October 7, 2024 • 42 mins
Ever wondered how you can turn constant anxiety into inner peace? In this episode of the Lift One Self podcast, we promise to reveal transformative techniques for achieving a quieter mind and deeper self-awareness. Our guest, Ann Hinch, shares her incredible journey from living with relentless anxiety to finding tranquility through Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) and focused awareness. Learn about the physical and emotional releases that led to profound changes in her well-being, and how her practices can inspire your own path to inner peace.
Creating a safe environment for emotional growth is crucial, and this episode emphasizes the power of radical honesty and emotional release. We discuss the necessity of acknowledging and processing difficult emotions such as anger and rage for personal healing. Anne sheds light on how EFT can help transform our reactions and foster a more peaceful existence. Parenting is also explored as a unique opportunity for self-discovery, where children can mirror our unprocessed emotions back to us, leading to profound personal growth.
Discover the profound connection between inner self-awareness and the external world as we explore the importance of sensing and experiencing life holistically. Through personal anecdotes, we highlight the transformative power of inner work and mindfulness in healing trauma and achieving self-acceptance. Embrace this journey towards authentic living and self-discovery, enhancing your ability to empathize with others and enriching your life with greater meaning and connection. Join us for this insightful and transformative episode.
Find out more about Ann Hinch here:
http://www.annhince.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Lift One Self podcast and I am so
thankful you're here with me.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Thank you, it's great to be here, looking forward to
this.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Will you join me in a meditation so we can ground
ourselves before theconversation?
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
And for the listeners , as I always mention, if you
are driving or doing any kind ofphysical activity, please don't
close your eyes.
I want you to be safe and thosearound you to be safe.
Yet the other prompts you'reable to take by anchoring in
your breath and just taking amoment, a mindful moment for
yourself.
If you're finding that you'regetting too relaxed, just fast
(00:38):
forward, because I still wantyou to be safe.
Yet you can always come back tothe meditation later on when
you have some time for yourself.
So, anne, I'll ask you to besafe, yet you can always come
back to the meditation later onwhen you have some time for
yourself.
So, and I'll ask you to getcomfortable in your seating and
you're going to gently closeyour eyes and you're going to
begin breathing in and outthrough your nose and you're
(01:01):
going to bring your awareness towatching your breath go in and
out through your nose.
You're not going to try andcontrol your breath.
Just let the awareness watchthe breath go in and out and
observe the rhythm, the pattern.
(01:24):
There may be some sensations orfeelings coming up in the body.
Let them come up.
You're safe to feel.
You're safe to let go.
Surrender the need to control,control, release the need to
(01:59):
resist and just be, be with yourbreath, drop into your body,
(02:23):
keep your awareness on yourbreath, continue keeping your
awareness on your breath.
Now, anne, I'm going to ask youto create an intention in your
mind of what you want to bringforth in this conversation for
the listeners and for ourselves.
And when you finish creatingthat intention, I'll ask you to
release it in your mind,allowing it to drop down into
your nervous system, down yourneck, passing your throat, down
(02:50):
into your chest, filling yourheart, filling your lungs, going
down into your abdomen, downinto your stomach, into your
life force, and continue stayingwith your breath, staying with
(03:18):
your breath, allowing thatintention to surround your
energy field, allowing thatintention to surround your
energy field, dropping deeperinto your body Now, while still
(03:43):
staying with your breath at yourown time.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
And at your own pace.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
You're going to gently open your eyes and still
stay with your breath.
How's your heart doing?
It's feeling very peaceful.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Can you let the listeners know who Anne is.
Sure, I'm nobody special, but Iwas at a place where I was so
anxious all the time and my mindwas so busy all the time and I
was just so reactionary that Iwas determined to find inner
peace and I just didn't know howfar I could go in that process
(04:25):
or how far that path would takeme.
So I'm at the point now that Ican release tension inside my
body using laser focusedawareness and I actually feel
and I hear the adhesions and theconnected tissue release and my
skull has shifted, my eyesockets have moved, my neck has
(04:45):
straightened and I've grownthree quarters of an inch.
So I'm sharing this storybecause I didn't know what I
could do was possible before, soI want other people to know
that it is possible.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
And how did you discover this?
What modality or what was thejourney of finding that inner
peace within?
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Well, it wasn't a quick path.
It was actually really threesteps to the journey as my
awareness deepened inside.
So to begin with, I use thetechnique called EFT, which is
short for emotional freedomtechnique.
It's also called tapping,because we're tapping on certain
places in our body as we'retalking something through and
that tapping releases the energystored in the nervous system.
So I use that to go through allmy traumas.
(05:32):
I wrote down every one on listsof multiple pages and I worked
through one each night and overthose weeks and months probably
I don't remember I found myselfbecoming much more peaceful in
my day-to-day interactions withmy family and it was really nice
.
And my mind started to becomequiet for the first time ever.
(05:53):
I'd heard about, you know,people talk about that, but to
actually experience it yourself,if you don't recall ever having
it quiet before, it was justreally fun.
So that was kind of the firststep.
But what I realized EFD isdoing it's opening up the
subconscious mind, right.
So we become aware of traumathat we'd hidden inside or
memories that we hidden insideand we didn't remember.
(06:16):
So we become aware of that.
But in that same process ourawareness, or self awareness,
deepens.
So I became aware of myemotions for the first time.
I was really good atsuppressing them, but I became
aware of them.
And then I became aware at adeeper level, which is the
physical sensations underneaththe emotions.
So if we're feeling somethinglike frustration, that's just
(06:38):
the word we use to describe thattension we're holding in our
body.
So you can become aware of thattension itself.
And at that point I didn't useEFT so much.
At that point I could justfocus on the sensations
themselves and just allow themto be, not trying to change them
, just accept them, notice them,feel them and allow them to
(07:02):
release.
So I did that then over andover.
So because I'd been doing EFTdaily, in the evening I would do
an hour to an hour and a half.
Once I got to this point Iwasn't doing EFT but I would lay
on the sofa and I would bring acollective trauma to mind so
something like 9-11, or for me,the Loma Prieta earthquake I was
(07:23):
in and just bring thosememories to mind and all those
emotions, the physicalsensations, and just allow them
to release from my body, whichfelt really good, right, because
it's tension that's been storedfor so long and and it felt
really good and during that timeperiod is when I realized at
(07:43):
some point I could keep myawareness inside my body after
the tension had released, whichI've never heard before.
I didn't know what it was, itwas totally new to me, so I just
started to play with it.
Now I've done it once, could Ido it again?
And I tried and I quit, andthen I started to play.
So what can I do now, this newtool?
(08:05):
So I put my awareness inside.
I was working in my abdomen atthe time and I realized I can
move it to the side.
I could move my awarenessaround.
I could feel inside my abdomenand I could find a place that
had tension versus a place withno tension.
I could tell the difference.
So then I would focus on thetension is a place with no
(08:25):
tension.
I could tell the difference.
So then I would focus on thetension and just do exactly the
same thing, just feel it, justallow it to be there, and I
would feel it release a littlebit.
So then I would do it again,and again, and again, until it
released.
So I started moving around mytorso and eventually it took
many months, but eventually Igot my awareness inside my head
and that was huge because thepain inside my left cheek was
(08:50):
almost unbearable.
It was so intense and it hadbeen there for my whole life,
since I was born with my rightfoot up against my right shin
and then my whole body wastwisted.
But it had been stuck in mysubconscious mind.
I had not been aware of it andthat really made me realize how
much we store inside.
But we have no idea it's there,we don't know what it feels
(09:13):
like until we would kind ofreverse the process and undo the
layers of the onion one by oneand you're shown then that
tension that's inside.
So that's at that point I wasable to work with the tension
and the pain because I had thetools, the techniques and just I
would feel it and release it,feel it and release it again and
(09:34):
again and again until it got tothe place.
I could actually feel my skullbones relax.
Now I hadn't known they weren'trelaxed before, but they
clearly were because theyrelaxed and and you know, that's
when I had x-rays taken, justpart of my orthodontic work and
I could see the changes fromeight years prior and see how my
bone structure had changed andhad myself measured at some
(09:55):
point.
You know, when we get to thisage we don't really do that very
much, but I could tell, excuseme I could tell I was looking at
people from a different anglethan I used to be, so I thought
I might have grown.
So I actually had my familymeasure me and I had grown three
quarters of an inch in my 50s.
So that was pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Do you believe that possibly some of that growing
was because you were hunched inrather than stretched out?
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Absolutely.
It was that burden that I'vebeen carrying my whole life and
when we released that burden soI wasn't literally growing right
, I was decompressing right, sobecoming more of my blueprint
height.
Now I am higher than I haveever been in my life, so I've
never actually got to thisheight before because I had a
(10:44):
lot of childhood trauma so I wasalways pulling myself back,
closing myself in, um.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
So yeah, it's kind of an expansion, it's it's nice
yeah, I'm sure you related tothe meditation I did at the
beginning, where it's all aboutopening and acceptance and not
pushing anything away.
The reason why I do themeditation specifically like
that especially if there's newlisteners is to get them engaged
with their nervous system,because a lot of people have no
(11:12):
idea about this intelligentsystem that we have and how it
blocks us from going into thatvulnerability, going into that
open source and really seeingwhere the defense mechanisms
have created kind of a prison ofthe things that are blocked and
where I explain to people.
It's it feels verycounterintuitive because there's
(11:35):
one part of your system that'strying to protect you that is
actually harming you now, andthen there's another part that's
trying to bring up all thisstuff but like you're pushing it
back down, and then there'sanother part that's trying to
bring up all this stuff but likeyou're pushing it back down,
and then there's you as theobserver that has to come and
bring harmony into the two.
It's not picking one or theother.
How do we integrate and allowthere to be a space to feel
(11:56):
these emotions and let thesesystems feel validated and seen,
because that's what I'venoticed for myself and what I
provide a space to other peoplewhere I say, like, if you want
healing, there's three thingsthat I've noticed in principle
for myself, because I hadlesions in my cerebellum and my
brainstem and I almost died 10years ago.
(12:16):
So what you're saying I'm like,I'm living proof to you.
I know this stuff works, soit's like it's, yet it's work to
do it.
The three things that I say isthere needs to be safety for the
nervous system so the defensemechanisms can come down.
You need radical honesty withyourself, so you need to be able
(12:38):
to face yourself.
And then three, you need tofeel.
So you need to feel all thesethings that have been stored
down, and some of it is verynasty and yucky and not feeling
good.
And that's why I use the termprocess your shit.
Where there's going to be somestuff manure that's going to
(12:58):
come up, yet you need to processit so that your garden is
vibrant.
I know, in Western societyespecially, we have an aversion
to pain and we have not beengiven the tools to be able to
face that.
And we also haven't been ableto be given the tools of the
things that we're creating orpaying attention to our language
(13:19):
or how we've interacted withcertain emotions Because,
especially when we've beenyounger, certain emotions were
not tolerable, especially forgirls like to get angry or if we
cry too much.
There was name calling or therewas chastising.
So some of these big emotionswere never able to be felt and
(13:40):
validated, or had somebody helpus regulate our nervous system
to be able to interact withthese things.
When you've said you've hadtrauma, you've experienced
trauma, how has yourrelationship been with rage and
anger in that process?
Speaker 2 (13:59):
Well, that was hidden underneath a lot of other
emotions that I had to I had toprocess first, and and then then
I just processed it.
I mean, I got to the place thatI really understood that the
emotions are just energy storedin the body and all we have to
do is is what you said we haveto feel that energy, we have to
(14:22):
acknowledge it and allow it torelease from the body, and
that's where the freedom comes.
So once I realized that I wasready to do it because I knew it
to be the case, so I justworked with that, I felt it.
With EFT, you find your truth,what you're saying.
There are a lot of videos online, a lot of EFT practitioners
(14:51):
that actually use scripts, sothey use kind of canned words to
work with EFT, and that's notwhere the power in EFT is.
The power is in, using our ownwords, because those are what
are stored in our nervous system.
So if I'm feeling really angryin our nervous system, so if I'm
feeling really angry or if Ihate someone or something, I
want to acknowledge that feelingand allow it to release, and
(15:12):
the tapping just allows it torelease faster in my experience.
So it was really nice to let itgo faster, but you've got to
find the truth.
And, like you said so, many ofus are programmed not to hate.
Right, you shouldn't hatesomeone.
But if you are feeling thathate, then surely it's better to
have it come out of the bodythan leave it suppressed inside
(15:33):
as dis-ease.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Exactly it's these wrong narratives Like it's just
like don't fear.
And it's like what do you mean?
Don't fear?
Like nervous system needs tohave some fear.
Like there's healthy fear.
Do you mean don't fear?
Like nervous system needs tohave some fear, like there's
healthy fear.
And then there's fear thatyou're creating psychologically,
yet to say don't fear.
If you're going to go into yourintuition, you're going to feel
some fear because your intuitionis going to bring you into the
(15:54):
unknown and uncertainty and yournervous system's like I can't
read this, like there's nothingin the past.
So I'm going to try and bringthings from the past to try and
protect you.
So I think there's like somewrong narratives.
Even like you said, don't hateor anger, don't be angry, it's
just garbage.
And it's like no, it's ahealthy emotion.
If there's something that you,a boundary that has been
(16:17):
violated or somebody's beingharmed, this is adrenaline
coming into the system so thatyou can take action.
Yet to tell yourself not tofeel certain things is doing
such damage to the body becauseit's like I'm trying to just
give you messages and you'retelling me they're wrong.
So then there's this bigconflict that goes on.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Right, and what I've seen I've tried to work out how
I've been able to do, what Ihave been able to do, compared
to like other teachings that Isee and hear about and what I've
realized is it's kind of amiddle ground.
So we don't want to suppress it, right, we absolutely do not
want to suppress these emotions,because that is disease in the
body.
We also don't want to expressit onto other people, right.
(17:01):
We don't want to be angry withsomeone else, but then we're
passing that energy and thatemotion on.
So there's the middle ground,which is to feel and acknowledge
the anger and just allow theenergy of it to leave the body.
Because when we do that, thenext time a similar thing
happens we don't react the sameway.
(17:21):
We're actually a little bitmore aware, we're a little bit
calmer.
Then we do it again, right, wework on what it is we're feeling
at that point.
Then the next time a similarthing happens again, we're more
relaxed and it gets to the pointwhere, eventually, something
like that can happen.
Where we used to be veryreactionary, we used to be
(17:42):
triggered.
We're no longer triggeredanymore.
We're at peace, and when we'reat peace, that's what happens
around us.
We attract peace into ourfuture and our environments the
people we're interacting with.
Those interactions are morepeaceful.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
You mentioned that you're a parent.
I take it yes.
So how old are your children?
21 and 25 okay, so when you'regoing through this journey, they
were younger, I take it theywere probably in the region of
four to eight, something likethat okay.
So how was that journey?
(18:18):
Because what I say to peopleand what I know to be true in my
own life, the highest spiritualpractice I see that you can
have is being a parent to learnabout yourself, because your
children reflect things back toyou that you possibly don't want
to see.
And there are these shadowparts that you're like do not
open that junk drawer, justleave it alone.
(18:40):
I don't want to talk to theelephant in the room right now.
Okay, I just don't have thecapacity.
You made a choice that you weregoing to do the warrior work
and you were still going to keepgoing forward.
So what did that look like as aparent?
And the messiness of it,because anybody that's done
inner work understands there'smessiness like, uh, if anybody
(19:05):
says it was unicorns andrainbows all the time, I'm like
what were you on?
Because there's a lot ofmessiness of trying to relate
and interact and then, whileparenting, so could you give
some to the best of notinterfering in your children's
privacy?
Yet what your experience was asa parent?
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Yeah, one of the other reasons that I started
doing this work is becausethings were so volatile at home.
Because I was volatile and Ihad been sent to a boys boarding
school when I was age ninethrough 11.
And I was teased mercilessly.
At the first year I was theonly girl boarder.
There were some day girls, butI was the one who stayed at
(19:49):
night and I was just teased sobadly.
And my son, my oldest son, wasstarting to get to that age and
I knew I had been scared of boysthrough nine, through 11.
So I had to get over that if Iwas going to interact in the way
I wanted to with my boys atthat age.
(20:10):
So, yeah, I was desperate to dothat inner work.
So I mean I did it away fromthem.
So I was bringing up all thishorrible stuff from my childhood
but I was dealing it with.
I was doing it when I was notwith them, so I don't think a
lot of it was brought up in myinteractions.
(20:31):
Now the technique I use EFTright is great for anyone.
So when my younger son wouldhave nightmares I would tap on
him.
But the learning that I wasdoing was noticing during the
day.
When I was triggered, right,that was the first step.
I had to start noticing, had tostart standing back and say
okay, starting to get frustrated, right, or just notice, because
(20:52):
until you notice you can't doanything about it.
So I would write those down andI would work with those in the
evening.
So things just started to getbetter.
I don't remember a lot ofturmoil at that point.
I was working through itbecause I was doing it on my own
and I was being truthful tomyself and vulnerable with
(21:14):
myself.
I'm not sure I could have donethat if I was working with
someone else, but I know otherpeople do need someone else to
reflect that back with.
But I just knew I had to do itmyself and things just get
calmer because I was calmer,just, my boys were calmer.
It was so much fun toexperience when you'd experience
(21:35):
the other right.
So yeah, I can't remember toomuch turmoil, okay, other than
me personally going through theturmoil, did you?
Speaker 1 (21:45):
take time away.
Were you able to leave for,like weekends or do retreats or
anything like that, or was thisjust when they were at school or
in the nighttime, when theywere asleep?
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Yeah, it was just in the evening.
Yeah, I don't even remember.
They might have gone to bedalready or my husband was
looking after them.
But yes, I just took time away.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
I didn't, I didn't leave so, okay, and I want to
highlight the point that yousaid um, when people start doing
trauma work, and if they aretrauma competent, then they'll
understand of guiding the personthat whenever you experienced a
certain trauma at a certain age, if you have children, and when
(22:26):
they come to that age, there'sgoing to be a reflection of
those emotions and thosefeelings in the system, and so
you consciously knew that.
Okay, I went through this atthis age with boys, and now my
boys are going to come up tothis age and this isn't going to
go too well.
So let me clear out what'sinside of me.
(22:46):
Was that intuitive or did youknow about that previously?
Speaker 2 (22:51):
I had learned through the process.
I mean the way that, the way myjourney started is I had a
business altercation with twoother mothers at my boy's school
.
That was just so big inside ofme, right, I couldn't stop my
mind spinning for three days.
It was crazy.
But it was the end of that thatI realized it felt a little bit
like how I'd react when my dadwould tell me I'd done something
(23:14):
wrong, because these women hadtold me I'd done something wrong
.
So to me that was an openingthat maybe my childhood was
affecting me.
So that was the first littleinkling that my childhood was
affecting me.
And then everything.
You started writing everythingdown and realizing how much
there was.
So I did realize that I wasscared of boys in that age range
(23:38):
.
So I knew I had to do something.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Yeah, the insight that you had in the
self-awareness and also just thesafety for your that part to be
reflected back to you.
It just really showed thecommitment and dedication you
had in your parenting that Ihave to do better than what I
had experienced, and not it'snot negating anybody that's not
(24:02):
able to have that.
It just shows the power of thatvulnerability and that radical
honesty that there's thesebreakings of openings that can
all of a sudden, it's like oh,there's something underneath
this that I need to look at, notjust what's popping up right
away.
And it takes that safety andthat nervous system to allow
those defense mechanisms tosurrender and be like are you
(24:22):
sure nervous system to allowthose defense mechanisms to
surrender and be like, are yousure you want to feel and see
this about yourself and like,yeah, and it's like I got to
show you all of it, not just ala carte, just not the nice
parts, it's like all of it.
And it's like yeah, yeah, yeah,yeah, um, and then you know, uh
, when you do the inner work,these masks and these beliefs
and these expectations, they allstart to dissolve and then you
(24:45):
start to see like, oh, my gosh,I was trying to create this
persona or this other image ofme not really being myself and
being my authentic self andbeing in my body.
Because when you start doingthe inner work, you realize how
disassociated you are.
Yet once you start coming backin, and then you're like, oh,
that's a lot of tension, howlong have you been like this?
(25:07):
And oh, you grip and you hold onto your bowels or you hold on
to the chest or you start tofeel.
Yet that's a journey in itselftoo, to, I always say, to drop
in and unclench a knot and justfeel, like just to be in it and
just feel.
Yet, like I said, we have asociety that is very has a lot
(25:31):
of aversion to pain.
So it's like pop an Advil, popthat don't have any pain.
Where it's like, well, the bodyis signaling like pain is a
messenger.
Also, I'm saying, um, whenyou're going through
excruciating pain, yes, you haveto take, you know, turn down
the dial.
Yet when you're having to popmedicine all the time just to do
(25:54):
your day-to-day living, that'ssome indication that, like, your
body is trying to give you somesignaling and some messages
that it's in your best interestto start trying to give you some
signaling and some messagesthat it's in your best interest
to start looking inwards and nottrying to run away from it or
numb it or turn down the dial.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Right.
It's calling for your attention.
That's what the pain is.
It's calling for your attention.
And once you get really good atit, then you know there's still
some pains.
I can't get to right away, but Ihad a good burn on my finger
the other night and I still havequite a good ballista and I
fell into it.
I relaxed into it, which takessome practice.
(26:32):
You know, I've been practicingfor a while now so I'm
relatively good at it.
But after about an hour Iwasn't focusing on the whole
time, but just intently for afew moments I could relax into
it and I felt the pain leave andafter that hour I didn't feel
any more pain.
I kept checking it.
It's like I can feel it's ablister.
There was any pain, there's nopain.
(26:54):
So yeah, it really, it justneeds attention.
Yeah, so my journey.
One of the interesting parts tome is it's like it started with
the words, right with thememories, just retelling the
traumas over and over until theyrelease.
And then it went to thesensations and then it went to
the tension inside the bodyitself.
But at each stage it's just thesame practice of just
(27:18):
acknowledging it, feeling it,allowing it to be, not trying to
change it in any way.
You're just allowing it, andonce it's had the attention
right at tension, once it hasthe attention it's needing or
it's desiring, or it's never hadin the past, which is why it's
stuck inside then it willrelease.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Yeah, I'm thankful for the work I have done and I'm
thankful that now I'mattracting more and more people
that have the same language andexperience, because when you try
to explain this to some people,they're like something's wrong
with you and you are abnormal,and I'm like, no, there's more
people like me out here that dothis.
(28:00):
I understand that Because theother day about two weeks ago I
think it was, or three weeks ago, I'm taking it was my sciatic
nerve that just activated and Ihad just gotten up and I
couldn't move and I'm likewalking and it's just extreme
pain and I was like what theheck Went to bed.
(28:20):
It was still there.
I had to go to breakfast withthe family.
They're all looking like, oh mygosh, like what can we do?
Like take an Advil, like takesome.
I was like no, I'm justbreathing through it.
And then at one point I just satin it and I could feel the
messaging of, like the tensionand stress I had been holding on
(28:40):
to, and then some tears welledup and I let it come up and I
just really sat in this like um,it almost felt like a force
field, like of just this tunnelof direction and communication.
And then, once I sat in it andI felt it and I was like, okay,
we finished our dinner, I got up, I could touch my toes, were
(29:13):
like we physically saw you, thatyou couldn't move and 70% of
the pain left, like there wasstill some residue, residue of
it, yet I couldn't even move mybody, whereas I was like, oh, is
it gone?
Yeah, and I touched my toes, Iwas like oh, and then I went to
go another.
I was like, oh, it's kind ofstill there, but I wasn't able
to do any movement and I'mthankful that my family got to
see this also, to see what'spossible.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Yeah, so explain in words how you would describe
sitting in it.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Sitting in it was acknowledging the pain,
acknowledging okay, you're here.
What are you trying to tell me?
What am I?
What am I actually needing tofeel and what am I not seeing?
What am I not feeling?
And being in that is when I saysitting in it.
It's a scene.
It's a scene and a feeling ofcommunicating with the body,
(30:04):
because I understand that mybody is like a radio transmitter
of, and if it has too muchstatic, I'm not going to be able
to have my clear connectionwith god, a law, universe,
whatever name you call yourhigher source.
So that sitting was thatfeeling and acknowledging and
validating, and just not tryingto change it, like you said, not
(30:25):
trying to polish it or nottrying to.
You can do better or talk itand paint it a different color.
It's like I love it.
Yeah, it's like, oh my gosh,this toxic positivity is doing
so much harm to people.
I'm like, okay, just what'sthere.
And, like I said, those wellsof tears and I understand, tears
aren't only sadness, it's aplethora of different emotions,
(30:49):
that just the intensity of whatyou're feeling, that you
couldn't feel in the moment.
Um, and just letting it be.
And once you can I know formyself, once I let it be and I
can feel it, it passes through.
It's no longer stuck in there.
So then there's morecommunication and there's more
flow.
That happens.
(31:09):
Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Yeah, the energy is flowing right Once you've let go
of that, that blockage in there.
Yeah, it's so hard with thewords.
Right, I say, sit in it andrelax into it and it's like so
what does that mean to someonewho doesn't know that right?
And to me it's just so hard toput into words.
But feeling it, focusing on it,allowing it to be there and
(31:35):
being able to relax at the sametime, because it's that
relaxation at the same time thatis allowing it to release.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Yeah, yeah, disarm the system, because that's what
that relaxes is, and that's whyI I, I use the word nervous
system, cause it's that nervoussystem that you're telling it to
relax now, not brace up in ahold on to the tension, and we
got to defend and chargesomething.
It's like, no, we're notcharging ourself, relax, we can
(32:05):
feel this and cause it's alsotrying to protect you from well,
we don't want you to feel thisbecause you're telling us it
doesn't feel good.
So that's why it's like itsounds so confusing.
Until you start doing the work.
It's like, oh, these are allthese different systems that are
, yeah, it's all one, and that'swhy you want to bring the
harmony, so they're notcounteracting each other and
(32:27):
canceling each other out anddoing this conflict.
It's like, yeah, okay, we'reall on the same team, we're not
against each other.
Let's breathe through this anddisarm the nervous system.
But it takes that, like I said,security, and what the nervous
system needs is are you going tovalidate?
Are you going to witness me?
Not me as a person, but are yougoing to validate?
(32:48):
Are you going to witness me,not me as a person, but are you
going to witness theintelligence of what the
experience is right now, or areyou going to shun it, shame it
or tell it it doesn't exist?
Speaker 2 (32:58):
because we're so programmed to do that.
We absolutely are programmed todo that.
I remember when I first startedto feel the feelings, like kind
of when I made beyond EFT and Iwas feeling the sensations,
that feeling itself was soscared of being felt, right, so
kind of different language fromwhat you were using, but same
thing.
It just wanted.
It's like my solar plexus, mystomach, just wanted to clench,
(33:20):
right, don't let me feel that.
So I had to just feel it andacknowledge it and allow it to
be safe, right, and I would talkto it and say it's okay, I can
feel you, I just want to feelyou, I just want to allow you to
be felt.
And it took some practice to beable to relax enough to allow
(33:40):
those feelings to be felt.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
Yeah, we're talking the same exact language, and I
just give it the language of of,because the lesions allowed me
to really be in my body and seewhat the nervous system was like
.
I don't know if I'm sure you dotoo.
Whenever you feel fear, do youfeel the chemical drop into the
body?
I can feel the chemical dropsand I'm like, oh, and people are
(34:10):
like what are you talking?
I was like you're just once youget even more body aware,
you're going to start feelingthese drops of chemicals that
the nervous system does.
That happens so quickly.
Yet with the lesions everythingslowed down for me so that I
could really be aware of thingsthat go on in a millisecond.
But for me it was likestretched out, that I could
(34:31):
really be aware of it.
So I had a seat with thenervous system internally too.
And then when I learnedmeditation, then that allowed me
to do a lot of somatic releases.
So, as you do the EFT, themeditation allowed me to do that
somatic release and be withthose overwhelming emotions.
(34:54):
And then what I did on top ofthat with the meditation is I
would meditate in the livingroom with the twins.
So I'm a solo parent and thetwins were five, when, like four
, when I had the lesions in mybrain and I was hospitalized
because I was told I was goingto die.
And then, in 2015, I learnedthe meditation and they tell you
, well, create a room that'squiet.
(35:15):
And I'm like I gotfive-year-old twin boys.
That's not going to work likethat.
So I started doing it in theliving room and then I started
to notice the nervous systemtrying to change things and
wanting to control and analyzethings, and I would just call it
back and call it back like youdon't need to be in there.
So I got to understand theimpulsivity, how it's reading
(35:38):
things all over the place, whereno wonder you can get
overwhelmed and burnt outbecause you're you're stimulated
all over the place.
And so I got to understand iteven more.
And then what I wanted to bringand the reason why I created
Lift One Self was to take outthe wrong definitions that
meditation has and allow peopleto see, well, it's meditation in
(36:01):
your everyday, not just you gosit down on a cushion and you
just go fix yourself.
It's like you start off there.
Yet it's to be able to havethese tools in the everyday
interactions of how you'reliving and how you're relating
to yourself and with others.
And it's possible because I'mliving proof, like where I was
before and to what I am now andthe way that I interact with
(36:25):
things.
And it's really you know, todispel the, I think, what really
harms people and I've, I knowmy brain still does it at times
you think that there's going tobe this arrival, that
everything's going to be blissand you're going to have it all
figured out and solved and nomore big emotions.
(36:45):
No, nothing.
And it's like spoiler alertalert.
Life is impermanent.
There's going to be change.
Your body's going to changechemically, as women we know.
So you're going to have torelate and interact with
yourself different, yet you havethe tools to be able to have
that capacity and, plus, ourself-awareness deepens.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Yeah, we're healing at a deeper level.
If we continue to do this work,we're actually getting deeper
inside and we're healing deeperwounds that have been there
longer.
So it's not like it, as you say, it's not like it all
disappears, but you're justgetting deeper.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
Yeah, yeah.
So I just that's the messagethat I want to create in the
world too because I see wherethere was some things and I'm
like that's not making sense,like you're making it seem like
it's all going to be over andyou're selling people this stuff
and I'm like, uh, and maybe I'mdoing it wrong.
And then, when I get moredeeper, I'm like, no, I'm not
doing it wrong.
I want to bring you into areflective question.
(37:43):
I want to ask you to bring yourawareness right now and to go
back to your 18-year-old self,and you have three words to tell
your 18-year-old self to carryyou to the journey to right now.
What?
Speaker 2 (38:00):
would those words be?
Feel those feelings or emotions.
Probably back then I didn'treally know the difference
between feelings and emotions.
So feel those emotions.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
Let them out.
Yeah, yeah.
Now I know the listeners arelike okay enough, nat, nat, let
me hear where I can find thiswonderful lady.
So can you let the listenersknow where they can find you and
what you have as offerings?
Speaker 2 (38:27):
Sure, I wrote a book about my journey and the
different steps, so hopefullyI'd like other people to do this
, go on this journey too anddevelop these abilities too,
because I'd love to have someone, I love to be able to talk with
other people who are here too.
So my book is called thePathway to Insight.
I also have a workbook thatgoes with it that you can get.
(38:47):
That will bring up all yourshadow, all your traumas, so
that you can work through themone by one.
But I also have a website and Ihave a YouTube channel and I
have EFT demo videos on there soyou can learn to do all these
techniques on there.
And I'm pretty active onFacebook, so I write something,
try and write something everyday and try and explain
(39:09):
different things from myviewpoint.
So I'd love to interact withanyone who wants to contact me.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
And do you have anything that you would like to
leave with the listeners?
Speaker 2 (39:20):
I would love people to know how much more depth
there is to life than we realizewhen we start this journey.
Because, as with as within, sowithout, is absolutely true.
So the deeper we know ourselveson the inside right, the deeper
our depth of awareness, themore we understand and
appreciate what is happeningoutside of us.
So if we can feel tensioninside of us, we can sense
(39:45):
tension in other people.
Right, there's so much more tolife If we can hear, not just
with our ears, but feel soundvibrations throughout our body.
We can experience that whenwe're conversing with someone or
when we're hearing music, andit just gives a whole more depth
to life than I knew at all whenI started this journey.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
I want to thank you for being so open and using that
alchemy, taking thoseimpurities and turning them into
gold, and not just keeping itfor yourself.
You're offering it to others sothat they can see that the
tools are within themselves andthat they just have to hold the
space of capacity and know thatthere's a possibility of doing
(40:32):
that, because you're a livedexperience.
So thank you for sharing yourlight in the world.
It's greatly appreciated.
I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
Thank you, that was a really great conversation.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
Please remember to be kind to yourself.
Welcome to the Lift One Self podcast and I am so
thankful you're here with me.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Thank you, it's great to be here, looking forward to
this.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Will you join me in a meditation so we can ground
ourselves before theconversation?
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
And for the listeners , as I always mention, if you
are driving or doing any kind ofphysical activity, please don't
close your eyes.
I want you to be safe and thosearound you to be safe.
Yet the other prompts you'reable to take by anchoring in
your breath and just taking amoment, a mindful moment for
yourself.
If you're finding that you'regetting too relaxed, just fast
(00:38):
forward, because I still wantyou to be safe.
Yet you can always come back tothe meditation later on when
you have some time for yourself.
So, anne, I'll ask you to besafe, yet you can always come
back to the meditation later onwhen you have some time for
yourself.
So, and I'll ask you to getcomfortable in your seating and
you're going to gently closeyour eyes and you're going to
begin breathing in and outthrough your nose and you're
(01:01):
going to bring your awareness towatching your breath go in and
out through your nose.
You're not going to try andcontrol your breath.
Just let the awareness watchthe breath go in and out and
observe the rhythm, the pattern.
(01:24):
There may be some sensations orfeelings coming up in the body.
Let them come up.
You're safe to feel.
You're safe to let go.
Surrender the need to control,control, release the need to
(01:59):
resist and just be, be with yourbreath, drop into your body,
(02:23):
keep your awareness on yourbreath, continue keeping your
awareness on your breath.
Now, anne, I'm going to ask youto create an intention in your
mind of what you want to bringforth in this conversation for
the listeners and for ourselves.
And when you finish creatingthat intention, I'll ask you to
release it in your mind,allowing it to drop down into
your nervous system, down yourneck, passing your throat, down
(02:50):
into your chest, filling yourheart, filling your lungs, going
down into your abdomen, downinto your stomach, into your
life force, and continue stayingwith your breath, staying with
(03:18):
your breath, allowing thatintention to surround your
energy field, allowing thatintention to surround your
energy field, dropping deeperinto your body Now, while still
(03:43):
staying with your breath at yourown time.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
And at your own pace.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
You're going to gently open your eyes and still
stay with your breath.
How's your heart doing?
It's feeling very peaceful.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Can you let the listeners know who Anne is.
Sure, I'm nobody special, but Iwas at a place where I was so
anxious all the time and my mindwas so busy all the time and I
was just so reactionary that Iwas determined to find inner
peace and I just didn't know howfar I could go in that process
(04:25):
or how far that path would takeme.
So I'm at the point now that Ican release tension inside my
body using laser focusedawareness and I actually feel
and I hear the adhesions and theconnected tissue release and my
skull has shifted, my eyesockets have moved, my neck has
(04:45):
straightened and I've grownthree quarters of an inch.
So I'm sharing this storybecause I didn't know what I
could do was possible before, soI want other people to know
that it is possible.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
And how did you discover this?
What modality or what was thejourney of finding that inner
peace within?
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Well, it wasn't a quick path.
It was actually really threesteps to the journey as my
awareness deepened inside.
So to begin with, I use thetechnique called EFT, which is
short for emotional freedomtechnique.
It's also called tapping,because we're tapping on certain
places in our body as we'retalking something through and
that tapping releases the energystored in the nervous system.
So I use that to go through allmy traumas.
(05:32):
I wrote down every one on listsof multiple pages and I worked
through one each night and overthose weeks and months probably
I don't remember I found myselfbecoming much more peaceful in
my day-to-day interactions withmy family and it was really nice
.
And my mind started to becomequiet for the first time ever.
(05:53):
I'd heard about, you know,people talk about that, but to
actually experience it yourself,if you don't recall ever having
it quiet before, it was justreally fun.
So that was kind of the firststep.
But what I realized EFD isdoing it's opening up the
subconscious mind, right.
So we become aware of traumathat we'd hidden inside or
memories that we hidden insideand we didn't remember.
(06:16):
So we become aware of that.
But in that same process ourawareness, or self awareness,
deepens.
So I became aware of myemotions for the first time.
I was really good atsuppressing them, but I became
aware of them.
And then I became aware at adeeper level, which is the
physical sensations underneaththe emotions.
So if we're feeling somethinglike frustration, that's just
(06:38):
the word we use to describe thattension we're holding in our
body.
So you can become aware of thattension itself.
And at that point I didn't useEFT so much.
At that point I could justfocus on the sensations
themselves and just allow themto be, not trying to change them
, just accept them, notice them,feel them and allow them to
(07:02):
release.
So I did that then over andover.
So because I'd been doing EFTdaily, in the evening I would do
an hour to an hour and a half.
Once I got to this point Iwasn't doing EFT but I would lay
on the sofa and I would bring acollective trauma to mind so
something like 9-11, or for me,the Loma Prieta earthquake I was
(07:23):
in and just bring thosememories to mind and all those
emotions, the physicalsensations, and just allow them
to release from my body, whichfelt really good, right, because
it's tension that's been storedfor so long and and it felt
really good and during that timeperiod is when I realized at
(07:43):
some point I could keep myawareness inside my body after
the tension had released, whichI've never heard before.
I didn't know what it was, itwas totally new to me, so I just
started to play with it.
Now I've done it once, could Ido it again?
And I tried and I quit, andthen I started to play.
So what can I do now, this newtool?
(08:05):
So I put my awareness inside.
I was working in my abdomen atthe time and I realized I can
move it to the side.
I could move my awarenessaround.
I could feel inside my abdomenand I could find a place that
had tension versus a place withno tension.
I could tell the difference.
So then I would focus on thetension is a place with no
(08:25):
tension.
I could tell the difference.
So then I would focus on thetension and just do exactly the
same thing, just feel it, justallow it to be there, and I
would feel it release a littlebit.
So then I would do it again,and again, and again, until it
released.
So I started moving around mytorso and eventually it took
many months, but eventually Igot my awareness inside my head
and that was huge because thepain inside my left cheek was
(08:50):
almost unbearable.
It was so intense and it hadbeen there for my whole life,
since I was born with my rightfoot up against my right shin
and then my whole body wastwisted.
But it had been stuck in mysubconscious mind.
I had not been aware of it andthat really made me realize how
much we store inside.
But we have no idea it's there,we don't know what it feels
(09:13):
like until we would kind ofreverse the process and undo the
layers of the onion one by oneand you're shown then that
tension that's inside.
So that's at that point I wasable to work with the tension
and the pain because I had thetools, the techniques and just I
would feel it and release it,feel it and release it again and
(09:34):
again and again until it got tothe place.
I could actually feel my skullbones relax.
Now I hadn't known they weren'trelaxed before, but they
clearly were because theyrelaxed and and you know, that's
when I had x-rays taken, justpart of my orthodontic work and
I could see the changes fromeight years prior and see how my
bone structure had changed andhad myself measured at some
(09:55):
point.
You know, when we get to thisage we don't really do that very
much, but I could tell, excuseme I could tell I was looking at
people from a different anglethan I used to be, so I thought
I might have grown.
So I actually had my familymeasure me and I had grown three
quarters of an inch in my 50s.
So that was pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Do you believe that possibly some of that growing
was because you were hunched inrather than stretched out?
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Absolutely.
It was that burden that I'vebeen carrying my whole life and
when we released that burden soI wasn't literally growing right
, I was decompressing right, sobecoming more of my blueprint
height.
Now I am higher than I haveever been in my life, so I've
never actually got to thisheight before because I had a
(10:44):
lot of childhood trauma so I wasalways pulling myself back,
closing myself in, um.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
So yeah, it's kind of an expansion, it's it's nice
yeah, I'm sure you related tothe meditation I did at the
beginning, where it's all aboutopening and acceptance and not
pushing anything away.
The reason why I do themeditation specifically like
that especially if there's newlisteners is to get them engaged
with their nervous system,because a lot of people have no
(11:12):
idea about this intelligentsystem that we have and how it
blocks us from going into thatvulnerability, going into that
open source and really seeingwhere the defense mechanisms
have created kind of a prison ofthe things that are blocked and
where I explain to people.
It's it feels verycounterintuitive because there's
(11:35):
one part of your system that'strying to protect you that is
actually harming you now, andthen there's another part that's
trying to bring up all thisstuff but like you're pushing it
back down, and then there'sanother part that's trying to
bring up all this stuff but likeyou're pushing it back down,
and then there's you as theobserver that has to come and
bring harmony into the two.
It's not picking one or theother.
How do we integrate and allowthere to be a space to feel
(11:56):
these emotions and let thesesystems feel validated and seen,
because that's what I'venoticed for myself and what I
provide a space to other peoplewhere I say, like, if you want
healing, there's three thingsthat I've noticed in principle
for myself, because I hadlesions in my cerebellum and my
brainstem and I almost died 10years ago.
(12:16):
So what you're saying I'm like,I'm living proof to you.
I know this stuff works, soit's like it's, yet it's work to
do it.
The three things that I say isthere needs to be safety for the
nervous system so the defensemechanisms can come down.
You need radical honesty withyourself, so you need to be able
(12:38):
to face yourself.
And then three, you need tofeel.
So you need to feel all thesethings that have been stored
down, and some of it is verynasty and yucky and not feeling
good.
And that's why I use the termprocess your shit.
Where there's going to be somestuff manure that's going to
(12:58):
come up, yet you need to processit so that your garden is
vibrant.
I know, in Western societyespecially, we have an aversion
to pain and we have not beengiven the tools to be able to
face that.
And we also haven't been ableto be given the tools of the
things that we're creating orpaying attention to our language
(13:19):
or how we've interacted withcertain emotions Because,
especially when we've beenyounger, certain emotions were
not tolerable, especially forgirls like to get angry or if we
cry too much.
There was name calling or therewas chastising.
So some of these big emotionswere never able to be felt and
(13:40):
validated, or had somebody helpus regulate our nervous system
to be able to interact withthese things.
When you've said you've hadtrauma, you've experienced
trauma, how has yourrelationship been with rage and
anger in that process?
Speaker 2 (13:59):
Well, that was hidden underneath a lot of other
emotions that I had to I had toprocess first, and and then then
I just processed it.
I mean, I got to the place thatI really understood that the
emotions are just energy storedin the body and all we have to
do is is what you said we haveto feel that energy, we have to
(14:22):
acknowledge it and allow it torelease from the body, and
that's where the freedom comes.
So once I realized that I wasready to do it because I knew it
to be the case, so I justworked with that, I felt it.
With EFT, you find your truth,what you're saying.
There are a lot of videos online, a lot of EFT practitioners
(14:51):
that actually use scripts, sothey use kind of canned words to
work with EFT, and that's notwhere the power in EFT is.
The power is in, using our ownwords, because those are what
are stored in our nervous system.
So if I'm feeling really angryin our nervous system, so if I'm
feeling really angry or if Ihate someone or something, I
want to acknowledge that feelingand allow it to release, and
(15:12):
the tapping just allows it torelease faster in my experience.
So it was really nice to let itgo faster, but you've got to
find the truth.
And, like you said so, many ofus are programmed not to hate.
Right, you shouldn't hatesomeone.
But if you are feeling thathate, then surely it's better to
have it come out of the bodythan leave it suppressed inside
(15:33):
as dis-ease.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Exactly it's these wrong narratives Like it's just
like don't fear.
And it's like what do you mean?
Don't fear?
Like nervous system needs tohave some fear.
Like there's healthy fear.
Do you mean don't fear?
Like nervous system needs tohave some fear, like there's
healthy fear.
And then there's fear thatyou're creating psychologically,
yet to say don't fear.
If you're going to go into yourintuition, you're going to feel
some fear because your intuitionis going to bring you into the
(15:54):
unknown and uncertainty and yournervous system's like I can't
read this, like there's nothingin the past.
So I'm going to try and bringthings from the past to try and
protect you.
So I think there's like somewrong narratives.
Even like you said, don't hateor anger, don't be angry, it's
just garbage.
And it's like no, it's ahealthy emotion.
If there's something that you,a boundary that has been
(16:17):
violated or somebody's beingharmed, this is adrenaline
coming into the system so thatyou can take action.
Yet to tell yourself not tofeel certain things is doing
such damage to the body becauseit's like I'm trying to just
give you messages and you'retelling me they're wrong.
So then there's this bigconflict that goes on.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Right, and what I've seen I've tried to work out how
I've been able to do, what Ihave been able to do, compared
to like other teachings that Isee and hear about and what I've
realized is it's kind of amiddle ground.
So we don't want to suppress it, right, we absolutely do not
want to suppress these emotions,because that is disease in the
body.
We also don't want to expressit onto other people, right.
(17:01):
We don't want to be angry withsomeone else, but then we're
passing that energy and thatemotion on.
So there's the middle ground,which is to feel and acknowledge
the anger and just allow theenergy of it to leave the body.
Because when we do that, thenext time a similar thing
happens we don't react the sameway.
(17:21):
We're actually a little bitmore aware, we're a little bit
calmer.
Then we do it again, right, wework on what it is we're feeling
at that point.
Then the next time a similarthing happens again, we're more
relaxed and it gets to the pointwhere, eventually, something
like that can happen.
Where we used to be veryreactionary, we used to be
(17:42):
triggered.
We're no longer triggeredanymore.
We're at peace, and when we'reat peace, that's what happens
around us.
We attract peace into ourfuture and our environments the
people we're interacting with.
Those interactions are morepeaceful.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
You mentioned that you're a parent.
I take it yes.
So how old are your children?
21 and 25 okay, so when you'regoing through this journey, they
were younger, I take it theywere probably in the region of
four to eight, something likethat okay.
So how was that journey?
(18:18):
Because what I say to peopleand what I know to be true in my
own life, the highest spiritualpractice I see that you can
have is being a parent to learnabout yourself, because your
children reflect things back toyou that you possibly don't want
to see.
And there are these shadowparts that you're like do not
open that junk drawer, justleave it alone.
(18:40):
I don't want to talk to theelephant in the room right now.
Okay, I just don't have thecapacity.
You made a choice that you weregoing to do the warrior work
and you were still going to keepgoing forward.
So what did that look like as aparent?
And the messiness of it,because anybody that's done
inner work understands there'smessiness like, uh, if anybody
(19:05):
says it was unicorns andrainbows all the time, I'm like
what were you on?
Because there's a lot ofmessiness of trying to relate
and interact and then, whileparenting, so could you give
some to the best of notinterfering in your children's
privacy?
Yet what your experience was asa parent?
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Yeah, one of the other reasons that I started
doing this work is becausethings were so volatile at home.
Because I was volatile and Ihad been sent to a boys boarding
school when I was age ninethrough 11.
And I was teased mercilessly.
At the first year I was theonly girl boarder.
There were some day girls, butI was the one who stayed at
(19:49):
night and I was just teased sobadly.
And my son, my oldest son, wasstarting to get to that age and
I knew I had been scared of boysthrough nine, through 11.
So I had to get over that if Iwas going to interact in the way
I wanted to with my boys atthat age.
(20:10):
So, yeah, I was desperate to dothat inner work.
So I mean I did it away fromthem.
So I was bringing up all thishorrible stuff from my childhood
but I was dealing it with.
I was doing it when I was notwith them, so I don't think a
lot of it was brought up in myinteractions.
(20:31):
Now the technique I use EFTright is great for anyone.
So when my younger son wouldhave nightmares I would tap on
him.
But the learning that I wasdoing was noticing during the
day.
When I was triggered, right,that was the first step.
I had to start noticing, had tostart standing back and say
okay, starting to get frustrated, right, or just notice, because
(20:52):
until you notice you can't doanything about it.
So I would write those down andI would work with those in the
evening.
So things just started to getbetter.
I don't remember a lot ofturmoil at that point.
I was working through itbecause I was doing it on my own
and I was being truthful tomyself and vulnerable with
(21:14):
myself.
I'm not sure I could have donethat if I was working with
someone else, but I know otherpeople do need someone else to
reflect that back with.
But I just knew I had to do itmyself and things just get
calmer because I was calmer,just, my boys were calmer.
It was so much fun toexperience when you'd experience
(21:35):
the other right.
So yeah, I can't remember toomuch turmoil, okay, other than
me personally going through theturmoil, did you?
Speaker 1 (21:45):
take time away.
Were you able to leave for,like weekends or do retreats or
anything like that, or was thisjust when they were at school or
in the nighttime, when theywere asleep?
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Yeah, it was just in the evening.
Yeah, I don't even remember.
They might have gone to bedalready or my husband was
looking after them.
But yes, I just took time away.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
I didn't, I didn't leave so, okay, and I want to
highlight the point that yousaid um, when people start doing
trauma work, and if they aretrauma competent, then they'll
understand of guiding the personthat whenever you experienced a
certain trauma at a certain age, if you have children, and when
(22:26):
they come to that age, there'sgoing to be a reflection of
those emotions and thosefeelings in the system, and so
you consciously knew that.
Okay, I went through this atthis age with boys, and now my
boys are going to come up tothis age and this isn't going to
go too well.
So let me clear out what'sinside of me.
(22:46):
Was that intuitive or did youknow about that previously?
Speaker 2 (22:51):
I had learned through the process.
I mean the way that, the way myjourney started is I had a
business altercation with twoother mothers at my boy's school
.
That was just so big inside ofme, right, I couldn't stop my
mind spinning for three days.
It was crazy.
But it was the end of that thatI realized it felt a little bit
like how I'd react when my dadwould tell me I'd done something
(23:14):
wrong, because these women hadtold me I'd done something wrong
.
So to me that was an openingthat maybe my childhood was
affecting me.
So that was the first littleinkling that my childhood was
affecting me.
And then everything.
You started writing everythingdown and realizing how much
there was.
So I did realize that I wasscared of boys in that age range
(23:38):
.
So I knew I had to do something.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Yeah, the insight that you had in the
self-awareness and also just thesafety for your that part to be
reflected back to you.
It just really showed thecommitment and dedication you
had in your parenting that Ihave to do better than what I
had experienced, and not it'snot negating anybody that's not
(24:02):
able to have that.
It just shows the power of thatvulnerability and that radical
honesty that there's thesebreakings of openings that can
all of a sudden, it's like oh,there's something underneath
this that I need to look at, notjust what's popping up right
away.
And it takes that safety andthat nervous system to allow
those defense mechanisms tosurrender and be like are you
(24:22):
sure nervous system to allowthose defense mechanisms to
surrender and be like, are yousure you want to feel and see
this about yourself and like,yeah, and it's like I got to
show you all of it, not just ala carte, just not the nice
parts, it's like all of it.
And it's like yeah, yeah, yeah,yeah, um, and then you know, uh
, when you do the inner work,these masks and these beliefs
and these expectations, they allstart to dissolve and then you
(24:45):
start to see like, oh, my gosh,I was trying to create this
persona or this other image ofme not really being myself and
being my authentic self andbeing in my body.
Because when you start doingthe inner work, you realize how
disassociated you are.
Yet once you start coming backin, and then you're like, oh,
that's a lot of tension, howlong have you been like this?
(25:07):
And oh, you grip and you hold onto your bowels or you hold on
to the chest or you start tofeel.
Yet that's a journey in itselftoo, to, I always say, to drop
in and unclench a knot and justfeel, like just to be in it and
just feel.
Yet, like I said, we have asociety that is very has a lot
(25:31):
of aversion to pain.
So it's like pop an Advil, popthat don't have any pain.
Where it's like, well, the bodyis signaling like pain is a
messenger.
Also, I'm saying, um, whenyou're going through
excruciating pain, yes, you haveto take, you know, turn down
the dial.
Yet when you're having to popmedicine all the time just to do
(25:54):
your day-to-day living, that'ssome indication that, like, your
body is trying to give you somesignaling and some messages
that it's in your best interestto start trying to give you some
signaling and some messagesthat it's in your best interest
to start looking inwards and nottrying to run away from it or
numb it or turn down the dial.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Right.
It's calling for your attention.
That's what the pain is.
It's calling for your attention.
And once you get really good atit, then you know there's still
some pains.
I can't get to right away, but Ihad a good burn on my finger
the other night and I still havequite a good ballista and I
fell into it.
I relaxed into it, which takessome practice.
(26:32):
You know, I've been practicingfor a while now so I'm
relatively good at it.
But after about an hour Iwasn't focusing on the whole
time, but just intently for afew moments I could relax into
it and I felt the pain leave andafter that hour I didn't feel
any more pain.
I kept checking it.
It's like I can feel it's ablister.
There was any pain, there's nopain.
(26:54):
So yeah, it really, it justneeds attention.
Yeah, so my journey.
One of the interesting parts tome is it's like it started with
the words, right with thememories, just retelling the
traumas over and over until theyrelease.
And then it went to thesensations and then it went to
the tension inside the bodyitself.
But at each stage it's just thesame practice of just
(27:18):
acknowledging it, feeling it,allowing it to be, not trying to
change it in any way.
You're just allowing it, andonce it's had the attention
right at tension, once it hasthe attention it's needing or
it's desiring, or it's never hadin the past, which is why it's
stuck inside then it willrelease.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Yeah, I'm thankful for the work I have done and I'm
thankful that now I'mattracting more and more people
that have the same language andexperience, because when you try
to explain this to some people,they're like something's wrong
with you and you are abnormal,and I'm like, no, there's more
people like me out here that dothis.
(28:00):
I understand that Because theother day about two weeks ago I
think it was, or three weeks ago, I'm taking it was my sciatic
nerve that just activated and Ihad just gotten up and I
couldn't move and I'm likewalking and it's just extreme
pain and I was like what theheck Went to bed.
(28:20):
It was still there.
I had to go to breakfast withthe family.
They're all looking like, oh mygosh, like what can we do?
Like take an Advil, like takesome.
I was like no, I'm justbreathing through it.
And then at one point I just satin it and I could feel the
messaging of, like the tensionand stress I had been holding on
(28:40):
to, and then some tears welledup and I let it come up and I
just really sat in this like um,it almost felt like a force
field, like of just this tunnelof direction and communication.
And then, once I sat in it andI felt it and I was like, okay,
we finished our dinner, I got up, I could touch my toes, were
(29:13):
like we physically saw you, thatyou couldn't move and 70% of
the pain left, like there wasstill some residue, residue of
it, yet I couldn't even move mybody, whereas I was like, oh, is
it gone?
Yeah, and I touched my toes, Iwas like oh, and then I went to
go another.
I was like, oh, it's kind ofstill there, but I wasn't able
to do any movement and I'mthankful that my family got to
see this also, to see what'spossible.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Yeah, so explain in words how you would describe
sitting in it.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Sitting in it was acknowledging the pain,
acknowledging okay, you're here.
What are you trying to tell me?
What am I?
What am I actually needing tofeel and what am I not seeing?
What am I not feeling?
And being in that is when I saysitting in it.
It's a scene.
It's a scene and a feeling ofcommunicating with the body,
(30:04):
because I understand that mybody is like a radio transmitter
of, and if it has too muchstatic, I'm not going to be able
to have my clear connectionwith god, a law, universe,
whatever name you call yourhigher source.
So that sitting was thatfeeling and acknowledging and
validating, and just not tryingto change it, like you said, not
(30:25):
trying to polish it or nottrying to.
You can do better or talk itand paint it a different color.
It's like I love it.
Yeah, it's like, oh my gosh,this toxic positivity is doing
so much harm to people.
I'm like, okay, just what'sthere.
And, like I said, those wellsof tears and I understand, tears
aren't only sadness, it's aplethora of different emotions,
(30:49):
that just the intensity of whatyou're feeling, that you
couldn't feel in the moment.
Um, and just letting it be.
And once you can I know formyself, once I let it be and I
can feel it, it passes through.
It's no longer stuck in there.
So then there's morecommunication and there's more
flow.
That happens.
(31:09):
Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Yeah, the energy is flowing right Once you've let go
of that, that blockage in there.
Yeah, it's so hard with thewords.
Right, I say, sit in it andrelax into it and it's like so
what does that mean to someonewho doesn't know that right?
And to me it's just so hard toput into words.
But feeling it, focusing on it,allowing it to be there and
(31:35):
being able to relax at the sametime, because it's that
relaxation at the same time thatis allowing it to release.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Yeah, yeah, disarm the system, because that's what
that relaxes is, and that's whyI I, I use the word nervous
system, cause it's that nervoussystem that you're telling it to
relax now, not brace up in ahold on to the tension, and we
got to defend and chargesomething.
It's like, no, we're notcharging ourself, relax, we can
(32:05):
feel this and cause it's alsotrying to protect you from well,
we don't want you to feel thisbecause you're telling us it
doesn't feel good.
So that's why it's like itsounds so confusing.
Until you start doing the work.
It's like, oh, these are allthese different systems that are
, yeah, it's all one, and that'swhy you want to bring the
harmony, so they're notcounteracting each other and
(32:27):
canceling each other out anddoing this conflict.
It's like, yeah, okay, we'reall on the same team, we're not
against each other.
Let's breathe through this anddisarm the nervous system.
But it takes that, like I said,security, and what the nervous
system needs is are you going tovalidate?
Are you going to witness me?
Not me as a person, but are yougoing to validate?
(32:48):
Are you going to witness me,not me as a person, but are you
going to witness theintelligence of what the
experience is right now, or areyou going to shun it, shame it
or tell it it doesn't exist?
Speaker 2 (32:58):
because we're so programmed to do that.
We absolutely are programmed todo that.
I remember when I first startedto feel the feelings, like kind
of when I made beyond EFT and Iwas feeling the sensations,
that feeling itself was soscared of being felt, right, so
kind of different language fromwhat you were using, but same
thing.
It just wanted.
It's like my solar plexus, mystomach, just wanted to clench,
(33:20):
right, don't let me feel that.
So I had to just feel it andacknowledge it and allow it to
be safe, right, and I would talkto it and say it's okay, I can
feel you, I just want to feelyou, I just want to allow you to
be felt.
And it took some practice to beable to relax enough to allow
(33:40):
those feelings to be felt.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
Yeah, we're talking the same exact language, and I
just give it the language of of,because the lesions allowed me
to really be in my body and seewhat the nervous system was like
.
I don't know if I'm sure you dotoo.
Whenever you feel fear, do youfeel the chemical drop into the
body?
I can feel the chemical dropsand I'm like, oh, and people are
(34:10):
like what are you talking?
I was like you're just once youget even more body aware,
you're going to start feelingthese drops of chemicals that
the nervous system does.
That happens so quickly.
Yet with the lesions everythingslowed down for me so that I
could really be aware of thingsthat go on in a millisecond.
But for me it was likestretched out, that I could
(34:31):
really be aware of it.
So I had a seat with thenervous system internally too.
And then when I learnedmeditation, then that allowed me
to do a lot of somatic releases.
So, as you do the EFT, themeditation allowed me to do that
somatic release and be withthose overwhelming emotions.
(34:54):
And then what I did on top ofthat with the meditation is I
would meditate in the livingroom with the twins.
So I'm a solo parent and thetwins were five, when, like four
, when I had the lesions in mybrain and I was hospitalized
because I was told I was goingto die.
And then, in 2015, I learnedthe meditation and they tell you
, well, create a room that'squiet.
(35:15):
And I'm like I gotfive-year-old twin boys.
That's not going to work likethat.
So I started doing it in theliving room and then I started
to notice the nervous systemtrying to change things and
wanting to control and analyzethings, and I would just call it
back and call it back like youdon't need to be in there.
So I got to understand theimpulsivity, how it's reading
(35:38):
things all over the place, whereno wonder you can get
overwhelmed and burnt outbecause you're you're stimulated
all over the place.
And so I got to understand iteven more.
And then what I wanted to bringand the reason why I created
Lift One Self was to take outthe wrong definitions that
meditation has and allow peopleto see, well, it's meditation in
(36:01):
your everyday, not just you gosit down on a cushion and you
just go fix yourself.
It's like you start off there.
Yet it's to be able to havethese tools in the everyday
interactions of how you'reliving and how you're relating
to yourself and with others.
And it's possible because I'mliving proof, like where I was
before and to what I am now andthe way that I interact with
(36:25):
things.
And it's really you know, todispel the, I think, what really
harms people and I've, I knowmy brain still does it at times
you think that there's going tobe this arrival, that
everything's going to be blissand you're going to have it all
figured out and solved and nomore big emotions.
(36:45):
No, nothing.
And it's like spoiler alertalert.
Life is impermanent.
There's going to be change.
Your body's going to changechemically, as women we know.
So you're going to have torelate and interact with
yourself different, yet you havethe tools to be able to have
that capacity and, plus, ourself-awareness deepens.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Yeah, we're healing at a deeper level.
If we continue to do this work,we're actually getting deeper
inside and we're healing deeperwounds that have been there
longer.
So it's not like it, as you say, it's not like it all
disappears, but you're justgetting deeper.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
Yeah, yeah.
So I just that's the messagethat I want to create in the
world too because I see wherethere was some things and I'm
like that's not making sense,like you're making it seem like
it's all going to be over andyou're selling people this stuff
and I'm like, uh, and maybe I'mdoing it wrong.
And then, when I get moredeeper, I'm like, no, I'm not
doing it wrong.
I want to bring you into areflective question.
(37:43):
I want to ask you to bring yourawareness right now and to go
back to your 18-year-old self,and you have three words to tell
your 18-year-old self to carryyou to the journey to right now.
What?
Speaker 2 (38:00):
would those words be?
Feel those feelings or emotions.
Probably back then I didn'treally know the difference
between feelings and emotions.
So feel those emotions.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
Let them out.
Yeah, yeah.
Now I know the listeners arelike okay enough, nat, nat, let
me hear where I can find thiswonderful lady.
So can you let the listenersknow where they can find you and
what you have as offerings?
Speaker 2 (38:27):
Sure, I wrote a book about my journey and the
different steps, so hopefullyI'd like other people to do this
, go on this journey too anddevelop these abilities too,
because I'd love to have someone, I love to be able to talk with
other people who are here too.
So my book is called thePathway to Insight.
I also have a workbook thatgoes with it that you can get.
(38:47):
That will bring up all yourshadow, all your traumas, so
that you can work through themone by one.
But I also have a website and Ihave a YouTube channel and I
have EFT demo videos on there soyou can learn to do all these
techniques on there.
And I'm pretty active onFacebook, so I write something,
try and write something everyday and try and explain
(39:09):
different things from myviewpoint.
So I'd love to interact withanyone who wants to contact me.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
And do you have anything that you would like to
leave with the listeners?
Speaker 2 (39:20):
I would love people to know how much more depth
there is to life than we realizewhen we start this journey.
Because, as with as within, sowithout, is absolutely true.
So the deeper we know ourselveson the inside right, the deeper
our depth of awareness, themore we understand and
appreciate what is happeningoutside of us.
So if we can feel tensioninside of us, we can sense
(39:45):
tension in other people.
Right, there's so much more tolife If we can hear, not just
with our ears, but feel soundvibrations throughout our body.
We can experience that whenwe're conversing with someone or
when we're hearing music, andit just gives a whole more depth
to life than I knew at all whenI started this journey.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
I want to thank you for being so open and using that
alchemy, taking thoseimpurities and turning them into
gold, and not just keeping itfor yourself.
You're offering it to others sothat they can see that the
tools are within themselves andthat they just have to hold the
space of capacity and know thatthere's a possibility of doing
(40:32):
that, because you're a livedexperience.
So thank you for sharing yourlight in the world.
It's greatly appreciated.
I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
Thank you, that was a really great conversation.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
Please remember to be kind to yourself.
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