Becoming Trauma-Informed

S4EP11: Transcending Trauma through Spiritual Healing with Laura Mazzotta

• Season 4 • Episode 11

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Have you ever wondered how trauma can act as a catalyst for spiritual awakening? Laura Mazzotta, a distinguished Holistic Therapist, and Spiritual Coach, joins us this week to talk about exactly that. 

 

Laura's personal journey of transformation began with a life-threatening bout of sepsis. We dive into her captivating story, discussing how we can connect with our energy and soul to achieve the pinnacle of wellness and authenticity. We also tackle the concept of mental wellbeing, offering a fresh perspective on being “toasty” versus being “toast”.

 

We also examine the connection between trauma and spiritual awakening. We look at how trauma can often leave us feeling victimized, but it's through navigating these challenging experiences that we find a path to empowerment. Laura provides unique insights into how personal trauma journeys should be respected and recognized for their crucial role in grounding us in the human experience. We also explore how spirituality and personal beliefs intertwine and how these connections can be harnessed for healing and growth.

 

Lastly, Laura shares her particular knack for helping people who feel stuck to better understand themselves and foster their spiritual connections. From auditory processing to awakening authenticity and self-trust, Laura's approach is all about creating space for healing and expansion. She encourages us all to carve out a little time in our day for spiritual practices and reassures that there are resources available to support our journey. 

 

Guest Bio: 

 

Laura Mazzotta is a Holistic Therapist of 20 years & Akashic Records Channel, grounding you into sustainable self-mastery, through expansion of your consciousness, confidence, and sovereignty in human connection.

 

Connect with Laura:

 

https://www.instagram.com/emergehealingandwellness/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/expansionportal/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbcQ88JRcZ6blPbWKOzvAxg

http://www.tiktok.com/@emergehealingandwellness

https://www.theakashictherapist.com/

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  • hello@institutefortrauma.com




Speaker 2:

Hi and welcome to the Becoming Trauma-Informed podcast where we help you understand how your past painful experiences are affecting your current reality and how you can shift those so you can create your desired future. I'm Dr Lee, and both myself and our team at the Institute for Trauma and Psychological Safety are excited to support you on your journey. We talk about all the things on this podcast. No topic gets left uncovered. So extending a content warning to you before we get started if you notice yourself getting activated while listening, invitation to take care of yourself and to pause, skip ahead a bit or just check out another episode. Let's dive in. Hi everybody, welcome to this week's episode. I have an amazing guest with me today. We were actually connected through a friend who was like you have to meet each other and we ended up getting together on Zoom and talking for, like I think, way longer than we had planned, and I was like you have to come on the podcast. So, without further ado, laura Mazada. Laura, thank you for joining me.

Speaker 1:

Thanks so much for having me. I'm so happy to be here, me too.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so can you tell our audience a little bit about you.

Speaker 1:

Sure, I have been a holistic therapist in New York state for about 20 years and I shifted to spiritual coaching and spiritual therapy in fully in 2020. I've been transitioning for a few years, but fully in 2020. And this was really the catalyst for the shift was me getting sepsis about eight years ago, and I was almost not here with us anymore and was told that I would continue to get worse. And I just for the first time in my life, really felt like, yeah, I don't believe any of you and I know exactly what my future holds and it's bright and it's vibrant. And so I started looking into alternative ways to heal and I went to natural pads and functional medicine doctors and became a Reiki master practitioner.

Speaker 1:

And then I found the Akashic records, which we can talk about in a little bit, and it completely changed my life in ways that it opened up this, this whole world that I knew nothing about, and I felt like I was just starting my education on deeply loving and knowing who I was, even though I've been a therapist for 20 years and very, very good at what I do, very well respected in the community and done my own introspective work in my own work for years never touched the depth to, to where I went with the spiritual stuff, and so I started to realize that that was really mostly what was coming out of my mouth was spiritual and energetic practices, and that's why it felt really aligned to shift from traditional therapy to what I deeply believe in, which is that connection with your energy, that connection with your soul, and allowing that to be the lens through but you can step into the highest level of wellness and authenticity.

Speaker 2:

And so many like ooh ooh moments, as you were saying that because just for our listeners. You know I used to take care of a lot of people who came in with sepsis, and sepsis is no joke. For those of you who aren't in the healthcare or in the medical fields, like that is a literal life or death scenario of you have an infection that has gotten to the point that your body is struggling or failing to fight it. And if there's not a layer of like psychological stuff on top of that, like how many times do we get to a point in our mental health where, like man, I am struggling or failing to fight what I am being faced with? And so I think it's really interesting the parallel of like that physical fight with your energetic kind of no, no, that's not how this is going to go.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and you know what it felt like a fight for a number of years.

Speaker 1:

It felt like a fight because I wasn't getting the answers from the medical system that I was looking for and I realized that I was in this space of control around, like I have to survive, I have to get better, and I was doing all of these things to take care of myself, because I needed to survive and to walk again and to think straight. And yet I then realized I'm like fighting my way through that that's not the energy that gets us into deep, sustainable healing, right, I'm like something's off here, you know, like I need to be in love with the process of loving myself, of healing myself, of caring for myself. It's not enough to just check off the boxes and say, yep, ate my kale today, ate my beets today. You know, took a walk, saw the sun. You know it wasn't enough to just check those off. I needed to be madly in love with loving myself. And that's where it began. And it began on a physical level, you know, and then it really transitioned into all the other layers.

Speaker 2:

That is so gorgeous and I feel really grateful, like I feel like it's expansive hearing you say that, because so many people like what trauma teaches us? What these, all these past painful experiences teach us is a lot of times to fight and we come at healing with an energy of resistance and desperation and desperation right, and it's like okay, well, if the way I want to feel when I'm healed is calm and peaceful and happy and loving, then then, journeying to that space in it from a place of fear and resistance and fight mode and desperation, like what is the likelihood I'm going to end up where I want to go if these are the means I'm using to try to get there Right?

Speaker 1:

Well, and the thing is is it will work sometimes, right, it'll still work, but then you're fricking fried man, you're burnt out, You're toast and you're pissed off right Like you're resentful, because it's just like, dude, I'm exhausted. Look how much I'm a full time job. Look how much work I have to put into myself to like be just okay. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I can't remember who said this, but it really I don't know if it was on a TikTok or somebody was talking about how they check in around, like their mental well being, and how they're approaching things, and she's like I have two terms that I pay attention to. I'm either toasty or I'm toast. Right and toasty is okay. This is a. This is a point where I can look at am I showing up the way I want to show up? Like things are getting a little hot, things are getting a little hard on me? I just versus like no, I'm toast. And now we are in recovery mode, not preventative mode.

Speaker 1:

Correct. And that's exactly why I literally, when I started, when I found the Acutchic Records and I started to heal, I literally just wanted to scream it from the rooftops because I was just like people, do not wait until you get smacked in the fricking face and you're almost dead to wake up and love yourself, right, like, don't pull a Laura Masada, right? Well, and what was so funny is that, like I have, I've always taken care of myself. I've always taken very good care of myself. I've always been very self aware and introspective and doing the work and all the things, but it wasn't at the depth that I even realized existed when I was awakened by all of this, right. So it's about that.

Speaker 1:

You know, people told me for years you need to meditate, you need to meditate. And I was like, screw you, not only do I hate it, but I suck at it. I suck at it and I hate it. And then, when I was literally laying in bed for months and months and months and could not stand at one point, I was like you know what? I don't have anything else to do, I might as well meditate. And so I started meditating and then I noticed on the days that I wasn't doing it, I would feel worse and I was like, well, isn't this fascinating. I was like there must be something to this that I didn't consciously have any understanding of right, but I just knew that it was a pattern that was sustaining me and serving me in a very subtle way that I didn't fully get.

Speaker 2:

Where did that take you, as you noticed that that was serving you and sustaining you Like. Was that at the beginning, was that before you went down the rabbit hole, or was that?

Speaker 1:

you know what I mean. I was before I started on the Energetics. I was like the beginning of shit. I've always been very spiritual and kind of in and out of it with like religious traditions and things like that that I just didn't fully align with. But yeah, that was really the beginning is I really felt like I had no other choice?

Speaker 1:

And that's why it was coming to this and that's what I'm saying. That's why I know, as a therapist for 20 years, so many people who would come through my door would be at their wit's end. Right, they're toast, yeah, they're toast, 100% they're toast. And so it's like dude, we got to start doing these things just because we love ourselves, just because we decide we want to love ourselves. Like, take the action before you feel it. Right, I've always said that Take the action, especially with my depressed patients. It's like dude, you're not going to feel it.

Speaker 1:

This is the one time that I say don't listen to your body, because your body's going to say pull the covers up over your head and don't do shit. Right, where really, it's like who do you desire to become, what do you desire? And own that you want it. You know. And that's the beginning of planting that seed and then allowing it to start to grow. As you just open up space for yourself, like a minute a day. I don't care what you do with that space, I don't care if you eat chocolate the entire minute, right, but it's just like set aside space. That's intentional that you say I'm going to just be with myself.

Speaker 2:

It's like the simplest thing to do and it's also the hardest thing to do. It's like when I'm like people are like okay, well, where do I start? And I'm like you're going to feel your feelings and they're like okay, and I'm like, no, you think you're feeling your feelings. You're not feeling your feelings, you're not being with yourself, you are distracting yourself from yourself constantly. And one of the reasons I wanted to have you on why I got really excited is because my spiritual journey over this last year has really taken an interesting turn and reconnected with, I say, god, universe in a way that I hadn't in a very long time.

Speaker 2:

And before we started recording, I was sitting here going like okay, but like how does this apply to trauma? And then I was like Lee, how many people on this planet have trauma around their spirituality? How many people on this planet have trauma or past painful experiences or confusion or just like negative experiences of disconnection and shame and all the things around being a human that's on a rock hurtling through space that I don't even know how fast and why are we here and who are we and what you know? All of those pieces like you want to talk about a traumatic question yeah, no-transcript. I think most humans have a good amount of trauma around connection or disconnection with spirituality and I'm curious, you know I would love for you to explain the Kashuk records, just so that our audience can can understand it better. And I'm also curious too, like how what you do relates to this very real, like pervasive trauma in our society today.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so that's, that's multi layered right? I mean?

Speaker 1:

I've experienced a ton of trauma myself. I've obviously held a lot of people through very severe trauma and there's an integration of what's happening spiritually and what we're experiencing in the physical right. And so, in the physical, we're feeling unsafe, we're feeling like a deer in the headlights, we're feeling out of control, all of these things and we need to hold ourselves in that. We need to be present with that and engage in the nervous system techniques and the supports that we need in the resources we can access in tangible form so that our bodies feel grounded and centered At the same time that spiritually, this is all happening as a catalyst, right, it's all happening as a catalyst. And I remember, right after I had sepsis, about six to eight weeks after, the therapist that I was seeing at the time asked me and this was before I really dove into all of this again and she was like what do you think the spiritual significance of this? And I was pissed.

Speaker 1:

I was pissed and now I'm like so grateful because she planted a seed that I didn't realize she was planting within me, right, or a weight reawakening within me, but for me it was just like there's a reason for this, like I didn't create this. There's no reason that this exit, like I was like, but that right, like I was clearly in reactive state, right, I was in a reactive state and what I know very, very clearly and with so much confidence now is that, yes, we want to honor and soothe and comfort and ground and center the human and, at the same time, like, for instance, my son was was very severely bullied last year and I remember that happened and my first response internally was curiosity, interesting that this is coming up in his field right now and not taking this on as a project, but saying to him you know, where is this asking you to? To be more bold, with your voice right and to be able to speak and say this is not okay, I'm not available for this.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 1:

And and to really allow him the sovereignty of his own experience, at the same time that I'm here to hold him while he cries, right. And so it's this, it's this concept of like these experiences happen in our lives that feel awful and that sometimes feel like is there a God? Like, why would God do this to me? Why would God create this experience in my life? Right, but God isn't doing anything to you. God is actually inviting you back to him. Whether you identify God as male or not, you know, but I do God is inviting you back to him, and I was even I've been talking to my clients about this a lot lately this concept of like I call people shift heads instead of shit heads, because really what they do is they shift us right, like they are here to play the role of Dick so that I can learn how to use my voice more boldly and be a really really solid, empowered, confident.

Speaker 1:

I know who I am and what I'm here for woman. And so it's like thank you for the sexual abuse, thank you for the, you know, natural disaster or whatever's occurred, right, like thank you for these things because you've woken me up. You've, because I'm not. I'm a thick headed human being. I'm not necessarily going to pay attention until you knock me over the head sometimes, yeah. So sometimes it's like, but it's all for us, it's all happening for us and not to us, and we feel like victims and it's okay to feel like that and it's okay to be in victim mentality. I do feel it's required to agree to move through that. But then it's about realizing I don't choose to remain in this state because it's not who I am.

Speaker 2:

You said a whole word and there's, there's two pieces that I want to pick out because I know, I know there's somebody listening to this right now that just got pissed and that, oh yeah, cool, like because you just said you've been there, I've been there, like there have been times where I'm like that's really cute that you are trying to tell me that this happened for me and not to me and also fuck you like 100%. And we really, you know it's that I'm a soul in a human body having a human experience. It's what you said. There's duality to that. Your, your soul, needs that lesson.

Speaker 2:

Your soul, like you said, is being called back to connection with you know, infinite intelligence, the divine, whatever and the human part of you is like this sucks, this hurts. I don't like this, like whether that's physical or psychological or both, and you're right. So many people cannot hold both and especially, you know, you and I had this conversation where we were kind of like sharing some of our mutual frustration with a lot of the trauma training out there for coaches and healers and people who serve, support, help others through hard things. If you cannot hold me in my human and in my divine, like I can't work with you 100%.

Speaker 2:

Yep, because I need you to like recognize that very human part of me that is pissed and sad or confused or tired or whatever, and then I also like once I feel seen and felt and held and validated in that I need you to remind me that this is here to teach me something 100%.

Speaker 1:

That's exactly the trajectory, absolutely. And it's funny that you say that, because that transitions beautifully into talking about. The Acacia records are because we hold, like we hold each other in human form to support how we're responding to this traumatic event or experience, or re experiencing, right, and then, okay, that opens us up another layer. Alright, I can start to like engage a little bit. I feel like I've got my bearings a little bit more and then that's. This is why I like the space of the Acacia records, because the Acacia records is, it's a higher level of consciousness. So we're in the third dimension and the Acacia records exist around the seventh to the ninth dimension. There's, I mean, who the hell really knows the answer to that question Except right, but still it's up there, and so what it does is we enter this space through a ritual and when we get into this space, it's like that spiritual holding space for us as we transition into this more trusting, expansive, open relationship with God, because God, source, is the creator of all things, even the Acacia records, even the angels, the guides, all of that right, like God created everything.

Speaker 1:

But that's big energy. That's big energy for a lot of people and there's a lot of religious trauma connected to that, with not only their own personal experiences but also just growing up in the church. There's a lot of, there's a lot of trauma that a lot of people associate with the word God and so so that's what I like about the Acacia records is it's like a library for your soul. So it's got a book for every single soul that's ever sparked into existence. So when you enter your Acacic record, it's like they're taking the book of you off the shelf and opening it up and it's got all the information from your soul from the time it first sparked, all the way through past lives, future life, current life, all the things right, and so you can ask any question. You want to say Google for the soul and it's a high frequency.

Speaker 1:

Space, or just being in that place, is very, very healing. And once you cultivate a relationship, just like you would if you met a new person, once you call to really cultivate a relationship with the space and the guides and the angels and beings that are there, you then feel this sense of safety and opening even more into even higher dimension and a higher level of spiritual understanding and connection that really, really allows you to operate from a place of divine love, so that you're not reactive. And even if you start to see that reactivity come up, you can catch it immediately and be able to shift into you know that's not what this is about. This human experience is meant to be about joy. It's meant to be about sensation and connection and and allowing these quote unquote harsh experiences to invite us back into the course over and over and over again, so that we continue to return, with these reminders, to that deep knowing of what we're here for.

Speaker 2:

You blew my mind. I'm like, oh okay, I want to ask you something because, again, I know that there are people listening to this, whether it's trauma or, you know, religious trauma, spiritual trauma, or it's just you know what they believe is their truth. Like if somebody comes up to you and is like I call bullshit, right, god, well, whether he's real or not, like all these extra dimensions, all these things like, how do you know, how do you respond to that?

Speaker 1:

So I respond in a couple of ways. One is you're absolutely free to believe whatever is your truth. Like. Your truth is your truth. I am not going to take away your truth. No one is here to take away your truth. Like live your truth. I am speaking my truth.

Speaker 1:

My truth is that, to be honest, at a certain level I can't explain it. Sure, at a certain level this is palpable. It's a deep knowing and the results speak for themselves. So for me, before I consciously understood it, I was the biggest skeptic. One of my girlfriends was like I'm going to the O'Cushor Curses. I was like what the hell is that? I was like what are you doing now? I was like what the hell is this? I was like what the hell is this? It's just like some other new thing that somebody has made Slap to name on so that they can make money. Like what the hell is this? And then you know, I got over my egoic judgment and when I entered that space, the answers were there, not that they were coming through, but the fact that when I entered that space, I had zero symptoms.

Speaker 1:

And then, when I would close the records, I would feel so energized and my husband is not a believer in this stuff. And he goes I have no idea what the hell you're doing, but keep doing it because you are just soaring Like. You're so much better and that's the best way that I describe it to people is like if it's something you feel curious about and drawn to dip your toe in and taste it and see what it does for you. Because you can read all the books in the world, you can hear all the stories in the world, but at the end of the day you have to experience it to know whether or not you can taste it and whether it's for you. And that doesn't mean it's not for you forever. It might just not be for you right now and that's also okay, yeah.

Speaker 2:

It's fascinating that you're saying this, because I think for a lot of us that skepticism right, we know from neuroscience that skepticism is part of our brain trying to keep us alive versus happy or, you know, healthy or any of that. It's just like new things are scary, doubt them all the time because they could kill you, right? And so, at the base level, that is why we are skeptical. It's a protection mechanism, and so much of what you are talking about that really developed and came through for you through this process is. You know, I see this through for other people through a lot of different things, whether it's somatic practices or it's dialectical behavioral therapy or it's hypnosis or it's whatever. And what's so interesting about all of these things is that they are things that shift your mind, they shift your consciousness.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and this is something where I've I recognize that I've had a lot of trauma, because I was in a lot of business and coaching spaces where talking about believing in God was actually, like, very frowned upon. You know, like oh, god's patriarchal, like don't call him a, he don't do this, don't do that, like you're wrong. You know, I actually, we are confirmed Catholic and people are like, oh, my gosh, like you know, this is these, those Catholics and we. It's interesting how much judgment comes toward those of us who hold beliefs and the judgment is being placed upon us because people are saying we are judging, which is, I find very interesting to use your word interesting right. And the humans that I have found that are like deeply spiritually connected and like deeply grounded in their faith are usually the least judgmental people and say exactly what I said there of like, oh you think what I believe is bullshit, totally cool.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely. I'm not here to drill it into your brain.

Speaker 2:

Right, I'm not.

Speaker 1:

You know what I trust. I trust so deeply that, as I focus on being the highest version of myself and literally I just did a practice in my program this morning of just like emptying ourselves and allowing divine love in and just completely leading from the heart and completely leading from the divine's nudges, right, when I do that, like my mind isn't even here, dude, like I, I see your soul, I see your heart. You could be flailing and screaming and crying and throwing things at me, but I know that's not you. Yeah, I know that's not you. And it's being able to see ourselves beyond all of that and there's a depth to that that really, a lot of times, what I'll tell people if they want to get started is like connecting to the heart space, right, like the heart space is something we can all understand. Like we felt love, we felt something in our hearts, right, and that's like the gateway for us, that's the gateway for divine energy to flow into this world is through the heart.

Speaker 1:

And so, you know, one of the books that I would highly recommend is Mary Magdalene revealed for anybody who has this patriarchal understanding of God. Right, because she really talks about and this is something that I really stand for in my business, like the backbone of my business is sovereign spirituality. Every single one of us on this planet could come up with our own spirituality and name it Like you could be Lee spirituality, laura spirituality, you know like we could just name it to our own, because we all experience God differently. We all experience God in a very personal way and not any single one of us is going to have the exact same experience with the divine. That you do, that I do.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and you know, that is probably where most of the religious trauma comes from. Right Is like this is how I experience God, so this is how everyone else must experience God. Yep, and I'm personally appreciating this conversation so much because this is something that, just behind the scenes, I have been working through, like so level working through, and the amount of nudges and just like even I was joking with my husband the other day, I was like somebody might think that I'm, you know, really not. Well, if I'm like, yeah, I just hear this little voice, it's like a thought just like pops in my head and he's like are you telling people you're hearing voices? Because, like I don't know that we should necessarily be doing that. I'm like, no, I know it's not like a voice, voice, but it is this whisper of like do this, yes, go this way. And the reason I am hearing those things so much more often now is because I've started asking.

Speaker 1:

Mmm, I love that.

Speaker 2:

Right, I've started asking and saying hey, I'm open to receiving whatever it is you have for me, I'm open to connecting, I'm open and I would. I desire that. But to get to that point it took so much. I was, I was pissed at God, I was pissed at the world, I was pissed about death. Like as a you know somebody in the critical care space, I've seen a lot of people die. The pandemic was really hard. I was like this is fucked up, like why do we, why is it like this? And it was so fascinating because I was asking for meaning but like not really asking for meaning.

Speaker 2:

So I think so many of us have been conditioned to receive God, religion, spirituality as like something, like you said, someone else's version. And then we try to put that on ourselves and we're like okay, but like this doesn't quite fit, it's not quite right. And also, okay, well, if it's, if it doesn't fit and it's not quite right, I must be the problem. And then there's shame, and then there's guilt, and then there, and then we grow up and we get really bitter and resentful around the shame and the guilt and we go okay, well, oh, it turns out I'm not the problem, god's the problem, and it's like neither of you are the problem. The problem is is that, like you said, this is an individual experience that we are trying to create like rules and standards around.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and a lot of people feel like it's so daunting to figure out. Well, how would I figure out my own spiritual? Well, it, just sit down and have a chat with your soul, just call it in, just be like, hey, dude, what's going on, you know? And the fact is God sees everything, right. So, like, if you cannot be totally raw with God and completely open your heart and just say, dude, I am fucking pissed at you, what, what the fuck are you doing with me and on this planet? Like, are you serious? I can't tell you the number of times I have cursed at God. Hey, and sit down, just be like what? Because God sees all of me, god sees all of me.

Speaker 1:

There is nothing to be hidden here, and what that does is it allows us to be, to see ourselves, to admit to ourselves who we are and what is trapped in there that we are not saying out loud, right, and the fact I want to touch on something you said earlier about that you, you're opening now, right, and it's like, okay, now I'm open and I'm asking but how can you be open? You can be open because you're human and your nervous system feels more safe and grounded, exactly, and that's the piece that is so important for your listeners to receive into here is like there's nothing wrong with you If this is not something that you're ready to open to yet. There's nothing wrong with you at all. But there's nothing wrong with you if you're like I don't feel comfortable doing that. That's okay. What that is is data for you. That's data for you that you desire to ground more safely in your human, to be more held in resource here on the planet, and that's all well, I'm good, it's all, it's all serving you.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, your human needs actually need met first. Like if you look at Matt, you know Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Like your human needs, those base needs, need met first and if they're not, like, you can't like ascend to a higher. I actually, you know, there's a lot of people out there right now talking about, oh yeah, we're ready to ascend and I'm like, okay, yes, and there are a lot of people.

Speaker 2:

You can't focus on ascension when your core needs are not met and that is really something that you know without getting like to what with the word I want to use here, friend GB is like how much of what, of how our society is set up, of how we have created these systems, actually really keeps us from opening and keeps us from connecting. Because if you're connected in that way I'm noticing this if, when I feel more connected in this way, I need less stuff, I get triggered less, I need to dissociate less, I'm numbing less, I'm looking to outside sources for validation or guidance less, and if, if everybody starts doing that, that's going to really shift the way that our, our systems and our society work and there are some people who would really not benefit from that.

Speaker 1:

Exactly.

Speaker 2:

Another thing that you said when you were talking that I think is something that is important for people to is like again, this is deeply personal and that is the same as your trauma journey. Your trauma journey has to be individual. Your healing journey has to be individual. I know that your work is really helping to train people to be more trauma informed and really meet people in that individual journey. So some of the core things that you ensure that the people you who come through your programs like leave with to take into their work, yeah, so there's two different people that I work with.

Speaker 1:

You know, I mean I do. I work with practitioners who are learning how to become trauma informed and not on. I mean I've been, I've been certified in probably 12 trauma modality. I mean so many trauma modalities. You know, being a therapist for trauma, they were all surface level in my opinion. I feel like they were just a lot of them were very empty and didn't go to the depth. That offered sustainability, and that's the key for me and all of my programs is sustainability. Right, so it's being able to like, find this so. So when I work with my practitioners, it's about getting them to be able to be sustainable as humans.

Speaker 1:

Every single one of us has experienced something that our brains, are nervous systems, identify as trauma, even if that was simply birth, right, like, we've identified that somewhere within our nervous systems, and so it's being able to be present with what's in your field. I can hold all of me. I am here to hold all of me, and when you can hold all of you, you can hold all of someone else. So it's coming to that first. Whatever you bring me, I am here for you. I see you, I'm not the one who's wrong with you? I've got you, we've got this right, and so so it's anchoring that within so that they can provide that to others. So it's this, it's. It's really. What I'm doing is guiding them into them, creating their own sustainable holding space within Right so that they can translate that and share that and not only emanate that, but teach that to their clients.

Speaker 2:

I literally like I've had chills this whole conversation and I think I just audibly like, ooh, as you said something because the way in which we help other people feel safe is to like feel safe with ourselves. Right, if I don't see myself as a danger, if I don't view myself as dangerous and I don't mean that like I don't have the potential to hurt somebody if necessary to defend my human self right or someone else's human self. What I mean by that is like I trust myself to show up in the way that I desire to show up and if I don't, I trust myself that I can handle it right, yes, 100% Go ahead.

Speaker 2:

That. That is what makes you a safer human right. That is what creates like we talk about. You know, shame causes you to cut off pieces and parts of yourself in an attempt to be perfect, and the problem with that is is like you can't ever really cut off a piece or part of yourself. You can lock it in the closet, hide it under the bed, shove it in the basement. It's still there and it's going to, it's going to make itself known. And so the the, the work of like integrating those pieces and parts in and being truly accepting of who you are and what you've experienced, and like having psychological safety with yourself, Like I don't abandon myself, I trust myself, I belong to myself, I love myself, Like you said at the beginning, that is what really gives you just like exponentially larger capacity to then hold other people. Because, because, if I'm not scared of myself and I'm not scared of what my reactions to you are going to be, then I can actually be here with you while you feel whatever you're feeling 800%.

Speaker 1:

That's exactly what I do and why I do what I do and that's the trust I was talking about earlier. It's like with everything happening in the collective, et cetera. It's like one of my clients who's in my membership group she is deeply spiritual and she just went on this rant. She's like my husband is Latina and there's like he's not having access in our state because of our governor and like all this political stuff coming up Right and it's she's just like. I know that, like hating him is not spiritual of me. You know, I'm like hating him right now and it's just so funny because I'm just like that's fine.

Speaker 1:

Feel what you need to feel and realize that again this is coming into, catalyze you to use your voice. Is this something that you are passionate about? Yes, because you're pissed, right, that's all. Anger is intense, anger is passion right, Passion right and being able to say, like this is where you're being invited to use your voice and, as we encourage other people to use their voice, not to like go into love and lie and all these things, once you connect and you allow God to come in and move through you in the way that you are meant to, you are going to use your voice, to to share the passions that are on your heart, and we are going to see how the world shifts as we do that, yes.

Speaker 2:

And you know, you and I chatted about this, I think, during our last conversation around. I have a lot of people ask me, like, why do you have people on your podcast that literally do what you do? And it speaks to this of, like what you just said is, what comes through me is not what's going to come through Laura, and the way it comes through me is not the way it's going to come through Laura. And so somebody may need to hear it from you today and from me a year from now, or just from you or just from me, or neither of us, because there's someone else of the 8 billion people they need to hear it from. And like it is so very human of us to be like okay, well, she's, she trains people in trauma informed stuff and I train people in trauma informed stuff. So I can't, we can't have a conversation, because then people might pick her over me. Okay, right, okay, good, great, because that means that the way in which you're sharing the thing is the way in which they need to hear.

Speaker 1:

Well, yeah, and this is the thing. This is why being on this planet is so beautiful, right Is because we have billions of people that we can run into and be like, oh, wow, you, I feel seen by you, I speak your language, dude, like well, how you say things Somebody else has said that to me 1600 times, but some, for some reason, the way you said it is like dude, I feel you in like the depths of me, right, and that's what we get to respond to. This is why I created the holistic mental health movement. This is why I published the holistic mental health book and did the summit last year. It's why I'm doing volume two next year and the whole purpose of this.

Speaker 1:

I actually started with just wanting to do this as a person, because for that exact reason that you said I'm like it makes me insane that people go through like 20 therapists and they're like nobody can hear me, and so it's like I want you to have exposure to people that I know and trust, who are powerful voices and healers and change makers in this world, who can hear you and see you where you are, so that you can hear all these different voices and feel like, oh, that's who I've been waiting for, and I want more opportunities for people to be able to receive that voice in their field. That's like, oh my gosh, finally, finally, I found somebody who can speak my mind. Just like you were saying, I don't want to work with somebody who can't honor the human and honor the divine Right. And it's like when you meet that person and you're like, wow, I feel seen, I feel heard, I feel connected, I feel a sense of belonging, I feel like I'm not alone. You know, you feel like you're joining something.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and you're using the word collective. Right, we have a business collective. I love that word because really it is. It's like I don't want to be in spaces where it's like, okay, well, this is how Lee does it, so this is how everyone else has to do it while they're here. It's the same thing you were just saying. I'm like the way in which you decide to set up your business or the way in which you decide to create your marriage, or the way you decide to parent or whatever. Like I can't tell you if that's right or wrong for you. The only thing I can do is listen to you and reflect back what I am hearing and what I am seeing, and I am really deepening more into human design and quantum human design. And what's so fascinating is is I'm working with, actually, one of my clients. I went into one of her programs, amber Dancy, and she sent me some stuff about me at a very deep level yesterday and she was talking about how I have.

Speaker 2:

Auditory processing is a thing, and this is why I want to share. This is because for so long, I was taught that I had an auditory processing disorder, because I have a very hard time in some scenarios hearing and understanding what people are saying. Well, I opened up this thing yesterday and it says you have the ability to hear when something is truth or not truth. And so I'm sitting here going is it that I can't understand people, or is it that when they are speaking, I can discern if this is truth or not truth? And I can't hear the not truth and it was just mind blowing moment of like oh okay, so this is actually a superpower, this is actually a skill.

Speaker 2:

This is something that I can start paying attention to. Right, I can make meaning from this, instead of staying at that human level of like. I am not as good as everyone else, because when it's loud or when it's this or when it's that, I get really overstimulated, or I can't hear pieces and parts of conversation, and I think that is what religious trauma has done, or spiritual trauma has done, for a lot of people is like oh well, I can't pray. Like I can't get down on my knees and pray for 20 minutes, like I can't memorize Bible verses, I can't do this, I can't do that, so there's something wrong with me. No, that's just not the way in which you are supposed to be doing the thing.

Speaker 1:

Exactly, and it's. I love that you're bringing this up, because this is actually why I do human design readings for people who joined my vitality program earlier on. Because of that reason, it's like there is nothing wrong with you, and here I'm going to show you this is how your energy was organized and specifically patterned for this particular lifetime. Right, and like we were talking about the collective. It's like can we celebrate this please? Because, listen, if you have quote unquote been diagnosed with ADHD and you have quote unquote been diagnosed with depression or whatever, like who who cares? Right, at the end of the day, it's like Joe, what do you like to do? Great? Well, guess what.

Speaker 1:

Mary hates that. So you do this and she's going to do something that you hate. And then guess what? We're both going to rise together because you might suck at hearing, but she's really fucking great at it, so she's going to take that point. You know what I mean. But it's also like it's not just about extracting those superpowers for ourselves so that we feel really more whole, but it's also about I contribute. I contribute to everyone by owning how I show up.

Speaker 2:

Yes, it's actually it's been so such a beautiful reframe for me, Like it's still kind of dropping in over the last 24 hours. But that is something that I have heard people say of my entire life is like, especially with clients, I can detect bullshit from a like when people are talking about themselves, I can tell if you think that's your truth or not, Right? I love that. That's so intuitive, Right, like I can tell if you think that's your truth and that's not your truth, or if you think that's your truth and that is your truth. And how do you explain that?

Speaker 2:

As somebody who was trained in, like, the hard sciences for making quotations for those of you not watching the video and you also trained as a traditional therapist, like, we're trained in these modalities that are like this is what we can see, this is what we can prove, this is what we can study, and we don't even have to go into the fact that that's not even necessarily true, because they could study other things. They just decide not to. And so to have that kind of conversation with someone where I'm like, yeah, like I can tell if you are lying to yourself or not, and they're like, well, prove it. And I'm like, well, I don't know. I just that's what people have. I've been able to do that my whole life. So is that not truth? Just because I can't prove it?

Speaker 1:

Right, a hundred percent. Welcome to spirituality. Right, welcome to the spiritual path, right? I mean, it's just like, you know, people can challenge me to the ends of the earth, and it's just like, listen, like I also am not open to like getting into an ego battle about it, because this experience does not exist within my ego, it doesn't exist in my mind, it exists in my heart, it exists in my body, it exists in, like, just my sense of who I am and like, how do we define that sense of who we are? You know, so it's also this is part of it because we're so used to as humans, we're very impatient and we want answers, and I can't tell you the number of people to come to me that want answers. And I'm like, dude, listen, I can give you answers until you're blue in the face, but that's gonna be a freaking bandaid. I'd rather teach you how to discern those answers yourself.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I love that. Yes, there are humans out there who are gonna be really good at helping you uncover and get to, like get to your truth, and then there's gonna be humans out there who help you like amplify and turn up that truth. And there's gonna be humans out there who then help you get that truth out to the world or live that truth and like that might be three separate, that might be 17 people along the way and you know, kind of just talking about what you said when I opened myself up to that, meaning it's really interesting, like what shows up.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, it's wild.

Speaker 2:

It is so wild to be like, okay, I'm open and receptive to this, and it's like literally the next person that walks into my field of vision is like there and it's like okay, and then that is kind of a mind fucking itself, when you really start to realize how powerful you are.

Speaker 1:

Yes, this is why people don't deepen their relationship with God. It's like that quote from Mary Ann Williamson you know what we're really afraid of yeah, not the darkness, but you know. But stepping into our true power, you know that full power of who we are, that's what we're more afraid of. And so, it's true, it's like you open and you just put all. It literally gets to be that simple. If you are serious and devoted to deepening your relationship with yourself at every layer, when you set that intention, it's just gonna drop in, it's just gonna show up, and then you're gonna get start getting called to the table about. All right, you still here.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I had the phrase buckle up buttercup coming ahead because you know, we talked about the spiritual law of magnetism yesterday in our Safe to Be Seen program and I was like y'all, look, when you decide to call something in and attract something, you are going to attract the positive and the negative. You are going to attract the entire experience and it is going to be your job to make meaning from that experience. And so when you have opposition, come along with the thing, and a lot of times the opposition comes first. Correct that opposition's not coming to show you like, oh, you shouldn't do this. That opposition's coming to help you clarify what needs to shift for me to be able to hold this. What do I need to learn before this thing comes to me? And so many people stop at that point because, again, our human self goes this is painful, this sucks, I'm impatient, it's not happening the way I thought it was going to. I'm feeling disappointed. Forget it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, they're attached to the outcome. They're attached to the outcome. They're not trusting that the outcome will unfold as it is meant to for them, because they don't trust themselves and they don't trust the universe.

Speaker 2:

And the reason we do not trust ourselves is because we are conditioned not to. And this is something that really dropped in for me as a parent. I realized the first half of my children's lives I was conditioning them to think like me. The second half of my children's lives, I have been focusing on conditioning them to think for themselves, and so now, when they come to me and ask a question, we are having a very different conversation. My 11 year old came to me and asked me a question about women's rights and abortion. Instead of me being like, oh, this is what we believe, right? Well, who's we? Yep? So we ended up having a conversation and I'm leading her through this thought process and she gets to the end and she's like this is really, this is a lot more. And she kind of like she didn't know the word. I said it's nuanced, babe. I says a lot more complex. She's like, yeah, it's a lot more complex than people are really seeing it. And I said everything is my love.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. And she just watched her brain like whoa Right right and so she can actually feel the bigness of it right, like she's experiencing that through her own process. I'm just like getting so giddy and excited over here just to hear about, like, what you're doing with your clients and with your kids and it's just beautiful, like I just I love what you're sharing with the world. It's so important. It's just obviously not a coincidence that last night I held a parenting workshop.

Speaker 1:

Oh, did you Guiding people yes, oh, my guiding people in this, exactly what you're talking about, and like not making it about you as a parent, because most of the time parents make it about them, it's like, well, I'm attached to my children's outcomes because that means something about me.

Speaker 2:

Yes, my children are extensions of me, they represent me, and so their outcomes, their results, are my results, and that is something that I have deeply had to entangle from, and I'm sure you have seen multiple people sitting on your perverbial couch having this same detangling of. I spent the first three decades of my life trying to force myself to think like someone else, and I'm having an awakening moment where I'm like that's not how I would like to do this anymore. Exactly, and sometimes it's not the third decade, sometimes it's the fifth or sixth or seventh, because or sometimes it's even they never even show up to the couch.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 2:

OK, so you talked about working with practitioners. You also work with I don't want to say people, because practitioners are people, but you work with people at that individual level who are looking for what Like who would come to you. In the second way that you work with people, yeah, it's really so.

Speaker 1:

There's people who there's the practitioners that we talked about, but then there's also the people who they're feeling stuck or frustrated or like I do feel really aligned in my spirituality but my human's kind of all fucked up, like I feel like my energy is all over the place and I can't get a hold on it. But I'm really spiritual and I can't figure out what I'm here for and I'm frustrated because I've tried this, this, this and this. A lot of people come to me when they've like all the other doors have closed in their faces and they just feel like I've tried therapy, I've tried the medical system, I've tried all this stuff and I just feel like I'm going through the same patterns. But they know there's something more for them. They know that they're good humans and that there's something that they're meant to do, but they have no idea how to kind of understand themselves and love themselves at a sustainable level.

Speaker 1:

Like a lot of people will come in because they're kind of back and forth, like I can go and be really good for a while and then I kind of tank, and then I'm good for a while and then I kind of tank right, and so it's like they come in and we do a whole host of things.

Speaker 1:

I mean, obviously spirituality is kind of the backbone of what I do, but we start with really extracting a lot of that human stuff that's coming up for them and seeing that and calming that and centering that and being patient and loving and compassionate towards the ego, tantruming, like you said, when you decide you're going to move in a direction. The other stuff comes up too to be seen, to say I don't want to be here anymore. And it's being able to say we can be here. When you shed that, when you tantrum that out, let's tantrum that out. And then we shift into expansion, like you were talking about opening more, opening more to who you are, to what you can carry, to what you can hold, to what you desire to hold. And then, if they want to keep continuing, I obviously have higher level spiritual connection programs where they can continue to really deepen this level of connection with the divine.

Speaker 2:

It's amazing and I have a sense of this conversation. Well, first of all, this conversation is deeply just resonated with me and awoken something in with me, so thank you for that, and I have a really strong sense that there are a couple of people in our audience that deeply needed this today. So we'll make sure that if anyone is like, oh yes, please to more with you, that we have those things in the show notes for people to connect with you. And is there any last thing that you'd like to say to anyone listening that you feel like it would be helpful for them?

Speaker 1:

I just want to say, simplify everything we've talked about today, because a lot of this was very nuanced and I really want you to just know a couple of things. One there's absolutely nothing wrong with you. I don't care what diagnosis you've been handed, I don't care what you've experienced in your life. There is nothing wrong with you and all I ask is that you open up a little bit of space, intentionally. One minute a day, I don't care, but just intentionally open up that little bit of space because I promise you, it sounds so counterintuitive for people who are like I'm so busy, I don't have an end of day, I'm not going. It's like I promise you, when you intentionally make a little bit of space, more will open.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, you got to just crack that door a little bit and just know that when you crack the door, shit might happen and you get to be supported in that, whether it's through Laura, whether it's through me, whether it's through someone else. Please, please, do not believe the story that I think a lot of us have, that have been sold, that when you crack that door open and stuff starts coming through that you have to handle it on your own.

Speaker 1:

No, that's what I always say. It's like we deepen our faith in people, their ability to bounce back, but we also deepen our faith in the fact that we all have access to resources. Yeah, right, and so it's like just access your resources, know that resources are there for you to access and there is someone out there who will be honored to support you, honored to receive all of you and see you in your raw form.

Speaker 2:

Yes, there is someone out there that when you bring all of the big scary things in front of them and you're like, here they are, they're going to say this. They're going to say I see you and feeling scared and I'm not scared. This is scary and I'm not scared because you don't scare me. Yep, 100% Like find that person. Yes, so good, ok. Well, I'm really impressed that we kept this to an hour, because I am too.

Speaker 2:

I did not think that was going to happen, so thank you so much for joining me everyone. If there's any pieces or parts of this that resonated with you that you'd like to share with us, please send us a note over at our email holoatinstitutefortraumacom. I'll make sure we pass them on to Laura, or just reach out to her yourself if you'd like to chat with her, and we will see you next week.

Speaker 1:

Thanks so much.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. Invitations ahead to our show notes to check out the offers and connections we mentioned. Or you can just head straight over to institutefortraumacom and hop in our email list so that you never miss any of the cool things that we're doing over at the Institute. Invitations to be well and to take care of yourself this week and we'll see you next time.