's talk about what is craniosacral therapy? That's a big word. So what is that?

Robin Landsong
Yeah, it's not actually a very descriptive term. So the cranial system is the brain and the spine.

And there's fluid and cerebral spinal fluid that goes around the whole brain and down the whole spine. And that has emotion to it. It doesn't have a big pump, like the heart moves the blood and a very big pump. So you can just, you can easily feel like, oh, there's my heartbeat. So the cranial fluid is, it's more variable, and it's more subtle, so not everybody can feel it. So it takes a practitioner who can really get still and just be able to tap into that, to be able to even sense it. And so it's an amazing expression of where's the health and where's the distress in the nervous system and then The whole body. And so after listening to that for, you know, so many thousands of sessions, and so my body is a antenna. And so I'm my nervous system is having a communication with this other nervous system. And so I'm helping people go from agitated and not being able to self sense over to self regulation. And again, that's where the freedom is when we can self regulate, and as going from sympathetic response to fight flight, over to a healthy state of parasympathetic, just the rest and adjust or spend and befriend. And then that's where we can get to this is where I love polyvagal theory, that's when we can get to ventral vagal which is connection. So you and I, right now, we're in ventral vagal we're hearing each other we're seeing each other, we're you know, there's a level of trust and safety and rapport, and we're able to have a sense of each other and so that's the ventral vagal where we We can care about another's inner world. I see you, you're I get that you have an internal world. And it's an important one to me. Right? And I'm going to do my best to be careful with it. Yeah. But I'm going to at least try to be careful with your inner world. Yeah. So what's what describes singing medicine to me? How does that work? Mm hmm. So I can actually just do some really great. And so basically, I'm, again, I'm asking what's medicine for this person today? And so it varies. And so I'm listening to the song that's in the land. I'm listening to my medicine songs. And I'm doing my best to listen to the song that you were born with. Hmm. And so every time again, you know, in a couple minutes time, I can touch upon that and people say I already knew that song. How did I know that song? What's your song? Yeah, the human jukebox and play it back to you, huh? Yeah. So let me just tap in for a moment.

Oh

oh

Brian Smith
Wow, that is awesome. Wow, I could feel that I really could feel that my body.

Robin Landsong
Mm hmm. So tell me about that. What did you notice?

Brian Smith
Um, you know, it's interesting i i, to me I was reminded of like, Native American, which I've not, but I've always been attracted to that culture. So I kind of heard that I felt really calm. There's almost like a, like a buzzing going through my through my bite. I mean, I literally felt it in my body. I mean, not just in my ears. So yeah, it was it's, it's, it's, it touched me in a level I've really hard to hard to put into words.

Robin Landsong
Yeah, and and that's what a lot of people say. And

you know, and just I can't I just feel so honored to be able to that this is my, what I've been given. Yeah,

Brian Smith
yeah, that's that is really awesome. And I was noticing earlier because we talked and I know right now, we can't nobody can travel. So we can't see people better. It's the face, but you can still do your work remotely. Is that correct?

Robin Landsong
Yeah, yeah. cobit has forced me I've like started doing groups and I already had to distance sessions. But of course, now they're all just in sessions. But it's forced me to start doing groups. So I just did a scene medicine mentorship group. Fantastic. And I do strengths, reading groups. So I read people's strengths, or what's kind of blocking them from their strengths. And I can't believe how great it is. If they're just small. They're five people. And you know, it's like I have somebody from France, somebody from North Carolina, somebody from close near me. And in like an hour and 15 minutes, people get bonded. And one of my teachers and James Gordon, who's just amazing trauma resolution expert. He talks about the big thing that we're healing is loneliness. And people are sometimes lonely for themselves. They're lonely for connection to those immediately around them and so many people are lonely for community. And so doing these, he says, you know, one on one sessions are great. And because you can build rapport and keep the safety and keep the container just for them, but he said doing groups is addressing that loneliness for community. Yeah, well, that's I'm just, you know, oddly enough, I'm kind of grateful for COVID to make me do this, you know, 15 hours behind the scenes work to get groups going, and just to make it happen, because I, I get to connect with people. And it's also honestly, it's a lower price point for people to also work with me to maybe do it in groups, too. So that makes it more readily available to a broader spectrum of people.

Brian Smith
Yeah. And you can you can reach more people. But you know, it's, you know, I think we all I think longed to be seen, and you talked about that, and we hear it in your story. I mean, it's just the fact that you bond that with these people that in the village that you were only there for a few weeks, you know, but it just you you wanted to be seen you wanted to be touched, you want to be held. And you know, like you said that the food and stuff You know, maybe the accommodations weren't so nice. But But that's not what we assumed we longed for deep down inside, we all we all want to be seen and, and to be respected and to be honored and you didn't even speak their language. So it wasn't what that what they were saying to you. So I think that's really telling on a very deep level what we all really longing for.

Robin Landsong
And, and the key thing to in the end the returning back, you know, like I said, I've been back twice. And I got to reunite with my granddaughter of the woman who got me from the, from the well. And so I just like to encourage people I do have a video online that has that reunion with Miami Urlacher for years. And literally, it was like, literally it was running to each other and embracing and, you know, she's this big, strong woman and she picked me up and rocked me. And then and we purposely told Nolan where my bullet wound was because we wanted to make sure that other people you know, just that it was just People who actually really knew me then. And she bent me forward and she checked exactly where my bullet wound was. And that was like the biggest validation I had in my entire life. So healing to go back and I went back a second time last year, and they did a community ceremony and they brought me right into the center and the our hosts were like, you've lived here for 40 years, they won't even let us come to one of these, let alone invite us into the center to dance. It was an incredible honor. And, and you know, in my mo was just like hugging me like I was her baby sister. And so there's a real honoring, that I am doing through this book, that they took incredible risk to save my life, and I would definitely not be alive. And when, when my grandmother found me and other people saw that she had a wounded white child. They said don't bother with her. It's not worth it. And they had a good point. It was incredibly dangerous for them to have me and she said I won't throw her away. She's a living human being. Yeah. And because of her courage, I'm alive.

Brian Smith
Yeah. So I've got to ask you, Robin, so you're doing singing medicine now? Do you think it was meant for you to be there in that? Do you think that it was meant for you to be in that village and to find these people?

Robin Landsong
I've had astrology readings where they where people have said, Oh, you've been with them for lifetimes. And, you know, you know, the group, that kind of rural, you know, village ritual setting better than, you know, your American life, which matches how I feel because sometimes I feel like I might American, why am I here?

Brian Smith
Yeah. It's wild, because you think about how quickly you integrated into that. I mean, it's like you said, I'm home. You're, you're from Philadelphia, you end up as eight year old in an African village in Zimbabwe. And you're like, I'm home and it's obviously you were there for a couple weeks, but it's It's made a huge impact on your, your life, your art, your work, your whole outlook on everything.

Robin Landsong
Right? Because it's who we bond with that we respect that we form our worldview around. Yeah. And then all kinds of research shows, kids were being abused just in one adult to see them and get them. And that kid will frame their worth around that connection. And then, you know, as pmh has researched that kids who have a near death experience will bond with the beings on the other side and frame themselves around that.

Brian Smith
Oh, yeah. So how about your birth family? How do you feel about being without a plan also? Or how does that how do you integrate that now?

Robin Landsong
I kind of make the joke that when I was incarnating, you like when you're standing at the gate, you know, and there's other people kind of staying at the gate that I got competitive with the person next to me was like, I'm going to take her for my mom. Oh, and then I'm also going to take him from my dad and my guys really cool. Whoa, wait. Just like and then I'm going to get abducted. And then I'm going to ask my way to get back to Africa to meet with my friends over there. Yeah, so, so that's my jokingly, I couldn't joke about that. When if you if you'd said that to me when I was 20 I'd be like, I didn't take my parents. Yeah. But you know, now that I have all this healing decades of healing, I can make a joke about it of just, I think I just got foolishly competitive with the person next to me who was like, I'm gonna learn so much about trauma recovery in this lifetime.

Brian Smith
Yeah, we're pack it all in right?

Robin Landsong
on like, the Fast Forward I'm going to get a PhD and trauma before I'm fixed. Yeah,

Brian Smith
it was funny cuz my wife and I, we believe in this now too. And I was telling you earlier, my daughter, you know, passed away like five years ago and I had never even heard of soul planning until that happened. But we were talking about someone else in our family and I won't say share anything too personal but, you know, multiple marriages and many more than one child you know, pass and for, as a matter of fact, We were just talking about her life. We're like, why would anybody plan all this in one lifetime? I think sometimes as souls we get overly ambitious. It's like, yeah, let me just let me just do it all this one time around

Robin Landsong
me yet my motto now is like, I'm gonna learn through joy. I'm gonna learn through pleasure. Yes. Yeah. You know, creative doesn't always listen to my plan. But, you know, that's my like, I, like somebody kind of one of my friends was like, you know, I'm, I'm ill, I'm going to learn through illness and like, Great, that's good. I get that. And I'm gonna learn through going camping, you know?

Brian Smith
Yeah. Well, you know, it's it. As we, as we see these things, as we said, as we see them play out, we can see the plan, then, you know, we can kind of laugh about them. And when we have that higher perspective, like you have now because once you've had a near death experience, you understand all this is temporary. And as bad as it gets, you know, we're all we're all going to go home, you know, one day again. And so I think we can maybe keep it a little bit better and perspective. And be more joyful even as we're going through the difficult times. Mm hmm.

Robin Landsong
Yeah. And, and and again with that to that, being that fully committing here

makes it makes it more available to get the lessons to turn over the difficulties into the gym. Yeah,

Brian Smith
yeah. Well, Robin, if people want to work with you, they can connect you connect to you through your website. Okay, and that's Robin land song calm again, I'll put that in the show notes. And I guess you're available for group sessions now and for remote things as well, but you can't travel.

Robin Landsong
Right? And then uh, yeah, I really look forward to and my book is out COVID over and I really love touring and getting to do groups live and new people in person. So but between here and there. I have no when we get done here. I'm going to make a whole bunch more groups available on my on my schedule. Awesome.

Brian Smith
That sounds great. Robin, I'm glad we finally got to meet kind of face to face. I'm sure what they were running each other in physical life, but this is This is close for now.

Robin Landsong
Yeah, definitely. And you're in San Diego.

Brian Smith
I'm in Ohio, Cincinnati, Ohio. I don't even know where you are. Where are you?

Robin Landsong
Olympia Washington Lake below Seattle. Okay, cool. Cool.

Brian Smith
Well, Robin, it's been again, it's been a real pleasure getting to know you. I'm looking forward to your book. I'm sure it'll be well polished when it comes out. And maybe I'll have you back when you do when the books released.

Robin Landsong
Oh, thank you so much, Brian. I appreciate that. And thank you for your work in the world.

Brian Smith
All right, you have a great afternoon. Okay. You too. Bye. Hi. Well, I hope you enjoyed the episode, I want to make it really easy for you to reach me. So just send me a text to 31996 and simply text the word growth gr o w th. In fact you can right now just say hey Siri, send a message to 31996. And when Siri asks you what you want to send, just say growth. You can do the same thing with Ok, Google. Thanks a lot. Have a wonderful day.

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Transcribed by https://otter.ai