August 11, 2025 • 41 mins
Michele Lefler joins us to explore shadow work, revealing how this misunderstood practice combines psychology with spiritual elements to help us embrace all parts of ourselves.
• Shadow work addresses aspects of our personality society conditions us to suppress or hide
• Michele describes her approach as "spicy psychology" – blending traditional psychology with spiritual elements
• Emotions like anger aren't negative – they're signals that boundaries are being crossed
• Repressing parts of ourselves creates anxiety, depression, and disconnection from our authentic selves
• The things that irritate us about others often reflect unacknowledged aspects of ourselves
• Simple practices like journaling, voice recording, or oracle cards can be entry points to shadow work
• Shamanic healing and soul retrieval can help recover aspects of ourselves we've disconnected from
• Reconnecting with nature helps us become more attuned to our own bodies and minds
• Toxic positivity prevents us from processing difficult emotions authentically
• Balance is key – "You can't have all light, you can't have all dark. You need to be a panda"
For Michele's free "Breaking Up With Toxic Positivity" email series check it out here. To learn more about shadow work, shamanism and much more, visit michelelefler.com or email michele@michelelefler.com.
Get a free week of inbox coaching. After that it's only $30 a week. Less than a tank of gas. Unlimited e-mailing, a coach in your back pocket and non-judgmental support on your terms.
Sign up for Amy's Inbox Coaching and receive unlimited e-mail responses to your e-mails in a safe and non-judgmental environment where you don't have to be on, not on zoom, not on a phone call, just e-mailing in your pjs or on your lunch at work, or at 2am when you can't sleep, on your time.
Get a free WHO AM I Journal to learn more about yourself: https://advancingwithamy.com
Sign up for Amy's newsletter at https://www.advancingwithamy.com/about
Support the show here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2434582/supporters/new
WE NEED YOU!
Want to be a guest on Mental Health Warrior & Neurospicy Mama? Send Amy Taylor a message on PodMatch, here:
https://www.joinpodmatch.com/advancingwithamy
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey there, welcome back to Advancing with Amy,
mental Health Warrior andNeuroSpicyMama.
Today I've got a treat for you.
My guest is Michelle Leffler,aka your personal librarian,
who's part bookworm, part woogoddess, and 100% real.
She's here to spill the tea onshadow work what it actually is,
(00:24):
why it's not the creepy darkthing people think, and how
mixing a little psychology witha little woo or, as she calls it
, spicy psychology, can changethe way you see yourself.
Get comfy, because we're aboutto dive into the light, the
shadow and everything in between.
(00:44):
Dive into the light, the shadowand everything in between.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
All right, so, michelle, tell us about your
business and how it plays intothe whole Woo world, definitely.
So my business is just me andmy name.
I have a tagline for myselfwhere I bill myself as being
your personal librarian, becauseI am a librarian in my day job
and I love books and I love allthings libraries and libraries
and librarians are about, and alot of woo people are about that
(01:16):
kind of thing too.
So, yeah, kind of blends in forme and it's great.
So my business is me bringingyou not you specifically, but
you, as in the people that arefollowing my business
information of all types and Idon't niche down into any one
(01:37):
thing because I don't like anyone thing.
I think that's part of my neurospiciness.
I can't focus on one thing.
I think that's part of my neurospiciness.
I can't focus on one thing.
I know some people can, someneuro spicy people do hyper
focus on one thing, but I don't,and when I do that I end up
hating that one thing.
So I focus on a lot ofdifferent things at one time,
(02:00):
which works for me in mybusiness.
And I know that a lot ofneurotypical business owners try
to focus on one niche and kindof push down into one thing and
that's fine if that works forthem.
But I would go stark, red andmad if I could.
I would never be able to decideon one thing that I wanted to
(02:20):
do, because then I would end uphating it.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Right.
Well, just so you don't feel soalone in the neurodivergent
world, there's a lot ofneurodivergent people that
switch back and forth, like mydaughter currently has a hyper
focus of like anime and manga,but she's had many over the
years, so, and like with food,she'll eat the same thing for
(02:44):
like six months straight.
All she wants is chickennuggets and then suddenly she
can't stand them.
And you've stocked up on themand she doesn't want them
anymore.
That would be me.
That's funny so good to know.
Yeah, it's not just you.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
And I do definitely bring the woo into everything I
do because I am very woo.
I consider myself to be witchy.
I bring that into my business.
I'm very holistic,health-minded, very woo-based in
the way I approach things andit's just all of who I am.
So I couldn't imagine doingbusiness without bringing that
(03:25):
in.
I actually tried at one pointand I was like no, and that's
probably why my business was notsuccessful, being taking so
long to really take off andstart growing, because I tried
to force myself to do businesswithout woo and to do business
in a neurotypical way and itjust did not work for me.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Right, and also what I noticed, because I'm a
customer of yours and I loveyour business.
I just recently took one ofyour courses on shadow work and
that falls into a mental healthcategory as well.
Do you want to talk aboutshadow work real quick for us?
Speaker 2 (04:06):
sure, um, and you'll probably know from taking that
course, I focused a lot on theactual non-woo side and brought
in a lot of the psychology of itwith carl and everything,
because I wanted to show peoplethat woo is not some weird scary
(04:28):
thing and it's not like whatsociety portrays it to be.
I like to call all my woo stuffpsychological spiciness or
something.
I like that, um, yeah, likespicy psychology.
That's what I tend to refer toit as, because I like psychology
(04:53):
, I like mental, thought-basedprocesses, but I don't want to
be clinical and dry in myapproach to anything, so I want
to bring my Wu into it.
So for me that's how it blendstogether.
But that course specificallywas designed to talk a lot about
the psychology of it, and I'm avery big Carl Jung fan and went
(05:16):
into all that and his portrayalof the self and the anima and
animus and everything, and so itwas very heavily psychology.
But I did bring woo into itwith astrology as well, and then
the chakra healing and all thattoo, because all of that makes
us who we are, not just aclinical diagnosis of whatever
(05:41):
or a clinical view of anything.
We are whole people.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
We are more than just one thing.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
So if I'm going to bring all of the things into my
business, I want to bring all ofthe things into my approach.
And so shadow work for meoriginally, when I first heard
about it was very psychologicalwhen I was in high school taking
intro to psychology course.
(06:08):
But then, as I startedembracing more woo as I was
older, it was very heavily intothe new age witchy community
where I lived.
Everybody was like shadow work,shadow work, shadow work, and
it was all woo and no psychologyto it and I'm like if you force
it from either aspect then it'snot real shadow work.
(06:32):
So I thought this course that Imade could be something that
brought all of it.
And I think I said in thatcourse that if you hate, like,
the shadow aspect of who you are, then you're trying to operate
completely in the light, andthat's not normal, that's not
right.
You can't operate all in theshadow, but you can't operate
(06:55):
all in the light either.
You need to be a panda.
And so our psychology, ourshadow itself, we can't have all
all clinical, we can't have allwoo.
We have to have a balancedpanda of of that view of it as
well.
So, yeah, yeah, my favoritecourses that I've ever created
(07:16):
and I have a lot of digitalproducts and courses well, I
really liked it.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
one of the things I found about when you even
mentioned shadow work peoplethink it's like spooky or dark
or just like not something thatyou can do and still be
spiritual and or religious orwhatever and you can.
It's totally not all about that.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
No, it's all about just the way that we've been
conditioned to see ourselves andlike little girls are
conditioned to be beautiful andto be sweet and to be kind and
to be good and to only portraythose kinds of things.
And so a lot of times whengirls experience what society
(08:06):
deems a negative emotion for agirl, like bossiness which
doesn't necessarily equate tobossiness that's just what
people label it.
That can be an assertive, butit's labeled as bossy or anger
and all that which are normalhuman emotions that we all feel.
But if a girl expresses that,then she's not sweet, she's not
(08:29):
kind, she's not demure, and so alot of times girls grow up to
hate that aspect of themselvesand they try to shove it down
and try to make it go away.
And you can't make part ofyourself go away, you can't
track.
The only thing that that leadsto is needing more of what is
(08:51):
woo in my terms, and that wouldbe like shamanistic healing,
where you do like um, I cannotthink of the word right now.
I keep saying past liferegression in my mind, and
that's not right.
I'll think of it later, I'llcome back to that.
But yeah, this is where my mindgets on one thing and then I
(09:12):
forget that I know, but when youtry to divorce yourself from
aspects of your personality thatare normal human reaction to
something, then it causes morecracks in who you are and then
you have to bring that back in.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Yeah, and I would think that could lead to anxiety
and depression.
It does.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
It does.
I will tell you that I'm ahighly anxious person and a lot
of that is because of unhealedthings that I've had to deal
with in my childhood A lot oftraumatic experiences that I
experienced at an early age thatled me to perfectionistic
(09:57):
tendencies and people pleasingbehavior kind of thing and
trying to live up to the idealof what the people around me
wanted me to be, and that wasn'twho I was, and it just creates
a lot of chaos and a lot ofstruggle.
That doesn't have to be there.
But with shadow work we canlook at these aspects of ourself
(10:21):
that we deem as bad.
That aren't bad.
They're just the way societysees them and we can find ways
to bring them in.
Like an emotion that we'reexperiencing is just our body
telling us that something is offin some way or something is
great in some way, depending onwhat the emotion is.
(10:43):
And happy emotion is our bodytelling us that things are good,
things are great.
Anger is our body telling usthat some boundary is being
crossed.
It's how we deal with thatanger that becomes the problem.
Anger itself is an issue.
It's what we do with theknowledge that something is off
(11:05):
in our life.
But if we don't acknowledgethat something is off, and we
take that anger and we push itdown.
We push it away, we try to buryit because society says we
shouldn't be angry, because thenwe're not feminine.
That is us trying to be whowe're not and it causes problems
(11:32):
.
One because it's pushing awaywho we are, but two, because
we're not resolving the issue,the boundary that's being
crossed in the first place,that's leading to anger or
whatever the emotion is.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Exactly, and one of the things that kind of popped
up in my mind when you weresaying we're just taught to push
things down and down and down,and I thought you know that's
another fear I have heard aboutshadow work is that people are
afraid to get into shadow workand then find out stuff about
themselves that they've pusheddown and is it going to open up
(12:07):
you know, a big can of worms.
What would you say about that.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
It might, it might not, but one you're not going to
know unless you try to do it.
But two even if it does, it'salready.
The fact that you're notdealing with it is already
causing harm to your body andyour mind and your spirit.
You may not be aware of it, butthere are issues going on, like
if you are anxious, if you aredealing with anxiety, if you are
(12:34):
dealing with fear, thatprobably stems from some
unresolved thing that you're noteven aware of.
So if you do this shadow workand it opens that up and brings
it to the light, then you canactually deal with it.
It might hurt more, but it'slike grief.
If you don't deal with it it'snot going to go away, it's just
(12:56):
going to get repressed and thenit's going to make things uglier
to deal with than if you justdeal with it in the first place.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
So if you, do the work and these ugly things come
up.
These can of worms open up.
Then deal with it and then youcan actually move past it.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
That sounds much better, so what about?
Speaker 2 (13:15):
shadow work.
Soul retrieval that's what Iwas trying to think of.
Soul retrieval I was like Iwon't think about it.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
So, going back to shadow work when you are doing
shadow work, what does that mean?
Like, what are you actuallydoing?
What do people have to do toopen up that door?
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Oh that could be a whole slew of things and it
really depends on the person andwhat they want to do.
But one of the easiest ways isto do some kind of journaling
about something if you know thatyou're dealing with anger,
because and I keep coming backto that, because it's an easy
(13:56):
thing that a lot of people dealwith either themselves or
somebody else.
So I just need an example andthat one's just easy to talk
about.
So if you're dealing with angerand you're like I wish I wasn't
such an angry person, why am Iso angry if you journal about it
or explore things?
I hate journaling myself and Idon't.
(14:16):
I love it.
People either love it or hateit.
I don't know, who's either, meh,whatever.
But I would much rather open up, like the, the voice memo
recorder thing on my phone andjust talk.
I'll do that before.
I'll sit there and writesomething down, because there's
just a block in my mind aboutwriting things down.
With school when they made uswrite and I hated it and now I
(14:39):
just so.
But I can talk, obviously, butjournal or word vomit into your
voice recorder on your phone, ifnothing else, just the things
that come up when you thinkabout anger or if you might not
be dealing with anger and thisis one thing I know I mentioned
in that course but a lot oftimes the things that bother us
(15:01):
about somebody else are reallysomething that is in us that we
just don't see, but we see itmirrored in another person.
So even if you're not dealingwith anger or you don't think
you have anything that you'redealing with that's a thought of
to be negative, emotion orwhatever, what are some things
(15:21):
that other people do that reallyget your goat, that really
needle at you.
That's needling at you becauseit's something in you and you
might not want to explore that.
But that's a beautiful thing toexplore and you can do that
with journaling One of myfavorite things.
Obviously woo, because I'm a wooperson pull an oracle card or a
(15:45):
tarot card, and all tarot is.
It's not fortune telling, it'sjust another spicy psychology
thing.
It's just a card that's goingto represent something.
So it's like you pull a cardand what does that card mean to
you?
It's just your psyche trying totell you what you already know,
but you're not listening.
(16:06):
So you pull a card and there itis, and that's just another way
to get the message across toyou.
It's not some big oldwitchcraft thing although
there's nothing wrong with thatbecause I'm in but it's really
just spicy psychology, right,it's really a lot of intuition.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
It is yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
But that's one thing I tell my husband all the time
is like witchcraft is just spicypsychology.
What are you talking aboutExactly?
I love that, Whatever, it'sjust spicy psychology.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
So I don't suppose you have any Oracle cards handy.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
No, I don't have any with me right now.
I do oh yay.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
I have Colette Barron-Reed's Guides of the
Hidden Realms.
Have you ever seen that one?
Speaker 2 (16:57):
No, but I love her cards, so I haven't seen that
one, but they're beautiful.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
And these are ones.
I don't know if she did thiswith all her cards, but these
are ones that she painted, eachone on a huge canvas, and then
made them into cards.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
Oh, that's gorgeous, I'm sure.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Oh they are.
They're beautiful.
So If you want, I can pull onefor you, If you have something
you'd like to know.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
I always have something I want to know.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
I'm shuffling them now for you, let's see a
specific question.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Let me think so this situation I'm dealing with I'm
not going to go into what thesituation is, but it's somebody
in my life has some issues thatthey're dealing with that they
will not acknowledge thatthey're dealing with issues, and
it impacting my life wouldn'tneed to do, because it's
(17:58):
impacting my life in a negativeway and I can't just keep not
dealing with it.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
I need to do something I hear you, so let's
talk about this.
What I pulled was letting go ofstories, but it's upside down,
which I know seems to benegative in some tarot cards.
But I like that.
Colette Barron-Reed doesn'tlook at it that way.
I don't look at it that wayeither.
(18:26):
Right, and I love that.
I forget what she calls it.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
I don't remember what she calls it, but for me a
reverse card is just.
It can either be the oppositeof what the card would normally
say if it was normal facing, orit could just be a hidden aspect
of it, like the first thing youwould normally think of with
that card.
Take it a bit deeper and whatcould a deeper reading behind it
(18:55):
be?
Exactly Not anything negative,I just think in terms of what's
the opposite of that or what'ssomething that that could point
to.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
That's a little deeper than that Right exactly.
Let me read you this and see ifit resonates at all.
It says the nature ofattachment is sticky and
innately sabotaging.
The stronger and more prolongedthe emotional obsession, the
less likely you are toexperience your desired outcome.
(19:29):
Too much wanting turns one intoa hungry ghost destined to be
unfulfilled, always longing forsomething out of reach In a
continuum of scarcity.
You're being invited to lookclosely at the desires you're
feeding, how attached you are tosomething going exactly your
way and your fear of never beingfulfilled Release whatever it
(19:52):
is that you're holding on to tootightly.
Let go and let God decide whatis best.
You took your one step andclaimed your intention.
Now surrender it fully, with nostrings attached.
Just stay loosely curious andkeep walking.
Remember that every inspirationcontains its built-in blueprint
for success.
(20:13):
But the tightly clenched acorncan't become an oak tree.
Well, that is fascinatingbecause, with what you told me,
that leads me to think that kindof what you were saying earlier
about shadow work when you seesomebody else, that really
things get under your skin.
It's you that needs to do thework, and this is kind of what
this is saying.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Kind of yeah, first initial reaction to what the
card says, but given what thissituation is with this person,
it's not necessarily some aspectthat is needling on me that I
mean it is, but it isn't right.
(20:57):
I I can't really go intoexplanation, that's's okay.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
What do you get from the card?
Because?
Speaker 2 (21:04):
of the person's, like the privacy of the person.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
Right and that's fair .
I don't want you to do thatRight.
Did you get anything from thatcard, Did it?
Speaker 2 (21:13):
resonate with you.
I did get something from thecard, but because it was
reversed, I want to think aboutit some more.
Ah yeah, more yeah.
I try not to take reverse cardsat the first initial thing that
comes to me, because of thatdeeper aspect.
So I do get something out of itfor sure, but I want to do a
(21:34):
little more mulling it overbefore it's like.
Is that exactly what it means,since it was reversed?
Speaker 1 (21:41):
Right, I think that's smart.
I think you know what's funnyis if you really need to hear
that again anyway, if you don'tget it the first time, you'll
get that card again in thereverse position again, Exactly.
It's going to keep coming up.
It's going to keep coming up.
Right, I was using a differentdeck one time and I kept pulling
(22:02):
one every day, and for twoweeks straight, I kid you not, I
kept pulling the high priestessand couldn't figure out what it
meant for my life, and so Ikept pulling it until I finally
figured it out.
Now I don't remember what itmeant, but it just every day it
would come up, no matter how Ishuffled them.
That's hilarious, I know.
(22:23):
It's like a very funny universe.
That's happened to me before,yeah, so what else do you think
you teach in your business thathas to do with, maybe, mental
health or neurodivergence, otherthan the shadow work?
Speaker 2 (22:37):
A lot of the shamanic healing type things the
services I do and the coursesthat I have on that are very
mental health fitting in Imentioned when I thought about
soul retrieval being what I wastrying to think of when I was
talking about shadow work,because those go hand in hand.
A lot of times if you do try toto do some kind of shadow work,
(23:01):
if something does come up or ifyou're not getting anywhere,
then I found a lot of times ifyou try to get into a more
shamanic state or get shamanicwork done with a soul retrieval,
then it helps to bring backthings.
Because when when people hearsoul retrieval, they tend to
(23:22):
think oh my, my God, I'm broken,whatever.
But it's not that at all andit's not saying that you don't
have a soul, because that'ssomething else.
I've heard people say Everybodyhas a soul and they're not
broken.
It's just that when society hasconditioned us to do something
and we haven't done shadow workand we try to repress those
(23:45):
things, or if something verytraumatic has happened to us, a
lot of times we repress thatbecause we don't want the memory
, we don't want to deal with theway it makes us feel so pieces
of who we are break off.
They're not like broken off andgone, but they're repressed and
soul retrieval is a way tobring those back that someone
(24:11):
else does for you, like I wouldnever do a soul retrieval for
myself, because somebody elseshould be taking that journey
for me, because I won'tnecessarily recognize what I
need to bring back and someonewho's not attached to me, going
on a journey on my behalf, wouldbe able to bring back something
(24:32):
and give it back to me that Ican then explore and integrate.
And so I often find that shadowwork and soul retrieval work
hand in hand in that aspect,especially if you start off with
basic things in shadow worklike journaling, pulling cards,
exploring that Sometimes it'snot deep enough and you want
something deeper and you're notfeeling like you're getting
(24:55):
anywhere and then you can getinto deeper things.
But I like to tell people startwith those kinds of things,
because you don't want to justjump in headfirst Like you
wouldn't not know how to swimand go dive off the diving board
into the deep end of theswimming pool and expect to
float.
You got to go in the wadingpool and learn how to swim first
(25:16):
before you would do that.
So don't go jumping in ifyou've never done this kind of
work.
Don't go diving off into thedeep end of the pool.
Start with the basics but thenmove forward into that.
And there's all kinds ofdifferent ways to do shadow work
and shamanic healing typethings, and soul retrieval is
(25:36):
just one.
It's just a lot of times when Imention shamanic healing,
that's the first thing peoplebring up because they've heard
about it and there's such'veheard about it and there's such
a misunderstanding about it.
People want to know.
So when I, I thought it washilarious when I couldn't think
of what it was called, it'sright there, I'm worried.
(25:56):
Talking about you can't thinkof what it's called it's like.
Now I know why my parentscalled me by my sister's name
when I was a kid but it Like now.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
I know why my parents called me by my sister's names
when I was a kid, but it wasjust that moment.
Now I have a question for thoseof us that are still in the
kiddie pool and we haven't takenthat deep dive, and maybe we
don't even know what shamanismis, let alone a soul retrieval
journey.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
Tell us more about what that actually is.
So shamanic healing is energyhealing on steroids, I like to
say, but not really on steroids.
If you think about a shaman,what is the first image that
pops into?
Speaker 1 (26:35):
your mind Someone in a long like robe and maybe a
teepee, or someone out in thewilderness.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
That's exactly what most people think.
They're like Native Americantribes, this, that and the
others and I've heard it allbecause I've taken a lot of
shamanic studies and I'veactually apprenticed with
shamanic healing.
But a lot of people think it'scultural appropriation because
(27:05):
they're like you're not NativeAmerican, you can't do this.
and then they are surprised whenI tell them that the word
shaman is not even a NativeAmerican word it is a Siberian
language, the Tungusic language,I think off the top of my head,
from Siberia and it came fromtheir word Saman, s-a-m-a-n.
(27:30):
And most cultures throughoutthe world, if you trace them
back enough, go back to a moreEarth-centric, animistic
religion type system andshamanism is kind of that.
But has also gotten otherenergy healing brought into with
(27:57):
it, like obviously, in siberiathey wouldn't have had like the
chakra system that we get fromlike India and they wouldn't
have had like other aspects thatwe get from like Japan and
China energy healing techniques,things.
(28:18):
But all of that has beenswirling around and amalgamated
into what most shamanicpractitioners today would be
doing.
And the training I took wasvery South American based and
very based out of the Andes,mountains and things.
(28:38):
So it's definitely got a lot ofdifferent vibes going on.
But it's very earth based andgetting in touch with nature.
And if we take ourselves back toa more reverent of the earth
and I'm not talking aboutworshiping the earth, I'm not
talking about any religiousthing Like shamanism is not a
(29:00):
religion, it's a practice.
So you can be religious, youcannot be religious, you can
whatever and you can.
You can practice this.
But if you take yourself backto a place where you're in tune
with the earth and what naturehas to tell us.
Then it's easier to transcendthe monkey mind that we have
(29:25):
that society today has usinundated with so much
information.
Now, I'm not saying that youhave to get rid of all your
technology or whatever I meanhello, my whole business is
based on technology.
But technology is designed tokeep us hyper fixated and hyper
stimulated, and not in our ownbodies.
(29:46):
But if we purposely put thatdown and step outside and sit on
the ground, put our feet on theground, notice what's going on
in nature around us, and you cando this whether you're in the
city or wherever you are.
And you can do this whetheryou're in the city or wherever
you are.
You can look out of a windowand see sky and see ground,
(30:08):
whatever.
Even if you live in a veryurban, concrete jungle, you can
find a patch of earth somewhere.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
And that's grounding, what everybody's been calling
grounding lately, right?
Yes, yes.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Yes.
So if you do that, if youground with the earth, and if
you take it beyond that and justnotice the earth and try to get
your life back in touch withthe more earth centric things,
you'll notice how animals andplants start to communicate with
(30:42):
you.
And I'm not sitting here talkingabout an animal literally
opening their mouth, like yourdog, literally having a
conversation with you, right?
But if you have a houseplant,you can start to tune into the
energy of that plant and if youhave a cat, you might start
noticing your cat's feelingsmore Obviously, your cat is not
(31:06):
sitting there having aconversation with you, but you
can tell these things and it'seasier then to start noticing
things within your own body.
The more in touch you becomewith nature and the natural
world, the more in tune you'regoing to become with your own
mind and body.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
And I can see that because I've seen research where
they do experiments with plantsand they have one plant they're
talking to and telling verygood, supportive things and one
they're putting down and beingnegative with, and the negative
one dies and positive onesurvives.
(31:46):
And that's just how it is forus too, in our mind.
If we are talking negatively toourselves, we start to feel
negatively and be negative, andif we talk positively to
ourselves, then it's different.
I mean, you have to watch outfor toxic positivity, which is
another course I took from you.
Yes, I hate toxic positivity,right, but I do toxic positivity
(32:09):
, right, but I do thinkpositivity is important.
I just think it's not the end,all be all.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Exactly, and that was I created that resource, and
that's a free one, which is agood one for people to get and
get an introduction to what I doand get an introduction to what
I do.
But I created that because I wasso tired of the witchy
community being all love andlight, love and light, love and
light.
And it's like F you.
(32:35):
Sometimes love and light isn'tgoing to help me feel better.
And yes, when bad things happento us, we have to try to see
the positive in it to get overit.
But sometimes life just sucksright.
And to acknowledge the fact thatsometimes life just sucks is
not you being a bad person ornot dwelling on the negative.
(32:58):
Sometimes you need to justthink about this.
Experience sucks and I'm gonnawallow in how much this sucks
for a short amount of time now.
Don't want to stop wallowing itforever.
But it'll know, then I'm backinto the shadow work thing.
You can't have all light, youcan't have all dark.
You need to be a panda, a penis.
(33:21):
So when bad things happen, yes,let yourself notice the
suckiness of it and let yourselfdwell in that for a time being
and then pull yourself up by thebootstraps, get some help,
whatever you need to turn thatnegative into a positive.
So, yes, I will sit here andsay I've gone through some
(33:43):
pretty horrible, horrible thingsin my life, pretty Horrible,
horrible things in my life.
I experienced neglect fromcaregivers as a young child
Dealt with the loss of all myclose relatives.
Well, not all of my closerelatives, but all of my
grandparents died before I was20 years old.
My mom died when I was 40.
(34:06):
My dad is still living.
I became a widow at the age of31 when my husband, who was 24
at the time, died in divorceprior to that.
I had been engaged prior tothat and found out that my
fiance at that time was gay,which is fine.
I have no problem with himbeing gay, but I mean that was a
loss for me so all of that, allof that swirling around in my
(34:32):
life and it's like I've beenthrough some crap.
yeah, sometimes I just need tosit down and think, man, I've
experienced some crap in my lifeexactly not to dwell on it
forever and and never try tolook for some good things in my
life just because of all thecrap I've been dealt.
(34:53):
Yeah, I've dealt with some crap, but you know what?
I've had a lot of good thingshappen in my life, oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
I mean, just like a week or so ago, I had some minor
happen that just really tickedme off and I text my mom and I
said something to her and shecame back with all this oh, but
your life is going so well andyou have your family and you
have.
And I just thought, oh, my god,I'm done, okay bye.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
It's like yes, I know all the good things I have, but
I just need to vent for alittle bit right and then I can
be positive later.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
Yeah, yeah.
Well, michelle, I have reallyenjoyed talking to you.
Tell me, do you have like afreebie or anything that people
could access, or where did theyfind you?
Speaker 2 (35:43):
on my website, michellelefflercom, and I have
one l in my name, michelle, so Ithink you're gonna link to it
anyway.
Oh yeah, it's like, but I wouldsay, the breaking up with toxic
positivity email sequence.
That is a free resource and youcan find that on my website.
(36:03):
That would be a good place forpeople to start.
Literally, you'll find all mystuff on my website.
So you know, go explore.
But if I had to name just onething to start with after this
conversation, it would be thatyeah, and I got to second you
that that is a really greatresource.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
I have been through the whole course and I thought
it was enlightening resource.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
I have been through the whole course and I thought
it was enlightening and it'll.
It's not something you have toremember a password to log into
a platform or anything.
You literally sign up and it'sdelivered to your email every
day for however many days Ican't remember now how many days
that one is but it just comesevery day into your email box
and you get it and you read itand you can save the emails or
(36:49):
you can delete them when you'redone.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
Whatever, and it's not an overwhelming email, like
you know, takes you 15 minutesto read.
It's a quick, little two minuteread.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
Yeah, nobody wants to be stuck in their inbox reading
one thing that long.
No Right, and tell me one otherthing.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Sorry, I have a question Do you actually do some
of this shamanism healing anddo you do shadow work with?
Speaker 2 (37:14):
people I do.
I don't have those yet on mywebsite.
They're coming back.
I did on an old website.
I had to do a lot of businesschanges because of some legal
things that were happening inPennsylvania at the time and
with my business.
So I had to, at the start ofthis year, the end of last year,
(37:36):
start of this year completelychange my brand name and
everything.
My website domain, everythinggot an overhaul and I'm still on
the tail ends of that.
Everything has migrated overyet they're coming.
But if anyone is interested inthat kind of work and it's not
(37:56):
on my website, please just shootme an email.
And what is your email address?
It is michelle at, michelleleftlercom.
You go to my website, michelleat before that, and you'll find
it and you can actually put thatin the show notes or whatever
you need to do for that as well.
Please just contact me, send mean email, sign up for something
(38:21):
and respond to any email.
I love getting responses toemails.
You can respond and say, hey, I, I'm interested in this,
whatever, and I will hook you upwith that.
We can talk through it if it'ssomething for you.
I don't recommend it foreverybody, but I am very happy
to talk to anybody about what'sthe best recommended course for
(38:43):
them, and I know it's notnecessarily all on there yet,
but it's coming back because,yes, I do it.
I love that kind of work.
You know, one thing that wetalk about all the time, amy, is
we're only one person and we'retrying to run these businesses
by ourselves.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
Amen.
Sometimes they take longer thanwe want them to.
Yes, they do.
I've been there.
So just to give you a chance atthe very end of this interview
here, can you tell us, is thereanything you want to leave our
listeners with, something youwant to tell them?
Speaker 2 (39:16):
I would say to be who you are, no matter who that is.
Live your life gloriously andhappily and loudly, despite what
anybody else says, and don'tlet somebody else's version of
who you need to be affect whoyou really are, and you'll be
(39:37):
much happier for it.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
I love that.
Yeah, that's beautiful.
All right, thanks, michelle.
Thank you for having me, wasn'tthat good?
Michelle totally nailed it.
Your shadow isn't something tofear.
It's a part of you thatdeserves a seat at the table.
If you're ready to startexploring yours, go grab her
free, breaking up with toxicpositivity email series at
(40:02):
michelle.
That'sM-I-C-H-E-L-E-L-E-F-L-E-Rcom.
Seriously, it's quick, it'ssmart and it won't clog up your
inbox.
And if you want to talk shadowwork or shamanic healing with
her, just shoot her an email atMichelle at MichelleLefflercom.
(40:22):
Remember light shadow messy,magical.
All of it makes you.
You Own it and keep advancinglawyer.
Hey there, welcome back to Advancing with Amy,
mental Health Warrior andNeuroSpicyMama.
Today I've got a treat for you.
My guest is Michelle Leffler,aka your personal librarian,
who's part bookworm, part woogoddess, and 100% real.
She's here to spill the tea onshadow work what it actually is,
(00:24):
why it's not the creepy darkthing people think, and how
mixing a little psychology witha little woo or, as she calls it
, spicy psychology, can changethe way you see yourself.
Get comfy, because we're aboutto dive into the light, the
shadow and everything in between.
(00:44):
Dive into the light, the shadowand everything in between.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
All right, so, michelle, tell us about your
business and how it plays intothe whole Woo world, definitely.
So my business is just me andmy name.
I have a tagline for myselfwhere I bill myself as being
your personal librarian, becauseI am a librarian in my day job
and I love books and I love allthings libraries and libraries
and librarians are about, and alot of woo people are about that
(01:16):
kind of thing too.
So, yeah, kind of blends in forme and it's great.
So my business is me bringingyou not you specifically, but
you, as in the people that arefollowing my business
information of all types and Idon't niche down into any one
(01:37):
thing because I don't like anyone thing.
I think that's part of my neurospiciness.
I can't focus on one thing.
I think that's part of my neurospiciness.
I can't focus on one thing.
I know some people can, someneuro spicy people do hyper
focus on one thing, but I don't,and when I do that I end up
hating that one thing.
So I focus on a lot ofdifferent things at one time,
(02:00):
which works for me in mybusiness.
And I know that a lot ofneurotypical business owners try
to focus on one niche and kindof push down into one thing and
that's fine if that works forthem.
But I would go stark, red andmad if I could.
I would never be able to decideon one thing that I wanted to
(02:20):
do, because then I would end uphating it.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Right.
Well, just so you don't feel soalone in the neurodivergent
world, there's a lot ofneurodivergent people that
switch back and forth, like mydaughter currently has a hyper
focus of like anime and manga,but she's had many over the
years, so, and like with food,she'll eat the same thing for
(02:44):
like six months straight.
All she wants is chickennuggets and then suddenly she
can't stand them.
And you've stocked up on themand she doesn't want them
anymore.
That would be me.
That's funny so good to know.
Yeah, it's not just you.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
And I do definitely bring the woo into everything I
do because I am very woo.
I consider myself to be witchy.
I bring that into my business.
I'm very holistic,health-minded, very woo-based in
the way I approach things andit's just all of who I am.
So I couldn't imagine doingbusiness without bringing that
(03:25):
in.
I actually tried at one pointand I was like no, and that's
probably why my business was notsuccessful, being taking so
long to really take off andstart growing, because I tried
to force myself to do businesswithout woo and to do business
in a neurotypical way and itjust did not work for me.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Right, and also what I noticed, because I'm a
customer of yours and I loveyour business.
I just recently took one ofyour courses on shadow work and
that falls into a mental healthcategory as well.
Do you want to talk aboutshadow work real quick for us?
Speaker 2 (04:06):
sure, um, and you'll probably know from taking that
course, I focused a lot on theactual non-woo side and brought
in a lot of the psychology of itwith carl and everything,
because I wanted to show peoplethat woo is not some weird scary
(04:28):
thing and it's not like whatsociety portrays it to be.
I like to call all my woo stuffpsychological spiciness or
something.
I like that, um, yeah, likespicy psychology.
That's what I tend to refer toit as, because I like psychology
(04:53):
, I like mental, thought-basedprocesses, but I don't want to
be clinical and dry in myapproach to anything, so I want
to bring my Wu into it.
So for me that's how it blendstogether.
But that course specificallywas designed to talk a lot about
the psychology of it, and I'm avery big Carl Jung fan and went
(05:16):
into all that and his portrayalof the self and the anima and
animus and everything, and so itwas very heavily psychology.
But I did bring woo into itwith astrology as well, and then
the chakra healing and all thattoo, because all of that makes
us who we are, not just aclinical diagnosis of whatever
(05:41):
or a clinical view of anything.
We are whole people.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
We are more than just one thing.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
So if I'm going to bring all of the things into my
business, I want to bring all ofthe things into my approach.
And so shadow work for meoriginally, when I first heard
about it was very psychologicalwhen I was in high school taking
intro to psychology course.
(06:08):
But then, as I startedembracing more woo as I was
older, it was very heavily intothe new age witchy community
where I lived.
Everybody was like shadow work,shadow work, shadow work, and
it was all woo and no psychologyto it and I'm like if you force
it from either aspect then it'snot real shadow work.
(06:32):
So I thought this course that Imade could be something that
brought all of it.
And I think I said in thatcourse that if you hate, like,
the shadow aspect of who you are, then you're trying to operate
completely in the light, andthat's not normal, that's not
right.
You can't operate all in theshadow, but you can't operate
(06:55):
all in the light either.
You need to be a panda.
And so our psychology, ourshadow itself, we can't have all
all clinical, we can't have allwoo.
We have to have a balancedpanda of of that view of it as
well.
So, yeah, yeah, my favoritecourses that I've ever created
(07:16):
and I have a lot of digitalproducts and courses well, I
really liked it.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
one of the things I found about when you even
mentioned shadow work peoplethink it's like spooky or dark
or just like not something thatyou can do and still be
spiritual and or religious orwhatever and you can.
It's totally not all about that.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
No, it's all about just the way that we've been
conditioned to see ourselves andlike little girls are
conditioned to be beautiful andto be sweet and to be kind and
to be good and to only portraythose kinds of things.
And so a lot of times whengirls experience what society
(08:06):
deems a negative emotion for agirl, like bossiness which
doesn't necessarily equate tobossiness that's just what
people label it.
That can be an assertive, butit's labeled as bossy or anger
and all that which are normalhuman emotions that we all feel.
But if a girl expresses that,then she's not sweet, she's not
(08:29):
kind, she's not demure, and so alot of times girls grow up to
hate that aspect of themselvesand they try to shove it down
and try to make it go away.
And you can't make part ofyourself go away, you can't
track.
The only thing that that leadsto is needing more of what is
(08:51):
woo in my terms, and that wouldbe like shamanistic healing,
where you do like um, I cannotthink of the word right now.
I keep saying past liferegression in my mind, and
that's not right.
I'll think of it later, I'llcome back to that.
But yeah, this is where my mindgets on one thing and then I
(09:12):
forget that I know, but when youtry to divorce yourself from
aspects of your personality thatare normal human reaction to
something, then it causes morecracks in who you are and then
you have to bring that back in.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Yeah, and I would think that could lead to anxiety
and depression.
It does.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
It does.
I will tell you that I'm ahighly anxious person and a lot
of that is because of unhealedthings that I've had to deal
with in my childhood A lot oftraumatic experiences that I
experienced at an early age thatled me to perfectionistic
(09:57):
tendencies and people pleasingbehavior kind of thing and
trying to live up to the idealof what the people around me
wanted me to be, and that wasn'twho I was, and it just creates
a lot of chaos and a lot ofstruggle.
That doesn't have to be there.
But with shadow work we canlook at these aspects of ourself
(10:21):
that we deem as bad.
That aren't bad.
They're just the way societysees them and we can find ways
to bring them in.
Like an emotion that we'reexperiencing is just our body
telling us that something is offin some way or something is
great in some way, depending onwhat the emotion is.
(10:43):
And happy emotion is our bodytelling us that things are good,
things are great.
Anger is our body telling usthat some boundary is being
crossed.
It's how we deal with thatanger that becomes the problem.
Anger itself is an issue.
It's what we do with theknowledge that something is off
(11:05):
in our life.
But if we don't acknowledgethat something is off, and we
take that anger and we push itdown.
We push it away, we try to buryit because society says we
shouldn't be angry, because thenwe're not feminine.
That is us trying to be whowe're not and it causes problems
(11:32):
.
One because it's pushing awaywho we are, but two, because
we're not resolving the issue,the boundary that's being
crossed in the first place,that's leading to anger or
whatever the emotion is.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Exactly, and one of the things that kind of popped
up in my mind when you weresaying we're just taught to push
things down and down and down,and I thought you know that's
another fear I have heard aboutshadow work is that people are
afraid to get into shadow workand then find out stuff about
themselves that they've pusheddown and is it going to open up
(12:07):
you know, a big can of worms.
What would you say about that.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
It might, it might not, but one you're not going to
know unless you try to do it.
But two even if it does, it'salready.
The fact that you're notdealing with it is already
causing harm to your body andyour mind and your spirit.
You may not be aware of it, butthere are issues going on, like
if you are anxious, if you aredealing with anxiety, if you are
(12:34):
dealing with fear, thatprobably stems from some
unresolved thing that you're noteven aware of.
So if you do this shadow workand it opens that up and brings
it to the light, then you canactually deal with it.
It might hurt more, but it'slike grief.
If you don't deal with it it'snot going to go away, it's just
(12:56):
going to get repressed and thenit's going to make things uglier
to deal with than if you justdeal with it in the first place.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
So if you, do the work and these ugly things come
up.
These can of worms open up.
Then deal with it and then youcan actually move past it.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
That sounds much better, so what about?
Speaker 2 (13:15):
shadow work.
Soul retrieval that's what Iwas trying to think of.
Soul retrieval I was like Iwon't think about it.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
So, going back to shadow work when you are doing
shadow work, what does that mean?
Like, what are you actuallydoing?
What do people have to do toopen up that door?
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Oh that could be a whole slew of things and it
really depends on the person andwhat they want to do.
But one of the easiest ways isto do some kind of journaling
about something if you know thatyou're dealing with anger,
because and I keep coming backto that, because it's an easy
(13:56):
thing that a lot of people dealwith either themselves or
somebody else.
So I just need an example andthat one's just easy to talk
about.
So if you're dealing with angerand you're like I wish I wasn't
such an angry person, why am Iso angry if you journal about it
or explore things?
I hate journaling myself and Idon't.
(14:16):
I love it.
People either love it or hateit.
I don't know, who's either, meh,whatever.
But I would much rather open up, like the, the voice memo
recorder thing on my phone andjust talk.
I'll do that before.
I'll sit there and writesomething down, because there's
just a block in my mind aboutwriting things down.
With school when they made uswrite and I hated it and now I
(14:39):
just so.
But I can talk, obviously, butjournal or word vomit into your
voice recorder on your phone, ifnothing else, just the things
that come up when you thinkabout anger or if you might not
be dealing with anger and thisis one thing I know I mentioned
in that course but a lot oftimes the things that bother us
(15:01):
about somebody else are reallysomething that is in us that we
just don't see, but we see itmirrored in another person.
So even if you're not dealingwith anger or you don't think
you have anything that you'redealing with that's a thought of
to be negative, emotion orwhatever, what are some things
(15:21):
that other people do that reallyget your goat, that really
needle at you.
That's needling at you becauseit's something in you and you
might not want to explore that.
But that's a beautiful thing toexplore and you can do that
with journaling One of myfavorite things.
Obviously woo, because I'm a wooperson pull an oracle card or a
(15:45):
tarot card, and all tarot is.
It's not fortune telling, it'sjust another spicy psychology
thing.
It's just a card that's goingto represent something.
So it's like you pull a cardand what does that card mean to
you?
It's just your psyche trying totell you what you already know,
but you're not listening.
(16:06):
So you pull a card and there itis, and that's just another way
to get the message across toyou.
It's not some big oldwitchcraft thing although
there's nothing wrong with thatbecause I'm in but it's really
just spicy psychology, right,it's really a lot of intuition.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
It is yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
But that's one thing I tell my husband all the time
is like witchcraft is just spicypsychology.
What are you talking aboutExactly?
I love that, Whatever, it'sjust spicy psychology.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
So I don't suppose you have any Oracle cards handy.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
No, I don't have any with me right now.
I do oh yay.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
I have Colette Barron-Reed's Guides of the
Hidden Realms.
Have you ever seen that one?
Speaker 2 (16:57):
No, but I love her cards, so I haven't seen that
one, but they're beautiful.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
And these are ones.
I don't know if she did thiswith all her cards, but these
are ones that she painted, eachone on a huge canvas, and then
made them into cards.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
Oh, that's gorgeous, I'm sure.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Oh they are.
They're beautiful.
So If you want, I can pull onefor you, If you have something
you'd like to know.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
I always have something I want to know.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
I'm shuffling them now for you, let's see a
specific question.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Let me think so this situation I'm dealing with I'm
not going to go into what thesituation is, but it's somebody
in my life has some issues thatthey're dealing with that they
will not acknowledge thatthey're dealing with issues, and
it impacting my life wouldn'tneed to do, because it's
(17:58):
impacting my life in a negativeway and I can't just keep not
dealing with it.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
I need to do something I hear you, so let's
talk about this.
What I pulled was letting go ofstories, but it's upside down,
which I know seems to benegative in some tarot cards.
But I like that.
Colette Barron-Reed doesn'tlook at it that way.
I don't look at it that wayeither.
(18:26):
Right, and I love that.
I forget what she calls it.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
I don't remember what she calls it, but for me a
reverse card is just.
It can either be the oppositeof what the card would normally
say if it was normal facing, orit could just be a hidden aspect
of it, like the first thing youwould normally think of with
that card.
Take it a bit deeper and whatcould a deeper reading behind it
(18:55):
be?
Exactly Not anything negative,I just think in terms of what's
the opposite of that or what'ssomething that that could point
to.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
That's a little deeper than that Right exactly.
Let me read you this and see ifit resonates at all.
It says the nature ofattachment is sticky and
innately sabotaging.
The stronger and more prolongedthe emotional obsession, the
less likely you are toexperience your desired outcome.
(19:29):
Too much wanting turns one intoa hungry ghost destined to be
unfulfilled, always longing forsomething out of reach In a
continuum of scarcity.
You're being invited to lookclosely at the desires you're
feeding, how attached you are tosomething going exactly your
way and your fear of never beingfulfilled Release whatever it
(19:52):
is that you're holding on to tootightly.
Let go and let God decide whatis best.
You took your one step andclaimed your intention.
Now surrender it fully, with nostrings attached.
Just stay loosely curious andkeep walking.
Remember that every inspirationcontains its built-in blueprint
for success.
(20:13):
But the tightly clenched acorncan't become an oak tree.
Well, that is fascinatingbecause, with what you told me,
that leads me to think that kindof what you were saying earlier
about shadow work when you seesomebody else, that really
things get under your skin.
It's you that needs to do thework, and this is kind of what
this is saying.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Kind of yeah, first initial reaction to what the
card says, but given what thissituation is with this person,
it's not necessarily some aspectthat is needling on me that I
mean it is, but it isn't right.
(20:57):
I I can't really go intoexplanation, that's's okay.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
What do you get from the card?
Because?
Speaker 2 (21:04):
of the person's, like the privacy of the person.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
Right and that's fair .
I don't want you to do thatRight.
Did you get anything from thatcard, Did it?
Speaker 2 (21:13):
resonate with you.
I did get something from thecard, but because it was
reversed, I want to think aboutit some more.
Ah yeah, more yeah.
I try not to take reverse cardsat the first initial thing that
comes to me, because of thatdeeper aspect.
So I do get something out of itfor sure, but I want to do a
(21:34):
little more mulling it overbefore it's like.
Is that exactly what it means,since it was reversed?
Speaker 1 (21:41):
Right, I think that's smart.
I think you know what's funnyis if you really need to hear
that again anyway, if you don'tget it the first time, you'll
get that card again in thereverse position again, Exactly.
It's going to keep coming up.
It's going to keep coming up.
Right, I was using a differentdeck one time and I kept pulling
(22:02):
one every day, and for twoweeks straight, I kid you not, I
kept pulling the high priestessand couldn't figure out what it
meant for my life, and so Ikept pulling it until I finally
figured it out.
Now I don't remember what itmeant, but it just every day it
would come up, no matter how Ishuffled them.
That's hilarious, I know.
(22:23):
It's like a very funny universe.
That's happened to me before,yeah, so what else do you think
you teach in your business thathas to do with, maybe, mental
health or neurodivergence, otherthan the shadow work?
Speaker 2 (22:37):
A lot of the shamanic healing type things the
services I do and the coursesthat I have on that are very
mental health fitting in Imentioned when I thought about
soul retrieval being what I wastrying to think of when I was
talking about shadow work,because those go hand in hand.
A lot of times if you do try toto do some kind of shadow work,
(23:01):
if something does come up or ifyou're not getting anywhere,
then I found a lot of times ifyou try to get into a more
shamanic state or get shamanicwork done with a soul retrieval,
then it helps to bring backthings.
Because when when people hearsoul retrieval, they tend to
(23:22):
think oh my, my God, I'm broken,whatever.
But it's not that at all andit's not saying that you don't
have a soul, because that'ssomething else.
I've heard people say Everybodyhas a soul and they're not
broken.
It's just that when society hasconditioned us to do something
and we haven't done shadow workand we try to repress those
(23:45):
things, or if something verytraumatic has happened to us, a
lot of times we repress thatbecause we don't want the memory
, we don't want to deal with theway it makes us feel so pieces
of who we are break off.
They're not like broken off andgone, but they're repressed and
soul retrieval is a way tobring those back that someone
(24:11):
else does for you, like I wouldnever do a soul retrieval for
myself, because somebody elseshould be taking that journey
for me, because I won'tnecessarily recognize what I
need to bring back and someonewho's not attached to me, going
on a journey on my behalf, wouldbe able to bring back something
(24:32):
and give it back to me that Ican then explore and integrate.
And so I often find that shadowwork and soul retrieval work
hand in hand in that aspect,especially if you start off with
basic things in shadow worklike journaling, pulling cards,
exploring that Sometimes it'snot deep enough and you want
something deeper and you're notfeeling like you're getting
(24:55):
anywhere and then you can getinto deeper things.
But I like to tell people startwith those kinds of things,
because you don't want to justjump in headfirst Like you
wouldn't not know how to swimand go dive off the diving board
into the deep end of theswimming pool and expect to
float.
You got to go in the wadingpool and learn how to swim first
(25:16):
before you would do that.
So don't go jumping in ifyou've never done this kind of
work.
Don't go diving off into thedeep end of the pool.
Start with the basics but thenmove forward into that.
And there's all kinds ofdifferent ways to do shadow work
and shamanic healing typethings, and soul retrieval is
(25:36):
just one.
It's just a lot of times when Imention shamanic healing,
that's the first thing peoplebring up because they've heard
about it and there's such'veheard about it and there's such
a misunderstanding about it.
People want to know.
So when I, I thought it washilarious when I couldn't think
of what it was called, it'sright there, I'm worried.
(25:56):
Talking about you can't thinkof what it's called it's like.
Now I know why my parentscalled me by my sister's name
when I was a kid but it Like now.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
I know why my parents called me by my sister's names
when I was a kid, but it wasjust that moment.
Now I have a question for thoseof us that are still in the
kiddie pool and we haven't takenthat deep dive, and maybe we
don't even know what shamanismis, let alone a soul retrieval
journey.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
Tell us more about what that actually is.
So shamanic healing is energyhealing on steroids, I like to
say, but not really on steroids.
If you think about a shaman,what is the first image that
pops into?
Speaker 1 (26:35):
your mind Someone in a long like robe and maybe a
teepee, or someone out in thewilderness.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
That's exactly what most people think.
They're like Native Americantribes, this, that and the
others and I've heard it allbecause I've taken a lot of
shamanic studies and I'veactually apprenticed with
shamanic healing.
But a lot of people think it'scultural appropriation because
(27:05):
they're like you're not NativeAmerican, you can't do this.
and then they are surprised whenI tell them that the word
shaman is not even a NativeAmerican word it is a Siberian
language, the Tungusic language,I think off the top of my head,
from Siberia and it came fromtheir word Saman, s-a-m-a-n.
(27:30):
And most cultures throughoutthe world, if you trace them
back enough, go back to a moreEarth-centric, animistic
religion type system andshamanism is kind of that.
But has also gotten otherenergy healing brought into with
(27:57):
it, like obviously, in siberiathey wouldn't have had like the
chakra system that we get fromlike India and they wouldn't
have had like other aspects thatwe get from like Japan and
China energy healing techniques,things.
(28:18):
But all of that has beenswirling around and amalgamated
into what most shamanicpractitioners today would be
doing.
And the training I took wasvery South American based and
very based out of the Andes,mountains and things.
(28:38):
So it's definitely got a lot ofdifferent vibes going on.
But it's very earth based andgetting in touch with nature.
And if we take ourselves back toa more reverent of the earth
and I'm not talking aboutworshiping the earth, I'm not
talking about any religiousthing Like shamanism is not a
(29:00):
religion, it's a practice.
So you can be religious, youcannot be religious, you can
whatever and you can.
You can practice this.
But if you take yourself backto a place where you're in tune
with the earth and what naturehas to tell us.
Then it's easier to transcendthe monkey mind that we have
(29:25):
that society today has usinundated with so much
information.
Now, I'm not saying that youhave to get rid of all your
technology or whatever I meanhello, my whole business is
based on technology.
But technology is designed tokeep us hyper fixated and hyper
stimulated, and not in our ownbodies.
(29:46):
But if we purposely put thatdown and step outside and sit on
the ground, put our feet on theground, notice what's going on
in nature around us, and you cando this whether you're in the
city or wherever you are.
And you can do this whetheryou're in the city or wherever
you are.
You can look out of a windowand see sky and see ground,
(30:08):
whatever.
Even if you live in a veryurban, concrete jungle, you can
find a patch of earth somewhere.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
And that's grounding, what everybody's been calling
grounding lately, right?
Yes, yes.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Yes.
So if you do that, if youground with the earth, and if
you take it beyond that and justnotice the earth and try to get
your life back in touch withthe more earth centric things,
you'll notice how animals andplants start to communicate with
(30:42):
you.
And I'm not sitting here talkingabout an animal literally
opening their mouth, like yourdog, literally having a
conversation with you, right?
But if you have a houseplant,you can start to tune into the
energy of that plant and if youhave a cat, you might start
noticing your cat's feelingsmore Obviously, your cat is not
(31:06):
sitting there having aconversation with you, but you
can tell these things and it'seasier then to start noticing
things within your own body.
The more in touch you becomewith nature and the natural
world, the more in tune you'regoing to become with your own
mind and body.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
And I can see that because I've seen research where
they do experiments with plantsand they have one plant they're
talking to and telling verygood, supportive things and one
they're putting down and beingnegative with, and the negative
one dies and positive onesurvives.
(31:46):
And that's just how it is forus too, in our mind.
If we are talking negatively toourselves, we start to feel
negatively and be negative, andif we talk positively to
ourselves, then it's different.
I mean, you have to watch outfor toxic positivity, which is
another course I took from you.
Yes, I hate toxic positivity,right, but I do toxic positivity
(32:09):
, right, but I do thinkpositivity is important.
I just think it's not the end,all be all.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Exactly, and that was I created that resource, and
that's a free one, which is agood one for people to get and
get an introduction to what I doand get an introduction to what
I do.
But I created that because I wasso tired of the witchy
community being all love andlight, love and light, love and
light.
And it's like F you.
(32:35):
Sometimes love and light isn'tgoing to help me feel better.
And yes, when bad things happento us, we have to try to see
the positive in it to get overit.
But sometimes life just sucksright.
And to acknowledge the fact thatsometimes life just sucks is
not you being a bad person ornot dwelling on the negative.
(32:58):
Sometimes you need to justthink about this.
Experience sucks and I'm gonnawallow in how much this sucks
for a short amount of time now.
Don't want to stop wallowing itforever.
But it'll know, then I'm backinto the shadow work thing.
You can't have all light, youcan't have all dark.
You need to be a panda, a penis.
(33:21):
So when bad things happen, yes,let yourself notice the
suckiness of it and let yourselfdwell in that for a time being
and then pull yourself up by thebootstraps, get some help,
whatever you need to turn thatnegative into a positive.
So, yes, I will sit here andsay I've gone through some
(33:43):
pretty horrible, horrible thingsin my life, pretty Horrible,
horrible things in my life.
I experienced neglect fromcaregivers as a young child
Dealt with the loss of all myclose relatives.
Well, not all of my closerelatives, but all of my
grandparents died before I was20 years old.
My mom died when I was 40.
(34:06):
My dad is still living.
I became a widow at the age of31 when my husband, who was 24
at the time, died in divorceprior to that.
I had been engaged prior tothat and found out that my
fiance at that time was gay,which is fine.
I have no problem with himbeing gay, but I mean that was a
loss for me so all of that, allof that swirling around in my
(34:32):
life and it's like I've beenthrough some crap.
yeah, sometimes I just need tosit down and think, man, I've
experienced some crap in my lifeexactly not to dwell on it
forever and and never try tolook for some good things in my
life just because of all thecrap I've been dealt.
(34:53):
Yeah, I've dealt with some crap, but you know what?
I've had a lot of good thingshappen in my life, oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
I mean, just like a week or so ago, I had some minor
happen that just really tickedme off and I text my mom and I
said something to her and shecame back with all this oh, but
your life is going so well andyou have your family and you
have.
And I just thought, oh, my god,I'm done, okay bye.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
It's like yes, I know all the good things I have, but
I just need to vent for alittle bit right and then I can
be positive later.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
Yeah, yeah.
Well, michelle, I have reallyenjoyed talking to you.
Tell me, do you have like afreebie or anything that people
could access, or where did theyfind you?
Speaker 2 (35:43):
on my website, michellelefflercom, and I have
one l in my name, michelle, so Ithink you're gonna link to it
anyway.
Oh yeah, it's like, but I wouldsay, the breaking up with toxic
positivity email sequence.
That is a free resource and youcan find that on my website.
(36:03):
That would be a good place forpeople to start.
Literally, you'll find all mystuff on my website.
So you know, go explore.
But if I had to name just onething to start with after this
conversation, it would be thatyeah, and I got to second you
that that is a really greatresource.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
I have been through the whole course and I thought
it was enlightening resource.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
I have been through the whole course and I thought
it was enlightening and it'll.
It's not something you have toremember a password to log into
a platform or anything.
You literally sign up and it'sdelivered to your email every
day for however many days Ican't remember now how many days
that one is but it just comesevery day into your email box
and you get it and you read itand you can save the emails or
(36:49):
you can delete them when you'redone.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
Whatever, and it's not an overwhelming email, like
you know, takes you 15 minutesto read.
It's a quick, little two minuteread.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
Yeah, nobody wants to be stuck in their inbox reading
one thing that long.
No Right, and tell me one otherthing.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Sorry, I have a question Do you actually do some
of this shamanism healing anddo you do shadow work with?
Speaker 2 (37:14):
people I do.
I don't have those yet on mywebsite.
They're coming back.
I did on an old website.
I had to do a lot of businesschanges because of some legal
things that were happening inPennsylvania at the time and
with my business.
So I had to, at the start ofthis year, the end of last year,
(37:36):
start of this year completelychange my brand name and
everything.
My website domain, everythinggot an overhaul and I'm still on
the tail ends of that.
Everything has migrated overyet they're coming.
But if anyone is interested inthat kind of work and it's not
(37:56):
on my website, please just shootme an email.
And what is your email address?
It is michelle at, michelleleftlercom.
You go to my website, michelleat before that, and you'll find
it and you can actually put thatin the show notes or whatever
you need to do for that as well.
Please just contact me, send mean email, sign up for something
(38:21):
and respond to any email.
I love getting responses toemails.
You can respond and say, hey, I, I'm interested in this,
whatever, and I will hook you upwith that.
We can talk through it if it'ssomething for you.
I don't recommend it foreverybody, but I am very happy
to talk to anybody about what'sthe best recommended course for
(38:43):
them, and I know it's notnecessarily all on there yet,
but it's coming back because,yes, I do it.
I love that kind of work.
You know, one thing that wetalk about all the time, amy, is
we're only one person and we'retrying to run these businesses
by ourselves.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
Amen.
Sometimes they take longer thanwe want them to.
Yes, they do.
I've been there.
So just to give you a chance atthe very end of this interview
here, can you tell us, is thereanything you want to leave our
listeners with, something youwant to tell them?
Speaker 2 (39:16):
I would say to be who you are, no matter who that is.
Live your life gloriously andhappily and loudly, despite what
anybody else says, and don'tlet somebody else's version of
who you need to be affect whoyou really are, and you'll be
(39:37):
much happier for it.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
I love that.
Yeah, that's beautiful.
All right, thanks, michelle.
Thank you for having me, wasn'tthat good?
Michelle totally nailed it.
Your shadow isn't something tofear.
It's a part of you thatdeserves a seat at the table.
If you're ready to startexploring yours, go grab her
free, breaking up with toxicpositivity email series at
(40:02):
michelle.
That'sM-I-C-H-E-L-E-L-E-F-L-E-Rcom.
Seriously, it's quick, it'ssmart and it won't clog up your
inbox.
And if you want to talk shadowwork or shamanic healing with
her, just shoot her an email atMichelle at MichelleLefflercom.
(40:22):
Remember light shadow messy,magical.
All of it makes you.
You Own it and keep advancinglawyer.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal
Gregg Rosenthal and a rotating crew of elite NFL Media co-hosts, including Patrick Claybon, Colleen Wolfe, Steve Wyche, Nick Shook and Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic get you caught up daily on all the NFL news and analysis you need to be smarter and funnier than your friends.