The Path to Emotional Freedom and Growth

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/

Chapters

• 0:00 Inner Peace Through Self-Awareness Journey
• 12:27 Embracing Emotions for Inner Growth
• 21:37 Exploring Inner Healing and Self-Awareness
• 28:20 Exploring Self-Healing Through Mindfulness
• 39:16 The Power of Self-Discovery

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to the Lift One Self podcast and I am so thankful you're here with me.

Speaker 2: 0:05

Thank you, it's great to be here, looking forward to this.

Speaker 1: 0:08

Will you join me in a meditation so we can ground ourselves before the conversation?

Speaker 2: 0:14

Absolutely.

Speaker 1: 0:15

And for the listeners, as I always mention, if you are driving or doing any kind of physical activity, please don't close your eyes. I want you to be safe and those around you to be safe. Yet the other prompts you're able to take by anchoring in your breath and just taking a moment, a mindful moment for yourself. If you're finding that you're getting too relaxed, just fast forward, because I still want you to be safe. Yet you can always come back to the meditation later on when you have some time for yourself. So, anne, I'll ask you to be safe, yet you can always come back to the meditation later on when you have some time for yourself. So, and I'll ask you to get comfortable in your seating and you're going to gently close your eyes and you're going to begin breathing in and out through your nose and you're going to bring your awareness to watching your breath go in and out through your nose. You're not going to try and control your breath. Just let the awareness watch the breath go in and out and observe the rhythm, the pattern.

Speaker 1: 1:24

There may be some sensations or feelings 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 resist and just be, be with your breath, drop into your body, keep your awareness on your breath, continue keeping your awareness on your breath. Now, anne, I'm going to ask you to create an intention in your mind of what you want to bring forth in this conversation for the listeners and for ourselves. And when you finish creating that intention, I'll ask you to release it in your mind, allowing it to drop down into your nervous system, down your neck, passing your throat, down into your chest, filling your heart, filling your lungs, going down into your abdomen, down into your stomach, into your life force, and continue staying with your breath, staying with your breath, allowing that intention to surround your energy field, allowing that intention to surround your energy field, dropping deeper into your body Now, while still staying with your breath at your own time.

Speaker 2: 3:59

And at your own pace.

Speaker 1: 4:00

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: 4:05

Can you let the listeners know who Anne is. Sure, I'm nobody special, but I was at a place where I was so anxious all the time and my mind was so busy all the time and I was just so reactionary that I was determined to find inner peace and I just didn't know how far I could go in that process or how far that path would take me. So I'm at the point now that I can release tension inside my body using laser focused awareness and I actually feel and I hear the adhesions and the connected tissue release and my skull has shifted, my eye sockets have moved, my neck has straightened and I've grown three quarters of an inch. So I'm sharing this story because I didn't know what I could do was possible before, so I want other people to know that it is possible.

Speaker 1: 4:59

And how did you discover this? What modality or what was the journey of finding that inner peace within?

Speaker 2: 5:12

Well, it wasn't a quick path. It was actually really three steps to the journey as my awareness deepened inside. So to begin with, I use the technique called EFT, which is short for emotional freedom technique. It's also called tapping, because we're tapping on certain places in our body as we're talking something through and that tapping releases the energy stored in the nervous system. So I use that to go through all my traumas. I wrote down every one on lists of multiple pages and I worked through one each night and over those weeks and months probably I don't remember I found myself becoming much more peaceful in my day-to-day interactions with my family and it was really nice.

Speaker 2: 5:50

And my mind started to become quiet for the first time ever. 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 just really fun. So that was kind of the first step. But what I realized EFD is doing it's opening up the subconscious mind, right. So we become aware of trauma that we'd hidden inside or memories that we hidden inside and we didn't remember. So we become aware of that. But in that same process our awareness, or self awareness, deepens. So I became aware of my emotions for the first time. I was really good at suppressing them, but I became aware of them. And then I became aware at a deeper level, which is the physical sensations underneath the emotions. So if we're feeling something like frustration, that's just the word we use to describe that tension we're holding in our body. So you can become aware of that tension itself. And at that point I didn't use EFT so much. At that point I could just focus on the sensations themselves and just allow them to be, not trying to change them, just accept them, notice them, feel them and allow them to release. So I did that then over and over. So because I'd been doing EFT daily, in the evening I would do an hour to an hour and a half.

Speaker 2: 7:12

Once I got to this point I wasn't doing EFT but I would lay on the sofa and I would bring a collective trauma to mind so something like 9-11, or for me, the Loma Prieta earthquake I was in and just bring those memories to mind and all those emotions, the physical sensations, and just allow them to release from my body, which felt really good, right, because it's tension that's been stored for so long and and it felt really good and during that time period is when I realized at some point I could keep my awareness inside my body after the tension had released, which I've never heard before. I didn't know what it was, it was totally new to me, so I just started to play with it. Now I've done it once, could I do it again? And I tried and I quit, and then I started to play. So what can I do now, this new tool? So I put my awareness inside.

Speaker 2: 8:07

I was working in my abdomen at the time and I realized I can move it to the side. I could move my awareness around. I could feel inside my abdomen and I could find a place that had tension versus a place with no tension. I could tell the difference. So then I would focus on the tension is a place with no tension. I could tell the difference. So then I would focus on the tension and just do exactly the same thing, just feel it, just allow it to be there, and I would feel it release a little bit. So then I would do it again, and again, and again, until it released.

Speaker 2: 8:38

So I started moving around my torso and eventually it took many months, but eventually I got my awareness inside my head and that was huge because the pain inside my left cheek was almost unbearable. It was so intense and it had been there for my whole life, since I was born with my right foot up against my right shin and then my whole body was twisted. But it had been stuck in my subconscious mind. I had not been aware of it and that really made me realize how much we store inside. But we have no idea it's there, we don't know what it feels like until we would kind of reverse the process and undo the layers of the onion one by one and you're shown then that tension that's inside.

Speaker 2: 9:23

So that's at that point I was able to work with the tension and the pain because I had the tools, the techniques and just I would feel it and release it, feel it and release it again and again and again until it got to the place. I could actually feel my skull bones relax. Now I hadn't known they weren't relaxed before, but they clearly were because they relaxed and and you know, that's when I had x-rays taken, just part of my orthodontic work and I could see the changes from eight years prior and see how my bone structure had changed and had myself measured at some point. You know, when we get to this age we don't really do that very much, but I could tell, excuse me I could tell I was looking at people from a different angle than I used to be, so I thought I might have grown. So I actually had my family measure 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 in rather than stretched out?

Speaker 2: 10:23

Absolutely. It was that burden that I've been carrying my whole life and when we released that burden so I wasn't literally growing right, I was decompressing right, so becoming more of my blueprint height. Now I am higher than I have ever been in my life, so I've never actually got to this height before because I had a lot of childhood trauma so I was always 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 to the meditation I did at the beginning, where it's all about opening and acceptance and not pushing anything away. The reason why I do the meditation specifically like that especially if there's new listeners is to get them engaged with their nervous system, because a lot of people have no idea about this intelligent system that we have and how it blocks us from going into that vulnerability, going into that open source and really seeing where the defense mechanisms have created kind of a prison of the things that are blocked and where I explain to people. It's it feels very counterintuitive because there's one part of your system that's trying to protect you that is actually harming you now, and then there's another part that's trying to bring up all this stuff but like you're pushing it back down, and then there's another part that's trying to bring up all this stuff but like you're pushing it back down, and then there's you as the observer that has to come and bring harmony into the two. It's not picking one or the other. How do we integrate and allow there to be a space to feel these emotions and let these systems feel validated and seen, because that's what I've noticed for myself and what I provide a space to other people where I say, like, if you want healing, there's three things that I've noticed in principle for myself, because I had lesions in my cerebellum and my brainstem and I almost died 10 years ago. So what you're saying I'm like, I'm living proof to you. I know this stuff works, so it's like it's, yet it's work to do it.

Speaker 1: 12:27

The three things that I say is there needs to be safety for the nervous system so the defense mechanisms can come down. You need radical honesty with yourself, so you need to be able to face yourself. And then three, you need to feel. So you need to feel all these things that have been stored down, and some of it is very nasty and yucky and not feeling good. And that's why I use the term process your shit. Where there's going to be some stuff manure that's going to come up, yet you need to process it so that your garden is vibrant.

Speaker 1: 13:03

I know, in Western society especially, we have an aversion to pain and we have not been given the tools to be able to face that. And we also haven't been able to be given the tools of the things that we're creating or paying attention to our language or how we've interacted with certain emotions Because, especially when we've been younger, certain emotions were not tolerable, especially for girls like to get angry or if we cry too much. There was name calling or there was chastising. So some of these big emotions were never able to be felt and validated, or had somebody help us regulate our nervous system to be able to interact with these things. When you've said you've had trauma, you've experienced trauma, how has your relationship 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 to process first, and and then then I just processed it. I mean, I got to the place that I really understood that the emotions are just energy stored in the body and all we have to do is is what you said we have to feel that energy, we have to acknowledge it and allow it to release from the body, and that's where the freedom comes. So once I realized that I was ready to do it because I knew it to be the case, so I just worked with that, I felt it. With EFT, you find your truth, what you're saying.

Speaker 2: 14:41

There are a lot of videos online, a lot of EFT practitioners that actually use scripts, so they use kind of canned words to work with EFT, and that's not where the power in EFT is. The power is in, using our own words, because those are what are stored in our nervous system. So if I'm feeling really angry in our nervous system, so if I'm feeling really angry or if I hate someone or something, I want to acknowledge that feeling and allow it to release, and the tapping just allows it to release faster in my experience. So it was really nice to let it go faster, but you've got to find the truth. And, like you said so, many of us are programmed not to hate. Right, you shouldn't hate someone. But if you are feeling that hate, then surely it's better to have it come out of the body than leave it suppressed inside 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 to have some fear. Like there's healthy fear. Do you mean don't fear? Like nervous system needs to have some fear, like there's healthy fear. And then there's fear that you're creating psychologically, yet to say don't fear.

Speaker 1: 15:49

If you're going to go into your intuition, you're going to feel some fear because your intuition is going to bring you into the unknown and uncertainty and your nervous system's like I can't read this, like there's nothing in the past. So I'm going to try and bring things from the past to try and protect you. So I think there's like some wrong narratives. Even like you said, don't hate or anger, don't be angry, it's just garbage. And it's like no, it's a healthy emotion. If there's something that you, a boundary that has been violated or somebody's being harmed, this is adrenaline coming into the system so that you can take action. Yet to tell yourself not to feel certain things is doing such damage to the body because it's like I'm trying to just give you messages and you're telling me they're wrong. So then there's this big conflict 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 I have been able to do, compared to like other teachings that I see and hear about and what I've realized is it's kind of a middle 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 express it onto other people, right. We don't want to be angry with someone else, but then we're passing that energy and that emotion on. So there's the middle ground, which is to feel and acknowledge the anger and just allow the energy of it to leave the body.

Speaker 2: 17:15

Because when we do that, the next time a similar thing happens we don't react the same way. We're actually a little bit more aware, we're a little bit calmer. Then we do it again, right, we work on what it is we're feeling at that point. Then the next time a similar thing happens again, we're more relaxed and it gets to the point where, eventually, something like that can happen. Where we used to be very reactionary, we used to be triggered. We're no longer triggered anymore. We're at peace, and when we're at peace, that's what happens around us. We attract peace into our future and our environments the people we're interacting with. Those interactions are more peaceful.

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're going through this journey, they were younger, I take it they were probably in the region of four to eight, something like that okay.

Speaker 1: 18:17

So how was that journey? Because what I say to people and what I know to be true in my own life, the highest spiritual practice I see that you can have is being a parent to learn about yourself, because your children reflect things back to you that you possibly don't want to see. And there are these shadow parts that you're like do not open that junk drawer, just leave it alone. I don't want to talk to the elephant in the room right now. Okay, I just don't have the capacity. You made a choice that you were going to do the warrior work and you were still going to keep going forward. So what did that look like as a parent? And the messiness of it, because anybody that's done inner work understands there's messiness like, uh, if anybody says it was unicorns and rainbows all the time, I'm like what were you on? Because there's a lot of messiness of trying to relate and interact and then, while parenting, so could you give some to the best of not interfering in your children's privacy? Yet what your experience was as a parent?

Speaker 2: 19:27

Yeah, one of the other reasons that I started doing this work is because things were so volatile at home. Because I was volatile and I had been sent to a boys boarding school when I was age nine through 11. And I was teased mercilessly. At the first year I was the only girl boarder. There were some day girls, but I was the one who stayed at night and I was just teased so badly. And my son, my oldest son, was starting to get to that age and I knew I had been scared of boys through nine, through 11. So I had to get over that if I was going to interact in the way I wanted to with my boys at that age.

Speaker 2: 20:10

So, yeah, I was desperate to do that inner work. So I mean I did it away from them. So I was bringing up all this horrible stuff from my childhood but I was dealing it with. I was doing it when I was not with them, so I don't think a lot of it was brought up in my interactions. Now the technique I use EFT right is great for anyone. So when my younger son would have nightmares I would tap on him.

Speaker 2: 20:39

But the learning that I was doing was noticing during the day. When I was triggered, right, that was the first step. I had to start noticing, had to start standing back and say okay, starting to get frustrated, right, or just notice, because until you notice you can't do anything about it. So I would write those down and I would work with those in the evening. So things just started to get better. I don't remember a lot of turmoil at that point. I was working through it because I was doing it on my own and I was being truthful to myself and vulnerable with myself. I'm not sure I could have done that if I was working with someone else, but I know other people do need someone else to reflect that back with. But I just knew I had to do it myself and things just get calmer because I was calmer, just, my boys were calmer. It was so much fun to experience when you'd experience the other right. So yeah, I can't remember too much turmoil, okay, other than me personally going through the turmoil, 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 this just when they were at school or in the nighttime, when they were asleep?

Speaker 2: 21:57

Yeah, it was just in the evening. Yeah, I don't even remember. They might have gone to bed already 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 you said um, when people start doing trauma work, and if they are trauma competent, then they'll understand of guiding the person that whenever you experienced a certain trauma at a certain age, if you have children, and when they come to that age, there's going to be a reflection of those emotions and those feelings in the system, and so you consciously knew that. Okay, I went through this at this age with boys, and now my boys are going to come up to this age and this isn't going to go too well. So let me clear out what's inside of me. Was that intuitive or did you know about that previously?

Speaker 2: 22:51

I had learned through the process. I mean the way that, the way my journey started is I had a business altercation with two other mothers at my boy's school. That was just so big inside of me, right, I couldn't stop my mind spinning for three days. It was crazy. But it was the end of that that I realized it felt a little bit like how I'd react when my dad would tell me I'd done something wrong, because these women had told me I'd done something wrong. So to me that was an opening that maybe my childhood was affecting me. So that was the first little inkling that my childhood was affecting me. And then everything. You started writing everything down and realizing how much there was. So I did realize that I was scared of boys in that age range. 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 the safety for your that part to be reflected back to you. It just really showed the commitment and dedication you had in your parenting that I have to do better than what I had experienced, and not it's not negating anybody that's not able to have that. It just shows the power of that vulnerability and that radical honesty that there's these breakings of openings that can all of a sudden, it's like oh, there's something underneath this that I need to look at, not just what's popping up right away. And it takes that safety and that nervous system to allow those defense mechanisms to surrender and be like are you sure nervous system to allow those defense mechanisms to surrender and be like, are you sure 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 a la 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 all start to dissolve and then you start to see like, oh, my gosh, I was trying to create this persona or this other image of me not really being myself and being my authentic self and being in my body. Because when you start doing the inner work, you realize how disassociated you are.

Speaker 1: 25:01

Yet once you start coming back in, and then you're like, oh, that's a lot of tension, how long have you been like this?

Speaker 1: 25:07

And oh, you grip and you hold on to your bowels or you hold on to the chest or you start to feel. Yet that's a journey in itself too, to, I always say, to drop in and unclench a knot and just feel, like just to be in it and just feel. Yet, like I said, we have a society that is very has a lot of aversion to pain. So it's like pop an Advil, pop that don't have any pain. Where it's like, well, the body is signaling like pain is a messenger. Also, I'm saying, um, when you're going through excruciating pain, yes, you have to take, you know, turn down the dial. Yet when you're having to pop medicine all the time just to do your day-to-day living, that's some indication that, like, your body is trying to give you some signaling and some messages that it's in your best interest to start trying to give you some signaling and some messages that it's in your best interest to start looking inwards and not trying 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 at it, then you know there's still some pains.

Speaker 2: 26:17

I can't get to right away, but I had a good burn on my finger the other night and I still have quite a good ballista and I fell into it. I relaxed into it, which takes some practice. You know, I've been practicing for a while now so I'm relatively good at it. But after about an hour I wasn't focusing on the whole time, but just intently for a few moments I could relax into it and I felt the pain leave and after that hour I didn't feel any more pain. I kept checking it. It's like I can feel it's a blister. There was any pain, there's no pain.

Speaker 2: 26:54

So yeah, it really, it just needs attention. Yeah, so my journey. One of the interesting parts to me is it's like it started with the words, right with the memories, just retelling the traumas over and over until they release. And then it went to the sensations and then it went to the tension inside the body itself. But at each stage it's just the same practice of just acknowledging it, feeling it, allowing it to be, not trying to change it in any way. You're just allowing it, and once it's had the attention right at tension, once it has the attention it's needing or it's desiring, or it's never had in the past, which is why it's stuck inside then it will release.

Speaker 1: 27:38

Yeah, I'm thankful for the work I have done and I'm thankful that now I'm attracting more and more people that have the same language and experience, 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 do this. I understand that Because the other 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 I had just gotten up and I couldn't move and I'm like walking and it's just extreme pain and I was like what the heck Went to bed. It was still there. I had to go to breakfast with the family. They're all looking like, oh my gosh, like what can we do? Like take an Advil, like take some. I was like no, I'm just breathing through it.

Speaker 1: 28:32

And then at one point I just sat in it and I could feel the messaging of, like the tension and stress I had been holding on to, and then some tears welled up 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 tunnel of direction and communication. And then, once I sat in it and I felt it and I was like, okay, we finished our dinner, I got up, I could touch my toes, were like we physically saw you, that you couldn't move and 70% of the pain left, like there was still some residue, residue of it, yet I couldn't even move my body, whereas I was like, oh, is it gone? Yeah, and I touched my toes, I was like oh, and then I went to go another. I was like, oh, it's kind of still there, but I wasn't able to do any movement and I'm thankful that my family got to see this also, to see what's possible.

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 to feel and what am I not seeing? What am I not feeling? And being in that is when I say sitting in it. It's a scene. It's a scene and a feeling of communicating with the body, because I understand that my body is like a radio transmitter of, and if it has too much static, I'm not going to be able to have my clear connection with god, a law, universe, whatever name you call your higher source. So that sitting was that feeling and acknowledging and validating, and just not trying to change it, like you said, not trying to polish it or not trying to. You can do better or talk it and paint it a different color. It's like I love it.

Speaker 1: 30:32

Yeah, it's like, oh my gosh, this toxic positivity is doing so much harm to people. I'm like, okay, just what's there. And, like I said, those wells of tears and I understand, tears aren't only sadness, it's a plethora of different emotions, that just the intensity of what you're feeling, that you couldn't feel in the moment. Um, and just letting it be. And once you can I know for myself, once I let it be and I can feel it, it passes through. It's no longer stuck in there. So then there's more communication and there's more flow. That happens. 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 the words. Right, I say, sit in it and relax into it and it's like so what does that mean to someone who doesn't know that right? And to me it's just so hard to put into words. But feeling it, focusing on it, allowing it to be there and being able to relax at the same time, because it's that relaxation at the same time that is allowing it to release.

Speaker 1: 31:44

Yeah, yeah, disarm the system, because that's what that relaxes is, and that's why I I, I use the word nervous system, cause it's that nervous system that you're telling it to relax now, not brace up in a hold on to the tension, and we got to defend and charge something. It's like, no, we're not charging ourself, relax, we can feel this and cause it's also trying to protect you from well, we don't want you to feel this because you're telling us it doesn't feel good. So that's why it's like it sounds so confusing. Until you start doing the work.

Speaker 1: 32:17

It's like, oh, these are all these different systems that are, yeah, it's all one, and that's why you want to bring the harmony, so they're not counteracting each other and canceling each other out and doing this conflict. It's like, yeah, okay, we're all on the same team, we're not against each other. Let's breathe through this and disarm the nervous system. But it takes that, like I said, security, and what the nervous system needs is are you going to validate? Are you going to witness me? Not me as a person, but are you going to validate? Are you going to witness me, not me as a person, but are you going to witness the intelligence of what the experience is right now, or are you 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 to do that. I remember when I first started to feel the feelings, like kind of when I made beyond EFT and I was feeling the sensations, that feeling itself was so scared of being felt, right, so kind of different language from what you were using, but same thing. It just wanted. It's like my solar plexus, my stomach, just wanted to clench, right, don't let me feel that. So I had to just feel it and acknowledge it and allow it to be safe, right, and I would talk to it and say it's okay, I can feel you, I just want to feel you, I just want to allow you to be felt. And it took some practice to be able to relax enough to allow 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 see what the nervous system was like. I don't know if I'm sure you do too. Whenever you feel fear, do you feel the chemical drop into the body? I can feel the chemical drops and I'm like, oh, and people are like what are you talking? I was like you're just once you get even more body aware, you're going to start feeling these drops of chemicals that the nervous system does. That happens so quickly.

Speaker 1: 34:20

Yet with the lesions everything slowed down for me so that I could really be aware of things that go on in a millisecond. But for me it was like stretched out, that I could really be aware of it. So I had a seat with the nervous system internally too. And then when I learned meditation, then that allowed me to do a lot of somatic releases. So, as you do the EFT, the meditation allowed me to do that somatic release and be with those overwhelming emotions. And then what I did on top of that with the meditation is I would meditate in the living room with the twins. So I'm a solo parent and the twins were five, when, like four, when I had the lesions in my brain and I was hospitalized because I was told I was going to die. And then, in 2015, I learned the meditation and they tell you, well, create a room that's quiet. And I'm like I got five-year-old twin boys. That's not going to work like that. So I started doing it in the living room and then I started to notice the nervous system trying to change things and wanting to control and analyze things, and I would just call it back and call it back like you don't need to be in there. So I got to understand the impulsivity, how it's reading things all over the place, where no wonder you can get overwhelmed and burnt out because you're you're stimulated all over the place. And so I got to understand it even more.

Speaker 1: 35:50

And then what I wanted to bring and the reason why I created Lift One Self was to take out the wrong definitions that meditation has and allow people to see, well, it's meditation in your everyday, not just you go sit down on a cushion and you just go fix yourself. It's like you start off there. Yet it's to be able to have these tools in the everyday interactions of how you're living and how you're relating to yourself and with others. And it's possible because I'm living proof, like where I was before and to what I am now and the way that I interact with things. And it's really you know, to dispel the, I think, what really harms people and I've, I know my brain still does it at times you think that there's going to be this arrival, that everything's going to be bliss and you're going to have it all figured out and solved and no more big emotions.

Speaker 1: 36:45

No, nothing. And it's like spoiler alert alert. Life is impermanent. There's going to be change. Your body's going to change chemically, as women we know. So you're going to have to relate and interact with yourself different, yet you have the tools to be able to have that capacity and, plus, our self-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 deeper wounds that have been there longer. So it's not like it, as you say, it's not like it all disappears, but you're just getting deeper.

Speaker 1: 37:21

Yeah, yeah. So I just that's the message that I want to create in the world too because I see where there 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 and you're selling people this stuff and I'm like, uh, and maybe I'm doing it wrong. And then, when I get more deeper, I'm like, no, I'm not doing it wrong. I want to bring you into a reflective question. I want to ask you to bring your awareness 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 carry you 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't really 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 are like okay enough, nat, nat, let me hear where I can find this wonderful lady. So can you let the listeners know 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 hopefully I'd like other people to do this, go on this journey too and develop 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 the Pathway to Insight. I also have a workbook that goes with it that you can get. That will bring up all your shadow, all your traumas, so that you can work through them one by one. But I also have a website and I have a YouTube channel and I have EFT demo videos on there so you can learn to do all these techniques on there. And I'm pretty active on Facebook, so I write something, try and write something every day and try and explain different things from my viewpoint. So I'd love to interact with anyone 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 realize when we start this journey. Because, as with as within, so without, is absolutely true. So the deeper we know ourselves on the inside right, the deeper our depth of awareness, the more we understand and appreciate what is happening outside of us. So if we can feel tension inside of us, we can sense tension in other people. Right, there's so much more to life If we can hear, not just with our ears, but feel sound vibrations throughout our body. We can experience that when we're conversing with someone or when we're hearing music, and it just gives a whole more depth to life than I knew at all when I started this journey.

Speaker 1: 40:08

I want to thank you for being so open and using that alchemy, taking those impurities and turning them into gold, and not just keeping it for yourself. You're offering it to others so that they can see that the tools are within themselves and that they just have to hold the space of capacity and know that there's a possibility of doing that, because you're a lived experience. So thank you for sharing your light 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.