Starseed Evolution with Shannon Sullivan
Join me on this star-filled adventure as we raise our vibration to uplift our human selves through spiritual direction, Reiki, ceremony, mantras, guided meditation and stories for the soul. Thank you for joining me on this cosmic adventure!
Starseed Evolution with Shannon Sullivan
Healing the Mind, Body & Soul: Interview with Kristina Scaglione, LCSW
What if your care team actually worked as a team—and treated your whole life, not just your latest symptom? We sit down with licensed clinical social worker, Kristina Scaglione, co-founder of Root & Rise Clinical Specialists, to explore a model of integrative care. The result is coordinated support that blends evidence-based medicine with time-tested Eastern modalities, designed to help you take charge of your health with clarity and confidence.
Kristina explains how long, unhurried visits enable better diagnostics and how a simple shift speeds recovery. We also talk about client agency: screening for clinical fit, honoring preferences for tough-love direction or gentle pacing, and building plans that feel personal, not prepackaged.
Kristina opens up about EMDR and EFT training, completing the Hoffman Process for deep inner-child work, and the disciplined way she uses intuition to inform trauma-informed therapy. This conversation shows how integrative medicine, holistic mental health and functional wellness can coexist in a grounded, practical way.
Kristina Scaglione, LCSW
https://www.kscaglionetherapy.com/
https://www.rootandrisecs.com/
Shannon Sullivan:
Artful Touch Therapies – my professional website
https://www.artfultouchbyshannon.com/
Shannon Sullivan, International Meditation Teacher on Insight Timer
(Download Insight Timer app. Then click link to my teacher page)
Link Tree Information:
https://www.linktr.ee/silverlunastarseed
Blue Heron Creates
This is my music artist name where I share mantras and original songs from many different faith traditions.
https://open.spotify.com/artist/4I0l8GxlFZ0dD5acKgsabs?si=hVSjJSt7Quudh0-yGBQEBg
Hi, thank you so much for joining me today. I'm Shannon, and this is Starseed Evolution, bringing the wisdom and insight of the cosmos to you. I'm grateful that you're listening. A poem by Mary Oliver. I want to think again of dangerous and noble things. I want to be light and frolicsome. I want to be improbable, beautiful, and afraid of nothing. As though I had wings. I hope you enjoy this interview today with Kristina Scaglione, licensed clinical social worker based from New York. She's a co-founder of Root and Rise Clinical Specialists and focuses on helping people deepen their self-awareness and a journey into healing. I look forward to sharing our interview with you.
Kristina:My name is Kristina Scaglione. I am a licensed clinical social worker. That's what I do full-time. And I have a private practice called Root and Rise Clinical Specialists. And my co-founder and I, we operate in two different states, but we collaborate by traveling back and forth between the two. The other section is Florida. Okay. So we have an office in Boca, and then we have an office here in Port Jefferson, New York. Okay. And so in my practice of helping clients reach their goals, I decided that you know it would be possible to create a wellness collective so that people can have access to more than just me and more than just my clinical specialists. So it was a development that has, I would say, started seven or eight years ago, uh, regarding having the actual individuals to, you know, refer to.
Shannon:Yeah.
Kristina:And then in COVID, when everything got shut down and we were doing everything virtual, it became a little bit harder for my clients to just go into an office as a referral. So I had to really wait until individuals created online versions of their offerings. And so from 2020 to 2022, all of us pretty much did that. Yeah. And uh we've all we've all sustained as as best as we can. And with that being said, I would say in the middle of COVID, I also was struggling with some autoimmune conditions. And so I really started to try to blend an Eastern and Western model. Okay. And that was Eastern and Western approaches also in therapy, eastern and western approaches when it comes to health and wellness and not just mental health, but all things encompassing the individual. So long story short, uh, in 2024, I found a location that was large enough that I could collaborate with all the clinicians under one roof. And so now I have a location where I have an IV vitamin specialist, I have a concierge psychiatrist, I have a concierge MD. Okay, I have a hypnotherapist, I have a Reiki clinician, I have a massage therapist, I have a sound healer, I have uh a nutritionist, a personal trainer, all these different modalities have come together to try to create a model to help someone take charge of their health.
Shannon:So when you um which is awesome to be able to, you know, create uh a whole approach to wellness, you know, physical, mental, emotional. And so when you talked about eastern and western, right? So I'm gonna have you just name some things that you consider the eastern side and then the western side, and then how you think they work together to help people.
Kristina:Sure. So eastern would be acupuncture, uh, massage, Reiki, um, intuitive coaching, things that wouldn't be considered Western trained modalities. Um, there's also some some of the nutrition, I would say, even walks the line between the two things because there are supplements, there's a lot of supplement-based suggestions, but there's also uh, you know, blood work that you can get done uh to try to assist in some of these things, which would kind of fall on Western. So, Western that I have here would be the nurse practitioner or the you know, the family medicine uh medical doctor that we have that provides your traditional medicine approach. So, you know, you have a cold, she's there to examine you and help you from that. If you need an antibiotic, she'll coach you through that. However, how they can marry is the doctor that I have here doesn't really, she doesn't have any reservations regarding integrating other functions to someone's health. So let's say you did have an antibiotic, right? She would suggest that you make sure you have a probiotic, make sure you have your vitamins in order, make sure you're hydrated, make sure you have things to help your gut health to help you heal properly, because she doesn't like to over-antibiotic people. So, you know, she it's it's really not something she doesn't she's coming from a a place where they kind of pushed a lot of unnecessary medications, which is and they also inundated her with clients, and so her quality of care diminished.
Shannon:Okay.
Kristina:And so she's like, I can't operate like this and I can't treat my clients the way that I want, which is having a full hour with them and really doing a better diagnostic approach when I have to, I have 15 minutes and then I've got 48 people left for the day, and I don't get a break and I don't get a chance to you know take care of herself. So she got burnt out in that system and started to kind of come to some of our networking events, met with our other clinicians, was like, I love that. If I have somebody going through menopause and wants to sit with the nutritionist, she can. And I can also help her with hormones if she needs them, and she can get her vitamin IV infusion, right? And she can also go to the massage therapist, and all these women work together to help marry the two blends. So it's like a team. That's kind of how it works. Yeah, it's a team. And everybody works independently, but they work collaboratively, right?
Shannon:If that makes sense, which is great. My other question for you is I know you have local practices. Do you guys do anything for online people that are interested? Okay.
Kristina:Yeah, so how does that work? So not every clinician that I have is actually based in New York. I have some that are in Canada, some that are in New Orleans, some that are in Florida. Okay, some that are in other parts of the world too. Yeah. So the one individual that we have who does spiritual intuitive coaching, she travels the world. So at any point, she could be anywhere in the globe.
Shannon:Okay.
Kristina:But uh, because of COVID, like I was saying earlier, we've all kind of transitioned to be able to offer virtual services outside of a vitamin IV, which you can't do virtually.
Shannon:Yeah.
Kristina:Um, she's also she's able to consult with vitamins and and she does do psychiatry, um, okay concierge. So she does that virtual. I have the doctor who provides telehealth medicine. I have uh the hypnotherapist, the nutritionist, the spiritual coaches, even the personal trainer does online workouts. Yeah. So every single, yeah, and and as far as the clinical side of it, as far as the therapy goes, we offer telehealth. So as long as we're licensed in your state, right to do that. And we're licensed in four states. Okay. So I would say almost every single person here, minus my massage therapist who couldn't massage you uh, right.
Shannon:I get it.
Kristina:She can do other coaching and other there's uh pretty much everybody here has an online model, but only for specific services. Okay. And we hope to we hope to brand in a way that we're able to go into other states, and this will be limitless integrative wellness, will be a household name.
Shannon:Yeah, and I think that is uh a direction that this can go, you know, because I similar to the direction you have gone with COVID, you know, and turning it into this place of being able to expand on things. I'm a massage therapist um for 25 years. I also do Reiki spiritual direction and all that, and being on Insight Timer um as uh a live person. Um, before Insight Timer started their live events, it was all recording. So I would record guided meditations and prayers and things like that for people for spiritual direction. And then when they started their live events to allow people to connect online because they couldn't go out in the world, then I began to be able to connect with people globally. Um, and all these different ways. So I see how uh what you guys are doing with your uh direction and business is as you're expanding, I think eventually you will be able to be, you know, available for people globally, you know, not just all over the United States, but you know, around the world. So, you know, that's that's good.
Kristina:Yeah, we hope to. We definitely hope to. And and because we can do so many different things online now, yeah. I think it'll be a it's we're already doing that. So I think it's already what's the word I'm looking for, accessible.
Shannon:Yeah, that's awesome. And so what I wanted to do now, because we talked about what you are currently and what you've created, but just as enjoyment for people that listen, because having the personal connection um with those I'm interviewing, is just talking about how did you move into becoming a social worker? You know, what pulled you in that direction, you know, things that you have gone through that have directed you in that direction before, you know, moving into this larger space.
Kristina:I would say that I've I never thought I was going to be a social worker. When I went to my undergrad, I did criminology and political science. And I will I was actually a private investigator for a number of years. Okay. And that, you know, around the time that we were experiencing um a recession in the country, yeah, I kept having people in my life just approach me and say, like, you know, you would be really good at X, Y, and Z social work, and you would be a great therapist. You would do this. And I always kind of said no, I would, I don't want to do that. Yeah. Uh and then um, you know, fast forward, you know, a decade, and I was in my own therapy journey.
Shannon:Uh-huh.
Kristina:An excellent therapist, uh, Diane Friedman, who's now retired. And she in my EMDR that I was doing with her, she was like, I think this, I I think that you're a gifted individual. I think you should really go to get your master's in social work. And, you know, at the time I was like, I'm not doing this. Um, and so long story short, she actually pushed me to fill out the application and you know, kind of she she pretty much did half of it for me and was like, You this, you gotta do this, you gotta do this. And so I ended up in social work school. And for the first year that I was there, the icebreaker was why did you choose to become a social worker? And I couldn't answer the question. Right. So I was like, I don't know, I'm here to find out.
Shannon:And so and that's how it goes sometimes, you know. We don't have to have all the answers, and I think you saying that actually is helpful for people because I think some people a lot of times think that they have to know the absolute answer before doing anything. And so, you know, I think it's important that you said that.
Kristina:Oh, I feel like I never have the answer. Shannon, I never have the answer, and I'm always like, let's see what happens. So I I end up in this in this program at Stony Brook University, which is the university over here, and I met my now best friend and co-founder, uh Julie Stark. And and during the first year, I really couldn't make a decision on the focus that I wanted.
Shannon:Oh, yeah.
Kristina:So I made a I made a decision to do, I wanted to do hospital social work, and she was like, You're not doing that. She's like, I get it, you're not, you're not doing that. She's like, You'll be here for another whole year. And she was, she was like, I'm gonna graduate before you by uh 12 months. She's like, I gotta change this. She's like, No, you don't need to do that, you can do this instead. And so along the way, a lot of individuals kind of helped me to define what I was going to do because I really wasn't clear. I knew I liked helping people. I knew I liked I knew I could talk to anyone. You could put me in a bus stop and I can talk to pretty much anybody that's right. So I I knew that I was capable of holding a conversation. I just didn't know what I wanted to do with it. So, you know, it's been it's been 15 years since then. So I I pretty much know what I'm doing now. And yes, and that's and so you know, I kind of I took a holistic approach. I I've been in many different settings in social work. I was in a macro setting at a nonprofit, and then I was in uh an I guess it was kind of a meso middle section of uh a residence and adult home uh setting with severe and persistent mental illness for 55 and older. Did that for a number of years, and then I was always doing private practice in tandem, but not not full time. I was doing it here and there in different types of of practices, and I I got trained in a bunch of different holistic models like EFT, which is tapping, uh-huh, EMDR, uh holistic counseling approaches that combine CBT and DBT. So, you know, I in the last decade I've been able to define that I really enjoy private practice, but I like treating the whole person's life, not just the presenting issue that caused them to call me.
Shannon:Yes.
Kristina:And that's kind of that's kind of how we that's how we got here.
Shannon:Good. That is awesome. And I have two questions for you. One question is this what is your inner weakness and how do you guide yourself through it? And then I have another follow-up question after that. That's on the okay.
Kristina:How would you define inner weakness?
Shannon:If you were to look inside yourself, the shadow side of ourselves, everybody has light and shadow, right? And so there's parts of ourselves that is the shadow self of things that we grew up with, you know, usually based in childhood. And that weakness eventually, if we work on it, can become a strength. So if you imagine a shadow side of yourself that you know that's in there, you know, that you've worked with, you know, what what how would you describe it? And then how when after you've worked on it and shifted it into something that has become a good leader part of you?
Kristina:I did the Hoffman process. I don't know if you've heard of that before, but uh it's a inner child uh retreat essentially. So um I did that two years ago. And what I learned during that was how to manage the parts of me that I don't love, like the parts that I'm that, you know, the one that has boundaries or has, you know, a short temper or anything that, you know, I might have inherited from my parents. Yeah. And so I would say that I did that work in that process and was able to integrate it into a way that now helps me help my clients.
Shannon:Uh-huh. And that's, you know, and I think that's what people need to understand is that when we are there to assist others on their journey, we are not expected to be perfect and ahead of everybody all the time. When we are aware of where we are in ourselves and the things that we work on, that's how you know somebody is a great practitioner, a good person, an individual you want to be with that they've taken the time to understand themselves so that they can sit with others too, you know, and it's a um, it happens at the same time, you know. So I think that's important for other people to know, you know, just they don't overlay that on the clients that they're working on, right? You are doing this journey, but I think it's important for people to know that we are just people too, you know, going through our stuff, but being aware of it is important. As you see those weaknesses that you've worked on becoming strengths that help you not only with yourself, but with those that you connect with. Um, so the other question is this if you saw what is the secret inner power that you have, you know, like uh my intuition? Yes, exactly. And so how how does your intuition speak with you? Because it can come in all ways, whether it's um audio, visual, feeling, you know. So how do you get messages connected with your intuition as that secret power within?
Kristina:I get audio, visual, and sense.
Shannon:Okay.
Kristina:So um, and the visual and audio can be mixed. It's sometimes is in dream form, sometimes it's a download. Um other times I think someone said something to me. And so it's a couple different ways. Uh, and I lead my sessions, are all led with intuition.
Shannon:So, what I'm gonna say, which is awesome, is this what's nice for people to hear is like a specific example, and you don't have to use real people's names if you don't want just to protect others, but an example of how that has come forward for you. So people just hear like, oh, like I got this message, I talked to this person about it, and this is how it works. So if you want to give like an actual like example of it that you've encountered, because the stories I think help people visualize the things that we talk about.
Kristina:I deal with a lot of trauma. So it's I I'm not sure I can give a specific example about a case, but I think what I can say is I've had people come to me, yeah, sit with me for uh a session or two, and I intuition had led the guidance that I provided, and and they've left because they didn't like what they heard, and then they've come back and they've said, How did you know?
Shannon:Got you. And that's perfect, and I appreciate you sharing it like that. Have you ever had your intuition give you that information? If buying groceries or traveling, or yeah, at an airport getting racing, you see somebody and you have a visualization. And you know, do these things happen as well just in public type of settings for you?
Kristina:Um, the visual stuff, no. I would say it's usually when I'm I it's usually in a dream state that I get visual any any data that way. Um, but what I will say is if I don't have a good feeling about something, I will alter what I'm doing because of that.
Shannon:Uh-huh.
Kristina:Um, it's important to preface that you need to be grounded to receive information and be and to have discernment when you're getting information, because if you're not grounded and you're not level, yeah, you aren't sure if it's your intuition or your anxiety that's speaking. So it's important for you to have a clear antenna when you're getting information like that. I will say though, when I was younger as a child, I didn't understand that and I would blurt things out all the time. Yeah. And my mom and my grandmother are both psychically inclined, and and they were, oh, you can't, you got, you cannot just walk around saying that stuff.
Shannon:And when you think about it, kids have no filter, which I think is normal. You know what I mean? Yeah. It is.
Kristina:But when I got older, I didn't understand. Yeah, I would say, like, even into my 20s, sometimes I didn't understand that I needed to filter certain things because it would get a funny reaction sometimes. And that was also enjoyable for my friends, and like we would laugh, and like it was a little more of an amusing trait. But then as I got more clinically trained, I was like, You understand? Yeah, you're less funny when you're when you're disserting.
Shannon:People don't take it quite the same way, yeah. And exactly, yeah. As a professional, I think that's important, you know, and I think that's why it shows that the work that you do for others along with your business, you know, and how to exactly so and so I do market myself as a no BS therapist.
Kristina:I have a blunter approach. So when I do screen if we would be a good fit, I ask, you know, if they want somebody more a slower pace or more compassionate or more a hand-holding type of therapist. I have other clinicians that might be better fits for them in the practice, and then there's if they wanted a more tough love of blunter approach, then then you get paired with me. So we do have a screening system so that people are paired with individuals that that you know are the same speed. So I but I do happen to have a lot of calls for the my approach.
Shannon:Yeah, and I think that's important that you just said that because the truth is each person is different. And I think people understanding themselves, some people need slower, like uh less direct.
Kristina:Nurturing. Yeah, a more nurturing one.
Shannon:Yeah. And but some people need direct and you know how you come towards it. And so, yeah, I think, and I'm glad that you share that with others that there's this uh process of discerning like the direction for people to go.
Kristina:Well, I also want people to choose what they want, you know, like sometimes you don't get the luxury of choosing the type of therapist you get, you get stuck into a um lottery system in a lot of practices, and then you end up with whoever has an opening.
Shannon:Yeah. And so I think that's awesome.
Kristina:Yeah, they don't necessarily even have expertise or even experience treating in whatever you're coming in for. So we do a lot of screening ahead of time, which is why this is you know an aside I didn't mention, but we're uh we're a private pay, okay, self-pay boutique practice. And I think that we have a luxury to take our time in curating how the person's session will look, because you don't get to do that when you have um, you don't always have that choice when you go only solely through insurance. Because our world is taking a turn when it comes to how health is managed. I think it's important to state that you have authority over yourself, over your body, and over what you experience when it comes to your health and wellness. And I think it's important to mention that when you invest in yourself, it'll always pay you back. And if that means you you find the integration that works for you, then you would, I would say, I would even go as far as to say if you come across a clinician that naysays you, you should find a new clinician.
Shannon:And I agree. Um, and I think that's an important statement so that people know to take ownership of themselves, know that they have choices, and that's how that strength gets involved inside themselves to to heal, to move forward, and to bring the people that are important to them into their lives. So thank you so much, Kristina, for being here today. And I'm grateful for our interview. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for joining us today. You can find the information to Christina's website in the links below. May your day be full of light. Even if there are places inside yourself where there are shadows present, we can always take our darkened spaces inside of us into beautiful strength by understanding ourselves more deeply. I look forward to sharing my next podcast episode with you. And until then, if you'd like to join me live, I teach on Insight Timer. You can always go to my teacher page and see the upcoming classes. I'm Shannon, and you're listening to Starseed Evolution. Have a beautiful day.
