Rewiring Trauma: From Nervous System Prison to Spiritual Freedom

After years of feeling trapped by the shadows of her past, Dr. Kelly Bohnhoff  discovered a transformative path that led her from trauma to triumph. Join us as she shares her remarkable story of healing and empowerment, revealing the powerful connections between trauma, energy, and the nervous system. We explore the concept of "parachuting" into life circumstances, suggesting that our journeys are not mere accidents but carry pre-ordained energy and purpose. Dr. Kelly's insights offer a compassionate understanding of how trauma can affect the mind, body, and spirit, providing hope and guidance for families seeking to reconnect with their true selves.

In our exploration, we confront the limiting beliefs that often hold us back—those insidious feelings of being unlovable or unworthy. Dr. Kelly encourages us to reflect deeply on the origins of these beliefs and demonstrates how shifting to empowering language can transform our personal and familial relationships. Through her narrative, we understand the importance of self-nurturing and redefining the energy we invite into our lives. This journey is not just about escaping victimhood but embracing a powerful vision of ourselves as manifestations of divine love in action.

Finally, we tackle the delicate dance of integrating the ego into our personal growth. With Dr. Kelly as our guide, we embark on a metaphorical interview with the ego, understanding its fears and the necessity of making it a valued component of our inner team. By fostering harmony among the mind, body, and spirit, we learn to release societal conditioning and step into a life of autonomy and internal guidance. This episode offers the promise of a pain-free, medication-free existence where freedom is not just the absence of fear but a profound embrace of all that we are. Join us on this riveting exploration of energy and healing, and unlock the potential for transformation within yourself and your family.
Find out more about
Dr. Kelly Bohnhoff
www.onesacredfamily.com

Chapters

• 0:00 Transforming Trauma and Energy in Families
• 15:55 Empowering Belief System Transformation
• 28:44 Navigating Energy and Healing Transformation
• 36:03 Navigating Ego for Freedom

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to the Lift One Self podcast, where we break mental health stigmas through conversations. I'm your host, nat Nat, and we dive into topics about trauma and how it impacts the nervous system. Yet we don't just leave you there. We share insights and tools of self-care, meditation and growth that help you be curious about your own biology. Your presence matters. Please like and subscribe to our podcast. Help our community grow. Let's get into this. Oh, and please remember to be kind to yourself.

Speaker 2: 0:36

Welcome to the Lift One Self podcast. I'm your host, Nat Nat, and I am delighted to have this guest, who is Dr Kelly, that we're going to get into my jam of talking about trauma and energy. Yet before we do, Dr Kelly, would you be gracious enough to introduce yourself to the listeners.

Speaker 3: 0:57

Yes, of course. Thank you for this invitation. It's an honor. My name is Dr Kelly Bonhoeff and I parachuted in with my family just like everyone else did, and I've had an amazing experience of navigating trauma in your early childhood, becoming a nurse and a trauma therapist. Answer the question what's going on with my family? And I am really excited today to share with you how you and your family can transform fear into freedom. And so that is just a quick encapsulation of who I am and what I'm about and my sacred mission to just help guide families into a more empowered state and a remembrance of who they are.

Speaker 2: 1:46

I'm looking forward to this conversation. Before we do, would you join me in a two-minute mindful moment? Of course, and for the listeners, as you always hear me say, safety first. Many of you are listening to a podcast while driving or needing your visual, so when I asked Dr Kelly and myself to close our eyes, please keep them open. Yet you're able to follow the other prompts wherever you are doing and whatever you are, wherever you are. So, dr Kelly, I'll ask you to get comfortable in your seating and, if it's safe to do so, 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, you're just going to be aware of its rhythm and allow it to guide you into your body. There may be some feelings or sensations coming up, and that's okay. You're safe to feel. You're safe to let go, surrender the need to control, release the need to resist and just be.

Speaker 2: 3:06

Be with your breath drop deeper into your body now there may be some thoughts or memories that have popped up in your mind, and that's okay. Gently bring your awareness back to your breath, creating space between the awareness and the thoughts and dropping even deeper into your body, allowing yourself to just be. Again, more thoughts may have popped up. Bring your awareness to your breath up.

Speaker 1: 3:50

bring your awareness to your breath beginning again, creating even more space between the awareness and the thoughts and dropping even deeper into the body, allowing yourself to be be in the breath.

Speaker 2: 4:05

Be in the breath Now, at your own time and at your own pace. You're going to gently open your eyes while still staying with your breath.

Speaker 3: 4:18

How's your heart doing? It's full, calm, peaceful.

Speaker 2: 4:25

Now you mentioned that you parachuted into your family, which some people would be like. What are you talking about? Yet, by being able to say that statement, it gives me an understanding that you've done some inner work and understand the trauma and a bit about the nervous system. So can you explain more to the listeners exactly what you mean about parachuting into the family and what you discovered?

Speaker 3: 4:53

Yeah, parachuting in with right. So it wasn't until age 57, right at the end of the pandemic, as an essential worker, as a nurse and a therapist where I was, it was told to me that I couldn't see the children I had been. It had been my honor to be with severely traumatized children and families and teens for many, many years, and when someone told me that I was no longer able to see someone, I lost my mind because my entire being had always been a healer. And so when someone said you're not going to be able to be in those spaces anymore, I had that breakdown that someone has when I talk about this in the way of energy. So we are all energy, although I didn't know that at the time. I had a breakdown and I had several across across the years. I had been exploring the energy of child adversity in this lifetime, along with trafficking as a child, and so I fell into the energy of that.

Speaker 3: 5:57

And when I say parachuted in, it's important to remember that I'm looking through the lens of the interconnected or multidimensional nature of us as infinite intelligence, pure love and sacred energy in a human exploring what it means to be human. So when I say that my family of origin the mother, father, myself as the oldest and the three siblings. We all had planned to parachute into this particular timeline to explore different kinds of energy, and, without us knowing that thousands upon thousands of generations before us we hadn't remembered, we had been very fearful. And so, when we came into this particular what I call timeline and worldline storyline, I remember the first thought I had was the world is a dangerous place, the energy around me was very heavy and, as a little person, I had three jobs. The first was to keep my mother healthy, my father happy and my siblings safe. And so when we come into these beautiful opportunities, as the beautiful, brave, brilliant souls we are, we don't remember that spiritual amnesia is, for most of us, intact, and the trauma, as I define it from this perspective, is any life event that causes shock or distress to the mind, the body and spirit to remain aligned, balanced and connected. So when we're little, our sacred nature which is sacred, is just worthy of unconditional love, devotion and reverence goes dormant. Well, why would that be? Well, we have to survive the experience first before we can remember. And so this is the context to the beginning journey, and as at age 57, I had what some people call or refer to the dark as the dark night of the soul. To me it really wasn't the dark night of the soul. The soul knew exactly what had been planned. What it was was the dark night of the ego, which is ego as experiencing God as other instead of experiencing God as one or an interconnected and I use God. God is a very edgy word for me, based on my upbringing, but ego, that's the acronym.

Speaker 3: 8:21

So as long as my personality felt separate and abandoned and disconnected from love, well then I began to create or co-create energy that just continued to perpetuate these energy experiences for me to learn from and for my family to learn from. And so it took four years for me to go into what I call that chrysalis. So I was a little sleepy caterpillar, and then I've been for four years in the chrysalis, although I had been doing the inner work for many, many years, had many, many medications on board, became a therapist to better understand myself and my family. But it wasn't until I came to a full stop which I don't recommend, by the way pulling the emergency brake on a runaway train. But when I came to that full stop and I looked around and there was only wreckage. Then I began to ask different questions and I realized something else was going on here, that I was missing.

Speaker 3: 9:25

As a scientist and a researcher, my mind worked one way, but my creative imagination, intuition and inspiration was dormant. Those began to come back online and then my human and sacred nature began to meet one another. Sacred nature began to meet one another, and when that happened, I had very mystical experiences that allowed me to see the vision of our families, where childhood adversity is actually no longer a way of life. Our families are here to heal that trauma, unlock our hidden power of genius, resilience and wisdom, and to remember we are sacred, multi-dimensional beings, here to explore and to shift the awareness of humanity into unity, consciousness. And so our families, what I refer to them as is the Navy SEALs of the universe.

Speaker 3: 10:19

So the reason why I talk about it as parachuting in is because we create. We had this beautiful put me in, coach, I'm ready to go in, I'm ready to learn more, and our families are so strong. It's just that we had forgotten that and we had built systems around us to keep us in this state of disempowerment, and so the language around families, of families, are toxic. Families are dysfunctional, families are broken. It's BS, it's belief system, and so I would say that for those families that are listening, you are not broken, you are becoming the greatest expression of love you have ever known. You are not toxic.

Speaker 3: 11:05

You are traveling and navigating through a series of emotional and mental energy, and when I looked at it as energy, it really helped me to have a much more expanded view of my own family dynamics, which were very intertwined, very entangled, very messy, very maddening, but also very magical, very mysterious, very miraculous.

Speaker 3: 11:33

So when we put all of those things together and we realize it's love at different points of energy, the questions become different, and so I just asked more empowering questions.

Speaker 3: 11:46

After, of course, I asked for help, because part of my personality was I don't need anyone's help and in fact I would prefer to be the helper and in fact I would really, at the end of the day, just love to be left alone. And so this really created an isolation in me that I didn't realize I had, and so it was in my later years, in this particular expression of life or lifetime, that I had that opening, that moment where I had an opportunity to see this from a very different perspective and through that, healing is where the book was born. So this is a very different, more empowered narrative for our families to realize. We chose to come in with this cast of characters. The question is who are these characters and who am I in relation to the characters, and how can I continue to move toward freedom even if they choose not to? And so that's a very that's a very powerful part of the process to do.

Speaker 2: 12:49

What does that process look like? What are the tools to use? Or that you help others with families, and because I'm hearing this, but I'm also being mindful that a person that has no awareness of this language is feeling very belittled in this, and it's like how are you going to tell me that the experience that I received, or the pain or the trauma from the actions of others, is something that's growing and it's not dysfunctional, it's not toxic? So how would you answer that for somebody? So the way I would bridge.

Speaker 3: 13:27

That is that at the very beginning, when we are young, we look outside of ourselves to get a sense of our environment, and so we take on the beliefs and the understanding and the language of those around us. It could be our family, our priests, our teachers, and that's fine. We understand that we need those things in order to be able to navigate in our societies and in our world. What I would say is that at one point, you say, well, are these my beliefs or are they someone else's beliefs? And so the very first step that I took was to look to see which part of this is true for me. So there are three key ideas that I picked up very, very young, that many of us do, and they are I am unlovable, I am unworthy and I am not enough. And those three ideas, like pebbles put in your pocket, we carry around as if they are truth, and in that truth we begin to look for other disempowering kinds of language. And so even for me, as someone who went through trauma and who also heard these words as a trained therapist, I knew that there was something that was dissonant or not correct about the use of that kind of language. That kind of language kept someone kind of looking to the outside of themselves for help, when I intuitively understood that everything that I needed was inside. But it felt upside down down. So I also had to work through. Well, if I am not a toxic person, or if my father or mother are not toxic, then, as it relates to the psychological language, that is true from the perspective of psychology. So I am not saying those are not true perspectives. What I'm saying is that for me, I wanted to see and look and feel into a more empowered perspective. So can I hold the perspective of there is toxicity, there is narcissism, there is resentment, there are things that happen? Can I also hold the possibility that I am broken from the perspective of psychology but I'm also becoming from the perspective of spirituality? So in the end I was able to understand where the language came from, and then I would sit with myself.

Speaker 3: 15:55

The very first thing I did was I sat and I wrote down as many beliefs I had about myself as I could put together over a period of time, because they came in layers. If I believe myself to be unlovable, unworthy and not enough, those were the top three. I noticed that in the children that I cared for and the families. So if those three are the main ones that are driving the rest of my life in every relationship I have with myself, my family, humanity and the world, then is that true? Is it true that I'm unlovable, unworthy and not enough? And there was a part of me that said that is not true. That is what you learned, that is what you have been living in, that is the energy of survival and suffering. And I realized oh well, that was true until it wasn't. And so now I can move from that language and say but what else is also true? Well, it's actually true that I am lovable, that I am worthy, that I am enough.

Speaker 3: 16:56

And so when I turned my intention first to look at my BS, my belief system, to see where I had picked up those ideas, where had I picked up that language? Because I continue to use that language toward myself. And if we use that language toward ourselves, then all the reflections around us will be in that particular level of energy which is disempowering. So I began to look for more empowering language and, as I did, I began to write with intention every day I am worthy, I am lovable, I am enough. So, for every belief I had that was disempowering, I created an empowering belief and I bridged the two. So some days I did feel unlovable, unworthy and not enough, and then other days I would feel more worthy, lovable and enough. And so, as I, I would feel more worthy, lovable and enough.

Speaker 3: 17:45

And so, as I began this teeter totter effect with my human nature, or my ego that was trying to figure out what was happening, and then my sacred nature, which was saying oh, there is so much more here that you just haven't remembered. So believe me when I tell you I understand the language around and the disempowerment around, and someone else knows better than me as to how to heal, fix, change and save me. That language placed me in a victim energy, and I just chose to see it, to own that. Oh well, am I feeling a victim here? Is this the energy of victimhood? Yes, oh well, am I feeling a victim here? Is this the energy of victimhood? Yes, oh well, I've really mastered this energy. Oh, I've really mastered it. Oh, okay. Well then, what's the next level of energy? Is that? Is that so?

Speaker 3: 18:37

So for me, the way I started was very gently, very intentionally. Then I would pay attention to the beliefs, because I would see it reflected in my behavior, in the way that I so every thought I think, every word I speak, every belief I hold, every emotion I feel and the actions I was taking, I feel and the actions I was taking. So the first thing I noticed immediately well, I was taking many more actions in a day that were self-neglecting than self-nurturing. That would be an example self-destructive versus self-devoting. So what I tried to do was just to look at this as a balancing. So the song Love is a battlefield, right.

Speaker 3: 19:20

So I kept hearing that on the radio and I'm like, okay, love isn't a battlefield, it's a unified field, our families. So for us, as individuals and as families, we're on a balance beam. We're balancing what we thought, we understood about ourselves and our families with what is more aligned with, from my experience, the truth of who we are, which is divine love in action, remembering that that's who we are, and so not everyone will have this experience, because I'm the only Kelly that exists in this version. But what I will say for those who are wondering about their relationship with their parents, which is one of the most how do we say anchoring energies of our lives. In other words. We picked our parents very purposefully and we wanted, as souls, to, as we were planning to say. Will I be able to? I wonder if I'll be able to love my parent through this journey of adversity. Will I find the unconditional love in myself and in my family members through this journey? And sometimes we do, and sometimes we're right in the middle of the journey. This is the hero's journey, and sometimes we do plan not to remember so that others can remember.

Speaker 3: 20:54

So there is a lot going on here around language, and there were many times language can be very triggering, for myself as well, and so, as a healer and as a person, when I would hear another provider, another person or a parent say in front of a child well, you're just toxic or you're just broken. Where you're just toxic or you're just broken, for me what I would feel is a sense of that is language that we have learned and that is the feeling of that person in that moment. But that is not the truth of who any of us are, and so I want to bring more of an empowered language to. So there's nothing wrong. All words are sacred, all energy is sacred, all relationships are sacred, and yet some energies and some words and some beliefs are much more empowering than others.

Speaker 3: 21:50

So the question then becomes in my own life there were three things I did that really helped me over these last four years to really anchor this new understanding and belief and joy that I feel in freedom. It was intention to discover. So, being curious, not judgmental Attention to that intention. So if I intended to self-nurture today and I find myself self-neglecting, then I just very gently am curious about. I wonder what's hurting today, I wonder what is coming to heal today. And then from attention I always go to inspired action. So for those of us whose nervous systems got very nervous very young and who stay in this fight, flight freeze, flee fawn, is that I, just when I started to be curious, it opened up more space for what I call inspired action. So instead of life in the fast lane, to-do list, life in the flow lane, which is inspiration, intuition, inspired action, imagination. So that flow then is much more relaxed.

Speaker 3: 23:01

So when I wanted to take another drink, so my coping mechanisms were Patron pastries and purchases. When I found myself impulsively wanting to take a drink, grab a donut or go and do a one-click maneuver, I would not judge, I would just be curious as to what is happening within my field of awareness that had me impulsively taking an action that I fundamentally don't believe is nurturing for me anymore. So it does take time, on this balance beam, to intend to see yourself first oxygen mask on, first for you, and then, as you're what I call, this Wi-Fi energy. So you're a Wi-Fi hotspot. So, as my Wi-Fi hotspot went from fear into freedom, from judgment into joy, well now, without saying a word to anyone in my family at all, they began to wonder what is going on with you, because you've been this way, you've been in this role, you've been doing these things, and I say, well, I'm remembering who I am and I'm remembering who you are, and I choose to be free, I choose not to be afraid, and so how do I anchor those activities into my daily life, how do I weave them in and ground them? Because so much of this information that feels very new and very different to humanity would be very much like you said. Very new and very different to humanity would be very much like you said.

Speaker 3: 24:39

This woman is full of BS. I know it hurts to be here. I know that I can't pay my bills. I know that my children, you know, are really struggling. So what is it that she's got that is going to help me, you know, in this moment? And so here's what I offer. I offer three steps that really, really help me, that you can use at any time, in any moment that shifted.

Speaker 3: 25:07

So shift is the sacred healing of individual and family trauma. We are in a shift. Show the world, it's a shift. Show out there. What can I say? Everybody's moving all this energy through their body at this time and it's looking like the wild, wild west out there at the moment. But we can't heal what we can't see, and so it's coming through us in this way in order for us to heal and make a choice a free will, choice, fear or freedom. And so these are the three things that I do when I notice that spicy words are being thrown. It's like Jerry Springer, you know, everyone's getting passionately animated out there. And so if you are in the middle of this, imagine it as a stage. So Shakespeare's, all the world's a stage. And so I am sitting in a seat at Thanksgiving and I'm noticing all the cast of characters, my granddaughters, everyone's around, and I'm just noticing, I'm just compassionately witnessing everyone's day, everyone's words. I'm just taking it all in.

Speaker 3: 26:19

And when someone is about to get edgy, I do three things. When I start to notice my own system, my heart starts to beat. Someone may be coming from behind me. That's a trigger for me. So what I? What I do is I do three things, and it's very similar to what we were told when we were small if someone was on fire. So think of our. You know your nervous system's on fire, all right. And what were we told? We stop, drop and roll, right.

Speaker 3: 26:49

So in this case, I stop and be still. I drop into three deep breaths. I don't engage, I just I'm sitting there with and I mean three deep breaths through your nose and out your mouth, just being there. And then the third step is to be. So you stop, you drop and you be. You're present in the moment, creating the sacred space of noticing and witnessing, rather than becoming a part of the story that is about to unfold. And when you have a moment to allow your nervous system to pause, which is the possibility of aligning to universal source energy, well, now you've got your sacred posse, those guides and angels and ancestors and anyone that you may call to assist you that we can't see, but we can feel, and they help lift your vibration in a way where you're not going to react or reenact an old dynamic, an old pattern of communication or an old interaction that just doesn't serve you or your family anymore. So these are very real tools that were created intuitively, quickly because for families, the other thing I noticed is, you know, many families don't necessarily want to go to therapy, and that's fine, and we couldn't reach everybody anyway.

Speaker 3: 28:20

So what is the solution? The solution is within every traumatized family lies a hidden power, a sacred potential waiting to be remembered and awakened. So our families can heal from within, within their own environments, within their own places where they live in the world, their own environments within their own places where they live in the world. And it's just a matter of asking a question.

Speaker 3: 28:44

I'm starting with the words I wonder.

Speaker 3: 28:47

I wonder if it's possible that my family can live in freedom.

Speaker 3: 28:51

I wonder if it's possible that I am here and there's more to me than I thought.

Speaker 3: 28:57

I wonder if my family and this cast of characters, that we had a plan before we got here, and if there is a plan, and if any of this is actually true for me, I wonder what the plan was. I wonder what we were here to help ourselves learn, but also to bring to the world with our genius. Because the other thing that I can see in families very clearly is their genius. And when you bring a family together and they harness their genius, every individual being in their own beautiful soul song, and you put the family together, generations of family together, well now there's a genius there that the world has never seen before, and so ever since I was a little girl, I didn't realize that I was able to see and understand the energies of families, and it's only now that I understand what everything has been about, that I've been through, that I'm going through now and that I will ever go through. It's just uncovering more and more of who I truly am.

Speaker 2: 30:02

So it is divine love becoming Well explained and I know many listeners. If they were able to open themselves up, they could really hear the benefit of, you know, surrendering those defense mechanisms of the nervous system, removing those coping mechanisms and being the vulnerability, being the sensitivity. Feel your authentic emotions. Many at a young age didn't have a safe space to feel emotions and then if you weren't able to feel your emotions, then you weren't able to communicate. So then people wonder well, why can't you communicate in your relationship? Well, I need to feel my emotions to be able to feel your emotions, and you weren't able to communicate. So then people wonder well, why can't you communicate in your relationship? Well, I need to feel my emotions to be able to communicate what my truth is or what I'm experiencing. So, yeah, we speak very similar in the language that we provide to people.

Speaker 2: 30:55

It's, you know, for me, ego is the defense mechanisms of the nervous system protecting you from vulnerability, and when you go into vulnerability, you're in the self, you're in the spiritual aspect, you're in god, you're connected in all that. Yet if your defense mechanisms are in there, you're identified with the nervous system and you think you're the body, you think you're the nervous system. So that's why I do these two minute mindful moments so that people can see like, oh, there's something beyond, like there's an awareness that can detach from you know this storyline, the beliefs and the nervous system. Yet many have no idea, they're still identified with the nervous system and that's all they know, and so of course it's a frightening world, of course it's very limited, yet it takes that work to shift your perception. And I think that's what really healing is is doing that warrior work to shift the perception, because nervous system's always in negative bias. It's one function is don't die, so it's always looking for the problems, so it's doing exactly what it's supposed to do.

Speaker 2: 32:01

It's then going beyond that and being able to shift the perception of allowing yourself to be in that worth and seeing that you're still safe. Even with the ugliness, even with the violence and the messiness of the world, there's still a lot of beauty, there's still a lot of joy, there's still a lot to delight in. I just want to make it clear that nowhere do I want someone to feel minimized in their experience or that there's any kind of toxic positivity that just think this way and everything makes it go away. It's no. Your experience is valid. It's asking yourself, now that this has happened, how am I choosing to show up? How am I choosing to love myself?

Speaker 3: 32:50

Right. So the language really is so limiting for us. I just wanted to give an example of how, in my own life, that language was a part of my journey toxic, dysfunctional, broken. I felt those things as well, and those words are very powerful. Other words are also powerful. So the question is, it's not really in the words, it's in the way that we perceive those words. So in the end, I was just as triggered in therapy as anyone around words and people, particularly in trying to process the child trafficking.

Speaker 3: 33:29

You know, this idea of that was my fault, right? Or that you know I should have, could have, would have and all those kinds of things, or that I should have, could have, would have, and all those kinds of things. Those are the things that keep us trapped in this, what I refer to as the heavy energy. So what really helped me is just really looking at this, not even from language, but from energy. So does this person, place, thing, situation, circumstance and condition feel heavy to me or does it feel light to me? So, even moving away all of the debris of words and systems and this, that or the other, when we use dualized language, so anything related to judgment, well, you are toxic. You are this, you are that. You know that is judgment, duality based language, and that's all right. That is actually a part of the journey. It gives you a sense of, well, which part of this energy spectrum am I in? Am I in this heavier energy of fear and resentment and judgment and blame and shame? Okay, well, I need to know that. I need to know what that language is, and I need to know that. That's where I am. The question is is where am I going?

Speaker 3: 34:41

So the turning point in the energy for me, the Hawkins scale of consciousness is very, very good about this, and sharing this information is courage. So where do we get the courage to say, huh, I wonder if this is all there is, or is there something else? And if there is something else, what am I willing to do? And so, for me, the pain pushed me to a point of surrender. So if I had known or remembered sooner, I don't believe that I would have navigated my way through some of these very heavy energies in order to understand that I could have done this in a very, in a much lighter way. So if I'm going to use the five senses and my intuitive sense to navigate, what I know now is the flow of life. So I'm not using my senses to fight life anymore. So I'm not using my senses to fight life anymore, I'm using my senses to flow with life. So I use my senses every day. You know the warm sun on my face I've been getting rainbow light in my room, for instance. You know I love that. I can see the rainbows Right, and so it's really a shift in perspective and a willingness to turn in the direction of freedom and joy and peace.

Speaker 3: 36:03

And the other thing I really had an aha moment about was I was I wasn't afraid of the dark, heavy stuff. I was so familiar with that. You know running into places that people are like don't run in there. But I was like I'm going in there, I understand this, this kind of darkness in here. What I was afraid of was the light. What I was afraid of was this idea, kind of coming out of Plato's cave, that the light and the love was so bright. It was almost as if it wasn't real and it felt to me like if I could just stay in the status quo, in the sabotage, in the shadows, in the place where I know and I'm familiar with I don't know about this other place. I don't remember this place and I'm not sure this place is real, and so it was really the light and the freedom and the joy and the peace that I was afraid of, because, in the end, I didn't know who I would be If I was free. I didn't know thyself at all, and so that, to me, was the most remarkable turning point and the most remarkable aha moment, when I turned my intention, attention and inspired action to wondering if I could be free, really free and not afraid every day. What would I be willing to do? And so, every day, I would say it's not that I don't experience fear, now I do. I put my arms around fear now, though, and I say welcome, because it helps me understand what is it that's ready to heal next. So all emotions are sacred.

Speaker 3: 37:52

The other thing I did was I decided to interview my ego. This was an interesting idea, because Barbara Walters was someone it's I'm a vent, I'm in my vintage years, and she would interview people on television. I thought she was the greatest interviewer, and so I decided have you ever seen inside out? Inside out, one and two, I met once my imagination and my inner child began to feel safe enough to come online. I imagine interviewing my ego inside my mind. So I had my mind, my ego, my body, my soul and my spirit, my higher self, there, and so we were just talking to ego, like I'm talking to you, and I said so, ego, it feels like there's a lot of turbulence, You're really scared, you know what's going on.

Speaker 3: 38:39

And my ego said something to me that brought me to tears and it said my ego said why are you trying to kill me? Because there had been, you know this language in the spiritual community too. Because, again, we all take what resonates with us. Not all of what I hear is resonant for me in this moment, no matter where I hear it from, and what I had been listening to were think, well, it's ego, death and the ego is the bad guy and all this kind of stuff. And I never really believed that. I was just trying to understand well, what's that perspective? Cause I really love hearing perspectives but my ego took that as well you're trying to get rid of me, you're trying to say that I am not worthy, lovable or enough. You're trying to say that I need to go, that I need to be different. And so, as I interviewed my ego. I call this the ego diaries.

Speaker 3: 39:29

I began to understand from the perspective of my ego that it had a very real fear of being not, not here anymore or not, or not being its own authentic self. And so I I asked ego, I wonder what we can all do as your team, team harmony, to help you feel safer, to create a sacred tape container around my ego so that we are a team, so my ego isn't always in fight flight. So that microchip that is my personality, that around my ego, so that we are a team, so my ego isn't always in fight flight. So that microchip that is my personality, that is my ego, that's driving my personal reality, isn't in resistance. So for me, fear is just familiar energy aligned with resistance.

Speaker 3: 40:12

So if I'm resisting the energy of love, the energy of light, the energy of freedom, the energy of love, the energy of light, the energy of freedom, the energy of joy, well, which part of me is resisting? It's my ego. And so I built a sacred container around ego so that ego feels a part of the team, is a part of the team and has just as much voice in the team meetings as any other part of me does so. This is the mind, body and spirit again coming back into alignment, balance and connection. So I just share that with everyone, to let you know that our egos are a sacred part of who we are, and so any language around any part of us at all, it's all sacred.

Speaker 3: 40:56

So this particular part of my journey was very helpful in releasing the resistance, and so I was able to flow into freedom much more quickly every day, and I'm in it every day because the ego now feels a part of the journey, not as someone who is the black sheep of my being right, and so I really appreciated the ego, this beautiful ego of mine that I intentionally chose, by the way, my personal, my personal reality, my personality. I chose to see through life in this way. So how could ego not be amazing and beautiful? It's just that we have been taught and conditioned and programmed to believe something different. So I'm in a complete rewirement, reprogramming, rebalancing, recalibrating, restoration. So I'm unlearning everything I learned and I am curious about anything I believe, to make sure that it's mine, that it's not coming from outside of me in any way, whether it is a doctor or whatever, and this, this process has allowed me to come off every medication.

Speaker 3: 42:10

I'm I'm pain free. I'm I'm completely free of all outside impact as it relates to someone telling me or having more power or more authority. The authority is mine. It's the inner guidance system that I have that helps me navigate. And now my nervous system. Yes, it helps me. If a bear is coming through my window, I will run, no problem. My nervous system is also the technology the virtual reality technology that helps us navigate this beautiful world, and so our nervous system was always meant to function in freedom, not in fear.

Speaker 2: 42:54

Very well said. Now I know many of the listeners are like okay, so where can I find Dr Kelly? So know many of the listeners are like okay, so where can I find it, dr kelly? So could you let the listeners know where they can find you and what you have to offer? And you mentioned a book. So if you could mention all of that for them right so you can find me at onesacredfamilycom.

Speaker 3: 43:15

Um, the book is there. It it's right here. It's called what's Going On With my Family A Roadmap to Healing Trauma, Unlocking your Hidden Power and Remembering what is Sacred. On Amazon and Audible and there is a free gift I would love to share with you you can go to OneSacredFamilycom. Backslash.

Speaker 3: 43:32

Hunt for Joy all one word.

Speaker 3: 43:35

It is a seven day hunt for joy based on look to the stars of stillness, thankfulness, affirmations, reflection and showing up.

Speaker 3: 43:44

And if you were to put that little calendar with the look to the stars on your refrigerator and you would take those seven days to do stillness, thankfulness, affirmation, reflection, showing up, you would begin to see and feel a spaciousness in your family and yourself and your family as you do that. That gives you just enough of the vibration of joy that'll lift you into a little more clarity and in that lift you can set your intentions for yourself and your family and pay attention and then take inspired action. To just be curious, Is your family ready to transform fear into freedom? I want you to know that you have everything within you and your family to live the life of your wildest dreams. It's just a matter of turning your intention in that direction and making time to breathe. Give yourself five minutes a day to breathe and you'll feel, in that spaciousness, more questions that you can ask that are very empowering, and you will dance your way energetically into the freedom that you have always wanted to have in your lives.

Speaker 2: 44:57

So all of that will be in the show notes so that you have always wanted to have in your lives. So all of that will be in the show notes so that you're easily able to access Dr Kelly At any point in this conversation that you heard. If there was a tug or an opening, be sure to connect with Dr Kelly. That's your vagus nerve, letting you know that there's something there that she has that would bring some more opening and regulation to your nervous system and develop some tools within to create safety in that body, create an openness of positivity rather than always in the negative bias and fear. I want to ask you from this conversation and in your heart, is there something that you would like to leave the listeners to empower them with?

Speaker 3: 45:43

I wrote a poem and I'll just read the last line. It's called when I look at your family what do I see? When I look at your family, what do I see? You are one sacred family and you are already free.

Speaker 2: 45:58

Beautiful. I want to thank you for offering. The most generous and richest thing you have is your time. So I want to thank you for being here, sharing your experiences and also, you know, letting people know where they can reach you and offering the services to open a different way of family and relationships. So thank you for everything that you're doing in the world, dr Kelly, it's been an honor.

Speaker 3: 46:27

Thank you for this container and it was great to feel safe here as well to share the information. Thank you.

Speaker 2: 46:34

Please remember to be kind to yourself Always. Please remember to be kind to yourself always. Hey, you made it all the way here. I appreciate you and your time. If you found value in this conversation, please share it out. If there was somebody that popped into your mind, take action and share it out with them.

Speaker 1: 46:54

It possibly may not be them that will benefit. It's that they know somebody that will benefit from listening to this conversation.

Speaker 2: 47:02

So please take action and share out the podcast. You can find us on social media, on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok under Lift One Self, and if you want to inquire about the work that I do and the services that I provide to people, come over on my website, come into a discovery, call liftoneselfcom.

Speaker 1: 47:26

Until next time, please remember to be kind and gentle with yourself. You matter.