June 10, 2025 • 15 mins
I've been on a deep healing journey... here's all the juicy goss how.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
La La la, the only doses roof uses typical your eyes.
Hooray, Hooray, friends, friends, friends, Welcome back
to the podcast. Today.
I want to be sharing about you all the the deep dark TMI.
Well, I don't know if it's dark,it's delicious, it's light
(00:23):
filled, but it's definitely and I don't think it's TMI.
Nay, let us carry forth. I want to talk about why I've
changed and how I've changed profoundly on the inside.
So if you follow me on socials or if you get my emails, you may
have noticed a difference in my energy lately.
(00:43):
And I think it started becoming noticeable early in the year.
And now as the months go by, it keeps on compounding.
And I feel like at once more grounded and more alive and more
grateful and more excited. And I also feel like my capacity
to create and share and connect is getting bigger at expanding.
(01:09):
And that feels really, really exciting.
I had a coaching client who asked me what was causing those
changes, and I shared with her the story.
And it ended up being kind of long.
And I thought, you know what, you would probably like to hear
it, too. So for me, I've been on this
kind of healing quest for quite a while now.
(01:31):
It started a few years ago when I tried out cognitive behavioral
therapy, otherwise known as CBT.And my assistant at the time had
a very handy degree in psychology.
And we had this conversation andshe said to me, look, I notice
that you're not in a great spaceright now.
Are you still going to therapy? And I replied like I was, but it
was actually making me spiral more.
(01:53):
I started second guessing all mythoughts and myself.
And I thought CBT was supposed to be gold standard, but I don't
know if I'm doing it wrong. And see, it said, look, it's
actually gold standard for neurotypical people and for
neurodivergent people, it can actually worsen symptoms.
And I was like, what? What's gold standard for a
(02:14):
neurodivergent person then? And she said, look, here's the
thing. There's actually no gold
standard that's been like clarified or researched enough
for neurodivergent people. Like, oh, what a surprise.
And there's just not enough research out there.
And it's more of a like a pick and mix bag of what is helpful
(02:35):
to you. So some people find acceptance
and commitment therapy helpful. Some people find equine therapy
helpful, some people find somatic therapies helpful.
And it's really just about working out what works for you.
And she said to me, what worked for you previously?
And I said, look, I always foundintuitive healing and mentoring
(02:55):
with people like Kerry Rowit andKerry Hiroboga to be hugely
helpful. But I somehow started thinking
that I should be doing CBT instead because that's somehow
more real and scientifically validated.
And this was just like, if it works for you, it's actually
completely valid and you can just claim that and do that
instead. And it was such a revolutionary
(03:18):
conversation, and I wish that every neurodivergent knew this.
And this is a very, very smart human.
I'm so grateful that we had thatconversation because it was such
a real a big turning point for me.
So after that, I ended up signing back up with Carrie
Rowlett to do regular sessions with her.
I started just kind of like clearing through the energetic
(03:40):
dross that I had built up aroundmyself and my mindset.
And then nine months ago, I alsosigned up with a new mentor and
a mastermind just to based on this very deep, intuitive
knowing that it was needed. And that intensified the healing
journey for me even more. And what I end up realizing was
(04:01):
that I needed to heal my relationship to fame and to
success. I built up barnacles on my
spirit from it. And you know, I'd, I'd
experienced like a small amount of fame and success and I'd
experienced the duality of it, like both the blessings and the
(04:23):
challenges of it. I'd experienced the abundance
and the fulfillment. And I'd also experienced
projections and trolling and conflict.
And I didn't know how to hold the duality of that at the time.
And so I see so clearly how I retreated away for it.
And in 2017, I remember really clearly there was this moment
(04:45):
when I looked at my young children and my beautiful
husband and I, I chose them. I made a decision to put an
invisibility cloak of sorts overmyself and my business to create
kind of this impermeable sanctuary for me and my family.
I decided I just wanted to work with work with clients who knew
(05:06):
me and loved me. I knew I could run a small
streamline business that broughtin $1,000,000 a year and that I
could run with a part time assistant.
So that's what I did and it was the perfect thing to do.
I got to still like create and share and do my work in the
world. And it was easy and it was
abundant and it was filled with joy.
(05:28):
And I got to home school my kidsfor a few years and I watched
them bloom and grow and we made the happiest and sweetest and
gentlest family life that we could.
And I'm never, ever going to regret that decision.
It was I'd like 10 out of 10 life choice.
And then I felt inside me years later that I wanted to
(05:51):
experience expansion again. I want to experience business
growth and share my work with more people.
Not just the people who already knew me and love me, but other
people out there who hadn't got to know the Leone way of of
living and doing business. And so now I've been doing this
work of healing my relationship to fame and to success and to
(06:16):
business growth. I've written letters and I've
burned them. I've done rituals.
I've made healing art. I've worked on deepening my
understanding of why people behave the way they did and why
I behaved the way that I did. I've forgiven people and I've
forgiven myself. And as a Scorpio, learning
(06:38):
forgiveness is a revelation 1 I didn't think was possible for
people of my ilk. And yet, there it is.
I can forgive and all of it, allof this has been so deeply
important and needed. And then I realized as well,
like I needed to shift the way that I thought about expansion.
(07:00):
Because when I thought about growing myself and my business,
I immediately worried about my nervous system and how it could
stay regulated during business growth.
For many years, I've relied on contraction and strong
boundaries to keep my nervous system regulated.
I said no to most things, I constrained my work hours and my
(07:20):
social activities, and I thoughtit was really the only option
that I had. And then I realized that there
was another way for me to consider nervous system
regulation, that I could work onexpanding my capacity instead,
and that instead of letting like, instead of doing less to
cope, I could instead work on mynervous system's ability to
(07:43):
regulate to a new level. And instead of retreating, I
could use other tools like breath work to regulate.
I also discovered, serendipitously as well, that I
had unresolved primitive reflexes.
So one of my friends is a occupational therapist, and one
night we went out to dinner and she was telling me all about the
(08:04):
latest conference that she'd been to and learned all about
primitive reflexes. So for example, like the startle
reflex that infants have, that reflex resolves for most people,
but for a variety of reasons, itdoesn't resolve for everyone,
and they can cause a range of neurological and physical
issues. And I was completely fascinated
(08:26):
learning all about this. And then she showed me the
physical test that you can do tosee if someone has an unresolved
moral reflex, which is the, the startle reflex that you see in
infants. And I remember as I was doing
the test, my arms just began immediately to like flail wildly
and uncontrollably. And she was like, don't be an
(08:47):
idiot. And she was just laughing.
And I was like, I promise you, Iam not doing this on purpose.
This feels awful. And she just got really wide
eyed and she was like, damn loads.
That's a really like really significant unresolved reflex
that you've got there, and that reflex is actually going to be
(09:08):
going off for you constantly during the day without you even
being aware. You may not have the full
physical arm flail happen, but your stress receptors would be
going off in your brain. So if you're at the grocery
store, any loud noises or beeps or bright lights could be
setting off that startle reflex for you and causing a huge
(09:29):
amount of stress in your nervoussystem.
And there are ways that you can resolve this reflex as an adult.
And I just remember just feelingdumbfounded and staring at her
because that's exactly how I felt in stores.
My brain would feel on fire frombeing in one.
(09:50):
And I attributed to being, you know, an autistic symptom,
symptom that I'd never be able to heal.
And now I was discovering that it was something that could be
fixed. That is just so wild.
So the beginning of this year, Imade the decision that 2025 was
the year that I resolved my primitive reflexes.
(10:11):
There's a range of different ways that you can do it,
including working with occupational therapists.
I end up doing a bunch of in person, system in person
sessions with Doctor Sharon Williams, who is a chiropractor,
kinesiologist, A witchy woman with a million different healing
modalities and she works out here in Canberra.
(10:34):
And let me tell you, they DoctorSharon and what she's done has
just made a huge, huge difference in my life.
It is absolutely wild and I feellike this was a really important
key component of helping my nervous system to regulate.
So much so that when I just wentaway for our business mastermind
(10:55):
retreat, which I just spoke about in the previous episode, I
actually couldn't believe that Ididn't experience
overstimulation or overwhelm during it.
Usually after like a full day ofsocializing or intense activity
I am like glazed over and non verbal by the evening.
And at the retreat I was not even my friends notice like Oh
(11:16):
my God Leonie, you have changed so much.
You're managing this so well. I'm so impressed and happy for
you because they've seen me at conferences before and they know
how much you know, I pour all ofmyself into them and how much at
a certain point the brain just switches off completely.
And this time I didn't experience that, and that feels
(11:40):
incredible. And then bringing all of this
healing and expansion that I've been doing into my business and
my work, and I really feel like the level of my work has
deepened and become so much morepowerful because of it.
I feel like I've created some ofthe best coaching calls of my
(12:00):
life. I just ran big money, big
impact, and it was so, so powerful.
And I'm now able to like create and launch and hold space at a
level that I've never been able to do before.
So just this year I've birthed 2025 Dream Quest.
And then I led the most amazing circle of women through some
really deep soul work in a program called Creative Goddess
(12:22):
Embodied. And then last month with big
Money, big impact. It was a 21 day coaching
container with hundreds of students, incredible results.
And after such like an intenselywonderful creative experience
and peopling experience like that, I, I would ordinarily need
one to two months of quiet time to recover.
(12:43):
And this time I needed none. I was like chomping at the bit
to create the next thing. And I did.
So I turned around and I createdBackstage Pass and I'm enjoying
the absolute bejesus of that outof that.
And then I've got Momentum Mastermind, which is starting
very soon as well. And I was just astonished at how
much my capacity has widened. I feel so incredibly grateful
(13:06):
for the healing and the miraclesthat I've experienced during
this journey. I'm so excited for what's next
and it feels like such a profound blessing.
I wanted to share this with you because I know so many of you
have learned through me doing myown journey and sharing about
(13:27):
that journey. So when I shared about my autism
diagnosis, when I shared about my ADHD diagnosis, a lot of you,
it was a catalyst point for you to go, Oh, that's, that's me,
that those symptoms are mine. Like, Oh my golly gosh, Oh my
golly gosh. And then, you know, even when I
had, I became a mother 15 years ago and I was going through post
(13:50):
Natal depression and I shared that story up.
So many of you were like, Oh, I'm, I'm actually just realized
I'm not coping. I just realized that I'm
actually experiencing this and I've been ignoring it.
And I'm, Oh my God, I can't believe that there's an option
to heal this. So I wanted to offer this story
up to you in the hope that it reminds you that growth and
(14:14):
healing and expansion are alwayspossible.
And I hope you find it for you and for your loved ones in all
the ways that resonate with you.So bless, bless, bless.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.Now I want to put a little PS on
this as well because I haven't, I don't know, I don't think I've
shared about this on the maybe Idid, who knows.
(14:36):
I can't remember the last podcast episode.
Momentum Mastermind is starting very soon.
If you go to leoniedawson.com/momentum, it is
a small group mastermind to helppeople take huge action and get
huge results in their business over the next 8 weeks and I
cannot wait to do it. So Leonie dawson.com/momentum
(14:58):
Otherwise, I'm kissing you, I'm hugging you, I'm loving you.
You've got this forever.
La La la, the only doses roof uses typical your eyes.
Hooray, Hooray, friends, friends, friends, Welcome back
to the podcast. Today.
I want to be sharing about you all the the deep dark TMI.
Well, I don't know if it's dark,it's delicious, it's light
(00:23):
filled, but it's definitely and I don't think it's TMI.
Nay, let us carry forth. I want to talk about why I've
changed and how I've changed profoundly on the inside.
So if you follow me on socials or if you get my emails, you may
have noticed a difference in my energy lately.
(00:43):
And I think it started becoming noticeable early in the year.
And now as the months go by, it keeps on compounding.
And I feel like at once more grounded and more alive and more
grateful and more excited. And I also feel like my capacity
to create and share and connect is getting bigger at expanding.
(01:09):
And that feels really, really exciting.
I had a coaching client who asked me what was causing those
changes, and I shared with her the story.
And it ended up being kind of long.
And I thought, you know what, you would probably like to hear
it, too. So for me, I've been on this
kind of healing quest for quite a while now.
(01:31):
It started a few years ago when I tried out cognitive behavioral
therapy, otherwise known as CBT.And my assistant at the time had
a very handy degree in psychology.
And we had this conversation andshe said to me, look, I notice
that you're not in a great spaceright now.
Are you still going to therapy? And I replied like I was, but it
was actually making me spiral more.
(01:53):
I started second guessing all mythoughts and myself.
And I thought CBT was supposed to be gold standard, but I don't
know if I'm doing it wrong. And see, it said, look, it's
actually gold standard for neurotypical people and for
neurodivergent people, it can actually worsen symptoms.
And I was like, what? What's gold standard for a
(02:14):
neurodivergent person then? And she said, look, here's the
thing. There's actually no gold
standard that's been like clarified or researched enough
for neurodivergent people. Like, oh, what a surprise.
And there's just not enough research out there.
And it's more of a like a pick and mix bag of what is helpful
(02:35):
to you. So some people find acceptance
and commitment therapy helpful. Some people find equine therapy
helpful, some people find somatic therapies helpful.
And it's really just about working out what works for you.
And she said to me, what worked for you previously?
And I said, look, I always foundintuitive healing and mentoring
(02:55):
with people like Kerry Rowit andKerry Hiroboga to be hugely
helpful. But I somehow started thinking
that I should be doing CBT instead because that's somehow
more real and scientifically validated.
And this was just like, if it works for you, it's actually
completely valid and you can just claim that and do that
instead. And it was such a revolutionary
(03:18):
conversation, and I wish that every neurodivergent knew this.
And this is a very, very smart human.
I'm so grateful that we had thatconversation because it was such
a real a big turning point for me.
So after that, I ended up signing back up with Carrie
Rowlett to do regular sessions with her.
I started just kind of like clearing through the energetic
(03:40):
dross that I had built up aroundmyself and my mindset.
And then nine months ago, I alsosigned up with a new mentor and
a mastermind just to based on this very deep, intuitive
knowing that it was needed. And that intensified the healing
journey for me even more. And what I end up realizing was
(04:01):
that I needed to heal my relationship to fame and to
success. I built up barnacles on my
spirit from it. And you know, I'd, I'd
experienced like a small amount of fame and success and I'd
experienced the duality of it, like both the blessings and the
(04:23):
challenges of it. I'd experienced the abundance
and the fulfillment. And I'd also experienced
projections and trolling and conflict.
And I didn't know how to hold the duality of that at the time.
And so I see so clearly how I retreated away for it.
And in 2017, I remember really clearly there was this moment
(04:45):
when I looked at my young children and my beautiful
husband and I, I chose them. I made a decision to put an
invisibility cloak of sorts overmyself and my business to create
kind of this impermeable sanctuary for me and my family.
I decided I just wanted to work with work with clients who knew
(05:06):
me and loved me. I knew I could run a small
streamline business that broughtin $1,000,000 a year and that I
could run with a part time assistant.
So that's what I did and it was the perfect thing to do.
I got to still like create and share and do my work in the
world. And it was easy and it was
abundant and it was filled with joy.
(05:28):
And I got to home school my kidsfor a few years and I watched
them bloom and grow and we made the happiest and sweetest and
gentlest family life that we could.
And I'm never, ever going to regret that decision.
It was I'd like 10 out of 10 life choice.
And then I felt inside me years later that I wanted to
(05:51):
experience expansion again. I want to experience business
growth and share my work with more people.
Not just the people who already knew me and love me, but other
people out there who hadn't got to know the Leone way of of
living and doing business. And so now I've been doing this
work of healing my relationship to fame and to success and to
(06:16):
business growth. I've written letters and I've
burned them. I've done rituals.
I've made healing art. I've worked on deepening my
understanding of why people behave the way they did and why
I behaved the way that I did. I've forgiven people and I've
forgiven myself. And as a Scorpio, learning
(06:38):
forgiveness is a revelation 1 I didn't think was possible for
people of my ilk. And yet, there it is.
I can forgive and all of it, allof this has been so deeply
important and needed. And then I realized as well,
like I needed to shift the way that I thought about expansion.
(07:00):
Because when I thought about growing myself and my business,
I immediately worried about my nervous system and how it could
stay regulated during business growth.
For many years, I've relied on contraction and strong
boundaries to keep my nervous system regulated.
I said no to most things, I constrained my work hours and my
(07:20):
social activities, and I thoughtit was really the only option
that I had. And then I realized that there
was another way for me to consider nervous system
regulation, that I could work onexpanding my capacity instead,
and that instead of letting like, instead of doing less to
cope, I could instead work on mynervous system's ability to
(07:43):
regulate to a new level. And instead of retreating, I
could use other tools like breath work to regulate.
I also discovered, serendipitously as well, that I
had unresolved primitive reflexes.
So one of my friends is a occupational therapist, and one
night we went out to dinner and she was telling me all about the
(08:04):
latest conference that she'd been to and learned all about
primitive reflexes. So for example, like the startle
reflex that infants have, that reflex resolves for most people,
but for a variety of reasons, itdoesn't resolve for everyone,
and they can cause a range of neurological and physical
issues. And I was completely fascinated
(08:26):
learning all about this. And then she showed me the
physical test that you can do tosee if someone has an unresolved
moral reflex, which is the, the startle reflex that you see in
infants. And I remember as I was doing
the test, my arms just began immediately to like flail wildly
and uncontrollably. And she was like, don't be an
(08:47):
idiot. And she was just laughing.
And I was like, I promise you, Iam not doing this on purpose.
This feels awful. And she just got really wide
eyed and she was like, damn loads.
That's a really like really significant unresolved reflex
that you've got there, and that reflex is actually going to be
(09:08):
going off for you constantly during the day without you even
being aware. You may not have the full
physical arm flail happen, but your stress receptors would be
going off in your brain. So if you're at the grocery
store, any loud noises or beeps or bright lights could be
setting off that startle reflex for you and causing a huge
(09:29):
amount of stress in your nervoussystem.
And there are ways that you can resolve this reflex as an adult.
And I just remember just feelingdumbfounded and staring at her
because that's exactly how I felt in stores.
My brain would feel on fire frombeing in one.
(09:50):
And I attributed to being, you know, an autistic symptom,
symptom that I'd never be able to heal.
And now I was discovering that it was something that could be
fixed. That is just so wild.
So the beginning of this year, Imade the decision that 2025 was
the year that I resolved my primitive reflexes.
(10:11):
There's a range of different ways that you can do it,
including working with occupational therapists.
I end up doing a bunch of in person, system in person
sessions with Doctor Sharon Williams, who is a chiropractor,
kinesiologist, A witchy woman with a million different healing
modalities and she works out here in Canberra.
(10:34):
And let me tell you, they DoctorSharon and what she's done has
just made a huge, huge difference in my life.
It is absolutely wild and I feellike this was a really important
key component of helping my nervous system to regulate.
So much so that when I just wentaway for our business mastermind
(10:55):
retreat, which I just spoke about in the previous episode, I
actually couldn't believe that Ididn't experience
overstimulation or overwhelm during it.
Usually after like a full day ofsocializing or intense activity
I am like glazed over and non verbal by the evening.
And at the retreat I was not even my friends notice like Oh
(11:16):
my God Leonie, you have changed so much.
You're managing this so well. I'm so impressed and happy for
you because they've seen me at conferences before and they know
how much you know, I pour all ofmyself into them and how much at
a certain point the brain just switches off completely.
And this time I didn't experience that, and that feels
(11:40):
incredible. And then bringing all of this
healing and expansion that I've been doing into my business and
my work, and I really feel like the level of my work has
deepened and become so much morepowerful because of it.
I feel like I've created some ofthe best coaching calls of my
(12:00):
life. I just ran big money, big
impact, and it was so, so powerful.
And I'm now able to like create and launch and hold space at a
level that I've never been able to do before.
So just this year I've birthed 2025 Dream Quest.
And then I led the most amazing circle of women through some
really deep soul work in a program called Creative Goddess
(12:22):
Embodied. And then last month with big
Money, big impact. It was a 21 day coaching
container with hundreds of students, incredible results.
And after such like an intenselywonderful creative experience
and peopling experience like that, I, I would ordinarily need
one to two months of quiet time to recover.
(12:43):
And this time I needed none. I was like chomping at the bit
to create the next thing. And I did.
So I turned around and I createdBackstage Pass and I'm enjoying
the absolute bejesus of that outof that.
And then I've got Momentum Mastermind, which is starting
very soon as well. And I was just astonished at how
much my capacity has widened. I feel so incredibly grateful
(13:06):
for the healing and the miraclesthat I've experienced during
this journey. I'm so excited for what's next
and it feels like such a profound blessing.
I wanted to share this with you because I know so many of you
have learned through me doing myown journey and sharing about
(13:27):
that journey. So when I shared about my autism
diagnosis, when I shared about my ADHD diagnosis, a lot of you,
it was a catalyst point for you to go, Oh, that's, that's me,
that those symptoms are mine. Like, Oh my golly gosh, Oh my
golly gosh. And then, you know, even when I
had, I became a mother 15 years ago and I was going through post
(13:50):
Natal depression and I shared that story up.
So many of you were like, Oh, I'm, I'm actually just realized
I'm not coping. I just realized that I'm
actually experiencing this and I've been ignoring it.
And I'm, Oh my God, I can't believe that there's an option
to heal this. So I wanted to offer this story
up to you in the hope that it reminds you that growth and
(14:14):
healing and expansion are alwayspossible.
And I hope you find it for you and for your loved ones in all
the ways that resonate with you.So bless, bless, bless.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.Now I want to put a little PS on
this as well because I haven't, I don't know, I don't think I've
shared about this on the maybe Idid, who knows.
(14:36):
I can't remember the last podcast episode.
Momentum Mastermind is starting very soon.
If you go to leoniedawson.com/momentum, it is
a small group mastermind to helppeople take huge action and get
huge results in their business over the next 8 weeks and I
cannot wait to do it. So Leonie dawson.com/momentum
(14:58):
Otherwise, I'm kissing you, I'm hugging you, I'm loving you.
You've got this forever.
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