Birthing a New Reality - Temple Radiance: Sitting Down with Gia Kubik

*All comments made here are anecdotal and not meant to be given as medical or spiritual advice, rather references from Gia’s own personal experiences and those she has been taught. 

Perhaps the first question is, what is Temple Radiance? And while that certainly will have the floor in just a moment, the fun and magical question is, who is Gia Kubik?  I say fun and magical because after our coffee date that would be the very best way to describe her. Some of you may know her for her larger than life personality and fun pop-ups for big cannabis companies like GTI and Curaleaf.  After almost twenty-five years of corporate leadership roles in big medical companies like Pfizer, Merck, and Boston Scientific Gia decided to dedicate her life to the world of cannabis, or Santa Maria as she often refers to the plant.  After not even so much as a puff of a joint her entire life one moment of realization changed the course of her life completely.   That moment of realization was the amount of medical and agricultural value the cannabis plant has to offer humanity.  Gia made an immediate career pivot, hunted down the leadership team at GTI and headed west from Chicago to start from the bottom, and ultimately built out the entire state for GTI-Nevada.  If you happen to know Gia with the old Dog Walkers Hoody, you would know she was like a kid in a candy shop wearing sneakers and talking about “vapes and pre-rolls”,  after twenty plus years of business suits and stilettos.  Roaming through what she would refer to a cannabis grow as “rows and rows of bliss” is a far departure from being in medical clinics all day.  Gia devoted herself to the market and into her knowledge of cannabis and it seemed the entire cannabis community knew her well.  

Gia has worn many hats, gathered many experiences and explored many places.  She has been a single mom since her son was 7 and as a full on, hard charging corporate b*tch as she would proudly say, it took a lot of discipline and dedication to raise this young man.  Gia refers to “all things Jake”, as having not been an option.  While still building her life, making a ton of mistakes and handling all the basketball pick up and drop offs, Gia maintained her own personal growth and led an inspiring path for her son by just doing the things that needed to get done.  Gia proclaims she has the “secret sauce” for relationships, and winks as we talk. This will surely be a part of Temple Radiance, she says.  “I also no longer need to “grind”.  That’s old.  The new plan is to allow; to sit back on my heels and let life come to me”.

Gia and I recently sat down over coffee. A year or so had passed since we’d seen each other.  I had last known Gia for her role at Cann Beverage and as always, it was a pleasure to work with her and to support her brands.  This time was different though.  There was more peace and relaxation.  Glowing and radiant was an understatement;  her energy felt bright. 

The Beginning

Gia was actually born under the name Janet.  While feeling fine about this name, it was upon her writing blogs and re-inventing herself that she took on a pen name Gia.  At some point she said “I started to feel more connected to the essence of Gia over Janet so I decided to change it legally”.  Gia told how she went to the courthouse in downtown Chicago and made her legal name change.  She laughed at how awkward that first year was when she rolled up to the next corporate business review with the first slide saying “New Name Alert…Janet is now Gia”.  Gia looks back at this with reverence and pride.  “I was moving somewhat unconsciously and at times naive and immature back in those days, and at the same time, was beginning to birth a new reality for myself as “Gia”.  

Next stop for Gia was Second City for IMPROV training.  Gia took advantage of the “off nights” as a parent and studied improvisation and stand up comedy.  During this time a colleague invited her to do an open mic stand up at a club on the south side of Chicago.  “Of course I did it.” Gia remarks with a smile.  She said there was a whole process for organizing a 3 minute set, outfit, heels, the whole production.  “The club owner said the set was “ok” but that I had great stage presence and she invited me back”. Gia used her travel for work to explore open mics and expand into performing in different states.  This hobby peaked when she was offered her own room at a small restaurant to run monthly sets.   Gia says this was one of the most enjoyable things to have your own small crowd and just get intimate and do crowd work.  “I used to drag Jake to as many open mics as he would be willing to go to by bribing him with wings and pizza”.  She says, “If I could make him laugh then I knew I was doing ok and kept material PG sans the usual swears”. She said writing jokes was just not her thing, but in the end it all worked out.  Gia had a decade playing around and even did a few small shows in Vegas.  With her love of crowd work she also started the very first Cannabis Comedy Night at a local residence where people could enjoy some herb and listen to Stoner Rob perform.  She also allotted spaces for industry novices to do some open mics as well at these monthly shows.  “Comedy taught me to be fearless. Period. It also taught me the power of comedic timing and to look at life through the lens of ‘how is this funny?’.  It really became a therapeutic way of looking at life.” 

Gia deepened her healing/awakening in 2010 when she walked into a DOJO in Chicago which was run by one of her sons' trainers.  “Professor” as he was called gave Gia an open invitation to “come by anytime”.  That she did, and a year later, Gia earned her first belt in Aikido.  “Sometimes it’s really good to look back a little.  I’m realizing that I do hard things without realizing how hard they might actually be; I really like that about myself”, she smiles.   As the journey continued, Gia expanded her knowledge of sacred earth medicines and  the power to heal through these other modalities.  “These modalities such as psychedelics, Kambo, and cannabis offer shifts in perception beyond any comprehension.  They slow down the part of the brain that is the judge and the critic, and allows more blood flow to the juicy places that offer new realities, healing, visuals - ALL THE THINGS”.  Gia was part of an article on psychedelics for Fox News about vetting practitioners or “shamans”.  Gia also began her training as a Reiki Master in 2015 and has since offered this for several years.  Simply put, Reiki is energy flowing through a practitioner to a person who has granted permission and is willing to receive.  “Reiki healing is very intuitive.  It goes where it is needed.”  

A small mention along the way Gia started to make jewelry from stones and crystals and sold pieces to many local shops and now has a small shop on Etsy. You can peruse the “TempleRadianceJewels” shop for some of these stunning, intricately creative pieces inspired and made by Gia. 

Today

Here we are in the present day.  Gia is sitting across from me, and I was really excited to see what she’d been up to. 

Gia begins to tell the story of her mother passing away in November 2022. She described her relationship with her mother for context and what she lovingly refers to as “10 Days with Jane”.  “Every turn I made during those 10 days was gut wrenching.  I had to acknowledge eye to eye with my mother that she was dying.  I then had to drive her to tell her husband in the nursing home.  From the coroner’s office to the “let’s go through the bills” discussion Gia took a time out from everything else in life to walk her mother home.  “I would have quit my job if needed.  It was so apparent that this was the end of my mother’s life and the grief was almost unbearable but I didn’t let her see it, she knew it, and we toasted with champagne to her life.  I remember saying to her “thank you for everything Mom.”.  I mean can you even imagine having that discussion with your mother? The thought of it right now can bring me down to the floor in tears.”   A new reality was born when a month later Gia’s big cannabis job eliminated her role and left her with nothing to do but grieve.  “I took time to grieve, my painting poured out of me and I literally began the process of down regulating my nervous system from all the corporate years”.  Through this new reality Gia was invited to become part of The Lori Project which is a community of dedicated practitioners offering evidence-based integrative care to support those who are navigating end of life experiences.   TheLoriProject.com

Temple Radiance

“I hate to sound cliche by saying this, but it was after an aya ceremony I literally received the download of what now guides all of the work I do, and that is Temple Radiance”.  I’m 54 and of course anti-aging crosses my path in all directions; top that off with stories about menopause, and all the things that are about to go wrong as I age.  She says the message was clear: Temple Radiance.  “Aging has the right to exist, don't try to stop it.  Rather, focus on your own Temple, my body, and as you heal you will Radiate.  So Temple Radiance is a cellular process.  As a modality Temple Radiance is a bespoke experience that births a new reality for each individual by reconnecting to their original blueprint of perfection. I’ll make it simpler…I’m actually in the process of really defining this so that people who want to work with me understand it. Temple Radiance is the understanding of three things: 1. Faith- that you truly believe you can heal yourself  2.  Magic- that you believe in the magic of your own imagination 3. Miracles - that you believe miracles happen and we can truly heal.  Temple Radiance is a bespoke experience that all starts with a phone call.  “It’s impossible to know just in a text exchange exactly what that person may respond best to so we set up a call to get a brief understanding of where they are in their evolution”.  

From there, it may lead to medicine work including Kambo, an in-person or remote Temple Radiance Reiki session, or coaching; likely some combination.   Each session is different and can include talk time, integration, processing, shadow work, inner child, triggers, or physical ailments.  Gia truly feels that if she knew how each session would go her ego might just be a little too involved, so she just opens the conversation and allows.  In essence whether it’s a coaching or reiki session it’s all individually guided and as Gia loves to say “bespoke”.  “This is actually why I love using Santa Maria for sessions.  For me, it brings me extreme presence which allows me to start from this moment vs. having a bunch of preconceived notions about how the session will go.  That’s boring.  It’s so magical to open up and flow”. 

Simply put, “Temple Radiance is shedding all your old sh*t, reducing the grind in your life, slowing down all the voices and judgements, accepting and honoring all parts and versions of yourself, and eliminating our beloved problems that we are all so attached to”.  Gia feels the techniques are unique and have been gathered from over a decade of her own medicine experiences, teachers/guides, life experiences, Kabbalah, Toltec, channeled wisdom, and almost twenty years of studying the world of awakening and spiritual/psychedelic science.   Temple Radiance opens and reconnects you to your body so we can define “healing” here as not so much as someone putting their hands on you and Voila you’re healed. Rather, it’s opening up the communication within the body Temple to understand what the body needs and then listening to the nudges that could include something as simple as “eat more avocados to get a coloring book and start coloring”.  “The body knows…it will guide you in every way and in every thing of life” Gia remarks.

Gia said, “I’m betting on me now.  All of my hobbies, including my art, are all part of this healing path.  This path has no title; it's an evolving, expanding new version of myself with each moment”.  Over a year ago Gia became a certified Kambo Practitioner. Gia explained that Kambo is a secretion taken from the Giant Amazonian Monkey Frog, Phyllomedusa Bicolor.  These secretions are full of peptides which aid in elimination of toxins, and work with various systems in the body to improve a number of health conditions.  She also mentioned that it is a non psychoactive medicine that works through a purgative effect and allows a cleanse and reset to the body.  And that it has been shown to work to support the immune system, release emotional blockages, improve vitality, cognitive function, and it supports many other energetic and physical processes.  Gia further explained that some of the ailments that Kambo has shown to be effective in reducing or eliminating symptoms range from auto-immune, pain, Lyme disease, hepatitis, fertility issues, Herpes/STD’s and more.  There are contraindications to Kambo as well and the level of training and competency of the practitioner is paramount.   Gia became an NREMT this year also for the purpose of providing the safest container possible.  Gia speaks of birthing new realities and it appears that this is a personal theme for her.  

As Gia speaks of a retreat in Montana she just returned from, she remarks how powerful it was to not try to be anyone there.  “I just got to be Gia, I wasn’t looking to be some healer or coach, just me being there for me. I did get some really great questions, like, ‘who is a perfect client for you Gia?’.  It gave me the opportunity to explore and gauge the discussion to that person.  People come to me who have good lives, they work hard to get where they are at, they often drive fancy cars and live in fancy houses, and they are tired of the grind.  My clients are done struggling, figuring, trying, controlling.  They know there is a better way and through Temple Radiance, I hold the space for them to realize that everything is within them, and that they can actually have it all.  I guide them home, where everything exists. People come to me who repeatedly say ‘I don’t know…’ and we come back to the knowing that yes, you do know! I also attract people who have tried a lot of traditional ways to heal their bodies and as we work through the stories in the mind, they find their physical symptoms literally disappear.  Temple Radiance is not about me telling anyone what to do or even my own personal recommendations, rather it’s a guided experience so that you can truly understand all that is within you. Then, often through coaching we weave the experiences together and integrate the new way of thinking.  Temple Radiance is a new way of thinking.  We work and process through the triggers and the moments of fear to realize that we truly are the cause not the effect of our lives.”

Gia invites people who have any interest in leveling up their lives, tired of the old grind, having health issues, or if anything said in this article seems of interest, to set up a 30 minute free call.  “If we don’t connect, people are just out there guessing and this isn’t work that we enroll anyone. The biggest gift we can give ourselves is to work on ourselves.  One of my teachers says to me constantly, ‘Gia, just keep working on yourself’.  We are infinite, why settle for anything less than the most bliss you can imagine for yourself? I literally live in the world of magic and with the lens and the knowledge that I am truly the creator of my life and I can see how it all has purpose.  I absolutely still get triggered and angry and all the things.  It’s the refractory time that becomes shorter as we evolve and learn to get back into our hearts.” 

Gia works primarily from her home in Las Vegas and has local U.S., and international clients as, “this work is energy, we work in frequency.  I don’t actually need to touch the person in sessions”.  Kambo is served in her home as a 1:1 ceremony and can also be done in home for the client.  

About Kambo  

By Gia Kubik

Kambo was discovered by a Shaman Paje Kampu, who drank ayahuasca and after having issues healing the people in his tribe was shown the frog and exactly how to use it.  Since that time, Kambo has been used across the world for its many healing benefits.  In its original use, Kambo was used for increasing stamina for warrior hunting, resilience of mind and spirit, treating ailments and clearing stuck energies called panema.

Kambo secretions are placed on a stick to dry and scraped off by the practitioner and applied to tiny burns on the skin (about the size of a tip of an incense stick).  Usually 3-5 gates are opened on a client as the medicine is applied.   Once applied, the client will begin to feel a rush of heat and the heart rate will increase.  This is when the peptides enter the lymphatic system.  Clients often report feeling a vibrating sensation and the peptides begin to enter the cells.  These peptides range from supporting the GI tract, immune system, pain, cellular energy, cognitive function, and cardiovascular and pulmonary health to name a few. 

The Kambo ceremony itself begins when the person says yes to Kambo.  They will do a brief intro call with Gia to ensure Kambo can be safely administered.  An Intake call will follow to review health and review ceremony preparation.  

The actual Kambo ceremony will begin with a cleanse, and intentions. Clients may participate in Hape the sacred tobacco snuff if this is in alignment. The actual Kambo medicine is on for twenty minutes or less.  Once Kambo is applied the client will navigate the medicine and often will purge, without attachment to the purge.  Receiving the peptides can be incredibly healing and if a purge happens and Panema is removed that is amazing as well.  

“I’ve been serving Kambo for over a year and in relationship with it for several years, and I can honestly say it’s one of the most powerful modalites for healing.  I’ve seen miracle after miracle, and after a few minutes of discomfort people can birth a new reality for themselves.”