Bee Doyle

In this episode of Just Like Nana, host Amie (Elizabeth) Penny Sayler is joined by Bee Doyle, a  nurse practitioner, intuitive healer, and spiritual teacher, to discuss moving out of survival states into a journey of healing and thriving.

Together, they explore the non-linear nature of healing, ways to regulate your nervous system, tapping into ancestral resilience, and more.

About Bee

Bee Doyle is a nurse practitioner, intuitive healer, and spiritual teacher who uniquely bridges the worlds of medicine and metaphysics. As a combat veteran, her own path to wellness began after returning from a tour in Afghanistan, where she navigated the complexities of post-traumatic stress and a lost sense of purpose.Today, she is the owner of Double Libra Astrology, where she blends her medical background with evolutionary astrology, ancestral healing, and embodiment practices to guide others toward a holistic state of empowered living. 

In This Episode, You’ll Learn:

• Healing is never a linear path from A to Z; it is a journey full of twists and turns that requires self-grace when you feel you’ve taken a step backward .
• True healing often remains stuck if your body doesn't feel safe. Learning to move out of high-alert states—like fight, flight, or freeze—is the essential foundation for any deep ancestral or trauma work.
• Use the "Heavy vs. Light" tool to build your intuition like a muscle. Pay attention to how your body physically reacts to truths (feeling "light" or expansive) versus untruths (feeling "heavy" or restricted) to guide your daily decisions .
• While we often focus on ancestral wounds, our lineage also contains the "resilience and positive tools" that allowed our ancestors to survive. Reclaiming these gifts is just as vital as healing the trauma .
• Showing up for yourself with softness and compassion creates a ripple effect, softening the world around you and positively impacting your community and future generations.

Resources Mentioned

• What is Somatic Therapy?: https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/what-is-somatic-therapy-202307072951 

Connect with Bee

Bee’s Upcoming Book, Keepers of the Light: https://publishizer.com/keepers-of-the-light/

Website: https://doublelibraastrology.com/

Instagram: @doublelibracoaching

Connect with the Show

• Website: justlikenana.com
• Share Your Story: If you have a family story or trauma you’re exploring, reach out via our website for a chance to be interviewed.

Connect with Just Like Nana's Website.

A proud member of the Feminist Podcasters Collective.

Theme music by Carter Penny.

Transcript

Bridging Science and Spirit: Healing and Reclaiming Your Purpose with Bee Doyle

Amie Penny Sayler 0:21

Welcome to Just Like Nana. Happy you're here with us. Very excited today to be talking with Bee Doyle. Bee is a nurse practitioner, intuitive healer, and spiritual teacher, guiding others to reconnect with the divine within. Her work bridges science and spirit, blending her background in medicine with astrology, ancestral healing, and embodiment practices to illuminate a holistic path to wellness. Bee is a combat veteran turned spiritual guide. Her journey through trauma, self-discovery, and transformation has made her a powerful voice for soul-centered healing and empowered living. She's the owner of the Double Libra Astrology. So welcome, Bee. Super happy to have you on Just Like Nana today. Yes, thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited. I'm excited for your wisdom. I know our listeners will be excited after they hear it all. I have the benefit of maybe knowing a little bit more about you before you start talking. So I already know it's going to be wonderful. So if you don't mind, we like to start each episode if you have a favorite or powerful memory of one of your nanas or grandmas and what you called her.

Bee Doyle 1:37

Yes. So my dad's mom was actually the only grandma that I ever got to know. My mom's parents had passed away before I was born. And I called her Grammie. And her and I, I feel like had a really special bond. For some reason, I always felt like I was her favorite. I don't know if my older sister and cousins would agree. Maybe that was just her energy. She made us all feel so special. But her and I really bonded over morning glories, which are a flower. And several years after she passed away, my grandfather found a like a poem or short story that she had written about a time when her and I planted some morning glories together and they just like took off. I mean, they covered her whole porch, and she made reference to that special memory in that short story. And I still have a copy of that today. It's on my altar and very, very meaningful to me. She was a special woman.

Amie Penny Sayler 2:37

That is so lovely. What a wonderful treasure for you to have. Yes. Very special. So did you ever write Grammy like in a letter or a card? I'm just curious if it's with a Y or an I-E at the end or if it's just the word Grammie without a spelling in your mind.

Bee Doyle 2:55

Yeah, we were essentially pen pals for a while. You know, I grew up in Michigan and they sort of traveled all over. So we wrote a lot of letters and it was G-R-A-M-M-I-E.

Amie Penny Sayler 3:17

Switching gears, before we kind of jump into your work, because obviously we all want to hear about that, but I'd kind of like to start, you know, you shared that your healing began after returning from a combat tour, which is, you know, obviously unique. Can you tell us about that turning point and and sort of how you found a path toward healing?

Bea's Healing Journey

Bee Doyle 3:40

Absolutely. Well, it's certainly full of a lot of twists and turns, but I'll try to make it as concise as possible. After high school, even from a younger age than that, I always had a strong pull to just do something greater than myself. And both of my grandfathers were actually in the military. And I don't know if that was sort of subconsciously part of my choice, but when I was 18, I did make the choice to enlist in the military. And not really thinking that as a female soldier, as you know, a medically trained professional, that I would end up deployed to a combat zone. But sure enough, in 2011, 2012, I was deployed to a very active war zone in Afghanistan, really close to the Pakistan border. And that experience, of course, really changed me. I was young, I turned 25 in Afghanistan, spent my 25th birthday there. And I came home really believing that the most important work I could ever do had already been done. I was working with wounded soldiers on the front line. So it truly felt like nothing could ever be more meaningful than that. And so I was dealing with a lot lost purpose, you know, feeling like my life purpose had already been lived out at the age of 25, and the wounds of trauma from combat. You know, I was struggling with post-traumatic stress. And fast forward a few years later, and a long and winding healing journey, I got pregnant with my son, and it hit me at that time like a ton of bricks. I had to heal. It was no longer about me. It was now about this new life that was coming into the world. And that's really where this ancestral thread came in, you know, because for whatever reason, healing for myself, it wasn't quite enough. But as soon as I knew I was bringing a new life into the world, it was like, okay, these patterns have to stop here. He deserves better. And as I mentioned, you know, my grandfather was in World War II. So I clearly began to see this ancestral thread. He was a prisoner of war in Germany and then came home with post-traumatic stress. And of course, that's who raised my mom. And so these threads of ancestral wounding became very evident at that time.

Amie Penny Sayler 6:06

Thank you for sharing that story and being so vulnerable. I want to first thank you for kind of talking about the winding road because I think people who sort of are working on some healing understand this, but we can get impatient with ourselves and think, well, why am I going backwards or why am I headed toward the side? You know, I was doing X, Y, or Z and sort of on a path forward. And it truly all is just wrapped in as part of the journey. And so just to hear that other people also don't, you know, it's not a linear path between A to Z hitting every letter in between, I think hopefully gives some grace to listeners who are kind of on their own, you know, twisty, windy path. I also do just want to hold space for 25-year-old Bee. When I I heard that about, you know, you came home and you thought your life's purpose was done. Just that's gut wrenching. And then you add on top of that PTSD from the experience. So just really taking a moment to kind of honor and hold that 25-year-old version of you that had a lot going on for a 25-year-old.

Bee Doyle 7:17

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for saying that. And you know, I don't think that's necessarily unique to my story. I think that's a big part of a lot of what happens when service members come out of the service. It's really hard to sort of navigate in the civilian world, so to speak, after that. And yeah, that's a tough feeling at 25. Like, wow, what could I do now that could possibly be as impactful or as meaningful? So thank you for acknowledging that.

Integrating Ancestral Healing and Astrology

Amie Penny Sayler 7:46

And then I did also just want to comment on the piece of that when you were pregnant, it kind of hit you or came to you of, oh, this is no longer, I'm gonna say just me. It was never just you, but it's hard to recognize that when you're in the situation. But now it's about this child as well. First, kudos to you for recognizing it while you were pregnant. I will say for myself, it took until my kiddos were about three. And I sort of realized, hey, they're these independent, great people. And maybe that came a little bit from somewhere, and maybe I had just the tiniest little bit to do with that, and maybe that means I'm worth something. And it was, you know, so same process, but later on. And just shout out to all the moms who are doing their very best to kind of break patterns, heal, help their children with a different sort of path forward. So speaking of that path forward, would love to hear about where you are now, what your work is. And I know your work is very broad, so want to hear all about it, but then also specifically how you sort of integrate in the ancestral healing piece.

Bee Doyle 8:52

Absolutely. So, as I mentioned, you know, when that messaging came through to me about this healing for the next generation for my son, it was like a deep dive. Okay, well, how do I really heal? Because I've I've tried so many things, spent numerous hours and talk therapy and different healing modalities, and I still felt stuck. So I started exploring more like metaphysical type healing modalities and listening to a lot of podcasts, which is why I I still love podcasts to this day. And I happened upon a podcast about astrology, and it really sparked my interest. And I ended up getting a reading from the astrologer that was being interviewed on the podcast, and it was earth-shattering for me in a great way, because it was like all these hours that I had spent in talk therapy. And in this one hour reading with her, I felt more seen, more validated than I ever had in any therapy session across numerous different therapists. And so I thought, huh, there must be something to this. I must know more. And I dove in headfirst. That first astrologer who did my reading ended up becoming my mentor later on down the road. So that is the tool I use now, astrology, specifically evolutionary astrology. And that works off the basis that we're all souls on an evolutionary journey. That meaning, you know, there is past lives. And for people who that doesn't resonate with, we can also look at it through the lens of ancestral healing. So no matter your beliefs, we can sort of weave that in. And that's the tool I use to really guide people. And the reason that I absolutely love astrology for that purpose is because it really does highlight patterns, it highlights blind spots, and it also highlights these places where those ancestral threads really do come in. And I'm also a nurse practitioner in the Western world. So the heart of my work is really blending that tool of astrology to identify how these patterns show up, specifically in the nervous system. You know, our bodies can't heal when our nervous system is stuck in fight or flight, which is also something I learned along the way. It was like, oh, all these years in talk therapy. Well, no wonder. I mean, just the mere part of sitting down in the office was triggering for me. So of course it wasn't healing. I wasn't yet safe in my body. So using astrology as a tool to identify how these patterns show up, and then also incorporating somatic tools to really allow the body to return to safety.

Nervous System and Embodiment Practices

Amie Penny Sayler 11:42

Can you talk a little bit more about that nervous system piece and kind of that embodiment piece and how that works for people? Any recommended first steps you would have for a listener where that sort of, you know, maybe sent off a ping of I might have that issue where I'm fighting against my own nervous system.

Bee Doyle 12:02

Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, it really came into play for me when as part of my healing journey, I was diagnosed with autoimmune issues. And I see that with so many women I work with, and it's like, okay, that's a first, you know, well, that's a very late sign, but I knew at that point I had to get really deep into the root of why my body decided it wanted to attack itself in the first place. And from a biological, physiological standpoint, if your body is stuck in fight or flight, freeze, fawn, whatever your sort of default is, we don't actually have the neuropathways in the brain to really heal, to get into these higher states that are referred to as like ventrovagal states. That's where we can access things like intuition, deep joy, sustained joy, sustained gratitude, these higher elevated states. And so the first step is trying to get these little neural pathways back online, these micro moments of safety. It doesn't have to be some sort of profound breakthrough. It can happen in literally minutes a day. And the first thing I always tell people where to start is with the breath. You know, the breath is an amazing tool. It costs no money. You literally cannot leave home without it, right? So it's learning to take those long deep breaths, retraining the brain, because even under stress, sometimes we're actually not even breathing correctly, literally like paradoxical breathing. So teaching people how to really sink into the body, the breath. And in those micro moments, it can be three long deep breaths. That is long enough to start the process of forming those neural pathways in the brain that send out the safety signals. So that was a lot, but that was perfect.

Amie Penny Sayler 13:59

Thank you for sharing all that. I speak with different experts from different perspectives. And that is, I mean, there are many commonalities, but one definite commonality is the nervous system and regulating the nervous system out of a sort of stuck state, if you will. And whether that's the freeze, fawn, flight, fight. And I think when you're not used to that language or thinking of your own reactions in those terms, it just all sort of seems inexplicable, or kind of, well, that's just how I am, or that's just how I react. And once you have the language and a little bit of the tools of the nervous system, it kind of is like it's like if you were doing a puzzle and you do the border. You know, the nervous system is the border, like, oh, now I can see it'll all make sense and I can fill in other pieces here. So thank you for addressing that.

Bee Doyle 14:54

Yeah. And, you know, it it looks a lot of different ways for different people, you know. It can look like the mom who snaps at her kids for spilling the cereal, right? And the mom who's just really feeling disconnected from life, from their partner, from work, just, you know, this general kind of low-grade sense of dissatisfaction with life. And so much of it is actually normalized, right? And especially as women, we're just taught to push through and do all the things, and there's work to be done and kids to raise. And so that's a big piece of the work, also is, you know, is training people to really find their triggers, find those patterns. Because once we're aware of it, awareness is the first step. We can really start to change and shift these things.

Amie Penny Sayler 15:44

Absolutely. And I think too, once you, to your point, once there's awareness, you can start to understand outside of just, you know, patterns and pressures and things like that, what can contribute to the nervous system state. There's just so much hurry, hurry, hurry, rush, rush, you know, everything needs to be immediate. And just being able to take one tiny little half step back and see that and to appreciate, oh, that's the effect it has on my nervous system and this sort of reactivity that I'm experiencing.

Bee Doyle 16:18

Absolutely.

Ancestral Healing and Intergenerational Impact

Amie Penny Sayler 16:29

So I would love to talk more about, you know, you've talked about the ancestral lines. Can you talk about that relationship between those that you're working with and then their ancestors or sort of even the past lives, ancestors, descendants? How does that relationship flow? How do we access it? Would just love any thoughts you have on that.

Bee Doyle 16:49

You know, something I always like to preface with ancestral work is it's often referred to as ancestral wounding or ancestral trauma. But a very important point to make is that when we're healing these things, we also have to remember our ancestors had a lot of wisdom. Human mankind has survived for many, many years. So we know then that our ancestors had resilience. They had a lot of positive tools. So that is something, a point I always love to make as well when we're tapping into this sort of work is don't forget to call on that wisdom of how you got here. And as someone who knows in past lives, I don't believe it, I know it in my bones, then we have to remember we are our ancestors, right? It's it's this continuation. Our children are our ancestors as well. And so when we begin this deep healing work on ourselves, it's not just for us, right? It has that ripple effect out into the next generations, but also the generations past. You know, I mentioned my own story of my grandfather who was a POW in World War II. He lived his life with a lot of wounds, a lot of unresolved things. And when I sort of understood that thread, it was like, okay, part of my mission is healing the things that he was never able to. So it wasn't just about healing myself, it was about healing these wounds as well. And there's also many Native American cultures that speak about healing set seven generations back and seven generations forward. And to me, that's exactly what it means. It's healing what our ancestors were not able to because we now have more tools. We're drawing upon their wisdom. And my belief, my knowing is also that our ancestors are always here to guide us as well. So you can call upon them anytime for guidance and for connection and just like call it spirit guides or what have you. But you can tap into that wisdom at any time.

Connecting with Ancestors and Intuition

Amie Penny Sayler 18:58

I'm going to ask a question. And if you have a boundary that I'm stepping over, then you just tell me that and we move on. But with your grandfather, you know, and some of that healing, were you able to be in relationship with him? Did you sort of feel like you were having a give and take conversation with him? What did that look like for you? Again, only if you're willing to share.

Bee Doyle 19:18

I'm an open book. I'm literally writing nothing's off the table. Um, yeah, I feel like I have connected with him through different like past life meditations. And just as part of my daily meditative practice, I will connect in and ask for guidance. And so I never met him in the physical form, but I do feel like, you know, I've developed a relationship with him through that. And I know he's rooting for me, I know he is proud. That's that would be his language, right? And he's just supportive of the work. And, you know, in many ways, I am him, right? So it's like carrying this tradition forward, but the healed version, the parts that he was never able to really fulfill.

Amie Penny Sayler 20:05

I love that. Such a connection and so powerful for your grandfather and for you. Mm-hmm. And your child.

Bee Doyle 20:11

Yes. Absolutely. And like you said, six generations after that. Yeah. And it's, you know, the threads and it's like the reminders or universal nudges just kept coming in stronger. It was actually more recently, within the last probably two years, after I felt like I had already developed some type of relationship with him, that it came out to me. My mother shared with me that he was actually very into astrology and and different things that I did not even know. And I was like, I think what I said to her was, don't you think you should have told me that a few years ago? As I was like diving into it, you know, thinking I was the black sheep of the family or something. And it was like, oh, okay, this makes even more sense now.

Amie Penny Sayler 20:55

That is amazing. And when you told me that your grandfather was a POW from World War II, I would not have immediately jumped to and he was fascinated and interested in astrology. So I love that connection between you.

Bee Doyle 21:10

Yeah, I was pretty surprised, but surprised, but not, you know, I'm like, surely this for me came from somewhere. So but it was just a sort of one of those universal, call it a god wink or universal nudge that it was like, okay, I know I'm on the right path.

Amie Penny Sayler 21:27

When you talk about kind of feeling in your bones and having that knowing of, you know, whether it's an ancestral relationship, a past life, just that that knowing of what is true for you, for your spirit, for your soul, for this lifetime, this path. How do you explain to people that you work with what to look for? I mean, I've asked this question because I feel like there's a lot of disconnection between people and their own bodies. And so to kind of help me help our listeners understand. Here's the sort of these first few steps you can take to hear what your own body is trying to say to you.

Bee Doyle 22:06

Yes, I love that. And thank you for bringing that up because in today's culture and today's world, we are so disconnected from our bodies. And our bodies have so much inherent wisdom when we remember to tap in. And training intuition, I refer to intuition like a muscle. It is something that you have to work with daily. And I'll use the term intuition, inner knowing, sort of interchangeably. But one really amazing tool that I like to use to start training that for people so they can start remembering for themselves is heavier light. That is an awesome way to make decisions when you're you have sort of options in front of you, which one feels heavy in your body. Heaviness is always a lie. What feels light is the truth. Light sets us free. So that's one amazing tool that I love to use. And I will use it, you know, when I'm trying to tap in. Like, okay, how does this feel? And it's something that most people have to play with, but once you get it, you've got it. It's like, oh, oh, that's heaviness, that feeling in my chest. I wasn't even aware of that before. It's always been there when something is heavy or not right for me, but now I understand how to recognize that in my body. And step two then is building that self-trust, that self-love, so that we can always listen and understand and know when something is heavy, it truly is a no for us.

Amie Penny Sayler 23:36

I love that tool and plan to practice. Is it something? I mean, can you practice with just really easy decisions like do I want this salad or do I want this cup of soup for lunch? And then you sort of just feel which one. Maybe that's not a good example because maybe there's no wrong or right, but how how do you have people start to use it in a way that doesn't feel overwhelming or scary?

Practical Tools for Healing and Self-Care

Bee Doyle 24:00

Yeah, you can start with the very simple question, is my name Bee? Okay, that felt light. Is my name Alice? No? And just kind of taking a minute to notice what the truth felt like versus what the untruth felt like in the body. So yes, it can be as simple as that, truly, and taking the pause to really feel into the body, because I've had, you know, many women feel it in their shoulders, that heaviness of kind of like, oh, the weight of the world is on my shoulders. A lot of people feel heaviness like in their chest when it's untrue, even hips, stomach. So learning to discern how it shows up for you.

Amie Penny Sayler 24:46

When that's happening too, is that another area where we need that base of that nervous system work? Because I can see how if your nervous system is sort of dysregulated and in control, it's like, nope, we're offline right now. You're not gonna be able to check in on whether this is heavy or light. I'm in charge. Is that is that true or can both sort of work together?

Bee Doyle 25:09

Some safety does need to really exist to be able to continuously access that intuition. Because for many of us, a lot of that, you know, dysregulated nervous system also looks like this brain that overanalyzes everything. So understanding that there does need to be some practice of starting to establish safety in the body. That's why, you know, in the work I do with the women I work with, it's always safety first. And it sounds like, you know, we could apply that to we're on a construction site or something, right? But it's like doing our safety check-ins, learning those micro pathways in the body. And when you have that safety, that trust, it becomes like a default mode to start listening to that lightness or that heaviness. But on a regular basis, for intuition to be the default mode, we'll say safety does need to be there. Those safety pathways have to be firing, absolutely.

Amie Penny Sayler 26:08

And I think I've heard you say, as we've been talking, that some of the ways to access that is through some breathing practices, exercise. I mean, I'm calling it exercise, just even paying attention to your breath. And then also some meditation. I think you've mentioned. Are there other tools you suggest? Just get in that kind of it's okay. There's a little bit of safety here.

Bee Doyle 26:30

Yes, there's a lot of different somatic techniques. There's different sorts of like tapping techniques. You can tap, you know, under the collarbones, on the heart space, below the eyes. That's one. Using cool water to like run, I don't recommend cold plunges for everyone. I'm not telling you to jump in an ice bath, but using an ice cube on the hands, very small techniques, maybe a gentle yoga practice if that feels right for your body. We're all a little bit different. All of the patterns that we hold are a little bit different. And that's another place where astrology is such a beautiful thing to bring in because we can get really specific about okay, what planet rules your nervous system, what would be really supportive of trying to get you regulated. So there's many ways to do it, but breathing, meditation are two great tools that I would recommend for just about anyone. And meditation doesn't have to look like sitting cross-legged on a cushion. I have a lot of women who, especially when the nervous system is dysregulated, just cannot sit. And that was me as well. So walking meditation, moving meditation, many, many different ways.

Amie Penny Sayler 28:04

Just a nugget of hope, I guess.

Bee Doyle 28:07

Yes, I love hope. I think we all need hope right now, but we certainly touched on it in the beginning. This idea, this concept that healing is not linear. It is not some destination where we get on a red-eye jet and suddenly we're there. You know, there will be times when it feels like one step forward, two steps back, and it's a journey. And for many of us, it is truly the journey of this lifetime. We're always deepening into our awareness, hopefully, if we're on that evolutionary path, learning more about ourselves, learning what triggers us. And so have some grace, have some compassion. It's part of the journey of life. And more than anything, try to have some fun with it. Find the humor, find the humility in it, and this understanding that we're all here for our specific purposes. But when we begin to heal ourselves, it does truly have that ripple effect, right? Our children see it. They're eventually children's children, their friends will see it. So never underestimate the power of that journey.

Amie Penny Sayler 29:18

I love that. And that sort of self-grace, I think, does a few things. One, it just kind of makes the world seem softer somehow. And there can be a lot of hard edges. So the softness is appreciated. And then to your point, it does sort of that grace and that softness does just have a community effect. The people around you, whether they're your family or not your family, the people you interact with. And so really just honoring and appreciating that what you do for yourself also, as you said, ripples out to others and is really very powerful. And sometimes it can feel like we don't have a lot of control or power. And actually we do.

Bee Doyle 30:01

Yes, we are the captains of our own ship. And, you know, and it for the listeners too who aren't there yet and and feel like that idea of self-compassion, self-love is still really far away, you know, stay on the journey because that does come as part of the journey. The more you continue to show up for yourself and do the hard things, that self-love again develops as that nervous system starts to understand that you're safe.

Amie Penny Sayler 30:28

Where can we find you to learn more?

Bee Doyle 30:30

Book a session. Yes, I am Double Libra Coaching on Instagram, and Double Libra Astrology is my website. So, yes, please do head to the website, join the mailing list, and get all the updates as to everything fun that's going on in Double Libra's world.

Amie Penny Sayler 30:51

Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for your time today, Bee. It was just a joy to talk with you.